Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Elizabeth got totally. You've been waiting in here all day.
With the lights out. My knees are killing me. I've been under that console.
Why are you wearing a tiara?
Why not? Dude?
I mean, it looks good, but why aren't you wearing that was a permanent marker?
Yeah, it's good.
Anyway, do you know what's ridiculous? Besides that?
I do now there is a listener. He's not ridiculous in the slightest stever. Neither Steve Neither on Instagram. This man he sent something in that I swear to you, I thought was fake. There was just absolutely no way in the world this could be real.
And then you got your team on it.
I got the team on it me two dogs, hamster and a year old kid that I just found, you know, walking to school.
Train circus monkey and only answers to Pierre.
You know Pierre, Yeah, okay, cool the crap. My crack team and I mm hmm investigated this. It's true. This exist is true. This is one hundred percent true.
I'm gonna have to take your word for it.
Like, okay, So here's here's the thing. When what do you think of? When I say Tom Petty, I mean.
But I think of music videos? Yeah, specifically like ones like about like you know.
Scenes of l A Don't come around here no more? Oh yeah, but then like the free falling.
Free following. Yeah, what's the one with the Johnny is a Dead woman? Oh yeah, that was later one? Crazy yeah, crazy imagery that one.
Great videos, liked it, great songs, American.
Great songs, tragic end, Yes, this is it.
Wasn't too long ago. You know, he was another victim of you knowventyl and, which is just the absolute devil. So when you think of him, do you think of any anything else? Like it's non music or video related.
Yes, I'm so sorry.
Do you do you think of like Marshmallows?
No? I know I don't, Elizabeth.
Moving on, do you think of a lot?
Nope? Still no, you should.
You should think of chocolate?
Back my tracks up and thank my Chocolate.
Nothing says chocolate, like Tom Petty, nothing, nothing, Florida. Nothing says chocolate. So there's this company Chocolate.
Oh sure, sure, don't make me say that.
I'm not saying it right. Probably Okay, So they have this collection of chocolate bars that are the it's a mash up, a crossover Tom Petty Voge chocolate, and it's a limited edition.
This is the chocolate company that takes certain body parts and makes it.
Okay, there you know. This collection marries the world of music with the art of chocolate making, offering an experience that transcends the ordinary. Let me tell you what makes this sound so horrible and fake?
Please do I'm gonna.
Read you about Chukla harmony.
Okay.
The magic of this chocolate collection lies in its unique infusion process. So we're talking about Tom Petty and chocolate and there's an infusion process.
Okay, I'm really hoping it's gonna be like some weed butter or something.
As these bars gently make their way through the cooling tunnel, they are serenaded with the timeless music of Tom Petty.
They're infused with the music.
This innovative technique is inspired by the belief that music can influence the crystallization of chocolate, resulting in a product that not only tastes extraordinary, but also embodies the spirit and essence of Tom Petty's music.
So this is like the same science of like if I whisper mean words to water it'll make ugly crystals of ice.
It's sort of like like the movie like Water for chocolate, like Tom Petty that I don't you think there's sort of a sorrowful edge to Tom Petty.
It's going to be some bitter chocolate.
I don't like sad chocolate.
Yeah, that's gonna be some sad, bitter Florida chocolate.
They have three three flavors. Dark chocolate with sea salt that reads sad, sad, Deep milk chocolate with marshmallow.
I'll go win some America, but go yeah.
That's that's more American girl. Yeah, and then deep milk chocolate with crispy hazelnut.
I don't know what to make of that.
I don't mean either. But let me tell you something Saren Saren Walter by Elizabeth c. D.
This is ridiculous. Oh I'll give you that one there. It is Produce Your Day of mark one up for Elizabeth. That's ridiculous.
A box set of it is fifty bucks. Otherwise they're seven dollars a bar, which.
I didn't like the CD old CD long boxes.
Like almost almost. But yeah, and this's got like pretty cool art.
But will kids be selling these at like public transportation stations to raise money for the school, and then maybe they'll get my seven.
Bugs in like Brooklyn.
Okay, cool, I'm going to do it. You got a second, Yeah, of course I got some ridiculous for you. Okay. You remember when you were young and dumb, you loved a particular band. Oh sure, it doesn't matter what band. Picture a band you loved, right, and even more specifically, picture a single performer that you loved. Right, You're just like
I just longed and pined for them, right. Do you ever have like a musical crush where you felt their music so deeply in your bones, just like in every fiber of your body that didn't say, a weak moment maybe hmm, or maybe an emotional high. I don't know which way you roll. You would dream a particular dream, like what if I could literally kidnap that performer and make them saying just for me?
Right?
I mean nothing weird or creepy, you know, it's just like more like a Genie wish, really positive Disneyfied wish. Right?
Were you reading my journals? And you know what I wanted to do to victimone's.
This is about to be Happy birthday, Elizabeth, I didn't know. But if you could have one performer other than the fabulous victimone play for you over a long weekend, who would it be?
Elizabeth Victimone.
That's it.
That's it. Okay, that's your answer, your final answer. Well, today I have a pair of stories for you, not about Victim oone, but about people who did exactly that to people other than Victim oone. They lived your dark dream.
Oh yeah, you're ready. I'm so ready.
This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one ridiculous ridiculous. Hello, I feel like I should start over. I feel like I may have set up to your stories to sound kind of weird. We'll super creepy, right, yeah, but not in the fun flirting way, but like truth be told. These stories they're kind of weird, right, but not like I want to wear your skin is a suit? Kind of weird, you know, not that weird.
Please victim O one, let me wear.
Or like who did what to who? That kind of weird?
Right?
You love that kind of weird? Okay, so let's dive in.
I like all kinds of weird.
You kind of a weird girl, I am, You're a maven of weird. Yeah. Well, anyway, what do you know about Fats Waller?
Oh?
Wow, street name Fats Waller, government named Thomas Right Waller.
Uh, nothing in depth?
Right? He was one of the early jazz legends. Yeah right, yeah, piano of jazz. I know you know this, right, famous right took the New Orleans sound that was where jazz was getting to start, and he ran it through like a Harlem filter and out pop's stride piano, that style he basically took like the uh it's like jumping like yeah exactly. So you know anyway, born in nineteen oh four May twenty first, to be exact, comes into his
full stride in the nineteen twenties. That was right when this is the point when jazz is the hottest thing going in the world. Right, And I think you know some of his songs. If I ran some titles past, you like yet me high suckle rose? Oh yeah, ain't misbehaving? Yeah, okay, I figure you do as I told you. Guy musical virtuo, So you put him on eighty eight keys and he would make that thing sing so pretty and This started back when he was six years old. Six six years old, Yeah, yeah.
Father was a preacher. Father wanted his son to use his gifts for the law, and he was like, no, I want to do it for the coch So he got out there and he started dancing his fingers over the keys. All these beautiful ladies and dapper gentlemen. Would you know, get down. He loved that lifestyle. This man was about about it now. Also, he started so young as a performer, right, young Thomas Waller, he does the inevitable thing. He drops out of school, he chases the
music on the night life. His father most displeased, but young Thomas Waller he's loving it. Right. Flash forward to the nineteen twenties, earned the nickname Fats, and now he's this up and coming piano player working in Harlem night spots. And as I said, dud dude, great personality, brash, funny, garrels, all kinds of charisma. Just you want to watch him.
The right guy at the right time.
Totally, totally. Now he's a star in the nightclub scene in Harlem. Boom kids, like nineteen years old, god years old, right, Fats Waller gets the attention of all kinds of people who are looking to make money in this new music, right, they get him at a studio, he cuts a record nineteen twenty four Boom, his first hit song, Squeeze Me right Fats Waller. Sound, as I said, stride piano. Now, you're more of a musician than I am, so maybe, well, anyway,
the sound of what stride piano. I had to kind of look it up to make sure I got this all right. But if you take Scott Joplin's Ragtime, right, and then you made that sound a little more jaunty and jazzy, right, and then the piano player's left hand is the one that strides. Yeah, okay, so he kind of walks around on the keyboard and apparently he holds down a four beat rhythm, and then the left hand's playing on the ones and threes, and he's playing a
chord right on the twos and four. So it's going back and forth between a rhythm note on the ones and threes and a chord on the twos and four. So it's kind of walking around right.
Yeah.
Now, as I said, you have more faculty with music than I do, or facility rather, Uh, I can play a harmonica. I like a messy instrument with like here kind of there, I'm gonna fudge it over here, I'm gonna bend it into this. Right. You played the cello, Yeah, correct, I did. So that you have a fingerboard, you're used to that placing the emphasis, because when you play an instrument with wind, it's very different about putting the emotion in it then with the fingers.
Yeah. Well there's no fret on it.
Yeah, but there's no fresh there's a neck and but there's still basically a string section where you're running an imaginary threat.
Board in your mind.
You know where the Yeah, you're imposing it. So when you're putting emotion into strings, how did How does that occur? You know? Is it? Is it the rhythm? Is it? Do you feel it?
Well?
I think it's particularly for something like the cello, it's it's you know, uh, when you're playing with a bow, it's you know, how the pressure on it, you know, verbrato with your finger or you can bend notes, you know, and move it.
And do like thessando type stuff.
And then if you want to do a sound sneaky, then you dozo little cat.
So back to mymon Fats Waller, as I told you, lovable roguish character. He's able to impart emotion into the feeling of the strings. He's sitting there dancing on his piano bench. So imagine him in a suit, just gliding around, bouncing his little butt on the on the piano bench, playing, as I said, stride so ole. Everyone loves him. Now he starts recording on RCA Victor. He's got this six piece combo Elizabeth Fats Waller and his rhythm right, hottest
thing going in the mid nineteen twenties. Fans all across the country, not just in Harlement, in Chicago and Detroit, but all across the country. One of his biggest fans, you know this man, you know his name, yes, one of the friend of the show. Oh, mister Alphonse Capone. Oh yeah, the legendary Chicago mob boss, king of a gang land right, Capo de tuti Copi. He was also a jazz.
Man, really, I know, he played the banjo exactly.
He liked the hothouse jazz tunes. He was sitting out there like Jango Ryan all right. Anyway, I always kind.
Of imagine him playing like, you know, wagon wheel music on a banjo well, I think it's funnier that way.
It's funnier, Yeah, definitely funnier. But picture his speakeasies right, he's hanging out. He loves the hot jazz.
He kicked off the square dancing craze in fourth grades across the country.
I'm just gonna set that aside. The music the people listen to while sipping on his bootleg liquor, hot hot jazz. Yeah, square dance music now, also the ladies of the night who they beef dancing as folks are gambling in his Alicic casinos. What type of music, Elizabeth.
Banjo Scarce.
As I'm pointing out, jazz, hothouse jazz into jazz, totally everything sexy, fun elictit. That's what al Capone is all about.
And jazz is suaggy horns, yeah, exactly, jumping beats, hot Claire, and lift your skirt up, drums.
Lift your skirt up? What kind of instruments you play when you're dancing? Oh we're back to dancing?
Yeah, like you hear this music and you.
Just player skirt over your head, dance.
Stock still in the middle of the dance floor and lift your skirt. That's not how you dance at a jazz club.
When I do it, I do more of a frilly skirt, like a flamenco dancer. I do the action with my skirt. I mean, what are you talking about here?
I just let my wool socks sag down from between my knees to my ankles, and then I slowly lift up my skirt and people turn in host sailor. Yeah.
So back to the nineteen twenties. Al Capone was born in January of eighteen ninety nine in Cicero. Yes, very good, January seventeenth, eighteen ninety nine. Thus he was always one year older than the date, right, Okay, Yeah, So nineteen twenty five al Capon's twenty six and eight nineteen twenty six, al Capone is.
Elizabeth twenty seven.
Very good, So let's focus on that. Keep going on this. What about the next?
How about in nineteen eighty four?
Trick question nineteen eighty four Elizabeth Gough? How old is he?
He was nineteen eighty dead?
He was dead? Nice, totally nailed it. Okay, So let's focus on Alcapone's twenty seventh birthday. Okay, he obviously did not join the twenty seven club so he made it past twenty seven.
True.
This story comes to us from Maurice Waller, the son of Fats Waller. He wrote a book about his dad. He shared a family story, right, So here we go the kidnapping of Fats Waller by the gangster al Capone.
Wait, kidnapping.
Fats Waller by the gangster alone.
Sometimes my brain needs to catch up.
But I told you this will be Who did what? Who?
Where we are?
So anyway, nineteen twenty six, Fats Waller is twenty one years old. Okay, he's been a star in Harlem now since he was nineteen. He's young, as I told you, but he's used to the night life by now, or so he thought. He gets booked on a tour. He's playing northern Midwestern cities Cleveland, Detroit, he makes out Chicago and he's playing a gig at a place called the Sherman Hotel Elizabeth. It's a multi night standing gig. Since it's nineteen twenty six, Fats Waller attracts a bunch of
Chicago gangsters. They all come out to see them, right. They show up their big mohair coats. They got a dame on their arm, exactly picture that crowd, but it run through your imagination.
Like an informal personal picture it right, Ca'm good? Yeah.
So a bunch of dames on their arms who aren't their wives, yeah, men who are there basically to provide them protection. They got those bulges under their suits, right. Fats Waller, he's from New York. He's used to playing for gangster's. He's not afraid of this crowd. He's like, they're gonna dance in my music on anybody else. So, as I said, the bulging overcoats and the heaters with them don't worry him none. So after he gets done playing one night, Fats Waller walks out of Sherman Hotel.
What does he walk into? Elizabeth? A pair of suspicious faces men walking right up on him. One has his gat out for persuasion. They hustle Fats Waller into a waiting getaway car, long black limousine. The two got him into the limo, right, So Fat wall is in their limo with him. One of the hoods gives the driver an instruction, He's like, take us back, d Cicero. Fats Waller has no business in his sister, right, so he's like, who did who did I wrong? Was there was there
a dancer I've been talking to? I shouldn't have been talking to? Why have I done? He cannot figure out why he's being taken to Cio right, he's desperately trying to think of why he's been grabbed and who would want him dead?
And fast Waller and came out just a little poop.
So the long black limo arrives at his destination in East Cicero. It's a saloon Elizabeth called the Hawthorn in. The two hoods pull Fats Waller out of the car, take him inside the salon. But really, once he's inside, he notices it. Oh, it's more of a nightclub all right, for gangsters. It's just packed with monsters. In fact, the Hawthorn is is owned by a gangster, one Alphonse Capone
business capone spot outside of town. So Fats Waller walks in, sees the joint is a jumpin folks, dancing, drink and carrying on the whole carousing bit hoods. With the one hood with the gun in his back, he guides Fat Swaller over to the piano. He tells him, you play now, Fats Waller All twenty one years of him and hoping to make twenty two. Yeah, he does, has instructed. He starts playing. He gets that piano up, bouncing those keys, start a singing, eating up and Fats Waller he gets
done with his first song. Crowd applause. They go nuts, right everyone, because remember I said jazz is the hottest music going. And they got the man playing Fat Swaller above all this applause. After it starts to die down, there's one man who's clapping the loudest and he continues to clap. You know who that man is, Elizabeth. Friend of the show, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meadi pause himself al Capone. For his twenty seventh birthday, the boys got the boss a big surprise Fats Waller.
That's crazy as a birthday presence.
Yes, let's take a little break and when we get back, I'll tell you how this birthday surprise plays out for mister Waller. All right, Elizabeth, Yeah, Hey, we're back.
Hey, what's it?
Chicago specific East Cicero.
I love I love Chicago.
You're enjoying it right old time by the lake.
I love Chicago. I'm loving this story. By the way, this is fantastic.
Okay, well, let's get further into what happened with mister Fatz Walla and mister Alphonse Capone. So his boys grab the hottest musician in jazz, going to make sure that their boss has a great twenty seventh birthday. But they did not contact his agent or manager. They did it the Chicago way right right.
So you could probably organize this.
Yeah, you could. There's people you can talk.
Content you have to pay for.
He has managed me, yes exactly. But they're like, no, no, I have a gun. This will work easier. No, ten percent of this one. So Fats Waller he's in good company now that he knows he's not going to die, right, He's like, they want me to play, They're not going to kill me. So he plays a second song, Then he plays a third song, fourth song, Elizabeth. He just keeps playing the rest of the night. When he gets tired, he stretches out on the piano bench and sleeps.
It off like in the middle.
In the middle of the party. The party keeps going on around him. He's justoz, just snoozing on the piano bench like a real piano player. For breakfast. When he wakes up, he has some vintage champagne and then boom, he's ready back to plark playing. Alphonse Capone is washed up and he's down there spat's qlean.
He just never ends with these birthday.
Soiree is gang stir. They want to have it be up to the nines. You know, they do crime for a reason, They want to live. Well, this is the boss's birthday.
No hard you play, you play.
So hard, Elizabeth, so fat swaller. He only would stop playing to sip champagne or to eat a little nache.
He didn't go to bathroom.
Well I guess he did that too. Let's just be real here, Okay, yes he did go also one and two. Okay, so he wasn't just on the threes and fours. He also did a little one in two. Now, of course, you know the food if this party must have been incredible. Can you imagine what is Alphonse Capone eat for twenty seventh birthday sausages? You're a little excited about that. So for three days this party last?
Maybe hado, there we go, that's what for?
Yes, I know you're all about the Rustica Italian recipes. Anyway, good for me, go ahead, So three days this party last Elizabeth. They're eating, well, they're drinking, well, they're one in two and well Fats Waller. He stays at the Hawthorne Name with al Capone and his gangster buddies the entire time, as I said, drinking vined Champagne, playing all the songs he knows some he's just making up right. According to his son Maurice, he was getting tipped one
hundred dollars for every song he played. The gangsters they're shoveling Franklins just in his pockets. He's tickling the ivories.
Right, yes, please.
The big boss is loving it. Fats Waller's loving it too. He made thousands upon thousands of dollars after the three days pass same hoods originally grabbed. When they take Fats Waller on another long ride, this time back to Chicago. They take them back to the Sherman Hotel. I'm guessing the management was like cool with this because they're like, you know, we had a three day standing gig, but you know, I Falcpone wants him that super seedy.
Does anyone have any like kind of maybe clue of where he was or are they just thinking.
Got grabbed by the mob and gone.
Oh, they figured he got grabbed by the mall.
I'm assuming people some people saw him, like he was out front and he was pretty famous.
Yeah, well, I don't know. I thought maybe they got.
In a long black limousine. Yeah, maybe a newspaper boy saw him. Just imagine a guy like a little hat.
Like and then he runs to the newspaper.
Tracks draft Fats while I grabbed by scoff ace.
He saw. Look what I said exactly. I don't know what accent that was.
It was interesting a choice.
The kid had a speech.
There was a law and order level of choices.
Yeah.
Choice. If you'd like to see Fats Waller perform for yourself, you can always watch him in the nineteen forty three film Stormy Weather.
I thought you were going to say, like, you can buy tickets now he's dead.
He's dead, Elizabeth what, Yes, one hundred years ago.
I wanted ai Fats Waller at my next birthday party.
I'm going to pretend you didn't say that through up there with your tupaca.
You know, hologram, He's not a hologram. Let's be real.
Let's be real about this. So anyway, I got another one for you if you got a second.
Yeah, of course, this is the one a lot of seconds.
This is the one I really wanted to tell you. So I kind of told you the Fats Waller one just to give you a sense of scale.
Get me all head up.
Yeah, this is you go like, oh, I've heard a story like this before, and then now I'm gonna blow your mind with a crazier story.
Is it a kidnapping?
Is a kidnap of a famous musician?
Oh? Okay, yeah, so I have heard something like this before, right on.
Yeah, So let's jump forward in time from the Roaring twenties to the counterculture sixties. Ah, this next one is about Jimmy Hendricks.
Oh yeah, he got okay.
Jimmy Hendricks got napped as a man, he got mad napped. So in the summer of nineteen sixty nine, Jimmy Hendrix plays the Woodstock Festival. All right, that's where he played his epic version of the Star Spangled Banner for like one hundred thousand mud crazed hippies while they're lying about in sleeping bags, and you know, it's like, what was it breakfast in bed for one hundred thousand.
I catered it.
Yeah, you were there you ate oatmeal? Yeah, I may be, dang, it should have put cinnamon in it.
I did that. You weren't there, man, You don't understand waiting.
So long to say Now a few months after Woodstock, this story takes place in the fall of nineteen sixty nine. So this is Jimmy Hendrix post Woodstock.
Right.
What I love about this story as it's told is Jimmy Hendrix was kidnapped and he was completely unaware of it.
Oh honeycuse for him.
Is just another lost weekend. Yeah, okay, now of coursing, I'm telling this somehow. This also tangentially involves cocaine, because to tell a story with the cocaine connection comes from John Roberts. He was a one.
Times chief justice.
No, not him, He was the guy who was John Roberts, not his real name, who was a one time mobster for the Gambino crime family.
Oh so we got another connection there.
Yeah, he got in. He got later involved in the cocaine trade for the mafia and eventually became a full blown cocaine cowboy. When he taught the medi Yine cartel how to move stuff in Miami. He's like, here's how to get it over. So he got heavy in yes with pabloscar Bars.
Group, Pablo another one.
All day now. Yeah, they're like bookends of the spectrum. Now, not just as a drug flunky, this guy, right, he was integral to the rise of the Miami coch scene in the late seventies and early.
Eighties, and then subsequently the Miami big bass sound exactly.
And the rise of Two Life Crews. Now, this story takes place in nineteen sixty nine, back when John Roberts was just a young wanna be mobster. Okay, he wrote all of about this in a book called American Desperado, which we should add to our Ridiculous Crime Book Club.
Oh yeah, I'm just going to open a library.
You need to start that, Like I want to have a library on wheels.
You evenly have like presidential libraries. What I'm crime library that I deserve it.
Oh, Elizabeth Dutton library.
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm just as good as they are.
Of course, get me a possibly better.
Let's get me a gold on library gold. I'm trying to say bad words.
I appreciate that. John Roberts also library, Frazzle library, Elizabeth klod You know those little free life. Yeah, totally.
Well, I'm going to put our logo on the side of one of them, and I'm going to fill it with these crime books. I like this, and someone's going to put some like Deepak Chopra one in there, and I'm going to take him a throw it in the street.
You don't like it anyway, John Roberts, Yes, and his co writer. He had a co writer, Evan Wright, and during the writing of the book, his co writer write he noted that quote, A few stories strained credulity when we first sat down for the interviews that would form the basis of our book. Right, so he's like, I don't know about this mobster. I think he's lying. Such as the kidnapping of Jimmy Hendrix. He's like that he
really happened. Come on, John Roberts. Now, as a co writer, Evan Wright noted, and I quote the tale seemed patently absurd until I began to look into the twisted history of the New York club scene in the late nineteen sixties. Based on research and interviews I conducted, it turns out that not only does Robert's story appear to be true, he solves a mystery that has intrigued Hendrick's biographers for more than three decades. No way, Yes, confirmation comes from
Hendricks's inner circle. When he passed away in nineteen seven, his close friend spoke about time just a year earlier, in nineteen sixty nine, when he was kidnapped by the mafia in New York. This was talk amongst them, right. The story at the time was Hendrix was grabbed as part of a dispute with his record label. Huh yeah,
right now, that may or may not be true. But what was true, Elizabeth, was that one of his mafia abductors was a man named John Rico Bono, which coincidentally was the name of John Roberts before he.
Changed it was he was the good Rico.
Yeah, John Riccobono. I'm good, Rich, Hey, I'm so.
Elizabeth you no, No, it's a Rico charge, but good.
The story of the kidnapping of Jimmy Hendrix, I set it up enough right. First, Let's return to John Roberts in his book American Desperado. In it, he recollects his days as a nightclub impressario in the late nineteen sixties. Being the kind of guy he is, he had a lot of opinions about that particular line of work. And I quote, when you run a nightclub, you will always get heat from the cops. The liqua license gives them an automatic reason to come into your place and snoop
with any of getting into the business. Andy and I started to draw a real heat from the New York cops, who could always be bought, but from the FBI. Two incidents made them nosy about us. I'll give you a guess about one of those incidents. It was the kidnapping and Jimmy Hendrix. Hey, FBI loves kidnappings well.
And it's like you try. From my understanding is that most mafia activities you try and like keep it centralized and localized, and you don't want to flash out on anything to draw attention. And you know, Jimmy Hendrix doesn't fly under the reader.
No, no, he is the opposite of discreet exactly. So imagine the New York nightclub scene at this point is popping off. But we're before clubs, you know, fifty four, this is pre disco, but still nightclub scene right this point, still all weed, pills, coke, uppers, downers, reds, greens, Kwayluke, exactly all your favorites, all right, sling in sixties, ha ha ha, all right, John Roberts and his partner Bradley Pierce. Right, they're in charge of giving everyone what they want in
terms of pleasure. Right. So they open this new club called Salvation. Yeah right, so technically they reopened a shuttered club. Whatever. They turned the place out. Then they score a major coup. And they convinced Jimmy Hendrix to play the opening night of their club. And yeah he does, as John Robert recalled, and I quote at the.
Reopening, we had movie stars, models and one of the Kennedy's all waiting to get in. My business partner, Andy was always a funny guy. He pulled me aside and said, John, let's spike the punch. Let them all freak out. At our party.
We put handful of coueludes in the punch. People used to call quayludes leg openers because of the effect they had on women.
Our party was unbelievable. People that had probably never been high on a drug in their life were taking a clothes off.
Oh my god.
What can I say, John Roberts class act.
Huh, I mean, oh my god.
Hey, So Anyway, back to Jimmy Hendrix. He's up on stage, he plays this gig, he kills it. The Kennedy's like, oh ho grudge Yeah, which one I don't know imagining a ted at this point, so unus. Yeah, maybe maybe he's hey. He's also, by the way, Jimmy Hendrix is out of his his zebo on drugs, right, just like not the good or sexy kind of drugs either. As Robert would put.
It, Jimmy Hendrix tried to get me to shoot speed with him, but I wasn't into needles.
So Jimmy Hendrix is shooting speed to play rock in front of these soon to be discoheads, right, what a.
Yeah, but it's like a disco club and he's.
Not quite exactly. Still a lot of people don't know that Jimmy Hendrix got down with shooting speed, right. They're like, I thought it was more like a hippie prize.
No.
Yeah, he had a dark taste in drugs. He like speed, he liked heroin, right, That's I think the point. He was a hand drug sexual. Now, as John Roberts wrote in his book, and.
I quote, Jimmy and I were never great friends. He was so far gone. I don't think he was truly friends with anybody. Jimmy was a bad junkie. Jimmy, we had people all around him all the time too. He was suffocating from these hangars. On after we met at Salvation, he came to our house on Fire Island so we could get away from it all. We'd made sure nobody bother him except for his real friends. Jimmy really liked the whose guitarist, Leslie West, and one night two of
them played all living room all night long. Jimmy had to shoot speed in his arm to keep up with Lesson. That's how good Leslie West was a few times we took Jimmy waterski and off the back of my donzie. He like getting out doing things physically, even when he was stoned.
So anyway, John Roberts and Jimmy obviously not super close, right, But his business partner, the Andy Pearce guy, right, he was close with Hendrix. So that said, John Roberts does have a particularly funny story of him and Andy taking Hendricks water skiing off the back of my donzie. Wait, oh yeah, what you know what a donzie is? Right? No, just picture the biggest motor boat. You can then add in like a tower for water.
Skiing, so it's like nine hundred feet long.
Not like that, not like not like a cigar boat. Yeah, I know, like hecurred like in the nineteen thirties retro wood all wood motor boats, like you'd see him in Italy going between the canals, right, Yeah, because the picture that and it just updated a little bit.
A couple of tower on the back.
No, we're putting a tower for the water skiing, but that they may have just had like a post. I'm adding the tower for you're.
Imagining it's like a hunting tower in the woods.
Well either way, Elizabeth, what I'd like you to do is like close your eyes.
Oh and Pitch was in trouble as a clothes.
You are at the twentieth century resort in playland for the rich and famous and the well connected semi wealthy, known as Fire Island. It's one of the barrier islands off the coast of Long Island. At the moment, you are the fabulous house guest of one John Robins, a nightclub in Presario, and Mafia wise guy. You are aboard his Donzie motor boat. It's a beautiful retro numbers would the whole bit of beauty the sound of its motor.
It's like the Ferrari of the water. This one is in tip top shape and it purrs against the quiet of the morning ocean. You are holding a red flag in one hand and a cocktail in the other. You were also still drunk and high from the night before, and really none of you were in any kind of shape to be water skiing, but there you are, haha. So you're in charge of watching the skier when they go down, and you've been told to raise the red flag so that other boats know there's a water skier
down in the water. As you sip from your cocktail, you watch the water skier carve long s turned in the glassy morning waters of the ocean. The water skiers, of course. Jimmy Hendricks, his wet afro hangs limpidly. Wet curls droop past his ears touch his shoulders. He looks like a strange combination of a wet cat and the happiest kit alive. He's not wearing a life jacket, just a huge beaming smile. He yells for John Roberts to go faster. You casually turning, you tell John Roberts. Jenny says,
go faster, faster. He shouts over the loud purr of the Donzie engines. Okay, the engine changes pitch. It roars as the boat zooms forward faster, yanking. Jimmy Hendrick's a long whip it. He's giddy now he tries another esker. You take a sip of your cocktail. When you turn back, there's no one there. The rope is skipping along the wake of the boat. The Jimmy Hendrick's gone. You try to remember what to do right. The flag is in my hand. You raise it. A moment passes. Wait, that's
not all. You turn and shout, Jimmy went down. Now. John Roberts cusses hard and then he drops the throttle. The boat slows dramatically. He spins the wheel, turns the boat around and heads back to go find Jimmy Hendrix lost in the Atlantic Ocean. Remember no life jacket, And if Jimmy Hendrix is anything like me, it also means he don't float. So, in other words, my man is moments away from being far less experienced. Yeah, dead and drowned.
So anyway, you can't see Jimmy Hendrix, you were finishing your cocktail, and you keep lazily holding the red flag up for any other boaters. Meanwhile, John Roberts is in a half panic as he searches for Jimmy HENDRICKX. Finally he spots him. He shouts, he's in the water, thrashing the round. He tells you to throw the rope as he swings the boat past Jimmy. When you hesitate and continue to focus on the remainder of your tropical cocktail, John Roberts takes a step, grabs a rope from you,
and he tosses it to Jimmy Hendricks. His aim sucks. The rope lands a few feet from Jimmy. He has to swim for it, which he tries to do. He's still flailing to get out of the water. He's frantic, like someone threw a house cat into a hot tub, waving his arms, slapping the water, wet afro flopping about. The question now is can Jimmy Hendricks even swim? Because I would in the Army. I thought they trained people
in the Army to swim. It doesn't matter. Clearly he cannot swim well because Jimmy he can't even make the rope. The business partner, Andy jumps over the side of the boat and swims the rope over to Jimmy Hendrick. He makes it, saving Jimmy Hendricks's life as he glides the boat clover closer to them. You hear John Roberts mutter to himself.
Jesus Christ, if this guy dies, well out it with us.
What a headache that would be?
Headache?
Yes, you take another pull from your tropical cocktail, and I'm just glad you didn't have to jump into the ocean to save the guitar god guy. Obviously, Jimmy Hendrick did not die water skiing, but he came far closer than any fan would have ever wanted to a picture. Oh yeah, Now, as John Roberts would later tell the story, Elizabeth.
I had some good times with Jimmy, but he was a disaster on water skis.
Now, now that we've done that, let's get into the kidnapping. But first, Elizabeth, Yeah, let's take a little break. Oh I got some message? Is cute up? You want to hear these?
Oh?
You love these me with some ads? Consider these my mashups.
These are my talk backs.
Hey, Elizabeth, Hi, I've got a question for you.
How good were those ads?
Totally right? Hot piping, hot, smelled the delicious. I mean they just hit the spot against the skin.
Let's listen to some again.
No, but I do have a question for you about Jimmy Hendrick. How much fun is it picturing to him water skiing?
Well, it's so fun. And I like your idea that he has this like super kid grin. And then I was thinking when you're saying, like, doesn't he know how to swim, like for the army or whatever, there's a big difference between swimming and a pool and swimming in an ocean, and I highly recommend. I mean, I think everyone needs to know how to swim for emergency. Yes,
every moment qua cape and it's a wonderful activity. But it's really important if you learn how to swim to also learn how to swim in an ocean just a pool.
Yes, open ocean and open lakes.
Yeah, very important. So that's my public service announcement. Thanks for asking ahead, Good job, citizen Dunton, and call her back to you.
So, according to John Roberts, I'd like to get back to his account of the kidnapping of Jimmy Hendrix. So John Roberts books. He says, the Jimmy Hendrix was, you know, just out on the town in New York, tral in the city looking for some good smack aka some New China white heroine boom. Hendricks runs into a pair of young Italian Americans. Hi, guys, John Roberts would say, not mafia, but wise guy wannabes. Oh, this pair of wanna be
wise guys. Right, they see Jimmy Hendrix walking around outside the nightclub, The Salvation, and they know it's him because no one else looks like Jimmy Hendrix. Yeah, that's Jimmy Hendrix. So this dude swinding around in some psychedelic band leader outfit like you would wear on a Tuesday thing like that, Right, They quickly come up with a plan like, oh man, so imagine the conversation kind of like this. Uh hey, it's got a brilliant idea. You want to hear it? Yeah,
come on, you know I want to hear it. Okay, So you see Jimmy Hendricks over there, right, Yeah, what the what the hell's he wearing? Huh No, no, no, never mind that. Listen, what if we go over there We promised to hook up Hendricks with some coke and then when he goes with us, we kidnap him. We hold him for ransom. Huh that was their place.
This is so like a Sopranos exactly.
Yeah, like, hey, we we'll impressed. Tell those two.
But you know you know which ones in the show that I'm talking about, because I've never seen the show. But that Furio goes and rough oh yeah, yeah, and that's the whole thing.
It's the whole thing that you haven't seen. Yes, these these want to be wise guys. They follow Hendricks. He goes back to the club, The Salvation, and Hendrix is on his way in for a jam session. He's supposed to show up, but the pair of mobster wanta bees they catch up to him first and they offer him some coke or heroin. I don't know exactly what they
offered him whatever. He like, oh yeah. So Hendrick's like, he here's their offer and he goes looks like I'm with you fellas right, So Hendricks is rolls with him. This is the start of a very strange tip for the old Voodoo Chot. Yeah. So we'll get back to John Roberts accouncause he's the most authoritative on this in his account of the events, and went down like this.
I got involved in Jimmy so called kidnapping after he was grabbed by some guys out of Salvation. Later on, some people accuse me of being involved in kidnapping him. They said I was involved with kidnappers who tied Jimmy to a chair and forced him to shoot arrowin please please.
So I'm thinking he was involved, and that's just right off the bat so completely. Now, I'd like to set aside any ugly allegations and sensational aspects of this story, but unfortunately that is the story. So we're just gonna have to get right back into the sensational.
Back to John Roberts, nobody would have to force Jimmy to shoot anything. Just give him a heroin and he'd injected himself. It was Jimmy going out searching for drugs that got him into trouble. Andy nine were the ones who helped him to get out of it.
So he's a saint. He has the club Salvation. I mean, that's what the man does, right. So I like how this guy, you know, when he tells the story, he's like Hendrix. He needed me. I am his personal savior God, Like.
He could go and shoot up, well, he doesn't also go and get kidnapped, Like, how what's the.
Yeah, come on, guys, Yeah, So the great Savior, right, the liberator who freed Hendricks. I'm fairly certain he was involved from the jump, right, Yeah, and after it all went sideways, he cuts ties and starts telling a totally different story.
That's my read, but that's how it comes across to me.
I'll let you decide for yourself, Elizabeth.
Thank you, lady, thank you.
Here we go back to John Roberts.
Jimmy had people who would usually buy dope for him, but sometimes he gets so sick he come into our clubs looking for drugs on his own. One night to Italian kids at our club. Not mafia, but wise guy Wanna Bees saw Jimmy in there looking for dope and decided, Hey, that's Jimmy Hendricks. Let's grab him and see what we can get. These guys were morons.
So now that this part, this all checks with what we know, this is you know the story right this Wanna be wise guys. They convince Hendricks to leave the club to go get the dope and is John Roberts, who apparently was able to either hear about this or see it from advantage. Either way, he says.
They promised Jimmy some dope and took him to a house out of the city. I don't know if they wanted money or a piece of his record contract, but they called Jimmy's manager demanding something. Next thing I know, the club manager called me and said Jimmy had been taken from our club by some itallians.
So why the manager felt immediately the need to call John Roberts, I think speaks for itself. Yeah right, yeah, what do I know, Elizabeth? So now that the manager knows Hendricks has been kidnapped, what does he do? This is his golden goose. Yeah, well, naturally the mager calls the cops. And since this is a kidnapping, what do they do? They call the Feds? They call the FBI.
Yeah, and it's such a high profile.
So this update finds its way back to the mafia, I'm assuming since they probably have feelers in the departments of the law, endorsement, and John Roberts, I'm imagine gets contacted from some folks in the organization, right and perhaps maybe it was a small voice inside of him, and it wasn't somebody from the organization. They just told him do the right thing. John. Either way, what do I know?
Like I said, he gets motivated, he gets on the horn, he finds Jimmy Hendrix like boom, just like that.
It's amazing, wow, so fast.
Still, I'll let him tell it.
It took me and Andy two three phone calls to get the names of the kids who were holding Jimmy. We reached out to these kids and made it clear, you let Jimmy go or you were dead, do not harm a hand of his afro.
So I guess the wanna be wise guys they really listened to John Roberts because they were quick to make things right. As Roberts tells it.
They let Jimmy go. The whole thing lasted maybe two days. Jimmy was so stone he probably didn't even know he was ever kidnapped. Andy and I waited a week or so and went after these kids.
We gave him the bating. They would never forget right. So these poor meals, they get beaten down if that even happened.
I I'm sorry, but every time you say John Roberts they still keep thinking about the supremein question.
Isn't that fun to picture? He's like in the row? So fun, He's like a beating I'll never forget, Ain't that right? Scaliah? So you remember I said the FBI gets called in, Well, the g men, they didn't exactly go away. So even after Jimmy Hendrick showed up, he had a single hair and his afro hormed, the FBI kept sniffing around, right, and they certainly they smelled something hinky in the air.
Huh.
Back to Chief Justice John Roberts.
Here, I was the good Samaritan, But unfortunately, when Jimmy was grabbed, some of his people contact the FBI. Even after he was safely returned, the FBI started poking around our business. This later led to them to tie Andy Benfonte and me to the murder. Robert Wood that one good day for Jimmy Hendricks was resulted in me having
to flee New York for Miami. Who knows, if it hadn't have been for saving Jimmy Hendricks, I might never have hooked up with the Mediine cartel and Pablo esco By in Miami and started in the cocaine smuggling business.
Wherever you are, Jimmy, thank you.
Wait, there's so much to him.
Thanking Jimmy Hendricks for getting him to be friends with the kidnapping.
That's the reason he's bested for a murder.
Yes, I related murder. Yeah, that was the other one.
Just a lot. There's a lot going on in that quote, right.
I just love at the end, wherever you want, Jimmy, thank you. I got to meet so as strange as this whole let's kidnap Jimmy Hendricks to get high with him? Plan was right, Yeah, and obviously it failed. What happened next, Saron?
What happened next?
There?
Oh, thank you for asking. Elizabeth. You're gonna love this. It's gonna curl your toes. For one, there was a conspiracy that perhaps Jimmy Hendricks was in on it and that there was no kidnapping. Instead, he and the mafia conspired against his record label because remember that was mentioned, so he can have some leverage or I don't know what his contractory negotiations.
How does that produce leverage.
There's a more obvious angle though, that John Roberts was involved in the kidnapping. Yeah, we discussed and as for his involvements. Of course, John Roberts vehemently denied this. He's come on now.
Please, Well yeah, I mean maybe it backfired because he got the attention he didn't want. But oh yeah it doesn't.
Yeah, well it gets deeper than that. He points out that he wasn't at the club that day, right, as if that has any bearing on his guilt. Becau isn't that the classic I wasn't there? Why weren't you there?
Yeah?
Whoever wasn't there that day, that's the one who's guilty.
These are not my pants on and so forth.
But I'm no one, wise guy, what do I know? Back to John Roberts, right, he always pointed to the fact that he was the one who found in freed Hendricks. I'm a salvation guy, right, he wants whoa whoa? Now, That to me is not the most convincing argument, since his kidnapper would have the same ability to free him as the person who is a savior. Right. But there were some who felt that John Roberts was involved and
was working with Jimmy Hendrix manager. Yeah, which to me makes sense, okay, right, because it's a really complicated attempt to blackmail the record label into a better contract. That doesn't make sense, right, but something else does. I prefer the theory that the manager was in cahoots with John Roberts and he had the mafia kidnap his client, and then the manager would act as the hero and save him.
And it is deeply indebted and grateful client Jimmy Hendrix wouldn't go and get a new manager, which he had been threatening to do. Oh yes, that's a motive, right for a kidnapper. That one makes sense to me. But wait, I have to warn you things are about to get even darker than that, because I don't have to speculate. Because there is a man named James Tappy Wright. He was Jimmy Hendrix's former roady. He also wrote a book. We got a really literate crew book title Rock Roady.
Oh that's creative.
Yeah, I thought you'd like that one. And in Rock Roady he accused the manager, Michael Jeffrey, of murdering Jimmy Hendrix. Wait, yes, the roady to Hendrix wrote that the manager confessed to him that he murdered Jimmy Hendrix. What And I know, I know this breaks our one percent rule, but I
thought this one was worth bringing up. So, according to James Tappy Wright, the manager gave Hendrix a boatload of pills and booze as part of his plan to kill them and get rich off of an insurance policy that he had on the rock Star. The way he tells it, the manager confessed his murder plot one year after Hendricks died, and two years before he himself would die in a plane crash. So we have no other confirmation or denial.
And that's why he hasn't sued over the.
Exactly as a roady, Wright writes, I can still hear that conversation. See the man I'd known for so much of my life his face, he's pale, hand clutching at his glass in sudden rage. That's the manager he's talking about, Michael Jeffrey. Later on he quotes the manager's version of events, writing that he said, and I quote this is the manager speaking. He's quoting the manager. I was in London the night of Jimmy's death together with some old friends.
We went around to Monica's hotel room, got a handful of pills and stuffed them into his mouth, and poured a few bottles of red wine deep into his windpipe.
What.
Yes, there was indeed a life insurance policy, and since Hendrix was estranged from his family, the manager, Jeffrey, was the beneficiary of a two million dollar payout.
Are you kidding? I've never heard any of this British.
I found this all in British press. The American press was hard to find this, but it was all over the British press. I'd to piece it together from different stories. But the roadie Ride recalled that the manager told him, and I quote, I had to do it. Jimmy was worth much more to be dead than alive. That son of a was going to leave me. If I lost him, I'd lose everything. Starting to sound pretty murderous.
Oh wow, So there it is.
It's all circumstantial, I would admit that, but for someone like me, it's pretty damn compelling.
Yeah.
I tend to believe Roady's teamsters, you know, the people who are around but have no real value.
No one pays attention to them exactly.
They seem they see everything. People look past them. So I tend to believe those guys. They are, they were there, and they tell what they know anyway, which means I think Jimmy Hendricks was kidnapped by the mafia as part of a plot by his manager, and then a year later his manager likely often.
Wowow right, Wow, you know, I think that's you've earned the one person. I felt we've banked a lot of.
Yeah, I think we could do like a we've avoided often. I thought this one was important to include. Wow, Elizabeth, what's a ridiculous takeaway?
Yay, my ridiculous takeaway? You wanted to my ridiculous You have never asked that.
I considered it fresh, though, what how they feel?
I think my ridiculous takeaway is I'm still trying to process the idea that Jimmy Hendricks was purposely poisoned in essence with.
By Chief Justice John Roberts.
Justice John Roberts, that is just so much.
Michael Jeffrey, the manager, Yeah, was working with apparently mobsters, and then when that didn't work, he's like, I'll do it myself.
Well, and it's like, you know, it wasn't a surprise Jimmy Hendrix's death.
Sadly, it was not a surprise for his inner circle, but it was still one of those things that I think, like Princess passing, you were left wondering you left with questions.
Yeah, And I think that's the thing is that when you have these instances where it's not a surprise, but it's still you know, this person that the world is a little too much for them and they're a little too much for the world complete, but they that also makes them susceptible to these types of things.
And these types of people. Yeah, because you know that's terrible when you're a dreamer, you don't got like, you know, the feet on the ground. People come along and be like, oh hey, I'll hold you up.
My ridiculous takeaway, thank you for asking once again, you have another one. This was Zeron. This was a thrill ride, but hot doodles, it's a bummer.
Yeah, sorry about that. I didn't know how to get around that part. I was like, I can try to find them, like you have to tell a light joke and land On, I was like, there's nothing to them, Like, so how about wet Jimmy Hendricks. That was fun to picture, right, No.
This was a really beautifully constructed episode. I do have to say that, Sarah, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
What do I got to do everything over here? Yes, my ridiculous takeaway is that. I was really uh glad to hear that Jimmy Hendricks and I have more in common than I imagined, which is that we both would look like wet cats when wet. It would likely drown. If if people you know who are supposed to be helping us by dragging us around the ocean in a boat and they put down their drinks long enough, they can save our lives because we are going to go down. I was like, man, Jimmy, I fail you.
You can swim in the ocean.
Yeah, but with a wet suit that that has a lot of buoyancy. Oh yeah, trust I'm always glad to have that wet suit. That's all I got for you today, all I have for you. So you move maybe with that? How about that? Pretty sure? Dave hit it? Oh my god, I love you.
Hi, Elizabeth and Zarin. My name is Kathleen, and I wanted to talk about Thursday's episode where you mentioned Irish step dancing. I was a competitive Irish step dancer for thirteen years and I can confirm that it's pretty incestuous and you definitely do it at bars when you're drunk as an adult. But also my teacher for over a decade was Sandra Connick. Thanks so much for all you do. I really appreciate listening to you twice a week.
Wow, that was Jostle.
Yeah, she's amazing.
Love Kathleen totally. I like that she had the big boss as a teacher. It's amazing.
And she also pointed out that my random dancing idea of children dancing in bars has almost an analog, but it's adults, so I got to I got correct, So thank you for that. Anyway, As always, you can find us online a Ridiculous Crime on the social media sites. We also have the website Ridiculous Crime dot com. Obviously love your talkback, so please go to the iHeart at hit us up. Let us know how you feel, what you're thinking of, what crimes you've been getting into.
No, don't do that, but either way, emails to ask for confession.
Yeah, if you want to do a confession, obviously we love them, but we'll be your voice. You confessed, someone in your family want to hear what?
Well?
Okay, email us if you'd like a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening. We'll catch your next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Spanish Castlemagicman Dave Houston. Slave Return Research is by Marissa Golden Brown and Andrea the Win. Chris Mary is my favorite song, Sharpened Tear. Our theme song is by Thomas Axis Bold as Live Laugh, Love Lee and Well Maybe I was misbehaving Dutton. The host
wardrobe provided by Body five hundred. Executive producers are Ben Fats Waller is my favorite musician named Fats Bowling and Noel He's my favorite Waller Brown, Red.
Crime, Say It One More Time.
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