Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Elizabeth Dutton, Zaron Brenette. So good to see him, Good to see you, Ben. I've been good. I honestly, I've been good. No complaints. I got a little muscle tey in my back right now, but that's just because I was doing dumb stuff putting back into it. I deserved it. You can do it. Yeah, My muscles were like, who are we kidding?
You're like, can we can we talk?
Yeah? We're gonna need to have a coffee clutch. So I got a question for you, and then evolved my back. Do you know it's ridiculous?
Involve your neck and your back.
I cannot answer that.
We've just slipped its track. That's the g rated than you do. I know what's ridiculous. You're asking me.
I'm looking at you like a professional.
Oh I know, I know it's ridiculous.
You want to share it?
Sit down, all right? So Grillos our favorite pickle brain.
Yes, shout out Grillos.
They're a menace.
Wait one there, menace.
I bought the biggest tub of grillos at Costco.
You know the day.
How fun is this conversation? This is like when someone recommends a podcast and I'm like, oh, yeah, listen, and then I'm like, minute ten, they're still talking about what the person I don't give it. You'll see where I'm going with this. This is a point, all right. So, uh, Grillos, Right, We've talked about them multiple times and we still don't have a sponsorship. I can't believe, which is a little offensive.
I think I'm shocked. People shock.
I feel like I've been profiled. But aside from that, so anyway, there's apparently this thing spear in a beer at dive bars where they'll put a beer. Right. Well, Grillos an absolute menace in the mashup category.
I know.
I just had to that one teamed up with another absolute menace. But that when we haven't seen a lot of perhaps blue Ribbon a PBR. So they're coming together to have a limited edition PBR X Grillos Pickle.
Beer available on at Midwest Ballparks.
Well it's it is a limited time. Like I said, you can pick it up at Walmart, Albertson's, Safeway, Public's Food Line, Total Wine and More, Go Puff, Quick Trip, and other retailers. That shall remain a mystery. Why not that starts on May fourth. Oh, and then it's wall supplies last, so I don't know if the supplies lasted.
I gonna guess is there a Star Wars game in here? Like the fourth point of that.
So many people sent this to us, but the whole point is the quotes in the press release.
I say this begrudgingly. This is hit me with it.
Rachel Keaton, Papst Senior brand director quote. I don't think the founder of PAPS saw this one coming, but somewhere along the line someone put a pickle and a beer and never looked back. We're taking that ritual and making it official with Rillows. It's exactly as good as it sounds like. I really put some heat on that one. And then Mark Luker, Grillo's chief commercial officer, who needs to have a time out, quote, We've been working on this collab for quite some time and we're pumped to
see it come to live. Pibr has been a great partner in this collaboration. Delivers a crisp, refreshing blend of both brands. We're excited for beer and pickle lovers to try. Now. I will say this, I joke, I poke fun this would make a great beer caned chicken.
I think, oh yeah, because the salt is and.
There, and then you put some spices in the can like you do, and then you you insert it.
Yeah, like a probe. It's better than my chicken a la coc and peanuts.
Well there's that too. We won't talk about that incident and that.
It is ridiculousous. It is nice work.
They always are, you know something, Zaron, The mashups always are. But see, there was a reason I had to talk. I had to soften the blow talking about pickle. I appreciated it and to welcome you into my pickleedje.
It only brewis it didn't break, Thank god. Well I got one for you. If you get a group of humans together, sure, and then you have them compete at something, something that means like the world to them, right, it won't be long before some of them will get caught cheating.
Oh yeah, This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons.
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. So ridiculous, Elizabeth, you once did an episode on competition crimes.
I did I remember that?
I am currently surfing. Your coattails are hardcore pop on ye Comfy. Well, thinking your episode, I had this theory. I bet there were plenty of other competitive crimers out there pretty much. Yeah, wherever there's competition. Oh bro, And wouldn't you know what that incidinct was one thousand percent correct? So let's call this competition crimes too. A slight return to begin, Elizabeth, I give you this headline, cheating scandal
rocks World Stone Skimming Championships. Oh yeah, that's from a twenty twenty five BBC story that investigated what went down at the annual Stone skipping going to make it American Stone Skipping Championship.
Shit, they should know better than those kind of puns in a headline.
Totally, But to give full credit for this one, had tip to producer d for sending this one my way. Okay, so what's the story in these stones skipping cheaters? Great question, Elizabeth, coming out hot?
Yeah?
First I have a question for you.
Sure you do?
Have you ever skipped a stone?
Yes?
I have a follow up. Were you any good?
You know? I feel like it's something where for me I shouldn't say you for me personally? Why you know you get into the zone and so like sometimes it's not a productive activity, but like when you have the right stone and you're you're feeling it and that just the vibe is right. Oh my gosh, dude, So.
You can actually get them to skip like a multiple times.
Yeah, I've been able to do that in my past.
Nice. Did you and your brother ever compete?
Yeah, it was always with Travy.
Okay, was he any good?
Yeah, he's really good. Well, he's just a great He has a great arm, so he's a you know, he's a good arm in baseball.
I got you. He's a good bowler.
I don't know. I don't think I've ever seen him bowl.
We got to take him bowling.
Yeah. My bowling has always been very private.
I keep it from my family. I didn't mean to get into it.
I had to do a bowling league ages ago for work, and I didn't want to do it, and I didn't want to wear other people's shoes, so I bought my own shoes and then they gave us a ball. And I didn't like the people in the other leagues, the other offices, and they would ask me what I did, and I told them that I wrote erotica for children. Oh dear god, I didn't get arrested, apparent, but I got left alone.
I guess you would. So you didn't go with your normal like taxidermy.
No. No, even though I was with an office team, they you know, these guys weren't swift.
You know. I also have my own bowling shoes and I stole them from a bowling alley and then I wore them to that bowling alley all the time. They can come and get them whenever they want.
But someone wore them before you at something.
I didn't have your ick factor with the hole someone else. I just put my name, or my bowling name, captain, and then on one foot, and then on the other foot Florabama Captain, Florabama, Florida. It was my bowling name. Anyway, The ked to being a good stone skipper, Elizabeth, thank you for asking. Is the stone you planned to skip? It's not just vibes. Vibes is half of it. But yeah, yeah, you need to also if you need to have your
technique dialed in right, that's obviously important as well. You get to get your arm at the right angle, and you need, like trap to have a good arm and of course, you know, once again you need to impart some spin. But none of that will matter if you don't first select a good skipping stone. Elizabeth, Yeah, do you know how to select a good skipping stone?
Flat?
Smooth?
The water's got to be smooth too.
That helps you.
You know, you're not going to go down to the Pacific.
No, no, not skipping nothing on the Pacific.
Smooth and flat.
Yeah, you're right, all.
Like, it can't be too big, but also not too small because you need some He's.
Got to be right there in that like sweet spot. So basically you want a stone to be both flat and round and the you know, proportionally good sizes to itself. It's not too big too small basically, you know, flatten around. You want to like an overdone cookie that has like too much butter in the batter. Oh yeah, I guess what cookies. It's dough, not batter, but you know, yeah in.
The dough, you know whatever. We all know what you're talking about.
Yeah, anyway, what's up with the annual Stone Skipping Championship is well, it takes place on an island that's located near your adopted second home of Scotland. The island is called Easdale, and you ever heard of it? I had not, No. Easdale's apparently an island in the Inner Hebrides. Oh okay, it's the smallest of the permanently inhabited islands. Population of the island sixty people.
That's probably why I haven't heard of it.
Yeah, which is why. Also, the annual Stone Skipping Championship is a big deal there. They're like that much going on and lots of folks traveled from around the world to compete there. In twenty twenty five, there were twenty two hundred people who traveled from twenty seven countries just to attend the Stone Skipping Championship. Oh hell yeah.
Did they stay like you? Probably wouldn't know if they stay on other islands to the camp.
I'm assuming they're camping. I do not know. I wish I had good answers for lamping. Most likely at least half of them these are professional athletes, Elizabeth.
They just dig a hole and sleep in it.
The event started way back in nineteen eighty three. He was created by a resident of Eastdale Island, a man named Albert Baker, and in a very seemingly suitable Scottish way, The idea to hold a own skipping competition came about in a local pub. Of course, right, they're like, you know, it's basically a complicated bar.
Bess where you get the best ideas completely.
Now, the first attempt saw some success, but much like a skipping stone, it ran out of momentum and sank into the water. Thank you No. In nineteen ninety seven, the Stone Skipping Championship was back on baby. I guess the locals they had missed out on it, or perhaps they recognized the economic boost that the increased tourism provided.
I don't know either way. A ninety seven local community group called the Alien Iceed Deal brought back the Stone Skipping champion Ship, and now it's run as a benefit for charity. I but you would like that.
I do like that. Well, I mean, it depends on the charity.
They're given to local charity groups. I don't know much about all of that now. The competition occurs at a former rock quarry where locals used to cut out slabs of slate from the land. Oh yeah, it was like right up by the sea, because in eighteen eighty one the quarry was flooded by a tidal wave. And so much for that quarry. So now it sits abandoned, filled with seawater or whatever I guess, you know, brackish water. And it's free though of any professional rock harvesting operation.
So enter the stone skippers. So the rules for the competition are straightforward, Elizabeth. A person must collect their stones from what's naturally occurring on the island. You can't bring in any stones from somewhere else. No Appellationian rocks are allowed. So the expectation is that the stones are slate, since that's the big you know, rock on the island. And then the competitors they kick about the island looking for
the perfect stones to skip. The stones must be no bigger than three inches in diameter, and that's just to ensure that the stones are the appropriate size. The judges. They have this measuring device they call the ring of truth.
The ring of truth.
Yeah, it's a ring that's roughly three inches in diameter. It ensures the skipping stones are no bigger than the allowed size. So once the rocks are selected, each stone skipper gets to cast three tosses, so three rocks across this two hundred and seven foot long quarry. The skipping stones must bounce off the surface, obviously at least twice to be counted as an official skip, and then they also must travel within this like designated skipping lane. Well.
One of the main organizers of the competition is this fellow named doctor Kyle Matthews. He also announces all of the stone skips. He's like the big announcer. He provides knowledgeable commentary on the stone skipping action. Doctor Matthews is also known as the toss Master. Oh yeah, so this past year, the annual Stone Skipping Championship was held on
September sixth, So this is a almost autumnal sport. Okay, now, Elizabeth, two thousand stone skipping hopefuls registered online to claim one of the four hundred available spots.
Oh wow, so it's not just two thousand people lining.
Up, No, only four hundred again, and you got to compete the event registration sold out in three minutes, no way. And of those lucky four hundred competitors, they were all geeked to go toss their twelve hundred stones across the water, eager to be crowned the champion of that year. But Elizabeth, that could be only one stone skipping champ or really there could be two, one from the women's division, one
from the men's division. So this past year, doctor Matthews admitted that after the event went down that there were quote rumors and murmurings of some nefarious deeds. Doctor Matthews told the BBC radio show Good Morning Scotland that quote, there was a little bit of Stone.
Doctoring Stone doctor, the Stone doctors. It's like a spin doctor's cover.
And they blamed Missula.
Yeah.
Now, like I was reading this, I'm like, are you kidding me? Stone Skippers, we can't even count on you to have a love of the game completely. So it seems that according to doctor Matthews quote, they had shaped it so that was perfectly circular and fitted our three inch measurer aka the Ring of Truth right now. Doctor Matthews didn't blame the Ring of Truth for any discrepancy in the stones. He said, and I quote, as it's a piece of metal, I don't think we can blame
it too much. The problem was we didn't just notice at the time that they were suspiciously circular fun crowd. So he blamed himself. In an interview with no less than The New York Times, doctor Matthews said that as the announcer and the toss master, he'd personally witnessed every single one of the twelve hundred tosses. But as he told The Times, quote, unfortunately these couples slipped through my hawk like vision. Oh okay, dude, he's a little self important.
So once the whispers and murmurs emerged, doctor Matthews and other organizers they confronted the bubbling scandal. He contacted the competitors who had many believed had been cheated, and thankfully those entrants did not argue. They didn't throw a fit or threatened to sue. Instead, they confessed that they had indeed cheated. Gracefully, they agreed to be retroactively disqualified from the Stone Skipping Championship.
Oh wow.
Yeah. So when the dust claritor, rather the ripples fell still, Lucy Wood won her sixth Stone Skipping Championship. Huh Yeah. She was glad to see the cheaters not fight or make a scene instead just say yeah, mate, it was me. So they took their punishment, you know, kept it moving. As she told The New York Time, you wouldn't get that in a lot of sports. That's very true, right, side note, My girl Lucy Wood is quite the stone
skipper Elizabeth. She's the current Guinness World Record holder for most wins in the women's division of the Stone Skipping Championship.
Huh.
Her story is fun. She first came to Eastdale Island back in twenty eleven. She was just a tourist visiting the island with her husband. They were there on a vak and when she's there, she's like, you know, she sees that there's this stone skipping competition going down while they're there, and she's like, what if I enter and get this? She meddled first time medals. She one third place.
Where is she from?
I think from somewhere in Britain, I don't know.
So she just like they go outside, she's just training all the time.
Yeah, he's thrown rocks against the side of the house. Does she have like a ten year.
Old synthetic ones that she throws across upon for training purpose.
Like fungo stones? Yes, And she told it. I got a bit hooked, and then like you know, she's totally happy to admit that her rare stone skipping skill is quote a really useless life skill, but I seem to have it.
I wonder she'd be good at disc golf.
Oh yeah, probably she with a forward toss. Yeah. Now, if you're wondering what her secret to stone skipping is, Lucy Wood says, it's all about how you use your fingers, just like in basketball or baseball. You want to get a good finger roll going. And ors Lucy would put it quote, it's the spinning of the stone that stabilizes it. It's not necessarily the rist action. So I was wrong there. I always thought you had to have good risk action.
Dating back to when she first started skipping stones in twenty eleven, Lucy Wood says it, these days it's become really competitive. It's getting harder and harder. So yeah, I know. In the twenty twenty five Men's Championship stone skipper was an American named John Jennings. No h, and that was the first time an American won it all. So yeah,
now is the new world's raining stone skipping champ. Jennings was a little worried about how this scandal made the sport of competitive stone skipping look to the fans and to the people who may have never heard of the sport. And this is introduction. I mean, he didn't want the cheating to besmirch the reputation of this Nietzsche sport. He right,
and then it was going down. Jennings had spotted some of the cheaters trying to slip in their cheater stones, and Jennings told The Times, I did see some stones that looked a little too perfect. Oh so he knows what he's talking about, because not only does he competitively skip stones, Elizabeth, he also runs his own stone skipping competition back in Kentucky, where he lives.
I thought maybe he was Minnesota on the lakes.
Yeah.
But you know something, John Jennings, if you see something, say something right. Come on. What I was saying, he's a part of the problem.
Was the good old boy put it quote. Some people see glory as a different thing. I see it as following the rules, doing what I'm supposed to, and winning in true fashion. Some people see Gloria's winning at all cost, Elizabeth. I said, these are precious folks. If you like me, you're wondering, I'll just tell you. John Jennings skipped his three stones a total of one hundred and seventy seven meters or roughly five hundred and eighty one feet across the quarry because you add up all three.
Stones distance, not number of skips that you're looking for.
Exactly you want distance, and then you add up your your three stone tosses into whatever your cumulative is. That's your amount, right, and eighty one feet excuse me, that's pretty damn far it is. That was good enough to win the male division of the championship. Now, let's hope next year that no cheats show up with suspiciously round, doctored up stones, because why ruin the.
Fund grinding down the edge.
I think they're giving them kind of like a sharper. Maybe maybe they had a top and a bottom, you know, like around.
Your bottom, And I'd love to see their work like a.
Wing or something. You know, you have a differential. I don't know. So anyway, Raining Women's champ Lucy Wood now can look forward to defending her crown in the sport that she describes as quote super quirky.
It is super quirky.
I wanted that one for you because I know how much you love. Okay, now that we've warmed it up, let's take a little break and after these messages, we'll be back with more cheaters and fraudsters on the competitive circuits, and we're back, Elizabeth.
Hello.
Now, that first one obviously didn't involve any actual crime. Oh yeah, no, the law never came into it.
All right, I'll listen, be honest, I'm sure that they could have found some Scottish detectives in exactly Well, this.
Is not true for this next one, because Johnny Law jumps up into the scene before we dive into this next tale of cheating, conning, and criming. I have another question for you, Elizabeth. If I say to you faral Hogs, what do you think.
Of I think of that? Was it a tweet?
Right?
Do you remember?
Yeah?
Well did you probably recall? It all kicked off back in August of twenty nineteen.
Oh we were so young.
Musician Jason Isabel isbel Ispel. He posted about the guns that get labeled as assault weapons. Yeah, and he there was a Twitter debate about gun control and Isbel posted quote, if you're on here arguing the definition of assault weapon today, you are part of the problem. You know what an assault weapon is, and you know you don't need one. Clearly, he's against them now, and you know what that means.
Some gun lovers are going to post back about how much they do need their assault rifles and how wrong he is, which is exactly what happened. So this self described libertarian, a man named William McNabb no relationship to uh Donovan, Thank you good, look at you? So he posted in response to Ispel that he had a real question about owning assault weapons. He wasn't challenging him, He was just like, what about this, sir?
What about this? You know? Yeah?
And I quote the legit question for rural Americans? How do I kill the thirty to fifty feral hogs that run into my yard within three to five minutes while my small kids play? That was McNabb's question.
The ranges fifty five minutes.
Yeah. So this led to a deluge of responses because tons of folks found the whole premise of thirty to fifty faral hogs roaming America in hog gangs looking to start trouble to be hilarious. So one Twitter user posted a response to McNabb quote, seriously, please post video of this. I legitimately have got to see what thirty to fifties stampeding farall hogs looks like you and your neighbors just must live in constant terror entrenched inside your homes. And
then another line of McNabb. You know he seemed genuine. He responded to that, and he wrote, and I quote in subsequent replies, I answer this, It's happened four times. I do not own an assault rifle, never said I did. Some of my neighbors do, and from personal experience, I can see how it helped them. I simply post a real question from my own experiences, So which begs the question mowing them down? Yeah?
Can you imagine do they just keep regenerating a.
Video game just respawning hogs? So imagine you're in the backyard of like I don't know, your Arkansas home, and your small children are playing on a swing set or whatever, and then all of a sudden, thirty to fifty feral hogs just rampage into your yard. They started attacking you and your family like I know, like the sweaty outlaw bikers hopped up on like you know, trailer meth and
brown liquor. Yeah. One Twitter user said and posted quote, I hate when thirty to fifty faral hogs running into my yard is my kids play forcing me to duel wheeled ar fifteens. As I mowed them down, another one jumped in and responded to that tweet and said, exactly last week, my sons Brantford and Highland, were out drinking bush heavy on the back deck. They're thirteen and eleven when a pack of seventy six Farll hogs came running up.
I only had a bolt action rifle and by the time I took out number seven six, Branford was already gone. I miss him dearly. I love the name Branford so perfect, and his sister Brayley and their new baby, Chadsworth. But to be fair, well, folks got their jokes off. The truth of the matter bubbled up to the surface, Elizabeth. As you likely know, Farrell hogs are no joke, are concern.
They will like I've seen pictures that people have posted of after they come running through the yards.
Oh yeah, they just tear it up.
And they're yeah like digging big deep trenches and stuff as well.
They can knock a fence down. And the javelinas the boors like you watch them, they run fast as a car. They're insane. So if you got thirty or fifty of these, you're gonna got a serious problem in firepower. So that was McNabb's original point, Elizabeth, you.
Can show how it serves the thing that you just like, Craig, Yeah.
Like artillery. Oh no, yeah, he used like a gatling gun. You just turn that.
Sure.
So in Texas they estimated, by the way, in twenty seventeen that faral hogs are responsible for one hundred million dollars in property damage.
No, like what every day for the.
Year, for the calendar year that you didn't specify. I'm sorry. Now. Two days after the viral thirty to fifty faral hogs debate popped off on Twitter, Dale Nolty of the USDA's National Feral Swine Program decided he'd weigh in to let the public know roving herds of faral hogs are threatening to cross the US Canada border and if they invaded the US, it would be quote a disaster.
We already have them, I know. Don't you better look out for ours?
Yeah, Canadian bacon faral hogs. No, no borders, No, it's just color on a map to them. So obviously, when this all reignited the meme cycle and Twitter users jumped in and McNabb tried to warn us they're like he was telling us anyway, Old Dale Noltia, as I said, tried to warn the public as program manager for the USDA's National Feral Swine Damage Management Program, that's his full title.
I wonder if he's been defunded.
I'm back only reported that quote. We initially believe feral swine caused one point five billion in damage a year in the US, but now we think that the number is closer to two point five billion, not accounting for the environmental damage that is hard to assign a dollar value. I think that's lost children. I've worked with a lot of different species, and they normally cause damage in a certain area, but not feral swine. They caused damage across
every sector. Apparently they're just like ruining bus traffic.
I can airline.
I don't know. Anyway. I say all this to set the table for our next group of competition cheaters, in this case, crimers, the folks who mitigate the feral hog problem as sport wild hog hunters. Elizabeth. Now, there is a group of wild hog hunters. They dubbed themselves the piney wood pimps. I do not know what pineywood pimps has to do with hog hunting.
But there's a lot of hogs in the piney Woods.
It was the pimp part that I didn't just what pips have to do with hog hunting, I mean, but we press on. So the story goes the so called piney Wood Pimps. We're a gang of relatively young men from Louisiana who came together to hunt Farrell hogs competitively. Their names are Trace Davis thirty of Long Billed Louisiana, Hunter Webb twenty seven of Pitkin, Louisiana, Coolby Bushnell twenty
six of Dry Creek. They're all from Louisiana. Yeah, Davy Hammond thirty five of Pitkin, Nathan Grainger thirty four of Vinton, and Don Pollard Junior forty, also of Pitkin. Okay, now, these six men they enter the annual Dylan Dingler Wild Hog round Up.
Stuff, which is and one of them, the disney is named Hunter.
Yeah, of course, kid right up there, Hunter. Well. So the Dingler Wild Hog Round Up is held in Bienville Parish between February ninth and tenth, and it's hosted by Randy Dingler. It's a memorial hunt he holds in honor of his son. He's been hosting those hunts since twenty fourteen. And about the cheating scandal, Dingler noted, quote, you always have somebody wanting to cheat. Luckily we got wildlife and fisheries and they stepped in. What they did I never
would have known. So, Elizabeth, it wasn't just the Dingler wild Hog round Up. The Piney Wood Pimps also pulled their con job at the Swamp Time Hog Hunt held in Caldwell Parish between March fourteenth and sixteenth. The Piney Wood Pimps took all the prizes in both hog hunting contests. So how did these wild hog hunters cheat? Fantastic question.
I am so glad you asked that question.
Let me explain now. In the Dingler wild Hog round Up, the rules state that the competitors must form four or five man teams. This is like a witness to a crime. It's four or five men. So with one or two helpers they can trek off into the swamps and woods to find wild hogs. Presumably this is to safeguard people from the rampaging faral hogs. Anyway, the teams they have a time limit to catch the five biggest hogs they
can scare out of the woods. They're not allowed to use fences, nor can they use traps because this is a round up, they're not hunting them. The faral hogs must be caught by hunting dogs.
Oh so they're alive.
They're alive. Yeah, and then the hunters wrangle the faral hogs into a trailer, where they're then transported back to the contest site to be waved. That's why that's the real fight in the trailer them. I don't know if that's in the rule book. There's there's. Yeah, there's no law on the rule book that a dog can't be part of the hunt and or that you can use a taser.
Or do they have to give them tresidon and gabba pen and like a piece of cheese to get.
The train com So, the contestants are supposed to take pictures with the hogs they catch and then send that pick to the organizer for confirmation. The picture also must include the team's assigned number. This is designed so that the randomly assigned number determines the hogs were caught during the competition. Okay, so you got all the rules right, it's all making sense.
Yeah, it's all making sense.
Well, the piney Wood Pimps they came back to the contest site and they had definitely caught the biggest bore of the competition. As the contest organizer Dingler put it, this winning team had the biggest bore if I'm not mistaken, and they also got first place. They had the heaviest way to fud hogs. So good.
How big are each of them?
Like hundreds and hundred Yeah, so.
It's like a two ton one that they out could barely walk.
Six hundred pounds. Yeah. So now since they had.
Caught the build on a mobility scooter, they're like, gotcha, you're.
Seeing like Hogzilla. I mean they can get big like halftime. So the biggest hog in the Dingler Wild Hog Round Up. Each member of the Piney Wood Pimps they won a custom belt buckle, you know like a Bronco Bust and Rodeo Star would win, right. So that's also for catching the heaviest bore of the contest. They also want a jackpot. You want to guess how much they won in their.
Prize twelve thousand dollars one.
Hundred and eighty dollars.
Whoa I think thousand those ready to be shocked, or.
In other words, thirty six dollars per person.
In the what's the entry feed?
But that's not all to enter. They also won twenty sacks of feed provided by one of the annual hog round up spot.
This is a huge event.
This is huge. There were, however, two events. Remember the second event, the swamp time hog Hunt. That same team, the piney Wood Pimps, also managed to bag the biggest five hogs string of faral hogs that netted them an additional fifteen hundred and fifty eight dollars real money. Yeah, so that's enough to like gas up a truck, So
that's not all, Elizabeth. The piny Wood Pamps also won a few side prizes, for instance for bagging the largest sal that paid another eight hundred dollars, and they won a side prize for the single biggest bore, which paid out eleven hundred dollars. All told, they won three thousand, six hundred and thirty eight dollars for their four man team to split, plus the twenty sacks of feet. So no,
that's for the first one. I'm saving in total, so they worked out to be They hauled eight hundred and fourteen dollars and fifty cents per person, and then the five sacks of feed per person as well. So of course there's also the custom bell buckles, let's not forget those, and the bragging rights which last a lifetime. So and that is, of course, unless you cheat, and especially if you get caught, which is what happened here. You see a member of the law enforcement, Sergeant Raymond Davis of
the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. He'd heard rumors that there were cheaters operating in the annual hog hunts and round wild hog roundups, so when this new season rolled around, he decided he'd launch himself an investigation to ferret out any of these cheaters I hear so much about, So he enlisted fellow agents from the LDFW, And, as Sergeant Davis put it, I had already had an idea that there's something going on, just not exactly sure how
they were cheating. So what does he care?
How was breaking the law?
Oh? Good to that. Apparently Sergeant Davis is just as good at hunting down cheaters as the pineywood pimps are good at faking their hunting down hogs. Louisiana Hog Hunt task Force, which he'd formed, collected evidence, they interviewed suspects, and this eventually shook the piney Wood pimps. Soon enough, five of the six men admitted that they had indeed cheated.
As Sergeant Davis tells it, when we started interviewing them, a couple of the guys are very forthcoming, admitted to actually putting the hogs in a holding pan for the Binville event prior to the hunt dates, and when it got time that pulled the hogs out the holden pans and staged the photos with them.
So they were like, they're hogs. Apparently, well they domesticated, I can tell you.
Where they came from. Okay. But also this explains how they won the Dingler wild hog round up and the Swamp Time hog hunt because they rounded up the faral hogs at a landfill across state lines in East Texas. Oh no, they brought them the wild hogs over the border into Louisiana. Oh that's the crime boom you called it, because they yeah, they'd use the faral hogs to win both contests, and a Sergeant Davis kindly explains the complaint was they had hunted in Texas. Maybe one of the
guys says something to someone work got out. We went to investigate. We were able to establish that during the hunt dates they were in the vicinity of a landfall and be on a Texas at the time. They took some of the photos and sent the pictures. So as for state law, it's illegal to hunt faral hogs in Texas and bring them back over state lines into Louisiana.
Don't bring any extra ones into the state.
Unless you have permission from the USDA the US Department of Agricultures, then it's fine. So keep that in mind if you ever rounding up faral hoggs, ask permission for So the piney Wood Pimps were accused of not only cheating, but also running a criminal conspiracy since they'd acted as a team. Yeah, and then the piney Wood Pimps Trace Davis Hunter, Webb, Coley Bushnell, Davy Harmon, Nathan Granger, and Don Pollard were all charged with hunting contest fraud and
criminal conspiracy. Hunting contest fraud. Now Davis, Webb, Bushnell, Hayman, and Pollard Junior also were charged with violating interstate commerce. That's we're bringing the hogs over the border. Yeah, and Davis also caught an additional charge of obstruction to justice for attempting to destroy evidence of their crime. I think he deleted photos web caught a hunter. Webb caught a bonus charge of hunting while his hunting license was suspended.
So hunter, hunter, that hunter, don't hunt. No, Now the men face serious charges. Apparently down in Louisiana they take hunting contests frauds seriously.
Yeah.
Since the men faced a possible one year in jail, any three thousand dollars fine interstate commerce violations, I can land you another one hundred and twenty days in jail with a nine hundred and fifty dollars fine. The big charge, though, is obstruction of justice that connects you a five year prison sentence and a ten thousand dollars fine.
Ooh, yeah, they didn't win that much, which just.
Goes to show that roving hordes of feral hawks aren't the only danger in the swamp. You can also catch charges. So all right, So now we got that one out of the way. I got another goodman. Before you're coming up, Elizabeth, take another little break. We'll put the piny wood pimps behind us. When we get back, we'll see how cheating plays out when you're competing to be one of the smartest men in Britain.
Oh okay, we're back, Elizabeth, Yeah, we are all right.
So we've done stone Skippers, we've done hog hunters and rounder uppers. Well now we're going to uh I mean not, these are strange roads to travel down. We're gonna go with something a little more familiar to you. Okay, right, you and I both love Jeopardy. Oh yes, Now can you imagine trying to cheat at Jeopardy? I mean not like at home, like you watch the East Coast broadcast and then you memorize the answers and watched the West
Coast broadcast with friends or family. I don't mean that, right, I mean like in the studio, in front of the audience, with the cameras and everything. Do that. Well, that's what happened on the British version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Oh really, A dude.
Went on the show and there before the audience, with the cameras and the millions of people watching at home, he cheated his way to a million pounds. And how he did it is ridiculous. Oh, Elizabeth, meet Major Charles Ingram. That's his rank, not his name. Major. And the late eighties, Major Ingram became a member of the British Army. He trained at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst. He was then commissioned as an officer. He joined the Royal Engineers.
By nineteen ninety he was made a captain five years later. He in ninety five he was a major. And then in September two thousand and one, Major Ingram appeared on the British version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
That was the og the originator totally yeah.
Now, both his brother and his wife had already appeared on the show, which seems suspicious on a terme. His family went in out all these.
Spots, I don't know.
Apparently that part was all legit, and they had both won money, not the big grand prize of a million pounds. He each won thirty two thousand pounds.
That's nothing else.
No, at the time it was about forty two thousand dollars. So then on September ninth, two thousand and one, Major Ingram appears on the show and on camera Major carried himself he's got this military demeanor, you know, like the short clip sentences. He's also kind of like cocky and like full of himself, but he also tries to play like I don't know he does. He works both sides
of the way. Also, apparently he was allegedly deeply in debt, so he had he owed an estimated fifty thousand pounds, so he had fifty thousand reasons to win some big money.
I love it, so you know the answer going a game show?
Yeah, totally, that was his answer. He and his wife are like, you know, I won thirty two thousand pounds. We just need a little bit more. You go go further me. We're good. So also to do the translation of how much that is, it's about sixty six thousand dollars in debt, he was if you put it in dollars.
Okay, but don't forget got to pay taxes on those winnings.
Oh yeah, So he needs to win more than the fifty thousands. So he told the show producers he'd prepared for the show by practicing twenty minutes a day on a homemade device he he'd created. He called it the fastest finger first machine. Okay, whatever, so in reality, the big way he'd prepared to win some money was that he and his wife had come up with a plant to cheat. So the story goes Elizabeth. He was on the show for two days. First day, he was barely
hanging in there in the early rounds. He was forced to use two of his three lifelines just to make it to like the four thousand pound mark on the board, which is pretty low. And you know, so he finishes his first day of filming right at four thousand pounds, got one lifeline left, and he's got his fifty to fifty lifeline, if that means anything to you, So it reduces the possible number of answers from four to two. Yeah, okay, And so he's got a now fifty.
To fifty choice friends.
Yeah exactly. I don't know what the other one is like, ask somebody in the crowd.
I don't think so.
So the then comes the second day of filming, September tenth, two thousand and one, major Ingram sitting it's another one of our crimes, right for four nine to eleven, Yes exactly. So major Ingram is sitting there on his four thousand pounds of winnings, which is roughly fifty three hundred dollars dollars. Going into that second day of filming, the show's producer's productions taff they all doubted that this guy major Ingram had what it took to win the million pound prize.
So they're like, yeah, whatever, how much longer? When do we need to get our next competitor in here? Because the contestants are waiting for their turn, nobody knows when it'll be, so they're sitting there watching the game occur. And this is when things fun Elizabeth, or at least fraudulent. You see, major Ingram had a secret. He and his wife they'd found a way to sneak a ringer into
the crowd of the game show. Their ringer was a college professor, a fellow competitor, fellow entrant named Tekwin wittok Wittick. His wife, Diana Ingram, had met Professor Whittick on the British trivia game show circuit. Oh apparently okay. So their plan was simple. For each question, major Ingram would kind of like reread the question aloud as if he were thinking out loud, and then that made for good TV. So the producers love that. It was a good cover.
He's like, oh, yeah, I don't know. It could be this one, could be that one. I don't know, you know, so he's doing all that. The real deal is when he read the question aloud and the four possible answers, their ringer would signal the correct answer by coughing, and that way major Ingram would hear which was the right answer. Then he'd like him and Hoffer a little.
Bit more number of times yeah, and then.
Do so like, do some more thinking out loud. Then he would do whatever the answer was. The Professor Whittick coughed at simple straight forward, So there was for instance, there was the question who had a hit UK album with Born to Do It released in two thousand, So before he reads the question back in the puzzle anthem, major Ingram offered that he'd never heard of one of the answers, this artist named Craig David, who it turns out had recorded that song and was the correct answer.
But major Ingram was undeniably still in the game, so he thought, you know, the correct answer might be a different group. This group a one. He's like, I think it may be a one that was one of the four choices. But then he did his active thinking out loud, reading the question back and forth, considering the four possible answers. He hears Professor Whittick cough as he says the correct answer of Craig David. And now Major Ingram has to find his way back to the correct answer and ditch
a previous interest in A one. So he's like, no, I'm gonna go Craig David, right, And the Major explains his backtracking by saying, eighty percent of the time I'm wrong when I guess, you know what, I'll go with Craig David. So that's his whole, like, I don't know what I'm doing, but yeah, and when you know what, he was right, it was Craig David. So he keeps going, going on like this until he reaches the penultimate question,
worth five hundred thousand pounds. He's one answer away from the final answer, which is obviously worth a million pounds.
Yeah.
So for this pen ultimate question, Major Ingram is asked Baron Hausman is best known for his planning of which city his options are A Athens, b Rome, C Paris, or D Berlin. Major Ingram reasons that the answer must be Berlin. He's like, I think it's Berlin. His reason is obvious because Houseman is a German name and Berlin is a German city, but he doesn't think like maybe this is a trick question. Right later on, he's like, but I'm never sure. If I was at home, I'd
be saying Berlin. If I was watching on TV. He just freely admits, like, you know, all of his thinking and also how dumb he is about certain things. Host of the game show reminds him this question is worth five hundred thousand pounds. If he gets it wrong, he loses everything. He could walk away with what he has up till now, which would take care of his debt. Major Ingram He's like, no, I think it's Berlin. Host tells him take your time, you know, like, let's think
about this. Then suddenly here's someone in the audience cough and then also sounds like they literally say no right after the cough. I watched the whole video. It's crazy. So major Ingram he does more of his thinking out loud, and he says, well, I don't think it's Paris, and then again he rolls out Athens in Rome. He's down to it either being Paris or Berlin, right, and then again he backtracks. He course corrects. He says, I thought it was Berlin, but there's a chance it's Paris. I'm
not sure. Let me think. As he pretends to think, the host says, you know, he doesn't have to answer, once again reminds him he can walk home with the two hundred and fifty pounds.
They're loving him dragging this.
It's fantastic, teav Yeah, right, it's exactly what the producers want, especially when nobody saw this guy going this far. It looks like it's purely luck or something like that. So Majoringham presses on and he goes. He thinks aloud, I think it's Paris, and after he hamsen Hall a little bit, he locks in his answer. Majoringham says, okay, I'm to go for Parish. Final answer, Ding ding ding, wouldn't you know it? Once again stumbles his way into a correct answer.
Now the host is like, you're the luckiest man in Britain. This is incredible. So now he's one answer away from his million pounds. But you know what, Elizabeth, rather than me, tell you about that one answer away, close your eyes, I want you to picture it's September tenth, two thousand and one, and you are on the set of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? You are a contestant who
is waiting for your turn in the hot seat. But at the moment you're watching the second day of filming for current contestant, Major Charles Ingram, the British military engineer, had a shaky first day. You did not think he'd make it. As far as he's come, he doesn't seem to know much, yet he keeps getting lucky, talking himself into answers he clearly does not know by his own admission, But as he says over and over again, by process
of elimination, he somehow keeps finding the right answers. Now he's on the threat threshold of winning the grand prize. The host says that they've reached the million pound question, question fifteen. If he's right, he'll become the third person in Britain to win the million pound pot. The game show producers play the familiar music they use to heighten the tension, and then the host reads the one million
pound question. A number one followed by one hundred zeros is known by what name A Google, B, Megatron, C, gigabit, D, nanomole, and then you hear it, the silence that stretches and fills the void of any answers or words from major Ingram. After a long pause, the kind that makes for great TV, major Ingram says, all right, then you think to yourself
what I am? You also remind yourself when it's your turn in the hot seat, you're not going to do any cheeky games of false modesty or whatever the hell major Ingram is doing. You check his wife in the audience to see how she's handling this moment, and she holds bald up fists next to her face, blocking her mouth. She's clearly nervous for her husband, but he can't see her. She's seated behind him to prevent any cheating, sending signals the kind that a couple can send with just their eyes.
Major Ingram thinks aloud, Mega, No, No, He thinks more, and he says, I'm not sure. The host has an amusement coloring his voice. Charles, you haven't been sure since question number two? Major Ingram nervously laughs. He confesses that his doubts have magnified again. You think what I am? Meanwhile, major Ingram presses on he says, I think it's a nanomole. This is followed by silence from the audience. Then major Ingram corrects himself and says, but it could be a gigabit.
Again silence from the crowd, and so he starts over, I don't think it's a megatron. More silence. Then he considers one answer he's yet to say. Major Ingram thinks aloud, says, and I have to say, I don't think I've ever heard of a Google. He says again to himself, Google like it's a weird word in his mouth, like it's made up from some sci fi show he never watched. And that's when you hear it. That's odd. There's that scratchy throat guy again. Someone in the crowd really needs
a lozenge. Meanwhile, major Ingram says, by process of elimination, I actually think it's Google, but I don't know what a Google is. Then there's more coffin. It sounds almost emphatic. Now major Ingram continues to think aloud. I don't think it's a gigabit. I don't think it's a nanomole. I don't think it's a megatron. I really do think it's a Google. And just like clockwork, you look around to see who the scratchy throat guy is who keeps coughing.
The host reminds major Ingram, but you thought it was a nanomole. You've never heard of a Google, and there's a million pounds involved. Major Ingram says, now confidently, I know, but it's not a gigabit, a nano mole, or a megatron, and there's only four of them, so it must be a Google. He reiterates that I don't actually know what Google is, but I mean it's the only chance I'll
or ever have a winning a million. As the audience laughs, the host reminds him, Charles, it's also the only chance you will have of losing four hundred and sixty eight thousan pounds. The audience laughs again. Then the host tells him take a time. Major Ingram wipes his face with his hands. His wife holds her hands against her face, so nervous, and then you both hear major Ingram say, I mean, my strategy has worked so far. Just take it by the bid and go for it. And he
adds that I have to rethink it. I don't think it's a gigabit. Silence from the crowd, major Ingram says, I don't think it's a nanomole. More silence. Then he says, thinking aloud again, Megatron Mega Mega Mega Mega. Yeah, I don't think it's a megatron. More silence. Major Ingram says, I'm sure it's a Google. That's it. This is more than mere coincidence. You know the answer is Google. You're certain it. It sure seems like someone else in the crowd
knows this is true too. Meanwhile, major Ingram stops thinking aloud. He says, Okay, I'm gonna play it. The audience casts. Major Ingram can't be shaken. He says, I'm gonna play it. Are you kidding me? You look around to see if anyone else hears what you hear. Meanwhile, major Ingram says, now quite confident about something he's admitted to having never heard of before this moment. It's a Google, he says,
to the heavens God, is it a Google? Silence. He looks at the host and says, yeah, it's a Google. There it is again. This is egregious. You think you look to see if the production team here's what you hear. In that same moment, major Ingram says I'm going to play Google and those says final answer. Yes, final answer.
Then the show goes for commercial break to heighten the drum or perhaps it's two by time for the production team to go back over the footage to see who the coughing guy is, You think to yourself, they have to have heard that spate of coughing. Every time there's mention of the correct answers, and the show does come back from commercial break, the host builds up back up the drama. The music plays. He recounts major Ingram's improbable path to a million pound question. The host rereads the
question the four possible answers. He finally tells major Ingram, Charles, give me back that check for five hundred thousand pounds, the one that Charles is holding. You watch his major Ingram complies. The host rips up the check and says you no longer have that now you The crowd major Ingram all wait for the final answer, and finally the host announces you just won one million pounds. The audience goes wild, the cheers, major Ingram shouts yes. The host
steps forward, hugs him. Confetti rains down from the studio ceiling. It's like a month. Soon of like shiny paper, the confetti covers the set. As game show music plays, the host says to major Ingram, you are the most amazing contestant we've ever ever had. So there you go. You just watched a man steal a million pounds in front of you. To the crowd, the cameras, the audience watching at home, you've all been witnessed this episode. A major Ingram just brazly pulled off a game show heist.
Unbelievable.
So what happens next? Great question?
Is such a good question.
Didn't take long for questions to be raised, for doubts to surface, for producers and other contestants to voice their concerns that major Ingram's million pounds win might not be on the up and up. In fact, producers was so suspicious that they ordered a search of major Ingram's body before he left the studio. Really production team. They checked his hair, his clothes, his pockets, his shoes.
They the contents. I guess I get so sensitive to those things. Of the sound of people.
Why I put you in.
It's supposed to be so quiet.
I try to play up the silent silence.
Yeah, exactly, And you watched this, I watched the whole thing, watched the whole thing, and uhous.
So they can find no clear indication that he cheated, so they let him go. Right then the unexpected happens, major Ingram and his wife reunite backstage. Yeah right, they're all going to celebrate the win. But when the show's producers go back by the like the dressing room that they're in, they overhear the couple arguing, like shouting, screaming at each other.
What.
Yeah, there's speculation later on that he was only supposed to go so far, but apparently he just wanted to win the million dollars because which is far more suspicious than he would have won like one hundred and twenty eight thousand. Yeah, and which is all they needed to clear their debts. Remember they did this to clear their debts. Yeah, and now he's like, I'm going for broke baby, So she's like, you've ruined it all.
This is not the time to have the argument at all.
They're they're a classic game face game face. So in the moments before the host brings them champagne to celebrate, pretty much half of the production staff hears them screaming and shouting and the producer's suspicions now are completely alerted. So they go back and they check the tape and that's when they notice what you heard during the live recording,
the coughing. They figure out that it's coming from one of the other contestants waiting for his turn, a man named Professor Whittick, and there were other coughs coming from Diana. Major Ingram's wife was up there. The two of them were both taking turns to get him there, which is more than just suspicious, it's proof of crime. So producers they don't give major Ingram his one million pound check
they told it instead. The show's tapes are then given to London Metro Police to go over, which they do. The obvious coughing stands out to them as it did to your ears. They draw up criminal charges. Major Ingram, his wife, Diana, Professor Whittick. They're all arrested, charged with fraud or is the British barristers prefer to call it procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception.
It sounds like the characters on an episode of Father Brown like totally Professor Whittick.
Yeah. So the trial lasts four weeks. The jury comes back. They deliberate for three and a half days. Oh, which is a lot more. I thought it would be three and a half hours. Yeah, exactly, No, they were. They were almost a hung jury. In the end, all three are found guilty. They're convicted. The Ingrams catch eighteen month sentences. Professor Whittick is sentenced to a year behind bars. Are for game show manipulation, so they also get fined. The Ingrams are forced to pay the court costs for the
for the prosecution. So this amounts to roughly one hundred and fourteen thousand pounds, which is about one hundred and fifty two thousand dollars America.
Hey you were in debt before, Yeah, no, honey, Yeah.
He just tripled it or trebled it, so that's not all. Elizabeth major Ingram was still an active British Army officer. Oh no, you know, they don't play on that kind. No, so no stiff rupper lip and carry on on. This one Army stepped in. They handed down their own punishment. Major Ingram was forced to resign. He did get to keep his pensions.
Oh he did.
Yeah, I didn't think he was going to get that. Yeah, yeah, So that's how major Ingram missed out on a life changing million pound prize and instead became a laughing stock for flagrant cheating and showing his hole behind on TV one cough at a time. So there you go, Elizabeth. What is our ridiculous takeaway?
Yeah, cheaters never prosper. Oh that's nice. What's yours?
I love that? Just that their plan was we're gonna you know, obviously they weren't going for the million pounds, but let's say they were going for like one hundred and you know, twenty eight one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.
Yeah.
Their idea was we'll just cough racket. They didn't have anything more complicated than that. They didn't mix it up with like other sounds like a sneeze, a cough, maybe like a deep scratching or like a yawn. It was just one sound always.
At the same time, they're also risking the notion that they the producers could be like, I'm sorry, we got to run this one again. Someone was making noise in the audience, yea. Or they're taking the guy out his coughing and be like yeah, outside.
Removing the ringer.
Yeah, because you're obviously disturbing the recording.
Yes, sir, do you need medical assistance? So there you go.
And when the ringer that I use on this podcast starts hacking it up too much, I say, X Nate waits.
The eye signals, So there you go. You're in the mood for a talk pack. We can rinse this one bag.
Oh I love that.
Oh my god. I went gee.
Re listening to your tom VU episode and you were like, I'd like to see him try not to let me go to the bathroom. I'd go in the corner. In high school, we had a teacher that wouldn't let us go to the bathroom. One of the boys in class really had to go, and he kept saying, I got a pee. You don't understand. I gotta go. She wouldn't let him go, so he stood up, walked to the corner and did his business in her trash can. As ridiculous and thank you for always making me laugh.
I love that. He's a hero, you know, one of your steople. The teachers are like they want to you know, because kids say they want to go to the bathroom, they go horse around or go to other stuff becomes.
A power play.
But that you could that is not healthy. That's a bad thing to do to.
Oh yeah, keeping like flatter infections, all kinds of yes, exactly.
It's a power trip sometimes. Yeah, I love that. Just pin in the corner.
There you go.
Yeah, it doesn't matter what I as always. You can find his online Ridiculous Crime on Instagram and Blue Sky on Instagram. We have pictures from the show. If you want to see what major ingram looks like, go check that out. And uh, we also have our account Ridiculous Crime pod pod on YouTube, so you can watch these shows. It doesn't feature us if you're just animation, but it's just as fun to watch. Or you can listen if you like listening on YouTube. Do your thing. We ain't
gonna judge. We also have our website, Ridiculous Crime dot com and that's where you can find merch and gifts and and apparently we were nominated for a Newberry Award, so I was very excited about that. We'll see what happens there, Elizabeth. And clearly we love the talkback, so please go downloaded, leave yourself at talkback. Maybe you get to hear your voice here. We'd love to hear it. And uh, oh, forgot emails. You can always email us if you like it Ridiculous Crime at gmail jamail dot com.
Thank you for listening and we will catch you next.
Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett, produced and edited by inventor of Uncle Dave's Throat Coat Tea for Scratchy throat Cheaters, Mister Dave Kusten, and starring analysch Rucker Is Judith. Research is by the Professor Whittick to our major Ingram Marissa Brown and Jabari Davis. Our theme song is by Regis Philbin and The Quiz Show Kings aka Thomas Lee and Travis Duddy. Post wardrobe provided by Body five hundred producer. Dave's wardrobe provided by mister
Guy of Beverly Hills. Tear and makeup by Sparkleshock and mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben Please call me Megatron Boldin and No call me Nano Nol Brown.
Ridicous Crime Say it one More Times. Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts. My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.