Ridiculous crime is a production of iHeartRadio staring.
You know it's ridiculous.
Oh hey, what's up? It's me.
You know what's ridiculous. Yes, deals, deals.
Yes, we're so bad at spotting them. Okay, I'm bad at spotting them, but you know, like I'll give you a for instance, pizza deals. Yeah, okay, what's a better deal? One eighteen inch pizza or two twelve inch pizzas' eighteen inch?
You know, if people do.
Math, I know one of them, So I'll do the math for you. So the diameter is twelve inches on your pizza, right, okay, So then that means you have an area inside the pizza of one hundred and thirteen square inches. Okay, so that now double that?
Uh huh twenty six Boh, there you go, So.
You can do math. Now, if your pizza is eighteen inches the diameter, then the area is two hundred and fifty four seven square inches. So you get more pizza from one eight eighteen inch er than two of the smaller pizzas. That's why they give you the two medium pizza deals. Oh wow or whatever?
You know.
You know, the thing is, you get two pizzas. You can have different topics and then more people are happy. I just want everyone to be happy.
I just want more pizza.
That's true. Now I want pizza.
Isn't that ridiculous? Though?
Math? Math is ridiculous see.
Math exactly and our inability to do it on the fly.
Gosh, I'm really proud of myself for double good.
We're thirteen way to go good for me.
Do you know what else is ridiculous?
Nope?
Silver sing Blue Silver. 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 true that, uh you know that song. Mama tried, Yeah, Merle Merle Haggard Bakersfield own.
Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading I denied. That leaves me only to blame because mama tried.
Mamma tried, Mamma tried.
It has to be hard for mamas who try.
Oh yeah, ask mine, like.
They try and the kids still go bad?
Yeah, thank you, Yes, ask mine.
Sharon Fitzsimmons was one of those. She said of her son, quote, he's not a completely bad person. He's a very likable person. I think his big problem was intelligence and no common sense.
That can be a problem.
I just wish this would all come to an end. The last time I talked to him about what he was doing, this was a few years back. His response was that it's an excitement thing. He said. He got bored. So I said, well, why don't you take up skydiving? I said, we're not wealthy people, but we'll back you up. We'll support you morally, We'll be there for you.
I don't believe skydiving is a cheap hobby.
No, we're not wealthy, but will do what we.
Can to support your or.
Your skydiving habit. And who is this guy? I could have taken up skydiving to save his mama the stress. A man named Blaine Nordall.
Not Blaine Nordall, not the Blaine Nordal.
Blaine. He came from a good, hard working fan His dad was actually an artist, like a really well regarded one. It's not an art crime today though. His dad painted realist paintings of apache life. And one day Michael Jackson was in Steven Spielberg's office and saw one of those paintings, and so Jackson reached out to Blaine's dad, Blaine Senior, and they became really close friends, and Nordall Blaine Senior, became Jackson's personal portraitist what yeah so? And they bonded.
Blaine Senior and Michael Jackson bonded over their traumatic childhoods. This is what Blaine Senior said, quote, I grew up in a difficult home and he did too. We had no playtime growing up. We were both fanatical about work, so we have this like heavy work ethic in the house. His father said, quote, he could have been anything he wanted to be talking about Blaine, not Michael Jareff. He's never really given me an explanation of why. It just
breaks your heart. When your children are growing up, you have all kinds of concerns. You want them to be healthy, happy, popular, but you never think what would happen if they didn't turn out to be proper citizens.
Oh, Blaine nord All not a proper citizen.
He got busted for the first time when he was sixteen. He stole from a store, had to pay it all back. He dropped out of school in nineteen seventy eight and worked construction, and then he got his ged and his parents gave him a choice. You can become a cop or you can join the military.
So they wanted him.
They wanted farms. So he joined in the Navy in nineteen eighty and he did pretty well there for a while. He got Sailor of the Month, which for some reason is absolutely hilarious to me under like on the plaque you can take the picture off. Yeah, he got commendations, and he even was thinking he was like toying with the idea of becoming a Navy seal.
Oh you know, was he too tall?
Well, so much for that. No, he had no work ethics. So when he was just twenty one years old in nineteen eighty three, he stole sixteen hundred dollars worth of jewelry from a family in New Jersey on Halloween night. So the homeowner he hears like this commotion because his dog Saki alerted him. Let's hear it for sake.
Let's hear it for sake.
There's no mention in the newspaper articles of the time about the possible breed of Sake. So let's each envision our own version of Sake like a mini picture. It disclosed your eyes. Okay, that's Saki. So Nordall he stole quote, several gold chains, pendants, cufflings with the initials H jr. And an antique pocket knife.
And so the.
Homeowner he confronts Nordall on his way out and they tussled.
They got oh it, well really prided him, not like he excuse me and.
Somebody excuse me that'. And then Nordle's like he and he goes to run away and the guy jumps on him, tackles him. The home owner he rips Nordle's jacket off of it and then tries to chase him, but Blaine gets away. He's younger, and yeah, this is such a bum maneuver. By the way, like stealing from some random guy's house. It wasn't a mansion. It is just a working guy.
I think we often like have to parse this line because like you know, you hear me. I always root for the criminals as long as nobody's getting hurt, but not when they're just robbing normal demotion of hurt.
There's physical hurt and then.
Exactly and also I don't want the violation of like you know, if you're going to break into a store that has insurance. That's one thing. If you're breaking into someone's home and like it's going to be traumatic for them or like, that's not what I'm going to excuse. It's like that's fun crime.
Have you ever had your home broken into?
Uh, not that I'm aware of. No. I've had stuff stolen from outside of my house a bunch, right, And I've had nineteen bikes stolen from me. It's god, nineteen.
It's terrible, Like it's it's a violation, and like it's interesting. I'm talking about this because I was working on this outline today and then I got forward in an email from a listener named Hondo who had just had his home broken into. They trashed the place. They took a bunch of stuff, including heirlooms, and he kind of he just wanted to vent, but he said it changed his mind about nonviolent crimes, like they're just not funny anymore. I agree. I don't. I don't want anyone to be
violated like that. I mean, like, okay, even the violently rich, when they experience a violation, that's bad. You know, it's just their personal stuff and the circumstances can be ridiculous, but it's still a crime. It's like a violation of the social.
Yeah, robbing a museum is different than robbing a person's.
House, right, So I just want to say, we don't endorse this kind.
No, I don't endorse it, and we.
Feel terrible for Hondo. We do big up yeah, and everyone else who's had some dusty clowns break in and take their stuff.
It's horrible. It feels terrible, and we would never make jokes.
So anyway, Blaine talk about that guy. This wasn't his first job in the neighborhood. That night, though, the cops were onto him. They set the bloodhounds on him because they had the jacket, the literal bloodhounds. They had the jacket. They're like, give this a huff and then go get them.
Get them.
For three hours, they searched for him with dogs, with a helicopter. They even they had to interrupt trick or treating like all. Yes, So if they caught him, that meant that they could charge him with, you know, all
these other crimes. And they did. They caught him. They charged him with one count of theft and one count of burgway for another job in addition to the Halloween night one in an interview in nineteen ninety eight with Shrewsbury Police Captain James Wilson, looking back on the eighties, he said, quote, he hit us a number of times. He's the reason a wealthy older lady living here doesn't have any silver. She replaced it three times and he took it three times. Horrible. And he didn't just have
these burglary charges hovering over him. Remember how he was in the Navy. He had an a wall charge because he just skipped out.
I'm not in the Navy anymore.
It's like remember them the Navy, in.
The Navy, not anymore. I was in the Navy.
I hit the door before he could be tried. Though. He got busted in New York and he racked up a bunch more charges. He wound up doing time the end. Okay, good for him.
Yeah, there you go.
So what's your ridiculous take away? So he got out in the early nineties, but then he went straight the end, So what's your ridiculous again? He did get out in the early nineties, but he went back to criming almost immediately. Nineteen ninety one, Detective Lonnie.
Mason got so common.
Yeah, he was wearing a floppy hat and a turtleneck. He said, he do so Mason was just driving me us, I can't believe I didn't pick up on that. Mason was an investigator for New Jersey's Monmouth County Prosecutors. He busted Nordall twice and he knew more about him than anyone else. So he gets a call from the local cops in RUMs in New Jersey. They wanted his help in nabbing Blaine after a bunch of silver related burglaries in the area, so they figured it had to be
his work. So Mason he looks at the notes, he realizes that all the burglaries happened on a Thursday night, so he decided to go all out. They gave him sixteen officers.
Someone's not watching friends, there's.
Not mustse TV for them, and they set up an overnight stakeout that covered a two block area in Remson. Nothing happened, no burglaries. Mason later said, quote, I thought, thank God, maybe he saw one of our guys and called it off. But then Mason he gets a call from the chief. According to Mason, he said, quote, he said, can you tell me why I authorized all this overtime? Because he hit three houses last night, And I said, well, what section, because I know one section he didn't hit.
My boss gave me the addresses and it was the two block radius we were in. Just in their two blocks, three houses. They couldn't sixteen dudes couldn't secure three times. Yes. So he did eventually get caught for those and others. In February of nineteen ninety two, he got locked up in New Jersey after being charged with forty three burglaries in Camden, Monmouth, Mercer, Morris and Somerset counties. In December of ninety four, he was out of jail and into crime.
So he stole about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of silver from four homes Salver, Jersey. He only stole silver. That was it.
That's his thing.
That was it.
I know, it's good, we'll talk, ok.
So he then worked his way from New Jersey in Philadelphia and like Westchester County in New York to Boston, Baltimore because around there, like the wealthy folks, they had more colonial silver.
Yeah, real silver, you think of silver?
Oh yeah. He started like hitting all it's in a case. Rose Pointe, Michigan, Kennebunkport, Mainecastle, Delaware, Winnett, Illinois. I did, but it's true. So he wintered in Miami and Palm Beach. He hit them in the in the wintertime. How did the cops always know it was him?
Because he's always taking silver?
Yes?
And is that it? Seriously?
He had a signature. He was immaculate and precise. So this is maybe where his like childhood work ethic hammered. He he would wear either latex gloves or those cotton gardening gloves with like the little gripper dots on them to avoid leaving fingerprints. He carried a duffel bag that held screwdrivers, a carpet knife, wirecutters, a wood chisel, nail polars, a flashlight, a white cotton rag, duct tape, and like a really thin black steel pry bar.
That's a hell of a crime kit.
I like it.
It's a good one. So he climbed power poles and he cut the electricity to get around alarm systems. And he was like five to four.
Oh this a little very important.
So it was easy for him to get into tight spaces. Yeah, he scraped putty from the windows or the doors, and like would remove the panes of glass using duct tape. He never set off sensors because no doors or windows were actually opened, and he always left the panes of glass stacked neatly against the outside of the house. Is
very style, very particular. He used architectural digest to find targets, and like sometimes he'd call a real estate agent in the area and say that he wanted to buy like a really big, really old home in a established neighborhood, a settled neighborhood, and where would I look? What are
some of those neighborhoods. So they'd give him all this information, and based on that, he'd scope the neighborhood during the day and he would look for houses that were like set far back from the road, and so you know, he'd figure out, Okay, this is where I want to hit. He'd go back to his motel, he'd take a nap, God bless, he'd have dinner people people, He'd have dinner, and then he'd go back out, like in the middle
of the night to strike. And a lot of times he would hike through forest for miles and like forest backyards to get to his target. We've heard that before.
With the dinner set gang. Yeah. So I mean, if you really want to be real about it, there's not many cops in the woods.
Yeah, and like you don't want to won't see a car park.
People, People don't expect it right the way.
So once he's in, he went only for silver. Like I said, so this is almost always downstairs, which means it's less likely to wake up the owner's upstairs. He'd hit the dining and pantry areas. He'd load everything into a tablecloth that he'd find or like even like a cabinet drawer.
Everything is the noise of that much matters, like he's having to like I'm sure like put them in.
With I'm guessing, And so then he'd take it all outside. Once he got outside, then he'd soar through the items. That's when it would get noisy. And he brought a test kit so he'd figure out is that silver is silver plated, And he'd only take the very best pieces, and I guess he just left the rest in the yard. He would leave the table cloth or the dresser drawer
or whatever behind. A sneaker imprint was found on the countertop after one of his heists, and that led to his arrest in jail in nineteen ninety.
Two off a sneaker print one.
So he started throwing away his shoes, all his clothing, and his break in tools when he completed a heist.
The other thing is is you buy your clothing at a good will so that there's no ability to trace the purchase.
Yeah, good point or any kind of like DNA.
Well anywhere. Yeah, but they wouldn't be able to say, like your yeah, your shoes. Yeah.
Yeah.
So why silver?
Why silver, Elizabeth?
Thank you? Stephen Dubner of Navinnie Yorker wrote. Quote. Mason argues that silver was particularly appealing to Nordal because it connotes the sort of family that passes along precious things from one generation to the next, a family that was distinctly unlike Nordal's own. As Mason sees it, Nordal remained embittered by his parents' divorce. He resented his father and became extraordinarily close to his mother. When Mason got ahold of Nordal's phone records, he was astonished by the number
of calls between the two. Nothing gave Nordal greater pleasure, Mason believes than stealing a rich man's silver and turning it into cash that he would shower on his mother, who, while unhappy about her son's calling, appreciated his devotion.
I'm sorry I had to steal your silver, but I hate my dad. Yeah, basically, that's cool. That's an interesting one.
If I was told that to my face, I'd be like, it's an interesting like psychological analysis.
And wanting to send the money whatever to his mother, like yeah, to a kind of apologize for the dad, or like get over on. That's just a very interesting complex.
Yeah, it's it's not like the dusty clown behavior of most burglars who are just no exactly.
It's not also like lack of impulse control. It's like a weird pathology exactly.
So during one job, he left behind like one thousand dollars in cash that had been sitting on a dining room table, which ps who has a thousand dollars sitting on their dining room table? Not I you don't, said the fly.
That's how I know it's my dining room table. It's got the thousand dollars.
As it comes in, like the cop comes in, he sees it and he's like he's taunting us. This is he's just doing that so the cops they keep on this trail. He was the prime suspect of the May nineteen ninety six theft of one hundred and fifty one thousand dollars worth of salt and pepper shakers. Huh silver ones. Yes, one hundred and fifty dollars tiffany strawberry box, a ninety dollars limoge garlic box, a ninety dollars limoge chestnut box.
Now, when you're saying these boxes is just like a box for my strawberries, a box for my garlic.
I'm about to tell you a one hundred and twenty dollars limoje lemon box and a one hundred and twenty five dollars limoje artichoke heart box from Ivana Trump's place in Greenwich.
What this is?
What a limoje box lit.
The one on the left.
So basically they're small hinged porcelain trinkets, little boxes made in limoje. Friends, they're big, Yeah, they're super fanciful, particularly the fruit and vegetable ones. This is like something you'd get at gumps in the city in San Francis. Yes, so you wonder did Blaine give these to someone?
Elizabeth. Did Blaine give these to outside.
The Silver Uvra?
Yes?
Well, Nordal had an on off again girlfriend named Luanne, like Zaren's favorite comic strip. Of course, this again off again girlfriend's a fun girl.
Yeah, I I.
Don't think he gave her the Limoje boxes, but it was a really great segue for me to get you to Luanne. So Luanne's girlfriend, but she also became an informant for Mason. That was in the off again time. Apparently, how did Mason flip Luwan?
How did Mason flipped Elizabeth? Break?
Let's take a break, we come back. I'm going to tell you how Mason flipped lu Wan. Welcome Blaine, nordle Red White and Blaine. That's a special shout out for old Phineas Gage. So I was telling you about how Detective.
Lonnie Mason Common detective Common wo he loves hip hop, does the hip and the loves.
Him Mammoth County Prosecutors Office. He convinced Blaine's girlfriend Luanne to become an informant. Luan was a troubled she had a heroin habit we should not be laughing about. But it's very bad. That's a bad thing.
It's not just unfortunate thing.
It's also kind of interesting seeing as how Blaine Nordal didn't do drugs Like he didn't. He didn't.
You don't usually hear about people being in a relationship with someone who you're not doing heroin.
It wasn't even that he didn't do drugs. He didn't drink, he didn't ingest caffeine.
Wow. Yeah, So and is this all like some moral compunction of his.
It was just like his thing. His addiction was stealing things.
I get that.
A former girlfriend of his said he was obsessed with stealing every night and then quote he got high off it. He liked going into houses when people were sleeping. He says it's more exciting to go into a house when people are there and get away with it. So that's his high. Yeah. So Luann like she's having a rough one anyways.
Like I don't do drugs, I do crime.
Basically crime in my drugs. Mason put a bug in Luand's ear that he could help her. Now it was just up to her to reach out. And instead of telling you about it, Zarin close eye. Oh yeah, I want you to picture it. It's nineteen ninety six, you're a Greenwich, Connecticut police officer. What you are also on steroids?
All right?
That doesn't have anything to do with anything. I just thought to be fun for you. You're also super into astrology. Doesn't have anything. I just thought that'd be fun. So about a week ago, you heard that someone broke into Avonna Trump's house and stole some stuff, real fancy stuff. And this morning you were told that Blaine Nordall's girlfriend was singing to Detective Mason. You've been assigned to his
special task force trying to catch this guy. Word is Nordal is hold up at the Super eight in Stamford. It's now eleven thirty at night. You and the other dozen or so guys on your team are posted outside the Super eight. It's a warm night, and you're sitting in the passenger seat of an unmarked car with all the windows down, outside of Kathy's Dominican Beauty salon and Samela's barbershop next door. I should mention that Samela's has a one star operating with the only review being quote
by chance. I saw this barber and decided that I really needed a shave. What a mistake. I suffered three cuts to the neck and face. FYI, it's just off Exit six in Stamford. Be afraid, be very afraid.
That's the only review.
That's the only review. So a cruiser is parked at the shell station on the corner. Another unmarked car is in the Super eight motel lot, waiting to give the signal that Blaine and the Wan have been spotted. You hear the Connecticut Turnpike, a block away, quiet buzz of traffic this time of night, big rigs humbi in the distance, but the air around you is filled with the sound of your police radio and cicadas. You have one job
for tonight, and it's a dramatic one. Your radio crackles to life, and the announcement that Nordal has been spotted. I repeat, Blaine is on the move. He and Luan appear to be packing their car. Move, Move, Move. Your partner hits the gas and squeals out of the parking lot with a little too much gusto. Settle down, you tell him, tranquilo compadre. You do your job. You're one job. You dial a number on your cell phone, You say you there into the line, You get a yes. Hold on.
You tell the person on the line, you and all the other Greenwich police officers with a few Stanford guys thrown in as a courtesy approach. Blaine and Luanne. You step forward dramatically. You hand Luann your cell phone. It's Lonnie Mason on the other end. Common Luanne, you have two choices here. Mason tells her, you can either stay on tour with Blaine and get indicted down the road, or you can go with these cops and cooperate. You know that Mason knows that Luanne has a ten year
old son back in New Jersey. Oh, Mason tells Luann to think about him, not nor at all. Luanne starts crying and hangs up the phone. She turns and gets in the police car. What are you doing, nord All yells. He tells her that she'll be in trouble without him since he has her heroin. Whoa, whoa? You did not know about that part. I'll get it from the police. Luan says, Oh wow, there's a lot happening happening. There's
so much happening. You really want to ask her what her sign is, to try and figure out the whole energy here.
I have a good guest, though, She shuts the.
Car door, gets in the in the squad car. You're like, I kind of need my phone back too, is what you're thinking. But Luanne is lost in her thoughts. You'll get it back later. So now Mason has Luanne on his side, but he needed to lock that in and get her to agree to testify.
This is like the movie Heat.
It's so amazing. So is so she started to talk One night after Mason drove to her house and showed a photo to her. It had been in Blaine's possession the last time he got pinched. It was a picture of a blonde woman in a white dress posing in front of the Manhattan skyline. Not her, Yeah, not her. Mason knows it's a gamble, but he's pretty sure it's going to pay off. That son of a She does what she shouts. Then she pulls a picture out of
her purse. It's the exact same picture but with her in it, same pose, everything.
He just take this thing.
It's his thing. So Luanne, she's like, yeah, look I know where both of these photos are taken. It's a promenade and weehawken guess what you know? It's down the block his fence oh so, then like, okay, this is the last straw for her. So she starts giving the Greenwich police any information about Nordle that she can think of, and so they have the promise of her testimony. This Detective Cornell Abrunzini, he was able to obtain a warrant to arrest Nordal for six Greenwich burglaries.
When you hear mister Abrazzini, you don't expect Cornell.
Detective Cornell Cornell is so good. So despite Luann's help, Mason and Abersini, they couldn't find Nordall anywhere in New Jersey. He had a hunch that dude was hiding at his mom's place in Indiana, though, oh so he had the FBI put her home under surveillance. Nordal was spotted driving to his mom's house with a truck full of drywall.
Apparently himself.
You know, he was off, he had a break in his work and he had cash.
It's like a lawn order SVU, like we found there's a whole room back here.
So FBI agents they told Mason that they would take Blaine into custody, and Mason warned them against it. This is what he said quote. I'll never forget it. It was a rainy, nasty day, they said. We chased him in the front door of his mom's house and out the back, and he's in a wooded area. We haven't cordoned off. We have helicopters up, we got dogs here. It's nineteen degrees and it's going to snow. He can't survive in the woods for any length of time. I said,
how long have you been out there? He said, oh, about forty five minutes. I said, I'm telling you right now, Blaine is gone. Blaine is probably ten miles away right now. Call me back when you find out I was right. Next day, I get a call. You're not going to believe this. He was at a bank withdrawing money by the time we were talking to you on the phone.
Blaine's like a Czechoslovaki and interior decorator. He ain't gonna catch him in the woods. He's gone.
He is. He is in the wind. So the FBI traced the credit card that he used to buy the dry wall. It had been issued to one of his aliases. So they issued this alert that described his car, and an off duty officer saw it at a Walmart in Sparta, Wisconsin. Whoa Yeah. October eighteenth, nineteen ninety six, at the age of thirty five years old, he was arrested at a Walmart in Sparta, Wisconsin. So at the Walmart, he was caught with like these big rubber maid containers. He had
maps of the Connecticut's Fairfield County. He had a fake credit card, he had a directory of America's rich and famous on him, and they're like, you know, this is a little suspects some downtime reading. So the police they were like, they found out he had a storage locker in Wilton, Wisconsin. They're like, oh, this has got to be it. But you know there was nothing in there anyway. Oh wow, Angie Cannon of Night rit Or News service said, quote, in the dead of night, dressed all in black, he
slunk to the butler's pantries and swiped the sterling cat burglar. Yes, but it was no Carrie Grant that the police charged last week. This accused sneak thief is five foot four as a receding hairline drives a Dodge pickup. Was caught at a Walmart. And she goes on to quote Detective Brunzini.
Why she got a like body sham and with the he's got a receiving hair car.
What's up with the papers? With the unnecessary?
They just throw him in for like, I got some space in his column A.
Brunzini sprinkles a little on top. I don't think Hollywood will sign him up?
What the hell?
Come on, dude, you must be surprised. Exactly. So he's held on five hundred thousand.
That is why the man steals, because you guys just won't let him.
The world is cruel. He gets held on five hundred thousand dollars bond while extradition to Connecticut was pending, and that's where he was wanted for two counts of third degree larceny, four counts of first degree larseny, and six counts of second degree burglary.
Did the fashion police come after? No counts?
No counts on that? Apparently he bought his clothes at men's warehouse. Oh it's a fun fact.
So research.
No stolen ims were found in his home when it was searched, but they did find materials needed to make fake id's and they all found a video called how to Create a New Birth Certificate, a rubber stamp that read original document and a book called how to Launder Money?
Don't you think the FBI is the one who writes these things, Like if you have a video and you're like clicking on it, they're like, we got another totally.
So at this point, he's suspected of stealing one million dollars in silver in approximately forty burglaries over the past four years. This is like Connecticut, Florida, all of them. He also hit a bunch of places in Palm Beach, Florida, including the home of sportscaster Kurt Goudie. Yeah, so police they suspected him of breaking into Bruce Springsteen's place in RUMs And, New Jersey, but that turned out to be not true. I think they just thought maybe this is how we meet the race.
Yeah, we're just gonna suspect it.
Bruce, ye call us, we got to come over.
Yeah, tell the boss we have his silver.
He was also the suspect of the theft of fifty thousand dollars worth of silver from the grounds of Andalucia, the childhood home of diplomat Nicholas Biddle, who's and that is now a National Historic Landmark on the river.
Yeah.
Well, public defender his his lawyer said, quote, everyone else in the East Coast who has an unexplained burglary is convinced he did it. And Jimmy Hoffs disappearance too.
Hey got a comedian. Yeah, so lawyers always trying to do a quick five. I got a crowd here. Why got you guys?
He wants to get on court TV. That was the thing of the day. Second Assistant prosecutor. That's a good title, Robert Honecker said, quote, He's the burglar to the stars.
See what's the game?
They all look, I'm quoting them, but Michael they won.
Michael Chertoff though, he'll drop the bars.
So the thing is like, he's this burglar to the stars. But he didn't know or care whose house he was hitting.
Whose house runs house? Whose house?
The only reason that he knew he'd taken stuff from Ivana Trump is that he got back to his motel and saw Trump stamp stamped on the back of two pewter plates. And he didn't care about that. He was more bone than he'd picked up pewter. Let's take a break. When we get back from this time of quiet contemplation, I am going to continue telling you about Blaine Nordal or not. Like, maybe I'll mix it up and change
gears and push the envelope talk about something else. Maybe I'll talk about all the hobbies I picked up and never finish. Yeah, you're gonna have to tune in and see.
Be the Zamboni you want to see in the world.
Blaine, Blaine, Nordal.
No, no Zaren.
It's Zaren, But I always want to say Narwal. You look at it, see it, and I see Narwhal, but it's Nordal. It's not Narwal Zarin. Stop it. After his arrest at the Walmart at the Walls, about two point three million dollars in burglary claims in fourteen states were attributed to him. So first they're like, it's a million in and then all these other people are chiming in. Yeah, everyone was thrilled to have caught him, and they wanted
to talk about him too. So let me read you a bunch of quotes of everyone wanting to and again they won because now I'm quoting them. Detective Sergeant Michael Shookt of Southampton Village on Long Island's East End said quote, when and if I meet him, I'd like to shake his hand. He was extremely good, very professional, very efficient, and they said that Nordal took quote a lot of intestinal fortitude.
Cops want to be writers, lawyers want to be communians.
Rock stars want to be I just want to go.
You want to be asleep.
I just want to be asleep. Monroe County District Attorney or I suppose if it were in the south of the Monroe but Monroe County District Attorney John me Twusecotball quote. See, yeah, I've had lots of guys try to intimidate me in court.
Don't brag.
Guys will stare you down and maybe say something. I always stare them down. The usually smile. But this guy is so cool. We had our stare down, but he didn't budge, which is unusual.
Silverback psychology. I stare, they stare, sometimes smile.
Detective Fred Nort the Southampton Police Department said, quote, Blaine was good, very good. One of the best cat burglars I've seen. He was never armed, he was never violent, he never heard anyone. He was like Robin Hood, stealing from the rich, except he didn't give to the poor.
Guy.
Lower Marion Police Sergeant Mark Keenan, what did he say?
Saren.
Oh, I don't know, but fan of Charles Bronson movies, I know it's gonna be good.
Quote. He lives a very low key lifestyle. He never goes out controversy. Thanks thanks for telling us that.
Are you projecting the investigation?
It looked like most of his spending took place at Walmart and Walgreens and in the walls. During one six week stretch, he spent more than two.
Grand at wall drinking. Harvey walbachers do that six.
Weeks, you could do it nuts, Yeah, anyway, and then, like I said, he bought his clothes at Men's Warehouse after his arrest. After his arrest at the Walmart, it soon became obvious that, like, he's not going to do a bunch of time because none of the cases against him were strong. They had no forensic evidence, none of the silver was recovered, there's no record of any of the cash that he got from the sale of this. Yeah. And then we got the little issue of our star witness.
When is a heroin addict?
Yeah, you can usually assassinate that character.
Yeah. So this is what his attorney said. Quote, if you're in law enforcement and you've got some cold cases, you'll give your kidney just to get somebody to say I did that. Blaine harms nobody, aside from the fact that you'll never see your great great great grandfather's knife and fork again. Okay, what if it happens to you, sir? You know, someday blaineill rob his own attorney. On October eleventh, nineteen ninety seven, he confessed. Blaine confessed to making into
seven Greenwich homes, including Evonna Trump's. He and his lawyer they signed a deal with federal prosecutors that laid out all the details of like one hundred and fifty recent burglaries. Blaine agreed to meet with police officers from the jurisdiction so that they could like officially clear the cases. In exchange, he would plead guilty only to the interstate Transportation of Stolen Property.
Oh he went to federal chargem.
Smart So, while free on bail, he gets arrested again smart Smart, this time this time by Baltimore police after they got a tip from Lower Marion police in Philadelphia who noticed him making his way to Baltimore. He was walking back to his nineteen ninety one red Cadillac Deville, which was parked outside of mansion. They had more than two dozen cops waiting at the car, like, oh hey, Blaine, what's up. He had burglary tools on him, but no silver, but they were able to tie him to these five
other burglaries. So Baltimore police said that they had been preparing since summer to charge him with twelve burglaries that took place inside their city limits. That spree allegedly took place after he was released on bail. When police noticed that similar crimes were occurring again. They started keeping him under nighttime surveillance. And police though they'd lose him because he'd get off of highways onto deserted streets and they'd circle a few times and always lose the tail every time.
So in this little spree, seven hundred thousand dollars worth of silver was stolen. According to one of the veteran cops quote, he knew the difference between silver plated and solid silver. He is a true professional. You just don't find a burgler like this every day. This has probably been the most difficult case as far as burglary goes that I've seen in my career.
You know, you got to kind of hand it to cops for being honest about this, because you know, they deal with some of the dumbest most just like whoah, like yeah, gobsmack head hitting kind of like why would you do that? Criminals? And then finally got one guy who's like really good. They're like this guy's and you know, it's kind of like a comp meant to us why I got into this, Yeah, this is what I want to be doing.
So in January of two thousand and two, this huge hall of silver gets stolen from a mansion in ryan Beck, New York, Edgewater not Yes, built in eighteen twenty three. The owner at the time, Richard Jenratt. He was a retired financier whose hobby was preserving historic homes. That's a great.
Hobby, preserving like for like the historic record, or just like you know, maybe like like flipping them.
No, no, no, like preserving them for the historic record, going through and making sure that everything is repaired to period details or whatever. You know. It's like kind of like one of my hobbies.
Yeah, that you do that on weeks.
It's easy. It's so cheap.
I mean, they're Barbie dream homes but the same stuff.
Edgewater had been the home of the Donaldson family.
Oh, yes, the Donaldson is good family. I've known them since the same dogs, ages and generatt.
He tracked down the last living Donaldson descendant who had moved to the south of Spain, and he convinced her to keep the family's original silver at Edgewater.
Well, they've had it for donkeys years and.
It was a massive set. He's like repatriated back to the hump. All of that silver was starle gone, as well as a toddy ladle and it's fish server for a six piece tea set, luncheon knives and dematas spoons and a chocolate pot.
Demotos spoons, chocolate pot, Come on, choco, that's one.
He takes all the silver that had been like painstakingly returned to the home. Yes, and there was poor woman in Spain is like okay, great, thanks good advice. He left behind these like crazy expensive paintings and porcelain. Is he just blain? He just wanted silver. The same evening there was another burglary, same evening as Edgewater, ten miles south at Wilderstein or Wilderstein. I don't know how you say it, and quite frankly, I don't care. This was the former home.
Of Daisy Suckley, not Daisy.
You know who she is, distant cousin and close companion of Franklin Delano Rose.
I did.
I could throw on any name. Oh yes, of course. And then you tell me I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you, and not believe that you don't know. Okay, I'm so excited. I got one over.
I need to work on a peerage of American royalty.
Well, so at this place, at the old Suckley House, the only thing stolen there with silver. So both of these meticulous heists same night. It gets reported on in the New York Times. After, you know, reading this article about the double heist, Aberusini he calls the Rhinebeck Police, tells the trooper handling the case, quote, I know the guy who's doing your burglaries. It's like watching the same bad movie again and again, so which it must be.
You're like, oh my god, he's striking everywhere. So Abersini gives them Nordal's name and his aliases David Price and Robert Damiani. Abersini told this this cop check the local motels under all three names. So he's calling. He's calling. On the tenth try. He calls a super eight, several miles south of Rightbeck, which because I think he had like a customer loyalty card to the superint hotels.
It's going to be near the freeway, you know that.
He finds out a man named David Price had paid cash for this room, and the clerk when he checks him in, writes down his car information, like the license plate for this Cadillac Civilli's driving, makes a photocopy of the driver's license. So the cops they race down there. The photo on the license is Blane, but it says David Price, and then they find out he'd checked out more than a week earlier. So so much for that. February of two thousand and two, the US Marshals they
captured him outside of Duncan Donuts. Oh, Laurel, he was driving a green Cadillacsiville.
Yeah, you may be on the lamb, but Duncan called.
Duncan exactly off. He went to federal prison in Elkton, Ohio. He was released in November of twenty ten, and he ran a pool service with his girlfriend, Elizabeth Irene Music.
That's a cool name.
Yeah, it is a cool name. So he stayed on the straight and narrow cleaning pools and like reading to orphan rescue dogs. No, no, he did not. August twenty sixth, twenty thirteen, he was arrested again, right back at him, right now, Blane's fifty one now.
Way, Well, you know, you got to do what you know how to do, and if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.
Well, and at this point he'd reached it where he was. Now he gets arrested because he's responsible for millions of dollars worth of silver being stolen from homes in Athens, Georgia and all over the southeast.
He needed to get high, Elizabeth, he really did, I want to tell you.
So see nord Doll's probation.
Athens, Georgia like a college town looking for old silver.
Oh, he's going to all sorts of plantations.
Like Savannah for that.
Oh he did, He had all of it. So his probation was transferred to Florida when he moved to Jacksonville, and that was his new base of operations, and he would travel from there across state lines, but not so far away that he'd be missed by probation. Oh smart, So they figured that he was responsible for over seventy burglaries that took place throughout twenty thirteen Georgia, North Carolina,
South Carol Line, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee. He hit Athens alone three times and lifted like thirty thousand dollars in silver. Damn Buckhead. Atlanta was hit pretty hard. Yeah, So in Atlanta detective he put together a task force. Blaine Nordal,
the man who launched a million task forces. Blaine hit the Cullini plantation in Davy's County, North Carolina, and it was there that he lifted one hundred and forty eight thousand dollars of sterling silver, as well as priceless spoons made by Paul Revere Wow, and a tea set that had been saved by a slave who buried it when Union soldiers moved through.
Damn yeah, they maked it.
He is back on his bs.
So.
Another burglary victim said that he and his wife didn't realize their stuff was missing for a few days. Quote. My wife went into the dining room to straighten up before we had guests over, and she called out that there's glass missing from the window. Oh yeah, and then now, how are you going to entertain you have no silver. They know that a drawer was missing from the sideboard.
He'd used the entire drawer and they punch bowl as vessels for two sets of sterling silver, flatware, a dematas set, balls, saucers, other assorted sterling silver and mint julip cups.
Do you think he was having this stuff melted down?
I don't know, because and he had a fence, and I don't know if he was selling it to the fence for weight of silver. Yeah.
I would hope that for way of silver, because otherwise it's going to be pretty easy to find that stuff and then connect like.
It's not melted.
I mean, I don't mean that way. I mean like if I was like the fence, I'm like sitting there talking to the fence, and I'm like, hey, we got to melt this down, illig you canna get caught in that way. I'm hoping they're doing it.
Yeah, seventeen, it all came crashing down.
Oh.
Five years prior, Blaine had broken into the home of Bill Jones, the third in a gated community on Saint Simon's Island.
Oh Saint Simon's. Oh yeah, you're not going to get who is build the third son of the golfer, grandson the golf.
Now, let me read to you from his profile in Cigar Offiicionaudo.
Okay quote his name.
His real name is A. W. Jones, the Third, but most friends and family in Sea Island, Georgia referred to
him as Bill three. He's the fourth generation chairman and chief executive officer of the Sea Island Company, the proprietor of one of the world's largest and finest golf resorts, and the scion of an empire that encompasses sixty five thousand acres of prime low country coastal property, which he is continually developing and upgrading through both good and bad economic times, and enjoying the best that a cigar world has to offer.
To Bobby Johnes, I'm not done, Sarah.
I like a strong, powerful cigar that's rich in flavors, Bill three allows during a recent interview as he fires up Adente Opus X double Corona. I smoke two or three cigars a day, and I find it very relaxing activity. That's a great compliment to the things I enjoy doing outdoors. We get hit, we get we get Bill. So the article describes him with like these beautiful turns of phrases.
Quote his sunburned complexion, smooth as sea island cotton. What and quote he owns well over four hundred Turkey calls handmade by the late Neil cost whom he calls the Stratavarius of Turkey. Calls his Robin's big blue eyes flicker with delight as he boasts of shedding thirty five pounds from his five foot nine inch frame. Like make it stop. I could not sleep.
I don't want to hear them describe what former Speaker John Bayner looks like.
Oh God, the most beautiful piece.
Of tobacco or a wine stain left in the sun anyway.
Twenty seventeen, FBI agents intercepted a FedEx shipment that had a silver charm bracelet in it that you know Bill three? Is it Bill Bob whatever?
Bill?
Bill three and his wife they could identify it. So Blaine, He's now fifty five years old. He pleads guilty to a charge of burglary in the first degree. Court Judge Anthony Harrison, I tell you that name because it's not important. Sentence nordaal To eleven years in prison and nine years probation as a repeat offender under the state recidivist statute. He was also he was up against like a possible life sentence in South Carolina because I guess they go
hard on burglary South Carolina. Yeah, Detective Mason told the New Yorker quote, I said, Blaine, if you ever want to use your knowledge in a positive way, I'd work with you. You could work in the insurance industry, in the area of silver. You could work with alarm systems. If you want to team up, go into a business. We could turn this into a crime prevention program. What did he say, I asked. He said, I don't think so.
I don't like work. Yeah, you'd probably tell from my career as a criminal.
He is thought to have stolen at least ten million dollars worth of silver in over fifteen states in his career.
Damn, they had a silver of old families that he has touched.
I know. Is that your takeaway?
Ridiculous takeaway?
What's your ridiculous takeaway?
You should have go flatwear? Yeah, because that's class. Make it real. I like, I like electrically conductive flatware. Okay, otherwise I'm like, am I gonna get shocked.
Come on, if I'm going to stick this into an outlet, let's make it worth it.
You know, like give me a spark, or what are we doing here now? But for all intense and purposes, what would you say is your ridiculous take away? Elizabeth got that table turner?
Oh how the turntables turn my takeaway? I you know, I've been thinking a lot before we even got the email from the listener. I've been thinking a lot about the personal violation of it. Yes, because we had we had some silver stolen in our family and it was like, I don't know, there's a part of me that's like it's just stuff, but at the same time, like it holds a lot of meaning to a family when it's
like it wasn't like oh this opulent thing. These are like working class people who'd saved up and passed it down from generations.
You don't want to be ablee to lose it for all these generations of them people trying to hold it.
You don't want to be like, oh, yeah, like this survived all these other things. And so I think, you know, it's interesting about the violation of it. And what's even more interesting is this guy's addiction to it, and he's kind of getting high off the violation of it, which.
Is just do you think?
So, I don't know, I actually guess he said that, Yeah, ex girlfriends.
I wouldn't have put in the terms of violation, but now that you you do. But he really did. He said he liked to be in the house with the people while are sleeping, which is very much a violation of their sense of peace and privacy and so forth.
So, I mean, I wish there was a party that could be honestly like, oh, it's just stuff. Who cares? But it does. There's you know, there's sentimental things, and then they are also just logistical issues when people steal stuff like that. So what I'm trying to say is they're all dusty bumbs, not like bums is and unhoused. But yes, you know, it's just such bum dusty behavior to esty behavior. So anyway, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Did you tell me the same one what you had? What you said, Yeah, that was mine. I'm just going to say it a little bit louder.
That's us. That's us I have. That's all I have. You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram.
Yeah, we are.
Email ridiculs Crime at gmail dot com. You will likely not get a response. Leave us a talkback on the iHeart app just you know, reach out Baby. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Sea Island's Shadows scion Dave Cousten. Research is by cigar saboteur Marisa Brown and metals expert and by that I mean the Feist album Andrea song Sharp and Tear. The theme song is by Butler on a Smoke Break
Thomas Lee and Super eight regional manager Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Executive producers are Low Country Land Advocate Ben Bolan, An Elusive Silver Fence, Noel Brown.
Dis Clime Say It One More Time Crime.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more Podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.