Thinking Sideways: Who tried to kill Bob Marley?

not know your name suddenly? No? We do this every time you know it's the fake name. It throws me on. I know as all. We've got another mystery for you, and this week we're going to talk about who tried to assassinate Bob Marley. Yeah that you didn't know that was a mystery, did you. Yeah. I was really kind of surprised when I found out about it. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Is this part of your like transformation into a Rastafarian

with your little bracelet and yell hair tie. Yeah? And I'm growing my dreads you Yeah, at least I'm not wearing that the hat with the fake dreads on it. Yeah. Oh that's the worst. Okay, well, our story is, uh, the short of it is that in nineteen seventies six three gunmen drove onto Bob Marley's property in Jamaica and open fire with automatic weapons and shot Bob. They shot his wife. I believe one other person at least was shot, but nobody was killed. Yeah, it's amazing. Three guys with

with guns and everything and they didn't hit very much. No, well, it really does appear to kind of have been a stick a gun around the corner and fire situation. There wasn't a whole lot of aiming going on from what I could tell. But the thing is is that we know it happened, but we don't know who did it or why, who ordered it, why did they do it, who committed the act? We don't know any of that. Yeah, it's a total unsolved mystery totally, which is convenient actually

what we talk about. We did talk about that stuff, but you know why. Yeah, I did a little check and it turns out that murder is the national past dive in Jamaica, and so that well, yeah, at that time it was a pretty rough and tumble place and we're going to get into some of that though. We have had our internal discussions about this and find it a little difficult to believe. There are some folks who don't really know who Bob is. Probably tell those people

who Bob Marley was. Okay, Bob Marley was. He was a Jamaican singer. He was, he was, you know, he's he would call him a singer, songwriter, guitarists, band leader, social activist. I mean he did. He kind of fell into every one of those categories. And uh he started in nineteen sixty three performing with the band the Whalers. There's quite a few famous and talented people that were in the band that started out. So you may have heard of Bunny Whaler or Peter Tosh. Not not Tosha

Tosha point now no, no, definitely not that guy. Definitely another Just to make it very clear, very clear. But they were all very, very talented musicians and they wanted to to reform and they started making records. Reggae wasn't a musical style at the time. It developed over time. So the first couple of records that they put out, they were more singles and or B sides is what it would have been. But it was they slowly developed and figured out who they were. But if you haven't

listened to reggae before, pauses right now. But I mean really, go ahead and pause. No, you have to wait until you tell you what to do. Pause us. You need to go listen to some reggae. Bob Marley and the Whaler's Jimmy Cliff is not a good one. Yeah. Yeah, they'll do good things for your stress level, really reducing. Yeah, only the music, none of the other things that go within. Definitely not. Okay, So you can pause it now. Okay, so now we're back. Thanks for pausing. Y'all are calm now? Goods.

That's that's part of that's part of the whole rig. Yeah. Yeah, that's the lore, and it is part of it. It's part of it. It's part of it. Borland argon, it's legal. Yeah. Sure. So the other thing I was going to mention is that some people might have heard of this particular story that we're gonna talk about today, and that's because there's a book that's really popular right now. It's called A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. What a

booker man or that that's fictional, correct? It is totally fictional, with a lot of there's there's truth sprinkled throughout the whole thing. But to the point that I'm making is that it is a fictional accounting. So I want people to understand that. So if you've read it, be aware of that, because some of the stuff we're gonna talk about may not jibe with what you think you've learned. Because it was a book told from the perspective of

like seventy five different characters. Well, that gets complicated. Yeah, it's a big freaking book. It's taking me a long time to read. But anyway, back to Bob. So, he was born in uh Nesta Robert Marley in a village known as nine Mile, which is in the St. Anne Parish. His parents were kind of a it was kind of an odd situation. His father was white, his mother was black. His mother was eighteen, his father was sixty. Yeah, and um, his father's name was his mother's name was Sidela. His

father was Norvil, and evidently Norvill had several children. This way, he would meet a younger woman and then he would move on. The moving on part is important to understand because he really wasn't involved in Bob Marley's life at all, and I think he was around a couple of times and that was it, but he passed away when Bob was ten. When Bob was twelve, he and his mother moved to Kingston. They went to an area of Kingston known as Trench Town. That sounds nice. Yeah, it was

a let's just be honest, it was a slum. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty positive it is. But it's there that Bob Marley would meet Bunny Whaler and Peter Tosh and eventually they would go on to form the Whalers. When they were recording together and doing reggae, I think they put out about a dozen records Ballpark between nineteen seventy I think it was seventy or seventy three is when their first one came out, And that was up until Bob's death in so they put out a lot of records

in that time. But he they made it. Like I said, they made a whole bunch of others. Prior to that, they were just a completely different musical style because they were trying to figure out what their style was. Yeah, totally exactly. You might You might really know Barb Marley best for his cover that famous Eric Clapton song about the shaff yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's a pretty famous one. It's really famous. What was it, Soldier on the radio?

Just yeah, another good one. See, there's a whole bunch of them everybody. Once you start doing is you start realizing how many of them you know, and there's a ton of them. Yeah. So we we've talked about Bob, we should probably talk about what was going on in Jamaica at the time because it was kind of a bad situation. Thanks for going to Hell on a handbasketuse Yeah,

it really were. So the history of jim Aca is pretty much four hundred plus years of oppression because the Spanish came in none other than Christopher Columbus quote unquote discovered Jamaica and the Spaniards were there for about hundred years and then they lost using air quotes here, lost the island to the British and it became a British

isle for another ballpark three hundred years. Right. So, really, what we're saying is that it's the kind of typical history of a lot of countries in that like Europeans came in and kind of screwed things up. Yep, yep. Slavery was a total thing. Plantations yep, and it wasn't until you know, the the British ended slavery in eighty three, so they were thirty years ahead of us on that front.

But then Jamaica wouldn't actually get its freedom from Britain or no longer be under British rule until nineteen that's when it became it got its full independence. And actually they're not independent, Uh they're what are they still are considered British Commonwealth? Is that what thanks on there? And they're uh legally at least there there uh their laws at the highest level there that's Supreme Court and in a sense is actually the Privy Council back in England. Yeah.

So if you're say, sentenced to death for a crime in Jamaica, and it goes through whatever appeals happened in Jamaica, and then the last review is done by the Privy Council back in London, which may or may not set aside your death sentence. I didn't know that. Yeah crazy, Yeah, that's crazy. So anyway, like I said, it was two when the country got its independence, and it became very apparent quite quickly that there was a huge inequality problem.

Not surprisingly, no, no, and and it was. It's it's still there in terms of there's a lot of issues, and it's inequality amongst the people, distrust of their leaders. There's you know, bribery going on, there's all kinds of collusion, lots of things like that. So it's a it's a problem because if you don't have a solid government, then nobody's gonna trust it, and then everybody wants their piece

of the pie. Yeah, it's it's actually kind of a typical thing, like like kind of like ward politics here in America way back in the day, where you know, the one party had as supporters who you know, who are all you know, for the most part, armed and violent, and the other party had their supporters and there's a lot of patron age, and so every every election is a huge deal because so much, so much is writing on it because property rights are not particularly respected in

countries like this. You know, that means you could lose everything with the wrong guy wins the election. So a lot of people, you know, that's why there's so much tension in countries like this over elections. Well, and the elections were always a huge source of tension once they had started having them, once they started having their own and the problem was, of course, is that outside interests

immediately started trying to exert their force. I will say when take advantage, Yeah, take advantage of the situation, makes some money off of it, take advantage of their industry and their labor um, and at the same time try and influence their politics so that it's what they want. And I when I say they am very specifically saying the US and communist Russia, because those were the two forces that were really pushing on it at that time

to a certain extent. Also, yeah, well I was gonna say, that's exactly it as Cuba is what like ninety miles away, So to the to the Americans, this is a terrible thing to suddenly have another communist nation ninety miles away that's still super close to us, and you know, so of course everybody's just kind of having a full blown panic attack over it. And so that's why everybody goes in there, and a lot of hinky things that are still in effect today because of the things that countries

did are there. So I mean there's well, there's the CIA did a lot of supposedly of course, they went in and they siphoned drugs into the country, they dumped guns into the country and created these gangs to try and be their foot soldiers on the ground. And then of course once they were done with them, they left, But the gangs don't just you know, miraculously disappear, so then they create a criminal organization that has stayed there. Now you hear it said that the CIA did all this.

Whether that's true or not, I don't know, to be honest. Actually, yeah, they're actually there isn't really any evidence that it is true. And I know that one of the characters we're gonna be talking about as the prime minister in when the shooting happened, it was Michael Manly minister. He said that the CIA had nothing to do with the destabilization of the country. That's what he said. And apparently that accusation originated with Cuba. They made they actually first leveled in

that the CIA was there. They said that the CIA and the JAILP, which is one of the parties which we're about to go into, the political party, they said that they were working in league together to destabilize the country and to and to take the government away from the p n P, which is the other party. And not yet that that was the accusation that Cuba made

in and it's still with us today. But I read an article by a Jamaican journalist whose name was Ken Chaplin, and he recounts this whole history of the Cubans raising that issue and uh and he said at the time and even today he really not. So no reason to believe it because there's no evidence in number two, the Cubans, you know, okay, and drugs and money find their way

to lands, yeah, quite easily. It doesn't have to be the work of the ciall especially islands that are as close to South America or you know, you are so well placed in between South America and North America for instance right way stations, and plus actually Jamaica was a great way station put a cocaine trade into Britain. Yeah, yeah, because coke. You can get more for your pound for pound for your coke in Britain than you can in other European countries or or America talking about pound or

the note, so kilogram for pound, yes, yea. So there's there's something to keep in mind when we're talking about this. This is why some of our listeners have been calling for Joe to start his own second podcast to just explain the world. Somebody been doing that. Yeah, okay, well let's come down that you've you've whetted everybody's appetite. Let's

talk about the political parties that we've got. So the first one is going to be the People's National Party, which is the p MP, and then there's the Jamaican Labor Party which is the j LP. So the j l P was in power, they won the first election after the Brits left. They controlled the political system. They were in power for ten years and they yeah it is, but then they lost control in ninety two when the p MP took the seat. So now you've you've got

a party that's been in trench for ten years. So they definitely want to get their their power back. And there's a there's a lot of things that happened, and again this isn't a nation where things are sometimes kind of fast and loose. There was some of those political games that you hear about, you know, from gun pointed at you version of who you're going to vote for, to straight up ballot fraud stuffing boxes. I mean, this stuff happened and it was really it was a crappy

situation that we usually get voting a gunpoint. You're in America, but still plenty of fraud that goes here there is. So Bob Marley plays into this part in an odd sort of way because he became more and more popular, and more and more people paid attention to what Bob Marley said than what the politicians said, so he was a pretty important figure that way. He had also he and his wife in nineteen seventy two had backed Michael

Manley of the PMP when they won. Believed because Bob Marley said the PMP and Michael Manley are the ones to do it, everybody voted for them. Now we move up to the next election, which is nineteen seventy six, except by this point Bob Marley is not such a big fan of Manly and wasn't willing to endorse him

or his party kind of tried to stay neutral. He really did his Uh so, Bob Marley, I didn't get to go to it, but you can go to his estate and I think it's on fifty six Hope Road as the address, and he evidently made it kind of a neutral ground and everybody could come. And so he was in this weird in between because people came and talked to him from both sides, and so he didn't really want to uh to foul that up by endorsing

one side for the other. Plus for whatever reasons, you know, whether he you know, its personal beliefs or what, he didn't want to get on board with anybody. It probably should point out to I did a little research and

you probably have to. But in the time between when the Brits left and this election, the hour base for most of the politicians was basically urban gangs, sneak gangs, and they were called garrisons, and they controlled actually controlled areas of Kingston and the city was divided up, Yeah, exactly. And that the politicians were dependent upon the garrisons or

the gangs. Then that the bosses, who were called don's to basically raise votes for them and in return, of course, they got lots of favors and lots of looking the other way and that kind of thing, which is why the situation becomes so volatile and so dangerous because these guys were armed to the teeth, all of them. Yeah, absolutely, And that's one of the reasons that murder has become the national pastime in Jamaica. It is because of this. Well, did did either of you guys ever watch any of

the footage from that time and see the fighting? It was? It's a it's amazing in a I can't believe this is real way, because there's a guy literally running behind a car and shooting a handgun and just running the other direction and firing behind him. It's just like, are you kidding me? Well straight, it's in the middle of a city. It's amazing to me. But that's that's what was going on. Yeah, I think I just peaked the murder rate. Annual murder rate was like sixty eight hundred thousand. Yeah,

it was huge. I found it an interesting fact to it the countries in the world with the highest murder rate, fifteen of those countries are Caribbean countries. Really, yeah, we're talking like not just islands, of course, we're talking about also things like in the Guatemala and Honduras and all that.

But yeah, yeah, well, I do you know. One of the things that I was reading about was the fact that crime one of the problems for the Jamaicans is they can't solve crimes because they don't have enough space in the morgue. In other words, they're so busy processing bodies that they don't have time to do a thorough examination, to collect evidence to then turn over to the cops to then hunt somebody down. So when you're in that situation, you know, you can blow somebody away and the chances

of getting caught are pretty small at that boy. Yeah. Plus, actually most of their more actually don't have refrigeration, so by the time they get around to doing an autopsy, if they do, it's pretty well deteriorated. Yeah. Plus, apparently a lot of pathologists are actually afraid to do autopsies for obvious reasons. Yeah. Yeah, no, I can I can see that. If you want to go kill somebody, I guess that's the place to go. We've steered way off a topic here. It's kind of on topic. It's kind

of on topic. Um okay, so let me let me do this. We're gonna kind of finish up with some of this in terms of the political stuff. So I talked about that there was that whole supposed thing of the c i A being in the country. Well, Michael o'manley was running against the guy named Edward Sega or

I've also I heard it pronounced sega. Yeah. But the thing is is that the Jamaicans loved word play, and so they changed his name because it's spelled s e A g A two c I A g a. So it was still Siga, but they were changing the way it was spelled because they believed that he was in bed with and well, you know, the may have mucked around in their election a little bit, because it's not he didn't. Yeah, so I said that that they didn't

destabilize the country. I don't think they imported drugs, you know, but the fact that they might have mucked around a little bit and strong some cash here and there. Because obviously the Prime Minister Manly was cozy enough to Cuba. Well that's exactly it is that he had gone to Cuba to you know, to to kind of learn about his neighbors, and I think in a way of his neighbor's highly successful prom Yeah, basically like you know, importing poverty,

agreeing poverty, losing things and breaking things. So yeah, so yeah, no, they he he went over there and that didn't go so well. According to the Americans. They didn't like that. Um, so that's something to keep in mind now, we're gonna go ahead, and I haven't given the exact date. Okay, the date that we're gonna be looking at is we're gonna be dealing with the first week of December of

nineteen seventy six. On the fifth of December, Bob Marley was scheduled to do a free concert for the Jamaicans for anybody who wanted to come. It was going to be called Smile Jamaica. And I was watching a really interesting documentary and I guess the way that he came up with the idea is that he had done a show with Stevie Wonder and Steve and Jamaica, and Stevie Wonder had gone ahead and taken I don't know, like a huge percentage maybe half of his profits from that,

and had donated it locally. And then definitely Bob Marley went, you know, that's a good idea, and we need to get back to the people. So this all sounds great, And of course then all the politicians come to him and say, hey, let's go brand this, Let's make this a j LP, let's make this a PMP thing, and he's saying, no, I don't want to do that, except he got a little outmaneuvered because he had to he had to get official okay to do it from the government.

So it was then um it was branded as being Bob Marley and the Whalers, and it was in conjunction with the Jamaican government's Cultural Office, which then means which party's in power. That means that it's a p MP event. So he got kind of out maneuvered there. The other thing that really got him is that the elections were not yet officially scheduled, and Michael manily went ahead and moved the election to about a week after the concert. I thought it moved it to the day of the concert.

No U, I you I know which article you were reading to get that impression, because I had the same impression. And then when I started reading some other stuff and started doing some different research, it appears that it wasn't actually on the same day, which you know. But the point is it got moved. He got put in there, and everybody who wasn't a member of the Whalers went, oh, I see who's supporting this? Okay? I got it? Yeah,

good batter and different. You know, the writing was on the wall, and too bad for Bob because obviously he didn't intend that, know, not at all. Okay, well, let's let's go to the day of the assassination tempt which was two days prior to the Jamaica Smile concerts. So we're gonna be at the third of December. N That day, as a lot of the days proceeding, it was kind of a normal day at his property. He and the whalers were practicing for the show. They were getting ready.

Um am I the only one, sorry, am I the only one who like forgets to conceptualize about the fact that professional musicians still like practice practice, particularly before show like that. Just as always, I just always assumed they're like that. I don't know, I'm good at this, but yeah, it is easy to fall under that that idea. Yeah, yeah, you're not the only one. I'm sure. I think guys like Marley and and other musicians actually like to play.

Yeah no, they really did, actually, yeah, nickelback. So during a break that evening, Bob's wife, her name is Rita Marley, by the way, she was going to take a journalist that was there to do an interview with Bob back to his hotel. And the journalist name was Leslie Miles, and as they drove to the entrance of the estate, Rita pulled over to let a car that was coming in go up the drive. As that car drove by, it opened fire, and Leslie Miles wasn't hurt at all.

Rita did get hit. She took one across the top of her scalp. Basically felt, yeah, it was a grazing, grazing shot. Yeah, very lucky, because I would have only taken about a quarter of an inch to do some serious day with serious damage. A set of unmasked gunmen got out of the car. There were three of them.

Bob Marley's manager at the time was named Don Taylor, and he had also just arrived but didn't know that these guys were pulling in, and so he walked into the kitchen where Bob Marley was and then was immediately followed by these gunmen. Absolutely bad timing, and they had automatic weapons, and they just basically proceeded to pull the trigger and shoot back and forth until they were out of bullets. I thought, I and I heard one story. I don't know if it's true that one of them

had two handguns instead. I heard that too, I've read that, but It's a little weird, especially considering that you know, at least one of them, if not more, has a fully automatic weapon. Why one of them would show up a two handguns. But it does seem kind of absurd. It seems a little out of place. But anyway, so these guys they shoot to join up, and then they turn around and they hop in their car and they

take off. It just feels like somebody watched a gang banger movie, you know, and was like, you know what, let's go try and kill somebody. Like it's not it's not what you would expect of a professional assassination. But it's totally a Jamaican Western. It's totally yeah, totally is It's like, I don't know, if he walks into the house and you just like praise and sprays and just goes and then he runs away and he gets away with it too, and all those bullets magically hit that

one guy, right. Just that's what it sounds like to me, is totally just some guys watching some movies and things didn't really know what they were doing. It's uh, you know, you know, you never know, they might have actually been there just to send a message to scare the crap out of everybody, and because they are incompetent, they actually

accidentally hit some people. Yeah, that's absolutely possible to make a good point because you know automatic weapons there are harder to control when they're fully automatic that they actually they actually jump around the heavy of the bullets, so the more they do. What's the what's the joke stormtroopers shooting at a red shirt, The stormtrooper misses every single shot and the red shirt dies. Anyways, that's what this

feels like a little bit. Yeah, did you see that picture I posted on our Facebook a couple of weeks ago the stormtrooper. Yeah, start starmtrooper target practice, got a machine gun, he's checking the target. Yeah, that one. Bob Marley was hit. Um, he was shot in the left arm, and I've inconsistently seen that he also took one in the ribs. That's what I heard too when I saw an interview with me, only the only points to his

left arm. And here's here's the thing, is you you always hear about the one that went into his arm because they left the bullet there because, according to the story, he couldn't take it out without the possibility of nerve damage, which would then affect his playing, so he wasn't gonna

go for that. But you also hear that he got hit in the chest, which I always thought was weird and I could never corroborate until I was watching an interview with a woman whose name is Diane Jobson, and she was his lawyer, and she in in this interview talked about it and what happened. He got really lucky. The bullet that went into his arm first grazed across his chest, so it grazed across his chest and burn. You know, he's he's got a flesh wound. And then

it went into his arm, so again super lucky. So his wife is, is you know, a quarter inch off and he was a quarter inch away from having it take out at least one, if not more ribs, stuff like that something like that. Yeah, yeah, I'm just talking about just that little bit. But so that's why you hear that he took one in the chest, but you never get the description. It's only because of that interview

that I found that out. Job Um. So, as I said, these yo yo's, they shoot the place up, they shoot Bob, they shoot Rita. A couple of people are hurt and then they run back to their car and they take off. And this is always pointed at as a very important thing is that when the car left the property, it turned and went downhill, which means it went back down

into Kingston. Hope Road, if you look at it on a map, it if you follow it, it it starts basically the heart of Kingston and then works its way out and then goes across the island to a bay that's I can't remember which bay it is, So people say, well, obviously it was. It was It had to be this political party that was responsible because it went back into Kingston. Yeah, but I thought I thought the control areas of Kingston's

they did. But it's it's based on the fact that the jailp had that's, you know, kind of was in control in that area, is what people point to. Because the way the reason people say is that if it had gone the other way, it wouldn't have been such a easy thing to point out is because you go the other direction and the road goes into the jungle before it goes across to that bay on the other

side of the island. But what I always find weird is that if you look at Hope Road, there's a ton of streets that come off of it that then go to other places. So it could have been that the best way to go home for these guys was to head towards downtown Kingston and then hang a right. Yeah, I know, and I'm that convinced about the whole thing is. Yeah, but I just want people to understand that portion of it, because that's that's something that you're gonna hear all the time. Now,

nobody ever was officially arrested for this. I mean, you know, everybody got medical treatment, everybody survived and went on about their business. But I was watching it. I know, I sent you guys this, uh this interview. There's an interview with Bob Marley that basically gives the impression at least I think that he knew who they were, if not at the time he found out who they were, because he's talking to a reporter and the reporter says, you never saw the gunman, Bob says at that time. No.

Reporter says, but you know who did it? Yeah? Were they caught? No, they weren't caught by the police. You had the subtitles on, right, I did. Yeah, Yeah, I did not have and I couldn't understand word. Well, actually I could understand a little bit. Yeah. Well that's the thing is, I know we talked about this before, but for our listeners, if you go and watch any of these interviews, you need to understand that Jamaicans speak two languages.

They speak Patua and that's the language that you talked to all your fellow Jamaicans in and you learn it at home. It's not a written language, but you're taught English in school, so your command of English is partially based on your motivation to learn it as well as the capability of who's teaching you. Yeah, so Bob's English was a little rougher. Actually, I don't think is English was so much so terribly fluent in English. That's what

I mean. What I say, that's what I'm going for is when they're taught English, they're taught to get rid of that accent, and a lot of that was still in his English. And I can imagine that there's a certain amount And I have no actual basis for this, it's just a total stretch on my part, but I

would imagine that there's some nationalism that goes along with that. Um, if you're being taught a culture to emulate a culture in the way that you speak, that you aren't necessarily very happy with be a British or the United States, that you would want your accent to be clearly of your country, of your tradition. You know what. No, I know what you're saying. Yeah, in a way I can see that. Um, yeah, no, there's I can I can see your point there. Yeah, A lot of probably depends

on what you do for a living too. Yes, it's probably totally fine for somebody like Bob Marley to most people, you know. Yeah, it's not exactly Already, Well, that is almost the end of our story here, because we do need to tell you that Bob Marley is it was a tough guy. Yeah. He went on to perform at the Jamaica Smile concert two days later. He of course gets on stage. I don't know, did you guys see

the footage of this. He gets on stage and he holds up his arm and he shows the bandage, and he takes off his shirt and shows where he's been you know, where the bullet grazes on his chick, you know, basically saying I'm tough. You can't get me. Go ahead, and try. I don't think i'd be saying something like that in Jamaica. I don't, you know, he was. He

was a ballsy dude. I guess it really was. And I guess for those of those of our listeners that don't know about Bob Marley, he died of natural causes cancer said, I mean, he was young. He was really for cancer to Yeah, you know it was. The story with his cancer is really interesting. Again, this is one of those things that I found where it's the legend versus the truth. Because Bob Marley was a Rastafarian and of course they don't you know, you don't do medical stuff,

you know, actual like religion. Yeah, and you know, the thing is is that they said, well, Bob, we should cut your toe off, and according to the legend, because he was a Rasta, he said, no, this is the way that I came into the world. This way, I'm going to go out of the world and I'm not going to take this Western medicine. And so of course then the cancer spreads and he dies. Cancer it started and it started his toe and went everywhere. But it

turns out that's not exactly true. Bob did get medical treatment. He had chemo and things like that. So I mean he really did try to fight. He had he had his toe nail in bed, which is where the biggest revision was. He had that, but not his entire toe because that would have gone against his religion. And he did, you know, actively treat it. But well he did, but it's also true that he didn't. He refused to get

his toe amputated. That's very true. And unfortunately, because he didn't follow up with his medical appointments in terms of getting his checkups until it was too late, nobody realized that they hadn't got it. But that's another story, Bob Marley, it's a very interesting story. Um, but it's absolutely now it's everybody's favorite time in the show. Stanford theories, all right, so we talked, would explain the aim. Actually, yeah, it would because he's got the short little arms so it's

really hard to pull the trigger and hang on. This would explain it. Uh No. The first theory actually is, as we briefly talked about already, is the CIA. It's believed that the j LP was backed by the CIA accord. And this is again according to local or and like we talked about, it's because of the fact that the Americans didn't like the fact that Manly was buddying up

to Fidel Castro. The funny thing is, though, is that Henley was sort of making friends with a bunch of foreign leaders at the feeling that's what you do exactly as a world leader. I guess, uh huh, so he was. He was, you know, developing relationships with Julius Narrere of Tanzania. There's Olaf Palm of Sweden who was on the list, is totally Pierre Trudeau of Canada. That's another mystery. Why

do people ever elect him? And then of course Fidel um so he he was meeting more than just Fidel Castro. I just want people to understand that. But but also, like you meet with people who are leading countries that are really close to yours, especially if they're semi dangerous countries,

just as pure diplomatic courtesy. Yeah. Yeah, small nations, you want to know how your small nation is doing so that I can figure out how to help my small nation or to make sure that we're friends, so you don't suddenly decide you don't like us and you know, attack us. Yeah, I think that I don't think that the US government would have gotten all that outset about him just having a meeting with Fidel. Yeah, it just kind of depends on how far it takes the whole thing.

It's very true. But as we said, um, so, the theory goes that the CIA came in, as we talked about before, they brought drugs, they brought guns, and they created this whole cadre of criminals to do their dirty work. And then of course that's why the cocaine trade was. It was so big, and I don't know if it's so big anymore in Jamaica. I actually hadn't looked into that. Actually, I think it is still pours through Jamaica. If I remember right, you were just there. You know, I didn't

see any cocaine. I saw a lot of weed being offered, but no cocaine. But I never knew who had the best. They all said they had the best. So it was really confusing everywhere. Yeah, it is. But like Joe had said, is that this whole idea that the CIA was going to destabilize the country through these efforts, That's what this theory is based on. That's what it's saying. Um. And so they saying that the CIA. It was actually CIA guys who who went in with guns and shot at Marlin.

Know what it is is that it's the CIA brought the guns in, train the guys how to use the guns, and then said, Hey, that guy over there, he's getting a little too much sway with the people. We should probably take care of him, and then had one of their downs or one of their groups set up and go try to do the hit. That's where That's where the whole thing is. So it wasn't CIA guys driving in because nobody said it was a bunch of white dudes in the car, because that would have been a

giant flag. Yeah. But yeah, the problem I have with this the whole thing about funneling guns and drugs into the country. They were funneling up to the j LP, right, yeah, So well and where did the p MP get their drugs and guns? Fidel of course? Oh yeah, right. I think I think they might have gotten those things on their own. I get it does have a reputation for

mucking around in local elections and stuff like that. Yeah, I thought you about funneling drugs and guns into into a nearby country, they're going to come back, Well, you can just you can do stabilize that country. And the last thing anybody, any of us want is a destabilized country right on our doorstep. So it just seems like a bad idea. Yeah, so that's that's that theory. We're gonna move on to the next one. The next theory is that the whole thing was done at the order

of the JLP because remember, right, yeah, that's Sega. Yeah. I never know how to pronounce his name because it's different every time. It's the accent. But the theory is that because Bob Marley's Smile Jamaica concert was now considered kind of a PMP thing, the JLP wanted to retaliate. Yeah, it makes sense. That's kind of a bummer because it feels like if he had a good if Bob Marley had a good relationship with the political parties, that maybe you would just go to him right and be like, dude,

what the hell? I think he had a relationship with both. But that's what I'm saying. So you would think that, you know, the leadership at that point would go and say, dude, what are you doing? And he would have been like, listen, it's not my fault. I'm really sorry, like, how can we work this out? They wouldn't just be like, ah, Bob, nah, we're going to shoot him and and that's that's a

very rational line of thought. But it's wrong. Got it, No, but we have I can't help but think about the fact that these are also men who are using gangs that control the cities to control the elections. So it's sometimes maybe not the best decision making happen. So I know where you're going with him, Yeah, I I kind of tended to that it was a g lp because since everybody was thinking that Marley was aligning himself with Manly, it's one way to send a nice message a mess

with us will kill you. But at the same time, Marley is very popular he was killing him would have would have really been a black marketing reputation. It would have made a lot of people in Jamaica and absolutely unless you thought you could make it look like the other party did it. Well, that's why my theory is that it was that didn't There was an attempted assassination.

That's why they came in missed pretty much missed and then headed back down to Kingston and so making it look like it was a JLP and not the PNP. It's possible. Um, we've got more theories to go. We're not done yet. Okay, So the next theory is that it was just a bunch of random guys who were angry at Bob Marley for aligning with the p NP.

This whole thing is so politically based in most of these theories, it's totally politically base, because the thing is is people didn't trust the government, and at the time there was the phrase it wasn't politics, it was politics. Of course, I love that. I love that. It's great saying. So there's a lot of weirdness going on, and somebody might have said, I can't believe that you did this.

We you know, we supported you. You're such a great guy, and you've you've just you've stabbed us all in the back. That's basically how this this thing as a concept goes. Now there is a little bit of of credence to it in terms of everybody kind of wondered if Bob Marley had sold him out. And the reason is is there's a guy by the name of Neville Garrick, and he was a Jamaican born artist and he worked with Bob Marley and he's the one who created the graphic

for the Smile Jamaica concert. What it is is, it's a It's a set of illustrated mountains that have a little cartoons Smile underneath them, and then a sun rising or setting I don't know which it's supposed to be, but directly behind the mountains, radiating out from it correct and and raised rati out from the sun is something that you see in the Caribbean all the time. It

just it is. It's so you can see why that is an icon that you would put in there, except the problem is the sun, the setting sun or rising sun, whichever you want to look at. It was one of the graphics symbols that was used by the p n P. And Jamaican's love stickers and they love to put them on their cars and so that's how they hold their cars together, some of them. But he was wandering around trying to hand out these stickers and people were like,

I'm not putting that political sticker on my car. Are you freaking crazy? Yeah? I think yeah. And then he realized that he had used something that was very very similar. Um so it's very possible that people felt betrayed. And this is an example of where people really took it to that seriously. And they wouldn't even take the sticker for the concert because it was a political what would you call it? It's not uh to sign, I guess

it really is. It's just a political symbol. Yeah, And so they didn't want to do it, and so it could have been just a couple of guys who felt betrayed and went in and tried to shoot it up and of course had no idea what they were doing. So because one of the things is when I was watched doing some of the research is in at one point one of the gunmen, remember how he said it was kind of just a shoot and go, stuck his arm around the door through the door frame and was

pulling the trigger. Wasn't even looking. So this is how committed they were getting somebody. Yeah that sounds And now we have one lass theory for who may have done this, and this actually is probably the first one that we've got and the only one that we've got that actually points the finger to a specific person. There was a guy several years ago. His name is Christopher Doudess. I don't know, I wasn't I don't know, it's d U d U S. Christopher, I'm going to call it done.

Is Christopher don his Coke. And he was a person of major interest for the United States because he was the head of the Shower Posse who it was a gang and they were running coke and guns. In the US wanted him because he was running coke and guns. There some bad names. Coke No, just like, yeah, yeah, I know, let's find like a really cool name for our game. You know what would be really badass? Oh, shower posse. Shower maybe it's a shower of bullets. No,

no tears, the no tears posse. Okay, Well, here's the thing is that this guy, the cops, by the way, did eventually the U S did get him. Or actually no, the U S didn't get him. He was delivered to the U S by the Jamaicans. But by the way, I did so very reluctantly. It took quite a long time. They didn't really want to give him up, No they didn't. They really kind of wanted to string him up on their own. But his father in the seventies and eighties was also a major guy. His name was Lester Coke.

Although he also was known as Jim Brown, which I don't know why it's the two names, but whatever. Uh. And Jim Brown was a founder of the original shower Posse. And you're gonna keep joking at that, laughing at and I feel like it's like when I was in kindergarten and I like started a gang and we were called the Pretty Unicorns the name thing. Yeah, well, okay, so back to back to Jim Brown. Sorry, Lester Coke or I guess it's the other way around. Well, he um,

he was. He was an enforcer and a drug runner in the seventies. And according to a book, the title of which is Dark Alliance, and then there's actually there's several books. Catch Up Fire, I think is also another one that makes this accusation that says that he was the one gunman who went in and again the CIA were involved because he went there at the behest of the CIA, of course. And here's more, God, we just keep bashing on the CIA. Don't wait today one of

coax Lester coax buddies. It's a guy named cecil'connor. He is. He claims that he was taken to the jungle in Jamaica and taught by the CIA how to how to shoot a gun and how to to do things to get the j LP to win their elections. Now sure, yeah, I mean, he's one of several people who have made this claim. But the fact everything says that Lester Coke was one of the gunmen, and it's you know, it seems to all kind of come from that first book that I mentioned, which is The Dark Alliance. Now I

didn't I couldn't find that book. I couldn't find that or catch a fire. So I'm not I can't corroborate or tell you exactly how they came to this conclusion, but that's the conclusion that they came to. Interesting. Yeah, there's just not a lot of average that one, yeah, you know, and the the other thing that is so

this is just kind of some wrap up stuff. Here is when we talked before, we said that when Bob we watched that Marley interview, he said that nobody had caught the gunman or the police hadn't caught the gunment. Bob Marley's managers, his name was Don Taylor. He claimed that one of the gunmen actually was caught and I'm guessing under torture and interrogation, admitted that it was the c i A who had had set orchestrated the whole thing. Um, this just feels so silly. Yeah, and where did you

hear that? Don Taylor and heard this? Uh well, I don't know where Don Taylor heard it from. He done Taylors had recounted it and it was in one of these books. And you know, I found it in the research. But I don't know where he got that piece of information from. Maybe off the Internet, maybe probably not at that time. When was the interview. It was more than you know, in more than ten years after the fact. I mean, I'm pretty sure that interview was probably done

after Bobby passed away. Okay, yeah, I mean probably not the Internet. But you know, rivers have a way of flying around. Yeah, well that is the end of our not quiet Oh no, Joe, oh boy lost boilarrying you.

I totally conna blow you out of the if you say it's the c i A. I'm turning off the issue right now now that CIA it's actually it turns out it was some friends and relatives of the sheriff that Marley shot, So that was a revenge shooting who had to work at a joke about the you did well sir, and he openly admitted to shooting the sheriff and he claims he did deputy. Yeah, but it's really still out on that. So hey, there might have been some of the israelittives too, all right, Yeah, well there's

that theory too, okay, Yeah, just a little bit. Uh. I was doing the research and I realized that Bob Marley, had he not died of cancer, if he had lived on, he'd be seven. He wounded this year, which is crazy to think of. He's actually getting to that weird time where someone has been gone longer than they were alive, because he died at thirty six, so he's all. You know, next year will have hit as long without as the

world had with just kind of a weird thing. Yeah, I wanted to I just toss out one of the one of the possibilities said it was just some angry guys about politics. It might have just been angry guys too, which has you know, when I was reading about reading up on this and the slum culture of Kingston and stuff, it's like a lot of those places where life is cheap and and the biggest coin of the realm is respect. You know, if somebody disrespects you and that's caused to

kill him. So it could have been it he was just rude to somebody. It could be. But I really here's my problem with the it's just some random resident of the area who was angry the election and the concert. Well, yeah, it's is that Bob Marley was obscenely generous to the people. People came to his house and he gave food and money to people constantly. He was supporting so many people that he kind of had at times he had money troubles of his own because he was giving away so

much of his money. So that's why I really it seems really stupid to bite the hand that feeds. But again, like you said, like sometimes that lot of just doesn't play in. Maybe people thought, oh, well if we kill and we can steal all this stuff and then we'll really be yeah, you know, take his takes all of

his heart earned money. Yuh. Yeah. It turns out that if you really left the crime stats and everything, I'll here in the States, it's where as well as other places, most people that commit crimes like this aren't terribly bright. They're not in the habit of thinking very far out of the future. Planning. Planning is not a strong suit. Yeah, alright, well,

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you guys. Sorry, all right everybody, Well, we are going to go ahead and close this one out, so we will talk to you next week. Bye guys. M.