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You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author.
Dan Zufanski, Good Evening. In October of nineteen seventy seven, David Bowman moved to Las Vegas as a sixteen year old kid with his parents and older brother. Bowman chronicles his journey through the streets of Las Vegas for the next three years. Bringing down Kolada. Bowman tells us how he worked his way into the most elite criminal organization
in Las Vegas. He recounts how he became the point man in the Las Vegas organized Crime Strike Forces investigation of the Chicago outfit and Tony Spilatro in his right hand man Frank Klota, the leader of the Hole in the Wall Gang. The book that we're featuring this evening is bringing Down Colata, the story Casino couldn't tell you with my special guests off the David Bowman, Welcome to the program, and thank you for this interview. David Bowman, Thank.
You, Dan. I'm glad to be here, looking forward to it.
Thanks, thank you so much. This is a very personal story, and let's get right to that. I won't ask how you got involved. That will be revealed as we go through this story. Why don't you take us back, as you do in the book, to nineteen seventy seven, your dad was forced into retirement and you got sick in the eighth grade. Tell us what happened in the eighth grade and who you were at that time and how
things changed after that. Give us a little bit about your background, your family life, and as you do in the book, and what happened in that pivotal time just entering high school.
Yeah, I got sick with Sam and Ella initially and we couldn't where I got it from. But it ended up it was our cat, our family cat, and but that developed into colidus and I had to you know, I was in really bad shape. I lost a lot of blood. I had to have six pints of blood transfused over the course of a couple of weeks, and so I ended up having to have emergency surgery, uh colostity, temporary colostomy, and that was really, you know, devastating to me at the time. I mean, being a in the
eighth grade. You know, it was February is when I got sick. So I was into the school year, and you know, I was very you know, popular athletic. Uh you know, I was an editor of our little paper and school paper and whatnot. So I was just a healthy, normal kid. I was into racing dirt bikes too. My friend was a we were into that and so yeah, I got very sick. And but once I had the surgery, you know, I recovered and pretty well bounced back to normal.
But at that time, my dad had worked for the Colorado Few and Iron and CFNI Steel Plant and Pueblo and at that time, in the late seventies, the Daphening Steel was beginning to flood the cars, and so he was They were scaling the mill back, and he was pretty much forced into retirement and either had to go back in the ranks, take a pay cut, or or retire early and get his pension. And so that's what
he did, and that was devastating to him. You know, he'd worked there for thirty two years, and it was you know, I really didn't understand it at the time, but as I got older, I realized, you know, how how devastating that was to him, because he was still pretty much a young man. But anyway, we had gone out to Vegas in March seventy seven and went out just on a vacation with me and my brother Larry and my folks, and we had a great time. We liked it, and we started talking about moving out there.
And because Peblo was really it was kind of a dead end place. There really wasn't a lot of opportunity, and my dad knew that, and so he thought, well, let's go out to Las Vegas. And so that's really how it happened. We left and went out there in October seventy seven.
Now you talk about that your parents don't hang around so long, and you decided to hang around with your brother and you get an apartment. They think that they're going to give you a little bit of money, you're going to get a job, and you're going to get this apartment, and that's what you're going to do. But you had other ideas, didn't you.
Yeah, Well, you know, I'd met some people. They the reason they moved back was because my mother's my granddad was at the end of his life and he needed a lot of you know, attention and care and he was living with my mother's younger sister, so she wanted to go back, and you know, that was the big driving force of them leaving. My dad wanted to stay, but you know, because of my mother, he went back
and it was just me and my brother. We had already had an apartment and it was the same apartment, but you know, when they left and my brother and I just took it over and he got a job, and you know, they left me a little bit of money when they left, and I had met some people in the apartment complex that we lived in and down at the pool, and that's how it began. I they
were selling cocaine. And I had never even done cocaine until I had got you know, at that point in time, Uh, you know, I had already started smoking pot and that was about it, really And and I started doing that after I was kind of rehabbing after the surgery and recovering. You know, I couldn't ride my motorcycle, and so you know,
I started experimenting with the league. But yeah, so I started selling blow with some guys I met in an apartment complex and was making a lot of money, especially for a seventeen year old guy that I was.
You met a guy named Joey Posson and it was Petcha chef and he became fast friends. Your friend Larry got strung out, you said, And that led to another guy named Craig, and then he started doing speedball. So a lot of these people, you know, they did they and parted too much. Yeah, that part of it. They spent too much on new product business.
I'm part sorry.
Go ahead, So you talked about Joey introducing you to Jerry Costanza in late nineteen seventy eight. Who else did you meet at that time? And tell us about that meeting with Jerry costantin who he was.
Yeah, Jerry was you know, Joey had talked about him quite a bit before I actually met him. And the whole Costanza family that he you know, got involved with, nick being the father and Elaine was his daughter, and Jerry and Michelle and Nicky Junior and that was the Costanzas family. And I met all of them. Uh and you know they kind of became, uh you know, sort of my Las Vegas family, uh so to speak. And
uh but I didn't I hadn't met Jerry. I actually met uh Elaine prior, you know, before I met Jerry. And Jerry was a pimp. He was a coke dealer. Uh he'd been out there for a long time. Uh so he was a street guy. And but he was a pimp and a drug dealer and he was, you know, pretty well connected and in the street. And I met him because my connection had kind of dried up, like I, Like you said, he was he got strung out doing speedballs and mixing the heroin and the cocaine. And and
that's something I never did. I never put an needle in my arm. That was where I drew the line. Back in my day, there was a stigma attacked to that and and that was someplace I never wanted to go. And so anyway, that's what I was looking to get a new connect. And Jerry had warned me, or Joey had warned me about Jerry saying that he had gotten you know, he gets good stuff. But he was just, uh,
you know, he'd burn you. I mean he would burn you if he could, you know, he'd feel you out and if he would see how much you knew and if he if he determined that you didn't know anything, then that's when he would put the screws to you. But I showed him that I wasn't. I showed him I kind of impressed him with my knowledge. You know, I tested it in front of him. I did a bleach test in front of him. And yeah, I was
very respectful. I mean I was kind of intimidated by him initially because I'd heard so much about him from Joey and uh, but him and I kind of had a chemistry and we you know, he was very funny guy. He could be. He was just a character and he was very funny and we had you know, we just kind of hit it off and formed a business relationship.
You talked about you write about dealing weed and and but you also were lining up jobs or scores as just as you write about Laura at the bank, what did you ask of Laura and tell us a little bit more about this sideline that you had other than dealing drugs.
Well, that was prior to that was in Colorado. Was whereab that all took place in my hometown, and we were coming back. We were going back and forth, you know, to Colorado. I would go back and you know, move some product back there. But at that time, prior to us going on out or coming back to Vegas in June of eighty when I met Frank in the Hole in the Wall game, and we'll get to that. But the deal with the girl at the bank was just
kind of a fluke. Actually, we had met her at a I'd met her at a friend's house and we just started partying and you know, talking, and she mentioned the guy at the bank, and we just kind of ran with it. So it wasn't anything that we were really doing, you know, it was just we saw it as an opportunity and like I said, we just ran with it. There was something we weren't doing regularly. I just wanted to say that.
Right. You write about the state of Las Vegas in terms of for the mobsters and for law enforcement in the seventies in Las Vegas, and you'r co author of this book Dennis Epans book of the Battle for Las Vegas Chronicles, and he had written extensively about the Hole in the Wall game. Tell us a little bit about that state of where both parties were at that time in Vegas.
When I met them in the summer of nineteen eighty was the first week in June. It was after the failed attempted heist in Pueblo, and we went straight to Vegas. I mean right after that happened. We hit the highway and we were in Vegas the next day. And at that time Jeene Smith, who was a sergeant, Eugene Smith of the Las Vegas Metro Intelligence Division, had shot one of the mobsters Chicago mobsters, a guy by the name of Frankie Bluestein in front of his in front of
Sunrise Villas, had tailed him. They were they were constantly surveilling the Bupper crust and anytime a new car which out of state place would would pull in that parking lot, they knew about it and so Gruver and Geene Smith followed him one night after he left the restaurant and they were and as Jeane Smith tells me later, they weren't even going to pull him over. They were just running his plate. But he takes off down Flamingo, I believe, going like eighty ninety miles an hour, and so they
had to pull him over, and that's what happened. They pulled him over in front of Sunrise Villas and he pulled a gun on him. I know it's in the movie Casino. They say it was a hero sandwich, but that wasn't the case.
It was.
In fact, the gun was registered to his brother. And anyway, he pulls the gun on Smiths and Gruber and they shot him fifteen times and killed him. And so those guys when I pulled up to the restaurant in June of the first week in June, they were all a buzz about that because it had just happened. I don't know whether it was the day before or a couple of days, but it was very you know, fresh, and so yeah, they were a buzz about that as well as they pumped me and Joe about Nix Castanza's youngest
son being killed a few months prior. They found him in the trunk of his car in the desert, shot in the back of the head, and so Nick and Jerry were beside themselves over it. I mean, they were a very clit, close knit Italian family, and so they wanted to pump me and Joe and got real serious with us, pretty scared, very actually, and I mean we didn't know anything. I mean, we were good friends with Niki and in fact, we had gone horseback riding with
him just after we'd left to go to Colorado. We're right prior to that. But it was pretty, uh, it was pretty intense. But that was how the first meeting went with with the with the whole newall gang guys.
Now, let's explain for audience that for those that seen I have seen casino, which is everybody, probably Frank Rosenthal, Frank Lefty Rosenthal as partners with Tony Spilatro, how does Frank Klata come to be who? How's he connected to Spilatro and and tell us a little bit about that.
As you've explained, Yeah, it was a completely different relationship. The relationship that Spilactro and Rosenthal had was a secret relationship everyone knew they had it, but they tried to you know, not be seen in public together. And when they met, it was very clandestine because they didn't want that association to be you know proven actually. But anyway,
Kalada was his street lieutenant. He was his muscle, and that's what he brought Frank out there for and assembled these guys who later became known as the Hole in the Wall Gang, the Larry Newman, the Ernie Divino, Leo Guardino, Wayne Mtechi. But mainly the two hole in the real Hole in the Wall Gang was Ernie Divino and Leo Guardino.
Anybody else like the picture that they everybody sees of when they were arrested at Bertha's, they associ that's the Hole in the Wall gang, But there was three guys involved in that that weren't you know, involved in That was probably the only job they were involved in. So, yeah, that's Alk was the leader of the Whole in the
Wall Gang, which was a burglary crew. They were professionals, Ernie and Leo, and they would get tips and information from people all over Las Vegas and they would pound holes in the side of the wall in certain jobs. Sometimes they did things differently, but h and that's who they were, and they weren't even supposed to be. The bosses of Chicago would have never okayed that because it creates heat and they didn't want anything disturbing the skin or or you know, bringing heat down on people.
You talk about Elaine working at this upper crust restaurant and it's owned by Frank Colada, and I store the restaurants a bar called my Place, a hangout for spiatro. Yes, you're the person that you knew in the Hole in the Wall gang was Ernie. You didn't know anyone other than Ernie, and Ernie was instrumental in you tell us how you become involved with the Hole in the Wall gang and in what capacity.
Well, right after we arrived into town, as I talked about earlier, my friend Joe Tsni began. He took over Jerry Costanza's spot as the chef at the Upper Cross almost immediately. So I was spending a lot of time down there. I mean I did know, Like I said, I saw Frank all the time. I talked to Frank, but it was never you know, about crime or pulling jobs. As you said, Ernie was my guy in that group and uh, and that was mainly because him and Jerry
had become tired. Him and Jerry could stand it, and so through Jerry and you know, Ernie and I became tight. But yeah, Ernie, I gave them a couple of score. The first one they almost got arrested by the police. I mean, it wasn't nothing that I had done. I had not at that time, you know, was not working with the police. I was, you know, totally legit straight
with the Holan Wall. But I gave him the score and they posed as police officers, Ernie and Leo, and we had we had hit this guy like two years before. We'd broken into his house because I was selling blow to him and he was a dealer at the MGM Grant and we discovered that he had a safe in his place. So you know, there was we weren't that sophisticated, and so we did to let it go. But then you know, a couple of years down the road, this is when I met the home Wall. This is the
first score that I gave him. And so they went in and they knocked on the door and the guy answered the door and they flashed badges and as soon as you know, he opened the door, they you know, bum rushed him and were tying him up in a chair and you know, we're going to get the safe combination out of him. But the neighbors saw what was going on the next to the neighbor across the street and called nine to one one. Well, Frank was driving
around with the police scanner. He heard the call come across and so he radioed Ernie Leo to get out of there that the Cocks had been called. And they ended up running up the street and hiding in somebody's house that they knew up there until Frank could get
up there and get him. And I was pretty worried about that because I found out about it by I was sitting with Jerry and Joe and we had the TV on and the news came on and it came over the news as a potential hostage situation at this address, and I'm like, we just looked at each other, and I was and immediately my pulse went out because I thought, you know, they would blame me for some reason, you know, even though you know, there really wasn't anything that I
told them exactly what the deal was. But nevertheless, I mean I knew these guys were killers, and you know, I didn't want to be on the wrong side, so finding out if I was still cool with them was important to me, which which I was. And they kind of laughed about it actually, and and then we went on to the next one.
Tell us about this score. When you meet Nicky's cousin, Tommy Amato, as you say, this quelude freak here. But you had asked him about if he knew any tell us what you asked him and what he turned you on to.
Yeah, we were just you know, I'd run into Tommy every once in a while, and you know, I just threw out there, you know, if he knew anybody, you know, any dealers that you know that we could you know, throw to the hole in the wall game. And he mentioned this Cuban that he got his kuaylude from and the guy's name was Ernesto, and so we basically set
him up. Joe and I sat on him one night and he went to this restaurant in Las Vegas and we, just like I said, sat in the parking lot and sat on him while Ernie and Leo went over and hit his apart. And initially we were told by Franks that they got like an ounce of blow and a thousand woods, and as we found out a little bit later from Earnie telling Jerry, they got a whole lot more than that. So that's that's where the rub began right there.
Now, when you realize and you find out that you've been ripped off, what is your plan? And who goes along with this plan with you?
Well, I mean, honestly, when I found out, initially it was like, well, what am I gonna do? That was my initial reaction. I mean, what am I going to do?
It?
Over?
And you know, strong on these guys and then and honestly that's how it was. But then Jerry came over and he started kind of priming me and you know, getting me fired up about it, and you know, saying, hey, Dave, you know it was your score. You know, it's up to you. You do what you want. But I know where the stuff is at, and if you want to go get it, you know, let's let's go get it. He said, I'll drive you over there. I can tell you exactly where it's at, and he did. And it
was a lane. It was a house that Frank had rented for a lane and her kid and it was over off of the Durante Street, which was over by where Liberachi used to live. It's only Liberachi's house was only a couple of blocks away. It's a it's a total bad neighborhood now because I'm actually out in Vegas right now, but I went by there about a year or so ago, and it's it's downgraded quite a bit,
but that's where we went. We drove over there and his other sister, his sister, Michelle Camaro, and I got to you know, he lets me out and it was a bathroom window that I was to go through, and it was a bunch. It was some louver glass pane and I pushed one of them to break it, and it broke, but it left the jagged edge and I caught the bottom of my arm on my bottom of my forearm, by my elbow actually, and I gashed it
pretty good. But I mean, I just, you know, it didn't even FaZe me at the time, because you know, I'm breaking into some killer's house, and you know, that's what's on my mind. So I managed to get into the bathroom and I keep and I hear this drip drip, and I'm over the sink and I think it's the sink dripping, but and it's pitch black. I couldn't see
a damn thing. And so as soon as I rolled into the bathroom, I flipped on the light and there was just my blood was everyone and I just kind of freaked me out, and I looked down in my arm was just you know, gush what and it's you know. So I was like Jesse Ventura and Fredat I was like, I ain't got time to bleed, and so I just kind of boom went right to where he told me it was, which is in a under a dresser drawer in a pillowcase. And he also said if there's anything
else there, day leave it behind. He said, don't if there's anything else, just just just takes a dope. Now, I mean I really didn't think it's a time, but that don't make a lot of sense, you know, But I really didn't care. It was like we were we were driving over there to do it, so it's like whatever.
And but there was there was a bag of jewelry with probably you know, who knows how much money worth a jewelry in there, with watches and necklaces and rings and a lot of items to think gallons zimp blocked bag and I picked it up. If I hadn't to cut my arm, I probably would have stucked it down my pants and take it. But like I said, cutting my arm was was the wild card and the whole thing,
and that's what happened. I opened the door, went outside, and Jerry was sitting out there waiting, and I jumped in the car and we took off.
Now what do you guys go do? Even though you know Frank is likely gonna suspect Jerry and yourself number one? So what do you guys do? Play safe?
Well, you know, to be honest with you, Dan, I think the biggest reason Jerry, you know, got me to go do that was he just wanted to get high. That's really It sounds crazy or stupid, but that's what it was. And so we immediately started free. We went and hid the car my car, and got a hotel
room done at the end of the strip. We called our girlfriends up, who were both waitresses at the Pepper Melt, and that the party was on, and and we went on this long two weeks as I described in the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas trip where Jerry just got completely strung out, you know, with all that blow, and he was, you know, drinking to take the edge off the blow, and he just you know, fell apart, basically.
And that combined with his dad calling him every day, you know, we were on the road, but Jerry would call in his dad and then Nick would bust his balls about you know, what we did and telling him that we got to give it back, you know. So this was what was going on, and Jerry ended up
giving something back to him. He ended up we ended up giving him back what they said, they what he Frank had told him they initially got, which was against my advice, and I thought it was the dumbest thing in the world, but it was you know, I called Jerry, you know, you go ahead, but I'm sure if hell ain't going to that meeting. So he went there with Nick, and I guess Frank slapped him around a little bit and that was that.
So this idea of giving the money back, and I was giving back and you guys had done most of it, or a lot of it, anyway, incredible amount of it and sent money like like you like you were rich and wealthy. Right, what's the conversation that turns the tide and you have a radical reversal in your decision making.
Yeah. Well we uh after that it happened, and Jerry had been planning to go to Houston, Texas to manage a strip club down there called the Bunny Club, which was on Vicinette Street in Houston. And he had a good friend. This guy's name was Bob Bernie, and Bob would fly into Vegas, you know, periodically, and you know, him and Jerry would party and whatnot. That Bob was
doing some pretty good serious smuggling out of Mexico. And so Jerry had told me and Joe that, well, we'll go down to Houston and I'll hook you up with Bob and then you guys can run blowback to Colorado. Well that never happened. Okay, after all of the dope from the score was gone and the money was gone, Jerry Owedine probably about ten thousand dollars because he had bought a new car, you know, borrowed money from me for that from the down payment of Mazda seven Limited Edition.
You know.
It was a black and golden, nice brand new car, which is what he drove to Houston in and then it plus, you know, and he was spending this quaylud money, the money that we were getting from our guy moving
the louds while we were on our road trip. You know, we'd leave, we left him a few thousand, and then we'd come back into town and then he would give us the money, and we kept the quailouts in a safe deposit box at one of Jerry's friends, Bob, my next bank, and so we'd go to the bank and pick him up, and I'd take him over to my friend George, and then George would move him. But so anyway, Jerry owed me a bunch of money. He and you
just started acting weird and kind of distant. His attitude completely changed when we got down to Texas and I noticed a big time so to jump, so we actually thought maybe he was setting us up to get whack. And I felt very vulnerable down there. When I would go over across the street to the bar in the dark strip club, I could envision somebody walking in and
blowing me away, and so I just felt uneasy. And the fact that he owed me all that money, it was just everything came to a head down there, and I ended up having to sell my car, and it was just I was over it all, and I was over all the people, the Costanzas and the Colattas and the whole bunch of them. And after you know, being around them for that entire summer and into the fall, you know, I got a good glimpse at who they all were, and it was it wasn't the type of
people that I wanted to. You know, they lie, they tell you that, you know, they borrow money, they don't pay it back, you know, put you in bad situations. It's just it as the decisions. I just said, I'm going to the police and I'm going to squash all of them. That's what I told Joe, and we flew back into Vegas, and that's how it began.
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you use code true murder at talkspace dot com. Now, David, you said you made the very difficult decision, but you were very determined. So you mentioned earlier in the book that the FBI had their Vegas office and there were certain people there, certain detectives and agents pardon me, that were there who did you contact, Who did you speak to and what did you tell them?
Well, the first contact was with Las Vegas Metro Police Secret Witness Line, which was their anonymous tip line. I figured that would be a good way to just break the ice and you know, feel them out. I had made the decision to go to Metro over the FBI because I really didn't didn't trust the FED, I'll be honest, and that's was my decision. I felt more comfortable going
to the locals, and so I contacted. The first person I spoke to was a detectiven Age Palmer, and he ran the Secret Witness program and I basically and the first thing I said to him was today's your lucky day and he kind of laughed and said, yeah, well, well why And I went on to tell him that I had spent the entire summer with Frank Colotta and Ernie Devino and Leo Gardino and the Home Wall gang
and had enough information to take them all down. And so you know, at that time, the Metro Police and FBI had absolutely nothing, no cases, nothing on Frank Colotta or Tony Spillantro either one. And it wasn't for lack
of trying. They were spending millions of dollars and had constant twenty four hour, twenty four to seven surveillance wire taps the whole nine yards, but they didn't have anything on him, and so I kind of just ran him through, you know, the first score that I gave him that I described earlier about where they closed as police officers.
Right.
I told him that I had ripped off Colotta, and that was one of the reasons why I was coming forward because rather than kill him, because I'm not a killer and I don't I respect human life, but I knew I had to get rid of him for what I had done if I ever wanted to, you know, sleep soundly and not have to worry, you know, down the road. And I took it very seriously, and I pretty much said, you know, I'm going to do whatever I have to do for however long I have to
do it, until I put this dude away. And so after about a week or so, I talked to my friend and so I called up one day and this was probably a week after I initially contacted him, and Palmer told me that I would now be calling and speaking to Jeene Smith. Right when I spoke the one
who shot Frankie Bluestein. Well, that kind of made me feel at ease because I knew from being around those guys that Jeane wasn't dirty, okay, And at that point in time, that was my number one concern coming forward, because you know, I knew about Joe Blasco, and I didn't know if they had anybody else that was still in the department that they that Spilatro had in his back pocket. And so that was a major concern of mine that I wasn't walking into, you know, getting whacked out.
But when he when he told me Jeene Smith, I kind of felt at ease because I knew for a fact that Gene wasn't dirty from the way they the mobsters talked about him when I was around him. So that's who I started to call. So as soon as I called him, he gave me his number and we set up a meet and I ended up meeting him
at a Denny's. The Denny's right by the cop shop back then, which was close to downtown, and I met a Jean pulled up and he had a white bottleville and I jumped in and he saw me, and I remember, I'm only nineteen and I shook his hand. I says, I'm not what you expected, was it. He kind of looked at me and smiled and laughed. He said, no,
not really. And we had an epic drive where, you know, I told him what I had, and I told him that Frank had a house full of stolen shit furniture that was still there that they had done from a burglary that summer. And I was new for a fact that it was there because Tommy Yamatto told me and he helped move it in. So I told him that. So a couple of weeks passed and they still hadn't moved on it, and so I met him again and I really pressed him, and I, you know, I told him, look, man,
I said, I don't have time. You guys gotta you're gonna blow this. You got to move on it. And yes, when he told me, he says, well kid, he says, here's the deal. He says, I got to get a search, prepare a search, warn Affi, David. And I've never used you before as an informant. He says, I believe you. But he says, I'm going to have the fudge this warn a little bit and say that you were you know that you were a confidential, reliable informant in order
to get Judge Mcroorty to sign this. So and that's what they did. I flew back to Colorado and I told him that because it was around Thanksgiving. It was just a few days before Thanksgiving, and I told him that I was flying back to be with my family. And I said, but Joe will be out here, and I said, he's, you know, out here to take care of anything if you know, whatever happens, or you need to pass on any messages. And sure enough, since I
got back to Colorado, they hit Colotta. They broke They came in with a search warrant and the furniture that I had told them was there was there, and they were real happy. That was the turning point right there. That bust was the beginning of the end for the Chicago outfit in Las Vegas.
Now let's talk about to well, I'll mention it. What you told the authorities was that the stolen furniture would be a good pressure for Colada because he was this would likely be his three strikes and considered life in prison for this furniture. And as a result, you also told them are these authorities that that would pressure him into even Tony Spilatro thinking that he might rat out
putting a price on his head. Tell us the predictions that you make, that that you're vindicated later on when you find out, But tell us the predictions you made to the authorities.
Yeah. I told Jeane Smith that Halloween night as we drove around, and he showed me he had been ava BlackBook with him, which I thought was pretty interesting. I got trying kind of strange actually, and he handed me that black book and he said, all, show me who you know in here. But anyway, I go through it and h and at the end of the conversation, I told you and I told you, look, this is a slam dunk case. The furniture's there. He's a two time
convicted felon. He's like you just said, he's looking at three confelony convictions. Not only that, but he's under constant twenty four hours surveillance. They're looking to nailing you know, he's public enemy number two behind Tony's Bilotro. So you know, I told him all that, and I and you know the cops were being cops. He's he knew it too, but he didn't want to let me knew, you know, know that how important it was, you know, or how
important I was. And I told him that I had sized up Colatta and because of the drugs that he was doing with the coke, he was had it lane. He started dating the Lane Costanzo. In fact, he was day her, you know, when we got into town, and he eventually ended up marrying her. But anyway, that was the deal. I said, if if if he's looking at life in prison, he'll flip. And when I told Jane Smith that, initially he kind of laughed. He basically laughed at me, and you know, looked at me like, well kid,
he says, I don't know. He says, these outfit guys are pretty hardcore. I mean, I still remember, that's exactly what he said. And I says, well that that's true. But I said, I'm telling you, when they're looking at life in prison, living the life that they're living now, we'll see. And I said, he's not going to flip
right away, mind you. I said, it's but when when he runs out of rope and he runs out of road, and when it gets down to you know, he has to make a decision, that's when it'll happen, and he kind of just blew it off, like, well, well you know, we'll see. But yeah, that's exactly what I told you.
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Now you talk about the the idea that you were going to make this deal, But what were you expecting in terms of compensation and and what was your idea initially that you wanted to get out of this out of this deal? What what was your idea and what was their idea?
Well, see that was what was like a fluid situation. I mean what I wanted was very simple. I wanted I didn't necessarily want to go into the witness protection program. I wanted enough money to relocate myself to another city in return for were giving them Collotter. And I don't think that that was asking for much. You know, just what I had down the road is we get further down into the book after I you know, they fly me out and I testified where that's really where the
negotiations took place between me and Don Campbell. After I testified on made the fifth on Jerry Costanz, on the drug cases that I built. But that and that's when Campbell asked me. He says, well, do you want to go into witness protection. See, the thing that people have to remember what makes my situation pretty unique is that, see, they had nothing on me. I didn't get busted for anything. I had no charges at all initially when I came in and you know, gave him an I busted Kata.
I mean I had no felony record, I had no priors, and I wasn't charged with anything. So they couldn't control me. Now, your your average mafia inform and or witness is somebody that they busted and you know he's wrapping on his friends and it's that type of thing. But this that wasn't the case, and it caused the problem with them from the from the get go. And for the simple fact that they couldn't control me. You know, if I got pissed at him, I'd take off and they wouldn't
hear from me for two or three weeks. You know, as you will find mebody's reading the book. I go up the cannon. But that when it all came down to it, that was the deal. And I told Campbell, no, I don't want witness protection because it meant you can't talk to your family or anything else. Wasn't going to do that. I'm twenty years old for crying out left And I told him all I need is money and all and a contact number in case I needed them
for something. But I wanted to you know, all I wanted was enough money to move and get you know, have enough money to get started on someplace else. And that was that. And I told him, if you need me to testify, I'll be more than happy to testify for you.
Were you allowed to still conduct criminal activity.
When I was working with him?
Yes?
Yeah, well I mean I wasn't, you know, in their face with it. But I had a rentel car that I'd rented in Colorado that you know that I never took back, and I drove around in that it was a black LTD all summer long. And I would meet with Gene Smith when we would go as we later, you know, they wanted me to get back into Jerry because Jerry came back from Houston. And so during the summer, spring and summer of nineteen eighty one, that's what I did.
I met Jerry in May, and you know, they wanted me to hang in some drug buys on so we could lever, you know, leverage klata. I didn't want to do it. I told him, you know what had happened, how I took taken his pawn tickets to his jewelry. Before I'd left, we had the altercation with his dad, as you'll read about in the book, which was one of the most craziest nights of my life. And I've had a few of them, but that was probably in
the top five for sure. And it was, you know, I didn't want to do it, but it was to me, if it meant okay, I'll get back into Jerry and do some control but drug buys on him, if it'll end this thing, you know, if you'll, if we can, you can pull the plug on me and I can get out of this. And so that's what I did.
And we had told them, you know that, you know that since Jerry and Elaine were so tight and the Costandra family was so tight that especially now remember he's already got the possession of stolen property charge on him and Bruce's hadn't happened yet on July the fourth of eighty one. So hanging drug cases on his brother in law, with all the other things that I had done to and was going to put him pretty much in checkmate, and so that's why that was done.
What happens in terms of your prediction about the contract on Frank Klada from Tony Spillatro.
Well, I mean I knew that all along. You know, that was just something, you know, that was a bonus that the more heat that I put on him, that even if he didn't flip, they probably ended up, you know, whacking one or the other. He'd get whacked out once Tony thought he was, you know, a liability, and so yeah, it was.
Uh.
The story that they've told Kalata and the FBI is that he was played a tape of some outfit guy telling Tony Spilantro to clean his dirty laundry. Well, I don't know if that is true or not. I seriously doubt it. The reason Kalada flipped was because on May the four and I had gone back to Colorado because again,
they were just dragging their feet. I had done those controlled drug buys on Costanza and they were just sitting on the table and I kept getting bullshitted by Arnoldy when I would call him and Jean Smith, well, Campbell's tied up one another case or you know, blah blah blah. It was always something you know, just to string me along. So finally after what happened was was Kolota got convicted on April twenty fourth of nineteen eighty two on my
possession of stolen property chart. So he had gotten out. This is something else that most people don't know because they lied about it. Klota was out on one hundred thousand dollars bond on my case on the possession of stolen property case. Okay, that happened in November of nineteen eighty Now Birth's doesn't happen until July fourth of eighty one.
So he's already out on one hundred thousand dollars bond when he gets cracked because of sal Romano and Burthas sal Ramono setting him up on the birthas thing, all of them, and so the judge revokes his one hundred thousand dollars bond and combines the two cases and sets his bond at a million dollars. Well, he didn't get out right away, and Tony didn't come up with any money. He sat in jail from probably the July fourth until
it was it was in the fall. He did a couple of months down in jail, and then he bonded out because and I write about this in my book. Gene Smith calls me and he says, do you know anybody that Colada knows up in Mountain Arrelson? And I thought, and I said no. I said, oh, alask Joe. But I don't think so. I've never heard any mentioned things. But it was this woman that he knew, and he put up her house and from cash, I guess. And
he got out in late fall of eighty one. Most people don't know that, they think, because like I said, they lied about it, the FBI and Colada lied about it, basically saying that he was in jail when they played in this tape. Now he might have been in jail because they might have revoked his bond on April twenty four when he got convicted of finally got convicted on the possession stolen property. But so anyway, he was in a bad spot. And so they bring me in on
May the fourth. And remember he hadn't it hadn't been announced that he had flipped and become a government witness, Okay, And when I was flown out there on May the fourth, nobody was acting like Frank Klouda had become a gummental witness. In fact, they knew exactly what I was being brought out there for, and that was to testify before the Federal Strike Force grand jury along with Detective Cordel Pearson, who I did the control bys on Costanzo with. That were all filmed and I had a wire on and
the whole nine, and that's what I did. They guarded me twenty four to seven. I was guarded like the president. I was taken to the Federal building in the back door and then I testified to what I did. And that's after that, that's when I had the meeting with Campbell about the witness protection and getting paid and all that.
But what ended up happening was they sent me back to Colorado because Campbell told me, he says, you know, otherwise we got to I got to tie up a whole unit of guys to you know, sit on you and guard you. And I don't think you want that, So he says, why don't you. We'll fly you back to Colorado. As soon as we going around these guys up, we'll fly you back and then we'll get your money and get you you know, you disappear. Well. As soon
as I flew back to Colorado the next day. I mean, I'm on pins and needles, which you can imagine, right, my whole life's getting ready to change. I mean it's I'm twenty one years old at this point, just turned twenty one actually, and this and I don't get a phone call from Ayot and they start clicking by and still nothing about Colada flipping. Then all of a sudden, I get the phone call. I don't know if it was a few days or a week later. Meanwhile, I'm
calling arnold Y Campbell, Jeene Smith. I'm blowing their phones up out in Las Vegas, Okay, and I and none of them are returning my calls. So you imagine what I'm thinking. So here's the next thing. Joe Tsoni calls me up in Las Vegas. He said, Hey, guess what. It's all over the news. They just announced Frank Klatta has become a government witness and now this this happened. Uh gee, I got the newspaper article. I think it's May the ninths, and okay is when they announced it.
I'm sure he flipped before. You know, they waited a few days after he flipped before they announced it. So just to give you the timelines, because I contend that it was everything that I did on Frank Klatta that caused him to flip, and especially the final testifying against Jerry and also his cousin Lewis. And there was three about three or four of the people who went along with Jerry on those buys, and so there was like five people on the indictment. And I mean, Cherry knew
a lot himself. So uh, what happened was was they took those indictments over to Frank and Elaine and said it's all over, Frank. And that's pretty much what happened, right, and now to flip.
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Now we have to talk about how you were dissatisfied with the deal with the US State Attorney for Nevada, Don Campbell, and eventually you realize you're getting screwed over and you weren't going to get your money, You weren't going to get your credit. There was a story, there was something in the media. It was a four part series that was produced, but at the end of it, you were you were still disappointed that the story wasn't
really told. Your story really wasn't told. And then you saw again all the books that came out again that you weren't even mentioned, So it was like you never really existed. And the work that you did, this crucial, important work to bring down Spiatra and Hole in the Wall gang. Without you, they wouldn't have done this whatsoever? You wanted credit? So how do you meet Dennis Griffin and tell us about this journey to get your story told?
Well, going back right after they burned me is when after Joey had told me that on the phone, I told my father this, and you know, joe and I talked about it, and Vince and I talked about it, and so I flew out there and on my own dime, you know, not protected, and basically just barged into the US Attorney's office and told Doron Campbell, you know, wtf,
you know what? You know, what what's going on? I know Frank flipped, and I know why he flipped, and now why haven't I heard from the Well it was the most surreal experience I've ever experienced in my life.
And it's it I'll never forget it because here are these people who had, you know, fallen all over me and treated me, you know, and realized how important I was and the work that I was doing for and then all of a sudden, as soon as they got colloed because of me, when I flew back out there, it was like one hundred and eighty degrees turnaround in their attitude. I mean, they basically just treated me like a like a piece of dirt, and it's like kick rocks, kid,
get lost. You know, we got what we wanted out of you, and so just go get killed. And I mean I had people on you know, remember those indictments, and well, first thing I asked him was what happened to the indictments on Cassandra?
What?
I just came out here and testified. Remember the guys guarded me twenty four to seven, and you know, and then you don't answer my calls. And then I find out from Joe that the Colada flips and here I am,
and it's well, he gives me this BS story. Well, the grand jury wouldn't return the indictments, and I just looked at him like, dude, I'm only twenty one, but I'm not that dumb, okay, And part of the deal was was for them that Frank would cooperate and become a government witness if those indictments that I had just gotten on Jerry and Lewis and the rest of them were dismissed. That was part of the deal from the
get go. And the second part part of the deal was that David Bowman would never be mentioned from this point further. So I'm telling you it was a surrealist thing. I've never seen people act the way Campbell acted. And then I went over and had a big confrontation with June Smith in Kent Clifford of Intelligence. After Campbell had
threatened to have me arrested by federal agents. I called him on the phone and asked him something after the initial meeting, and he jumped in my ass and he's telling me, oh, I'm going to have you arrested by federal agents for a pain because he gave me like four hundred basically enough money to buy a plane ticket back to Colorado, and he was going to have me arrested by federal agents because for obtaining federal funds under false pretens. Well you can imagine what I told him.
You'll read about it in the book when he told me on the phone. And so I go to the media and I went to all the television stations. I met with Glen Costaldi and her producer with count of the NBC affiliate. I spoke to Ned Day, who had written a lot of stuff on Spilatro with CBS and he also wrote for the RJ. But I ended up doing the story with Jeff German and the Las Vegas Sun.
And it was almost immediately after they burned me. I went to the media, right and I told the FEDS that, and the police said that I was going to the media and I was going to blow the whole thing up, and I didn't care, and that's what I did. The story never came out Dan until September. I believe it
was September nineteenth of eighty two. Now, remember I got burned in May, so it took them months to scrub this story because the Costanzas weren't under indictment for anything at that point, so they couldn't use their name, so they had to change their names in the story. And that's why I was disappointed in the final product that came out, the four part series. I mean, it was
a huge story. But here's something that's very relevant that people need to know that as soon as my story was released, which was a Sunday, was when the first part broke front page of the Las Vegas Sun the
very next day, that following Monday. Guess what happened. The Las Vegas FBI and Frank Kolotta collaborate on a story to a front page story and the RJ, the competing newspaper, saying, here, all of a sudden, Kla he's a federal witness, right, and here, all of a sudden, he's doing a front page news story with the fbis blessing, which it's pretty
weird to begin with, but it was. It was all done to deflect attention away from my story, because they ran that story the following Monday, and I never forget. I called Jeff German and he told me that. He said, Dave, you're never going to believe this. He says. They ran a story with Klatta saying that he paid off the sheriff elect at the time, John Moran, because the elections were coming up in November for sheriff and John McCarthy
was running against John Moran. McCarthy was the incumbent. They were the bunch that I worked with, Jeene Smith, Kent Clifford, and John McCary. That was McCarthy's regime. And Moran was his opposition. So Klotta come up with a story that he bribed Moran forty thousand dollars so he would stay off of Tony and him, which John Moran later took a polygraph. There was a whole a bunch of stories that followed that because it set off a a shit storm basically in the media that just went on and
on and on for weeks after that. Moran called him a pathological liar, and I mean it was, It got really ugly. But Moran did take a polygraph. Bottom line is then the whole story was completely fabricated by Colada, by the FBI to not only smeer Moran, but mainly to deflect attention away from my story and how they burned me.
Right now, let's get to Colorado Springs. Your brother has a business and you start working a regular, regular job, and you rent the house with your old friend, Vince Spoto and along with his wife who's the dancer, And you meet a dancer named Melinda molly Derwigger. Tell us about her okay, sorry, tell us about her personal situation and relationship and how you got involved.
Well, like I said, I'd gone back to Colorado after all the Las Vegas stuff, I started working for my brother's company. I'm in Colorado Springs. Actually, I'd moved in to the house on web Drive and Colorado Springs was actually a childhood friend and then and his girlfriend, and then Vince and his wife. Well, Vince came out initially, and then his wife came out a couple of weeks later.
He brought her out well with his son who was just born, and excuse me, and so yeah, he moved in with me because I after I moved back to Colorado, I hadn't I quit doing blow. I know, wasn't partying. I was just working all the time, and I was
actually just kind of bored and lonely. And you know, Vince was having you know issues out in Las Vegas, and he was involved with the coke and was dealing out there, and his life was kind of coming unraveled, and he kind of wanted to be around his friend, you know, and he wanted, you know, some just to get out of Vegas for a while and hang out with me for a while. So he flew back and we started frequenting this script club and it was kind of a real, you know, light script club. Light Okay.
It wasn't a real hardcore bar because the girl that was that I met this, Melinda was was nineteen at a time. So it was kind of like a go go dance club called the Candle Light in up on North Nevada and Colorado Spring, and it was just innocent, you know. We came in and we'd go back to shoot pool and and uh watch the girls, and and we had the coke. Vince had some blow with them, and so we kind of used that to uh break the ice with the with the dancers. And uh, that's
how I met her and we started partying. She came over and to the house and spent the night with me a couple of times, and we would just begin getting involved in a relationship.
Tell us about the night in question that again once again changed your life drastically and dramatically.
Yeah, it was. Uh, it was very unfortunate. I had met gone down to the club with Vince and Shira because Hero was going to get a job dancing there because he had just got into town. And since it was like a little go go club, you know, Vince was cool with it. So he's like, okay, and we brought her down there and she talked to Mollie and she was going to start working there. And then Mollie and I spent a little time together, and she told me just go to her apartment and her roommates would
let me in. She'd see me after when she got off work. And I said cool. I said, I'm gonna take Vince and shere a home and then I'll get my work clothes and head over. And that's what I did. And so it's like it's very early in the morning, and I get over to her apartment and she hadn't got home yet, and like she said, her roommates were there, Tracy and Mary, and there was a couple more actually,
but I didn't really know them. And so the two girls I knew let me in, and I went into her bedroom and started getting undressed, and I had my work uniform and things so I could get up go to work the next day. Well, it wasn't long. All of a sudden, she opens her bedroom door and walks in, and immediately I knew could read her face that something was up. I mean almost immediately I could tell something.
She was upset. And she just looks at me and she kind of and she's I could tell she was embarrassed, and you know, and she looks at me. He says, Dave, I feel like such an asshole. Please don't hate me. Roger's downstairs and he says, we have to talk. And now I'm super tired. I've been doing coke. I've worked all day, okay, and then I've been up partying. I
had a couple of dreams, but I'm totally exhausted. And I didn't say any I just looked at her, and before I could say anything, her roommate, Tracy, grabs me by my hand and says, Dave, come with me, and grabs me by the hand and takes me out of the bedroom and we go into the bathroom. Well, this girl was shooting coke and that was really what she wanted. She wanted to she wanted to shot, so I obliged her. I loaded her up a spoon booth powder and watched
her do her thing. And while she's doing that, I'm asking her. I'm like, all right, Tracy, what's going on here? And she says, oh, Molly, really dig your day. But this Roger, he's an asshole. He won't take no for an answer. But just let Mollie handle it. She wants to be with you and just but let her deal with this jerk. Okay, that's basically what she told me. Well, while we were in the bathroom, this guy, this ex
boyfriend of hers who was a DJ down at the club. Okay, he was the DJ at the Candlelight and Mollie had told me that she had dated him and it was over and blah blah. So anyway, well, I'm I come out of the bathroom with Tracy. He has has come into the apartment and gone into the bedroom and closed the door. I still got all my clothes and coat and keys and you know, and and I'm thinking to myself, boy, this guy has got a lot of balls to do something like this, you know. I mean, but I remember,
I've been through all this in Las Vegas. I've worked with the FBI, you know, and the police. I'm upset, but I'm very much under control. And I realized, you know, what this guy's pulling. And I say to Tracy, I said, look, I said, somebody better go in there and get my coat and my stuff and my keys. I said, because if I go in there, I think, you know, it's going to be some problems. And so boy, she she
was right on with Johnny on the squat. She went into the bedroom, she knocked on the door, she slid in. She came out with my coat and my keys, but she left my work uniform because I left it in this little wedge between the wall and the bed, which is key down the road. That I just wanted to interject that. And so I get my stuff, and I didn't leave immediately. I just sat out there in the living room because I'm hoping maybe he'd walk out or something.
And all the while I'm processing in my head, what should I do? Should I go confront this guy? And I said to myself, Dave, he's got a gun, or he would have never did what he did because he wasn't a big guy. Okay, he wasn't big at all, so and he knew that. That's why I figured he had a gun as boldly as he was acting. And it wouldn't do me any good to go in there because he would just pull the gun on me and the whole situation would then escalate. So I decided to leave.
I get in my work truck and I drive all the way back to the house. Well, on the drive back to the house. I got more pissed, you know. I just thought, well, balls of this guy, and well, who did this guy think he is right? And so I get back to the house and it's much I'm kind of surprised. When I walked in, Vince had gotten up and he was getting something out of the refrigerator.
When I walked in, it was like four o'clock in the morning, early I was about thirty three point thirty something like that, and he was getting a drink or something and he looked at me, like, what are you doing here? And I went on to tell him what had happened. And I told him. I says, give me, give me your gun. I said, I want to go back over there and confront this this idiot. And he says no, he says, I'll go with you. I said, no, I don't want you to go with me. I said,
it's none of your business. I said, oh, I just let me use the gun. And he said no, he said, he said I want to come with you. I said, all right, dude, I said, but you know I'm telling you, don't you know I don't want you to pulling the gun on this guy. I'm telling you just watch my back. I'm going to confront him, and I said, you know, if we get into a fight, I said, just make sure I don't, you know, get carried away on this guy. That's what I told him. But I said, you gotta
promise and he won't pull that gun. And he said, I promise you do. I said, I'm good. I said, we don't need this bullshit. I said, I just want to find out, you know, if she wants to be with him, fine, but that's not what Tracy told me. I said, I'll throw his ass out of there. I said, but just watch my back. That's all I want you to do. So we go back to the apartment. Vance has the gun. He's stuck. He's got it stuff down
his waistband. He's got my winter jacket on, which is a heavy winter kind of a leather jacket, which he couldn't tell that he had a gun, a three fifty seven, and his waistband. So we knock on the door. The girls let us in, but immediately they saw me at Vince and the roommate knew. I could see it in her eyes that she knew. You can see the fear in her eyes, say, oh shit, this is going to be this don't look good. So Vince and I go to the bedroom door. I knock on the door and
almost simultaneously open the door flip on the light. There, Molly and him are in bed. She's laying on the left side, he's laying on the right side. And I go to the corner of Molly's into the bed and Vince walks around my back and he stands directly in front of Bird who's laying in bed, and he's got his arms fold and he just doesn't say a word. He just stands there, and I'm the one that talks.
As soon as I slipped on the light, he lifted his head off the pillow, and I looked at him and says, hey, you and I got something to discuss. And he looks at me and he says, f you pick a better time, and he lately puts his head back down the pill I say, I kind of laughed, and I said, hey, I says, you got thirty seconds to get up out of that bed and put your pants on, or I'll put him.
On for you.
And he sits up in bed real fast and says, oh yeah, and he reaches up on the headboard where he has his twenty five semi automatic, with his cliff laying right next to it. He grabs him with one hand. He transferred. He pops the cliff in as soon as Vince saw and reached back there he says, He says, David, he's got a gun. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vince pirouette and turn his back and unzi up his jacket, and I knew he was
pulling the gun. And so he pulls the gun out of his waist bend and he comes around the corner of the bed, and by then Berg had already leveled the gun on me. He grabs his wrist, was a gun in it and jerks it straight up in the air so if he squeezed the shot it wouldn't shoot me. And going the ceiling, and he takes the three fifty seven and he jams it to Bird's temple and tells him and I mean he jammed it to his head
and says, chill out, asshole. And he had him. Okay, he had his wrist, he had the three fifty seven pressed to his hat. The guy, if he would have just dropped the gun this, my whole life would be different, Okay. But he was drunk. The autopsy showed he had all kinds of drugs and he was heavily intoxicated, and he tried to rasp struggle with Vince, turn his gun on Vince.
And as soon as they locked into the struggle, I leaned down because Mollie was starting to, you know, get it active, and she said like no, guys, no, or something like that. I leaned down to grab her foot because I was going to pull her, you know, out of the bed. Once those two locked up on each other and they both had guns, I just wanted to the first thing I thought was to get her out
of harms way. But as soon as I reached down to grab her ankle, the Vincu's done went off and I could see, you know, you know, it killed him instantly. It was a pretty gross thing to see. And immediately Molly flew out of bed, just screaming, you know, hysterically. And I mean, if you have a if you're human at all, I mean, a hysterical screaming woman is something that I think gets to most people. And I understood why, you know, because we certainly didn't intend not to happen.
So it was just a shock is what it was to me, because everything just happened so fast, within a matter of seconds, and it was just a situation. I never should have went back over there. I mean I sat in prison for I did an eight I ended up doing eight year sentence over that. Vince ended up going got convicted of first every murder. I wasn't able to testify at his trial because they severed us. We were induided by a grand jury. So you know, there
was a lot of legal maneuver and involved. But I gave the thirty two page statements to the Colorado Springs Police after I flew back and turned myself in. Sergeant Joe Kenda was actually the guy homicide on her Canada, and I gave They asked me if I wanted a lawyer. I wanted to say, Hell, I am a lawyer. I don't need a lawyer. You know, guys don't know what I've just been through in Las Vegas. But I didn't
say that. I just basically told the truth. I told him exactly what I just told you and your audience as to what happened. And I'll stand on that state to this day. Is what I always tell people. The truth never changes and so that's pretty much what it is. What happened down the road was the case was overturned by the Colorado Court of Appeals. The state appealed the appellate Court's reversal and to the Colorado Supreme Court, and the Colorado Supreme Court took the case and we won
that four to three Colorado Supreme Court case. It's a precedent case. It's people versus photos, a precedent case on similar transaction evidence.
Ye use as an opportunity for to stop for a commercial break. Now, you talked about after prison, after this whole thing was all sorted out, and then you decided that you needed to tell the story, and you discovered that Frank Kolotta was having tours of the spots in Las Vegas where Casino where some of the scenes in Casino were actually shot. So tell us what your plan was and your meeting with Frank Kolotta before I.
Let you go. Yeah, I had tried to reach him, actually several times prior to this, years, prior to the time when I finally did in August of twenty nineteen. I just wanted to throw that out there and he would ignore me. So I thought about it and I thought of how I could confirm without him giving him a back door to run through. And like you mentioned, I found out he was doing his Frank Colada casino tour,
and so I booked a a tour with him. And of course I didn't tell him I was David Bowman, and I knew after all these years, after forty years, he probably wouldn't recognize me with the gray hair and all. But anyway, that's what I did, and I went out there for the sole purpose of telling him I wanted to write a book. And I told everybody when I went out there. The people that I were working with said I'm going out there to get a book deal, but I didn't know, but I just I was going
to get it done. And so I booked the casino tour, and I got to admit it was pretty It was pretty nerve wracking when I stepped into that vehicle with him and his driver. I wasn't so much worried about Frank as I was his driver, because I didn't know who this guy was, and I knew Frank was eighty years old. That much I was worried about with him, But the first minute was pretty intense. He started talking about his saying and I said, yeah, Frank, I know
all about it. I says, I'm David Bowman, secret witness for ninety one. As soon as I said that, he says, oh, you're that son of a bitch, and and then pretty much right after that he says, you're persistent, and I thought, yeah, Frank,
I am. But he knew when as soon as I told him that I was David Bowman, he knew that I was the guy that got him way back, Like I said, when they brought the indictments to him on on Jerry, they told him that I was the one that got him on the furniture and that I was the one that got Jerry and basically got him carried. So he and that was he actually did. Frank also did an eight year sentence even though he was in
witness protection on my possession of stolen property case. It wasn't birth as it was the possession of stolen property that he did is three and a half years of right. But it was a very tense, like I said, for the first minute or so, and then we had a great conversation. We've talked about things that only him and I could discuss. Because you know, he knew what I knew, which was everything, and we talked about who murdered NICKI,
we talked about Elaine. You know, he called Elaina while we were still driving around because he knew that I was close to Elaine. I had met Elaine two years before he did. I mean, I was Elaine was kind of like a big sister to me, and so he called her up. And then but it was after or he called a lane up, after he called Danny Griffin. He called Danny Griffin up immediately because I told Frank, I said, look, I want to do a book and I want to tell my story, and Frank knew it
and he wasn't going to object to it. I think I actually kind of scared him a little bit. I really do. We were both nervous in our own for our own reasons. But like I said, he even told me that doing those casino tours, he worried about one of his victims family members coming in and lacking them because one of the things that he just to show you how what I think, is how crazy our society
has become part of this casino tour. He would drive around or he would go to the house of the guy he murdered this Jerry listener, and he would describe, indeed, tail how he killed this man. And he did it
to me. He told me how he did it, how he used half loads in the twenty two and he shot him in the you know, we got in the house and shot him in the head, and the guy wouldn't go down, so and he used half loads because they couldn't get a silencer at the time, so they had to use half loads, but they weren't enough powder to you know, penetrate his skull, I guess. So he ends up having to strangle the guy with the water
cooler electrical core. And then Wayne Mattechi came in because Frank didn't come out right away when he was supposed to. So Wayne came in and had another gun, and he put a pillow in his face and shot him in the face five or six times, and then they threw him in the pool, is how he describes it. They took him out back and threw him in the pool to wash off the forensic evidence, and that's where they
found the guy floating in a swimming pool. Jerry Wisner, which, by the way, your listeners should know that he was given immunity of course for that killing, along with three others, so he was basically given immunity on four murders to become a government witness.
Now in the end, Dennis Griffin was the author that Frank Klotta told you about and had written and helped Frank Colotta write his story and also had done covered extensively the Hole in the Wall gang in books such as Battle for Las Vegas. Tell us about Dennis Griffin. We talked about this earlier. He passed away this August. Tell us just a little bit about bringing this book and getting this book done with and as Griffin.
Yeah, Denny, like I said, Frank called him that very as we were driving around on this casino tour, which surprised me by the way as quickly as he called him, and how quickly it all happened, And that's how it happened. It was just like that. And he gave me Denny's number, And after we got done with the tour, I called Denny, or he gave Denny my number. I forget what it was, and we just immediately started talking on the phone, and he contacted a publisher who he had done other books with.
I believe of Frank's books and said they were very interested and that's what when we were going to do it, and so. But Denny was a very it was a total gentleman. I never met him personally. We did all everything over the phone, and I wrote my manuscript and he pretty much just edited it and put it together very nicely. But from my impression of Danny, he was a very what I knew of him, he was a very good man and an honest man, and a very
talented writer. And he did a great job with like I said, editing my manuscript and putting it in book form. And I thought he did a great job. And it was a shock when he passed a few months ago.
I want to thank you David Bowman for coming on and talking about your book bringing Down Colotta, the story Casino couldn't tell you. Is there a website, the Facebook page somewhere where they might take a look at this. I know it's on Amazon, but tell us about that.
Yeah, I've got a Facebook page and it's bringing down Klata and as well as a Twitter account same thing, bringing down Colata. It's c U L l O Tta. It's kind of a sometimes that people get the spelling wrong, and I will have my website up in a few days. In fact, I'm working on it, or was working on it before the interview, so I would say within a week I'll have my bringingdown Klota dot com up and you'll be able to buy the book from that as well as from my publisher, Coastal West, which is a
Canadian publisher. You can get the book through Coastalwest dot CA.
A great Thank you so much, David Bowman. It's been a pleasure bringing down Klota the story Casino couldn't tell you. You have a great evening, and thank you so much for this interview. David Bowman, goodnight.
Thank you, Dan, appreciate it.