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I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
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It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder.
00:02:15
That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgariff. And we're here to podcast for you on video.
00:02:21
Breaking news. we're podcasting breaking news everybody podcasts are on video now for fucking reason
00:02:27
and that's actually what breaking news is these days because there's no more local news in america we refuse you're right yeah i'm okay you just left for a second
00:02:39
it's pretty crazy i know i didn't look at anything today so i'm feeling i'm feeling like i forgot
00:02:47
everything that's going wrong i know what's going right do you want me to tell you yes you have
00:02:51
something to show me. So I spend, according to my phone, hours and hours on TikTok. Don't ever look
00:02:57
at that. It's really shocking. I'm like, I don't even know I have this much free time. But my
00:03:02
favorite thing that happened recently is a little kind of like a three-part story. And it's going to
00:03:07
start out with, I'm going to show you a TikTok and we have to change the music, of course, because
00:03:12
this is going to go on Netflix. But the real music is a song that you and I both love by the rapper
00:03:18
Armani White. That's the Billie Eilish song. I love that song. Do you see that video when she
00:03:22
brings it out on stage and sing it together and I start crying? It's so cute and the audience goes
00:03:28
so crazy. I love Billie Eilish so much. Okay. She's the best, but deserves a song. Yeah. So
00:03:32
there's an incredible volleyball player at Cal State Northridge. Okay. The Matta Doors. That's
00:03:37
where my parents went. For real? I'm pretty sure. I did a nooner at Northridge one time with Greg
00:03:43
Barrett and somebody else. You have to go to the cafeteria and do stand-up comedy at noon.
00:03:48
Is that CSUN? Yeah. Okay. That's where my parents went. Yes. Yes. CSUN. So right now.
00:03:53
They met. Yeah. Okay. So there's a very viral volleyball player who is amazing at volleyball,
00:04:00
but he also does like full-on slay queen style gestures once he gets a point. Oh my God. Okay.
00:04:08
And it is so great and people are loving it. So let me show it to you. I've never seen it.
00:04:13
And we're going to have the original music, but we'll put in other music. Okay. Oh!
00:04:26
He does the neck walk away. Mm-hmm. Eh. Oh. Oh, my God. Okay, I love him the most. What's his name?
00:04:46
Right. Jordan Lucas. Okay. His older brother was a volleyball star as well. Okay.
00:04:51
I think they said his dad was. So now I'm like an expert on him. Well, let's tell people who aren't watching on Netflix. He's doing these like moves as soon as he hits.
00:05:00
Well, go to TikTok. He's all over TikTok. It's basically what everyone is looking at.
00:05:04
But he's spiking the ball. He's jumping what looks like five feet in the air, spiking the ball, getting the point, and then basically doing a little RuPaul's Drag Race move to be like Slay Mama.
00:05:16
Yeah, like walk away fucking head twist. Yeah, kind of in your face. So this is starting to build in popularity on social media.
00:05:24
Okay. And then CSUN has a game at Irvine. Oh, so it's where my parents went versus where I'm from.
00:05:31
Where they raised you. And at Irvine, one of the color commentators says, I'm surprised nobody has popped Jordan Lucas yet.
00:05:39
What he's doing on that chord is distasteful. He isn't standing there screaming like that.
00:05:44
He literally goes like that. He turns his head in a way that's like a gesture. So one of the most popular super cuts is to the Armani White song.
00:05:52
I think it's called Billie Eilish. That how I know it Bitch I stylish Basically this story gets out that that what this guy says and at the next CSUN game Armani White in the stand watching Jordan Lucas play
00:06:06
and cheering for every single point and I watched it last night and I just had tears streaming down my face
00:06:13
I'm just like this is it this is where he went to the next fucking game and was like I'd seen all these videos
00:06:22
and everyone was talking about this amazing volleyball player So I wanted to see it for myself.
00:06:26
And I did. And it's like him and his friends in the stands cheering for Jordan Lucas.
00:06:32
You're about to start crying, first of all. I want everyone to know that. You're about to start crying.
00:06:36
Because, well, what I was going to say is like, it's the old days growing up, going to high school in the 80s,
00:06:41
where not only would you be popped for expressing yourself in any way different than the standard norm,
00:06:48
but that idea that someone would suggest that would mean that would happen. Totally.
00:06:52
And it almost is like Armani White understands all those things. And it's kind of like, here's the posse that's rolling up for Jordan Lucas.
00:07:00
And symbolically tough guy, rapper, whatever. Yeah. That's basically like, I'm here on his behalf.
00:07:08
Yeah. That's so touching. It's beautiful. Wow. Do you have more video to show me?
00:07:13
Yeah. I mean, there is another one. And this one is cut to a Beyonce song. So it just like.
00:07:17
Oh, my God. What if Beyonce is in the fucking audience next? That one, he just tips it over.
00:07:29
Yes. I love it. Oh, that's him. That's Armani White right there. Oh, my God. Can we start podcasting like that?
00:07:38
So that, like, maybe they'll show up to exactly right studios. Yeah. Next time I give a good story, I'm going to.
00:07:44
It's almost like when you're so good, you can't control the in your face. So you have to turn it around.
00:07:49
And that's part of what you're doing. I mean, it's called personality. It's pretty fun.
00:07:53
I love it. That's a feel good story. Right? Yeah. Good job. Speaking of breaking news and going in a completely different direction.
00:07:59
Oh, OK. But also, you know, in a positive, if you could call it that way. OK. True crime and positivity aren't always.
00:08:07
But I covered the story when we were in Portland called the Martin family disappearance, which is one of those stories I've always been obsessed with, where I'm pretty sure that like half of the missing people drove into a lake.
00:08:20
and their car's still in the lake. You know what I mean? So this family, the Martin family, disappeared.
00:08:26
It was five of them. It was the husband and wife, Ken and Barbara, and their children.
00:08:30
And they all went missing in December of 1958 while off getting bows for Christmas decorations
00:08:37
out in Oregon in the wilderness. They all disappeared. Was there foul play? No one really knew.
00:08:44
But their car was finally found in the place where they had pretty much disappeared.
00:08:49
So a diving expedition spearheaded by this diver, Archer Mayo, who has been finding cars and finding missing people at the bottom of lakes.
00:08:58
He had also found the Martin family camera and they were able to identify it as the car where some of the family was in.
00:09:07
So it looks like it was just an accident all along. But 1958. That's crazy. Yeah.
00:09:14
So two of the children had already been found. I think that they had floated out of the car and up the river, but the rest of the family was found in the car.
00:09:24
So it does seem like it just was a horrible accident. They were found in the Columbia River.
00:09:29
So sad. I know. But these stories that come out is like finally giving an end of a story.
00:09:33
You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, it's just those are fascinating to me and so heartbreaking and tragic.
00:09:38
Yeah. And good, great news when finally there's some sort of resolution. Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:43
Do you have anything else? You haven't seen the drama yet. No. You have to see it.
00:09:49
The drama is a movie? Yeah, with Zendaya. Oh, okay. It's just so good. Okay. And then we'll talk about it because I need to talk about it.
00:09:56
Like it's one of those movies that I need to talk to someone about it. Oh, okay.
00:09:58
Like I had a little bit of a mental breakdown after watching it because it was so like,
00:10:02
it's just one of those things of like, what would you have done in that situation?
00:10:05
Oh, okay. Yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah. I'll watch it this weekend and we'll make a video.
00:10:11
There you go. How about that? Yeah. We'll do a rewatch talk down video. Okay, great.
00:10:16
Okay. We're making plans. We're making content. When have we ever followed through with the plans that we make?
00:10:23
How many books have we started in our book club? How many? The last one when you're like, here, here's a book on burnout.
00:10:29
And I'm like, I'm going to read it and get back to you. What am I talking about?
00:10:33
You left it in the hotel room. I have it. It's right by my bed. Oh, good. But, you know, I have to keep rewatching what we do in the shadows for some reason.
00:10:42
That's it's my serious problem. I began talking like Nandor around the house. So I'm like, this is crazy.
00:10:48
It's such a good show. It's delightful. Speaking of delightful, we have a podcast network.
00:10:52
Should we do some updates? Very true. Yes, we should. Our podcast network's called Exactly Right Media.
00:10:57
And this week on Dear Movies, I Love You, our movie podcast, Millie and Casey revisit the post-apocalyptic 90s romp Tank Girl.
00:11:05
Saw it in the theater. Wow. That was the year I think I moved to L.A. Oh, my God.
00:11:10
Plus, Cara Clank joins them to talk about her area of expertise, later in life romances.
00:11:16
That's not her expertise. I wonder if she, did she meet her husband later in life?
00:11:22
No. Must be other people's. Can I just say, she and I just recently polished up two bottles of rosé.
00:11:29
She's a fucking expert at that. I'll tell you that right now. That's what she's great at.
00:11:32
She is. And then over on Ghosted, Roz is joined by Mark Sebastian of the hit series, Great American Gay SideQuest.
00:11:40
Have you seen that? No, it's so good. So great. He's just like standing in front of stuff and he's like, well, I'm here.
00:11:46
Like, it's hilarious. Okay, I love it. And they have a spooky download. They get into his on ghost sighting at the Stanley Hotel and his haunted childhood home The Stanley Hotel thing happened It part of the SideQuest series Okay Great American Gay SideQuest We all going to go watch it Also please go listen to our newest podcast Hollywoodland
00:12:05
the sister podcast of Disgraceland from Jake Brennan. And this week he tells the story of the scariest one of all, Charlie Sheen.
00:12:13
From tiger blood to machetes to career-wrecking levels of excess, this episode is on cocaine.
00:12:19
And then finally on Trust Me, you know her as Gnomes from the Netflix docuseries
00:12:23
Trust Me, the False Prophet, Nnamzia Bisline joins Lola and Megan for a compelling two-part
00:12:29
interview. This is so good. And for the first time, you can watch the full episode on YouTube.
00:12:35
So go to youtube.com slash exactly right media to find episodes of all your favorite exactly
00:12:40
right shows, except for my favorite Murder and Buried Bones, because that's on Netflix.
00:12:44
Because we're right here on Netflix. That's right. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford, and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty.
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00:14:40
All right. Right, you're first? I'm first. Great. Well, did you know that Mae is Asian American and Pacific?
00:14:46
Islander Heritage Month? Okay. It is every May. And because of that, I'm going to tell you a story
00:14:53
that begins in August of 1912 in Portland, Oregon, with the birth of a baby girl named Hazel.
00:15:00
Her parents emigrated to the U.S. from China. They met each other over here. They get married.
00:15:06
They start a family. And baby Hazel is one of eight children. Okay. They do it Irish Catholic
00:15:12
style. But of course, this is an era of rampant anti-immigrant racism, and the anti-Chinese
00:15:19
sentiment in the United States is looming very large to the point where it's actually codified
00:15:25
in our laws with legislation like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which specifically
00:15:31
restricts immigration from China for 10 years. That law is renewed again in 1892, and it's made
00:15:38
permanent in 1902. It is not repealed until the 1940s. Hey, build all our infrastructure and risk
00:15:45
your life to build a fucking railroad and the infrastructure, but you're not allowed here.
00:15:50
It's as if you're psychically reading the next paragraph. Yes. Because when I read that, I was
00:15:54
like, that's so weird. It sounds like it's right around the same time that the Chinese built the
00:15:59
railroad. And literally, I looked it up and the first transcontinental railroad crossing of America
00:16:05
is finished May 10th, 1869, when the Union Pacific side is connected with the Central
00:16:11
Pacific Railroad. So basically, the Central Pacific Railroad side alone from 1863 to 1869, its completion,
00:16:19
their employees were over 90 percent workmen that were Chinese immigrants. They risked their lives daily handling explosives and mining and like blowing through rock,
00:16:31
completing grueling labor for sometimes half the pay of their white counterparts.
00:16:37
Did you see that movie that came out recently? It was nominated for Things, and it was really good.
00:16:43
Train Dreams? Train Dreams! Thank you, Molly. Train Dreams. Did you see it? It was so low profile. I barely had heard about it.
00:16:51
Was it about making? It's about this guy who works on the railroads, and there are characters in it that represent
00:16:58
the Chinese people who helped build it. Who kind of were the majority builders, at least on that one side.
00:17:05
Yeah, it's a really beautiful movie that doesn't shy away from the horrors. Okay, that'll be my double feature for the weekend.
00:17:10
There you go. But the irony that then 20 years later, they're passing laws that you can't come into this country at all.
00:17:17
Insane. And a recurring theme of this country. So that's just a little context and setting the backdrop
00:17:24
as we talk about little Hazel Ying Lee growing up in America. She will be remembered as a witty and daring young girl.
00:17:31
And when she gets older, her peers will describe her as a, quote, bubbly optimist with a mischievous streak and a taste for fried chicken.
00:17:38
Same. But Hazel Ying... Wow. We've been doing this for a decade. But Hazel Ying Lee will become known for much more than any of that
00:17:51
because she will make history as the first Chinese woman to get her pilot license and fly for the U military Wow Today I telling you about the story of Hazel Ying Lee The sources used today are a 2003 Associated Press article by Gillian Flaccus a 2025
00:18:09
PPS Oregon Experience documentary entitled Hazel Ying Lee, and related to an Oregon
00:18:16
public broadcasting article written by Emily Hamilton. And the rest, I'm not going to tell you the titles of those because they give things away,
00:18:24
But the rest are in our show notes. So it is now 1932. And in Hazel's hometown of Portland, Oregon, aviation is actually a big deal. There's multiple airports around the city, like in and around the city, that regularly host air shows. It's actually aviation so big that the Oregonian newspaper has a dedicated aviation editor.
00:18:45
Wow. Yeah. And it's basically the time of Amelia Earhart and like that discovery then kind of expanding out into who else could fly and all those things.
00:18:55
So Hazel is 20 years old when she goes to an air show with her friends. And there she gets a chance to ride in an airplane for the very first time.
00:19:03
Can you imagine? Right? And that's when she gets hooked. Wow. This is the year after Amelia Earhart and some of her constituents or cohort form in an international organization for female pilots called the 99s.
00:19:17
And it's 10 years after Bessie Coleman becomes the first black woman and the first Native person to get a pilot's license.
00:19:24
Those are episode 474 and episode 312, respectively. So being a lady pilot is not inconceivable for Hazel.
00:19:33
But even with a tangible path to follow, there are serious barriers to entry. Of course, money being the biggest one.
00:19:40
And Hazel being the daughter of hardworking immigrant parents with eight children.
00:19:44
Flying lessons are way down at the bottom of anybody's must-do list. Mommy, I want to fly.
00:19:51
That's nice. And then her sister was like, and I want polo lessons. Let's get this America dream going.
00:19:57
And yet she still was able to finally do it, which is pretty amazing. I couldn't get my dad to drive us to the roller rink on Saturday as him being a first generation American.
00:20:06
That was impossible for him. There aren't many employment options at this time for Hazel either.
00:20:13
Her sister Frances will later explain, quote, either you'd be a stock girl, an elevator operator, or you might work in the theater's restroom in a costume.
00:20:23
It was very difficult for an Asian person to find a job. So Hazel becomes an elevator operator at a downtown Portland department store, and she saves up her money to pay for private flying lessons.
00:20:36
Wow. So she basically, that's what she uses all her money for. Yeah. Around this same time, Hazel's father passes away.
00:20:43
Her bereaved mother doesn't like the idea of her child flying in planes. But as Frances later says, quote,
00:20:49
There was nothing mother could do. She said to Hazel, You're not afraid of the wind.
00:20:54
You're not afraid of the water. and that was that. Their mom kind of couldn't deny
00:20:59
that Hazel was this daring. I kept thinking of Ramona Quimby because she's also from that area.
00:21:05
But like that idea that's this little girl that's just totally unafraid, a big adventurer,
00:21:10
like wants to do that stuff. And it's like, well, there's kind of nothing I can do about this.
00:21:14
So in late 1932, when she's just shy of 20 years old, Hazel finally gets her pilot's license
00:21:20
and she is the first Chinese-American woman ever to earn one. Wow. A very cool picture of her.
00:21:26
Oh, my God. What a cutie pie. Right? Look at her. She looks so happy. Yeah, she's just like, check this out.
00:21:35
That is just like the coolest photo. It's so good. And listeners, she's leaning on the wing of a biplane.
00:21:40
Yeah. So it's the most old-fashioned looking plane of all time. And then she's got this amazing, like, the director's jodhpurs.
00:21:47
Yeah. And a great flying hat. The goggles on her head and a fucking self-rolled cigarette.
00:21:53
And a self-rolled cigarette in her left hand. And she couldn't look cooler. She looks so happy.
00:21:57
But there is political tension in the world and in China at this time. And Hazel cares about it deeply.
00:22:04
So the year before she gets her license, before this all happens, Japan invades Manchuria, igniting the brutal Second Sino-Japanese War.
00:22:14
20 million Chinese people die in this conflict over the next several years. And Hazel cannot sit by and watch on the sidelines.
00:22:22
Like many other Chinese American pilots, the vast majority of whom are male, Hazel travels to Canton, China, and tries to volunteer with the Chinese Air Force.
00:22:32
But because she's a woman, she is repeatedly turned away. So she takes administrative jobs until she actually is forced to flee to Hong Kong as Japan escalates the brutal air campaign.
00:22:43
And she basically is forced to return to America, but she still wants to find ways to serve.
00:22:48
and that opportunity will come just a few years later when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in December of 1941.
00:22:56
So as the U.S. enters World War II and the fighting intensifies overseas, there's an increasing shortage of military pilots,
00:23:02
all of whom are men, and that's a serious problem because the war effort requires non-combat pilots for transport
00:23:10
and you never think about stuff like this. How do they get supplies over there? There's a big thing of ferrying damaged aircraft
00:23:18
for repairs. They had to get the aircraft out and fix it and then get it back. And even just moving people, even moving soldiers from place to place requires a non-combat pilot.
00:23:28
Right. Or newly manufactured bombers. Like basically the planes get flown out by these
00:23:35
people. Right. And they use them for training, for maintenance, all of it. So to deal with the
00:23:39
pilot shortage, the military finally opens those roles to female civilian pilots. And when they do,
00:23:44
25,000 women apply to join the volunteer program known as Women Air Force Service Pilots, aka the
00:23:52
WASPs. So even though thousands of women apply, only a little over 1,800 women are accepted into this
00:24:00
And what they have to do is they go for six months at a Texas airfield in the relentless heat of a Texas summer.
00:24:08
Hazel and her peers are put through the same basic training that male pilots complete on top of classes in navigating, aviation mechanics, physics, and meteorology, sometimes in upwards of 115 degree heat.
00:24:21
No. Yeah, because it's summertime in Texas. It's brutally challenging and in the end over 750 of the trainees drop out or are cut.
00:24:31
Hazel Ying Lee makes it through and becomes one of the few female flyers now authorized to fly the world's most powerful military aircraft.
00:24:39
So she makes it in. But when we talk about the WASPs, what you say is that they fly with the military, not for the military.
00:24:47
Because again, they're not technically enlisted. They're civilian volunteers. But other than that small detail, they're virtually indistinguishable from their military counterparts.
00:24:57
They're subject to all the same rules. They have to wear the same uniforms. Literally, the WASP units had to use flight suits that were made for men.
00:25:05
So most of them were ridiculously oversized. And the women referred to them as their zoot suits.
00:25:12
So here's... Oh, my God, give a picture. Maybe not the zoot suits. Well, that's Hazel when she became a WASP.
00:25:16
Cutie. That's her portrait. She actually has a pin that says WASP on it. Yeah. I love it.
00:25:21
Then the other one is her. So those are their 40s military uniforms that they had to wear.
00:25:27
Oh, my God. They're all so cute. Look at their hair. Hanging out, waiting to fly.
00:25:31
Just let us fly. Oh, can you imagine the time in their lives? Okay. So Hazel becomes a beloved member of this group.
00:25:39
She's known for her charm and her personality. A fellow pilot says she was, quote, in our room more than she was in hers.
00:25:45
She would come bouncing in laughing with the latest information or joke. She was always very jolly.
00:25:51
Oh, my God. How fun. When they have downtime, and so they have to travel, like, around the United States flying these planes around.
00:25:57
So she ends up taking her fellow pilots to local Chinese restaurants. And it's described years later by the Associated Press with Hazel wowing her peers by ordering in, quote, rapid-fire Cantonese.
00:26:10
So she goes in and just is like, we're going to get this, this, and this. Oh, my God.
00:26:13
It's going to be amazing. That sounds so cool. But, of course, these moments are few and far between because the WASPs are constantly on assignment, often flying seven days a week with no rest.
00:26:24
And over the next year, Hazel and the other WASPs will deliver more than 12,500 aircrafts to 122 bases all across the country.
00:26:34
They also tow the shooting targets for artillery training. Hmm. A dangerous job.
00:26:40
So basically it's like something is flying up there and it's like they're towing like a flag or something that they have to hit with machine guns.
00:26:47
No, it's like putting an apple on your head and someone has to shoot it off. No, thank you.
00:26:51
Let the gals go do it. The wasps will go do it. Oh, my God. They also help carry out mission simulations.
00:26:57
And a huge part of the job is transporting war-battered airplanes, some without working navigation systems, back to bases to be repaired.
00:27:06
Wow. So they end up learning to guide themselves by spotting landmarks on the ground.
00:27:10
Wow. They have to be their own GPS. Yeah. Because most of the job is flying damaged planes from bases to mechanics.
00:27:17
Engine and system failures are— So dangerous. It's so fucking dangerous. And that's a reality they just have to constantly deal with.
00:27:25
So there's a story where one time Hazel is transporting a plane. It goes down over a Kansas cornfield.
00:27:33
and she is able to like, there's emergency landing. She survives it. But then the farmer whose property she lands on
00:27:40
thinks that she is a Japanese enemy and he chases her down with a pitchfork and traps her.
00:27:46
And basically they hold her hostage until his son can call the local army base and prove that she actually is an American.
00:27:53
Holy shit. Which you know, when she got back to the base, she like got drunk and told everyone that story.
00:27:58
Hilarious. I mean, sorry, I'm editorializing on this person, But it's just like you get that vibe from her where she's like, I got this.
00:28:05
I'm sure she was just like, sorry, first of all, I'm Chinese. Just for starters.
00:28:10
Just for starters. So after all that, Hazel and the other WASPs, of course, receive little recognition for their bravery and dedication to the war effort.
00:28:19
Actually, they're treated with outright hostility by the male military personnel on the bases that they end up having to work at.
00:28:26
Being a pilot in World War II, of course, is seen as this very serious badge of honor.
00:28:30
So many of the men have a real problem seeing women in the cockpit. I think we have a picture of Hazel in the cockpit working with somebody that just like—
00:28:39
Oh, wow. Uh-huh. That is so badass. He seems nice. He does. But look at the look on her face.
00:28:46
She's just like, yeah, I know. I know how to— I'm a pilot too, sir. I'm a pilot too, sir.
00:28:51
So their grit and bravery and sacrifice are just, of course, dismissed outright.
00:28:57
even though dozens of wasps make the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. Over the length of the wasp program, 37 female pilots die serving in the United States.
00:29:07
Holy shit, that's a lot, especially because it's not on the battlefield or what would you call it, in the warp thing?
00:29:13
Yeah, but they're doing all this dangerous stuff and they're flying like broken planes.
00:29:18
Hazel Ying Lee is one of those people. Oh no. In late November 1944, she has to deliver an aircraft from Niagara Falls, New York to Great Falls, Montana.
00:29:28
And as she approaches Great Falls, a radio dispatch comes through warning her that the airstrip is busy and she has to delay her landing.
00:29:35
She pulls her plane upwards, not knowing there's another plane directly above her.
00:29:41
That pilot was sent the same message, but his radio was broken. He does not change course.
00:29:46
So she flies thinking that everyone's flying the same way because they all. Right.
00:29:52
The two planes collide in a fiery crash. Somehow Hazel actually survives this crash but she dies later at the hospital on Thanksgiving Day She just 32 years old Oh my God And sadly and horribly her younger brother Victor who was serving in the war in France dies in combat the same week
00:30:13
Oh, my God. Yeah. Hazel is not given a military funeral. The government doesn't even pay to transport her body back home to Oregon or cover any of the funeral expenses.
00:30:22
and when Hazel's loved ones try to secure a specific burial plot for her that looks out over the Willamette River,
00:30:30
they're told that Hazel cannot be buried there because she's not white. Of course, her family's irate.
00:30:36
They file suit against the cemetery, and the details are fuzzy on, like, the step-by-step of it.
00:30:41
What we know for sure now is that Hazel today is buried at this site, and she is buried next to her brother.
00:30:47
Yeah. So it takes a very long time for the women Air Force Service pilots to receive any recognition at all for their service.
00:30:54
But as the years pass, after the war, interest and admiration in the group grows.
00:31:00
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter finally gives the WASP military benefits and veteran status.
00:31:06
And much later, in 2009, President Barack Obama awards the surviving WASPs the Congressional Gold Medal.
00:31:13
Wow. At the signing ceremony, he says, quote, The women Air Force Service pilots courageously answered their country's call in a time of need while blazing a trail for the brave women who have given and continue to give so much service to this nation since.
00:31:27
Every American should be grateful for their service, and I'm honored to sign this bill to finally give them some of the hard-earned recognition they deserve.
00:31:34
Miss him. End quote. I mean, remember presidents? No. Hazel Ying Lee's legacy now looms large, reflected in recent museum exhibits, books, documentaries.
00:31:45
And in March of 2025, composer Derek Wang debuts an opera that he wrote about Hazel's life entitled Fearless.
00:31:54
Oh, my God. Her memory lives on with those who knew her and who loved her, with a fellow WASP telling the Associated Press that, quote,
00:32:02
I'm sure she would be some kind of leader now. We enjoyed her so very much. She would have been such a cool grandma.
00:32:08
Grandma, what did you do during the war? I flew. I smoked fucking rollies. Smoking some rollies.
00:32:14
I wore great outfits. And I fucking flew planes. And I was scared of nothing. Hazel's sister, Frances, has spoken publicly about her sister many, many times over the years.
00:32:24
And in a PBS Oregon documentary, she says that her sister, Hazel, was destined for greatness.
00:32:29
It was in her name. Because her Chinese name, Ying, means heroic. And that's the story of trailblazing pilot Hazel Yingli.
00:32:39
Oh, my God. Right? That was incredible. I've never heard of her. I've heard of the wasps, like, a little bit, but not in detail of, like, these are women volunteering and giving everything.
00:32:53
And there's people being like, thanks, go home. It's historical. That was incredible.
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for sodium and sugar content. I'm going to go in a different direction. Okay. That's pretty common.
00:35:09
But you're going to like this one. Great. Because it's a heist story. I love it. I love a good
00:35:15
heist story. I love a heist. So did you know that LA used to be the bank robbery capital of the world?
00:35:21
No. I would think it would be Fort Knox or somewhere like that. Yeah, maybe it is now, but it used to be LA. So congratulations to us.
00:35:30
Was it like the downtown era when everything was down there? That's where we're at today.
00:35:36
Reading my mind. So it's just past midnight on Saturday, September 12th, 1997. And we are at the nondescript warehouse of the Dunbar Armored Depot.
00:35:49
And do you know Dunbar trucks? It's like the Brinks truck. Yeah. It another one of those brands of moving lots and lots of cash around in an armored truck Okay And so the Dunbar Armored Depot is in downtown Los Angeles kind of the warehouse area not
00:36:05
much going on around there. And that's where Dunbar's armored trucks are loaded and unloaded as an intermediate stop
00:36:12
between wherever the cash is coming from and wherever it's going. So like, you know, where they take the cash and then put it into the ATMs, it stops there
00:36:22
in between gets counted. I could be wrong, but I think I've seen a terrible Guy Ritchie movie
00:36:27
about this place. Really? Yeah. Instead of robbing a bank or robbing a Brinks truck,
00:36:32
we're going to go into where they have the money. This is exactly what the plan is here.
00:36:36
Okay. So it's Friday night and Friday nights into Saturday morning are one of the busiest
00:36:40
ships because it's where the most cash is being moved in and out of the vault, you know, for the weekends to go to those ATMs. In fact, it's so busy that the staff just keeps
00:36:50
the vault door open this time instead of opening and closing it just to kind of bring all the money
00:36:54
in like they're bringing so much in that that extra step of opening and closing the door isn't
00:36:59
going to work for them. Yeah. Whose suggestion was that? And even though we're talking about
00:37:05
more cash being handled than a bank would have over a hundred million dollars. Oh my God. There's
00:37:11
also less security than in a bank. And in fact, the shift has the fewest number of security guards
00:37:16
scheduled to work, even though it's the most amount of money. It's not great common sense.
00:37:20
Who planned that out logistically? Exactly. And I guess it makes sense because it's like, well, of course, a bank would have
00:37:26
more security because people off the street can come in. It's not like this warehouse where only
00:37:32
employees can go in. But still, it's so much fucking money. It's just money. It's just money.
00:37:37
But there is one security guard working and he's in the lunchroom taking his lunch break,
00:37:42
but the CCTV monitors are in there as well. So he's keeping an eye on what's going on.
00:37:46
He sees no sign of anyone trying to enter the facility. So he's taken completely off guard when five men dressed in all black, wearing ski masks, burst into the lunchroom with guns drawn.
00:37:59
This is the story of what was, until very recently, the largest cash robbery in U.S. history.
00:38:06
One that the perpetrators very nearly got away with if it weren't for some very rookie mistakes.
00:38:12
This is the Dunbar Armor Depot heist. Hell yes. The main source for the story is an episode of the show History's Greatest Heist, hosted by Pierce Brosnan.
00:38:22
It's cute. And a 2020 Medium article by Alyssa Kelly Rose. And the other sources can be found on our show notes.
00:38:29
So the heist starts and ends with a Dunbar employee named Alan Pace. He's 27 years old from a middle class family in Compton.
00:38:38
He has no criminal record. He actually works at the depot as a security specialist.
00:38:43
And that's what his career has been up to then is like various security jobs. He has idly toyed with the idea of how he might rob the facility, but not with any seriousness.
00:38:54
And it's kind of his job to know how someone would rob the facility. So it's not that weird.
00:38:59
Also, don't you think about that every time you see like a Brinks truck? We're just kind of like, why are they just standing outside?
00:39:05
If I did this and that. Yeah, exactly. And he's an affable guy. He's a jokester.
00:39:10
Everyone seems to love him. And at some point, he starts dating a co-worker who's also on the security staff, a woman named Tomiko Karnes.
00:39:18
And while they're both in security, Alan's job revolves around inspecting the trucks while Tomiko's is monitoring the video security system.
00:39:26
And no one really knows how seriously Alan and Tomiko discuss the idea of perpetrating this robbery.
00:39:33
But what we do know is that in July of 1997, Tomiko gets fired under suspicion of theft.
00:39:40
She's seen on a security camera placing a money bag in a known camera blind spot.
00:39:45
It's all allegedly, it's totally not clear if she actually was going to steal anything
00:39:49
or if she had any plans to or even knew about this heist at all. And she was never brought to trial or anything like that.
00:39:55
So just want to make that clear. But what does happen is she gets fired for this security breach, whether it's on purpose or not.
00:40:04
And this is what kind of sends Alan Pace into a tailspin with the idea of like, fuck this place.
00:40:11
I'm going to actually see if I can do a heist. So in August of 1997, Alan starts by recruiting friends.
00:40:18
None of them have ever robbed any kind of security facility before. None of them even have criminal records.
00:40:23
They're all like nice boys who go to church and come from nice, respectable families.
00:40:29
They're all just Alan's buddies. The first one he calls is a childhood friend named Eugene Hill and another one named Freddie McCreary Jr.
00:40:38
So Eugene Hill, Freddie and Alan have all known each other since they were around 10 years old.
00:40:44
So Alan is like, these are guys I can absolutely trust and they won't tell anyone.
00:40:49
And Freddie also works as a security guard. So he has relevant experience. And then Alan also recruits a man named Terry Brown, also a security guard.
00:40:58
So Alan, Freddie, and Terry have all worked together on private security jobs at like events and nightclubs.
00:41:03
They've done some bouncer work, that sort of thing. So one day after church, the group gather around in the parking lot and start drawing out a plan in chalk on the pavement.
00:41:12
And Alan is showing them all how the facility works, kind of a layout of the whole place, noting where each camera is and where the team will have to walk in order to not show up on those monitors.
00:41:24
So there is like a, you know, you're like up against the wall, like super burglar style, you know, like the spotlight goes in front and then you run, run, run, run, run to the next one.
00:41:34
Yeah, exactly. Like that. Exactly. And it seems like they do it in broad daylight in the church parking lot.
00:41:39
And the other parishioners like don't suspect anything. These are good boys. Not at church.
00:41:43
Yeah. And so later he recruits an additional man named Tommy Johnson. So next while Alan is at work he starts taking Polaroids around the facility of every room and every camera But he a security guard so it doesn seem weird It almost like it seems like he just doing research Yeah Takes photos of his like co who are just like
00:42:05
hey, I love Alan. He's just capturing like where the camera is. I love Alan. Yeah. Alan, you're so
00:42:10
crazy. Nobody like suspects Alan. He's Alan. And he uses these Polaroids to create a detailed floor
00:42:15
plan with visual references so the rest of the group will know exactly where they're going. So
00:42:20
So there are 25 cameras, but only around six monitors. So they kind of just like bop in and out of like whatever camera is on.
00:42:28
You know what I mean? Sure. So he shows his crew everything. He instructs them on how to travel so that they never show up in the feeds that are on the monitor at the moment.
00:42:37
It's kind of a lot of choreography and it takes some time. So the plan is to keep practicing this choreography until September.
00:42:45
That's when they're going to do the heist. So Alan's original plan is to not participate in the heist at all since he works there.
00:42:53
He gives them such detailed information and they have such a long time that they should be able to do it on their own without him even being there.
00:43:00
He goes to bed. He wakes up the next morning and goes to work. And he's just as shocked as everyone else that the place got burgled.
00:43:07
So it's plausible deniability. Exactly. He's kind of building in a thing where it's like he doesn't have to worry about seeming guilty.
00:43:12
Right. Exactly. So he's basically the plan is for him to give them the key because he has the keys to the place because he's a security guard there.
00:43:21
Yeah. And then they go and do it. So that is a great plan until early September when Alan gets fired.
00:43:29
Oh. He gets a call saying he's been fired because he's suspected of tampering with trucks and that he'll need to come back in and hand in his key.
00:43:36
And so Alan decides it's now or never. We got to do this earlier than we planned, but I have to get rid of my key.
00:43:43
so we have to do this. And also he's like, I'll come along with you guys now since we haven't had as much time as we need.
00:43:49
And I know the layout so well. I just got to say, first of all, do you think at a place like that,
00:43:54
they do, they replace the locks every time they fire somebody? I bet they don't.
00:43:58
Probably not. Because you could just get a copy, right? Isn't that the thing in the other heist movies
00:44:03
where they shove it into some clay or whatever? There's all those keys that say like,
00:44:06
do not copy. I've gotten so many of those copied. Yes. I mean, no one gives a single shit.
00:44:12
It's like, what is this for the landlord? Yeah, exactly. But I feel like for a place like that, it would be interesting just to know because this is pre-tech anything.
00:44:21
Right. It's like everybody's on their honor. And then when you're firing people and they're like, yeah, well, fuck you.
00:44:27
Totally. Like there's not like the badges that you have to like sign in and out with.
00:44:30
It's just a key. A key. But like, yeah. Hundreds of millions of dollars. So much money.
00:44:36
So he also then recruits one more person, his brother-in-law named Eric Boyd. So on the night of Friday, September 12th, they're like, it has to be tonight.
00:44:45
The group splits up into two vehicles. Some ride in Eugene Hill's car and some ride in a U-Haul that they had rented earlier in the day.
00:44:55
They don't go straight to the depot. Here's what they do. There is a friend having a house party in Long Beach.
00:45:02
So they go to the house party and they're like, what's up, everyone? It's us. Yes.
00:45:07
You're our alibi. We're here at the house party. Exactly. And then around 1145, they all like tiptoe Irish goodbye.
00:45:17
Yes. Get into the car and to the U-Haul and drive to the depot. Right as everyone's getting a little slurry.
00:45:23
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so they get to downtown L.A., they park on a nearby street and then they drive the U-Haul up to the depot.
00:45:31
Everyone changes into all black clothing and puts on those ski masks. And then Eric, the brother-in-law, stays behind with the U-Haul.
00:45:38
So. Would you, sorry, for your heist. Yeah. Would you be the driver? Would you be.
00:45:43
I'd be the getaway driver. You'd be the getaway driver, huh? Yeah. Yeah. What do you think?
00:45:47
What would you be? I'm too bossy. I had to be in charge. You'd be in charge. I can't let other people fuck my heist up.
00:45:53
I would trust you to be in charge. Thank you. And I would definitely be like, no one is the driver but me.
00:46:00
Oh, I would entirely. I would not trust a fucking person to be the driver but me.
00:46:02
No way. But I also would absolutely know you would get us out of there. Oh, my God.
00:46:07
Absolutely. Especially downtown LA. I'm Baby Driver. That's my nickname. That's right.
00:46:12
I'm a driver influencer. I'm a getaway driver influencer. Here's how to run a red light in three fun steps.
00:46:18
And then Vince can count the money because he can't have money facing the wrong way.
00:46:23
Oh, he bank faces everything? He's so obsessed about that. So I would trust him to count exactly how much money there is and be in charge of the money and getting everyone the right amount.
00:46:33
Yeah, that's right. He's the banker. So the three of us. We've done it. Whoops. Let's do it. We just gave it away.
00:46:39
Whoops. Cut that out. So in the parking lot, they sneak up to the front door and the security camera's blind spot and they use the key to open the door.
00:46:49
They sneak through the depot's maze of corridors, you know, doing the thing we said up against the wall.
00:46:54
I'm sorry, but the idea that they have continual blind spots, like they're firing people for going into the blind spots.
00:47:00
Right. Not fixing the blind spots. It's like the money is still there. The issue still remains.
00:47:05
Absolutely. My heist would work. Okay. Up against the wall. Up against the wall.
00:47:11
Striped shirt. Tip toe. Mask across your eyes. Big tips. Big tippy toes. Their first destination is the lunchroom because they've timed everything around the security guard's lunch break.
00:47:22
This poor fucking guy just wanted to eat his sandwich. He's like, I microwaved this old TV dinner.
00:47:27
That's right. This fish dinner. And they know where he'll be exactly at midnight.
00:47:31
So they strike. They subdue the security guard immediately. They get him on the ground.
00:47:36
Duck tape his wrist together. take any of his weapons. They also bring weapons, but they are very clear on nobody gets hurt.
00:47:43
You know, you can't control that always, but that's their plan. They then take his key to
00:47:49
the vault prep room. Alan checks his security monitors and verifies that there are only three
00:47:54
people that he's expecting to see working in the vault room. Those people he took fucking Polaroids
00:47:59
of. But as they proceed down the hallway, a driver of one of the truck drivers, who's basically a trained security guard, emerges from the vault prep room.
00:48:07
That's a surprise. But the driver's unarmed. And so the group gets him on the ground and they duct tape his wrist together.
00:48:12
And so one member of the group stays behind to watch the guards. And then in the vault prep room, there is one dispatcher and two bookkeepers counting the money.
00:48:22
Doing the vints. The group goes for the dispatcher first because he has a panic button under his desk.
00:48:28
So they subdue the rest of the employees. There is one female employee who's at the depot and is understandably terrified.
00:48:36
But also I think she gets her shoulder hurt when they wrestle her to the ground.
00:48:40
And so she starts crying and she hears one of the thieves, one of the masked men say, don't worry, baby, like calming her down.
00:48:47
And she's like, I feel like I know that voice. Like he, don't worry, baby. He's just trying to be nice.
00:48:57
Don't worry, baby. We're only going to rob you a little bit more. So Alan then radios Eric, who's me back in the U-Haul.
00:49:04
He backs the U-Haul into the loading dock. And Alan starts to pick out what packages of cash the group is going to take from the vault.
00:49:12
He knows to skip the crisp new bills because they're in sequential order and they're more traceable.
00:49:19
And these are big shrink wrap blocks of cash. Oh. Like giant blocks. Yeah. You know, like we're in Super Mario Brothers, like hitting our heads on the top.
00:49:29
And so they're shrink wrapped. They throw them into trash bags and then throw them into wheel bins and then stuff them all into the U-Haul.
00:49:36
And the whole thing takes about only 30 minutes. And after 30 minutes, the U-Haul is so full of cash to the fucking tippy top that the whole group isn't going to be able to fit back inside.
00:49:46
Oh, they didn't plan that out. They sure didn't. They got greedy, didn't they? They remove all the security footage, including the secret security footage that, you know, they shouldn't have known about if they hadn't actually worked there.
00:50:00
Then they smash a bunch of things around the office to try to make it look like a more random burglary, like they were looking for the key.
00:50:06
You know what I mean? Like they do when they pull out the dresser drawers and stuff where it's like make it look like a robbery.
00:50:11
Yes, totally. I just keep thinking about the fact, though, that they didn't plan the ride home because also you're downtown.
00:50:17
So that's the thing, too. OK, they're in and out about 30 minutes and then they're like, there's two guys who don't fit back into the truck.
00:50:25
Their getaway car is like, you know, a few blocks away, but it's the middle of the night in downtown L.A.
00:50:32
And it's two black men in fucking all black and masks. Like you're not. That's not safe.
00:50:39
It's not safe for you to be out there. You're going to get immediately caught. So essentially what they do is there's other security guard who was having his lunch.
00:50:47
his beloved pickup truck is in the parking lot. And this security guard is so in love with this pickup truck
00:50:53
that he had had one of the cameras trained on it at all times. So they take the keys to his truck.
00:51:01
They get in his truck and they get filmed. And it's a little mini movie about them stealing his truck.
00:51:09
Essentially. Yeah, but they don't get caught from that that way because they did take all the film.
00:51:13
So it does work. But it also means that that security camera wasn't on the door where it was supposed to be.
00:51:19
It was on his truck. Oh, he changed it. Yeah. Because he's such a gearhead. So they all go back.
00:51:27
They meet up back at Eugene's apartment. They change back into their regular clothes.
00:51:30
And this is really smart. They go back to the party. Yes. Right? Yes. They don't just leave at midnight.
00:51:36
Also, not just for their alibi, but just to party. Absolutely. Like, get back there.
00:51:41
See what the third wave is about. Everyone is fucked up at this point. They're so fucked up.
00:51:46
And they bring that U-Haul full of cash and park it right in front of the house just to be like, I'm not letting this out of my sight.
00:51:52
Yes. Yeah. And they're back within 90 minutes of leaving the party. So. Wow. I don't think anyone would have said anything.
00:51:58
They're like, listen, we had to go rent a U-Haul really quick because we don't know.
00:52:02
We might buy new cash this weekend. Exactly. OK. So then afterwards, there's so much fucking cash and they didn't expect that, that they bring the U-Haul to a storage unit.
00:52:09
They buy a storage unit and put most of the cash in there. They keep just a little bit of cash just to have just to play with.
00:52:17
Sure. Because they're really aware that the way to get caught is to start spending all that cash.
00:52:22
Of course. So they're careful about it. When the cops arrive to the depot, they find in the parking lot right outside the depot a broken piece of taillight.
00:52:33
Oh. So I wouldn't have done this. But when Eric pulled that U-Haul back and backed it up into the parking lot, he hit something and broke a taillight.
00:52:44
I know. It's a rookie mistake. You would not have done that. But also, that's so strange.
00:52:50
What are the odds where it's just kind of like— He's probably so nervous. Yes. And stressed out.
00:52:54
Yeah. Ugh. And so that's the cop's first bit of evidence. And then they look at the lock that, you know, where they had actually used the key.
00:53:02
But then afterwards they had used a drill to kind of damage it to make it look like they got in without the key.
00:53:09
Yeah. But the cops are like, this is obviously just to cover up the fact that you had the key.
00:53:13
It's probably an employee. Yeah Like immediately Also it at a fucking the Brinks rival or whatever It an employee Yeah It the people who have to sit there and stare at it all day long Right Like how did they know exactly where the security stuff was to destroy it or to take it
00:53:28
It's not good. So it's not until a few days later that Dunbar officials are able to figure out how much cash is actually missing, how much was actually stolen.
00:53:37
Do you want to guess how much was stolen? Yes, I do want to. OK. It's 1997, you said?
00:53:42
Yeah. And so until recently, it was the largest cash robbery in U.S. history. So how much do you think?
00:53:47
$59 million. See, I was going to say to you, like, don't go overboard because it's going to sound better.
00:53:52
Hold on. Give me a chance to go overboard. $30 million? Well, so it's $2 million.
00:54:00
$18.9 million. Oh, that's not bad. That's a lot of fucking money. It's just their microwave dinner. They stole that off that guy and the truck.
00:54:07
Right. That's all they got. However, in today's money, that $18.9 million is upwards of $40 million.
00:54:14
$38.8 million. So, yes. Very close. You were right all along. Turns out. So that makes it the largest cash robbery in U.S. history to date.
00:54:22
And that record isn't broken until 2024. Wow. So these guys, I think almost like they overdid it and didn't realize it.
00:54:30
They overdid it and they also did it without the aid of modern technology. Like they did it the real way.
00:54:37
They earned it. They went to the party. They got the U-Haul. They planned it. They had chalk in a parking lot.
00:54:44
Doing your plan in the church parking lot is genius. Yeah. Yeah. And then also like only recruiting people that you know and trust, I think, is obviously a huge part of it.
00:54:52
And that aren't criminals. Yes. They're like, this is going to be the one thing we do.
00:54:56
It's going to set us up for the rest of our lives. Never again. It's every heist movie.
00:55:02
It's a heist movie. Come back for just this one last one before you retire. Exactly.
00:55:05
Exactly. So it was $18.9 million at the time. And the police in Dunbar keep that number out of the press, worrying that copycats are going to be like, oh, that's how much money I can get from this easy as fuck heist.
00:55:17
Yeah. So just tell the press that it was more than a million dollars that had been taken.
00:55:21
Wow. Which is an understatement. They're like, oh, just that one warehouse under the overpass?
00:55:26
Exactly. I can go down there. So the police and the FBI have their two main clues, which is the fact that the robbers clearly used a key and that broken taillight.
00:55:34
They're quickly able to tie that broken taillight piece back to a U-Haul truck. That's pretty fucking easy.
00:55:42
And so Alan, this guy who got fired recently, is immediately a suspect with that one employee also saying that she recognized his voice.
00:55:52
I don't think she realized it was his voice until later. So he and every other employee who had quit or been fired recently, about 30 people, all are given polygraph tests.
00:56:02
And Alan and his girlfriend, Tomiko, are the only two that fail. Oh. But there's really no solid evidence that can tie Alan to the crime.
00:56:11
And so two years pass where he's like, I got away with this. But wouldn't you have an acid stomach the entire time?
00:56:19
Absolutely. Especially because you took a polygraph test. They're like on to you and you know that.
00:56:23
You know it didn't go well. Dunbar announces that they will have an award of $250,000 for anyone who gives them information leading to an arrest, which gives you a clue that it's more than around a million dollars that was stolen.
00:56:35
Yeah, exactly. You're just like, how much? We just want that back. We'll give you a quarter of what they stole.
00:56:40
Right. But the group stays under the radar. No one spends a crazy amount of money.
00:56:44
You know, they go to Vegas and use cash on those to help launder the money. But no one, you know, buys a pink Cadillac like in Goodfellas or does anything crazy like the Goodfellas-Lupfasa heist, which I covered in episode 454.
00:56:59
They don't do that. They're smarter than that. They find instead a local immigration lawyer named David Matsumoto, who, along with his assistant, agreed to be paid a million dollars each to help launder the money.
00:57:14
So they just find a lawyer who's willing to. Very smart. And so they do that through real estate purchases and like kind of small purchases.
00:57:23
And then also they open a small business called Extreme Entertainment so that they're able to take a salary from the business and make the money look legit.
00:57:34
On the surface, the business Extreme Entertainment, which sounds like stepbrothers.
00:57:40
What was the stepbrothers one? I don't know. Prestige Worldwide. Thank you. Prestige Worldwide.
00:57:48
Molly had that at hand. She did. That was an Aristotle. Oh, Aristotle. He came through on that one.
00:57:54
Basically what the company does on the surface is they rent party equipment, jet skis and limos.
00:58:00
So they are like prestige worldwide. Extreme entertainment. That's what they do.
00:58:05
And that's how they launder the money. And it's also a front to pay the crew big salaries with the stolen money.
00:58:11
And then it becomes a wonderfully successful business. Exactly. Does it? I don't know, but it seems like it.
00:58:17
It seems like it would. It does seem like it would. On the surface, it seems like they're making a shit ton of money and it's all legal money.
00:58:23
Yeah. Taxed and everything. Yeah. They're doing it right. Unlike the rice pudding store in New York, there was a rice pudding store that opened.
00:58:33
Rice to riches. I fucking had that. Yes. I have had rice pudding from those places before And we did a field piece at Ellen We like what You can do this is crazy because we just scraping the bottom of like what can we do for a field piece And then like two years later it like this is a front for some mafia thing
00:58:50
I was actually really surprised by that because I went there one time. I got rice pudding and it
00:58:55
was so good that I was like, how could that be a front if it was so fucking good? Like I was
00:59:00
actually shocked. I wonder if it's not that hard to make good rice pudding. It was tiramisu flavored
00:59:05
rice pudding and it was fucking excellent. But I also see that most people don't like rice pudding.
00:59:10
So yeah, it's very specific. Yeah. Because it feels to me like they were trying to pick something
00:59:14
that would keep people away. No, there was lines around the fucking block to that place. I loved
00:59:19
it. I was just like, this is one of my favorite desserts. Yeah. That's fucking hilarious.
00:59:24
So extreme entertainment. Where the fuck was I? Where are we? Okay. So they might have actually
00:59:29
gotten away with it at this point. But Eugene Hill, the old friend, the first one who Alan
00:59:35
brought into the plan, makes an error, let's say. Pretty big error, unfortunately. So in trying to
00:59:43
make a down payment on a property because they're putting a lot of this money into real estate to
00:59:47
make it look legit, he offers another lawyer $100,000 in cash, which is already suspicious.
00:59:53
But also he leaves the branded money strip on the hundred thousand dollars cash that says Dunbar.
01:00:04
No. You know, the like money. The bundling. The bundling money paper. He doesn't take it off and it says Dunbar on it.
01:00:14
Dunbar cash and stuff. So understandably, this lawyer is suspicious. Yeah. And calls the police, probably finds out about that $250,000 reward.
01:00:25
Dang. The cash is examined by the authorities and they find that those Dunbar branded straps that's still on it have been stamped with the date they were counted, which just so happens to be September 11th and 12th of 1997.
01:00:40
And then when they have the name of Eugene Hill, they're able to go back into the U-Haul rental records and find that it had been rented under his name.
01:00:49
Oh. Yeah. Ew. Here's the thing, though, about heists that I've learned over years of watching many films and maybe doing a couple heists myself.
01:00:58
Human error has to get folded in. Yes. And if we don't do that and if people don't think about every single possibility, we're just like, no, we're going to go over it again.
01:01:07
If you're going to spend the cash, what are you going to do? Cut the bands off the cash.
01:01:10
Don't be excited about bands. Like all those kinds of things, which, you know, if it's just a bunch of amateurs, they can't think of everything.
01:01:18
Right. So once Eugene is arrested, police threaten him because they had all agreed that if one of them gets caught, they're going to just take the blame and go down and them and their families will be taken care of with the money that was stolen.
01:01:30
Unfortunately, Eugene is arrested and he had been using his sister's bank account to launder money through.
01:01:38
And so as soon as he's told that she's going to be charged as an accomplice, he picks his family over his friends.
01:01:45
And he winds up admitting to participating and he names everyone else. Everyone is arrested one by one with Alan actually turning himself in at the end in February of 2000.
01:01:57
Can I just say that that was clearly Eugene's older sister? Because it was his older sister. He's like, I don't give a shit.
01:02:03
He's like, fight me if you want. It's the older sister. He's like, I'm sorry, I have to turn everybody in. There's no coming back from this.
01:02:11
Yeah, that's a really good one. We're all scared of our older sisters. We're deadly afraid of our older sisters.
01:02:17
So when the group is indicted in court, this is the first time they hear how much money they had stolen.
01:02:22
And I guess all of their faces fell because they hadn't counted all the money. So when they hear that they stole $18.9 million, like the blood rushed out of all of their faces.
01:02:32
And they were like, oh, we are in so much trouble. You know what I mean? Like if they had stolen a million, I feel like.
01:02:40
After taxes. Yeah. Give some of it back. But no, they are shocked. They had never counted all the money.
01:02:48
So four of the group, everyone except Alan's brother-in-law, Eric Boyd, wind up testifying against Alan.
01:02:54
Alan pleads not guilty. And actually, from what I can see, to this day, he denies being involved at all, which is interesting.
01:03:01
He says that he was framed by one of the other defendants, quote, because I was messing with his wife.
01:03:07
So he just refuses to take any response. He just says he's not involved. Yeah, yeah.
01:03:11
He ends up serving 24 years in prison. Wow. Yeah. Well, everyone else serves about 12 years. And so that was in the year 2000-ish. So he's out now. In the end, only around $7 million has ever recovered.
01:03:24
Oh, yeah. The rest of the stolen money was believed to have been either squandered by the robbers at gambling tables in Vegas. Some of it was burned because they found that some of the bills were sequential and so they could get caught with them and easily traced or invested in other things and other people's names.
01:03:42
Yeah. So that big sister, you know, she's living somewhere nice. I hope so. I hope so, too.
01:03:48
She's the end of the movie. Fucking living in paradise. And she's like, that's right.
01:03:53
Don't use my bank account if you're not going to pay me back. This is why you scare the shit out of your younger siblings from birth Yes That they won fucking rat on you Then they serve you for the rest of life essentially And actually I found in 2020 this producer named Kaleeb Pinkett who is fucking Jada Pinkett Smith brother
01:04:13
Yes. His production company, like, we're going to make a movie out of this. But I didn't find anything, any updates since then.
01:04:21
So I'm not sure where that went. You know how Hollywood takes forever. And that is a story of the Dunbar Armored Depot heist.
01:04:30
Man, that was good. Yeah. That was great. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. There's only a couple heist stories that I've heard where the story is and the money is never found.
01:04:44
Yeah. There's only a couple of those, I feel like. Yeah. It was kind of a success, depending on how you want to look at it.
01:04:50
Yeah. Right? A little bit. I feel like these days we used to look at heists a little bit different.
01:04:55
But I think these days people are just like, stick it to the man. Yeah. Well, these were the good guys.
01:05:00
They were not criminals. They were all buddies from when they were young, working their asses off.
01:05:04
And we're finally like, let's take advantage of how dumb this fucking corporation is.
01:05:11
And also along the way, you're welcome for showing you like your security issues.
01:05:16
Yeah. Constant security issues that you refuse to fix. Right. It's just like you can't keep firing people.
01:05:21
Yeah. Apparently your video camera won't turn to the right or left very far. And let's keep in mind, of course, the people who were working there that night were scared out of their minds.
01:05:30
They had guns pulled on them. No, that's not good. That's bad. That's a lot of trauma.
01:05:35
That's a lot of trauma. Let's rethink our next heist. When we use heist, let's do it in a more caring way.
01:05:42
Sure. Please. I feel like this has been almost like a college class in this podcast today.
01:05:48
Totally. We're just bringing the full, every facet of the world to you. American history, baby.
01:05:55
Yeah. Get into it. That's what we do here on My Favorite Murder. That is, yeah, our true crime podcast.
01:06:02
That's right. That's why we both graduated college with degrees in American history.
01:06:07
That's right. Advanced degrees. From CSUN. From CSUN matadors. They're going to send us a CSUN desist.
01:06:14
A CSUN desist. Karen! Come on. I had to do it. That was like years in the making.
01:06:22
And I'm so happy about it. Puns against my will. That's my new autobiography. That was fun times.
01:06:29
That was. Listeners, thank you for being here with us. We appreciate you so much, everyone.
01:06:34
If you have any heist questions, please write in to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
01:06:38
And until then, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?
01:06:47
This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Molly Smith, and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.
01:06:58
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalachi. Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Allie Elkin.
01:07:05
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