00:00:00
This is exactly right. Isn't some far off concept? It's already here. Next starts now.
00:00:33
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selling a persona of confidence and care, patients trusted him. He wore cowboy boots in the operating room
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and became sought after by patients. He promised to heal them. Instead, he left a trail of broken bodies.
00:00:51
This is a story of greed, betrayal, and a fight for justice. Listen to Dr. Death the Cowboy wherever you get your podcasts
00:00:58
or binge the entire series right now only with Audible. Goodbye. Where does summer take you?
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00:01:58
Lies, what are you doing for Valentine's Day, everyone? Hey, what do you like about Valentine's Day?
00:02:04
Not making reservations for restaurants that are packed that you don't want to go to anyway.
00:02:10
And everyone's miserable, including especially the servers. The servers, the couples, the singles.
00:02:15
Everybody loses on Valentine's Day. Stay home. Stay home. Nothing's ever good enough.
00:02:23
So cool. When's the last great Valentine's Day that you've ever had? Great? What do we mean by great?
00:02:30
Well, maybe like an early peak one. You don't have to include like adult relationships, but kind of like.
00:02:37
I honestly don't think I remember a single Valentine's Day. Yeah. There was a KFC on once, but it wasn't Vince, so who gives a shit?
00:02:46
Right. You know. That was more just like somebody that thought of a good, bad gift.
00:02:50
Yeah. What about you? Well, yeah. No. No great ones. I'm sure there was people that made nice efforts along the way.
00:02:59
I was really hoping you had a story about it. And then someone was like, come down to the ravine with me and whatever.
00:03:04
And they murdered me? No. The ravine. It's like the least romantic spot. We just had a ravine behind our high school.
00:03:11
Oh, okay. You know? Yeah. People would go down there and get high and have important discussions.
00:03:16
Oh, yeah. We did that. We had like a wash, like the LA River kind of a thing going.
00:03:19
Right. Which still isn't romantic, unfortunately. Do you think that maybe all teens have that kind of heartbreak and disappointment because they think that's what's supposed to happen and it kind of is never really happening for most of them?
00:03:33
Valentine's Day or ravines? Like Valentine's Day victories. Oh, yeah. Ravines are definitely happening for teens.
00:03:40
I feel like until you're 29, you have high hopes every year for Valentine's Day.
00:03:44
Yeah. You know, and then you just are like, it's not going to happen. The idea that like you're you're going to get a bouquet of roses from your secret admirer at your doorstep is, I think, the thing that is.
00:03:58
Yeah. Has kept this country alive up until this year. I met a dude on Valentine's Day and I do think our relationship lasted longer than it needed to because of that.
00:04:08
Like somehow it was like kismet and like somehow it was like meant to be because we met on Valentine's Day.
00:04:16
However, if we had met on like February 16th, I would have been like a year in. I would have been like, this isn't working.
00:04:21
That's fine. Just a late winter relationship. Instead, it was three years in. That didn't need to happen.
00:04:27
You know who you are. And you still need to apologize. Well, here we are. Whoops.
00:04:34
Is this celebrating or are we doing something? We have something to celebrate. What?
00:04:38
Oh, yeah, we do. Like, what? What do we do? Oh, yeah. We have a little announcement to make.
00:04:43
Speaking of hearts. Hey. And relationships. and relationships. Oh, my God. We want to give you guys some exciting news.
00:04:49
On February 5th, we announced our new partnership with iHeartRadio. It came out in the public.
00:04:53
Yay. Yes, we are so excited to begin this partnership with them, this podcast journey.
00:04:59
That means, yes, we will be at the iHeartRadio Awards this year. And, yes, we will both be doing musical numbers individually.
00:05:07
Did I sign something? I don't think I... Yeah, yeah, that's all in the contract.
00:05:10
Oh, shit. Dude, full singing career starting for you right now. Arianna Garni. It's time.
00:05:18
I want to be on the Wicked Part 2. You will. Okay. Well, that's all I care about.
00:05:22
It's also in the contract. All right. Great. Yeah. Yeah. So new beginnings. Exciting.
00:05:27
Positive relationship vibes. Yeah. That's what we're all about as adults. Yeah. This little company that could exactly write media of ours, you know, we're just, we're doing it.
00:05:37
And we're trying it. And we're pushing it. And we're following through. As one should in relationships.
00:05:44
As you should But you know it still the little engine that could as far as you know podcast networks go And we hope that in the next year or two we get to bring you guys some really fucking awesome new podcasts That always the name of the game New exciting ones that we like freak out when we hear pitch to us And so that the whole point of this
00:06:05
There really are some exciting new podcasts that are coming out. So it's great now that we have our feet on solid ground and we have our ad distribution all sorted out and we can just do business as usual.
00:06:16
That's right. Now, here's something else we need to talk about in terms of love.
00:06:20
people who love us sent us because we demanded it ceramic gifts for our ninth anniversary
00:06:26
and we have gotten so many that twice we have featured these ceramics on this show
00:06:31
now so many that we think we might have to split off and do a separate video featuring just ceramics i think so that's how many we've gotten yeah but you guys like these
00:06:42
ceramics too so we just wanted to really quick read some comments from the internet with you guys
00:06:47
looking at these ceramics that we've posted because... Those were lovely too. They all gave me a dopamine hit
00:06:53
looking at all the beautiful presents we got. And these also gave the same thing.
00:06:58
So here's one from Deanna underscore M who says, While listening to Georgia and Karen unveiling
00:07:04
and describing all the ceramic art, I just imagine the respective artists listening,
00:07:10
beaming with pride, and probably shedding a few tears at K&G's excitement. We lift each other up.
00:07:16
Heart emoji. Isn't that sweet? That's so lovely. Yeah. Well, Alex Whitney on Instagram said that I thought this was the craziest merch drop for a second.
00:07:25
Which music ATT said, need the microphone pipe. Oh, my God. And like, how great would that be if that was our new merch is just a line of pipes.
00:07:34
That we go into manufacturing ceramic, very large ceramic microphone shaped pipes.
00:07:39
Why not? Yeah. I mean, we are not busy. Next stage of our career. Come on, everybody.
00:07:44
A strain of murderino weed would be great. That's right. People were really freaking out over the precious moments figurine.
00:07:54
And the Polag said, I came all caps running over to IG to see the ceramics and they did not disappoint.
00:08:01
What talented listeners. And then Cordy Gal wrote, please, I want the crock. The historical crock.
00:08:09
We're using these mugs now. They're like part of it now. So this is just like every mug that I saw every mom drink coffee out of in the 70s.
00:08:17
You can smell the cigarette smoke that comes with them. You can go to Instagram and check out all of the beautiful ceramics that have come.
00:08:24
And then stay tuned in the future for more of that stuff because we have to. We have to.
00:08:27
There's so much. We simply must. We simply must. Now, because it's a holiday and we are celebrating, the one way we really like to celebrate is by eating on mic.
00:08:37
And so we decided that once again, we're going to try some of the weird Valentine's snacks that the, I don't know, the confectionary world decides to put out every year for Valentine's Day.
00:08:48
Insists on putting out weird. Because it can't just be good. No. It has to be weird.
00:08:53
And I'm just reading the three that we have listed here and I'm terrified. Yes, I can't wait.
00:08:57
And I don't like the words that are going together. And I don't like the feeling of my mouth already.
00:09:02
Well, you're going to have to eat five of each. Let's try it. Sorry. No, thank you.
00:09:05
Okay, let's do it. Alejandra. Bring it in. Thank you. Oh, my God. That's so cute.
00:09:11
Thank you. Okay. What I'm most scared of are these ones, the Krabby Patty gummies.
00:09:18
It's just candy. It's not. Isn't the Krabby Patty crab? No. Okay. It's just gummies.
00:09:24
Yeah. Okay. That's fine. I can handle it. It's like a little hamburger gummy thing, which I always thought was cute.
00:09:29
I was sad that, like, hamburger gummies and pizza gummies that just look like that, you know,
00:09:35
Those, like, didn't take off until I was older. Yeah. Like, just a little too old to, like, buy them for myself.
00:09:40
And so I feel like I missed out a little bit. But here they are. Hey, nine-year-old Georgia, get in here.
00:09:47
Tastes a little bit like lipstick. You can't eat it like a traditional hamburger.
00:09:51
I thought I did. Well, Tony, because so many people from our staff said that their dream item to eat, and myself included, was a Krabby Patty.
00:09:59
Like, wanting the real thing. That's right. So if that is what the real thing tastes like, that's kind of hilarious.
00:10:03
Yeah. It's candy. Yeah, it's just candy. It's just delicious gummies. All right, this looks like a piece of mac and cheese.
00:10:10
It smells like gummy. Is that mac and cheese flavored gummy? I think it is. I'm trying to dig in there.
00:10:16
Tastes like a sandbox, like a huge sandbox. I mean, there's nothing mac and cheese about it to me, except for the look.
00:10:26
It's a little bit like macaroni, like just plain macaroni without the cheese. Maybe.
00:10:31
You know. But like, I was thinking there was going to be a really offensive kind of like nacho vibe.
00:10:38
Yeah. I think it's orange flavored. I think you're right. I think it's weird that I really want to save these cute little plastic tubs that they both came in for future use, just in case you need them for something in the future.
00:10:46
Yeah, because you could maybe put little rubber bands for your hair in there. Yeah.
00:10:51
Organizational. You can organize with old candy things. Okay, last one. Worst for last?
00:10:58
I'm actually saving this mac and cheese one because in general it's kind of delicious orange gummy.
00:11:03
Yeah, it is orange. You're right. No complaints about that. Now this is, like, is this a trend?
00:11:09
A Tabasco flavored cupcake? Apparently this is what all the kids are talking about these days.
00:11:13
I don't want to do this. Let's just do it. Okay. Because I hate spicy stuff. Smells kind of good.
00:11:19
Okay. Oh, my ulcer. That's a spicy cupcake. Oh, yeah. Here it goes in the back of my throat.
00:11:27
Oh, my God. It's kind of good. Ooh, what's it doing? I don't know. It's got a kick.
00:11:32
It looks like a red velvet cupcake. It's got chocolate vibes and spicy, which I don't fucking mind.
00:11:38
You like it? I kind of, I don't like it. But I don't mind it. But you don't mind it.
00:11:44
And if you were on your old TV show, how would you describe this? You take a bite into the Tabasco cupcake and you get sugar.
00:11:50
She had to check her notes on that. Immediate sugar. And then the back of your throat starts to burn Starts to burn a little I mean that was weird It was like the tasting in the front was full on red velvet Frosting velvet yeah But the experience in the back was something terrible has happened in the back of your throat
00:12:07
Right. I'm not not nauseous, you know. I mean, that's the idea is like Tabasco desserts work against each other.
00:12:16
Sure. And that's another installment of eating on a podcast. The thing people hate the most that we insist upon doing.
00:12:23
I'm going to cleanse the Tabasco cupcake with a little bit of mac and cheese gummy.
00:12:28
Gross. Well, some suggestions for your lover on this beautiful day. Give him any of those things we just ate.
00:12:36
I bet there's someone who would love Tabasco cupcakes. Yeah. The guy that hosts Hot Ones.
00:12:41
Oh, yeah. One of those kind of people. Totally. Well, anything else? Any personal news before we move it along?
00:12:47
I have a podcast recommendation. What is it? It's a true crime podcast called Beers with Queers.
00:12:54
Have you heard of it? No. It's an LGBTQIA plus related true crime podcast. And they have two episodes where they do an interview with the Trans Doe Task Force.
00:13:05
Oh, cool. Which I think is so important. It's episode 116 and 117. So I just wanted to mention those and check that podcast out.
00:13:11
Beers with Queers. Beers with Queers. The hosts Jordi and Brad are so, so funny.
00:13:17
And it's just a great true crime podcast. So make sure you check that out. Nice.
00:13:21
Oh, I have a little something. I want to talk to one very specific murderino. Her name is Gloria Evans.
00:13:28
She goes to Cal State Dominguez Hills, apparently for two years in a row in Mr. Pope's class.
00:13:33
She has, at the beginning of the year, told everybody that her favorite thing is this podcast.
00:13:40
And the first year she did it, Mr. Pope, who is my very old friend, Chip Pope, said to her, just so you know, I know one of those hosts.
00:13:47
And she was like, no, you don't. And then basically just didn't believe him. And then I just saw Chip at a party George and I were at together. And she was in his class again. And she again told everybody that this is her favorite podcast. This is her favorite thing, this podcast.
00:14:03
Yeah. And so then Chip just told me that kind of in passing. And then I was like, well, I'm going to set Gloria Evans straight. Sounds like she's one of the leading murderinos out there, certainly at Cal State Dominguez Hills. So Gloria, I know Chip Pope. It's real.
00:14:18
We all do. Everyone knows Chip Pope. He's legendary in the comedy community. Truly.
00:14:22
And so are you for loving our podcast enough that you would tell people in a brand new class that you would take.
00:14:30
But we appreciate you not trusting authority, though, and being like, Mr. Pope, no, you don't.
00:14:35
Like, we get that. Yes. We get that, like, immediate, what's the word? Distrust.
00:14:40
Yeah. Totally support that. That, like, snap judgment of, like, bullshit. Good for you.
00:14:44
If you're going to immediately come and tell me the thing I think I want to hear most, I absolutely doubt what you're coming at me with.
00:14:51
And it wasn't just any party, by the way. It was Chris Fairbanks' 50th birthday party.
00:14:56
That's right. It was so fun. So good. Everyone who was anyone was there. It was great.
00:15:03
It was very fun. And Chris made a step and repeat so that people could go take pictures at the party.
00:15:08
And the background said 50 years of Fairbanks, but it kind of looked like the Academy Award step and repeat.
00:15:14
And then he made a plexiglass Getty Images floating thing so that when you took this picture, you had a Getty Images watermark on your picture.
00:15:23
So fucking brilliant. The man is an artiste. Yeah. Happy birthday, Chris Fairbanks.
00:15:27
Happy birthday. Okay, ERM highlights real quick. Let's do it. We have a podcast network.
00:15:32
It's called Exactly the Right Media. Here are some highlights. This week on Buried Bones, Kate and Paul cover the death of investigative reporter Don Boles,
00:15:39
who was known for exposing organized crime in Phoenix and who was killed in a 1976 car bombing.
00:15:45
Tune in to hear how his legacy still impacts journalism today. Wow. And then over on Ghosted by Roz Hernandez, Roz slides down the banister to welcome the comedian Rosebud Baker.
00:15:56
They discuss a haunted Toys R Us, spirit babies, and a wild encounter with a medium at a comedy club.
00:16:02
And then over on Rewind with Karen and Georgia, that's you and I. We're traveling back to recap episode 32, which was the episode where we covered the tragic death of the singer Selena and the now infamous Zancou chicken murders.
00:16:16
On that show, we bring you all new case updates and insights and secrets and Easter eggs.
00:16:21
You should be checking out Rewind if you're not. It's just got everything. Gloria, get over there.
00:16:27
And then there's a lot we don't know these days. I think you and I'd be the first to admit.
00:16:31
But one thing we can all agree on is that there's never been a worse time than now.
00:16:36
That's true. So in honor of that, we're relaunching the This Is Terrible Keep Going design, this time in navy blue with white lettering.
00:16:44
So grab your unisex shirt, a ladies tee, a zip hoodie, whatever you want, because really it is terrible right now.
00:16:50
And we absolutely need everyone to keep going. Yes, please keep going. Please. Yes.
00:16:55
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00:19:05
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00:20:13
I am first today. Okay, so I have a feeling you're going to know this story, maybe because I've talked about parts of it,
00:20:21
but it's the story of two infamous British gangster brothers who achieved folk hero status just a few years after their rise to fame.
00:20:30
They were charming, entertaining nightclub owners who rubbed shoulders with the biggest stars of their day and became celebrities themselves.
00:20:38
They were also hardened criminals who used intimidation, violence, extortion, and murder to claw their way to the top of London's crime world and the swinging 60s social scene.
00:20:49
This is a story of the notorious Cray twins. Holy shit. Do you know this? Yes. And they've been brought up a lot in the podcast, but we've never covered them, I guess.
00:20:58
Yeah, I think I'm doing this now because we were talking about Tom Hardy and the movie Legend and all that stuff.
00:21:06
So it was like, oh, well, actually, let's just go back and cover it. So the main sources used in this story today are the book Our Story, written by Ronnie and Reggie Cray and Fred Dynage.
00:21:19
Also the book The Profession of Violence, The Rise and Fall of the Cray Twins by John Pearson.
00:21:24
And an article by writer Duncan Campbell that ran in The Guardian in 2015 titled The Selling of the Crays, How Two Mediocre Criminals Created Their Own Legend.
00:21:34
And the rest are in our show notes. So it all begins in October of 1933 when Reggie and Ronnie Cray are born into this world 10 minutes apart.
00:21:45
Reggie first, then Ronnie, at the family home in the Hagerston neighborhood of East London.
00:21:51
In 1938, the Cray family left that home and moved to Bethnal Green. Big long pause because I was so positive.
00:22:02
I was like, it couldn't be that easy to pronounce. At the time, London's East End is gritty, overcrowded, and many of its residents are trapped in the constant cycle of poverty and unemployment.
00:22:15
The Cray's parents are EastEnders Violet and Charlie Cray, who already have a seven-year-old son named Charles Jr. when the twins arrive.
00:22:23
So by 1939, as World War II is kicking off, Ronnie and Reggie are six years old, and their father, Charlie, is gone much of the time.
00:22:31
Reggie will later say, quote, My dad in those days was nearly always on the run, usually from the army, but also occasionally from the police.
00:22:39
During his years on the run, it was difficult for him to make a proper living, so he would occasionally have to resort to a bit of thieving and the like.
00:22:46
Sure. You know, just a touch. We've been all been there. Meanwhile, the twins' mom, Violet, is a loving and attentive mother who instills in her boys a deep respect for family.
00:22:55
Even in the most desperate times, as London is bombed and the family's evacuated and money runs low, she somehow shields her children from the serious difficulties of everyday life.
00:23:06
During World War II. Amazing. Reggie will later say, quote, My dad being away meant a hell of a lot of responsibility for our mother, but she did brilliantly.
00:23:17
She kept the family together. She kept us clothed and fed. Though how she did it, I'll never know.
00:23:22
She was the kindest woman in the world. She never hit us, not even when we've been right, little bastards.
00:23:28
And the Cray twins are right, little bastards, from the start. So this is a quote from the Cray's walking tour information page on the website LondonWalks, which is walks.com.
00:23:40
They nailed that one. They must have got it early. Quote, the East End of London in the 50s and 60s was a hard place to live.
00:23:47
Legendary photographer David Bailey came from the East End at that time, and he said, quote, quote within quote,
00:23:53
If you came from the East End and you wanted out, there were only three things you could become.
00:23:58
A boxer, a car thief. or maybe a musician. Wow. End quote. To give you a little perspective of what it was like there.
00:24:06
Luckily, Reggie and Ronnie got into a lot of fights with neighborhood kids. And so as expected, as they entered their late teens, they also get into boxing.
00:24:15
Both their father and grandfather were boxers. And their older brother, Charles Jr., is the one who actually teaches them the ropes.
00:24:22
So he is too. For a while, boxing seems like a promising career path for them both,
00:24:27
especially Reggie, who was said to be an exceptional athlete and very meticulous and thoughtful in the ring.
00:24:34
Ronnie, on the other hand, is more brutal and unpredictable. And these two boxing styles actually end up mirroring
00:24:40
how people will describe the crazed personalities, Reggie being the brains, Ronnie being the muscle.
00:24:46
So that said, both brothers are talented enough to participate in local youth championships,
00:24:51
and their fights even get some press attention in the London newspapers. They actually even fight each other a couple times.
00:24:58
That's kind of a... Twins boxing each other. I thought that was like a, you know, a good sell.
00:25:05
Come fucking see these guys who look exactly the same. Yeah, fun little human interest moment.
00:25:09
Beat the shit out of each other. They do it anyway at home. Then in 1952, the Crays get drafted into the army, but things spiral almost immediately.
00:25:19
When they show up at the reporting station, they refuse to cooperate, punch a corporal, and end up fleeing.
00:25:24
I can't do that. No, you can't. No. So just as their father had done throughout their childhoods,
00:25:30
the brothers spend much of the next two years AWOL from the Army or getting arrested and serving short stints in military prisons.
00:25:39
As they do, they meet countless other men with criminal records, and these relationships spark the twins' interest in criminal activities
00:25:45
and the promise of easy money. In 1954, when both boys are 21, they finally serve all their time
00:25:52
and are dishonorably discharged from the military. At this point, Ronnie and Reggie's lives have completely changed.
00:25:59
Their criminal records effectively bar them from the legitimate boxing world. So their one career path is now entirely cut off.
00:26:06
And it's around this time Ronnie starts to struggle with his mental health. This is a big part of the movie, the legend movie,
00:26:13
which is that these weren't just like kind of bloodthirsty, you know, sociopathic gangsters.
00:26:20
Reggie was kind of a businessman. man. He was very strategic about what they were trying to do. Ronnie was schizophrenic. He was a
00:26:28
paranoid schizophrenic. He didn't know it, and he was dealing with the kind of effects of that.
00:26:33
It was basically at that age, the onset of paranoid schizophrenia. He will later remember it by
00:26:39
saying, quote, I can joke about it now, but it was a bad time for me. For a while, I was treated at a
00:26:45
mental hospital, but I stopped going there. I still wasn't right. I kept getting these urges
00:26:49
to kill people because I was convinced they were plotting to kill me. Yeah. Scary.
00:26:54
Which also must be hard if you are starting to be a bit of a criminal or thinking of it.
00:27:01
Right. Like nothing is like, don't do that. It's like kind of part of your profession in a way.
00:27:06
Yeah. And it's going to kind of escalate things where it's, yeah. So that's the kind of context playing out in the background.
00:27:12
As the twins head back to Bethnal Green and soon pursue some legitimate business, there's
00:27:17
an east end billiard hall called the regal and it's just kind of past its prime the paint is
00:27:23
chipping the interiors are dingy and it basically has a seedy enough reputation that like insurers
00:27:29
won't insure it but the craze see it as a perfect investment so they stop by one day
00:27:34
and then the next and then suddenly there's a strange uptick in violent activity at the regal
00:27:40
unruly guests start infiltrating the place they destroy the furniture smash glasses
00:27:46
threaten to burn the building to the ground. And although the craze deny having anything to do
00:27:51
with this sudden influx of bad business at the Regal, it all suspiciously works in their favor.
00:27:58
They offer the billiard hall's beleaguered owner five pounds a week to take over the business,
00:28:03
which would be around... Five pounds in 1940. Now it's 50. I feel like it fucking matters.
00:28:10
Like, I'm going to be closer. You might get close. Five pounds in late 40s. Mid-50s.
00:28:16
Mid-50s. Mid-50s. It's like what I like to call it. Right. $150 a week? Close. $167.
00:28:22
Holy shit. Yes. Because you also made the switch from dollars to pounds. Oh, you're right.
00:28:26
So great job. That's why. Thank you. That's why it was so hard. According to writer John Pearson, quote, the day their offer was accepted, the violence stopped as mysteriously as it had started.
00:28:36
Could you imagine that? So the Crays give the Regal a long overdue makeover. They repaint and redecorate it.
00:28:43
And soon it starts drawing a new crowd of patrons for the first time in years. Unfortunately, though, this includes members of a local gang who waltz into the Regal and demand money from the craze in exchange for protection.
00:28:57
No, not from the craze. No, you don't say that to the craze. Not to these boys. But they weren't known.
00:29:02
So it was kind of like, oh, you think you're going to have a billiard cell? Okay.
00:29:06
Yeah. This is called a protection racket, and in Reggie's own words, this is how protection rackets work.
00:29:12
Okay. And he would know. A gang would offer to protect clubs, pubs, shops, and the like from other gangs in return for a fee.
00:29:21
Which is, when I was reading this part, I was just like, oh, this is a mob. And Peaky Blinders, later days.
00:29:29
It's just like all the same thing over and over. Peaky Blinders, later days. Oh, classic.
00:29:35
Often, of course, the business was not in any danger from those other gangs. But if the owner of the business was to make this point and refuse to pay the protection fee,
00:29:43
he would generally find that his business had been burgled, set fire to, or generally smashed up.
00:29:48
By then, of course, he was more than ready to pay his fee. Very few business owners went to the law because if they did the matter became personal and they themselves would become the target of the gang Right And the law was like on the take probably Most likely Yeah According to what I seen in Peaky Blinders Absolutely
00:30:05
Listen, we have infiltrated the mob before. And so we know. We know. Also, Tom Hardy, also on Peaky Blinders.
00:30:13
Cute. Do you want him in the Craze movie legend? Do you want him in Peaky Blinders?
00:30:19
You want him in every movie. You want him. So the Craze were not at all scared of this gang.
00:30:25
Or their threats, of course. In fact, when these gang members show up demanding their protection money, the brothers don't just say no.
00:30:33
In front of their patrons and God and everybody, Ronnie grabs a sword and chases the gang out of the regal.
00:30:39
A sword? A sword, I say. Wow. This is when the Krays have their light bulb moment.
00:30:45
If they're tough enough to run off the local gang running a protection racket, why not just become the local gang running a protection racket?
00:30:52
So they do. They form a gang known as The Firm, and they begin running their own East End protection rackets and armed robberies and arson and blackmail schemes, and they get rich doing it.
00:31:04
I think the name for a gang in the 50s, naming it The Firm, is so cool and visionary.
00:31:11
So good. Just need to say that credit where credit's due. So as Ronnie and Reggie run this gang, they also open more nightclubs.
00:31:18
In 1957, they opened the double R, an homage to their first names. Then in 1960, they acquire a popular West End club called Esmeralda's Barn.
00:31:30
Let's go back to the drawing board on that one, if we could. See, West End. Does barn mean something else in British 50s than now?
00:31:39
Yes, it means a trunk, a boot, a lift, a flat. they basically harass and extort the previous owner of esmeraldas and then they just take over
00:31:51
themselves then in 1963 they debut the kentucky back in east london and soon after its opening
00:31:57
the kentucky serves as a filming location for the movie sparrows can't sing your favorite film
00:32:03
early 60s hit ronnie and reggie are invited to the film's premiere and they host its celebrity
00:32:10
filled after party. About this, Reggie says, quote, it was on that night with Ron and me done
00:32:15
up like dogs dinners in our bow ties and dinner jackets and surrounded by the rich and famous
00:32:21
that I realized that we were well on the way to making it to the very top. I felt so powerful
00:32:27
that night. I felt nothing was to stop us. So through the mid 60s, the Crays open more clubs
00:32:34
and they become the center of London nightlife and they're becoming celebrities in their own right.
00:32:38
But their public image is complex. It's well known that Ronnie and Reggie are involved in all sorts of illegal activities, that they're wildly brutal to those who cross them, and that they're gaining the firm rules the East End.
00:32:51
They're also running what's called long firm frauds. And this involves setting up a fake business, ordering goods or merchandise on credit, then shutting down that business and stiffing the seller and offloading the goods that they didn't pay for for a quick profit.
00:33:06
Sure. But these crimes and the craze criminal infamy not only doesn't scare customers away, their notorious reputation enhances their popularity. They seem dangerous, which is enticing to some customers. Duncan Campbell writes, quote, this cross fertilization between crime and show business exemplified in the U.S. by Frank Sinatra's relationship with the mafia had benefits for both sides. Prestige for the gangsters, edgy cool for the stars.
00:33:34
Can we like I want to make clear, though, they don't look like Tom Hardy, right?
00:33:38
Like Tom Hardy. I don't know what he played. He played them in the movie. Yes. That's not what they look like.
00:33:43
The picture I saw of the craze. They look like boxers. They look like they've had their nose smashed a bunch of times.
00:33:48
It's like if Alan Rickman had been a boxer. Yes. And was terrifying. But also like very concerned with like slicked back hair.
00:33:56
Yes. 50s like cool suits. 60s cool suits. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK. They were very image savvy.
00:34:03
Yeah. They style themselves after characters in American gangster films. They dress in double-breasted suits with their hair slicked back,
00:34:10
accessorizing with big chunky rings and gold cufflinks. They even form a friendly relationship with powerful members of the American mafia.
00:34:18
So they're going for it. But as hard as the twins work to push a very specific gangster image,
00:34:23
they also buck social norms by openly engaging in relationships with other men. Right?
00:34:29
Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Being an out gay man in this era is very rare. Homosexuality at the time is against the law in England.
00:34:39
But Ronnie lives openly as a gay man. And actually that part of the movie legend is really funny because he is Ronnie being the big tough guy.
00:34:48
He also has this kind of like he's very like takes the world as it is and very, you know, like of the moment.
00:34:56
So anytime anyone tries to insult him or try to infer that there's anything wrong with what he's doing, he's just kind of confused.
00:35:03
Like, I don't know what your problem is. Wow. Okay. I mean, that's just the way it's played in the movie, which made me laugh really hard.
00:35:10
He's just not having it, really. And Reggie, who eventually marries a woman named Frances Shea, he's more often described as bisexual.
00:35:19
So I feel like basically they just do what they want. Yeah, like weirdly progressive.
00:35:24
Yeah. And their very strong tough guy brand that they've created is great for business and kind of goes, you know, it just plays and enables them to do whatever they want. Essentially, their nightclubs are increasingly popular hangouts for glamorous clientele like James Mansfield, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra. Even Judy Garland went there and became a close friend to the Kray brothers. At one point, she actually introduced the Krays to the Beatles.
00:35:52
Judy, who knew? She was the link between The craze mother actually invited Judy Garland to tea And while she was there Judy sang somewhere over the rainbow for her
00:36:05
But this is according to Duncan Campbell, the writer. This is the quote from Violet Kray.
00:36:11
Judy was a frightened little thing, too skinny. That was her verdict on having fucking Judy Garland in her house singing.
00:36:19
Yep. Wow. Tough. Legendary. Tough lady. I mean, Violet. Yeah. So for years, the Krays seem untouchable. When police look into their crimes, the investigations always stall because witnesses are simply too afraid to talk.
00:36:31
But of course, nothing lasts forever. While Ronnie and Reggie's rise to the top of London's underworld is swift, by 1966, tensions between the Krays and a South London group of gangsters called the Richardson Gang come to a head.
00:36:45
While these two gangs typically steer clear of each other's business, Ronnie later claims that the Crays had spies inside the Richardson camp.
00:36:53
And those spies eventually report back that one of the Richardson's gang associates, who was a guy named George Cornell, who used to be in the firm.
00:37:02
So he was like an ex-Crays gang member that went to the Richardson's gang. George had been talking about a plan to move into the Crays territory.
00:37:11
Ronnie also admits, though, that this rift with their ex-colleague was very personal with this George Cornell because he says, quote,
00:37:20
The trouble might still have been avoided, but then Cornell did the most stupid thing he'd ever done in his life.
00:37:25
In front of a table full of villains, he actually called me a fat poof. He virtually signed his own death warrant.
00:37:33
Yeah, you can't do that. End quote. You gotta be careful. Yeah. Like in front of everybody and to a person where it's just like, oh, OK, well, then there you go. So as you can imagine, things escalate from there. On March 8th, 1966, members of the Richardson gang, including George Cornell, shoot up a pub that's frequented by members of the firm.
00:37:53
Ronnie and Reggie aren't there, but one of their associates is killed. So one night later, Ronnie's out drinking when he learns that George Cornell is posted up at a pub called the Blind Beggar.
00:38:05
That's also in the East End. And it's also in the firm's territory. So Ronnie walks over, walks up to George at the bar and shoots him in front of basically all the patrons that are in there.
00:38:16
George Cornell dies later that night. After the murder, Ronnie says, quote, I felt fucking marvelous.
00:38:22
Jesus. Well, don't call him slurs then. I know. And certainly don't call him fat.
00:38:27
I don't know why I'm expecting like a gangster to be like, I didn't like it. It's like, no, of course he fucking felt fabulous.
00:38:34
He didn't give a shit. No. You would just be fucking traumatized into infinity if you had to shoot somebody.
00:38:39
Totally. Months pass. Ronnie faces zero repercussions for Georgia's murder. Because again, no witnesses are willing to talk.
00:38:48
About a year later, with a rivalry between the Crays and the Richardson gang continuing to build, Reggie brutally murders a low-ranking member of his own gang over basically a small debt.
00:39:00
This man's name was Jack the Hat McVitie. I'm going to start calling you the hat for sure.
00:39:06
Please do. The hat. You could just wear a little hat all the time. Jack is baited into a basement. He's told there's a party down there that everyone's going to.
00:39:15
Never go to a party. Especially in the basement. When he gets down there, he instead finds Reggie and Ronnie waiting for him.
00:39:23
Reggie pulls the trigger to shoot Jack. The gun jams. Come on. So Ronnie holds Jack down.
00:39:29
Reggie pulls out a knife and repeatedly stabs him in the face, throat, and chest until he bleeds out on the floor.
00:39:36
Oh, what a bummer. And Jack McVitie's body is disposed of and never recovered. Wow.
00:39:42
So that's where all the like glamour and glitz and kind of like superficial stuff really, really melts away for me where it's like, oh, that's cute and neat and Tom Hardy and hooray. But then it's like you could do that.
00:39:55
That's fucking brutal as shit. To someone in your own gang. Right. This murder is seen as a terrible, needless, and very sloppy move, and it alienates the craze from members of their own gang.
00:40:06
It's also out of character for Reggie, who's typically more of the strategic and thinking one.
00:40:13
Years later, he blames this decision to murder Jack on his poor mental state because his beloved wife, Frances, had recently taken her own life.
00:40:22
Oh, no. Yeah. Still. No, no. Oh, no for her. Yeah, strictly. Like the oh no stops firmly there. So both the murders of Jack McVitie and George Cornell happened in front of witnesses over at Scotland Yard. There's a detective named Leonard quote unquote Nipper Reed.
00:40:41
Nipper, that's your new nickname. Is it? The hat. Nipper in the hat. Nipper in the hat.
00:40:45
That's our new Tuesday show. No. No, no. So the Nippers are determined to bring down the craze essentially.
00:40:55
In 1968, Ronnie Reggie and about 15 members of the firm are arrested for various illicit activities. Reed's plan is to bring them all in and then flip someone from the inside.
00:41:06
He holds separate interrogations with each gang member and offers them legal protection in exchange for their testimony about the murders of Cornell and McVitie.
00:41:16
And the plan works. After about a decade of getting nothing but silence, Reed is finally able to turn members of Kray's own inner circle who are finally willing to speak in court.
00:41:27
The twins' 1969 trial is a true media sensation. Ooh, I bet. Thanks to all the damning evidence and most crucially, the consequential testimony against them, it ends with both Ronnie and Reggie being found guilty of the murders of George Cornell and Jack McVitie, respectively, as well as all the unprovable crimes that no one would or could talk about up until that point.
00:41:51
Yeah. The Krays are sentenced to life sentences in separate prisons They both 35 years old At their sentencing hearing the judge tells them quote in my view society has earned a rest from your activities But they don get a rest
00:42:06
from the craze activities. Instead, Ronnie and Reggie maintain a very public profile
00:42:10
once they're in prison. Duncan Campbell reports that, quote, once jailed, they devoted their
00:42:17
considerable energies to their image as gangland stars always open to visitors from the outside.
00:42:23
Huh. The twins are able to generate a decent income by feeding stories to visitors who would then sell them to British tabloids and then bring the money back to the craze in jail.
00:42:33
Oh, that's smart. Right? They also have more elaborate ways of capitalizing off their imprisonment.
00:42:38
In 1985, for example, Ronnie gets engaged to a woman named Elaine, who's been writing him letters during his incarceration.
00:42:46
There's always these Alaynes. These Alaynes. By this point, Ronnie's been transferred to Broadmoor.
00:42:52
a famous London psychiatric hospital we have talked about on the show many times
00:42:57
Ronnie and Elaine decide to get married at the facility's chapel but there's an ulterior motive here
00:43:04
it's not love I mean it could have been the greatest Valentine's Day of all time
00:43:09
but no it's not real when the tabloids catch wind about this upcoming wedding the son offers
00:43:15
20,000 pounds which is nearly how much in today's US dollars $20,000 in the 80s equals $350,000.
00:43:27
$100,000. Damn it. I was trying to send it to you. Thank you. I was going to say pathologically.
00:43:33
$100,000 for the rights to cover it. Ronnie accepts the offer, takes the money, presumably.
00:43:40
We don't have proof. And then, interestingly, his marriage to Elaine is over within a few years.
00:43:46
Yeah. I mean, he worked the son. That's kind of great. Totally. That's a lot of money.
00:43:51
These guys are really good at being kind of Robin Hood-esque. Yeah. Except for the murder.
00:43:57
Right. Ronnie Cray dies at Broadmoor in 1995 at the age of 61 after a heart attack.
00:44:04
Reggie Cray, meanwhile, bounces around to different prisons until the year 2000 when they release him on compassionate grounds because he's dying of cancer.
00:44:14
Wow. Reggie dies a few weeks later on October 1st at the age of 66. Today, the Cray brothers are buried side by side.
00:44:21
in London next to their parents. And even after their deaths, the Cray twins continue to fascinate the public
00:44:27
and their twisted underdog story has inspired a niche industry of books, movies, and TV shows
00:44:33
and true crime podcasts. This includes the 2015 film Legend where the great Tom Hardy
00:44:39
gives a dual blockbuster performance as both brothers in one movie. If you haven't seen it,
00:44:44
it really is the best. I haven't. I'll watch it. It's just, it's also just a really,
00:44:49
like, in my opinion, beautifully directed film and very compelling, but it's just so good. And he's so different. The two
00:44:56
brothers are so different. Yeah. And to play both of them, that's got to be a challenge.
00:44:59
It's cool. He's not just a pretty face. He's not. Let's just start crying. There's also a 1990
00:45:06
film starring Martin and Gary Kemp as the Kray brothers. It's called The Krays. And if you're
00:45:12
not old, then you probably don't know the Kemp brothers were the bass and guitar players for the
00:45:17
band Spandau Ballet. Oh, wow. Yeah. So they were kind of already famous British. And then somebody
00:45:23
wanted to make the craze movie. And they're like, those guys are brothers. They're badasses. They
00:45:28
wear jackets really well. Today, the Cray brand remains strong. Many continue to capitalize off
00:45:34
of it. There are now gangster walking tours in London that roll through the areas where Ronnie
00:45:39
and Reggie used to hang out, including London walks at walks.com. Go ahead and get your craze
00:45:46
walking tour over there. Full circle. And the pub The Blind Beggar, where Ronnie killed George
00:45:51
Cornell, also benefits from the connection to the craze. Reporter Duncan Campbell notes, quote,
00:45:58
you can take a selfie in the place where Cornell was shot and the pub sells craze DVDs for 20 pounds
00:46:03
and a craze walk booklet for three pounds. Wow. Not only that, but I, in looking on that website,
00:46:11
found that there's a walking tour called Darkest Victorian London, which I beg anybody that can get to it to please take
00:46:20
and then write into myfavoritemurder at gmail.com and tell me everything about the Darkest Victorian walking tour.
00:46:30
There's also a virtual walking tour of Jane Austen's bath, which I want. Wow, can I just sit or do I have to actually walk on a treadmill?
00:46:38
You have to walk on a treadmill in your own home. Like virtual means I can virtually walk too or I have to walk.
00:46:44
It's just kind of virtual like, you know, think about walking while you watch it.
00:46:49
Done. And that's the story of the notorious East Ender twin gangsters, The Craze.
00:46:54
Wow. I just have the best idea right now. So like you get a treadmill and it has like the walking tours of like the beautiful or the walking hikes and the mountains and the forest and all the beautiful hikes you can take.
00:47:05
Yes. Why aren't there like ghost tour treadmill walks? And like, you know, Jack the Ripper, like neighborhood treadmill walks.
00:47:16
So that your heart rate keeps going up and keeps going up. Oh, my God. Brought to you by My Favorite Murder.
00:47:21
Yeah, let's do this. Poor man's copyright. Don't try to do it. We're doing it. Take it.
00:47:27
But it's also like you're on a treadmill, but then like a ghost from Scooby-Doo kind of just flies through.
00:47:32
Right. Yeah, that's a great idea. It's great. Sorry. That was so good. Thank you.
00:47:36
Thank you. Good job. Thank you. Thank you, Tom Hardy. you've done it again. You have.
00:47:41
It's all Tom Hardy's fault and we appreciate it. That's right. writing record books that barely had time to gather dust.
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Terms and conditions apply. See pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. Goodbye. All right. Well, here's one that a lot of people are going to be mad at me about, that I'm mad at me about.
00:49:59
Okay. Because the timing is bad, and it's a bad story. And it's on— It's about to happen.
00:50:09
You're like, and this is the American Revolution. This is the Civil War. It's something that is—a lot of us who have anxiety, it's on our minds right now.
00:50:20
Even though this is a story from over 45 years ago. This is the story of the deadliest aviation accident in history.
00:50:29
I know. Alejandra called me last week and was like, are you sure you want to cover this?
00:50:33
And I'm like, let's just do it. But let's talk about what's happening currently, too.
00:50:39
Yeah. You know? Yep. So we don't shy away here, except sometimes we do. Well, I mean, like, we do what we can do week to week.
00:50:46
Right. All right. Let's do it. Yeah. Let's dig in. This story is wild because it's a story of chance, like so many little things, human error, the weather, like things you could not control, all lining up in such a way that this one event occurred.
00:51:03
And it results in a tragedy that ultimately claims the lives of 583 people. I know.
00:51:10
This disaster also led to some major changes in the way international aviation works.
00:51:15
That said, safety experts have been warning for years that there are still gaps in the systems and that another tragedy is likely.
00:51:23
Their warnings have only just recently come to fruition in the recent American Airlines crash in Washington, D.C., which we'll talk about at the end.
00:51:30
This is the story of the Tenerife Airport disaster. Do you know it? Did you watch the Nova episode called The Deadliest Plane Crash?
00:51:40
It's like I survived. What year was it from? It's 2006. It feels old. I may have. Yeah, yeah.
00:51:45
I bet you did, because it totally reads like an I Survived episode. Okay. And it's so hard to watch. And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. That was the main source I used when I watched it and cried.
00:51:56
But then I was like, Vince, I shouldn't do this this week, right? And he was like, I'm not worried about it. And I'm like, oh, it's just us who have anxiety.
00:52:02
I mean, I think it's that piece where a lot of us had the little factoid in our heads every time we flew, which is it's more common to be killed in your own bathroom.
00:52:16
Yeah, in a car accident. Cars are less safe than airplanes. Right. But I think when we see any kind of air disaster in the news, it shakes that kind of comfort that we hold on to very, very dearly.
00:52:31
Right. On top of this kind of governmental crumbling vibe, which then you're like, well, that's going to, you know, it's easy to then begin to write what's going to happen.
00:52:41
Yeah. And I think that we also feel some kind of control when it comes to stepping into our bathtub or getting into a car.
00:52:47
we at least have a little bit of control over what's happening. And in an airplane, you give it all up.
00:52:52
And so it's scary. Very true. Except I just like to remind everybody that one step you take off the bath mat
00:52:57
and there's a little water on your tile floor. I did that the other day and caught myself.
00:53:03
I was like, I could have just cracked my head so hard. And it was like a fast one that I then caught.
00:53:11
And it was like, oh my God, thank God I caught myself. That's terrifying. Yeah. Everything's terrifying, guys.
00:53:16
Everything is terrifying. We can do this. Just walk slowly, you know, keep the ground dry.
00:53:25
Yeah, carry a beta blocker. You don't have to take it, but just like knowing that it's in my purse does help sometimes.
00:53:30
Okay. Also, we're getting on a plane next month, you and I, so sorry about that.
00:53:34
We're going to be doing this a lot. It's people, one million people are going to get on planes today and be fine.
00:53:40
Someone's flying right now and they're like, I'm just going to listen until I can't anymore.
00:53:43
Yeah. Jessica, stay with us. You've got this. Okay So let talk about the Canary Islands They a chain of seven islands off the coast of northwestern Africa as you know However they Spanish territories This is clearly a bit contentious with everybody There have been several movements for independence over the years with disputes of who controls some of the waters around the islands
00:54:05
Regardless, we're not getting to that today. The islands are a hugely popular tourist destination.
00:54:11
You've heard of them, right? I have because there was those murders. Oh, that's right.
00:54:15
Yeah, recently. Regardless, so the islands are sunny. They're tropical. It's tropical weather pretty much year round.
00:54:22
And they are home to hundreds of beach resorts and water parks, a beautiful place to go.
00:54:27
When you hear British people talking about a sun holiday, they're probably talking about the Canary Islands.
00:54:32
Like, they go there a lot. So here we are on the island of Grand Canaria on March 27, 1977.
00:54:40
It's shortly after 1 p.m. at the Grand Canaria Airport, which is the main airport servicing the island.
00:54:45
So it's a pretty sizable island and airport. And a bomb explodes in the departures area.
00:54:52
So this is just one of those little moments. It has nothing to do with the plane crash that's going to happen later. It's just a chance thing that leads to the next thing. Right. A group called the Canary Islands Separatist Movement takes credit for the explosion, injures eight people, and the group threatens that there will be a second explosion that day. So that's the first thing that happens.
00:55:13
The airport's evacuated, obviously, and all flights that are scheduled to land there are diverted.
00:55:20
Most of them are diverted to the much smaller Los Rodeos airport on the neighboring island of Tenerife.
00:55:28
And it's about a 25-minute flight between the two islands. Los Rodeos has only a single runway.
00:55:36
It's very small. One large taxiway and four much smaller taxiways branching off of that.
00:55:40
So it's like the Burbank airport compared to like LAX. You know? And it's not designed to accommodate the number of aircraft that have now been diverted there because of this unexpected explosion.
00:55:52
Also, it's a Sunday. And so there are only two air traffic controllers on duty at this smaller airport.
00:55:59
So among the flights that have been diverted to Los Rodeos are Pan Am flight 1736, which flew out of LAX.
00:56:06
Yeah. You know all this. Do you know this one well? No, no, no. I don't know. I don't know.
00:56:10
like that. Okay. Yeah, that was a Boeing. That would be amazing. No, it's just that it's like
00:56:17
those, the plane crashes from the 70s feel like a lot of them were Pan Am. Yeah. Or like when it's
00:56:23
like when you hear the phrase Pan Am flight and then a number, it's like it gives me agita.
00:56:29
Totally. So it had flown out of LAX, made a refueling stop at JFK in New York. And then
00:56:35
the other flight was KLM flight 4805. That one originated in Amsterdam, and that was a charter
00:56:43
flight for a tour company called the Holland International Travel Group. So both planes are,
00:56:48
as you just said, Boeing 747s, the first wide-body plane designed for commercial travel to be
00:56:55
considered a jumbo jet. And they have a distinctive upper deck as well, which we don't have anymore,
00:57:01
right? Upper decks? No, I've gone on planes recently that had upstairs. Wow. There was something I flew.
00:57:07
Italy probably. I was upstairs when I flew home from Italy. Yeah. It was a biggie.
00:57:10
Huge jumbo jets. So like those were the only two jumbo jets that went to Tenerife that day.
00:57:15
Everything else was smaller, but, you know, they weren't supposed to be there. Right.
00:57:19
The pilot of the KLM flight, the Dutch flight, is Jacob Van Zanten. He is one of the most senior pilots at KLM.
00:57:28
In fact, he is the airline's chief pilot and is in charge of training new pilots.
00:57:32
He's like the best of the best. this kind of older senior pilot. He's so well regarded in the industry
00:57:39
that he is featured prominently in KLM's advertising. Like when they show like, these are the people who fly you.
00:57:47
It's like this guy is like the face of it. Did you get to see a picture of him? Yeah, he's like a, you know,
00:57:53
older gray zaddy type. Nice. Yeah. I feel like of all the populations of people on this planet,
00:58:01
pilots would have the least amount of patience with me. You know what I mean? Why?
00:58:06
Because they're just so like, you know, kind of like all business, kind of very logical.
00:58:13
Yeah, like almost like engineers. Are they engineers? I mean, they might be. They should be.
00:58:17
There's no extra chit chat it feels like with them. No extra words because there's just like, yeah.
00:58:23
Because they're like, logic. But then like I would be on there just like, oh my God, have you ever seen anything weird?
00:58:30
And they would just be like, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, there's no chit-chat.
00:58:34
You're totally right. So he's definitely that guy. However... If we're wrong about that, write in, pilots.
00:58:38
Let us know if we're wrong. But I will say about this guy, though, and you'll like this, everyone says he's a warm
00:58:44
and friendly guy. Oh, great. And that he insists that his co-workers call him by his first name instead of addressing
00:58:49
him as captain. So he's fucking down to earth. Chill. Chill. Good at what he does.
00:58:54
Maybe he'll tell you about that one time he saw a UFO. The weird thing on this guy.
00:58:58
Yeah. He's so likable. Okay. And the first officer, co-pilot, he's pretty green and he's currently being trained by Captain Benzanten.
00:59:06
And almost everyone on that flight is Dutch. Many of them are families going on vacation.
00:59:11
And among the Dutch passengers are several tour guides who are from the Netherlands originally, but now most live on the Canary Islands.
00:59:18
And they're like, they're coming with the group to the Canary Islands. Among them is a young woman in her 20s named Robina van Lanschot.
00:59:26
Both flights land at Los Rodeos around 2 p.m. You know, they've been diverted, as I keep telling you.
00:59:33
The passengers from the Dutch KLM flight are allowed off the plane and into the airport while they wait,
00:59:38
which is kind of crowded, but at least they get off the plane. And it's here that Robina makes a split-second decision.
00:59:44
See, her boyfriend, like newish boyfriend, lives on Tenerife, where they had to land, where they were diverted.
00:59:50
So she decides to stay on the island and go see him. She close friends with the other two Dutch tour guides on the flight She tries to convince them to like come with her We make a night out of it We have some fun But they already made plans to see friends on Grand Canaria And so they like we just going to wait till we allowed to get back on the plane
01:00:07
and go back to the island like they want to get this whole trip over with. So the passengers on
01:00:12
the Pan Am flight from LA, they have to stay on the plane, unfortunately. Nearly all of them had
01:00:17
departed from Los Angeles and they had already made that stop in New York. So at this point,
01:00:23
they've all been traveling for about 12 hours. Oof. You know, probably really shitty conditions back in the 70s.
01:00:28
Right? Lots of cigarettes. Lots of smoking. Lots of cigarette smoke. They're anxious to complete this final 25-minute leg of their trip.
01:00:35
They're like, can we get this over with? Among these passengers is a 27-year-old woman named Joni Holt.
01:00:41
Joni is a former police officer and has a three-year-old daughter back home in San Diego.
01:00:46
She's divorced and in a relatively new relationship with a man named Jack. and she and Jack are about to go on this like trip of a lifetime together in this new relationship
01:00:56
they're in. They're going on a two week cruise through the Mediterranean and actually a large
01:01:02
proportion of the passengers on that flight are supposed to go on the same cruise. It's scheduled
01:01:07
to leave from Grand Canaria and make stops in the Canary Islands, Morocco, Sicily, Athens,
01:01:14
like everyone is just ready for this flight to be over so they can move on with their lives.
01:01:19
Yeah. So Joni and her boyfriend have splurged on first class tickets for the flight. And the luxurious Pan Am 747 has a first class bar area on the upper deck. Wow. That upper deck you love. At this point on the journey, Joni and her boyfriend have befriended their seatmates, something I don't ever do.
01:01:38
No, God, no. You shouldn't. Once they've been diverted to Tenerife, some of those seatmates invite them upstairs to the lounge to hang out.
01:01:46
But Joni and Jack decide to stay downstairs in their seats. They're just like, they want to be where they're supposed to be when the flight's supposed to take off.
01:01:53
Like, they're ready to freaking go. Yeah. So they don't go upstairs to the bar. Remember that flight to Australia that had a bar in it?
01:01:59
You won't remember that, but Vince and I remember that. Was it behind where we were sitting?
01:02:03
Yes. Yeah. That was so cool. Yeah. Yeah. So First Class has a dedicated crew and among them on the Pan Am flight are best friends Suzanne Donovan and Joan Jackson. These two young women try to coordinate so that they work on the same flights together. That's how much they enjoy each other's company.
01:02:22
So at about 5 p.m., the Grand Canaria Airport has been secured and reopened. And so flights are allowed to begin taking off for that 25-minute journey.
01:02:35
Now, the two air traffic controllers are going to have to play a game of Tetris to move all these unexpected planes around to give them space to take off down that one small runway that they have.
01:02:48
Then at the same time, one of these other fucking bits of chance happens. A thick fog begins to roll in.
01:02:55
I know. Fucking fog. The airport is 2,000 feet above sea level, which you know means it's prone to thick cloud cover at times.
01:03:05
And there's another issue. The center lights on the runway aren't working. Crucial.
01:03:10
Crucial. Especially if you have fog. Yeah. But oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. at this point everyone has been stranded at los rodeos for about three hours they're anxious to
01:03:20
get into the air in addition to this the dutch klm crew is in danger of timing out which basically
01:03:26
means that everyone working that flight would have to stay a certain amount of hours at that
01:03:31
you know airport before they're allowed to fly again and um like there's not room for that on
01:03:36
the island they're all fucking over it like let's they just like kind of are in a hurry in a way
01:03:41
they wouldn't be normally. And so because of this, maybe not everyone is thinking every step through.
01:03:47
The air traffic controllers instruct the KLM flight to taxi to the end of the runway,
01:03:52
and then they're supposed to wait for the Pan Am flight to follow behind it and get behind it
01:03:57
to take off after it. All the other planes at the airport are on the taxi or a holding area
01:04:03
because these are the two big planes. But there's interference and the radio transmissions aren't
01:04:09
clearer. There's also the language barrier issue. All of the communications are being done in English,
01:04:15
but the air traffic controllers and the KLM pilots don't have a standard aviation-centered
01:04:21
knowledge of the language. The air traffic controller's first language is Spanish. The KLM
01:04:27
flight crew's first language is Dutch. And so the two groups are just not working with a standardized
01:04:32
aviation English vocabulary, just a limited amount of English that they both happen to know.
01:04:38
So obviously things are going to get mixed up. The Dutch-speaking pilots on the KLM flight taxi to the end of the runway, as they're supposed to.
01:04:46
And then Captain Van Zanten says, okay, we are at takeoff. And then the air traffic controllers say, okay, standby for takeoff.
01:04:54
I will call you. But because of the radio interference, only the okay is audible in the KLM cockpit.
01:05:01
So no one had actually given the KLM flight clearance to take off. but Captain Van Zanten must have misunderstood
01:05:06
as he initiates takeoff. He basically goes down the other runway. They have to do a U-turn
01:05:11
and they're supposed to wait for the other flight to go down and go behind it but it's still driving down the runway.
01:05:18
They're like basically facing each other. The transmissions are choppy and in the Pan Am flight
01:05:23
it's still taxiing down the runway. They don't hear everything but they still say, quote,
01:05:27
we're still taxiing down the runway. But this transmission overlaps with one from air traffic control
01:05:33
And in the KLM cockpit, they only hear high-pitched noise as their plane barrels directly at the Pan Am flight, which they can't see through that dense fog.
01:05:44
Oh, God. So it's just barreling towards this other plane. While all this is going on the passengers in first class on the Pan Am flight they kind of aware of what going on Joni remembers feeling nervous about the maneuvering that they had to do around the KLM flight She remembers that her boyfriend joked quote don worry if they hit us you won feel a thing end quote But the KLM crew does hear the next transmission
01:06:09
when the tower tells the Pan Am crew to report when they're clear. And so one member of the KLM
01:06:15
crew then asks over the radio, while they're at full speed taking off, if this means they're not
01:06:22
clear already. Like clearly in that cockpit as well, there was some confusion with everybody.
01:06:28
To be asking while you're taking like mid of like, oh, we're doing the thing. Are you saying
01:06:33
we're not clear? Right. And the captain who's like, thinks we're clear and taking off is like
01:06:38
old school season captain. So like questioning him is probably like not something most people do.
01:06:43
Yeah. So that clearly was his way of being like, this isn't right. So then the Pan Am flight
01:06:49
comes into view of the KLM flight that's trying to take off. And the last recording recovered from the KLM cockpit
01:06:56
is Captain Van Zandt crying out as he tries to pull up and take off to avoid hitting the Pan Am flight.
01:07:02
So he just like fucking tries so hard to pull up. But they had just gotten a bunch of fuel on the plane too,
01:07:07
which made it heavier. There are about eight seconds when the two planes are visible to each other.
01:07:12
And in those eight seconds, the captain of the Pan Am flight named Victor Grubbs says,
01:07:16
quote, God damn it, that son of a bitch is coming. and he tries to steer his plane off the runway to get it out of the way.
01:07:24
So sorry, they're both taking off at each other, essentially? The Dutch flight is taking off quickly in the direction of the Los Angeles flight.
01:07:33
That's just taxiing and coming slowly forward. Okay. Yeah. So they're both coming towards each other.
01:07:39
And then the Dutch flight is actually going really fast and trying to take off. Oh, my God.
01:07:43
Despite the KLM flight trying to pull up and the Pan Am flight trying to veer away,
01:07:48
It's no use. The KLM flight just gets off the ground, but slices right through the upper deck of the Pan Am flight, resulting in an instant explosion.
01:07:57
Oh, God. I know. The KLM flight remains airborne for a few seconds before crashing to the ground in a fireball.
01:08:04
There are no survivors from the KLM flight, which had 248 people aboard. Wow. So meanwhile, at first, Pan Am First Officer Robert Bragg doesn't think their flight has been extensively damaged.
01:08:18
They're the one who got hit that were taxiing because all he could feel was a bit of shaking.
01:08:22
And then he realizes that all the windows in the cockpit are gone. And in this model of 747, the cockpit is on the upper level.
01:08:31
So Robert turns around in his seat and sees the tail of the airplane, meaning the entire top part of the plane had just been sliced right off.
01:08:39
Oh, my God. I know. Just turns around and like he can see the tail of the plane from the cockpit.
01:08:45
He says, quote, we had 28 people in the upstairs lounge. The lounge was no longer in the plane.
01:08:51
It was just a big hole there. End quote. That's the lounge that Joni and her boyfriend had considered going up to, but instead had stayed in their seats.
01:08:59
So Joni had felt the plane veer to the left before the impact. And the next thing she remembers is this horrific scene of devastation around her and destruction.
01:09:08
debris and small fires everywhere in the cabin. But next to her, her boyfriend Jack is also still
01:09:14
alive. They're both injured, but not horrifically so. And together they climb over the debris
01:09:20
to a hole where one of the plane's doors used to be. And 747s are high off the ground. It's about
01:09:27
a 12-foot jump from the door to the ground. And a man is already down there telling Joni that he'll
01:09:32
catch her. So she is able to jump from that hole to the ground. And meanwhile, Jack starts to help
01:09:39
a flight attendant get other passengers to this door to get off of the plane. At some point,
01:09:45
terrifyingly, part of the plane collapses, but this actually makes the jump lower. So it's easier
01:09:50
to get people to the ground. So they help get people off of the plane, which is incredible.
01:09:55
And eventually Jack also gets off the plane and is reunited with Joni. I know. Oh, my God.
01:10:01
Among those who have also survived the impact are best friends, Suzanne and Joan.
01:10:05
And they both instruct the people who can make it to the door to leave everything behind.
01:10:09
And they help them get off of the burning plane. And eventually they have no choice but to get off as well.
01:10:15
Once on the ground, Joan, the flight attendant, thinks they're going to walk around the plane and find more survivors who have exited through the doors.
01:10:22
But that doesn't happen. Some passengers do manage to get out over one of the wings of the plane.
01:10:27
but the majority of the people on the flight are either killed on impact or suffocate in the fire.
01:10:33
Of those on the Pan Am flight, 331 people die and only 61 survive. Oh, my God. However, 61 survivors, I mean, miraculous.
01:10:44
Completely miraculous. Yeah. I told you you'd hate this. I mean, it's just so unimaginable.
01:10:51
It's just so kind of like the way you're describing it where it's like that is literally how it would be.
01:10:56
where you're sitting there, you hear this weird noise. All of a sudden you're like, I guess there's things that are on fire.
01:11:01
I better leave. Like you're in full shock. Yeah. It's just wild to have been like on the thing and staying conscious and getting off the thing.
01:11:10
Yeah. You probably like got your purse with you because you just are like just totally in shock.
01:11:15
Get up and go. Yeah. So in the aftermath, large memorial services for both flights are held.
01:11:20
The Dutch service for the KLM flight is held in a hangar to accommodate more than 300 caskets, which is, I guess, staggering to see them all together.
01:11:30
And those who died in the Pan Am flight are buried in Westminster, California. The only person who should have been on that KLM flight who does survive is Robina.
01:11:40
Remember the tour guide who stayed behind on Tenerife to see her boyfriend? At that point, the two had only known each other for four months, but they go on to get married.
01:11:49
And in that 2006 Nova documentary, they say they've never separated since that day.
01:11:56
She's like, love saved my life. I know. And in 2007, a memorial to the crash and its 583 victims is dedicated at the airport in Tenerife.
01:12:08
So this tragedy leaves the aviation industry reeling and leads to major changes.
01:12:15
Across all major airports and international airlines, there's now a standard protocol for simple, universal English phrases.
01:12:23
No air traffic controllers can use words like OK or Roger. Those words are not used anymore.
01:12:30
No one says the word takeoff unless permission for takeoff is being given. Pilots and air traffic controllers only use the word departure before that.
01:12:40
So because they're like hold for takeoff, you don't say that anymore. It's like you can't say the word takeoff until you're, because that's kind of what happened is it just got a little confused.
01:12:48
The misunderstanding. Right. Right. So you won't hear that word unless it's allowed.
01:12:53
Well, flying is still statistically very safe, as you and I know. Just a few weeks ago, we saw the first accident involving a major U.S. carrier in 16 years.
01:13:04
This came after several close calls. In 2023, in the span of a few weeks, there were three near misses on American runways with planes almost colliding.
01:13:14
I know. I hate it. I just want to stay home. Go ahead. Can I? Sure. Oh, thank God. Safety experts had cautioned that these misses should be taken as a warning to address issues like understaffing among air traffic controllers and modernizing warning systems.
01:13:32
Unfortunately, these issues have not been addressed completely enough. And on January 30th, just this past month, a Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight that was landing at D.C.'s Reagan Airport.
01:13:44
Sixty-seven people were killed. There were no survivors, as we know. And in fact, while the victims of the crash were still being pulled from the Potomac,
01:13:53
Trump blamed diversity hiring in the air traffic control industry for the crash.
01:13:58
And look yes we can totally get into politics here I obviously no expert but it important to bring this stuff up And I just quote an ex named A Money Resists who said quote
01:14:10
On your second day, you, one, fired the head of the Transportation Security Administration.
01:14:15
Two, fired the entire Aviation Security Advisory Committee. Three, froze hiring of all air traffic controllers.
01:14:23
Four, fired 100 top FAA security officers. End quote. Now, many argue that these changes wouldn't have led to such immediate consequences that would have affected this crash that happened on the 30th.
01:14:37
And at the time, the air traffic controller was filling in for a co-worker and doing a job that was usually performed by two people, which, of course, points to the above understaffing issues.
01:14:48
Yeah. But you can't argue that they more than likely will eventually affect those things.
01:14:53
Here's what you can argue, in my opinion, is that it has nothing to do with DEI.
01:14:57
Right. when they're talking about something this horrifyingly tragic. Right. Absolutely.
01:15:33
And that is the story of the Tenerife Airport disaster, the deadliest accident in aviation history.
01:15:39
And seemingly like one that all of those things coming together. Yeah. All of those, it's almost like there's no world where there's blame.
01:15:49
Right. For all of those things being on the table at one time. Totally. To me, that's like if you want to blame anything, you blame it being 1977.
01:15:56
Right. And you know however there are things you can put into place that like you know looks out for those let call them acts of God or whatever or misunderstandings or misinformation or security issues or communication issues Like let put those into place instead of just fucking
01:16:16
Well, and once they've been put into place, let's not take them back out of place.
01:16:20
And somehow then pretend that we never needed them in the first place. Right, right.
01:16:26
Whoa. Told you. You really got in there and kind of faced, you really faced down.
01:16:32
I did. A demon. I did. You did it. I did it. You did it. We did it. I mean, it's almost like that love story of Robina and her boyfriend.
01:16:43
We can pull that out and just have that be the theme and say that's a beautiful thing that sometimes happens among horrible circumstances.
01:16:51
Yeah. Like that's the little bright piece of it that we can look at is that she wanted to see him so bad and she went and ran into his arms and never left.
01:17:02
Never left. What's the positive piece about the story of the craze that we can romantically pull out?
01:17:08
Oh, there's no happy ending sometimes, and that's okay. Hey, look, the happy ending is that we're willing to face the bad endings.
01:17:15
Yeah, and Valentine's is here, so go get some KFC. Yeah, eat as much chocolate as you feel like.
01:17:22
It's your day. It is your day. And also stay sexy. And don't get murdered. I almost said don't get married.
01:17:30
Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. Don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?
01:17:37
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