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00:01:40
Own the dream. Hello! And welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hardstart. Thanks, that's Karen Kilgara.
00:02:06
And we're here to talk to you about Jafra. What's Jafra? Is that like Amway? Jafra was
00:02:12
a 70s or maybe 80s version of Mary Kay. Oh. So it was kind of like it was all those products,
00:02:21
but with almond oil instead of parabens. It was, yeah, it was a pyramid scheme for the hippies.
00:02:29
Why can't hippies have a pyramid scheme? I mean, shockingly, it didn't last. And I'm saying that sarcastically because everyone wants chemicals in their fucking blue eyeshadow, right?
00:02:38
That's right. I want to swim in saline solution and have my full face of makeup still on.
00:02:44
I want fucking asbestos in my concealer. and I want bat shit in my, I guess that's natural in mascara. That's natural.
00:02:53
Well, you know what it is? You want the chemical version of guano, of bat guano.
00:02:58
Always. Which will dye your lashes and brows. That's all I have. And give me glaucoma. I don't know how glaucoma works. For people out there
00:03:05
saying that's not how glaucoma works, I don't even really know what it is. So please don't.
00:03:09
What we're saying is we want our mascara to change how glaucoma works. I wanted to change my eye color and I wanted to change the negative stigma that glaucoma has given the world.
00:03:20
Has given. Yeah. And that's what this podcast is all about. We've said it since day one.
00:03:26
The chemical destabilization of your face. But a podcast. But as a podcast. That reminds me, though, because I do have a chemical.
00:03:38
I just I'm inhaling chemicals as we speak. Because I just re-pinked, re-dyed the chunks in my hair pink that I had done way back when I wasn't 40 yet.
00:03:50
Because I feel so fucking boring in this quarantined new clothing, as I call it, new mother chic.
00:03:59
That I just need something to show people and to show myself that I am not a normal sweat pant wearer.
00:04:08
Oh, I see. You don't want to switch back to full on tight bodice zip up dresses from 1952.
00:04:15
No, no, no. But you would like the vibe of that to come across. Yeah. I want the non-permanent like full sleeve tattoos to be like, look, everyone.
00:04:24
I'm not norm core. I mean business. Oh, no. Oh, a fire. Yes. The chemicals. The chemicals are setting off the fire alarm.
00:04:36
Sorry, sorry. Oh, I lit a candle. I lit a candle for some ambiance. Is it in the same room or a different room?
00:04:47
In the same room. And I was like, gee, that's smoking a lot. And then I just scared every animal in my house.
00:04:55
You got an asbestos candle because you really are dedicated to this whole idea. I was like, I'm going to light a candle.
00:05:02
Like, when do I ever light a candle that's so like, you know, fucking mindful and shit?
00:05:08
Yeah. And then the alarm went off. And then you got slapped for it. Ain't that always the way.
00:05:13
Can I please have one mindful, spiritual moment? I think that fire alarms, and rightfully so, are the most irritating noise on the planet.
00:05:29
Yeah. It could be loud without being high. Right? Yeah. It's like a chirping. It's like the most aggro bird.
00:05:38
Does it have to scare the cats is my question. The cats are the ones that are going to wake you up when there's a four alarm fire taking place in your house.
00:05:47
I'm fine. I have three cats. You will be woken. How's Hawaii? You just got back from Hawaii.
00:05:53
Shit, dude. It was like a last minute trip My friends were already over there It was super fun I truly it wouldn look like it Like I don have any kind of like a patch of pink to indicate this I am such a
00:06:09
believer in like the healing power of the ocean and salt water and just getting knocked around
00:06:17
because the waves were pretty strong. The day we got there, we're like, well, we have to get in,
00:06:24
But the second we got in, I was like, I'm getting out. I can't with it. Like, I can't. And then that was the first day we went to the beach. The second day we didn't get in at all. It was it was that and there was also a riptide. We watched a guy get rescued and he was literally like 10 feet off the beach. It wasn't like he was far out. Holy shit.
00:06:44
shit. And I will say this and, you know, please all surfers let us know how I'm wrong about this.
00:06:50
But they were saying you can tell there's a riptide or there's like a bad dangerous patch of water. Yeah.
00:06:56
If the waves aren't just coming straight toward you, normal style, but like there's perpendicular waves. Yeah, I see that
00:07:02
all the time. I didn't know that's what that was. Yeah. All the time. As if I've been to the
00:07:06
fucking beach once in the past year. Georgia goes and stands at the edge of the lighthouse. All the time. And watches the
00:07:12
tide. Yeah. Every night. No, it was really weird. And it was also, you could tell people were like, it didn't seem bad. And then suddenly they were stuck in a thing where they just couldn't move forward.
00:07:25
Worst nightmare. Yeah. And our last day at the beach, me and Adrian got stuck in it.
00:07:30
No. Yes. But it was this weird, it was really funny where you're not, at first we weren't scared because we were just like, we were just trying to move down the beach, but in the water.
00:07:42
Tell everyone what your arms are doing while you tell that part. I'm doing little like marchy arms.
00:07:46
Yeah. Because that's how we were like, we were past our waist in the water, but we were like, we're just going to, it's like walking down the beach with your butt covered by the ocean.
00:07:55
Got it. It was great. But then we got it. We didn't realize we were that far down.
00:07:59
We had gotten pulled down a little bit. So we went into the patch. And all of a sudden, when I take a step forward, all the sand just goes away underneath my feet.
00:08:09
Yeah. And so you're weirdly like, oh, I can't get any, I can get no purchase here.
00:08:16
And we did that for just like two minutes. And I was like, well, I'm not saying anything because I don't want us to panic.
00:08:22
And then Adrienne turned and looked at me and I go, this is a bad patch, I think.
00:08:26
And she goes, it is, it is. And, but luckily we like, we just kind of powered forward, but there were lifeguards
00:08:34
watching us because it was the area to not do that in. They were like, these two girls, these two gals, they're next.
00:08:41
Those pale sunburned girls might need some help. Yeah, they don't know about this ocean, those very, very pale people.
00:08:49
So luckily we didn't need assistance. That would have been so fucking humiliating.
00:08:53
We powered out, but it was super fun. It was so nice. And of course, I met several people.
00:08:59
We went to a lovely dinner at a very fancy restaurant there. And our waitress turned out to be a murderina.
00:09:07
Oh my God. So there was friends all over the place. That's exciting. It was really nice.
00:09:11
It was a nice getaway. How many waitstaff murderinos do you think we have? Legion.
00:09:16
I bet there's a big amount. Doing the side work, you got to put some in your earbuds, right?
00:09:22
Yeah. Well, I was kind of impressed because she said, she goes, my ex turned me on to this podcast.
00:09:28
And she goes, he was a chef at the last restaurant I worked at. And I was like, hey, that never happened.
00:09:34
Chefarinos? house the the restaurant community is blind oh i love it because i've been watching top chef a lot
00:09:42
lately and i'm like those chefs are so smart and their mouths are just they work so well you know
00:09:49
they work their asses off too yeah they do the yeah it was uh it's pretty impressive when literally
00:09:58
if i cut up an apple literally eight out of ten times i will cut my finger just just cutting a
00:10:04
standard Fuji apple. With a fucking butter knife and a spoon. There's no sharpness involved. No.
00:10:11
You cut your finger on the apple and you're like, well, how does that even happen?
00:10:15
I am once again defying physics. Watching anything? Reading anything? So there's a true crime series on Prime right now that stars my hero, Steve Coogan. So I was like,
00:10:30
Wow. Someone produced a TV show for me. And when I started watching and I'm like, Georgia told this story. And it's that case of Stephen Lawrence who got in in England who got jumped by a bunch of racists and killed in the street.
00:10:45
Oh, it's that story. It's that story. And Steve Coogan plays the when they reopen the investigation, he plays the cop that headed up the reopening.
00:10:54
Oh, I don't know why I thought it was about. What's that radio DJ pervert pedophiles name?
00:11:00
I need more than that. You called him the wrong name. Wait, hold on. Oh, oh, yes.
00:11:06
I don't, I'm scared to say that name now because I got it so wrong before. And I defiled the name of the lead singer of the Bronski Beat.
00:11:13
Stephen's got it. Jimmy Savile. Jimmy Savile. Yeah. I thought he was, I thought it was that.
00:11:19
Okay, I'll watch this for sure. It's called Conviction. Conviction, okay. And it's only for, you know, that's like their, it's a limited series.
00:11:26
it's just really great to watch you know the story of like the cop that goes in there and
00:11:32
it's like there was a whole room they shut down one of the precincts i don't know if they call
00:11:38
them over there and there's a whole room of boxes of evidence and stuff that hadn't been processed
00:11:43
or even looked at and he as this older cop was just like why yeah what's the problem but it was
00:11:50
Corruption. That's good. I'll give you a hint. Spoiler alert. There corruption Wait what Yeah Cool How about you I don know We just been watching a lot We been doing the like Top Chef stuff and then that it
00:12:05
Like it's just been boring around here. Yeah. Any podcasts? No. Just like mystery books that aren't that great.
00:12:15
Like listening to them that are like fine. And then the twist is like, yeah, I guess that.
00:12:19
But it was still satisfying to like have something to listen to while you dye your hair.
00:12:24
You know. Yeah, always. Oh, I was going to say, and this is from a little while ago, but the HBO Max series Black and Missing won a Spirit Award.
00:12:33
Oh, wow. So if people haven't watched Black and Missing, you absolutely have to. It's critically acclaimed. It's award winning and it's very important. And it's all those stories that we never hear about.
00:12:44
Awesome. Oh, remember how I told you two weeks ago, a million years ago, when we recorded about how I asked Vince to get some survival packs?
00:12:53
yeah and I just tasked him with it because I couldn't fucking deal with it and like we talked
00:12:58
about the bucket and like freeze-dried food and shit so a week later a bunch of survival shit
00:13:03
shows up at my house like packet you know sent to my house and I open it and there's like a survival
00:13:09
backpack for like three days and there's a an animal pet survival backpack and then there's two
00:13:15
one for each of our car and I was like oh my god Vince you did it thank you and he was like I didn't
00:13:19
do that I totally forgot about it when you when you told me because I thought you were being crazy
00:13:23
And it turns out my mom and my stepdad, John, for our for my novice's wedding anniversary, out of fuck, I hadn't even mentioned it to her, sent us a fucking, like, what do they call it?
00:13:38
Survivalist. What do the crazy people call it? End of worlders. What do they call it?
00:13:45
Doomsdayers. Preppers. Preppers. sent us a whole preppers pack, including one for cookie, which I was just like,
00:13:51
I know you're doing this for a different reason than I am. And like, I could fight about this,
00:13:56
but I am so touched. No, you don't have to fight. You can just take it right on face value and walk
00:14:01
away from that. I did. I was just touched. It's also, it's like, hey, you guys are related.
00:14:08
Yeah, yeah, you're both worried. And it's like, well, I think something might happen too. So we're
00:14:12
at least similar on similar pages. I just think that it's for a different reason than she thinks.
00:14:17
But then I get an email that tells me that they heard the podcast and about the survival thing and
00:14:24
like how expensive those buckets of freeze dried food is. And it turns out one of our listeners
00:14:29
has a blog called unprepared about being prepared and has a whole article that they wrote about how
00:14:38
to do it on a like a on a budget oh so you just get your own fucking bucket you go to the fucking
00:14:43
dollar store and this is what you fill it up with and they tell you what to do oh so i was just like
00:14:47
i love that and then all these articles that are these blog posts they do about like matters i'm
00:14:53
concerned this week about the fucking gas prices and start your own victory garden um so it's good
00:14:59
that there's someone parsing it and being like i pay attention to this all the time yeah here's
00:15:03
Like the idea of the victory garden is a great fucking idea. Absolutely. It's like, and that's also like, what do you actually need?
00:15:10
Cause he was saying that, you know, I got one of those bags that are sold by the fucking
00:15:15
people who are those people telling you to freak out. And it's just a bunch of stuff you don't need.
00:15:20
So here's what you actually need. And here's where you can buy it and put it together yourself.
00:15:25
You know, how to think like a prepper, like stuff like that. So that is unprepared dot life, I guess is the new.
00:15:33
thing we need to get my favorite murder dot life now dot life they had to start a new
00:15:40
what about dot org i feel like even if you're not a charity you should be able to use it
00:15:46
definitely that and that is what this podcast is about glaucoma and orgs yeah that's why we're here
00:15:54
tonight um should we talk about a little biz yeah well guys you know there's a whole network
00:16:00
of podcasts that you can listen to once you're done with this one. And we'll just give you a
00:16:04
couple highlights of shows you might want to scoot on over to. Like, for example, over on I Said No
00:16:10
Gifts, Bridger Weinecker actually has Paul Rubens. That's right. P.B. Herman is on I Said No Gifts
00:16:17
this week. One of my celebrity crushes, and I am just totally obsessed with him. He is a hero.
00:16:22
He's a hero. And then to celebrate the hundredth episode of Bananas, Kurt and Scotty are joined by
00:16:29
comedian, Bridget Everett, whose new TV show Vincent and I are watching. It's called Somebody
00:16:34
Somewhere. It's so beautiful. It's on HBO. She's just such a joy and talent. I'm obsessed with her
00:16:41
as well. If you've never seen Bridget Everett live, it's truly one of the best experiences I've ever
00:16:47
had in my life. She is an unbelievable Broadway level singer, but she's also really one of the
00:16:53
most original voices I've ever watched. And I, one year at San Francisco Sketch Fest,
00:16:58
I had to follow her. So she goes out and is singing, I'll make you feel like I'm the only one.
00:17:06
And she's singing fucking a full Rihanna. She's blowing the room out. And then I come out there
00:17:11
with my dumb guitar. And I was, I literally wanted to be like, I don't want to do this anymore.
00:17:15
How about she comes back out, does the same thing again, and you can go to the green room.
00:17:20
Whoever figured this lineup out, you really didn't think about acoustically what music sounds like.
00:17:26
But Bridget is truly, yeah, watch her show. But also, if you have the opportunity, you have to see a live performance of hers.
00:17:33
It will change your life. That's right. Oh, over on I saw what you did. Millie and Danielle are doing two classic body swap films.
00:17:42
They're covering Big and 13 going on 30. So you got to be there for that. And then we in greatest hits mode at the merch store The Here the Thing merch has been restocked in a bunch of styles and colors So if anything was sold out that you wanted just go to myfavoritemurder go to the store And then I also wanted to mention last week in our Jake Brennan crossover episode where he tells us his hometown he emailed us after and just wanted
00:18:08
to let us know one little bit, which is that he forgot that when he was in the room with the
00:18:14
escaped convicts, when they came on the TV, that one of them had a bullet in his leg at the time
00:18:21
from escaping. So I feel like it's important. Jake, how do you forget that detail? Jake,
00:18:28
it's pretty, it's pretty crucial. I mean, in that crazy story, though, it's like,
00:18:31
there's so many crazy things happening that I can understand missing a bullet in a leg. Who knows?
00:18:37
One was shot and bleeding. Sorry, it slipped my mind. Bullets were in the room. Such a fun episode.
00:18:45
It was so delightful to talk to Jake Brennan. Yeah. I love that guy. He's so great. He's the best.
00:18:51
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00:21:56
Okay, mine's a quickie, but it's so incredible and such a huge story that I just found out about recently.
00:22:07
So I'm going to tell you the story of the tragic murder of Nicholas Green and the Nicholas effect it created.
00:22:15
So the sources I used in today's episodes are two articles written by Reg Green, one for the American Journal of Kidney Diseases and one for the LA Times.
00:22:25
The Nicholas Green Foundation, a BBC article by Harry Lowe, a Press Democrat article by Chris Smith.
00:22:31
Press Democrat. That's Santa Rosa newspaper. Oh, what's up, guys? Sorry. Four New York Times articles, three by Alan Cole and one by John Taglia Bew, and an SFGate article, your other favorite, written by Stephanie Salter and Larry Hatfield.
00:22:49
So this is a NorCal crime? No. Wait. Okay. Yes. It's not. No. But they're from there.
00:22:57
So yes. Okay. So September 9th, 1987, Nicholas William Green is born in San Francisco.
00:23:04
And then three years after that, his parents, Reg and Maggie, have a daughter, Eleanor.
00:23:09
So the Green family lives in Bodega Bay, California. It's near you, right? Yep, that's right.
00:23:16
Directly across from Petaluma on the coast. Is that the one where you get carsick driving there because of the smell of fish?
00:23:22
Bodega Bay is the reason I can't eat fish of any kind. And it's also where they shot the downtown scenes from the movie The Birds.
00:23:30
Oh, idyllic. Yeah. Except for to Karen and her stomach. Except for the fish smell.
00:23:35
Yeah. That's just a low tide. Sorry, go ahead. Oh, we're talking about tides a lot in this episode.
00:23:42
Oh, yeah. We're back on this of our favorite topic. That's right. So according to Reg, Nicholas is, quote, a kindly boy who always looked for the best in
00:23:50
things. So when you're with him, you always want to be your best. Nicholas has, quote, calmness and forgiveness that makes you want to be the same.
00:23:58
So he's an imaginative. And theatrical kid, he's the type of kid who will intentionally play with the kids who have been shut out or ignored.
00:24:05
So a really sweet kid. So when Nicholas is seven years old, the family takes a trip to Italy.
00:24:12
On September 29, 1994, the Green family is heading out in a rented car on the freeway in the tow of Italy, heading for Sicily.
00:24:24
And what the Greens don't know is that Italian highways, I didn't know this either, are incredibly dangerous at night.
00:24:30
hmm so that year alone in 1993 7700 trucks had been held up on the highway and robbed by organized
00:24:39
crime gangs oh no on the highway you think you're safe you're driving you're in a car
00:24:44
uh-uh some trucks travel by convoy under police escort and they those ones still get attacked
00:24:51
wow and according to the new york times the highway the greens are on is quote renowned
00:24:56
for holdups at gas stations and attacks on motorists. So seven-year-old Nicholas and four-year-old
00:25:03
Eleanor are asleep in the back of the rented car. Maggie, the mom, is dozing off in the passenger
00:25:09
seat while Reg drives the car. Not long after stopping at a gas station in Calabria, Reg notices
00:25:16
a car following them. After a few moments, the car switches lanes as if it's going to pass them,
00:25:22
So he calms down a little bit. But when the car is parallel to the Green's car, it doesn't accelerate any further. It just stays there keeping pace with the Green's car. Reg says out loud, something's wrong here. And Maggie wakes up. And when they look at the car beside them, there are two men in masks, one with a gun screaming at them in Italian.
00:25:44
in. The Greens obviously can't understand them, but they know the men want them to pull over,
00:25:50
but Reg is aware that that's a bad idea because then they could just have them solo. So he
00:25:55
accelerates and then the car next to him accelerates along with him. The cars drive side by
00:26:01
side, speeding down the freeway for a time. And then one of the backseat windows of the Greens
00:26:06
car shatters as it's been shot out. Maggie turns to check on the kids and she sees that they're
00:26:13
both still sleeping. And as she turns back to face the front, another shot strikes the driver's
00:26:18
side window. But then for some reason, the assailants just take off. So Reg floors it.
00:26:25
He wants to find somewhere with lights and people where he can pull over. He doesn't want to just
00:26:29
obviously pull over there. And as the Greens race down the freeway, they come upon an accident with
00:26:34
a police car and ambulance already there. So they pull off to the side of the road so they can get
00:26:38
their help and Maggie and Reg get out to check on the kids. But when the interior light comes on, Nicholas doesn't move.
00:26:47
Reg looks closer and sees that Nicholas's tongue is sticking out and there's a little
00:26:52
vomit on his chin. And it turns out he's been shot at the base of the brain. Oh, gosh.
00:26:57
I know. The Greens take Nicholas to the ambulance that was already there, thankfully, which rushes
00:27:03
off to the hospital while Reg and Maggie stay to answer questions from the police.
00:27:07
swim. They would make it to the hospital to see their son. He's in a coma. And then on October 1st,
00:27:13
two days later, doctors tell Reg and Maggie that their son Nicholas is brain dead. So they're
00:27:20
devastated, of course, but they know that possibly some good can come out of this tragic situation.
00:27:26
They can donate Nicholas's organs. Reg later tells the BBC, quote, I know that at seven years old,
00:27:33
he probably wouldn't have been able to comprehend. But I know as he grew up, this is just what he
00:27:38
would have wanted us to do. There's no doubt about that. If the choice was between being angry at the
00:27:44
people who did it and wanting to help somebody else as the first priority, he would have undoubtedly
00:27:49
chosen helping somebody out. So at the time of Nicholas's death, Italy had the second lowest
00:27:56
organ donation rate in Western Europe. Wow. I know. In 1993, the year before Nicholas was shot,
00:28:03
Only 6.2 people per 1 million donated an organ. 6.2 people per 1 million. Why? I wonder if that's like religious reasons or some kind of...
00:28:15
Probably. Yeah. Probably religious and it's just not part of the culture. I think in some countries, it's just automatic.
00:28:23
You can opt out. But in places like here, you have to opt in. So I think less people just knew about it or did it for religious reasons, obviously.
00:28:31
organ donations were so rare that half the children with heart ailments in Italy died while
00:28:37
waiting for a transplant and because of how rare the donations are Italians are blown away when
00:28:44
news spreads that an American family whose young son has been murdered by Italians is willing to
00:28:51
donate their son's organs to save multiple Italians so they're just blown away by this
00:28:57
act of kindness. And it really shows them this generosity that they've never witnessed in this
00:29:04
way before. So Nicholas's organs go to seven recipients. And I'm going to tell you about them.
00:29:10
His heart goes to a 15-year-old boy named Andrea, who barely has the strength to walk across the
00:29:16
room. He's already undergone five operations on his heart, but none of them were successful.
00:29:21
and following the transplant, he lives for another 23 years with Nicholas's heart before
00:29:27
passing away in 2017 from respiratory failure brought on by cancer. One kidney goes to a
00:29:34
critically ill 14-year-old girl named Anna. The other kidney to a critically ill 11-year-old named
00:29:40
Tino. His liver goes to a critically ill 19-year-old named Maria, who's in a coma from liver failure.
00:29:47
after the transplant she quote quickly bounces back to health and later she becomes an organ
00:29:53
donor advocate and four years after her transplant she has a son who she names nicholas and he goes on to serve in Italy Navy Are you going to you going to cry now That was a little bit I mean this is like this is a real you know you need one person to set the example and people are happy to follow suit
00:30:13
Totally. His pancreas goes to a critically ill woman named Sylvia. One cornea to a woman named Dominica, who had never seen her son until she received the transplant.
00:30:25
So he gave her the gift of sight. And the other cornea goes to a young dad named Francisco who's going blind.
00:30:32
Wow. So following Nicholas's death, Italy's donation rates soar. And within 10 years, the rates are at 20 per 1 million.
00:30:41
So from 6.2 to 20 per 1 million in 10 years, which means they've tripled an increase greater than any in any other country.
00:30:49
It's never tripled before. And it wasn't just Italy that sees an increase. It happens everywhere, and it's coined the Nicholas Effect.
00:30:57
The Greens later get to meet at least six of the donor recipients. Reg later says when he met them, quote, the effect was overwhelming.
00:31:05
Most of these people had been on the point of death, and that's when it hit you for the first time just how big a thing this was.
00:31:12
There was also a sense of how the parents and grandparents would have been devastated.
00:31:16
You got the feeling there were many more people involved whose lives would have been much poorer if we hadn't saved them.
00:31:22
So back to 1994, Italian police are desperately trying to find the people who killed Nicholas.
00:31:28
The public is so ashamed by the lawlessness of the murder of a young boy visiting on holiday.
00:31:34
And they're not sure of the motive, but they assume it's mistaken identity. The assailants possibly had mistaken Green's rental car for one that had been delivering jewelry to stores in the region.
00:31:45
And it's possibly and probably mafia related. Authorities interview more than a thousand people until on November 2nd, 1994, when Italian police tracked down the killers, 21-year-old Francesco Messiano and 26-year-old Michel Iannillo.
00:32:04
So after initial acquittal, blah, blah, blah, the men are found guilty at a second trial.
00:32:11
Michel is sentenced to life while Francesco receives 20 years. But the convictions and sentences, of course, bring no happiness to the Greens.
00:32:20
Reg tells the SF gate, quote, whenever I think about the trial, there's just a feeling of dejection.
00:32:25
There are no winners. Reg and Maggie become tireless advocates for organ donation.
00:32:31
They create the Nicholas Green Foundation. They travel the world, including twice a year to Italy, guests on television shows, write numerous articles.
00:32:39
and Reg even writes two books and more to spread awareness of organ donation and how many lives
00:32:45
one person's death can save. They also helped make Nicholas's Gift a made-for-television movie
00:32:52
that came out in 1998 starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Sir Alan Bates as Reg and Maggie.
00:32:59
Nicholas's story touched millions of people, especially in Italy, and at least 136 places
00:33:05
in Italy are named after him, including schools, parks, streets, and squares, monuments, even a
00:33:12
bridge. They were all so touched by this story. In Bodega Bay, where the Green family used to live,
00:33:19
there's an 18-foot-tall bell memorial featuring 140 bells, mostly from Italy. And in the centerpiece
00:33:27
is the, quote, majestic bell, which includes the names of Nicholas and all seven organ donation
00:33:32
recipients. Wow. So I'm going to leave you with a quote from Reg Green. Quote, none of this takes
00:33:39
away the pain. The sense that life is missing a vital ingredient is there all the time. But
00:33:44
donating does put something on the other side of the balance. For the rest of our lives, we donor
00:33:49
families can feel proud that our loved ones saved someone in desperate need when no one else in the
00:33:54
world could. And if you want more information on organ donation, go to organdonor.gov. It's like
00:34:01
such a simple thing to do. I did it at the DMV. You just check yes on when it says donor,
00:34:06
when you're getting a license. It's so important. So that's organdonor.gov. And that is the
00:34:11
incredible story of Nicholas Green and the Nicholas effect. That's amazing. I mean, that's amazing. And it is kind of mind blowing when people just
00:34:24
kind of just don't make that effort when it could. I mean, there's no effort to it. It's
00:34:30
literally checking a box and you could save multiple lives. I think it's such a taboo.
00:34:35
It felt like a taboo subject. Like when I first got my driver's license, I didn't check it. Cause
00:34:41
I was like, I don't know about that. I don't want that's, you know, scary. It's a scary thought.
00:34:46
You want to think of, you know, your casket and your grave and people having a place to visit or
00:34:51
whatever. But as I got older, I realized like, I don't need this fucking thing when I'm, when I'm
00:34:57
done with it and like so much better to give someone else a chance, you know? Yeah. So I am
00:35:02
proud to have that sticker on my driver's license. Yeah. And you also still will have, here's the
00:35:08
good news. You'll still have a casket and a grave. I'm good. I'm good. Bury me in the woods. You know
00:35:13
what I mean? We're going to put you in an urn and feed me to my cats. We're going to put you right
00:35:18
out into the tides that you love so much all your life. Those tides, I can't stay away from them.
00:35:23
please put me into the rip current when I go that was great good to know good point
00:35:32
relevant thank you and then I was thinking that if anyone has a hometown or a family story or a
00:35:40
personal story about organ donation that affected them somehow please write those in to my favorite
00:35:45
murder at gmail and that'd be interesting that's a great idea yeah cool it's like a survival story
00:35:50
Because also, you know, there's people there's people who donate kidneys and stuff.
00:35:54
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00:39:16
So I'm about to tell you the story of the 1971 Nashville hijacking. Oh, a hijacking.
00:39:22
So, uh-huh. I'd never heard of this one. And it is the one of those ones that then changed
00:39:31
authorities' procedure on how to handle crisis negotiation going forward after that. Basically,
00:39:38
before that, there was no unified, like, if this starts happening, you, sir, stop talking,
00:39:46
and we call in other people that know what they're doing. Oh, yeah. I had never considered that, like, how that started.
00:39:51
Yeah. Yeah. Basically, once it's a hostage crisis, once it's this kind, this level of crisis, let's not just leave it to whoever is in charge at your local wherever, including the FBI, which is kind of mind blowing.
00:40:06
Wow. So a ton, this, there's an article from a, it's a website and I'm thinking it's also a newspaper called the Nashville scene, www.nashvilescene.com.
00:40:21
No, the classic.com. And that was written by Brantley Hargrove. Lots of info in this story from Brantley's story.
00:40:29
There's also a Washington Post archive article by George Lardner Jr. There's Dan Whittle article from the Murfreesboro Post.
00:40:41
An AP article, NPR got in there. And then, of course, the New York Times archive.
00:40:48
Okay, so we are going to begin in Nashville, Tennessee in 1971. This was before indoor plumbing.
00:40:56
This was before indoor lighting, the 70s. It was brown. It smelled like bell peppers.
00:41:01
Oh, God. You know it. Yeah. I'll bring you there. Ask me anything. I was one year old.
00:41:06
Okay. So it's just after midnight on October 4th, 1971. and 35-year-old ex-biology professor turned real estate agent George Giffey Jr.
00:41:20
So the spelling of this is G-I-F-F-E. So I was reading it, pronouncing it Giffey.
00:41:28
Yeah. Could be GIF. Then why would they put the E at the end? I'm going to, I think you're right with Giffey.
00:41:33
You think? Okay. So George Giffey Jr. goes into a nightclub called the Labry Lounge on Joe Johnson Avenue.
00:41:40
And then the owner of this nightclub, Bobby Wayne Wallace, is bartending. So these two men have known each other for a couple months.
00:41:48
They're friendly. So while Wallace hands Giffy a beer Giffy starts talking about the club how successful it seems to be and how he would like to invest in it So it a real specific number So in the months that Bobby Wayne Wallace has known George Giffey
00:42:07
he has noticed he's kind of a schemer. He talks a lot, not a lot of action. So he kind of brushes off this offer, doesn't really take him seriously.
00:42:16
Yeah. And also doesn't think he has that money. It doesn't seem like he has money.
00:42:20
Right. Did you hear that? No, but I see her. Blossom just stood on my leg and then burped into the microphone.
00:42:31
I'm trying to do something. She loves you. I'm trying to do something. She's my best friend.
00:42:35
You too, Frank. He's just sitting over here rolling his eyes. Okay, so a couple minutes after chatting, Giffy asks Wallace if he wouldn't mind driving him and his wife, 25-year-old Susan Giffy, to the airport that night.
00:42:49
He says he and Susan have been fighting so much so that now she's staying at her parents' house.
00:42:53
So to make up for it, he wants to take her on a trip, you know, get away from everything.
00:42:59
So even though he's busy, Bobby Wallace agrees to give the Giffys a ride to the airport.
00:43:04
So around one in the morning, the two men hop into George's Cadillac. And the first thing they do is they stop at a restaurant and they buy two chicken dinners so that George and Susan can eat them on the plane.
00:43:16
So from there, they drive over to the King of the Road Motel, where Susan is working as a cashier.
00:43:24
And she comes out. She gets into the front seat between George and Bobby Wallace because it's the 70s and cars are 25 feet wide.
00:43:34
So the problem is that Susan doesn't know about this trip. She thinks she's getting a ride back to her parents' house.
00:43:39
So when the car drives past the parents' house, Susan starts screaming, asking what's going on, screaming and cursing.
00:43:47
So despite her protests, George has Wallace keep driving to the Nashville airport.
00:43:53
And they actually drive, because it's 1971, they drive directly onto the tarmac.
00:43:58
Sure they do. Get on over here. He has chartered a small private plane. So apparently back then, if you chartered a small private plane, you just got to go on to the tarmite.
00:44:09
Yeah. Now it's about 1.30 in the morning. So George gets out of the car first and he walks over.
00:44:16
So like he's parked about 100 feet away from the plane. The pilot is standing outside.
00:44:21
And he walks up to 29-year-old Brent Downs, who works for Nashville's Big Brothers Aircraft Company.
00:44:28
Brent got a call to pilot this flight in the middle of the night. And he didn't want to do it.
00:44:33
But his son at home is 18 months old and his wife, Janie, is pregnant with another baby.
00:44:38
So they could definitely use the money. So he took the job. So George tells Brent Downs, the pilot, that he's a doctor and they have a female patient with them who needs to be treated in Atlanta as soon as possible.
00:44:52
So as they're sitting there discussing the flight details, Susan tumbles out of the car and Bobby Wallace kind of gets out behind her and she runs up and is shouting to the pilot to Downs, I'm being kidnapped. Don't believe what they say.
00:45:08
And so George Giffey assures Brent, the pilot, that Susan's just basically confused.
00:45:16
There's something wrong with her and that everything's fine. So when Downs asks George to see some credentials to prove that he's actually a doctor,
00:45:25
George pulls out a nine millimeter pistol wrapped in a camouflage T-shirt and points it at Brent.
00:45:31
Oh, fuck. So he then orders Wallace to pull out the nine millimeter he's given him.
00:45:37
though Wallace would later claim that he didn't know that this was George's plan.
00:45:42
Still, he follows the instructions and George orders all of them onto the plane at gunpoint.
00:45:50
So when they get on board, George forces Susan to sit behind him on the bench seat in the back of
00:45:55
the plane while Wallace takes a seat behind the pilot. And there's also a co-pilot that's been
00:46:01
sitting on the plane the whole time, Randall Crump. And he points his gun at them per George's
00:46:07
directions. So then George helps himself to a flask from the plane's minibar. And then he puts
00:46:13
a gray metal box on his lap. He tells everyone that he's got plastic explosives inside this box
00:46:19
and a detonator attached to a 10 minute timer. He resets the timer every 10 minutes to prevent
00:46:25
the bomb from going off. But he makes sure everyone on board knows that he will blow them
00:46:29
up at any second and can. He claims that he's working a mission for the CIA. He doesn't want
00:46:36
anyone interfering with it. Yeah. Okay. He then orders the pilots to take off. So they follow
00:46:42
his instructions and they head for the runway. Luckily, an airport employee was watching the
00:46:48
tarmac saw guns being brandished and they call security. But by the time the airport police get
00:46:54
to the scene, the plane's already taxiing down the runway. The police cars race after it, but
00:46:59
they're forced to veer out of the way as the plane takes off. So then the police call the FBI and
00:47:06
they report there's a hijacking. So George hears a voice on the plane's radio saying,
00:47:12
Commander 58 November. So the name of the plane was 58 November. So they say, Commander 58 November,
00:47:20
squawk 3100. What George doesn't know is that squawk 3100 is the code for hijacking. Oh, fuck.
00:47:28
So Downs picks up the receiver and he responds by saying, okay, squawking 3100, which is him
00:47:34
basically confirming, yes, we're being hijacked. A voice from the ground control comes through again
00:47:39
as the plane flies off into the dark and they just say good night. So a little background on
00:47:45
George Giffey Jr. and his wife, Susan. They first met in the late 60s. He was a biology professor at Tennessee's Peabody College.
00:47:54
She's a brilliant student who earns both her bachelor's and master's degrees in elementary
00:47:59
education. She wants to become a teacher, but according to a classmate of hers, she also would have loved to and talked about marrying Rich, hoping the right man would come and, quote, give her the life of a movie starlet.
00:48:13
Let me just say now what Pat Kilgariff would say to you, which is you can give yourself the life of a movie starlet.
00:48:19
George's tenure is Susan Sr. He's already married and he has a daughter. Oh. But George and his wife have financial problems.
00:48:28
She's accused him of adultery already. So eventually she takes their daughter and divorces George and leaves.
00:48:35
So very soon after the divorce is finalized, George marries Susan. That's in 1968.
00:48:42
So together they have a daughter of their own in February of 1970. They name her Susan as well, which is a fascinating tradition that I actually know girls who are named after their mother.
00:48:56
Interesting. Confusing, probably. a little yeah or just like it's just out of the ordinary but then you go no one blinks an eye
00:49:04
no one blinks yeah yeah but also like how about you give your kid their own fucking persona and personality yeah how about some line of demarcation that says
00:49:17
i'm a new version i'm a different human than we're starting over here yeah so this marriage also
00:49:26
not surprisingly quickly turned sour. George has left his professorship at Peabody to try
00:49:32
out some get rich quick schemes. So first he sells cheap suitcases that doesn't do it.
00:49:38
So then he gets involved in some oil scheme that runs through Texas that doesn't do it.
00:49:44
He also got into a scheme involving sand and gravel sales. None of these pan out. These are not
00:49:50
the get rich quick schemes he thought they were. Who the fuck? He also is failing to provide financially for his new family, so tensions grow and the fighting begins.
00:50:01
So it's basically the same pattern over and over. Kind of what's unspoken here is clearly George has mental illnesses of some kind.
00:50:08
So I don't know if they were less pronounced when he was younger, but they're the thing that kind of grows as time passes here.
00:50:17
So in these arguments that Susan and George have, they lead to separation with Susan taking little Susan and staying at her parents' house.
00:50:26
But George always shows up. He's a smooth talker. And he basically just always convinces her to go back with him despite her parents' skepticism.
00:50:35
But in the months leading up to the hijacking, which was in late 1971, George and Susan's arguments had turned violent.
00:50:44
George was seen with scratches on his face. Susan seen missing clumps of hair out of her head. Yeah. Awful. So she leaves him once again,
00:50:54
and this would be their eighth separation. And this time she tells her parents, she's gone. It's over for good. She applies for a teaching job, but to make money in the meantime,
00:51:04
she takes the cashier job at the King of the Road Motel. So George knows that the only way
00:51:10
to get Susan back is for him to get a steady job, but his mental health is deteriorating.
00:51:16
And he begins to make strange claims of working for the CIA, working for Interpol, working for the mafia.
00:51:23
He also tells some people he's a warlock. So things aren't good. Yeah. No offense to the warlocks out there.
00:51:30
Sure. You know, you're powerful and great. Ditto to the mafia, too. To the mafia.
00:51:36
I'm not trying to insult anyone here. Look, all we want to do is not insult people.
00:51:41
Yeah. You know that about us. Right? That should be the given. So about two weeks before the hijacking, George goes to visit his father, George Giffey Sr.
00:51:52
Everyone named after themselves here. Use the same names for the rest of your lives.
00:51:58
And George Sr. can tell the pressure of the financial and marital problems are weighing on his son.
00:52:03
So when George Jr. asks his father for another loan, which he's done multiple times in the past,
00:52:09
George Sr. levels with him and says, son, if you don't get this, this is a quote,
00:52:14
son, if you don't get this thing settled, something tragic is going to happen out of it.
00:52:19
Your daddy's been in the army. You can't operate under pressure for a prolonged period without
00:52:24
something happening. End quote. So he was right. Dad knew the afternoon of October 3rd,
00:52:33
George Jr. shows up at Susan's parents' house looking for her, but because her parents won't
00:52:39
allow him in the house. Like that's how bad it's gotten. Susan goes out into his car to talk to him
00:52:44
and Mrs. Lakich, which is Susan's maiden name, she watches through the window and they're,
00:52:49
they basically the discussion, which is about George giving her money for, to, for the kid
00:52:55
and for them, you know, to be okay. It escalates into a fight. And when Susan gets, tries to get
00:53:00
out of the car, he pulls her by her arm back in. And that's when Susan's mom comes outside with a
00:53:07
plant and threatens to smash it over the car if he doesn't let Susan go. He lets her go. He drives
00:53:13
off. And then about five o'clock that evening, George calls Big Brother's aircraft company to
00:53:20
charter a jet. He visits his dad one more time, explains that he's going to go on a trip. And
00:53:25
then around 930, while Susan's working at the motel, her mother starts to worry that George
00:53:31
might show up at the hotel and get into yet another fight. So she calls George. She yells
00:53:36
at him for not bringing Susan money like he had promised to do. And she warns him not to go to the
00:53:42
motel that night to see her. She says, I'm going to be down at the King of the Road tonight when
00:53:47
you come. I don't want you harassing her. If you have anything to give her, I want you to hand it
00:53:51
over without arguing So on this phone call George assures his mother that he doesn want to bother Susan He says he going on a trip He says he just wants to give Susan the money before he leaves
00:54:05
So now we're back at the airport. When he got out of his Cadillac before everybody kind of
00:54:10
ended up getting out, he left behind notes he'd written, which is kind of eerie. Like they were
00:54:16
kind of, you know, so he had written one to Susan, which is a combination of malicious accusations
00:54:23
against her and expressions of love with one line reading, you could run a blade through my heart and
00:54:29
I would kiss you with my dying breath. Oh God. Another letter is written to his dad saying that
00:54:36
he loves Susan, but quote, she knows too much, which they later would think it's about his
00:54:43
shadowy past and these kind of fantasies or delusions he's having about working for
00:54:50
interpol and stuff yeah he says he has no other choice but to kill susan and then kill himself
00:54:55
saying quote if the tapeworm kills the host it is also dead oh so it's real dark real dark yeah
00:55:03
okay so on board the plane the pilot asks george where he wants to go but it's so loud
00:55:09
you know because the engines are going that bobby wallace has to be like the the middleman
00:55:14
relaying messages back and forth between the pilot downs and george so george says he wants
00:55:20
to go to Cuba. Downs says that's impossible. It's a small twin engine plane. They won't be able to
00:55:25
make it that far in the amount of fuel that they'll use. George says, can they go to Jamaica
00:55:30
instead? Downs says that won't work either. He said they could go to Freeport in the Bahamas,
00:55:36
but they'll have to first stop in Jacksonville, Florida to refuel. So then George asks if anybody on the ground knows that the plane's been hijacked.
00:55:45
And Downs is honest with him. He says, yes, someone from the authorities will be waiting for them in Jacksonville when they land.
00:55:53
George has no response. He just sits there quietly drinking liquor from a flask and holding on to the metal box that holds his explosives.
00:56:02
Meanwhile, back in Nashville, Susan's mother is up. She's worried and she listens to a police scanner.
00:56:09
So she's listening to it. She hears a report of a suspicious car that's parked at the airport in the wake of the hijacking.
00:56:16
And when they read out the car's license plate number over the scanner, she recognizes it.
00:56:22
It's the license plate of the car that belongs to her son-in-law, George. So she immediately calls the police.
00:56:28
She gets through, but then she keeps getting transferred and put on hold and transferred over and over.
00:56:34
She finally reaches a sergeant around three in the morning. She talks to him about the plane hijacking, and she asks if there was a girl with the hijacker.
00:56:43
The sergeant tells her yes, with long brown hair. And Susan's mother now knows that it's her daughter on the plane.
00:56:51
She tells the sergeant everything she knows about George, that he's, quote, a psychopathic liar and a neurotic, unquote, and that he's usually armed.
00:57:00
But the police never relay any of this information to the FBI agents in Jacksonville.
00:57:06
Mm-hmm. So as the plane lands in Jacksonville, the pilot released Georgia's demands over the radio to air traffic control. So his demands are he wants flotation gear, he wants charts, he wants approach plates for Freeport. And they also need a fuel truck, but he doesn't want anyone to be around except for the person who's doing the refueling.
00:57:30
So the pilot, Brent Downs, emphasizes multiple times that no one can be near the plane except for the fuel man, instructing them to, quote, clear the area for at least two to three hundred yards around the plane to make sure there's nobody around.
00:57:45
So the ATC confirms they've received Downs' message and they will follow instructions accordingly.
00:57:52
But before signing off, Downs relays one last demand from George. He says, Center, have another unusual request. Two bottles of scotch. Chivas 12, if you can get it.
00:58:04
Yeah. So, ATC passes along the communications to the control tower in Jacksonville, and Downs again asks them to confirm that the area will be kept clear.
00:58:17
But now the response is a little more uncertain. They just say that information has been forwarded.
00:58:25
So no one on the plane knows this, but an FBI special agent by the name of Francis Burns is sitting beside the tower operator.
00:58:32
And Special Agent Burns has no intention of keeping the area clear. So when they finally land, the pilot, Downs, is directed by the control tower to taxi to a remote corner of the airport.
00:58:44
He assumes it'll be a secluded area so they can refill privately as they demanded.
00:58:50
But when they get there, George peeks through the window and sees a random car with its lights off sitting close by.
00:58:58
He commands Downs to ask about the car. And when he does, Special Agent Burns secretly tells the tower operator to say it's just an airport vehicle.
00:59:08
So when that message is relayed, George does not buy it. He wants the car gone. So Downs asks the tower operator to have the car removed.
00:59:17
But then George gets frantic. and before the tower operator can come up with a suitable response,
00:59:24
he sees the tower operators looking out and he just sees the plane turn around and start rolling back out onto the runway.
00:59:31
And that's when Special Agent Burns comes out from the shadows and hops on the radio and says,
00:59:35
58 November, this is the FBI speaking, cut your engines. So Downs, the pilot, he stops the plane, but he doesn't cut the engines.
00:59:45
Instead, he retracts the plane's flaps, which is hijacked protocol signal to let law enforcement know that they need to back off.
00:59:52
Oh. So this is according to standard procedure The pilot is the one with the power to make this decision But the FBI agents on the ground have no plane hijacking training so they don know that the signal Oh no Yeah
01:00:07
but they sure are calling the shots. Sure are. Get in here. You've never done this before. Come
01:00:11
and boss everyone around. It'll turn out great. We know better than anyone. Sure. Could we have
01:00:17
these jackets? Yeah. So Downs gets back on the radio to let Special Agent Burns know that he'll
01:00:23
comply and cut the engines, but they need fuel and everyone, but the fuel man needs to stay back.
01:00:28
So there's two FBI vehicles positioned around the plane. So the agent in charge, James O'Connor,
01:00:34
and a second agent are the ones that are sitting in that closest car that George spotted.
01:00:39
And then two more agents, including an armed sharpshooter, sit in the second car behind the
01:00:44
fuel truck about 300 yards away. But when O'Connor hears the request for fuel, he says there won't be
01:00:52
any fuel. So Downs, the pilot explains that the hijacker has about 12 and a half pounds of plastic
01:01:02
explosives. And he advises that everyone does what the hijacker says, or they could all die.
01:01:10
O'Connor thinks that's too much explosive material to be realistic. And he thinks George is bluffing.
01:01:15
So he doubles down and he tells Downs that he won't give them any fuel and that their only options are to fly away or to get off the plane.
01:01:25
So he's making it like an argument. Yeah. And basically handling this the way he would handle, you know, like a fight at a barbecue instead of this highly tense, really serious and like very, very dangerous situation.
01:01:41
Yeah. So George asks Downs how much fuel they have left. So Downs lies and says they have about 30 minutes worth of fuel when really they have an hour and a half worth because technically that's enough to get them to the Bahamas.
01:01:55
But protocol dictates pilots have to have at least 45 minutes of a fuel buffer in case of emergencies.
01:02:02
So Downs continues going back and forth with O'Connor telling him, quote, you are endangering lives by doing this.
01:02:09
For the sake of these lives, we request some fuel out here, please. Even Special Agent Burns, the other FBI agent that's there, says that he thinks they should just let them refuel and let them go.
01:02:21
But O'Connor now will not budge. He's painted himself into a corner. Yeah. And so he's going to dig in.
01:02:28
So George agrees to let the co-pilot off of the plane, his name's Crump, off of the plane to negotiate with the FBI for the fuel in person.
01:02:37
So he's like, yeah, go talk to them. Okay. so where downs has been able to keep his composure as a pilot crump is terrified and shaking so downs
01:02:47
cuts the engines to let crump off but as he's getting off the plane crump starts to become
01:02:53
convinced he's going to get shot in the back like he can see how unstable george is yeah so
01:02:59
he looks back at george as he's walking off and he sees george holding the metal box and muttering
01:03:06
under his breath, I will blow this plane up. So he knows it's bad and he knows it's serious. So
01:03:12
the second Crump's feet hit the ground, he's apprehended by FBI agents. He's taken to one
01:03:18
of their cars. He pleads with O'Connor to give them the fuel they need and assures him that George
01:03:23
really is dangerous, that he's been drinking, that he does have explosives, but O'Connor doesn't
01:03:29
believe it. And so, and he still refuses to give in. And with that, Crump says, well, then I'm not
01:03:34
getting back on that plane. So word gets to the plane that Crump will not be returning
01:03:40
and that there will be no fuel. So George gets more desperate, which is exactly what you don't
01:03:46
want in a hostage situation. So Bobby Wallace knows George enough to know that the last thing
01:03:52
anyone wants right now is for him to get more upset. So he offers to go negotiate with the FBI
01:03:58
for fuel. But this time George refuses. So Wallace gets on his knees and begs George to let him try.
01:04:06
It takes several minutes of begging, but George finally lets him go. So the moment Wallace gets
01:04:11
outside, O'Connor grabs him and cuffs him. Bobby Wallace tells O'Connor that he wants to negotiate
01:04:17
for fuel and he doesn't want to get back on the plane. None of that matters. Bobby Wayne Wallace
01:04:22
is under arrest for air piracy. What? Oh, because he had the other gun. Yep. And he's like part of it.
01:04:29
Yeah. So now O'Connor directs one of the other agents to move his car and block the plane's path to the runway.
01:04:37
Oh, dear. He figures George's next move might be to take off, which would be disastrous in its own right.
01:04:43
And with the plane blocked, O'Connor gives the order for one of the agents to take out the plane's right rear tire.
01:04:50
Oh, dear. So that sharpshooter follows the orders and fires two shots at the target tire with a revolver, but the rubber's too thick and the bullets bounce off.
01:05:00
What? Because you got to figure it's airplane tires. Sure. They get some wear and tear.
01:05:06
Yeah. So I don't know. So O'Connor pulls out his own pistol and he approaches the windshield of the plane to peer inside.
01:05:15
He takes cover with his gun drawn and announces himself and tells everyone inside, come out with their hands up.
01:05:23
So, of course, no one responds. Downs is sitting completely still in the cockpit.
01:05:28
George comes up from behind with his gun. He fires two shots past Downs through the plane's windshield, shattering the glass and barely missing Special Agent O'Connor.
01:05:40
So O'Connor runs to the side of the plane. he approaches the door and as he does,
01:05:45
two more shots ring out from inside the plane. The FBI sharpshooter who's watching all of this
01:05:51
go down through the scope of his rifle sees Downs the pilot slump over and fall out of view Oh my God So another three shots sound from inside the plane O tells the sharpshooter to take out the plane engine
01:06:05
which is still running. He complies, firing two bullets into the engine, cutting it off.
01:06:10
And with the sound of the engine silenced, O'Connor announces himself again and enters the plane.
01:06:15
And inside he finds pilot Brett Downs dead in the cockpit. And he finds Susan Giffey dead in the rear bench seat.
01:06:22
George Giffey has a bullet wound in his head, but somehow he's still alive. And when O'Connor takes the metal box from George's lap and runs it to the bomb techs in the distance,
01:06:36
they open the box and instead of explosives, they find a bunch of papers and a photo of a naked woman inside.
01:06:44
Oh my God. So O'Connor was right. There were no explosives in that box. Yeah, but...
01:06:51
But there were guns. Yeah. There were two guns on the plane. Authorities call for an ambulance. The ambulance takes George
01:06:58
Givey to the closest hospital, but he is dead on arrival between 5 and 6.30 in the morning.
01:07:04
The negotiation efforts or lack thereof between FBI agents and the hijacker lasted less than 20
01:07:10
minutes and end with three people dead, two of whom are completely innocent. Oh my God. That's
01:07:17
20 minutes that's 20 minutes so bobby wayne wallace who is the only possible guilty party
01:07:27
who survived this hijacking is arrested and charged with air piracy and with kidnapping
01:07:33
he's the first person to ever be charged with this crime in the u.s um air piracy um so at a
01:07:40
trial in june of 1972 the prosecution argues that wallace was an accomplice to george giffey jr's
01:07:45
hijacking plan and he was in on it from the beginning. But Wallace's defense team argues
01:07:51
that he did not know about it. He only helped to the degree that he did because George had him at
01:07:57
gunpoint, that he was basically the first victim. They claim that he's as much of a victim as anyone
01:08:03
else. And that if Wallace had planned to join George and Susan on that flight, that they would
01:08:09
have picked up three chicken dinners instead of just two good point and that detail as tiny as it
01:08:16
is is enough for the jury to find reasonable doubt and on june 21st 1971 bobby wayne wallace
01:08:22
who is now 32 years old is acquitted of both of those charges okay so right we believe him
01:08:29
totally there's no it doesn't make sense for there's no motive in it for him especially because
01:08:35
he's only known this guy for a couple months yeah so there really is no motive yeah but who knows
01:08:41
it's all it's all so fucked yeah who knows so with wallace acquitted and george giffey jr dead
01:08:48
there's still one more party to be held accountable for this tragedy and that's the fbi
01:08:53
it's uh clear their mismanagement of the negotiations led to three deaths that were
01:08:59
absolutely preventable. So Brent's wife, Janie Downs and Susan's parents together, they sued the
01:09:06
FBI for wrongful death based on negligence with special agent O'Connor specifically named.
01:09:13
The first judge to look at the case with no jury rules that O'Connor was not negligent.
01:09:20
Janie and Susan's parents appeal this ruling, which results in another long and arduous battle,
01:09:27
But this time they end up winning. Neither O'Connor nor the FBI appear to receive any sort of disciplinary consequences. But Janie Downs, who now has two children to raise by herself, is awarded $270,000 while Susan's parents are awarded $57,000 because they now have custody of their granddaughter, Susan.
01:09:51
Oh, wow. So basically, the hijacking of 58 November forced police agencies across the country to change their approach to crisis management and it gave rise to organizations like the National Tactical Officers Association.
01:10:07
So essentially saying these special circumstances need to be handled by very specially trained officers who know how to deal with hijacking, with hostage situations.
01:10:20
Like you can't just do it. Right. You know, you have to turn it over, especially if you've never dealt with anything like it before.
01:10:28
Totally. So after all this, the aftermath, Bobby Wayne Wallace returns to his nightclub business in Nashville, but then he gets out of it after a few years and he starts working for Tennessee's unemployment office.
01:10:43
And he died at age 73 while walking to a college football game. It's kind of random.
01:10:51
In the immediate wake of the tragedy, Janie Downs is flown to Jacksonville to identify her husband's body.
01:10:57
And she would later say, quote, I come from a family known to be strong, but this scalded me emotionally. No one can be prepared for this. I'd not experienced anything like this. You have nothing to draw from in such a tragedy of your husband being fatally shot in an actual hijacking.
01:11:17
But as painful as this experience is, Janie also says, quote, I don't have a lot of anger, for I realize Mr. Giffey was not running on all his batteries, so I won't judge him in any way.
01:11:28
I'm sorry for his family, and I'm sorry for the family of his estranged wife who also died in the hijacking.
01:11:35
And that is the story of the 1971 Nashville hijacking. Wow. Never heard of that before.
01:11:44
Never heard of it. That's wild. Maybe because it got bungled so bad that people don't talk about it.
01:11:50
I'm sure people in Nashville have heard of it. Yeah, I'd love to hear. I mean, did it just get buried because it was so bungled and that's why I've never heard of it?
01:11:59
Maybe. I mean, it must be so frustrating to have something like that happen. And then it's the government where you're just never going to get satisfaction.
01:12:07
No one's ever going to admit they were wrong. Totally. Slaps on the wrist, especially back then.
01:12:13
Well, not especially. Always. Always. But yeah. Amazing. Do you want to do a couple fucking hoorays?
01:12:20
Sure, let's do it. Let's cap it off with some positivity. You want to kick it off?
01:12:25
Sure. This one says, the bookshelves out in the real world. Today, for the first time, I saw my name in the fine print
01:13:01
and my work in real life pages in a real life book. There are millions of times these past few
01:13:07
years where I thought about giving up, but it feels fucking great to say that I didn't,
01:13:11
and even greater to have the proof in my hands that I can still do anything if I really try.
01:13:17
My grandma used to say, the more you want something, the more you probably deserve it.
01:13:21
I'm pretty sure she always I'm pretty sure it was always in reference to gin but still I think it
01:13:27
helps Elle I wish Elle had told us what book it was but that's so cool I know yeah circle back Elle
01:13:37
if you can yeah I love that what did they say the more you want something the more you probably
01:13:42
deserve it I wish that were true I love that I mean yeah I was just gonna say over the holidays
01:13:50
is when I went home to Petaluma for Christmas, I walked in, I went shopping. I think I was with
01:13:55
Nora and I, we walked into Copperfield's books, which is the bookstore that's been there forever.
01:14:00
Independent bookstores, please support. And, uh, our book is still displayed. It's just,
01:14:06
it was displayed in the front. So like when you, yeah, when you walk in, it was on the display,
01:14:13
like there's a big display that's front and back. Um, when you walk in and we were on the back where
01:14:19
I was like, what? We're still here. We were on that. And we were then in on the shelf because it not the biggest bookstore in the world So yeah I sure they have stuff but it like we were on two different shelves and I took a picture of it and I just stood there like it just is the most unbelievable
01:14:37
I don't know. So many things about this journey have been so surreal. Yeah. And I think that one, like becoming published authors of a book that, you know, I don't think Copperfields would put that stuff out there just to be nice.
01:14:52
Right. They're proud of you and us. I feel the same way. Like we are, that's, has always been a pipe drink of mine is to be a writer.
01:14:59
And we wrote this memoir and I'm still so proud of it. Like I, yeah, I am so proud of the work we did in that book.
01:15:07
And that's so awesome that it's still, but they put it up. Thank you. This, so this one, oh yeah.
01:15:13
And just like, you know, support your local bookstores. Absolutely. Independent bookstores need your support.
01:15:20
Yeah. and Copperfields if you live in anywhere in Northern California I swear to
01:15:25
God that the people that work there know their shit they they're so good at what they do and they even if like
01:15:31
I was looking for some book and the man I talked to at the counter was like have
01:15:35
you read this have you read the new Eric Larson book always want yeah it's the best it's the best
01:15:40
oh this I love this this is from Leonie Ann at LB weird thoughts this was from Twitter
01:15:50
and she wrote to us and said my fucking hooray is my job is a total shit show so i started
01:15:55
designing wallpaper in my free time just right the coolest and i just made my first sale it's
01:16:03
it's nice to know that there are people who believe in you even when others are trying to
01:16:07
bring you down amazing as a wallpaper fanatic that is i didn't even think of that as a thing
01:16:14
you could do. That's awesome. It's amazing. I wonder if she's on Etsy. Leonie and right back
01:16:21
at the My Favorite Murder Twitter to tell us where you are. What's their Twitter account again?
01:16:28
It's LB Weird Thoughts. Okay, cool. I love that. Oh, yeah, there might be something on her if you
01:16:35
guys want to go look at her account. She I bet you she posted on it. But yeah, I love that idea.
01:16:41
I love it. Okay, this is my last one. Hi, lovelies. Not sure if this is where I'm supposed to send this, and they sent it to our Gmail, so yes.
01:16:49
But what the hell? I take a shot I just wanted to share my fucking hooray Almost six years ago I was diagnosed with cancer It has wrecked my trust with my body particularly since I was diagnosed shortly after I got my biggest tattoo Even though I have been in remission for many
01:17:05
years, reoccurrence is always in the back of my mind. My fucking hooray is that I decided to say
01:17:10
fuck it. And after five years of fearing getting another tattoo, I got my first tattoo again.
01:17:15
every time I get another tattoo I feel more like myself it helps me take back my body for myself
01:17:22
love y'all and fuck cancer Jill wow congratulations Jill fuck cancer awesome fuck cancer tattoos do
01:17:31
make you feel really powerful in a weird way yeah that's awesome well you're making like this
01:17:37
permanent decision for yourself about yourself and picking a thing that you like and no it's
01:17:43
super cool. That's rad. This last one's also from the Gmail. It says two years ago, peak pandemic,
01:17:48
I found MFM and started from episode one, which makes me laugh so fucking hard. Like what kind
01:17:56
of a debacle? Um, little did I know that y'all were about to embark on the wildest two years of
01:18:01
my life. You, my quote, murder girls have been the background to the craziest years of being a nurse,
01:18:08
many road trips, buying a house, planning a wedding, and now expecting a baby. I add on to the hundreds of others who thank you for your openness about mental health,
01:18:17
but I'm most grateful that when I get to think back on the best two years of my life,
01:18:21
I know that you ladies were the constant soundtrack. I don't know what I'm going to do now that I only have y'all twice a week.
01:18:28
That's so nice. Isn't that nice? I love it. I don't know. I think you should listen to it on the half speed.
01:18:35
Oh, yeah. So it takes longer. That's right. Or listen from the, listen them backwards.
01:18:40
Right. Is that a feature yet? You can just like, we say some really crazy shit that is hidden in the, in the backwards
01:18:48
playing of, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's right. Yes. You're saying that Satan is behind all of our works.
01:18:54
That's right. You know, Satan is our friend and our friend of the family and the pod and.
01:19:00
Friend of the fam. That's right. Well, we've done it again. We did it once more.
01:19:06
Thanks for listening, everyone. Thanks for writing in. Thanks for being a part of everything.
01:19:11
We love you guys. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?
01:19:25
This has been an Exactly Right production Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton
01:19:30
Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
01:19:35
Our researchers are Jay Elias and Haley Gray. Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
01:19:42
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder.
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