00:00:00
In 1932, one man opened a two- room business school above a nondescript storefront in downtown Manchester, New
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Hampshire. How did it become one of the largest universities in the country? Okay, this case isn't exactly a mystery.
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Southern New Hampshire University offers over 200 degrees you can earn from your
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couch. And with low online tuition, Southern New Hampshire University makes earning your degree affordable, too.
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Find your degree at snhu.edu/g. That's snhu.edu/g. Hi, this is Steve Busmi. You know, the actor. Well, now I'm an actor
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and podcast host. From Piece of Work Entertainment and Campside Media in association with Olive Productions comes
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Big Time, an Apple original podcast. Each episode follows the story of one misfit with big dreams who isn't afraid
00:00:57
to bend a few rules or take a shortcut to get there. Well, who steals bees? I was duped. I shoot you in the leg. This
00:01:05
is Big Time. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts. by an unspeakable act. The apocalypse would occur soon.
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More white supremacist groups, more anti-government groups. David Caresh, Ruby Ridge siege, Timothy
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McVey, more than 80 people dead. Bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City. Eight by an unspeakable act. There is so
00:01:42
little hope left. Hate. While often perceived as an inherent emotion, hate is actually a
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learned behavior shaped by factors like fear, anger, and social conditioning rather than emerging
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naturally. It's rooted in issues of power and control and can be fueled by negative stereotypes and dehumanization.
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Hate is not instinctive or universal. It develops over time through experiences and social
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influences. Hate often stems from the idea that certain groups should have power or control over others. These
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ideas are often rooted in historical power dynamics and can be reinforced by societal structures. Hate is frequently
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triggered by a sense of personal threat or vulnerability which can lead to the dehumanization of others. Negative
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stereotypes about certain groups can contribute to the development of hate. These stereotypes can become stronger
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during times of crisis leading to increased prejudice and discriminization. Hate itself is not a
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crime. Hate is a feeling, an emotion, but hate very easily can and often does become criminal. A hate crime is a
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traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. For the purposes of collecting
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statistics, the FBI has defined a hate crime as a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or
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in part by an offender's bias against race, religion, disability, social orientation, ethnicity, gender, or
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gender identity. As part of its responsibility to uphold the civil rights of the American people, the FBI
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takes a number of steps to combat hate crimes. This role increased dramatically following the passage of the Civil
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Rights Act of 1964. These days, words like Nazi or racist get probably more usage than
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necessary. Overusage of words with powerful meanings diminishes the strength and importance of those words.
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This presentation is a collage of several true crime stories, all that have some connective tissue and are
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essentially crimes and murders that have influence over other crimes and murders.
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Hate is a true crime story that spans decades. When you hear the term right-wing, do note that it is followed
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by the more powerful word in the phrase, which is extremist or extremists. In this great country, we of
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course have left and right politics and political views. But we are not talking about the right wing in the traditional
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sense. We are talking about the very furthest of the far uber far right and very
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extreme. Some of which is extreme right terrorism. terrorism that is motivated by ultraism,
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neo-Naziism, anti-communism, neo-fascism, religious nationalism, anti-semitism, anti-government
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sentiment, and occasionally it can be motivated by opposition to abortion and homophobia. All which is hate, pure and
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simple. This is true crime garage and this is hate Americanmade. [Music] [Music]
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Richard Wayne Snell, who was known as Wayne to his friends and associates, was born on May 21st, 1930 in either Iowa or
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Oklahoma. Sources vary on his place of birth. This is just one of several aspects of this man's life that remains
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a mystery still to this day. Richard Snell's parents were Charles Edwin Snell, a pastor of the Church of
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Nazarene, and Mary Jane Snell. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas notes that young Richard Snell underwent some
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training in ministry, but never actually practiced. Instead, he became increasingly involved in various
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extremist organizations. Snell was a believer in what some call Christian identity, which sounds like something
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nice, but Christian identity states that the only true chosen people of God are those of Germanic or Celtic descent.
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Snell became an invite separatist. Sources report that Richard and his wife Mary Joe Snell had
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three children. There is little information available about the couple beyond the supposition that Mary Joe
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shared her husband's extremist views and along with that she apparently supported
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his activities illegal and otherwise and Richard Snell was up to a lot of activities that is for sure but of those
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activities that did not seem to include having a job. He seems to have been too warped and wrapped up in his nefarious
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activities to hold down a conventional 9-to-f5 job at any point in his adult life. Instead, his time was mostly
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occupied by being a white supremacist and a member of several paramilitary anti-semitic extremist militia groups.
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most notably the covenant, the sword and arm of the Lord, often referred to as the
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CSA. Richard Snell apparently made a living by committing violent crimes, most which were carried out while
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heavily armed with illegal weapons. Then there was this hobby of his. During his
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time living in Arkansas, Richard Snell was involved in the filming of planes at Mina Inter Mountain Municipal Airport in
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Pulk County, Arkansas, believing that the CIA was smuggling drugs into this country and using the Mina airport to
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facilitate the operation. Now, you won't hear us defending this man much during our garage presentation. However, in
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Richard Snell's defense, he certainly was not the only one who suspected that strange things were a foot at the Mina
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airport. In fact, over the years, there have been a number of allegations about the use of Mina Inter Mountain Municipal
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Airport as a CIA drop point in a large-scale cocaine trafficking operation. These theories gained
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momentum in the latter part of the 1980s. Richard Snell, however, was ahead of the curve as he was very suspicious
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of a potential government sanctioned drug smuggling operation years prior. These are rumors that included
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allegations of not only awareness but participation and or a cover up involving prominent figures such as
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Reagan administration officials, the then Governor Bill Clinton and Saline County prosecutor Dan Harmon. Some of
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you may recognize the name Dan Harmon from our story many years back. A story that some say has shaped the garage into
00:09:38
what it is today. That story is Boys on the Tracks episodes 93, 94, 95, and 96. St. Lincoln County Prosecutor Dan Harmon
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appeared to try to be helping the families of Don Henry and Kevin Ives, two murdered teenage boys, who someone
00:10:01
likely someone's plural, attempted to cover up their murders by placing the boys' bodies on the train tracks so that
00:10:08
the train would destroy all evidence, which sadly has worked. The murders of Don Henry and Kevin Ives are still
00:10:17
unsolved to this day and I believe several persons are responsible for covering up those murders as well as
00:10:24
covering up the witnessed activities that led to the murders. Saline County prosecutor Dan Harmon was later
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convicted of numerous felonies including drug possession with intent to distribute racketeering, conspiracy and
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extortion charges. this all in 1997. There were several investigations into these claims, but then you have to
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question who is investigating these claims. Yeah, that's interesting to ponder there, Captain, because while you
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have the civilians stating that we think that this is going on and these are rumored
00:11:02
allegations that the government, our government is involved in illegal activity, but then essentially it's
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government agencies investigating themselves, which is always very dicey. So, we have
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several local, state, and federal investigations that did take place in relation to these allegations. The Mina
00:11:26
airport topic has received some press coverage over the years, so this is not something that was kept under wraps or
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that's very hush hush. An investigation by the CIA's inspector general concluded
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that the CIA had no involvement in or knowledge of any illegal activities that may have occurred at Mina. The report
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said that the agency had conducted a training exercise at the airport in partnership with another federal agency
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and that companies located at the airport had performed routine aviation related services on equipment owned by
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the CIA. So they're they're openly stating yes, we did have activity there. We were active at this airport. However,
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we were not doing anything illegal and we had our higherups come in to doublech checkck everything to confirm this
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finding. As we said here, Captain Richard Snell was a bit ahead of the curve here on his suspicions about the
00:12:30
possible activities going on, illegal activities going on at the Mina airport. In the early 80s, he claimed that
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powerful government figures, including the then Governor Bill Clinton, were involved in a massive cover up. So, he
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is there actively filming activity at the Mina airport. And his claims don't stop there with regards to the Inter
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Mountain Airport, as he also maintained to have filmed Clinton at the airport. And later he would claim that a state
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trooper that was part of Clinton's security detail had beaten his wife Mary Joe in an attempt to locate and
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confiscate the footage. So he's saying not only did I film activity there, right? Not only did I film the governor
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present there, which it it wouldn't be uncommon for a governor to be at any airport, especially an airport within
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their state, but I think what he's saying here is this is proof that there's illegal activity going on here.
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And not only that, a cover up as well because they sent muscle to my house, my home, and threatened or physically
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harmed my wife when she wouldn't turn over the film or the footage that he took. Right. Which would be illegal for
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them to do. Exactly. But again, this is an unsubstantiated claim. He doesn't have this uh confrontation on film. He
00:14:01
didn't film this confrontation. But the other problem with this individual is when he has ideology that aligns with
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that of Nazi, right? You go Yes. He that paints him with a certain type of brush. Yes. And
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we we will get into some of his involvement and activities that suggest well not just
00:14:24
suggest that they outwardly state that he was someone that wanted that desire to overthrow the government. So to be
00:14:32
out there making claims like this that would take down certain government officials would go along with that
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agenda. Right. And the look, I'm not saying that he never filmed anything at Mina. I'm not even willing to say that
00:14:46
there wasn't illegal activity that took place at Mina and that some of our government agencies knew about it cuz
00:14:52
I'm a little suspicious of that myself. However, the problem with Snell's story here is Captain that this was the early
00:14:59
80s. A lot of time has expired since then. He has never produced this footage to show anybody of the supposed illegal
00:15:07
activity that he was filming. Well, like you said, a a president or a governor or
00:15:12
anybody involved in the government can be seen at an airport, and that doesn't mean they're doing anything illegal.
00:15:18
They might just be traveling. Richard Snell was a known member of the Covenant, the Sword, and Arm of the
00:15:25
Lord. We have already mentioned his involvement and commitment to the CSA. But what is the Covenant, the Sword, and
00:15:33
Arm of the Lord or CSA? It's a paramilitary anti-semitic white supremacist group that was founded in
00:15:42
1971 in Missouri by James D. Ellison and had roots in hatred and racism. It was through the CSA and at Elohim City that
00:15:54
Richard Snell met James Ellison. Richard Snell was considered to be a regular visitor of Elohim City while James
00:16:03
Ellison was a resident. Elohim City is a private community in Adair County, Oklahoma.
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Now, it's a large property, a large community. It's about 400 acres. is a rural retreat founded in 1973 by Robert
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Milar, a Canadian immigrant former Menanite and quote one of the most important leaders end quote in America's
00:16:32
Christian identity movement and again that's not a good thing as it is an extremist group and a hate group. This
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community was closed to the public, especially closed off to the government and any government agencies, but seemed
00:16:46
to welcome members of other hate and some extremist groups. So, as long as that they shared some of the same
00:16:53
beliefs and practices, it's almost like these individuals cloak all their beliefs under this umbrella of
00:17:01
Christianity to almost cover up the fact that their beliefs are so ridiculous and
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so full of hate, ignorant and backwards, too. And I think what the idea is, and maybe they're just too backwards to know
00:17:16
this, and it's been handed down generation after generation, and so they they do what they know or they do what
00:17:21
they were taught. But we've seen this throughout history. We don't just see this in this country. We've seen it all
00:17:28
around the world for decades, nay centuries. Use the Bible to prove your point. Use the Bible to tell others, I'm
00:17:36
right, and you all are wrong. Yeah. or used your religion cuz it's not just Christianity obviously. Look, I I I read
00:17:44
the Bible on occasion. I'm I'm a believer. Truth comes out. You like Justin Bieber. But I I do want to remind
00:17:51
I always remind people that book was written by humans and I'm yet to meet a perfect one. And a lot of it too is left
00:17:59
open to interpretation. So to to to use this and to wave it high and to say and point to the Bible and say this is why
00:18:06
I'm right and you are wrong, I think is is is a bit backwards in itself. Well, let's move on from this because the only
00:18:14
thing that I hate talking about more than politics is religion. Well, it's going to be tough because we're going to
00:18:21
get a heavy dose of it in and out of parts of this story and as it relates to Richard Snell and it's more so to do
00:18:29
with some of the hate groups and extremist groups that he was in and out of and intertwined with. But this Elohim
00:18:36
City is really I mean we could have done multiple episodes on this community by itself. Now, we should
00:18:48
point out here that this community gained national attention for its ties to members of the order of a group
00:18:56
called the order in the 1980s. And this was a community that certain government agencies were more
00:19:05
than well aware of. In fact, they were attempting to infiltrate this community by sending in
00:19:13
people that had like-minded views and opinions, but they would sign them up to be informants to get them to turn and to
00:19:22
basically provide intel as to what they were what was going on within this this closed off community. But could you
00:19:30
imagine if you're a government official or you're in law enforcement and they tell you, "Hey, Captain, uh, we got an
00:19:36
assignment for you. We're going to send you in to hang out with this group on this 400 acre farm. You're going to love
00:19:43
it." To be perfectly frank with you here, Captain, and everyone, I am very much a live and let live kind of person.
00:19:51
Even if you have hate in your heart and and you are dumb and backwards and ignorant and you have these beliefs, I
00:19:59
don't particularly have I don't have a high opinion of you, but I also don't have a strong opinion of you at all one
00:20:05
way or the other. As long as you're not out there hurting anyone, go off and do your thing. Build your own little
00:20:11
community. As long as you aren't harming anyone or hurting anyone, go do your thing. That part of it doesn't bother
00:20:17
me. So, I can't stand bullies. It's really a a tricky thing here. But one thing that I always keep in mind in
00:20:26
regard to this, it always bothers me like the kids that are borning born into these families, right? Because and the
00:20:33
kids that are born into these communities like you're not born into this world feeling that way. Absolutely
00:20:37
not. And I think that's where it becomes different. Like you said, if you want to
00:20:42
have these ignorant thoughts and you want to just be alone out in the woods with your ignorant thoughts and you're
00:20:49
not hurting anybody, then go be an idiot out in the woods by yourself. Once a child's involved now, you're you're
00:20:57
actually harming an individual. And that's where, you know, whether it's your own child or somebody else's child,
00:21:05
I I don't think anybody should stand for that. You're controlling their thoughts
00:21:08
at some point. Snell also formed ties with other separatist groups such as the Aryan Nation and the group we just
00:21:16
mentioned, the order. Beyond all of that, Snell was incredibly distrustful of all forms of US government. He was
00:21:23
anti-establishment and anti-government and very pro whatever the hell he wanted to do. Richard Snell was driven by
00:21:30
hatred and white separatism. He was determined to commit heinous crimes. And even though he had
00:21:37
ties to all of these hate groups, he was considered back in his time as something
00:21:44
of a lone wolf in that he operated autonomously. He was he was using these groups and in and
00:21:53
out of these groups of course, but he considered this Elohim city as his home base. Was he like a Charles Manson type
00:22:01
where he thought by doing hateful actions this would start some kind of race war? I mean, did he have an agenda?
00:22:09
He had an agenda, but he didn't have followers and he didn't desire, I think, to have followers. He wasn't the type
00:22:17
that was out to want to be a leader and control a community. He wanted to get involved. And unfortunately, so he was
00:22:28
the type that he he desired to overthrow the government, that there would be no government, right? And as crazy as it
00:22:36
sounds, I've been thinking I've had to been forced to think like Richard Snell in ways all week long. And one one thing
00:22:45
that really opened up my eyes is him and these other types that are like him don't Yes. They s single out the US
00:22:53
government. So we go, "Oh man, how could they be against the US government?" And
00:22:56
look there, look, our government's not perfect. We know that. That's an understatement. But these are the types
00:23:01
that regardless of where they were born, where they were brought up, in all likelihood, they would hate
00:23:08
whatever government that they lived under, right? Not just our government. They hate all forms of government. And
00:23:15
so his agenda that you were asking about his agenda, captain, his agenda was for
00:23:21
no government, to overthrow the government. And while he didn't desire to be a leader and really didn't desire
00:23:29
to have to band together with an army full of people to to carry out his agenda, unfortunately, it was a very
00:23:38
uphill battle that he was facing and it would force him to have to band together
00:23:43
with others. Well, Richard, you can't just be playing all by yourself. You're going to have to find some evil friends.
00:23:49
Well, we talked about banding together with others. Let's talk about Richard Snell wouldn't go on to be the only
00:23:55
notorious person that that frequented or lived at Elohim City. So, here are just
00:24:03
some of the other air quotes wonderful residents who either stayed or lived at Elohim City. We have George Eaton, who
00:24:12
is the founder of Present Truth Ministries and publisher/editor of an extreme right-wing anti-semitic newsletter
00:24:20
called the Patriot Report. We have James Ellison, who we've already talked about.
00:24:25
He was a white supremist leader of the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord. We have Michael
00:24:34
Fortier, an army buddy of Timothy McVey, domestic terrorist who eventually Michael was imprisoned for failing to
00:24:42
warn authorities about the Oklahoma City bombing. We have Chevy Kho, a self-proclaimed white supremacist and
00:24:50
convicted murderer. He and an accomplice wiped out a family in Arkansas, including killing a kid who was just 8
00:24:57
years old. All of this just to steal a large quantity of guns and ammunition. We have Willie Ray Lampley, a
00:25:05
self-proclaimed prophet, leader of the now defunct Oklahoma constitutional militia and the head of the Universal
00:25:14
Church of God. We have Faren Earl Loveless, convicted in a separate case of murdering a man he believed was a
00:25:22
federal informant. And we also have Dennis Maym, a former Imperial dragon in the Oklahoma Klux Clan and an organizer
00:25:33
for White Aryan Resistance. So, no shortage of losers there at Elhome City. Robert Myar, the founder of
00:25:43
Elim City, declared that the leader of the covenant, the sword, and the arm of the Lord, James
00:25:50
Ellison, was a quote prophet full of vision and quote, who would unite the attending groups of Elhim City so they
00:26:00
could do battle with the so-called Zionist occupied government or Zog as they called it. That is the US federal
00:26:09
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00:32:13
[Music] All right, we are back. Cheers, mates. Cheers to you, Colonel. Cheers to you,
00:32:21
Captain. Just to be clear, our garage is not out in the middle of nowhere in some
00:32:26
strange community founded by two two guys that talk true crime in a garage. We just want to throw that out there. We
00:32:34
are in parts unknown. Now remember Richard Snell, he just stayed there off and on and considered this to be his
00:32:44
home base for his anti-government, anti-establishment operations. The very basics of what he
00:32:52
was about. Richard Snell wanted to overthrow the government by way of force. Some who knew him would later
00:32:59
describe Richard Snell as a paranoid type. He and his wife Mary Joe were reclusive and kept to themselves,
00:33:07
preferring isolation instead of social interaction. The Snell family lived in the town of Muse, Oklahoma. They were
00:33:16
known as survivalists. They lived on a remote 80 acre militarystyle camp on the edge of a national force. Snell
00:33:26
exhibited a strong propensity for violence and was known for his stockpiling of various deadly weapons
00:33:34
and explosives. So where is he getting money though? I think he's getting invol his money by being involved with these
00:33:41
different groups, right? And they are regularly involved in illegal activities. Not just that, but I'm sure
00:33:51
these groups have like you just listed a bunch of people and the bad things they did or
00:33:58
they believe all a part of this land, right? This 400 some acres of evil basically. But I guarantee you there's a
00:34:08
big list of names that help fund all this. Yes, absolutely. There's probably people donating money, some sort of
00:34:16
fundraising efforts. But keep in mind too be if you're anti-government then your illegal activities to you they're
00:34:23
not illegal activities. You're just doing whatever you want. The government has no right to tell you what you can
00:34:28
and cannot do in the eyes of these people. Right? And a lot of what these people are doing because they are we
00:34:35
said a paranoid type. But if you talk to a lot of these different groups, one of
00:34:40
one of the things that's kind of an underlining belief within a lot of these groups is that the end is near. The end
00:34:46
is near. The end is coming. And it will happen during my lifetime. And and the the people that are prepared will
00:34:53
survive. Yeah. The families that prepare and and fortify themselves and teach themselves to live off the land, those
00:35:00
will be the people that survive. The the others that didn't prepare, failing to prepare is preparing to fail as as a lot
00:35:08
of people would say. And so those people will not survive. And so one thing that
00:35:13
a lot of these guys and these groups are doing, it's the it's steal basically stealing guns and weapons. And once you
00:35:22
steal them, then you have to fund your lifestyle, fund your group, fund staying alive, just your everyday life, your
00:35:30
daytoday. A lot of times they're selling these weapons illegally too, but also stockpiling at the same time. But
00:35:37
obviously these guys are idiots because they're not in Ponyie, Indiana. Hail Zorp. Well, and yes, and and idiots too.
00:35:46
Look, you want to overthrow the government or really throw a wrench in things, why not infiltrate from the
00:35:53
inside, right? Why not educate yourself and and put yourself in a position where
00:35:58
you are in the government and and work it and collapse it from the inside? In the late 70s and early 80s, Richard
00:36:06
Snell became increasingly radicalized, reportedly engaging in several contentious interactions with various
00:36:13
governmental agencies, particularly the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS. Now, we can joke here as the IRS is
00:36:23
not typically at the top of anyone's favorite government entities list. I don't think anybody likes the IRS unless
00:36:30
you work for the IRS. Yeah. True Crime Garage. We're going to come out with IRS shirts really soon. But for a man like
00:36:36
Richard Snell with everinccreasing hate in his heart, his heart still had plenty
00:36:41
of room for extra hate for the IRS. This is according to Snell because the agency
00:36:46
raided his home in 1983. Now 1983 is going to be a very busy year for Mr. Richard Snell. As
00:36:56
said, the IRS raided his home and ultimately they took his land, throwing Snell, the wife, and kids out for
00:37:04
various violations and infractions. Snell started staying at Elum City or City of God or God City as it was also
00:37:12
called. Right. He also was staying from time to time at Hayden Lake in Idaho. At
00:37:19
Hayden Lake, there was another wonderful group of people. This is the Aryan Nations. Please hear the sarcasm in my
00:37:27
voice there. Richard Snell was buddies with Richard G Butler, who was the G, old G, who was the chief of the Aryan
00:37:38
Nations, a neo-Nazi umbrella organization for white supremist groups based in Hayden Lake, Idaho. Well, with
00:37:46
a name like GET, you're going to hate a lot of people. But Well, and it's it's a
00:37:51
shame that these people find each other so easily. Yeah, but I I'm trying to wrap my head around how they recruit,
00:37:58
but think about this. Hey, come out to my lakehouse, sip on some cocktails. Hey, want to get away? We got a 400 acre
00:38:06
retreat. And you start hanging out there and you're going, "Hey, this is pretty nice.
00:38:11
It's pretty nice. I feel relaxed." And then they start telling you about the government and how much they hate it.
00:38:17
And also, and anybody that doesn't look like us, we hate them, too. Well, then this next part you're really not going
00:38:23
to like. So, in late night meetings, the leaders at Hayden Lake discussed how to
00:38:28
topple the government using as a source book the Turner Diaries, which is an extremist novel that envisions the
00:38:36
government's overthrow by paramilitary groups who then systematically killed Jews and blacks. I thought it was the
00:38:44
INT story. Richard Snell, James Ellison, and others were working on plans to assassinate federal officials in
00:38:53
Arkansas, bomb federal buildings in various locations, and bomb the Dallas office of a Jewish organization. But
00:39:01
think about this though for a second. What if you just liked the lakehouse, right? And
00:39:08
now you're just pretending to believe in all this other stuff so you can go camping and hiking. And they they start
00:39:16
telling you uh about their deeper, darker plans and you have to just kind of pretend to go along with it so you
00:39:23
can uh have the family go out to the the cabin for the weekend. Yeah. Sipping drinks by the lake and then you hear
00:39:31
these guys start talking. It's like, man, somebody must have put something in the weed out here.
00:39:39
These guys are high, but not in a good way. Richard Snell and a man named Steve Scott, this is a man who we will hear
00:39:46
more of as we continue with our true crime story here. They asked this James Ellison, the leader of the CSA, to
00:39:55
design a rocket launcher that could be used to destroy federal buildings from a distance. and they did
00:40:03
reconnaissance. They would go on driving trips to some of the different federal buildings and go inside the building and
00:40:10
check the building out. And on one trip in particular, Richard Snell sent James Ellison to the federal building in
00:40:17
Oklahoma City to gauge what it would take to destroy this building. Great. This was the Alfred P. Mura Federal
00:40:25
Building. The Alfred P. Mura Federal Building was a United States Federal Government complex located at 200
00:40:33
Northwest 5th Street in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The building was designed by architects from Lock
00:40:40
Wright and Associates and constructed by JW Bateson Company using reinforced concrete at a cost of over $14
00:40:49
million. The building is named for federal judge Alfred P. Mura, an Oklahoma native, and the building opened
00:40:58
for operations in 1977. Over the years, the building would eventually contain regional offices for several government
00:41:07
entities, including the Social Security Administration, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the
00:41:15
United States Secret Service, the Department of Veterans Affairs Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling
00:41:22
Center, the Drug Enforcement Administration, or the DEA, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
00:41:29
Firearms, the ATF. F. Now, are these just branches of that because it correct? Right. So, it's just the branch
00:41:35
of that cuz I'm sure we have branches of these organizations obviously in Washington. Yes. So, like the FBI, we'll
00:41:43
call it field offices. If you go to any major city, there will be an FBI field office located there like St. Louis,
00:41:51
Columbus, Ohio, probably Oklahoma City as well. Right. This is just as you said that these are government federal
00:41:58
agencies. So they have to operate throughout the course of our entire country nationwide and so because of that they
00:42:07
need to have people in different locations and they often operate just in major cities. So this building contained
00:42:15
recruiting offices for the US military. It housed approximately 550 employees plus kids as it also housed a child a
00:42:23
children's daycare center. Snell openly expressed a desire to blow up the Alfred
00:42:30
P. Mura Federal Building. Snell was bitter toward the government because of the IRS, specifically agents from the
00:42:39
Oklahoma City office and because they had taken him to court and his property had been seized by the FBI and other
00:42:47
agents in a raid. After the reconnaissance trips, the extremist led by Snell made preliminary sketches and
00:42:56
drawings. Rocket launchers were to be placed in a trailer or a van so that it could be driven up to a given spot,
00:43:04
parked there, and a timed detonating device could be triggered so that the driver could walk away and leave the
00:43:13
vehicle set in position and he would have time to clear the area before any of the rockets were launched. They were
00:43:20
attempting to design something like this to fit in either a trailer or a van or even a panel truck, right? So to to
00:43:28
place a vehicle near the federal building and basically shoot rockets into it, shoot missiles into it to blow
00:43:37
up the building. So they have these detailed plans on what they think will work to help them take down the
00:43:44
government, but they changed their plans. Yeah. So, I want to simplify this and and maybe talk about it in a way
00:43:51
that people of our generation could understand because we weren't around. Well, you are the voice of a generation.
00:43:58
There we go. The garage generation. Think of 9/11. Okay. Thi this is not this plan that they've come up with
00:44:07
these these crazy white guys. This is not really very different from what the terrorists were attempting to do with
00:44:16
9/11. And in fact, one could suggest maybe they even got the idea from these guys. So with 9/11, the idea was, hey,
00:44:23
we we'll hijack these four planes. We'll fly one into the Pentagon, destroying the Pentagon and all of the higherups,
00:44:34
uh, the defense and and all that for this country. We'll destroy all that with the Pentagon. We'll fly a plane
00:44:40
into the White House, hopefully killing a whole bunch of higherups and leaders of this great free world and then we
00:44:48
will fly two planes into the World Trade Centers which will then buckle and collapse the financial industry of our
00:44:58
country. Right? So really all you're trying to do is destroy and kill higher ups. destroy buildings and high and kill
00:45:07
higher ups so that you send this whole country into chaos, right? And then they would be able to easily take them over
00:45:16
after the fact. This is as as dumb as some of their ideas sound here. Richard Snell and all the guys at Ilum City,
00:45:24
it's it's really serious stuff because their plan is let's let's execute let's assassinate a few uh high up officials
00:45:33
in in certain parts of the country in certain states. Let's blow up some of these federal buildings and then we will
00:45:40
we will put parts of this country into complete chaos and we can start to amass land and and gather people and create
00:45:51
our own army. Well, yeah. And I think the word is disruption, right? And and I think the other thing about this is if
00:46:00
you target target these types of buildings and these types of officials and like what we were saying
00:46:07
earlier, this is just a branch of these entities in with inside the government, but that would also disrupt maybe the
00:46:15
actions of other individuals, other authorities in other locations. it might alter how they react or act uh going
00:46:26
forward or maybe not act at all out of fear that they're next. Well, and you had mentioned that, you know, you'd like
00:46:36
to not have to hear so much about the Bible or about God in especially with stories like this, but here is where God
00:46:43
might have been on our side, my friend, because they decided to not go forward with their rocket launcher plans with
00:46:51
the federal building in Oklahoma City. Why? because they after they came up with all the plans and the drawings and
00:46:58
they were they were starting to construct things. They were going to put this plan into action, they were going
00:47:03
to go out and execute this plan. They were running practice drills on their compound on the 400 acres that they were
00:47:10
staying. During one of these practice drills, the rocket launcher, it uh malfunctioned. Surprise, surprise. And
00:47:20
there it exploded basically with the with the person trying to operate it either right next
00:47:28
to it or or either holding it. There's various varying degrees of this story. Mhm. However, what is stated commonly in
00:47:37
this story is that Snell and the others considered that to be divine intervention. That that was God telling
00:47:45
them that they had the wrong plan. That they were going about this the wrong way. and that whatever their plan was to
00:47:51
blow up this particular building wasn't going to work. God was not on their side
00:47:56
for this one. So, they aborted that mission. But it also shows you there's just different levels of extremism where
00:48:04
these individuals were like, "Hey, we're not willing to die for our cause." Where
00:48:10
the terrorists of 9/11, they knew they were going to die for whatever cause they had.
00:48:17
Exactly. Different levels of crazy, my friend. Yes, and we've certainly reviewed all all of those different
00:48:24
levels here in the garage. We said 1983 will be a busy year for Richard Snell, and it was in fact just that. And we're
00:48:32
going to circle back into 83 here in a minute, but let's go to 1984. Now, this is when a an
00:48:39
African-American state trooper attempted to pull Richard Snell over for a simple
00:48:45
traffic violation. This is in the state of Arkansas. When the trooper, the state
00:48:51
trooper, his name is Lewis Bryant. When he approached Snell's vehicle, Snell got
00:48:57
out and shot him. So, he shot him multiple times and even shot him again while the trooper was lying on the
00:49:04
ground. This killed officer Bryant. He drove off after this. Now there, this story is one that is not reported at
00:49:15
length in the news reports and it's a very tragic story. It's a very sad story. There's parts of this though that
00:49:23
that I mean it's truth is stranger than fiction. You can't write this stuff. Officer Bryant's wife like stumbled upon
00:49:31
his cruiser and his body lying there and she calls for help and they attempt to try to save this man. He he was a young
00:49:39
man. Um I believe he was in his mid to late 20s. So a young man with a young family is gunned down by this racist
00:49:49
jerk on the side of the road. But what we get here, Captain, is a trucker. there was a witness that saw this go
00:49:56
down and he's like, "You know what? I'm gonna follow that car. I'm gonna follow the the murderer so I can help police
00:50:03
catch this dude." So, this guy follows him all the way to a place called Broken Bow, Oklahoma. They they get the police
00:50:11
there. They know that they're looking for this car. They have the car description from the witnesses of who
00:50:18
shot this state trooper. They surround the vehicle in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. and Snell's not willing to surrender. He
00:50:27
gets in a gun battle, a gunfight with the authorities there. Now, this is one of the better parts of the story here,
00:50:35
my friend, because Richard Snell was shot six times during the course of this gun battle. And he was ushered off to
00:50:47
the hospital. He was in critical condition, but they ultimately were able to save his life. And so he was going to
00:50:55
face a trial now for killing this officer of the law. People that knew Snell immediately jumped to the
00:51:04
conclusion that this was a race matter that because the officer was black and Snell was a white supremist, white
00:51:12
separatist, that he chose to gun down the officer. There's certainly reason to believe that. Well, that's part of the
00:51:20
equation, right? That's exactly part of the equation. Really, what what very likely is the full story is in his car,
00:51:29
he has all kinds of stolen guns, stolen ammunition, and I believe they even recovered grenades and explosives from
00:51:36
his vehicle. Yeah. So, it's it's very likely because of the illegal activity and his hatred for authorities and
00:51:44
government, but also again like we said, it's just part of the equation. But this
00:51:50
officer could have been white and the same result could have happened. I believe that would be the case because
00:51:56
what Richard Snell and his buddies, his cronies were doing, these guys were thugs. They were just thugs. That's all
00:52:02
they were. They would go and they they would come in heavily armed to a location and rob the location of their
00:52:09
cash and their guns and they're they're collecting all these guns and weapons and again they're selling some of them
00:52:17
and so his car is loaded down with all kinds of stolen guns, stolen ammunition and
00:52:23
explosives. And so yeah, he probably would have gun. That was probably the motive to that that he couldn't have
00:52:30
been seen that the officer, whoever it would have been. And very tragically and very sad that it was this young officer
00:52:39
Bryant. But whoever the officer would have been, they would have most certainly seen all of these weapons in
00:52:45
this car. And so Snell would have been busted right there and then. And he wasn't going to let it play out that
00:52:51
way. Well, the gun that he used to kill Officer Bryant, they do some ballistic testing
00:53:00
on that gun and they trace it back to a murder from 1983. This is when Snell and two other
00:53:08
of his cronies walked into a pawn shop and decided to rob the owner of the pawn shop. They wanted to steal things like
00:53:18
guns, jewelry, cash, anything that this guy had on hand. But this is one of the ways that they had to fund their evil
00:53:26
ways. So this first murder that they connect Richard Snell to was the victim was William Stump. So he himself is
00:53:35
former law enforcement and now pawn shop owner. And this is a robbery that will take place in November of 1983. So
00:53:44
Richard Snell and two guys go into this pawn shop. This is a Tex Arcana pawn shop. Old Tex Arcana. Yeah. With nothing
00:53:52
but bad intent in their in their hearts. And they are loaded up with weapons themselves. They are they are fully
00:53:59
armed here. And this is like a incredibly cowardous move by Richard Snell. He shoots this man in the back.
00:54:10
They're in the process of robbing the dude. They're going to get what they want. They're going to get what they
00:54:15
came there for. They essentially, Captain, they're going to be successful in this mission. Yeah, but you can't
00:54:22
leave a eyewitness. But that's not good enough for Snell. This guy turns his back and after opening the He's not even
00:54:31
able to turn around after opening up the safe. He's still got his back turned while he's opening up the safe for
00:54:37
Snell. Snell shoots him in the back and they kill this William Stump. One of the
00:54:43
men there was a straightup lookout. One of the men there did enter the pawn shop
00:54:48
with Snell and they took off the three of them. I believe they only got away with like $90 in cash. They did get away
00:54:56
with some jewelry and some guns and some other items that they took from the pawn
00:55:00
shop as well. But as the story goes, the accompllices would later tell authorities that Snail told them that he
00:55:09
killed the man. He killed William Stump because he William Stump was a Jew and he deserved to die and it wasn't just
00:55:16
good enough to rob him. So this is his the definition of a hate crime, right? He he could have robbed this dude and
00:55:23
just left. But no, snails determined that this guy was Jewish and therefore he had to be killed in the commission of
00:55:30
this robbery. And as all the reports go, Captain, it was mistaken identity that he wasn't a Jewish man. And so that's
00:55:42
the story according to his accompllices. So what he's going to face is two different charges, right? He's he's
00:55:52
charged with murder with homicide twice, but he would be facing life for one of the charges of murder and yeah,
00:56:02
potential uh death penalty in the other case. We get a pretty easy conviction here because the two men that were with
00:56:11
him, remember we mentioned a Steve Scott earlier. This was a man that seemed to run around quite a bit with Snell and
00:56:21
probably helped him commit a lot of crimes. And we're going to get into another failed crime of theirs. The
00:56:27
other man was William Thomas. So, both of these guys were fellow members of the CSA, that hate
00:56:37
group, and they both turned on Snell, testifying against him at his trial. Now, this one is is a more lighthearted
00:56:50
story in that there are no victims here, but one of the crimes that these three idiots attempted to carry out was there
00:56:59
was a pipeline, a gas, a natural gas pipeline in Falton, Arkansas. And these three geniuses had the idea of, well,
00:57:08
let's blow up the pipeline and then the pipe will will continue to to funnel natural gas up to the explosion
00:57:19
point and we will have a forever burning torch. They wanted to create some kind of spectacle, right? This this eternal
00:57:30
torch that would burn from this pipeline that they destroyed. So this is in Fulton, Arkansas, 1983. However, the
00:57:38
explosives that they used, these guys didn't understand that the explosive will it essentially blows up to the
00:57:48
point of least resistance, right? So if you put the explosives on the outside of
00:57:53
this heavily fortified metal or lead or whatever it was pipeline, the least resistance is going to be everywhere
00:58:01
else but the pipeline, right? because it's all air. It's airspace. So, they attempted to blow a hole in this
00:58:08
pipeline and it did it did nothing. I mean, their their explosives they blew up successfully. They just didn't do any
00:58:14
damage to the pipeline. But these guys are they're arrogant. They're ignorant. They're racist. They're evil.
00:58:23
They're dumb as [ __ ] Yeah. Snell he in that shootout with police when he's eventually arrested as said he was shot
00:58:31
six times four times in the abdomen once in the knee and once in the ankle. Uh when they searched the vehicle they
00:58:38
discovered an arsenal of illegal weapons. This included guns which included the 22 caliber Rugal Ruger
00:58:46
pistol with a silencer on it. That was the gun that was proved to be the weapon used to kill William Stump. They found
00:58:55
additional silencers, which we've talked about in previous cases, how illegal those are, hand grenades, and other
00:59:02
explosive devices. You do have law enforcement on the record saying, "Look, yes, we we recognize that Richard Snell
00:59:09
is a racist and was involved in these groups. However, after finding what we found in his vehicle, we are certain
00:59:17
that that was the motive for gunning down Officer Bryant." And the other part of the story here, Captain, that is so
00:59:26
incredibly tragic is that with the funeral service for Trooper Bryant, so you have all
00:59:34
these officers. You even have uh government officials and such that were coming to attend the funeral of the
00:59:42
fallen officer, right? On the way to the funeral, there was a vehicle that that was filled with gentlemen that were
00:59:51
going to be pawbearers. These were fellow officers of Trooper Bryant that were in this vehicle that were going to
00:59:58
be pawbearers at his funeral service. And that vehicle was jack knifed by a large gravel
01:00:06
truck. Everyone in that vehicle lost their lives that day on the way to the funeral for this young officer. Did they
01:00:13
ever investigate that as a you know, was it just an accident or Yeah, unfortunately it was just a a a
01:00:21
very tragic sort of freak accident. They that they weren't the only vehicle that was
01:00:27
involved in the accident from my understanding. There were multiple multiple vehicles. It's a shame they
01:00:33
didn't kill him in the shootout so our um government didn't have to house him. But I guess in some
01:00:42
way I I bet he hated the idea that he was going to be in government housing aka prison. Well, and that's the thing
01:00:50
here. If you are if you take out an officer, which he did, surrender. It will end in a gunfight. It
01:01:01
almost always does. These guys, you you killed one of their own. And so I yeah, I'm there's part of me that's proud that
01:01:10
they ushered him off to the hospital, right? Because even even in the heat of battle, you want the good guys to do the
01:01:17
good thing and do the right thing. And these these good old boys, these officers could have just left him
01:01:24
there to die on the street, right? A good officer understands that it's it's not their job to be the jury and the
01:01:33
executioner. The judge, jury, and executioner. No, it's their job to make the arrest. And they made the arrest of
01:01:39
a very bad, very violent man. How many more people would he have killed in the commission of a robbery
01:01:48
or forget about that? He he was designing plans and working with others to blow up a very large federal
01:01:55
building. How many lives would this dude have taken out? And these guys, they got
01:02:00
to him, they arrested him, he goes off to court. Now, at his trial, the most damning evidence obviously is going to
01:02:08
be the two witnesses who were working with him in the robbery of Stump, but those guys weren't there when Snell
01:02:15
gunned down the officer. The other bit of evidence, too, was Snell was dumb enough to leave a watch at the pawn
01:02:23
shop. That was part of his ruse to disarm the pawn shop owner to get him to put his walls down a little bit and to
01:02:36
engage him in conversation. He went in there under the ruse of trying to sell this watch to William Stump and then
01:02:45
they pull guns on the guy. They rob him. Snail kills him. Snail's too dumb to collect his watch before leaving the
01:02:55
pawn shop. So, they did have some evidence that they were working with at the time, but they just never
01:03:02
connected it to Richard Snell. He left they left the watch on a um on a scale. They were they were
01:03:12
weighing it to determine how much how how much precious metals the watch can Yeah. Some of this might not be
01:03:21
ignorance as much as it could be arrogance. And to think that you're the smartest guy in the room and law
01:03:26
enforcement is dumb and they're never going to catch me. And it could be. Either way, the
01:03:32
guy's evil. Exactly. Oh [ __ ] Yeah. The trial uh one of the trials lasted three
01:03:40
days and the jury only deliberated for a mere 15 minutes before convicting him. and they came back with the
01:03:49
recommendation of death penalty for Richard Snell. Wow. The two associates, Thomas and Scott, who both testified for
01:03:58
the state in exchange for decreased sentences, they they plead guilty. So, they went off to serve their time after
01:04:07
turning on their their guy, their buddy. Richard Snell would ultimately be sent off for incarceration at Tucker Maximum
01:04:16
Security Unit in Jefferson County, Arkansas to await his impending execution. And despite what has been
01:04:24
reported as procedural errors alleged on his appeals anyway, Snell's conviction was upheld. And so
01:04:34
thus the death penalty, the death sentence would be upheld as [Music] well. Want to thank everybody for
01:04:49
joining us here today in the garage for everything true crime. and check out true
01:04:53
crimegar.com. Make sure you sign up on the mailing list and stick around for part two of our series, Hate
01:05:00
AmericanMade. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. [Music] [Applause]
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