531 - We’re Here at the House Party

On today’s episode, Karen covers trailblazing pilot Hazel Ying Lee and Georgia tells the story of the Dunbar Armored Depot Heist. For our sources, please visit https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode. Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder http://instagram.com/myfavoritemurder Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder http://facebook.com/myfavoritemurder TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder http://tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder Send your hometown stories to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Join the Fan Cult to access ad-free episodes of My Favorite Murder. Members also receive merch store discounts, exclusive audio and video content and more! Visit www.fancult.supercast.com http://www.fancult.supercast.com/ to join. Shop for My Favorite Murder and other Exactly Right merchandise here: www.exactlyrightstore.com http://www.exactlyrightstore.com/. Rate, review and follow My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Speaker 00

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• 1:29Speaker 02

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• 1:42Speaker 03

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• 2:25Speaker 03

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• 2:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello.

• 2:47Karen Kilgariff?

  And welcome.

• 2:47Karen Kilgariff?

  To my favorite murder.

• 2:49Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Georgia Hardstark.

• 2:50Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Karen Kilgariff.

• 2:51Karen Kilgariff?

  And we're here to podcast for you on video.

• 2:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Breaking news. We're podcasting.

• 2:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Breaking news, everybody.

• 2:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Podcasts are on video now for fucking reason.

• 3:02Karen Kilgariff?

  And that's actually what breaking news is these days because there's no more local news in America.

• 3:07Karen Kilgariff?

  We refuse.

• 3:10Karen Kilgariff?

  You all right?

• 3:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I'm okay.

• 3:12Karen Kilgariff?

  You just left for a second.

• 3:14Karen Kilgariff?

  It's pretty crazy.

• 3:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. I didn't look at anything today, so I'm feeling, I'm feeling like I forgot everything that's going wrong.

• 3:22Karen Kilgariff?

  I know what's going right. Do you want me to tell you about it?

• 3:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, you have something to show me.

• 3:26Karen Kilgariff?

  So I spend, according to my phone, hours and hours on TikTok.

• 3:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Don't, don't ever look at that.

• 3:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Really shocking.

• 3:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 3:33Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm like, I don't even know I have this much free time.

• 3:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 3:35Karen Kilgariff?

  But my favorite thing that happened recently is a little, kind of like a three-part story.

• 3:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 3:40Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's going to start out with, I'm going to show you a TikTok and we have to change the music, of course, because this is going to go on Netflix.

• 3:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 3:48Karen Kilgariff?

  But the real music is a song that you and I both love by the rapper Armani White. That's the Billie Eilish song.

• 3:54Karen Kilgariff?

  I love that song. Did you see that video when she brings it out on stage and sing it together and I start crying?

• 3:59Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so cute and the audience goes so crazy.

• 4:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Billie Eilish so much, okay.

• 4:04Karen Kilgariff?

  She's the best, but deserves a song.

• 4:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 4:06Karen Kilgariff?

  So there's an incredible volleyball player at Cal State Northridge.

• 4:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 4:10Karen Kilgariff?

  The Matadors.

• 4:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Parents went.

• 4:12Karen Kilgariff?

  For real?

• 4:13Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm pretty sure.

• 4:14Karen Kilgariff?

  I did a noon-er at Northridge one time with Greg Berent and somebody else. You have to go to the cafeteria and do stand-up comedy at noon while everyone's-

• 4:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Is that CSUN?

• 4:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 4:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, that's where my parents went, yes.

• 4:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, CSUN. So, right now-

• 4:27Georgia Hardstark?

  That's where they met, yeah, okay.

• 4:28Karen Kilgariff?

  So there's a very viral volleyball player-

• 4:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh huh.

• 4:33Karen Kilgariff?

  -who is amazing at volleyball, but he also does like, full-on slay, slay queen-style gestures once he gets a point.

• 4:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god, okay.

• 4:42Karen Kilgariff?

  And it is so great and people are loving it. So let me show it to you-

• 4:46Georgia Hardstark?

  I've never seen it.

• 4:47Karen Kilgariff?

  And we're gonna have the original music, but we'll put in other music.

• 4:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 4:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh! He does the neck walkaway.

• 5:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Eh.

• 5:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 5:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 5:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, I love him. What's his name?

• 5:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Right, Jordan Lucas.

• 5:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 5:21Karen Kilgariff?

  His older brother was a volleyball star as well.

• 5:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 5:25Karen Kilgariff?

  I think they said his dad was, so now I'm like, an expert on him, right?

• 5:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, let's tell people who aren't watching on Netflix, he's doing these like, moves as soon as he hits-

• 5:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, go to TikTok, he's all over TikTok. It's basically what everyone is looking at, but he's spiking the ball, he's jumping what looks like five feet in the air, spiking the ball, getting the point, and then basically doing a little RuPaul's Drag Race move-

• 5:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 5:48Karen Kilgariff?

  -to be like, slay mama.

• 5:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, like, walkaway fucking head twist.

• 5:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, kind of in your face.

• 5:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 5:55Karen Kilgariff?

  So this is starting to build in popularity on social media.

• 5:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 5:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And then CSUN has a game at Irvine.

• 6:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, so it's where my parents went versus where I'm from?

• 6:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Where they raised you.

• 6:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Karen Kilgariff?

  And at Irvine, one of the color commentators says, "I'm surprised nobody has popped Jordan Lucas yet. What he's doing on that court is distasteful." He isn't standing there screaming, "Yeah!" like that. He literally goes like that. He turns his head in a way that's like- A gesture. So, one of the most popular super cuts is to the Armani White song, I think it's called Billie Eilish, that's how I know it, "Bitch, I'm Stylish." Yeah. Basically, this story gets out that that's what this guy says. Yeah. And at the next CSUN game, Armani White's in the stands- Oh! -watching Jordan Lucas play and cheering for every single point. And I watched it last night and I just had tears streaming down my face. So I'm just like, "This is it. This is where-"

• 6:50Karen Kilgariff?

  He went to the fucking game. He went to the next fucking game and was like, "I'd seen all these videos and everyone was talking about this amazing volleyball player, so I wanted to see it for myself." And I did. And it's like him and his friends in the stands cheering for Jordan Lucas. You're about to start crying, first of all. I want everyone to know that. You're about to start crying. Because, well, what I was gonna say is like, it's the old days, growing up, going to high school in the 80s where not only would you be popped for expressing yourself in any way different- Right. -than the standard norm, but that idea that someone would suggest that would mean that would happen. Totally. And it almost is like Armani White understands all those things and is kinda like, "Here's the posse that's rolling up for Jordan Lucas." Right.

• 7:34Karen Kilgariff?

  And symbolically tough- Yeah. -guy, rapper, whatever- Yeah. That's basically like, "I'm here on his behalf." Yeah. That's so touching. It's beautiful. Wow. Do you have more video to show me? Yeah, I mean, there is another one. And this one is cut to a Beyonce song, so it just like- Oh my god, what if Beyonce is in the fucking- Oh. -audience next?

• 8:00Karen Kilgariff?

  That one, he just tips it over?

• 8:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. I love it.

• 8:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's him. That's Armani White, right there.

• 8:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God. Can we start podcasting like that? So that like, maybe they'll show up to exactly right studios?

• 8:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 8:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Next time I give a good story, I'm gonna...

• 8:18Karen Kilgariff?

  It's almost like when you're so good, you can't control the in-your-face, so you have to turn it around, and that's part of what you're doing.

• 8:25Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, it's called personality.

• 8:26Karen Kilgariff?

  It's pretty fun.

• 8:27Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it. That's a feel-good story.

• 8:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Right?

• 8:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Good job. Speaking of breaking news and going in a completely different direction.

• 8:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, OK.

• 8:34Georgia Hardstark?

  But also, you know, in a positive, if you could call it that, way.

• 8:38Karen Kilgariff?

  OK.

• 8:39Georgia Hardstark?

  True crime and positivity aren't always... But I covered this story when we were in Portland called "The Martin Family Disappearance", which is one of those stories I've always been obsessed with, where I'm pretty sure that like, half of the missing people drove into a lake and their car's still in the lake. You know what I mean? So this family, the Martin family, disappeared. It was five of them. It was the husband and wife, Ken and Barbara, and their children. And they all went missing in December of 1958 while off getting vows for Christmas decorations out in Oregon in the wilderness. They all disappeared. Was there foul play? No one really knew. But their car was finally found in the place where they had pretty much disappeared.

• 9:23Georgia Hardstark?

  So a diving expedition spearheaded by this diver, Archer Mayo, who has been finding cars and finding missing people at the bottom of lakes. He had also found the Martin family camera, and they were able to identify it as the car where some of the family was in. So it looks like it was just an accident along. But 1958...

• 9:46Karen Kilgariff?

  That's crazy.

• 9:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So two of the children had already been found. I think that they had floated out of the car and up the river, but the rest of the family was found in the car.

• 9:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 9:58Georgia Hardstark?

  So it does seem like it just was a horrible accident. They were found in the Columbia River.

• 10:03Karen Kilgariff?

  So sad.

• 10:04Georgia Hardstark?

  I know, but these stories that come out is like finally giving an end of a story. You know what I mean?

• 10:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, it's just, those are fascinating to me and so heartbreaking and tragic.

• 10:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, and good, great news when finally there's some sort of resolution.

• 10:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 10:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Do you have anything else?

• 10:19Georgia Hardstark?

  You haven't seen the drama yet?

• 10:21Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 10:22Georgia Hardstark?

  You have to see it.

• 10:23Karen Kilgariff?

  The drama is a movie?

• 10:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, with Zendaya.

• 10:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, okay.

• 10:27Georgia Hardstark?

  So, it's just so good.

• 10:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 10:28Georgia Hardstark?

  And then we'll talk about it, because I need to talk about, like, it's one of those movies that I need to talk to someone about it.

• 10:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, okay.

• 10:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, I had a little bit of a mental breakdown after watching it, because it was so like, it's just one of those things of like, what would you have done in that situation?

• 10:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, okay.

• 10:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 10:40Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a good idea.

• 10:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 10:41Karen Kilgariff?

  I'll watch it this weekend and we'll make a video.

• 10:45Georgia Hardstark?

  There you go.

• 10:46Karen Kilgariff?

  How about that?

• 10:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Karen Kilgariff?

  We'll do a

• 10:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Do it.

• 10:48Karen Kilgariff?

  rewatch, talk down video.

• 10:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, great.

• 10:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. We're making plans, we're making content.

• 10:54Georgia Hardstark?

  When have we ever followed through with the plans that we make? How many books have we started in our book club?

• 10:59Karen Kilgariff?

  How many, the last one, when you're like, here, here's a book on burnout. And I'm like, I'm gonna read it and get back to you. What am I talking about?

• 11:07Georgia Hardstark?

  You left it in the hotel room.

• 11:10Karen Kilgariff?

  I have it, it's right by my bed.

• 11:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, good.

• 11:12Karen Kilgariff?

  But, you know, I have to keep rewatching What We Do in the Shadows for some reason. That's, it's my serious problem. I began talking like Nandor around the house. So I'm like, this is crazy.

• 11:22Georgia Hardstark?

  It's such a good show.

• 11:23Karen Kilgariff?

  It's delightful.

• 11:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Speaking of delightful, we have a podcast network. Should we do some updates?

• 11:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Very true. Yes, we should.

• 11:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Our podcast network's called Exactly Right Media.

• 11:32Karen Kilgariff?

  And this week on Dear Movies, I Love You, our movie podcast, Millie and Casey revisit the post-apocalyptic 90s romp Tank Girl. Saw it in the theater.

• 11:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 11:41Karen Kilgariff?

  That was the year, I think, I moved to LA.

• 11:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god.

• 11:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Plus, Kara Clank joins them to talk about her area of expertise, later in life, romances.

• 11:51Georgia Hardstark?

  That's not her expertise.

• 11:53Karen Kilgariff?

  I wonder if she, did she meet her husband later in life?

• 11:56Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 11:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Must be other people's.

• 11:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Can I just say, she and I just recently polished up two bottles of rosé. That's she's she's a fucking expert at that. I'll tell you that right now.

• 12:05Karen Kilgariff?

  That's what she's great at.

• 12:06Georgia Hardstark?

  She is. Um, and then over on Ghosted, Roz is joined by Mark Sebastian of the hit series Great American Gay Side Quest.

• 12:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Have you seen that?

• 12:14Georgia Hardstark?

  No, it's so good.

• 12:15Karen Kilgariff?

  So great. He's just like standing in front of stuff and he's like, well, I'm here. Like, it's hilarious.

• 12:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, I love it. And they have a spooky download. They get into his on camera ghost sighting at the Stanley Hotel and his haunted childhood home.

• 12:29Karen Kilgariff?

  The Stanley Hotel thing happened. It's part of the

• 12:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 12:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Side quest series.

• 12:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, Great American Gay Side Quest, we're all gonna go watch it.

• 12:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, please go listen to our newest podcast, Hollywood Land, the sister podcast of Disgraced Land from Jake Brennan. And this week, he tells the story of the scariest one of all, Charlie Sheen.

• 12:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yikes.

• 12:47Karen Kilgariff?

  From tiger blood to machetes to career wrecking levels of success, this episode is on cocaine.

• 12:53Georgia Hardstark?

  And then finally, on Trust Me, You Know Her as Gnomes from the Netflix docu-series Trust Me, The False Prophet, Gnomzia Bissline joins Lola and Megan for a compelling two-part interview. This is so good. And for the first time, you can watch the full episode on YouTube. So go to youtube.com/ExactlyRightMedia to find episodes of all of your favorite Exactly Right shows, except for My Favorite Murder and Buried Bones, because that's on Netflix.

• 13:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Because we're right here on Netflix.

• 13:19Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 13:21Georgia Hardstark?

  October is the month when being scared is supposed to be fun.

• 13:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Terrified in a haunted house? Sure. Your actual house? Absolutely not.

• 13:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Feel safe in your home with SimpliSafe.

• 13:30Karen Kilgariff?

  SimpliSafe is designed to help stop intruders before they get inside.

• 13:34Georgia Hardstark?

  I recently got an alert from my camera outside that there is like someone prowling around late at night. And of course, I got freaked out. I opened my camera and it was a big spider dangling in front of the camera. Which was terrifying in itself, but such a relief. And I love that I know that it works. You know what I mean? Like, it's so much better a spider than an actual person, but I'll be prepared.

• 13:57Karen Kilgariff?

  All the answers are on your phone. You don't have to worry and sit there and wring your hands.

• 14:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Join the more than 6 million people who entrust SimpliSafe with their home security.

• 14:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Right now, save 60% off with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/fave.

• 14:11Georgia Hardstark?

  That's simplisafe.com/fav.

• 14:13Karen Kilgariff?

  And when you order, please write in My Favorite Murder in the checkout survey. It lets them know that we sent you and it really helps support the show.

• 14:19Georgia Hardstark?

  SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time.

• 14:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 14:25Karen Kilgariff?

  All right.

• 14:26Georgia Hardstark?

  All right, you're first.

• 14:27Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm first.

• 14:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Great.

• 14:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, did you know that May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month?

• 14:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 14:34Karen Kilgariff?

  It is, every May. And because of that, I'm going to tell you a story that begins in August of 1912 in Portland, Oregon, with the birth of a baby girl named Hazel. Her parents immigrated to the US from China. They met each other over here, they get married, they start a family. And baby Hazel is one of eight children.

• 14:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 14:56Karen Kilgariff?

  They do it Irish Catholic style.

• 14:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 14:59Karen Kilgariff?

  But of course, this is an era of rampant anti-immigrant racism. And the anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States is looming very large, to the point where it's actually codified in our laws, with legislation like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which specifically restricts immigration from China for 10 years. That law is renewed again in 1892, and it's made permanent in 1902. It is not repealed until the 1940s.

• 15:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey, build all our infrastructure and risk your life to build a fucking railroad and the infrastructure, but you're not allowed here.

• 15:35Karen Kilgariff?

  It's as if you're psychically reading the next paragraph.

• 15:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Really?

• 15:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, because when I read that, I was like, that's so weird. It sounds like it's right around the same time that the Chinese built the railroad. And, literally, I looked it up. And the first transcontinental railroad crossing of America is finished, May 10th, 1869, when the Union Pacific side is connected with the Central Pacific Railroad. So basically, the Central Pacific Railroad side alone, from 1863 to 1869, its completion, their employees were over 90% workmen that were Chinese immigrants. They risked their lives daily, handling explosives and mining and like blowing through rock, completing grueling labor for sometimes half the pay of their white counterparts.

• 16:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Did you see that movie that came out recently? It was nominated for things. And it was really good.

• 16:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Train Dreams?

• 16:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Train Dreams. Thank you, Molly. Train Dreams. Did you see it?

• 16:32Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 16:32Georgia Hardstark?

  It was so, like, low-profile. I barely had heard about it.

• 16:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Was it about making?

• 16:37Georgia Hardstark?

  It's about this guy who works on the railroads, and there are characters in it that represent the Chinese people who helped build it.

• 16:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Who kind of were the majority builders, at least on that one side.

• 16:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. It's a really beautiful movie that doesn't shy away from the horrors.

• 16:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. That'll be my double feature for the weekend.

• 16:56Georgia Hardstark?

  There you go.

• 16:57Karen Kilgariff?

  But the irony that then 20 years later, they're passing laws that you can't come into this country at all.

• 17:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Insane. And a recurring theme of this country, so...

• 17:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely.

• 17:07Karen Kilgariff?

  That's just a little context and setting the backdrop as we talk about little Hazel Ying Li growing up in America. She will be remembered as a witty and daring young girl, and when she gets older, her peers will describe her as a, quote, "bubbly optimist with a mischievous streak and a taste for fried chicken."

• 17:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Same.

• 17:25Karen Kilgariff?

  But Hazel Ying Li...

• 17:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 17:30Karen Kilgariff?

  We've been doing this for a decade. But Hazel Ying Li will become known for much more than any of that because she will make history as the first Chinese-American woman to get her pilot's license and fly for the US military.

• 17:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 17:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Today, I'm telling you about the story of Hazel Ying Li. The sources used today are 2003 Associated Press article by Gillian Flakis, a 2025 PPS Oregon Experience documentary entitled Hazel Ying Li, and related to an Oregon Public Broadcasting article written by Emily Hamilton. And the rest, I'm not going to tell you the titles of those because they give things away.

• 18:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 18:09Karen Kilgariff?

  But the rest are in our show notes. So, it is now 1932, and in Hazel's hometown of Portland, Oregon, aviation is actually a big deal. There's multiple airports around the city, like, in and around the city, that regularly host airshows. It's actually, aviation's so big that the Oregonian newspaper has a dedicated aviation editor.

• 18:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 18:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And it's basically the time of Amelia Earhart and, like, that discovery then kind of expanding out into who else could fly.

• 18:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Karen Kilgariff?

  All those things. So Hazel is 20 years old when she goes to an airshow with her friends. And there she gets a chance to ride in an airplane for the very first time. Can you imagine? Right? And that's when she gets hooked. Wow. This is the year after Amelia Earhart and some of her constituents or cohort form in an international organization for female pilots called the 99s. And it's 10 years after Bessie Coleman becomes the first black woman and the first native person to get a pilot's license. Those are episode 474 and episode 312, respectively. So being a lady pilot is not inconceivable for Hazel, but even with a tangible path

• 19:20Karen Kilgariff?

  to follow, there are serious barriers to entry, of course, money being the biggest one. And Hazel being the daughter of hardworking immigrant parents with eight children, flying lessons are way down at the bottom of anybody's must do list. Yeah. Mommy, I want to fly. That's nice. And then her sister was like, and I want polo lessons. Let's get this American dream going. And yet she still was able to finally do it. Wow. Which is pretty amazing. I couldn't get my dad to drive us to the roller rink on Saturday. As him being a first generation American, that was impossible for him. There aren't many employment options at this time for Hazel either. Her sister Frances will later explain, quote, "Either you'd be a stock girl, an elevator

• 20:03Karen Kilgariff?

  operator, or you might work in the theater's restroom in a costume." Wow. It was very difficult for an Asian person to find a job. So Hazel becomes an elevator operator at a downtown Portland department store, and she saves up her money to pay for private flying lessons. Wow. So she basically, that's what she uses all her money for. Yeah. Around the same time, Hazel's father passes away. Her bereaved mother doesn't like the idea of her child flying in planes, but as Frances later says, quote, "There was nothing mother could do. She said to Hazel, you're not afraid of the wind, you're not afraid of the water, and that was that." Wow. Their mom kind of couldn't deny Yeah. that Hazel was this daring.

• 20:46Karen Kilgariff?

  I kept thinking of Ramona Quimby because she's also from that area. Yeah. But like that idea that's this little girl that's just totally unafraid, a big adventurer, like wants to do that stuff. And it's like, well, There's kind of nothing I can do about this.

• 20:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 21:00Karen Kilgariff?

  So in late 1932, when she's just shy of 20 years old, Hazel finally gets her pilot's license and she is the first Chinese-American woman ever to earn one.

• 21:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 21:10Karen Kilgariff?

  A very cool picture of her.

• 21:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God. What a cutie pie.

• 21:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 21:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Look at her. She looks so happy.

• 21:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, she's just like, check this out.

• 21:20Karen Kilgariff?

  That is just like the coolest photo.

• 21:22Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so good. And listeners, she's leaning on the wing of a biplane.

• 21:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 21:26Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's the most old-fashioned looking plane of all time. And then she's got this amazing, like, the director's jodhpurs.

• 21:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 21:33Karen Kilgariff?

  And a great flying hat and...

• 21:35Karen Kilgariff?

  The goggles on her head and a fucking cig.

• 21:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Self-rolled cigarette. And a self-rolled cigarette in her left hand.

• 21:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Couldn't look cooler.

• 21:41Karen Kilgariff?

  She looks so happy.

• 21:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 21:43Karen Kilgariff?

  But there is political tension in the world and in China at this time, and Hazel cares about it deeply. So the year before she gets her license, before this all happens, Japan invades Manchuria, igniting the brutal Second Sino-Japanese War. 20 million Chinese people die in this conflict over the next several years, and Hazel cannot sit by and watch on the sidelines. Like many other Chinese-American pilots, the vast majority of whom are male, Hazel travels to Canton, China, and tries to volunteer with the Chinese Air Force.

• 22:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 22:17Karen Kilgariff?

  But because she's a woman, she is repeatedly turned away. So she takes administrative jobs until she actually is forced to flee to Hong Kong as Japan escalates the brutal air campaign. And she basically is forced to return to America, but she still wants to find ways to serve. And that opportunity will come just a few years later, when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. So as the US enters World War II and the fighting intensifies overseas, there's an increasing shortage of military pilots, all of whom are men. And that's a serious problem because the war effort requires noncombat pilots for transport and you never think about stuff like this. Yeah. How do they get supplies over there? Totally.

• 23:00Karen Kilgariff?

  There was a big thing of ferrying damaged aircraft for repairs. They had to get the aircraft out and fix it and then get it back. And even just moving people, even moving soldiers from place to place. Yep. Requires a noncombat pilot. Right, or newly manufactured bombers, like basically the planes get flown out by these people. Right. And they use them for training, for maintenance, all of it. So to deal with the pilot shortage, the military finally opens those roles to female civilian pilots and when they do, 25,000 women apply. Holy shit. To join the volunteer program known as Women Air Force Service Pilots, AKA the WASPs. So even though thousands of women apply, only a little over 1,800 women are accepted into this program.

• 23:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow. And what they have to do is they go for six months at a Texas airfield in the relentless heat of a Texas summer. Hazel and her peers are put through the same basic training that male pilots complete on top of classes in navigating, aviation mechanics, physics, and meteorology, sometimes in upwards of 115 degree heat. No. Yeah, because it's summertime in Texas. Uh-uh. It's brutally challenging and in the end, over 750 of the trainees drop out or are cut. Hazel Ying Lee makes it through and becomes one of the few female flyers now authorized to fly the world's most powerful military aircraft. So she makes it in. Jesus. But when we talk about the WASPs, what you say is that they fly with the military,

• 24:30Karen Kilgariff?

  not for the military. Because again, they're not technically enlisted, they're civilian volunteers. But other than that small detail, they're virtually indistinguishable from their military counterparts. They're subject to all the same rules, they have to wear the same uniforms, literally. The WASP units had to use flight suits that were made for men. So most of them were ridiculously oversized and the women referred to them as their zoot suits. So here's- Oh my god, give me a picture. Maybe not the zoot suits. Well, that's Hazel when she became a Wasp. Cutie. That's her portrait. Oh, she actually has a pin that says wasp on it. Yeah. I love it. Then the other one is her and- Ah. So those are their 40s military uniforms that they had to wear. Oh my god, they're all so cute. Look at their hairs.

• 25:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Hanging out, waiting to fly. Just let us fly. Oh, can you imagine? The time of their lives. Okay. So Hazel becomes a beloved member of this group. She's known for her charm and her personality. A fellow pilot says she was, quote, "in our room more than she was in hers. She would come bouncing in, laughing with the latest information or joke. She was always very jolly." Oh my god, how fun. When they have downtime, and so they have to travel like around the United States, flying these planes around. So she ends up taking her fellow pilots to local Chinese restaurants. And it's described years later by the Associated Press, with Hazel wowing her peers by ordering in, quote, "rapid-fire Cantonese." So she goes in and just is like, "We're gonna get this, this, and this." Oh my god. It's gonna be amazing.

• 26:00Karen Kilgariff?

  That sounds so cool. But of course, these moments are few and far between, because the Wasps are constantly on assignment, often flying seven days a week with no rest. And over the next year, Hazel and the other Wasps will deliver more than 12,500 aircrafts to 122 bases all across the country. They also tow the shooting targets for artillery training. Hmm. A dangerous job that, so basically, it's like something is flying up there and it's like they're towing like a flag or something that they have to hit with machine guns. No, it's like putting an apple on your head and someone has to shoot it off. No, thank you. Let the gals go do it. The Wasps will go do it. Oh my god. They also help carry out mission simulations.

• 26:43Karen Kilgariff?

  And a huge part of the job is transporting war-battered airplanes, some without working navigation systems, back to bases to be repaired. Wow. So they end up learning to guide themselves by spotting landmarks on the ground. Wow. They have to be their own GPS. Yeah. Because most of the job is flying damaged planes from bases to mechanics. Engine and system failures are- So dangerous. It's so fucking dangerous. And that's a reality they just have to constantly deal with. So there's a story- Where one time Hazel is transporting a plane, it goes down over a Kansas cornfield. And she is able to like, there's emergency landing. She survives it. But then the farmer whose property she lands on thinks that she is a Japanese enemy.

• 27:28Karen Kilgariff?

  And he chases her down with a pitchfork and traps her. And basically, they hold her hostage until his son can call the local army base and prove that she actually is an American.

• 27:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Holy shit.

• 27:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm hmm. Which you know, when she got back to the base, she like got drunk and told everyone that story. Hilarious. I mean, sorry, I'm editorializing on this person, but it's just like, you get that vibe from her where she's like, I got this.

• 27:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 27:51Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm sure she was just like, sorry, I, first of all, I'm Chinese. Just for starters, just for starters. So after all that, Hazel and the other WASPs, of course, receive little recognition for their bravery and dedication to the war effort. Actually, they're treated with outright hostility by the male military personnel on the bases that they end up having to work at. Being a pilot in World War II, of course, is seen as this very serious badge of honor. So many of the men have a real problem seeing women in the cockpit. I think we have a picture of Hazel in the cockpit working with somebody that just like...

• 28:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, wow.

• 28:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh huh.

• 28:27Karen Kilgariff?

  That is so badass.

• 28:28Karen Kilgariff?

  He seems nice. Yes. But look at the look on her face. She's just like, yeah, I know. I know how to...

• 28:34Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm a pilot too, sir.

• 28:35Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm a pilot too, sir. So their grit and bravery and sacrifice are just, of course, dismissed outright. Even though dozens of WASPs make the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. Over the length of the WASP program, 37 female pilots die serving in the United States.

• 28:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Holy shit, that's a lot, especially because it's not on the battlefield or what would you call it, in the war thing?

• 28:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, but they're doing all this dangerous stuff. And they're flying like broken planes.

• 29:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Hazel Ying Lee is one of those people.

• 29:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no.

• 29:07Karen Kilgariff?

  In late November 1944, she has to deliver an aircraft from Niagara Falls, New York, to Great Falls, Montana. And as she approaches Great Falls, a radio dispatch comes through, warning her that the airstrip is busy and she has to delay her landing. She pulls her plane upwards, not knowing there's another plane directly above her. That pilot was sent the same message, but his radio was broken. He does not change course. So she flies thinking that everyone's flying the same way. Because they all...

• 29:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 29:37Karen Kilgariff?

  The two planes collide in a fiery crash. Somehow Hazel actually survives this crash, but she dies later at the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. She's just 32 years old.

• 29:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God.

• 29:49Karen Kilgariff?

  And sadly and horribly, her younger brother Victor, who was serving in the war in France, dies in combat the same week.

• 29:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God.

• 29:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Hazel is not given a military funeral. The government doesn't even pay to transport her body back home to Oregon or cover any of the funeral expenses. And when Hazel's loved ones try to secure a specific burial plot for her that looks out over the Willamette River, they're told that Hazel cannot be buried there because she's not white. Of course, her family's irate. They file suit against the cemetery. And the details are fuzzy on the step by step of it. What we know for sure now is that Hazel today is buried at this site and she is buried next to her brother.

• 30:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 30:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So it takes a very long time for the Women Air Force Service Pilots to receive any recognition at all for their service. But as the years pass, after the war, interest and admiration in the group grows. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter finally gives the WASP military benefits and veteran status. And much later, in 2009, President Barack Obama awards the surviving WASPs the Congressional Gold Medal.

• 30:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 30:59Karen Kilgariff?

  At the signing ceremony, he says, quote, "The Women Air Force Service Pilots courageously answered their country's call in a time of need while blazing a trail for the brave women who have given and continue to give so much service to this nation since." Every American should be grateful for their service, and I'm honored to sign this bill to finally give them some of the hard-earned recognition they deserve.

• 31:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Miss him.

• 31:20Karen Kilgariff?

  End quote. I mean, remember presidents?

• 31:23Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 31:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Hazel Ying Li's legacy now looms large, reflected in recent museum exhibits, books, documentaries. And in March of 2025, composer Derek Wang debuts an opera that he wrote about Hazel's life entitled Fearless.

• 31:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 31:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Her memory lives on with those who knew her and who loved her, with a fellow WASP telling the Associated Press that, quote, "I'm sure she would be some kind of leader now. We enjoyed her so very much."

• 31:52Georgia Hardstark?

  She would have been such a cool grandma. Grandma, what did you do during the war? I flew, I smoked fucking Rollies.

• 31:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Smoking some Rollies. I wore great outfits.

• 32:01Georgia Hardstark?

  And I fucking flew planes. Oh.

• 32:03Karen Kilgariff?

  And I was scared of nothing. Hazel's sister Frances has spoken publicly about her sister many, many times over the years. And in a PBS Oregon documentary, she says that her sister Hazel was destined for greatness. It was in her name because her Chinese name Ying means heroic. And that's the story of trailblazing pilot Hazel Ying Li.

• 32:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 32:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Right?

• 32:27Georgia Hardstark?

  That was incredible.

• 32:28Karen Kilgariff?

  We never, I've never heard of her.

• 32:30Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 32:30Karen Kilgariff?

  I've heard of the WASPs like a little bit, but not in detail of like, these are women volunteering and giving everything. And there's people being like, thanks, go home.

• 32:40Georgia Hardstark?

  It's historical. That was incredible. October is the month when being scared is supposed to be fun.

• 32:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Terrified in a haunted house? Sure. Your actual house? Absolutely not.

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• 33:19Karen Kilgariff?

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• 33:24Georgia Hardstark?

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• 33:27Karen Kilgariff?

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• 33:33Georgia Hardstark?

  That's simplisafe.com/fav.

• 33:35Karen Kilgariff?

  And when you order, please write in "my favorite murder" in the checkout survey. It lets them know that we sent you and it really helps support the show.

• 33:41Georgia Hardstark?

  SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time. Goodbye.

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• 35:07Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm gonna go in a different direction.

• 35:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, that's pretty common.

• 35:10Georgia Hardstark?

  But you're gonna like this one.

• 35:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Great.

• 35:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Because it's a heist story.

• 35:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Ah, love it.

• 35:16Georgia Hardstark?

  We love a good heist story.

• 35:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Love a heist.

• 35:18Georgia Hardstark?

  So, did you know that LA used to be the bank robbery capital of the world?

• 35:22Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I would think it would be Fort Knox or somewhere like that.

• 35:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, maybe it is now, but it used to be LA. So congratulations to us.

• 35:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Was it like the downtown era when everything was down there?

• 35:34Georgia Hardstark?

  That's where we're at today. Yeah, reading my mind. So it's just past midnight on Saturday, September 12th, 1997. And we are at the nondescript warehouse of the Dunbar Armored Depot. And do you know Dunbar trucks? It's like the Brink's truck.

• 35:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 35:55Georgia Hardstark?

  It's another one of those brands of moving lots and lots of cash around in an armored truck.

• 36:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 36:01Georgia Hardstark?

  And so the Dunbar Armored Depot is in downtown Los Angeles, in kind of the warehouse area, not much going on around there. And that's where Dunbar's armored trucks are loaded and unloaded as an intermediate stop between wherever the cash is coming from and wherever it's going. So like, you know, where they take the cash and then put it into the ATMs. It stops there in between, gets counted, gets...

• 36:25Karen Kilgariff?

  I could be wrong, but I think I've seen a terrible Guy Ritchie movie about this place.

• 36:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Really?

• 36:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 36:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 36:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Instead of robbing a bank or robbing a Brink's truck, we're gonna go into where they have the money.

• 36:35Georgia Hardstark?

  This is exactly what the plan is here.

• 36:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 36:37Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's Friday night, and Friday nights into Saturday morning are one of the busiest shifts because it's where the most cash is being moved in and out of the vault, you know, for the weekends to go to those ATMs. In fact, it's so busy that the staff just keeps the vault door open this time, instead of opening and closing it, just to kind of bring all the money in, like they're bringing so much in, that that extra step of opening and closing the door isn't gonna work for them. Yeah.

• 37:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Whose suggestion was that?

• 37:05Georgia Hardstark?

  And even though we're talking about more cash being handled than a bank would have, over a hundred million dollars.

• 37:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my god.

• 37:12Georgia Hardstark?

  There's also less security than in a bank. And in fact, the shift has the fewest number of security guards scheduled to work, even though it's the most amount of money. It's not great common sense.

• 37:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Who plans that out, logistically?

• 37:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. And I guess it makes sense because it's like, well, of course, a bank would have more security because people off the street can come in. It's not like this warehouse where only employees could go in. But still, it's so much fucking money.

• 37:36Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just money, money.

• 37:38Georgia Hardstark?

  But there is one security guard working, and he's in the lunchroom, taking his lunch break, but the CCTV monitors are in there as well, so he's keeping an eye on what's going on. He sees no sign of anyone trying to enter the facility, so he's taken completely off guard when five men, dressed in all black, wearing ski masks, burst into the lunchroom with guns drawn. This is the story of what was, until very recently, the largest cash robbery in US history, one that the perpetrators very nearly got away with if it weren't for some very rookie mistakes. This is the Dunbar Armored Depot heist.

• 38:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Hell, yes.

• 38:17Georgia Hardstark?

  The main source for this story is an episode of the show History's Greatest Heist, hosted by Pierce Brosnan. It's cute. And a 2020 Medium article by Alyssa Kelly Rose. And the other sources can be found in our show notes. So the heist starts and ends with a Dunbar employee named Alan Pace. He's 27 years old, from a middle-class family in Compton. He has no criminal record. He actually works at the depot as a security specialist, and that's what his career has been up to then, is like various security jobs. He has idly toyed with the idea of how he might rob the facility, but not with any seriousness, and it's kind of his job to know how someone would rob the facility, so it's not that weird.

• 39:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, don't you think about that every time you see, like, a Brink's truck?

• 39:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Of course.

• 39:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Where you're just kind of like, why are they just standing outside?

• 39:06Georgia Hardstark?

  If I did this and that, yeah, exactly. And he's an affable guy. He's a jokester. Everyone seems to love him. And at some point, he starts dating a coworker who's also on the security staff, a woman named Tamiko Karns. And while they're both in security, Alan's job revolves around inspecting the trucks while Tamiko's is monitoring the video security system. And no one really knows how seriously Alan and Tamiko discussed the idea of perpetrating this robbery. But what we do know is that in July of 1997, Tamiko gets fired under suspicion of theft. She's seen on a security camera placing a money bag in a known camera blind spot. It's all allegedly, it's totally not clear if she actually was going to steal anything

• 39:50Georgia Hardstark?

  or if she had any plans to, or even knew about this heist at all. And she was never brought to trial or anything like that, so just want to make that clear. But what does happen is she gets fired for this security breach, whether it's on purpose or not. And this is what kind of sends Alan Pace into a tailspin with the idea of like, fuck this place.

• 40:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 40:12Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm gonna actually see if I can do a heist. So in August of 1997, Alan starts by recruiting friends. None of them have ever robbed any kind of security facility before. None of them even have criminal records. They're all like nice boys who go to church and come from nice respectable families. They're all just Alan's buddies. The first one he calls is a childhood friend named Eugene Hill and another one named Freddie McCreary Jr. So Eugene Hill, Freddie, and Alan have all known each other since they were around 10 years old. So Alan is like, these are guys I can absolutely trust and they won't tell anyone. And Freddie also works as a security guard, so he has relevant experience.

• 40:54Georgia Hardstark?

  And then Alan also recruits a man named Terry Brown, also a security guard. So Alan, Freddie, and Terry have all worked together on private security jobs at like events and nightclubs. They've done some bouncer work, that sort of thing. So one day after church, the group gather around in the parking lot and start drawing out a plan in chalk on the pavement. And Alan is showing them all the, how the facility works, kind of the layout of the whole place, noting where each camera is and where the team will have to walk in order to not show up on those monitors. So there is like a, you know, you're like up against the wall, like super. Burglar style. You know, like the spotlight goes in front and then you run, run, run, run, run to the next one. Yeah, exactly.

• 41:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Like that.

• 41:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. And it seems like they do it in broad daylight in the church parking lot and the other parishioners like, don't suspect anything. These are good boys.

• 41:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Not a church.

• 41:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And so later he recruits an additional man named Tommy Johnson. So next, while Alan is at work, he starts taking Polaroids around the facility of every room and every camera. But he's a security guard, so it doesn't seem weird. It's almost like, it seems like he's just.

• 42:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Doing research.

• 42:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Takes photos of his like coworkers who are just like, hey.

• 42:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 42:07Georgia Hardstark?

  I love Alan.

• 42:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Just capturing like where the camera.

• 42:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 42:10Karen Kilgariff?

  I love Alan.

• 42:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 42:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Alan, you're so crazy.

• 42:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Nobody like suspects Alan. He's Alan. And he uses these Polaroids to create a detailed floor plan with visual references. So the rest of the group will know exactly where they're going. So there are 25 cameras, but only around six monitors. So they kind of just like bop in and out of like whatever camera is on.

• 42:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:29Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I mean?

• 42:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure.

• 42:31Georgia Hardstark?

  So he shows his crew everything. He instructs them on how to travel so that they never show up in the feeds that are on the monitor at the moment. It's kind of a lot of choreography and it takes some time. So the plan is to keep practicing this choreography until September. That's when they're gonna do the heist. So Alan's original plan is to not participate in the heist at all, since he works there.

• 42:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Smart.

• 42:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Mm hmm. He gives them such detailed information and they have such a long time that they should be able to do on their own without him even being there. He goes to bed, he wakes up the next morning and goes to work and he's just as shocked as everyone else that the place got burgled.

• 43:08Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's plausible deniability.

• 43:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 43:10Karen Kilgariff?

  He's kind of building anything where it's like, he doesn't have to worry about seeming guilty.

• 43:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 43:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 43:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. So he's basically, the plan is for him to give them the key, because he has the keys to the place, because he's a security guard there.

• 43:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 43:22Georgia Hardstark?

  And then they go and do it. So that is a great plan until early September, when Alan gets fired.

• 43:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 43:31Georgia Hardstark?

  He gets a call saying he's been fired because he's suspected of tampering with trucks and that he'll need to come back in and hand in his key. And so Alan decides it's now or never. We gotta do this earlier than we planned, but. I have to get rid of my key, so we have to do this. And also, he's like, I'll come along with you guys now since we haven't had as much time as we need, and I know the layout so well.

• 43:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I just got to say, first of all, do you think at a place like that, they do, they replace the locks every time they fire somebody? I bet they don't.

• 43:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Probably not, because you could just get a copy, right?

• 44:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Isn't that the thing in the other heist movies? Where they shove it into some clay or whatever?

• 44:06Georgia Hardstark?

  There's all those keys that say, like, do not copy. I've gotten so many of those copied.

• 44:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, I mean, no one gives a single shit.

• 44:14Georgia Hardstark?

  No one gives a shit?

• 44:15Karen Kilgariff?

  What is this, for the landlord?

• 44:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 44:17Karen Kilgariff?

  But I feel like for a place like that, it would be interesting just to know, because this is pre-tech anything. This is like, everybody's on their honor. And then when you're firing people and they're like, yeah, well, fuck you.

• 44:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. Like, there's not like the badges that you have to like sign in and out with. It's just a key.

• 44:33Karen Kilgariff?

  A key.

• 44:33Georgia Hardstark?

  That like, yeah.

• 44:34Karen Kilgariff?

  For hundreds of millions of dollars.

• 44:36Georgia Hardstark?

  So much money. So he also then recruits one more person, his brother-in-law, named Eric Boyd. So on the night of Friday, September 12th, they're like, it has to be tonight. The group splits up into two vehicles. Some ride in Eugene Hill's car and some ride in a U-Haul that they had rented earlier in the day. They don't go straight to the depot. Here's what they do. There is a friend having a house party in Long Beach. So they go to the house party and they're like, what's up, everyone? It's us.

• 45:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 45:08Georgia Hardstark?

  You're our alibi.

• 45:10Karen Kilgariff?

  We're here at the house party.

• 45:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. And then around 11:45, they all like tiptoe Irish goodbye.

• 45:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 45:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Get into the car and to the U-Haul and drive to the depot.

• 45:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Right, as everyone's getting a little slurry?

• 45:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 45:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 45:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. And so they get to downtown LA, they park on a nearby street, and then they drive the U-Haul up to the depot. Everyone changes into all black clothing and puts on those ski masks. And then Eric, the brother-in-law, stays behind with the U-Haul. So.

• 45:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Would you, sorry, for your heist?

• 45:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 45:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Would you be the driver? Would you be?

• 45:45Georgia Hardstark?

  I'd be the getaway driver.

• 45:45Karen Kilgariff?

  You'd be the getaway driver, huh?

• 45:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 45:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 45:48Georgia Hardstark?

  What do you think? What would you be?

• 45:49Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm too bossy. I had to be in charge.

• 45:51Georgia Hardstark?

  You'd be in charge?

• 45:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I can't let other people fuck my heist up.

• 45:55Georgia Hardstark?

  I would trust you to be in charge.

• 45:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 45:57Georgia Hardstark?

  And I would definitely be like, no one is the driver but me.

• 46:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, I'd entirely.

• 46:02Georgia Hardstark?

  I would not trust a fucking person to be the driver but me.

• 46:04Karen Kilgariff?

  No way. But I also would absolutely know you would get us out of there.

• 46:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god. Absolutely.

• 46:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Especially downtown LA.

• 46:10Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm baby driver. That's my nickname.

• 46:13Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 46:14Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm a driver influencer. I'm a getaway driver influencer.

• 46:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Here's how to run a red light in three fun steps.

• 46:19Georgia Hardstark?

  And then Vince can count the money because he can't have money facing the wrong way.

• 46:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, he bank faces everything?

• 46:25Georgia Hardstark?

  He's so obsessed about that. So I would trust him to count exactly how much money there is.

• 46:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 46:31Georgia Hardstark?

  And like be in charge of the money and how much and getting everyone the right amount of money.

• 46:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's right. He's the banker.

• 46:36Georgia Hardstark?

  So the three of us.

• 46:37Karen Kilgariff?

  We've done it.

• 46:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Whoops. Let's do it. We just gave it away.

• 46:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Whoops.

• 46:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Cut that out. So in the parking lot, they sneak up to the front door and the security camera's blind spot, and they use the key to open the door. They sneak through the depot's maze of corridors, you know, doing the thing we said, up against the wall and...

• 46:56Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm sorry, but the idea that they have continual blind spots, like they're firing people for going into the blind spots.

• 47:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 47:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Not fixing the blind spots. It's like the money's still there. The issue still remains.

• 47:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely.

• 47:07Karen Kilgariff?

  My heist would work.

• 47:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, so.

• 47:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Up against the wall.

• 47:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Up against the wall.

• 47:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Striped shirt.

• 47:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Tiptoe.

• 47:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Mask across your eyes. Big tips, tippy toes.

• 47:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Their first destination is the lunchroom because they've timed everything around the security guard's lunch break. This poor fucking guy just wanted to eat a sandwich.

• 47:25Karen Kilgariff?

  He's like, I microwaved this old TV dinner.

• 47:28Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right, this fish dinner that you... And they know where he'll be exactly at midnight. So they strike, they subdue the security guard immediately, they get him on the ground, duct tape his wrists together, take any of his weapons. They also bring weapons, but they are very clear on nobody gets hurt. You know, you can't control that always, but that's their plan. They then take his key to the vault prep room. Alan checks the security monitors and verifies that there are only three people that he's expecting to see working in the vault room, those people he took fucking Polaroids of. But as they proceed down the hallway, a driver, one of the truck drivers, who's basically a trained security guard, emerges from the vault prep room. That's a surprise, but the driver's unarmed, and so the group gets him on the ground,

• 48:12Georgia Hardstark?

  and they duct tape his wrists together. And so one member of the group stays behind to watch the guards. And then in the vault prep room, there is one dispatcher and two bookkeepers counting the money, doing the bins. Exactly. The group goes for the dispatcher first because he has a panic button under his desk. So they do the rest of the employees. There is one female employee who's at the depot and is understandably terrified, but also I think she gets her shoulder hurt when they wrestle her to the ground. And so she starts crying, and she hears one of the thieves, one of the masked men, say, "Don't worry, baby," like calming her down. And she's like, "I feel like I know that voice."

• 48:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, "He, 'Don't worry, baby.'"

• 48:55Karen Kilgariff?

  He's just trying to be nice. "Don't worry, baby. We're only gonna rob you a little bit more."

• 49:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. So Alan then radios Eric, who's me, back in the U-Haul. He backs the U-Haul into the loading dock, and Alan starts to pick out what packages of cash the group is going to take from the vault. He knows to skip the crisp new bills that, because they're in sequential order and they're more traceable. And these are big shrink-wrapped blocks of cash.

• 49:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 49:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Like giant blocks.

• 49:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 49:26Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, like we're in Super Mario Brothers, like hitting our heads on the top. And so they're shrink-wrapped, they throw them into trash bags, and then throw them into wheel bins, and then stuff them all into the U-Haul. And the whole thing takes about only 30 minutes. And after 30 minutes, the U-Haul is so full of cash to the fucking tippy-top that the whole group isn't gonna be able to fit back inside.

• 49:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, they didn't plan that out.

• 49:49Georgia Hardstark?

  They sure didn't. They got greedy, didn't they?

• 49:53Georgia Hardstark?

  They remove all the security footage, including this secret security footage that, you know, they shouldn't have known about if they hadn't actually worked there. Then they smash a bunch of things around the office to try to make it look like a more random burglary, like they were looking for the key. You know what I mean? Yes. Like they do when they pull out the dresser drawers and stuff where it's like, make it look like a robbery. Yes, totally. I just keep thinking about the fact, though, that they didn't plan the ride home. Because also, you're downtown. So that's the thing, too. Okay, they're in and out about 30 minutes and then they're like, there's two guys who don't fit back into the truck. Their getaway car is like, you know, a few blocks away, but it's the middle of the night in downtown LA and it's two black men in fucking all black and masks. Yeah. Like, you're not...

• 50:38Georgia Hardstark?

  That's not safe. It's not safe for you to be out there. You're going to get immediately caught. So essentially what they do is there's other security guard who was having his lunch. His beloved pickup truck is in the parking lot and this security guard is so in love with this pickup truck that he had had one of the cameras trained on it at all times. So they take the keys to his truck, they get in his truck and they... Get filmed. Yeah. And it's a little mini movie about them stealing his truck. Essentially, yeah, but they, but they don't get caught from that, that way because they did take all the film. Oh. So it does work, but it also means that that security camera wasn't on the door where it was supposed to be. Oh. It was on his truck. Oh. He changed it.

• 51:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Because he's such a gearhead.

• 51:27Georgia Hardstark?

  So they all go back, they meet up back at Eugene's apartment, they change back into their regular clothes, and this is really smart, they go back to the party. Yes. Right? Yes. They don't just leave at midnight. Also, not just for their alibi, but just to party. Absolutely. Like, get back there, see what the third wave is about. Everyone is fucked up at this point. They're dancing, they're so fucked up. And they bring that U-Haul full of cash and park it right in front of the house just to be like, I am not letting this out of my sight. Yes. Yeah. And they're back within 90 minutes of leaving the party, so...

• 51:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 51:57Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't think anyone would have said anything.

• 51:59Karen Kilgariff?

  They're like, listen, we had to go rent a U-Haul really quick because we don't know. We might buy new cash this weekend.

• 52:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. Okay, so then afterwards, there's so much fucking cash and they didn't expect that, that they bring the U-Haul to a storage unit, they buy a storage unit and put most of the cash in there. They keep just a little bit of cash just to have, just to play with.

• 52:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure.

• 52:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Because they're really aware that the way to get caught is to start spending all that cash.

• 52:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Of course.

• 52:23Georgia Hardstark?

  So they're careful about it. When the cops arrive to the depot, they find in the parking lot, right outside the depot, a broken piece of taillight.

• 52:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 52:34Georgia Hardstark?

  So I wouldn't have done this, but when Eric pulled that U-Haul back and backed it up into the-

• 52:42Karen Kilgariff?

  He broke the taillight?

• 52:43Georgia Hardstark?

  He hit something and broke a taillight.

• 52:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Ah.

• 52:45Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. It's a rookie mistake.

• 52:47Karen Kilgariff?

  You would not have done that. But also, that's so strange. What are the odds where it's just kind of like-

• 52:52Georgia Hardstark?

  He's probably so nervous.

• 52:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, and stressed out.

• 52:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 52:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Ugh.

• 52:57Georgia Hardstark?

  And so that's the cops' first bit of evidence. And then they look at the lock that, you know, where they had actually used the key, but then afterwards, they had used a drill to kind of damage it to make it look like they got in without the key.

• 53:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 53:10Georgia Hardstark?

  But the cops are like, this is obviously just to cover up the fact that you had the key. It's probably an employee.

• 53:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 53:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, immediately.

• 53:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, it's at a fucking, the Brink's rival or whatever. It's an employee.

• 53:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 53:23Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the people who have to sit there and stare at it all day long.

• 53:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Like, how do they know exactly where the security stuff was to destroy it or to take it? It's not, not good. So it's not until a few days later that Dunbar officials are able to figure out how much cash is actually missing, how much was actually stolen. Do you want to guess how much was stolen?

• 53:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, I do want to.

• 53:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 53:41Karen Kilgariff?

  It's 1997, you said?

• 53:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And so until recently, it was the largest cash robbery in US history. So how much do you think?

• 53:48Karen Kilgariff?

  $59 million?

• 53:50Georgia Hardstark?

  See, I was gonna say to you, like, don't go overboard, because it's gonna sound better than-

• 53:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Hold on, give me a chance to go underboard. $30 million?

• 53:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, so it's-

• 53:59Karen Kilgariff?

  $2 million.

• 54:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Eighteen point nine million dollars.

• 54:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's not bad.

• 54:03Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a lot of fucking money.

• 54:05Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just their microwave dinner. They stole that off that guy and the truck.

• 54:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 54:09Karen Kilgariff?

  That's all they got.

• 54:09Georgia Hardstark?

  However, in today's money, that eighteen point nine million dollars.

• 54:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Is upwards of forty million dollars?

• 54:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Thirty eight point eight million dollars.

• 54:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 54:17Georgia Hardstark?

  So, yes.

• 54:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Very close.

• 54:18Georgia Hardstark?

  You were right all along.

• 54:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Turns out.

• 54:20Georgia Hardstark?

  So, that makes it the largest cash robbery in US history to date, and that record isn't broken until 2024.

• 54:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 54:27Georgia Hardstark?

  So, these guys, I think, almost like they overdid it and didn't realize it.

• 54:32Karen Kilgariff?

  They overdid it, and they also did it without the aid of modern technology.

• 54:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 54:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, they did it the real way. They earned it. They went to the party. They got the U-Haul.

• 54:42Georgia Hardstark?

  They planned it. They had chalk in a parking lot.

• 54:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Doing your plan in the church parking lot's genius.

• 54:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Yeah. And then also, like, only recruiting people that you know and trust, I think, is obviously

• 54:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 54:53Georgia Hardstark?

  a huge part of it, and that aren't criminals.

• 54:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 54:55Georgia Hardstark?

  They're like, this is going to be the one thing we do. It's going to set us up for the rest of our lives. Never again.

• 55:01Karen Kilgariff?

  It's every heist movie.

• 55:03Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a heist movie.

• 55:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Come back for just this one last one before you retire.

• 55:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. Exactly. So, it was eighteen point nine million at the time, and the police in Dunbar keep that number out of the press, worrying that copycats are going to be like, oh, that's how much money I can get from this easy-as-fuck heist?

• 55:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 55:19Georgia Hardstark?

  So, just tell the press that it was more than a million dollars that had been taken.

• 55:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 55:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is an understatement.

• 55:24Karen Kilgariff?

  They're like, oh, just that one warehouse under the overpass?

• 55:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 55:27Karen Kilgariff?

  I can go down there.

• 55:29Georgia Hardstark?

  October is the month when being scared is supposed to be fun.

• 55:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Terrified in a haunted house? Sure. Your actual house? Absolutely not.

• 55:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Feel safe in your home? With SimpliSafe.

• 55:38Karen Kilgariff?

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• 55:42Georgia Hardstark?

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• 56:05Karen Kilgariff?

  All the answers are on your phone. You don't have to worry and sit there and wring your hands.

• 56:09Georgia Hardstark?

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• 56:13Karen Kilgariff?

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• 56:18Georgia Hardstark?

  That's simplisafe.com/fav.

• 56:21Karen Kilgariff?

  And when you order, please write in "my favorite murder" in the checkout survey. It lets them know that we sent you and it really helps support the show.

• 56:27Georgia Hardstark?

  SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time. Goodbye.

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• 57:44Georgia Hardstark?

  So the police and the FBI have their two main clues, which is the fact that the robbers clearly used a key and that broken taillight. They're quickly able to tie that broken taillight piece back to a U-Haul truck. That's pretty fucking easy. And so Alan, this guy who got fired recently, is immediately a suspect. With that one employee also saying that she recognized his voice. I don't think she realized it was his voice until later. So he and every other employee who had quit or been fired recently, about 30 people, all are given polygraph tests. And Alan and his girlfriend, Tamiko, are the only two that fail.

• 58:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 58:25Georgia Hardstark?

  But there's really no solid evidence that can tie Alan to the crime. And so two years pass where he's like, I got away with this.

• 58:33Karen Kilgariff?

  But wouldn't you have an acid stomach the entire time?

• 58:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely, especially because you took a polygraph test. They're like on to you and you know that.

• 58:39Karen Kilgariff?

  You know, it didn't go well.

• 58:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Dunbar announces that they will have an award of $250,000 for anyone who gives them information leading to an arrest, which gives you a clue that it's more than around a million dollars.

• 58:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, exactly. You're just like, how much?

• 58:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 58:54Karen Kilgariff?

  We just want that back. We'll give you a quarter of what they stole.

• 58:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. But the group stays under the radar. No one spends a crazy amount of money. You know, they go to Vegas and use cash on those to help launder the money. But no one, you know, buys a pink Cadillac like in Goodfellas or does anything crazy. Like the Goodfellas Luptrawasa heist, which I covered in episode 454. They don't do that. They're smarter than that. They find instead a local immigration lawyer named David Matsumoto, who along with his assistant, agreed to be paid a million dollars each to help launder the money.

• 59:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 59:31Georgia Hardstark?

  So they just find a lawyer who's willing to.

• 59:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Very smart.

• 59:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And so they do that through real estate purchases and like kind of small purchases. And then also they open a small business called Extreme Entertainment so that they're able to take a salary from the business and make the money look legit. That on the surface, the business Extreme Entertainment, which sounds like

• 59:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Porn.

• 59:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Step Brothers. What was the Step Brothers one?

• 59:59Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't know. Prestige Worldwide.

• 1:00:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 1:00:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Prestige Worldwide.

• 1:00:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Molly had that at hand.

• 1:00:06Georgia Hardstark?

  She did.

• 1:00:06Karen Kilgariff?

  That was an Aristotle.

• 1:00:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, Aristotle.

• 1:00:09Karen Kilgariff?

  He came through on that one, yeah.

• 1:00:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Basically, what the company does on the surface is they rent party equipment, jet skis and limos. So they are like prestige worldwide. Extreme Entertainment, that's what they do. And that's how they launder the money. And it's also a front to pay the crew big salaries with the stolen money.

• 1:00:28Karen Kilgariff?

  And then it becomes a wonderfully successful business?

• 1:00:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 1:00:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Does it?

• 1:00:32Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know, but it seems like it.

• 1:00:33Karen Kilgariff?

  It seems like it would.

• 1:00:35Georgia Hardstark?

  It does seem like it would. On the surface, it seems like they're making a shit ton of money. And it's all legal money.

• 1:00:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Taxed and everything.

• 1:00:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, they're doing it right. Unlike the rice pudding store in New York.

• 1:00:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh huh.

• 1:00:46Karen Kilgariff?

  There was a rice pudding store that opened.

• 1:00:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Rice to riches. I fucking had.

• 1:00:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:00:51Georgia Hardstark?

  I have had rice pudding from those places before.

• 1:00:53Karen Kilgariff?

  And we did a field piece at Ellen. We're like, what? You can do, this is crazy. Cause we're just scraping the bottom of like, what can we do for a field piece? And then like two years later, it's like, this was a front for some mafia thing.

• 1:01:07Georgia Hardstark?

  I was actually really surprised by that because I went there one time, I got rice pudding and it was so good.

• 1:01:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:13Georgia Hardstark?

  That I was like, how could that be a front if it was so fucking good? Like, I was actually shocked.

• 1:01:18Karen Kilgariff?

  I wonder if it's not that hard to make good rice pudding.

• 1:01:20Georgia Hardstark?

  It was tiramisu flavored rice pudding and it was fucking excellent. But I also see that most people don't like rice pudding, so.

• 1:01:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it's very specific.

• 1:01:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Cause it feels to me like they were trying to pick something that would keep people away.

• 1:01:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Not that there was lines around the fucking block to that place.

• 1:01:35Karen Kilgariff?

  I loved it. I was just like, this is one of my favorite desserts.

• 1:01:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I know. That was, that's fucking hilarious.

• 1:01:41Karen Kilgariff?

  So extreme entertainment.

• 1:01:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck was I? Where are we? Okay, so they might've actually gotten away with it at this point. But Eugene Hill, the old friend, the first one who Alan brought into the plan, makes an error, let's say. Pretty big error, unfortunately. So in trying to make a down payment on a property, because they're putting a lot of this money into real estate to make it look legit. He offers another lawyer a hundred thousand dollars in cash, which is already suspicious. But also he leaves the branded money strip on the hundred thousand dollars cash that says Dunbar.

• 1:02:20Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 1:02:22Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, the like, the money.

• 1:02:23Karen Kilgariff?

  The bundling.

• 1:02:24Georgia Hardstark?

  The bundling money paper. He doesn't take it off and it says Dunbar on it.

• 1:02:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Dunbar, cash and stuff.

• 1:02:32Georgia Hardstark?

  So understandably, this lawyer is suspicious.

• 1:02:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Come on.

• 1:02:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Calls the police, probably finds out about that $250,000 reward.

• 1:02:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Dang.

• 1:02:42Georgia Hardstark?

  The cash is examined by the authorities and they find that those Dunbar branded straps that's still on it have been stamped with the date they were counted, which just so happens to be September 11th and 12th of 1997.

• 1:02:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Shit.

• 1:02:57Georgia Hardstark?

  And then when they have the name of Eugene Hill, they're able to go back into the U-Haul rental records and find that it had been rented under his name.

• 1:03:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:03:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Ew. Here's the thing, though, about heists that I've learned over years of watching many films.

• 1:03:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:13Karen Kilgariff?

  And maybe doing a couple heists myself. Human error has to get folded in.

• 1:03:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 1:03:17Karen Kilgariff?

  And if we don't do that and if people don't think about every single possibility, where it's just like, no, we're gonna go over it again. If you're gonna spend the cash, what are you gonna do? Cut the bands off the cash. Don't be excited about bands.

• 1:03:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:29Karen Kilgariff?

  All those kinds of things, which, you know, if it's just a bunch of amateurs.

• 1:03:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:03:33Karen Kilgariff?

  They can't think of everything.

• 1:03:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. So once Eugene is arrested, police threaten him, because they'd all agreed that if one of them gets caught, they're gonna just take the blame and go down and them and their families will be taken care of with the money that was stolen. Unfortunately, Eugene is arrested and he had been using his sister's bank account to launder money through. And so as soon as he's told that she's going to be charged as an accomplice, he picks his family over his friends.

• 1:04:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:02Georgia Hardstark?

  And he winds up admitting to participating and he names everyone else. Everyone is arrested one by one with Alan actually turning himself in at the end in February of 2000.

• 1:04:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Can I just say that that was clearly Eugene's older sister?

• 1:04:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Because it was his little sister, he'd be like, I don't give a shit.

• 1:04:20Karen Kilgariff?

  He's like, just fight me if you want.

• 1:04:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:04:22Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the older sister.

• 1:04:23Georgia Hardstark?

  My older sister's gonna beat my ass.

• 1:04:24Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm sorry, I had to turn everybody in. There's no coming back from this.

• 1:04:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that's a really... We're all scared of our older sisters.

• 1:04:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Deadly afraid of our older sisters.

• 1:04:34Georgia Hardstark?

  So when the group is indicted in court, this is the first time they hear how much money they had stolen. And I guess all of their faces fell because they hadn't counted all the money. So when they hear that they stole $18.9 million, like, the blood rushed out of all of their faces. And they were like, oh, we are in so much trouble. You know what I mean? Like, if they had stolen a million, I feel like...

• 1:04:57Karen Kilgariff?

  After taxes.

• 1:04:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Give some of it back. But no, they're shocked. They had never counted all the money. So four of the group, everyone except Alan's brother-in-law, Eric Boyd, wind up testifying against Alan. Alan pleads not guilty and actually, from what I can see to this day, he denies being involved at all. Which is interesting. He says that he was framed by one of the other defendants, quote, "because I was messing with his wife." So he just refuses to take any response. He just says he's not involved.

• 1:05:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:27Georgia Hardstark?

  He ends up serving 24 years in prison. Yeah, well, everyone else serves about 12 years. And so that was in the year 2000-ish, so he's out now. In the end, only around $7 million is ever recovered.

• 1:05:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 1:05:42Georgia Hardstark?

  The rest of the stolen money was believed to have been either squandered by the robbers at gambling tables in Vegas. Some of it was burned because they found that some of the bills were sequential and so they could get caught with them and easily traced, or invested in other things in other people's names. So that big sister, you know, she's living somewhere nice.

• 1:06:02Karen Kilgariff?

  I hope so.

• 1:06:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I hope so too. She's the end of the movie. Fucking living in paradise.

• 1:06:08Karen Kilgariff?

  And she's like, that's right. Don't use my bank account if you're not gonna pay me back.

• 1:06:12Georgia Hardstark?

  This is why you scare the shit out of your younger siblings from birth. That they won't fucking rat on you.

• 1:06:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Then they serve you for the rest of life, essentially.

• 1:06:20Georgia Hardstark?

  And actually, I found in 2020, this producer named Caleb Pinkett, who is fucking Jada Pinkett Smith's brother. His production company, like, we're gonna make a movie out of this. But I didn't find anything, any updates since then, so I'm not sure where that went. You know how Hollywood takes forever. And that is the story of the Dunbar Armored Depot heist.

• 1:06:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Man, that was good.

• 1:06:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:48Karen Kilgariff?

  That was great.

• 1:06:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, I don't know, there's only a couple heist stories that I've heard where the story is and the money is never found.

• 1:07:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:01Karen Kilgariff?

  There's only a couple of those, I feel like.

• 1:07:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it was kind of a success, depending on how you want to look at it.

• 1:07:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 1:07:08Karen Kilgariff?

  A little bit. I feel like these days, we used to look at heists a little bit different, but I think these days, people are just like, stick it to the man.

• 1:07:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Well, these were the good guys. They were not criminals. They were all buddies from when they were young, working their asses off and were fine. And like, let's, let's take advantage of how dumb this fucking corporation is. And also, along the way, you're welcome for showing you, like, your security issues.

• 1:07:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Constant security issues that you refuse to fix.

• 1:07:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:07:36Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just like, you can't keep firing people.

• 1:07:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Apparently, your video camera won't turn to the right or left very far.

• 1:07:42Georgia Hardstark?

  And then let's keep in mind, of course, the people who were working there that night were scared out of their minds. They had guns pulled on them. No, that's not good.

• 1:07:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:07:50Georgia Hardstark?

  That's bad. They, that's a lot of trauma.

• 1:07:51Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a lot of trauma and...

• 1:07:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's rethink our next heist.

• 1:07:55Karen Kilgariff?

  When we use heist.

• 1:07:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's do it in a more caring way.

• 1:07:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 1:08:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Please.

• 1:08:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:00Karen Kilgariff?

  I feel like this has been almost like a college class in this podcast today.

• 1:08:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 1:08:05Karen Kilgariff?

  We're just bringing the full, every facet of the world to you.

• 1:08:10Georgia Hardstark?

  American history, baby.

• 1:08:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, get into it.

• 1:08:14Georgia Hardstark?

  That's what we do here on My Favorite Murder.

• 1:08:16Karen Kilgariff?

  That is, yeah, our true crime podcast.

• 1:08:18Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. That's why we both graduated college with degrees in American history.

• 1:08:24Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. Advanced degrees.

• 1:08:26Georgia Hardstark?

  From CSUN.

• 1:08:27Karen Kilgariff?

  From CSUN, matadors.

• 1:08:29Georgia Hardstark?

  They're gonna send us a cease and desist.

• 1:08:31Karen Kilgariff?

  A CSUN desist.

• 1:08:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Karen!

• 1:08:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Come on, I had to do it.

• 1:08:36Georgia Hardstark?

  That was like, years in the making, and I'm so happy about it.

• 1:08:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Pun's against my will. That's my new autobiography. That was fun times.

• 1:08:45Georgia Hardstark?

  That was.

• 1:08:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Listeners, thank you for being here with us.

• 1:08:48Georgia Hardstark?

  We appreciate you so much, everyone.

• 1:08:50Karen Kilgariff?

  If you have any heist questions, please write in to [email protected]. And until then, stay sexy.

• 1:08:56Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 1:08:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 1:09:09Karen Kilgariff?

  This has been an Exactly Right Production. Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes. Our editor is Aristotle Lasevedo. This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci. Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Ally Elkin. Email your hometowns to [email protected]. And follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder. Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix. And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the "Remind Me" buttons. That's the best way you can support our show. Goodbye.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

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• 1:11:07Speaker 02

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• 1:11:20Speaker 03

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• 1:12:04Speaker 03

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