Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Americas Worst Smuggler Makes Vital Mistake...

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

Americas Worst Smuggler Makes Vital Mistake...

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the rest of your life. Looks at me and he's like, have you guys been smoking weed? No, sir. It's like, where's the f*** dope? We still don't know how much we've taken. Hey man, like, how much did you give us? And he's like, that was a sheet of a shit. That was like $600 worth of $1. You took all of it? I was born in San Diego, moved up to the Pacific Northwest here. My buddy, he moved to Texas to be with his dad and I flew down to San Antonio and we're going to go visit his grandparents. The drive to Kansas, I mean, it's so painfully boring.

At least that stretch wrote from San Antonio to Kansas, it is so flat and straight. Yeah, we got two speeding tickets on the way there and I remember, yeah, smoking We got pulled over once for speeding, got a ticket, my buddy was driving. The second time, we're listening to Led Zeppelin, and Robert Plant, it was dazed and confused, and there's some wacky vocals, and I remember, like, getting into it and, like, pull over, I got to throw up, and we pulled over. He was like, I was about to pull you over, but you pulled over before I could put my lights on. Oddly enough, we were very calm and collected.

Like, I don't know if it was because we'd already been pulled over, but, I mean, it was Southern Highway Patrol. Chances are it smelled like, and I remember being fairly messed up. And the cop, there was one on each side, and the cop even looks at me, and he's like, have you guys been smoking? And I looked at it like, no, sir. And, like, apparently that was good enough. and we're led on our way and we went and had Thanksgiving and we came back the next day

and we're going through Oklahoma City I'll never forget it was such a bullshit pullover because we're like we can't get another speeding ticket got to play it safe and the cop had already had someone else pulled over and that guy was merging back in and we didn't get out of his way quick enough or what and the cop got us for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle. And, like, it was, you know, the third time and asked my buddy to get out of the car,

which I thought was weird. But, again, like, not sweating it. And I remember, like, what the hell? Let's play it safe. Put the, I took my shoe off and stuffed it into the toe of the shoe. They're back there a while, and the cop comes to me. And it's like, where's the fucking dope? And, like, oh, this is.

isn't the routine i'm used to yeah and uh i tried to play it all like up in the pacific northwest dope is like meth so that like wait what and yeah and he's like yeah where's the fuck do and i like okay doke like i pull off my shoe and gave it to him my buddy apparently like rolled over immediately he was just the cool kid like that i mean not just talked a big game but so i don't know i i thought it was odd that i held out a little longer and he was heated but I wasn't you know the cop pulled him out of the car some serious denial like a yeah okay well we're gonna get a ticket I guess he got me out the cop yeah get out of the car and uh puts me in the back my buddy gets to be in the front car this hands up front I'm in the back but we watch this

cop just tear my buddy's car apart and I remember there was these frozen blocks of catfish wrapped in foil and the cop opens this trunk and I again his eye he's you know they look like kilos of whatever and my buddy is like oh he's gonna be so disappointed to find out those are just frozen blocks of catfish yeah he ended up just leaving him in the car and they sat in the sun for days gets back in the car and then I believe yeah we witnessed the the car being towed away or I think he took off and it's we're still in denial like this guy's why did it get towed away because we are being arrested

a little bit of marijuana is enough to arrest everybody and take my car in oklahoma yeah they could yeah um it's the most extreme state uh in the country i remember bringing up like oh no well i have a plane because it you know it was day after thanks even so friday i had a plane back to seattle on uh sunday like oh well no no like sir i i have a plane to catch sunday so you know and he's like no it's Thanksgiving weekend the judge won't be until Monday like you're yeah you're going to jail and when you have your mugshot taken it was this dark particle board with I mean well my point of saying that is if you look up a picture of the Oklahoma City bomber it's this part you know dark but dark board with the measurements drawn on with Sharpie

and uh years later i totally forgot about and i watched the the movie bowling with columbine and i saw that mugshot for the first time and i like oh my god like i got this huge knock in my stomach and like holy shit that's the yeah i guess that was because when we got there it was a tiny i mean it's oklahoma city so i don't know if there was other wings but the whole county like it was four cells and yeah we had the same cell at least according to the other guy that was in there with us it's terrifying and I had to

oh my god like I had to call and tell my family like yeah I'm missing my flight yeah we were there till Monday and we went and saw oh god yeah we went and saw the judge and that's when we got our paperwork and we're looking at oh

like oh my god they could keep you a year like you You couldn't do a year for any amount of marijuana. And I just, yeah, like I hadn't had a showering day and my hair was long. I remember the first time seeing a mirror, you know, right before seeing the judge. And my hair, like, it was a ratty afro. The judge, you know, he said time served or whatnot. And he's this, you know, very southern judge.

But I'll never forget, he called us up to the, he's like, you know, you guys come up here or approach the stand. And yeah, one in a million Southern judges, but yeah, he's like, you know, I'm so sorry you had to spend any time here. It's a ridiculous law. This is probably the most trouble you'll ever be in and, you know, hope I don't ever see you again. Secretary in the office ended up giving us a ride back to the impound lot, which the dickhead cop, and I guess they were saying like the cop that got you nobody likes this guy uh yeah he's just a total asshole and that's you know people working at the courthouse but yeah the secretary courthouse secretary what yeah she gave us a ride back and got a sonic burger after you know we'd been eating bologna sandwiches for

four days and yeah it was wonderful and uh i caught my caught my caught my My flight home, yeah, and that's the one time I went to jail, but going to college. And there's a program at my community college to go to Wales for the summer with this amazing teacher who teaches like rock and roll history. And yeah, it was like a group of 30 of us go to Wales. And we stay in this town, Aberystwyth. We went to the University of Wales and Aberystwyth and take field trips to cathedrals every week in castles and

and like in the middle week for class and on weekends you know like it was literally from my bedroom I could see Ireland across the way and you know kids would take a ferry to Ireland and me and these two girls went to Amsterdam if there's no metal on you

then yeah you can just bring whatever you want and I think sometimes I would be a little more careful and like tape it to my leg but we're going all over the place that summer and i just went to amsterdam and i remember i bought a variety you know all the smoke shops yeah just a variety of weeds and in different kinds of hashes we're there for a weekend and we came back no problem my big thought was i was going to take it home to my buddies like hey here's weed and hash from amsterdam flight there and back no problem from from Amsterdam back to wales

and train ride it's a it's a red eye it's like a two-hour bus ride from aberrists with wales to london international and i remember it was early in the morning like some kids just stayed up it was so you know four in the morning and we're at the airport and standing in line for the metal detector and it was a lot such a long line you know you're kind of shutting your eyes while you're standing up and I just remember looking up and the guy the person in front of me is going through the metal detector and I like oh my god like I haven't even done my my metal check make sure I don't have any metal on me and I like really quick like okay okay I'm good and the guys motioned me forward I'll never forget as literally mid stride my hand grazes the pocket of my cargo shorts

and I feel this little it was a metal like pill container and it had I bought it in one of the castles it had like kelp designs but I had I had hash in it right through the metal detector it goes off

and the guy you know doesn't think all right you know empty your pockets and I immediately you know wide awake really slowly like taking stuff out of my pockets and I have this

it's a bag with a bunch of little bags with all this weed and hash and it's in the one pocket and I take out the metal like oh there's the culprit that's what set off the alarm like I can go through now and you know check in my pockets and like all right book club on Monday gym on Tuesday date night on Wednesday out on the town on Thursday quiet night in on Friday it's good to have a routine and it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam. I exams provided by independent optometrists. And he like, no, no, like, need to empty that pocket. And he wasn't even paying attention. I just slowly take out this Ziploc with a ton of other Ziploc bags. And I used

glass pipe of all stupid things. But that's how I'd been flying the whole around all summer and never had a problem and if there was so many bags and bags you know he he looked at it what is this and i should have at least tried to get i don't know and i just i'm like it's it's exactly what you think it is man yeah and he's like all right stay there and so they saw me standing there and i actually uh reconnected with a girl that was in my trip and she actually mentioned that a few days ago, that she remembers me standing while they walked past, and they're kind of teasing me, but they didn't know what's going on.

He was still, like, motioning people through. For a moment, I was like, I think he's forgotten about me. And I, like, I think I could just, like, blend in with the crowd and walk away, and I reached for my thing, or it was sitting with my suitcase, and I went to pick it up and start walking. he immediately oh no no no stay right there and yeah he uh he took me up to he walked me across and it was this uh customs or some sort of english police whatever police uh you know would be in the airport so customs and it was these two old english guys and they were kind of

yucking it up and like opening the bag and smelling it and like oh wow this is really good and you know i'm terrified like i'm going to london prison like i'm trying to get yeah a schedule one narcotic through an international airport like it's it's done yeah i'm going to have to call my family tell me yeah i'm not coming home like uh and they just had me stand there they take me in this back room and it it was these two like these two girls like my age you know um in uniform and they come back and they kind of they reprimand me but then they say you know because it's your first offense uh you know it won't be going on your record and we'll we'll let go on your way i asked like well how do you know i have this hasn't happened before and it didn't

go on my record then i don't even remember what the response was but yeah but i i remember getting myself and i had to sprint across the airport to to get to my flight on time and uh yeah i was just pale and everyone else is joking you know happy to go back home and i i couldn't even tell anybody i think you know it's a long flight so at some point i i told somebody but yeah jesus christ in high school i remember i got the i'm a big beatles fan i got the beatles anthology and uh are you still in high school yeah uh yeah i uh i got the beatles anthology and there's a passage about where they they first got this den is dosed uh john lennon and george harrison with lSD but like it's they kind of tell this glowing experience and one of the quotes is it was

the most it was the most euphoric i ever felt or it was the best feeling i remember my buddy uh and i read in that and he's like holy shit i didn't need to read that and he's like i think i can get some uh acid and like and we had i had done mushrooms and uh anyways he looked and yeah it LSD it it was gone like you couldn't get it and so for years i i would ask and it was just something you couldn't it was gone because the the precursor chemicals to make it uh it didn't it didn't exist like you just you couldn't get anymore and uh my buddy's uh mom's boyfriend like this uh deadhead and i would ask him and he he has the same thing it doesn't he's like i've done a lot of at a lot of grateful dead shows but i've had

good acid four times and you can tell the difference blah blah blah anyways years later I'm about 29 and he gets a hold of me he's like like I've actually found not only have I found some acid it is the best I've ever had which you know I'm definitely older it's not something I'm searching out I guess I inquired about it but yeah but just based on him his recommendation like this is the real deal like this is I think he said something special like I've never had anything like this and me and my buddy he would just give it to us and it I mean it was a speck of paper like maybe half as big as your pinky nail and we took it and walked around I think yeah and we like swam in the

Puget Sound and it was yeah it was it was fun and uh my 30th birthday was coming up and we were going to uh we're gonna intertube down the green river and it might have been my idea but it got brought up like oh you know be nice like to very mildly trip like while you float down the river like I'm thinking like a lazy river and uh like okay and so another buddy is going to go and they go to the mom's boyfriend and explain you know we're going to go down to the green river and we want some did just for the three of us come back with a post-it note size it looks like water color paper sorry I mean it in a he he just gave it to us and so I assume he had some watercolor and he had liquid LSD and you know one two three four four hits just cut

you know okay and our friend the night before he cuts a quarter off takes it he's definitely tripping but he drives home like an hour long drive that night uh doesn't say you know no problem the next day it's me my two buddies and my brother uh who thank god didn't take any and we split it three ways and it was like a stick of gum this humongous sized piece of paper and it's immediately like we're inflating the inner tubes and my buddy we get in the water It may be 10, 15 minutes later, my buddy Mikey is, he has his sunglasses on. He is like starfished, like on his inner tube, just not limp, but I mean, out of it. And we pull off to the side of the river, you know, you're going down river.

And I think we had a joint, you know, and he kind of stands out. He's like, I don't know if I can do this. this and my other buddy like looks at him and what exactly does that mean and I bring up like yeah not only physically do we have to float down the river we can't can't go back up like but we've taken this like this is happening both mentally and physically we have to do this and at that point I remember looking at the grass and the grass was starting to do that and I like yeah like we should get going and so we start floating and I've learned because I've you know with mushrooms and stuff it helps to embrace it like if you start getting scared that's bad and it can amplify so I was really embracing it and And very quickly, the trees, like, they would, they would sway, but they would fractal. And then they would, like, snap back up.

Somehow my two buddies and my brother floated up because there was shallow parts in the river. And immediately, my buddy Mikey, he was immediately out of it. So, like, he tied him, they tied him to my other friend's intertubes so they couldn't get separated. and then my brother was just on his own and yeah i remember it really kicking in and getting separated looking around and like there's no one i recognize and there's there's shallow parts of the river where you like you should just stand up and carry your inner tube a little further down but i was quickly so out of it i couldn't i remember laying there and there was people on the bank like barbecuing and I'm looking at it and I'm trying to

judge distance and like trying to figure out if I'm moving or not and I mean it felt like I was there a while and you know there's some slight paranoia like on the ground well it was very shallow water but yeah and I think so I think it was so shallow I wasn't moving and I just remember like you know scooting myself along until I finally kind of got moving because I could have stood up but I I didn't want people to know I was high like all walk weird so they'll know I'm high so I got to play it cool and just scoot myself along the shallow area of the river rocks I mean it seemed like an eternity on this river I remember thinking like I'm I'm gonna I'll just I'm going to live here on this river, I guess.

And that's another thing about psychedelics. There's a natural feeling about it where I've always, if a few times I've had too much, you really think something has been triggered in your brain. It's never going to go away. Like that's, you're going to be tripping the rest of your life. And you're going to, you're going to have to be in a mental institute. And this is how people go crazy. I remember thinking, like, they'll have to ford my mail to the river, I guess.

I mean, because I just, I'm going to live here on the banks of these rivers. I'm never getting off this river. And then, of course, you know, I start thinking about, like, I wonder, is this the part of the Green River where the bodies were buried, you know, from the Green River killer? They figure out I'm not with him at some point, and they stop on the side and wait for me. And, I mean, just the rush of euphoria, you know, to be reconnected. I'm not lost with them. And my brother, he hadn't taken any. Thank God.

And he's trying to quiz me like, oh, wow, you know, what's it like? And I can barely talk. I'm trying to explain it, but it's so much. And, like, the tree, I remember it had a vivid rainbow outlining all the trees. There were rapids in parts of the river. and I remember thinking like if I fall like I don't know if I have the motor skills to swim I remember splashing water in my face and I like I couldn't tell if I was wet I was so tripping so hard but we we go down these rapids I pushed off of a rock or something I remember cutting myself and that's when it got really real and I like you know Jesus Christ even at 30 years old, like, I can still be so stupid as to decide to, yeah, take LSD and go floating down the river and, you know, hurt myself. My one friend, he's taken as much as us, totally fine,

drives home, no problem. And my brother didn't know he was going to have to be driving us back. You know, we're in our way. He has no idea how to get there, how to get back. He's never really driven out of our hometown it was right when google maps had just started where you could like put an address in google maps right and i'm trying like he's asking for directions and the buddy chris who actually watches this podcast he's giving directions and my brother's completely you know frustrated and flustered and very prone to show his emotions get pissed off really quick, but for our sake, he knew we were really, really out of it. He kept it really cool for us, and I knew he was losing his shit, just frustrated and getting, he got more and more

loss. He finally got it on the freeway. And I remember passing the Tacoma Dome and like, oh my God, okay, Alex, you know where we're at. There's Tacoma Dome. You know how to get us home. Literally, minutes later, we're sitting at a stoplight. And I'm like, dude, what the hell happen man like we're on the freeway we're almost yes we still have to go over the narrows and he just freaks out like i don't know i took the exit and we're at the stop and we get over the narrows bridge and that's when we all kind of were able to relax and i just remember getting home and just putting on dry clothes was the most euphoric uh thing getting out of these wet clothes and and that's when we're kind of able to you know we're home safe

And for psychedelics, that feeling of safeness is everything. So we're, we kind of, yeah, we're able to relax a little and enjoy it. We still don't know how much we've taken. I was bouncing the story off with my buddy because usually it's he and I. And he brought up, we had a roommate. This guy hadn't been home in weeks. Like we forgot he even lived there really. and we are tripping out of our heads we're the only one's home and we hear doors unlocking

and remember my buddy and I we look at each other like what the hell's going out what's that who is that and we hear this guy or this other roommate and I hear his voice and some chick and my buddy it's his house and he's like I forgot that guy even lived here like Jesus Christ this is a hell of a time to show up and they show up and this guy he was tweaking like we didn't realize but he had at some point i think we knew he had he had been into meth at some point like we went to high school with him but he was he had gotten i don't know clean but he had stopped he shows up with this chick and they are tweaking and the psychedelics like i've always noticed when i watch movies on psychedelics you can tell when they have makeup you're like oh my god the makeup is kicked on their

faces like you you just see certain things uh much more clear or accurate or you know like i remember watching star wars and i thought oh won't this be fun watching star wars on psychedelics and it was the exact opposite everything looks so fake like oh my god that look you can look it's obviously a costume like you can kind of see past a lot of stuff and like Jesus Christ they kicked the makeup on like looks like she's wearing a mask anyways this guy and his girlfriend show up and they are twitchy and I remember they looked like they were dying like they'd look so pale and unhealthy and like these little yeah and my buddy and I you know we're just looking at each other and like holy shit man this guy is not look healthy at all both equally looked very sick I remember

standing in the backyard and it was like a cartoon like so the next day we we got some sleep and we call the mom's boyfriend hey man like how much did you give us and he's like well I gave you enough for the summer. We're like, no, we took what you gave us. It's like, well, yeah, we asked for enough for my birthday to go down the Green River for four hits. He's like, that was a sheet of acid. That was like $600 worth of LSD. You took all of it? That was enough to last you the entire summer and that, like, that's ridiculous. Even that, like, nobody would take a whole sheet of acid throughout a whole summer but yeah he was being really generous and he gave us a ton and yeah so we had taken we had split a sheet of acid our buddy took a quarter of the night before and then the next day

we split the rest three ways so it's 25 hits of acid we each right and yeah but it was also a bit of a testament just how how pure it was or how clean was I mean, it was a good experience. If it was anywhere near that amount of mushrooms, yeah, it would have been nightmare. But yeah, it was definitely a glowing experience. And actually, I've thought about this so many times. Like, how is that there that loss of communication? Like, we ask for enough for, we ask for one hit for each of us and you give us a hundred.

Right. I very recently realized I think my buddy Chris he knew he knew like he yeah he he he knew he knew was a sheet of acid I think he has a natural affinity for a natural tolerance because again he took a quarter 25 hits the night before was great he drove home like a few hours later uh so i think he was trying to uh in his mind ensure we had a glowing experience the next day and i mean don't like it yeah i mean it is it's a fun story to tell um i wouldn't want to redo it and certainly not while going down the green river they're starting to do research now and even decriminalized mushrooms in some places i uh mushrooms i uh mushrooms i've always thought

are a lot more spiritual it always freaks me out when people say that oh they took mushrooms and went to a party or a concert like because i that's happened to me it was a horrible experience but um yeah just a little more spiritual something you want to do with a close friend but uh i actually i want to say i thought it was your podcast a guy brought up ibegain which is it actually it saved my life it uh because i i had a pretty rampant uh pain killer uh opiate problem again i sort of touched on it earlier i mean i was so naive i remember hearing about oxy cotton and how people got addicted to it and they just said it was a painkiller but in my head a pain killer was like Tylenol like how do people get addicted to Tylenol

or you know how would anyone get addicted to painkillers but uh it's this stuff and it's actually illegal here but it's a tree bark from a plant in south america and it's this you take it uh and you trip hard for 24 hours but afterwards yeah you're physically clean of opiate with trolls Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I try to, not that I really run into anybody with opiate problems anymore, but I try to get the word out there. And you can, yeah, if you look, you can get it online. It's expensive, but.

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