My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 451 - We Must Please The Flight Attendants

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

On today’s episode, Georgia covers the trial of Pamela Smart and Karen tells the story “Lawn Chair” Larry Walters. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Hello! And welcome... To my favorite murder. That's Georgia Heartstark. That's Karen Kilgareff. This is a podcast we do for you. You're welcome. It's fuck you free.

Shut up. Karen has jet lag. I am so tired. The theme of this episode is jet lag. Is help me please. Can I just immediately start by describing the meal that I had on my flight. To Italy or from Italy? From.

And listen, I was in Lufthansa, an airline I love. Yeah. Classy. Remember when we went into that lounge? I totally remember everything about that flight because we were running from the law. We were running from the law into the Lufthansa lounge, where they had, well, and

I told Adrienne and Janet all about it, the pretzel that I thought was filled with cream cheese, remember on the buffet that had all the delicious items? And instead of it being cream cheese, I was halfway through eating that thing and I realized it was butter. Remember that? Oh, no, but I want it. Just European high-grade butter where I was like, this is so good and crazy. Okay, anyway, what am I trying to say? You ate a meal.

I ate two meals on this flight that almost like didn't make sense, culinary sense. Okay. One was a beef dish that was on a bed of beets. And it was like boiled beef on a bed of beets. Sorry for all that alliteration. And I can't remember anything else on the dish, but I tried like to be polite and eat it because we must please the flight attendants.

And I couldn't get through it. So I was just like, I'll take that pretzel roll and I'll just have that for dinner. And then we got up, I was like, oh, okay, I'll just have this other thing. And whatever the second one was, and now it's all leaving my mind, but it was like an equally bizarre turnip based dish. That's like they took the leftovers and put them together. But the leftovers from like 1928. Like a bunch of root vegetables. Let's throw them in there with some boiled protein.

Boiled meat, maybe boiled deer hind. What would it be? It was nutso. And then basically that kind of left me in this bizarre like what world am I in? Not sleeping, not whatever, 10-hour, 12-hour flight. And then I just have not, I've not bounced back. That's terrifying.

Well, this is what it's like to lead a privileged life. And we've been gone so long, which is so weird, like have we talked about these things? Like it's been a long time since we've recorded. Yeah, it feels like I've already told this story twice. You might have, but not to me. Not to you and not professionally. Like, and I have all these, like, you know, these shows and stuff, but you haven't watched them because you've been gone

and then you've been what? But wait, tell me the shows because there's one that I literally watched with my jet-lag insomnia at 4 a.m. this morning that was... Is it a series? It's like a true crime. Okay, it's not that, but which one is which one's your... Anatomy of Lies on Peacock. Which one is that?

It's about that woman who worked on Grey's Anatomy and those fucking lines. I haven't seen it yet. And all these things, like it is the craziest. Foggers. You think that's the lie and it's very Scamanda kind of vibes. We were like, yes, we all love a story like this. No one understands it. It unfolds out into many other things and it is so nutso.

Oh, that's how I can't wait to watch that. Really good. Definitely, Vincent, I've been on a binging true crime thing. Like there's only one that he was like, I can't watch that because like that's your, you know, more your thing. So we've been watching just all of these, like every Menendez Brothers thing you can think of

and every, like, just any documentary, we've been watching them. And it's just like so satisfying. It's just a great way to spend time. It is. And then so this one I was gonna say has nothing to do with that. And I was really surprised at how much I liked it.

And Vince fucking loved it too. It's not true crime. Nobody wants this. Oh, the new I liked it. Okay. And Vince fucking loved it too. It's not true crime. Nobody wants this. Oh, the new series. Yeah. Yes. It's fucking charming as shit. I heard great things about it.

Kristen Bell and Adam Brody? Yes. And they're so cute and it's sweet. I got choked up in the beginning of that like, we want to be in love, but we don't, we keep missing each other way. Oh. But then also they got three got three things really really well that they could have fucked up they got an LA Jew what it's like to be an LA Jew they got sisters like they do sisters so well and then they do podcasting like they don't

make me go like that's not what it's like they do podcasting like I could have hated it for so many levels and so many reasons but they got it all right it was really good. Are you writing this show? I know. What's happening? It's really cute. Oh, that's good. I heard really good things and people, of course, on TikTok talking about it all the

time of like this scene, this like people are really into it, it seems like. It's good. I watched a movie, I watched many movies on both directions of my flights. Did you ever watch the movie Monkey Man that Dev Patel stars in and directed? It is so incredible. What is it? It's basically a revenge story and it takes place in, I believe it's in India,

like I think it's supposed to be Bombay, but I can't remember. It's so good. And it kind of was like, it's like hearkin's back to, I was going to say Million Dollar Baby. What's the one that broke him initially? Something millionaire. Yeah, Slumdog Millionaire. It's almost like he picked that story up and went back into that universe. But it's an incredible action. And it's like, you just kind of have to see

it. It's so good. It's a visual feast. What's it called? Monkey Man? Monkey Man. And he directed it. He's starring in it, but he also directed it. It's like, this guy is incredible. Very cool.

That sounds amazing. There's also one that's a French movie about a woman who lives as a bearded lady called Rosalie that was so good. I'm running it down. Rosalie and Monkeyman. And Monkeyman. Okay. I have a book. One more thing for me. It's called Cats of the World.

I think I read that to Nora when she was four years old. It's this book. Okay. My Cat Mo's Foster Parents. They are companies called Orphan Kitten Club. It's Hannah Shaw and Andrew Martila. They are these incredible, like they save animals' lives all the time. And they're vegan, like they double down on that shit. They're not fucking around. And they traveled the world. He's a photographer. They traveled the world and took pictures of cats in like different incredible cities. And it's just this beautiful, you know, coffee table book

of their love of cats. How long did it take you to read it? Three weeks? Mo and I have been savoring it. Every night you sit together and you show him a different picture. It's his bedtime story because they saved his life. That's very sweet. There were cats all over Sicily and so well taken care of.

Yeah. No skinny ones. Right. Always had a bowl of food and water somewhere very close by. My favorite thing is countries that take good care of their stray cats. That's what they did. They went to all those places to document it and to talk to the people who take this seriously and love and care about cats in the same way they do. It's really sweet.

Nice. Cats of the world. Well, I have a podcast. And it's so funny because it's, you know, I think I might be nearing the end of my TikTok addiction where I'm like, I have to stop. Yeah. Because it just is, I think it's frying my brain in a very real way. And I'm middle aged and I need to do something else with my time. But on TikTok, there's a guy that is pretty popular, and he's Irish.

He's from Mayo, and his name's Garin Noon. And he starts every video going, hi, how you're getting on? And then he just starts ranting about stuff or talking about, he does a lot of food reviews. He's hilariously funny. And then he goes, follow me, I'm delicious, is the last thing he says.

That's great. So he just started a podcast called Listen, I'm Delicious. Love it. And he's really charming and funny. He's also a musician. So like I've just seen recently seen clips of him playing on like Irish TV because I guess he's gotten really popular over there. I think he's a big influencer or whatever. But I just was like, oh, that's so charming.

Now you have a podcast. So if you like the sound of the Western Irish coast accent and Irish people talking to each other and sometimes about being like getting popular on TikTok, like the weird lives that they're leading. It's very charming and very like the easiest listen of all time. Cute. What's it called and very like the easiest listen of all time. Cute. What's it called?

Listen I'm Delicious. I love it. Yeah. All right. Good. I think we gave everyone enough. God and we just like sped through it like click clack click. We did it. What more do you need? Go Dodgers. What else? Georgia loves baseball. She always has. It's her real personality. It's who I am. All right. Well, you know what else? We have a podcast network. It's called

Exactly Right Media. Here are some highlights. Oh, man. Do you need a ride this week? Chris and I are so honored that we got to host comedian Matt Walsh. You know him from Veep. And he's one of the founding members of UCB. Truly a charming human being, wonderful individual. And we ran some serious errands with him. We were going all over Burbank getting stuff done for him. And he's hilarious. You know what's weird? When I saw that, I had a dream last week about him. Like a very memorable, we were stuck in an elevator and I was like, we have to Instagram live this. And we started Instagram live being stuck in an elevator together, like Matt Walsh for real.

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Go to CHIME.com slash disclosures for details. Goodbye. All right. All right. Well, I'm first. Go. This is a story you're going to remember. I'm surprised we haven't done it yet.

I studied it a little in-depthly because I thought I knew it because we, this is from the 90s, like we grew up watching it. And I think I kind of have a new take on it. Oh. So the story is about a case that wound up leading to the first ever what's called gavel to gavel murder trial that was broadcast on live TV. First one ever. You want to guess? Vanitas Brothers?

No. Was it 1990? It was early 90s, like 91, 92. Gavel to gavel. Very first. Ted Bundy? No. That would be weird if you were doing that.

I don't think that was. I'm doing Ted Bundy. I'm tired. You're right. I shouldn't be pressuring. I'm not pressuring. It was a massive true crime sensation, like huge in the media in the early 90s, and inspired a classic made-for-TV movie, among other things. Steven Stainer?

No. This is the story of the murder of Greg Smart and the trial of his wife, Pamela Smart. Oh, yeah. Remember? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Remember? Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's all coming back to me. So if you are younger than us.

And you are. Then you are. You will not remember the trials of Pamela Smart and how bananas it was. And there's a documentary called Captivated, the Trials of Pamela Smart on Peacock, that really shows you what it was like back then because there's no way to talk about the story without talking about how the media had a huge influence on it. I'm not saying, you know, the justice wasn't served, but it's complicated.

So watch that. Also, another source I used was an article in the Washington Post by Manuel Roig Francia, and the rest of the sources can be found on our show notes. Is Manuel the inventor of Francia the box wine? Ooh, damn. Could we get that Wikipedia? Could we go sponsor?

Do you like how I turn like my neck is broken? Isn't it though? Isn't it in a way? Jet lag does a lot of weird things to a lot of weird people. Okay, spring of 1990. Where's Karen Kilgara right now? Twenty? Oh, God. I'm working at the Gap in San Francisco. Oh, my God. Thinking that that's all I'm going to do for the rest of my life

and being really bummed out about it. Imagine being 20 and thinking that's it for you. Just like, well, this is it. This is it. I get it. Low-level retail. I think hot topic for me. Yeah, you guys, there's so much more to life. Don't panic. Don't panic.

What we do is we take that, there's so much more to life. Don't panic. Don't panic. What we do is we take that, the absolute misery that that causes us, that's what you have to take to, that's the gas. Propel you. Yep. I don't mean that in 1990 I was on Hot Topic because I would have been 10 and that's child labor, which I think was legal back then. But I like how you kind of-

But when I was 20. You try to play along where you're like, yeah, we all were 20 at one point. Well, when I was 20, I was, yeah, I was doing it. That's right. At 10, you were where? Irvine. I don't know. On the couch in Irvine?

On the couch. It's spring of 1990. So Pamela and Greg Smart are a young couple in the kind of upper middle-class town of Derry, New Hampshire. Pam is 22. Greg is 24. Their families are from the area. They didn't meet until she was back home from college on a break from Florida State University.

They meet, they fall in love, and then Greg moves to Florida to be with her while she finishes school. And Pamela studied media and communications and worked at the college radio station where she DJed a metal show. She was super into metal. Wow. This is going to slowly come back to me. Yes. Because it's like I know the name, but I do not know the details.

You probably remember the photograph of her in a bikini that became like the bikini photo. Right. And she's got the like metal curly blonde hair. She's pretty. She's petite. She's played in the made for TV movie that was based on her life by Nicole Kidman, which doesn't match. But she's also played in a different made-for-TV movie by Helen Hunt, a young Helen Hunt, and that matches. So Pam and Greg move back to New Hampshire after she graduates. Her ultimate goal, she wants to basically be a Barbara Walters.

She wants to be a talking head on the TV news. But you know what, she wants to be like a news reporter. Like the pretty news reporter. It's got her shit together. But she can't find any decent paying entry level jobs, so she winds up working as a media specialist for several local schools around Derry, where she helps the kids with their school TV stations and manages a video library. A lot of times in the media, in this case, they call her a teacher, and that's part of the lure

of this case, it was like, hot for teacher, and she seduced her students, but she did do that, but she wasn't a teacher. Oh, okay, now I know what you're talking about. Okay, so that's kind of the first, I feel like, one of the teacher seduces the kid thing. And Greg goes to work at his dad's insurance business, and this is one of those

cases too where like the victim is put in the backseat. There's not a lot of information I could find about him. It's really sad. It's kind of similar to Ron Goldman where like he's a fucking footnote in his own murder story. So it's pretty sad. So on May 1st, 1990, six days before the couple's first wedding anniversary, Pamela comes home late from work around 10 p.m. She'd been at a school board meeting and when she walks into their ground floor apartment, she finds Greg lying on the ground in their entryway in a puddle of blood. She says she calls his name, he doesn't answer.

She doesn't go over to touch him or help him. She doesn't go any further into the apartment, which is a little suspicious. She runs to a neighbor's house instead. The neighbor calls the police saying Pamela is hysterical and saying that her husband is, quote, passed out inside her apartment. If I walked in and found Vince, what I thought was passed out, like maybe he hit his head and there was blood, I would run to his side and see if his heart was still beating. Like, that's a little like, don't touch anything, don't mess up the crime scene kind of a thing.

It's weird because that is the kind of thing where it's, who knows? It would be fascinating to be able to see some sort of scientific experiment where it's like a hundred people, you open the door and their loved one is on the ground. What do you do? Because I think we assume this is the thing you would do, but we've learned over the years that maybe isn't the truth. A hundred percent. Everyone does everything differently. The fact that she said he was passed out, that to me is like, if you only thought he

was passed out, wouldn't you have gone to his side? Yeah, right. Why would you do this? Because if she hadn't said that, if something was wrong with him or he had been shot, then I can understand it. So I'm not saying she did anything wrong, but based on what she's saying, it's like suspicious. Right.

But also, was it what the neighbors thought? Right. Or was it what she exactly said word for word? Right. The neighbor tells the dispatcher that Pamela says she doesn't know why he's passed out. And when the police arrive, they confirm that Greg is dead. His parents who live nearby race to the apartment and they're there when he's pronounced dead and they both collapse on the floor, grief-stricken.

As police make their way through the rest of the house, they find that it's been ransacked. The stereo and speakers have been pulled out from the wall that they're still in the apartment. Drawers have been emptied onto the floor and a jewelry box is empty. And the medical examiner determines that Greg had been killed by a single gunshot wound to the head. The initial thought is that it was a robbery gone wrong, you know? But there's little to go on in that direction. Then people speculate that Greg's death may have been a drug deal gone wrong. But very early on in the investigation, Pamela starts giving lots of televised interviews,

like lots and lots. She's always looking perfectly put together, like full makeup. She's very stoic. She doesn't cry. But she insists that her husband was not a drug dealer and defends him against that. And just she's very willing to answer questions in front of cameras, which again might mean nothing. Yeah, you could do takes on it in five different ways. Total. Yeah. One reporter recounts that he interviewed Pamela on what would have been her and Greg's

one-year anniversary. And remember, she had wanted to be a news reporter. She suggested him that they get a shot of her looking like forlornly at the frozen top layer of their wedding cake, just as like a piece. You know, like, this would work really well on TV. The reporter is like, what? Yeah, he's so creeped out, he runs away. He's creeped out by it. And he says that she's basically trying to produce the news package herself. And he finds that very strange. So over the next month,

stories start to spread around town, as they fucking do. The local teenagers seem to be saying that a few of their classmates were involved in Greg's murder. They're saying that Pamela offered to pay them to do it and that she gave them the money even to buy the bullets themselves. As early as two weeks after the murder, the police receive at least one tip over the phone that Pamela had actually arranged her husband's murder. So by the beginning of June, police are running down this tip. They're talking to local high schoolers.

And then a man named Vance Latamy brings in a.38 caliber pistol to the police station. And he says that he thinks it's the gun that was used to kill Greg. He thinks so because his son, Vance Latamy Jr., might have been involved in Greg Smart's murder. He's like, I think my kid took the gun and he's part of this. And so very shortly after that, three teenage boys turned themselves in, including this kid. The other two boys were named Patrick Randall and Billy Flynn. All of the boys are like between 15 and 17 years old when this all goes down.

And they're all kind of troublemakers. You know, they've got that like Matt Dillon over the top thing, you know, the like early 90s, 80s, like bad kid, you know, they break into houses, they like to steal cars, that kind of thing. In fact, the main kid, Billy, in that made-for-TV movie with Nicole Kidman is played by a young walking phoenix with a mullet and he is perfect. He has that like innocent sweet in love thing but looks tough and acts tough because he has to be tough in front of his friends, you know, it's he's perfect.

Speaking of which, I watched Napoleon on the way over. How's that? And he's tough and he's sweet as Napoleon. Psychotic. It is. I was like watching it and I'm like, this is a nice long historical movie that's going to help me go to sleep. Yeah. I bet.

Also the kid Billy, who's like the main kid, kind of looks like he's got like a cute Paul McCartney thing going on, but like Paul McCartney in the 80s, so like wings Paul McCartney, like shh, you know, with a mullet. It's like these big puppy dog eyes. So the boys are from a nearby town called Seabrook, which is a much poorer, total working class area, much poorer than Pamela's hometown of Derry. So there are those troublemakers, you know, from the wrong side of the tracks and here comes Pamela all perfect and put together.

And the boys actually go to one of the high schools that Pamela works at in the media department. So the police start to hear more rumors. The kids say that Pamela and Billy Flynn were seen together a lot and had worked on a student film together and there were whispers that the two had been in a relationship. So people had seen them flirting and been together. Billy at that time when she when he was in Pamela's class was 15 and she was 22. So, Billy and Pamela tell conflicting stories about whom seduced whom, of course. But at the end of the day, Pamela was an

adult, Billy was a child. There's no seduction by a child. That's not a thing. Right. You know? Yeah. So Billy confirms to the police that he and Pamela were in a relationship. He says that Pamela said she would pay the boys $1,000 each to kill Greg. In today's money, $1,000, 1990.

Oh, 90. Is it like 15 grand? 2400. 2400? I was that far off. It's not 15 grand. Look, I've been traveling. Some reports say that this amount was like it was a different amount.

There's some disagreement around there, but they were the idea was they were supposed to get paid to kill Pamela's husband for her. But also paid almost nothing. Like such an insanely small. Yeah, I mean, to them, to them,ela's husband for her. But also paid almost nothing. Like such an insanely small. Yeah, I mean to them, to them it's a lot. But that idea that, it's just horrible. Like human life and that idea that it's just this, let's make a plan and then let's execute this plan.

That's all there is to it. Think about, think through it. No, absolutely. It's just like such a waste. The boys say that on the night of the murder, Pamela had left the door unlocked for the boys to get into their apartment while Greg was out working. They said Pamela specifically advised them to shoot Greg, not stab him, because she didn't want any blood to get on their white leather couch and mess up their house. She also instructed them, allegedly, to put their puppy, whose name was Halen, in the

basement so that it wouldn't get hurt or traumatized. She was more worried about the puppy getting traumatized than her husband getting murdered. Murdered, yeah. It's just chilling. The boys said they let themselves into the house. They ransacked it to make it look like a robbery. They secured the dog and then waited for Greg to get home. And when he arrived, they overpowered him and Billy shot him in the head at very close

range. As for the why of it all, why Pamela wanted her husband murdered in the first place, the boys say that she said there was trouble in their marriage. Billy says that Pamela told him that Greg was having an affair. And she later said that he told her that he had cheated on her once, had a one-night stand. Like, who knows if that's true at all, you know. But that was her, that was it. That was her, like, justification of why.

And does she know about divorce or that's just not... Right. Yeah. Totally. She also told Billy that she would give him and his friends a cut of the $140,000 life insurance policy in addition to what that small amount she was going to pay them in today's money that would be worth more than $140,000 in 1990. $250,000?

$337,000. Oh, wow. That's a lot. So over the course of the month of July, after the cops hear about all of this, the police build their case against Pamela. A big part of their case hinges on yet another teenager. This is a girl named Cecilia Pierce, and she's 15 years old. She's Pamela's student intern, as well as like friends with the boys.

I think they're in this kind of like, you know, like the movie River's Edge, like kind of the bad, the bad boy crew kid thing that are in the middle, that kind of like, you know, like the movie, River's Edge, like kind of the bad, the bad boy crew kid thing that are in the metal, that kind of thing. She comes forward to the police and corroborates the fact that Billy and Pamela were in a relationship saying that when Greg was out of town, Billy would sometimes stay there. And she had walked in on them at one point having sex.

So Cecilia agrees to record phone calls with Pamela and wear a wire as well. And a lot of the tapes that result from these conversations are very hard to understand. But there are some clear moments when Pamela is urging Cecilia not to talk about her relationship with Billy. Pamela says, quote, if you tell the fucking truth, you'll send me to the slammer for the rest of my life. The recordings are so damning. And Pamela, throughout this whole process and through the trial and through years and

years insists that she had nothing to do with it. But it's just these recordings are like, she tries to explain that maybe like she was just trying to get more information out of Cecilia so she could figure out what's going on. It's just... But she directly said that. Right. Of like, don't tell the truth, specifically like admitting... That we did this. Yeah.

Yeah. It's just hard to believe. So on August 1st, 1990, Pamela is in her office at the school media center when the lead detective on Greg's murder case arrives. He says he rehearsed this on the way over and it's like, he's clearly very proud of this. He says, quote, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is we finally saw the murder of your husband

and the bad news is that you're under arrest. Like it's such a show. And I think a lot of arrests that we've seen through this podcast are for show. If they arrest you at your place of work or in a public place and handcuff you, it's for show and it's also to influence the people around you that you are guilty because why people see you with handcuffs on and being arrested and they immediately think, wow,

they must be guilty, not like come in, we have to question you and then arrest you. It's a whole different thing. You know what I mean? It's like question what they do when you see that. Yeah. Did they not, had they not talked to her already? Yeah, they totally had. Like, they did not have to do that that way.

But it like, that's almost like the beginning of the media circus of like, look what we're doing and we're arresting her and everyone, including the people who are going to be on the jury, see that. Right. You know? This whole story is an instant media sensation and it makes the national news, it catches the attention of a writer named Joyce Maynard and she pretty quickly writes a novel called To Die For based on the story which is adapted into the movie starring Nicole

Kidman directed by Gus Van Zandt. Like talking about having your book like peak. This is what authors want, you know? Like peak. But she does say this is not based on truth. Like the woman's name isn't the same in the movie. She embellishes a lot of stuff. She's making it all up based on this story.

But I think people in, you know, the trial hadn't happened yet. I think people watched it. Oh, so it's a novel. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. The three boys all plead guilty before Pamela's trial begins. And here's where we start to see some problems.

There's a fourth boy named Raymond Fowler who waited in the car the night of the murder. He also pleads guilty. The boys are not sequestered from each other. They're put in cells together or close to each other. They're allowed to watch each other's testimony and discuss it. And many people say now that that gave them a chance to get their story against Pam straight. And these boys started talking when they found out that they would be charged as adults and faced life in prison. And then they all

turned against Pam and agreed to testify against her. Not saying she didn't do it and it wasn't her fault, but it's sticky. As opposed to, you're saying, like, them being separate and then, like, telling the truth or just being more direct, they were able to kind of orchestrate something. Yeah. It's the same reason why jurors are sequestered from each other and the public, because they need to have their own opinion. But these boys were put together and kept together and knew that their testimony against

Pam is what would keep all of them from getting life in prison. And so they were able to practice that. Yeah. You know? And they're also given very lenient plea deals in exchange for testifying against her, which we always know is sketch. Like you have to have more evidence than just the testimony if you're going to do that. I mean, they have her recording too, so that's damning. But they're not going to be sentenced to tell after Pamela's trial concludes. So like it's almost like you better deliver and then we'll decide what you're

going to get. And then also Cecilia, the young woman who says she knew about all of it, she's given a movie deal before she, before the trial's even over. Well kind, acting, writing? It's like her story. Oh. So like the more over the, and she goes over the top and she is very like, she's like a media darling

in this whole trial. And she gets a movie deal worth $100,000 before the trial's even over. That's insane. You know how much that's worth these days? I mean, everyone's been so incredibly wrong. I'll just throw 400,000 out there. $234,000.

Not even, I'm not adjusting my guesses to what you're telling me in any way. It's okay. I wouldn't either. Numbers. Numbers. They're tired. So like, yeah, of course she's going to deliver. Of course she's going to make it sensational and make it, you know, over the top.

At this point, you've kind of tainted her testimony. It feels like everybody involved was very new to the effect of, like, the media on, right? Because up until this point, or up until around that time, that wasn't really a thing people had to deal with, so nobody knew. Like, oh yeah, and then the press is going to come in and influence, or then people are going to talk or people are going to... Yeah. The courtroom was full of photographers and, you know, people in there. Of course, it's huge. And also, they asked for, of course, to like move the trial to a different city

because this is huge news here and everywhere, but definitely here. Everyone's heard about it. Everyone has an opinion about it. The judge said no. And he also later said that he hopes he gets played by Clint Eastwood. So, like, everyone was ready, ready. Everybody's high on their supply. Exactly. Yeah. So, I'm not saying she's fucking innocent. I personally don't think so at all. However, these are issues that need to be discussed when we're talking about True Crime. Pamela's trial begins on March 4th, 1991. This is, as I said, the very first trial to be broadcast in its entirety on live TV.

It's a massive story across the country. One newspaper runs a whole article every single day solely about what Pamela wears to the courthouse. And she looked very demure and very put together and always had a bow in her hair. Do you remember that? LARISA Yeah. Those clip-in bows? Oh yeah, they were like the barrette that held your ponytail.

Yeah. LESLIE Yeah. Always had a bow. You know, very demure. Very cutesy. LESLIE Very mindful, very cutesy. And she's nicknamed the Ice Princess in the press because she doesn't cry, she doesn't show a lot of emotion. Despite all of this, the huge media attention, the jury's not sequestered until the second day of the trial. Yeah.

So another- They just didn't get around to it? They're like, go mingle. There's a great Italian restaurant down the street. Talk it through. See how you feel with the locals. That's insane. The locals, they know what happened.

Yeah. Right. So Pamela's defense team argues that she did not tell the kid that she was sleeping with Billy to kill her husband. They said Pamela told Billy that they could never be together because of her husband and that Billy misunderstood this as saying that he should kill Greg. The prosecution leans heavily on testimony from the teenagers, particularly Billy Flynn, who like cries on the stand, as well as on the tapes from Pamela's

conversations with Cecilia, which as I said, they're really hard to understand. So when you put them up word for word, it is a little bit like someone saying, yes, that's right, rather than how a natural conversation flows, which is whether you're agreeing. You know, it's just kind of like not good enough to really be used the way it's used, but she does incriminate the ever-loving shit out of herself. Other evidence includes a photo of Pamela in a bikini, which became famous, which the prosecution says she gave to Billy, although later it said that she and her friend took those photos to like submit to some contest, some magazine contest or something. But they love it. They love this, like, vixen. They call her a teacher.

And they just, like, make this really big deal about it. And of course, those photos are also wildly circulated and discussed in the press. Like, fucking people were rabid over this case. So on March 22nd, 1991, Pamela Smart is found guilty of being an accomplice to first degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and witness tampering. And she's given a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. Wow, New Hampshire. Yeah, hardcore. And actually, one of the jurors later says that she didn't want to convict Pamela Smart.

She said, I would have remained adamant and hung the jury if I had known she was going to get life. Wasn't she on the jury? How did she not know? She didn't think the defense or the prosecution did a great job, so she wasn't sold completely. And actually, she was recording her thoughts on a tape recorder every night. And that's in the documentary Captivated, The Trials of Pamela Smart. It's pretty interesting to hear her thoughts. It's been 34 years and she remains in prison at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester, New York. What's she doing in New York? This happened in New Hampshire. Well, she was transferred shortly after her conviction, seemingly to get the media attention away from the New Hampshire prison she was being housed at.

She and other supporters think it was just to like sweep her under the rug and get her out of there. And in fact, there's only been four female prisoners in New Hampshire that have ever been incarcerated outside of the state. So it's a little bit like she thinks they're trying to get her away from her family or just to kind of throw her away. I don't know. I mean... Because there are a lot of protesters outside after the trial and kind of just like to shut them up. Oh, just so nobody questions what has happened. Yeah.

Yeah. While she's been in prison, she's earned a master's in English literature as well as a master's of science in law degree and other degrees as well. And she's now working on a doctorate in ministry. Oh. Yeah. This is really fucking awful. According to Pamela Smart, one of the prison guards sexually assaulted her in 2003 and forced her to pose in lingerie in the same way the bikini photo that was circulated had

been taken and sold it and made money off of it and just a horrible situation. And she says he threatened to kill her and he threatened to kill her family if she told anyone. And the photographs were published in National Enquirer. I mean the National Enquirer was so involved in that kind of shit that you're like, why are you guys reporting on this? You guys are supposed to be like Hollywood tabloids. Right. This isn't that. Yeah.

And it's so sad. Like her face in these photos, I saw them in the documentary, are just blank and devoid. And you can absolutely see it being like a coerced photo, in my opinion, obviously. The guard has since died. So the boys who committed the murder have all since been released from prison, even the one who pulled the trigger after serving sentences of about 25 years each. Many people see a level of unfairness in the fact that Pamela is still in prison, even though she actually didn't commit the murder, which that can be argued.

I'm not saying I believe that or not. And the coverage around the story at the time was undeniably sexist. And some people see Pamela's sentence as an extension of that sexism, being like, here's this vixen, you know. Make her pay. Exactly. Other people believe that Pamela did use her position of power and authority to sexually abuse a teenager, which seems pretty clear, and coerce him to do her bidding and think

that this is actually a totally fair deal that she's spending life in prison. You know, like she essentially pulled the trigger herself, just didn't pull the trigger. It was her plan. Yeah. Yeah. So Pamela, of course, has asked multiple times to have her sentence reevaluated, especially as states have started to reconsider some life sentences. She's been denied every time.

And so, the documentary and all these articles are really interesting. She's denying having anything to do with it over and over again. But in this past June, for the first time ever, she takes responsibility for having some role in her husband's death. Whoa. She finally is like, I am the one to blame for his absence from this world. However, she doesn't get any specifics

like I told him to do it, or I wanted him dead and told them to get, it's more like, if I hadn't done this stuff with this boy, then he wouldn't be dead. So she doesn't totally cop to it. Yeah, she's like taking responsibility for the situation being what it was. I see how I'm to blame for this unfolding this way.

Which is like, okay, maybe she didn't have anything to do with it, and that's true, but who knows. Right, who knows. And of course, people think it was just a bid to get parole anyways, because you kind of do have to show remorse if you're going to get parole, you know? And also, she doesn't mention Greg's name in her statement once. Yeah. And that is the story of the murder of Greg Smart and the trial of his wife, Pamela Smart.

When you first said her name, I thought that was the woman who Gary Hart had the affair with. Remember, you're too young. You're way too young. But like those names that were kind of bobbing around in the 80s and 90s or whatever, I was just like, who could this be? But then as you were telling it, it's like, oh, this is to die for, which I've seen and every, which is like incredibly prejudicial. If you watch that movie, it's so campy. It's like purposely campy. I mean, Gus Van Zandt, it's like purposely campy. And I do recommend watching it. It's fun. It's a good movie. It's so campy. It's like purposely campy. I mean, Gus Van Zandt, it's like purposely campy and I do recommend watching it. It's fun. It's a good movie. It's very fun. But you have no doubt in your mind she's guilty in that movie. Right. She's a seductress in that movie. Yeah. She's fucking Nicole Kidman. Like, come on. Oh, what's the truth? I think

we know. But what's the answer, I think in this case is the... Well, I mean, I don't, I mean, you did the research, so you probably are closer to it. But to me, it's like she absolutely could just be a sociopath that wanted her husband out of the way and was like, she's in her 20s or early 20s. 22. 22 and married. And going to hang out with like high school boys that she's suddenly like, I want this life back.

Yeah. But yeah, it all doesn't really, it's like to me, when it doesn't add up like that where it's like, did you get some big payout? Yeah. Is there a way we can track this back to why you would, it's just that thing of like, why would people risk this when

they almost never get away with it? Totally. Of course, you're not going to get away with it. Especially when you involve four teenagers. Yeah. Wow. And just the callousness of the person you love, having them murder her is like, it's disgusting. And she insists it's because he cheated on her

and that ruined her, but you have to have been a sociopath this entire time for that to be the case. Most people just break up if they're that upset about it. Right. And then like get your revenge by marrying somebody better or richer or hotter or I don't know. Like do it. It is weird. It's just kind of like that, yeah, it's that kind of, you just painted yourself into a corner and then you're just like, no, I didn't.

And it's like, well, you're standing there and we can all see you. It's such a made-for-TV movie that it's almost like absurd that it is actually true and it actually happened that way. Yeah. And there's so many crimes like that, women or men, where you're just, it's like, it's the old Fargo. Yeah. And then in the whole story.

All of that for a little bit of money. Right. Why? Greg Smart's poor family and the whole thing is like pushed to the side and they don't get to memorialize their loved one in any way because it's been just kind of totally usurped by the killers, which is just sad. And she won't acknowledge it or, I am responsible for him not being on the planet anymore.

Just like, so do you know how people see you? Because you can dance around it all you want, that's just you not being able to admit. But we're watching you not be able to admit something. Yeah, that's saying, I'm sorry you're hurt. Yes, exactly. Same thing. I'm sorry your feelings got hurt. Yeah.

But not by what I did, just in general. Yeah. How about that? Thanks for your non-apology. All right, well, great job. Thank you. That was, I mean, a real walk down memory lane. Panel smart.

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with your first audiobook included. Visit audible.com slash murder or text murder to 500 500. That's audible.com slash murder or text murder to 500 500 to try audible free for 30 days. audible.com slash murder. Goodbye. Well, we don't really have to take much of a left turn on my story from your story because there is a connection that's a little bit like it's another story of kind of like media darlings or media people that, you know, burst into

the media. So we began this story on the afternoon of July 2, 1982 in San Pedro, California. It's a waterfront neighborhood about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. And it starts in the small backyard of an unassuming house on West 7th Street where a 33-year-old truck driver named Larry Walters is bracing himself for something amazing. In an act that will soon change Larry's entire life, he sits down in an aluminum lawn chair. And while that may not sound particularly extraordinary, it's no ordinary lawn chair and Larry is no extraordinary guy. That's because he's transformed this department store aluminum folding chair into a vehicle that

he names the Inspiration One. and in it he will achieve his lifelong dream. Today, Larry is going to take flight. This is the story of lawn chair Larry Walters and the bizarre stunt that captured the imagination of America. What? Are you ready? I'm so ready.

This is one of those things that like I can remember this happening, you know, I was 12 when this actually happened and it was on the news. I remember how much Letterman loved him. He went on Letterman, of course. Like it was one of those things. And it makes me think it's like a little sad, especially if you think of like AI, where it was back when people kind of people being eccentric and having original ideas was like,

could get you onto a talk show. And you didn't have awareness that that was what your thing was going to get you to. You weren't trying to do it. You were just doing it to do it. You were just trying to follow your dream. And that's what Larry was doing. So the main sources used in this research today

are a 1998 New Yorker article entitled, The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair by George Plimpton. He got in the New Yorker. Oh, yeah. Damn. And George Plimpton is like a pretty legendary writer. And that's the main article. It's heavily cited throughout this story.

There's also a website dedicated to this event set up by a pilot named Mark Berry. And then, of course, there's various Associated Press articles from the early 80s. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. And if you want to go, if you're interested in like reading that article, you should absolutely go and watch Larry's segment on Letterman, because Letterman is the happiest he's ever been in his life. It's very cute. Okay, so Larry Walters was born in Los Angeles in 1949. There's not that much to learn about his early childhood that's out there.

What we do know is he grew up with his parents and two sisters, but not much else. Articles about Larry do often mention two specific details that feel particularly relevant to the story that follows. One is that Larry's father is a war veteran who served as a bomber pilot in the Pacific. And the other is that when Larry was around eight or nine years old, he has a formative experience while visiting Disneyland. And it's so hilarious to me because I had this exact same experience, but the results were quite different. So Larry will later tell George Plimpton, the writer, that quote, the first thing when we walked in, there was

a lady holding what seemed like a zillion Mickey Mouse balloons. And I went, wow, I mean, you get enough of those, and they're going to lift you up. So that was, I went, wow, I mean, you get enough of those and they're going to lift you up. So that was, I think, like how Disneyland used to be. And I think we have a picture because we went to Disneyland when I was five and it was Mother's Day and my birthday. And so walking in was like, it's like I can still see it in my mind. But the person, I want to say lady, but it was his lady. For him it was a lady, I think for us it was a man. But they

hold like literally like 50 to 70 balloons, right? You've seen it. And it really is kind of Like real balloons too, not just like doofus party balloons, like Mylar and decorative and incredible. I think it's where my passion for balloons began. A balloon within a balloon. I remember the first time I saw that. I was like, what?

Who put a balloon and there's confetti in it too? Are you kidding me? Incredible. A balloon that looks like a mouse? I didn't know that was possible in America. So the idea of using balloons to lift a person into the sky gets embedded in Larry's young mind, becomes something of a fixation.

So when he's a pre-teen, he starts tinkering with gases and fuel and even creating his own hydrogen generators to use to inflate balloons. Like you. Right? Balloon passion. There's nothing I relate to more. Hashtag balloon influencer. Who loves balloons? Write in and tell us.

So Larry will later say, quote, my mother worried a lot. So in terms of making rocket fuel, especially when I was making rocket fuel and it was always blowing up on me or catching fire. Jesus Christ. It's a good thing I never really got into rocketry or I'd probably have shot myself off somewhere.

That's amazing. End quote. So when Larry's 13 years old, he has a light bulb moment. He sees a weather balloon on display at the Army Navy surplus store. So if you're not a big balloon nerd like me and Larry, I will explain to you that weather balloons are balloons, but they are much thicker. They're made of thicker material than an average balloon. That enables them to rise higher. They're also pricey. A single high quality weather balloon can cost anywhere from five to $500, depending

on their size. I did shop them and they get really big, like really big. How do they tell them what? I don't know anything about them other than they pretended that they were UFOs. Yes. But we fucking know the truth. We know the truth. All right.

I don't care how they, yeah, it doesn't matter to the story. What was your question? I don't know. How do they work? Oh, weather balloons, how do they work? They tie like meteorologists and the people that want to know specific stuff about what's going on up there, they tie kind of small, I think I'm about to explain it, I think Maren puts it down here, but oh yeah, here I'll get to it.

They have an explicit function, weather balloons are used to carry small scientific instruments into the atmosphere to collect data for meteorologists, like wind speed, humidity, temperature. They can typically reach heights anywhere from 60,000 to 105,000 feet. Which in today's feet. How many feet could that be today? They're useful scientific tools, but it's usually not a product civilians would buy. Certainly not in bulk. But when Larry sees his first weather balloon, he feels an awakening inside his heart.

He will later say, quote, I realized that that was the way to go. I had to get some of those big suckers. I felt that way when I saw Corey Feldman for the first time. I need him and I need to fly up into the air with him. So 13-year-old Larry doesn't really have the resources to buy a bunch of expensive weather balloons. So his dream remains a dream for now. Years pass.

And Larry graduates from high school. He considers following in his beloved father's footsteps to become an Air Force pilot, but he has bad eyesight. So that immediately puts an end to that idea. He still wants to enlist in the military though, so he ends up serving in the Vietnam War. He's an army cook, which I think Marty, wasn't Marty? Marty, my dad was an army cook. They might have known each other. Oh my god. So around this time, Larry's father begins losing his battle against emphysema. So the Red

Cross actually flies Larry home twice to spend time with his dad before he dies. And when Larry's father eventually passes away, obviously it's an enormous loss. After serving in Vietnam, Larry returns to the US. He finds work as a truck driver. And when he's in his mid-20s, he meets a woman named Carol Van Dusen, and they fall in love. To me, this is just as much a love story as it is a balloon story, which I kind of love. So he and Carol fall in love, but Larry still can't get his mind off of his first love, the weather balloon from the Army Navy store.

But he doesn't hide this from Carol. And here's a quote from him. He says, quote, I was honest with her. When I met her, I told her, Carol, I have this dream about flight and this and that. And then she said, no, no, no, no, you don't need to do that. So I put it on the back burner. Then 10 years later, I got a revelation. It's now or never, I got to do it. So in 1982, Larry takes Carol to lunch at McDonald's and he delivers his pitch. He sketches a blueprint of his idea onto a paper placemat. And it's essentially a mock-up of a chair connected to dozens of large weather balloons and he shows it to

Carol. Oh, no. What if like you're sitting across the love of your life and he's like, hey, and you're like, yes? Yes, what is like you're sitting across the love of your life and he's like, hey. And you're like, yes. Yes, what is it? Yes. He's like, I have a balloon dream. Look here. Here's a chair.

Focus. You want me to buy you more fries? Focus. So, what I love is this. And it's, he basically sketches it out, shows her, tells her this aircraft which he will eventually name the Inspiration One. That's a pretty fucking solid name. Yeah.

This guy's thought it through. And it's kind of a fucking great idea in every way. So he's basically explaining to her that he could lift himself into the air, catch eastward winds, drift a few hundred miles over the San Gabriel mountains, and then basically land in the Mojave Desert. And there, Larry would safely lower himself by shooting the balloons one by one with a BB gun. — God. No. — It's such a 1982 idea. It's hilarious.

— And then what? And then just like, just drink a Fanta and live and be, and high five somebody. Aye. So instead of brushing him off or leaving him entirely, Carol sees how serious he is. And she's also been dating him for 10 years. So she knows flying is his lifelong passion and obsession. And according to Larry, Carol hears him out before finally saying,

quote, Well, it's best you do it and get it out of your system. Yeah. So romantic. Side note, Larry is now a 33 year old man. Now, Carol has some conditions. Before Larry does anything else, she tells him that he has to buy a parachute and then learn how to use it. Like that. So he does that. He finds a flight school in Paris, California, and completes a parachute jump. And then before long, Carol becomes an active participant in helping Larry achieve this flying dream.

That's sweet. It's very sweet. So Larry and Carol figure that launching a person into the sky probably involves breaking maybe a law or two. So they keep their operation low key. To avoid suspicion, they forge a document claiming the balloons are for a production company and will be used in a commercial shoot. And then they buy 45 weather balloons and 55 helium tanks. That's too many.

It's so many. It's like the cartoon up. Like it could float a house. So next they buy an $100 aluminum lawn chair from Sears that will become Larry's captain's seat during his flight. I think I have this one. Is it when they have the like nylon stripes and shit, the old school ones? You can still buy those. I think I have this one. Is it when they have the nylon stripes and shit, the old school ones? Yes.

You can still buy those. I have them in my backyard. They're the best. But what's crazy is how much did it cost you to buy that? A lot more than it was back then. Well, but $100 in 1982 is insane for an aluminum lawn chair. Mine was like 38 bucks. Yeah.

So, and how much would $100 in 1982 money be today? $350. $326. Yes! Nice one. I learned from you. I went from your mistakes. So it's kind of hilarious they went and got like the best aluminum chair. Yeah, I guess you're going to want to buy the best quality. You don't want to scrimp on what your fucking pilot seat. No. Right? Not in that situation. Not what all the balloons are gonna be tied to.

No. So in all, Larry and Carol spend around $4,000 on the Inspiration One. That's a lot. The dream in general. That's a lot. Which is, in today's money, about $4,000 in 1982. Seven hundred seventy-five. Seven thousand seventy-five.

$13,000. Damn! What? It's a real investment. I'm sorry Vince, but like, you can't, your hobbies can't cost that much, sweetheart. We're just gonna make a small wrestling ring in the backyard. Just go with me on this. But I mean,

there's something about that that's like, yeah. It is. It's sweet. She's not gonna do it. No. She's not going to do it. She just has to yes and him. Yeah, and he's probably supported her dreams up until this point, whatever they may be. I hope so. That's love. That's true love.

I hope it's like, Larry, you do your thing. I would love a lighted mirror that shows me what I look like in day, evening, office. You're never going to believe what I just found in day, evening, office. You're never gonna believe what I just found at May Company. The good people at Clarell have already made that real. You're not gonna believe it. So it's all starting to feel very real. And of course, this plan is making Larry's loved ones

very nervous. He says, quote, "'My mother thought maybe I was possessed by the devil or perhaps had post-Vietnam stress syndrome. She wanted me to see a psychiatrist. Yeah, no, she's not wrong. I don't disagree. I don't think you're crazy, but I also don't disagree with her. I mean, it's always good. He doesn't do it, of course. He's a man. Instead, he and Carol pick a launch date, July 2nd. The launch site is going to be the backyard of

Carol's mother's house in San Pedro. Carol's mother is not particularly thrilled to be hosting this launch event, but she basically eventually buys in and lets them do it. So in the hours leading up to the flight, Larry and Carol are joined by a few friends. I mean, how fun would this fucking be? So fun, but my immediate thought, July 2nd in Los Angeles, what happens? They're already setting off fireworks. Already, they're illegal here. It's like the week before and the week after, especially in places like San Pedro, like,

you know, working class neighborhoods. It's fucking insane. I would not want to go in the air with balloons that close to the Fourth of July. And maybe it is potentially a little post-Vietnam. Sure. But also, is it not just, let's seize the day and do this fucking thing before I decide not to do it? I'm like equally parts impressed and horrified

by this whole thing. I love it all. I know. And I also want to buy those folding chairs for my backyard. You can get them. You can get them. Because the pastel, the color blocking in that,

they designed it so nice. It's so good. So Larry and Carol and all their friends worked together to secure Larry's lawn chair to the ground with steel cables to ensure that the chair won't float away as they're attaching the weather balloons to it. And then it begins, over 40 weather balloons are inflated.

Oh my God, that's so many. Each to around seven feet in diameter. They're humongous. The friends and volunteers arrange these inflated balloons into rings methodically tearing one above the other, and nylon covered cables bind each tier. These tiers lead down to the lawn chair, which acts as the aircraft's base.

There's nothing subtle or secretive about what's happening in the backyard. As the Inspiration One takes shape, its highest tier of balloons float about 200 feet in the air. Larry says, quote, around midnight, a couple sheriff's deputies... Oh, it's night, too? Well, they worked on it all day. Got it, got it, got it. And basically, around midnight, a couple sheriff's deputies. Oh, it's at night too?

Well they worked on it all day. And basically around midnight, a couple sheriff's deputies, this is the quote, put their heads over the back wall and yelled, what's going on here? And then I told them we were getting ready for a commercial in the morning. When the sun came up, a lot of police cars slowed down. No wonder, but they didn't bother us Wow Paperwork paperwork white people in the 80s sure and also the brilliant move of this is the Los Angeles Basin you can explain anything away with we're shooting shooting a thing. It's a movie. It's a TV show

Absolutely. So meanwhile around 30 empty milk jugs are filled with water and attached to the seat of the launch air. And they're going to balance the Inspiration 1, keeping Larry upright and stabilized when he becomes airborne. So they'll also play an important role as he descends toward the end of this flight. Larry plans on slashing the jugs, releasing the water, and removing some weight, and then that will give him a softer landing. So now it's around 11 a.m. on July 2nd, and the Inspiration One is ready to fly.

Larry steps into his parachute pack, he loads up his supplies, which include a two-way radio to stay in touch with Carol on the ground, an altimeter to measure altitude as he goes and a 35 millimeter camera so he can take pictures while he's up there. Oh my god, he's a human drone. Yeah. I love it. He's the first drone ever. He's the first drone ever.

He's the first drone. He also has his BB gun pistol and spare BBs. Any power bars? What have we got? Some lunch. Shut the fuck up. Yes. That's all I think about first. You're gonna get hungry?

You're gonna get hungry if you fly all day. The BBC's notes, quote, with his plan of a pleasant afternoon's floating ahead, Larry packed himself a few sandwiches, some soft drinks, and strapped himself into the chair. Hell yeah. Gotta have a picnic. Please. Give me a Lunchable and I'm fucking happy. I'll go anywhere.

What kind of chips do you think he packed with that? Well, you gotta look back then. I don't know. Do they have Sun Chips back then? No. Then it's gotta be something gnarly like Doritos. Yeah. Gotta be some nice Doritos.

Yeah, I bet Doritos were like the breaking snack of the day. Absolutely. Okay, so the plan is to like the breaking snack of the day. Absolutely. Okay, so the plan is to now slowly raise Larry up about a hundred feet over Carol's mom's house. Let him hang there for a little bit, get his bearings. He'll get acclimated to what he's doing before they actually release him. So Carol and the others cut all the ties tethering the Inspiration One to the ground except for one. Are you stressed?

I'm stressed out. So if Larry senses any sort of issue, or if he decides to call off the flight last minute, they will use this tether to pull him back down. You didn't say how he's strapped into the chair. There has to be like seatbelts, right? I actually don't know. Okay, let's pretend there is. I mean, seatbelts.

I wonder, here's my guess, that if he has those water jugs that something is across him, like two water jugs with a bungee cord across his lap. There's no way he's raw dogging that seat. Alejandro, do you mind looking it up and see if you can find out? He's raw dogging it. A couple articles I'm seeing say there's no seatbelt or anything. There's no seatbelt is the answer to that question. Oh my God.

Okay, so essentially they've got this kind of safety measure so he can like test out being up there. Yeah. So that's the plan. So Carol and the others cut all the ties tethering the Inspiration One to the ground except for one. And as Larry bobs upwards, he is not given any time to get his bearings as planned. Instead, the upward pull of the massive balloons immediately snap the final tether. And instead of a gentle

ascent, Larry is suddenly launched upwards. One article describes him as being quote shot from a cannon into the sky. So it's such an intense pull that Larry's chair flings forward and his glasses fly off. So Carol's watching from the ground as Larry rockets into the sky with panic in her voice. She radios up to Larry and begs him to come down. What if he gets pulled out over the ocean or drifts into restricted airspace? Now he doesn't even have his glasses. How's he going to know where he's going? It's all so real. But Larry remains calm. He radios back, reassuring Carol that he's going to be okay. He tells her that he has a backup pair of glasses in his shirt pocket ready to go. Yes, Larry. And Larry will later say, quote,

I wasn't going to hassle with her because no way in heck, you know, after all this, my life, the money we'd sunk into this dome, I'd just come down. No way in heck. Did he say no way in heck? Yeah. For real? I was just going to have a good time up there. Cute. End quote. So this is Larry's lifelong dream. They've made it real. He's going to savor it.

And he later says, quote, the higher I went, the more I could see. And it was awesome. I could see the orange funnels of the Queen Mary. I could see that big seaplane of Howard Hughes's, the Spruce Goose. That's all Long Beach, right? Yeah. Wow. With two commercial tugs alongside. Then higher up, the oil tanks of the naval station like Little Dots, Catalina Island in the distance.

Damn. At one point, I caught sight of a little private plane below me. I could hear the buzz of its propeller. That's terrifying. The only sound. Yeah. I had this camera, but I didn't take any pictures. This was something personal. I wanted only the memory of it.

That was vivid enough." End quote. Can you imagine how 1982 that is where he's like, I have the option to take a picture, but you know what? Forget it. This is for me. No one can do that in 2024. It didn't happen if you didn't fucking take a picture.

Yeah, that's right. So as he flies, Larry keeps tabs on how high he's going using his altimeter. He's treating this flight almost like a plane ride. He's ascending. He plans to level off at a cruising altitude between six and seven thousand feet and then drift over toward the Mojave Desert, which is the weirdest like I'm going to plan to land in one of the most dangerous places you could. Yeah. Go to Redondo Beach. There's a fucking great restaurant right on the pier. Tony's on the pier. Like, land there.

Exactly. Get fish tacos. Yes. Get a drink of beer. Don't do it in the Mojave. Get some high-fives. How about you land in Dodger Stadium and fucking make a scene? Go Dodger.

Okay. So, for a sense of how high this is, of how high six or seven thousand feet, like what he's planning, one World Trade Center, which is the highest building in the United States, stands at around 1,800 feet tall. So you would have to stack four of those on top of each other to get to an elevation of seven thousand feet. How does he not pass out? I don't know the details, but... We're gonna talk about those details. Okay. But Larry's moving so much faster than he anticipated

that he immediately overshoots 7,000 feet and very soon hits 16,000 feet. He's now nearly three miles up, very dangerous for a person in a lawn chair to travel this high of an altitude with no plan for oxygen supply. The temperature has dropped to somewhere between five and ten degrees. Larry's toes are numb.

He's so high he's being spotted by airline pilots taking off and landing at LAX. One pilot alerts air traffic control and reports, quote, we have a man in a chair attached to balloons in our 10 o'clock position. They were like, that pilot's drunk. Get him out of the fucking cockpit. Seriously. So things are starting to get a little out of control very quickly. Larry remains calm though. He really has the heart of a pilot. He just picks up his BB gun and he aims at the balloons above him and fires. A few fall beside his chair. This levels out his ascent. So now Larry gets to drift.

But when he puts the gun back in his lap to check the altimeter and make sure the Inspiration One is actually leveling off, a sudden gust of wind jolts his ship and the gun flies out of his lap. Tell me he had an extra like his fucking glasses. Oh my God. He would later say quote, to this day I can see it falling,

getting smaller and smaller down toward the houses three miles down. I thought, I hope there's no one standing down there. Oh my God. It was a terrifying sight. I thought, uh-oh, you've done it now. Why didn't you tie it on? I had backups for most everything. It never dawned on me that I'd actually lose the gun itself. You got it. You got a dawn on everything.

You got a dawn on shit if you're going to put yourself into the stratosphere. Dawn on every possibility. Would you please? Can you, please? Carol. And this is bad. Larry has just lost his only tool to ensure his descent. He thinks about flinging himself out of the chair and using the parachute on his back to get down to Earth safely.

But then he realizes that some of the balloons were actually torn when he shot up into them. So the ones that fell weren't the only ones that were affected. There were tiny tears in some of the remaining balloons, and he is now losing helium in those balloons. So he realizes that the Inspiration One is starting to gradually descend. Now Larry wants to let Carol know that he is landing. So he picks up his CB radio, but he can't reach her. He does manage to connect with an emergency operator who naturally is very confused by what Larry is telling him. This is how he explains a situation to the emergency operator.

Quote, the difficulty is this is an unauthorized balloon launch. I know I am interfering with general airspace. I'm sure my ground crew has alerted the proper authorities. His ground crew, which is like three drunk friends and Carol crying. Exactly. His friends that are drinking like fucking Zima all night in the wine coolers. Too early for Zima. But they've been overnight the whole night.

Oh, to early in the year. In the years. Wine coolers. It's like Coors. Coors with the pull tab. Yeah. Or maybe like the pop top had just come out. I'm sure my ground crew has alerted the proper authorities, but could you just call them

and tell them I'm okay? Just tell Carol that I love her and I'm doing fine. Please do. Over. You're not doing fine, buddy. And also, what are you doing? This is CB radio emergency operator. Okay, the operator's voice is described as, quote, squeaking in disbelief. So, by the time Larry's done making this call, the Inspiration One has fallen to an elevation of around 2,000 feet. It then begins plummeting towards the earth at a much faster speed. So obviously it's going and going and as the helium is leaving these balloons, nothing

is replacing it. So it's like a descent that then is just gaining speed. Yeah, plummeting is one of those words where like, please don't ever have that in like a paragraph with my name on it. We don't want to be plummeting. No one wants to plummet. So Larry grabs a knife and frantically slashes at the water-filled milk jugs, balancing the Inspiration One, because they're weighing him down.

So he knows he has to lighten the load to hopefully slow the fall, water gushes from the jugs, but it's not enough. Now Larry can make out rooftops of the houses below and power lines. If Larry collides with those power lines, he will be electrocuted. But by some insane stroke of luck, instead of hitting the power lines directly, the nylon covered cables that have been connecting Larry's chair to the weather balloons are the ones that get tangled in the powerlines first. Oh my God.

Because he's not falling straight down. Right. So they like, yeah. And because they're covered with nylon, it is not conductive. They act as a barrier between the inspiration one and the electric power lines. So Larry not only avoids, very narrowly avoids, being electrocuted, but he also avoids smashing into the ground. So he gets caught on the power lines, not electrocuted, and saved from hitting the clear.

Sometimes people need to be taught a little bit of a lesson. You know what I mean? Like lose a finger or something. Don't forget his toes are really cold. Oh, his toes are cold. His toes are cold. Larry's scrappy flight comes to a fittingly bizarre ending with him dangling just a few feet above the ground in someone's backyard in Long Beach. Where? In Long Beach. Oh my god. Larry will later say, quote, it's ironic because the guy that owned the house, he was out reading

his morning paper on Shay's lounge next to his swimming pool. And you know, just the look on this guy's face. He hears the noise as I scraped across his roof and he looks up and he sees this pair of boots and the chair floating right over him under the power lines, right? He sat there mesmerized just looking at me. After about 15 seconds, he got out of the chair. He said, hey, do you need any help? And guess what?

It turns out he was a pilot. Oh my God. An airline pilot on his day off. What are the fucking, come on. To make sure that Larry can be safely brought down from his lawn chair, the power is shut off to this area of Long Beach for about a half an hour. Curious residents pour into the street to gawk at Larry until someone grabs a stepladder and actually helps him down out of his chair.

No, he deserved it. He deserved to stay where he was. He should have hung out and thought about his actions. Once on the ground, Larry is put into a cop car, but he's released almost immediately because the cop isn't really sure what laws he's broken. Larry says, quote, He said I'd be hearing from the FAA and I was free to go. I autographed some pieces of the balloons for people who came up. One of these amazed onlookers is a young boy who reports off and referred to as quite simply

a neighborhood kid. He asks Larry if he can have the lawn chair and Larry says yes. Hell yeah. And that's how sublime was started. Long Beach, we're in Long Beach. Nice. But he'll soon come to regret this decision. Carol will later say, quote, that chair should be in the Smithsonian.

Larry always felt just terrible about that. Why? Who's that kid now? We need to hear from him. Well, we will. Shut the fuck up. After his flight, Larry gets slapped with a $4,000 fine from the FAA for various violations, which in today's money would be like paying

— You already told me. You already fucking told me. — $4,000 in 1982 money. — 13 — — Yes, exactly correct. — My brain works. — Dead on. — Thank God. — We had our first perfect in today's money guess.

— Well, because only because you told me before, but it's like the game memory. I could have not guessed it. Remember the $4,000 of what they spent on the fucking whole project? And you told me and I wasn't going to get it and I can't believe I did. And I'm doing better than I thought I was. The fact that I got it right isn't the prize. The prize is that I've remembered something. It's not a pure, it's not a clean in today's money, I guess.

No, it's, but it still is a win for me. It is a win. I'm not, I'm 44 and I remember that. You don't have to worry about your brain the way I have to worry about my brain. Just get some fucking HDR, man. Okay. Larry appeals that fine and it gets reduced to $1,500 because as the FAA eventually concedes... We're proud of you.

We're kind of impressed. We kind of love you. Like kind of high five, bro. We wanted to really drink some beers with you. You're our type of impressed. We kind of love you. Like kind of high five, bro. We wanted to really drink some beers with you. You're our type of guy. The quote is actually, the flight was potentially unsafe, but Walters had not intended to endanger anyone. Since when has intentions fucking mattered?

To the FAA especially. I mean, you know how they are. They are such bitches. Meanwhile, Larry becomes an overnight 80s folk hero. He pops up all over popular culture. There is a lawn chair flight, much like Larry's, written into an episode of the A-Team. Oh, really? I bet Vince remembers that. Okay, I'm gonna ask him. Larry is given a brand deal with Timex.

Hell yeah. And as Carol later tells writer George Plimpton, quote, that Times cartoonist Paul Conrad did one of Ronald Reagan in a lawn chair with some sort of caption like, another nut from California. Takes a beat and keeps on ticking, is that it? That's Timex, yes. Larry's mother, and we're still in the quote, Larry's mother was upset by this

and wrote a letter to the Times, you know how mothers are. And quote. So Larry appears as a guest on Johnny Carson and David Letterman. He describes his appearance on Late Night, which is Letterman's show, as quote, the most fun I ever had. Because they were all on so much cocaine. Because they were they were high on Larry's great idea. And cocaine. But Larry seems caught off guard by the

enthusiastic response to his flight. He tells reporters that, quote, I didn't think that by fulfilling my goal in life, my dream, that I would create such a stir and make people laugh. That makes so much sense because so many people don't live their dreams, he fucking did it. Yeah. And it's simple. And also, he's sincere. He's not doing it to do it.

It's not a little show. He's like, no, no, I want to fly. Yeah, he's not an aviation influencer. He's just a fucking aviation enthusiast. He's a weather balloon aficionado, like myself. Despite all the attention, Larry doesn't make much money off the flight. Ten years later, he still hasn't recouped the $4,000 that he and Carol spent on it. And meanwhile, Larry and Carol drift apart. I mean, that's great wording, though. They drift apart.

Oh, Maren really knocked it out of the park on this one. She really did. She really did. She really drifted out of the park. They drifted apart. But she didn't italicize it or anything. I don't know if she knew that she did that. Settle. After spending 15 years together, the two eventually go their separate ways, but they do stay friends. In his early 40s, Larry becomes an enthusiastic volunteer with the U.S. Forest Service and spends a lot of time in nature. But tragically, in 1993, 44-year-old Larry

is found near his favorite hiking spot after taking his own life. Oh, no. Yeah. It comes as a total shock to his friends and family members he doesn't leave a note. It's a heartbreaking end to an inspiring story and Larry will always live on as a testament to human will. He stands as proof that dreams, regardless of how impossible or silly they might seem, can come true. Larry Walters' 1982 flight on his homemade aircraft, the Inspiration 1,

has left a permanent impression on popular culture. It inspired the movie Danny Deckchair, which is like a later, I think it's from the late 90s or early 2000s. This year, a British musical called 42 Balloons premiered to good reviews. Cute. If you're in anywhere in the UK. Buy a fucking My Favorite Murder shirt and then go and wear it. And go support to 42 Balloons. And also Larry's story is going to be the subject of a forthcoming documentary.

It also has an ending that he would probably love. That I wrote that in. I don't know Larry, but it sounds like he would probably love. That I wrote that in, I don't know Larry, but it sounds like he would. In the early 2000s, the neighborhood kid who asked for Larry's lawn chair back when he landed comes forward, it turns out he kept it in storage all these years, so it was in pristine condition.

It was exactly as Larry had left it when he jumped out in the airline pilot's backyard. The Inspiration One was handed over to the Smithsonian and is now housed in the National Air and Space Museum. Fuck, yes. Doesn't that make you kind of want to cry? Yes.

Curator Tom Crouch has said that Larry's lawn chair, quote, symbolizes the freedom of flight and the desire to achieve flight that's embedded in all of us. Who hasn't dreamed of doing something like that." End quote. Or as Larry Walters told reporters after he kind of landed the tangled inspiration one on that auspicious July day in 1982, quote, a man can't just sit around. And that is the amazing story and the human victory of Launcere Larry Walters. I really do feel like I might cry. Do it. Like that's so inspirational. I know. It rules.

But it's so dangerous and terrifying. It's so fucking- But he fucking did it. It's so dangerous, but he did it. His lady helped him do it. And also with, and his friends and their moms. Oh my God. It's kind of it. And also with his friends and their moms. Oh my god. It's kind of gorgeous. And then also, it's just that idea of people wanting to kind of get up and see this is where we live, this is what we are. Yeah, and life is more than just the nine to five and the blah blah blah. And your fucking phone and the stupid shit you see in there.

Oh, and it sucks that you're colorblind or whatever. You had bad vision and you can't do, you can't live your dream, but like there's other ways to live your dream than the fucking ABC way that everyone fucking tells you you have to do it. Do it a different way. I wish I could clip out that and then send it to myself in 1996 when I found out for the millionth time I didn't get the dumb audition that I was auditioning for because I didn't even really want to be doing that, but I thought it was my dream. Can you show yourself right here doing a fucking true crime comedy podcast?

I could, but I think I'd be like, I'm on so many diet pills, I'd be like, what the fuck is going on? And what's the podcast? We've done it. Our dreams have come true. We fucking did it in the weirdest way, and I'm proud of us and I feel like Larry paved the way for us. I think he did. I think that podcasts are our weather balloons. We strapped ourselves to this rickety fucking lawn chair. We didn't even strap ourselves. We just sat in it.

We didn't have backup glasses. We didn't have fucking BB guns. A BB gun? That's scary. We're just floating. We're just floating and we're on our way to Redondo and didn't have fucking BB guns. A BB gun? That's scary. We're just floating. We're just floating and we're on our way to Redondo and we're just fucking doing it. And look at us now. Look at us now.

Crash landing into success. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah! This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton.

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Scolache. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and Twitter at MyFaveMurder. Goodbye!