QAA Podcast - Raising Hell: Chapter One - Once Upon a Time in Omaha (E389)

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Today the QAA crew is taking a small rest day from their melted algorithms but have no fear dear listener, we won't leave you hanging. Last week Jack and Julian began releasing their new Cursed Media mini series and today, in lieu of a usual main episode, we would like to share the first episode of what they have been cooking up. Raising Hell. In 1988, federal regulators closed Omaha’s Franklin Community Federal Credit Union after discovering that nearly $40 million had disappeared. The institution’s manager, Lawrence E. “Larry” King Jr., was a charismatic civic leader and political operator who had cultivated relationships far beyond Nebraska. King’s public image, and the astonishing scale of the missing money, made the collapse a major scandal. But as investigators began following the financial trail, an even more disturbing story took shape. In Chapter One of Raising Hell, “Once Upon a Time in Omaha,” Jack LaRoche and Julian Feeld return to the origins of the Franklin story: not the lurid mythology that later grew around it, but the vulnerable children, troubled households, foster-care placements, and child-welfare institutions from which the first allegations emerged. The episode examines the experiences of young people who passed through a system that was supposed to protect them, including Boys Town and Nebraska’s foster-care network, and who repeatedly encountered adults unwilling or unable to recognize what was happening around them. At the center of this chapter is Eulice Washington. Her disclosures helped expose documented abuse inside an Omaha household and opened a path toward far more explosive allegations involving Larry King and other influential people. What began as an investigation into the treatment of children would soon collide with the Franklin credit-union case, drawing in social workers, journalists, law-enforcement agencies, politicians, private investigators, and witnesses whose accounts would be alternately ignored, sensationalized, challenged, and transformed. Content warning: This episode contains discussions of child abuse, sexual exploitation, and institutional neglect. Episode Music by Nick Sena and Pontus Berghe Theme Music by Thomas Arsenault Produced by Corey Klotz Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa Click here to become a subscriber to Cursed Media today to get access to the first three episodes of Raising Hell right now, plus the new Raising Hell episodes weekly, plus every other exclusive Cursed Media series: https://cursedmedia.net QAA Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com) qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

Hello, beloved QAA listeners. You might be surprised to not find a main this week, but we needed a little break. Everybody needs a little break once in a while. But not to be outdone and give you nothing, we are going to give you something very special. We have the very first episode of the new cursed media miniseries, Raising Hell. And I am here with my co-host and the writer, of course, of the miniseries. That's right. It's Jack LaRoche.

How's it going, Jack? It's going all right, considering everything. It's really sad that Travis is in the hospital for butt stuff, but we have to soldier on, and so I'm going to read the little intro to our show. In 1988, the FBI raided Omaha's Franklin Community Federal Credit Union. $38 million was missing, and its politically connected manager, Lawrence E. Larry King Jr. was indicted on 40 counts. That was just the beginning of it. the story. A financial fraud case gave way to allegations of child abuse, trafficking, political

protection, and ritual violence. The names of missing children became entangled with testimony from troubled witnesses. Institutions failed vulnerable kids. Records disappeared. Investigations reached radically different conclusions. The Franklin scandal became part criminal history and part cultural mythology. Its core narratives mutated and went viral in the 21st century through Pizza Gate and QAnon. Nearly four decades later, what is actually known about the allegations that rocked Nebraska in the late 80s? In the limited podcast series Raising Hell, hosts Jack LaRoche and Julian Field unraveled the story by reexamining the original reporting, government records, court proceedings, and witness accounts. Featuring original interviews with people directly involved

and affected by the controversies, Jack guides listeners through one of the darkest and deepest rabbit holes of the American Midwest. Some crimes were proven. Some allegations were dismissed. Some questions never went away. Jack, tell the listener a little bit why this is such an interesting mini-series for specifically those who listened to QAA. Do you remember The Finders? It was one of the earliest QAA episodes. Yes, I do. This overlaps a little bit with the story of the Finders. It overlaps a little bit with the satanic panic and the allegations of satanic ritual abuse that rocked America throughout the 80s and 90s. It overlaps with child trafficking, the allegations of which are still ongoing in a very major way. And it overlaps with Jeffrey Epstein. And a lot of what dragged me into

this initially was finding some of the names associated with the Franklin case in the Epstein files when I was doing research on his connections with the scientific community. Yeah, there's a lot here, I think, for people to chew on, I would say. And there's also a lot of horrifying stuff. So, you know, we do try to put some warnings in there for people to, you know, I guess make that choice for themselves. But I guess it bears repeating before we tell you to go to cursedmedia.net, where you can get the first three episodes right now and new episodes released weekly. We're going to do eight total, right? Yes, there's going to be eight total. And as an extra treat, there might be some interesting additional material that will slowly drip out as this investigation continues. This isn't something

that can totally be put away. Well, before we resume our QAA schedule, and we will see you around that bend, here without further ado, is the first episode of Raising Hell. Welcome to Raising Hell. Listener discretion is advised. Over the course of this season, we'll be covering a story that to some is nothing more than a carefully crafted hoax, but to others, these events have left a scar that they've carried their whole lives. We aren't seeking to solve or debunk anything, but offering an opportunity to reconsider these stories now that 38 years have passed since the first FBI raid. Some parts of this story are supported by court records and contemporaneous reporting. Other parts depend on

contested testimony or inference. Some parts are only seen darkly, hinted at in heavily redacted FBI reports. Throughout this series, we'll identify which is which. Join us with an open mind and compassion for the pain many have carried for over four decades. We are your host, Jack LaRoche, and Julian Field. Chapter 1. Once Upon a Time in Omaha. On the surface, the story is a deceptively simple one. In 1988, the FBI raided the Franklin Community Credit Union in search of $38 million that had gone missing from the books.

The manager of the credit union, Lawrence King Jr., better known to the world as Larry King, but obviously not the one you're probably thinking of, ultimately ended up indicted on 40 different counts of fraud, embezzlement, and conspiracy. He spent 11 of the 15 years he was sentenced to in prison. But that's hardly the whole story. I mean, if we're just talking about how he looked, it wasn't the whole story. I mean, he's an incredibly strange-looking man. Looks like he's wearing a nice creamy toupee.

Yeah, hard to wrap my head around this guy's odd look. Yeah, Nick Bryant's referred to him as corpulent and even that, just. isn't the whole picture. I don't think it is. Beneath a white collar crimes are rumors of ritual murder, drug smuggling, and the underground auction of children. This probably sounds familiar, right? Yes, it definitely does. It's something that's carried on long into the future through Pizagate, Q, all of that. Yeah, it's my contention that Pizagate actually ripped off the narrative of the Franklin affair. Oh, interesting. And essentially just kept exaggerating it the way that urban legends tends to form. It was actually pretty easy to find information about this prior to 2016.

But after Pizza Gate truly began to take off and just become the whole web, the Franklin scandal has faded into relative obscurity. But the story of the scandal is remarkably far-stretching. So even referring to it as a story is a bit of a misnomer. There are wheels within wheels here. The picture that it forms is just so complicated that every detail will likely never be fully. known. It's complex enough that it's even debated online where exactly the story should be started. But with the benefit of hindsight, there are three starting points. The first is the bedrock from which skeptics build their case, and it is seldom discussed or even acknowledged within conspiracy circles.

The second is actually where I first came across this case and fell into the rabbit hole head first, and my life has never quite been the same since. It's the case of a paper boy who disappeared over 40 years ago, and the confession of the young man who claims to have been part of that abduction. The third potential starting point introduces us to the man behind the Franklin Credit Union, Larry King. The Confidence Man.

A few miles west of Omaha, Nebraska, is Boys Town. A small city for homeless boys, founded in 1917 by a Roman Catholic priest with the name of Father Edward J. Flanagan. Father Flanagan's Boys Town is known all over the world and stands as a living monument to the man who built it. Have you ever heard of Boys Town?

No, I can't say I have before this came up. It's an incredibly creepily named institution and just seems nefarious on its face. Yeah, learning about it doesn't entirely dissuade one of that notion in today's day and age. But as the video said, this is a place that was founded by Father Flanagan, a Catholic priest. And his idea was initially to create a place for unemployed indigent men to come and be part of a

community and get their life back on track. But it didn't work out the way that he planned. It quickly disillusioned him to the entire notion because the men were not acting the way that he wanted them to. They were spending their money on alcohol and other vices. So Father Flanagan said, no, I need to start with boys. Oh, my lord, I'm going to tell you right now. Don't like the sound of that, one bit.

He fully dedicated himself to the boys. So Boys Town was a very unique place and still is to this day. There's actually more than one Boys Town now. But Boys Town did not discriminate based on race. It didn't discriminate based on class, based on anything. So this is a place that holds the rights of a town and a diocese by the time period that we're going to be talking about, which is the 1970s initially. It had its own zip code, its own police force, its own hospital, and its own post office. Did everything have to be manned by boys?

Or was there, were there some adults on the scene? It was mostly manned by the boys. Now, obviously not the hospital, for instance. But the boys actually elected their own government. And they had to run their own campaigns. They had to be the only ones who voted. The adults were not allowed to vote in these elections. And then they had to run the town by themselves.

So when we discuss Boys Town, there is a boy mayor of Boys Town. Oh, my God. Which is just a very unique idea. And the entire notion that Father Flanagan had was that by teaching, these children about the democratic process by having them participate in it, it would instill within them the values to go out and be a successful member of society. Sure. So nothing nefarious could happen in Boys Town, right? It seems incentivized to, yeah, become a pit of evil. Yeah, as a side note on all of this, this also is where the campaign of, he ain't heavy, he's my brother, came from, which is just something

that's, for whatever reason, is there in the back of my head. Yeah. Still doesn't really quite make sense to me. Is the person lighter because they're the brother? Is that, is that why? Or just because he is a burden worth carrying. Right. Okay. Yeah. No, that's that's straightforward. I'm trying to look for something a little more complex there, but all right. No, no, no. It's very straightforward. You know, you're going to carry those with you because you're uplifted as a community. It's a very beautiful idea and a very great idea. But it's hard to view it through that. lens now when so many controversies and horrific things have come out of the Catholic Church. Yeah, that's really the involvement there. Not, you know, assuaging my qualms. On February 1st, 1974, the Boys Town staff made the controversial decision to hire the ex-convict Michael Casey as the director of special projects there. Casey settled into his position immediately and began enacting change within the charity with gusto. There are quite a few newspaper articles from the time discussing the controversial changes that Michael Casey was making.

And the impression that I've largely gotten from these is that the staff really liked him, the staff being the children there at Boys Town, whereas the actual members of the clergy involved were much more on edge about what he was doing and kind of viewing him with a bit of suspicion. Yeah, I mean, just bringing gusto to Boys Town. It's already, I prefer it without. Yeah, you're never going to hear the word boys the same after researching Boys Town. Oh. So at the time, Boys Town was the largest charity in the United States. And it remained that for quite some time. An Oscar Award winning film had been made about it in 1941, along with a sequel just a couple years later. And it starred Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, if I'm recalling correctly.

So big names at the time. Mm-hmm. But the charity had about $500 million in assets and brought in $35 million annually through telethon fundraising drives, which were ubiquitous across the nation. Oh, yeah. And bear in mind, this is $500 million and $35 million in 1974 money. Mm-hmm. So a lot more now. Oh, yes.

Barely two months after being hired by Boys Town, Casey strode on into an L.A. Times office and told a reporter there Dave Smith that he knew where Patty Hurst was, and that she would be willing to grant the Times an interview. So do you remember what happened with Patty Hurst? Sure, yeah, she's a very wealthy ARS, and there were questions about this Symbionese Liberation Army that she joined, whether or not she was brainwashed or if she joined of her own accord, the bottom line is it became a huge national kerfuffle, right?

massive national kerfuffle that still is heavily debated now, whether or not the Symbionese Liberation Army was part of Project Chaos, which was a CIA initiative to discredit left-wing groups, particularly around Berkeley. There's questions about that. Certainly has the hallmarks. Oh, gosh, yes. And it's a really big rabbit hole to go down. But suffice to say, there was a special task force just dedicated to following what was going on with Hearst. You know, it was a was massive national news. Of course. She was only 19, so...

White 19-year-old girl, extremely wealthy, under the mind control of communists. And black communists at that. Oh, no, even worse than the normal communists. But the New York magazine reported... Smith had known Casey casually for four or five years, and, preposterous though it sounded, he was inclined to believe Casey's story

that Patty, disguised by plastic surgery, had been helping with the evacuation of Vietnamese refugees in Saigon. She now hoped, Casey said, that if she told the world through the L.A. Times of her heroic humanitarian efforts, federal authorities might offer some leniency in exchange for her surrender. So the L.A. Times was a bit suspicious. This is not the most straightforward story. So they interrogated the hell out of Casey and were blown away by his knowledge. He supplied them with trivial details that proved he had to have known Hirst personally in some capacity. They were so impressed that they sent two reporters, along with Casey, on a first-class flight to Southeast Asia, to investigate.

At one point, the increasingly skeptical Times reporter gave Casey two questions to ask Patty to prove he was really in contact with her. Only she, they said, would know both answers. They had gotten both questions and answers from her cousin in San Francisco. That afternoon, with two reporters in his hotel room, Casey received a telephone call. He kept saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, I can't remember the code. Then he scribbled something down on a piece of paper, hung up, rewrote it, translated it, and handed the paper to reporters. On it were the correct answers to their two secret questions. The reporters were ecstatic, euphoric.

Everyone shook hands and whooped with joy. So everybody clapped. Yeah. But Patty Hurst was not in Southeast Asia. Oh boy. Casey was not in touch with her. All of this was pulled off by him having a friend Callhurst's cousin, pretending to be. be an LA Times reporter and ask for the questions and answers just one more time just to make sure

we have them right. Casey costs the Times roughly $15,000. I mean, this seems like such a bad move. Like, why does he need all this heat? Why is he fucking around like this? Hey, you have a perfectly good job as part of Boys Town, and now you're going to go and screw that up because you want to make claims about Patty Hears, basically doing like a big prank. So there are a lot of questions surrounding this, and we will definitely be touching on those, you know, as this goes on. But suffice to say, all of this was bullshit. All of this is deeply confusing. And nobody really wanted to talk about it. But he did all of this while working at Boys Town. Jesus. Some people can really multitask. You know, you've got to admire him.

So he returned back to Boys Town. And by August, he was being pressured to leave by their director, Father Hup, the boy mayor of Boys Town, heavily opposed to this decision. They have a fucking Dalai Lama, but it's just like some white kid. 18-year-old Ed Henderson, in fact, which is just a great name for a boy mayor. Of course. The next month, September, the news as to why Casey was fired got leaked to the press. The Lincoln Star Journal reported. Father Hup explained that Casey had taken it upon himself to contact a

Hollywood television studio about the possibility of a television series about Boys Town. Shortly before Mr. Casey's resignation, dated August 1, 1974, it was discovered that 31 of our files on individual boys' histories were missing from the vault. It was believed that they were in possession of Mr. Casey, then in California, on what he called a business trip. Mr. Casey was contacted, the files were returned immediately, and I called for his resignation. In the meantime, and before these files were returned to their proper places in the vault, they were inadvertently destroyed by a member of the maintenance crew. Okay. Yeah. So homework, firmly eaten by dog, nothing to see here. Absolutely nothing to see here. And the television studio, like the people that he was

in contact with on Hollywood, that information has never actually been reported on, to my knowledge. So we have names for a lot of things, but not for that. Okay. And following this, Michael Casey called for a federal investigation of Boys Town, according again to the Lincoln Evening Journal. Casey, former director of special projects, charged that Boys Town is misusing scholarship money. He said he had seen records indicating that between 800,000 and 1.5 million dollars in scholarship money was available, and added he had heard that amount might go as high as $5 million. He just can't help himself. He cannot help himself.

What's the impression you're getting overall of what's going on here? We have someone fucking around. Big time. I don't understand why. That's the problem. That's what's so stunning about it. It's like, why would you do this to yourself? So what I haven't said here is that Casey also was a pretty severe alcoholic.

Okay. And was running cocaine. Oh, of course. And all of this was happening prior to him being hired by Boys Town. Okay, got it. All of that having been said, the acting mayor, the boy mayor of Boys Town, Ed Henderson, was protesting. in favor of retaining Michael Casey on, you know, at the institution. And he was reported to have been confined to campus and had his telephone privileges revoked for

these protests. Yeah. The same article that was just read from cited the reason for Casey's firing as having been incompetence, making zero mention of the 31 inadvertently incinerated case files. Yeah, he seems to be competent in a game of his own making. And, you know, now that you're adding alcohol and cocaine, into the mix, I think that things are getting a little bit clear. Now, all of that having been said, if we look ahead to 2021, three archdiocese in Nebraska,

including one serving Omaha, identified 258 clergy abuse victims and 57 incredibly accused church officials. Of course this is what comes next. So several of the priests accused of sexual abuse had worked on the Boys Town campus during the 1970s and 1980s, when those 31 case files were inadvertently destroyed, and Casey first began raising the alarm regarding the misappropriation of funds. And Omaha wasn't the only Boys Town location to cover up the sexual abuse of children. A 2023 article published by the Pulitzer Center goes into details about just how widespread the corruption was. So suffice to say, abuse was real and rampant, particularly in Boys Town. So Michael Casey's secret hero, or what the hell is going on here?

We'll be getting to it because this is not the last that we'll hear about Michael Casey. Okay, I bet it's not. He is a very big player within all of this. And this background information regarding him is something that you often won't hear when people discuss the Franklin case in general. But you got to remember his name, his affiliation with Boys Town, and how often he was traveling between Nebraska and California. All of these details will be coming into play, significant. But first, we have a few other pieces we need to get into place. This is not a linear story.

The conspiracy. He looked at me and he said, Mrs. Gosh, there's something you don't understand. The other family, they're very wealthy. They're very prominent in Des Moines. We had to search for their sons because they just are more prominent people than you are. Mr. Hawkins had no idea, but he did me a favor that day because he told me what story really was. And I don't remember doing this, but I evidently picked up a coffee cup full of hot coffee, and I hurled it across the room, and the cup and the coffee missed

Herb Hawkins' face by about a quarter of an inch. At that point, he said, I can see that you're distraught, is there anything I can do for you? And I said, yes, you can get the hell out of my house. Don't ever come back. If you're not going to investigate my son's case, then step aside because I'm coming through. So I know you didn't grow up in the U.S., but it's a big enough trope that you probably have known about the pictures of missing children on milk cartons, right? Sure, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it even comes forward in like a bunch of comics and television shows. Yeah, like the Simpsons and stuff.

Yeah, for those who aren't aware, from 1984 until the mid to late night, 1990s, you'd get milk cartons and on the side of them, there would be these faces of missing kids along with all of their vital statistics, you know, height, weight, a little bit of information about them. And I was really curious, why did these exist? Like, you're just eating your cereal in the morning and there's this missing kids staring at you. It's a pretty weird thing, right? Mm-hmm. Well, it was looking into this, that was the first time that I got exposed to the case of Johnny Gosh. Have you heard about this case before? Yes, a little bit, but please, you're going to have to re-familiarize me. It's a very strange one. And it hit me especially hard when I first

heard about it because I, too, was a paper delivery kid. You know, this was something that was extremely, it was part of Americana. You get your first job and you would be waking up before the sun rose in the morning, walking down the street to strangers' houses. and throwing papers at them. Yeah. If you didn't do this yourself, you probably played that NES game and were breaking windows

and throwing papers at people. Yeah, I did do that. It's a very hard game, so I have a lot of compassion for paper boys and paper girls. It is a very hard game. But with Johnny Gosh, his story begins on September 3rd,

1982, in West Des Moines, Iowa. Johnny's parents had brought him along to the Valley High Stadium to watch their older son play in the football game there. Partway through the game, Johnny asked his parents if it would be all right for him to go get some popcorn.

On his way to the concession stand, he was approached by a policeman, and the two began to talk. After a few minutes, Johnny's father approached them and asked if Johnny could stand closer to the field so they could keep an eye on him. Johnny obeyed, and the policeman followed him to continue their conversation. Johnny's mother, Noreen Gash, wrote of the incident. A few moments later, I looked down and Johnny was no longer by the railing. Again, my husband went down to locate him. He discovered him under the bleachers in the darkness talking to the policeman once again. John brought Johnny up to sit with us.

A short time later, the game was over, and on the way out of the stadium, Johnny pointed to the policeman and said, He was really nice. Maybe I should think about being a policeman when I grow up. We went home. I thought at the time that this was very unusual behavior on the part of the policeman, and as we left the stadium, I turned around and memorized his face. This incident became very important in the days to come.

So nothing suspicious here, right? A lot of suspicious going on here. I don't like this at all. The 12-year-old Johnny Gosh left home before the sun rose on Sunday, September 5th, 1982. Instead of waking his father to join him, which was something that he very commonly did, he left with only his miniature docks and Gretchen for company. Together, they went to the paper drop. And if you are unfamiliar with having a paper route, the paper drop is where you would go to collect your papers. There would be a central location.

All of the paper kids would go there, grab the papers, and then you would bag them or wrap them up in rubber bands and go on your route. Two Paper Boys observed a man in a blue two-tone Fort DeFarremont stopped to ask Johnny for directions. Johnny did not at any time go over to that car. The driver made a U-turn in the street and followed Johnny to the corner, where the other children were folding their newspapers. John Rossi, an attorney, arrived to pick up papers for his children and stopped to talk to the the driver of the blue car as well. Mike Sestkus, a 16-year-old paper boy, told Noreen Gosh later that Johnny talked to him about the man in the blue car saying, This guy is weird. Something is wrong with him. I'm scared and I'm going to go home.

Johnny then abruptly started to walk away. The blue car revved its engine, backed up and left the scene. John Rossi left, but Mike was still folding his papers. Norin Gash wrote, Mike reported that, quote, just before the driver pulled away, he flicked the dome light on and off in his car three times. Just then, Mike saw a man come between two houses and follow Johnny down the street, around the corner and out of sight. He washed until he saw Johnny turn the corner. He also said, I heard your dog growl, but nothing else seemed wrong at the time, and continued folding his papers. The Bozen brothers then reported seeing Johnny sitting atop his wagon slumped over. They hurried past already late with their deliveries.

All of the witnesses then report hearing a car door slam, screeching tires, and the blue two-tone Ford Farramont running the stop sign, speeding north on 42nd Street towards the interstate. PJ Smith, another neighbor, was bothered by the noise of the car door slamming and looked out his bedroom window just in time to see the car peel off, leaving Johnny's wagon full of newspapers unattended on the sidewalk. Johnny Gosh was gone. This is just such a terrifying,

kind of a lot of the time these situations are like urban myths, you know, but this seems like a very straightforward, organized kidnapping of a child right off the street, broad daylight. And all that's left is his wagon full of papers and the doxent. Yeah, there's no way he wouldn't take his little doggy. Yeah, he loved that doxend, and in later interviews, it was described that the doxen liked riding in the wagon. Of course. So the doxon would just be sitting in the wagon while he was delivered.

his papers. Absolutely. And the dog's just there alone. Who doesn't bring their dog with them? Something's wrong. Deeply wrong. Noreen and John Gosh noticed that their son was missing as soon as angry neighbors started calling to ask where the hell their newspapers were, which again might seem like a strange detail, but the Sunday paper was the big paper. You know, this is the one that had all of the most exciting kind of pop culture news, you know, stuff that was going on. It had the comics in it. So people were excited for that paper. The police, located 10 minutes away from the gosh home, were immediately called. They took 45 minutes to reach the house.

My God. By that time, Noreen had already collected all of the eyewitnesses' reports that were related here. Upon arrival, the officer's first question was whether or not Johnny had ever run away before. After Noreen answered, way more politely than she needed to, the officer left. They were not in touch again until eight hours had passed. While waiting for the police to contact us again, I telephoned friends and relatives all over the Des Moines area to let them know what happened, giving them the description of the car, asking for help in a search. We started searching the immediate neighborhood and then expanded the search.

Large groups of people were beginning to form, helping us search parks, near the rivers, any secluded area, which might be a crime scene. I stayed near the phone handling all the calls, which were coming in and telephoning police departments in other areas. I soon discovered no one outside our area knew Johnny was missing. The West Des Moines police had not sent out any report to other areas. Approximately 3.30 p.m., two detectives returned to the house and requested a picture of Johnny, asked a few questions, and left. All the hallmarks of the cops bungling this entire affair right from the beginning. I love to see it.

A recurring theme that you'll see throughout the accounts that you'll hear throughout the next eight episodes is the unwillingness of the authorities to do a damn thing. In the case of Johnny Gosh, the explanation that they offered was that that their hands were tied until 72 hours had passed. Besides, the most likely explanation for Johnny's disappearance was that he was a runaway. While they did reportedly interview the neighbors and hear the same stories that Noreen shared, they still remained unconcerned. By 1984, as a direct result of this incompetence, Noreen was able to get a law passed in Iowa to force the police to act immediately when a child goes missing. This law later got passed in many more states.

and it remains a huge point of pride for Noreen, as it damn well should. Absolutely. Back in 1982, Noreen organized search parties in a wide radius around Des Moines to look for Johnny over the next several days. After only a few hours of searching, the police chief, Orville Cooney, arrived at the scene of the largest search party, stood atop a picnic table, and drunkenly proclaimed that Johnny was nothing but a goddamn runaway, and no search parties were necessary or want. Good job, pal.

The assembled friends, relatives, and neighbors went back to Noreen, who was furious when she learned what Cooney had done. Orville Cooney. I mean, this guy is a cartoon of a drunk police captain. This is a joke. It gets a lot worse. He ends up getting fired after being caught shoplifting blank video cassettes. Okay.

So you can kind of see where that's going, too. Oh, my God. What followed was disaster after disaster. Noreen called the FBI, who agreed to send out a couple of agents. The agents arrived at her home only to inform her that they would not be taking the case. Chief Cooney said they weren't needed. Johnny Gosh was nothing but a runaway. Noreen contacted the governor to get the National Guard to send helicopters to help search.

The governor informed her that they would do no such thing unless she was able to foot the $800 an hour bill. Local and state police refused for the same reason. It took a local television news team that heard of her plight to do the right thing and lend their own helicopters free of charge. Five days had passed since Johnny went missing, and there was no clue as to what the hell happened. Chief Cooney refused to use canine units to search for a body. The chief of the nearby Dallas County police informed Noreen

that he and the other police chiefs from the surrounding counties all sent teams to help search for her son the day he went missing, but Chief Cooney told them to go home and had continued to refuse their help. Johnny was listed within the system as a runaway rather than a kidnapping case, which ensured that police would be unlikely to follow up on any leads they received for the foreseeable future.

Incredible. Just almost seems purposeful. Almost. Given the reluctance of the police to help in any real way, shape, or form, the Gosh's hired private investigators to interview a wider radius of families around the neighborhood and re-interview those that Noreen and the police already had.

I mean, somebody had to have heard or seen something, right? These interviews uncovered a vital piece of evidence. One man had gotten up early that morning that Johnny had gone missing. While making coffee in his kitchen, he heard a motor running outside, which he found very strange, given the early hour.

The sun had not yet fully risen. He looked outside, and saw a van parked against the flow of traffic. As soon as he started watching, a blue two-tone Ford Fairmont pulled up alongside it. Two men exited the Fairmont, carrying something strange wrapped in blankets, and set it inside the van.

Both cars took off after this exchange. Noreen, John Gosh Sr., and the private investigator told no one about this finding. If anyone ever came forward with information that included this particular story, they would know that that person was telling the truth. This is a very common tactic and something that almost every case uses. Interesting.

And nobody did come forward. Not until 1988. A young in a Nebraska prison being held on three counts of child molestation for having fondled his eight-year-old cousin confessed to his cellmate that he had participated in the kidnapping of Johnny Gosh. The cellmate brought the information to the warden where it eventually reached Noreen's ears. Noreen found Paul Bonacci to be credible. and the information that he shared that day altered the course of her life considerably,

setting her on a crusade that she continues to this day. But Norines wasn't the only life that he disrupted. Paul also made claims against some of the biggest names in politics. He even won a million-dollar settlement against one. The Gaslit. Nebraska has a very clear statute that child abuse allegations should be reported to authorities. They shouldn't be reported to the principal of the school, director of a facility, they should be reported directly to either child protective services

or law enforcement. An internal investigation at Boys Town would have no status. I mean, in other words, that evidence collected maybe something that could augment, but it certainly could not take the place of an investigation, a criminal investigation. The first rumors of abuse, as far as anyone can tell, originated with Ulyss Washington. In 1977, Ulysa's biological mother was deemed unfit to care for her children due to her worsening heroin addiction. Ulyce, Tracy and Tasha became wards of the state, eventually finding themselves placed in the home of Jarrett and Barbara Webb. Ulyse was eight, Tracy six, and Tasha only two years old. In addition to these three children, the Webb's also had adopted two other children, Wally and Robert, and were fostering three other children.

Kevin, Kia, and Ken. So eight kids total in their care. That's a lot of kids. It is a lot and even more because some of them were special needs. Jarrett was 41 and had spent the past 20 years at the Omaha Public Power District Utility Company. He joined the Franklin Credit Union's Board of Directors once it was under Larry King's management. Barbara, 39, was Larry King's cousin, a profile of the family in the Omaha World Harold paints a beautiful picture of a loving home. Do you want to describe this picture? Yeah, it's one of those

big group photos with just a family kind of hugging each other, looking up to the mother. You know, it's, it's very well put together to represent a certain image of a big, happy home. Yeah, and the title of the article itself is making the best of it, a house full of kids. Yeah, so the tone is pretty clear there. Yeah, but if you read the actual article, it doesn't take a lot to see these cracks beginning to appear. I knew I could handle the handicapped children, Mrs. Webb said. There's was a routine, a pattern that you have to follow, but I needed that challenge of three girls who had come from, well, a really, really terrible background. The children arrived with garbage sacks for suitcases and clothes so bad you couldn't even give them to the goodwill.

They had never eaten turkey, and they couldn't distinguish between an orange and a peach because they hadn't had enough fruit to know the difference. Two of them had learning disabilities. The baby had drug withdrawal symptoms, and all three were uncertain and rebellious. Financially, things are tight sometimes, but we just draw in our strings and go around another way to see that they have everything they need. If you listen to any interviews now with Ulyse Washington, and there are very few, this whole idea that they had never eaten turkey or they couldn't distinguish between fruit was just utter bullshit. Yeah, just propaganda. 100% propaganda. And it gets worse because this article was part of a year-long campaign that culminated in Barbara Webb being named Nebraska's foster care mother of the year.

The award was presented by then-Nabraska governor Bob Carey, who we will be hearing a lot more about. Nebraska's Department of Social Services has a vast trove of documents that point towards a sordid history of starvation, gaslighting, molestation, and physical and emotional abuse. Nick Bryant, in his book The Franklin Scandal, described it like this. The Department of Social Services documents pointed out that the Webb's other adopted and foster children received repeated beatings too. The Webb's introduced the children to an extension cord, bullwhip, rubber hose, and a black strap dubbed the railroad prop, a two-foot strip of black rubber perforated with holes. They beat us all the times, said Washington. I took most of the abuse so they wouldn't beat Tracy and Tasha. Like all systemic abusers, the webs kept the children isolated from the rest of the world.

None were allowed to visit friends' homes or to take part and after-school activities. Even the use of a telephone was forbidden to them. The school was informed they were not even allowed to tell the children the web's phone number. Social service files note that when the webs left the house, they would often physically take the telephone with them to prevent the children from ever using it. My God. Like, that's just cartoonishly evil, the image of that. All of the children were repeatedly subjected to emotional abuse,

constantly reminded that the webs were the only family who would ever be willing to raise them. Any reminders of their previous life were destroyed, right down to old family photos being burned, and their biological mother only ever being referenced as a no-good slut. The children's constant reminders to simply forget their life before was, in the web's eyes, the only form of therapy the children would ever need. Nick Bryant noted. Jarrett and Barbara had an unorthodox arrangement with the DSS.

They received state subsidies for all eight adopted and foster children living in their home. The rationale of the Webb's receiving state subsidies for even their adopted children was that they came from extremely troubled backgrounds and required extensive counseling. But the Webb's never voluntarily provided the children with counseling. Barbara Webb's preferred form of counseling was to simply tell the children to forget their past. So I don't think it's an exaggeration that they were trying to to brainwash the kids when they're that young to just repeatedly tell them that. Yeah, of course. You know, it's just, it's very clumsy attempt at brainwashing, essentially. Yeah. And few of the

others in the community suspected that anything was drastically wrong. The webs put on a very good face at the Seventh-day Adventist Church every Saturday. Barbara sang in the choir there, dressed in expensive mink coats, designer clothes, and expensive jewelry, her hair freshly done from the salon. Children were also perfectly behaved in public, as well as in school. Interviews with others in the neighborhood mostly just revealed that they found the family aloof. You know, why would anyone suspect the foster mother of the year was doing anything terrible, you know? Yeah, perfect cover. The children also dressed up for quote-unquote Uncle Larry King's parties.

Oh, no. Yelis was frequently forced to attend functions at the North Omaha Girls Club, one of the many organizations that Larry King presided over. Ulyss described these particular parties as consisting of 20 or so girls dressed in their best, paraded around the 15 or so much older men who stared at them with hungry eyes. But this was, unfortunately, only the tip of the iceberg, according to Bryant. Ulyse claimed that she was at King's home watching television when King and Barbara Webb entered the room. King unlocked one of the room's cabinets and handed Barbara Webb a number of videotape cassettes,

which she slipped into a large handbag. Shortly afterwards, the webs were out on the town and they forgot to lock their bedroom door. According to Eulies, she and the other children found the videotapes and popped them into the web's VCR. One of the tapes explicitly showed teenagers engaged in sex. The children also discovered pornographic pictures tucked away in the Webb's dresser. Going to school officials was not an option for the children. The school administrators were close friends with the webs, often dropping by the house unannounced for visits, much the same way that the webs would drop by the school to chat with the administrators. With the school administration, their adopted parents and the local children's institutions all against them, it's natural to wonder just what chance the kids had of getting out of this mess.

And to put it plainly, this is also a situation that a lot of kids in foster care find themselves in. Yeah, yeah, unfortunately so. Well, the first crack came in the form of a torn jacket. According to a Washington County Sheriff's Report, and I apologize because this is brutal. Jarrett and Barbara Webb suddenly awoke Kevin and Wally who slept in the basement around 1 a.m. Barbara Webb held up Kevin's jacket and asked who had ripped it,

but neither boy was willing to confess to such an unforgivable transgression. Barbara Webb ordered Kevin to strip, and Jarrett cracked Wally atop the top of the same. head with a screwdriver, making him dizzy and leaving a golf ball-sized lump. Jarrett Webb then grabbed the naked boy and smashed his head into the ceiling, and after that, Barbara Webb started to wail away on him with the railroad prop. As she mercilessly pummeled Kevin, she shouted, I will bust you open. Now tell me the truth.

To avoid further beating, he confessed to the offense, even though he wasn't exactly sure how the jacket had been ripped. Truly horrifying stuff. Yeah. Ten days later, in June of 1985, Kevin and Wendellon, Wally confided in their neighbor's son that they planned to run away because of how badly the Webb's had been abusing all of the children in their care. Kevin revealed the walnut-sized welts on his body to the other boy, who then told his mother what had happened. She immediately

called the police. The police paid a visit to the Webs, and with effort, Kevin and Wally admitted what had been happening. Barbara Webb claimed the welts on Kevin's back were nothing but the results of a typical spanking. The deputy sheriff was not convinced. He took Kevin and Wally into his custody. The examination at the hospital upon intake determined the welts were the result of a beating with something similar to a heavy rubber hose. Child Protective Services accompanied law enforcement on their visit to the webs the next day. Child Protective Services focused on the foster children and the foster children alone. Kea and Ken, nine at this point, denied any abuse took place within the home. But when individually shown a picture that Kevin had drawn of the

quote-unquote railroad prop and asked what it was, Ken immediately answered. Ken's attempt then to backtrack, convinced child protective services that the case was legitimate, and they removed the twins from the Webb's care. Even with the foster children being placed in another family's home, the Webb's were not charged with child abuse. The adopted children also remained in their care. My God. And it's, worth noting that the children's reluctance to admit that they are being abused is something that is extremely common across the board in abuse cases. You know, no victim is perfect, and brainwashing does exist to an extent, especially in cases like this. The webs took this in stride, however,

and changed their preferred method of abuse to now beating the children on the bottom of their feet as if they were prisoners of war. But now the remaining children understood that escape from this tell was possible. Two months after Wally and the foster children escaped, Tracy and Robert ran away to a neighbor's house and confessed what they had been living through. Things did not go as smoothly this time. When the Department of Social Service workers showed up on the web store step, Tracy and Robert, in Barbara's presence, recanted their statements, which again, if your abuser is right there and you're thinking about how much trouble you'd get into. You'd think that they would know and have some protocol around that, but that's a real shame. Yeah. In November,

of 1985, Ulyse found her biological grandmother, Opel's house, and immediately fled to it. She called the Webs from Opel's house and informed them that she would only return if her sisters were allowed to visit Opel to. It was during this visit to their grandmother that the children opened up about their abuse. Opel called the Omaha Police Department, who said their hands were tied. The webs lived outside their jurisdiction. The Webs then told the Omaha Police Department that Opel had kidnapped their children. Yeah, this is a big mess. Yeah.

The children were returned to the Webs, who then began a cascade of horrendous punishments. The very next morning, the Webb's attorney notified the Department of Social Services that the webs wanted to relinquish custody of Ulyse and Tracy. Department of Social Services descended on the household, where something close to a skirmish ensued. Barbara actually smashed the hand of one of the social workers in the door. Oh, my God. Ulyss and Tracy were relinquished. but the youngest, Tasha, remained with the abusive family.

While Ulyss fought for the right of herself and Tracy to visit their little sister, they ended up placed in the care of Ronald and Kathleen Sorensen, who had previously fostered Wally and Kevin, so they had some idea of what was going on. After a month of living with the Sorensons, Ulysses' behavior began to shift dramatically. She slept in the closet and began making fleeting mentions of a quote-unquote friend who had been raped by her adoptive father and forced to participate in orgies.

It took time, but she admitted to Kathleen that Jarrett Webb had repeatedly molested her during the eight years that she was in his care. Sorensen notified the Department of Social Services. On January 2nd, 1986, Patricia Flockin was named Ulyse and Tracy's Guardian Adelitum, having previously represented Wally. So a guardian ad litem is basically an advocate in, these cases that involve children and the abuse of children, custody of children, etc. Got it.

So she's somebody, yeah, specifically trained to work with them. Ulysses' descriptions of physical abuse closely matched Wally's. But she also mentioned a powerful, politically connected man, Larry King. Ulyse was adamant enough about her accusations that she offered to take a polygraph test. The skeptical Washington County attorney, Patrick Tripp, forced her to take four. She passed every single one. A petition to emancipate Tasha and Robert from the web home was then filed. And it's worth noting polygraph tests are not a good indicator of whether or not something is true.

But they often are still held up as, you know, being that. And even though they are something that you can pass, this is also a 16-year-old kid. who was being given them. So. Yeah. It's not exactly a mastermind here. Yeah. I mean, it's 16-year-old, a pretty traumatized kid at that. So the Department of Social Services caseworkers, the Nebraska State Patrol, and Patricia Flockin all believed that Ulyss was telling the truth. Patrick Tripp remained unconvinced. In his eyes, Ulyse had made up all the stories of physical

and sexual abuse and rehearsed them repeatedly until she herself believed them. insane belief. What are you talking about, man? Yeah, it's a 16-year-old. What would she gain from this? So Tripp opted not to file any abuse charges against Jarrett Webb. In spite of this, and the Webb's attempts to have Flockin removed as the guardian ad litem. Ulytum, Ulyse refused to recant her statements. The juvenile petition was filed, and Tasha and Robert were placed into the care of Jerry and Patricia Rothmire, who just lived a couple of blocks away from the Sorensen's home.

the Sorensons could not foster them because they already had the maximum amount of children that they could foster. Tasha and Robert had a difficult time settling into their new home. They reportedly frequently hoarded food, hiding it in their rooms, and had trouble sleeping. Both children were terrified that they would be returned to the Webb's home and the frequent beatings that they received there. Tasha described being forced to perform oral sex on a quote-unquote uncle that visited often, and that Barbara Webb knew about it and did nothing. This was reported to the Department of Social Services caseworkers. And unfortunately, their fears about being returned to the webs proved true because by March 1986, the judge ruled that they would be returned to their care

as long as a rehabilitation plan was followed. Pure madness. And unfortunately, this also is not unusual for the time period. It was believed through the 80s that in cases of, incest, that the most important thing was to keep the family intact, and that counseling would be enough to essentially fix things. And so I'm guessing that was what the thought was here. None of the allegations of sexual abuse that Tasha reported were properly investigated. The Rothmire's, Sorensen's, and Flockin were never contacted to testify on the child's behalf. The only silver

lining in the ruling was that the judge conceded that Tasha should be allowed to visit with her sisters on occasion. The case itself was transferred out of Washington County to a Douglas County caseworker. Bryant wrote. The Webb's new Douglas County caseworker noted that, quote, they were outraged at the accusations of child abuse and he found the children very cooperative with a good attitude. In fact, the psychologist working with Tasha Robert and the Webb's seemed to be rather sympathetic to the Webb's concerns. She wrote that Tasha's contact with her two sisters was thwarting her relationship with the webs, and she suggested that her visits with Ulyse and Tracy be discontinued. Strangely enough, the psychologist would find that the children's social isolation stemmed from

depression instead of the web's oppression. So absolutely fucking nuts. Yeah, totally insane, and these children are increasingly at risk. Tasha and Robert were eventually removed from their home in August of 1986. The webs relinquished their parental rights to them a month later. The webs denied all allegations of abuse, justifying the accusations by saying that Tasha and Robert were just uncontrollable. This, though, would not be the last that Ulyse Washington would speak out about the abuse that she endured,

nor would it be the last allegation made against Larry King. But at this point, you're probably wondering who exactly Larry King was. The King of Omaha. And the information presented to the Foster Care Review Board, either via the telephone reports, the personal reports, or the reports we reviewed, Larry King's name was consistently present as someone that the youth were making allegations against. I mean, I turned that information over to authorities, and nothing happened. I would say we handed over at least a foot high amount of material. Generally speaking, the allegations were ignored.

So what's your impression of how Larry King looks? Could you describe him for us? Yeah, once again, a kind of smooth, creamy toupee, the classic strange goate of the kind of conservative male and big kind of stiff glasses, kind of a childlike soft face, a strange, strange-looking man. Yeah, he does look extremely soft in every picture that I see of him, which is a bit startling, even to this day.

So Larry King, the man at the center of all of this, was born on September 7, 1942, the second oldest of six children. He grew up in a small clapboard house sandwiched between the Union Pacific Railroad and the accurate stench of the stockyards his father spent the bulk of his life working in. By all accounts, his parents were loving and funded his singing lessons in spite of their relative poverty. Larry, growing up, was even a fixture in the Presbyterian Church Choir every Sunday. After high school, he worked at the high class Blackstone Hotel where the richest in Omaha dined. He enrolled in the pre-med program at Omaha University. But his studies were interrupted by a

stint in the Air Force, during which he married Alice Pluck in Chicago. So solid working class background, but he definitely was chasing something more. The first hint of something unusual in his life came during his time in the Air Force. In a 1973 article with the Omaha's son, Larry mentions how he was sent to Thailand as a quote-unquote information specialist during Vietnam to handle top-secret military communications. Mm-hmm. Sure, buddy. We will be returning to that later. After being honorably discharged, he reportedly graduated from the University of Nebraska

with a bachelor's in business administration and went on to take a management training program at the first bank in downtown Omaha as one of two black employees in the entire banking system. The other was a janitor. In July of 1970, two years before he attained his business degree from the University of Nebraska,

he had been named a manager of the failing Franklin Community Federal Credit Union. It was a small operation with roughly $100,000 in total assets in 1973, and it catered to the underserved black communities and small farmers in the area.

His first move after taking over was to hire Tom Harvey to manage the books. Harvey's qualifications, you might ask? Well, he was a former high school teacher who was alleged to have been fired for fondling male students. Oh, fantastic. What a good CV. I know, right? Perfect for this. Please, sir. Come into my office and take a job. Interestingly, he also hired Tom Harvey's mom. Okay.

So I don't know what's going on there. He's pretty sloppy. Three years after King took control of the credit union, The Warren Buffett-owned Omaha's son published a puff piece describing the 18-hour days that King was working to save the bank from failure, all for a paltry $17,000 a year salary. The piece also described King's move from North Omaha to the millionaire-filled Ponca Hills, where he renewed FBI acquaintances recently after a heroin dealer in the neighborhood was arrested. So if you pause for a second, he's making $17,000 a year, and he just bought.

a house that's worth several million. Yeah. Seems a little strange. Larry King is up to no good, I have a feeling, and a bunch more than just his parties, too. Yeah. In 1974, King created the Consumer Service Organization, just brilliantly titled that. He described it to the world as a hand-up rather than a hand-out. Yeah.

Go fuck yourself, pal. This affiliate of the credit union offered financial counseling to the impoverished community, and soon was a mass recipient of social security, welfare, and disability checks, as well as grants for its good work in the community. As the coffers swelled, King and his associates began to peddle certificates of deposit around the country with interest rates 2 to 3% above the market rate. It was a Ponzi scheme. Yeah, I was going to say, yes, sir.

Every new certificate of deposit needed to be sold in order to cover the maturing ones. During this time, King's good work got him grants, and contracts from Union Pacific, American Baptist Church, and Boys Town. It also bought him a relationship with Samuel Pierce, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, bringing in $1 million in HUD grants in 1981, as well as thousands from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. What a rotten time and what a rotten administration. Yeah, I mean, you can see the story forming, can't you? Yep. During this time of plenty, Larry King, in conjunction with Harold Anderson of the Omaha World Herald, ran a fund drive that enabled him to build a bedroom in the credit union basement. Because remember, he's working those 18-hour days.

This is just insane. I mean, this predator right in front of everybody's eyes, is building his little, like, molestation cabin. It's perfect because this bedroom, this place for him to sleep while he's just working his ass off to save this. failing credit union. It's furnished with a stereo, a television, a big fluffy white bed, and a live-in security guard. Dear God. According to journalist Nick Bryant's later investigations, one of the first official duties of being the security guard was to perform oral sex on Larry King in the basement bedroom. Oh, okay. So the security guard right off the bat is also roped in. That's incredible. Yeah. What a fucking nightmare. This guy's a monster.

Yes. Allegedly. Sure. I'll allege it. It was in 1981 as his riches and power accumulated that he joined the Republican Party. He entered into the GOP scene through the National Black Republican Council, which was a group prominent enough at the time to have Reagan speak with them in 1982. But nowadays, their fortunes have faded to basically nothing. Their website is not even maintained. King in his day was the council's chairman for finance, in addition to being on its nominating committee and development committees. So he was very deeply entrenched in this.

But more notably, for obvious reasons at this point, he was also an advisor to their youth committee. Of course. Of course. This man sets up anywhere he can predate. His resume, upon taking all of these positions, included that he was on Head Starts Board of Directors. He was a regional president of the Girls Club and on the executive committee of the Campfire Girls. This was in addition to being the secretary and treasurer of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. God. So you can just see how he is taking almost every position he possibly can at this point and building up a significant amount of power. It is hard to emphasize just how big of an influence he was having within the Republican Party.

Yeah, perfect party for him. Once King entered national politics, he rented a townhouse on California Street, North Washington, D.C., which is right there pretty much on Embassy Row. And this was an order to throw lavish parties. A guest list from just one of these 1987 sores includes the Chairman of Equal Opportunity Commission, Clarence Thomas, who would later be accused of sexual assault, but never deny his friendship with Larry King. United States ambassador to the United Nations, Jean Kirkpatrick, New York Congressman

Jack Kemp, whose questionable accusations of homosexual proclivities and various crimes against children warranted not only FBI investigations, but also his public denial on Good Morning America, and are still a pretty common topic on queer gossip boards online, and Nebraska Congressman Hal Dobb, who also served a good deal of time on Franklin's advisory board. While King was committing financial crimes, he was using a lot of that stolen money to make contributions to Republican campaigns and fundraisers. He donated $23,500 to Citizens for America, which was run by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who helped Oliver North gain support for the Nicaraguan Contras. He also donated heavily to Kay Orr, who successfully became Nebraska's governor in 1986. he sang the national anthem at her inauguration.

King also opened the 1984 GOP convention in Dallas with his breathtaking rendition of the national anthem. You know, we should just play a little bit of it for everyone. King wanted to be an opera singer, and I think he could have been. You know, he's not bad. I mean, I've seen worse. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty impressive. I'm not going to hand it to him. I am not handing anything, but that's not a terrible, terrible rendition. No, it's impressive. It leaves a definite impression. And I really like how the description of it on YouTube just has all-capsic guy. They know what they're about. But singing the national anthem at the 1984 GOP convention in Dallas was not all that he did. He also took the opportunity. to throw his most extravagant party at. He rented the South Fork Ranch,

which was made famous as the home of J.R. Ewing and the TV show Dallas, you know, who shot J.R. And hosted 600 guests across the sprawling mansion. Nick Bryant described it like this. Teenage cowgirls wearing navy satin tights, vests, and cowboy hats, handed out yellow roses. A resplendent king, attired in white, sporting a thick gold chain, serve the party goers ribs, baked beans, coleslaw, and pecan pie.

HUD's secretary Samuel Pierce attended the shindig, as did Reagan's daughter, Maureen, who was photographed with King in a very admiring embrace. Two months after Reagan's landslide victory over Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential race, the Washington Post published an op-ed by King, Why Blacks should be Republican, wherein King touted the, quote,

substantial gains made by African-Americans under Republican policies. A dog-shed individual. Yeah, there's a lot of, that you could say about that. And everyone around him, dog shit too. Two months before the 1988 Republican convention in Norlands, King formed the Council of Minority Americans, which sponsored the party in Nola. Jack Kemp, Alexander Hague, and former president Gerald Ford were on the council's host committee. King and Kemp urged African Americans to vote for George H.W. Bush. The Washington Post spent some time describing how a child's son...

singer whose hair was pulled back in an Alice in Wonderland hairdo, belted out Dixie at the gala. King was lobbying to become the new ambassador to Jamaica at the time. Oh, God forbid anyone sent him anywhere else. He needs to be sent to jail and that's about it. It's incredible how well-connected he is, though. Just madness. He described George H.W. Bush a number of times as his close personal friend. And again, we'll get to that later. But yeah, he's kind of everywhere. So all of these connections that King made in the Republican Party immediately abandoned him the moment the Franklin Credit Union got raided. A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee initially denied that King was involved in Republican politics at the national level.

But a few days later, she acknowledged that King had a role with the National Black Republican Council, whose chairman exclaimed, of course they knew. End of story. I mean, incredible. Of course they tried to deny it. Yeah, of course they fucking knew. Yeah. I mean, how can you say that this guy was not connected? No. When you have these guest lists. You can't let him sing the damn national anthem twice. Yeah. And just claim, nope, never heard of the guy. Never seen this weird guy. Yeah. And Reagan specifically requested that he sang because he was so impressed having seen him sing before. Everybody knew this dude. Notably, the one well-known Republican who did not deny having been close with King, even after the allegations, was Clarence.

Thomas, who would go on to greater fame as the most conservative Supreme Court justice. Thomas first appears on the guest list of one of King's D.C. parties in 87, and his wife grew up in Omaha. Thomas's wife had worked as an aide for Nebraska Congressman Hal Dobb, who was a frequent recipient of donations from King and sat on the Franklin Advisory Board. The one man who referred to the accusations against King as nothing more than, quote-unquote, unfortunate, was the same man accused of sexual assault and frequent talks about porn stars and bestiality within his Supreme Court hearings. So nothing to see here, right? No, everything to see here. I insist. Yeah, also, God Biden fucked that up.

Yeah. In 1991, the kidnapper Paul Bonacci filed a federal lawsuit against more than a dozen defendants, including Larry King. Bonacci accused King of sadistic sexual abuse, among other things. King refused to respond to the lawsuit. In 1999, a federal judge entered the default judgment in Bonacci's favor, awarding him $1 million. Senior District Judge Warren K. Urban wrote in his memorandum of decision in Benachi's favor. Between December 1980 and 1988, the complaint alleges, the defendant King continuously subjected the plaintiff to repeated sexual assaults, false imprisonments, infliction of extreme emotional distress, organized and directed satanic rituals,

forced the plaintiff to scavenge for children to be a part of the defendant king's sexual abuse and pornography ring, force the plaintiff to engage in numerous sexual contacts with the defendant king and others, and participate in deviant sexual games and masochistic orgies with other minor children. Holy, sweet Jesus. Yeah. So, uh, now you know a bit about King. I want to ask you this. I want you to think about this real hard.

Were the webs being protected? Of course they were. Of course they were, especially if these stories about, like, you know, uncles' parties and shit are to be believed. He was directly linked and taking advantage of the same children. I buried a little bit of the lead with all of this. The Department of Social Services had years of documents describing the abuse the Webs had meted out to the children in their care. And at least one social worker who frequently visited the Webs brought her concerns about the family to her superiors. And according to interviews with Bryant, was contacted by the FBI shortly after and told it would be in her best interest to just forget about the webs.

It's also true that over the years, multiple pages of Department of Social Service documents pertaining to the webs have gone missing. Even today, a lot of the files that were formerly publicly available online are just gone. Broken link after broken link backups deleted. It is not particularly easy to find a lot of them. So Patricia Flockin, the Guardian Adelitum, told Nick Bryan in interviews that representing the Washington sisters was the most stressful period of her life. Flockin told me that she was routinely followed by unidentified individuals when representing the Washington sisters, and she also told an investigator employed by the Nebraska legislature that she felt her phones were tapped or her office was bugged during this period. Which begs the question, if this was all true, why would the FBI be so interested in this case of abuse?

Well, perhaps they're also involved in some way, deeper than they should be. When Ulyse began opening up to Kathleen Sorensen about the abuse she had gone through at the hands of Uncle Larry King, her descriptions included herself and children from Boys Town being flown via charter plane to Chicago in the fall of 1984 and New York in the spring of 1985. These flights included her being forced to wear a negligee and to attend orgies with other children. Also on these flights was a nationally prominent politician who she described grabbing one child at the orgy in Chicago and slipping away with the kitten toe. In interviews, she also was very specific that the politicians and men who were with her on these flights were all white and older. Sorensen took these allegations to her friend Julie Walters, who worked at Boys Town. Walters took them to the director of Boys Town, Father Val Peter, who gave her permission to pursue these allegations.

Walters interviewed Ulyse and Kathleen Sorensen three times over March of 1986. Tracy and a friend of Sorensons named Kirsten Hallberg were also present at these meetings. Walters brought Boys Town yearbooks to the second interview, and Ulees and Tracy both identified former students who were involved with King on the flood. and at the orgies. The report on Ulyss and Tracy's information that Walters penned was over 43 pages long. So there's a lot of information there. Pretty shocking. Interviews with the employees and children at Boys Town revealed that the Franklin Credit

Union employed a Boys Town teacher there. A limited edition yellow sports car that King leased was also frequently cited on the Boys Town campus with several teachers seen behind the wheel at various. times. Father Val Peter assured Walters that Boys Town would begin its own investigation into these rumors of sexual abuse and affiliation with Larry King. Because remember, Boys Town is its own town. It has its own police force. Right. And of course, the administrator who handled the investigations there at Boys Town was also one of the individuals that had been seen driving Larry King's leased car. For God's sake. Walters, Flockin, and Sorensen had stumbled upon what appears to be a

sprawling conspiracy. The stories told by Yelisse and Tracy were echoed by the residents of Boys Town, and the more authority figures who they approached with the story, the more complicated the investigation became. When presented with the information, the judge in charge of the Webb relinquishment case recused himself from it, recommending Flock and herself to do the same. Flockin took that advice to a degree and left the Boys Town investigation. Walters did the same, leaving her job at Boys Town. Sorensen, likewise, just focused on the Washington sisters' immediate predicament of getting away from the webs. The case went cold for the next three years.

So there's a lot of names here, but you remember Kirsten Hallberg? She was the friend of Kathleen Sorensen who sat with Ulyse during her interviews with Julie Walters regarding the events that happened with Larry King in March of 1986. So by the June of 86, Hallberg had begun to work as a resident advisor for the psychiatric facility for adolescent girls, Uta Hali, in Omaha. It was there that she met the 12-year-old Shauneta Moore. Maura began acting out at the age of 10, following her mother breaking up with a boyfriend that Moore had gotten on with particularly well. The acting up consisted mainly of her sneaking out at night for hours on end, sometimes for the entire night. Her mother, at her wits end, placed her in Utahali. Hallberg's duties as a resident

administrator included overseeing intake, administering treatment plans, interviewing the girls at the facility, and overall, just observing their conduct. When Hallberg asked Moore, what she used to do to pass the time, Moore replied, she used to frequent the North Omaha Girls Club, the same girls club that Yelisse had been forced to attend since her uncle Larry King was the president of it. Yeah, not a good club. Hallberg cautiously asked whether or not more knew

the Washington sisters and more affirmed that she kind of knew Ulyss and Tracy, but they were nothing more than acquaintances. Hallberg pursued this line of questioning and Moore began to panic. Moore blurted out

that she had been actively involved in a prostitution and pornography ring. She further elaborated that she had tried to escape it and that her mother had been raped payback. That rape was corroborated by an Omaha Police Department report. At around 3 a.m. on June 15th, 1986, Moore's mother was in bed sleeping when a short, thin African-American man wearing a nylon

stocking over his face, slipped into her bedroom, put a butcher knife to her throat, and in a high-pitched voice said, where's Seanetta? After the rape, the police were phoned, but the responding officers told Moore's mother that she needed to collect herself and then phone the OPD if she wanted to make a complaint. Moore's mother phoned the OPD the next day and the sergeant who initiated a follow-up investigation noted that the responding officers didn't even write a police report, take the victim to a hospital, or contact the crime lab, and unbelievably, they advised Moore's maternal grandfather to fix the door that the perpetrator had broken to enter the house. The assailant was never apprehended. Perfectly normal series of events there, right? Terrible. I mean, it's awful. Yeah, you know,

fix your own fucking door. OPD can definitely be trusted. This shocking crime, was part of a far greater mystery. Seanetta's story becomes much stranger and will take us to the heart of satanic ritual abuse. The bigger picture of just what the hell was going on in Omaha becomes more complicated still and leaves a number of purported victims and at least one private investigator dead

in his pursuit of the truth. Join us as we delve deeper into this story of systemic power, abuse, and corruption. Before Epstein, before Pizza Gate, There was Franklin, and we're willing to do what it takes to tell the whole story. That was episode one of an eight-part miniseries called Raising Hell. If you want to listen to the rest, you can head over to cursedmedia.net, where you'll get access to all of our miniseries, including Raising Hell, as it comes out.

Jack, what do you think people should do? Should they go check it out? I think that folks should go and subscribe, because nowhere else on the Internet, are they going to find as in-depth an exploration of just what went down in Omaha. Cursedmedia.net.