RedHanded - Episode 322 - The Body, the P.I. & the Hole in the Wall

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

In 2010, the body of a man was discovered in a locked hotel room in Beaumont, Texas. Apart from some minor bruising on his groin, the man didn’t have a mark on him – yet he had the internal damage of a severe car crash victim. There was no sign of forced entry or a struggle. He had no enemies, and nobody in the hotel had seen or heard a thing. The police were at their wit’s end, and after months of investigating, the case of the body in room 348 went cold. That is, until legendary private investigator, Ken Brennan, took on the case. REDHAUNTED SPECIAL: Ghost Hunting at The Ancient Ram InnFollow us on social media:InstagramTwitterVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome to Red Handed, where we may have left spooky season behind, but we're still keeping it creepy here. Still keeping it genitals. Yes, because I don't think this is going to make the final cut of episode title naming, but the title I'm currently looking at in the Google Docs from which I'm reading this script says the body in room 348 scrotal recall did you ever watch lovesick did i ever watch lovesick no it's about this guy lives in glasgow he finds out he has chlamydia so he has to get in contact with all of his exes it's very funny and it was initially called scrotal recall ah i just it's it's they needed something in between scrotal recall and lovesick i'm gonna say yeah i think it's on 4od or something it's just it's it's they needed something in between scrotal recall and loves it yeah i'm

gonna say yeah i think it's on 4od or something it's just it's very very good it's like that prime like pinpoint british comedy got it somewhere in between peep show and something else i can't like got it it's very good got it it's between peep show and skins is what it is okay got it got it excellent well you can go watch that immediately after you finish listening to this episode then It's between Peep Show and Skins is what it is. Okay. Got it. Got it. Excellent. Well, there you go. You can go watch that immediately after you finish listening to this episode then. Because it's a doozy. So on the 16th of September 2010, the body of a man was discovered in room 348 of the MCM Elegante Hotel in Beaumont, Texas. Right next to Rancho Relax.

Rancho Relax. It's the MC the mcm elegante come on in take off that rancho relaxo t-shirt that's next door now when this body was found it was initially believed that he had died of a heart attack however the pathologist would later find that not only had this man's intestines stomach and liver had been ripped yes that's not a word i feel like goes with those things but that's what happened but two of his ribs had been shattered and his heart had exploded and he's still in one piece is that clinical language his heart's exploded exploded. Exploded. It's gone boom. I don't know. I'll ring my surgeon boyfriend and find out.

But despite having the internal damage of a severe car crash victim, the outside of this man's body was a totally different story. Aside from a small cut and some bruising to his groin, there wasn't a single mark on him. At a loss as to how this man could have met his end, the pathologist concluded that he'd either been beaten or crushed to death. Although there was no sign that anybody else had been in the room, the man's death was labelled a homicide. The case of the body in room 348 left the homicide detectives of Beaumont, Texas scratching their

heads. And it would be almost a year later, thanks to the ingenuity of a private investigator, that the remarkable truth would finally be uncovered. I'm excited. Let's get into it. Every Monday morning, 55-year-old Greg Flanagan would drive two hours from his home in Lafayette, Louisiana to Beaumont, Texas, where he would spend the work week. Greg ran a successful business in Beaumont with his brother Michael, leasing land to oil and gas companies.

He was a fairly solitary man and a creature of habit. Every evening after work, Greg would come back to his hotel room alone and watch a film before bed. And that's exactly what he was doing on Wednesday 15th September 2010. Greg stretched his legs out on the double bed in the room 348. He opened a bar of Reese's chocolate, lit a cigarette, cracked a bottle of root beer. Disgusting. And turned on Iron Man 2. And also Reese's is the only allowable American chocolate. I was hoping you would bring this up because I agree. It is the only allowable confectionery.

I'm not even going to call it chocolate from America. And if you think we're being harsh on you Americans, the Europeans do it to us. Oh, yes, they most certainly do. Dairy milk is not in the chocolate aisle if you go to a European supermarket. No, it's also owned by Hershey's now, so. Oh, yeah. You fuck with that recipe. Cadbury's fruit and nut is one of my few joys in life don't so during the watching of this iron man 2 film because again i think like maybe it's

because of mcm elegante maybe it's the fact that nobody really knew how he died that it kind of feels like a bit old and tiny yeah it's not he's watching iron man 2 so let's just all you know ground ourselves in the space and time that this story is occurring so while he's watching iron man 2 so let's just all you know ground ourselves in the space and time that this story is occurring so while he's watching this film at around 7 p.m greg responds to an email from his wife susan she was updating him on her application for a tax extension and he wrote you're doing good babe and it's while later just as tony stark was about to defeat Mickey Rourke in a glorious CGI superhero showdown, a searing pain travelled through Greg's body. He struggled to his feet and began stumbling toward the hotel room door to find help, but Greg never made it that far. After just a few steps, he collapsed face first into the hotel room carpet, and with his cigarette still in his hand, he died.

As we've already told you, Greg was a creature of habit. Whenever he was in Beaumont, he would make sure to phone his wife, Susan, every morning without fail. So when Greg never made that call on the Thursday morning, and he didn't answer Susan when she rang or turn up to the office, two of his co-workers went to check on him. When they knocked on the door of room 348, there was no answer, so the hotel manager opened it for them. And inside, they discovered Greg's lifeless body keeled over on the room's green carpet. His legs were spread apart, and he had a burnt-out cigarette cupped in his left hand. The room was boiling and Greg's skin had turned a pale blue colour. A little over an hour later, Detective Scott Apple turned up on the scene. And don't you worry, my friends, we are going to have a lot of fun with Detective Apple throughout the episode.

Apple was a no-nonsense veteran cop and the leader of his department's SWAT team, and he was no stranger to homicide investigations. But within moments of arriving, Apple was certain that Greg Flanagan's death was no homicide. Apart from the body in the middle of the floor, there wasn't a single thing out of place in the room, nor was there any sign of forced entry. Greg had no obvious wounds or injuries, and there wasn't a drop of blood to be seen. Not to mention Greg's wallet sat in plain sight, untouched, with $1,000 in $100 bills still inside. Apple was convinced that Greg must have died from a heart attack, and began going through his bags looking for narcotics or prescription meds.

But, according to Greg's wife, he never touched drugs. He was notorious for avoiding the doctor, and so he didn't have any prescriptions. And apart from never exercising and being a chain smoker, Greg seemed like a perfectly healthy middle-aged man. There was nothing to suggest why he just keeled over and died out of the blue. For the time being, however, all Apple could do was speculate. He'd have to wait for the pathologist to get to work on Greg's body before he knew more for sure. Apple went to go and speak to the rest of the hotel's guests. But a group of electricians who'd been partying in the room next door the previous night said they hadn't heard anything

untoward. Which is like an electrician's party at the mcm elegante yeah it's like when we ran into i was gonna say i was gonna say hannah and i went to like our first ever like sort of like well-meaning but like poorly organized like meet up in the in the british true crime world and this was years ago so imagine how bad it was and in the same venue i think it was just like a pub somewhere like downstairs yeah in the pub that we think it was just like a pub somewhere like downstairs yeah in the pub that we were in we were like walking out and there was just a group of undertakers were they on a stag or something i think so it was so funny they were so nice they were extremely nice and i was like go on who's the most famous person alexander mcqueen

but back at jefferson county texas where we just were for our halloween episode which is probably why it kept ringing a bell in my head dr tommy brown was the pathologist on the job brown was a consummate professional who carried out countless autopsies over his long-spanning career he was one of the best at what he did it took him no more than 45 minutes to finish his post-mortem examination of Greg, which involved a thorough look at the body inside and out. During the external examination, Brown didn't notice anything remarkable whatsoever, apart from a one-inch cut on Greg's scrotum.

Greg's scrotum itself was swollen and leaking a little bit of fluid from its injury, and there was some bruising going from the injured area across Greg's right hip. So there was no doubt in Brown's mind that something had hit Greg in the balls very, very hard. The second stage of the examination involved cutting Greg open to examine his organs, and that is when shit got strange. Brown found that Greg had suffered from severe internal bleeding and damage. Partly digested food was leaking from a tear in his intestines. His stomach and liver had both been lacerated. And like we said at the top of the show, two of his ribs had been cracked. The right atrium of Greg's heart had also burst. If Brown had only seen Greg's insides,

he said that he would have guessed that this man had died in a major car accident. But, balls aside, there wasn't a single scratch on him. So the pathologist could only assume that Greg had either been beaten to death or crushed by something very large and heavy. He noted the damage done to Greg's scrotum could well be a result of a powerful kick from fucking jackie chan like it's who's doing that who's doing that though i know this is too much information but acd face has a scar on his groin and i was like how'd you get that and he was like when we were kids my sister kicked me in the ball so hard that it

tore my groin and she was like yeah i did yes i did i did do that so it can happen but it you know child child being kicked by an older child and the pathologist also said that greg's burst atrium could have been caused by a hit to the chest. Again, how hard are you hitting someone in the chest that you explode their heart? Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media.

To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge,

but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding. And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy.

You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. But he's stuck, So under cause of death, pathologist Brown just wrote homicide and blunt force trauma. Murders were not an unusual occurrence in Beaumont, Texas. The violent crime rate in the city that year was twice the national average.

But when homicides did occur, they tended to be pretty straightforward cases. Drug killings or jilted lovers, etc. So Greg was anything but straightforward. So Detective Applebottom Jeans had his work cut out for him. So he put on his boots with the fur and spent the next six months trying to get to the bottom of things. I'm not even close to being done. There are so many more. I can't wait.

But every single lead Detective Apple followed led to a dead end. Everything about this case was a mystery. For one as we said room 348 was immaculate when Greg's body was found. It certainly didn't look like a room where a man had been beaten to death. Had someone assaulted Greg elsewhere and then brought him back to his room? And then after having laid Greg down on his hotel room floor had they for some reason placed a lit cigarette in his left hand? And if so, why would they go through that trouble? And secondly, how had nobody heard or seen a thing? And also, surely they can see that he was watching Iron Man right before he died. Sorry, Iron Man 2. And also that he'd been emailing his wife.

Yeah. Not like he'd just been fucking beaten up. Yeah, I'm giving away way too much of my cigarette knowledge here, but they would have had to smoke half of it and then leave it, otherwise it would have just gone out. Well, there you go. And then there was the mystery of how Greg had shattered his ribs and sustained that severe organ damage,

all without a mark on his body beside the cut and bruising on his scrotum it was a very autopsy of jane doe situation have you seen it oh my god it's actually pretty is it it's actually pretty good like i'd say it's worth a one-time watch it's not a re-watch one-time watch it's genuinely creepy it's like this father and son running a autopsy lab, whatever you want to call it. One day, a body gets brought in and it's the body of a witch. Okay. They're set in modern times, so they don't know. And they start dissecting, well, not dissecting, you know, doing what they need to do.

And creepy shit happens. Okay. And they find creepy shit in her body. All right. And there's a bell. Sold. Sold. It's good. But, Greg was no witch. And then

there also remained the question of who the hell would want to murder Greg Flanagan in the first place anyway. One of the things that Detective Apple had learned during his investigation was that Greg was loved by everybody who knew him and he had zero enemies. His company was successful and his professional relationship with his employees and

his brother was stellar. And according to the staff at MCM Elegante, Greg was never one to sit at the hotel bar getting drunk either. So again, it's not like he just shot his mouth off to the wrong guy and then got the shit kicked out of him in the dick or whatever. He'd just come back from work and go straight to his room, where he'd stay until it was time to go to work again the next day. So when Detective Granny Smith spoke with Susan Flanagan, which he did at length, she made it clear to him that their relationship was full of nothing but love.

Greg had met Susan when she was a 20-something lead singer in a rock band. They'd been married twice, once in their early 20s, which ended in a divorce, and then again in their 40s, after Susan phoned Greg out of the blue one day. He picked up the phone and said, I've been waiting for you to call. That's so sad, that's so cute.

And after this, they got married for good and spent 15 years together until Greg met his untimely and bizarre end in room 348. So the question remained, who would want to hurt a man like Greg in such a brutal way? Detective Pink Lady did his best to peel back the layers of this mystery. Eventually, the core of Apple's investigation. Great. Came down to two theories.

The first came from the hotel's maintenance records on the night in question. And they showed that Greg had tripped the circuit breaker in his room whilst microwaving some popcorn. Can we just talk about the fact that American hotel rooms have microwaves in them? What? If you want. I just, I find that just mad. No fucking kettle though. No kettle. Microwave. talk about the fact that american hotel rooms have microwaves in them what if you want i just i find that just mad no fucking kettle though no kettle microwave that you can make hot water in a microwave i'd rather die in a fucking british hotel you can't make stuff some popcorn no short

circuit everything you just can't fucking see anything because there's no lights that are bright there's also that especially for you especially for me the blinder when i was playing cards in kohasit we were playing outside and it was really dark and there was no lights and i had to be like i'm so sorry but can you please tell me what that says because i don't know and then one of the girls there colleen who's partially deaf she was like i've got you so between us we had a fully functioning head. Beautiful. Anyway. Because he had tripped the circuit, it had in turn caused electricity to cut out in rooms 348 and 349, and one directly below 348.

Greg had phoned the reception to inform them what had happened, and the hotel's maintenance man had come to his room to reset the breaker. Now, Apple had the ID. Oh. Bin. Prison. No. Now, Apple had the idea of someone who may well have been the last person to have seen Greg alive. And what's more, when he looked into the maintenance man's background, Apple found that he was a registered sex offender. It's like some sort of Agatha Christie story. It really truly is.

So this led Apple to speculate whether the injuries to Greg's scrotum were the result of a violent, bizarre sexual assault at the hands of the maintenance man. Apple pursued this theory for a short while, but it turned out to be fruitless. No, you're in jail. I'm not! I'm having a nice time apple's second theory involved the group of drunk electricians who had been in the room 349 that night and presumably if they hadn't been so drunk they could have helped with the circuit breakers quite but they're there at the hotel elegante on holiday hannah their electric. Well, yeah, they were in town for a few months, actually, working on a big job nearby. But that night they were partying in their hotel room.

It had occurred to Apple that when their electricity went out, that these men could have gotten into some sort of drunken altercation with Greg in the hallway. Maybe they'd either murdered Greg and put his body back in his room, or Greg had stumbled back to his room after being beaten up by these drunk electricians and then collapsed. So Apple returned to the hotel just over a week after Greg died to interview the electricians again. They're still there because they're still working on this big job. And he also did it wearing a hidden camera. But still, none of the men aroused any suspicion in Apple. All of them were incredibly cooperative, friendly,

and curious about what had happened. Lance Muller and Tim Stiesmans were sharing the double room in 349 next to Greg that night, and during their questioning, Apple tried his best to peel back their stories for clues. But both men insisted that they hadn't heard or seen anything. Once he was finished, all of the electricians happily handed Apple their phone numbers and told him to call them any time.

Months passed and Apple was no closer to solving the mystery of who murdered Greg Flanagan than he was at the start of his investigation. He considered every possibility. Did Susan have her husband killed to inherit his money? Or was it Greg's brother, Michael, who was, remember, his business partner too? But neither made any sense, nor was there any evidence to suggest either case. In all of his career, Apple had never dealt with a case as difficult as this one. But with no leads, Apple grumbled.

I can see you. And he added the curious murder of Greg Flenneking to the big stack of cold cases at Jefferson County Courthouse. In their desperation, Greg's family had offered a $50,000 reward in exchange for any information that would solve the case. But nothing had come of it. Susan, however, was determined not to give up on finding her husband's killer. And one day, her attorney recommended she reach out to a man called Ken Brennan. Brennan was a former New York cop and a DEA special agent, who was now working as a private investigator out in Florida. And he looks like a mix between Ray Liotta and Ron Bellman. Oh, wow. Yeah. But no matter how he looks, he is very, very good at what he does.

Brennan knew he was going to be a detective from an early age. As a kid, he'd watch detective dramas like Dragnet with his mother and flip through her copies of True Detective magazine. After his time in the NYPD, Brennan went on to spend a decade in the DEA, working as a lead agent in a narcotics

task force. Following such an illustrious career in law enforcement, it seemed obvious to Brennan that going into the private sector was the best thing to do. As a PI, the scope of what Brennan is able to do is much narrower than when he was actually in law enforcement, but it does allow him to focus on more specific cases. It also allows him to be more selective about the cases he takes on. And what Brennan specialises in are cold case homicides. Now, of course, there aren't exactly a shortage of these. And because Brennan's so sought after,

he only tends to choose the ones that he finds the most interesting. Brennan made quite a name for himself after helping police crack a seemingly impenetrable cold case five years earlier. So let's put a pin in Greg Flanken for now and take a look at the mysterious case of the vanishing blonde, which sounds like a film noir if I ever, ever heard one. That is how it's basically described as well. Not as a film noir, but as a case noir. Right. Which is like what absolutely elevated Brennan into. I see.

I don't want to say stardom because... Notoriety? Notoriety. Let's go with that. A law firm representing the Regency Airport Hotel in Miami approached Brennan in late 2005 to get to the bottom of a cold case that police had all but given up on. It was a case equally as baffling as that of Greg Flanagan, and it was right up Brennan's alley. Once Brennan received the investigation files from police, he could see why the case had gone so cold.

At 8.30am in February 2005, one of the hotel's guests was discovered unconscious. Not in her room, however. She was found in a cul-de-sac, 11 miles away from the hotel, on the outskirts of Miami. 21-year-old native Ukrainian, Inna Budnitska, had been beaten, raped and left for dead with a shattered eye socket and severe head trauma. And when Inna regained consciousness in hospital, she couldn't get her story straight about what had actually happened. She couldn't remember whether she was attacked by one man or multiple, and she couldn't remember if they'd had Hispanic accents or Romanian accents. And to make things worse, the nightmares she was having made her completely unsure of what was fact and what was fiction. There was nothing solid in her story that helped investigators.

And because there were 174 rooms in the hotel, the police hadn't even had the resources to check the movements of every guest that night. The only thing that gave Brennan hope was the hotel's serious security system. There were only a few entrances and exits, all of which were monitored, and two security guards manned the front and rear exits 24-7. And every hotel guest had a digital key that recorded their comings and goings, allowing Brennan to track everyone's movements that night. Brennan quickly identified Inna in the CCTV footage with her bright red jacket and short blonde hair, and he tracked every time she arrived or left the hotel.

Well, almost every time. Inna was recorded walking through the hotel lobby and entering the lift back to her room at 3.41am, but that was the last time she was seen on cameras again. But somehow she vanished and then appeared in a cul-de-sac where she was found unconscious 11 miles away at 8.30am. There was absolutely no sign of her whatsoever between those hours. So how, in the space of those roughly five hours,

did she leave the hotel without being seen and end up 11 miles away? Police had speculated that maybe her attacker had dropped her out of the fourth floor window, but her injuries weren't consistent with that at all. Yeah, I feel like that would be quite an obvious tell if somebody had fallen four stories. Fallen four stories and then rolled 11 miles. They then wondered whether a team of attackers had lowered her out of the window using ropes into the bushes below. Question to that would be, but why? Yes, for why? Why would you do that?

Like if you're willing to rape and savagely beat and brutalise a woman and leave her in a cul-de-sac in the open to be discovered, I don't feel like you're taking loads of precautions to not get caught. So why would you be like, this hotel's got loads of CCTV. We better rig up some sort of system to get her out of the hotel so no one sees her leaving. It's a stretch. Yeah. And Brennan's on our side because he thought both of those ideas were completely ridiculous and just not how rapists work.

Unless she was attacked by a group of magicians. The only way Inna left that hotel was through the front door. And the answer had to be somewhere on the security footage. So Brennan painstakingly went through

every single frame of footage from that night eliminating suspects as he went. It's the unglamorous side of policing. Oh yeah.

Like it's the thing that because the plot line sounds like any daytime TV show like any like Monk Quincy whatever you want. Like, I'm really showing my age here.

You know what I mean? Like any of those particular shows. Maybe, what's that one? What's that new one called that all the kids are talking about? Only Murders in the Building? Sounds like an episode of that. That just shows how you have not watched it at all. I haven't watched it.

Is that not what happens in that show? Okay, never mind. I take it back. But yeah, it sounds like any of those shows. But this is the side of that case that those shows would never show, which is just a guy sat there watching hours and hours and hours of footage. So if Brennan saw somebody leave the hotel and not return before Inna had re-entered her final time, he crossed them off the list. Anybody who entered and didn't leave were also crossed off, as was anybody who wasn't carrying a large bag. By the time Brennan had finished going through hours and hours of footage, frame by frame from multiple cameras, he was left with just one single suspect.

It was the man he'd seen entering the lift with Inna at 3.41am, the last time she was seen. He was a large black man, at least 6ft4 and weighing at least 300lbs, and the two of them were seen speaking for a few moments. This man is then seen leaving the hotel less than two hours later, at 5.28am. Only this time, he's pulling a very large suitcase on wheels. It's not hard, is it? Yeah. It doesn't seem like an impenetrable case to me.

No, it feels like, look, they're exactly what Brennan looked for. The man was also seen returning to the hotel less than an hour later without the suitcase. And he gets into the lift and goes back upstairs. Inna was inside the suitcase and Brennan was certain of it. But he knew that he had to be more than certain before he brought his suspicions to the police. So he went out and purchased a suitcase of the same size and had a flexible young woman try and fit inside it, which she did. Brennan then re-watched the footage of the man pulling the suitcase and noticed something new. As the man stepped off the elevator, the wheels of the suitcase got momentarily stuck

in the gap between the lift floor and the floor of the lobby. Can we just talk about fucking annoying? Why, why on god's green earth do people put thick fucking carpets down in the corridors of hotels yeah why are you doing this hoteliers because all that happens is i'm trying to drag my incredibly not filled with a body suitcase filled with clothes and other things we purchased from target across the various floors of your hotel and it's like trying to drag a wheelbarrow through concrete. Yeah. It is so annoying. And wet concrete, just to be clear. Consistent. It's so annoying.

It's everywhere. It's like nobody, like the only argument I can think for putting carpet down is sound dampening and comfort. Nobody's walking around corridors in hotels barefoot. I mean, I do. You're gross. The sound dampening, sure. But like, can we not?

It's very, very irritating. It's supremely irritating. Anyway, back to Brennan. He's watching the man. The wheels have got stuck. And the man then gives the suitcase a very hard tug to move it. So that meant that there must have been something very heavy inside. Also, why would somebody leave an airport hotel with a suitcase and come back without it

when they weren't even checking out that day? Something else stood out to Brennan as well. It was how cool, calm and collected the man was. Brennan had been a cop for absolutely years. He knew all too well how shaky and panicky a first-time offender behaved in the wake of committing a violent crime. So if Brennan was right, this guy had just raped and beaten a woman nearly to the point of death

and dumped her body before returning to the hotel like nothing had happened. Most people would have fled to a different state or country. So if this was the culprit, Brennan was certain that this was not his first time. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. But I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years.

I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich,

be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Laney Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry.

But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Then came the process of figuring out who this guy in the CCTV actually was. And shockingly, for a hotel that seems to pride itself on having impenetrable security, the hotel records were useless and

nobody remembered seeing him. Brennan even went as far as to phone NASA to ask them if they could enhance the blurry security image for him. Sadly, they could not. Fortunately, Brennan could make out the word Verado on the man's shirt, which Brennan identified as a new boat engine made by a company called Mercury Marine. So Brennan phoned them and asked which of their employees were given t-shirts. Two weeks later, they called him back and said they'd been given away to catering staff at a local boat show, and the catering company was called Centreplate. So Brennan phoned Centreplate's head of HR, who told him that they'd hired over 200 people for that boat show. But Brennan insisted that, quote, somebody has to remember working with a six foot 4 300 pound black guy wearing glasses but they still didn't have a name. However some employees did remember that guy when this

description was given. Apparently he had since quit centre plate but employees remembered that he'd also worked at Zephyr Field, home of the New Orleans Zephyrs baseball team. So Brennan phoned a good police friend of his in New Orleans and managed to identify a guy matching the description who'd previously, ding, ding, ding, worked at Zephyr Field. And his name, which feels like an anticlimax given all the hard work that's happened, is the rather innocuous Mike Jones. But this is Detective Brennan we're talking about.

So yes, Mike Jones, very common name, but it was all that Brennan needed. Sure enough, the hotel's database had a Michael Lee Jones staying with them on the night of the attack. Mike Jones had checked in a week before the attack and checked out the day after. The card he'd used to book the room had been cancelled and the address he'd given had been vacated years before. But Brennan knew this kind of catering job was perfect for a serial rapist. He was sent to events around the country, put up in hotels, all expenses paid. So Brennan was sure that he would have moved on to a similar company to the one he'd worked for before. So Brennan phoned Centreplate's top 20 competitors and found one that employed a Michael Lee Jones and found out where his next job was.

It's crazy. Brennan is so fucking good. And patient. Oh, so patient. So patient. I mean, this would make a boring as fuck TV show, but he is amazing. So Brennan and a Miami detective ambushed Jones as he worked at a barbecue counter at a minor league baseball game in Maryland. Jones, who towered over both of them being 6'4", remember, rather convincingly denied everything in a softly spoken voice,

and even agreed to give them a DNA sample there and then. But a few weeks later, Brennan got the call telling him that the DNA sample was indeed a match for the semen recovered from Inna. And so, after 11 months of investigating, Brennan had found his man, and Jones was arrested and charged with kidnapping, battery and rape. But the case fell apart because the DNA evidence only proved that Jones had had sexual intercourse with Inna, and not that he had raped her. And along with the fact that Inna was deemed an unreliable witness to the crime committed against her, the team just

couldn't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. In the end, Mike Jones received just two years after pleading guilty to the lesser charge of sexual assault. But Brennan wasn't disheartened. He knew that Jones was a serial rapist like he said this was no way his first crime so Brennan wasn't going to stop and he convinced the FBI to add Mike Jones's DNA to the national database and they got a match for DNA recovered from another rape in Colorado in 2005 nine months after the attack of Inna. So yeah, they basically take his DNA. They've got that now.

He gave it to them willingly. They can run it through the database for any other unsolved rapes. And bingo, they've got one. They also got a match for two earlier rapes in New Orleans back in 2003. Jones had by this point been dubbed the suitcase rapist. And when he stood trial for these cases, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison. So, just in case you need any more reminding, if anybody was going to solve the case of Greg Flanagan, it was Ken Brennan.

And when Susan Flanagan phoned him in February 2011 and told him the details of her husband's mysterious homicide, Brennan was all over it. And let's remind you of those details. A man had suddenly died in a hotel room with no sign of forced entry. He had the internal trauma of a serious car crash victim, but with no visible injuries except a cut and some bruising on his scrotum. The neighbouring rooms were occupied, yet nobody had heard or seen anything. The man had no known enemies. After months of investigating, the police still didn't have a single promising lead. It's exactly the kind of case that Brennan was built for. He saw things and thought about things in a way that other detectives just didn't. And it was this ability

that helped him solve numerous mysteries throughout his 30-year career. The first thing Brennan did was fly to Lafayette, where he spoke with Susan at length. He grilled her about the ins and outs of her marriage with Greg, their financial situation, and even whether either of them had ever been unfaithful. And once he was certain that she could be cleared as a suspect, Brennan asked her one final question. Was there anything about the scene of the crime that didn't seem right to you? Susan told him that the only thing that struck her as odd was how hot Greg's hotel room had been when they found his body in the morning. In all the

years she'd known him, Greg always liked his room as cold as a meat freezer and will blast the air con, but put a pin in that for now. That's what I do. Yeah, same. Freeze the room, snuggly blankets. Same. Freeze the room, snuggly blanket, electric heat. Tick, tick, tick. Yes, we had to do several trips to Target when we were on tour

because I think I lost mine or something. I've got mine packed for Dallas. Oh, have you? Yeah. Goddamn. Well, good job we're going to Target in Denver the second we land. The next thing Brennan did was meet up with Detective Apple at a sports bar in Beaumont, Texas. Brennan always made sure to fully cooperate with the lead investigator on any case he undertook

because, as we said, his resources as a PI were limited. And after assuring Apple that he wasn't there to hijack the case, and only to provide a fresh pair of eyes for anything that Apple may have missed, the two got to work. The very next day, Apple and Brennan went back to room 348 at the MCM Elegante. There, Brennan began looking through the crime scene photos, autopsy results, and details of Apple's seven-month investigation. And once he was done, less than one singular day into his investigation, Brennan stood up and declared, I think I know how this guy died. I think I know when he died. I think I know who killed him. And I think I know how we're going

to catch him. Which must have felt pretty rotten for detective apple it's not gonna make i don't need you to i can take myself so brennan began by explaining how he knew when greg had died susan had told him that greg liked his room cold so the only explanation as to why the room was boiling hot when he was found was that Greg had never turned the air conditioning back on. The time the maintenance man had come to Greg's room to flip the breaker switch had been recorded and it was hot as hell in Texas in September, so the room would have warmed up within minutes. This meant that Greg must have been killed shortly after the maintenance man's visit. Next, Brennan dispelled Apple's assertion that Greg may have been killed in the hallway and then brought back into the room. He phoned Susan and asked her

whether Greg would smoke with his right hand or his left hand, and she insisted that he always used his right hand. So why was the cigarette in Greg's left hand? Well, Brennan had an answer for that too. It made sense to him that Greg had gotten out of bed, walked towards the door, and passed the cigarette from his right to his left hand in order to reach for the handle. But he'd collapsed and died before he got close enough. It's like Columbo now.

It is, it is. So who had killed Greg? There was no doubt in Brennan's mind that the drunk electricians next door were involved, no matter how cooperative and friendly Apple said they had been. Brennan had already deduced that Greg had died in a very narrow window of time between the maintenance man's visits to his room and the room warming up. So that meant the killer had to be someone near room 348 and the electricians in the neighbouring rooms were the only people who fit that bill. And now we've got the how. How was Greg killed? At this point both Brennan and

Apple had no choice but to agree with Dr Timothy Brown's conclusion of blunt force trauma. But Brennan decided to pay Brown a visit anyway. Dr Brown told Brennan and Apple that the injuries to Greg's scrotum may well have been caused by a hard kick, possibly from someone wearing construction boots. Construction boots like all of the electricians were wearing. Brennan then began combing through the hotel's security footage from the day in question, and he noticed the drunk electricians making numerous trips between their parked cars and the hotel. And if Brennan's decades of investigative experience had taught him anything,

it was that people are not very good at keeping their mouths shut. Especially when there's more than one person involved. Yeah. So he knew that if any of the electricians knew something about Greg's murder, then they would have told someone. And as usual, Brennan was right. If you're going to murder somebody, do not make it a group thing. Do not make it a group activity because like Brennan says, and he is completely correct in this, sooner or later somebody's going to talk to somebody else.

Somebody's going to crack. Someone's going to squeal. Exactly. And also, if there's two of you or more, the police know. They just have to crack one of you and get you to turn on somebody else. And in America, they can do what the fuck they want to make you do that. So somebody's going to squeal to save themselves. Make it a solo mission.

But also don't kill anyone. Yeah, thank you for following up with that. So Brennan went to go and speak to the other crew members who had been working with the electricians on the project in Beaumont, and he learned something interesting. The crew foreman said to Brennan that he did remember that some of the electricians were saying something a bit strange about that night. He wasn't sure, but the foreman heard something about a gun. Brennan knew that they were onto something and insisted on taking another look at room 348. He was now certain that Greg Flanagan hadn't been beaten to death. When they got to the room, Brennan pulled out a torch

and began looking under every piece of furniture and inside every crevice in the room. This is fucking incredible. Because that is when he noticed something that both he and Apple had missed before. There was a small dent in the wall between the door and the television. It was the kind of dent that a

door handle would make when it swung open, but this didn't quite line up. It was a little bit too far to the left where the door handle met the wall. Then it occurred to Brennan to take a look at the other side of the wall in room 349. And just as he had suspected, there was a matching dent, only smaller, that lined up perfectly with the one in room 348. Brennan poked his finger at it and realised it wasn't a dent at all.

It was a hole. And it had been filled in with dry toothpaste and toilet paper. Real changing room shit. Brennan cleaned out that hole and shone a laser through it into room 348. The laser beam led neatly over to the front of the bed

and straight onto the backboard, exactly where Greg Fennekin had been innocently sitting, eating chocolate, drinking root beer, smoking a cigarette and watching Iron Man 2 almost eight months before. And in his Long Island accent, which I'm not going to attempt, Brennan stood up and said, this motherfucker was shot. But with Greg's autopsy reports still stating that his cause of death was blunt force trauma,

Brennan and Apple needed to pay Dr. Brown yet another visit. And when they did, Dr. Brown didn't want to hear any of it. He had been a pathologist, and a damn good one, for decades. His word was taken as gospel in Jefferson County's legal world. But that's when the mighty fall. When they stop believing they can make mistakes. And now, here were Brennan and Apple accusing him of having confused a shooting victim with a man who'd been kicked in the balls to death.

Unfortunately, exhuming Greg to look for bullet fragments was out of the question because Greg had already been cremated. Left with no choice, Brennan pressed Brown to humour them. Eventually, the pathologist gave in and they re-examined Greg's autopsy photos together. That's when Brennan pointed out the cut on Greg's scrotum and said it was actually a bullet wound. He suggested that the reason Brown missed this was due to how weird and soft scrotal skin is.

It is weird. It's like an alien. It's so weird. Brennan then pointed out every one of Greg's internal injuries and showed that it followed the trajectory of the bullet. And when they reached the photo of Greg's heart, Dr Brown realised his mistake. Once Brennan had pointed it out, it was clear as day that Greg's heart had a bullet wound in it. Now they had the autopsy report to corroborate their version of events.

All Brennan and Apple had to do now was nail Dan the killer. But it had been eight months since Greg had been killed and the electricians were no longer working in Beaumont, which is why it must have come as a shock to Tim Steinmetz when Apple and Brennan travelled all the way to Wisconsin to ask him a few more questions. Steinmetz met the pair of them at the Chippewa County Sheriff's Office, where they eased his nerves by assuring him that he wasn't in trouble. They were, of course, lying. Just as he had eight months before, Steinmetz ran them through what had happened that night.

Brennan and Apple didn't let on that they knew anything about a gun, and Steinmetz didn't mention a gun once. He finished his story by saying that he hadn't heard any noises from the room 348 and didn't know what else to tell them. Steinmetz then read his written statement out loud, signed it, and got up, ready to leave the room, asking, is that it? And that is when Brennan, with a flair for the drama, said, it was, until you signed that statement. Now you've got a problem. Brennan told Steinmetz that they knew the truth and that he had just signed a false police report.

Steinmetz broke almost immediately and told Apple and Brennan absolutely everything. So, this is what actually happened on the 16th of September 2010. All of the electricians had been in room 349 drinking beer. At some point that evening, Lance Muller asked one of them to go get a bottle of whiskey from his car, along with his 9mm Ruger. That sounds like a bad combo. I don't think there is a worse one.

No, it's pretty up there. In his drunken state, Mullah Van began fucking around with the loaded gun, pointing it at his friends to scare them. This is a grown man who owns a gun. Then suddenly, while he's fucking about with his gun, it went off. It missed one of them by a hair's breadth and made a hole in the wall behind him. When this happened, Muller panicked and took the gun back to his car. And when he came back, he and Steinmetz went to the hotel bar to carry on drinking.

They hadn't heard any reaction, so it hadn't occurred to any of them that there might have been anyone in room 348. And according to Steinmetz, it only dawned on them the following morning when they saw the police and Greg's body was on a gurney. And that's when they realised that Muller might have killed him. Brennan and Apple then made Steinmetz phone Muller and tell him what had just happened as they secretly listened to the call. And I have to say, maybe it's just all of your Apple puns, but now all I can see is Apple, Muller, Steinmetz sounds like strudel,

apple, muller, strudel, strudel, apple, muller. Corner. Now I really want an apple, muller, rice pudding. Okay, we'll see if we can get you one before the car comes at three. Makes it sound like I get shipped off to some insane asylum at three every day. The car over here at three, three, two, will get you an apple, mull Muller Steinmetz before then. We're going to the fucking haunted house, guys.

Today. So Muller seemed to genuinely believe that his bullet had not killed Greggs, especially since Apple had previously told him that Gregg had either been crushed or beaten to death. But Steinmetz assured him that the police were certain that Gregg had indeed been shot and they now knew

that it was him who had done it. Later that day Brennan received a phone call from a drunken Muller desperately trying to explain himself but Brennan just told him, I suggest you call your fucking attorney. I know. And that's the thing, they knew what they did and then they, because they tried

to fill the fucking hole in with toothpaste and... I think the hotel did. Oh. Because they because they tried to fill the fucking hole in with toothpaste and I think the hotel did oh because they never gain access to the room so I think the hotel go in they see that

oh that's a bit weird they don't realise it's a bullet hole and they're just like stuffy stuffy have you ever heard of cork why are you filling it with fucking toilet paper

and toothpaste they're on a budge and the wild thing is if Muller had come forward of his own volition at any point before Brennan cracked the case, it's really likely that he would not have been charged with even manslaughter. And he definitely wouldn't have faced jail time. And why is that? Texas loves guns, hates abortion.

So an accidental discharge of a firearm is not very rare in Texas. And even though the culprit had been outed, the gun laws paired with the state's unclear laws on accidental deaths made Greg's case seem like more hassle than it was worth to the district attorney. And even though Mueller didn't come forward, the prosecutor was planning on giving him a plea deal instead of prosecuting the case as a felony. But when Brennan caught wind of this, he was furious and immediately flew Greg's wife Susan to Beaumont for a meeting with the assistant DA handling the case. Brennan completely flew off the handle at the ADA and told him there was absolutely no way he was going to allow Muller to take a plea. He argued that what Muller did was not an

accident. Muller had knowingly, illegally transported a firearm from one state to another, gotten shit-faced drunk, and then played with his gun. And that's the thing, he's not like in the woods shooting his gun at some tin cans and he accidentally kills somebody. He's in a fucking hotel room firing his gun while he's hammered at his friends and it was only by some miracle that one of them didn't get shot in the face and i don't even know whether you can call it an accidental discharge because he was firing the gun and that gun that he fired i think he was aiming it okay i don't think he was i don't think he intended to shoot it yeah well whatever he did that bullet did indeed kill a man on the other side

of that wall all down to his negligence muller did this in an occupied hotel and didn't even bother to check whether there was anyone next door again he's obviously shit-faced he's not going to do that someone who's waving a gun around is not going to check whether there's somebody next door there was people in the fucking room and, he went to the hotel bar to carry on drinking. And then, when he saw Greg's body on the gurney the next morning and was 100% certain he'd killed the man, he kept quiet and gave his gun to his attorney to stash. Brennan looked the ADA in the eye and said,

you know what this is? It's fucking murder. So if you think we're going to forget about this fucking thing, think again. Because that ain't fucking murder. So if you think we're going to forget about this fucking thing, think again. Because that ain't fucking happening. Lance Muller's sentencing took place on the 29th of October, your birthday, 2012, in Beaumont, Texas.

After Muller entered a no-contest plea to manslaughter, Brennan was worried that the judge would go easy on him with a sentence of just a year. But that is not what happened. The judge scolded Muller for his irresponsible behaviour and failure to come forward sooner, and Muller was sentenced to 10 years in prison, which was half of the maximum sentence. As the judge announced his fate, the look on Lance Muller's face was one of complete shock. Probably similar to the one

on Detective Apple's face when Brennan blew his whole investigation wide open after just one day. Brennan. Brennan man. Brennan man indeed. The Brennan man. The Brennan man. That's his superhero name. No, this is such a, it's like, it's like a case we don't typically do, but it's so interesting.

I think when I first heard about it, I thought it was going to be more like Danny Casolaro. Yes, yeah. That's what I thought too. But like, it's weirder than that because Greg is just an ordinary guy. He's not an investigative journalist who's trying to blow the lid on some massive conspiracy. It's just so weird. And it is just one of those examples. Because people always ask me, and I've said this before on the show, people always ask

like, aren't you so scared now that you do a true crime podcast? And I'm like, I'm not actually scared by getting murdered by a serial killer. What this show has taught me is how short life is yes and how at any point anything could happen and how fragile we are that is what scares the fuck out of me and this is just such a sad story of like a guy who's got a family he's running a business he just goes sat in a fucking hotel and he gets shot in the scrotum yeah from the next room you couldn't make it up like you said and it is just really shocking yeah truly so there you go there you go that scrotal recall absolutely go and watch lovesick and if you're feeling bad about yourself this week at least you're not waving a gun around

in a hotel room and if you are stop it stop it right now stop it immediately and we are about to go forth to the haunted house so if you are yet to go check out the full footage, probably on our YouTube channel, of us running around terrified in a scary haunted inn somewhere in Gloucestershire, I believe, go watch it now of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into

space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone.

Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real.

From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus.