The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - My Fugitive Dad | 4. The Ringer

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

Tom was a scratch golfer. Good enough he could have gone pro. So why didn’t he? How did being a wanted man shape the seemingly perfect life he had? He ended up in the car business with a posse of car guys who adored him but could see he was a bit of fish out of water. When tragedy strikes, Tom makes a decision that will come back to haunt him. Subscribe to The Binge to get all episodes of Smoke Screen: My Fugitive Dad, ad-free right now. Click ‘Subscribe’ at the top of the Smoke Screen: My Fugitive Dad show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. A Neon Hum Media & Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. So Tom and Kathy decide they are going to leave Florida, where Tom had the ability to play golf year-round, and move back to the Boston area to raise a family.

Dad was doing all of the semi-pro tours. They both had jobs, lived in a really nice house. I actually saw a photo of it for the first time last week. And it was a pretty big-sized ranch on some land. I wonder how he was thinking about that decision at the time, knowing that to be a professional athlete, he would be published in newspapers, he would be higher profile. It just always seems like he finds a way over the course of his life to fly under the radar. And that's something that I don't think I'd ever really thought about until you brought it up.

It's the early 80s. That's only a little over a decade after the crime. And he would have been pretty visible. He sort of got to that point where the next step would have been, I'm going on these tours. I'm going to be on everybody's TV in the whole country. Somebody might have recognized him. Yeah. Or like one of his high school friends being like, wait, that's that guy I went to school with who went missing. He's a golfer now? Finding Ted Conrad was John Elliott's mission. And could you imagine if he watched golf? That would have, I mean, that would have been

terrible if that's how he'd caught him. I mean, for me, as my dad's child. But what a moment. John Elliott sitting around with his family being like, hey, it's the Masters weekend. Let's watch some golf. And I can almost hear him being like, son of a bitch. That's Ted Conrad. It's a little tragic, though, too, when you think about it.

Like, Tom had a true talent. It was almost like he had to stay one moment away from greatness because then people would know who he was. So they're back on the North Shore near Kathy's family and ready to start their own family. And he ends up kind of falling into the car business. I think he knew a couple guys who were selling Volvos in Boston. You're not subjected to a huge round of background checks. I think the only thing he had to show was that he had a valid driver's license because you have to be able to drive cars to work at a car dealership. It just seems like everything he does is measured in some way. It's like he got used to only telling half-truths and that he always kept things close to the vest for his protection.

But then that started to bleed over into the rest of his life. From Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Smokescreen, my fugitive dad. I'm Jonathan Hirsch. And I'm Ashley Randall. Chapter 4, The Ringer. I'm Jonathan Hirsch. And I'm Ashley Randall. It's a cold winter day in Wakefield, Massachusetts, when I arrive at Kathy's house. Patches of snow are still scattered across the damp grass in front of the house.

It's a small blue house, single-story, with units that split to the left and to the right. On the left, Ashley. On the right, Kathy. They live next door to each other. Something that really struck me was how committed Tom was to being a dad. You know, like once he became one, he was all in. We got back in September, and I got pregnant that September. Tom would have taken over the whole thing if he could. He just couldn't do enough.

Because I wasn't working, and I'd sleep through the night and I'd say, you didn't get me up to nurse her. Well, no, I gave her a bottle. As soon as he came home, he took over. If you hadn't had your bath yet, he'd give you a bath. He'd give you a bottle. I didn't know any of this. Really? Oh, gosh, yeah.

He adored you. I just want to point out how unique it is that Tom, even though he was working 60, 70 hour weeks in this era, was the kind of dad who also was so focused on being a parent when he was home. It's almost like, and I'm not a parent, so this is my speculation, that I think you see what your parents do and you either learn what to do or you learn what not to do. I almost feel like, not almost, I do, I feel like he wanted to give me the childhood and life that he so desperately wished he could have had. And so he was going to be ultimate dad. Tom's wanting to be a super dad is sweet, aspirational, wholesome. It's also an observation Ashley can make now.

Back then, the way Tom and Kathy were as a couple, the way that Tom was with Ashley, it was assumed that this guy was an extra dad and husband just because. Which leads me to a question I don't think either Ashley or myself or the people in his life can answer. Why?

Why was he so driven to be the ideal dad? Wasn't being a great dad enough? Growing up, part of my bedtime routine was that after my dad would get me all tucked into bed, he would always sing me a song. A-S-H-L-E-Y, she's the one for me. he would always sing me a song. And the song that he sang was actually this lullaby that he had written for me. And it like spells out my name and like he sings about how special I am. And there was always a moment to like put in the fun things we did that day. And it was like, and I love Ashley. And it was not until years later that I realized that no, that's not a thing

that every kid has. But at some point, as you start to get older, there invariably is going to come a moment when when your parents stop being cool. Yeah, I think every kid maybe hits that age and it's in like middle school or definitely by high school where they're like, oh my God, you're so embarrassing. Like, draw me off around the block. And that just so never happened with my dad. Like, draw me off around the block. And that just so never happened with my dad. Like, never embarrassing to be around. And not even just for me.

My friends loved that he would pick them up to drive them to school. Was it because he was driving, like, a fancy car from the dealership? I mean, he did have nice cars, but it was not the car. It was the music that dad was playing in the car. His big thing was whatever the hottest pop song was at the time. And it has burned in my brain forever.

In, I think it was like 93, there was a dance remix of that song, Total Eclipse of the Heart. And for like two months, he'd be waiting. of that song, Total Eclipse of the Heart. Every now and then I get a little bit nervous. And for like two months, he'd be waiting. It was always Thursdays. He'd be like, he'd be a block away from the school and he'd have all the windows down and he would have that turned up to 11, hanging out the window, singing along. And I'm sure this sounds mortifying to some people listening,

but it was just the coolest thing ever. And it would be like, it's Tom's day. It's total eclipse of the heart. And I'm now in my late 30s, and I will still get text messages out of the blue from high school friends who will be like, oh my God, total eclipse of the heart came on today. And all I can think of is your dad. I love him. So by the time Ashley was in high school, it was the late 90s. Tom was in his late 40s and living his best

life, at least that's how it looked. No one ever assumes the person who seems to have it all together is also struggling the most. He'd found a way to live comfortably and to be himself without anyone, even the people closest to him, having the faintest notion of his past. From the time Kathy and Tom moved back to the North Shore in the 80s, and really for the rest of his career, Tom worked for car dealerships. And this afforded me the distinct pleasure of meeting a whole host of people in what they call the car business. Specifically, two of his closest friends over the years. Frankie. Frank Del Torto.

And David. David Sensulo. Frankie grew up in the area, played baseball in college. When he came home, he needed a job. And this gentleman had a stutter. And Chris says, I'm going to go sell some cars for my brother. I'm going to make $40,000 a year. And I looked at Chris and I said, Chris, if you're going to make $40,000, I'm going to make $80,000.

David ended up getting a job there, too. This was decades ago. They're golfing buddies now. David's life before the car business was a bit more colorful. He grew up in Boston's North End. The North End was an Italian section, very poor. But it was mafia-driven, the whole, I mean, just like out of the movies. Then I moved from the North End to Somerville, and my friends would

say, wow, I had a nickname, Scoochie. And they said, Scoochie's moving to the country. Around the time Kathy and Tom moved back to the Boston area in the mid-80s, David moved back too, and he ended up at a dealership. The guys that are really good in the car business, that make a lot of money and do well, they have no interest in cars. They don't do anything for me because we always drove new cars for free, and that was the only perk in the whole thing, except working, you know, 60, 70 hours a week. And that's where I met Tom. What kind of car salesman was Tom?

He was the good kind. By good, David doesn't mean he made the most money. Tom built this reputation among the people that I talked to that he was this calm, collected guy. He played the long game with customers. I mean, he was, see, he wasn't low voice, low-keyed. Well, we'll figure this out. Let's be calm and let's think about it. He was not the type of salesman who would creep around the lot looking for a new customer to descend on, sell a car to real quick.

Tom was a great guy. He was, took his time, you know, time is, we used to say time is money. So Tom was a bit of an anomaly among the people he worked with. He wasn't a drinker. Very rarely did he ever drink. Only once I got him to drink. Only once. And I drank a lot.

I used to drink. At work, he mostly drank Diet Dr. Pepper and smoked menthol cigarettes, Salem's, the ones in the green box. And he was the kind of guy, he never ate. He never ate lunch. Very, very... I just told him, want to have lunch? No.

I got my burner, and I got my diet Dr. Pepper. He was the kind of guy who would wait in the background, was very calm, get to know you. He didn't try to sell you a car on the same day he met you. He'd wait a couple of days because he was building a relationship. Somebody that wasn't going to buy a car, he could spend hours with them. Well, someday they'll come in and buy one, and they'll hopefully buy it for me. He was the gentleman. He was easy. He was nonchalant. He wasn't

pushy. He wasn't your average regular car salesman. And in a way, it sort of reminds me of how people who knew him when he was young described him. Kind of jock professor. Ted Conrad was this charming, casual guy, too. He just made you feel at ease. And he didn't care if you were, you know, the star football player or just some kind of schlub that was carrying water. He just treated everybody the same. And certainly not all the people that Tom Randall worked with were like this.

I used to say to him, what the fuck are you doing in this business? I said, you're a bright, you're articulate, you're smart. You just have all the qualities. You can do anything you want to do. Instead of working 12, 14, me, you know, I'm a city kid, I'm a street kid. But him, he was a different breed. I said, why are you doing this? He said, you know, I've been at it now, David.

He goes, you know, I like it. I go, what do you like about it? You know, it's a tough business. It's just a grind. A lot of the guys that he hung out with were these eccentric, larger-than-life personalities. They had a really hard time understanding why a guy like Tom chose to be a car salesman. The feeling I got talking to the car guys was, we really like Tom, but we have no idea why he isn't a college

professor or a pro golfer. Like, why the car business? It never added up, but they were happy he was around. It was a pretty low-profile way to make decent money, and it wasn't the type of job Tom took home with him. But also, by the 90s, seems to me Tom didn't really seem concerned about keeping a low profile. There was even a TV commercial for the dealership with Tom's face on it. By now, he'd set up a life where he could make a living

focusing on the things that mattered most to him. His wife. And, of course, his kid. But also, golf. A mile and a half from the Randalls family home on Carter Road is Sagamore Golf Course. 4,200 yards and 18 holes that snakes through tall and dense forests of Massachusetts pine. This was Tom's church, his home course.

All of the guys that worked with him and played golf with him said the same thing. Tom was the best golfer they had ever met. We used to play in golf tournaments. You wanted Tom on your team because he's a ringer. He was unreal. He'd have a cigarette in his mouth. He'd tee it up. He'd have the butt hanging out of his mouth.

Pew! And blast it 300 yards. It was just unbelievable. Meanwhile, I'm struggling trying to hit a frigging 150. But just unreal. And he was patient. Tom would help you with your golf game. He was there to cheer you on.

He literally could help people improve their game over the phone. He didn't even have to see what they were doing wrong. He just had this knack for teaching others about the game itself. It wasn't that he was just good at it. He was kind of a sage. And a lot of his friends told me about this phrase he would use over and over. He'd just drop 10 balls down and grab my hands and say, you got to do it soft, Frank. You got to flex and flow. You got to flex and flow. Flex and flow. He just had this way of speaking to you. But none of these guys were above ribbing him for just being different. It was clear that he stood out and in a way, maybe didn't belong, but everybody wanted him there.

Even at work, I'd never seen him get upset. And we used to have fistfights on the friggin' showroom. Fights, cheers, yelling. Oh my God, the stuff that I saw. I could do a podcast myself. He never, ever, we used to argue all at screaming and yelling at each other. Now, David? He just, he didn't get riled.

Never got upset, never lost his temper. Now, remember, while Tom has settled into his life on the North Shore, the investigation into Ted Conrad went on. Even after decades of scouring the country in search of him, John Elliott retired from the U.S. Marshal Service after 23 years without closing the Conrad case. My dad was very proud to be a Deputy U.S. Marshal Service after 23 years, without closing the Conrad case. My dad was very proud to be a Deputy U.S. Marshal, but he's also very frustrated. So I grew up the son of a frustrated Deputy U.S. Marshal.

Typically, the Marshal Service is filled with people all the way up to Deputy U.S. Marshal with long careers in law enforcement. The top position, though, the U.S. Marshal, rarely is that a cop. You know, I can remember my dad coming home being angry sometimes, coming home and slamming his gun down,

just being mad and angry, you know, with his boss in that position. It wasn't for a lack of trying. John spent his whole career positioning to become U.S. Marshal. They'd never even look at him. They'd always pass him over. I can just remember, you know, for me, you know, being Catholic, praying to God that, hey, just please give my father this position.

Jesus, please. And it just never transpired. This is the part in the story where father, John Elliott, and son, Pete, become deeply intertwined. Pete, just like his dad, went into law enforcement. He worked in narcotics for many years and eventually, like Pops, joined the Marshal Service. In the same district as John.

Northern Ohio. Stationed in Cleveland. And following in his dad's footsteps, his dad's dreams, kind of became his dreams, too. So when we make the arrest on Conrad, my dad's going to be the one that handcuffs him and brings him back here. So that was the plan. You know, that was our plan. Obviously, it wasn't God's plan. It was our plan.

So if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plan, right? The father-son team fulfilling John's lifelong dream of taking down Ted Conrad together. Catching Ted Conrad wasn't the only thing Pete wanted to do for his dad. I, at that time, spent 20 years in law enforcement. But I always had this vision of becoming the U.S. Marshal here in Northern Ohio, and I really wanted to kind of fulfill my dad's dreams because he always wanted to be the Marshal. John had been a deputy marshal for his whole career, but never made it to become the top cop.

He was passed up for the job three times. The U.S. Marshal job is a presidential appointment. Around before 2000, I thought to myself, you know, I'm a federal agent. I spent 20 years on the streets. I spent four years working undercover narcotics. Why don't I try to get that job? With two decades of experience in law enforcement, it was time. But even with all of Pete's successes, he'd even stopped a terrorist organization in his career.

He got passed over, too. So they took this other individual. And I can remember, you know, how I felt calling my dad. And my dad would say one thing over the years that just bugged the heck out of me. He'd always say, just keep on trying. It's like, oh, what do you mean keep on trying? I'm done. He said that whether it was baseball or whether it was just life in general, just keep trying, keep trying. Keep trying, I have to imagine, is what John told himself all those years in search of Ted. One of these days it'll work out for you.

In the end, though, the guy they chose couldn't take the job. So as I tell people to this day, you know, I think I was picked because I was the last man standing. And so I can remember calling my father, you know, giving him the news, and he was just, you know, beside himself. I think he started crying. Pete's now the longest-serving U.S. Marshal in Ohio history. The Elliott name is a legend in Ohio State law enforcement. Listen, he might turn 100 years old and still be the U.S. Marshal of Northern Ohio.

My name is Eric Midock, and I am a Deputy U.S. Marshal. And here in the Northern District of Ohio, I work on our cold case unit. Back when Eric joined the cold case unit, his predecessor left him a handful of cases to take over. Among them, the Ted Conrad case. He kind of nudged my arm and said, hey, look, this is Ted Conrad. You know, this was the Marshall's father's case.

And it's yours. You're working it. I came to figure out pretty quickly that, you know, it was my case in the sense that in the computer under the name Ted Conrad, it says Deputy Eric Midock. But quickly, I realized that it was, you know, Marshall Elliott's case. After retiring, John continued to come into the office to visit his son, to comb over the Conrad file again. Casey missed something. We've had 55,000 arrests since 2003. We've got a lot of cases. So this case would not be a high priority if my dad was not involved. It would not have been at all. We've had interns looking at it over the years, just trying to look for any little clue, any little thing that we may have missed. Pete, once and for all, now carried the torch for his dad,

which meant also keeping the Conrad case alive. But, it seems, at least by the time John retired in the 90s, the odds of catching Conrad were very slim. No one had any idea that Ted, I should say Tom, had been building an entire life for himself all these years. An entire life with someone whose life now hung in the balance and threatened to blow apart everything that mattered to him. So in 1996, Kathy is diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. During that time, she tells us that Tom still had this kind of positive, forward-thinking mentality, a sort of sunny disposition. He was Mr. Calm, and I started seeing a therapist, and I said, you've got to come see Gina with me, Tommy.

And I said, I told him, I said, I can't understand. You don't show the emotion of being scared, nervous for me. You know, he's Mr. Optimistic and everything's going to be fine. And that's how he dealt with everything. That's what was very frustrating for me. Tom was a self-styled smooth operator. People called him calm, cool, unflappable. But there was a downside. He avoided harsh realities

and was selective about what he shared with people in a way that both puzzled and frustrated the people closest to him. It was a really scary time. Looking back especially, I can see these moments where she really might not have made it. Like, I might not have my mom right now. And what's crazy about this is that for the first few weeks, I didn't even know my mom had cancer. I remember my dad sat me down and just explained that mom was sick and that she was going

to be really tired and, you know, check on her when I get home from school, but she's just going to be sick for a while. She's going to be fine. And it was a few weeks after that I was in school and a girl that I was not even really friends with stopped me in the hall to tell me how sorry she was to hear that my mom had cancer and that her whole church was praying for my mom. And I swear my jaw hit the ground. And I remember going home and bursting into my mom's room and I was like, you have cancer? Why did no one tell me? And she says, didn't your dad sit you down and explain what's going on? But I just can't believe that I spent weeks not knowing how sick my mom actually was because my dad wanted to protect me. Wow.

I was 12 at the time. He was still working full-time and taking care of me. And he took over everything in the house from the cleaning, the laundry, and also the books. We were paycheck to paycheck. And my mom's cancer really put them in a tight financial spot. Because in addition to regular medical bills, I remember there was this one injection that her doctor said she really needed, but it was experimental, but essentially without it, she probably wasn't going to make it. And we had this white paper bag that sat on top of the fridge and my dad would give my mom an injection once a week. And the only way dad could pay for it was to just put it on the credit card. So it sounds like that was the beginning of Tom and Kathy getting into some pretty serious financial trouble.

Exactly. Cut to 15 years later, I had moved to New York for college. And I had moved into my first apartment and I needed to buy a bed. And my dad said, you know, go to Sleepy's and pick out a bed and put it on the credit card. And because the purchase was over a certain amount, I remember I had to call the credit card company to say, yes, it's me. Like, please let it go through. When you're on hold, they play that music with almost like directions, like, did you know you can pay your bill online? And when I ever heard your current balance is,

and it was close to like a hundred thousand dollars. And I just remember I hung up the phone and I called my dad and I was like, I don't need a bed. I don't need a bed. This is crazy. I, oh my God, you guys have so much debt. I've just, I've never been so scared in my life. Wow. And he calmed me down and he said, you know, everyone carries some debt. Everything is fine. And I was like, but how on earth do you have this much debt? We don't do anything. Everyone carries some debt. Everything is fine. And I was like, but how on earth do you have this much debt? We don't do anything. We hadn't been on a family vacation in like 20 years. Like, what is happening?

And he was like, look, it's nobody's fault. But you remember when mom was sick and we had to pay for all those drugs? And they had just been carrying this debt for, like, decades. But then it's almost worse now because I realized at the time that my mom had absolutely no idea the amount of debt they had. So it was probably 2012. I was living at home and there was one night I was in my room watching TV probably and dad came in and just casually was like, hey, can we just have a quick chat. We have some bills to pay. We're just kind of in a tough spot. I know that you've really been saving. Feel free to say no, but if you need? And he asked me for $10,000. I mean, and I say that and I look back now and I'm like, wow. But at the time, yep, I had the money. I mean, I'd been working and I'd been living rent-free at the house.

So all the money I made, I was just putting into my savings account. And I went the next day and I took out the money and I gave it to him. And dad and I never talked about it again. He never paid me back. I don't think I, I mean, I never brought it up because, you know. And it wasn't until a couple months ago when I realized how many things maybe mom wasn't aware of. Like she wasn't aware of how much debt they were in. I went over to her place and I pop in the living room and I said, so mom, do you remember the time

I lent you guys $10,000? And she looked at me like I was crazy. She's like, you what? I mean, and then what's two years later, they're filing for bankruptcy. It strikes me in hearing some of these stories that it's not just that Tom was keeping a low profile to fly under the radar, but he does seem to be withholding certain information from people who are super close to him for different reasons. Yeah. The more I think about it, the more I see him as somebody who just never wanted to worry anybody. I think that maybe in the beginning when he was first on the run, he kept secrets to protect himself, right? To

stay off the FBI's radar, to keep himself safe. And then when I just think about the time period between being like 12 and 22, the things that he kept were for others' protection. Tom would pick and choose what he shared about his life with friends and colleagues, and at times, clearly, from his family as well. But the secret he kept from Kathy and Ashley about his health was the most devastating one of all, and would eventually unravel all the other secrets, too. I don't want you looking into anything. I don't want you telling anybody. And if I tell you, that's it. Like, you're done.

I will tell you and then no more. And he said just really quietly and almost like he was scared to say it. That's next time on My Fugitive Dad. Unlock all episodes of Smokescreen, My Fugitive Dad, ad-free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Not only will you immediately

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