The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 199 - Tony and The Shotgun

Episode Date: August 14, 2016

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine Tony Kiritsis and his shotgun hostageSOURCESTOUR DATESREDBUBBLE MERCH

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podcast. Each week I read a story from American history to my friend Gareth Reynolds. I used to know a little bit. I think what I just saw going into you was that gonna go. Hey man don't be a cap about this man. Alright I guess the wall. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Stay okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not gonna come to tickling quite good. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hail Queen Shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do my thing. Hi Gavie. No. Is he done my friend? No.

Girl. August 13th, 1932. Okay. Tony. Oh this is already this already did a fucking spell correction. Did it change the next word to Danza? I'm just gonna pretend like that's what it is but I think this is... Tony Kittitzis was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. Okay. He had three brothers. To his friends. He had three brothers and a sister. Their father, a Greek immigrant, owned a neighborhood store. Okay. During the summer all three kids would sell ice cream in the Bendavis and Garden City areas of the west side of the city. Cute little story. Yep. So far it's pretty good right? Adorable. Love it. Relatable. He went to Bendavis High School where he was

an excellent student. The principal of Bendavis... Do I turn this on? I thought so. Did you not? I did. Oh my god. The leg move you just did. It was pretty hot right? Dude you just did the can-can. I did a lot of ballet in high school. It shows man. I did. I was as a ballet major in ecology. Well, I was plieze to see it. Oh boy. The principal of Bendavis said all the... Oh it's curitsis. Curitsis kids were solid and respected. Another teacher said all the kids were hard-working. After graduating Tony served in the Army for two years. He was a small arms instructor for West Point Cadets. That's just when he dealt with, you know, tiny

arms. Yeah, short appendages. Like... Oh man, I can't remember his name. Who? Narls Barkley. Like Narls Barkley. Sure. Oh, what? Who's Silo? Silo. Yeah, exactly. Silo at West Point. He has little tiny arms. He's like a little dinosaur, like a triceratops. Well, I was thinking about this the other day. He like, he came under allegations for like rape. Yeah, he did. And then he like went on... Well, he got fired because of that. And he was just like, okay, so hypothetically speaking, someone's sleeping and you do something. Is that crazy? It was like something to that effect and everyone's like, you need to delete this. It's not crazy, but it's illegal. Yeah. Sergeant Ronald Beasley of the Marion County

Sheriff's Department said Tony was a man who worked hard, but also had a hot temper. Okay. Seriously hot temper. He's turning. At some point, Tony became the owner of a mobile home park at the age of just 26. Living the dream. Yep. Not a lot of weird problems you got to deal with in that environment. No, it's a good thing to have if you have a temper. Yeah, for sure. Definitely get a mobile home park. Absolutely. Manage 28 mobile home families. If you go to anger counseling, you know, if you go to one of those programs, they'll say buy a mobile home park. Get a mobile home park. One of the tenants recalled that Tony would carry a shotgun around the property and he said, Tony had a temper.

Okay, so I'm sort of hearing tempers coming back again. Great combo also. And then we're also new information. There's a shotgun. Yeah. Okay. He posted five mile per hour signs on the streets around the mobile home park and using the shotgun would stop people who were breaking the speed limit. Interesting. So, okay. So that's how you that's how he would enforce the speed limit laws. Sure. Sure. Which was, I don't know, have you ever driven five miles an hour? It's really hard to do. It's hard to do. It's so slow. It's hard to do. Yeah. Cars go, cars are against it. Yeah. It's, it's basically stopped. It's basically stopped. You have to slow down doing nothing. Tony also would only allow one distributor

to sell heating oil at the mobile home park and only one furnace repairman into the mobile home park. After a while, other repairmen and oil men would not even go to the park when a tenant called. When Tony was around 34, a police sergeant, police sergeant Love, who had been a high school friend of Tony's said that Tony shot at his brother twice after they argued about money. He was just selling ice cream a minute ago. Yeah. Well, it started out great. It's like when you watch intervention and they show the baby pics. That's exactly what we just did. Exactly what we just did. No one was injured in the shooting. Sergeant Love arrested Tony, Tony for it and charges. You know how many times Sergeant Love showed

up to a place of people like, we didn't order a stripper. He's like, no, God, no, I'm that's my fucking name. You're under arrest. Oh, am I? Okay. Oh, all right. I'll be on the bed. All right, all right, officer. Okay. This isn't very sexy. My arms hurt. Okay. I'm just gonna put this shotgun in my mouth. Right. So the charges were eventually dropped for that shooting. Okay, right. When Tony was 41, Deputy Sheriff William Newman found Tony had cornered two men from the citizen gas and coke utility. Tony was armed with an axe. He was upset that they had come onto his property, but they were probably going there to fix something. The two men were installing a gas line that ran under his trailer. Yeah. Again,

no files were charged. Why are charges not being filed? His anger was said to be quote fearsome, quick and heedless of consequences. It's a bad description. Terrible. I mean, you're just basically being like, oh, he's a future murderer for sure. Another police report said that Tony had chased his sister with an axe. And again, he was arrested. But even with all these situations of weapons that led to arrest, Tony was never convicted of a crime. So at this point, he feels like invincibility. Well, I mean, how would you feel after all that? Like it's time to use my that's I'm talking about. But others said he was a saint. Tony, a lifetime bachelor, as you can imagine, because he was running

hot, you know, I mean, too hot for the ladies. And also, I mean, once you got an empire like that, you don't want to split it. So I'm talking about, you know, Tony's living in an apartment complex and 67 year old Gladys Ellis, who lived across the hall, said he was great. Okay, quote. He's the nicest person that anyone could ever hope to meet. One winter, during a very cold weather, Tony offered many times to do Mrs. Ellis's shopping for her. One policeman, who was a friend of Tony's said, quote, he's friendly and outgoing. Okay. Another cop in Newham said he has a wild temper. Okay. So one could say Tony runs a little hot and cold. Yeah. Yeah. Hot and cold, Tony. But in situations like that, when you hear enough

crazy shit about someone, you're like, Oh, I just don't know him well enough. Hey, what do you want? Hot Tony? You want a hot Tony? You want a cold Tony? I'll take a hot Tony. I'm a hot cold Tony. We got hot and cold special today. Hot and cold. Tony's are hot and cold. Hot Tony. Cold Tony. I just said a hot Tony. All right. Who's the man with the one hot Tony? Who's the ax man? That's called Tony. Okay. What's hot Tony? Oh, he's also got the ax. Okay. I don't want a Tony and less. It's very musical. That's what it is. Well, Tony fell on hard times in the 70s. He had not worked for a while. He was now just living on off his rental properties. Okay. So that's good. But that sounds okay.

I thought the worst thing in the world. Yeah, a lot of people do that. In the winter of 1977, Tony owned 17 acres on the northwest corner of a Lindhurst Drive and Rockville Road, which had greatly increased in value over the years. And Tony now wanted to turn it into a strip mall. Oh, God. I mean, why not? Yeah, this is when strip malls weren't as horrible as they are now. Yeah, that's true. But he was also very behind on his payments to the bank for the property. Okay. He was trying to negotiate a big sale to developers hoping that they would solve the issue. He'd be able to pay off the bank, right? But he thought the mortgage company was steering buyers away from his property by saying Tony

would be risky investment. Tony thought the mortgage company wanted to foreclose to get their hands on the now valuable property. And when Tony gets hot, things get axy. He owed $130,000 on the mortgage and the mortgage company, Meridian Mortgage, had given him many breaks. So he's been behind. They've been letting payments. They've been giving them breaks like month after month. I mean, like, all right, you get us next month. But early in 1977, the company dropped the hammer and decided to foreclose. On the morning of February 8, 1977, Tony made an appointment to discuss his mortgage at Meridian. I love and I don't want to be too presumptuous, but I'm assuming he's going to be pretty pissed.

I love the idea of making an appointment to go in and rage. All right. Wednesday, 10 I can't then I could do one. Can you guys do one? Two o'clock. I could do that. I look forward to it Wednesday at two. Goodbye. They will fucking see you there. Gonna be so mad when I get there. He walked in holding a long flower box and waited. So not a lot of people buy foreclosure flowers. That's true. Well, flower closures. People might bring their mortgage guy flowers. I don't think just foreclosed. I know you foreclosed on me, but I saw these white roses, Larry. And my goodness. Also, what is foreclosure? Yeah, I don't know what that word means. Here, take the flowers. Okay. So Richard Hall, who works there, arrived

after a bit and Tony said, Hey, you got a minute. They went into Hall's office. It was just down the hall. And Tony pulled the sawed off shotgun out of the box. Then slam. These were not flowers. David, I went to the wrong florist and you're gonna pay. And then he slammed hall against the wall. Skip has a reporter for the Indianapolis News was talking to police chief Jean Gallagher when the chief got a call on the hotline. Okay, there's a couple things happening here. Just a beat reporters sit around talking to the police chief, which is fucking very Spiderman. Right. And then the other thing is that they have a hotline and a Gallagher, which is very Batman. And they do have a Gallagher, which is fruitful.

When the police chief came back, he told Skip that he should go downtown. Quote, there's some guy who has a sawed off shotgun wired to another guy's head and he says he's coming out. Take him off speakerphone. Tony put a wire around Hall's neck, down the barrel of the gun and around his finger. So it's around the neck. So a wire runs around his neck like a like, you know, like a noose kind of around the neck and then down the barrel of the gun. So the gun is pointed right at the back of his head down the barrel of the gun and then wraps around his finger, which is then around the trigger. But is Tony in control of that situation or it's just the dude is Tony's in control of it. But if Tony is shot and

he falls, the gun goes off and kills Hall. Holy shit. So he's sniper proof. Right. Right. Okay. And the marathon's running this day. No, I'm kidding. Movies are real life. Tony called this a dead man's line. Before Tony went outside, he called the police to inform them what he was up to and about the dead man's line. So he's like, I'm going out. If you shoot me, this guy's gonna die. Right. Tony then walked out of meridian mortgage with the shotgun pointed at the back of Hall's head. Now Tony was a burly little man with sideburns. He was wearing a shortleaf shirt even though it was negative five degrees out. Hall was taller, slimmer with the receding

blonde hair. And as they made their way down the street, cops were coming from all directions with their sirens blaring. They'd stop their cars and jump out and then not really know what to do. Yeah, like, yeah, fucking one. Sometimes you'll stop. Tony, let them know about the dead man's line when they came up. Tony and Hall walked down Washington Street. A nice joint. So what do you do for fun? Not this I like miniature golf. All right, don't complain about this. I'm sorry. Okay. Then they turn and walk four blocks along the busiest street in downtown Indianapolis. You're gonna love the place we're going. By the way, this is how I get everyone to eat with me. Oh, yeah, I just want to have a meal. Yeah, that's

it. I'm paying. Well, look, I know the foreclosures messed up, but I just really want to take you for a dim sum. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I want someone to talk to. Oh, I'm Oh, hey, I'm sorry I wanted to take you out for a bite asshole. Wow. Police started running ahead to Shoei pedestrians and tell store owners to lock up their stores. Some cops tried to talk to Tony, but he was pretty focused on the task at hand. I do love like when like a hostage to go like because it's never like in the movies. So it's like a lot of times a hostage negotiator. It's just like someone on the other end like no screw you and hanging up. He's like, I'm sorry. I'm trying. Hey, Dennis, come on. You got so much, Dennis. You

got so much to live for, Dennis. The weird thing is, as I read many different newspapers and stuff, so many, so many cops knew him. Wow. Yeah, I think it's a small community. I think it's like, you know, it's where were they? It's in Indianapolis, like I think West Indianapolis, but I think that like he grew up there. Some guys became a cop. Some guys were firemen, but they all just kind of knew each other a little bit. Yeah, it wasn't like a big community. Right. So they know they're so they know they're Tony. What are you doing? Tony thinks he bad. I got a problem with the mortgage company. Can I talk to you later? I think I'm not got the foreclosure reversed right now. I don't. Okay. This is what it

said to do on WikiHow. Yeah. So that is a good point, though. Like, I guess what is like the end game here probably isn't a foreclosure reversal. What is the end game? My question. So besides warning people ahead, many police just started following in a big pack walking behind Tony and hauled down the street on foot. Some had their guns out, some didn't. Tony would stop occasionally and jerk haul around warning the police. I swear to God, I don't even want to. I'm not doing a bit. When you said jerk, I was like, no way. Are you about to say off? I thought it was just about to take a crazy turn. Oh, if he started jerking him off in the street, not no, not that Tony took jerk off brakes on this little

Oh, no, that would be super horrible. No, you just made a very bad dollop. Okay. Wait, what? The mayor, Bill Hudnut was sitting in his office when he looked out the window and saw Tony parading haul down the street with a shotgun strapped to his head. Another normal day. I mean, Atlas, I love you. Yeah, the best. Tony slipped on the ice and fell. Oh, shit. What? But haul fell with him. But still, if haul had not fallen, the gun would have gone off and killed him instantly. Oh my God. All the cops quickly whipped out their guns. For a moment, it looked like Tony was pulling a pistol out of his pocket and all hell was going to break loose. But Tony was just rearranging a pistol in his pocket after

calling. Thank God. The two men got back up. I assume very carefully. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to go just three. I'll go first. No, we should go at the same time. One, two, three on three or go one, two, three, wait. No. Last words were waiting. Wait. They walked for a bit. Then Tony saw a cop in his police car and told the cop to get out. He climbed in the car with haul and told haul to drive the car. Wow. Behind them, a car crashed into a telephone pole because the driver was watching the madness. So some guy is driving by. He sees the guy with the shotgun getting into a car. He sees all the cops standing around and he just drives into a telephone pole. He was an extra. Then Tony and haul sped off

with police cars chasing them at 80 miles per hour down Washington Street. This dude made an appointment. Yep. For this. He made an appointment for this. Man, Wednesday 245 is going to get nuts. Shit's going to go off. That's what I'm going to attach a tripwire to a man. What are you doing tomorrow, Tony? Big plans. Big fucking plans. I got nothing in the morning, but the afternoon I'm swamped. Holy shit. Tony told haul to drive to his apartment building at Crestwood Village. They got there at 935 AM. Nice neighborhood, sir. This is good. They got there at 935 AM and about 75 cops arrive seconds later. Tony and haul went up to his third floor corner apartment from the apartment. Tony called the cops and

said, quote, I'm ready to die. Hey, man. Can you do you want to talk about stuff? The windows of the apartment had wires strung on them. This is apparently to make the cops think there were bombs. Tony said the apartment was wired with dynamite. Wow. But if a dude has this set up, I mean, you're going to be like he probably does. He probably has dynamite, for sure. Everyone then hunkered down. Residents were removed from the apartment building. Indiana Bell came and set up a bank of telephones for the media in one apartment. Since taking hostages wasn't really a big thing yet, the Indianapolis PD did not have any hostage negotiators. That's going to be fun for someone to learn on the fly. So, hey, what are you

doing? I mean, you know what are you doing? But like, what? How? How are you? What are your? Hey, what's your favorite color? What? Mine's red. Not red. Mine's not red. What? So I'll be off. I'm going to call you right back. Oh, my gosh. I don't think until Tony's like, dude, you got this. You got this. You're okay, man. You'll be all right. No, no, no. I can't. Ask me what I want. Ask me what I want. I don't know. I don't even know. Ask me what I want. Just say it. Just say it. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Let me get a sip. Hold on. Let me get a sip. Go ahead. Come on. You'll be all right. Just say what do you want. Okay. Okay. So, Tony, what is it? What do you want? What do you want? I don't

know what I want, motherfucker. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. No, you're doing good. You're doing good. Okay. That's just how I'm supposed to do my part. Right, right, right, right. You have so much, so much to give. The tremendous amount is a gift to people. Don't do it, Tony. Mr. Michael Grable had attended a two-day FBI hostage seminar, so he was their expert. Oh, well, he's fine. By the way, I missed the first day. I was so drunk. I didn't go to any of that. It wasn't fun. In 1977, hostage situations were fairly unheard of, so there was no standard procedure for this, no rules to follow. That meant Tony got on the phone and started calling friends and other people. And his friends were also ringing him up to

talk because they saw what was happening on the news. Tony. Hey, Tony, I heard you walking out of the street with a shotgun. Yeah, I saw a tripwire on a guy who foreclosed on my house. Get the fuck out of here. I can't. It's been a while. Oh, my God. Did you watch the game? I can't. I didn't. I didn't get to watch it. I was doing this with this guy. It was a whole day, but I'm hoping to see highlights later. What are you doing later? You want to get together? Have a beer? I don't know if I get out of this. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Let me do this. Let me see how the day plays out. Ideally, I'll wrap this up around nine, ten, and then let me know. I'll let you know. We can meet up. All right. So Bobby might want to come,

but he's got an old lady. He's holding her with an axe. Okay. So we'll see. That might work out, though. That still might work out. I think we can still do it. I'd love to see Bobby. I'm just hanging out, having a slits. Okay. Well, we'll do most of the talking. Okay. Bye. So his friends are calling him up and then strangers started to call to chat because Tony's number was listed in the phone book. Oh, that is, I mean, how could you not? Is he answering him? Yeah. Hello. Hey, what are you doing? Don't call here. I'm trying to do business. Oh, okay. Sorry about that hall. Hello. Hey, are you the dude holding that? Goodbye. She got enlisted. I didn't. Now the cops were getting busy signals when they

were trying to call Tony. It's just like a bunch of idiots calling up. It's like similar with the OJ thing. It's like they were trying to chase him, but there are too many people in the streets. People are calling him a Baba Bowie. Yeah. Come on. Finally, the cops cut the phone and had a new phone number assigned to Tony's apartment. They're like, all right, we got to be able to talk to this guy. Hey, by the way, sir, we changed your number just for the record. Oh my god. Grebel quickly learned Tony had no idea what he wanted. He had no plan. Oh my god. His only plan was to get Hall to his apartment and that was done. Well, after listening, Grebel thought Tony had a legitimate complaint against the mortgage company. I'm sure he did. Well, think of how

like bullshit mortgages are. I mean, nowadays they're worse, but I mean, they were all inclined towards BL. But of course, Tony wasn't handling it properly. I mean, it's slightly extreme. I think we can agree that there's not really a right person in this one, maybe. And it's certainly not Tony. The lead prosecutor for Marion County was in California at a law seminar. Good. Good. So the next guy is I got nine messages. What's up? What are you guys doing out there? My phone is blowing up. So the next guy in charge was the Chief Deputy Prosecutor David Rims stilt. He was 27 years old. Oh my god. He was so young that no one realized he was calling the shots at the scene. The prosecutor prosecutor's office. We just assumed you were three kids in

a policeman's outfit. Joe kept saying tickle him. Yeah, he kept saying tickling to watch the all run out. Look, you drop a handful of tootsie rolls you watch that policeman's uniform evaporates and we got happy kids. The prosecutor's office actually brought out an older guy who wasn't in charge to put on TV to give the appearance a mature guy was in charge. That's good when you're casting people. Do you want to play man in charge? Because this adolescent isn't the good face for the operation. I'm the janitor. Okay, here we go. You're a cop. No. Ladies and gentlemen, we're proud to introduce the man who's running the scene here and we're very confident in him. Officer Jan. Hey. Hey. So. What is your plan to stop the hostage situation?

Probably just try to clean it up. There'll be no more questions. Can we talk for a second? Yep. Someone threw up. Will you clean it? But the 27 year old guy is now the guy who's put in charge to talking to Tony. He's talking to Tony. The 27 year old guy is the guy. But it was hard to understand Tony because he was so out of control with anger. Then he started making demands like he wanted $5 million. Authorities pretended to just kind of Dr. Evelling it a little bit. Yeah. Okay. Authorities pretended to negotiate, but we're just trying to wait him out. They felt like time was on their side. Right. So the guy's in the apartment. What are you going to fucking do? Yeah. How much can he have in there to get by

still a very treacherous situation? It's all fucked up. Yeah. Can they can they see him? They can't see him now. Tony's brother Jimmy showed up and brought a couple of friends. Hey, we look at the party. Hey, Tony, what are you having a fuck? What's going on here? Who's your leash pal? Why do you got any guys out here? Want some beer? Hey, I brought a sex pack tone. So I guess with your buddy now that's just one each and then two of us get two. Fuck. We all three of us could have had two. Well, anyway, it's good to meet you all. Well, if you shoot that guy, then we each get more. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to. That's a thing. I don't want to. I'm just saying stuff on the table. That's all I'm saying on that bandwagon, but I think

you might have a point. He's gone. We all get two. So yeah, this is about I mean, mostly I think this is about beer. I'll get another six or let him live. Really? No, you're right. Kill him. Let's drink these. So Jimmy and his friends tried to talk Tony out of what he was doing, but he was too angry. Tony then demanded meridian mortgage make a public apology to him and one in writing. The company had to admit they cheated him that they had conspired to take his land. He also wanted his mortgage debt wiped clean and he asked for immunity from arrests and of course immunity from civil liability for the kidnapping. Well, the guy has a shock into his head and he's learning that if he lives, he can't sue him. Right. So I will say

for on the fly thinking the last two are pretty great. Not bad. Not bad. Pretty great demands. Yeah. You clearly this guy's run a mobile home park. So I can never get in trouble for any of this. This guy's run a mobile home park because he's dealt with a lot of lawsuits because I think the number one phrase on a mobile home park. Well, the two, the two top phrases in a mobile home park are my brother's a lawyer and I'm going to sue you. He but also like yeah. All right. Never mind that at some point during the first day, Tony called veteran newsman Fred Heckman in his office and started talking to him. Heckman. Heckman was a well respected newsman who had been covering Indiana forever. He was the town's main. He's the town's main

news anchor. So he's like the old, the old fucking guy that's been around forever that everyone in town knows. I grew up with him. Right. People trust him on the news, but then you hear like behind the scenes. Oh yeah. He's jerking off goats. Yeah. Yeah. He showed an internist penis or something. Everyone knew Fred pretty soon. Tony was saying he would only talk to Fred. Exactly like that. Now, even though it's it was against all his journalistic instincts, Fred was acting as a mediator between the cops and Tony. The first rule of news is that you report it, you don't become it. But Fred didn't seem to have a choice. Man's life was in the balance and Tony would only talk to him. Tony now started thinking that he and Fred were pals.

Oh boy, Fred. He's like, guys, he's making plans for the weekend. Jesus, he just keeps talking. It's just a fuck man. Nobody knows. Nobody knows me like you, Fred. I just we've been through it all pal. But uh, okay, you're my rock. I don't know where I'd be without you. But man, you're the only one getting me through this. I'll tell you that. What's your last name again? You're just you're always there. So he had watched Fred for all his life every night. You know, oh my god. It's amazing. He's been watching Fred forever. He knows he knows Fred. He does. He knows Fred and Fred's trustworthy. Fred's not going to fuck with anybody. Fred's not the fucking mortgage company or the cops. Fred's a fucking standup guy. It's Fred.

Fred's like, yes. That's right, Tony. We go way back friend. I don't know what to do. Fred was a major figure in the Indianapolis community. But Fred was then taken off the story by W IBC TV because he had become part of the story. So he couldn't cover it. It's journalism. That's the rule one. You can't become part of the story. You can't cover the story you're part of. Yeah, but he's okay. Fred was very angry, but he understood. Oh, damn it. People at the station said it was like firing their boss off a story. Oh, then day one ended and night came that evening. A representative of Meridian mortgage Clifford Chapman read an apology to Tony on local

on a local TV news broadcast. And he was watching the game instead in it. The company admitted everything Tony wanted them to admit. After he was done, Chapman was questioned by reporters and he denied the company did anything saying he was just trying to get haul out of life. Good. Do that now. Say that part perfect now. Keep up appearances. Now's good for the sake of saving a nearly say that. All right. And just so to be clear, it's all our fault. Now I'll take questions. How was it your fault? It isn't. All right. Any other questions? Why did you do this to Tony? We want to make sure he's alive. I'm taking him still. Are we still live? We did nothing. Thanks, guys. Thanks for coming out. Meridian mortgage was a family business.

Richard Hall was the son of Meridian's chairman, ML Hall. Richard's brother, Jack also worked there. ML Hall erased Tony's debt and told Chapman to say or do whatever was needed to end the hostage situation with Richard alive. Yeah, but yeah. Okay. I mean, okay. Yeah. On the second day, news media came from all over the country. As I said, there weren't a lot of hostage situations. So this is a big deal. Right. The entire city was now watching their TVs and listening to the radio. A behavior modification specialist from the FBI training Academy came to help deal with Tony's crazy moods. That big shot landing in Indianapolis. Swinging his shit in. I know about moods. What's going on? Um, well, he seems to be in an okay place. Okay. First of all, this guy's mood is that

he's a pussy. I'm a pussy. Can we get a different guy? Why is the negotiator crying? I don't know. No. Okay. My mood is now angry. My professional opinion is that my mood is now on the edge of hitting something. I'm going to go get some of those hash browns and come back. And the thing I might hit is the pussy. It's so great to meet you, man. Somehow Tony's new phone number was leaked and people before Twitter. People start calling him again. Tony, you back up and running. The cops were forced to cut the line again because they couldn't get through it. Tony, just to let you know, we've changed your number again. Now listen, Tony didn't. Tony didn't know what his new phone number was. So he couldn't call people and tell them to call him back or give it out.

So it had to been someone probably from the phone company that gave out the phone number. Okay. Or a cop on the inside or the other. But they couldn't stop Tony from calling people, which he continued to do. The police started taping Tony's phone calls and listening to him talking to other people to see if he was up or down. I'm excited. When he was on a high, the cops left him alone. And when he was sad, they tried to talk him into giving up. They started graphing Tony's moods on a board in the command post. If there's any way to get this ring on him, we'll save ourselves a lot of grief. I would say 80% of people know what you're talking about. No, maybe 20. Yeah, less might know. Less than that. 50% of people know what you're talking about.

Yeah, who knows? 70s? No, I remember them from when I was 80s. Yeah. And I think on, I think 90s. A mood ring was a thing you put on your finger and it would change colors supposedly based on your mood. And there was a key where you would go and you would be like, oh, it's green. I am a little pissed off. Or you'd be like, it's red. I'm angry. You'd be like purple. Yeah, I am in a good mood. Thanks, ring, for telling me what I am feeling. Oh, technology was great in the 70s. Yeah. So there's taping his phone calls when he's on a high, they're doing it all in the low, they're doing it on graphs, which is fucking awesome. Bomb smelling. I'd love to hear his highs. Oh, fuck. What is he just gabbing? Just amazing.

It's been good to catch up, Jordan. We got to do this again. Oh my God, this is so great. Meanwhile, Hall's like, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. You're popping me out. That is so messed up that the whole time, Hall's just sitting there with a gun to his head. He can't even just have a conversation because Tony's like, sorry to be this guy. I got to do two more of those. Sorry. I hate to be this guy. Fuck. Bomb smelling police dog sniff Tony's car and army demolition experts told the police that there had been a large amount of explosives in the car recently. Okay. And that triggering devices could be seen on the windows of the apartment. So this was obviously

a concern for trying a rescue. Yeah. In the apartment, times were tough for Hall. Tony had a weight in the middle of the apartment, which he would chain Hall to if he didn't want to keep holding the shotgun to the back of Hall's head. So they're obviously having a lot of fun, right? So the weight would just be like if he moved. I think the weight, I don't even know if the gun was on him. The weight was just he would tie him to the weight. Okay. I thought you might need to tie the apparatus to the weight so that if he moved, the weight would almost act as a body. I don't think so. But who the fuck knows? Tony asked Hall if he wanted any donuts. Hall said no. Just the life again.

A life would be great again. Instead of donuts, I get to live. Yeah. Hall said no quote. I don't eat donuts. I have a weight problem, and I don't want to gain any pounds. Oh, like that honestly breaks my heart. Wait, are they Krispy Kreme? That is uh, yeah, to be like in this diet. If there's any time to have a donut, it's your cheat day, pal. Dude, that is you know what my wife would kill me because I'm on a total diet. I'm on it. Do you know what the paleo is? Yeah, I'm just doing the paleo right now. Actually, I know what he turned the days right now. I tell you what though, the thing is, if I have one donut, I can't stop eating donuts. I know I know I'm in my diet right now and everything, but I did that's just a road

I don't want to go down. Does that make sense? Yeah, I can't. So I can't. Is that a glaze? What is that? So any other sustenance would be nice. No, the absence of donuts or nothing. I'm going to tie it to this weight again. Oh, fuck. I'm really glad I took your appointment. I feel I feel good about, you know what? I feel good about not having the donut. I feel good about it. They're all gone. Fuck. I should have had a donut. They're really good. Tony, I'm going to call nine people. So here's this even better. So after Hall says, you know, I don't want to get any weight, Tony responds. Don't worry about it. We'll just give an, we'll just get an extra palm bearer. We'll get an extra palm bearer. Oh, I said palm didn't I? Sorry. That's when a tree dies.

He, that's a terrible, that is a terrible response. We'll just get an extra palm bearer. That's a terrible response. That's the worst response ever. I'm trying to take care of myself over here. Look, if you really want me to have a donut, I will. My God. Oh, it's awful. In negotiations, they were offering Tony whatever he asked for. They went back and forth over the amount of cash. They figured the more they got him to say yes, the more in control he would think he was. People in the federal government, however, were not happy about the negotiations and they didn't want the process. They should have hired improvisers. Yeah, and keep going. We're the second city negotiators. We're side of negotiations. So the federal government didn't

want the prosecutor's office to negotiate with him at all and certainly not to give him what he wanted, but the guys on the scene disagreed. Marion County prosecutors then offered Tony full immunity from prosecution if he released hall. Yeah. Yeah. Take it. Yeah. Take it. The U.S. Attorney General butted in and said, quote, tell Mr. Caritzis to give up and trust his government. All the reporters on scene laughed. Yeah, trust your government. The morning of day three. A shock under your head for two days. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I mean, it just has to be total. So the morning of day three, the cops and live, I mean, the Paul Bear answer is all you're thinking about. Yeah, God, that's it. And the fact that you didn't eat the doughnut. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Fuck. Fuck it down. Right. God damn it. So in the morning of day three, the cops in the apartment across the hall were ordered to fry up some bacon and open the door. And they opened a window. They wanted Tony to think about getting a good meal. I mean, they're all cartoon pie window sill theorem. That's exactly what they did. So once we know that the smoke is entering there, we'll see the stink marks. And what will happen is he'll probably float out nose first enamored with the scent. Yeah, though, I am I am one of from one of the very first hostile negotiations. I could tell you some things we did. We made him think he was getting the moon.

We did not rush in. We we we we graft his moods. And now we made some really, really nice bacon. And what we ended up doing was we ended up opening a restaurant next door and we cooked constant. So we're making money. We're turning we're turning hostages into cash. And that's why we're here today. Welcome to hostages for cash. I'm Louie Languelly, and I'm going to make you rich. What the name again is Louie Languelly. That's right. I could. Louie Languelly. Yeah, who else would it be? Could have been Larry? Yeah. Oh, it was Larry. I think it was Louie. It was a Louie. It could have been Larry. Feels like a lifetime. Ah, geez. We're okay. Yeah.

So so then then they called them up and started talking about a good meal and and talk and they kept talking about him about being outside to get them to they wanted to start thinking about being outside. So they start talking about parks and sure. Yeah, he's a top. It's not working. Oh, really? Shocking. At one point, Tony asked if the five million he was getting could be deducted from his income tax. That's not how that's not how money works at all. I'm just worried. I'm going to get screwed on my taxes when your head at this point. I like, you know what? I got one problem. I know you say you're going to give me five million, but I got one problem I'm thinking of and that's like, what about my taxes? Like how much get a little less tension on the road from

the way? How much but how much? Hey, hall, are you a tax guy to you? Just a mortgage guy taxes? Yeah. What do you think I can get this like? What do you think I'm paying on five million dollars is a tremendous amount. I just I just take it. Please take it. What do you think I'm what do you got to put something aside and like a I'll be honest. I'll screw you. Damn it. Did you say screw me? I'll screw your taxes. Damn it. Did you fucking say screw me? Screw your taxes. I'm your taxes. I'm gonna play your fucking head off. No, no, no, no. Nope. Are they having are they having fireworks at the Dodger game? Yeah, the the doiers one. You can see Jose. Oh, is that what they do when they win? They set up fireworks every night? Yeah. What a stupid team. No, I wouldn't be there if

I was a cat. I'm not as a person. Yeah. So two lawyers showed up to represent Tony. They were told the immunity deal was for real. As was Tony's brother Jimmy was also told that the immunity deal was for real. Oh, it's for real. No, it's for real. It's real. It's for real immunity. Now we gave him for real immunity. Huge tone shift in your voice. No, we gave him we gave him it's real we gave him the real stuff of immunities is the more is the realest. It's the top. It's the most real looking up. It's the most you look at. It's the most real of all immunities. Hold on. This is Tony. I got a good feeling, buddy. Then finally on day three came that word came that Tony was going to hold the press conference. And Tony wanted to be

live on television and radio. I think he's I think he's ready. I think I think no one has been more ready. He's been talking to Fred all for fucking two days. Fred gave him a lot of pointers on how to handle the camera and how to look at the camera. Fred from the news told him what to do. Reporter Skip Hess had an informant in the police department who kept him up on what was going on the whole time. Now three days in he said quote skip. We're getting ready to bring it bring him out. They're going to shoot the son of a bitch. Tony's going to come across the courtyard and there's a marksman on top of one of the buildings and if he gets the chance he's going to shoot Tony. Skip asked about the shotgun and the is it still he still has the gun.

This whole thing he's holding a press. The two things he's holding a press conference and a loaded gun to a man. Why do you think this is a dollop. He's got it. Skip asked about the shotgun and the cop replied. We don't know if he still has it attached. Okay. So it's a good plan then. Yeah. He might come out without the shotgun. All right. Okay. I won't even ask. Now the media gathered in the recreation room of the apartment building as did a bunch of cops. Then Tony led a haul out with the shotgun still pointed at his head. Reporter Tom Cochran quote. We followed Tony and haul into the recreation area and it was this fleeny-esque scene. Here was Tony with haul still wired to the shotgun. The chief of police and all the reporters clearly in the line of fire.

It was completely silent except for Tony and the click of the cameras. The tension was immediately palpable. Hall looked absolutely fatigued. He was probably just looking at the donuts on the table in the back. He's like fuck I should have done the donuts. Oh god I'm gonna regret this. I'm gonna so. You're ever gonna cheat on a diet. I might be this might be the biggest donut regret of all time when that guy shoots me. Are they allowed to ask haul questions? That's great. Let me do that right away. Another reporter said it looked like an organism with 20 or 30 legs moving. Oh my god. Just everyone packed. Yeah. Yeah. Fred Heckman was there and Tony was not in great shape. He'd been awake the whole time over 60 hours without sleep. Well I think that's a given. He looked

wild eyed. Oh yes. Tony ordered the TV media to turn on all their cameras. He had written a statement that haul was holding and was supposed to read. So haul's his podium. Yeah haul's gonna be this spokesman. He's his little teleprompter. Okay. Okay. Hall go ahead. Next line. Go ahead and read next. Let's get higher. I'll slow that down a little bit. Oh. Hall's reading the thing. Yeah. Oh my god. Wait who'd you think I was talking about? I thought Tony was reading it. No haul. I think it up for him to read. Oh no. He's giving it to Hall to read his statement. This is the logic of someone who's been up for 60 hours. Yeah. But haul now had a two inch gash in his neck from the wire. So it's just been digging away. He could barely read.

Hall was a mess. So Tony snatched the statement from Hall angrily. Stupid idiot. You fucking asshole. What did we talk about? At the time the People's Choice Awards were being broadcast. John Wayne. Was Tony nominated? Best shotgun to the head. Best real life TV plot. John Wayne had just won an award and was stepping up to the podium to give his speech. Broadcasters in Indiana then cut away to Tony Caritas about to give his speech. And then Tony Caritas began the most profanity laced tirade ever seen on television as thousands of Hoosiers watched. Turn the goddamn cameras on. I'm going to show you something. February 10th, 1977. I'm the man that was called the kidnapper. I'm a goddamn national hero and don't you forget it.

I've had this gun stuck in this cock sucker's head for three days. They've had one stuck in mine for four and a half years. I hope this gun doesn't go off. I'm having too much fun. Oh god. The halls took a goddamn good shot at ruining a good man's life. And that's me. I happen to be a goddamn pretty nice fella. My friends would say I'm the most stable man that they know. Uh, sir, they would say that man who's human centipeded another man. Can you imagine what it would take to drive a man like me to do something like this? Ladies and gentlemen, when I picked up this shotgun Tuesday morning, all the hell I've been through seemed like a goddamn picnic. I've never felt such trauma as when I picked this thing up, walked out the door,

drove downtown and these people made me do it. I want everyone that's called me and said they were sympathetic to know that I damn well appreciate it. And all the people who pranked me, not cool. I am not a pizza guy. So that just has to be the weirdest scene ever. It's on. You can, we can watch it after this. Oh my god. Uh, and then Tony started to cry. Of course, you got to hit all the emotions. I was in trouble, friends. When you saw one of these goddamn things off and kidnap somebody, I tell you, it's a narrow one way road. There's no kids out there. I'm going to talk to the kids now. Okay, you guys, kids don't stop. If you got a problem with the guy at school, you don't like some guy

on the team. I'm going to tell you right now, don't solve a shotgun and put this head for three days. Also a message to the children, don't sell ice cream. Don't sell ice cream. It's a fucking one way road. It's just path. It is a one way road right here. That makes me, you know, I, I'm not, I'm like losing touch with the idea that the, you know, that they, that a mortgage, this is a mortgage, this represents a mortgage company to him. Yeah, this is a, this is a mortgage situation. Which is crazy, but it's also like, it's sad because they like, you know, they put, yeah, putting someone in a position like that is just so like, I don't know. Well, I couldn't actually find if they did anything wrong. You know, what do you mean? Oh, if the mortgage

company, like I couldn't, but okay. Yeah. That is true for sure. My gut is to just go against them, but that's probably fair. Okay. So I'm going to show you a picture of the, you know, I love to see the, there's the press conference. Are you kidding me? I mean, it's a, it's a guy holding a shotgun to the back of a guy's head while people are all around him. It's the idea that 80% of the expressions here are normal. That's the crazy thing when you watch the video. Not only are they normal, but there's a guy standing right next to Tony chewing gum. Ah, no gum. It's the craziest. He's just like, we're gonna get through this, right? Oh, yeah. The press did not ask any questions. When Tony stopped talking, it was just complete silence.

During the speech, Tony took time to praise police chief Gallagher saying, if it were not for you, I would have blown his brains out. Gallagher is a guy, Gallagher is a damn fine man. This guy over here, this police chief fellow, he stopped me from killing this guy. He's great. He's a good one. You guys keep this guy. Trust me. There's something great about the idea that it's about blowing a head off in someone's named Gallagher, and they're honest. Besides, uh, so besides, I wrote here, besides Tony was a cop chewing gum, Hall had his eyes closed, clearly thinking the end of the speech would be followed by his brains being blown out. What Tony could not see was down all the halls to the recreation

room were SWAT team members all armed with an automatic weapon ready to blow Tony's brains out. The police had consulted with a doctor during the three days to find out the quickest way to drop a man if you shot him in the head. The answer was right under the neck below the ear, and the man would die instantly. So the police chief was standing there besides Tony with a gun in one pocket and a handkerchief in the other. His plan was to pull out the handkerchief to signal everyone that he was about to shoot Tony. When the chief whipped out his gun, there was to be another cop whose job would be to push the shotgun toward the ceiling away from Hall's head. Everyone was on edge waiting for that handkerchief to come out.

Who knew that? All the cops. But the press was like, we're press. Press had no idea. Two or three times Tony got so out of control during his speech that the chief grabbed the handkerchief and was about to pull it out and then Tony would come back down. If Tony did not give up the shotgun after he read the speech, the chief was going to shoot it. Tony was not going to be allowed to go back into his apartment. The rant, the rant lasted 23 minutes. Oh God. That is rant level. That is fucking crazy. Probably not a lot of jokes.

Oh no. Tony finally stopped talking. Then the chief turned to all the reporters and said, quote, all you people get the fuck out of here. Awesome. And the news media scrammed. Oh yeah. The police led Tony down a hall and into a side room. In the side room, there were a bunch of police. Before all of the hostage stuff started, Tony had overheard a group of men who were staying in an apartment across the hall from him about how messy their place had become. So Tony reached into his wallet with his free hand and took $100 out, $100 bill and asked the police to give it to the guys to hire a cleaning service. Oh my God. What is happening? Well, he's a good guy. That's what's happening. He said he was a good guy. He's a good guy. Hey, look, I'm going out,

but it'd be great if the guys, you know, the guys across the, across the hall, they're having some problems. They're fighting a little bit over cleaning. And I think it'd be great if they got their place cleaned up a little bit. He's a hard guy to... It's hard for me to... You're rooting for him. I'm not, I'm rooting for him. That's a good way of putting it. I'm rooting for him in the sense that I want this to end and I want someone to hug him and be like, you're going to get a nice home. I feel like that'll happen. And then Tony unwired the shotgun from Hall's neck, let Hall go, and walked over to a sliding glass door, opened it, said, I've wanted to fire this thing for three days and blasted the shotgun off outside. And the media was like, he's dead for sure, dead. Right,

all the media thought that something... Yeah, for sure. Yeah, they were all, yeah. And he also did this because he wanted the cops to know it was loaded. He laughed and said, by God, I told you, Hall passed out. It's what we call a hall pass. The cops grabbed Tony and arrested him. On his blood grounds? Yeah, it's a good question. Okay. He was then informed they weren't giving him five million dollars and he wasn't getting immunity. Tony said, quote, that's a cheap shot. I mean, honestly, that use of language in this moment is amazing. No, it's not. That's a cheap shot. You just had a dude hooked up to a shotgun for three days.

It's the best thing ever. When the cops went into Tony's apartment, they did not find any bombs or dynamite, but they did find a lot of gasoline. Skip has reporter, quote, I looked in and the whole place had wires hooked to plates with burning candles above cans of gasoline. I couldn't tell you how many there were. Well, there's some level of threat. Bring in our candle guy. We don't need the bomb diffuser. Bring in candles. Get your candles up here. All right, hold on. We're going to have to put all these out. You know what? I'm going to need my blow guy.

Get the blow guy. I need my candlestick maker. I'm going to need to talk to the wax man. Let me call my yarn fella. All right, we need a socks guy up here too. Yeah, hurry. It's getting a little crowded up here too. We got too many guys. We got a lot of guys up here. Why is the butcher here? Yeah, if you could just put the pork there. And the baker. Oh, and the candlestick. Okay. Well, this is stupid. Yeah, you got it. We've been had. All right. So I'm going to say the kitchen with the knife by Mr. Mustard. Guys, for the last time, we are not playing clue up here. Oh, for fuck. Yeah. Stop trying to.

God damn it. Get a lot of you need to go. Okay, let's go. Let's get out of here. A few of the cops that day were sort of on Tony's side or they felt for him. Al Walker of the Indiana state police said, quote, I thought that was going to be his grand showing. He was going to blow Hall's head off. Yeah. But it didn't happen though. And I'm glad it didn't. Tony was just a guy who had a bad day. Sure. Oh, fuck. Was it a Monday? He might have had a case of the Mondays. You know, it started out. I just, uh, I hate it was on you. And I haven't I've had a bad and I had the Monday blues. I think it's Odie. Psychiatrists were asked by reporters to make a diagnosis, but they all refused because he's

bad shit because you can't make a diagnosis of a guy on TV. Yeah. Though they did say he should be examined. Oh, cool. Hall came to a press conference later that day when asked by reporters what he was thinking, Hall said, quote, I just figured in my mind that God had a plan for everybody. I didn't quite understand why this was part of his plan. Yeah, kind of a weird kink for God. God. Apparently Tony was an atheist and Hall was a deacon. So they spent a lot of the 63 hours discussing the, just discussing the existence of God and the power of prayer. I mean, I can only imagine how hard Hall's pushing for that. Oh, I can think it was put a fucking shock on my head instead of doing that. Honestly, 63 hours was doing it to Hall Hall. Tony's an atheist and

Hall is the deacon. So seriously, fucking instead of sitting there listening to that, put a gun on my head because I don't want to hear an atheist and a deacon have a talk ever. The next day when, when word got out that Tony was not getting immunity is promise. Some people were not happy and they let the police know. Police chief Gallagher said, quote, we're getting many calls today from people who are upset because they feel Tony was lied to. Our position is that it's a matter of which president, president should be said that if saving lies are that of never having told a lie. Okay. So either either we were trying to actually keep a guy from being shot. And so we lied to do that. We're sorry about that. I guess we should

let the guy get fun killed. Yeah, I don't know. Well, I mean, yeah. Tony's brother, Jimmy said he didn't realize the prosecutor's office was negotiating in bad faith. The mayor agreed with the decision, quote, if I were at the end of that gun, I'd want people negotiating to say whatever they could to talk that man out of shooting my head off. Fair. Fair point. Fair point. Fair point. And the prosecutor's office also said that Tony had broken the immunity agreement terms by not releasing a hall before going downstairs to hold the press conference. Actually, just the press conference itself was enough to break the agreement. The agreement was he'd leave hall in the apartment or let him go. So he didn't either. Okay. The guys who had the dirty apartment across

the hall turned down the $100 to hire a cleaning service. Right? Who are these guys? What the why? Take the money. Take the money and fucking clean your place. Maybe they like maybe they like conflict a little bit too much. They must they like a dirty place. At Tony's pretrial hearing things had gone south. Tony was strapped on a gurney ranting and raving. At one point he looked over at reporter Skip Heston said, Skip, you son of a bitch. You never came back and bought that car from me. What? Skip quote, I thought, what the hell is he talking about? And suddenly dawned on me 10 years earlier, he worked for Pontiac dealership. And I was thinking of buying a 1968 Pontiac convertible. And Tony was the salesman and I told them I would sleep on it. But two days later,

I came back and Tony wasn't there and I bought the car from somebody else and Tony never forgot it. Man, that guy can hold a grudge. That's awesome. Tony's trial was later that year. His lawyers convinced him to pursue a not guilty by reason of insanity defense, even though Tony did not want to. In court, among many belligerent allegations and non sequiturs, Tony accused Hall of having once mocked his sports coat. The court appointed psychiatrist said Tony was in a paranoid, delusional state. Tony took the witness stand and a paper said his defense attorney quote played him like a harp. Tony laughed. And then he cried. And then he was very serious. It just was like up and down all over the fucking place. Police officers were called to testify

and they largely said the same thing. Tony was a really good guy and believed in following the law and he couldn't have been in his right mind when he did it. At one point during the trial, everyone was eating lunch. When one of the jurists started choking, another jurist tried to perform a Heimlich maneuver, but he was doing it wrong. And then Tony's brother Jimmy ran over and performed it quickly, saving the jurist's life. Wow. You I mean, boom. Come on, juror number eight. Jimmy would testify in a couple of days later on his brother's behalf. I'm assuming the jurist might have been biased. Yeah. For sure. Tony won. He was innocent by reason of insanity. All right. It was the first jury verdict of a quiddle broadcast live on nationwide television.

Somehow Tony had become kind of a folk hero. The little guy fighting the system fighting the bad bankers when they announced the verdict in the middle of a Pacers game, the audience cheered wildly. The Pacers crowd? Yeah. Wow. For a guy who had the shotgun to a man's head for 63 hours. But that did not mean Tony was free. Tony was kept in custody for the next decade until doctors believed he would not pose a danger to himself or others if he were free. The whole time, Tony refused to allow a psychiatrist to evaluate him. He could have possibly gotten out in six months if he had, but he wouldn't do it. Wow. He could still buy a gun right now, by the way. Probably. The Tony Chris's case led to Indiana legislatures amending the law to provide for

verdicts of guilty but mentally ill and not responsible by me reason of insanity. Things did not go well for Richard Hall after the hostage crisis. He had a nervous breakdown. Three years later, he was divorced. He was the opposite before the incident. He had been fun loving and a joy to be around. Now he was quiet and depressed. He went back to his job at the mortgage company. A co-worker said he spent 100% of his time staring out the window as though Tony were to come back and get him. He never gave another interview about what happened. Hall eventually lost his business. The situation was a big moment for TV news. It raised questions about responsibility and whether or not they were being used by Tony. Who was in charge? When should they

stop? Those portable cameras made the TV reporters vulnerable. They were at the mercy of anyone who chose to create a news story. It became obvious Tony wouldn't have taken Hall hostage if there wasn't going to be media coverage. After looking back on it and reflecting, some said given the chance to do it over again, they would not have stayed live on Tony as he gave his rant. Quote, we were saying in effect to the television viewer, this man may blow this man's head into your living room at any moment and it's going to be dramatic and it's going to be theatrical. It's going to be great stuff and we're going to bring it to you. We chose to stay live because the story was so overpowering. The story had outrun us. Meridian Mortgage was a family business.

Witcher Hall was the son of Meridian's chairman Emma Hall and his brother Jack also worked there. In fact, Jack, people think, might have been the intended victim. One of Curitz's acquaintances later said Tony had told her about this exact type of kidnapping fantasy, but instead it was Jack Hall in Richard's place. You guys look a lot alike, huh? You guys get that a lot? Did you guys have similar faces and noses? Like the way your brother is, like a brother, you have like a brother thing. What your brother Jack is. You guys look really, I was going to... I know it's been 48 hours, but I gotta tell you something. This is a laugh. I came there for your brother. Your brother should be here, not you.

Oh, fuck me. You want a donut? You sure you've done it? People get us mixed up. Yeah. You guys look a lot alike. I'm on a diet. We both are. So on January 22, 1987, a Republican member of the Pennsylvania State Senate, Bud Dwyer, held a news conference to discuss his conviction for receiving a bribe. He believed it was a political prosecution and he was to be sentenced in a couple of days. The media believed he was going to resign from office. After reading a speech, he pulled a 357 magnum from a Manila envelope and put the gun in his mouth. People yelled at him not to do it. He fired the gun. The press conference was not carried live. But the news had recorded the event.

One camera even zooming in on his body. Several television stations then broadcast the suicide using the taped footage to their midday audience. Some froze the action before he fired. Some had audio playing over the frozen image. Others aired it unedited, showing Dwyer blowing his brains out. It was a snow day. Many children were home from school due to a snowstorm and saw the suicide. Even though hundreds of viewers complained, some stations continued to show Bud Dwyer killing himself throughout the day. So the media learned a lot from Tony's moment. Tony was released in 1988. He found work as a car salesman. He was now on medication and would occasionally go off and call the media with conspiracy theories. Tony sold cars again.

Yeah, someone gave him a job. I mean, everybody knew Tony. He was a good guy. But if that many people think that he was justified in doing it, that he's going to get a job. I think, I mean, obviously, car dealerships, their commercial bottom is pretty low. So I'm sure they had him holding a shotgun up against a car and holding a shotgun in a close-up. Like, I'm going to blow your head off and then they reveal that he's pointing at a gun and he's like, with our fall prices. That's right. Our fall prices are dropping. We're giving away everything. Our APR financing is lower than it's ever been. If you don't come down here, I'm going to put wire around your neck and hold you hostage for 68 hours while I threaten to shoot you. See you Wednesday. Come on down.

Oh, fuck. Tony once called a congressional aide and told him he'd get the same treatment as Richard Hall. The aide knew Tony's story and told the police they checked on Tony and found out he was once again off his meds. Oh boy. Tony died of natural causes in 2005. Richard Hall is retired and living somewhere in Indianapolis. That is so crazy. Isn't that a fucking crazy story? It's insane. That really, even for this podcast, that's insane. I just can't even, it's crazy. And to the point that you're leading towards at the end, I mean, that is part of the thing. I always think it's so funny how when on a sporting event, if a streaker dashes on the field, they will turn the cameras away from that. Yeah. And yet the stuff that they're comfortable with showing

or the chances they're willing to take in live media and stuff like that, it's just insane. Yeah, it's completely fucking nice. We live in a different culture, obviously, where we report on ourselves now more than we listen to, you know, we follow what news organizations show us, but it's still, it's like, there is, the media is so implicated in all this. Yeah, it's really, it's, it's super implicated in all this. Like they, this is, this seems like a time when they, they cross the line and they have not gone back. When they, there was a time when they were the voice of reason. Yeah. What do you got for me to hear? And now... You all agree? Yes. Put it on him, pal. We're partners in this. My God, I was right. That is madness. It's just

picking, he's just fucking holding the fucking gun, talking. By God, I was right. When that was a reality. When that was, when people were around being like, let him finish. Right? Yeah, crazy. That's crazy. And the fact that they're all so close and right there. And that he's like, we're partners in this. We're partners in this, me and this guy. Hall's like, ah, I didn't sign anything. Yeah. I don't think it's like a legally binding partnership. Then we should be good at stuff. Like the shotgun, for instance. Like who has the shotgun on the back of their head? All right. Well, we did it. Yeah, we did it. Together, we made it happen. We signed cars. Hello.