Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 438 - The Octopus Murders & Conspiracy

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

Was aspiring investigative journalist Danny Casolaro murdered in his Sheraton hotel room in Martinsburg, West Virginia on August 10th, 1991 because he was very close to exposing a conspiracy involving CIA, DOJ, and Whitehouse players involved in numerous murderous, illegal arms deals, espionage and more as truth? Are there shadowy power players in the highest ranking levels of government who won't hesitate to have anyone who threatens to expose their nefarious wheelings and dealings killed? Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch.

Danny Castellero was a man with a dream. He'd been a writer for most of his life and was able to make a full-time career out of it, but barely. He was in his early 40s and he still wasn't where he wanted to be. He was an exceptionally curious man, an intelligent and ambitious man, and he wanted to do something he felt was truly important. He wanted to make a name for himself as a serious, respected, investigative reporter. The opportunity he was looking for seemingly fell into his lap in the summer of 1990, but it wouldn't appear to be that opportunity right away. A former colleague told Denny about a strange legal battle between a software company called

Inslaw and the Department of Justice. Denny contacted the owner of Inslaw, Bill Hamilton, and the two men discussed some serious allegations against the government. Hamilton accused the Department of Justice of a major theft that cost him millions and millions of dollars and drove his company into bankruptcy. As it turns out, this Inslaw case was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg for Danny Casalero. Bill Hamilton was the key that opened the door to a world of not somewhat boring legal battles over who owed who money,

but instead a major conspiracy. Who really pulls the strings in the U.S. government? Is there actually a shadowy cabal resting behind our elected officials and are members of this cabal the real decision makers, the real puppet masters? And are the strings there pulling being pulled mainly for good or for greed? Over the next year, Danny would meet a fascinating and mysterious cast of nefarious characters allegedly involved in government conspiracies and some of the biggest scandals in U.S. history, including the Iran hostage crisis, the 1990 election scandal, and the Iran-Contra affair. He learned about secret deals, secret weapons development, production and sales, illegal international and domestic intelligence operations, and several unsolved murders.

Getting too close to the truth seemingly had led to a lot of suspicious deaths. As Danny met new sources, he started making new connections and uncovering new conspiracies. Danny started calling these interconnected conspiracies the octopus, believing that a high ranking government official, generally in the intelligence game, was connected to each tentacle. Danny became obsessed with unmasking what he considered the truth, pursuing leads full time,

and putting himself in dire financial straits in dangerous situations to gather more and more titillating information. Roughly a year into his investigation, in the summer of 1991, he felt like he was on the verge of a major breakthrough. That he was about to crack the biggest case in the U.S. in the 20th century. He arranged a meeting with a source who was supposed to give him the last piece of information he would need to tie everything together, get the book deal he was hoping for, and go public with his work. The results of this meeting, if it even ever happened, are unknown.

Right after telling friends and family he was on the verge of connecting all the conspiracies he was investigating, Danny Casalero was found dead in a hotel room in Martinsburg, West Virginia on August 10, 1991. His wrists had been gruesomely slashed over and over and over and the police immediately assumed his death was a suicide. But Danny's family and friends strongly insisted he had been murdered. In the weeks leading up to his death,

he had received threatening, multiple threatening phone calls. Danny had even warned his brother days before he died that if something happened to him, it would definitely not be an accident. Was Danny Casalero killed because he got too close to the truth? Because he was about to expose decades of shady dealings by intelligence operatives connected all the way up to the highest members of the White House. In this episode we'll follow Danny's entire investigation from beginning to end, learning

what he uncovered about multiple government conspiracies, getting to know Danny's sources, and covering the final days of Danny's life in this week's conspiratorial. Putting my tinfoil hat on doesn't feel all that crazy with this one. I think we may have finally found another conspiracy I actually believe could definitely be true. Uncle Sam is certainly not always your friend and might be in fact your murderer if you look like you might spill some of his most secretive and profitable tea edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck.

Ah! You're listening to Time Suck. Well, happy Monday and welcome or welcome back to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins aka Can Dummins aka Suck Nasty aka your mom and you're listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, hail Ustafina, praise be to good boy Bojangles and glory be to Triple M. He really killed it last week. A couple quick things before we jump back into this story. I wanted to say real quick that my heart goes out to anyone impacted in any way by the January 1st terror attack in New Orleans, my favorite city in America.

I have been to the spot on Bourbon Street where that idiot killed 14 people and injured over 50 others many many many times Glad that guy's dead. Fuck that moron Yeah, just such an unnecessary tragedy and also my heart goes out to everyone affected by the Los Angeles area fires Friends of mine who lived a few blocks away from where Lindsay and I lived You know, we're evacuated recently as I record this I have a lot of great memories and a lot of great places in the Palisades and Malibu that are, you know, places that are now just rubble. Still have a lot of friends down there. Many of them have been forced to evacuate or warned that they may need to evacuate. None of them have lost their homes as I record this, but most of them have known people who have. We are donating to the Greater New Orleans Foundation this month to help with relief efforts there and to an LA fire

related charity next month. And sorry I don't have the exact details right now but I wanted just to say that in this episode. Also while I'm not touring this year I am gonna do a couple stand-up shows in Nashville Tennessee for the Nashville Comedy Festival at Zany's Comedy Club April 11th and 12th just three shows If I'm lucky enough for them to sell out I will not be adding new shows just with the festival all the shows are already filled So it's just gonna be those three if you want if you want to come, please do gonna invite some friends It's gonna be a lot of fun

Go to the website for Zany's in Nashville. Just click on their calendar head Head to April 11th and 12th. Grab some tickets before they're gone. Yeah, I think it's gonna be a real good time. And that's it. Okay, mead sacks. Do you like a good spy movie? A good conspiratorial thriller? I do. If you do, you're gonna love this episode.

I loved going over this research. The first day I went over Olivia's notes on all of this, it was a Sunday and I planned to spend, I don't know, two, maybe three hours glossing it all over. Then I really dig into it the next day on Monday when I started the week for real. Well, started around noon, ended up staying up until one in the morning. Just continually working on this because I couldn't stop. I was just fucking intrigued. Could not stop. I wanted to go over it all, find out what happened, how it ends. I was opening new tabs on could not stop. I wanted to go over it all. Find out what happened. How it ends.

I was opening new tabs on my web browser every few paragraphs. I just couldn't believe some of the shit was real that I hadn't heard about it before. Luckily Lindsay was busy. Kids were with their mom and stepdad. And so, you know, it ended up being a good day for me to work extra. But I found all this, you know, was fascinating. Do I now think that every US politician is shady? That the FBI and the CIA and most members of the White House are

disgusting nefarious people or organizations? No, but I already thought the CIA, I guess, you know, DOJ not FBI with this one, you know, I had people in these organizations certainly capable of doing evil shit and at times, you know, these organizations have for sure done evil shit. That is not aligned with any reasonable or rational argument for national security or the best interest of the American people. I already thought before this episode that certain power players in organizations like the CIA and that various high-ranking elected officials working with these organizations all the way up to certain presidents had sold their souls to oil, big pharma, you know those CEOs, military

industrial complex power players So they could have a bunch of blood money put into their pockets So they could drink the finest drinks, drive the fastest cars, anchor their yachts outside the world's most exclusive clubs and catch the eyes of the most beautiful opportunistic gold digging girls. There's some variation to that. People selling their souls for big piles of money and influence and sex is nothing new. One of the world's oldest stories. After looking into all of this, a lot of my most cynical pre-existing beliefs about our government were definitely strengthened.

I truly believe that money makes the world go round and that there's nothing, and I mean nothing, that certain people will not do in the name of greed and a thirst for greater and greater power. There are bad apples in every sector of life including the highest ranks of the government. There are also people who are righteous and truly want to serve their constituents but there are others who are selfish and soulless and only want to serve themselves. And I think that Danny Castellero was uncovering a lot of dirt on a lot of powerful people of that second variety and I do think he was killed before he was able to go public with the information he was

putting together. Wealthy and powerful people who become wealthy and powerful primarily because all they really crave is wealth and power and they're willing to do whatever the fuck they need to do to get it to keep it. What will those people do to someone who they feel is a threat to that wealth and power? Well in my mind easily they will eliminate them. They'll try, at the very least. I mean, won't they? I mean, you might not do that.

You might not want to believe that they would do that, but maybe that's why you're not wealthy and powerful. You're actually nice. You have a soul, a conscience, a good moral code. To me, it is not conspiratorial to believe that members of our own government would kill innocent citizens rather than risk being exposed and possibly be incarcerated. It's just logical. It's human nature. So let's dig into this.

Structure wise today starting off with a brief overview of what the octopus, Structure-wise today, starting off with a brief overview of what the octopus, I wanted to say October there, octopus conspiracy theory is before we dive into a timeline of Danny Castellero's full investigation. A timeline that will jump back and forth in time as I introduce various power players and mysterious characters. When Danny Castellero, a freelance writer and author,

started looking into a tech company's contract dispute with the Department of Justice, he couldn't have had any idea that he was going to uncover a worldwide conspiracy involving officials in the US government, including the president. Danny Casolaro was an ordinary man. Before he became involved in the world of conspiracy, he owned a trade publication called Computer Age, which covered software and the computer industry. He'd been doing that for about a decade. When Danny decided he wanted to get back into journalism, one of his colleagues suggested that he should cover

a developing story about a dispute between the US Department of Justice, the DOJ, a federal executive department that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice headed by the US Attorney General, and Bill Hamilton, the founder of a little-known tech company called InSlaw. After speaking to Hamilton, Danny allegedly discovered connections between InSlaw

and the 1980 presidential election in which Ronald Reagan was the victor. If true, these connections involved a major conspiracy theory in American politics. A scandal that would shake the entire country's faith in government, especially back in the early 90s. Danny was looking into all this when I think you know more people had faith in government. Danny's investigation, the conspiracy he was chasing, and his suspicious death was presented in an episode of the original Unsolved Mysteries back in the early 90s. Man, I missed that show. Robert Stack, what a fucking legend. That guy narrated the shit out of that show. Check out how he set up Danny Casalero's story here.

Danny Casalero's strange odyssey began when he interviewed Bill and Nancy Hamilton, the owners of a computer software company called Innslaugh. First of all, when was the Promise software developed and what was it for? There's a big need for this kind of software. The Hamiltons have developed a powerful program called Promise that they claim revolutionized information management by law enforcement agencies. Okay, getting ahead of myself there a little bit with the story. His voice was so perfect for that show and just the way it was scored, right?

The ominous music, the piano there, the little minor chords and stuff. Robert Stack and that music could have sucked me into an episode about some dumb story about a guy who paid $4.99 for a dispenser of hand soap that should have cost $3.99. But when he confronted the manager about the price mix-up, picks up, the guy refused to refund him the extra dollar. July 27, 1993. Santa Fe, New Mexico. When Roger Gonzalez left the Lucky Pantry convenience store on the corner of North Guadalupe and West Alameda streets, alarm bells went off in his head regarding how much he'd paid for a 12 ounce dispenser of dial, antibacterial hand soap. He could have sworn he should have paid $3.99 instead of $4.99. He walked back into the store,

confirmed that the price was indeed $3.99 based on the price display on the shelf. But according to his receipt, he paid $4.99. And the soap did have a sticker on it for that price. 499. The soap did have a sticker on it for that price. He knew it had clearly been mislabeled and he approached the store manager, Todd Weaver. Todd said that the sticker price was correct, not the price listed on the shelf. But then Roger grabbed a copy of the local paper with an advertisement for Lucky Pantry, clearly stating the soap was supposed to be $3.99. When confronted with this new evidence, Todd simply shrugged. He didn't give Roger his dollar. When Roger said he would call the police if Todd didn't make things right,

Todd laughed. He shrugged again. Roger now wondered, what is Todd hiding? And now so do we. Join me. Perhaps you hold the crucial clue that will solve tonight's unsolved mystery. Oh, fucking Todd! Oh, Todd, God damn it! What are you hiding? Sorry, I won't have tons of distractions today as we get into the weeds. I would have loved to have hosted that show though. Oh man, holy shit.

Anyway, as Danny dug further, after meeting Inslaw founder Bill Hamilton, he found more and more connections to shady shit and came up with a list of eight people who all seemed to be connected to major scandals, conspiracies, murders, and other serious crimes. Danny started calling his investigation and the conspiracy his investigation was looking into the octopus. Pretty dope name for a conspiracy. Sounds like something straight out of a Bond movie. A government official or intelligence operative seemed to be at the head of each tentacle. Danny became obsessed with his investigation, dedicating almost every waking moment to research, writing, and meetings with sources. He was working on a major expose piece that he felt would show the American public what was really going on behind the scenes in our government. One of his main contacts was a very mysterious man named Michael Ricanashuto,

described as a quote brilliant computer programmer with alleged ties to extremist political movements. This guy, this guy something else, very excited for you to to meet him. More like a movie character than a real person. Michael seemed to have a hand in many of the tentacles of the octopus. By August of 1991, Denny felt like he was on the edge of breaking the whole story. He believed he was nearly ready for publication and he made plans to meet what was supposed to be one last source in Martinsburg, West Virginia. That source was gonna reveal, Denny thought, the last piece of the big puzzle. Denny called this source the head of the octopus and he left home on August 8th. About two days later, August 10th, 1991, Danny was found dead in the bathtub of his hotel room.

Wrists had been deeply slashed, as I mentioned. Based on a note he had left behind, the police assumed he had died of suicide or someone got to the police and told them to say that they assumed that. Danny's family and friends immediately refused to accept his conclusion. In the weeks leading up to his death, Danny had confided in his brother and a few friends telling them right he had, as I mentioned, in the cold open received a bunch of threatening phone calls. Others would later testify they also heard some of these threats firsthand or were even threatened themselves. He told his brother specifically that if anything happened to him during his trip to visit his final source, it was not going to be an accident. Was Danny Casalero killed because he actually was close to finding out the truth and exposing murders and corruption within the US government? Photojournalist Christian Hansen believes so.

How many times you think Christian Hansen has been called Chris Hansen? Hail Memrod. Isn't that what Chris Hansen said on his time seek episode? Anyway, over 20 years later Christian, not, Hansen, decided to pick up where Danny left off, continuing his research, meeting some of Danny's main sources. Hansen's friend, film director Zach Retreats recorded this journey to find the truth. Their research was recently released on Netflix in the 2024 docu-series American Conspiracy the Octopus Murders.

Both Danny's original research and Hanson's continued efforts will be referenced during today's timeline as the two journalists are now forever connected in this story. Now enough teasing! Time for the full Monty or total penetration or something. Let's begin our timeline of the life and research of Danny Casalero where we will discuss the octopus conspiracy and all the main players in this case. Joseph Daniel Casalero was born on June 16th, 1947. Going by the nickname of Danny, he grew up in McLean, Virginia, about 11 miles from downtown Washington, D.C. So, the Burbs.

McLean classified as an unincorporated community and census designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, part of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, and a whole bunch of military officials and government employees and probably a few Illuminati power players live and have lived there. McLean is named after John Roll McLean, former owner of the Washington Post, the community who founded in 1910 after the completion of the Great Falls and old Dominion railroad, which connected the area to DC. And in 2020, the population a little over 50,000 back in 1947, about 7,000.

So just a little less congested when Danny Boy grew up there. Danny's upbringing in a community full of government officials, many of whom were working on coldware projects that were classified, very likely influenced his later interest in conspiracies. He grew up one of seven children and was his parents eldest son. His parents were Dr. Joseph Daniel Casalero and Francis Phyllis Biaso Casalero. Joseph Casalero was an obstetrician who died in 1982. Francis died much more recently in 2017. Sadly Danny's much younger brother, Christopher John Casalero, born when Danny was 15 in 1961, born with a heart defect, died in 1962 when he was just a year old.

Danny's younger sister Lisa, born six years after him in 1953, tragically died from a drug overdose at the age of 17. And Danny was deeply affected by the loss of his little sister. Danny's younger brother, Dr. Tony Casalero, told The Washington Post in 1991, it's actually that issue that makes the question of Danny committing suicide almost impossible. He was sort of angry at Lisa. The effect of her suicide was so damaging.

Growing up, Dani was raised Catholic, attending private Catholic school and graduating from Providence College, a private Catholic college founded in 1917, by the Dominican Order and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island in 1968. He worked as a freelance writer for his first several years following graduating, primarily interested in research-based and creative writing. In 1981, Daniel published a novel called The Ice King, a book exploring the legend of lost Inca gold, a legend about a 16th century Incan leader Atahualpa, the last Incan emperor, hiding his room of gold from Spanish conquistadors,

and now the treasure remains hidden in Ecuador to this day. Danny actually spent some time in Ecuador shortly after graduating looking for the supposedly lost gold. I don't think it actually exists, but it'd be pretty fucking cool if it did. He was an adventurous dude, not afraid to chase down a legend. He also published a collection of short stories titled Makes Me Think of Tall Green Grass in 1973, just five years after he graduated from Providence. Following his death, the Washington Post published an excerpt from a song written by Danny. He lost his battles and lost the war and then he came back

for more. If you want to please my ghost, he said, after I've gone away, then forgive some lonely sinner and wink your eye at a homely girl. I'm sure it sounds cooler when there's like music set to it. Within a few years of graduating from college, Danny married Terrell Pace, a former Miss Virginia, and they'd be married for about a decade. They had one child, a son named Joseph Daniel Casalero, who went by the nickname of Trey because, you know, same name as his dad and granddad, because our Danny is technically a junior. Danny and Trey had a very close bond, and his love for his son was one of the constants in his ever-changing life. After he and his wife's divorce,

Danny would get full custody of his son. So he's gotta be a pretty good dad. I'm guessing, because it doesn't sound like this kid's mom was a terrible mom. For most of their marriage, Danny and Terrell lived on a few acres of land in Fairfax, Virginia, another suburb of D.C., and they kept Arabian horses as a hobby.

Sources report that they didn't have much money, which seems odd to me for people keeping Arabian horses as a hobby on a few acres land. Sounds like a pretty expensive hobby. But that's what sources say. Maybe they should have sold those horses, lived in a smaller place. I don't know. Those same sources say that they were known for having an open house where their friends could stop by at any time. One of Danny's friends told the Washington Post that he was very much in love with his wife but that she was always suspicious that he was cheating on her. Not sure if he was or not or if she was paranoid. Danny and Terrell divorced around 1981. She moved to Florida and as I mentioned Danny got full custody of their son, 10 years old at the time.

She moved to Florida and as I mentioned Danny got full custody of their son 10 years old at the time Trey will be in his early 20s when his father dies Danny the son continued living in Fairfax and Danny soon acquired a company called Computer Age Which published specialized newsletters including a newsletter called Computer Daily Danny the only writer on staff kind of a one-man show Doesn't sound like it was super popular as a publication, but it did well enough for him to make enough money to pay the bills and raise his son. I'm sure he had to grind his ass off. Good for Danny. In his free time, Danny liked to go out to bars. Going out to bars back in the early 80s sounds like it would have been so much fun. Right back when the worst thing you had to worry about was coke being cut with a bunch of sugar or lidocaine instead of fentanyl.

Danny also liked to spend time with friends and family. He liked beer, but didn't use drugs or drink excessively, which I'm going to interpret as him liking to snore a little bit of blow, a little bit of party powder from time to time so he could stay out, drink longer, have so much hot sex with women with big hair sprayed walls of banks because it was the 1980s. Oh, fuck yeah. Helly, Sufina I've got a gold chain like it was 1980 I'm on cocaine like it was 1980 I'm like your man like it was 1980 It showed us in that wait me and tell you gonna stop page me

Oh Haley Sufina again I haven't thought about that dirt nasty song in a long time. Oh man, Simon Rex, he killed it with that shit for a while. Why did synthetic opioids after come around take so much of the fun out of irresponsible drug use? Did any like listening to music by Tom Waits and Randy Newman like to read Ernest Hemingway? I like this guy. Tom Waits, not for everybody. I don't love him like his truly dedicated fans do, but I respect how unique he is. Dude is definitely an artist.

Tom Waits threw down some calliope, the devil's organ, on his critically acclaimed bloody, bloody, oh my gosh, blood money. Why do I keep wanting to say bloody? Bloody money! That doesn't sound nearly as cool as blood money. On his Blood Money album. Give it a listen right before you go to bed if you haven't had a good nightmare in a while. Here's a bit of his song, call no man happy till he dies.

There's no milk at the bottom of the pail. His voice is so percussive. Tom said of playing the Calliope in studio, I love this quote, playing a Calliope is an experience. There's an old expression, never let your daughter marry a calliope is an experience. There's an old expression, never let your daughter marry a calliope player because they're all out of their minds because the calliope is so flaming loud,

louder than a bagpipe. In the old days, they used them to announce the arrival of the circus because you could literally hear it three miles away. Imagine something you could hear three miles away and now you're right in front of it in a studio playing like a piano and your face is red. Your hair is sticking up, you're sweating, you could scream and nobody could hear you. It's probably the most visceral music experience I've ever had. And when you're done you feel like you should probably go see a doctor. Just check me over doc.

I did a couple of numbers on the calliope and I want you to take me through the paces. Ah and then Randy Newman another guy that Danny liked very quirky as well. He's not just a dude who sang some soundtrack songs for Pixar movies. Here's maybe a that's not my favorite but one of my favorite Randy Newman songs called Short People. Short people got no reason. Short people got no reason. Short people got no reason to live. They got little hands, little eyes. They walk around telling great big lies.

They got little nose Tiny little teeth They wear platform shoes On their nasty little feet Well I don't want no short people Don't want no short people, no Don't want no short people around here So this is the kind of shit that Danny Castellero liked, right? Not top 40 pop, not mainstream R&B. He wasn't listening to what everyone else was listening to.

He was artsy. He was quirky, an eclectic, adventurous, curious dude. Marched to the beat of his own drum. You know, someone not afraid to go against the grain. Danny was also known for his sociable personality and his kindness. He had the ability to make just about anybody feel special. He would invite people who were going to be alone during the holidays over to his house, feed them, give them company.

Said to never have been a gossip. Kind of guy who never made a joke at anyone else's expense. One friend told the Washington Post, you're gonna find 50 people who come up to you and say, I was his best friend. That's how Danny made people feel. I love that man. It's a special kind of person that can do that. Arthur Weinfeld, a retired NSA employee and one of Danny's friends described how Danny was strategic and how he established relationships saying, Danny collected people that were interested in music and writing.

Then he started dating a woman named Wendy Weaver. Several years after his divorce in 1985, they met at a party. Afterwards, Danny sent her roses with an anonymous note that said, possibly yours. She described Danny after his death as compassionate, caring, and upbeat. They moved in together, but Wendy left a couple years before Danny died because she felt like he just couldn't fully commit to her. But they did continue to see each other after she moved out. They remained friends. to her. But they did continue to see each other after she moved out. They remained friends. Seems like Dandy's real love towards the end of his life was his work, whose true passion became investigative journalism. Over the years, often for little or no money, he researched topics such

as the Soviet naval presence in Cuba, Castro's intelligence network, how China smuggled opium into the U.S. He wanted to break a big story, something about how the U.S. government wasn't as noble as it seemed. In his resume, he wrote that he participated in some of the most important investigative efforts of the last 20 years for newspapers and scientific journals. While some of his research didn't lead to anything that the public would ever see, many of his stories did appear in magazines, you know, with small circulations like H and Auto, Eldorado News Times, Media Horizons. Not exactly publications known for publishing the nation's most hard-hitting investigative journalism. The Washington Post wrote about his work, By many conventional measures, Danny Casalero was not a success. His career in

journalism was undistinguished. His attempt at entrepreneurship did not pay off. Being in debt was more the rule than the exception. He published a novel which he apparently paid a vanity press to print. But he paid his bills, raised his kid, did what he loved. I respect that. Denny sold computer-age publications in 1989. His ex-girlfriend Wendy said he wasn't the best businessman and didn't make as much as he had hoped from the sale because the buyer was a good negotiator. Danny then briefly worked for the new owners of Computer Age but then left the company in early 1990.

Wendy recalled that he didn't like being an employee, probably especially not since the company he worked for was the company he had owned. That had to have been weird. And he felt like he had been forced out of his job. Following this, he was looking for a new job and updated his resume to say he was seeking quote a challenging and rewarding executive position managing a media operation. But while he waited for that job to materialize, Denny decided to get back into what he really wished he could make a living doing.

His true passion of investigative journalism. And Terry Miller, a former colleague at Computer Age, suggested he look into the Inslaw case since he had experience writing about the tech industry. Terry had no idea what he was nudging Danny into. Before we find out what Danny was about to get into, I think this is the least intrusive spot for this week's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks.

Alright, now let's find out how Danny got sucked into the octopus conspiracy. Danny Castellero started researching the Inslaw scandal in the summer of 1990. Inslaw was based at the time in St. Louis, Missouri. The Institute for Law and Social Research, aka INSLAW, was founded by Bill and Nancy Hamilton. INSLAW was originally a nonprofit company that pioneered computerized case management systems for criminal justice agencies. The Hamiltons and their team created some powerful organizational software called PROMIS, P-R-O-M-I-S, Prosecutors' Management Information System, which was

funded by a law enforcement assistance administration grant in the 1970s, making the software public domain, something not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws, as opposed to proprietary software. When PROMIS was first created, it was the most powerful program of its type in the world. According to Wired magazine, always love Wired as a source by the way, they do great shit. Anyway, according to Wired magazine, Promise can provide a complete rundown of all federal cases in which a lawyer has been involved, or all the cases in which a lawyer has represented defendant A,

or all the cases in which a lawyer has represented white-collar criminals, at which stage in each of the cases the lawyer agreed to take a plea bargain, and so on. Based on this information, Promise can help a prosecutor determine when a plea will be taken in a particular type of case. But the real power of Promise, according to Hamilton, is that with a staggering 570,000 lines of computer code, Promise can integrate innumerable databases without requiring any reprogramming. In essence, Promise can turn blind data into information converted to use by intelligence

agencies. Promise can be a powerful tracking device capable of monitoring intelligence operations, agents and targets, instead of legal cases. And this application possibility is why the software will end up becoming connected to a global conspiracy The following information might seem a little boring for a little while But it's necessary to understand how this connection was made. It's gonna lead somewhere interesting Inslaughts grant ran out in 1981 and at that point the Hamiltonons decided to transition into a for-profit company and to develop copyrighted software. And to reiterate what I just mentioned, the now for-profit company did not own the public domain

version of Promise because it was developed with government money. Inzla funded a major upgrade with its own money now so they could claim ownership of the new enhanced version of the software. This is key for this big lawsuit that's gonna happen. Around this time the US Department of Justice decided it needed to completely computerize its case management system. This is the early days of people going to computer databases, the very early days of people starting to lean more on computers. And in March of 1982, Inslaugh won a 9..6 million contract from the Department of Justice

to install the public domain version of PROMIS in 20 different U.S. attorneys' offices as part of a pilot program. If successful, PROMIS would then also be installed in federal prosecutors' offices around the U.S. And Hamilton said the market for complete automation of the entire U.S. federal court system would be worth about $3 billion. Hamilton sent the DOJ a letter outlining his company's decision to privatize promise as letter asked the DOJ to the DOJ to waive any

proprietary rights. It might claim to their new enhanced version of the software if they wanted that. And in a letter from August 11th 1982 a DOJ lawyer wrote, to the extent that any other enhancements beyond the public domain promise were privately funded by Inslaw and not specified to be delivered to the Department of Justice under any contract or other agreement, Inslaw may assert whatever proprietary rights it

may have. According to Wired's article, Enslawe was originally contracted to provide the public domain version of Promise again, but then the DOJ demanded that Enslawe give them the new improved, the new advanced version of the software, in order to more effectively complete their contractual obligations. Which makes sense, right? They want the best, latest, greatest version. They're paying a lot of money. Inslaw agrees to give them this new version on the conditions that the DOJ A, recognize

the company's proprietary rights to the enhanced software and B, that the DOJ not distribute promise beyond the boundaries of the contract which would be the US Attorney's offices in the United States. The DOJ agrees. Inslaugh then hands over the enhanced proprietary version of promise. Easy peasy, straightforward. What could go wrong? Well once they have it in their possession the DOJ now refuses to verify that Inslaugh had created the enhanced software they had just received with company money. They wanted to deny they had the enhanced version, since if they just had the public domain version, they could do whatever the fuck they wanted with it, like resell it to whoever they pleased.

InSlaw protests and now the DOJ starts to withhold payments. Big payments. So now InSlaw is in a real shitty spot. They have already given the DOJ starts to withhold payments. Big payments. So now Inslaught is in a real shitty spot. They have already given the DOJ proprietary software that they were supposed to have been paid millions of dollars for. Software potentially worth billions of dollars. And the DOJ is not paying them per their original agreement and will not be paying them for any new agreement since they're arguing that Ins SLA doesn't even own their own software. And then in April of 1983, in SLA owner and co-founder Bill Hamilton receives a phone call from some company he's never heard of before

called Hamilton incorporated offering to buy in SLA. According to the octopus murders docu-series, Hamilton said that around the time this mysterious new company made him an offer, he started to receive, or excuse me, he received a single threatening phone call from the chairman of another company, Hadron, a company with strong connections with the DOJ. And when Bill told the man he was talking to, he was not interested in selling, the price of the offer is never mentioned, the man said, quote, we have ways of making you sell. So now naturally, Bill wants to find out who the fuck this guy is who's running this company this who's trying to strong arm him out of the software

the DOJ is you know has stolen from him he wonders if the DOJ is pushing this company to buy out his company so that his lawsuit will go away and the DOJ can make a new deal with Hamilton, Inc. whoever they are. Bill Research's Hamilton, Inc. learns it is controlled by Earl W. Brian and Earl Brian is a very close associate of the Ronald Reagan administration. Brian was, he died in 2020 at the age of 78, a very powerful and seemingly very shady man. He was also the head of Info Technology, a company that owned major news outlets like the UPI, United Press International, Financial News Network, TLC, the Learning Channel, back when they were actually the Learning Channel.

Earl Bryan was also a physician and a Vietnam veteran. He was once the youngest director of the California Health and Welfare Agency when Reagan was California's governor. At the end of Reagan's governorship, Brian was involved in a scandal involving stolen computer tapes that had state welfare files on them. He resigned from Reagan's cabinet in 1974

to run for the Senate, but lost. He then joined the faculty at USC, the University of Southern California, and got into business. His first company, Xionics, was cited by the SEC for issuing press releases with greatly exaggerated information designed to fraudulently boost stock prices. 1980, Brian formed Biotech Capital Corporation, a venture capital firm that invested in biological and medical companies. As mentioned, he

also invested in news networks. After Reagan won the 1980 presidential election, Earl Bryan was appointed to a White House post to advise on health care issues. He reported directly to the presidential counselor and future U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, a position he would resign from amidst a scandal. In 1984, Bryan made the news because he was part of a federal investigation into Edwin Meese, who failed to disclose his financial interests in Biotech Capital Corp, controlled by Brian. Years later, Brian will spend four years in prison, convicted of conspiracy charges for inflating the value of Financial News Network and UPI in an attempt to secure big loans to shore up the companies.

Like Bill Hamilton, Earl Brian is going to become a key player in the octopus story. Back to the 80s now, when Inslaugh is forced to declare bankruptcy due to not getting paid by the DOJ on June 9th, 1986, Inslaugh files a $30 million lawsuit against the DOJ and bankruptcy court. Former U S attorney general, Elliot Richardson, Elliot Dixon, uh, who resigned in the midst of the Watergate scandal and protested president Nixon's order to fire a special prosecutor prosecutor Archibald Cox, Dick Sennin Cox,

agreed to help Bill Hamilton with his case. He believed Hamilton had been wronged and was being bullied by the DOJ. And in January of 1988, federal bankruptcy judge George F. Basin Jr. agrees and rules the DOJ stole in-slaw by, quote, trickery, fraud, and deceit. What? A government agency? Stealing from private citizens? Oh, what? Oh my g— No, not shocked at all. Judge Basin ordered the DOJ to pay Inslaw $8 million. Not $30, but okay, something. But the DOJ appeals the ruling and still isn't paying. Then a few months later, 1989, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jack Brooks launches a three-year investigation into the Inslaugh affair.

In his report, the committee suggested that Edwin Meese and Dee Lowell Jensen, former assistant and deputy attorney general, did conspire to straight-up steal Inslaugh's Promise software. So the U.S. Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General just fucking stealing. The report stated, and he's supposed to be the head of the of the fucking Department of Justice, right? The, the actually like how ironic, right? The report stated, quote, high government officials were involved several individuals testified under oath that Inslaugh's Promise Software was stolen and distributed internationally in order to provide financial gain and to further intelligence and foreign

policy objectives. Actions against InSlaw were implemented through the project manager, Brick Brewer, from the beginning of the contract and under the direction of high-level Justice Department officials. The evidence demonstrates that high-level Department officials deliberately ignored InSlaw proprietary rights and misappropriated its promise software for use at locations not covered under contract with the company. Damn. Right? Fucking government at its finest a benevolent and incredibly helpful institution that allows society to flourish, that provides

safety, education, and opportunity for citizens to thrive. But at its worst no better than a fucking drug cartel, the mafia, or some other organized crime organization, using its power to intimidate and steal from anyone unfortunate enough to fall under its purview. The report accused U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburg, who succeeded Attorney General Meese, of stonewalling congressional inquiries turning a blind eye to the possible destruction of important evidence within the DOJ, and ignoring DOJ harassment of employees questioned by Congressional investigators. On November 20, 1990, this House Judiciary Committee asked CIA Director William Webster to determine if the CIA had the Promise software,

and on December 11, Webster replied that the agency did not have it. However a retired CIA official whose job it was to investigate the Inslaw allegations internally told Wired magazine that the DOJ absolutely 100% gave the software to the CIA they for sure had it and they fucking knew they had it. Wait what the CIA lying about something? Also not even a little bit shocked. Inslaught's petition to the Supreme Court in October of 1991 to open a new case against the DOJ, alleging that the DOJ was involved in a broad conspiracy to drive Inslaught into bankruptcy so that Earl Bryan, the founder of that venture capital firm called Biotech,

later Info Technology, could acquire Inslaught's assets, including its software Promise. The petition is denied a review. technology could acquire Inslaught's assets, including its software promise. The petition is denied a review. A year after Danny Castellero dies, the House Judiciary Committee will vote to adopt the original investigative report that the DOJ did fuck over Inslaught on August 11, 1992. The report will ask new Attorney General William Barr to immediately settle the Inslaught claims, but they won't do that. InSlaw still won't get their fucking money because of more political wheelings and dealings that will just keep kicking this case down the road. As mentioned by the report, other countries were sold Promise software illegally.

Bill Hamilton found out that the Canadian government had and was using his proprietary version of the software when Canadian officials wrote to InSlaw asking them to translate promise into French. He's like well not gonna do that because I didn't get any fucking money because I got fucked on this. The software was also given to Israel's government. The DOJ claimed they distributed the public domain version but a former Israeli spy named Ari Ben Manashi will later claim they did in fact definitely have the upgraded version. Rafael Etienne, the chief of the Israel Defense Forces Anti-Terrorism Intelligence Unit, also admitted to viewing the upgraded PROMIS software on a trip to the US in 1983. And federal court documents will reveal that PROMIS was stolen by the DOJ after Etienne's visit. Numerous affidavits indicate that PROMIS was given or sold to Israel and up to 80 other countries by Earl Brian.

It's complete and total bullshit that the DOJ never paid inslaw and it seems numerous attorney generals didn't do shit to right this wrong. In fact, his help covered all up, you know, revealing a lot of corruption in the DOJ. Ben Menashe, that Israeli spy, said that other government departments in Israel had promised that it was pitched to them by our man Earl Bryan, the guy that threatened Bill Hamilton when he wouldn't sell it to Earl's Shell Corporation that was backed by the DOJ. Ben Menashe claimed, quote, I attended a meeting at my department's headquarters in Tel Aviv in 1987 during which Dr. Earl W.

Bryan of the United States made a presentation intended to facilitate the use of the Promise computer software. Dr. Bryan stated during his presentation that all U.S. intelligence agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency at the NSA, and the U.S. US Department of Justice were then using the Promise Computer Software. Promise was a very big thing for us guys, a very very big thing. It was probably the most important issue of the 80s because it just changed the whole intelligence outlook. The whole form of intelligence

collection changed. The whole thing changed it or this whole thing changed it. So this you know this is big in the intelligence game. You're gonna see why this is connected to conspiracy later. So like so know this is big in the intelligence game you're gonna see why this is connected to conspiracy later. So like so why in the hell was Earl Bryan pitching the promise software to foreign countries that he really just want to make some money upgrading other nations intelligence agencies? No, no it's it's not that at all. It's no there's nothing benevolent about this. It's very nefarious to understand what this is all really about and it was never about helping other foreign nations. We have to go back to the events leading up to the 1980

presidential election. Again this is going to continue to be a bit of a journey but I promise it has a good payoff. In late 1979 then current president Jimmy Carter is running for re-election. RIP to the Georgia peanut farmer just passed away recently at the age of 215. He was actually only 100. It started to feel like he might have been an immortal Highlander, some kind of ancient wizard. Ronald Reagan was a Republican candidate running against Carter. And on November 4th, 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, or Tehran, the capital of Iran, was invaded and occupied by Iranian students.

66 Americans were taken hostage, and they'll be held captive for over a year. The capital of Iran was invaded and occupied by Iranian students. 66 Americans were taken hostage and they'll be held captive for over a year, 444 days. This will become known as the Iran hostage crisis. And from this crisis will emerge the infamous October surprise conspiracy theory. An October surprise is a phrase for any event that might influence a November election. The Iran hostage crisis was a major issue for voters during the 1980 election. According to this October surprise conspiracy theory,

officials with Reagan's campaign made a secret deal with Iran to delay the release of the hostages until after the election. Why? To make Carter look like an ineffective president or more ineffective, you know, whatever, and to make Reagan look like a hero to start his presidency. To make one party look so much stronger than the other so that this new party can put, you know, the Republicans in this situation can push through whatever legislation they want to push through and also make key supporters loads and loads of money, I'm sure, through this legislation going through. Also, if true, pretty fucking evil to toy with the lives of American hostages for nothing

more than political gain. Sure enough, Ronald Reagan wins the election, landslide victory. He receives 489 electoral college votes. Carter received only 49. Yeah, he fucking got crushed. Minutes after Reagan concluded his inaugural address on January 20, 1991, Iran announces the release of the hostages. Hostages.

And that's some pretty, you know, interesting timing. A lot of people at the time thought the timing was pretty interesting. And by pretty interesting, I mean suspicious as fuck fuck and thus the October surprise conspiracy comes to be Two congressional inquiries will find insufficient evidence though to support the allegations of a secret deal, but several high-ranking US and Iranian government officials including the president of Iran at the time This happened have come out in years since and said that this conspiracy is 100% true absolutely for sure happened. According to a New York Times investigation the October surprise negotiations took place in Paris. The previously mentioned Israeli spy Ari Ben-Manashi

claimed he was at these talks in France where he saw Reagan's close associate, the dude we met earlier, Earl Bryan. Bryan was interviewed by the Senate in July of 1992 and denied any connection to the negotiations, said he did not have a valid passport in October of 19- he couldn't have even been to France. However, per court documents and interviews, he told Canadian investors for a new company of his, Clinical Sciences Incorporated, that he would be in Paris during this exact weekend in question. A visit he seemingly would need a passport for but also really if you're flying on a private jet on behalf of a US presidential candidate and former governor who looks

like he's about to become leader of the free world or is just you know just becoming the leader you don't need a fucking passport. They're gonna let you take the meeting get the fuck out of here with your weird oh I didn't have a passport I couldn't have gone there. In further support of this conspiracy theory, Ben Barnes, a former lieutenant governor of Texas, told the New York Times in 2023 that he not only knew about all of this, but he participated in this alleged conspiracy. Barnes political mentor, Republican John B. Connolly, former governor of Texas, lost the Republican primary to Reagan, but then decided to help Reagan with the hostage crisis in hopes that he would be appointed Secretary of State or

Secretary of Defense. Barnes claimed that Connolly took him to several locations in the Middle East to meet with regional leaders and asked them to not release the hostages before the election. After returning home, Connolly reported to William J Casey, the chairman of Reagan's campaign and the future director of the CIA, to brief him about the trip. The investigation into the alleged October Surprise conspiracy occurred during the Inslaugh case. Let's now transition back to the timeline of the Inslaugh lawsuit and discuss how this

tech company might have been connected to a secret and shady deal with Iran. The Department of Justice appealed federal bankruptcy judge George F. Basin Jr.'s decision against him in the Insla case, as I mentioned, but then the DOJ later lost their appeal in district court in 1989. Interestingly, Judge Basin learned that he would not be reappointed to the bench three months after he ordered the DOJ to pay Insla millions and millions of dollars. It's almost like he was being punished for not covering up the DOJ's shady dealings. Basin was the only federal bankruptcy judge removed from the bench that year. His successor was Martin Teal Jr., a DOJ attorney who argued the case for the DOJ in front of Basin. That's a weird fucking coincidence. 1990, Judge Basin testified before

the House Judiciary Committee, quote, no doubt that the Justice Department itself did manipulate the appointment process. The government now went to the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals, and in May of 1991, that court threw out the case with Inslaugh on procedural grounds, ruling that the dispute never should have gone to a bankruptcy judge, and therefore the DOJ would not, after all that, ever have to pay his law. The ruling came one day before a deadline which would have forced the DOJ to release copies of all promised software back to Bill and Nancy Hamilton. In October of 1991 the Hamiltons took their case to the Supreme Court now, but the Supreme

Court declined to review it. So the Hamiltons got bent over and raw dog mother-fucked by Uncle Sam. Backing up a little over a year, Nancy and Bill Hamilton connected the Inslaw case to the October Surprise Theory after they received a phone call from a mysterious man named Michael Reconosciutto on May 18th, 1990. Reconosciutto is perhaps the most important person in this entire story. He seems to be involved in every octopus conspiracy in some way. Mike told the Hamiltons that he, and again, Earl, Fuck, and Brian, traveled to Iran together in 1980 to pay Iranian officials $40 million to keep the hostages until after Reagan's

election. Let's learn more about Mike now. Michael Rekhaneshuto, born December 29th, 1948, considered an electronics and computer wizard, like fucking genius by a long ways. He was a high school prodigy. At the age of 16, he worked with Nobel laureate Arthur Shalo at Stanford, both experimenting with laser technology at the time. he was 24 Mike was arrested for manufacturing both LSD and PCP He actually made the drugs in an underwater laboratory of his

Fucking love this guy cooking up acid in an underwater lab in the 1960s Dude was a fucking legend. I guess he's still alive is legend before moving forward speaking of underwater when he was just 12 years old The Tacoma News Tribune and ledger Mike was a group in Tacoma, Washington, called Mike a modern da Vinci in a 1960 article describing a phone network he established for himself and 13 friends in Tacoma. Some experiments he conducted with underwater microphones and plant cognition, an intercom system he developed in his home and a radio class he helped teach at a local YMCA. And by the summer of 1964, before his junior year of high school,

Rikonoshuto built and lived in an underwater house complete with TV, radio, and other common necessities. That's, uh, I'm guessing that's what became his LSD lab. I've read the old newspaper articles and this guy legit just off the charts smart and fucking weird Love it so much. Oh Yeah, he would serve two years in federal prison for cooking up his underwater acid But because he is literally a genius and again by a long ways Mike's criminal past did not seem to hurt his future career prospects In fact US officials reportedly desperately wanted to work with him because of his unique understanding of chemistry, laser physics, and computer software. Inslaw founder Bill Hamilton will introduce our

main player Danny Casalero to Mike Riconosciuto, telling him that he had a lot of technical knowledge about PROMIS. And through his discussions with Michael, Danny will learn about alleged connections between the PROMIS software and Reagan associate, Earl Brian. Michael told Danny that the Promise scandal started when Reagan won the 1980 election. Michael will tell Danny that what we just learned that he and Earl Brian traveled to Iran 1980 paid 40 million dollars to keep the hostages until after the election. And according to Michael, Earl Brian wanted to get paid for doing that since he, you know, helped Reagan, you know, win this election. He claimed that his payment was source code for the

Promise software. Earl Bryan then brought Promise to Michael presenting it as a secret intelligence operation. And now, dear meat sacks, now we learn how the software connects to a global conspiracy for real. Michael said he was asked to modify the existing Promise software and develop and install a secret trap door hidden in those thousands and thousands and thousands of lines of code. Michael explained that a trapdoor is a function that a third party can use to break into a system. Allegedly, the DOJ wanted to sell Promise to foreign governments with that secret trapdoor installed so then they would have free fucking rain to spy on them, gather any and all of the intelligence they were gathering.

Let me hit this button again. Right, doing that to our allies. That's fucking huge. This is allegedly why the software was so important to the DOJ. Imagine a government, just any government, having secret access to the intelligence efforts of over 80 nations around the world, allies and enemies alike. You give or sell this shit to your allies, maybe leak it out so enemies can, you know, steal it. And these enemies don't understand in the early, early days of computer databases that you will be able to hack into their

systems, right, in the early days of the internet, siphon out all sorts of, you know, really important information. Who their spies are, what their spies are doing, what they're doing in your country, what they're doing around the world, you know, exactly where they are at this moment, so you can fucking catch them. What their spies know about your government

in your covert operations, you get to know about any covert operations these other nations are engaging in. This is why the DOJ wanted this so badly. This is why they didn't want Enslaught to be able to access it or sell it anymore. They didn't want them to find out they had modified it. They didn't want them trying to sell a non-modified version to some foreign government. Michael claimed he did not have a complete list of where the software was distributed, but he did know that the first package went to Canada. And as we know, Enslaught discovered that the software was illegally distributed to Canada

when Canadian officials contacted them and said, Hey, can you translate this into French? This seemingly proved to Danny that Michael was not a liar. Not about everything at least. Inslaught founder Bill Hamilton was recorded saying, Fucking Ricanoshuto is telling the truth. Earl Bryan will later claim that he had never heard about the software. Until he read about the dispute between InSlaw and the DOJ.

In the Octopus Murders docuseries, the researchers presented a recorded conversation between Bill Hamilton and an individual whose name has been redacted. In the conversation, we learned that Danny found computer printouts showing wire transfers via the World Bank in London to offshore accounts owned by Earl Bryan and other unnamed employees of the DOJ. Was this proof of the October Surprise Theory? Danny Casalero thought so. They thought they were, you know, using that World Bank and money, you know, made from the software to fund this, to give the, you know, people holding the hostages the millions of dollars they needed. Danny Casalero kept notes from his

conversations with Mike, ever the investigator. Danny also maintained notes from conversations with other people about Mike. And Danny wrote, this was a person who made very powerful people take notice of him when he was a boy. Right? Mike was getting on the radar of people as a teenager. In his writings, he called Mike the danger man. And that title seems accurate. As we will see in this timeline several people associated with Michael Ricanashuto, including Danny, will die under very suspicious circumstances. In his coverage of the case author and journalist David Korn wrote for the Nation, Korn is a pretty funny last name, no offense, anybody with the last name of Korn, but Mr. Korn, pretty funny.

Anyway, he wrote for the Nation a monthly magazine covering political and cultural news opinion and analysis founded in 1865 and he wrote quote it's difficult to figure out whether Rikonoshuto is on the side of the octopus or struggling against it it's equally tough to distinguish his facts from fiction he is a familiar type to journalists who cover national security scandals the spooked effector someone who has worked in the field of intelligence or weapons dealing, and then leaves. He arrives with the details of his own story, but often they are intricately intertwined with secondhand or thirdhand material he has collected from other spooks or even journalists or perhaps made up. Casalero, according to his own papers,

did not accept all that Ricanosciutto spewed, but he was drawn to the conspiracies Ricanosciutto spun and possibly was seduced a little too much by his yarns. Hmm. Danny's notes, although extensive, were extremely unorganized. Journalist Christian, not Chris Hanson, spoke to Bill Hamilton and learned that many of Danny's notes were being stored at the University of Missouri archives after his death. He spent five days copying everything. Danny's notes contained numbers, names, and corporations. He had literally thousands of pages of research that made up the blueprint to his later work, The Octopus. Phil Linsalata, a reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, did an article for the Columbia Journalism Review in late 1991 about all this.

He went to Nightline's headquarters to view Danny's files. He wrote about the notes, There are no tapes, interviews, or disks. In the back of two worn notebooks were pages of sources and their phone numbers. Casalero was disorganized, he admitted that himself, but as many of his sources agreed, he was unparalleled in drawing them out. Most of the space in his files was taken up by news clips. There are stories on drug running, on the sale of arms to Iraq, on arms technology transfers. The stories could easily have been contained in a file labeled Major American Scandals, 1950-1991. Interspersed with these

materials was an occasional bit of original poetry or a song lyric fucking love Danny Casolaro March 21st 1991 Michael Ricanashuto comes forward submits an affidavit in the inslaught case claiming he was given a copy of the company's software by Earl Bryan and asked to modify it with that backdoor also claimed that Peter Vident oh my gosh Vydenyx Vydenyks, Vydenyks, Vydenyks, there we go, probably Vydenyks, Peter Vydenyks. A DOJ official called him in February and said, or I guess threatened, that if he cooperated with the congressional inquiry into the scandal, he would be in legal trouble. Part of his affidavit read, I engaged in some software development and modification work in 1983 and 1984 on proprietary

Promise computer software product. The copy of Promise on which I worked came from the US Department of Justice. Earl W. Bryan made it available to me through Wackenhut, a security company with close FBI and CIA connections, after acquiring it from Peter Widenichs, who was then a Department of Justice contracting official with the responsibility for Promise Software. I performed the modifications to Promise in Indio, California, Silver Springs, Maryland, and Miami, Florida. Lawyers for Earl Bryan and Peter Videniks will deny his allegations, which is exactly what they would do if the allegations were false. That's also exactly what they

would do if the allegations were true. Eight days later, March 29th, 1991, Michael Ricanoshuto was arrested by the DEA in Tinasket, Washington and charged with distributing methamphetamine and methadone. Fucking meth! And methadone. This dude was like a real-life Walter White combined with some over-the-top spy thriller character. Mike was arrested with two local men who had just sold him computer equipment. They were quote known drug users. After

his arrest Mike called Danny Casalero told him that he had three tape recordings of this threatening conversation with Peter Vitniks on his person. He claimed two of them were confiscated according to the Washington Post. In the Netflix docu-series the team discusses Mike's tapes. Mike said he threw at least one of the tapes over a bank and that he wanted Danny to go find it. Danny spoke to his brother Tony about this, told him he suspected the drug charges were fake, a cover for something else. They were framing him. Danny flew out to Seattle to find the missing tape. Mike called him, gave some cryptic directions. Why was he cryptic? Maybe because he was fucking

with Danny or possibly, I think maybe more likely, he was worried that government officials were listing in on their conversations. By the end of the week, it seemed like Danny had searched much of the entire Puget Sound area, and he no longer believed Mike was telling the truth when he couldn't find the tape. He met him in jail, told him he didn't think the tape ever existed, and that pissed Mike off, and Mike would withdraw from him after this. Rekonoshuta was later sentenced to 30 years in prison. Before these two essentially parted ways, Mike had drawn Danny into another deep conspiracy.

To discuss this new tentacle of the octopus, we'll have to go back in time once again to the early 80s. But before we do that, I'm going to take today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Now let's head back to the early 80s. Learn more about mystery man Mike Ricanashuto and another tentacle of the octopus. Back in the early 1980s, Mike Ricanashuto was working as the research director of a weapons design project for the U.S. military at the Cabezon tribal reservation near Indio, California. Mike claimed that he worked on some of the modifications to the Promise Software at the Cabezon reservation. Indio is located in California's Coachella Valley.

Still have never gone to that Coachella music festival and I am annoyed by that. Cabezon band Mission Indians owns one of two casinos in the area. Mike explained to Danny that the reservation is classified as sovereign territory, meaning there are issues with law enforcement jurisdiction. And that made it the perfect place for covert government operations. Mike claimed he was working with the Wacken Hut Corporation, a big private security company. Wacken Hut has since been renamed G4S Secure Solutions. It's an American and British based security company and a subsidiary of the big international security company G4S Global. According to the October, excuse me, Octopus Murders Team, Wacken Hut was in charge of top

secret operations involving nuclear plants and also Area 51. Board members are associated with the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI. Wackenhut founded in 1954 in Florida by George Wackenhut and three partners who were all former FBI agents. Group 4 Falk, a Danish corporation, would purchase the company in 2002 for 570 million dollars. Man, some people got a big payday there. Wackenhut yet another tentacle of the octopus uncovered by Danny Castellero. And Mike introduced Danny to a new character in his conspiracy world who was connected to Wackenhut, Dr. John Philip Nichols. Nichols was born in Racine, Wisconsin in 1924. He's described as an economist, social worker, a planning

consultant, planned and evaluated health services for public and private institutions, also American Indian tribes, also research and design management systems in the US and abroad. Nichols made and maintained a lot of connections with a lot of powerful people. According to that David Corn piece for the nation I mentioned earlier, people who have met Nichols describe him as a James Bond type, Clark Gable handsome, mysterious, proficient with guns, and a constant traveler who jets all over the world trading arms and other products. At the time of publication, Nichols was running Meridian International Logistics, a California-based company that conducted medical research, marketed earth removal systems, and also owned the Meridian Arms

Corporation. Nichols and Mike Reconnaciuto had a business relationship because of the Wackenhut Cabezon venture. Many years later during his interview for the Octopus Murderers docu-series, Mike said he had known John Nichols for years through connections with family friends. He claimed he knew George Wackenhut his father did lobbying in DC for intelligence agencies. Mike just keeps getting more mysterious. Nichols and Rakanoshuto were expected to develop pesticides, fertilizer, and weapons at the reservation. And maybe a fucking time machine. Maybe a teleportation device or a ray gun. Who knows with these characters? Nichols company was originally formed in the 70s to develop a submachine gun that could be produced for less than $50 a pop in developing

nations in Asia to help America's Cold War efforts there. But the State Department chose not to export the technology. Nichols and Mike had hoped to start production of the weapon in Australia in 1983. In 1984 Nichols wrote in a letter that they were trying to create enhanced gaseous fuel devices explosives that would produce an electromagnetic pulse that could wipe out an enemy's communication systems but then the two men would have a falling out in 1984 they would end their relationship I hope their falling out was over like the nerdiest shit ever like which one of them lieutenant Uhura would sleep with if she met both of them at the same time

that's what kept them from actually inventing a time machine or curing Like which one of them, Lieutenant Uhura, would sleep with if she met both of them at the same time. And that's what kept them from actually inventing a time machine or curing cancer or something. Dr. Nicholson Bobby Moses Nichols spoke to journalist Christian Not Chris Hansen for the Netflix docu-series, the Octo-Octopus Murders. God, every time I see fucking Octo- My brain just immediately is like, Ah, October! I said October! No fucking brain! It's octopus, you fucking moron! Anyway, uh, he described his dad as an agent of social change. He said they frequently moved all over the US and abroad and his dad worked many different jobs. He said he wasn't sure which organization was sending his dad to all these locations because he was very secretive.

Eventually Nichols was sent to California to start working with the Cabazon tribe. When Nichols arrived in June of 1978, the tribe's finances were suffering, they were living in poverty, and there were only 26 registered members of the tribe still alive. Damn. Nichols and tribal leaders signed a development contract called Cabezon Tenure Reorganization Program. According to tribe member Linda Streeter, Nichols talked about residents earning 10 grand a week in tax-free income. He's gonna make them all wealthy, discuss building a hotel, casino, airport, golf course, condos, all kinds of shit. Phillips said that because the reservation was sovereign territory, they could start selling cigarettes without taxes right away. And they would do that.

Reservation Smoke Shop was up and running in 1979, making lots of money. 1980 Nichols discussed building a big old complex on the reservation, started by opening up one of the very first tribal casinos in the entire country. Pretty soon, there were allegations that the casino was connected to organized crime. Residents started noticing that the casino was making money but the tribe wasn't receiving shit. Nichols tried to reassure them,

it's gonna take a little time before they start seeing, you know, payments. They gotta pay for the construction of the casino. Still, tribe members started to question his motives. Did he really wanna help them or was he just taking advantage of them, using their land special privileges associated with it for his own financial gain? Fred Alvarez, the head of security and a member of the tribal council was vocal about his suspicions.

He thought Nichols was stealing their money and he went to attorney Stephen Rios and asked how they could kick him the fuck off the reservation. The attorney told him that they would need hard evidence that Nichols was embezzling. To get that evidence, Fred snuck into the tribal office and stole some files. And he claimed that what he found was proof of so much more than embezzlement. It was information he never could have dreamed of finding. He said he discovered that Nichols was working with Wackenhut, right, one of the world's largest security companies at the time, and that the files indicated that Nichols wanted to manufacture chemical and biological weapons on the reservation. Well, Fred called attorney Stephen Rios again, letting him know that he found all kinds of incriminating evidence against John Nichols.

He also talked to the Indio Daily News about his suspicions. He set up an appointment to bring the files to Rios, but that meeting would never happen. On July 1, 1981, Joe Benitez, a former Cabezon chief, Fred's friend, Bill Calloway, they go to his home, to Fred's home to pick Fred up, take him to his appointment with his lawyer. But instead of seeing Fred walk out the front door, hop in the car, they stumbled across a crime scene that shook them to their core. Nobody was in's home but the dead bodies of 32 year old Fred 41 year old Ralph Boger and 44 year old Patricia Castro were in his backyard the three friends were sitting in chairs they've been shot execution style in their heads with a 357 Magnum at close range

I know I know I'm hitting that button a lot, but it does fucking fit Fuck is going on this story This feels more like a movie a movie. I'd actually really like to watch than a real life Detectives believe the killer was somebody Fred knew and trusted That's how he's able to get everybody sitting down there I guess Fred sister Linda's sister Linda Streeter came to the scene, immediately told the police to look into John Philip Nichols. The tribe issued a statement after the murders, which was published by the Desert Sun, a paper for Palm Springs, and it said, quote, we are in possession of certain evidence which we

have already turned over to the county sheriff's office, which indicates that the murders may have been attributable to personal relationships between the victims and other persons unconnected in any way with the Cabezon Band. An investigation of the murders was shut down quickly though and the case went cold. Super suspicious. The tribe of course suspected, strongly suspected, a cover-up. Bob Fry, the president of Wacken Hut at the time, was recorded as saying, when Alvarez got bumped off, John had called. He said this helps our cause from the standpoint We don't have to worry about Fred trying to cause dissent within the tribe now So that doesn't look good Nichols and Wackenhut started working with Michael Ricanashuto after these murders

Wackenhut wanted to work with Mike because of his unique mind and ideas and super cool ability to make fucking underwater LSD Kind of bumped. I don't know how to make L underwater LSD, kind of bummed. I don't know how to make LSD or an underground lab by the way. I would just feel so fucking cool if I could do that. Nichols was recorded saying that Mike was working on devices like night vision goggles and power packs. Of course he was.

He's like a fucking, he's like a superhero movie villain or something. Residents noticed that just two months after the murders, there were a whole bunch of important looking people coming onto the reservation to watch weapons demonstrations now with John and his posse. Earl Bryan again. That alleged conspirator in the theft of Innslaw software he showed up at one of these demonstrations. He's all over the place. In September of 1981, according to Indio police records, how much shit was Earl Bryan connected to? Another individual who was there was Jimmy Hughes, a mall security guard who had become head of security

for the casino, and Michael said, this was like a real dog and pony show. Jimmy Hughes and I showed up in a station wagon loaded with fully automatic weapons. Additionally, there were two contra generals from Nicaragua at this demonstration. As part of his business operations, John Philip Nichols wanted to manufacture weapons

to sell to the Contras. With this claim, Mike Reconosciuto was connecting the octopus conspiracy to the Iran-Contra affair now. To explain that, according to History.com, the Iran-Contra affair was a secret U.S. arms deal that traded missiles and other arms to free some Americans held hostage by terrorists in Lebanon, but also used funds from the arms deal to secretly support armed conflict in Nicaragua. The controversial deal and the ensuing political scandal threatened to bring down the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In 1982 Republicans lost the majority in the Senate and the House

after midterm elections and this of course complicated Reagan's agenda. He promised to help anti-communist insurgencies around the world. This was called the Reagan Doctrine. But then the Democrats passed the Boland Amendment which restricted the activities of the CIA and Department of Defense in foreign conflicts. The amendment was aimed at Nicaragua where the anti-communist contras were fighting the Santinista National Liberation Front. That party was named after Augusto Cesar Sandino National Liberation Front. That party was named after Augusto Caesar Sandino, who led Nicaraguans against the US in the 1930s. The Santinistas overthrew dictator Anastasio Excuse me, Anastasio Somoza during the 1979 revolution and established a new government that controlled the country until 1990.

Congress did not want the US to help the Contras because most of their funding came from the cocaine trade. I want to listen to that fucking Simon Rex song again. Dirt nasty. However, Reagan told National Security Administration advisor Robert McFarland to find a way to help the Contras no matter what. Who gives a fuck? They make coke money. They're anti-communists and pro working with America and thus they will make US corporations a lot of money. I mean help with freedom or something. While I do think the U.S. is on the right side of the Cold War because I do believe capitalism is a better economic system than communism. I also think the U.S. making money money money in foreign lands has probably been a bigger factor when it comes to the CIA toppling regimes in foreign lands and installing puppet governments than the spread of democracy.

CIA toppling regimes in foreign lands and installing puppet governments, then the spread of democracy. There is some truth, I think, to that first Timothy biblical lesson of, for the love of money is the root of all evil. Maybe not the root of all of it, but almost certainly the root of most of it. At the same time as a bunch of fighting in Nicaragua is happening, Iraq and Iran, they're in conflict in the Middle East. Iranian terrorists are holding seven Americans hostage in Lebanon. Reagan orders his advisors to find a way to bring these hostages home.

Just figure it the fuck out. 1985, McFarland tells Reagan that Iran has approached the US about purchasing weapons for a war against Iraq. But the US has a trade embargo with Iran dating back to that Iran hostage crisis in late 1979, which I summarized earlier, so we're not supposed to sell shit to them. Several members of Reagan's administration oppose a decision to make a deal with Iran,

including Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, but McFarland argues that the arms deal will secure the release of the hostages and help the U.S. improve relations with Lebanon, and the arms deal will also secure funds funds and that the CIA will then secretly illegally funnel to the Contras in Nicaragua. With the support of McFarland and CIA Director William Casey, Reagan signs off on this sale. In 1986, the Lebanese paper Al-Shira reports on this deal. By that time, 1,500 missiles had been sold to Iran for $30 million. Three of seven hostages are released, but the terrorists take three more Americans hostage.

Reagan initially denies negotiating with Iran or the terrorists, but retracts his statement a week later. Attorney General Edwin Meese, who he met earlier, another guy allegedly associated with the fucking InSlaw scandal, launched an investigation, finds that $18 million of the $30 million is unaccounted for. Where did it go? Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North from the National Security Council acknowledges that he diverted the missing funds to the Contras in Nicaragua and that he did so with the full knowledge of NSA advisor John Poindexter and finally that he strongly assumed Ronald Reagan was aware of all of this. Reagan appointed Senator John Tower now to lead an investigation into his administration's involvement with the scandal.

A move many felt was Reagan covering his tracks, throwing underlings under the bus. The Tower Commission concluded that Reagan's lack of oversight allowed the diversion of funds. He just, you know, should have been paying more attention. He didn't know about anything. No, not at all. And many felt this finding was the conclusion that Reagan's people told the Tower Commission to arrive at. In 1997, numerous high-ranking government officials, including Reagan himself, testified before the Commission in nationally televised hearings. I remember watching some of these hearings on the news with my grandpa Ward, Pop Award trusted politicians in general, about as much as I do.

I don't remember exactly what he shook his head at, what he laughed at, but I do remember him shaking his head and laughing a lot. I remember him thinking that the Reagan administration made Oliver North their fall guy. Independent counsel Lawrence Walsh launched an eight-year investigation into the Iran-Contra affair. 14 people will be charged including Oliver North, John Poindexter, Robert McFarland, Reagan though never charged. McFarland charged with four counts of withholding information from Congress, sentenced to two years probation, $20,000 in fines.

North charged with 12 counts of conspiracy and making false statements, convicted. Then his case is dismissed on appeal. Poindexter indicted on seven felonies, found guilty of four charges, sentenced to two years in prison, but then convictions are later vacated. Four CIA officers, five government contractors, also prosecuted, all found guilty of charges

ranging from conspiracy to perjury to fraud, but only a private contractor named Thomas Kleins will serve prison time. Fucking Tom, thrown under the bus, the private contractor of course. Government officials do all this shady shit and they almost fucking never pay for it. Even when high ranking government officials get convicted, they rarely will ever spend a day in jail. There are for sure two justice systems in America, one for the rich, the powerful, the big time politicians and another for the rest of us schmucks. Just six months after the execution of Fred Alvarez

and his two friends in Fred's backyard, Mike Ricanashuto's associate, Paul Murasca, is now executed in San Francisco. Murasca was the, quote, money trader amongst the Cabezon associates. He had offshore accounts allegedly worth more than a billion dollars. Here's how his body was found. January 14th, 1982, an attorney in Los Angeles calls homicide

investigator Eddie Erdelatz with a concerning report. His client tells him that if the police go to a specific address on Kearney Street, they will find a dead body. Erdelatz does go to that address and he finds Paul Marasca dead in his apartment and not only dead, he's been bound and tortured before his death. His wrists were bound behind his back with a wire running from his neck to his ankles. He was strangled when he could no longer keep his legs bent. When questioned, the attorney revealed that his client was Mike Ricanashuto and he said that Mike originally found the body and panicked. Drove through the night from San Francisco to the Cabezon Indian Reservation. Mike explained how he was working with John Philip Nichols at the

reservation and Detective Erdelatz traveled to Cabezon to speak to Nichols February 16th, 1982. Nichols was asked if he was in business with Paul Moroska and Mike Reconnaciuto. He said he worked for Wacken Hut and that Mike was recruited to work for Wacken Hut as well because he was an inventive genius. He said that he and Mike were working together to develop weapons for the government, secret weapons, and that Paul Moraska had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into their operation. The San Francisco police were left wondering if Moraska's death was connected to a government operation they were not aware of. They contacted the FBI

who tell them that as far as they knew it was not but they also said if the CIA was involved they wouldn't know anything. Detective Eddie Erlatz or Erlatz now talks to Paul Morasky's girlfriend who said that Paul feared for his life in his final day. She said Paul was terrified of a man named Jason Smith who was allegedly a CIA hitman. Erlatz goes back to the FBI to ask about Jason and an agent tells him that, yeah, they know this guy and, yep, he is a hitman. They said that Jason, whose real name was Philip Arthur Thompson, was one of their informants. Thompson had a long violent criminal record that

included robbery, kidnapping, rape, murder, and attempted murder. And for unexplained reasons, he served very little time for any of these crimes. According to Mike Ricanashuto, Thompson committed murders for the FBI and the CIA. And that was why he was so lightly punished whenever he was caught for violent crimes he seems to have committed, you know, just for funsies. Mike claimed he asked John Philip Nichols and Wacken Hunt officials about Thompson and was told he could trust him. However, according to Detective Erdelatz, the FBI introduced Thompson into an investigation of Paul Morasca and Mike Riconosciuto.

The two men were dealing with millions of dollars in the manufacture of meth. It was a major drug operation with banks in the Bahamas and Switzerland. Mike's father reportedly hired Thompson and paid him a monthly salary to look after Mike to protect him. But then Mike came to believe

that Nichols directed Philip Thompson to kill Paul Morasca. Years later, Michael told Christian Hansen, the journalist who is not named Chris Hansen, who will pick up Denny Casolaro's investigation into the octopus conspiracy, oh, I had to fight that October again, long after Denny's death, that there were dozens of murders in California committed by Philip Arthur Thompson. Hansen looked through newspaper databases, found a string of murders where Thompson was a suspect, which seemed to verify Mike's claim. This guy was a killer.

1991 now, Detective Erdelatz receives a call from Danny Castellero, who had been looking into Paul's death. Danny had decided to start his big expose with about the October, or goddamn it, octopus conspiracy with Paul Muraski's murder, which he called the Link. Detective Erdelatz was able to interview Thompson, who confirmed he knew John Philip Nichols. When asked about his relationship with Nichols, he said you'd have to ask him that. Very cryptic. As we know now, Paul Murasca had access to a lot of money, potentially over a billion dollars. The Campazon Casino filed for bankruptcy in December of 1981, a month before Paul was killed.

Christian, not Chris Hansen, theorized that the key players in the Cabezon operation, Mike Ricanichuto's father, Marshall, John Philip Nichols, Philip Thompson, they wanted Paul's drugs and money. After his death, his Swiss bank account was drained and his drugs disappeared. Mike said that he left Cabezon in a hurry after Paul was killed because he feared he would be killed next. He went to a man named Robert Booth Nichols, no relation to John Philip Nichols. Mike called Robert Nichols the key to Danny's octopus theory, but he also repeatedly warned Danny to never talk to this man. So mysterious. And I know there's a lot of shit going on in this story. There's a lot of names.

You don't have to remember who's who. Getting the gist of this will be enough. Now let's meet this new tentacle. Robert Booth Nichols dropped out of college in the early 1960s, worked as a salesman for a security alarm company, and was recruited by, quote, parties that claimed to be with or stated that they were with US intelligence. I like that phrasing. Did I work for a US intelligence agency? I don't know. I just

know that the dudes who paid me said they were with US intelligence. He was given assignments related to domestic security and international relations and was promised immunity from federal prosecution for whatever he would be needed to do. Also was told he did not have to pay taxes on his income unless otherwise ordered because it could give away his position. Robert Nichols would become associated with various powerful mob figures including the infamous John Gotti. Robert opened a bank account in Singapore in 1977. He was a member of the first Intercontinental Development Company's board of directors from the

1970s to the early 80s and FIDCO was very secretive. It is referred to as a consulting and engineering firm that focused on international projects but what projects? No one seems to know what these fuckers did. A lot of people seem to think it's a shell company used to launder money maybe. Today FIDCO most often appears in discussions related to the Inslaw affair, part of allegations of government front companies involved in secretive, nefarious overseas operations. In 1978 the FBI looked into investigating Nichols on suspicion of money laundering,

but then they dropped their investigation when they learned he was a drug syndicate runner in Hawaii and was a liaison between organized crime and U.S. intelligence officials. He established Pacific Rim Services in Hawaii in 1992. And what did PRS do? Who the fuck knows? Another bullshit company. An odd random fact about Nichols is that he played a very small role as Colonel Sarnak in the 1992 Steven Seagal movie Under Siege. Back before Seagal completely lost his mind. Is Seagal also connected to the fucking octopus? I don't think so. I so badly wanted to play a cheesy Steven Seagal clip for you, but it doesn't translate on just audio.

You gotta have video with Seagal to get the full Steven Seagal experience. And it is an experience. I lost a good half hour in a Seagal wormhole at this point in the story. Robert Nichols was only cast in Seagal's film because he was already on set hired as a technical advisor who helped accurately design the missile control room on the battleship. How did he know what a fucking battleship missile control room looked like? These guys are involved in so much shit. 1992, Nichols name is mentioned in a House Judiciary Committee report on misconduct in the DOJ during the Reagan era. Also linked to the business venture at Cabazon, of course,

on the reservation there. It was said that he dealt with the manufacture of machine guns that were supposed to be sold to the Contras in Nicaragua. The House Judiciary Committee report also noted that Nichols had quote frequent contact with Danny Casalero before he died. Nichols acknowledged to the committee that he spoke to Danny often but would not give a sworn statement as to what they spoke about. 1993 Robert Booth Nichols sought damages from the LAPD, this will go somewhere, for ruining a multi-million dollar deal. He claimed he was going to sell a handgun or excuse me a handheld machine gun to foreign governments

And he accused the LAPD of false arrest to interfere with this deal and was seeking millions of damages Nichols was arrested at the Palomino in North Hollywood in 1986 He and his brother-in-law James Hopko at the club after meeting on the production of the machine gun Drinking at the bar when LAPD officers responded to a disturbance complaint and arrested him. He was carrying a concealed weapons permit but was disarmed and taken to the station. Nichols claimed officers threatened to shoot him during transport when he insisted his permit was valid. He was released from custody after several hours, never charged, but then his permit was revoked by Santa Clara County officials and he claimed that the loss of his permit led to a loss of financing for his firm Meridian Arms Corporation to manufacture that machine gun in South Korea. And why did they bring

all that up? Because Nichols lawsuit drew him out of hiding, put him on the witness stand for the first time, and he ended up testifying that he spent almost two decades working for the CIA in over 30 different countries. He presented letters written on White House stationery, photos of himself with various important foreign dignitaries as evidence. Nichols said he had no visible income outside of payments for his living expenses, which he received from the CIA. He testified he was first approached by a CIA officer while living in Hawaii back in the 60s.

A man named Ken told him that there were other ways to serve his country besides joining the military. His first assignment was locating a foreign woman in Honolulu. After he did that, he got a job with a security firm, later moved to Glendale just outside of LA to operate a construction company. It was probably a front. After that, all covert operations that seemed to primarily revolve around arms sales. He said he also participated in gathering information from all over the world until 1986. The LA Times reported that the weapon at the center of Nichols' lawsuit, called G77, was developed in 1997, or developed in 1977,

for use by U.S. allies as an economical method of responding to Soviet efforts at arming their various insurgent clients. So some Cold War shit. Nichols demonstrated the weapon in the Philippines in 1977 and demonstrated again in the early 80s at the Cabezon Indian Reservation. Cabezon leaders who were in a joint venture with Wackenhut proposed to manufacture the gun for shipment to the Contras. But the deal fell through because the state department's written approvals for export could not be obtained. Tony Castellero, Danny's brother, said that Danny knew he was talking with a dangerous person when he spoke with Nichols.

But Danny believed Nichols was crucial to the, oh my God, octopus story. That's crazy, every time my brain's like, say October, just please say it again. I know it's gonna make you mad. When he and Danny met in 1991, Nichols was reportedly telling people he worked for the DOJ,

but his friends said he worked for the NSA He was allegedly all also part of a front corporation created by the National Security Council to work in Lebanon God man, so many fucking just secret companies bullshit companies. Oh They're just you know obscuring what these guys are really doing. Which agency do you work for? I don't know Maybe the CIA maybe NSA Nichols told Denny he was going to show him all of these secret operations he was involved in. When Nichols traveled to DC, Washington DC for a three-day stopover, Danny picked him up. They had a meeting at the Four Seasons. They went out to dinner and drinks for the next three nights.

Nichols would get more talkative as the night would wear on. He would ask Danny not to take notes, but the journalists would be sneaky and write on cocktail napkins when Robert would have to use the bathroom, and then he'd stuff those into his pockets. Nichols told him that the Cabezon business venture was not an isolated operation, that there were more operations like it, and one of them involved the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Nichols was recorded saying that everything was connected by a rogue intelligence network that goes back decades.

At one point, Nichols allegedly told Danny after some drinks, I wish you weren't a writer. You know too much. Now you're going to have to die. It's just crazy, right? Am I crazy to think that all of this feels very plausible? Thomas Gates, an FBI agent, was another one of Danny's octopus sources. I got it right that time.

And Danny spoke to Gates about Robert Booth Nichols. He wanted to know if the man was really dangerous and Agent Gates allegedly warned him that Nichols once had a contract to kill Agent Gates himself, and he allegedly said about Nichols, I will kill him when he least expects it. Okay, spy versus spy! Agent Gates considered Danny a good source of information for the FBI and as long as he was comfortable continuing his investigation into the DOJ and CIA, not the FBI, there was no reason to stop him from pursuing his leads. Additionally, Inslaw founder Bill Hamilton, he's back again. He suggested that Danny investigate Michael Abel, the director of the criminal division of the

Office of International Affairs during the Reagan administration. Mike Reconnaciuto had asked Hamilton to find out what happened when Abel tried to extradite Gilberto Rodriguez, leader of the Cali Cartel in Colombia. Mike claimed he was present when Robert Booth Nichols and Abel, sometimes spelled in sources Abel, had a meeting in a restaurant. Nichols allegedly gave Abel $50,000 so he would not extradite Cali leaders into the US. Abel would be arrested in 1995 for laundering money for the Cali cartel. Danny told people he was going to reach out to Robert Nichols and see what he had to say about all that shit. Danny's July 1991 phone bill shows he did speak to Nichols 15 separate times. All these conversations, all of these contacts, all this research led Danny to identify a list of powerful men who made up who he called the octopus.

And those individuals were Ray Klein, former deputy director for the CIA, Richard Dick Helms, fucking Dick Helmet, director of the CIA in the 1970s. Helms was known for his destruction of the MK-ULTRA files. We cover that CIA secret project on Time Suck way back on August 25th, 2017. So fascinating. Still one of my favorite episodes. Changed the way I look at the CIA and just the US government in general. Howard Hunt, a CIA operative involved in the Watergate scandal. Another one of the tentacles.

We examined Watergate back on August 21st, 2023. George Pender, who is in business with Robert Booth Nichols during secret operations in Lebanon. Ted Shackley, a CIA operative involved in the secret bombing of Laos and the Iran Contra affair. Tom Clines, another CIA operative who served prison time because of his involvement in the Iran Contra affair. John Philip Nichols, who we met earlier in this timeline. President George Bush and his father, President George H.W. Bush. A dude who was briefly the director of the CIA. And finally, Banzai Bob, a complete fucking maniac who's been trying to make a fortune selling tiny ass Banzai fruit trees

through his shit show of a business, Bob's Battle Banzai Fruit.Biz. What the fuck is he going to take to move some of his tiny ass Banzai fruit trees through a shit show of a business Bob's battle Bonsai fruit dot biz The fuck is gonna take to move some of his tiny ass Bonsai fruit trees. He's not gluing twigs together god damn He's making tiny trees. Take a second fruit. No Bob wasn't involved. Nope, not Bonsai Bob that I'm aware of According to the octopus theory some of the individuals on this list like Ray Klein first joined forces back in the 1950s brought together by spy networks established during World War II. And they ended up having enormous influence over both world governments and organized crime syndicates all around the world. This is fascinating. Probably need to hit this button again. In the 1960s and 70s this group, a type of Illuminati I can actually believe exists, gained a lot of momentum, a lot of power in Laos, Australia, Angola, Rhodesia, Iran,

Nicaragua, and then they would become even more powerful going forward in additional countries. Does this group, composed of newer younger members, still exist? Some kind of real-life version of the X-Files smoking man in the syndicate, but maybe without the aliens. What are they up to now? Towards the end of his life, Danny Casalero was making lots of late-night phone calls to various sources about all this shit. He was well aware that his work was dangerous, very dangerous. Alan Standorf, one of his associates, was killed in January of 1991 by a blow to the head while sitting in his car from an unknown assailant who was never caught Was he assassinated? Seems like it

Standorf worked at a secret military listing post in Virginia and was allegedly providing Danny with classified information at the time of his death Over a year earlier March 31st 1990 the body of British journalist Jonathan Moyle was found hanging in a closet of a hotel room in Santiago Chile Danny and Moyle were pursuing different leads, but their investigations involved a lot of the same people. Moyle's family also did not believe he died of suicide. Based on his research, Danny thought that the conspirators in the Inzla affair arranged for the Promise software

to be sold to Iraqi intelligence through an arms broker in Chile. And Moyle was in Chile looking into weapon sales to Iraq by the same arms broker. There were allegations that the broker was buying American-made civilian helicopters to outfit them as attack copters for Iraq. In early 1991, Danny submitted a book proposal about his investigation. He met editor Roger Donald about six to nine months before he died based on Donald's estimation. Danny's book proposal promised to deliver quote, by the end of this year, the most explosive investigative story of

the 20th century. This story is about a handful of people who have been able to successfully exploit the secret empires of espionage networks, big oil and organized crime. This octopus spans the globe, no excuse me, this octopus spans the globe to control governmental institutions in the United States and abroad. Roger Donald said he thought Danny's book proposal was hyperbolic and very unprofessional. Donald told the Washington Post, I'll tell you this, anybody who killed him over that manuscript made a mistake. This was not a book that was going to be published. Pretty aggressive rejection, but it didn't stop Danny.

He continued researching, talking with Mike Ricanashuto. Through the spring and summer of 91, Ricanashuto introduced him to new sources, new theories like the ones we just discovered or uncovered in the timeline. A couple weeks before he died, Danny called Roger Donald and said, I've really got the whole thing together now. But Donald felt that his revised proposal was still not ready for publication. Donald recalled maybe he was onto something but he sure as hell couldn't express it. Danny's friends and family noticed how much he had changed in the year he'd been researching the octopus story. Changes especially noticeable by the summer of 91 when Danny visited his friend Joe Lane in June. He said, Joe, I'm scared. I've been getting threatening calls. Joe told him he

should quit the story. But Danny said, I can't, Joe. It's too deep. It's bigger than anything I've ever encountered in my life, Joe. This is bigger than anything I've ever dreamed of. Although he's working hard on the story, Danny was not actually making money on it. And he was in serious debt. He wrote a letter to his literary agent that said, in September, I'll be looking into the face of an oncoming train. And he hadn't had any luck with his publishers for over a year now since he didn't seem to want to buy his story when he presented it as a non-fiction conspiracy book. Around July of 91, he considered fictionalizing the story and he seemed optimistic that he would get it published one way or another. Danny last saw his brother Tony on July 20th, visited Tony's house to

celebrate his nephew's third birthday. At the end of the night, 20th, visited Tony's house to celebrate his nephew's third birthday. At the end of the night, the brothers talked in Tony's kitchen. Danny didn't give a lot of details, but he said he was looking into a vast, disturbing conspiracy and the same names kept appearing over and over. He mentioned he'd been receiving strange phone calls and threats, and he warned his brother that if something happened to him in the coming months it wouldn't be an accident. The following month, August of 1991, Danny tells his closest friends and family he is almost ready to reveal the conspiracy involving Inslaugh, October Surprise, the Iran-Contra affair,

and the sudden unusual rise and enclosure of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. of Credit and Commerce International. The BCCI was an international bank founded in 1972 by Pakistani financier Aqa Hassan Abidi who died in 1995. In just a single decade BCCI amassed over 400 branches in 78 countries, accrued assets worth more than 20 billion dollars, quickly became the seventh largest private bank in the world and Denny felt like its rise was funded by you know illegal arm sales and all this nefarious shit these big players they're the ones funding this bank the money can be money can be laundered can't be traced all this later investigation the BCCI found that it was involved in a shit ton of money laundering other

financial crimes and had illegally gained controlling interest in a major American bank BCCI collapsed in July of 91 with liabilities close to 20 billion dollars. Weird 40 billion dollar swing in just a few years. Danny believed that this institution covertly financed again most of the scandals he had been researching. By this point Danny felt like he was in over his head but he was determined to pursue the story into the bitter end. He was planning a trip to meet a source, another source in Martinsburg, West Virginia, about 70 miles from his home in Fairfax.

He wrote that a key source had offered to be his guide and that they would first go to Lexington, Kentucky, then go to the Cabezon Reservation in Indio. After that, they traveled to San Francisco, then Seattle to meet Mike Ricanashuto, then to Santa Monica and Long Beach, California. He thought that his source was then gonna take him overseas to Thailand, Burma, Laos, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, other places in the Middle East, London, to gather even more information.

But how was he gonna pay for all this travel? Danny's friend Ben Mason talked to him about his money problems a few weeks before he died. An article by the Village Voice, a news outlet based in New York City, indicates they met on August 5th. Mason said Danny had normal financial difficulties, but they were nothing dire. Okay.

A few days later, Danny complained that his sleep had been disturbed for three months, though, by threatening phone calls. Next day, a woman named Olga, who was Danny's neighbor and sometimes housekeeper, helped him pack a black leather tote bag for his next trip. She saw Danny put a stack of thick papers into a briefcase. He told her he was going to Martinsburg, West Virginia to meet a source who would provide a missing piece to a story. And that would be the last time that Olga saw him alive. I like the name Olga. Which I knew an Olga. Pretty fun name. In an interview with the Village Voice, Olga said she answered several threatening phone calls at Danny's home that day. One man called at 9 a.m. and said I will cut his body and

throw it to the sharks. Less than an hour later a different man called and said drop dead. During the third call no one spoke but she thought she heard radio music playing. The fourth call was the same. Fifth call was completely silent. A sixth call was the first guy again. Now he said, forget what I said earlier about the sharks, I will cut his body and feed it to barracudas. Seventh call was the fish guy again. Now he allegedly said, never mind what I said about the barracudas, I've changed my mind again. I'm still gonna cut up his body, but I want to feed it to piranhas. An eighth call was that same fucking guy.

Now he said, sorry to keep bothering you, but I changed my mind again. I'm still gonna feed him to piranhas, but I'm not gonna cut up his body. I'm gonna chop it up Which you know isn't exactly the same thing. A ninth call the final call What's that fucking guy one more time? And now he says okay last time I bothered you I promise I don't want to cut or chop him up. I'm really thinking more on it That's a lot of work, and I remembered I have a chainsaw. I'm gonna saw him up. I'm gonna feed him to barracudas I mean piranhas. Yeah No, definitely piranhas. Thanks for hearing me out. Let me kind of workshop this Obviously, I made up those last few calls, but the other calls were real and I do love the idea of an indecisive hitman

Feeling like he really has to honestly convey how he's gonna kill somebody and also he feels apologetic for bothering people You know for not making up his mind earlier. Danny Casalero left home to travel to Martinsburg August 8th, 1991. He brought all his notes, important documents with him in his briefcase. He checked into room 517 of the Sheraton Hotel, which is no longer in operation. It's possible that Sheraton has since been converted into a Hampton Inn for anyone familiar with the Martinsburg area. He was supposed to be meeting with a source who would help him complete his investigation. He called that person the head of the octopus. It's possible his source was someone associated with one Joseph Cuellar, another fucking mysterious dude who worked in the US intelligence field. Lynn Knowles, a friend of

Danny said in a recorded interview that she and Danny met at a bar one day shortly before he died and Danny noticed a man in a military uniform sitting alone. He struck up a conversation. The dude introduced himself as Joe Cuellar said he had just gotten back from Operation Desert Storm. Two men got to talking. Cuellar said he worked in military intelligence and was familiar with some of Danny's research topics. Cuellar said he thought he could help Danny out. He had a friend within the DOJ who could probably talk to him and Danny thought this would be the proof he needed to finally publish his story. Lynn inserted herself into the conversation, asked Cuellar if he was a military intelligence or CIA. She said he told her it's sometimes hard to tell.

This is a mysterious fucking character who may be involved, likely is involved in Danny's murder. Agent Thomas Gates, I think this fucking guy was uh, nodding. He didn't just happen to be at the bar. I think he was following Danny. Agent Thomas Gates spoke to Danny the night before he left. Danny said Robert Booth Nichols set up a meeting with someone who had information and some damning documents from the IRS. Robert Booth Nichols reportedly had connections within the IRS and there is an IRS computer center in Martinsburg. Mike Riconosciutto recalled that Danny had a source inside the IRS's computer data center who has given him hard copy printouts of IRS information on certain specific targets that Danny was after. Danny told his friend Terry Miller, the one who got him involved in

the world of conspiracy, that he was going to Martinsburg with Joe Cuellar. He'd asked his friend Ben Mason to go with him telling him, I finally figured out who knows where the money went and how the money went to where it's got to go. And I'm going to get some answers. Unfortunately, Mason could not go with him. Or maybe fortunately, maybe Mason would have also ended up dead. Danny was relying on the success of this trip. If he got the info he needed, he truly believed he completed his story.

He titled the octopus and get it published. Danny's brother, Tony, knew about some impending financial deadlines. He was worried about Danny had balloon notes on his house on his house worth more than a hundred grand all do around the same time. A balloon note is along with a period of low payments, then a huge lump sum payment at the end of the term that can really fuck you if you can't come up with the money, Danny had to come up with $5,000 to cover his mortgage and some real estate taxes. He was hoping he could bring his work to a publisher, get in advance to handle his

financial problems. On the afternoon of August 9, 1991, Danny had a meeting with William Turner, former employee of Honeywell, a major defense contractor with high-level connections in the DOJ, CIA, other organizations. Turner said he gave Denny some papers that proved corruption vaguely tied to some of the octopus probe. We know that Denny then went to a bar at Martinsburg Stone Crab Inn, stayed until a little before 5 p.m. He was then seen at Heatherfields, the name of a cocktail lounge at the Sheraton, around 5 p.m. with a man who was quote maybe Arab or Iranian, according to one waitress. 5.30, Danny happened upon a random guest

at the hotel named Mike Looney, who was renting a room next to his. Danny called his mom at 6 p.m., told her he probably was not gonna make it to a family dinner, which was not unusual for him. Danny spoke to this Mike Looney dude again, 8 p.m., told Looney he was going, that he was there to meet an important source,

was going to give him info to solve a big case, and that that source was supposed to arrive at 9 p.m. Then Danny walked away, said he had to make a phone call, he returned a few minutes later, said that his source might have blown him off, and these two men talk until 9.30. A clerk at a local convenience store near the Sheridan saw Danny purchase a cup of coffee after 10 p.m., and that might have been near the Sheridan saw Danny purchase a cup of coffee after 10pm and that might have been the last time anyone saw Danny alive, anyone who was willing to come public with what they saw at least. And before I share details of what happens the next morning, how about I turn the mic

over so to speak to the fucking legend Robert Stack. Let him set this scene from the fifth season of Unsolved Mysteries, episode that originally aired March 10th, 1993, an episode that could have easily gotten Stack killed. On what seemed like an ordinary Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1991, a housekeeper at the Sheraton Hotel opened room 517 for routine cleaning. Nothing could prepare her for what she found inside. God, his voice is good.

Oh, God. Ha, love the synthesizer. Lying in a tub of bloody water was a guest registered to the room. Clearly, the man was dead. The housekeeper discovered the body of Danny Casalero, a 44-year-old investigative journalist

from Fairfax, Virginia. That scream was money. That music takes me back to the 90s in the best way. Now let me share some more details about what Stack just set up for us there. Late in the morning, August 10, 1991, 44-year-old Danny Casalero found dead in the bathtub of room 517 at the Sheraton Hotel.

Eric Weidman, a maintenance worker, received a call from the front desk to go to room 517. He asked what he needed to bring and was allegedly told, Your courage. A housekeeper, like Robert said, had found two bloody towels in the bathroom and it looked like they'd been used to wipe blood off the bathroom floor.

From what we'd been can see, the bathroom scene was gruesome. There were bloody hand prints on the wall, blood smeared on the wallpaper and the countertop, fucking blood everywhere, a tub full of blood. And when he peeked in the crack between the door and the door frame, he saw a body in the tub.

Danny's wrist had been cut 12 separate times, eight on the left hand, or right left wrist, four on the right. One cut was so deep it had severed a tendon. Under Danny's body, the police found an empty beer can, two white plastic trash bags, and a single razor blade. And there was a half empty bottle of wine nearby. A suicide note was found in the room Danny had written, or someone pretending to be Danny had written on a legal pad, To those who I love the most, please forgive me

for the worst possible thing I could have done. Most of all, I'm sorry to my son. I know deep down that God will let me in. Four more razor blades were found inside envelopes. Danny's briefcase, very suspiciously not found in the hotel room. He always kept it with him, was photographed carrying it. Excuse me.

Was not found in his car either. And none of the documents given to him by William Turner would be found. That former employee of the defense contractor Honeywell. That obviously very very suspicious. The Martinsburg police contacted the Fairfax Virginia police who said they would notify the family. The Washington Post reported that the police did not put a filter in the tub to catch any debris, did not save any of the bath water for any sort of testing. Danny's room also thoroughly cleaned by a professional cleaning crew the very next day August 11th,

which would have destroyed any key forensic evidence like the fingerprints of his possible murderer. He was also embalmed the same day without his family's permission, eliminating the possibility of a proper autopsy. Danny's family did not learn about his death until August 12th. Once they did, they immediately demanded an autopsy. That same day, West Virginia authorities said they were exploring the possibility that Danny was victim of murder. They said that medical officials had started an autopsy but the quote premature embalming complicated the procedure. So why the fuck was it done in his interview for the? Octopus god damn it. I

Read it perfectly octopus and my brain was like I see October in his interview for the octopus murders docu-series Danny's brother Tony Casolaro said that he or says he said that they never figured out who ordered the embalming However, the Washington Post reported that the Martinsburg police ordered the embalming after the county coroner ruled the death of suicide. The Martinsburg police said they tried to call the Fairfax police on August 10th about the body, but received no answer. They got the department's number from Danny's driver's license.

Tony Casalero said about his brother's brief suicide note, it was not at all like Danny to write a six word note. He wasn't like that. Maybe a four page letter, but not a note like that. Doesn't add up. By August 13th, there were already rumors that Danny's death was ordered by the CIA and that the local undertaker had been paid off to clean up the crime scene. The police re-examined room 517, which was fucking pointless now, after that

professional cleaning, and spoke to Mike Lo Looney who was renting the adjacent room. He claimed he didn't hear anything strange on the night of August 9th or the morning of August 10th. Danny was buried August 16th towards the end of his service. This is so weird. A highly decorated military officer arrived in a limo. No one recognized him. Walked up, placed a medal on Danny's casket just before it was lowered into the ground,

and then he just walked the fuck away. What was that about? Who's that guy? You feel guilty about something? An investigation into Danny's death was closed soon after the funeral, and that officer remains unidentified to this day. Danny's autopsy report released August 30, 1991. The autopsy confirmed that Danny bled to death from the cuts on his wrists about one to four

hours before he was found, but again, this fucking autopsy confirmed that Danny bled to death from the cuts on his wrists about one to four hours before he was found But again, this fucking autopsy is total bullshit Conducted after he'd already been embalmed after his blood had been drained and replaced with chemical embalming fluid after that fluid had been injected into his organs The report stated that Danny had traces of an antidepressant and a prescription painkiller codeine in his system The police believed Danny drank took some codeine put a plastic bag over his head and cut his wrists. According to Tony Casalero, the autopsy report described a bruise on Danny's arm, a bruise on his head, neither were ever accounted for. And, how weird is this, the tips of three of his fingernails were missing from one hand. What happened there? He tried to fight off somebody who was attacking him?

Tony was told there were no signs of a struggle in the room. Some witnesses in Martinsburg described how Danny was drinking heavily leading up to his death, but the autopsy found no alcohol. Sandra Brining, the Berkeley County Medical Examiner, said that if Danny stopped drinking by the afternoon of the 9th, he would not have had alcohol in his blood by the morning of August 10th, but he didn't have any fucking blood left when he looked into it because the embalming fluid. Also, if he stopped drinking the afternoon, why was that half empty bottle of wine found near his body? Why was an empty beer can found under his body? A bottle of codeine that was prescribed to Danny after a root canal three years prior,

back in 1988, was found in his room. Was that just planted? Did somebody steal it from his place? However, Danny's brother said as far as he knew Danny wasn't using it. Not that he would have known that. Also as far as he knew Danny was never treated for depression Traces of coding found in his body would not have been enough to cause him to lose consciousness While the family highly doubted Danny would choose to end his life. They did acknowledge the suicide You know can be sudden and unpredictable with no explanation however They said that if Danny were going to end his life

He would have never ever cut his wrists and Cl Clank, a friend of Danny's, told the Washington Post he would have jumped off the Empire State Building with firecrackers. Wendy Weaver, an ex-girlfriend of Danny's, said that Danny hated the sight of blood and didn't like to be seen naked. He wouldn't have wanted to die by cutting his wrists and he wouldn't have wanted to be found naked in a bathtub. Everything about his death just felt wrong to everybody who knew him. After Danny died, Mike Ricanashuto, called Danny's brother Tony, told him he believed Robert Booth Nichols basically fucking killed him, was behind everything. Then Robert Nichols called Tony, said he had warned Danny to be careful.

Also told Tony now, you better look out for yourself. And he made sure to mention he was in London when Danny died, unprompted. And an official from the US Attorney General's office allegedly called Tony told him that some of their agents did not believe Danny's death was a suicide, but they had to rely on physical evidence as a primary means of determining cause of death and were going to conclude it was suicide. Months later, January of 1992, Dr. James Frost from the West Virginia State Medical Examiner's Office performed another autopsy.

He declared the manner of death suicide and the cause of death blood loss, with evidence of early stages of multiple sclerosis. But Dr. Frost also said he couldn't rule out the possibility of foul play. He said that Danny had antidepressants, acetaminophen, acetaminophen, acetaminophen, there we go, fuck that word, and alcohol in the system. But there was nothing present in any way that could have incapacitated Casalero so he would have been incapable of struggling against an assailant, let alone sufficient to kill him. Later investigations revealed that the FBI questioned the conclusion of suicide

and recommended further investigation. This finding, quote, was especially significant because even at the time it was understood that to express those views risked one's career. Right? Not playing along. A little over a year after Denny's death a House Judiciary Committee report released in September of 1992 found evidence of serious concerns that officials with the DOJ carefully executed a plan to destroy Inslaw and take the rights to the Promise Software. Back to that now. On September 9, 1992, the House Judiciary Committee also asked the DOJ to appoint an

independent counsel to investigate Danny's death. The committee said in its report that there were numerous problems with the police investigation and local authorities might have ignored tips from an FBI agent on two and two former federal prosecutors. They provided information that Danny might have been in contact with organized crime figures and came across covert intelligence operations before he died. The report said as long as the possibility exists that Danny Castellero died as a result of his investigation in the Innslaugh matter, it is imperative that further investigation be conducted. But was any further investigation conducted?

Or was this all swept under the rug? The following summer, June of 1993, retired federal judge Nicholas Bua, appointed by new U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate the Insla allegations, concluded that the DOJ did not use fraud, trickery, and deceit to steal software from Insla. Huh.

And for so many courts ruled that the DOJ did steal that Huh. And for so many courts ruled the DOJ did steal that shit. After so many high ranking officials said, I know I already went over this earlier in the timeline, but just to reiterate it. After so many high ranking officials said that they stole that shit, suddenly a judge appointed by the head of the DOJ comes to the conclusion that the DOJ not at fault. Weird. No conflict of interest there at all. The new Buell report stated that former Israeli spy Ari Ben-Manashi, who we met, acknowledged that he misled the Hamiltons and falsely stated that he had personal knowledge of the sale of

Promise Software in order to gain publicity for a book he was writing. Who got to Ben-Manashi? Bua also rejected the allegation that Danny Castellero was murdered and found that the physical evidence strongly supported the conclusion of suicide. Was Bua a voice of reason or a fucking puppet paid to help cover up what Danny was investigating? On September 27th, 1994, the Inslaw case officially closed after the DOJ released a final report, including there was no crevital- crevital- Oh my god! Credible evidence! That members of the department conspired to steal Insla's software. Why the fuck was the DOJ allowed to oversee an investigation of

corruption leveled at the DOJ? If you put me in charge of an investigation into me, guess who's not getting convicted of anything? Me! What a fucking joke. The report also affirmed that Danny's death was for sure 100% no doubt about it. Nothing suspicious at all. Suicide. And a whole bunch of people immediately felt that ruling was a bunch of bullshit. But that ruling didn't stop someone else from picking up Danny's torch. His efforts were continued decades later by journalist Christian, not Chris. Stop calling him Chris Hansen. Who's been referenced throughout the timeline. And now this final short section of the timeline will focus on the

aftermath of some of the conspiracies we learned about and what happened to some of Danny's main sources. Christian learned about his case Danny's case by chance when he was going to college back in 2014 said I was writing a paper for class about the private prison industry while researching the history of Wackenhut I found an article in Spy Magazine about Danny Castellero. He was also looking into the Wacken Hut Corporation. I read the article and I was fascinated.

Soon Christian Hansen and his documentary partner Zachary Treatz are talking to Inns Law founder Bill Hamilton about the octopus theory. Hansen learned that Bill Hamilton told Danny about a woman named Norma DeGia DeSiesento, whose husband was supposedly a CIA employee. According to Bill, Norma said that she received information about a senior CIA official that there was another application for the Promise software. So Christian and Zach traveled to South Carolina to talk to Norma. Norma said she used to work for Aetna Insurance, Aetna Center, to a Promise user meeting where she met Bill Hamilton and listened to his story. Now she wanted to see what else she could find out. Claimed that people started

giving her notes with tidbits of info. For example, she learned that the Promise software was used on nuclear submarines in the U.S. and Great Britain. Oddly, she said she was getting a lot of her info from people at her local bowling alley. What the shit? Said she bowled four nights a week for two years, Jesus Christ lady. And put the word out that she was seeking information about the problem of software. I feel like I'm going to suddenly be pivoted into fucking Kingpin or something. She told Hanson and Treats that she also went up to people and asked them what they knew.

However, she said she had no connections to the CIA and that her husband was not a CIA operative. He was an auto mechanic. The researchers now were not sure who was telling the truth. Their trust in Bill Hamilton was a little bit shaken. Bill then issued a statement saying that Norma de Giacento referred to the source as a senior official but never claimed the source was her husband. Wherever the source really was, I believe his info was true and accurate. Christian Hansen, not Chris, would say, what's becoming very obvious to me is that this whole story, like all these people are insane. Hansen will also say though that while he realized his sources were far from perfect and there was a lot of fucking weird people in this mess, he believes Danny really was

uncovering a conspiracy. That while he was not a respected investigative journalist, he was also not a kook. Hanson actually currently trying to get the book Danny was working on when he died published. Says he has received cryptic threatening messages that have scared him as he does so. He has not uncovered a lot of new information that I haven't already shared, but he did uncover something shocking,

I will say for today's fifth takeaway. He's also the guy that made all of Danny's original information like legible, understandable. So where are the key players now? According to LinkedIn, Bill Hamilton, still president of Inslaw, and it is now based in Potomac, Maryland. But what does the company do anymore? Maybe nothing. He was last active on LinkedIn early 2024 when he commented on some post. December 16, 2008, Robert Booth Nichols, possible super shady CIA operative, possible arms dealer, friend of Steven Seagal,

ordered to give a deposition about a Ponzi scheme he was involved in. All these people so fucking shady. Nichols was employed by Sam Israel, a hedge fund manager at the Bayou Hedge Fund Group, founded in 96. In 2008, Israel was sentenced to 20 years in prison, ordered to forfeit 300 million dollars he had stolen from investors. And in July of 2004 Israel had paid Nichols 10 million dollars to find a treasury note worth

250 billion dollars? What the fuck? During his December 2008 deposition Nichols was asked if his main source of income was being employed by people who claimed to be associated with government intelligence. And Nichols said, I was told that this, what is taking place today would not happen to me. I do what I'm told to do. I'm a facilitator. It's a very sensitive matter, very sensitive to this country. And under no circumstance can this reach the public. And you will never ever be bothered by your government ever, period. Okay. When asked what he did he said cryptically achieved objectives that were set out for me. Nichols traveled to Geneva, Switzerland almost

immediately after his deposition where he died of a heart attack a few months later, February 14 2009 and then his remains were very quickly cremated. Was he also killed? Were his contacts worried he was about to talk too much? November of 2007 homicide detective John Powers was assigned to that Fred Alvarez murder case which had ties to the business venture between the Cabezon Indian Reservation and Wacken Hut, John Philip Nichols and Mike Ricanashuto. According to Detective Powers, Fred Alvarez knew someone was after him in the final weeks of his life. His motorcycle had been tampered with, his mailbox had been shot at, and his house had been ransacked before he and his two friends were executed in his backyard.

September 26, 2009, 52-year-old Jimmy Hughes, former tribal security official, was arrested in Miami while trying to board a plane to Honduras and charged with three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy. He was accused of conspiring with three others to commit the murder of Fred Alvarez and his friends. Back in 1984, 27-year-old Hughes went to the police, said he was the payoff guy for the Alvarez murders. In John Nichols presence, he said he was asked to take $25,000 to Idlewild, Idlewild, California and give the money to a man as a partial payment.

Rachel Begley, daughter of victim Ralph Boger, one of Fred's friends who was killed, recorded Hughes with a hidden camera at a 2008 religious conference. She spent years gathering evidence against Hughes and tracking him. In the recording Hughes said Fred Alvarez died in a mafia hit and that the case was a lot bigger than the murder of this guy or that guy. Old John Philip Nichols was listed as a conspirator in the murder but it was too late to charge him with anything. Backing up 60 year old John Philip Nichols had been arrested January 16th, 1985 at a motel where his conversation with some informants was recorded.

He was booked on suspicion of soliciting two police informants to kill between one and four people. So like Fred and his friends. The police were tipped off by a confidential informant who agreed to record the meeting. Indio police captain Carl Kennedy said they were not able to conclusively connect Nichols' murder for hire

to the Fred Alvarez case though, per the LA Times. February 22nd, 1985, Nichols pled no contest to two felony counts of solicitation of murder. Sentenced to four years in state prison and a $5,000 fine would only serve 18 months. John Philip Nichols would die of a heart attack March 17th, 2001 at a hospital in Indio. Meanwhile, Jimmy Hughes left California, founded Jimmy Hughes Ministry in Miami, and later

moved to Honduras. July 1st, 2010, the murder charges against Jimmy Hughes dismissed due to lack of evidence. The charges dismissed without prejudice, meaning they could be filed again at a later date. Mystery man Michael Reconosciutto released from federal prison June 27th 2017. He had served 26 years of his 30-year sentence. And Christian, not fucking Chris, Hanson and Zachary Treats accompanied Mike's cousin Anita Langley to pick him up. Mike was prepared to stay in prison because he feared he would be abducted and murdered upon his release. He said that at his trial the government argued that he had led Danny on a wild goose chase and when Danny couldn't prove his wild claims he became so despondent he died of suicide

and that was considered an aggravating sentencing factor. Mike didn't come to his first parole hearing after his release, was arrested three days later, but then the sentencing judge later strangely terminated Mike's sentence and probation and Mike promptly disappeared. Christian Hansen, not Chris Hansen, and his documentary partner Zach Retreats have been in communication with him allegedly and he is supposedly told him that someday soon he will reveal the full truth of the octopus conspiracy. But as of today's recording, that shit hasn't happened. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely.

Did Danny Casolaro take his own life because of mounting debt and an inability to sell a project to a book publisher he had been working on for over a year? Did he worry that he would never be taken seriously as an investigative journalist? And was the disappointment he felt simply too much for him to bear? Or was Danny Casolaro murdered because he was just about to expose a massive conspiracy involving numerous high-ranking US government officials, the CIA, the DOJ, and even former presidents and their advisors who corrupted intelligence gathering software so they could spy on both enemies and allies, who sold illegal

arms to guerrilla contra forces in Nicaragua, who oversaw the development of secret weapons, called for numerous murders of innocent citizens, and even recklessly endangered hostages in Iran for political gain. What other nefarious tentacles was Danny about to connect to his octopus conspiracy? Who's really pulling the strings

when it comes to America's governmental involvement in international and illegal arms dealing. Who are we spying on, and to what end? Something as noble as national security, or something as deplorable as putting more blood money in the pockets of shadowy forces, not afraid to have anyone who'd look like they might be able to expose them, eliminate it. And if Danny had exposed who and what he had hoped to expose, would anything have really changed? If the tentacles of this octopus would have been cut off

and the octopus destroyed, wouldn't some new octopus arise from the ashes of the previous shadowy, conspiratorial creature and just reach out with more tentacles of its own? Oh, for real now, and just reach out with more tentacles of its own. Oh, for real now, what the fuck did you just listen to? Oh man. I think it was another reminder that power corrupts and that the more power you have,

the more corruption there will be. America, right, a very, very powerful nation. And it makes sense to me that within our most powerful agencies like the CIA, like the DOJ, the White House, there's gonna be a lot of corruption. And I think the story is a reminder that certain conspiracies, conspiracies about high ranking government officials doing a bunch of illegal and shady shit

in order to make a bunch of money by abusing their power are absolutely true. This is the kind of conspiracy that makes sense to me, right? There's a clear motive and the means to pull off what Danny theorized was pulled off. Most shadowy cabal conspiracies lose me because they just take shit way too fucking far. Too many conspiracies can't or don't want to stop it. Yeah, so it turns out that the super rich and the super powerful sometimes abuse their wealth and power to make more money in shady ways Such as toppling foreign governments who won't play ball and provide them with opportunities to make more money

By allowing I don't know like their oil to be drilled for and sold or diamonds to be mined and sold You know people be exploited working in big banana plantations sweatshops making chips for phones computers, etc They just can't stop at sometimes these people you know they do horrible shit. They rape those less powerful than them. They cover it up. That's disgusting. Sometimes, yeah, they kill people. Who might expose them? Sometimes they just kill people who get in their way of making more money. No. Now, they got to employ a bunch of magical thinking. I look to old, often racist stereotypes and propaganda and just preach fucking dumb shit like, it's the Jews. The immortal part lizard kid blood drinking Jews are pulling the strings because they hate our country

and they worship Satan. What? They have to add sci-fi reptilian monsters, liberal Hollywood elites working with Jewish leaders hiding in underground fucking lairs and drinking Adrena Chrome and sacrificing kids kept in cages and satanic rituals. Everyone's wearing cloaks and demons are being invoked.

A bunch of other stuff. They just have to go full batch. What the fuck are you even talking about? You know, Denver Airport level of conspiracy. I don't believe... That's probably what's going on here. I don't believe it's that level of evil. That level of evil has never been proven to be true.

But what has been proven over and over again is that people from any number of cultural, religious, non-religious backgrounds have one thing in common. They fucking love money. And they're willing to do anything to get it. To get that money and what that money brings them. They'll sell intelligence secrets that'll get people killed, innocent people. They'll manufacture and sell weapons to people fighting around the world. Not giving a fuck how many additional people are gonna die because these weapons Not caring who wins the wars that they're profiting off right they just

Care about making a fuckload of cash and it's easier to make that kind of money if you have power and infiltrating the highest ranks of the world's most powerful government is a great way to get that power and Abusing governmental privilege is a great way to use that power to make more of that money and use that money to have big yachts Maybe do dirty Epstein shit on those yachts, etc. No demon invocation spells needed for that. No sacrifices of children Why do so many conspiracies here is you know have to go full fucking X-files? You know if they're content creators, I get it if there's some Alex Jones type, you know, they do it because it gets clicks Pretty transparent to me right make some more ad money more people gonna click on some fucking dumb lizard video than on a video about a bunch of old white dudes who sometimes do some good things but also do some bad things.

Guys who, you know, sometimes do stuff that actively makes the average American citizen safer, but other times, you know, kill innocent people to make some money on the side. That video doesn't have as cool of a storyline. I think people also believe in the more extreme shit because if you truly think that there's some underground cabal of half human half lizard satanists pulling strings from a fucking bunker, you know, then then you can entertain the possibility that God or you know, whatever can can help you find and fight these people. Help you destroy them in some kind of magical fucking Avengers endgame Matrix kind of shit

war, you know. Magical, you know, we can free humanity from being enslaved and then we all get to, I don't know, make enough money to live in beautiful houses, drive new cars, eat all the ice cream we want without getting any extra weight. You know, get the guy or girl we lust after to lust after us. Live to a hundred without ever suffering major health problems and then die peacefully in our sleep or something. And that's a simple beautiful dream. But it's in my opinion definitely just a dream. Right in real life shit is you know complex nuanced. In real life stuff is more like Danny Casallero's octopus conspiracy.

I can absolutely see government officials realizing how they can use intelligence gathering software to be able to access all the intelligence info of over 80 countries to both protect American citizens and also fuck over the citizens of other nations in order to install pro-america puppet regimes, topple anti-american regimes, sell arms to various guerrilla forces overseas, drug cartels, etc. I can see how politicians would do dirty shit to help big oil companies and arm manufacturers make billions. Companies whose owners donate millions and millions to help those politicians get elected. Right? I'll scratch your back.

You scratch mine. I do think Danny Castellero was onto something. I think he actually did connect a lot of dots. And I think one of those dots had him killed before he exposed him. So now let's head to our takeaways where I will share even more evidence that Danny was killed because he did know too much. Number one, Danny Castellera was a freelance writer for many years. He published a novel and a collection of short stories, wrote for a tech publication called Computer Age, and had done some investigative journalism in the past.

In 1990 he decided he wanted to leave Computer Age, go back to journalism, at least while he waited for a more steady job. He was introduced to the Inslaught case, began researching a set of conspiracies that changed the course of his life, and he died on August 10th, 1991. Based on the evidence in his hotel room, the police suspected he died of suicide, but his family and friends and me and Robert stack believe he was murdered because of investigation and maybe Steven Seagal believes that number two, Bill Hamilton, the founder of ends law was Danny's first octopus related contact. Hamilton and his team created an innovative software called promise,

which helped organize cases in massive, in a massive database that can be used by law enforcement and prosecutors. Uh, the department of justice wanted to computerize its case management system, so they hired Inslaught to transition their system using Promise. Within the DOJ, they suddenly stopped paying Hamilton, and those payments were worth millions. Hamilton accused the DOJ of stealing the software, then illegally selling it to foreign nations without his permission. Inslaught was driven into bankruptcy. Hamilton sued the DOJ. They ultimately lost their case, never got justice from the government. Number three, another of Danny's main contacts was Michael Ricanashuto. Ricanashuto,

Marisa Tomei. Ricanashuto, an electronics and computer expert, claimed he worked for the government in various intelligence operations. He seemed to have connections with prominent businessmen, CIA operatives, and top federal officials. Mike told Danny that the DOJ hired him to modify the Promise software with a feature that would allow the U.S. to spy on its enemies and allies alike. He claimed he knew of a secret deal where Earl Bryan, a member of Ronald Reagan's cabinet during his governorship, was allowed to profit off of the sale of Promise because he helped Reagan win the election through his secret deal with Iran, aka the October Surprise Theory.

Number four. Journalist Christian, not Chris Hansen, continued or sought to continue Danny's work, which was documented in the Netflix docu-series the Oct- ha ha ha, the Octopus Murders. In the end, Hansen came no closer to cracking the case than Danny though. And he questioned whether his contacts, including Bill Hamilton and Mike or Connishute though were even telling the truth but he does believe in general you know what Danny was talking about. Number five here's some new info a new witness emerges researchers Christian still not Chris Hanson and Zach Retreats filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the part Martinsburg Police Department to obtain

their files on Danny Castellero and And in the original police records, they found a witness statement from a hotel guest named Mary Leonard who said she saw a man with dark hair entering room 517, Danny's room, at the Sheraton Hotel the night he died. Danny Casalero had blonde hair. On August 15th, she viewed a picture of Danny, said he was definitely not the man she saw in the hallway on the night of August 9th. She and her companion never saw Danny or that man that she saw again. Mary passed away by the time Hansen and Treats made their discovery, but they tracked down her daughter. The researchers noted that Joe Cuellar, Danny's associate with mysterious military connections that he's randomly met at the bar,

supposedly had two alibis for the night of Danny's murder. But maybe not. During the FBI's initial investigation, men of the bar supposedly had two alibis for the night of Danny's murder. But maybe not. During the FBI's initial investigation, this Cuellar fella said he was in Panama, but in an FBI report, agents wrote that he was in Washington, DC, which is just an hour and a half from Martinsburg, meaning it was easily possible he could have traveled there and back. Cuellar also had very dark hair and matched the description in general from Mary Leonard.

Also, why would he lie about Panama if he wasn't involved somehow? Christian, would you fucking please stop calling him Chris? It's a sore spot. Hanson. Talked to his son, Jeff Cuellar, who said, one thing to be careful of is part of my dad and his counterintelligence and what he was capable of. They called it psychological warfare, what he specialized in. That writer could have been getting played. You would never know who was his mark. Part of what his specialty was was able to infiltrate retract information find out what someone potentially knows and what they

don't know. Sounds like Joe Cuellar may have been into torturing people and somebody who tortures people probably also sometimes kills people. Lynn Knowles the woman who was with Danny when he met Joe Cuellar, recalled that the last time she spoke to Joe, she asked him if he knew what happened to Danny, and he told her to stop asking questions. She said he told her, quote, it's strictly business. Do you understand?

It's business. You've got two kids to think about. Go make yourself a cup of hot cocoa and stop asking questions. Danny was fucking murdered. He was murdered because he was about to expose government officials who abused their power to do a bunch of terrible shit. Time Shuck Top 5 Takeaways

The octopus not October murders and conspiracy have been sucked. I know there was a lot of info. Right, but again, I think the gist of what all the info is is what's important, not all the names. Shady fucking players. There's always going to be shady players in the world. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help in making Time Suck. Thanks to Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins, managing our life and business so I can focus so much time on content creation. Thanks to Logan Keith helping to publish this episode, designing merch for the store at badmagicproductions.com. Thank you to Olivia Lee for her research this week. She also brought this topic to my attention. Super fun.

Thanks to the all-seeing eyes. Moderating the cult of the curious private Facebook page. The mod squad making sure discord keeps running smooth. And the peeps over at Time Suck subreddit and the Bad Magic subreddit. And now let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker Updates! Get your Time Sucker updates! This first update seems pretty timely. I just announced a few live stand updates. And because a few weeks ago we talked about poop quite a bit. Yeah, Stinky Fuck, Ryan Chestnut, sent in a disgusting message

with the subject line of poop into the Paramount. And it's glorious. He wrote, Hi Dan, I just finished the latest episode about the history of shit. In the Time Sucker Update section, someone from Denver wrote in and connected a dot for me since I'm from Colorado as well. I have a funny poop story that adjacently involves you. The last time you performed at the Paramount Theater, my girlfriend and I attended. connected a dot for me since I'm from Colorado as well. I have a funny poop story that adjacently involves you. The last time you performed at the Paramount Theater, my girlfriend and I attended. We had such a good plan for the evening.

Down the street from the theater is a place called the Yard House. Oh, yeah, fun chain. They're the only place in Colorado that carries my favorite beer on tap. Bavik Pilsner. They sell beer in three different sizes, large, which is a glass about three feet tall. They call a yard. The plan was simple. We were to get there early, grab a couple yards of beer,

eat fancy dinner, take an edible, then get to the show when the doors open to laugh our asses off. I ate one of the best plates of orange chicken I've ever had. It was absolutely delicious, like suspiciously tasty. So much so that I told my girlfriend while I was eating it, this tastes like I'm going to get diarrhea. But it's so good,'m not gonna stop. As we walk to the doors to the show I start to feel the edibles kick in we hop in line to grab a beer and that's my body cues me in on something my brain knew about an hour ago. It's here. It's time. A bubble in my stomach has left the

station. It's a bullet train heading straight to my ass. I'm panicking on the inside but I'm also stoned so very calmly with a smile on my face I whispered to babe I'm gonna go shit my pants I'll meet you in our seats. Ass cheeks clenched I swiftly start waddling to the bathroom. One misstep could ruin the entire evening. No line for a stall thank God. I'm unbuckling my belt before I even get through the stall door. I'm beginning to shit as my ass hits the seat. The sound that's coming from my body is loud, echoing out of the porcelain and into the audience of men outside the door. I have what feels like liquid sand pouring out of me in a bathroom full of people. I'm so grateful that I made it to the toilet that I began to laugh. It's like I just outran the police or just outran a police chase

or something. I've gotten away with murder I'm so relieved, but that was just the first wave that I survived and now I know a second wave is coming I'm sweaty. It stinks. Everybody knows what's happening in here right now Then I imagine what other people are experiencing and I just start laughing hysterically from the stall What the fuck did people think was happening in there? Like you walk in and some guys just shitting his brains out and laughing like a lunatic The more I laugh the more it squirts out. The more it squirts out, the harder I laugh. It's a vicious cycle that lasts about 30 seconds. And then as suddenly as it began, it was over.

I got back to my seat with all of whatever was upsetting me out of my system and enough time to enjoy the whole show from start to finish. That's how I found out that my ass is the best warm-up comic around. You and the team bring joy to my. That's how I found out that my ass is the best warm up comic around. You and the team bring joy to my life every week, and I can't thank you enough for that. Hopefully this story at least brings you a chuckle. Oh, man, I'm looking forward to learning about whatever you have curated over there for this program this year, and hopefully we get to see you perform again soon.

Sent with love, your stinky sack, Ryan. Ryan, your message brought me much more than chuckle. It brought me some serious laughter the first time I read it. And imagined it. I especially like how you found out that your ass is an amazing warm-up comic. If I heard someone laughing and shitting their brains out in a bathroom stall, I would like to think that I would also laugh. And maybe say stuff like,

Yeah buddy! Get it! Get after that! Don't let that shit horse buck you off cowboy! You stay fucking loose in the saddle and keep riding! That's not the only shit tale we have today. Time now for some real thunder from down under. Ozzy Firefighting Sack, Ged Reeves, has truly seen some shit. I'll let him explain. Greetings, oh lord of Time Suck, and a big how the fuck are ya to the Time Suck crew from Ozzy Sucker.

My name is Ged like Jed After finally catching up on the entire catalog. I was blessed to enjoy the shittiest suck you ever made the history of shit. I Thought you might get enjoyment from the shittiest day of my entire life literally I am a firefighter going on seven and a half years But let me tell you a little story of my first week on the job after finishing initial training We are chilling the station me excited as could be waiting for my first week on the job after finishing initial training. We are chilling in the station, me excited as could be, waiting for my first real job when BAM the tones go off and a job comes in on our pagers. The job description is structure fire, toilet fire. I see the first two words get so

fucking excited because that's what I've done all my training for and start running out to the truck. My crewmates however look at each other with a confused look on their faces. Toilet fire? Anyway, we get to the address. Disappointingly, at least for me, there's no flames or smoke coming from the house. But being an emergency call, we proceed toward the front door. It's locked. Not in a rush.

Due to a lack of evidence of fire, we proceed around the yard and towards the back door. This yard was disgusting, to say the least. Dog turds, burnout couches, rubbish as far as the eye can see. One of our lower class residents, so it seems. As we approach the back door, we can see that it's open and we hear some screaming. Fuck. We're on here, I think to myself. I go in to spot a lovely sight, no poo yet, but a middle-aged woman.

Meth scabs all over her body, a titty hanging out on each side of her singlet in a house that stanches on my dog's butthole. That's quite a visual. My neck is broken, she gave... My neck is broken, she gives her painting. Not knowing what the fuck to do with someone with a broken neck. Yeah, because she doesn't have a broken neck. I turn to my superior. He rushes into her aid. Is there a fire? He asks. Yes, down in the bathroom. She replies. Go now, my superior advises. I put on my breathing apparatus mask with my also relatively new co-worker. We walked down a long hallway towards the bathroom door. I have a fire extinguisher. He has a thermal imaging camera. The door seems cold so we

open it up. Lo and behold is a sight that still haunts me to this day. This is so fucking absurd. A toilet with an obvious lack of water has had poop, toilet paper, poop, toilet paper, poop, toilet paper, poop, etc. etc. stacked higher than the bowl until it's now too high to squat over. I gaze to the corner of the room to see the same. Two more piles of poop, toilet paper, poop, toilet paper, and on and on until they're too high to squat over. Looking up at the walls, I spot some interesting artwork, which has obviously come from a lack of toilet paper at varying points because there are literally shitty handprints wiped across the walls. Like from one side of the room to the other shit as far as the eye can see

I slammed the door shut after throwing up of my mouth a little bit to this day I am so fucking thankful I decided to wear a mask so that I didn't have to smell what happened in there But the eyes cannot unsee a literal mountain of shit multiple mountains in fact a shitty mountain range if you will The story however does not end there. I Head back to my supervisor stepping over warm spots my co-worker has pointed out with the thermal imaging camera that are most likely piss pools. Any fire he asks? No, I reply. My mind casting back like a fucking Vietnam warrior.

There's a fire! The lady screams. There's burn marks on the wall. My superior glances at me. It's poo. It's all just poo. I reply. Turning our attention back to the lady with the broken neck, we ask, are you on anything? At that moment, she stands up, goes to run out the back door, trips over, landing face first onto the concrete patio in the rear, sliding like a cartoon character. Now she's actually hurt. And we have to wait for the ambulance. All the while I'm contemplating if my dream job is actually a dream job or just some shitty nightmare of a job. It's been seven years since that day and I've seen some shit. Both figuratively and literally, but nothing quite like the shit my first week. I do still love my job, poo and all. Some days are fucking tough, but I cannot tell you the amount of times your dark humor has helped me get through some of the toughest jobs. Jobs nobody would ever want to have to go do. So thank you for that and hopefully you enjoyed that

little story. Oh my god, did I ever. Maybe it'll make your day a little more or less shitty. This goes on the air. Say hey to my brother Matt. He loves him some peanut-babada and shout out to all the air, say hey to my brother Matt. He loves him some peanut-babada. And shout out to all the legends at FRV, Fire Rescue Victoria, who go out there every day not knowing how much shit they're gonna have to deal with. Sorry for the long story. Three to five stars wouldn't change a thing. Yours in poop.

Ged. Ged, holy shit, I love that shit. Oh my god. And thank you for what you do. Such an important job God okay, I wonder if you watch the news about LA talking to other firefighters about you know what you might do if you were there God what a literal shit show you witnessed. What a fucking scene. I appreciate all the little details Whoo, that lady was so fucking high. She thought her bathroom was on fire and her neck was broke and neither was true

I can't imagine living like that fucking meth They can turn a human being into a turd goblin just shitting on shit Literally just shitting on piles of shit wiping walls with it. Oh Thank you for that powerful anti meth ad and you did make my day better and now for one more so many other good Proop-related messages came in which makes me so happy And now for one more. So many other good proof-related messages came in, which makes me so happy. But with one T. Let's take a turn into a different kind of life-altering experience and anonymous veteran. Sack writes, Dear Dan, First and foremost thanks. Without your podcast, I would not be alive today. Seriously. To keep a long story short, I've been a first responder

for the better part of 10 years. I've been a member of the National Guard for even longer. And thank you for your service. With two combat deployments and coming back home to deal with an onslaught of different medical problems and trauma on the streets, the years started to weigh on me. Last year, I went through a divorce with which I felt an immense amount of guilt and shame from. In short, I was on the very edge of leaving this earth in my own hands. In the summer last year, I took a long road trip to visit some friends I hadn't seen in a long time.

A 14 hour drive leaves you a lot of time to think. But even more time to listen to your podcasts. I've been a long time listener, but had some catching up to do. I returned home from the trip and then you released episode 392, Let the People Trip. In the episode, you briefly talked about the benefits of psychedelics and the effects it has on mental health. As someone who has struggled for a long time, this appealed to me greatly. Coincidentally, the next week I struck up a conversation with a friend of mine who knew

how to get a hold of some magic mushrooms called Jedi Mindfuck. Oh yeah. A short trip to the most friendly drug dealer I've ever met and a day later I found myself laying in bed experiencing the most emotional night of my life. I took three grams, laughed my ass off at nothing, and bawled my eyes out to anything else for six hours. Needless to say, it was a much needed emotional rollercoaster. Yeah, big release. But I wanted more answers. Cue the next week when a coworker mentioned ketamine therapy.

Being a first responder and ALS provider, I have given ketamine dozens at times to patients with different ailments, but never experienced the drug myself. This conversation led to the next step in my search for more answers. I set me up with a company He went through I set up an appointment to speak to their staff They had me take the PTSD and depression questionnaires that I've taken multiple times out of my career But this time I was actually honest with my answers and when the staff member called back she immediately said oh, yeah You're a candidate for this treatment. So I went to the treatment. I went through four treatments once every Saturday and motherfucker because of you I got taken to space and I don't mean that in a bad way. Truly thank you. My journey with psychedelics

has changed who I am in a very good way. It has allowed me to let go of so many things I was holding on to even stuff I experienced as a kid. My parents even noticed it when I came home for Christmas Christmas for a visit I know you love a good trip story I won't tell you everything that happened with my treatments, but I will leave you with one story the message I gained from it. I was being carried through a city I saw no faces But only the hands that reach for me as a crowd of dozens and dozens of people carried me in a Stokes basket Think of metal rescue basket stretcher

of people carried me in a Stokes basket. Think of metal rescue basket stretcher. They took me to the roof of one of the high rises in town and hooked me up to ropes connected to the sky. Then I slowly drifted away as the hands waved to me. What did they take? I asked. Everything, someone whispered. And I was on another rocket ship through a tunnel

that felt like I was traveling through a cable. As I looked back at where I came from, the shape of the tunnel entrance took on the shape of an ethernet cable plug. This was so profound of an experience to me because I was a young kid when computers and the internet began to blow up. All throughout my adolescent years, I would spend hours on a computer, either playing games or on social media once I got older. This transferred into my adult life and into coping mechanisms for my mental health. I would spend many many hours mindlessly scrolling through Instagram all just to feel something. That experience during my ketamine treatment basically told me I don't need

any of that. I don't need social media. I can let go of it. It no longer controls who I am. I no longer it no longer keeps me trapped in my house for hours on end and you know what? I'm better without it. I know I said I'd keep a long story short, but thanks for listening anyways. Oh, and before I forget, I listened to the Death Angels episode. And during it, you question why John Badberg

and his wife, Richard, and his wife take Richard Haig to the police station rather than to the hospital or call an ambulance. If you didn't know, up until the late seventies, there was not actually any form of standardized care for the U.S. when it came to EMS services. Everyone knows the old story about how we used to use funeral homes for emergency responses. But we also frequently used squad cars, staff with a driver and an attendant to pick up the sick or injured people.

These attendants were typically just first aid certified. And so patients were usually left to die in the back seat while a police officer sped off to a local hospital. So in 1973, when the story of the zebra killings took place, it was probably likely that John and his wife were accustomed to the police acting as a pseudo EMS service or they were just scared, who knows. Anyways, as if you don't need any ideas for a new episode, you should talk about the history of emergency medical services. Kevin Hazard's book, American Sirens, is a great source as he talks in great detail about Freedom House, the first all-black ambulance service, and how Nancy Caroline created the first standard for education of paramedics. Sorry, not sorry for such a long-winded email. Never change a fucking thing. If you decide to air this, please keep me anonymous as I'm active in

both my careers still. Thank you. Keep on sucking. Anonymous. Anonymous Sack, man. Thanks for your service again and thanks for giving so much of your life to helping others and good on you for finally truly helping yourself. Right? What a beautiful thing. You know, psychedelics, I know they're not for everybody, but for some of us, for a lot of us, there's real magic in them. Real healing magic. Right? Your fight or flight response can be suppressed. Your guards aren't just down. They're fucking obliterated. And you can actually face the worst traumas of your life without reliving the terror You know in a calm way

It's a it's been a little while since I've done more than a medium trip and man I'm craving going down a deep into a rabbit hole removing some of the clutter from my mind again And good for you getting off of social media, right? Yeah, it can be a great way to stay connected to friends and loved ones I know a lot of people love our you know The private Facebook groups help you keeps up can help you keep up with your your favorite band, your favorite artists, podcasts or whatever. But you got to have self-control, right? To only use it for exactly what you want. Not all the other bullshit. Not just mindlessly doom scroll for hours. I mean that shit is so fucking toxic, so poisonous.

More and more studies keep coming out about how fucking damaging it is to our psyches. So much better for us to get the fuck off our phones, take a walk out in nature, read a beautiful book, watch an incredibly well-constructed movie or series. Fucking pumped, by the way. Start watching the second season of Severance, is that right, this? Yeah, happy for you. Very happy for you. Glad I could help in some small way. Thank you to everybody who sends emails in for these updates to Bojangles at timesuckpodcast.com. B-O-J-A-N-G-L-E-S at timesuckpodcast.com. Honored, truly, to hear from so many cool as fuck people.

Thanks, Time Suckers. I needed that. We all did. Thank you for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Scared to death and Time Suck each week short sucks and nightmare fuel on the Time Suck and Scared to Death podcast feeds twice a month. Careful investigating major conspiracies this week. Unless they involve reptilians. Go ahead and knock yourself out with that silly shit. And when you are tired of running into one dead end after another, come back here to the Cold of the Curious, get your mind right, and keep on sucking.

TARASA Add Magic Productions Actions. July 28th, 1993, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Todd Weaver disappears shortly after closing the lucky pantry convenience store on the corner of North Guadalupe and West Alameda streets around 1 a.m. His body is later found 35 miles north of the city in the desert,

covered in dial antibacterial handsaw. 12-ounce dispensers surround his remains that have all been correctly marked 399 instead of 499. Roger Gonzalez is immediately named the primary suspect, but he's nowhere to be found. Two weeks later, Roger is tracked down and found staying on the Cabezon reservation near Indio, California with Dr. John Philip Nichols, Bill Hamilton, Earl Bryan, Ronald Reagan, Roy Disney, and Pat Sajak. Investigators will later suspect the men were gathered in the California desert to discuss illegal arms dealing and meth manufacturing. But when investigators arrive, all they witness the men doing is plain cribbage. Roger has a strong alibi for the night of July 28th. He was over 2,000 miles away visiting Mike Riconosciuto, a federal prison. So who killed Todd Weaver? Seriously. No, for real. Who the fuck did it? TAR deserves justice.

Join me. Perhaps you hold the crucial clue that will solve tonight's Unsolved Mystery.