True Crime All The Time - Anthony Kiritsis

Episode Date: January 14, 2019

In early 1977, Tony Kiritsis was a man on the edge. He had fallen behind on his mortgage payments and the bank wanted their money. Tony thought that they were trying to take his property from him because they knew it was worth more than he owed. One day he decided that he was going to take matters into his own hand and hold them accountable. What ensued was a hostage situation that played out on live television.Join Mike and Gibby as the discuss Tony Kiritsis. Was Tony correct in his thinking that his financial institution was trying to swindle him? His actions were criminal but through them he garnered the support of a lot of people. Many people were happy that someone had decided to make a stand against the system.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 113 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you? Hey man, I'm doing, I'm doing all right. That's good. Yeah. I like to hear it. Yeah. You just had a Big Mac. Big Mac attack, which is not my norm. No, usually when we record, we do not eat McDonald's. But my wife had a hankering for McDonald's french fries. And she gets that every now and then. Well, you know, and there's just nothing that's going to quench it, but McDonald's French fry. Happy wife, happy life or something like that, they say. I think that's what they say. So you got her Big Mac fix and she was happy. She seemed happy up there. Yeah, she had a

big Mac too. Yeah. And a large fry. She don't, she don't mess around. No, she crushed that thing, right? Well, she eats very fast. You know, my wife's a teacher. Yeah. She really only gets about 20 minutes for lunch. So when we sit down for family dinner, she is literally, I'm, I don't even have half my plate gone. She's done. You look up and she's like cleaning the dishes? Right. She's so used to eating, you know, in a hurry.

That's what she does. That's what she does. Anything exciting this week we should talk about? I tell you what's got me nervous is next week. We got a snowstorm coming in, man. Oh, I heard Saturday we could get eight inches. Yeah? Look, we can handle snow.

I mean, we grew up in it, but the way it's supposed to come down, it's supposed to come down really fast. And we know how it is around here. they just don't have the manpower or the people power to deal with that much snow coming down as fast like they do in other areas of the country. So then we have that issue with nobody can really do anything because the streets are all chacked up and we've got to wait for the crews to get out there and plow them. I say bring it on, man. I don't have to worry about getting up going anywhere on Monday morning. I say bring it on.

You're still in your pajamas from earlier this week, I think. All right. Let's do Patreon shoutouts. You want to do it? Yeah, we've had some amazing Patreon support. I love it, man. And you and I just got done doing our little weekly Patreon episode that we put out. Yeah.

And we talked about the fact that we've got a Patreon episode coming out next week. Yes, you're not on Patreon. Jump on over there. I think it's worth it. So we had Jen Grenel. Hey, Jen. Lisa Quigley. Quigley.

Like squiggly, quickly. Like quigley down under. Quickly. Ooh. Hey. How about that? Cheryl Ann Reed jumped out at our highest level. Hey, Cheryl Ann.

Amy Racamontes jumped up to our highest level. Ooh, the Racamante's climbing. She's rocking it. Rhonda Fritz. Hey, Rhonda. Amber Green. Amber. Jeremy.

Hey, thank you, Jeremy. I wonder if he goes by J.T. J.T. Yeah, I would if I was him. Steph jumped up to our highest level. Thanks, Steph. Wow. So we appreciate that.

Stephanie. Selina Sanborn. Selina? I like that name. Selina, yeah. Jenny Carjell. Hey, Jenny. Melissa and Paul Hipperson.

Oh, hey, thank you both. Couple. I like that. Stormy Bradford. She's probably a weather woman. You think that's a cool name? It is. She's probably some high power CEO.

Ebony. Ebony? No, ivory. No. Is Ebony? You gonna sing it? And then just Kim. No, I'm not going to sing it.

Just Kim? Is it just Kim or just Kim? It's just Kim. Okay. Hannah Cooper jumped up to our highest love. Hey, thank you, Hannah. Brittany LaGory. Ooh, Brittany LaGoree.

Kimmelin Pinton. Oh, Kimmelin? Kimmelin. Come on, Kimmelin. It's a cool name. Yeah, I like that. Shiloh Raymer. I like Shiloh, too, though.

But it also reminds me of that book you had to read in the movie. You didn't read that book or see that movie? Shiloh. You said, it reminds me of that book you had to read in the movie. I kind of said it kind of quick. Yeah, that book you had to read and it was a movie. I don't think I read it or saw it. Okay.

And if it's what I'm thinking of, it's not. I'm not spelled the same. Okay. I think that Shiloh had an H on the end. Oh, well, I don't see what you're reading, so. Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about, so that makes it even tougher. Well, that's a mystery now. We're just leaving it right words.

I'm literally guessing at what you're talking about. Let's say, welcome to my life, man. We had Jackie Prout. Hey, Jackie. And Jennifer Annis. Hey, Jennifer. Just like Jennifer Anniston, but without the T-O-N. Just got to be soft with that, A.

Not hard. Annes. Anus. Yeah. That's not soft. I made it hard. Okay, I'll leave it alone. If we go into the vault, Gibbs.

All right, let's do the vault. This week, we selected Heidi Langman. Hey, Heidi. Been around a long time. Oh, he's like, you remember, uh, tool time? Oh, yeah. You know, she, it's funny that you mention her name is Debbie Dunn or something like that. Something like that, yeah.

I can't remember her, but she's got a show out. Oh, really? And I saw it. I can't remember if it's on, it's either on the travel channel. it's on some something. Huh. I forget, I don't even remember what it was about.

She still wear the flannels tied up? No. Oh, okay. No. All right. But we had some PayPal support as well. We had Anna Connors. Hey, Anna.

Sophie Wooten. Thank you. Wooten. Wooten. Yeah. Jennifer Winkler. Hey, Jennifer. Amy Moore gave a very sizable donation.

Thank you, Amy. Phyllis Ekoff and Raven Mark. Hey, Raven. We appreciate all that support that we get. Awesome. The people that are telling their friends and all, of that just is amazing. No, it is. And we appreciate it all. And I just, like I said, if you haven't jumped on Patreon, I think it's worth it. You're going to get at least one extra episode a month,

maybe some other surprises too. You never know. And Gibbs, we picked a winner, uh, Patreon merch winner. Okay. For December. Awesome. And it turned out to be Caroline Rivera. Oh, really? Our great friend. Yeah. She has been a supporter of this show for a very long time. That she has. Yeah. So I reached out to Caroline, told her she won. I said, hey, go out there, pick what you want, right? This is what I do with all the merch winners. Yeah. And she came back and she said, will Gibby wear whatever I order first?

Huh. Before you ship it to me. And I said, I don't know. You have to bring that up with him. She wants me to wear the clothing item for like how long, for a minute, all day long. I don't know. She didn't say. I need to sleep in it.

She did not say. and I said, I'm a good smelling man, you know. Well, hey. I don't know. Whatever you think, brother. I got a big kick out of it. We love her.

She is awesome. She's funny. All right, Gibbs. True Crime All Time on Salt. Okay. Right now there's an episode out on Cindy James. Yeah. And this is a fascinating case.

We've got ominous voicemails. We've got a series of weird, strange things, sometimes physical, very, you know, assaulty type things happening to somebody over a period of time. Yeah, over like seven years. And she's scared and then, you know, eventually she winds up dead. Yeah. And it's just such a mystery because you could go away bunch of different ways. Sure.

Yeah. I didn't say she was murdered. No. You got people torn on both sides. Yeah. It's one of those cases where people are going to be divided. They're going to think she was murdered. You could present it.

I know I can present it to you several ways. If done right, you would walk away with a different outcome each time. But anyway, check that out. Yeah. Right, because we've got to get into this true crime all the time. Yeah, let's do it. We're talking about Anthony Karetsas. And I'll be honest, this is a case that I didn't have on my list.

It was a listener suggestion. And we get a lot of them. Most of them I have on the list. But every time I get one, I check. And I didn't have this one. The other thing I do when I get one is I just do a quick kind of search just to get a feeling for what the case is. And every now and then this happens to me where once I start, I can't stop. And I think you were the same way.

We were kind of both of the cases this week went that way for us. Once we got into it, it was like, oh, yeah, for sure I got to do this case. And I can't stop researching it. It's just pulls you in. Yeah, it pulls you in. It's just a very interesting true crime case out of Indianapolis, Indiana. Surprisingly, there are no murders associated with this true crime case, but nevertheless, it's fascinating.

In Anthony Karetsas, we're talking about a man who felt like he was pushed over the edge of a cliff after being cheated in a business deal. basically he felt like his mortgage company had taken advantage of him. They were trying to cheat him. But I think one of the big things about this case and part of what made it so interesting to me is how Karetsis comes to be viewed as the case unfold. You know, we're so used to talking about these horrible monsters, right? Every week, week in, week out on TrueCom all the time.

monsters who commit sexual assaults, multiple murders, it gives really. How many times is there really much sympathy for the killers that we talk about? Every now and then you'll have somebody that had such a bad childhood. Right. That I think there's some, there's not sympathy for what they did ultimately, but there is sympathy sometimes for how they grew up. Oh, I think so. I think people definitely feel bad for them as a child on what they went through.

I hear that, I hear that quite a bit. it doesn't lessen what they did, sure, the severity of their crimes. In this one, it's not about this guy's childhood. We're not even going to talk hardly about this guy's childhood. People are very sympathetic to what this guy does, I think in large part because of who he does it against. A lot of people viewed him as a hero, right, for taking on the system, the banks, the mortgage company that he felt had taken advantage of him. Now, let's face it, right? Banks, mortgage companies through the years, I think you could say historically, have been at the top of the list for some people of companies that people have issues with. Yeah. I mean, especially in certain decades, right, when you look at 2008, you look at the bubble bursting and the animosity of people towards.

I remember. Oh, you and I lived it. We were in it. Now, we're talking about the latter half. of the 1970s here. This is when interest rates started to take off. And there's no way for younger listeners to remember those days, right? The very high interest rate days. We haven't had them in quite a while. I mean, the interest rate's finally starting to come up a little bit. Sure, a little bit.

A little bit. But need it too. I mean, definitely need the interest rate to come up. But, you know, you're talking eight, nine, ten percent. That was fairly normal for the 70s. Oh, yeah. And then it started to climb up towards the end of the 70s. Yeah, 18%.

Things like that. By the 80s, you get into 15, 16, 18%. Yeah. By like 82, 83. I think that's kind of where it topped out somewhere around there. Yeah, live through that too. I know you did. You were 37 years old.

Come on. I wasn't that old. But yeah, no, I mean, my family was in the real estate business. And I watched that put a, put a, put a hit on us for a while. Can you imagine buying a house today and paying 18%? No. No. No. You couldn't imagine buying a car today. My first mortgage was seven to a half percent and people would flip out today over that. Sure. That's nobody would buy a house at seven and a half percent. And that was a great rate then. Yeah. You know, anything under anything in single digits when I was in real estate for all that time.

was good. Was it great. Yeah. I mean, if that was the case, I just have a fishing hut. You know, one of those ice, like, little shanties. Yeah. That's it. Just be me and my wife and my two kids.

If you had to pay that much? Asses to elbows. Yeah. That's it. It's kind of like this studio. Are you saying that you and I are asses to elbows? Are you saying the studio is the size of an ice fishing hut? You're going to have to clarify your statements.

This is move on. Okay. Yeah. But I mentioned, we're not going to really talk about the background of, Tony Kyritsis. I think for what he's going to do, it's not that important in the way that it is with serial killers and some of the other people like that that we talk about. The other thing is there's just not much out there about this guy's background at all.

It was probably pretty normal. Yeah. I know we talked a little bit about it last week, but I just think sometimes there's triggers in people, you know? Stress is a big one. And I think if you're that quiet person all the time and it builds and it builds and it builds and suddenly, man, it's just the freaking damn breaks open. Oh, yeah. I don't know if Tony was quiet most of the time.

But by all accounts, he was a good guy. People liked him. And I think you're right. I think he. I'm a good guy. He hit his trigger. Like you have your triggers. I got a trigger.

It gets getting close. I can tell you that. And he got to the edge. He got closer to the edge, closer to the edge. and finally said, that's it. I'm not taking it anymore. Isn't that what that guy screams out his window? In that movie?

What movie? I'm mad as hell. I'm not going to take it anymore. Is that network or? I have no idea. The famous clip, they play all the time. Yeah, I can hear it in my head. I just have no idea what it was from.

I don't know if I've even ever seen network. I heard that's good, but I don't think I've ever seen it. But I'm glad you brought it up. It really added a lot to the podcast. It was compelling. People are like, that Givie, he knows his movies. It's not even network, but still good, good job. All it does is mean that I'll get like 40 emails.

That's the light for you. That's good. No, just for that. Oh, just for that. Oh, yeah, I'll get many more emails, but I'll get 40 emails just on that alone. Yeah. That's not even counting all the memes and stuff that will be on social media. Okay.

So let's jump right to 1977. Let's do it. That's when this incident occurred. Tony Karetsis was 44 years old, living in Indianapolis. He'd live there all his life. Okay. Pretty close to us, not far at all. About an hour away.

Yep. Hour and a half. I can't remember how long it takes to get. Depends on if you're driving or I'm driving. Yeah, you drive a lot faster than I do. But Tony was extremely frustrated. I mentioned the mortgage thing, but he was frustrated with society a little bit too, I think. But really specifically with this financial institution that he felt like was going to foreclose on his property.

So we back up five years. We go back to 1972. Tony borrowed $130,000. That's a chunk of change now. That's a pretty good chunk of change in 1972. It was. What would that be in today's dollars, Gibbs? Beepo, beepo, beep, boop, boop, boop.

How much was it again? 130,000. 130,000 in 1980? In 1972. Pay attention. Yeah. I'm leaving all this end, too. Are you?

Yeah. That's nice of you. It'd be like $388,000. Okay. I like it. Very specific. Yeah. You could have rounded, but you didn't.

No, I round when you can do it that way. But the reason he borrowed the $130,000 was to buy a 17-acre piece of land on the west side of Indianapolis. So his plan was to build a commercial strip mall. Okay. On this 17 acres. Not a bad plan. Now, it sounds like a good plan. You can make a lot of money.

If you do it at the right time. From something like that. The problem with Tony is he struggled. to make his dream a reality. He struggled to get this thing built. He started to struggle to make the payments. And after a while, he started being told that just like we all would, hey, if you don't make your payments, we're going to have to foreclose on this property.

That's what you do when you sign those papers. Yeah, at a certain point. You pay, you stay. You don't. You go. But Tony wasn't happy about it. You know, for one thing, this piece of land that he bought, it had grown in value. during the time that he owned it. I read some things Gibbs that said five years later this thing was

maybe worth five to six hundred thousand. Really? Yeah. Okay. That's a huge jump. Now, he borrowed 130. I never actually saw what he paid for it. So there's a good chance he paid more than 130. But I don't think there's any doubt. The parcel of land increased in value over that five year period. and according to Tony, he had several people that were lined up that wanted to buy it. He was having trouble making the payments. Right. But if he can sell this property, pays off his mortgage, and he's got a little leftover for himself. Yeah.

Right? No harm, no foul. Everybody walks away happy. Yeah, paid off your dead and you got a little extra in your pocket. The problem was Tony felt that the president of Meridian mortgage, which is where he got the money from, guy by the name of M.L. Hall and his son Richard, who also worked there, they were trying to foreclose. This is what he thought. Because he figured they knew what the value was. It's kind of like that movie, Hell or High Water. Hell or High Water. Do you remember that one?

Chris Pine. The bank wanted to take the farm back because they knew that oil. Yeah. That was actually really good. Yeah, it was good. I like that. I was trying to think of the other that was in that. Ben Foster? Yes, that's his name. Man, that was good. Well, he's good. I like, he's in a lot of movies.

He's a great actor. Yeah, he's a good supporting actor. I would have never thought of his name and the fact that you got it. Yeah. I actually don't know what to say. I'm shocked. It's weird for you to be speechless. It is.

So again, Tony thinks they want to foreclose on his property. And like you said, they know how much this thing's word. Yeah. There were appraisals done over the years. It was documented. Sure. It's what you do. So unlike you and I, right, I get a mortgage through a bank or through some company.

Chances are I might have to call them or something about an issue. Very rarely would I talk to them. Yeah, you wouldn't have face-to-face conversations. Tony Kyritsis was in this Meridian mortgage office like multiple times a year. I mean, many times a year. He would go down there. they would get in arguments about things. I mean, obviously a lot of it's over the fact that he's not making his payment.

Right. But one thing I want to point out, and I think it's important before we get into what happened in this incident is that the halls, right, who worked at Meridian Mortgage, father and son, they gave Tony additional time to pay. On multiple occasions, I read at one point they gave him an extra year. they refinanced something to help him out. I think they did some things for this guy. So they made some modifications?

I thought it was important to point out given what we're about ready to talk about. But I mentioned it, right? Tony Kyritsis had reached his breaking point. And he made the decision that he was going to do something about it. And the day that he chose to do something about it was February 8th, 1977. Okay. Not too long before Star Wars came. out. You know how I'd like to kind of put timelines in relation to Star Wars?

What Star Wars again? So that morning, very cold in Indy, Tony drove down to Meridian Mortgage at 129 East Market where they were located. He was there before they opened. They opened at 8. He got there 730, 745, whatever time it was, but it was before they opened. They opened the doors. he walks in, the staff immediately recognizes him because he'd been there so many times. Tony had one of his arms in a blue sling as if he'd sprained it, done something to it. Yeah. And he was carrying blueprints and a rectangular box. Like a guitar case?

Maybe, but more of like a department store, wedding dress, that's what I'm thinking. Oh, okay. I got you. Kind of like what you see in the godfather. movie when a guy climbs all the way up the steps can barely catch his breath. Yeah, something like that. I don't think it was like two. I'm not I'm not picturing hard plastic. I'm thinking more disposable. Yeah. Cardboard, but something like that. So he's inside Meridian mortgage. And he asked to see ML Hall, the president. But apparently he was on vacation. So staff told him

that his son Richard, who went by Dick, that's what we'll call him Dick. Um, plus, I'd just like to say Dick. You do. You like Dick. I know. They said he would be in in a bit. So Tony's going to sit and wait for him. No big deal.

Happens every day in businesses all around the world. But I do want to talk about Dick Hall a little bit. 42 years old at this point. He has a wife. He's got four kids. And as soon as Dick got to work that morning and saw Tony, he knew it wasn't going to be great. They'd had a lot of conversations. like his dad had had a lot of conversations with Tony.

None of them really went very well. He was only going to be talking about one thing. Right. And that was, you're cheating me. They had these heated conversations a lot of the time. Dick knew he was in for a verbal confrontation with Tony Caritzis that day. What he couldn't have known was the real reason for Tony's visit. Tony was there to take a hostage.

He'd already decided it. made up his mind. It's going to be Dick Hall. I'm assuming it could have been his dad, if his dad would have been there. Yeah, I think anybody of authority. What would have been one of the two of them? Yeah, somebody that high up. Yeah, I'm just saying because I think he originally asked for his dad. So I believe his original intention was probably to take his dad hostage. They're standing in Dick's office. They're talking, chatting. And all of a sudden, Tony asked Dick if he could shut the door to his office. Not overly unusual,

but the reason he gave was because his tidy whitties were bothering him. Okay. He wanted to adjust his underwear. That's weird. So he wanted to shut the door so that he could unbuckle his belt, I guess. Yeah. This is what he told the guy. Untuck retuck.

Untuck retuck. I like that. Now, Gibbs, you and I have been in a lot of meetings over the years. Yeah. Both together and apart. Yeah. No one, not a man nor a woman, has ever come into my office and said, hey, I need to shut the door because my underwear is writing up my ass and I need to fix it. Yeah.

This never happen. No, I've never had to do that. And if you said that to me or if anybody said that to me, I don't know what I'd do, but it wouldn't be, yeah, shut the door and do whatever you need to do. Drop your trousers. Go ahead and fix yourself and it's cool. We're good. But this is what he did. And it's how Tony got the door to Dick's office shut.

Because that was the goal, right? He just had to come up with a ruse to make it happen. Right. And as soon as he got the door shut, he pulled out a 38 caliber revolver from inside the blue sling that he was wearing on his arm. And he pointed it at Dick Hall. He also pulled a sawed off shotgun from the box that he had with him. And what happened next is one of those things Gibbs that I think you might see in a movie or something. And you would say, wow, there's no way in a million years that that that would ever work in real life.

Right. Like that's, that's a movie magic or that's, that's just something somebody came up with. Tony Caritzis had this metal cable, kind of a steel cable, I guess you call it. And he slipped it over Dick's head, pulled it tight. kind of like a noose, right? There was a noose so that he could pull it tight around his neck. Okay. The other end of the steel cable ran down through the barrel of the shotgun, wrapped around the trigger, and then was attached to Tony's finger. So pretty complicated device, but yet simple, I guess.

Yeah, I would say, I don't even know, I don't even know if I would say complicated. I would say it was pretty simple, but ingenious. Ingenious. There you go. I would say that. Great word, yeah, for that. Because really what it did, it allowed Tony to have complete control over Dick Hall as a hostage. If Dick tried to run, the gun would go off. If they got outside or a sniper shot Tony and he fell down, well, then his body mass would pull that trigger as he went down.

And the gun would go off. But I think the key here is, I don't know if I explained that great, but it's pulling. hold so tight that the gun, the muzzle of the, the sawed-off shotgun is literally right up against the back of Dick Hall's head. Okay. And it's kind of like just sitting there. Now, Tony's holding it and going to be holding it this entire time, but it really is kind of a, not giving anybody any ideas, but kind of an ingenious setup for it to be as simple as it is. If you're on the front end of that shotgun, you're nervous. Oh, you don't want to be on the receiving end of this. No, no way. So this was something that Tony called a dead man's line.

That's what he called it. And I think later on they made a movie about it. They actually used that as the name of the movie. I haven't seen it, so I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was called. But I think the important thing for me is this was not a spur of the moment thing. You don't show up to somebody's office with all of this elaborate stuff and just put it into motion without a good deal of.

of planning, right? There's a lot of planning that went into carrying this out. Tony thought up the props, right, the sling, the blueprints, the box to hold the shotgun. And I mentioned Gibbs that it was a sawed-off shotgun. So he had cut down the barrel of the gun. But on top of that, he had cut off most of the stock. So whereas in most shotguns, you would have like a butt plate that would go up against your shoulder, this thing was trimmed all the way down. So really all that was left was just a little bitty handle that was almost completely concealed in the hand. Okay. And then the trigger. That's it. There just wasn't much to it at all. They actually make shotguns like that now. I know there's one called the shockwave. And then obviously the dead man's line that we talked about

that took some planning right ahead of time. He didn't just all of a sudden at the office think, oh, you know what? I'm going to use this cable wire and rig it up this way. He had to have planned that out well in advance. Oh, yeah. So he's worked on this for a while? He has. Yep.

But he has other things planned out too. So he first called 911, Tony did, from Hall's office. And he told them, hey, I got a hostage. And we're going to play some of the call, but there's a lot. language warning. Basically any clip with Tony Kyritsis, there's a language warning because this guy doesn't hold nothing back. He cusses like a sailor. So I'm sorry, I was kind of laughing a little bit through the clip. Yeah. Just because there is going to be a dichotomy in a lot of the things that we talk about with this guy. You can hear it. The 911 calls longer than that. Right. I just wanted to

play some of it to get the sense of what it was about. But you hear him. and he's like, MF this and F this and whatever. And then all of a sudden, he's like, you know what? I'm not a bad guy. Yeah. Look, Mr. Miller, I'm not a bad guy. Right. I am a mean, motherfucker if I got to be.

If I got to be. I don't know. It just kind of struck me as funny because he does this a lot. He's going to do this a lot during. He's riding the emotional roller coaster right now. He's up and down. He's very nice. He's very.

common situations and then all of a sudden he just flies off the hands on i'm telling you man those people that are always nice eventually if that's who you got to watch out for yeah you back him in a corner man again i think that's the way he felt we're going to talk about it more later i'm not sure that's the way it was but that is definitely the way he felt yeah don't back me in a corner man you know obviously there was a point in the call where you know this is kind of the first time that he's making it known to someone out other than that you know that's you know something out other than than Meridian mortgage. Yeah.

Of what he's upset about, the injustices that he felt he had suffered. But he's on the phone with police Gibbs for a long time, like 50 minutes, close to an hour. You imagine getting that call? Well, so here's the other thing, right? As a 911 operator, you mean? Exactly. Here's the other thing. 911 hadn't been around that long in Indianapolis.

It had kind of just started. Didn't have the training down? No, I'm sure they didn't. Yeah. But he also, he made a lot of demands on this call. He wanted a police escort. He wanted a car to drive off in. Now, police scrambled quickly to get officers over to the building because he was on the call for like 50 minutes. So they were there while he was still on the phone with 911. And they start climbing the stairwell to get to the offices of Meridian. And it's just after 9 a.m. when Tony Carritsis,

moved Dick out of his office into the lobby. He headed towards the elevators. And you have to picture this scene. Dick Hall is walking in front. He has a metal cable, a steel cable wrapped around his neck, attached to a sawed-off shotgun that is pressed directly into the back of his head, his neck area. Yeah, got to be scary.

Following him very closely. Because remember, this is not a long shotgun. Yeah, so he's got to be right up again. against them. Yeah, it's both sawed off on the front and the back. Yeah. So it's pretty short. And you sure don't want to pull away. You can't. Because you do, you're dead. Yeah. You risk getting, you know, shot. It's Tony Kyritsis, right? Holding the gun. Yeah. With the cable attached to both the trigger and himself, it's such an odd scene. The problem is they're, they're going to be like this for some time. Right. We're going to talk about it a little bit more. Tony tries the elevator. It's not working. Police have already shut it down. So he takes Hall and they head down the stairwell, but pretty quickly he starts to encounter officers. They're on their way up. Oh, yeah.

But once they see what he's got. They back down. I'm guessing. I think they realize very quickly looking at the setup. The severity of this? That this is, this could go bad very quickly. So Tony and Dick make it outside the building. And they start walking down the, you know, cold, icy streets of,

of Indianapolis, it's about 10 degrees. Kind of cold. Tony's wearing a short sleeve shirt and Dick left without his jacket. So yeah, a little chilly for both of them. Neither guy's got a coat on. And you've got police everywhere, right? You've got the news media coming. You have businessmen and women gawking out of the windows along the streets of

Indianapolis. As they watch, these two guys walk down the side. sidewalk connected in this weird way. Couldn't imagine. You may just imagine you're at your desk, you're in your nice office, you look over and see that. Today you see that, you would think it's somebody pulling a prank. I think you would. I think you're like, oh, what are they trying to do?

I'd probably think it's some wacky YouTube thing. Yeah, here's another YouTube thing. And they're walking throughout the city. The strange thing about it is when they come out, they turn, right? on the sidewalk. You come out of a building, you go right or left. For some reason, Tony Carritzis made the decision to go away from where he parked his car. Okay.

He parked his car one way, but he walked Dick Hall the other way. That's strange. A little strange. You know, they're walking. And most of the time, Tony is talking. And like I said, his mood is swinging back and forth. And he's talking to police officers. He's talking to the media.

They're everywhere. and sometimes he's very calm. And the next minute, he's in a rage. And that part, you know, it's pretty scary because he's looking around. He's gesturing. He's doing all these things. And he's shoving Dick Hall forward and around at the same time, right? Yeah, I mean, he's taking Dick and shoving him and moving him around and it just could be one.

Yeah, it's amazing that this gun didn't go off. it really is because his movements were chaotic. At one point, Dick Hall actually lost his footing because it was a little icy. It was very cold. And he went down. But somehow Tony kneeled down

as he was going down. And it's the only thing that saved him or else the gun would have gone off. Yeah. It was intense. I mean, there's video out there. You can go watch them walk through the streets of Indianapolis.

I mean, the news media filmed it. But there's also a picture of Tony holding the shotgun to the back of Dick Hall's head that won the photographers. This guy named Jim Schweiker won him a polzer for this picture. Getting that clip. Yeah. I read an article where he was interviewed and he told the paper that, you know, everything was so chaotic. He didn't even remember taking the picture. Wow.

And then later on developed it and won a Pulitzer. So this is a good one here. And it is a really, I don't want to say cool, but it's a very iconic kind of picture. So these guys are still walking. They eventually reach a police car. There's police cars all over. They're kind of cordoning off, right, as these guys are walking. It's not like a high speed chase.

Right. So they have time to get up ahead of them and get the public off the street. And there's a car, a police car that is kind of parked sideways in the middle of the street. And the door's open. And the officer's standing there, I think. And Tony gets up to him and he says, I'm taking this car. Well, what's the officer going to do? He literally can't do anything.

No. Or this guy, Dick Hall is going to die. So Tony says, you know what, give me your handcuffs. The officer gives him his handcuffs. Tony puts Dick in the front seat. He's going to drive. Okay. You know, it's the only way this is going to work, right?

He's got to make his way somehow into the backseat. It's getting tricky now. Yeah, a little bit because he has got to be behind him. Yeah. And they drive. And again, I don't even know how to emphasize it enough. We're talking about a shotgun, right, with a shotgun shell inside it. It is directly contacting this guy's skin.

I mean, if this thing goes off, Gibbs, I think it would literally blow his head apart. I would think so. It would be so gruesome at that. range. It wouldn't even matter what kind of shells in there. Yeah, I mean, that close range, you're going to. Yeah, obviously some are more destructive than others. Going to have a gaping hole for sure.

It's going to be bad. Yeah. But that doesn't happen. Somehow this gun never goes off during all of this. And what does happen is they make it to Tony's one room apartment. Obviously, they haven't eluded police, right? Police know where they are. But Tony's able to get dick up to his apartment.

Because again, what can police do? If they try to intercede in any way, this guy's going to die. But eventually, they tried to negotiate with Tony through the door of his apartment. And he tells them that his whole apartment is wired with explosives and that if they try to breach the door, if they try to come in the windows, the whole place is going to blow up. I would think, based on what these people have seen, they're probably taking him pretty seriously. They saw how easily he did this with the shotgun. So I don't know why you wouldn't believe that he wouldn't have its place all wired up. Well, and he even had some wires around the windows,

around the door that I think were visible from the outside somehow. So if it really wasn't, he's given the perception that it was. Yeah, well, now later on, it's going to come out that the whole thing is not quite as explosive as he claimed it to be. Yeah. But he sold it. Oh, he sold it. And you see some wires on wrapped around the window and some guy tells you it's rigged what are you going to do i think when it's all said and done i mean i don't want to jump ahead but when it all comes out i think they said it was a couple of glass bottles that he had rigged somehow okay to crash to the floor if somebody opened the door but on the floor was a candle so you have these glass bottles they're filled with some type of accelerant okay and if somebody opens the door

they fall, they break. The candle ignites. The candle ignites the accelerant. I mean, it's not an explosive, but it's going to catch on fire. No, but you're going to have this, these flames shoot up and. It's not SimTX or TNT or, you know, whatever. Be like that movie Backdraft. You're going to have that ball fire coming at you.

That's a good movie. I like Backdraft. It was good. But again, we're talking about planning. All of this had to be planned out in advance. So he knew that he was going to get a hostage. He knew that he was going to be bringing that hostage back to his apartment because he had stocked up on certain types of food and supplies in advance. He'd done all that.

Now, I still don't understand why he just didn't turn towards his car and get in his own car. That part I never understood. But maybe it was just so chaotic he made a mistake and went the wrong way. It could have been. Could have been just nervous coming out of the bank and just was. Because they ended up, I didn't say this, but I think they. walked, you know, half a mile a mile. Yeah. Through the streets of Indianapolis. I know for a fact, he wasn't parked that far. Right. So it's almost as if he made a mistake. But I think the other thing that

fascinates people about this story is when they find out that, you know, he held this guy hostage for 63 hours. It's almost three days. I mean, that's a long time. Apparently, most of the time, Hall was kept locked in the bathroom. Tony fed him his meals in there. Obviously, he had a potty in there. I guess the only good thing Gibbs is that during these periods, he didn't have the shotguns strapped to the back of his head. Yeah. It's the only good thing about it. Dick Hall would later say that when Tony got him up to his apartment, he said, Dick, we're going to have a little trial here. And I'm going to be the judge, jury, and executioner. So not bad enough. that you've been strapped to a shotgun, paraded around the city of Indianapolis, one false move

and you're dead. Yeah. You hear those words. That sounds pretty ominous coming from a guy that you know hate your guts. So during this almost three day period, there is constant negotiations going on through the door. They had some conference calls, right, calling into Tony's apartment. The next day, it's a Wednesday. Tony called some radio stations.

He called into some talk show personalities. And he started to rant about his mistreatment, the things that he had suffered, all the things that he felt had been going against him. And they aired it. So I think, you know, kind of foreshadowed these people that are going to be on his side. Some of it probably came from that. Sure, I had to. They heard him on the radio. radio. Tony also demanded immunity from prosecution. So as these negotiations are going on,

he's like, you know what? The only way that this thing is going to end is if you don't prosecute me and you put that in writing. It's pretty smart to ask for, I think, in a negotiation. Well, we're pretty good at negotiating in our day jobs. Well, I was when you had a day job. But, you know, the other thing Gibbs is he actually gave them a deadline. Yeah. So this. This is Wednesday. They're negotiating throughout the day. And he gave him a deadline. Let's say, I can't remember what it was, maybe three o'clock. But the deadline comes and goes. And they haven't caved into him, but nothing happens inside the apartment. But later that night, the prosecutor's office tells Tony by phone that they will grant him immunity. And this is something that goes out to the

public as well. The other thing that happens is Meridian mortgage comes out. They, they offer an apology to Tony that goes out over the radio and they also admitted wrongdoing. Now later on Gibbs, they're going to take this back and they're going to say, you know what, we only said that stuff in an effort to help save Dick Hall's life because it actually brings some heat down on them from regulators. Like they want to look into this thing to see if they really did cheat this guy if they, you know, if there really was any wrongdoing. So then we get to Thursday, right, day three. Most of the day is spent with Tony's attorney working out the details with the prosecutors on this immunity deal.

Sure. Got to make sure it's all lined up. I want to make sure it's going to happen. When you sure is how it want your attorney to say, yeah, this is good before you give up. Make sure this is ironclad? Great. You know, I want to make sure this is true. The other thing that happens is Tony demands to have a national press conference.

That's what he wants. So it's really two things, right? The immunity agreement. And then he wants a national press conference and then he'll give up. That's what he's told them. And it's about 9.50 that night after all the details have been worked out, Tony rigged the shotgun back up to Dick Hall. And he leads him down to the lobby where they have this.

press conference set up. So obviously they had told the media, hey, come down, everybody come down. we're going to have this press conference. Now, I say press conference, but this is a pretty wild scene. This is not, you know, a presidential press conference. This is a bunch of media people standing around what ends up being Tony Carritzis holding the shotgun to Dick Hall. So they have to go crazy at that point seeing this. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think people expected when they showed up that this is what they would see and that they would literally be within feet. So it's almost like these two guys are in the middle. Yeah. All these media people are around them. Hell, that gun could go off at any second. I know where I would be standing. In the back. Exactly. So the press gathers around and Tony rants for about an hour.

And what's unbelievable Gibbs about this is that it was aired live on television. And I'm telling you what, the language that Tony Caritius uses is something that I can guarantee was never heard on television. Probably before the George Carlin came out. Up to this point. But I think, you know, what it is. Well, they didn't play George Carlin on regular television. No.

When this, the seven dirty words and all that. I just think he, you know, he's probably just very emotional. probably what he needed to say could have been said in 10 minutes or less. Oh, I'm sure. But he was so emotional and he just wanted to continue the story and just go on and on and on about everything that's happened and why. So we're going to play some of it. Not the whole hour, obviously. And obviously the language is rough, but you've got to hear it.

Sure, you do. I told this man, I told this man before this thing was over that he'd think I was a goddamn witch. I read him all these things, all these charges, and were on that paper plus some, and I typed up a few months ago and tried to recall, and recall back four years. I called every goddamn one of them, didn't I did it? Didn't I?

That's right. Every goddamn one. That's right. I hope this doesn't go off. I can't have too much fun. I said, ladies and gentlemen, that these people were lucky they were dealing with me. I haven't got a goddamn nervous. in my body and they're goddamn lucky.

A nervous belly with a boat he's goddamn brains out a long time ago. And I can tell you, by God, I was in trouble. I was in a hell lot of trouble. You saw one of these goddamn things off and kidnap somebody. I'm gonna tell you some, fellas. There ain't much left in that old road. I'd like to please a lot of nice people called me a two or three days and told me that they were behind me.

And I want to thank them. behind. I'd like my brother's King of George, Mark, and jump. Johnny there. Can't think he's last name.

Johnny Ferguson. So I cut it off there, Johnny Ferguson. I had a feeling that just to get that in. Yeah. But, so let's break down

that press conference a little bit. He's, he's talking to Dick. You can hear him talking to Dick. Sure. And Dick's answering him saying, yeah, sure.

Whatever you said is right. Exactly. You got a shotgun to my head. this is not the time I'm going to try to argue with you. Right. I'm not going to be dismissive at all. Yeah. At one point, not right after that, he says something about, my hope this shotgun doesn't go off. I'm having too much fun. Yeah. I think if you were the press standing in that January, you might have took a step back or two. So you just heard a snippet of what was almost an hour press conference, I think. Yeah. In that little minute or minute and a half, whatever it was, I mean, think of all. I mean, think of all.

the language, right? All the cuss words that were in it. This went out live on television. Kind of sound like a circus going on, you know? Yeah. Media circus. Well, it was. I mean, they were literally on top of these two guys. It were really close. It was, you know, it wasn't a big auditorium or anything. So some stations, but not all, cut it off early. Obviously, probably program directors or somebody got a call and said, this guy's saying GD every third word. Yeah. You can't let that go out. Yeah, we got to cut it. Some of them played the whole thing. But the other thing in that clip you hear is you hear him get very emotional. He starts to tear up.

Yeah, he's all choked up. He's choked up. I think there were stations Gibbs that felt he was about ready to kill this guy, Dick Hall, on live television. Because, you know, the big thing back then there, there was no tape delay. They couldn't bleep out the cuss words. And there's no taking it back if things went horribly wrong. and he blows this guy's head off.

Can you imagine? So they let him do this whole press conference, rant and rave, you know, for close to an hour. But then after the press conference, Tony untied the shotgun from Dick Hall. But he ends up lifting it up, Gibbs, and firing one off to prove it was loaded. And it was. And he said, you know what? I've been wanting to fire that gun for three days. So police arrest Tony.

They put him in the back of a squad car. They put Dick in the back of an ambulance, but he said he was fine. He really didn't get hurt. I'm sure he was shaking up as shit. Right, a stiff neck. I'm sure his neck was jacked up. Yeah. On top of that, I think his nerves were probably frayed as about as bad as you can get.

Tony Carritzis was charged with three counts of kidnapping, extortion, and armed robbery, which sounds strange. It does. because the authorities granted him immunity. And this wasn't just verbal. I mean, it was written. You can go out there and see the exact piece of paper with the immunity on it. But very quickly, prosecutors come out and say that promises made under the threat of a gun are not legally binding.

So basically they said, yeah, we told him that. We signed it. But it doesn't matter. It's not legal. His attorney should have known that, right? I don't know how much case law there is on that. I'm just saying. I don't know.

I really don't. You're an attorney. Why don't you know that? I don't operate in that a municipality. But again, like I talked about up front, right? This is a case that divided many people. Tony had a lot of supporters. You know, they took to the talk shows.

They called him a hero. Money poured in from people to aid in his defense. I really think, Gibbs, that they thought he was doing what they wanted to do but would never actually be able to. What's the Robin Hood? The Bonnie and Clyde, the David and Clyde. I mean, it's that. You know, it's the little guy taking on the big guy.

I think there was a lot of people that had been or felt like they had been shafted by mortgage companies, financial institutions, whoever it was. and they thought, man, this guy finally stood up and did something that if I wasn't so scared about going to prison, I would have done myself. Hey, look, you were in that business. I was. I remember some threats coming down your way. I got a lot of threats. You had nothing to do with it, but because of your position, you had some, you actually had one, at least one, maybe not more serious threats.

I had one very serious threat. It was a guy from Indiana, I believe. And he had done so much homework that he knew my wife's name. Yeah. He knew the names of my kids. And this was years ago. They were very young and threatened all of us. And of course, you know, me, I'm a dumb ass.

I say, well, just come on over and, you know, I'll be waiting for you. I'll drop you where you stand. With my arsenal. That's what you used to say. I drop you where you staying. I am a lot smarter nowadays. Yeah. I think.

But I did. I had some very. serious threats. I mean, that's one where I had to call the, I had to get the police involved, you know, corporate security, things like that. Yeah, I remember that was a little unnerving. Now, Tony didn't originally want to at first, but he finally pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity on the advice of his counsel. And what do you always say, Gibbs? Should always listen to your counsel. That's what you always say. I don't really want to get into the ends and the outs of the trial. I mean, the facts were laid out by the prosecution.

They called their witnesses. They called their doctors, their psychiatrists. The defense called character witnesses. They had their own doctors. But really, they focused on the issue with the mortgage company and how it affected Tony, how it had affected him over the years. Sure. Mental stability. Right. Yeah.

They focused in on that. But I think one thing that's very important to mention is that, back, you know, Back during this period of time, right, in 1977, in the state of Indiana, and I think some other states at that point, the burden of proof with this type of plea, the not guilty by reason of insanity plea, was on the state back then. So they had to prove that Tony Caritzis was actually sane. Okay. So much different than today. So it's kind of like you're innocent until proven guilty. In this case, you're insane.

unless the state can prove otherwise. Yeah, much different than today, right? Today, the burden of proof falls on the defense when there's an insanity plea. But the other thing I read, even though in Indiana it was all on the prosecution, articles from back in the 70s said that rarely did anyone who made that plea ever have it go in their favor, which I thought was interesting. you would think a lot more people would have been successful with it with that type of burden. So I guess if you go in to courts and plead not guilty by reason of insanity,

so yeah, you put the burden on the state, but the state probably has expertise in that arena, that they can counter that. The trial only lasted a couple of weeks, two weeks, but then the jury got the case, and I think they really struggled with the decision in this case. they deliberated Gibbs for about 35 hours spread out over three days. So there's two numbers there and they both jump out at me. 35 hours of deliberation. You and I talk about a lot of cases, two hours, three hours, 35 hours.

But then they did it all over three days. That's over 11 hours a day. Yeah, that adds up. That's multiple meals you're getting. But it's some really long days. It is a long time. You know, in the deliberation room. But ultimately they came back and they found Anthony Carritzis not guilty by reason of insanity.

Well, the defendant, Mr. Pritzis, please rise and face the bench, sir. And CR77-44A, as to count one. The form of the break is, we, the jury, find the defendant, Anthony G. Carritzis, not guilty by reason of insanity, we further find that the defendant, Anthony G. Carritsis, committed the act charged in count one of the information, and that at the time the defendant was insane and is therefore not guilty by reason of insanity.

That was charge one. Sure. There was a lot more to it. Charge two, charge three, basically went on verbatim. Right. So I didn't play it. but it was the same way. There were some additional outbursts from the crowd.

So we know that there was a lot of character witnesses that came forward that said he was a good man. So if that's really how he was his whole life, then you can see how the jury would have went along with this because they're going to say, this guy from all accounts from his character witnesses, never did anything wrong. And all of a sudden something snapped that made him do this.

So, you know, this is the correct verdict. Now, I think if he, that trigger wouldn't have went off, the trigger would have went off. It would have been a whole other story. I don't think he would have got this type of verdict because you could have easily said he preplanned every step. And I think once you took that step, I think it's hard to, when a murder happens, I think it's hard to get that plea. I think harder for a jury to say we're not, because he could have gone away for life. I mean, you know, I think just the charge of kidnapping alone, if I remember correctly, it carried life. And he had two others, you know, on top of that.

Sure. But I think you're right. I think if he would have killed Hall, I think a jury would have had a much tougher time come into that conclusion. But Tony Crits has got a chance to speak to the media after the verdict. We all live in the greatest country on earth. But this is a type of thing that. undermines the liberties that my father and my mother came here from Greece far and probably all of your ancestors. And I'm not trying to be corny.

I may be a flag waver, but I wave it a hell of a lot better than John Wayne. I'll tell you that. I can't believe he's going to run down the Duke like that. He brought the Duke into it. Jeez. Man. But when you hear him there, he's not ranting. He's not raving.

He's pretty articulate. I think he got the attention that he wanted to bring to this. issue. I think you're right. But just like we talked about people being divided over the arrest, they were divided after the trial. It was just probably in reverse, right? Or the other way around. Those people that were mad that he was arrested and thought he was a hero, they were probably happy about the jury's decision and vice versa. So Tony was turned over to the Indiana Department of Mental Health by the judge. And the judge did say that, that he thought Tony Carritzis was still very dangerous.

But at the time, in news articles Gibbs, Tony's lawyers were saying that they didn't think that any commitment would last more than three or four months. So that's what they really thought. They thought he would be in for about three or four months. Yeah. Under psychiatric care. And they,

he would be deemed fit to. returned to society. But that's not what happened. He spent over 10 years in a mental health facility. I think he came up every year. You know, after that first year, every year he came up and they said, no, we're going to keep you a little bit longer. Now, I think part of that is because he refused treatment. He would not be examined by psychiatrists. So maybe it could have been three or four months. I don't know. But he didn't play the game that way. He didn't play the game. He didn't play the game. he didn't consent to being examined by a psychiatrist until just before a 1987 hearing before a judge. Judge was going to take a look at his case, see if he should be released.

So that's, you know, nine, ten years after he went in. And even this hearing in 1987, it was somewhat of a circus. And I guess Tony was brought in on a hospital gurney. With a suit and tie on? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He was wearing a suit and tie. you can see a picture of it. It's actually kind of comical. And he had a number of outbursts during these proceedings. He tried to fire his attorney right in the middle of it. He shouted that witnesses lied on the stand. That's a good way to act. If you don't want to get out, if you don't want to get out. So this psychiatrist that finally got to examine him, he got on the stand. And he said that he diagnosed Tony Carritsis as suffering from paranoia, but he didn't think that he pose a risk to others. But there were other witnesses that contradicted that.

You know, there was a doctor that worked in the ward where Tony was housed. And he said that Tony had threatened a number of patients, punched one patient in the face. Yeah, I heard about that. I remember there was one, I don't know if it was the face punching or another threatening that happened just over the fact that this guy was using the phone when Tony wanted to use the phone. Tony's attorney tried to argue that he had been nonviolent the entire time that he had been confined. But the state attorney was very set on trying to keep Tony in this mental health facility as long as he could. Just adamant about it. Yeah, he did not want to let him out.

But he was eventually released the next year, 1988. Judge reviewed his case again. And and he deemed Tony to no longer be a threat to society. So he's a free man. Went back home, Indianapolis? Yep. He lived in Indianapolis for the next 17 years. Wow. As far as I know, he never did anything else.

Stayed out of the media. Yeah. It's very possible, like you said, that he really never got in trouble before and maybe never got in trouble after. But he died in 2005 of natural causes. So then you talk about Dick Hall. Okay. Right.

This is the guy that went through 60 some hours. Yeah, 63 hours or so of hell. And the guy just never would over the years speak much publicly about what he went through. It was almost 40 years. Wow. In 2017, I think. Okay. Until he finally decided to speak about and put his experience down on paper.

I think he wrote a book. That's a long time, right? That's a really long time. And I got a clip where he talks about kind of why. Well, I think among other things, I'm 80 years old, and I figured that if I'm going to tell my story, I better do it. Nobody knows. And I've been, I think one of the main reasons is that one of my sons said,

Dad, I don't want my kids to think of you as a wimp or, I can't tell the story. And that made a big difference to me. I don't know if anybody would say you're a wimp. You got a shotgun to the back of your head for 63 hours. I don't know how much you could have done to break free of that. No, I don't think you should ever call somebody a wimp, especially if they went through this type of ordeal and had the strength to survive it.

Yeah. Because it took strength, right? It took strength for... Mentally, for sure. Mentally, physically, probably for him to make sure that he held his body in the right position. Yeah. For long periods of time. But like I said, I mean, he wasn't...

I don't think he had the shotgun on him the entire time. I think when he was in the bathroom, he was probably handcuffed and Tony would take the rig off. But still, he had it on for, you know, hours at a time. more than anybody care for. More than I've had it on and more than I would ever want to have a shotgun. Ever. Pointed near my body. So there's been a lot of people, you know, that have looked into this case over the years,

but probably none more so than two guys. Alan Barry and Mark Enochs. These guys worked for five years on a documentary about the case. The reason I bring these guys up was because of a news article where Alan Barry talked to a reporter. And in the article, he talks about how he wanted to get to the bottom of whether Tony Caritzis was justified in being mad at the bank. He said there's no justification for what he did, right?

This guy, Barry wanted to know if he had been done wrong. Did he have a right to be upset? So I guess in the making of this documentary, he interviewed a lot of people for it. And he came away with the thought that the folks at Meridian didn't do anything wrong. He said he couldn't find any evidence of wrongdoing. He said all they did was say, you know what, you took out a loan, you've not paid us, we won our payment. Yeah.

So, I mean, it's pretty, in most cases, always cut and dry. Sure. Right? You go in for the loan. You know what you want. They tell you what they're willing to give you. You agree or disagree. Sign the papers that say you pay, you stay.

You don't. we're going to take our collateral. You're collateral. And I read some things where Meridian came out afterwards, and if you believe them, they never even initiated foreclosure. And I think maybe one or both of the halls might have said, this is what's going to happen.

Sure. If you don't pay. But I don't even think they started the foreclosure action. Well, we know they gave them extensions. Yeah, they did. And they modified his loan, I think. Now, what I will say is you talked about, you know what you get.

That probably doesn't hold true for, especially the subprime mortgage crisis. That's a different... And the predatory lending part, right? The 2006, seven, whatever was. You definitely have that segment that they did, people did get screwed over. But that's it.

That is the case of Anthony Caritzis. Yeah, good case. Nobody died. You know, it's kind of nice. Nobody died. It's been a long time. since we've done one when nobody died. Yeah, we can laugh a little bit more. We can joke a little bit more. Yeah. All right, Gibbs, we've got some voicemails. Let's check those out. Yeah, let's see them.

Gentlemen, Mitchell from the North Texas area, such a big area, and I live in a lot of cities, so I'm not just going to point one out. Love the podcast. Love listening to y'all every Monday morning on my way to work. Got a recommendation for a case, the killer cadets in North Texas, Diane Zamora and David Graham, or Graham, Gibby, I'll leave that up to you on how you pronounce that. A very high-profile murder case where two cadets kill another young lady who was upset because the victim apparently was sleeping with her boyfriend. So they both went wild. Love the show. Love hearing more.

Have a great day from North Texas. All right. Appreciate that voicemail. And that is a good case. It's on the list for sure. Sex and murder. Always intriguing. It always is. Hey, guys. I just wanted to say thanks for what you do. I work for a municipality right near San Francisco. I'm on a lawnmower all day long mowing parks. And so I drive around in circles. And you guys keep me going all day long.

So keep doing what you're doing, man. All right. Love that voicemail. I know we're really popular with the people that ride around in circles. crowd. Yeah. I've heard from some NASCAR guys. They love the show. Anybody that rides around in a circle. We're big,

big time. Yep. Maybe number one. Number one in the rides in a circle category. You ride in a circle sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. Hi, Mike and Gibby.

This is Gabby from California. And I love your podcast. I am team both of you. You guys both rock. And I so enjoy the podcast. Thank you very much for all the work you put in. And you may have, I mean, you may have gone through this, and I didn't hear it, but I'd like to know where keep your own time ticking came from, which one of you, who, both of you, anyway. It's really cool, and I hope that y'all keep your own time ticking.

And thanks again for all you do. Take care. Bye-bye. So before you answer that, if you're Gabby, why wouldn't you be team Gibby? It's as simple as changing out. One letter. Yeah. I'm going to leave it at that, but I know you got the answer to the other.

Well, I do. I do have the answer. And I know, I think I've talked about it before, but you never, I never know, did I talk about it on TCAT? Did I talk about it on our Christmas question episode that one time? Yeah, and some people don't listen to some of those types of things. But it's a really simple answer. Basically, when I started the show, Gibby wasn't involved.

When I very first started, I had talked to you about it. Yep. But I was toying with the idea of doing it. You weren't on board. Let's put it that way. Yeah, exactly. You hadn't said, yes, for sure, I'll do it. And so, you know, I got the design, which was not the same design that we used today.

And I knew I wanted some way to close the show. And I was talking with my, it was actually my kids. I can't remember which one of my girls. But they said it should be something to do with time. They were looking at the picture. And that's how I came up with that. It's been a big hit ever since. Yeah.

It's fun. Yeah, we have no shirt that says. I know. I'm going to put a shirt out there that says keep your own time ticking. Yeah. Hey, Mike and Givie. My name is Lacey. I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Just wanted to give you guys a shout out and to say that you are my absolute favorite podcast. I listen to you pretty much all day, every day at work. And it is awesome. So thank you so much. And continue on with the show. All right. Love that.

Love New Orleans. Well, I guess Lacey be coming and seeing us at CrimeCon. She's right there. She should. I don't know why she doesn't send. me some bignets and some chicory coffee from Cafe Dumond. Why are you asking for stuff? That's my absolute favorite.

I know you like that, don't you? Oh, so we took a trip to New Orleans. Was it last? No, a couple years ago, the whole family. And I think I talked about it. The kids loved Bourbon Street. Yeah. But anyway, we went one day to Cafe Dumond because I had been a couple times before.

And once we went that first day, we had to go every day for the rest of our time. I know you loved it, man. And the girls. The girls basically dragged me there. They loved it. Well, we'll be down there sometime in June. Yep. Well, definitely going to go to Cafe Dumont for sure.

All right, Gibbs, we got mailbag. Do we have mail bag? Yep. I like when we get mail. Well, you like it more than I do because you get more stuff. You got the same amount of stuff that I got. You get all the loving. Lottie, our good friend from Denmark.

Yeah. She sent me a couple of Harley chips. Awesome. From Denmark, which are really cool. That's cool. Was it in Danish? Did this is a holiday Davidson? Is that Danish?

I don't know. No, actually it's not. I mean, it lists the city. Yeah. But other than that, it looks no different wording-wise as any of the ones from the States. That's interesting. Yeah. And then she sent you a magnet.

I see that, right? With, I think, an inspirational quote or something. We were born to be real. You're so fond of inspirational quotes. I am the inspirational, uh, uh, My wife will say, have you seen what Gibby is putting out on Instagram? Yeah. Like, no, I don't check his stuff on Instagram.

She's like, he's always touchy-feely, mushy, gushy. Yeah. That's my wife saying that about you. I know. I got to change, man. Hey, hey, it's been a rough few weeks, man. Don't change who you are. It's been a rough few weeks.

I'll be all right. Don't change who you are. Don't change. Don't go changing? Nope. I wouldn't if I could. Okay. But she also sent some beef jerky for you and I.

And she sent some salami sticks, too. You like the salami sticks? I don't know if they'll take the place of the Dukes sausages that I love. That's because they're bigger, meatier. You like that. But I will give them a try and see how I like this. You always do.

All right. That is it for another episode of True Crime All the Time. So for Mike and Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.