American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders (2024) s01e04 Episode Script
The Monster
1
[intriguing music playing]
[Tony] In the last couple of months,
Danny's financial situation
sounded like
he felt an impending deadline.
He had this great little house.
I loved his house.
And he took loans out
on the house.
They're called balloon notes,
and they come due all at once.
He had more than $100,000
in balloon notes that were due.
[Tony] He was talking about
how he needed to complete the book
and get it published.
[lights cigarette]
[car engine turns over]
[intriguing music continues]
He went to New York to meet with
either an agent or a book publisher
to get them
to buy the rights for the book.
The goal was to have them commit to it
so it would get an advance.
And I think he saw it as a solution
to at least the financial issues
that were going on.
But book publishers thought
it needed more proof.
And they thought,
could this really be true?
If you're thinking you're gonna get
a $40,000 book contract
on the most explosive story
in American history called The Octopus,
you have to have some evidence
because nobody is going to publish it.
Because what is it? What is the story?
What was the story of The Octopus?
These are the, you know, eight people
that he says are The Octopus.
We have John Nichols,
who we know from Cabazon.
George Pender, who was in business
with Robert Booth Nichols
in this project to rebuild Lebanon.
Thomas Clines and Ted Shackley,
they're both CIA operatives
involved in the secret bombing
of Laos during the Vietnam War.
Then later,
they're involved in Iran-Contra.
Howard Hunt was a longtime CIA operative.
He most famously got in trouble
for the Watergate break-in.
Richard Helms was
the director of the CIA in the 1970s,
and he destroyed the MK-Ultra files.
Ray Cline, another high-level
CIA operative.
And then, you know,
last but certainly not least,
George Bush, who was President
when Danny was writing this list
and was Vice President for Reagan,
and then was also
the director of the CIA before that.
This was Danny's theory,
that they're all part of a a network.
[Ann] I think the story was so spread out.
There were so many conspiracies.
Did they all tie together?
[Robert Booth Nichols]
To research anything
of the magnitude you're looking at
would require a lot of money
and a lot of travel
and a lot of patience.
[Tony] I think that's
what he was trying to work on,
in those ensuing weeks before he died,
is trying to find more proof.
[dramatic music playing]
[phone ringing]
[man] One day, I got a call
from a guy named Danny Casolaro
who identified himself
as an investigative reporter.
And he wanted to discuss
Robert Booth Nichols.
And at that time, I was assigned
to the Organized Crime Squad of the FBI.
[Thomas]
I know Robert Booth Nichols very well.
We were investigating in Los Angeles.
And we kept coming up with this jerk,
Nichols, popping his nose up.
[Thomas] He had been a runner
for a syndicate
in Hawaii when he was younger.
He allegedly had ties
to the intelligence areas.
And he said
that he did a lot of covert work,
black ops and that, around the world.
[man] Ground the Navy and Air Force
fighters from Pearl. Now!
- It even got him a role
- [man 2] What are the consequences?
Approximately one million people
will reach 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
[Thomas]in Steven Seagal's Under Siege.
But we felt that he was just
a brilliant international con man
with connections to the mob.
[Thomas] He does have a couple contacts
mobbed up with Gotti.
[Thomas] Danny was digging up
some information from sources.
[Michael Riconosciuto]
Robert Booth Nichols was a liaison
between organized intelligence
and organized crime.
[Thomas] Nichols likes to play
in this underground world.
He professed to have contacts
within IRS and the White House.
And we did trace him
into Reagan's White House.
And also, he allegedly had contacts
at the Justice Department.
Danny wanted to know,
was Nichols dangerous?
I told him
[Thomas] He, according to two informants,
had a contract to kill me for
about six years.
[Thomas] I guess Nichols was upset
that we were looking at him
and threatened to kill me.
His words were,
"I will kill him
when he least expects it."
But, to give Danny credit,
he kept moving forward.
[Robert] I have Thomas Gates of the FBI
making all these statements about me.
You know, this lying bastard.
[Thomas] Robert Booth Nichols,
he's not one of my favorite people
by any means.
If there's any way we can put him away,
one way or the other, um,
you may have a key to some of that.
Danny was trying to show
the interconnectivity
of how drugs, organized crime,
and Justice Department,
how all that fit together.
[Bill Hamilton]
There's a lot of fragmentary evidence
that the real role
of people like Robert Booth Nichols
and Michael Riconosciuto,
each of whom appears to have had
one foot in organized crime
and one foot in US intelligence,
was to launder the profits
from CIA-sanctioned drug trafficking
to fund covert projects
not authorized by Congress.
I considered Danny a source.
And as long as Danny had a comfort level
on continuing his investigation,
we had no reason to tell him not to.
He was like an extra agent to us.
[hangs up]
[Thomas] So why stop him?
[phone ringing]
[Cheri] The last days of his life,
there was a lot swirling around Danny.
[phone continues ringing]
[Cheri] It was in those last days
that Bill Hamilton suggested to Danny
that he investigate somebody
in the Department of Justice.
[Bill] Have you ever heard the name
Michael Abbell?
Abbell was the director
of the Office of International Affairs
in the Criminal Division at the beginning
of the Reagan Administration.
Riconosciuto called me,
and he asked me if I could find out
what happened when Michael Abbell
had tried to extradite Gilberto Rodríguez.
He didn't tell me
he's the leader of the Cali Cartel.
[reporter] The Cali Cartel,
the largest cocaine-exporting organization
in Colombia,
responsible for 70% of the cocaine
in the US.
[Bill] Riconosciuto claimed he was present
with Robert Booth Nichols
and Michael Abbell
in a Georgetown restaurant.
What Mike Riconosciuto said happened
was that Robert Booth Nichols
handed Mike Abbell $50,000.
And the purpose of the money
was to get Mike Abbell
to not extradite the Cali Cartel leaders
into the United States.
[Bill] Riconosciuto,
he wanted proof that the case was
dismissed, or whatever happened to it.
And he said,
"The inquiry could be dangerous,
so be careful."
Nichols appeared to be the conduit
between these different organizations.
So Danny was all over
the Department of Justice,
chasing Mike Abbell and the Cali Cartel.
And Danny said that he was
gonna contact Robert Booth Nichols
and see, uh,
what he thought about this.
[Bill] If he did ask Nichols,
Nichols would be terrified by it.
If someone's talking to Casolaro,
that could put Nichols in jeopardy.
[Michael] The Hamiltons said,
"Well, Danny's working on so many things,
and him asking about one more thing
isn't gonna cause any problems."
And I just I went crazy on 'em.
I specifically told them
that Danny could not handle this
because Nichols could go ballistic.
And I said,
"You're gonna get Danny killed."
[tense music playing]
[music fades]
[woman] Before Danny died,
he called and wanted me to get a drink.
We were supposed to meet
at Sign of the Whale.
It was kind of a regular hangout
for Danny.
Danny was late, 'cause he was always late.
So Danny came in,
and he spotted a guy sitting at the bar
in military uniform.
Danny being Danny,
he started talking to him.
And he said that his name was Joe.
He said he had just gotten back
from Desert Storm that very day.
[tense music playing]
[Tony] His name was Joe Cuellar,
and he was in military intelligence.
It turned out that he was quite familiar
with everything Danny was doing.
[Lynn] They had started talking about
people and organizations
that didn't have any meaning to me.
[Tony] It seemed a bit coincidental.
However, as we've all learned,
it's a small town.
A lot of people work for the government.
It's not always a stretch
to think that you could run into people
who know aspects of what you're doing.
[Lynn] They talked about Nigeria, heroin,
and they talked about arms.
Danny would say something,
then Joe would elaborate on it,
and they'd go back and forth.
And they talked about Inslaw.
Cuellar said,
"Well, I think I can help you."
"I can help you connect the dots here."
"I have a friend who works at Justice.
I'll see what I can do."
[Lynn] Joe was like, "No, he's a good guy.
We're best buddies."
"And he'll talk to you if I say so."
I could tell that Danny
was real excited by that.
[Ben] It was through that connection
that Danny thought
he was gonna get some final answers.
[Lynn] There was one point I said,
"Well, are you military intelligence,
or are you CIA?"
And his response was,
"It's sometimes hard to tell."
And he said,
"My friends think I drink too much."
And he said, "It's because there are
things you have to do
that you don't wanna do."
[Ben] I remember in those last few weeks,
he got death threats
while I was at his house.
[phone ringing]
The calls were always the same.
They said, "You better back off,
or you're gonna die."
"You're gonna die."
I said,
"W w what the hell was that?"
And I saw the look on his face,
that he knew he was on to something.
That call reiterated and validated
that he was on to something.
[Tony] When people were
kind of threatening him,
he didn't know what rock he had lifted up
and who was coming out from under it.
[man on tape] Colby?
- What?
- [man] How old are you?
- [boy mutters]
- [man] How old?
Three.
[man] Great. Happy birthday!
[child] Hi, Danny!
[woman] I don't think he hears you.
Yell louder.
[child] Hi, Danny!
[Tony] I saw Danny
two or three weeks before he died.
Danny!
[Tony] It was
at my son Colby's third birthday.
- There you are!
- [woman laughing]
[Tony] He seemed pretty good.
It's somebody's birthday. Whose is it?
- [Colby] Colby!
- No, no, it's not Colby's.
- [Colby] It is.
- [Danny] Whose birthday is it?
[Tony] And he actually stayed late.
So after everybody had gone,
he and I stood in our kitchen
and talked for a long time
about what was going on.
That was when he told me,
"By the way, if an accident happens,
it's not an accident."
- [Danny] Hurry up.
- [woman] Yeah!
[Danny] All right! Lights.
[Thomas] I talked to him the night before
he left for Martinsburg.
And Danny told me that
Robert Booth Nichols had set up a meeting
with a person that would have
some information from the IRS.
Some documentation.
[Ben] Those were his words.
"I finally figured out
who knows where the money went
and how the money
got to where it's gotta go,
and I'm gonna get some answers."
[Thomas] It seemed very possible
'cause we knew that Nichols
had connections within the IRS.
And there was an IRS office
in Martinsburg.
[reporter] This is Internal Revenue's
National Computer Center
in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
The den of the Martinsburg monster,
the master computer.
Everything Internal Revenue
knows about each of us.
[man] Did you understand that the reason
why you weren't supposed to pay taxes
was because you wanted
to keep secret from the IRS
that you were doing contract work
for military intelligence?
My files, they said
they never wanted my files,
at any time, to be public.
At any time, under any circumstance.
Danny asked me,
"Should I be aware or cautious of anything
because Nichols set the meeting up?"
I said, "We haven't heard anything
that would be cause for you to be
concerned about somebody harming you."
At least, we didn't think so.
We didn't think so, and that was, um,
probably my fault for not getting
some kind of activity there, uh,
to watch what was goin' on.
[narrator] "This is my final week
for these marathon hours
over the last 12 months."
[man] Danny came down to my office,
and he told me, "Look."
"I'm in way over my head."
He wanted to know what safety measures
and precautions he ought to be taking.
So I told him that
he should check his car for explosives,
meet people only in public places,
like a restaurant or a hotel,
and he should always
try and take somebody else with him.
[Ben] I do wonder
why the hell he went there alone.
And that's where my regret is.
'Cause he said,
"Hey, do you wanna go with me?"
And I I couldn't go.
[narrator] "Encountering this odyssey,
meeting it with my whole life,
is to grapple with something personal,
since I've risked everything."
"By Friday,
I have to come up with about $5,000
to just cover my mortgage payment
and my real estate taxes."
[Tony] I know
that he went to West Virginia,
but I don't know who he met with.
I think he got worried toward the end,
and he thought, if I didn't know,
it could be no risk to me.
[Terry] He said
he was going to Martinsburg,
and he was gonna go up there with Cuellar.
[Michael] Danny had a source there
inside the IRS's computer data center
that was giving him information
on specific targets.
[narrator] "In September,
I'll be looking into the face
of an oncoming train."
"Father, what will I do?"
[Ann] I thought
that he was on a downward spiral,
and I thought that spiral would
take him to places where he shouldn't be.
And the people that brought him down
were dangerous people.
Whether they were telling the truth
or lying, it didn't matter.
They were still very dangerous people.
[narrator] "Still, I feel the happiness
that an Eskimo must feel
when he comes across fresh bear tracks
when he's ahead of all the other sledges."
"It's just the way it has happened."
[somber piano music playing]
He said, "Ann, it's Tony." I said, "Yeah."
And he goes, "We found Danny."
I said, "Okay."
And he said, "He's dead." [voice cracks]
[sobbing]
[somber music continues]
[Ann] What happened? What happened?
What happened
between that man that I met in 1979
to the man driving to his death
in West Virginia?
What happened?
[woman] Last night they were saying
there were financial problems?
There's no financial problems.
That's
That that's wrong.
That's wrong.
Some people claimed that this was
a sad man who'd just killed himself,
and and that's
that's just not true.
I think you don't get over
certain losses. Time just passes.
It's not that the loss
is any less painful.
It's just
time passes.
For many nights after Danny died,
I had dreams.
You know, where I'd will him back.
I'd say, "You gotta come back.
You gotta tell me what happened."
And he'd just smile and laugh.
[Lynn] The last conversation I had
with Joe Cuellar,
I called to see if he knew
what had happened to Danny.
And he just got really
He said, "Stop asking questions."
"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."
[Ann] During the investigation
of his death,
Tony and I went to West Virginia.
And the cops told us a lot
about that night.
[Tony] We spent maybe an hour and a half
kind of going through
what they had learned
about Danny's final few days.
He spent time at the restaurant
in the Sheraton.
He went to a place called Stone Crab Inn,
and a Pizza Hut.
And then they said,
"Looks like he was killing time,
waiting for someone to meet with him."
But no one showed up.
And he never met with anyone.
And then he's got a block of time
where we don't know anything.
And they laid out a scenario that
they believed is what happened to him.
He drank,
took some medication,
put a plastic bag over his head,
and then cut his wrists.
Police have reopened the investigation
into the mysterious death
of a Fairfax investigative reporter.
Police at first thought it was a suicide,
but Casolaro's relatives and friends
say they suspect foul play.
[Tony] In the first week after Danny died,
I got a phone call
from Michael Riconosciuto,
and he started talking about
how it was a dangerous business,
and he warned Danny.
He told me Robert Booth Nichols,
he thought, might have been behind this.
And then Robert Booth Nichols called me,
and he said,
"I offer my condolences."
"Your brother was dealing with
dangerous people."
"I told him to look out, and, you know,
you probably ought to do the same."
I'm thinking, is he wondering
if I found things that implicated him?
Was he trying to figure out
did I know anything?
Did I find anything?
And then he made a point of telling me
that he was in London when Danny died.
Why would he point that out?
The results of Casolaro's autopsy
will be made public
late tomorrow afternoon in Martinsburg.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Cynthia Gaither.
I'm Assistant Prosecuting Attorney.
Due to the large number of reports
received by the investigating team
concerning the nature
of the deceased's work,
it was determined
that further investigation
into the death was warranted.
However, no information
inconsistent with the original theory
of suicide has been found.
[chatter in courtroom]
[Tony] Anyone can commit suicide.
I believe that.
So, I
I listened.
[Cynthia] The cause of death is
exsanguinating hemorrhage
due to multiple incised wounds
of the wrist.
I thought, "I guess
that's a conceivable scenario."
But I think it's like a diagnosis.
If I think you've got X,
it'll take a lot to prove you've got Y,
'cause I already think you have X.
- [man] Maybe we can talk to the Chief?
- [woman] Doctor
[overlapping dialogue in courtroom]
[man] How did your officers
secure the crime scene?
And how long was that crime scene secured?
- [Cynthia] The crime scene was
- [man] Can we hear from the Chief?
With all due respect,
he's a Police Chief, not a wallflower.
A highly unusual news conference
on the autopsy has just concluded. Jack?
The Assistant State's Attorney,
the Police Chief,
and the investigating detective
walked out.
At that point,
it started to seem like a potential,
and I hate to use the word "cover-up,"
but a potential cover-up.
They wanted this to be over.
There must be a full, thorough,
impartial, hard-hitting investigation.
Elliot Richardson,
who is doing legal work for Inslaw,
has asked the FBI
to investigate Casolaro's death.
[Tony] When Janet Reno was
being questioned
prior to becoming Attorney General
under President Clinton, she was asked,
"Will you investigate
the death of Danny Casolaro?"
Are you familiar
with the Danny Casolaro case?
[woman] No, I'm not, sir.
[Orrin] It's something that I think
ought to be given a full investigation
by the Justice Department.
And she said she would.
[intriguing music playing]
I got a call from an FBI agent,
and I told him everything.
[Bill] This FBI agent called me up,
and they wanted to know
who he's talked to.
[Thomas] One day, I got a call,
and I told them
about Robert Booth Nichols.
[Robert] I talked to an FBI agent,
and I told them they must talk to Michael.
[Michael] There's no question in my mind
what happened.
Because Bob panicked.
[Lynn] All the FBI wanted to talk about
was Joe Cuellar.
They didn't talk about any other aspects.
Just Joe Cuellar.
The Attorney General calls me
a few months later
and says, "Listen,
we've concluded our investigation."
"Some of our agents
are not convinced this was suicide."
"But we rely on physical evidence
as our primary means
of determining cause of death,
and we're going to conclude
that it was suicide."
And I have somewhat more
of an inherent belief in our system.
So, you know, when the system says,
"Well, it looks like it's suicide,"
I thought, "Okay, well,
I guess if that's what they conclude."
[unsettling music playing]
[door rattles]
[Zachary] Um
What's happened
since you went back to jail?
I was transported, uh,
to Seattle, to SeaTac.
There's a detention center there.
And, uh, it all got straightened out,
obviously,
because the day of my final hearing,
my sentencing judge saw fit
to terminate my sentence,
terminate any probation, and that was it.
Long and the short of it.
[Zachary] What did the FBI say happened
with you and Danny?
Conspiracy theory.
The government's position at my trial
was that I led Danny around by the nose,
and when he couldn't prove my stuff,
he became so despondent
that he committed suicide.
And this was one of the aggravating
sentencing factors in my case,
uh, was that, uh, you know,
I manipulated these people,
which is just not the case.
The official story
of what happened to Danny
is that he was conned
by people like Michael Riconosciuto
and Robert Booth Nichols,
who convinced him
that this fake story was real.
That there was no meeting in Martinsburg,
he was broke,
he'd sunk a lot of money into it.
And upon realizing
that he'd been led astray and lied to,
he committed suicide.
But to me, when I look at the whole thing,
everything I've learned,
I think it's very possible
that he got killed.
[Zachary] If it's a 30-year-old murder,
how do you go about solving that?
[Christian] Well, ten years ago,
I started filing FOIA requests.
[Zachary] What's a FOIA request?
It's a Freedom of Information Act request.
It's a request for government files
pertaining to whatever investigation.
My first FOIA request was
to the Martinsburg Police Department
for files relating
to the Danny Casolaro case.
They turned it down.
They said that the case was sealed
at the request of the DOJ.
[Zachary] So what happens then?
Well, these days, I go out and try to find
people who might know something.
- [Christian] Hello.
- [Zachary] Hi.
[Christian] Wanna knock?
[Zachary] Hello.
We could put a mic on us.
[Zachary] Seems a little crazy to go
to a mob dude's house, literally wired up.
[doorbell rings]
[knocking on door]
[Zachary] Hi.
[officer] Something going on?
[Zachary] What's up?
[officer]
Are you knocking on anybody's doors?
[Zachary] Knocking on [bleep] door.
[officer] He knows
what you're trying to do.
He doesn't want anything to do with it.
So, please, stop contacting him.
[Zachary] Understood.
[Christian] There's documents
all over the country
from private researchers,
private investigators,
and journalists who've written about
one individual tentacle of this thing.
[man] We need to wind our way
through the catacombs.
[Doug] Okay, here we got a bunch of stuff.
Interviews with,
oh my God, Casolaro,
Hamilton.
- [Michael] Christian?
- [Christian] Yes?
Yeah, it's Michael. How are you?
[Christian] Michael has
all this information he wants me to find.
[Michael] I'm trying to stop other people
from getting hurt, okay?
It's ongoing after all these years.
[Bill] Christian, it's Bill Hamilton.
[Christian] And I tracked down
all these leads that Bill's given me.
[Bill] It's about financial aspects
of the use of PROMIS in intelligence.
Bill has what he refers to as these
highly placed US intelligence sources.
One of the main ones,
she was referred to as the "Aetna girl,"
in reference to Aetna Life & Casualty,
where she worked.
[Bill] Norma DiGiacinto was
a very reliable source, you know?
Her husband had been an employee
of the CIA years earlier.
A senior CIA official told her,
"There's another application
of PROMIS you're not being told about."
"It's more sensitive than all the ones
I'm authorized to tell you."
So I passed it on to Casolaro.
I think that Danny
had figured this all out
then was killed over it.
[Christian] I always wanted to talk to her
because she was this direct connection
to the CIA side.
- [Zachary] Hello.
- [Christian] Hello.
- Hey. Hi.
- [man] Can I help you guys?
[Zachary] Do you know Norma DiGiacinto?
- [man] Can't hear you.
- [Zachary] Do you know Norma DiGiacinto?
[man] Mm-hmm.
- [Zachary] Hi. Are you Norma?
- [Norma] Yes, I am.
[Zachary] Did you used to work
at Aetna Life & Casualty?
- [Norma] Yeah, I sure did.
- [Zachary] Really?
Um, do you remember, uh, Bill Hamilton?
- [Norma] Yeah.
- [all laugh]
[Norma] Aetna sent me down
to a PROMIS user meeting.
Went down. Met Bill.
And was listening to Bill's story.
It just struck home with me
for some reason, you know?
I says, "Well, I'm gonna see
what I can find out."
All you can do is drop a word
on the street and see where it goes.
I lived right outside of D.C,
so everywhere you turn,
it's government workers.
I started asking around, you know.
And I got information.
Started getting little notes.
Maybe under the windshield wiper.
Maybe on the table.
Just somebody walking by.
They would usually
just point me in a direction.
Like, "Submarine.
Better check out the submarines."
[Bill]
She said the first use of the software
is for an intelligence application
on the nuclear submarines
of the United States and Great Britain.
I tracked that down, and then
I let Bill know what I'd heard. [laughs]
[Zachary]
What was Bill and Nancy's reaction
when they started hearing this stuff?
Well, they were surprised that
I was coming up with these odd bits.
[Bill] She said she cannot believe this.
They were surprised that I was
picking 'em up from the bowling alley,
a lot of it.
[Zachary] So you were getting
this information at the bowling alley?
[pensive music playing]
[Norma] I bowled almost four nights a week
for about two years.
And I would just say,
"If anybody's ever heard anything
about the PROMIS software,
let me know what they've heard."
- [Zachary] Random people?
- Random people that I saw.
[Zachary] But you would ask people
You would ask people
Yeah, if they'd ever heard anything
about a PROMIS software.
[Zachary laughs]
I've never heard anything like it.
[Norma] Neither had Bill.
He kept asking me, "Who do you know?"
[laughs] I don't know anybody!
[Bill] She said, "Oh,
I can help you with the CIA."
[Zachary] Bill had originally said that
you were related to somebody at the CIA.
No. Never.
[Zachary] You had
nothing to do with the CIA?
Nope. Nothing.
[Bill] Her husband had been
a Clandestine Services Officer at the CIA
years earlier.
- [Zachary] Your husband wasn't CIA?
- No.
[Zachary] What did he do?
He's an auto mechanic.
[curious music playing]
[Christian sighs] Wow.
Bill is out of his mind.
Do you agree?
[Christian] So you don't think that, like,
people that were sympathetic,
that were kind of more firsthand,
were actually passing her notes?
- At a bowling alley?
- Yeah.
- Over the course of four years?
- [Christian] Yeah.
[pensive music continues]
We have to talk to him about this stuff.
[line ringing]
Hey, Bill. It's Christian, um
Just, um, giving you a call.
I've got some questions for ya.
Um, just give me a call back
as soon as you can. Thanks a lot. Bye.
[line ringing]
I mean, maybe Bill just heard
what he wanted to hear and believed it.
[Bill] We had information from
covert intelligence sources.
[reporter] This is Michael Riconosciuto.
[Michael] We received
copies of the software itself,
as well as documentation.
[Christian] And then with Michael,
it's like, who knows what's real?
[Michael] I had to go into the software,
and I had to list all the code.
He definitely was out at Cabazon,
working with John Philip Nichols.
All pretty wild,
but, like,
that's just a small fraction
of the stories that he tells.
There's a category of people
that some of us call "web spinners."
Riconosciuto fits the pattern
of people who spin stories
that are only partially true,
that confuse at best.
First of all, uh,
the October Surprise involvement.
Well, the parties that were involved
in the distribution of this software
were involved in covert operations, and
One of the known tactics
of an intelligence service
is to have multiple layers of myth
that protect some kernel of truth
that might be underneath.
So we've got confusion.
And confusion has its purposes
because it creates doubt
and, ultimately, paralysis.
Some people get sucked down that.
They think that they've got the answer.
They've found the key.
But, unfortunately,
that doesn't actually happen very often.
[Zachary] Where did you discover
this information?
Do you have a reliable source?
Um
Yeah.
[Christian] What's becoming
very obvious to me is that,
um, this whole story,
like, all of these people are
are insane.
[laughing]
Oh my God!
[laughing]
It's so sad.
It's so fucking sad and fucked.
[sighs] Oh God.
You know, maybe Danny
got totally confused and lost.
Um
I do know of one person
that was in that hotel room
that could've killed Danny.
[Zachary] Who?
Danny.
He's the only person I know was there.
[sighs]
[Christian] It's just kind of
hard to understand because
Danny was right about so many things.
I mean, look at John Philip Nichols.
[reporter] John Philip Nichols,
the outsider who established
the Cabazon gambling operation,
was himself convicted of trying to arrange
five contract killings
four years after Fred's death.
Doc Nichols was actually arrested
for conspiracy to commit murder.
And it's a completely different case,
completely different people.
But it still didn't,
apparently, give any credibility or weight
to the Fred Alvarez murders.
Even though, after the murders,
Jimmy Hughes, the head of security
for the Cabazon business ventures,
walks into the DA's office and says,
"Doc Nichols told me
he had Fred Alvarez killed."
"He gave me an envelope with $5,000."
[reporter 2] Jimmy Hughes says
he made a cash drop for John Nichols
to pay for the hit on Alvarez.
Nichols told me the hit on Alvarez
was an authorized,
backed, government covert action.
After all this happened back in the '80s,
he fled to Honduras and became a minister.
So I took all of my investigation,
and they put a warrant in the system
for Jimmy Hughes.
And we took Jimmy into custody
at the airport.
Booked him into jail.
And one day, I get a phone call.
The Deputy Attorney General said,
"We're dismissing the case
and letting Jimmy Hughes go."
The reason he gave in court was,
"After additional evidence
has been obtained,
we no longer have confidence
in being able to
successfully prosecute this case."
I disagree with the decision
to dismiss the case today.
[John] News to me.
I'm the lead investigator.
Nobody's told me there's any new evidence
or information that would lead to that.
The biggest question was,
who was in charge?
Who was making the decisions?
Who was pulling the strings?
Because some higher power somewhere
was calling the shots,
and I never could
figure out who that was,
and nobody could ever tell me.
And then, four years after Danny dies,
Mike Abbell gets arrested.
A former Justice Department official
who ran the US war on the Colombia cartel
today was indicted for being a part of it.
He was laundering money
for the Cali Cartel.
[reporter 3] He's accused of
obstructing justice
and money laundering.
Then there's Robert Booth Nichols who gets
tied up in this major Ponzi scheme
with this Wall Street guy
named Sam Israel.
[reporter 4] Federal lawsuits claim
Israel paid Nichols $10 million
to locate something valuable.
[man] You received
approximately $10 million
from Israel in July 2004. Correct?
That's correct.
[reporter 4] It was
a treasury note for $250 billion.
He went to that deposition,
and then died two months later.
One day, New York called me
and said that he had died
of a heart attack in Switzerland.
I said, "Are you sure?"
I said, "What happened to the body?"
They said, "It was cremated." I said,
"When? That night?"
They said, "How'd you know?"
[laughing] I said,
"I'm just following the con."
[Michael] He's still alive.
[Zachary] Where do you think he is?
I know where he is.
I don't want to state it, uh, you know.
[Zachary] Domestic, or
No, absolutely not.
Although he's been back
in the United States.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Christian] When I started
this investigation,
I was 25 years old.
I didn't care that much about politics,
and I definitely didn't care
about conspiracy theories.
It changed me.
And it changed the way
that I think about reality
and think about the world
and think about history.
I'm just so much more skeptical
of everything.
This is the surface,
but what's going on in the shadows?
You can't really come back from that.
You can't just, like, learn about that
and compartmentalize it.
It spreads into the way you think, really.
It's like the monster under the bed
is actually there.
Knowing that will change the way
you sleep at night.
So, yeah,
I think it was important,
no matter what.
[camera clicks]
[Christian] You know, if Danny did choose
to end his life that way,
I don't think it negates
everything that Danny found
or that I found.
It's just different.
And that's fine.
That's just the way it is.
[cell phone buzzing]
[Zachary] Hello?
[man] Uh, Zachary Treitz, please.
[Zachary] Yes.
[man] I got a text message today
from Chief Swartwood
in reference to the Casolaro report.
[Zachary] Yes.
[Kin] He indicates
that there is a FOIA that's there?
[Zachary] So I've been told that you guys
have everything in your evidence locker,
and so that's
what we would like access to.
[Kin]
The Chief of Police gathered everything
and then held it and said
that we were told not to disclose it.
It's a 30-year-old case that's
[Zachary] That's closed. Well closed.
[Kin] that's a closed case,
so it's not something
that really has any confidential
or privileged information anymore.
So I think the city is obligated
to make it available.
That's your government at your service.
[intriguing string music playing]
[Zachary] Christian, do you remember when
you put this FOIA request in originally?
How long it's been?
[Christian] I think it was in 2013.
[Zachary] Hello?
[man] So we're going into room three.
You all would be the first person
in probably 20 years
to open the box.
[intriguing music playing]
[man] These are all the paper files.
There are no cigarette butts,
any physical evidence.
This is all we got.
[music building]
Wow.
Reports written by police officers.
That's the note.
Forensic science lab report.
This is phone records.
[Zachary]
There's a lot of stuff here. Oh my God.
[Christian] I've never seen this before.
Fuck!
This is a list of stuff
that he had on him.
[camera clicking]
- [Zachary] Oh Jesus.
- [exhales]
[Christian] Oh God.
This is witness statements.
[Zachary] What is that? Police sketch?
"I contacted Kim Waters at her residence."
"Arrangements were made for her to meet me
at my office on the following day
to complete a composite of the subject
that she claims to have seen Casolaro with
in the Sheraton lounge on Thursday."
[Zachary] Whoa.
The police said
Danny was alone all weekend.
[Christian] "Dear sir."
"This is the letter you requested
from our telephone conversation."
"We arrived April 9th,
about 6 p.m., room 515."
"Later in the evening,
I saw a gentleman entering,
with key, room 517."
"He was white, 5'9" to 6 feet,
also had dark hair."
- That's weird.
- [Zachary] What?
[Christian] Danny had blond hair.
It was almost white at that point.
[Zachary] What's that mean?
I mean,
it means that
somebody else had a key to his room maybe?
Or maybe I mean
[Zachary] Was that in the FBI report?
It was not in the FBI report.
Not in any news reports.
Um
It's a weird thing to bury
or to, you know,
let get lost in the shuffle.
[Zachary] Do you mind reading
that last part your mom wrote?
"Wearing dark blue shorts, white shirt,
also had dark hair."
"I did not see his face
as his back was toward me."
"On Thursday, August 15th,
Ten O'Clock News, Philadelphia"
I'm Peter Ford
"we saw a picture of Mr. Casolaro
for the first time."
Was reporter Danny Casolaro killed
because of what he knew
[Marianne] "This was not the man
Mr. Springfield or myself saw
in the hallway Friday night."
[pensive music playing]
"We never saw Mr. Casolaro
and the other gentleman again."
"Yours truly, Mary Lehnert."
My mother had the room
next to Mr. Casolaro that weekend.
She told the police
that she saw a man entering the room,
but it wasn't the same person
that was in the paper.
The police asked her to write a letter,
and she put a description of the man
that she did see in her letter.
[Zachary] Then what happened with it next?
Nothing. [laughs]
Nothing.
[Zachary] They didn't
Nobody ever
She wrote the letter,
and that was it.
We never heard anything ever again.
[Christian] Yeah, I don't know.
Is this Joe?
Or is this vague enough
to look like anyone you want it to be?
You know, it's a composite sketch, uh
I don't know, but what's weird
is that Cuellar has two different alibis.
In the FBI's initial investigation
into Danny's death,
Cuellar tells the FBI
that he was in Panama.
And then, in the report
that these same agents produced,
it says that he was in D.C.
when Danny died.
That never really seemed like
a legitimate alibi to me either
because Washington, D.C.,
and Martinsburg are so close.
They're only an hour and a half apart.
Danny died sometime
early in the morning of August 10th,
according to the coroner's report.
You could easily kill Danny
and then drive to D.C. [chuckles]
When it went from Cuellar's
initial statement to the report,
it changed.
Drastically.
[cell phone ringing]
[Christian] Hello?
[man] Christian?
[Christian] How's it going?
Hey. Jeff Cuellar. How are you doing?
Good. How are you?
[Jeff] Happy Friday.
[Christian] Happy Friday.
So, um, your dad seems like
an interesting guy,
and it would be helpful to know,
you know, a little bit more about him.
[Jeff] You know, as long as
we're speaking positively here
Uh-huh.
[Jeff] He's definitely a
You know, I would say he's a hero.
Some of the tactics and things
may be questionable,
but he was always working
on behalf of the US government,
whether it be
during his tenure with the CIA,
Special Forces,
and he was a very charismatic individual
and could blend easily.
Extremely athletic, Golden Glove boxer,
paratrooper.
He spoke 26 languages
at one point in time.
Wow.
[Jeff] A lot of his missions were
in South America and the Middle East.
No wonder Danny was so fascinated by him.
[Jeff] Yeah.
[Christian] They met coincidentally, um,
at a bar in Virginia
called the Sign of the Whale.
The writer was writing this book about
this obscure political scandal in D.C.,
and your dad's response was,
"Oh, I know all about that."
[Jeff] Wow.
I mean, one thing,
I guess, 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.
Um
He The the the writer
could've been getting played.
Could've been getting what?
[Jeff] Played. You would never know
who is his mark.
Part of what his specialty was,
was to be able to infiltrate,
retract information,
to find out what someone potentially knows
and what they don't know.
[cell phone ringing and buzzing]
[Zachary] Hello.
Hi, Zachary. It's Scott Erskine.
How are you?
- [Zachary] Hey, how are you?
- [Scott] Good.
[Zachary] So I'm working
on the Danny Casolaro story.
[Scott laughs] Yeah.
- [Zachary] Yeah.
- Okay.
I know there were conspiracy theories
and all that.
But after interviewing all the people
that we could get access to,
we came to the definite conclusion
that it was a suicide.
- That it was not a murder.
- Right.
[keyboard tapping]
[Scott] And not to say
anything derogatory about Danny,
but he seemed to mingle
with a number of individuals
who were kind of
involved with conspiracies
or enjoyed being involved in conspiracies.
That's why we endeavored to get down
to the actual truth of the matter.
[Zachary] Right. Well, I was gonna ask you
about a couple specific things
that I was looking at.
If you remember,
there was this guy, Joseph Cuellar.
- Do you remember that name? Cuellar?
- [Scott] Yeah. Yeah.
[Zachary] I was talking to the woman
who was there at the bar
when Danny met him
- [phone ringing]
- [Scott] Zachary, can I call you back?
- [Zachary] Absolutely.
- [Scott] Okay, I'll be back shortly.
[phone continues ringing]
[Zachary] It's the fuckin' NSA calling
to tell him to shut the fuck up.
[Christian] I know that Joe Cuellar
lied to the authorities
about where he was
at the time of Danny's death.
I know that both Joseph Cuellar
and Robert Booth Nichols
also lied about the nature
of their relationship with Danny.
Uh, but for some reason,
I don't think that the investigators
took them seriously enough
to try and figure out
what was really going on with these guys.
And, on the other hand, if they did
find out what was really going on,
they were actively covering it up.
And, if that's the case,
it's their job to make sure
that myself or anyone else
doesn't find why.
Doesn't find the answers.
[dark, intriguing music playing]
[door opens]
[Cheri] Once you start playing the game,
it's like playing any game.
You don't really wanna get off the board
until you've won.
I feel like I have all of the material
that I need to finish Danny's book
and move on.
You know, I've tracked down
every lead I could find.
I'm done with Bill. I'm done with Michael.
I just have to finish this thing.
[Zachary] I remember it as, like,
"Is Christian actually losing his mind?"
Do you remember that moment?
[man] Yeah, I think it had
crossed everybody's mind.
- [Zachary] Yeah.
- [men laughing]
And then I started, like,
showing her this graph that I made
of, like, intrigue. It went from, like
It started with Enron here, and I had
You have to make a decision for yourself,
which I did.
[Christian] I made a choice between
learning the secret of everything,
which, like, I realized I would never do,
and being happy and having fun.
Are you gonna
go back to your normal, boring life,
you know, and enjoy
small things like movies,
or, you know, barbecues,
instead of phone calls
from the netherworld?
[laughing]
[Cheri] Are you gonna deprogram yourself
and go back to being
a normal person again?
[dramatic music playing]
[all singing]
[laughing]
[all laughing]
[man] He wouldn't
let David put his laundry
[Cheri] After it's over
there's a certain withdrawal
that you have.
And a temptation
to be drawn back into the fray.
[cell phone ringing]
[Christian] Hey, Michael?
- [Michael] How you doing?
- Good. How are you?
[Michael] Not good. Not good.
- What's going on?
- [Michael] Uh
Well, I don't wanna
talk about it on the phone.
With all the, you know, exciting,
"So-and-so's been murdered,"
"So-and-so's been arrested," or whatever.
[Michael] I'm trying
to get up to, uh, Maricopa,
and if I get up there,
uh, then I want you to come up
and meet me there.
[Cheri] The ones that are still involved,
they never let go of it.
They never deprogrammed.
It's a choice.
It's a personal choice each person makes.
[Michael] It's crazy, okay?
[Christian] What's crazy? What's going on?
[Michael shouting]
People are getting killed! Okay?
All right? I wanna show you the evidence.
- All right.
- I need help. People are dead!
- Okay.
- [call end tone]
[Zachary] What do we do?
[Michael] I've got all the pieces.
I just need help from people
on certain things.
Are you recording?
- [Christian] Yeah.
- [Michael] No, no. Don't
[Christian] You're just talking
in vague terms.
[Michael] Yeah. No. Turn the camera off.
I wanna see what you guys get out of it
from the leads that I give you.
Then when you've
got your documentary in the can,
I'm gonna tell you what really went down.
Okay?
'Cause you could never
put it in a documentary.
You'll see why.
[Christian] What am I gonna put
in the documentary?
[Michael] The leads.
You know, what happened.
The other stuff, you'd get shot by the
[Christian] By the what?
[Michael] Same guys that killed Danny.
[tense music playing]
[dramatic string music playing]
[intriguing music playing]
[Tony] In the last couple of months,
Danny's financial situation
sounded like
he felt an impending deadline.
He had this great little house.
I loved his house.
And he took loans out
on the house.
They're called balloon notes,
and they come due all at once.
He had more than $100,000
in balloon notes that were due.
[Tony] He was talking about
how he needed to complete the book
and get it published.
[lights cigarette]
[car engine turns over]
[intriguing music continues]
He went to New York to meet with
either an agent or a book publisher
to get them
to buy the rights for the book.
The goal was to have them commit to it
so it would get an advance.
And I think he saw it as a solution
to at least the financial issues
that were going on.
But book publishers thought
it needed more proof.
And they thought,
could this really be true?
If you're thinking you're gonna get
a $40,000 book contract
on the most explosive story
in American history called The Octopus,
you have to have some evidence
because nobody is going to publish it.
Because what is it? What is the story?
What was the story of The Octopus?
These are the, you know, eight people
that he says are The Octopus.
We have John Nichols,
who we know from Cabazon.
George Pender, who was in business
with Robert Booth Nichols
in this project to rebuild Lebanon.
Thomas Clines and Ted Shackley,
they're both CIA operatives
involved in the secret bombing
of Laos during the Vietnam War.
Then later,
they're involved in Iran-Contra.
Howard Hunt was a longtime CIA operative.
He most famously got in trouble
for the Watergate break-in.
Richard Helms was
the director of the CIA in the 1970s,
and he destroyed the MK-Ultra files.
Ray Cline, another high-level
CIA operative.
And then, you know,
last but certainly not least,
George Bush, who was President
when Danny was writing this list
and was Vice President for Reagan,
and then was also
the director of the CIA before that.
This was Danny's theory,
that they're all part of a a network.
[Ann] I think the story was so spread out.
There were so many conspiracies.
Did they all tie together?
[Robert Booth Nichols]
To research anything
of the magnitude you're looking at
would require a lot of money
and a lot of travel
and a lot of patience.
[Tony] I think that's
what he was trying to work on,
in those ensuing weeks before he died,
is trying to find more proof.
[dramatic music playing]
[phone ringing]
[man] One day, I got a call
from a guy named Danny Casolaro
who identified himself
as an investigative reporter.
And he wanted to discuss
Robert Booth Nichols.
And at that time, I was assigned
to the Organized Crime Squad of the FBI.
[Thomas]
I know Robert Booth Nichols very well.
We were investigating in Los Angeles.
And we kept coming up with this jerk,
Nichols, popping his nose up.
[Thomas] He had been a runner
for a syndicate
in Hawaii when he was younger.
He allegedly had ties
to the intelligence areas.
And he said
that he did a lot of covert work,
black ops and that, around the world.
[man] Ground the Navy and Air Force
fighters from Pearl. Now!
- It even got him a role
- [man 2] What are the consequences?
Approximately one million people
will reach 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
[Thomas]in Steven Seagal's Under Siege.
But we felt that he was just
a brilliant international con man
with connections to the mob.
[Thomas] He does have a couple contacts
mobbed up with Gotti.
[Thomas] Danny was digging up
some information from sources.
[Michael Riconosciuto]
Robert Booth Nichols was a liaison
between organized intelligence
and organized crime.
[Thomas] Nichols likes to play
in this underground world.
He professed to have contacts
within IRS and the White House.
And we did trace him
into Reagan's White House.
And also, he allegedly had contacts
at the Justice Department.
Danny wanted to know,
was Nichols dangerous?
I told him
[Thomas] He, according to two informants,
had a contract to kill me for
about six years.
[Thomas] I guess Nichols was upset
that we were looking at him
and threatened to kill me.
His words were,
"I will kill him
when he least expects it."
But, to give Danny credit,
he kept moving forward.
[Robert] I have Thomas Gates of the FBI
making all these statements about me.
You know, this lying bastard.
[Thomas] Robert Booth Nichols,
he's not one of my favorite people
by any means.
If there's any way we can put him away,
one way or the other, um,
you may have a key to some of that.
Danny was trying to show
the interconnectivity
of how drugs, organized crime,
and Justice Department,
how all that fit together.
[Bill Hamilton]
There's a lot of fragmentary evidence
that the real role
of people like Robert Booth Nichols
and Michael Riconosciuto,
each of whom appears to have had
one foot in organized crime
and one foot in US intelligence,
was to launder the profits
from CIA-sanctioned drug trafficking
to fund covert projects
not authorized by Congress.
I considered Danny a source.
And as long as Danny had a comfort level
on continuing his investigation,
we had no reason to tell him not to.
He was like an extra agent to us.
[hangs up]
[Thomas] So why stop him?
[phone ringing]
[Cheri] The last days of his life,
there was a lot swirling around Danny.
[phone continues ringing]
[Cheri] It was in those last days
that Bill Hamilton suggested to Danny
that he investigate somebody
in the Department of Justice.
[Bill] Have you ever heard the name
Michael Abbell?
Abbell was the director
of the Office of International Affairs
in the Criminal Division at the beginning
of the Reagan Administration.
Riconosciuto called me,
and he asked me if I could find out
what happened when Michael Abbell
had tried to extradite Gilberto Rodríguez.
He didn't tell me
he's the leader of the Cali Cartel.
[reporter] The Cali Cartel,
the largest cocaine-exporting organization
in Colombia,
responsible for 70% of the cocaine
in the US.
[Bill] Riconosciuto claimed he was present
with Robert Booth Nichols
and Michael Abbell
in a Georgetown restaurant.
What Mike Riconosciuto said happened
was that Robert Booth Nichols
handed Mike Abbell $50,000.
And the purpose of the money
was to get Mike Abbell
to not extradite the Cali Cartel leaders
into the United States.
[Bill] Riconosciuto,
he wanted proof that the case was
dismissed, or whatever happened to it.
And he said,
"The inquiry could be dangerous,
so be careful."
Nichols appeared to be the conduit
between these different organizations.
So Danny was all over
the Department of Justice,
chasing Mike Abbell and the Cali Cartel.
And Danny said that he was
gonna contact Robert Booth Nichols
and see, uh,
what he thought about this.
[Bill] If he did ask Nichols,
Nichols would be terrified by it.
If someone's talking to Casolaro,
that could put Nichols in jeopardy.
[Michael] The Hamiltons said,
"Well, Danny's working on so many things,
and him asking about one more thing
isn't gonna cause any problems."
And I just I went crazy on 'em.
I specifically told them
that Danny could not handle this
because Nichols could go ballistic.
And I said,
"You're gonna get Danny killed."
[tense music playing]
[music fades]
[woman] Before Danny died,
he called and wanted me to get a drink.
We were supposed to meet
at Sign of the Whale.
It was kind of a regular hangout
for Danny.
Danny was late, 'cause he was always late.
So Danny came in,
and he spotted a guy sitting at the bar
in military uniform.
Danny being Danny,
he started talking to him.
And he said that his name was Joe.
He said he had just gotten back
from Desert Storm that very day.
[tense music playing]
[Tony] His name was Joe Cuellar,
and he was in military intelligence.
It turned out that he was quite familiar
with everything Danny was doing.
[Lynn] They had started talking about
people and organizations
that didn't have any meaning to me.
[Tony] It seemed a bit coincidental.
However, as we've all learned,
it's a small town.
A lot of people work for the government.
It's not always a stretch
to think that you could run into people
who know aspects of what you're doing.
[Lynn] They talked about Nigeria, heroin,
and they talked about arms.
Danny would say something,
then Joe would elaborate on it,
and they'd go back and forth.
And they talked about Inslaw.
Cuellar said,
"Well, I think I can help you."
"I can help you connect the dots here."
"I have a friend who works at Justice.
I'll see what I can do."
[Lynn] Joe was like, "No, he's a good guy.
We're best buddies."
"And he'll talk to you if I say so."
I could tell that Danny
was real excited by that.
[Ben] It was through that connection
that Danny thought
he was gonna get some final answers.
[Lynn] There was one point I said,
"Well, are you military intelligence,
or are you CIA?"
And his response was,
"It's sometimes hard to tell."
And he said,
"My friends think I drink too much."
And he said, "It's because there are
things you have to do
that you don't wanna do."
[Ben] I remember in those last few weeks,
he got death threats
while I was at his house.
[phone ringing]
The calls were always the same.
They said, "You better back off,
or you're gonna die."
"You're gonna die."
I said,
"W w what the hell was that?"
And I saw the look on his face,
that he knew he was on to something.
That call reiterated and validated
that he was on to something.
[Tony] When people were
kind of threatening him,
he didn't know what rock he had lifted up
and who was coming out from under it.
[man on tape] Colby?
- What?
- [man] How old are you?
- [boy mutters]
- [man] How old?
Three.
[man] Great. Happy birthday!
[child] Hi, Danny!
[woman] I don't think he hears you.
Yell louder.
[child] Hi, Danny!
[Tony] I saw Danny
two or three weeks before he died.
Danny!
[Tony] It was
at my son Colby's third birthday.
- There you are!
- [woman laughing]
[Tony] He seemed pretty good.
It's somebody's birthday. Whose is it?
- [Colby] Colby!
- No, no, it's not Colby's.
- [Colby] It is.
- [Danny] Whose birthday is it?
[Tony] And he actually stayed late.
So after everybody had gone,
he and I stood in our kitchen
and talked for a long time
about what was going on.
That was when he told me,
"By the way, if an accident happens,
it's not an accident."
- [Danny] Hurry up.
- [woman] Yeah!
[Danny] All right! Lights.
[Thomas] I talked to him the night before
he left for Martinsburg.
And Danny told me that
Robert Booth Nichols had set up a meeting
with a person that would have
some information from the IRS.
Some documentation.
[Ben] Those were his words.
"I finally figured out
who knows where the money went
and how the money
got to where it's gotta go,
and I'm gonna get some answers."
[Thomas] It seemed very possible
'cause we knew that Nichols
had connections within the IRS.
And there was an IRS office
in Martinsburg.
[reporter] This is Internal Revenue's
National Computer Center
in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
The den of the Martinsburg monster,
the master computer.
Everything Internal Revenue
knows about each of us.
[man] Did you understand that the reason
why you weren't supposed to pay taxes
was because you wanted
to keep secret from the IRS
that you were doing contract work
for military intelligence?
My files, they said
they never wanted my files,
at any time, to be public.
At any time, under any circumstance.
Danny asked me,
"Should I be aware or cautious of anything
because Nichols set the meeting up?"
I said, "We haven't heard anything
that would be cause for you to be
concerned about somebody harming you."
At least, we didn't think so.
We didn't think so, and that was, um,
probably my fault for not getting
some kind of activity there, uh,
to watch what was goin' on.
[narrator] "This is my final week
for these marathon hours
over the last 12 months."
[man] Danny came down to my office,
and he told me, "Look."
"I'm in way over my head."
He wanted to know what safety measures
and precautions he ought to be taking.
So I told him that
he should check his car for explosives,
meet people only in public places,
like a restaurant or a hotel,
and he should always
try and take somebody else with him.
[Ben] I do wonder
why the hell he went there alone.
And that's where my regret is.
'Cause he said,
"Hey, do you wanna go with me?"
And I I couldn't go.
[narrator] "Encountering this odyssey,
meeting it with my whole life,
is to grapple with something personal,
since I've risked everything."
"By Friday,
I have to come up with about $5,000
to just cover my mortgage payment
and my real estate taxes."
[Tony] I know
that he went to West Virginia,
but I don't know who he met with.
I think he got worried toward the end,
and he thought, if I didn't know,
it could be no risk to me.
[Terry] He said
he was going to Martinsburg,
and he was gonna go up there with Cuellar.
[Michael] Danny had a source there
inside the IRS's computer data center
that was giving him information
on specific targets.
[narrator] "In September,
I'll be looking into the face
of an oncoming train."
"Father, what will I do?"
[Ann] I thought
that he was on a downward spiral,
and I thought that spiral would
take him to places where he shouldn't be.
And the people that brought him down
were dangerous people.
Whether they were telling the truth
or lying, it didn't matter.
They were still very dangerous people.
[narrator] "Still, I feel the happiness
that an Eskimo must feel
when he comes across fresh bear tracks
when he's ahead of all the other sledges."
"It's just the way it has happened."
[somber piano music playing]
He said, "Ann, it's Tony." I said, "Yeah."
And he goes, "We found Danny."
I said, "Okay."
And he said, "He's dead." [voice cracks]
[sobbing]
[somber music continues]
[Ann] What happened? What happened?
What happened
between that man that I met in 1979
to the man driving to his death
in West Virginia?
What happened?
[woman] Last night they were saying
there were financial problems?
There's no financial problems.
That's
That that's wrong.
That's wrong.
Some people claimed that this was
a sad man who'd just killed himself,
and and that's
that's just not true.
I think you don't get over
certain losses. Time just passes.
It's not that the loss
is any less painful.
It's just
time passes.
For many nights after Danny died,
I had dreams.
You know, where I'd will him back.
I'd say, "You gotta come back.
You gotta tell me what happened."
And he'd just smile and laugh.
[Lynn] The last conversation I had
with Joe Cuellar,
I called to see if he knew
what had happened to Danny.
And he just got really
He said, "Stop asking questions."
"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."
[Ann] During the investigation
of his death,
Tony and I went to West Virginia.
And the cops told us a lot
about that night.
[Tony] We spent maybe an hour and a half
kind of going through
what they had learned
about Danny's final few days.
He spent time at the restaurant
in the Sheraton.
He went to a place called Stone Crab Inn,
and a Pizza Hut.
And then they said,
"Looks like he was killing time,
waiting for someone to meet with him."
But no one showed up.
And he never met with anyone.
And then he's got a block of time
where we don't know anything.
And they laid out a scenario that
they believed is what happened to him.
He drank,
took some medication,
put a plastic bag over his head,
and then cut his wrists.
Police have reopened the investigation
into the mysterious death
of a Fairfax investigative reporter.
Police at first thought it was a suicide,
but Casolaro's relatives and friends
say they suspect foul play.
[Tony] In the first week after Danny died,
I got a phone call
from Michael Riconosciuto,
and he started talking about
how it was a dangerous business,
and he warned Danny.
He told me Robert Booth Nichols,
he thought, might have been behind this.
And then Robert Booth Nichols called me,
and he said,
"I offer my condolences."
"Your brother was dealing with
dangerous people."
"I told him to look out, and, you know,
you probably ought to do the same."
I'm thinking, is he wondering
if I found things that implicated him?
Was he trying to figure out
did I know anything?
Did I find anything?
And then he made a point of telling me
that he was in London when Danny died.
Why would he point that out?
The results of Casolaro's autopsy
will be made public
late tomorrow afternoon in Martinsburg.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Cynthia Gaither.
I'm Assistant Prosecuting Attorney.
Due to the large number of reports
received by the investigating team
concerning the nature
of the deceased's work,
it was determined
that further investigation
into the death was warranted.
However, no information
inconsistent with the original theory
of suicide has been found.
[chatter in courtroom]
[Tony] Anyone can commit suicide.
I believe that.
So, I
I listened.
[Cynthia] The cause of death is
exsanguinating hemorrhage
due to multiple incised wounds
of the wrist.
I thought, "I guess
that's a conceivable scenario."
But I think it's like a diagnosis.
If I think you've got X,
it'll take a lot to prove you've got Y,
'cause I already think you have X.
- [man] Maybe we can talk to the Chief?
- [woman] Doctor
[overlapping dialogue in courtroom]
[man] How did your officers
secure the crime scene?
And how long was that crime scene secured?
- [Cynthia] The crime scene was
- [man] Can we hear from the Chief?
With all due respect,
he's a Police Chief, not a wallflower.
A highly unusual news conference
on the autopsy has just concluded. Jack?
The Assistant State's Attorney,
the Police Chief,
and the investigating detective
walked out.
At that point,
it started to seem like a potential,
and I hate to use the word "cover-up,"
but a potential cover-up.
They wanted this to be over.
There must be a full, thorough,
impartial, hard-hitting investigation.
Elliot Richardson,
who is doing legal work for Inslaw,
has asked the FBI
to investigate Casolaro's death.
[Tony] When Janet Reno was
being questioned
prior to becoming Attorney General
under President Clinton, she was asked,
"Will you investigate
the death of Danny Casolaro?"
Are you familiar
with the Danny Casolaro case?
[woman] No, I'm not, sir.
[Orrin] It's something that I think
ought to be given a full investigation
by the Justice Department.
And she said she would.
[intriguing music playing]
I got a call from an FBI agent,
and I told him everything.
[Bill] This FBI agent called me up,
and they wanted to know
who he's talked to.
[Thomas] One day, I got a call,
and I told them
about Robert Booth Nichols.
[Robert] I talked to an FBI agent,
and I told them they must talk to Michael.
[Michael] There's no question in my mind
what happened.
Because Bob panicked.
[Lynn] All the FBI wanted to talk about
was Joe Cuellar.
They didn't talk about any other aspects.
Just Joe Cuellar.
The Attorney General calls me
a few months later
and says, "Listen,
we've concluded our investigation."
"Some of our agents
are not convinced this was suicide."
"But we rely on physical evidence
as our primary means
of determining cause of death,
and we're going to conclude
that it was suicide."
And I have somewhat more
of an inherent belief in our system.
So, you know, when the system says,
"Well, it looks like it's suicide,"
I thought, "Okay, well,
I guess if that's what they conclude."
[unsettling music playing]
[door rattles]
[Zachary] Um
What's happened
since you went back to jail?
I was transported, uh,
to Seattle, to SeaTac.
There's a detention center there.
And, uh, it all got straightened out,
obviously,
because the day of my final hearing,
my sentencing judge saw fit
to terminate my sentence,
terminate any probation, and that was it.
Long and the short of it.
[Zachary] What did the FBI say happened
with you and Danny?
Conspiracy theory.
The government's position at my trial
was that I led Danny around by the nose,
and when he couldn't prove my stuff,
he became so despondent
that he committed suicide.
And this was one of the aggravating
sentencing factors in my case,
uh, was that, uh, you know,
I manipulated these people,
which is just not the case.
The official story
of what happened to Danny
is that he was conned
by people like Michael Riconosciuto
and Robert Booth Nichols,
who convinced him
that this fake story was real.
That there was no meeting in Martinsburg,
he was broke,
he'd sunk a lot of money into it.
And upon realizing
that he'd been led astray and lied to,
he committed suicide.
But to me, when I look at the whole thing,
everything I've learned,
I think it's very possible
that he got killed.
[Zachary] If it's a 30-year-old murder,
how do you go about solving that?
[Christian] Well, ten years ago,
I started filing FOIA requests.
[Zachary] What's a FOIA request?
It's a Freedom of Information Act request.
It's a request for government files
pertaining to whatever investigation.
My first FOIA request was
to the Martinsburg Police Department
for files relating
to the Danny Casolaro case.
They turned it down.
They said that the case was sealed
at the request of the DOJ.
[Zachary] So what happens then?
Well, these days, I go out and try to find
people who might know something.
- [Christian] Hello.
- [Zachary] Hi.
[Christian] Wanna knock?
[Zachary] Hello.
We could put a mic on us.
[Zachary] Seems a little crazy to go
to a mob dude's house, literally wired up.
[doorbell rings]
[knocking on door]
[Zachary] Hi.
[officer] Something going on?
[Zachary] What's up?
[officer]
Are you knocking on anybody's doors?
[Zachary] Knocking on [bleep] door.
[officer] He knows
what you're trying to do.
He doesn't want anything to do with it.
So, please, stop contacting him.
[Zachary] Understood.
[Christian] There's documents
all over the country
from private researchers,
private investigators,
and journalists who've written about
one individual tentacle of this thing.
[man] We need to wind our way
through the catacombs.
[Doug] Okay, here we got a bunch of stuff.
Interviews with,
oh my God, Casolaro,
Hamilton.
- [Michael] Christian?
- [Christian] Yes?
Yeah, it's Michael. How are you?
[Christian] Michael has
all this information he wants me to find.
[Michael] I'm trying to stop other people
from getting hurt, okay?
It's ongoing after all these years.
[Bill] Christian, it's Bill Hamilton.
[Christian] And I tracked down
all these leads that Bill's given me.
[Bill] It's about financial aspects
of the use of PROMIS in intelligence.
Bill has what he refers to as these
highly placed US intelligence sources.
One of the main ones,
she was referred to as the "Aetna girl,"
in reference to Aetna Life & Casualty,
where she worked.
[Bill] Norma DiGiacinto was
a very reliable source, you know?
Her husband had been an employee
of the CIA years earlier.
A senior CIA official told her,
"There's another application
of PROMIS you're not being told about."
"It's more sensitive than all the ones
I'm authorized to tell you."
So I passed it on to Casolaro.
I think that Danny
had figured this all out
then was killed over it.
[Christian] I always wanted to talk to her
because she was this direct connection
to the CIA side.
- [Zachary] Hello.
- [Christian] Hello.
- Hey. Hi.
- [man] Can I help you guys?
[Zachary] Do you know Norma DiGiacinto?
- [man] Can't hear you.
- [Zachary] Do you know Norma DiGiacinto?
[man] Mm-hmm.
- [Zachary] Hi. Are you Norma?
- [Norma] Yes, I am.
[Zachary] Did you used to work
at Aetna Life & Casualty?
- [Norma] Yeah, I sure did.
- [Zachary] Really?
Um, do you remember, uh, Bill Hamilton?
- [Norma] Yeah.
- [all laugh]
[Norma] Aetna sent me down
to a PROMIS user meeting.
Went down. Met Bill.
And was listening to Bill's story.
It just struck home with me
for some reason, you know?
I says, "Well, I'm gonna see
what I can find out."
All you can do is drop a word
on the street and see where it goes.
I lived right outside of D.C,
so everywhere you turn,
it's government workers.
I started asking around, you know.
And I got information.
Started getting little notes.
Maybe under the windshield wiper.
Maybe on the table.
Just somebody walking by.
They would usually
just point me in a direction.
Like, "Submarine.
Better check out the submarines."
[Bill]
She said the first use of the software
is for an intelligence application
on the nuclear submarines
of the United States and Great Britain.
I tracked that down, and then
I let Bill know what I'd heard. [laughs]
[Zachary]
What was Bill and Nancy's reaction
when they started hearing this stuff?
Well, they were surprised that
I was coming up with these odd bits.
[Bill] She said she cannot believe this.
They were surprised that I was
picking 'em up from the bowling alley,
a lot of it.
[Zachary] So you were getting
this information at the bowling alley?
[pensive music playing]
[Norma] I bowled almost four nights a week
for about two years.
And I would just say,
"If anybody's ever heard anything
about the PROMIS software,
let me know what they've heard."
- [Zachary] Random people?
- Random people that I saw.
[Zachary] But you would ask people
You would ask people
Yeah, if they'd ever heard anything
about a PROMIS software.
[Zachary laughs]
I've never heard anything like it.
[Norma] Neither had Bill.
He kept asking me, "Who do you know?"
[laughs] I don't know anybody!
[Bill] She said, "Oh,
I can help you with the CIA."
[Zachary] Bill had originally said that
you were related to somebody at the CIA.
No. Never.
[Zachary] You had
nothing to do with the CIA?
Nope. Nothing.
[Bill] Her husband had been
a Clandestine Services Officer at the CIA
years earlier.
- [Zachary] Your husband wasn't CIA?
- No.
[Zachary] What did he do?
He's an auto mechanic.
[curious music playing]
[Christian sighs] Wow.
Bill is out of his mind.
Do you agree?
[Christian] So you don't think that, like,
people that were sympathetic,
that were kind of more firsthand,
were actually passing her notes?
- At a bowling alley?
- Yeah.
- Over the course of four years?
- [Christian] Yeah.
[pensive music continues]
We have to talk to him about this stuff.
[line ringing]
Hey, Bill. It's Christian, um
Just, um, giving you a call.
I've got some questions for ya.
Um, just give me a call back
as soon as you can. Thanks a lot. Bye.
[line ringing]
I mean, maybe Bill just heard
what he wanted to hear and believed it.
[Bill] We had information from
covert intelligence sources.
[reporter] This is Michael Riconosciuto.
[Michael] We received
copies of the software itself,
as well as documentation.
[Christian] And then with Michael,
it's like, who knows what's real?
[Michael] I had to go into the software,
and I had to list all the code.
He definitely was out at Cabazon,
working with John Philip Nichols.
All pretty wild,
but, like,
that's just a small fraction
of the stories that he tells.
There's a category of people
that some of us call "web spinners."
Riconosciuto fits the pattern
of people who spin stories
that are only partially true,
that confuse at best.
First of all, uh,
the October Surprise involvement.
Well, the parties that were involved
in the distribution of this software
were involved in covert operations, and
One of the known tactics
of an intelligence service
is to have multiple layers of myth
that protect some kernel of truth
that might be underneath.
So we've got confusion.
And confusion has its purposes
because it creates doubt
and, ultimately, paralysis.
Some people get sucked down that.
They think that they've got the answer.
They've found the key.
But, unfortunately,
that doesn't actually happen very often.
[Zachary] Where did you discover
this information?
Do you have a reliable source?
Um
Yeah.
[Christian] What's becoming
very obvious to me is that,
um, this whole story,
like, all of these people are
are insane.
[laughing]
Oh my God!
[laughing]
It's so sad.
It's so fucking sad and fucked.
[sighs] Oh God.
You know, maybe Danny
got totally confused and lost.
Um
I do know of one person
that was in that hotel room
that could've killed Danny.
[Zachary] Who?
Danny.
He's the only person I know was there.
[sighs]
[Christian] It's just kind of
hard to understand because
Danny was right about so many things.
I mean, look at John Philip Nichols.
[reporter] John Philip Nichols,
the outsider who established
the Cabazon gambling operation,
was himself convicted of trying to arrange
five contract killings
four years after Fred's death.
Doc Nichols was actually arrested
for conspiracy to commit murder.
And it's a completely different case,
completely different people.
But it still didn't,
apparently, give any credibility or weight
to the Fred Alvarez murders.
Even though, after the murders,
Jimmy Hughes, the head of security
for the Cabazon business ventures,
walks into the DA's office and says,
"Doc Nichols told me
he had Fred Alvarez killed."
"He gave me an envelope with $5,000."
[reporter 2] Jimmy Hughes says
he made a cash drop for John Nichols
to pay for the hit on Alvarez.
Nichols told me the hit on Alvarez
was an authorized,
backed, government covert action.
After all this happened back in the '80s,
he fled to Honduras and became a minister.
So I took all of my investigation,
and they put a warrant in the system
for Jimmy Hughes.
And we took Jimmy into custody
at the airport.
Booked him into jail.
And one day, I get a phone call.
The Deputy Attorney General said,
"We're dismissing the case
and letting Jimmy Hughes go."
The reason he gave in court was,
"After additional evidence
has been obtained,
we no longer have confidence
in being able to
successfully prosecute this case."
I disagree with the decision
to dismiss the case today.
[John] News to me.
I'm the lead investigator.
Nobody's told me there's any new evidence
or information that would lead to that.
The biggest question was,
who was in charge?
Who was making the decisions?
Who was pulling the strings?
Because some higher power somewhere
was calling the shots,
and I never could
figure out who that was,
and nobody could ever tell me.
And then, four years after Danny dies,
Mike Abbell gets arrested.
A former Justice Department official
who ran the US war on the Colombia cartel
today was indicted for being a part of it.
He was laundering money
for the Cali Cartel.
[reporter 3] He's accused of
obstructing justice
and money laundering.
Then there's Robert Booth Nichols who gets
tied up in this major Ponzi scheme
with this Wall Street guy
named Sam Israel.
[reporter 4] Federal lawsuits claim
Israel paid Nichols $10 million
to locate something valuable.
[man] You received
approximately $10 million
from Israel in July 2004. Correct?
That's correct.
[reporter 4] It was
a treasury note for $250 billion.
He went to that deposition,
and then died two months later.
One day, New York called me
and said that he had died
of a heart attack in Switzerland.
I said, "Are you sure?"
I said, "What happened to the body?"
They said, "It was cremated." I said,
"When? That night?"
They said, "How'd you know?"
[laughing] I said,
"I'm just following the con."
[Michael] He's still alive.
[Zachary] Where do you think he is?
I know where he is.
I don't want to state it, uh, you know.
[Zachary] Domestic, or
No, absolutely not.
Although he's been back
in the United States.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Christian] When I started
this investigation,
I was 25 years old.
I didn't care that much about politics,
and I definitely didn't care
about conspiracy theories.
It changed me.
And it changed the way
that I think about reality
and think about the world
and think about history.
I'm just so much more skeptical
of everything.
This is the surface,
but what's going on in the shadows?
You can't really come back from that.
You can't just, like, learn about that
and compartmentalize it.
It spreads into the way you think, really.
It's like the monster under the bed
is actually there.
Knowing that will change the way
you sleep at night.
So, yeah,
I think it was important,
no matter what.
[camera clicks]
[Christian] You know, if Danny did choose
to end his life that way,
I don't think it negates
everything that Danny found
or that I found.
It's just different.
And that's fine.
That's just the way it is.
[cell phone buzzing]
[Zachary] Hello?
[man] Uh, Zachary Treitz, please.
[Zachary] Yes.
[man] I got a text message today
from Chief Swartwood
in reference to the Casolaro report.
[Zachary] Yes.
[Kin] He indicates
that there is a FOIA that's there?
[Zachary] So I've been told that you guys
have everything in your evidence locker,
and so that's
what we would like access to.
[Kin]
The Chief of Police gathered everything
and then held it and said
that we were told not to disclose it.
It's a 30-year-old case that's
[Zachary] That's closed. Well closed.
[Kin] that's a closed case,
so it's not something
that really has any confidential
or privileged information anymore.
So I think the city is obligated
to make it available.
That's your government at your service.
[intriguing string music playing]
[Zachary] Christian, do you remember when
you put this FOIA request in originally?
How long it's been?
[Christian] I think it was in 2013.
[Zachary] Hello?
[man] So we're going into room three.
You all would be the first person
in probably 20 years
to open the box.
[intriguing music playing]
[man] These are all the paper files.
There are no cigarette butts,
any physical evidence.
This is all we got.
[music building]
Wow.
Reports written by police officers.
That's the note.
Forensic science lab report.
This is phone records.
[Zachary]
There's a lot of stuff here. Oh my God.
[Christian] I've never seen this before.
Fuck!
This is a list of stuff
that he had on him.
[camera clicking]
- [Zachary] Oh Jesus.
- [exhales]
[Christian] Oh God.
This is witness statements.
[Zachary] What is that? Police sketch?
"I contacted Kim Waters at her residence."
"Arrangements were made for her to meet me
at my office on the following day
to complete a composite of the subject
that she claims to have seen Casolaro with
in the Sheraton lounge on Thursday."
[Zachary] Whoa.
The police said
Danny was alone all weekend.
[Christian] "Dear sir."
"This is the letter you requested
from our telephone conversation."
"We arrived April 9th,
about 6 p.m., room 515."
"Later in the evening,
I saw a gentleman entering,
with key, room 517."
"He was white, 5'9" to 6 feet,
also had dark hair."
- That's weird.
- [Zachary] What?
[Christian] Danny had blond hair.
It was almost white at that point.
[Zachary] What's that mean?
I mean,
it means that
somebody else had a key to his room maybe?
Or maybe I mean
[Zachary] Was that in the FBI report?
It was not in the FBI report.
Not in any news reports.
Um
It's a weird thing to bury
or to, you know,
let get lost in the shuffle.
[Zachary] Do you mind reading
that last part your mom wrote?
"Wearing dark blue shorts, white shirt,
also had dark hair."
"I did not see his face
as his back was toward me."
"On Thursday, August 15th,
Ten O'Clock News, Philadelphia"
I'm Peter Ford
"we saw a picture of Mr. Casolaro
for the first time."
Was reporter Danny Casolaro killed
because of what he knew
[Marianne] "This was not the man
Mr. Springfield or myself saw
in the hallway Friday night."
[pensive music playing]
"We never saw Mr. Casolaro
and the other gentleman again."
"Yours truly, Mary Lehnert."
My mother had the room
next to Mr. Casolaro that weekend.
She told the police
that she saw a man entering the room,
but it wasn't the same person
that was in the paper.
The police asked her to write a letter,
and she put a description of the man
that she did see in her letter.
[Zachary] Then what happened with it next?
Nothing. [laughs]
Nothing.
[Zachary] They didn't
Nobody ever
She wrote the letter,
and that was it.
We never heard anything ever again.
[Christian] Yeah, I don't know.
Is this Joe?
Or is this vague enough
to look like anyone you want it to be?
You know, it's a composite sketch, uh
I don't know, but what's weird
is that Cuellar has two different alibis.
In the FBI's initial investigation
into Danny's death,
Cuellar tells the FBI
that he was in Panama.
And then, in the report
that these same agents produced,
it says that he was in D.C.
when Danny died.
That never really seemed like
a legitimate alibi to me either
because Washington, D.C.,
and Martinsburg are so close.
They're only an hour and a half apart.
Danny died sometime
early in the morning of August 10th,
according to the coroner's report.
You could easily kill Danny
and then drive to D.C. [chuckles]
When it went from Cuellar's
initial statement to the report,
it changed.
Drastically.
[cell phone ringing]
[Christian] Hello?
[man] Christian?
[Christian] How's it going?
Hey. Jeff Cuellar. How are you doing?
Good. How are you?
[Jeff] Happy Friday.
[Christian] Happy Friday.
So, um, your dad seems like
an interesting guy,
and it would be helpful to know,
you know, a little bit more about him.
[Jeff] You know, as long as
we're speaking positively here
Uh-huh.
[Jeff] He's definitely a
You know, I would say he's a hero.
Some of the tactics and things
may be questionable,
but he was always working
on behalf of the US government,
whether it be
during his tenure with the CIA,
Special Forces,
and he was a very charismatic individual
and could blend easily.
Extremely athletic, Golden Glove boxer,
paratrooper.
He spoke 26 languages
at one point in time.
Wow.
[Jeff] A lot of his missions were
in South America and the Middle East.
No wonder Danny was so fascinated by him.
[Jeff] Yeah.
[Christian] They met coincidentally, um,
at a bar in Virginia
called the Sign of the Whale.
The writer was writing this book about
this obscure political scandal in D.C.,
and your dad's response was,
"Oh, I know all about that."
[Jeff] Wow.
I mean, one thing,
I guess, 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.
Um
He The the the writer
could've been getting played.
Could've been getting what?
[Jeff] Played. You would never know
who is his mark.
Part of what his specialty was,
was to be able to infiltrate,
retract information,
to find out what someone potentially knows
and what they don't know.
[cell phone ringing and buzzing]
[Zachary] Hello.
Hi, Zachary. It's Scott Erskine.
How are you?
- [Zachary] Hey, how are you?
- [Scott] Good.
[Zachary] So I'm working
on the Danny Casolaro story.
[Scott laughs] Yeah.
- [Zachary] Yeah.
- Okay.
I know there were conspiracy theories
and all that.
But after interviewing all the people
that we could get access to,
we came to the definite conclusion
that it was a suicide.
- That it was not a murder.
- Right.
[keyboard tapping]
[Scott] And not to say
anything derogatory about Danny,
but he seemed to mingle
with a number of individuals
who were kind of
involved with conspiracies
or enjoyed being involved in conspiracies.
That's why we endeavored to get down
to the actual truth of the matter.
[Zachary] Right. Well, I was gonna ask you
about a couple specific things
that I was looking at.
If you remember,
there was this guy, Joseph Cuellar.
- Do you remember that name? Cuellar?
- [Scott] Yeah. Yeah.
[Zachary] I was talking to the woman
who was there at the bar
when Danny met him
- [phone ringing]
- [Scott] Zachary, can I call you back?
- [Zachary] Absolutely.
- [Scott] Okay, I'll be back shortly.
[phone continues ringing]
[Zachary] It's the fuckin' NSA calling
to tell him to shut the fuck up.
[Christian] I know that Joe Cuellar
lied to the authorities
about where he was
at the time of Danny's death.
I know that both Joseph Cuellar
and Robert Booth Nichols
also lied about the nature
of their relationship with Danny.
Uh, but for some reason,
I don't think that the investigators
took them seriously enough
to try and figure out
what was really going on with these guys.
And, on the other hand, if they did
find out what was really going on,
they were actively covering it up.
And, if that's the case,
it's their job to make sure
that myself or anyone else
doesn't find why.
Doesn't find the answers.
[dark, intriguing music playing]
[door opens]
[Cheri] Once you start playing the game,
it's like playing any game.
You don't really wanna get off the board
until you've won.
I feel like I have all of the material
that I need to finish Danny's book
and move on.
You know, I've tracked down
every lead I could find.
I'm done with Bill. I'm done with Michael.
I just have to finish this thing.
[Zachary] I remember it as, like,
"Is Christian actually losing his mind?"
Do you remember that moment?
[man] Yeah, I think it had
crossed everybody's mind.
- [Zachary] Yeah.
- [men laughing]
And then I started, like,
showing her this graph that I made
of, like, intrigue. It went from, like
It started with Enron here, and I had
You have to make a decision for yourself,
which I did.
[Christian] I made a choice between
learning the secret of everything,
which, like, I realized I would never do,
and being happy and having fun.
Are you gonna
go back to your normal, boring life,
you know, and enjoy
small things like movies,
or, you know, barbecues,
instead of phone calls
from the netherworld?
[laughing]
[Cheri] Are you gonna deprogram yourself
and go back to being
a normal person again?
[dramatic music playing]
[all singing]
[laughing]
[all laughing]
[man] He wouldn't
let David put his laundry
[Cheri] After it's over
there's a certain withdrawal
that you have.
And a temptation
to be drawn back into the fray.
[cell phone ringing]
[Christian] Hey, Michael?
- [Michael] How you doing?
- Good. How are you?
[Michael] Not good. Not good.
- What's going on?
- [Michael] Uh
Well, I don't wanna
talk about it on the phone.
With all the, you know, exciting,
"So-and-so's been murdered,"
"So-and-so's been arrested," or whatever.
[Michael] I'm trying
to get up to, uh, Maricopa,
and if I get up there,
uh, then I want you to come up
and meet me there.
[Cheri] The ones that are still involved,
they never let go of it.
They never deprogrammed.
It's a choice.
It's a personal choice each person makes.
[Michael] It's crazy, okay?
[Christian] What's crazy? What's going on?
[Michael shouting]
People are getting killed! Okay?
All right? I wanna show you the evidence.
- All right.
- I need help. People are dead!
- Okay.
- [call end tone]
[Zachary] What do we do?
[Michael] I've got all the pieces.
I just need help from people
on certain things.
Are you recording?
- [Christian] Yeah.
- [Michael] No, no. Don't
[Christian] You're just talking
in vague terms.
[Michael] Yeah. No. Turn the camera off.
I wanna see what you guys get out of it
from the leads that I give you.
Then when you've
got your documentary in the can,
I'm gonna tell you what really went down.
Okay?
'Cause you could never
put it in a documentary.
You'll see why.
[Christian] What am I gonna put
in the documentary?
[Michael] The leads.
You know, what happened.
The other stuff, you'd get shot by the
[Christian] By the what?
[Michael] Same guys that killed Danny.
[tense music playing]
[dramatic string music playing]