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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder The most Shocking
Speaker 5: Killers in true crime history and the authors that have
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Speaker 2: Good Evening. Cold Country Killing, a culture, a union, and
Speaker 2: the murders that changed at all revolves around the cold
Speaker 2: blooded nineteen sixty nine assassination of United mind Workers of
Speaker 2: America reform candidate Jock Lablonski and the murder of his
Speaker 2: wife and daughter and their Pennsylvania farmhouse. But driving the
Speaker 2: story are the extraordinary efforts of a tenacious special prosecutor
Speaker 2: and his army and investigators to bring the gunmen, the
Speaker 2: union boss who ordered the murders, and his henchmen who
Speaker 2: saw them carried out to justice. Initially, three bumbling small
Speaker 2: time criminals dubbed the Hillbilly Hitman, were arrested and charged,
Speaker 2: but what they were the tip of the iceberg, as
Speaker 2: the murders were directed by then United Mine Workers' Association
Speaker 2: president tough Tony Boyle as revenge for Yablonski running against
Speaker 2: him in the bitterly contested nineteen sixty eight Union election
Speaker 2: and to prevent his corruption from being exposed. Up against
Speaker 2: the tight lip culture of Appalachia coal Country, Legendary Philadelphia
Speaker 2: homicide prosecutor Richard A. Sprague and his investigators spent nearly
Speaker 2: nine years doggedly working their way up the ladder of
Speaker 2: those responsible to the final showdown with Boyle. Written by
Speaker 2: New York Times bestselling author's former New York County Assistant
Speaker 2: District Attorney, Robert K. Tannenbaum, a lifelong friend of Spragg's,
Speaker 2: and Steve Jackson, Cole Country Killing is a tour de
Speaker 2: force for those who love justice. The book that we're
Speaker 2: featuring this evening is Cole Country Killing, a culture, a union,
Speaker 2: and the murders that changed it. It all with my
Speaker 2: special guest journalist, author, and publisher Steve Jackson. Welcome back
Speaker 2: to the program. Thank you very much for this interview.
Speaker 2: Steve Jackson.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, Dan. It's always a good, a great
Speaker 4: pleasure to be on your show.
Speaker 2: It's always a pleasure to have you, Steve. Let's get
Speaker 2: right to what Robert Tannenbaum, your co author, had to
Speaker 2: say about really what this book is about. Can you
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about what this book is
Speaker 2: really all about.
Speaker 4: Well, this book in many ways is tribute to Bob Tannenbaum.
Speaker 4: New dis Bray worked with him, considered him a mentor.
Speaker 4: Dick Sprague was, as you noted, gendary prosecuting in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 4: Philadelphia in particular, went on to work federal cases and
Speaker 4: that sort of thing. But so in a way, it's
Speaker 4: a tribute to that, and it's a tribute to tenacity
Speaker 4: and the fight for justice no matter what, no matter
Speaker 4: how long it took. This case basically took good eight years,
Speaker 4: I believe, maybe longer to resolve itself in the end,
Speaker 4: as mister Sprague worked his way up from the actual
Speaker 4: killers all the way up to the top of the
Speaker 4: United Mindworkers Association President tough Tony Boyle, which at the
Speaker 4: time was the most powerful union in the nation and
Speaker 4: the world. And so that was no mean feat with
Speaker 4: kind of a forgotten story these days and the United
Speaker 4: Mine Workers does not have the power they used to have.
Speaker 4: But at that time, I was taken on the presidency
Speaker 4: in some ways, and certainly an autocrat who had absolutely
Speaker 4: absolute power over mind Workers and is the people who
Speaker 4: work for him and millions and millions of dollars at
Speaker 4: his call to to fight this.
Speaker 2: Now, let's talk about December eighteenth, nineteen sixty nine. In
Speaker 2: a chapter you called the Visitors, and you introduced Joseph Yoblonski,
Speaker 2: fifty nine year old. Would you write about two men
Speaker 2: pull up the Yoblonski's two hundred year old farmhouse in
Speaker 2: a maroon sixty five Chevy Caprice tell us about this altercation?
Speaker 4: Well, this was the intro to the book, and this
Speaker 4: is one of the tough Tony boyle. Eventually, as we
Speaker 4: find out in the book, we ordered the hit on
Speaker 4: his rival, JOCKI Leblonski, and that went from his immediate
Speaker 4: underlings to some other immediate underlings, to some others, and
Speaker 4: eventually got down to these sort of small time criminals
Speaker 4: who were related to one of these union officials who
Speaker 4: agreed to commit these murders on behalf of some guy
Speaker 4: named Tony. They didn't really know who. If it wasn't
Speaker 4: such a tragedy, if what had not occurred occurred, the
Speaker 4: murder of three innocent people, it's almost a comedy. It's
Speaker 4: very Fargo like. As far as these these men who
Speaker 4: were later dubbed the Hillbilly hitman. And this is two
Speaker 4: of them showed up at the front door and were
Speaker 4: landing on shooting Yablonsky at his home farm home in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 4: and they sort of got around to, well, you do it,
Speaker 4: you do it, you do it, and sort of made
Speaker 4: up an excuse that they are mine workers looking for
Speaker 4: some work and this sort of thing, and eventually just
Speaker 4: lost their nerve and walked away, which in some ways
Speaker 4: is sort of okay. So what happens from this, and
Speaker 4: what happens is that Yablonski and one of his friends
Speaker 4: and one of his sons, I'm actually going to town
Speaker 4: to look for this part of these guys, because you
Speaker 4: Blonsky had a feeling that these men were there to
Speaker 4: kill him. And they got a license plate number and
Speaker 4: wrote it down with a pad and left it on
Speaker 4: a desk, which becomes very important to this investigation later.
Speaker 2: So the idea that Ybonski recognized that these people were
Speaker 2: there for nefarious reasons. In fact, he said to his son,
Speaker 2: he thought, and he said to a friend, and he
Speaker 2: thought that these two people were there to kill him.
Speaker 2: So what happens afterwards in terms of the Sun warning
Speaker 2: him and other people warning him that his life would
Speaker 2: be in danger.
Speaker 4: Well, we don't recognize it at this time, but United
Speaker 4: Mineworkers Association and the mine Workers, these guys come out
Speaker 4: of the nineteen twenties and thirties and a very bloody
Speaker 4: time as far as the union. They were fighting the
Speaker 4: Feds and fighting mine workers and the gun thugs, and
Speaker 4: they were used to violence. And including Jock Leblonsky, he'd
Speaker 4: been on the front lines and busts and heads as
Speaker 4: much as Tony Boyle was, so the idea of violence
Speaker 4: was not known. And in fact, Jock, during his failed
Speaker 4: attempt at resting the presidency from Tony Boyle, had been
Speaker 4: assaulted and nearly killed. But he, you know, he's a
Speaker 4: tough guy, and he sort of blew a lot of
Speaker 4: it off for longest time, and then finally with this
Speaker 4: sort of visit, he started to take it seriously. We
Speaker 4: put some lights outside of his home, slept with a
Speaker 4: shot done next to him in his room, and he
Speaker 4: was starting to take it seriously that this could really happen.
Speaker 4: But who expects to be assassinated in their home?
Speaker 2: Going back just a bit, you say the election was
Speaker 2: held December ninth, nineteen sixty nine, and Boyle emerged as
Speaker 2: as a victor by a two to one margin. But
Speaker 2: with the victory came a deluge of allegations of fraud, tampering, intimidation,
Speaker 2: and ballock box stuffing, and Blonsky demanded that the US
Speaker 2: Department of Labor Secretary George Saltz look into the allegations.
Speaker 2: But you write that the Labor Department, which politically didn't
Speaker 2: want to get involved in union business, said that they
Speaker 2: Yvlansky first had to exhaust his administrative remedies by taking
Speaker 2: his grievances to the union hierarchy. You say, a classic
Speaker 2: case of the fox guarding the henhouse. So you say
Speaker 2: that Yoblonski doesn't give up though, even though no one
Speaker 2: seems to be wanting to help him investigate Boyle and
Speaker 2: the union.
Speaker 4: Right, and Yublonsky has some allies at this time, a
Speaker 4: very tough Washington, DC based lawyer Joe Rausch, also Ralph Nader,
Speaker 4: who we all probably remember at least people in courage
Speaker 4: as an advocate for the underdog of these sorts of things.
Speaker 4: And yeah he was. There's no denying that the election
Speaker 4: was fraudulent and corrupt, and all these things happened and
Speaker 4: Boyle did everything he could to make sure he won,
Speaker 4: and actually, you know, going to all that stuff, he
Speaker 4: did win, but Yablonski wasn't giving it up, and he
Speaker 4: was suing and they brought a number of different lawsuits
Speaker 4: and we're trying to force the Department of Labor, which
Speaker 4: up until this point had looked away politically. The United
Speaker 4: Mineworkers Association at this time they're a real power broker.
Speaker 4: The presidents would go to them for advice, and they
Speaker 4: had all sorts of politicians and judges on their payroll,
Speaker 4: and so it was tough to get anything going. But
Speaker 4: he wouldn't give up. He's a tough guy and he
Speaker 4: had some tough allies with him. And at this time
Speaker 4: mineworkers were finally getting tired of the autocratic nature United
Speaker 4: Mineworkers' Association, which had started back with legendary John Lewis
Speaker 4: and had gotten even more corrupt with Tony Boyle. And
Speaker 4: the danger for Boyle was he'd won the election, and
Speaker 4: you know, there could have been something with having to
Speaker 4: redo the election, and who knows from there. But what
Speaker 4: he was really afraid of was that there was a
Speaker 4: very large slush fund. A lot of money was being
Speaker 4: siphoned from the retirement funds and pension funds and medical
Speaker 4: funds for the mine workers. And he is afraid that
Speaker 4: if the FEDS really did start looking into this, this
Speaker 4: would all come out.
Speaker 2: You're right, it's quite a bit of the book, but
Speaker 2: we can talk about it just a bit. Is the
Speaker 2: background of these people, where these workers came from, and
Speaker 2: their history, to try to explain the nature and the
Speaker 2: culture of this coal mining industry.
Speaker 4: Right, and it went back several hundred years from here.
Speaker 4: It's the Appalachians early on anyway, were mostly settled by
Speaker 4: other than the Native Americans who were there first. Obviously,
Speaker 4: was settled by Scott's Irish who came over from the
Speaker 4: Ulster plantation. And the Scott's Irish we're used to fighting,
Speaker 4: you know, they've been fighting the English. They've been fighting
Speaker 4: the Irish. They had been They had a very low
Speaker 4: opinion of governments, in a very low opinion of law
Speaker 4: enforcement because the government and the law enforcement had never
Speaker 4: been on their side. So they came to America or
Speaker 4: the colonies at that time, for freedom and freedom from
Speaker 4: government and freedom from a law enforcement that did not
Speaker 4: enforce the law when it came to them. And they
Speaker 4: made their way west where there weren't so many restrictions
Speaker 4: and they could get away from society that looked down
Speaker 4: on them, and made their way up into the hills
Speaker 4: and the vales and mountains of Appalachia from New York
Speaker 4: down to the Carolinas and west to Ohio. And a
Speaker 4: very independent, very insular, very church like religious group of
Speaker 4: people who believed in the loyalty to each other and
Speaker 4: first of all and to the people. They gave a
Speaker 4: loyalty to their leaders, very honest, believed in right and
Speaker 4: wrong and what happens to you between heaven and hell,
Speaker 4: and to tell the truth, the Americans probably the Americans
Speaker 4: would have probably lost the Revolutionary War without them, because
Speaker 4: the English made the mistake of challenging them and learned
Speaker 4: a hard lesson in New Yorktown. All that sort of
Speaker 4: stuff doesn't happen without the Scots Irish in Atalacia coming
Speaker 4: out of the mountains. And then later on Cole gets
Speaker 4: discovered in Appellation. Suddenly these lands that had been mostly
Speaker 4: farms and some timber and livestock and that sort of
Speaker 4: thing become valuable to other people, and they use the
Speaker 4: Scots Irish who are living there as their labor force
Speaker 4: and bring in other people. But the Scots Irish are
Speaker 4: so insular and so together as a people that even
Speaker 4: these people that were brought in soon adapted and adopted
Speaker 4: their way of looking at life. And so we get
Speaker 4: to the cold Wars of the nineteen thirties and the
Speaker 4: forties when the Union was trying to establish rights for
Speaker 4: workers and some health things and pensions and that sort
Speaker 4: of effort. And as I said before, these were bloody.
Speaker 4: These were not sitting down and talking about what we
Speaker 4: should and shouldn't do. These were full fledged shooting wars
Speaker 4: between the FEDS and the law enforcement and mind owners
Speaker 4: and their hired thugs on one side and the Union
Speaker 4: on the other. So the Union members developed a very
Speaker 4: very strong loyalty towards the Union. It was the only
Speaker 4: thing that spoke up for him, is the only entity
Speaker 4: that they could rely on to reliably stand between them
Speaker 4: and these other forces. So that makes its way into
Speaker 4: this case, both at the beginning with not talking and
Speaker 4: not in parts painting in the cover up to in
Speaker 4: the end basically what breaks the case for Sprague.
Speaker 2: You talk about the Union's main emphasis was on combating
Speaker 2: the exploitation of mind workers and changing working conditions for
Speaker 2: the better. And the main tactic was to call a strike,
Speaker 2: shut down production and until demands were met, and this
Speaker 2: cost operators money and control. How did the mine operators
Speaker 2: respond and tell us a little bit about exploitation in
Speaker 2: terms of company towns.
Speaker 4: The mine owners are responded by hiring what were known
Speaker 4: as gun thugs at the time, which included the Pinkerton Agency,
Speaker 4: detective Agency, and some others who were basically hired, you know,
Speaker 4: in some cases actually murder and intimidate and the mineworkers.
Speaker 4: And these company towns they are basically set up by
Speaker 4: the owners where the owners owned the property, they owned
Speaker 4: the homes, they owned the growthrough stores, they owned the schools.
Speaker 4: And in fact, sometimes mineworkers didn't actually receive pay. They
Speaker 4: received shits which they could use to buy groceries at
Speaker 4: the grocery store, but were worthless anywhere else. But she
Speaker 4: kept them in that type of indentured servitude. And so,
Speaker 4: you know, the mine owners, it took a lot for
Speaker 4: mineworkers and the union to get in here and say
Speaker 4: there could be a better way now. At some point
Speaker 4: there the union sort of lost its way as far
Speaker 4: as the black lung remained a problem right into Tony
Speaker 4: Boyle's era, and they weren't dealing with it, which is
Speaker 4: one of the reforms that joh Leblonski was trying to correct.
Speaker 4: Mine workers pay was remained down in part because of
Speaker 4: the threat of oil and gas starting to become a
Speaker 4: new thing as far as energy in the United States,
Speaker 4: which the mine workers hierarchy used to keep people online
Speaker 4: is that if you don't pay attention to US oil
Speaker 4: and gas and people like that are going to come
Speaker 4: in and you'll be out of jobs. And because mine
Speaker 4: workers basically had very little education and had very little
Speaker 4: choice or opportunity to do anything except for mine, Cole
Speaker 4: had to pay attention or what were they going to
Speaker 4: have nothing?
Speaker 2: Basically, he talked about legendary Lewis and he is retiring
Speaker 2: after forty years and names a successor. Why was Leblonski
Speaker 2: not picked and why was Boyle picked?
Speaker 4: Rather hard to tell, you know, in some cases you
Speaker 4: hear that John Lewis liked Yablonski and kind of talked
Speaker 4: to him about he would be this successor. He actually
Speaker 4: picked another man as Sullivan. I believe Kennedy Boyle was
Speaker 4: his vice president and some of that, I think is
Speaker 4: the loyalty. I think Lewis wanted that absolute loyalty. I
Speaker 4: think Yablonsky at this point and time, is starting to
Speaker 4: have question that whether the leadership of the Union was
Speaker 4: doing the right thing. And you know, Tony Boyle was
Speaker 4: able to talk himself into that position of power so
Speaker 4: that when the appointed successor grew ill and then eventually died,
Speaker 4: Boyle had the reigns of power, could now fix the
Speaker 4: balloting for the presidency and essentially got himself elected.
Speaker 2: You talk about Joseph Leblonski working with Boyle despite having
Speaker 2: major differences with him, but also his background was that
Speaker 2: he had joined his father in the Minds and his
Speaker 2: father had died in a mining accident, so changing Leblonski's
Speaker 2: attitude somewhat in his career.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yablonsky is an interesting character in that he is
Speaker 4: not in a sense of all this the corruption and
Speaker 4: this power being used for the sake of power within
Speaker 4: the Union. He became an official and he went along
Speaker 4: with a lot of Lewis first and then Boyle later.
Speaker 4: He believed very much in the Union and some of
Speaker 4: that does go back to he started as a child
Speaker 4: in the Union in their minds. And then his dad
Speaker 4: was killed in a mining accident, so and then he
Speaker 4: of course was on the front lines in these battles
Speaker 4: in the nineteen thirties and into the forties, and so
Speaker 4: he had a lot of loyalty to the Union and
Speaker 4: went along with things. And he later admitted that he
Speaker 4: went along with some of the things that were wrong
Speaker 4: and the idea that they may be wrong, but the
Speaker 4: Union was better than what they had before, and it
Speaker 4: was better than anything else around now. I think once
Speaker 4: Boyle was in there and still nothing was being done
Speaker 4: about black lung and better pensions and this sort of thing,
Speaker 4: he had a change of heart. Maybe his conscience started
Speaker 4: taking over for him, and he was starting to listen
Speaker 4: to people like Ralph Nader and Joe Rausch and about,
Speaker 4: you know, do the right thing here. And eventually he
Speaker 4: decided that that's what he would do, is that he
Speaker 4: would try to get the presidency, which had never been
Speaker 4: an open, truly democratic vote, and it made changes and
Speaker 4: start to make changes.
Speaker 2: You say that part of the what he was influenced by.
Speaker 2: Leblonsky was November twenty, nineteen sixty eight November twentieth in Farmington,
Speaker 2: West Virginia. You writed a dragon awoke beneath the mountain,
Speaker 2: an immense explosion in Mountaineer Coole Company number nine, mind,
Speaker 2: very powerful explosion. And then in May twenty ninth, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty nine, Jock Levlonsky announced he was challenging William tough
Speaker 2: Tony Boyle for the American Miners Workers Association presidency.
Speaker 4: Right, and you know, there's there's indications in the record
Speaker 4: that it was that explosion that final whole Mining has
Speaker 4: been the most dangerous occupation in the Americas practically since
Speaker 4: it started. The number of explosions and asphyxiations and fires,
Speaker 4: and it's a very dangerous business. And for a long
Speaker 4: time with the federal inspectors who would come in and
Speaker 4: look at the mind and say you need to do this,
Speaker 4: or that he pulled us down, and do better with
Speaker 4: your fire suppression, things like that, but they had very
Speaker 4: little or did very little to enforce these things. Then
Speaker 4: the owners would basically say yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do it,
Speaker 4: and we'll do better and that sort of thing. And
Speaker 4: then unfortunately, starting at the end of John Lewis and
Speaker 4: then into Boyle's era, is that they didn't press the owners.
Speaker 4: They didn't demand that these things be done because they're
Speaker 4: worried that the owners would say, okay, well we'll do this,
Speaker 4: but that means we got to cut a hundred jobs
Speaker 4: or that sort of thing. So and they sacrificed lives
Speaker 4: for jobs. And finally, this one last tragedy that killed
Speaker 4: bet one hundred and seventy five men. Numbers escaped him
Speaker 4: me as well right now. But it was a horrible
Speaker 4: tragedy on a small town. And basically Tony Boyle came
Speaker 4: in there and said, well, we believe the owners did
Speaker 4: everything they could to make sure this didn't happen, and
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry, and then he left him. And I
Speaker 4: think that was what really finally pushed Yablonski over the edge,
Speaker 4: is that whatever he had gone with up to this point,
Speaker 4: and he says this when he announces his candidacy, is
Speaker 4: that he had looked the other way and that it
Speaker 4: had been wrong and it was time to write this
Speaker 4: wrong and he was going to run for presidency.
Speaker 2: Let's this this as an opportunity to stop for a
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Speaker 2: Now you talk about that to Boyle tried to punish Yablonski,
Speaker 2: accusing him of treason and also opposing union policies, and
Speaker 2: he proposed the resolution to fire him from his position
Speaker 2: as director of the non Partisan League. But you right,
Speaker 2: even with that victory, he wasn't done. And so we
Speaker 2: get to this historic date June twenty third, where Boyle
Speaker 2: meets up with William Turnblazer, president of District nineteen, and
Speaker 2: Albert Pass in the hallway outside a meeting room. These
Speaker 2: guys are ardent Boyle loyalists, discussing events when Boyle walks
Speaker 2: up to them, and what does he say to turn
Speaker 2: Blazer and Albert pass in that hallway?
Speaker 4: Now basically is that Yo Blonsky's got to go. You know,
Speaker 4: he's Tony Boyle. John Lewis had the loyalty of mine workers.
Speaker 4: He was a very charismatic man, great speaker, stood in
Speaker 4: the trenches himself, and so he attracted loyalty and didn't
Speaker 4: have to demand it. Now Oyle was different. He sort
Speaker 4: of was not John Lewis, but he expected the same
Speaker 4: sort of absolute loyalty. So anybody who questioned either his
Speaker 4: leadership or made him look bad or anything else like
Speaker 4: that was going to be on his dark list. And
Speaker 4: Yoblonski was doing this, and Boyle didn't like him, so
Speaker 4: he was. He was concerned about Giablonski starting a grassroots
Speaker 4: movement that might actually make some inroads and replace him
Speaker 4: as presidency, which of course not only threatened his own
Speaker 4: power and his income, but revealed things like the slush
Speaker 4: fund that had been set up and some other things
Speaker 4: like that, and some corruption, maybe even lead to criminal charges.
Speaker 4: So he finally, and just the idea that somebody dare
Speaker 4: speak poorly of him and be disloyal was enough to
Speaker 4: set a man like that off so he walked up
Speaker 4: to them and said, Yablonci's got to go.
Speaker 2: Now he hatches this murder plot with these two people,
Speaker 2: how does he try or attempt how does he plan
Speaker 2: to hide the money trail itself for the assassinations that
Speaker 2: he is planning.
Speaker 4: Well, he comes up with a pretty elaborate plan, which
Speaker 4: is to that they're going to form a fictation just
Speaker 4: committee called the Research and Development Committee, which is basically
Speaker 4: was to go into non union areas and try to
Speaker 4: recruit people to be union members. And so what they're
Speaker 4: going to do is they're going to hire or supposedly
Speaker 4: hire these twenty pensioners United Mindworker pensioners and give them
Speaker 4: money to go in and do this recruiting and that
Speaker 4: sort of thing. But what really was happening is that
Speaker 4: it took this money twenty thousand dollars and wrote checks
Speaker 4: to these pensioners with the orders to go cash the
Speaker 4: checks and bring the cash back to Albert Pass and
Speaker 4: turn Blazer. And this money is what they use to
Speaker 4: hand down a little bit farther down the line and
Speaker 4: then from there to the killers. And this was to
Speaker 4: hide the money trail. These pensioners weren't told what it
Speaker 4: was going to be used for. But you know, they
Speaker 4: knew that this wasn't on the up and up, and
Speaker 4: eventually as this started coming out, they knew what it
Speaker 4: was being used for. It's just then now they're faced
Speaker 4: with loyalties to the union. They're being told, or we're
Speaker 4: told that John Leblonski was working for the oil and
Speaker 4: gas companies, which was tantamount to absolute treason. This was
Speaker 4: a threat to their lives, their livelihoods, their kids, their grandkids,
Speaker 4: their health benefits such as it were, which weren't good.
Speaker 4: So now they're being told that the choice is between
Speaker 4: this guy who's talking this game about the reform and
Speaker 4: all these sorts of things, but it's actually working for
Speaker 4: the oil and gas companies and the demise of coal
Speaker 4: miners and you know, the loss of jobs and the
Speaker 4: loss of their pensions and the loss of everything. So
Speaker 4: that's how they tried to hire to hide them.
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Speaker 2: murder to start Ritual or as Essential for Women eighteen
Speaker 2: plus to your subscription today now. An instrumental person in
Speaker 2: all of this is Silas Huddleston, and he went to
Speaker 2: see his daughter Annette Gilly who lived in Cleveland with
Speaker 2: her husband Paul, and you write that she was considered
Speaker 2: a tough cookie. She had been abandoned by her father
Speaker 2: ironically when after her mother died and he walked out
Speaker 2: of the home and left her to live with her aunt.
Speaker 2: But regardless, he comes to and trusts his daughter Inette.
Speaker 2: What is the conversation and what does he asking net
Speaker 2: to do for him on behalf of him?
Speaker 4: Well, basically, the find someone, you know, her husband who's
Speaker 4: willing to kill somebody, some guy named Tony. You know,
Speaker 4: they're to kill this guy, Yablonsky in Pennsylvania, who was
Speaker 4: you know, just basically described as a union official on
Speaker 4: behalf of some guy named Tony who was upset with him.
Speaker 4: And you know, here's here's the blood money, or here's
Speaker 4: what's being offered for the blood money. And you think
Speaker 4: Paul will do this, And so she went and asked Paul,
Speaker 4: and he got a couple of his buddies and they
Speaker 4: all agreed that they could pull this off.
Speaker 2: You had mentioned an almost far Go esque comedy that
Speaker 2: these guys were involved with, not so funny in the end,
Speaker 2: but the idea that they recruited a couple of people.
Speaker 2: This is Veally and Martin and another guy named Phillips
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about this foolishness that these
Speaker 2: guys undertake. Certainly not professional assassins by any means.
Speaker 4: No, and Martin kind of comes along a little bit
Speaker 4: later after Phillips finally says this is this and nuts
Speaker 4: because they try to go find Blonski in Washington, DC
Speaker 4: and get lost or have a flat tire, or you know,
Speaker 4: go to the wrong house or it turned away, or
Speaker 4: you know, it's just one thing after another. One time,
Speaker 4: the three of them, Phillips and Gilly go to the
Speaker 4: Yablonsky house, actually go out there and they're going to
Speaker 4: kill him, but nobody's home, so they stop and there
Speaker 4: are two of them, go into the house and they
Speaker 4: stop and they look around. They make some ham and
Speaker 4: cheese sandwiches in the kitchen, have lunch, and then go
Speaker 4: outside and Gilly, who was supposed to be waiting in
Speaker 4: the getaway car, has actually taken off. He's freaked out,
Speaker 4: so he leaves them, and so they go hauling off
Speaker 4: down the road and he finally comes driving up and
Speaker 4: picks them up, and it really is just the three
Speaker 4: stooges trying to pull a murder off, and it just
Speaker 4: it really was just it's a tragic comedy in that
Speaker 4: they were just so inept at this until the end
Speaker 4: where they managed to do what they came to do
Speaker 4: with the help of Martin.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that in their recon they had the Caprice
Speaker 2: and they were near Leblonski's home at some vantage point
Speaker 2: that they used, but there were more than one person
Speaker 2: that took down the license plate.
Speaker 4: Well, they had used the car once when the two
Speaker 4: you described the beginning of the book, when the two
Speaker 4: went up there to kill Yablonski and got cold feet
Speaker 4: and left and went decided to have a couple of
Speaker 4: beers at the local beer hall, beat and left, and
Speaker 4: when decided to have a couple of beers at the
Speaker 4: local beer hall, and Yublonski and his son and friend
Speaker 4: went in there and took down the license plate numbers
Speaker 4: of this car that Yablonsky hadn't seen them driving. So
Speaker 4: that was that's on a pad in the desk, And
Speaker 4: it just happened to be that at the same time
Speaker 4: that they were cased in this area that they drove
Speaker 4: us the home of two young and two girls, girl
Speaker 4: and her cousin who were playing a game of you know,
Speaker 4: taking down license plate numbers of cars that drove by
Speaker 4: the house sort of you know one of those, you know,
Speaker 4: there's an Arizona, we can check that off. There's a
Speaker 4: why that sort of thing. And happened to see this
Speaker 4: Ohio license plate and took it down and wrote the
Speaker 4: number down on a pad. And this becomes very important later.
Speaker 4: It corroborates that this car was in the area. It
Speaker 4: matches the license plate number of the that Yablonski and
Speaker 4: his son and took down and left on the pad
Speaker 4: of his in his office. But just and this is
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's serendipitous, but it's also shows the
Speaker 4: great detective ork investigative work that went into this story.
Speaker 4: That FBI agents, you know, canvas this whole area and
Speaker 4: looking for anybody who might have seen something along these lines.
Speaker 4: And by this time, I think this girl is about
Speaker 4: fourteen years old, and she said, well, yeah, we happen
Speaker 4: to be playing a game that day, and I wrote,
Speaker 4: I write everything down in a journal, and happened to
Speaker 4: write this license plate number down, which is corroboration, which
Speaker 4: is necessary. And this all, you know, the first time
Speaker 4: they find the license plate, they Yablonski's friend calls and
Speaker 4: finds out it belongs to Gilly's wife, Annette in Cleveland.
Speaker 4: So they have these numbers and these names, but you know,
Speaker 4: that doesn't prove anything, doesn't prove that stuff. But then
Speaker 4: all of a sudden they have this girl and she says, yeah,
Speaker 4: they were driving around the neighborhood a few days before that,
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks before that actually, And so this
Speaker 4: is how this case was built was you've seen those
Speaker 4: picture puzzles that have ten thousand parts to them, ten
Speaker 4: thousand pieces. And Brague and his FBI agents and the
Speaker 4: local agent, state police and the local police, they methodically
Speaker 4: put together this ten thousand piece puzzle with little things
Speaker 4: like this. Otherwise it doesn't happen.
Speaker 2: Now you talked about that, and that Gilly is identified
Speaker 2: with this license plate, but also that the FBI learns
Speaker 2: fairly easy from canvassing. I guess that Villly and Phillips
Speaker 2: had been arrested for burglary in the fall of sixty nine,
Speaker 2: and Billy had hosted the bond for Vilely, and the
Speaker 2: witness had also heard Villy and Phillips molting off that
Speaker 2: he was spending blood money. He claimed that Billy and
Speaker 2: another had killed the little Bonski family. So he was talking.
Speaker 2: So from that, they bring in this vally for questioning,
Speaker 2: don't they.
Speaker 4: Yes, you know, it's one of those things where these
Speaker 4: typer crimes are just not committed by geniuses. So they
Speaker 4: get drunk shooting poolside. He wants to be a big man,
Speaker 4: so kind of talks about this, you know, this hit
Speaker 4: that got pulled off in Pennsylvania, and somebody hears about it,
Speaker 4: does the police, and so they eventually pull in Deally,
Speaker 4: who's not a rocket scientist by any means. I'm probably
Speaker 4: not a firecracker scientist, and they put screws to him
Speaker 4: and they connect him. They pulled Gilly in, they pulled
Speaker 4: Martin in Phillips, and they're putting the screws on these
Speaker 4: guys and it's the old they're talking, you better talk,
Speaker 4: you know, so or who's going to crack first, and
Speaker 4: and that sort of thing. So Beally is the one
Speaker 4: who cracks first and gives it all up, or as
Speaker 4: much as he knows about it, all he really knows
Speaker 4: is that I was you know, they're killing this guy
Speaker 4: because some guy named Tony didn't like him.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that when he asks for a deal, he
Speaker 2: thinks he has some leverage and he asks, well, I
Speaker 2: won't testify unless I get a deal, and Dick Sprague
Speaker 2: says no deal, and so as you say, really makes
Speaker 2: up his mind at the onset of the trial the
Speaker 2: day before to say I'll testify without a deal, and
Speaker 2: took his chances. Right.
Speaker 4: Rage is a tough guy. And this back in the
Speaker 4: day where you know, prosecutors didn't just make deals just
Speaker 4: to clear their plates. You know, he believed in justice.
Speaker 4: He wasn't going to let this guy get to walk
Speaker 4: off with being part of the murder of three innocent people,
Speaker 4: or even get a light sentence for that matter, just
Speaker 4: because he testified against the other guys. You know, it's
Speaker 4: like testify and then we'll tell the judge you testified
Speaker 4: and take your chances. And Vally, I mean, this is
Speaker 4: potential death in theality case. So Vially is sweating it out,
Speaker 4: sweating it out, and finally decides, yeah, he's rolling over.
Speaker 4: You know, because the difficulty for prosecutors and that's why,
Speaker 4: you know, the modern prosecutor messes up so much with
Speaker 4: all the plea deals. Going on is that you get
Speaker 4: a witness who was part of the crime, and all
Speaker 4: of a sudden he comes in there he tests spies
Speaker 4: for the prosecution. Well, the defense attorneys turned that around
Speaker 4: and immediately starts saying, well, he's just trying to save
Speaker 4: his own hide. How this guy has admitted that he
Speaker 4: killed three different people and now he's trying to pin
Speaker 4: the rap on my clients to get out of it.
Speaker 4: And the prosecution, law enforcement is allowing him to do this.
Speaker 4: And suddenly you have jurors saying, well, you know, maybe
Speaker 4: he is just doing this, maybe he did it all
Speaker 4: by himself, or maybe he's the main leader of this
Speaker 4: whole thing, And it throws casts doubt and now we
Speaker 4: start creeping toward that beyond a reasonable doubt and who
Speaker 4: actually ordered this, who actually committed it, who did what?
Speaker 4: So Craig wasn't putting up with that. He knew he
Speaker 4: had a long ladder to climb to get to boil
Speaker 4: and if he started at the bottom with making deals
Speaker 4: and you know, having questionable witnesses and this sort of
Speaker 4: thing is going to be really tough to get there.
Speaker 2: What's interesting about Claude really is that he gives this
Speaker 2: detailed confession, in particular where the murder weapons were dumped,
Speaker 2: and so you have this Mono Gahila River. Probably mispronouncing it,
Speaker 2: but they took some master divers and actually found both weapons,
Speaker 2: the revolver and the carbine. Also there was some film
Speaker 2: canisters that were stolen. Really told them about those, They
Speaker 2: even found those, so remarkable police investigative work. It seemed
Speaker 2: miraculous that they could recover from the dirty river both weapons.
Speaker 4: That's one of the most incredible parts of the whole thing.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is the Monongahela. It took me a
Speaker 4: while to learn how to pronounce that which this is.
Speaker 4: They had to jop through the ice to get there.
Speaker 4: They're diving in the dark. They're in there's muddy piece
Speaker 4: of wood floating down and terrible stuff.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: They have a US Navy diver, they have an FBI diver,
Speaker 4: and these guys go down there and somehow find something
Speaker 4: the size of a revolver for one thing, and then
Speaker 4: they also find their carbine. And you know, it's not
Speaker 4: like you and it's not like really could say, well,
Speaker 4: they threw it from here exactly fifty feet over there
Speaker 4: and it sank. You know, directly from there. Rivers have
Speaker 4: you know, currents, things move, even something as heavy as
Speaker 4: a revolver or a carbine, and so it goes down
Speaker 4: and it's different from where it was thrown. And you know,
Speaker 4: in these inexacts, this is that night. They're driving back
Speaker 4: at night. So just that alone was just wow, how
Speaker 4: did they accomplish that? And what sort of divine intervention
Speaker 4: did that take? And then they also had these film
Speaker 4: canisters that they had stolen. Basically Gilly had taken them
Speaker 4: thinking that, you know, this approved that we did what
Speaker 4: we said we were doing, and we were in the
Speaker 4: house in case we need some proof for who are
Speaker 4: going to pay us? And it's like what you took that,
Speaker 4: you know, throw them? So they they pulled over the
Speaker 4: side of the road and they heaved them up in
Speaker 4: a field. And this is a snowy. We're talking January February.
Speaker 4: All this stuff is going on, and somehow they found that,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's the police work in this is nothing
Speaker 4: sort of incredible.
Speaker 2: To add to that, forensic accountants were utilized and at
Speaker 2: United Mining Workers Association they found two those ten thousand
Speaker 2: dollars checks issued a week apart in September sixty nine
Speaker 2: each have been requested and letters sent from Albert Pass
Speaker 2: to Tony Boyle. So there was a money trail from
Speaker 2: Pass to Boil and back to Pass from him to pensioners.
Speaker 2: And Pass was known to be a close confident of
Speaker 2: the union president, and so if he was involved. William Turnblazer,
Speaker 2: he was an attorney and president of District nineteen, was
Speaker 2: also involved.
Speaker 4: Right, It was sort of there were some whip ups
Speaker 4: by Boyle, things that were left tough to explain. You know,
Speaker 4: there was no evidence of this R and I committee
Speaker 4: ever really existing, that they ever did any real work.
Speaker 4: They're basically counting on these pisioners to uphold the story.
Speaker 4: They were told, yeah, we went and did some work
Speaker 4: recruiting and you know that paid me for some sandwiches,
Speaker 4: I bought in a motel room and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: And they were just counting on this absolute loyalty of
Speaker 4: these guys to you know, stick with the story. You know,
Speaker 4: that's basically what Boyle kept putting out there through his henchman,
Speaker 4: was stick to the story. If everybody sticks to the story,
Speaker 4: you won't have any problems there. And if everybody had
Speaker 4: stuck to the story, it had been really tough.
Speaker 2: Now, Dick Sprague, we're jumping ahead a little bit. He
Speaker 2: is ready to prosecute these guys. He decides to separate
Speaker 2: the two Mvilli's going to testify and Martin and Phillips
Speaker 2: and Gilly are going to trial. And the first to
Speaker 2: go to trial is you, right, is Martin? What happens
Speaker 2: in this trial? You say that each trial of the
Speaker 2: three defendants was basically the same, bringing out the same witnesses,
Speaker 2: starting with Kenneth Yoblonski describing the horror that he found
Speaker 2: his family slaughtered in the home, and then just the
Speaker 2: necessary witnesses to frame the story properly. And then there
Speaker 2: were the testimony of Veley testifying against these defendants, and
Speaker 2: the verdict from the juries, which happened fairly quick after deliberation.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, And he started with Martin because Martin was
Speaker 4: the toughest. That Martin committed more crimes, He committed more
Speaker 4: violent crimes. He was kind of a small statue guy,
Speaker 4: but he assaulted police officers and it was sort of
Speaker 4: the toughest of them all. And great figure that if
Speaker 4: he could get this guy, you know that the rest
Speaker 4: would start to fall into place. Because he was going
Speaker 4: to be the toughest and in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 4: Martin was sort of a small but he's kind of
Speaker 4: a good looking guy. He used to wear his hair
Speaker 4: back in the as in the times, with the duct
Speaker 4: tail and the pompadoor, and you know, he had his
Speaker 4: own little fan club of young women who kind of
Speaker 4: screamed and yelled every time he came to the courthouse,
Speaker 4: and he'd wink and very self assured. A tough guy.
Speaker 4: And so Sprague decided he was start with him, knowing
Speaker 4: that if he could get this guy, then Gilly Gilly,
Speaker 4: who had refused to cooperate so far Healy had cooperated,
Speaker 4: Phillips had come around to cooperate. Phillips wasn't at the
Speaker 4: murder scene, but he knew about everything leading up to
Speaker 4: it that Gilly might come around, and he knew Sprague
Speaker 4: knew that Gilly was the connection to Huddleston. In Huddleston
Speaker 4: up the l Ladder, Martin was just a a gunman
Speaker 4: and he did not have the connections into the Mineworkers'
Speaker 4: Association that Gilly did. So Sprague new knew that he
Speaker 4: needed Gilly, and he figured if Gilly heard or saw
Speaker 4: that Martin was convicted, then he would start worrying about
Speaker 4: you know, here it comes to death penalty if I
Speaker 4: don't start talking.
Speaker 2: He also talked about Annette Dave's in and confesses, which
Speaker 2: also motivates Huddleston her father.
Speaker 4: Right, this is this sort of an avalanche theory that
Speaker 4: Sprague is working on that if he can push one
Speaker 4: rock down the hill by getting Martin and then well,
Speaker 4: first he gets Gey to testify because he needs that,
Speaker 4: or he can't get Martin and Phillips to testify, or
Speaker 4: he can't get Martin, and then you know, pushes that rock,
Speaker 4: pushes the Martin rock down the hill, and the Martin
Speaker 4: rock possibly gets Gilly to testify.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 4: Now we start Hilly starts talking about you know, his
Speaker 4: wife and his father in law, Huddleston, and now we
Speaker 4: start having this avalanche of rocks that are starting to
Speaker 4: come down, and he knows that this is these Basically,
Speaker 4: this is Boyle set this up like a mafia. You
Speaker 4: know Don would have done, Godfather would have done, is
Speaker 4: that he insulates himself by having a basically telling his
Speaker 4: henchman to tell some other henchmen to tell some other
Speaker 4: henchmen to get this done to insulate himself from this
Speaker 4: getting back to him. So Spray has got to work
Speaker 4: his way up through this this chain, and he can't
Speaker 4: leap from Gilly up to Boil. You know, nobody knows
Speaker 4: enough until they get closer and closer that can actually say,
Speaker 4: Boylful was to do this, so he knows he's in
Speaker 4: for a long all. And I mean this will Lot Hall.
Speaker 4: This is half a dozen capital murder cases over a
Speaker 4: period of seven or eight years, and working with we
Speaker 4: had needed to get and eventually get these pensioners to say, yeah,
Speaker 4: we were paid money and we were just cash the
Speaker 4: checks until us give it to our pass who is
Speaker 4: going to give it to somebody else. So I'm not
Speaker 4: sure there's a lot of prosecutors who would have looked
Speaker 4: at this case and been able to lay that kind
Speaker 4: of strategy out over that many years and that many
Speaker 4: cases to get from one end to the other end.
Speaker 2: Let's use this as an opportunity.
Speaker 1: To Lucky Land Casino, asking people, what's the weirdest place
Speaker 1: you've gotten Lucky.
Speaker 3: Lucky in line at the Delhi I guess ah, in
Speaker 3: my dentist's office more than once.
Speaker 1: Actually, do I have to say yes? You do in
Speaker 1: the car before my kid's PTA meeting. Really, yes, excuse me?
Speaker 1: What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky? I never went
Speaker 1: in tell Well.
Speaker 5: There you have it.
Speaker 1: You could get lucky anywhere, playing at Lucky land Slough
Speaker 1: play for free right now? Are you feeling lucky? No,
Speaker 1: we're just necessary for my long eighteen plus terms conditions.
Speaker 5: Plus he was.
Speaker 2: Everybody else stop per second for these messages. Now you
Speaker 2: write that. In nineteen seventy two, Boyle got a five
Speaker 2: year prison term and fined one hundred and seventy nine
Speaker 2: thousand dollars fifty thousand dollars also to pay back the union,
Speaker 2: but he was out on appeal. Also in June seventy two,
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, which doesn't
Speaker 2: help Di Spray whatsoever. But the trial of Field Representative
Speaker 2: District nineteen, the district that said we'll get it done,
Speaker 2: William Jackson Prader fifty two years old. This is March thirteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three. You're right that Boyle knew if that
Speaker 2: Prader was convicted, that Boyle was in trouble. So what
Speaker 2: does Boyle and some other people do in terms of
Speaker 2: trying to help Jackson Prader. William Brady.
Speaker 4: Well, they kind of called in the uh, you know,
Speaker 4: had everybody testifying that this is the line in the sand.
Speaker 4: If they get Prader, Boyle knows he's in trouble because
Speaker 4: now Prader can start talking about our pass and Boyle himself,
Speaker 4: he knows too much to just let him go. So
Speaker 4: you know, he's got to boil himself, goes in to
Speaker 4: testify and puts himself on the stand, and which is
Speaker 4: of course dangerous because now a Spray can question him
Speaker 4: and get him under oath on some things. So this
Speaker 4: was the waterloo. This is where they either have to
Speaker 4: get Prader acquitted or there's going to be It's not over.
Speaker 4: There's still a bunch of trials, and there are a
Speaker 4: lot of things could have gone wrong, but this is
Speaker 4: where they knew they needed to hold the line or
Speaker 4: there was going to be some trouble down the line.
Speaker 2: Tell us how Dick Sprague finally is able to get
Speaker 2: Tony Boyle to trial.
Speaker 4: Well, there's a number of things that happen. Some of
Speaker 4: it is very interesting in that the work of some
Speaker 4: of the FBI agents and even in the case of
Speaker 4: a prayer where he's convicted and is talking about and
Speaker 4: tells his wife that, well, they convicted an an innocent man,
Speaker 4: and you know, and all this sort of stuff. And
Speaker 4: his own attorney came in and said, look, you're saying
Speaker 4: you're innocent and all this sort of thing. I think
Speaker 4: we both know differently. And so what you're doing is
Speaker 4: you're leaving your wife and your sons to believe for
Speaker 4: the rest of their lives and your life bitterly that
Speaker 4: you were wrong and this is an injustice and this
Speaker 4: sort of stuff. Or you can do the right thing.
Speaker 4: You can both admit to guilth that you know that
Speaker 4: justice is being served and do the right thing as
Speaker 4: far as testifying them against these people farther up the line,
Speaker 4: or you can just cling to this line. And so,
Speaker 4: you know, basically he comes around and agrees to.
Speaker 2: Testify him, and what damaging things does he reveal in
Speaker 2: that testimony.
Speaker 4: Some of the meetings, some of what is said, the
Speaker 4: money trail, who's connected to who, and they start to
Speaker 4: finally connect the people who are farther down the line,
Speaker 4: the hillbilly hitman. You know, at most they knew that
Speaker 4: some guy named Tony wanted this guy dead, but nobody,
Speaker 4: you know, they didn't know enough or didn't put two
Speaker 4: and two together enough to be able to say that
Speaker 4: it's Tony Boyle. You got to have more than some
Speaker 4: guy named Tony to connect something like this. This complicated
Speaker 4: a case. So this is where this stuff starts to
Speaker 4: fall apart. And you know Albert passed and his connection
Speaker 4: to Tony and all the others. So this is where
Speaker 4: now they're starting to get to the higher ups, the
Speaker 4: people who could have stopped this, could have said something
Speaker 4: and didn't, but they can connect it now, start connecting
Speaker 4: it now to the higher ups and the Tony Boyle.
Speaker 2: You write that in that trial there was a three
Speaker 2: hour deliberation. He was convicted of three counts of first
Speaker 2: degree murder and sent to prison. However, January twenty eighth,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed the murder
Speaker 2: convictions after the jury trial of tough Tony Boyle and
Speaker 2: ordered a new trial.
Speaker 4: Right, and this was the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. And
Speaker 4: that's as Bob In particularly in the book addressed this,
Speaker 4: you know, is a really questionable reasoning and overturning the
Speaker 4: original conviction based on some really faulty legal maneuvering, and
Speaker 4: it sort of shows the lingering power of United Mind
Speaker 4: Workers Association and tough Tony Boyle and this sort of
Speaker 4: saying that this decision was made so they overturned it.
Speaker 4: And you know, of course the idea there is, you know,
Speaker 4: get this overturned and maybe we win the next trial,
Speaker 4: or you know, the government is willing to let it go,
Speaker 4: and some smaller thing and that sort of thing. But
Speaker 4: you know, Sprague went right back at it. He wasn't
Speaker 4: letting this go, so he just refiled and they prepared
Speaker 4: for trial again.
Speaker 2: Yes, you also write the fates of Annette Gilly and
Speaker 2: her father, Silas Huddleston. You say, August seventy four, Judge
Speaker 2: Sweet found Huddleston sixty five year old, his daughter Annette
Speaker 2: was thirty four, and both of them guilty of second
Speaker 2: degree murder. But there was sentenced only four and a
Speaker 2: half years for murder and two years for obstruction, ten
Speaker 2: years probation. The pair were given new identities, you write,
Speaker 2: and released from custody and sent outside of Pennsylvania. Hearn
Speaker 2: Blazer was sentenced to fifteen years for his testimony at
Speaker 2: the Prayer trial, which you say was pivotal, and all
Speaker 2: of the research and investment or research pensioneers received probation
Speaker 2: and suspended sentences. And you write about Albert Pass, who
Speaker 2: was originally sentenced to three life sentences. He is the
Speaker 2: person that wanted to tell the truth. And Albert Pass
Speaker 2: was the person that testified at Boyle's trial, didn't he Yeah.
Speaker 4: Our passed at first in the first trial, refused to testify,
Speaker 4: refused to He was absolutely loyal to Boil through that.
Speaker 4: You know, even though he was going to go down.
Speaker 4: He was willing to go down. He was a tough,
Speaker 4: very tough union guy and willing to do this. But
Speaker 4: Boyle made a strategic err in that he basically tried
Speaker 4: to say, this is all Albert Pass's idea. District nineteen
Speaker 4: in District nineteen within the United Mindworkers' Association is sort
Speaker 4: of legendary. This is Buddy Harlan, this is where the
Speaker 4: worst of the worst union war fights we're done, and
Speaker 4: Albert Pass was right in the middle of it. So
Speaker 4: Oil rather than returning loyalty with loyalty, I think we
Speaker 4: have now former president doing the same sort of thing
Speaker 4: where he throws loyal people under the bus. When did
Speaker 4: this with Albert Pass? And Albert Pass interesting guy, he
Speaker 4: had a child with severely handicapped child, that he was
Speaker 4: very as tough as he was, and many other things.
Speaker 4: It's very tender with and his wife. And yet he
Speaker 4: the man he has given his absolute loyalty with two
Speaker 4: throws him under the bus and tries to say this
Speaker 4: is all his fault. I had nothing to do with this.
Speaker 4: These guys made these decisions on their own. So Albert
Speaker 4: Pass decides he's going to testify against Boyle in the
Speaker 4: second trial. Is that you know the loyals. He goes
Speaker 4: so far and I was as loyal as you could get,
Speaker 4: and you tossed me in on the bus. And the
Speaker 4: only thing he really wanted was he as you noted,
Speaker 4: he got three life sentences, and this was true life
Speaker 4: in those days. There was no more death penalty at
Speaker 4: the time. He just wanted the possibility, even though he
Speaker 4: was pretty aged at that time, of one last time
Speaker 4: being able to get out of prison so that he
Speaker 4: could see his child and his wife again. But Sprague
Speaker 4: didn't make any promises, didn't guarantee him this would happen,
Speaker 4: and in the end Albert Pass never made it back
Speaker 4: out of prison again, but he did testify against Tony Boyle,
Speaker 4: which pretty much did boil. No longer had any sort
Speaker 4: of escape. You know, he made a bad mistake, you know,
Speaker 4: to throw his one most loyal servant or or worker
Speaker 4: under the bus. And finally that was it, you know,
Speaker 4: he he'd kicked his lass guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was his undoing. It's interesting too, how you
Speaker 2: portray tough Tony Boyle as anything but tough once he
Speaker 2: gets in that courtroom. Before he gets in the court room,
Speaker 2: at press conferences, he's much different. But once in that courtroom,
Speaker 2: that facade baited, didn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's doing the act and everything else. He actually
Speaker 4: tries to commit suicide one point and almost doesn't go
Speaker 4: to trial, trying to avoid it, but they goes into
Speaker 4: a coma, but comes out of the coma and eventually
Speaker 4: he has tried anyway, and then he's, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: shows himself as this frail old man in a wheelchair
Speaker 4: and you know, hoping for some sympathy from the jury
Speaker 4: of how could this this poor old man have done
Speaker 4: all these sorts of things he's being accused of and
Speaker 4: and that sort of thing. But that's another thing about
Speaker 4: Spray is Sprague knew how to push this guy's buttons
Speaker 4: and got him to flash that anger and that ego
Speaker 4: and everything else. And you know, so Sprague was a
Speaker 4: master not just at putting together detailed cases, but as
Speaker 4: a trial lawyer. You know, he knew how to work
Speaker 4: the courtroom, and he knew how to push the buttons
Speaker 4: on defendants and witnesses, and how to get the jury
Speaker 4: to look in the direction he wanted them to to
Speaker 4: see the defendants or the witness And there aren't many
Speaker 4: like to Sprague anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, how relentless he was eighteen hour days,
Speaker 2: seven days a week, with a total recall of events
Speaker 2: and particulars. So it really benefited him, especially in this
Speaker 2: but his tenacity. You say that he will end up
Speaker 2: in the pantheon of the just.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think that's Bob's wording. But if there is
Speaker 4: such a thing that and he proved it throughout his
Speaker 4: career in many other ways, many other cases. Yes, that
Speaker 4: he is what you wanted to prosecutor. I mean, he
Speaker 4: is fair. He didn't go after cases where he didn't
Speaker 4: think he could prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. He believed
Speaker 4: in the way the system should work, but was relentless
Speaker 4: in the pursuit of justice.
Speaker 2: Yes, and he had an incredible winning record as well.
Speaker 4: Yes he did.
Speaker 2: I well, thank you very much Steve Jackson for coming
Speaker 2: on and talking about coal country killing, culture, a union
Speaker 2: and the murders to change it at all. For those
Speaker 2: that might want to take a look at this book,
Speaker 2: can you tell us about your social media website? Can
Speaker 2: you tell us about that?
Speaker 4: Well, the easy way to find the book is to
Speaker 4: go to WBP dot bz slash CCK at WBP dot
Speaker 4: bz slash CCK for Coal Country Killing and that to
Speaker 4: take you right to the Amazon page and you can
Speaker 4: read about the book. Can also go to wild bluepress
Speaker 4: dot com and find that the book there, and I
Speaker 4: can either find it by going to my my pages
Speaker 4: on the website are just straight to the book and
Speaker 4: it will give you some information about it. But it
Speaker 4: is it is. I've done I think a good dozen
Speaker 4: true crime books, and I think this was the most
Speaker 4: incredible of those as far as the investigation and putting
Speaker 4: together a trial and in the significance of it. This
Speaker 4: is you know, we've we've forgotten this case in a
Speaker 4: lot of places. But this is the end of the sixties.
Speaker 4: So you have John F. Kennedy has been assassinated, and
Speaker 4: Martin Luther King has been assassinated, and Robert Kennedy has
Speaker 4: been assassinated. And while we often don't think of Union
Speaker 4: candidates for presidency as being in that same area, it
Speaker 4: was an assassination and a political assassination that reverberated through
Speaker 4: this country. It changed the entire culture of the United
Speaker 4: mind Workers' Association. It changed some of the culture in Appalachia.
Speaker 4: Was that Jock Leblonski had wanted to instill, for instance,
Speaker 4: black Long associate in the Black Long, medical help for
Speaker 4: whole minders, better pensions, better income education, these sort of things,
Speaker 4: the things that Jock Leblonski tried to champion and was
Speaker 4: killed before he could instill. Still it they came to fruition,
Speaker 4: you know, in part because of his death.
Speaker 2: Yes, I want to thank you very much Steve Jackson,
Speaker 2: Coole country killing culture, a union and the murders that
Speaker 2: change it at all. Thank you very much for this interview,
Speaker 2: and you have a great evening tonight.
Speaker 4: You do, Dan, goodbye.
Speaker 2: Thank you