0:00

Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio

0:05

previously on Murder in Miami. So

0:08

it's the fall of nineteen eighty four and basically,

0:11

you agree to go to Georgia

0:13

to help Lamarchester, who you fully

0:15

believe as a drug smuggler and who

0:18

fully believes that you were in the CIA,

0:21

create a gray mail defense.

0:23

Pretty much. Yeah. Operation Loan

0:25

Star was a sprawling federal investigation

0:28

of money laundering. Lamarchester's

0:30

involvement with a Nassau trust company

0:33

and ownership of islands became

0:35

the focus. There's over ten thousand

0:38

coal cases in Miami, Dad, which

0:40

is a staggering number. The eighties

0:43

were a very large part

0:45

of the ten thousand cases. The

0:48

Star witness, in fact,

0:50

the whole point of the hearings was

0:52

this tall, slim woman

0:54

in her thirties, Leslie Bickerton,

0:57

who the newspapers were billing

1:00

as Lamar's bookkeeper and

1:02

mistress. The government

1:05

had been implying, if not outright

1:08

stating, with witnesses

1:10

fed to alligators, the portrayal

1:12

that they were doing of Lamar Chester. Chester

1:16

had told her that he quote got rid

1:18

of a man and fed

1:20

him to the alligators. And she

1:23

says that he mentioned the man's name

1:25

as Ed Clayton. Hey,

1:35

Lauren, Hey Phil, So

1:38

I think I actually found Leslie

1:40

Bickerton. Definitely the right one.

1:42

Are you sure you spoke to her? Not

1:44

exactly so I've been texting

1:46

the correct number, but it wasn't until

1:48

I connected with her brother that she responded

1:51

to me. And what'd you say? That's

1:53

a little complicated. So she's

1:56

not willing to speak with me yet, but

1:59

she is willing to communicate

2:01

via an encrypted service. Why

2:05

so nobody can intercept our communication?

2:08

I guess, well, why all the secrecy?

2:11

Because Phil, after all these years,

2:14

she's still afraid for her life.

2:20

I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this

2:23

is murder in Miami. When

2:38

Leslie Bickerton and I first connected in

2:40

April of twenty twenty two, she insisted

2:43

that going forward, we only do so in

2:45

an absolutely secure way as an

2:47

end to end encryption. Once

2:49

we settled on a means, it still took

2:51

her over an hour to respond to my initial

2:54

explanation of who I was and why I

2:56

was reaching out. She was extremely

2:59

guarded and suspicious as to exactly

3:01

why I was searching for her. After

3:03

stressing she was extremely private and extremely

3:06

careful as to who she let into her

3:08

life. She offered me this ominous

3:10

warning quote. You have

3:13

no idea, she typed, what

3:15

you are stepping into. Trust

3:17

me, she continued, I know

3:19

this as a fact.

3:22

The Leslie Bickerton I would grow to know bit

3:24

by bit and over months of encrypted

3:26

texting was a woman who still very

3:29

much bore the scars of the experience of

3:31

crossing paths with many of the names

3:33

you've now heard, especially Bob

3:35

Adams and Lamar Chester. It

3:38

became obvious that, unlike Phil who

3:40

has an interesting tendency to look

3:42

back on even the more troubling aspects

3:44

of his experience with intercept with

3:46

a bit of a bemused chuckle, Leslie

3:49

finds nothing amusing about having been drawn

3:51

into a federal investigation. In

3:53

fact, she still lives in fear of the

3:55

individuals she became intertwined with,

3:57

even the one she still hasn't identified.

4:01

Our early communications were halting, sporadic,

4:04

and somewhat cryptic, as I sought

4:06

to give her a level of comfort and trust

4:08

while dealing with the limitations of texting.

4:10

What became very clear, though, was her significant

4:13

trepidation over revisiting the lone Star period

4:16

of her life at all, and her

4:18

belief that sinister forces beyond her

4:20

control at the time were still

4:22

at work. Today. Like Phil,

4:25

she seemed to be struggling to put together the pieces

4:27

of that period of her life. But unlike

4:30

Phil, she very much felt to be

4:32

a target of violent threats. Quote

4:35

there was a contract out on me, and I know

4:38

much more than I should, she texted,

4:40

But I was too naive and stupid not

4:42

to realize what I was involved with and

4:45

had to find out a lot more after

4:47

the fact. She

4:49

went on to offer this warning if I decided

4:51

to proceed, quote, be very

4:54

careful. When

4:58

I updated Phil, it was with a

5:00

much greater sense of concern about the story

5:02

we were tackling. So are you still texting?

5:05

Yeah, just texting. But you know,

5:07

I have to say she is extremely

5:10

concerned about

5:12

her safety and honestly very

5:14

convinced that I'm putting

5:16

myself in harm's way by even

5:18

revisiting any of this. Oh come

5:20

on, now, I've been poking around this

5:23

last ten or fifteen years, and

5:26

the heat is off. I can understand she

5:28

would have been worried back then, for

5:30

sure, bodies turning up

5:32

all over the place, but it's

5:34

been forty years now yet, but you

5:36

weren't even indicted. She was a witness,

5:39

and she believed at the time she

5:41

was told there was a contract out on her

5:43

life, and she's still afraid.

5:46

I think part of the reason why it was so hard

5:48

to find her was because she

5:50

went to great lengths not to be found.

5:53

She's been hiding for forty years.

5:55

That's no way, there's no way

5:57

to live. I

6:00

don't know. I mean, it's easy for us to say, but

6:03

she was told her life was in danger and

6:05

people were incentivized to kill

6:08

her for payment. And even if

6:10

that's no longer the case, it's not

6:12

like she ever got some kind of formal

6:14

update that her nightmare

6:16

was over. You know. It's like they've been playing a

6:19

capture the Flag game and

6:21

it moved on and ended, but she's still

6:23

in hiding. Nobody told her it was

6:25

over. Well, maybe if she

6:27

talked to me, I could as sure of

6:30

something or other. I mean, I

6:33

understand that she was scared at one

6:35

time. Once upon a time, there

6:37

was certainly something to be scared of, and

6:39

I'm still trying to figure it out myself. So maybe

6:42

we have that in common. Leslie

6:45

and I would continue communicating via encrypto

6:47

text for several months, bonding

6:50

over our shared love for all things canine,

6:52

eventually swapping photos of our dogs

6:55

and piecing together. Are still evolving

6:58

grasp of what happened during and

7:00

Star investigation. She also

7:02

shared she found Chester's claims to have been

7:04

involved with CIA operations plausible.

7:07

The CIA, she wrote, has a

7:09

long involvement with a drug trade since

7:11

Vietnam, Heroin and cocaine

7:14

ongoing in Latin America, the Bahamas,

7:16

Africa, Middle East, especially

7:18

Afghanistan. It's a Pandora's

7:20

box for

7:23

anyone not familiar. Pandora's

7:25

Box basically means opening an endless

7:27

source of troubles. It springs from a Greek

7:29

myth about the world's first woman, Pandora,

7:32

whose curiosity led to the unleashing

7:35

of evil upon mankind Leslie

7:39

eventually agreed to speak with me over the phone,

7:42

but it would be another several months before

7:44

she would consent to taping our conversations.

7:47

By the time I heard her voice, I very much

7:49

felt I knew the woman it belonged to. Going

7:53

back forty one years, I

7:56

never saw it coming, had no idea, but

7:58

then I didn't grow up with those kinds of

8:01

people. I

8:03

understand it now. I was

8:05

just so trusting and naive, really

8:08

naive. I've realized this over

8:10

the years. What happened to me forty

8:13

one years ago. It has been with

8:15

me my entire life. I mean, it's

8:17

stole my life and I stole my

8:19

voice, and she's internalized

8:21

that loss for forty years. I

8:24

remever told anybody what I've told you. In

8:27

the course of our extensive exchanges, Bickerton,

8:30

who had been reduced to almost a cliche in

8:32

the articles I'd read covering Chester and

8:34

Lone Star, would reveal herself to

8:36

be a complicated and fiercely intelligent

8:38

woman with a wry sense of humor

8:41

and a rather fascinating unorthodox

8:43

upbringing. Part of my life,

8:45

I grew up in New England, camping and

8:48

hiking and sailing.

8:50

My father always had us out in the

8:53

middle of nowhere, all of

8:55

us, and I'm the oldest in my family. My mother

8:57

always said she never know if you'd come back from,

8:59

you know, a hurricane. Her

9:01

father was like, let's go watch the

9:03

hurricanes come in the tide,

9:05

the water everything. Her

9:08

father was the pioneering venture capitalist

9:10

John Bickerton, as legendary

9:12

in the field of finance for his innovative influence,

9:15

as he was for his eclectic personality,

9:18

despite his considerable career accomplishments

9:21

and belonging to a rarefied social realm

9:23

that included Rockefellers. According

9:25

to his obituary quote, he was

9:28

happiest walking along the Marblehead

9:30

Causeway during the height of a hurricane

9:32

with his eager children in tow, waiting

9:35

for the next rogue wave to hit

9:37

the causeway wall and dredge

9:39

them all. I

9:44

grew up that way my whole life. It

9:46

was a sense of adventure. We

9:49

knew the people who started outward

9:51

bound, where you go on remote

9:53

islands as kids and you learn how to

9:55

survive on your own. This

9:57

is not when these all inclusive

10:00

resort This wasn't It

10:02

was not club med. No, no, no

10:04

no. And I

10:07

knew how to hunt, and I know how to fish.

10:09

And because I grew up part of my life in the Hawaiian

10:11

Islands, I knew how to

10:13

fish what they call a Hawaiian

10:16

sling. Are you familiar with that?

10:19

Okay? So this is all

10:21

with indigenous in the Hawaiians. So

10:23

a Hawaiian sling is basically

10:26

the spear we would take a

10:28

piece of wood, follow it out in the middle

10:31

and take surgical tubing and wrap

10:33

it so it adheres to that.

10:35

That woulden too. It's like

10:37

a bow and arrow, okay, except

10:40

that the stainless steel shaft is probably

10:43

maybe like five feet long with a barb

10:45

on it. So with a Hawaiian sling,

10:47

you hold your breath and you go snorkele

10:50

and you dive underneath the water

10:53

to catch your food. I mean we

10:55

all free dive. We didn't have tanks.

11:01

And in addition to mastering outdoor

11:03

survival techniques, sailing was

11:05

also a huge part of the Bickerton upbringing

11:07

and remains a particular passion for Leslie.

11:10

Being in New Englander, we looked down on

11:12

people with motor boats. It's like,

11:15

if you're going to be a sailor, you better learn

11:17

how to sail, You better know how to read the

11:19

sky, how to read the water, all

11:21

of it. By the time Leslie Bickerton,

11:24

who also dabbled in modeling

11:26

while living in Hawaii, crossed paths

11:28

with Lamar Chester, she was barely

11:30

thirty years old and fully putting her

11:33

upbringing around finance and formal

11:35

training and taxation and accounting to

11:37

work in an environment she knew very well,

11:39

the Cayman Islands. The beginning of nineteen

11:42

eighty one, I was over in the Cayman Islands

11:45

before I had even heard of Lamar

11:47

Chester. I was working in

11:49

the Caymans because I have a CPA

11:51

background and an international

11:54

tax background. In the

11:56

Caymans, a person named Stephen

11:58

greenberg Burg was the

12:00

Miami based tax attorney who started

12:02

working with Chester after Lance Eisenberg

12:05

was indicted, who was there vacation

12:08

with his family. I met

12:10

him to the Christian that I was

12:12

working with working

12:14

for, and Stephen

12:17

asked, you know, I'd be interested in

12:19

meeting in Lamar Chester. Over

12:22

in the State side. This man owned

12:24

some islands in the Bahamas, was

12:26

looking for somebody to do offshore work,

12:29

and that he might be interested in the work that

12:31

we do with offshore accounts.

12:33

Offshore accounts are utilized

12:35

for what purpose, to

12:38

realize for both legitimate

12:41

and illegitimate people,

12:44

banks, trust companies, people

12:46

with a tremendous amount of money, So

12:49

Hollywood people, wealthy people

12:51

in the States, wealthy people from other

12:54

countries, religious

12:56

organizations such as the

12:58

Mormon Church whom we met.

13:00

Yes, you'd be very surprised at what people

13:03

where they put their money, and businesses

13:05

and corporations who have sub corporations,

13:09

insurance companies, illegitimate

13:11

people like the mob in pneumafia,

13:14

drugs, smuggling, guns

13:16

smuggling, trying to what

13:19

they so called wash their money to

13:21

make it look legitimate coming into

13:23

the Cayman Islands, shutting

13:25

up a bank, so you could actually set up

13:27

a bank, a legitimate bank, a trust

13:29

company puts your illegal

13:32

money in there if it's illegitimate

13:34

money or you don't want to pay the taxes

13:37

to the irs right instead

13:39

of being paid directly by

13:41

another company for your work, you have

13:44

that money then deposited directly

13:46

into what they call an offshore account.

13:49

Thereby it never touches

13:51

directly the state side

13:53

where the IRS can get a hold of it and

13:56

legitimately say, hey, you know, you ow

13:58

x amount of money based down your earnings

14:01

that year, and then you can use

14:03

that money then to set up

14:05

another bank. You can get pretty detailed

14:07

and involved, but then you can have a subsidiary

14:09

in the US. So all this money gets

14:11

washed almost like the tides coming in

14:13

and out, and it's been there for a long

14:16

time, it hasn't changed. So

14:18

that's what offshore does literally

14:20

physically, you're not having your

14:23

funds come directly into

14:25

the United States, So it's

14:28

a gray area. Very great. Yeah,

14:30

it's not necessarily legal,

14:32

but it's not necessarily illegal exactly,

14:36

which is exactly why the very

14:39

rich, whether by illicit means

14:41

or not, are very fond of offshore

14:43

accounts as a means of hiding their assets.

14:46

Those islands have always been known

14:48

as tax havens for the

14:51

rich and famous. Yes, absolutely,

14:54

there are a lot of loopholes that

14:56

these big tax lawyers confine

15:00

that are so buried, very

15:02

sophisticated individual loopholes.

15:05

Apparently Lamarchester was interested

15:07

in utilizing some of these sophisticated loopholes

15:10

when he initiated a meeting with Leslie in

15:12

person, which would, as with

15:14

Phil Stanford, take place at

15:17

the mutiny in Coconut Grove in

15:19

February of nineteen eighty one. I

15:22

met him for dinner at a hotel

15:24

that they had put me in, So

15:26

I did not know of this hotel ahead

15:29

of time. I had not a clue this

15:32

hotel apparently was known

15:34

for all the drug smugglers. Did

15:36

he make it clear at that dinner meeting

15:39

why he wanted to hire you? And what

15:41

he wanted you to do for him. He

15:44

was interested in my background, just my

15:46

own personal background, so the sailine

15:49

and the growing up on islands and the tacks

15:51

and the CPA, and

15:54

thought that he could utilize

15:57

my expertise for lack

15:59

of a best or word, to help

16:02

him with different businesses

16:04

that he had running in the Bahamas

16:06

and maybe elsewhere, and maybe setting up an

16:08

account in the Caymans. It

16:11

was at that time that he told me that

16:15

he on these islands in the Bahamas,

16:18

and if I ever wanted to go there or stay

16:20

there, I'd be welcome to he'd arrange

16:22

it for me. Back in

16:24

that time, I mean, I wasn't married,

16:27

I didn't own ah Holmes, I didn't own a car.

16:30

I had a sailboat. So

16:35

the option of living on the island was

16:37

something that made the job offer appealing

16:39

to Leslie's sense of adventure, even

16:41

if there seemed to be some strings attached.

16:44

I don't know. At the first meeting he told

16:46

me he was married or not, I'm not sure.

16:49

And he also had a farm or some kind of

16:51

a farm up in Georgia. But again

16:54

the hook for me was the

16:56

islands and the Bahamas and The

16:58

hook for Chester was likely in

17:01

part the very unique access

17:03

the privileged patrician and bohemian

17:06

somewhat sheltered beauty sitting before

17:08

him could provide, in addition to her

17:10

offshore tax shelter savvy. How

17:13

much older was Chester than

17:15

you were twenty years something

17:17

like that. Yes, so you're

17:19

barely in your thirties and

17:22

he is a much more sophisticated

17:25

worldly man. And it sounds like he

17:28

is honing in on what makes you tick

17:30

that first night at dinner and

17:32

realizes that the

17:35

islands that he owns would

17:37

be a huge draw for you.

17:40

Yes. Do you look back in retrospect

17:42

and feel like he was reading

17:44

you? You know, it's an

17:46

interesting question, Lauren. I've

17:48

come to recognize far

17:51

too late in life that

17:53

I don't think that way, and I

17:56

didn't recognize that other people

17:58

do think that way, that they size you up

18:01

to see what they can get from you. I've never

18:04

been that way. It's a flaw

18:06

in one sense, because it leaves

18:08

you vulnerable. So yes,

18:11

he sized me up immediately.

18:14

And it was with the islands,

18:17

Derby and the Bahamas have

18:19

an opportunity to go

18:22

there, and I thought, sure, okay,

18:24

why not it's a hell of a piece

18:27

of bait to have this island

18:29

paradise that you can offer

18:32

to people as a place to visit,

18:34

a place to live that seems

18:37

like it's completely protected

18:39

and utopia. Yes,

18:44

yes, I

18:51

was struck the Bickerton, like Stanford,

18:54

was at a point in her life where she was drifting

18:56

a bit, sort of following her fate

18:58

where it led, which made it much

19:00

easier to get sucked into the orbit of

19:02

someone with an agenda. Oddly

19:05

enough, you were perfectly suited

19:07

to take Chester up

19:09

on the offer to go live on his island.

19:13

Yes, a

19:15

place like Derby

19:18

and some of the out islands. It's

19:20

a test of courage, it's

19:23

a test of adventure, a

19:25

test of intellect. It's

19:28

a test of how you connect with

19:30

nature. That's me. When

19:33

did you do that? And how long did you live there in

19:35

relative solitude? Right? Oh yeah,

19:37

absolutely. And I brought my dog

19:39

with me, my dope. I'm in Pincher

19:41

Cavina. So it was Cavina.

19:44

And there was another little dog there, a

19:47

Mutt Island dog, and that

19:49

was it. There was nobody there to

19:53

serve me or watch over me

19:55

or any of that. But I knew

19:57

I was capable of being able to

20:00

exist that way, and it was again another

20:02

adventure for me. Remember

20:05

Leslie had taken her dog to Darby. It

20:07

will play a major role in her testifying

20:10

for the prosecution. In addition

20:12

to accepting the challenge of living on the island

20:14

and the job with him, Leslie Bickerton

20:17

would also become romantically involved with Jester.

20:19

All three of those things would come back to Haunter.

20:23

I had not a clue of what I was walking

20:25

into, but the draw was the Bahamas

20:27

and the Islands. Leslie

20:29

was not naive and had a pretty

20:32

immediate inkling that marijuana

20:34

was Chester's likely livelihood. I

20:37

didn't know he was involved with cocaine. If

20:39

I had known that he was involved with cocaine

20:42

smuggling and how

20:44

extensive his operations were, and

20:47

his involvement with the Colombian cartel

20:50

and Central America and the

20:52

FEDS, I wouldn't have touched him. I wouldn't

20:54

have come near with a ten foot poll, no

20:57

way. He deliberately withheld

20:59

all of that. But Leslie

21:01

in particular saw marijuana smuggling

21:03

as almost part of the adventurous spirit associated

21:06

with the sailing set in the islands.

21:09

The Bahamas has an interesting

21:11

history. They were known for piracy

21:14

in the Bahamas. These islands,

21:16

I mean they're really small, They're not big like Jamaica

21:19

or the Hawaiian Islands. So once

21:22

upon a time, this is where the pirates would

21:24

sort of hang out and go

21:26

back and forth between the States and

21:28

the Bahamas and Jamaica

21:30

in Europe because they knew the lay

21:32

of the land, and anybody who was pursuing

21:35

them would probably end up wrecked

21:37

because they didn't understand the proper

21:39

entry points and exit points exactly.

21:42

And that legacy carried

21:45

on, and I think it just really

21:48

exploded again when

21:50

you think about like the Vietnam War or the sixties,

21:53

anti war, anti government,

21:55

highly educated people dropping

21:58

out, the hippie movement, and there

22:00

comes the marijuana in

22:03

the seventies. And

22:05

if you grew up sailing, I

22:07

mean I grew up on the ocean and

22:10

the other people that I know, there's always

22:12

a sense of adventure when you're sailing,

22:14

what the weather is going to present to you. And

22:17

so during that time period you

22:20

had the marijuana. Okay, you have the hippie

22:22

movement, this is before cocaine.

22:25

Then you have this enclave of sailors

22:28

people that are highly educated,

22:31

anti establishment, and there comes

22:33

the Bahamas and it's

22:36

kind of a perfect storm. Every

22:39

island in the Bahamas has its own unique

22:41

personality, some untouched

22:44

by civilization until recently. Miles

22:47

of unspoiled natural beauty here

22:50

for you to explore, our thousands

22:52

of islands and keys. It

22:55

sounds like the perfect storm of

22:57

this rogue frontier, which

23:00

is easy to romanticize with the

23:03

anti establishment game

23:06

event where suddenly there's this gold

23:08

rush, but it's marijuana,

23:11

because at that time there were a lot

23:13

of people who believed that it was just a limited

23:15

window because marijuana

23:17

was going to be legalized sooner rather than

23:19

later, and if you were going to make

23:21

money, that was the time to do it. And

23:24

that's actually what drew a lot of the guys

23:27

to Lamar, you know, the sailors,

23:29

at least with the marijuana smuggling, that it

23:32

was an adventure. It was like, sure, why not? And

23:35

I think they were clueless as

23:37

to how they were being used and

23:39

how it fit into the master

23:41

plan that Lamar already

23:43

had that none of us knew about. But

23:46

while she was staying on Little Darby, Leslie

23:48

became aware that Chester smuggling was

23:51

much more prolific and diversified

23:53

than she initially thought. That was

23:55

the first time Lamar flying

23:58

me in Internasa

24:00

to customs, well outside

24:02

customs, and they all knew one

24:04

another. The local guys knew

24:07

Lamar quite well. That was my first

24:09

indication that I'm

24:11

not going through what I would call the normal

24:13

procedures. In the Caymans,

24:16

you went through customs, trick customs,

24:19

that was a non issue. But the

24:21

Bahamas, we just cleared

24:23

through everything. I didn't have

24:25

to go in line and show my

24:27

past. I didn't have to show anything. That

24:30

was my first indication that, well, this

24:33

person that I'm with, Lamar Chester, there's

24:35

a lot more to him than I realized

24:38

from my first meetings with him. So

24:40

you didn't even just get to skip the line. You

24:43

never had to go through the line. I never had to go

24:45

through it. And Chester wasn't

24:47

just securing that preferential treatment with

24:49

cash. He brought chickens.

24:53

Lamar had chickens with

24:55

him in crates and

24:58

it was at a matter of fact, they all one

25:00

another. We just swept right through and

25:02

he gave the guys the live chickens

25:04

that he brought in and cash.

25:07

No big deal, right which led

25:10

me to look at them. Oh, this

25:12

is a system that has already been

25:14

in place for a while, and

25:17

I knew then that

25:20

this is somebody that's a lot bigger

25:22

than I realized as far as power is

25:25

concerned and presence

25:27

in the Bahamas at that time. So

25:29

that was my first clue, big clue, But

25:32

more clues would come out her full force. In

25:34

the late summer of nineteen eighty one, Leslie

25:37

had departed the Derby Islands, but would

25:39

be told her Doberman Covina

25:41

would have to fly out on a later flight. There

25:43

wasn't enough room, that's what was told to

25:45

me. A small plane, and

25:48

that, okay, small planes. I've been in a lot of small

25:50

planes, so you know, okay, fine,

25:53

And you figured you'd either go back and get the

25:55

dog or they would bring the dog to you. Yep,

25:57

exactly. So it says sort of your

26:00

plans, Leslie, one that would

26:02

become a bargaining chip for Chester when

26:04

his adult son refused to return the

26:06

dog. Not a clue, no

26:09

hint that something was wrong,

26:12

that this may have been planned in such

26:14

a way, or after the fact, that

26:16

this is the leverage that they had

26:19

over me. It remains

26:21

an emotional subject for Bickerton to this

26:23

day. It was your kryptonite. Yeah

26:26

yeah, and they knew that, Oh yeah, because

26:29

because I knew that I wasn't going to

26:32

get that dog back, he was holding it over

26:34

me that the dog may or may not come.

26:36

That's so awful because he just said,

26:38

I know how much that dog means to you.

26:41

Because she had significant knowledge and his

26:44

now scrutinized finances, Bickerton

26:46

believes Chester lured her to his Georgia

26:48

farm with the promise the dog would

26:50

be flown there, and also in

26:53

the meantime she could help set up River Hills

26:55

the college campsite. So all

26:58

that narrative about the

27:00

camping site and turning it into a

27:02

college thing. Looking back, do

27:04

you think that was just some kind of

27:07

excuse to keep you there? Yes,

27:10

definitely. Because I was not on

27:12

board with it. I had to

27:14

go along with it, but I

27:17

was uncomfortable. When

27:28

Bickerton became impatient about the time it

27:30

was taking to get her Doberman back, she was

27:32

given another job and power of

27:35

attorney for Chester and his wife to

27:37

fly to the Grand Caymans.

27:39

Both artists and Lamar signed

27:43

document. You know, and I've got the original document

27:46

and gave me the authority

27:48

to access their

27:50

account down in the Cayman Islands

27:53

and the bear certificates to bring

27:55

back to them, which was

27:57

tied with a real estate

27:59

shell compan benee in Georgia. Yes,

28:02

yes, and I think a little

28:04

bit more than that, knowing what

28:06

the Cayman Islands was involved with. And

28:08

we're not talking a little bank account. I mean we're talking

28:10

the Cayman Islands and Smith and that's what Euston

28:13

was after was Smythe

28:16

smythe was the name on the Cayman Islands

28:18

account and a bearer certificate. It's

28:20

sort of like currency. If you hold it,

28:22

it's yours, kind of like finding a coin

28:25

on the sidewalk. It doesn't have to be

28:27

validated to prove ownership. So

28:29

by even acting as a courier, particularly

28:32

an international one, Leslie

28:34

Bickerton had become very much complicit

28:37

in Chester's operations. Did

28:40

you have any clue at

28:42

that point when you went

28:44

to get the bearer certificates and you returned that

28:48

Lamar was actually under

28:51

federal investigation? Not

28:53

a clue, nothing, not even

28:55

a hint. I had no idea

28:58

that he was under investigation, and I had

29:00

no idea how big an operation

29:03

he had much less, no

29:05

idea that he was involved with the Colombian

29:07

cartel with cocaine and

29:09

then with nick Oaragua and guns,

29:12

all of it. I had not a clue.

29:15

And so when he had

29:17

a conversation with me, it

29:19

was right around that time, during the summertime

29:21

in nineteen eighty one, I didn't see

29:23

it coming. I just didn't that

29:26

conversation would include the mention of

29:28

a man named Clayton. To

29:31

the best of your memory, can you

29:33

take me to that conversation

29:36

where you were, who was

29:38

there, what he said,

29:41

and how it impacted you.

29:43

I remember it was either sitting

29:45

in the truck of his car, but it was on

29:48

the farmer was on the farm road. The

29:50

conversation he had with me was that

29:52

he was in trouble and that

29:54

it involved some big people. I

29:57

remember it being very short and very

30:00

and I didn't know these people

30:02

either, And I think that's another reason why it took me

30:04

by surprise, because I had never heard of these people.

30:06

He had never talked about these people

30:09

at all. So within this condensed

30:11

conversation, he began telling

30:14

me about a woman named Sibley, something

30:16

to do with her selling boats

30:19

to him, and that

30:21

she was murdering and stopped in the

30:23

trunk of her Mercedes. Just

30:26

that alone, you just like, what have

30:29

I entered into? Like, what the heck

30:31

is what's going on? It was

30:33

surreal. I mean, can

30:35

you imagine just like he's just

30:37

taking the walk down the road at somebody and you think

30:40

that they're okay, I mean, you know, all right, and

30:42

then he hit you with something like that.

30:45

I mean, it came out of nowhere. I just must

30:47

have just like maybe five minutes.

30:50

As difficult as it is, I want to go back

30:53

to Sibley Riggs and just

30:56

try to recall

30:59

as much of the specifics as

31:01

he said about Sibley. But

31:03

also of great interest

31:05

to me is the snitch

31:08

who he had

31:10

murdered? Correct? Why how did

31:12

he word that? So? I mean, obviously

31:16

you know it's a long time ago. I mean, the first thing

31:18

was about Sibley Rags and that

31:21

she was a threat and was

31:24

found beaten and

31:26

stopped in the trunk of her Mercedes.

31:28

And I thought, my god, I mean I

31:31

had not a clue. I didn't

31:33

even know who this person was except

31:36

she was a woman. And then right

31:38

after that was about this person

31:40

this man who was going

31:42

to turn on him and hard

31:45

to get rid of him. So when

31:47

you were in the pre trial hearing,

31:50

you referred to that

31:52

man you believed his name was

31:55

Clayton, Ed Clayton, correct,

31:58

Yes, And that would be this same

32:00

man that Lamar

32:02

implied had turned on him

32:05

or was going to snitch on him and

32:07

had to be gotten rid of. Yes.

32:09

And I don't know who Ed Clayton is, you

32:12

know, I had no interaction. I don't

32:14

know what he did for Lamar,

32:18

whether Lamar did it directly or indirectly.

32:20

I mean, Lamar is connected with the

32:22

Colombian cartel. Anyone

32:25

who would be a threat to the Colombian

32:28

cartel would be gotten rid of. And

32:31

that's how you got rid of people. You dumped

32:33

him in the everglades, you know, with the alligators,

32:35

or with the crocodiles along the mangroves,

32:38

and or you shoved

32:40

him off a plane, you know, on the deep of the ocean.

32:42

You'd never see them again. Real

32:44

easy way to get rid of evidence. I

32:47

mean my head was spinning, just spinning.

32:49

I mean I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to turn,

32:52

just trying to process this information.

32:54

At the same time, trying

32:56

to figure out immediately without saying

32:59

a word, right how I was going to get

33:01

off that farm number one without disappearing

33:03

there, because he had his own bodyguard

33:05

there who you wouldn't want to mess with.

33:08

Believe me, it's just like good old boy

33:10

right out of Appalachia. There's

33:12

some people that you can meet along the way in

33:14

your life that you just know. It's just

33:16

like the hair stands up at the back

33:18

of your head and you just know

33:21

that this is a very dangerous person.

33:24

And that's the kind of person that

33:26

Lamar had on the farm. At all times.

33:29

I was scared for my life and I had

33:31

to figure out how I

33:34

was going to get out from underneath it. I

33:38

filled Leslian on the timeline of Clayton

33:40

Williams and my theory that

33:42

the person she recollected as Ed

33:44

Clayton could be the same man. Clay

33:48

Williams would have gone missing in September

33:51

of nineteen eighty one and his body

33:53

was found in October. So

33:57

it was all happening this cond

34:00

period of time, this perfect

34:03

storm in a horrific way

34:06

that summer and fall of

34:09

nineteen eighty one, when

34:11

everything started to fall

34:14

apart. What

34:16

do you think was his purpose in telling you

34:18

about Sibley and Clay was

34:21

it to control you, to intimidate

34:23

you, I'd say,

34:26

more intimidation. It wasn't like

34:28

he said to me, while I'm concerned about your welfare.

34:31

It was more of an intimidation

34:34

because of the way that it was said. It

34:36

was implied to me that

34:39

I was in danger. Not only I

34:41

was in danger, but that I was a threat to

34:45

other people. Wow. And

34:48

until that point, Leslie Bickerton

34:50

is adamant that she had no idea Chester

34:53

was under indictment or that by

34:55

serving as his courier with power

34:57

of attorney, she just implicated

34:59

her self in a federal investigation. Just

35:02

boom, boom boom. And then about somebody that

35:05

had been killed off, found

35:07

him in the Everglades, dumped off in the Everglades

35:09

with the alligators, and then about

35:12

Pablo Escobar and

35:14

about the CIA and the

35:16

Feds. I mean, it was just like wham

35:19

bang bang bam, and there

35:21

were contracts out on his life

35:23

and contracts that I was also in

35:26

danger, and then just

35:29

sort of left me there. And

35:33

at that moment, Leslie Bickerton's

35:36

life forever changed. And

35:38

that's where I talked about

35:40

like walking into the Devil's den, my

35:42

god. On

35:45

the next murder in Miami, A substantial

35:47

break in the Clay Williams murder case could

35:50

confirm Leslie's worst fears. I

35:52

had no idea what I was walking into

35:55

that courtroom, or it could

35:57

all just be part of a bigger plan. Be

36:00

Late turned to me, looked

36:02

right at me and said, let's

36:05

go feed somebody to the gators.

36:07

And another prolific smuggler shares

36:09

his story of being set up. It

36:12

was a show trial, you mean to end. Half the

36:14

things that happened or reset at the trial

36:16

just were made up out of thin air. Murder

36:20

of Miami is a production of iHeartRadio.

36:23

Executive producers are Lauren Bright Pacheco,

36:26

Taylor Schacogne, and Phil Stamford.

36:29

Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren

36:31

Bright Pacheco, Audio editing

36:33

and sound design by Nicholas Harder, Evan

36:36

Tyre, and Taylor Schacogne, featuring

36:38

music by Evan Tyre, Phil Mayor, John

36:41

Murchison and Taylor Schacogne.

36:44

Archival elements provided by Film

36:46

Archives Incorporated. For

36:48

more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit

36:50

the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts

36:53

or wherever you get the stories that matter

36:55

to you,