- 4 days ago
This Is a Bomb: The Nevada Casino Heist - Season 1 Episode 2 - The Ransom
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Short filmTranscript
00:06This is an oldie but a goodie back here.
00:11Wow.
00:12That is my dad, my brother, and myself.
00:16That portrays a father and two sons that look happy,
00:21and look like they're a family.
00:25There's trophies here for football, basketball, car racing.
00:32Whatever choice I made in my life were based on trying to get approval
00:38or to be loved, but you're brainwashed.
00:43You could never fill that void.
00:47Never.
00:48You would continually say that he regretted having kids,
00:52that were worthless, and so you start doing crazy things
00:57to get attention.
00:59In straight line Nevada, a time of tension and danger
01:02is moving toward a conclusion.
01:03Officials say the bomb was planted in an extortion attempt.
01:07Vases are pressed against the glass windows,
01:09awaiting the latest development in this bizarre case.
01:12A family portrait.
01:15It's propaganda.
01:18It's not even close to being remotely true.
01:22Yeah, it's valid.
01:51Yeah, they wonder.
02:01This is normally a bustling gambling resort, but today the place was virtually deserted.
02:06A device, believed to be a bomb, was discovered at this hotel yesterday morning.
02:12Has there been any communication between yourself and the person who said that?
02:14No, there hasn't.
02:15Are you attempting to reach him or her or whoever they are?
02:18I don't know how we would attempt to reach them when we're available and they can reach us.
02:23The bomb got into Harvey's. Can you believe this shit?
02:26I probably should have put the bomb in because the plan to get the money was such a harebrained scheme
02:31that you're more likely to get caught there or die.
02:37Big John had managed to draw on Jim, me and his girlfriend, and now he had us all neatly wrapped
02:43around his little finger.
02:44His plan to pick up the three million sounded like an episode of Mission Impossible.
02:50He went over the route from Fresno to Sacramento thoroughly as if he had mapped out every inch of the
02:55course we were to take.
02:59And the plan was my brother would drop me and my father off at the first drop site.
03:06And he would continue on and then pull over at a payphone and make a phone call.
03:12In the ransom note, they had instructed the pilot to come alone to the Lake Tahoe airport and stand by
03:20the payphone to receive further instructions.
03:24And that instructed him to fly about 15 miles along the highway to the west of the airport until he
03:32saw a strobe light.
03:33The pilot was supposed to land in the clearing by the strobe.
03:36Big John and his son Jim would hijack the helicopter when it landed.
03:41They would fly through the canyons under radar with no lights to where I was waiting.
03:49And they would drop off the money and Jim and they would drive with the money back down to their
03:57home in Fresno County.
04:00And then finally, Big John would fly the helicopter to the Placerville Airport.
04:07Where Ella John was waiting, they'd leave the chopper and drive home.
04:12That was how it was supposed to go.
04:20For the most part, the streets belonged to the lawmen and the bomb squad tonight.
04:24For almost a two-mile stretch along Highway 50 on Casino Road, the streets were empty of people.
04:29About a dozen bomb experts were trying to figure out what to do with the suspected bomb.
04:34The extortion is still a mystery.
04:39The initial extortion letter said we had 24 hours to deliver that ransom.
04:45The bomb had been delivered around 5 o'clock in the morning of the 26th.
04:50And so that was one of the reasons we had to move this along.
04:56That night, the bomb squad heard a whirling sound.
05:02It would stop and then there'd be another intermittent sound.
05:08So, is that some kind of a timer that's not functioning correctly?
05:14We didn't know.
05:17So, we just hoped we would catch these people at the time they picked up the money.
05:37In these extortions, the bomber always has rules.
05:41And the rules are meant to protect him.
05:44But we don't follow those rules.
05:46We, uh, we're not there to protect him.
05:48We're there to protect our own people.
06:04There will be no extension or renegotiation.
06:08Demands are firm regardless.
06:10The transaction has to take place within 24 hours.
06:14If you do not comply, we will not contact you again.
06:23Did you, did you read the letter as soon as you got there?
06:27Yeah, I think, I think I walked by and picked up a copy of it.
06:31Instructions for delivery.
06:32The money is to be delivered by helicopter.
06:34The pilot has to be alone and unarmed.
06:38Was the pilot alone?
06:40No, the pilot was not alone.
06:41I was in the back of the helicopter.
06:45Unarmed?
06:46I was very heavily armed.
06:50Do not try to be a hero.
06:52Arlington is full of them and they can't even smell the flowers.
06:56We don't want any trouble, but we won't run away if you bring it.
06:59Happy landing.
07:03Once we, uh, started getting closer to the time that the helicopter had to deliver the money,
07:10we had to decide what we were going to do as far as how much money we were going to
07:15pay.
07:16That was up to Harvey Gropes, who was the owner.
07:21Do you know if Big John and Harvey knew each other?
07:24He was a high roller, and he did get an invitation to go down to the ranch house.
07:30And they would entertain high rollers there, and then they had a hunt club down there.
07:37They would, uh, you know, line up at the end of the day and do trap shooting until you missed
07:42and you got knocked out.
07:58Big John was helping him on the ranch, working on equipment.
08:02He basically kindled a friendship up there with him.
08:05He lost millions of dollars.
08:08He was borrowing money from Harvey, and, you know, it was putting a strain on the relationship.
08:13The friendship between them dwindled until there was nothing left.
08:18His name was dropped from the list of the elite group.
08:21He's no longer invited to the high roller parties, and his world began to crumble beneath his feet.
08:34Harvey Gross was adamant that he was not going to pay a single dollar to these guys.
08:39So, immediately, we reconstructed a ransom package, a duffel bag full of newspaper with $1,000 cash inside.
08:51The helicopter pilot was instructed to be at the Lake Tahoe airport at midnight and stand by the payphone to
08:58receive further instructions.
09:06Reading the letter, I didn't think it would be a very good outcome for whoever the pilot was, regardless of
09:15how well he followed the instructions.
09:17It sounded to me like they wanted the money in the helicopter, and the pilot was expendable.
09:26I was betting against them ever getting that money, and I was a part of that bet.
09:39The first drop site, we got there and started unpacking when Big John realized there was no battery to run
09:47the strobe light.
09:48So, there was no way to turn this thing on.
09:51We were pushing 11 o'clock.
09:53And so, at that point, we had no choice but to go back to Placerville and get a battery.
09:59I was supposed to call a pilot at 12.10.
10:02Time was running out.
10:04Without the battery, it all falls apart.
10:09We found a shale gas station about 10 miles from where it had to be and make the phone call.
10:14So, bought the 12-volt battery and then drove up to the drop-off site, and it's already late.
10:20That whole process took over an hour.
10:29My brother dropped me and Big John off.
10:33I turned on Old Fiddler Road.
10:35At that point, the road became narrow, winding its way through the mountains.
10:40My headlights barely let me see 100 yards ahead.
10:43There was no time to react.
10:56At the same time that we're waiting to hear from the bomber, the activity in the bomb squad
11:03command post has increased considerably.
11:07Bomb techs at that time were not trained up to the level to be able to even start understanding
11:13how to approach this, so they started the phone tree, calling other experts, how do we address
11:18this device?
11:19And we started discussing render-safe options.
11:24Some of the ideas that floated were crazy.
11:31Like one of the little, pour it in concrete, you know, pour concrete all around.
11:36But, you know, is it going to move drilling into this thing?
11:40You know, well, that was discounted right off the bat.
11:42And then one of the ideas was to freeze it to use of a cryogenics.
11:49Using liquid nitrogen to possibly kill any power source that was in there.
11:54But there's a float switch involved, so it just wasn't feasible.
11:59And at that point, nobody had a fail-safe method of disrupting that device.
12:06So that was scary.
12:12I was startled, but relieved that only the fender received any damage and not enough to render
12:17the car inoperable.
12:19I continued on.
12:29And then he landed.
12:30He immediately called for a gas truck.
12:32And he walked over to the nearby public phone.
12:40I was supposed to make a call and tell the helicopter where the instructions were.
12:46I kept telling myself that I was simply following the instructions I'd been given.
13:11He answered it.
13:13And he said, okay, I'm here. What do you want me to do?
13:17Disguising my voice, I replied, you will find your instructions taped beneath the table in front of you.
13:23You have three minutes to get your helicopter in the air.
13:28And they hung up.
13:38We followed the instructions.
13:40West on Highway 50.
13:43And we took off.
14:02Big John, he had spent extensive time up here trying to find clearings big enough for a helicopter land and,
14:10you know, months up here canvassing.
14:14It would be a miracle if I could find that opening.
14:16But it would be around here somewhere.
14:26You know, it's weird how you go, you can go back in your life and there's certain instances where, in
14:30your mind's eye, you can see like it's happening right now.
14:33You know, it's a vivid memory and I could see that scared shitless kid.
14:41Eh, like a minute.
15:04I was always searching for what I didn't have.
15:08The dynamic of the family, the approval you get from a parent when you do well, were all missing.
15:19So when he asked us to participate in this whole scheme, you try to get away from that, but you're
15:28stuck in the web.
15:30It's just something I wrestle with still to this day on why I went along with something that crazy.
15:39This is it.
15:42You know how I remember?
15:44Those two trees right there.
15:46Those ones right next to each other.
15:48Those two parallel trees.
15:51And, uh, he would, uh, he would hide behind that knoll stationed on that hill with his .22 waiting for
15:59the helicopter.
16:06What was your task specifically assigned to you?
16:13That's a good question.
16:15I was just there to back up, I guess.
16:20You know, we had this puny little .22 caliber rifle that, you know, Big John had with him.
16:26That was going to be the safety of it all.
16:29And he felt that if he was by himself and, you know, the helicopter pilot was by himself, that he
16:35needed help to take the helicopter away from the helicopter pilot.
16:41I mean, what were you going to do to the helicopter pilot?
16:44Well, I don't know if I'm comfortable with that because, I mean, that makes, you weren't, you weren't there, so
16:51you don't know.
16:52I mean, I should have known better.
16:55But I just, you know, don't want to sound like this is something that I was enthusiastic about and wanted
17:02to do.
17:04He's still deflecting.
17:06Yeah, he's still, you could, his walls are really up.
17:13A child's love for their parents is deep.
17:17And he needed his dad's love so much.
17:20And I think he didn't want to disappoint his dad in any way.
17:25And he did what he was told.
17:27And to be, you know, frank, I think Jim tried to bury a lot of that.
17:50Any time you go into a situation where you're putting yourself, your team, or somebody in danger, you have to
17:59devise a plan ahead of time.
18:01To counter whatever threat might be encountered.
18:06That's kind of wordy, isn't it?
18:09You have to be thinking about what threats you might encounter.
18:14And does it rise to the level where you have to shoot?
18:19Every time he'd hear something he thought was a sound, he'd go turn on the strobe light just listening for
18:26plane, any kind of motor, almost desperate.
18:31If we found the strobe, the plan was for the pilot to kill the lights, I would roll out, I
18:39would try to assess the situation, and if necessary, go hunting.
18:45We didn't know it at the time, but there was going to be no attempt for the mummy.
18:49They were just going to come out and start shooting.
18:53We were screwed.
19:16So either way, it goes bad.
19:17Helicopter crashes landing, crashes taking off.
19:21The guy with the Uzi, there was...
19:26Yeah, what a miserable night that was.
19:35It's just nothing but bad memories, man.
19:40Nothing but...
19:41Just brings it to the surface.
19:51When I talk about these things that happened with Jim, I'm picturing a picture I've seen of him and his
19:58mom in the kitchen with Johnny.
20:00And that's the little boy I see when we talk about this.
20:03I don't see my husband.
20:05I see that little boy.
20:09My mom was a great gal. I mean, she was our safe spot.
20:12My mother was a very intelligent, sharp woman.
20:17John Jr. would only share with me the good things.
20:20That his mom was very loving, very kind.
20:24You know, she could play any instrument, and she baked really good, and he has a lot of fond memories
20:29of her playing and reading.
20:32When Big John would hit the boy, she was always there trying to stop him.
20:38She was their protector, 100%.
20:41My parents being European, I always kind of felt that we were different.
20:46So I really didn't know what was happy or sad, but my parents argued a lot.
20:51My dad and my mom both drank.
20:53I developed insomnia.
20:55My mom, she would intervene in the beatings and intervene in the abuse and putting herself in harm's way and
21:03getting beat too.
21:05And it just got worse and worse and worse.
21:09In 1973, they filed for divorce.
21:12And my mom moved into a trailer on the property.
21:16She wouldn't move away because she was trying to be protective of me and my brother.
21:20So she didn't move out.
21:22She passed away about a year or two years before I met John Jr.
21:29They said it was a suicide.
21:32I was 12 years old.
21:34She'd been gone three days, and I was out there in the back.
21:39And I stumbled across her body.
21:47You know, it's in my mind's eye, I could see it like it happened, you know, five minutes ago.
21:53You know, I don't really know if I've even said anything to anyone about it.
21:57When John got her ashes back, he threw them in the trash.
22:11Then I tried to go get the ashes out.
22:14He grabbed a shovel and he says, don't take those out or I'm gonna beat you.
22:18And you know, what does a 12 year old do?
22:21He watches the garbage truck come and take his mom away.
22:26Throwing away her ashes?
22:28You've got to be kidding me.
22:30I just...
22:32Makes me emotional.
22:37We weren't allowed to grieve.
22:39My father didn't allow us to do that.
22:43So, you have to go into survival mode.
22:47That trauma numbed me.
22:52I mean, that guy was pure evil.
22:57Nothing, nothing can emotionally affect him anymore.
23:01I think he'll work through that for his whole life because I don't think anyone ever processes that.
23:06I don't think that's real to... I mean, I don't know how anybody comes out of that with any sanity
23:10whatsoever.
23:12Over the entire lifetime, I was on the... he never cared about my brother or myself at all.
23:20You know, people nowadays go to prison for life for what he did to his kids.
23:41The pilot flew Highway 50 up and down and up and down.
23:46Probably five or six times. An awful lot.
23:51Until fuel was starting to become an issue for him.
23:56We did not land because we never found a stroke.
24:01At some point, maybe one or two in the morning, he gave up and covered the stuff.
24:09And, you know, this is days before cell phones or any kind of communication like that.
24:14So, we just began to walk out, which was miles and miles to walk out because of nowhere to communicate
24:21with anybody else.
24:24Something had gone wrong, either with our interpretation of the directions or their strobe light, who knows.
24:31But it didn't occur.
24:34He returned to the airport, landed, and we figured we'd go to Plan B.
24:45What went wrong?
24:47I did everything Big John told me to do, and still, there was no money.
24:53I decided to just go back and see what happened.
24:56So, on the way back, I stopped at the airport where my dad's girlfriend, Joanne, was waiting.
25:07And so, I said, well, did you hear from her or anything?
25:10She said, no, that the governor had got on the radio and asked to pay the ransom.
25:15This request is made due to a failure of enlightenment and confusion in following the previous directions.
25:21The hotel is prepared to comply and is standing by as before.
25:27We both agreed to go back and find my dad and, you know, see what he wanted to do.
25:35I relaxed a little and let my foot get a little heavy on the gas.
25:39Forgetting Ella Joan had to keep up with me.
25:41She was panicked and came to this hairpin and she couldn't make up her mind whether she was going to
25:46go right or left
25:47and, you know, realized that Ice House Road went to the right.
25:50And so, she lost control and hit this embankment right here, going 40, 50 miles an hour.
26:05The entire driver's side was smashed against the mountain.
26:11When I opened the door, I could see that she was stunned and bleeding from her head.
26:18I helped her out of her car and into the passenger seat.
26:25Put her in the car, drove up a little ways.
26:29Got my dad and my brother.
26:32I drove up Ice House Road hoping she wouldn't lose consciousness.
26:38Time was not on Ella Joan's side.
26:51The extortion letter said we had 24 hours to deliver that ransom.
26:56Well, we were way beyond that.
26:58And so, every moment we spent over top that thing, we felt it was just getting riskier and riskier and
27:03riskier.
27:05So, after 24 hours, we would only send one bomb tech up there, and sometimes two, but that was one
27:13of the reasons we had to move this along.
27:17At the same time, we were waiting to hear from the bomber.
27:22As soon as the car was parked next to the emergency entrance, Big John ordered, take her in and tell
27:27him you found her in her car.
27:28Tell him you don't know who she is, then get back out here.
27:32We need to contact Arby's.
27:36This request was made due to a failure of enlightenment and confusion in following the previous directions.
27:42We were listening to the radio to see if anything happened.
27:46They were actually making a plea on the radio for the bombers to contact, you know, to negotiate.
27:59A half mile from the hospital, we found the pay phone.
28:02Big John told me, call the Douglas County Sheriff.
28:05I was tired of having to fix all the wrongs.
28:08I'd spent close to a year helping a crazy old man do something.
28:12So outrageous, it could never work.
28:14The only thing I wanted at this moment was to have my life back.
28:18Lucas County Sheriff's Department.
28:21I said, flip switch number five.
28:24Not even trying to disguise my voice.
28:31Switch number five was supposed to shut off one of the supposed three-timers that were in there,
28:35which would buy them more time.
28:37It was a stall tactic.
28:38Throw switch number five and wait for instructions.
28:42You know, the beauty and the horror of this is no one except the bomb builder knows what any of
28:48those switches are for.
28:50If they're telling me, hey, flip switch number five, you got to ask yourself,
28:54do they really just want to kill me and just make this bomb go away?
28:58Are they actually trying to buy time?
29:01And so I would not be the one who would follow that and say, oh, sure, I'll just do that.
29:06I don't trust anyone who's building something like this.
29:09I don't know where that phone call came from.
29:11I don't know if it was bogus.
29:13If it was somebody just wanted the highway open.
29:14If it was from the perpetrator, nobody knew.
29:17They couldn't confirm it to us.
29:19And so one of the higher ups said, you know, okay, let's rig that up for throwing a switch five
29:26if you don't mind.
29:30Okay, you know, we can do that, but I'm not going to do it.
29:34Sandbags have been brought in and the cleared area around the hotel kept expanding.
29:39The rumors persisted over whether the bomb would be intentionally set off.
29:43Finally, officials saying it would, but only as a last resort.
29:46Are we going to try to dismantle it or are they going to try to move it?
29:50I understand those are the two decisions that are being weighed at this point.
29:55Not to detonate it.
29:57Detonating that thing is the absolute last choice.
30:04Harvey was next door with authorities and he expressed that he was more worried about all of his employees than
30:13he was about his actual hotel being damaged.
30:16My grandfather was very concerned about people over property.
30:22This was their livelihood and it was Lake Tahoe.
30:25They didn't have a lot of choices, so he was concerned.
30:30And I knew my grandfather was calling the shots, so he was in charge and made the decision as to
30:36what to do.
30:38Their opinion was the only way that there was a chance of disarming the bomb was to try and blow
30:44the controls off the box and not detonate the main device.
30:56So the method they decided to use to address this device was a linear shape charge.
31:02And that is a focusing of explosive energy.
31:05You basically have this channel here.
31:07It detonates out like a blade, if you will.
31:12It's an explosive hatchet or guillotine.
31:15And it would sever the electrical components in there before electricity could travel from the top box to the explosives
31:22in the bottom box.
31:23We're going to take the head off the Cobra.
31:25That's the tool that they decided upon.
31:31There have been rumors for hours that the authorities would detonate the bomb.
31:35The area is now being evacuated, buses have moved in, and so have ambulances.
31:39There is a possibility of an explosion in the Stateline area and request that all people stay clear of the
31:46area at least one mile from Stateline.
31:49And despite orders by police to evacuate the area, the people were reluctant to leave.
31:54It seems their curiosity is much bigger than their sense of danger.
31:57They're just plain curious and thinking that they're going to see something that nobody else is going to see.
32:01I want to get some pictures. I'm not really afraid.
32:04You know, they were starting to lose control a little bit.
32:07People were sneaking in. They wanted to get closer.
32:11Tempers flared as the news media was pushed back to remote location, and several TV crews were told they would
32:17be put on a bus and taken out of the area.
32:25You know, bomb techs are a unique breed. Going into that room with a bomb is going into the lion's
32:30den.
32:31And so anyone brave enough to go into that room and deal with that knows that they're going to perish
32:36if that bomb detonates.
32:40Unfortunately, I was the person that was tasked with detonating the shape charge and trying to render this safe.
32:47You have to get in there and concentrate. You know what your job is. You've trained for it.
32:52But if you have anxiety or you have doubts or something else in your mind, you need to excuse yourself.
32:59Because there's no place for it.
33:04We all drove back up to Placerville Hospital to check on Joan before giving us another attempt in the evening.
33:12We were in the waiting room when they were trying to disarm it.
33:14About a dozen buses were sent in to clear the area and hotels along the strip were boarding up.
33:21It wasn't that we weren't afraid. You get to a certain point in your fear and that's just it. I
33:26mean, you can't be any more scared.
33:32The charge was prepped.
33:35Placed it on the device.
33:39I took one final look at it and walked out of the building.
33:46Very eerie to walk through a casino with all the chips and everything just laying there and no people in
33:52it whatsoever. Just dead silence.
33:57We're getting close. We're getting close. You know, one way or another, you know, we're going to resolve this.
34:05Jerry Maple looked at me and I looked at him and he said, should we do this? And I said,
34:10what choice do we have?
34:11He said none. And we nodded at Danny Daniels, who's lying in the gutter.
34:20Waited for the warnings to go off from the sheriff's office and then energize the circuit.
35:18The thousand pounds of dynamite blew a five-story hole through the middle of Harvey's hotel.
35:25The explosion that everyone has been waiting for has taken place.
35:29You can see part of the wall, of course, when the smoke clears away that has been blasted out of
35:34the side of Harvey's Resort Casino Hotel.
35:42I could compare it to a natural disaster, like a fire or a flood or something that happened so quickly
35:50that you tried to be prepared,
35:52but there wasn't really a way to prepare for a bomb going off in this casino.
36:01I know that my grandfather, Harvey Gross, put his lifetime work into building this casino and operating it.
36:09It's scary to this day, processing the damage that was done to the community and people and to my grandfather.
36:25We're watching the news and right there in the hospital waiting room, it shows the bomb detonating.
36:32Immediately, Big John just was really sad because he wasn't going to give us money.
36:37FBI agents in Nevada tonight are searching for the extortionists who planted a bomb yesterday.
36:43There was an attempt to pay off the ransom of three million dollars.
36:46But officials say they never showed up.
36:49They are not even close to making any arrests.
36:55John, he became so depressed and distraught and said he was going to kill himself.
37:02FBI agents say that anyone sophisticated enough to make a bomb such as the one that destroyed Harvey's is capable
37:08of making another.
37:14Well, 48 hours later, Big John started planning to bomb the Bank of America building.
37:21I don't think anybody was thinking that we had failed.
37:25I think just about everybody was thinking, we have just begun.
37:33We'll see you next time.
37:34We'll see you then.
37:44See you then.
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