Ridiculous CrimeWith a Side of Chow Chow: The Kidnapping of Elton B. Stephens Jr.
A Southern Gothic thriller for the ages, this is the tale of a Coen Brothers-esque kidnapping gone sideways. A bumbling couple take a magazine subscription heir prisoner to fund the purchase of their dream home, and the whole saga is later chronicled by the inventor of a game in which one hunts humans. Listener Lane Price tipped us off to this epic, delivering a Southern fried wild ride.
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of Iheartradioar Elizabeth.
I'm doing all right today?
Really?
Yeah? How are you doing to?
I'm pretty good. I got it on my checkered pants, so I feel happy.
I like this now. So each those aren't like clear checkerboard.
No, no, I just used it was actually a tablecloth for like a picnic.
Yeah.
I just had somebody sew them into pants.
So and then you cut some of the hole.
That's why.
Yea, I opened up to air out because it was like plastic really hot?
Are you sweating a lot?
And then but the grip is nice, okay, good.
Aside from your pants. Do you know it's ridiculous?
Oh my god?
TV shows, right, Elizabeth, I love you see something You're like that thing's still on. There's this show called The Curse of Oak Island.
Yes, I see it on. It's something that I'm like, there are so many shows on those kind of channels, like The Amazing. Then and then you watch like five minutes of an episode.
Yeah, and there's like five minutes contents stretched out over twenty two minutes.
Yeah. Yeah, so that okay, I always see it on the channel.
Guys, they still haven't found the gold.
No.
Yeah, it's they're on this island trying to find gold and they've been looking and I got big news. They're very optimistic that this they're really getting close.
They've got new clues. Elizabeth on season twelve that they're gone at this time.
Can't.
I'm like, how do you get people back past season eight nine? A Season twelve?
Is that the one where they like they have like slew machines.
You know, you know the Curse of Oak Islands to the island, and they think that there's like all this gold buried on there and some people tried digging this money pit and then they got flooded with seawater and they've been trying to ever since then, trying to find ways, but they're worried every time that they were going to add more seawater and they'll never get to the buried gold treasure.
They're always going over like all these like topographical man.
And there's like a where like I think it's like seven or eight people have to die before the gold old is discovered, and I think six people have died so far, and there's two brothers.
Oh, so they would fit the bill really legend. So maybe season thirteen, We're gonna get.
A real surprise decail.
But I mean, I couldn't believe it. Season twelve, what is this Gray's and Natomy over here? Sbu So yeah, there you go, ridiculous.
Huh wow, that is ridiculous twelve dumbfounded? Uh do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Stretching those things out being saved by snoring?
Ooh what.
This is ridiculous? Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's all we ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Damn right, I am. I'm also really excited to tell you about this crime. Truly ridiculous, like floating over your ages ridiculous. We have bumbling criminals, violently rich victim.
Yes.
And the main reporting is by the magazine Garden and Gun.
Yes, like I'm over here doing the Vince McMahon meme.
The name sounds so unhinged, Garden and Gun.
It does sound like a joke.
But if you're if you're from or have lived in the South, you know it's an amazing yeah, incredible long form journalism essays by some of the greatest living Southern writers. Some of the profiles they do have like really over the top pros, but like it works. It's very iced tea on the veranda with well read folks who keep their politics to themselves and love a hattie story about their own family history that somehow also ties in with a local small town scandal.
Totally maybe also have like a Fuckner quote tucked away they pull out from time to.
Time, like elevated Southern cuisine and monograms silverware going back in the like generations, but also like you bring your own koozy for beers taken out of a cooler in the back of a Ford expedition at like the fourth of July. Even love or super Brooks Brothers broadcloth shirts and like Lily Pulitzer sleeveless shifts. But also you thought about this well worn flip flops from a gas station by the beach.
Oh yeah, I can feel the sunburns.
Garden and gun. So, like I said, most of the available reporting on the crime I'm going to tell you about comes from a really great garden and gun piece. Nice, and there's also some stuff from like local Birmingham, Alabama news stuff, But no matter the source, it's beautifully ridiculous. And to take a page from your book of tracing everything in the West back to Memmo the second, the two time sultan of the Ottoman Empire in the fourteen hundreds.
I'm telling you like about fourteen fifty three.
Well, this crime took place in twenty twenty. I want to take you back to nineteen forty four.
Okay, please do because.
That's when Elton Bryson Stephens senior.
Elton Bryson Stephens Senior.
Yeah, son of a farmer in Clio, Alabama, now c l Io. Yeah, and I think that's Clio, not Cleo. Yeah, yeah, I know a Clio. Yeah, that's when he started his own business, nineteen forty four. So he was always a hard worker, this guy. As a boy, he'd get up early milk the family cows bottle and sell the milk before school. He sold a lot of stuff actually, like he sold newspapers, suits, sandwiches, cloverine salve. What it's basically like vasiline that has rectified turpentine oil in it, white wax and perfume and it's for like.
Chapskin kind of different light jelly.
Oh, we've got an industrial oil that you put on your.
All this crazy stuff in it, Cloverine Stebs. He went around selling it as a little kid.
Love the forties.
In nineteen twenty eight, he took his savings, which was one hundred and twenty five dollars. It's about twenty three hundred dollars today.
He's in nineteen twenty eighteen.
Twenty eight, so forty four he starts his own business. But this is always a kid.
Okay. The twenties even makes more sense.
Yeah, he has just gotten out of high school. He has one hundred and twenty five bucks, so that's like twenty three hundred if we were walking around today. And he goes off to college at Birmingham Southern College, Okay, and that's a good chunk of change. But it wasn't enough to cover all of his costs, No, not at all. So he got a full time job as a salesman in a local dry goods store. Okay, And he spent his summers working for Butterick selling subscriptions to their dress pattern Makers magazine.
Yes, totally patterns, Yeah, totally, still have some.
Right do you have all in your dress Maks?
If it's old, Elizabeth, I have some of it.
So when he's in college. He and five buddies, like they hitchhiked north to Michigan from Alabama to sell subscriptions door to door all day long.
Like reverse snowbird high exactly.
Oh, they got to get out of the heat and humidity.
No, yeah, good boy places to sell magazine.
Subscription the first year, this is what he said, quote, I saved five hundred dollars and that's like several thousand today. That meant I didn't have to work as much during the school year so I could study more. This is just industrious. Graduates from college goes to law school at University of Alabama. He married his longtime sweetheart, Alice Varian Robinson. They had four kids, including the one who made him a senior, Elton B. Stevens Junior. Yes, so Elton Senior. He's sold subscriptions all the way through law school.
Here he stays with it. He's making good money.
And he even hired other students to work for him. And that included fellow Clio native George Wallace, future governor of Alabama.
Wow.
Yeah, George Wallace selling magazine subscriptions.
So he was the one driving the van. He's like, George, you get out out the magazine.
So he gets out of law school and he finds out that a lawyer makes about seventy five dollars a month and magazine sales are bringing in one hundred dollars a week. Yeah, he's stuck with magazines. And he's like, you know what, I'm just going to expand this empire. Nineteen thirty seven, he bought into this franchise with Keystone Reader's Service, and that's like this middleman between the subscribers and the publishers, stuff like Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal.
This kiny toy doesn't sound like he belongs on this show.
Just he doesn't.
Yeah, you know, it's amazing.
So he and his crew, they're selling subscriptions all over the Southeast. They hit up an army base and World War two is just kicking off. Business is booming. The bases are a gold mine. They just focus on those.
I mean they need the reading material exactly.
I touch boys occupy. So he ditches the franchise, starts his own business, Ebsco, Elton, Bryce and Stevens Company, and he sold subscriptions to you know, Hawk and subs all over and he noticed that they're like he's at the base selling all these subscriptions, and some of them are like, oh, we'll just buy the magazines to come to like, you know, this common area. But they didn't have magazine racks at the bases. So he started another company, Vulcan Industries, to manufacture and distribute the magazine racks. Then he expands into publishing and binding. He gets a printing plant, going oh yeah. So then he's like on these bases and he's you know, selling all this stuff. He notices that as the war efforts ramping up, they need recreation equipment for the men. So you know, they're they're doing boot camp or whatever and prepping to go, but they need some sort or if they come back on leave, they need an escape. And they also as they're built there, you know, the draft kicks in and we're getting more and more people in officers clubs are popping. Oh yes, and they need furnishing. There's there's just you know, so he expands out into the production and distribution of carpeting and drapery for the officers clubs. Guys National Billiard America's oldest pool table table.
Okay, and so then definitely some club.
Right, So he's just like, he looks around, he sees a hole. He's like, I'm a fill it. The growth continues after the war. The company is still in business today. It handles stuff quote from investments to library periodicals, plastic fishing, lures to steal joists, indoor advertising to realty. That's according to the Alabama Business Hall of Fame.
If you buy it, we'll sell it.
Hepsco they do. They sell everywhere in the US. They have operations all over the world. And so in nineteen eighty one, when Elton Senior, he's seventy years old, he gets into finance. And so he at this time he's retired, he's turned the rate.
He's just thinking about because he's at the retirement age. He's like, I'm going to do some investments.
I want to do some finance. So he well, he thought like sometimes it's hard for these businesses to get loans.
Yes, he knows the other side when you're a young man, and yeah, a young person going into business.
So he bought Citizens Bank. It leads Alabama. It had twenty one million dollars in assets. He buys it for two million in borrowed funds. It's Citizens Bank, Citizens yeah, it leads Alabama throws in six hundred thousand dollars of his own money because he had like browsed around small banks, like how do I get my foot in the door. Ten years later, the bank's assets had more than doubled because he's just this crazy sales, very industrious, too super aggressive. He forwarded Alabama Bank Corp. And then he bought Fort Deposit Bank and Fort Deposit Alabama for three point six million. Then he started Highland Bank in Birmingham in nineteen eighty eight, or why not he sold in the late nineties. He sells Alabama Bank Corp. All it's holding worth about two hundred and eighty million dollars to Bank Corp. South. So that's like if he did it today, five hundred and fifty million dollars. So the company EBSCO is still a privately held, family owned international conglomerate. That's the way to do it, right, And so he makes all this money. The family is supposed to be like one of the richest families. They were on like in twenty fourteen Forbes put them at like sixty six and the richest failies.
Way to go look at them.
Right, So he's also this incredible philanthropist, gives a lot of money to the arts and like his alma maters a lot of science buildings.
And see philanthropist not philanderer. He loves theist.
Okay, very generous man. So his eldest son, James, he took over as chairman CEO of EBSCOW in the seventies. His namesake, Elton Junior, managed the real estate division until he retired in the early aughts. So Elton Junior was younger than James. So the elder Elton Senior and his wife and all but one of his kids were very private and discreet, like they're in the society pages early on. But that's the time they have amazing like review of their wedding, breathless talk of like the parties before the wedding, of who's gonna have host at this house? And they were married like on Thanksgiving and she had this crazy like navy dress. Yeah, it's it's amazing that all the newspaper.
Areying people get married in Thanksgiving.
They did.
I don't know, but it was that like.
A desirable like Thanksgiving wedding, you know what, we're having the reception TK.
So they're just society folks, right, they're very restrained. And then there's Elton Junior. He likes to have fun, and with a family net worth of about four billion dollars, you can have a lot of fun.
He's the one we're talking He's the.
One we're talking about, but not the way you think so. According to a twenty seventeen article in Mountain Brook Magazine, his vehicle collection entailed quote a Mercedess three hundred SL and the Mercedes three hundred D, a Maserati thirty five hundred GT, a Jaguar x ke Ferrari three sixty five, a Bentley Continentals one, and a couple of flawless Triumph motorcycles, all gleaming and in pristine condition. A motorhead's dream.
Yeah, I mean especially those Mercedes.
Those are gorgeous. So the Garden and Gun piece, right, It was written by a longtime friend of his, Charles Gaines. So Charles Gaines, he's a writer. Most notably he wrote Pumping Iron, the non fiction book about competitive bodybuilding. Yeah, the book, right, made it into a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that Charles wrote the movie and narrated it. He has like produced films TVs, written for all the best magazines, including Playboy.
Like yeah, bodybuild published well, no.
No, he published twenty five books. He's like novels and such. Oh, he's a serious outdoorsman, big fly fishing. Fishing is a huge thing for him. Conservation. Interestingly enough, he also invented paintball. Wait what Yeah, the author of the article invented paintment in nineteen eighty.
You're just going to drop, I tell you.
He and he had this buddy named Hayes Noel. They had this debate about whether the talent for survival was an ingrained instinct that could be adapted to any environment, which is like what Hayes thought, or it was a pattern of learned behavior specific to a particular environment. That's what Charles believes. Interesting, So Hayes, he's a stockbroker in New York and like, you know, the big pomegranate. So he thought that his ability to survive the the you know, and thrive on Wall Street transferred to other challenging environments.
Ah, the concrete jungle prepared him for the.
War, right, And Charles is like, that's great for you. I could make it on Wall Street, but I would destroy you in a challenge of Deepwood's survival, and so not long after the debate, Charles, at the time, he's living on a sheep farm in New Hampshire. He sees a catalog for all these products for livestock farmers and in it was this co two powered pistol made by a company called nell Spot, and it would shoot a single oil based di pellet and that was to mark they used that he had been bred, but also like foresters to mark trees. And so Charles has this idea. He's like, I can get a pistol for me, I'll get one for Hayes and we'll go hunt each other in the woods.
Let's go each other.
And this was of course super fun, so not not the most dangerous game, but it felt like it it.
Will settle our nature versus nurture debate with guns.
So the next weekend like they loved it. They were just having I.
Would loved this if one of my friends came to with this idea, and so.
They love it. They're like, we have to do this again with more people. So the next weekend Chris invites ten other dudes up. They played a more structured game that they called the Survival Game, and the object was for a player to collect four different color flags that were located at stations. Yeah, and the first player to come out of the woods with all four flags and no paint on this person was the winner. That's June of nineteen eighty one. So three of the players there were writers for national magazines or his friends, so they all wrote pieces about it, and pretty soon people were writing to Chris being like, I want in on this, I want to come play. So he and some friends they created a company called the National Survival Game. They standardized the paintball rules both for like individuals and like team versions, and they were the first company to sell paintball equipment specifically for that purpose. I tell you all of this because I want you to know what kind of characters we're dealing with. I'm trying to get a feel amazing characters. So Charles describes his pal Elton Junior quote he has always had a Dionysian lean toward party, fast cars, good food, good wines, and pretty ladies. He has an endearing grin, a deep South drawl, not a shred of pretense or affectation, and a sweet soul.
So what a good way to go? Through the world if he could be that, and.
Your buddy invented paintball. Yeah, so we know the players. Let's get to the crime.
Please.
It's September twenty twenty. Elton's renting a mansion in Birmingham, Alabama. This place is worth like three million dollars. The owner is a friend of his, a dairy mogul named George Barber. Characters. I'm telling you, George Barber's dad was one of the ones who really promoted pasteurized milk in the US.
We had to promote it.
Yeah, George, though he was also like, he had this huge dairy thing.
George, this milk is good.
But he was also a race car driver. And George Barber is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's largest collection of motorcycles. It has more than fourteen of them characters. So that's who Elton's renting a mansion from. And he'd been in there for like a year or so. He moved he separated from his second wife, Elton Junior, and he moved into the Dairy Guys mansions. Seventy five years old at the time. I need to pause here. I've set the stage. When we come back. I promise we'll get to the crime. Okay, so zaren. Sometime around two am on September eleventh, twenty twenty, someone broke into Elton B. Stevens Juniors rented mansion and the Purps Matthew Burke and Tabitha Hodges. You and Tabitha, So they jimmy opened the door and they walk right in like jackpot right. Elton has seventeen luxury cars to his name, but only two were in the driveway at the time. Set in nineteen seventy one Mercedes two eighty sl like, oh my god, a beautiful car, and a twenty twelve Masarati sedan and then also a twenty twelve Toyota Tacoma that it was.
Like after getting around Alabama.
So as they walk through the house, Matthew and Tabitha, they see car keys on the kitchen counter, the Masarati, so they grabbed the keys. They go outside, they fired up, they drive away. They drove home the end. What's your ridiculous takeaway? Now? Okay? So they drive the car home. They lived forty five minutes away in a trailer in Remlap, Alabama. Rev Lap. That's a weird name, right, yeah, it's it's name for the Palmer family who established the town. Because Remlap is Palmer backwards. Yeah, rev Lap out Alabama, So.
There already was a Palmer Alabama.
Flip it over, flip in the script. So they drive, they drive in the masarati back to the trailer to show their two kids. Mind you, it's like it's like three in the morning. They wake the kids up. They're like eleven and thirteen. Like kids, kids, we got a maserati. Don't ask how. They hang out at the house for a bit and then they load the kids into the masarati and go.
First three in the morning.
By now it's seven. They went back to Elton's house. Why not get a school Dad's truck is there. So the family they walk into the house and after they had you know, jimmied up, and they make themselves to home, like they eat a bunch of stuff out of the fridge. They're like little Goldilocks. They lounge around the house. They're playing on the he had Elton had this like vintage Triumph motorcycle on display in the living room and they're just climbing on it like posing whatever is it?
Like a former Steve McQueen Triumph probably.
I mean, so they go shopping in all the rooms in the closet. They took a camera, like credit and debit cards from his wallet, an Italian shotgun, then a derringer, and then also a nineteen forty five long barrel Smith and Wesson revolver like all these. He had all these crazy watches, like expensive watches, and they're just shoving them in their pockets. And they took a Yetti cooler. Yetti coolers are expensive, dude, Yes they did. So they know this is a rich dude's place, but they don't know exactly how rich or like who he even is. So Matthew, he finally makes his way up to the bedroom he left Tabitha and the kids downstairs, and he creeps. Now, Elton, like so many other people in the world, has sleep apnea, and I don't know if he had one of those sea pat machines. Oh yeah, but he he was hooked up to something called snore Lab. And so eight am, September eleventh, Matthew woke Elton up. So we're at eight in the morning. Let me do a dramatic reading of their conversation. I love these Matthew, sir, Hello, Why are you in my house?
Sir?
This is Elton. What what are you doing here? You scared me? What are you doing here? Sir? What are you doing here? Excuse me? What do you mean? Are you supposed to be here? Yes? I live here. I rent this house. No, sir, I just bought this house off the market. I bought this house and everything in it two months ago. No, you didn't. So Matthew seems to be trying to get Elton super disoriented. He comes in hot. He's like, I just bought this house. Get out? Who are you boo? Right? He goes harder. At this point, Matthew asks Elton to see some credentials.
Good, good, yes, no, no, no, Matthew, I flipped it.
Wish Elton?
Are you so expecting Elton.
To He's like, look, man, I brought my family here to show them our new house. So Elton's confused, as any of us would be. Let me continue with my dramatic interpretations. So do you want me to leave? I would like to get in my current leave please? No, we got to figure out why the hell I'm out of whole house here? Is this a robbery? Absolutely not, sir, a robbery? Do I look like a robber.
Yes, I do.
No, you don't look like a robber. I don't didn't mean that. Can we go into the living room? Please? Are you going to be copathetic in front of my family? We're gonna act real correct in front of my fiance and her kids. Right. If you make them feel out of place or something like that, I will hurt you. Do what because I have no problem with you meeting my family as long as you act correct. But there's a reason I'm here.
What.
Yeah, So this is when Matthew takes Elton's phone, puts it in his pocket, and here's the thing that's snore lab. It's an app on Elton's phone and it monitors his snoring and such by recording him. Oh of course it means that the whole exchange was recorded, and Matthew has no idea. In fact, it just keeps recording, shoves the phone in his pocket. So they leave the bedroom, go down to the living room. Matthew he keeps going hard on the whole like I bought this house story.
What a weird angle, right?
Elton was like, he asks to use the bathroom and they're like, yeah, okay, you go ahead, And so while in there, he does exactly what I would do in that situation. He took TUSANIX. He comes out of the bathroom and Matthews.
Like it, goes to his spare phone, which he is neatly hidden in the bathroom.
He did what you're supposed to do, Tusanic and Matthew's like, you know what, I'm ready to make a deal. He asks Elton if he has any other properties, and Elton's like, yeah, I have this new house being built in Birmingham, and I also have a five hundred acre farm.
Dude, like I got property. Yeah.
And so Matthew and Tabitha are like, oh, the five hundred acre farm, that's more our speed. I'll take it and hold on. He tells him. He's like a deed transfer takes a long time. It takes paperwork and lawyers and such. And they're like, oh, okay, you just give us the keys. So, like, having picked through all the like bachelor's offerings in the fridge and the pantry, the kids declare themselves hungry. They're like, we're starving.
Sure.
Elton offers the family some leftover chicken salad. This is from Garden and Gun quote. Hell yeah, I want some chicken salad, Matthew says, and he and Elton go into the kitchen, digging into the chicken salad. Matthew says, you got any crackers? Where are your crackers at? Don't forget this is we have a transcript. So this is according to Alabama dot Com quote. At one point Record State Burke asked Stevens, how much life do you think you have left?
Dear go.
Stevens replied ten years. Burke then said, I think you got twenty more. I think you do good, healthy years, being successful and whatever it is you may choose to do after this, as long as you do it right.
What this guy's is everywhere, by far.
The weirdest home invasion robbery ever. So according to Garden and Gun quote, you might well be wondering at this point what did these people think they were doing? And the only possible answer is, who knows. Whatever it was, it might have been influenced by one of the several illegal substances in which they were known to indulge. Ah, So like duh, these got there, who knows what they're on?
So they're like they got like meth brain going and they're sitting there thinking like, this is our big payday. What we do do is just elder abuse this guy and just signing some paperwork and getting his keys to a five hundred acre ranch.
Whatever. There's just no logic. So Elton he's like, you know, kids, you want to watch this. He's like, you know what, I'll right you check.
Bring your kids to work for these guys.
Let me tee. I want on the job training for the kids. He's like, I'll write you a check ten thousand dollars. Matthew is insulted. That's so low. How dare you is yeah, So then they're like, you know what, let's go somewhere else. Time to change locations. So, according to Garden and Gun quote, when they leave the house, he and Matthew in Matthew's black Chevrolet Tahoe, Tabitha and the kids following them in Elton's pickup. Elton is understandably sick with fear and determined to try and make no mistakes in attempting to stay on the good side of his as of now kidnappers. But for one large mistake, he succeeds zaren Yes, close your eyes.
Oh you sucks past me.
I want you to picture it. You work at the Full Moon Barbecue on Sixth Avenue South in Birmingham, Alabama. The tagline for the restaurant is best little pork house in Alabama. The place is a drive thru that gets good business. You are, after all, right off Highway to eighty the Elton be Stevens Expressway. Your shift start soon and you're walking to work. You're just past the McDonald's when you see a big Chevy Tahoe drive by slowly. An older man begins to open the front passenger door and lean out, but the driver grabs him back quickly pop in some of the buttons on his shirt. The driver yells something at the man, but you can't hear. It. Looks like an adult son upset with his father. The older man looks scared. You think about your grandpa and how confused he got at the end of his life. He tried to do stuff like jump out of a moving car. The Chevy revs off, and you continue walking to work, contemplating the weird cyclical nature of life. We are babies who need help, then we help babies, then we become babies once again. Oh if we're lucky, and our fears about mortality and finality make us lash out at those we most want to protect a life. You reach the restaurant, a small cinder block building, wash your hands, put on your apron, and your headset. Make your way to the drive through window. You greet coworkers as the place gets ready for another busy day m barbing cars are already lining up. You confirm an order. So that's the love me tenders with the side of chow chow, one open faced smoke pork on texas toast, an order, a full moon riblets and deviled eggs, oh, and three large sweet teas. Please pull around. A car pulls up to order one chili cheese dog, large barbecue pork sandwich, cried ochra and an orange soda, one Greek salad with pulled chicken, and an unsweet tea. You got it. You tell him, please pull around. You ring up the order with the three sweet teas, and the next car pulls up, the black Chevy Tahoe from earlier thirty three twenty five. You tell him. The old man reaches out to pay with a card before the driver can react. How sweet of him you think he looks tired. This food will perk him up. Your betting you look at the car, dos the machine process? Is it? ELK Bryson Stevens Junior. H The name sounds familiar. You hand them back of the car and the food and they drive away. Then it hits you, that's the name of the highway just a couple blocks over. Wow, you serve someone famous today from full Moon Barbecue. They headed to the trailer in red to.
He was expecting him to mouse something.
Like no, he okay, they legitimately, first of all, can we talk about the beauty of drive through barbecue? And why don't we have that here?
I in a dignified I don't know their menu.
I looked over that those were all menu.
I was practically ordering.
In street viewed the location anyway. So but no, he he was apparently, oh no, no, let me get this and like bought lunch. They were so hungry. So they go back to the trailer and rem lap. There are negotiations, conversations. Finally Elton's like, all right, let me let me break it down to you. I have five hundred thousand dollars in cash and I can wire it to you today. And Matthew and Tabitha are like, that's incredible. We'll take half of that.
It's like, why wouldn't you just take the whole thing. They're not greedy, and you know what, he did pick up lunch very very Let's let's stop for a minute and listen to some ads commerce.
We love it. When we come back, we're going to stop in at that little trailer and rem lap and see how the bargaining goes.
I'll split these ads with you.
Excellent, all right, zaren. So there we are in the trailer and rem lap deal. Elton's like, I'll give you half a million dollars. They're like, cut that in half, and so they're shaking him down for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He just wants to to be over with me. It is so surreal and bizarre. So he agrees to call his banker. He's like, okay, fine, you drive a hard bargain. I'll give you half of what I've offered. And his plan is to say that he's buying some farm property from Tabitha and he needs an immediate wire transfer. So this is according to Garden and Gun quote. She gives him her account and routing numbers and Elton makes the call on speakerphone as directed. The banker tells him he'll send the request to the wiring department and that someone will call Elton back in an hour or so, maybe more. Once the transfer is completed. He asked what number he should call. Elton looks at Tabitha, who motions to her phone on this number I'm calling you from, he tells the banker. Here they are now, the three of them, with a deal more or less straight between them for the first time all day, except for one important detail. You're going to take me home as soon as the money's in the account, right, Elton asks, and Matthew says, yes, they'll take him home. Then shake on it, Elton says, And they do. And so then they wait. Yeah, they wait, and then and they wait, and you know, it takes a while apparently for these transform, right, So they didn't just sit in silence. Again from this Beautiful Garden and Gun article quote, the world as experienced by a particular animal, its distinctive perceived universe is called by ethologists that animal's umvelt. It is hard to imagine two men with less similar umveldts than Matthew amos Burke and Elton B. Stevens Junior. But I believe that while on the trailer deck, Elton sensed on some pressing primordial level that the more he could bond his umveldt to Matthews, the better his chances of survival. So over the next two hours, Elton brilliantly directs the conversation into the lingua franca of the Deep South, cars, hunting, and fishing. The three of them sit there talking those subjects from a stool, a wheelchair, and a truck tire as comfortably as three hog farmers at the end of a long work day. Occasionally, the undeniable horror of this situation surfaces in Elton, and once it takes voice. You're not gonna sex traffic me, are you No, You're too old and ugly. Matthew reassures him. Ah, baby, Tabitha says he's not that bad.
Wow, I mean, Tabitha, take a scoop. It's also I thought it was interesting they left out one thing. I thought that they would have been a topic of conversation. They nailed it. I mean, yeah, every single one is correct, but Alabama football right in Alabama. I mean, you can always talk Alabama football, Timber.
Yeah, exactly interesting that they yeah, but.
Otherwise spot on than I do.
Like, if nervous you don't want to talk to somebody, bring up any one of those and you can go for a while.
So Elton. One other thing they talked about. Elton wants to know, like, what are you going to do with this money?
You're so desperate I would be curious to.
Tabitha shows him a picture of a house. It's a white, two story house, five bedrooms. It's not far from where they're sitting.
We want to burn it down?
Well, no, there's lots of land. Tabitha is like, this is our dream house. And remember Elton, he was in real estate. He was like the director, Oh yeah, he asks, okay, so what are the owners asking for it? That's asking price in the business, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. She tells him, well, that's all wean, that's why, that's all we need. We'll be able to buy it outright. No, No, he's like, don't pay the asking and certainly certainly don't pay cash. He's like, look, go and offer one hundred and ninety and they'll take it, maybe a little more, but then you put twenty percent down and then get a mortgage, like this is ridiculous, don't pay all. So he picks up Tabitha's phone and like taps away on the calculator mortgage, home insurance, property tax. He's like, you're looking at like seven hundred a month. This come on and so they're they're stunned by his and they're so thankful for the advice. Matthew tells Elton, like, you know the reason why they love that house. They want to get married in that house. And you know what he says, We want you to come to the wedding. And here's Tabitha's line.
Would you walk Tabitha down?
This is well no, this is what Tabitha says. Yeah, we want you to be a pall bearer, Like I would have just lost my mind. I want her to be my Paul bearer. So the money, I know, that's important.
Ceremonial events them.
The wedding, Paul Barrel.
Wedding there is.
Well, when grandma passed, we just saved money, and then Uncle Kleeve got married the same day.
Why waste money on the flowers? So the money eventually comes through and the couple's good on their word. They didn't sex traffic him. They took him home, but they did tell him that they were going to kill him if he went to the cops. And also they needed to borrow his truck and he's like, you know what, keep it. He's like, just keep it, and they're, oh, okay, if you insist. But they they did have him sign a bill of sale for ten dollars, like to keep things on the up and up.
Of course, Yeah, get the story.
Then Matthew gives out in the hug and hands him back his phone. And by this time it's four in the afternoon, so I don't think the sleep app had been recording the whole time, but I think it got at least the first four hours of the day. And as soon as they're out of the driveway, Elton calls his siblings and then he called as a strange wife. He told each of them not to call the cops, but he's like, you're never going to believe what happened. The sister's like, good to his you know her word, Yeah, I won't call him, sort of though. She called a former FBI agent that she knew, and the former agent called both the cops and the FBI. So the next day September twelfth, twenty twenty, Birmingham police show up in Remlap. They found the address by looking at the location history on his phone. The couple gets arrested. The trailers search. The cops they immediately separated the couple when they got there, and so they go they take him to be interviewed. So Tabitha they bring her in. She tells detectives that she used to have a job as a part time made for Elton. That's why she went there just like every now and then, and one time he violently sexually assaulted her. Oh god, yeah, And she said that she and Matthew went to the house to get revenge, but then they chickened out when they got there, and Matthew just told Elton that they were going to go to the cops, and like Elton's like, no, no, don't go to the cops. Here have all this stuff, plus this truck and a quarter of a million dollars, just whatever you do, don't go to the cops. Wow, said the cops. That's a really intense story. Amazing. So they go to the next room. Matthew, can you tell us what happened? Of course, he said that he and Tabitha went to see Elton, who happened to be her former sugar daddy, and they're so excited to tell him that they're getting married. They like want to share their good news. And Elton was so excited. He's like, here's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It's an early wedding present. And because you know, it's like, oh, he knew about the dream house and theirlone application had been denied, and he felt bad for them, but also happy.
I'm sure we wanted his former side piece to be happy.
You know, he just wants the best for her. And wow, said the cops. That's a really intense story.
Now did the cops get to talk to the kids.
I don't know. I think they went on to the cps. So Matthew's like, yeah, that's super intense. And the cops are like, hey, you want to hear something cool, And then, in what was probably the greatest most boss move of his professional life, one of the cops hit play on the snore lab recording.
Oh man, yikes, so like Columbo would have lost.
A whole day recorded, and they play it for Matthew like, oh, really, you want to stick to that story.
Do you want to amend it?
Maybe just slow here here, listen to this and then think about it.
So Matthew is now facing both state and federal charges. I mean, then the thing is we do need to make clear they had never met before Matthew Tabitha. Yeah, no, he was never Yeah, so it was just random. So November of twenty big house. Yeah, they just looked at a big house with fancy cars in the driveway, and we're all right, let's go.
Let's go and start that guy.
They're just lucky that like he wasn't trigger happy exactly.
In Alabama going into a big rolling the dice.
So next year, November of twenty twenty one, his Matthew's public defender gets him a binding plea bargain in federal court. They're like, okay, he'll do seventeen years in federal prison in exchange for dropping the state charges. And like having taught in both a federal prison and a state.
Prison, Oh, you definitely want to go to just down the road.
From each other. I would one take the federal Yes, every time, nicer facilities, more services.
I've been in both federal and it may.
Not be true in all states. But I'm guessing that it's true with Gamma. Yeah. So after sentencing, they transferred Matthew back to Birmingham Jail with a federal detainer notice and basically Matthew had to cool his heels until the Feds could move them to an FCI. That's December twenty twenty one. But like a lot of paperwork, the detainer notice got lost. This is according to Alabama dot Com quote. According to records, Burke had charges with the state which were dismissed after a court appearance on Friday. At the time of transfer from a neighboring agency, there was no documentation left to notify jail personnel that Burke had been sentenced by another court and was not to be released. He was released because they don't know to keep him. They're just like, what's doing no state charges? Okay bye? So this is according to Garden and Gun quote at large again, Matthew dyed his hair a bizarre shade of blonde and quickly learned that very few of his friends and relatives had much inclination to harbor him, So he bounced around from motel to motel in various suburbs of Birmingham. The man who eventually found him was a bald and bearded born again private investigator named Odie Odin, who had taken an interest in the case from the beginning. No one had hired Odin to find the fugitive amateur, he decided to do so anyway. Man one afternoon, seven days after Matthew's release, Odin got a call from one of his many sources around town, who gave him a phone number. He traced the number to a Chevron station in Alabaster, about thirty minutes south of Birmingham, so he took a drive out there and sat in his car surveilling the station. After a while, he saw Matthew walk out from behind a dumpster where he was apparently living and go into the station whose phone he had been using to try and find anyone who might help him out. Odin called the Alabaster police and within minutes twelve officers showed up with shotguns, trapping Matthew inside the chevron. Odie Odin, I loved a freelance nomad private eye, just doing it for the people.
He's like a fifties TV show, right.
It's amazing. I have to track him and see if there's anything else. Yeah, So Matthew.
He's court comes from the odin Facebook.
Let's interview Odie odin Hell.
Yeah, track him down.
Matthew's doing seventeen years right now at a Federal Correctional Institute in Manchester, Kentucky, kidnapping, bank fraud, attempting conspiracy to commit the offense of bank fraud. Tabitha got all the same charges. She's doing twelve years at a women's FCI Federal Correctional Institute in Aliceville, Alabama. In her original plea, she said the whole thing was her idea and that Matthew had nothing to do with it, but.
She wanted him to take care of the kids.
She wanted him to be like no, no, no, it was and he didn't.
A double jeopardy situation? Is that her? What is their see this like an n c I s.
That you were always like, wait, is that their plan? So she took it back. She's like, actually, I take it back, it was his. Actually all Matthews, saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Like it's it's it's very rare that you see somebody who's just a living, walking, breathing Cohen Brothers movie.
Yes, but these two really just.
I would be curious to ask Ethan and Joel Cohen like to read them this story ago. Was that like a favorite dream for you? Was that kind of weird, like an out of body experience.
You're like, my imagination's being read back to me because that was mine? What about you?
I had thank you for asking. For the first time, I had to stop myself from doing deep Odie odin research because the problem is you see these names, like, you know, the paintball inventor who wrote the article, don't you hit that? You're like, oh, forget it, I gotta go. And then the dairy, you know, mogul who owns the mansion. It's just too much. And the characters are so good. I'm so relieved that Elton is safe home.
I'm really knowing that out of all of them, nobody really got hurt.
But also it's like, you, you know, he comes from money, but I was really fascinated by the story of Ebsco. That's this farmer's kid and he I think he married into society. I think that that Elton c Elton Junior's mom seemed to be kind of like I'm sure, yeah, yeah, So it was like that's why they got all this coverage in the paper. But his guessing, aggressive sales, you know, get them so far. Then you have this whole family dynasty. But Elton Junior like the wild child. He never fought, He never, you know, just.
Like it was a charming fellow trying to get along, going down, going along the highway named after his dad, being abducted.
Yeah, exactly, tries to jump out of the car at the highway named after his dad's like the whole thing. So I thought it was a classic Southern ridiculous crime and I loved it. So, Dave, you know, what would be a cherry on top is a talk bag.
Oh my god, I love you.
Hi.
I'm Hannah, and I was just re listening to your Ruby Slippers Update episode and I got really excited as a native born and raised Minnesota when you mentioned we Let's Bakery. I was taken there all the time after school by my grandmother and it was and I lost one of my first seat there. So it's just kind of fun to hear you guys talk about it. Keep it up, you guys are really funny.
I love that grandmother, like losing your your first tooth there that's like so foundational sensory. I love that, and I'm a big fan of Minnesota, so that's true. I love it. Thank you for that.
Shout out to the Lake Lake State.
That's right, thousand, a million dances there you got exactly and Pop Dylan, Yeah.
Him too, Robert, Bobby Zimmerman.
Bobby zimzims what they did for us. Uh, that's it for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com, which is going to win the Presidential Medal of Freedom this year. The website is.
Stay there. I think we're also up for a seed art.
Yes, exactly, another wonderful Minnesota thing. We're a Ridiculous Crime on Instagram and blue Sky. You can email ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. You can also leave a talk back on the iHeart app. Just get the iHeart app, leave a talk by and then delete DA don't tell me something reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by full Moon Barbecue Pitmaster Dave Cousten, starring Annalise Rutgers. Judith Research is by editor in chief of Boudoir and Bazooka magazine Marissa Brant and publisher of Pizza and Pistol Quarterly, Alex French. The theme song is by Cookie and Crossbow's Director of Advertising Thomas Lee and senior stylist at Lace and Longbow Newsletter Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe Why That's provided by Body five hundred. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Teapot and Truncheon, celebrity columnist Ben Bolin and guest editor of Ribbon and Rocket Launcher Noel.
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