Father of the Bride?...The CIA Hitman's Daughter and the Murder of Gary Patterson w/ Anson Maddocks
Legendary Magic the Gathering artist Anson Maddocks returns (with some CRAZY stories about art theft and crafting with a human femur...) as Kinda Murdery investigates the murder of Gary Patterson...
CALL 888-MURDERY, that's, 888-687-3379, to share YOUR Kinda Murdery story or your story of living with a disability or other challenges, and you could inspire an episode of the show!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery--5496890/support.
Sources:
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/death-in-the-desert-6393311
Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Warning, Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of
violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening.
Now. True crime with the dash of the paranormal, the garish,
the strange in the darkly comic. I'm zevn Odleberg, host of kind of
Murdery, a podcast that's about more than just murder. It's my very own
pocket dimension, home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the
unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just so
long as it's kind of murdery. That's right, folks, Just like it
says in the intro, I am Zevin Odelberg, and this is kind of
murdery. I'm happier here. I'm also happy because my very good friend Anson
Maddox is back on the show. Hey Anson, how you doing. Hello,
I'm doing good. Great to have you, as always, wait to
beer. Here's some kind of murdery stuff. Oh oh, we are about
to. So let me tell you got a story for you today about violence
and familial love and international intrigue and all kinds of wild stuff and so Anson,
if you are ready and listeners, if you are ready, please join
Anson and me now as we uncover what truths we can and solve what mysteries
we may. Kind of murderies Father of the Bride, the Cia hit Man's
daughter, and the murder of Gary Patterson starts now. In the sweltering summer
heat of the El Paso County Desert, a search had been underway for three
grueling days. Leading the operation was a young female detective. She was now
gripped by a sense of anticipation, the anticipation that often persus needs a significant
discovery. In a homicide case, she harbored a strong conviction the victim's body
was concealed somewhere close. After a year marred by frustration, misleading details,
and dead ends, she felt that today would mark a pivotal turn. Today
they would uncover what they had been tirelessly searching for. The search team was
a diverse assembly dog team sniffing for any trace, high tech gears scanning the
rugged terrain, and volunteers from both a local military base and a nearby prison.
I question whether the volunteers from the prison were actually volunteers unless they were
employees and not inmates, but I digress. Yeah yeah, don't look over
there. These inmates here, they volunteered to search the sweltering El Paso Desert
for a dead body, all their favorite spots. Yeah right, nobody knows
how to hide a body of the desert like these here inmates. Anyway.
Among the team members, a veteran Texas ranger stood out. He was the
one who's stumbled upon the first clue, a human bone, seemingly disturbed and
brought to the surface by animals. After the boney found a weathered tennis shoe,
and then another bone. Each discovery heightened the tension, the anticipation,
drawing the team closer to the truth they sought. The detective leading the search
felt a surge of adrenaline mixing with her growing optimism. This heady cocktail of
emotion and determination signaled that they were on the brink of a significant breakthrough.
Out of nowhere, she stumbled upon a pile of rocks arranged with eerie neatness.
Hidden beneath was the grim discovery they had all been seeking skeletal remains.
Despite the somber nature of their find, a wave of relief swept through the
team. Cheers and high fives were exchanged, a natural release after all the
tension of the previous days, I think, declared the detective with a sense
of achievement that we finally found what we were looking for. So was it
the bone that was found that gave her this feeling or did she have a
supernatural tingle in her toes about being about to find something? Well? I
think I think the Texas Ranger found a bone and then a shoe, and
then they found a pile of rocks. Right, and pro tip to all
the aspiring killers out there, if you're going to be hiding a body in
the desert, I do not recommend a pile of rocks or other sort of
natural improvised grave marker as the last part of what you say seven olds pro
tip right, pro tip for aspiring murderers. Rocks marks the spot doesn't sound
like the best strategy for the aspiring pirate, murderer or murdering pirate, what
have you. So they found a body, and armed with photos and dental
records in hand, the detective goes to the l Passo Coroner's office, hoping
to confirm that the body she found was in fact the body that she was
looking for. And not just yet another victim interred in the desert crypt.
As she waited, she nursed a cup of bitter coffee, and another officer
from the local police department brushed past her. He too carried a folder filled
with photographs and dental records. They exchanged a few words with the corner,
and then he left with a smile. The fact that someone else had shown
up with dental records and a case file and then seemed happy after his discussion
with the corner caused the detective to feel a sudden wave of weakness. She
tried to stand, but ended up sinking to the concrete floor. She was
nauseous. After a few minutes, she gathered herself and called her partner,
who was waiting with baited breath. Would you say this is dramatic writing she
sinks to the concrete floor. Does that mean she like floated down to where
her toes were touching the floor, or does it mean that she slid onto
the floor like you know, loony tun style, like a wet noodle.
Yeah? I think, I don't know. I think she felt sick to
her stomach and collapsed to the floor because she realized that this was probably not
the body she'd been looking at me if she was a fisherman, a fisher
person pulling you know, what she thought was a salmon to the surface of
the water. It ended up being a bullhead or a great white shark.
Yeah, I don't know. I just I don't. I would hate for
anybody that you knew the deceased to the heroes making light of it, the
good news is, so far, we don't know who the deceased is,
and we just found out that this particular deceased is probably not the deceased that
we're going to focus on on this story. So for now, it's just
an anonymous corpse. She calls her partner and she says, we finally found
a body, but it's not ours. It was not the body that she'd
been looking for. So who was the detective looking for? Who was the
body that she'd been hoping to find? Well, here begins our story.
In mid April my ninety sevent a man introducing himself as Ned Wright walk into
the Waco offices of Brazos Environmental and Engineering Services. He claimed to represent a
Florida based Fortune five hundred company that was planning a secret development which caught the
staff's attention. Wright was tanned, mid forties, gray hair, and he
was notably vague about the project, mentioning only a large modular home community and
significant investment. Despite offering no company name or business card, He expressed interest
in hiring the Texas firm for preliminary work, requesting to see employee resumes.
Sensing a lucrative opportunity. The company's executives welcomed right away, even arranging for
him to meet all staff members personally. So a stranger shows up with almost
no identification or details, but implies that he's going to spend a lot of
money, and he wants to see the personal information of all of their employees,
and they say, okay, great, wow, like you're going to
love this. Our employees even put their Social Security numbers on their resumes.
Want to see. No, that didn't happen, but you know, people
get greedy and they do unwise things. They arrange for him to meet all
the staff members personally, and he this ned. Wright emphasizes the importance of
direct interaction, saying, well, I like to shake a man's hand and
look him in the eye before I hire him, which is a request that
the firm eagerly accommodated. If you're just a little bit suspicious, you might
realize that what he's saying is, I'm trying to find somebody and I think
he's here, and I want to confirm it. You hear my voice crack?
There? That was a human it is. This reminds me of the
great line from the Chris Farley David Spade classic movie Tommy Boy Brian Danny.
He plays the father and they make break pads and the competitor offers a lifetime
warranty and he doesn't, And one of his buyers asks why he doesn't have
a warranty, and he says, well, you know, I get a
damn good look at a t bone steak by shoving my head up a bull's
ass. But I'd rather take the butcher's word for it. That's right.
So anyway, when right when Wright said I like to shake a man's hand
and look him in the eye before I hire him, I was I was
reminded of that shoving one's head up a bold mass. That's how my mind
works. So during Wright's visit to Brazos Environmental he encounters a man named Gary
Patterson, a thirty three year old draftsman, a lower ranked guy in the
company hierarchy who doesn't even have a resume on file. Right for reasons that
are mysterious to both Patterson and his colleagues, shows particular peculiar interest in Patterson.
Again, I'm suspicious, are you suspecially say that you're talking about it?
I am getting suspicious. Yeah, well, this is like sort of
a crime mystery who done a type of show? So I'm just trying to
give the people what they want. Okay. So he's in there like headhunting
essentially. Yeah, And that's what I find pretty interesting about this moment,
right, is that he he wants to meet everybody, yes, but he's
also thrilled to review everybody's resumes to see who's the most qualified. And then
the guy that he settles on is the one that doesn't even have a resume
on file and is one of the lowest ranking members of the company. But
isn't He's like, let me look at everybody's resume. I need the right
guy. Oh, you've got an intern with no resume. That's the guy
I want. Basically, the company is like, yeah, come on in
and take whatever of our employees you see. You find suitable for your needs.
Well, you've sort of put your finger on it. I don't think
they've realized it yet. But his modus operendi here as opposed to hiring the
company under contract, it looks much more like he's trying to hire away their
talent, which most companies are not overly accommodated. Yeah, I'm trying to
figure out why that would be. Okay, are in their best interests?
Right? Agreed? Agreed. He takes this particular interest in Patterson, and
during his time I'm in Waco, he repeatedly reaches out to him, telling
him how impressed he is with him, even though they've only had short interactions.
He proposes to Patterson that they take a trip to Florida so that Patterson
can meet his partner in CEO and discuss a potential job opportunity. So it's
exactly what you expected suspected. He's head hunting, not looking to hire the
firm. So Patterson considers the opportunity, and this secret courtship with ned Wright
extends over three weeks, with Wright frequently contacting Patterson at work, sometimes under
false pretenses or even anonymously. The receptionist at Bezos Environmental actually jokes with Patterson.
She says, Gary, it's that strange guy from Florida who doesn't want
me to know who he is whenever Wright calls. So Patterson agrees to go
to Florida with Wright, but then Patterson says he'd like to bring his new
girlfriend with him for a mini vacation. As soon as he says, yeah,
I'll come with you, but can I bring my girlfriend, all of
a sudden, Right doesn't seem so interested anymore. He tries to talk Patterson
out of bringing a guest, pointing out that it's going to be a brief
trip and his company as a busy schedule, and then he comes up with
a new plan. He says, look, you don't have to come to
Florida. How about you come to El Paso and meet our CEO talk about
a development project there. He frames the meeting as a formality, and he
entices Patterson further with a job offer that includes a better position, higher salary,
additional benefits, and he says a Chevy suburban, a new Chevy Suburban
as a signing, buddy, dude, oh man, it's like you know,
hey, I'm gonna throw a wrench him in your plans here is that?
Okay? Uh no, I'll give you a Chevy suburban and raise your
you know, if you if you don't bring your wife, right, we
can do what I wanted to do. You don't have to fly to Florida.
We'll just come on over to l Passo. After all, let's try
to think of a place that somebody probably does not want to bring their new
girl friends to on a romantic vacation. L Passo. No offense to El
Paso, but it's not exactly the redneck review. You've been there, so
he says, I have. I have been to L Passo. I even
went over the border into see you Dad ware I've there. But that's also
well, I don't necessarily recommend El Paso, and I really don't recommend see
you Dad Warrez, at least not until the current unrest that's that's plaguing Mexico
gets a little more under concerned. You're not making any friends. No offense
l Passo especially Ja. Yeah, well, and Warez has been known as
one of the most dangerous cities in the world for some decades. Now,
I think I'm too far out on a limb here, So he says,
yeah, forget about Florida, come on to l Paso. Will give you
a new Chevy suburban. And he says, by the way, if you
want to come, and if you want the suburban, you can drive the
suburban back home with you. If you don't want to drive the suburban home,
we'll fly you home on the corporate jet. So he's really really laying
the laying out the red carpet. He probably gets whatever he wants for the
quote return trip. There's only limitations on the trip there, right, because
one is a fantasy and the other is reality. Yeah, exactly, and
a dark fantasy, is that? And for those of us you and I
and listeners who are in the midst of a true crime episode here, I
think it's quite obvious to us just how shady all of this seems, especially
in light of how quickly the guy's willing to spin the Rubik's cube and change
the parameters. But you know, it probably is exciting and it seems like
a real opportunity, and you can see how somebody like Gary Patterson could get
swept up in the moment of new opportunity and valady of talent and all that
stuff. So it probably doesn't seem quite so obvious, you know, when
Count Dracula is seducing you. I'm sure he's very handsome and charming. The
people that notice that he doesn't reflect and the mirror might think it's obviously a
bad idea. But Gary's the one being seduced, so let's give him a
bit of a se So Gary's caught up in the allure of opportunity, but
he also doesn't want to risk his position at Brazos, so he only tells
his girlfriend and his parents about this, along with a few close colleagues,
about his trip to El Passo. Then, on the morning of May third,
nineteen ninety seven, after leaving his daughter with parents, he boards a
seven thirty am flight from Waco to El Paso, and he lands, he
calls his parents and tells him he made it safely, and that phone call
was the last that anyone heard from him. Gary Patterson had unknowingly stepped into
a maze of deep seated family animosity, international misdeeds, and deceptive identities,
and on May thirdeen ninety he disappeared without a trade us. Over the following
fifteen months, his disappearance ignited a far reaching investigation that drew in a lot
of different law enforcement and investigative bodies. There were the Waco Police, the
Texas Rangers, the FBI, a private investigator from California, the US Marshals,
the Secret Service, the State Department, the Border Patrol, the Government
of Honduras, and Interpol all worked together in an effort to unravel the circumstances
of his vanishing. Hopefully everybody's intrigued desion because we don't know what happened to
Gary Patterson yet, but we do know that whatever happened, the police,
the Texas Rangers, the FBI, a PI, the US Marshals, the
Secret Service, the State Department, the Border Patrol, and the government of
Honduras all wanted to know too, Like what is this a James Bond movie?
Like what is going on? At first, he disappears and it's just
a standard missing person's case, but it quickly takes on a more ominous tone.
Gary Patterson's father approaches the Waco Police. He is convinced from the start
that his son has been the victim of something terrible, and in particular,
he is suspicious of Gary's ex father in law, a man named Sam Yurick,
Gary had been married to Sam Yurik's daughter, Lisa, and their marriage
was turbulent and brief, eventually crumbling into a contentious divorce and custody dispute.
Now, Lisa's father, Sam was a controlling and mysterious figure who boasted of
past exploits as a CIA hitman, a money launderer, and claimed to have
connections with notorious criminals. Patterson basically thought that his father in law was just
a bullying asshole and a blowhard, and he doubted the authenticity of these various
claims, particularly the CIA hitman part of it, but he did view his
father in law, Sam Urick with deep suspicion. In particular, Gary had
been there for an incident when Sam stormed out of a Waco bank with one
hundred thousand dollars in cash after refusing to explain to bank officials where the cash
came from. Which, Yeah, if you can't source one hundred grand in
cash to the bank and then you run out of there, that qualifies as
suspicious, and Patterson was nothing if not suspicious of his father in law.
Now, unbeknownst to Patterson, sam Urick may have been a blowhard, but
he was not or may not have been lying about his infamous resume. His
background was darker and more complex than Patterson could imagine. The FBI had suspicions
that Urick was involved in the nineteen eighty six Berlin nightclub bombing that killed American
military personnel, which stemmed from a top secret investigation dubbed Operation Circus, where
Urick was linked to two ex CIA agents accused of arms trafficking with terrorist nations.
Urick allegedly aided the CIA agents by concealing them as fugitives, and then
he was implicated in procuring and delivering explosives to the Libyan terrorists responsible for the
Berlin nightclub attack. So, boy, oh boy, not too long ago
when I asked, what is this a Bond movie? It sounds like Gary
Patterson may indeed have married the daughter of a Bond villain, or at least
a Bond henchman. Do you ever have an ex girlfriend with a terrifying father,
anism terrifying or dubious? There's a chance that one of them might hear
this, But it wouldn't be an ex And I don't mean, I mean,
I don't mean that you know, potentially, you wouldn't want to piss
him off. Well, but you don't have to give any identifying information or
are you just saying that this guy might hear to know it's him and be
mad anyway, even if you know it's okay, my father in law could
be a dangerous man if you pissed him off. Is that is that all
we're going to get? Do we need to you need to have Brenda come
in and give you a sign off or something. No, I mean he's
not he doesn't have like a reputation or anything. He's just he's he's well
armed and knows how to use as firearm. Well, that's that's true of
much of America. I think. Let's see here. Patterson didn't know that
his father in law was a Bond henchman or a Bond villain, but he
did see him as kind of a shadowy figure involved in dubious ventures. Uric
claimed to live off a small trucking business southern sales in Conrod, Texas,
but he had convinced Patterson to join him in several transient business ventures in Waco,
like running an insurance agency and a marina. But every time they went
into business together, Urick would vanish with the profits and leave patter and holding
the bank. There was a particularly alarming incident involving two armed men who stormed
into the insurance offices demanding to know Yerick's whereabouts, while Lisa Patterson's wife at
the time, and her infant daughter were present. This really does sound like
the worst father in law ever. Whatever he's up to, it's shit that's
scary enough that he's putting his daughter and grandchild at risk because dudes with guns
are coming to look for attracting thugs. Basically, Gary Patterson can't take this
instability, the implied violence, the madness, to being left holding the bag
and no profits, everything that's involved with being in business with his father in
law, So he tells his father in law, look, I'm not going
into business with you anymore, and he takes this job at Brazo's Environmental It
seems like Urich viewed Patterson as a pretty useful person, as kind of a
go to patsy who could take the blame and not stop him from taking all
the money. So as soon as Patterson says, essentially I'm not going to
be your Patsy anymore, Urick starts pressuring his daughter Lisa to divorce Gary Patterson,
and in October nineteen ninety two, the marriage between Lisa Urick Patterson and
Gary dissolves and she gains custody of their two year old daughter. Although Gary
is awarded significant visitation rights, the fact that Gary is awarded significant visitation rights
doesn't sit well with Sam Yurick, and then two years later, in the
autumn of nineteen ninety four, things take a drastic, a more drastic,
a darker turn when Lisa, aided by her father's financial support, goes into
hiding to keep their daughter away from Patterson. She travels across the country,
from Nevada to California and even to Alaska, as Patterson and his family try
to track her down. To some Lisa claimed that her husband was deceased.
To others, she alleged she was shielding her daughter from abuse. It wasn't
until a private inventstigator funded by Gary's father in d c which cost about fourteen
grand, located Lisa in Pilot Point, Oregon that the saga took a new
turn because by now Gary had petitioned the courts and managed to gain custody of
his daughter. Since his wife had essentially gone on the lamb. Lisa's flight
with their daughter ended in August of nineteen ninety six, when she was apprehended
and brought back to WACOS. So this is a four year period we're talking
about between ninety two when they get a divorce, ninety four when she disappears,
and ninety six when the authorities find her. So how long has the
guy not seen his daughter? For two years? His wife disappeared with the
docile I'm sure that was it was a terrib driven him nuts. Yeah.
Absolutely. He now has custody and she has limited visitation rights. She did
still get some, which is pretty remarkable. I mean, it's not legal
to take off with someone's, you know, your mutual care. No,
it's actually considered kitten. So did she have to deal with that crime.
Yeah. In an interesting twist of fate, coincidence, or perhaps dark foreshadowing,
her probation sentencing for abducting her own daughter occurred just one day before the
arrival of the man known as Ned Wright at Brazo's Environmental and Engineering where we
started this story. The suspicious guy who showed up who was like, let
me meet all your employees, let me see all their information. Ned Wright
showed up just one day after Lisa was sentenced to probation and later. Unsurprisingly,
the Patterson family would consider that to be pretty suspicious, especially in hindsight
considering an odd request from Lisa. She had called the family asking for a
photo of Gary, saying that the photo was for a locket that her daughter
had a seemingly innocent gesture that would later take on new significance. So against
this backdrop of all this family drama and contentious allegations, Waco Police detective Steve
January, Steve January great name by the way, and Christina Woodruff prioritized uncovering
more about the mysterious ned Wright. They were obviously suspicious of him, and
one of the details that Woodruff highlighted was that ned Wright would travel everywhere in
a taxi. So they reach out to Yellow Cab where a driver remembers transporting
a man from the Fairfield in to Brazos Environmental and back. They then discovered
that calls were made from room one oh five at the Fairfield in to Brozos
Environmental, but the room wasn't registered to ned Wright. It was in fact
registered to a Theodore Donald Young and because of motel policy. They had a
copy of his driver's license on file, so armed with the photocopy of the
driver's license, they went back to Brozos' environmental where everybody said, Yeah,
that's definitely ned right aka Theodore Young, who had been a federal fugitive since
February nineteen ninety five, evading a fifty one month prison sentence for a twenty
six million dollar fraud case in South Carolina. Twenty six million dollar fraud's that's
pretty good. It sounds like ten you could barter with. Yeah. I
mean, you know, my dad once told me when I was a young
boy. He said, son, if you're ever gonna steal, steal big.
Nobody likes a petty twice, settle for the lesser evil. Well,
it sounds like doubious advice, but I think it's actually a pretty wise observation.
I mean, for example, somebody like Michael Milkin, who stole hundreds
of millions of dollars from people in the savings and loan crises of the nineteen
eighties, is now built and considered a philanthropist, and I think teaches courses
at USC Maybe. I mean, if you steal enough money, you can
squirrel away a bunch of it and then be rehabilitated, or maybe just go
to some island with no extradition laws. But you know, if you steal
a candy bar, you steal five hundred bucks, you're just like a loser
is going to get the book dropped on you. So if you're gonna steal,
steal big anyway, kudos to you, Theodore Young. Twenty six million
bucks sounds like a lot of money, but not kudos to you really,
and certainly not for what you're about to be part of. When Patterson disappeared,
his family, of course, was always suspicious of Sam Yurick, but
the authorities were skeptical about that. They felt like it was more part of
the overall family drama divorce custody battle, blaming the wife's father, like maybe
there were personal feelings clouding the assumptions and accusations of Patterson's family. But this
skepticism began to dissipate because of the diligent work of a private detective named Scott
Sedemo, an investigator from You Guessed It? Where I Live? San Diego,
California Now. He was initially hired to track down Liso when she had
kidnapped their daughter, but he also started to investigate Sam Yurick, suspecting correctly
that he was financially supporting his daughter's flight from the law. And as he
investigated Sam further, it became increasingly clear that he was a pretty shadowy figure
entangled in business deceit scams and money laundering. Just like he told his son
in law, Right, He's like, I'm a badass mofo. Don't you
f with me? So Satimo or Stemo has a call with the Waco Police
detectives and tells them about an experienced he had tailing Yurick on a trip to
the West Coast. Wait, I think you should find out how to pronounce
his name. I'm gonna go with He's just gonna go with that. Uh
okay, all right, real quick, I mean all right, all right,
sure, here we go. I'm googling how to pronounce Scott. I
think you're probably right. Well, there's the Italian pronunciation would definitely be Satimo.
But what's the USA pronouncer the same Scott Cedemo. There you go,
Thank you for keeping me on problem. While Cedemo was trailing Yerick on the
West Coast, he had spotted a leather bound item in Eurik's car. Initially
he thought it was a daily planner, but in fact it was a little
black book full of names and numbers. You want me to send you a
copy of it, Cedemo asked, offering the crucial piece of evidence without detailing
how he'd acquired it. Detective January, seizing the opportunity, didn't ask questions
and provided a FedEx number for the swift dispatch of the little black book.
The detective discovered numbers in the book with l Paso area codes, notably one
listed next to the name Ted Young aka Ned Wright. Wanting to do a
deeper connection between Young and Uric, so they started looking a little bit deeper
into Uric. I've never I've never had a little black book. I mean,
I guess everybody just has a cell phone now, But did you ever
have a little black book. It's a little black book exactly in this sense,
like a semi secret book with all your phone numbers and contacts of maybe
just ordinary friends and family, but maybe maybe also the nefarious or mysterious people
in your life. No, I'm surprisingly open about most of my life.
I guess. I mean there are people that I turned it. I later
discovered it. I did not want to have anything to do with and so
I guess hindsight, you know I have a had a black book to be
as it says. No, I never had a little black book. I
am an open book. Okay, good to know, because that's that's what
I right. Yes, sure does they get the little black Book from the
private Eye and they decide, you know what, it's time to really look
into Urich. So, Detective January says, I placed a call to him
at his trucking company in Conroe in hopes of setting up an interview. I
tried to persuade him to come up to Waco and talk to us, but
he insisted that I come there. He made it clear he wanted me on
his turf, and then toward the end of the conversation, he began to
say some really strange things. He started talking about my sons. He even
knew their names. I've had you checked out, he said, and I
know how much you love your kids, and then he hung on I'm not
good. No. Startled by Urix's menacing tone, Detective January attempted to replay
the conversation using the recorder connected to his phone, only to discover that he
hadn't to capture the exchange. He was so frustrated he kicked a trash can
across the room, and then the situation got worse. By the time Detective
January was able to visit Conro, Yurick had vanished, closing his supposed trucking
business. What was left behind hardly resembled a legitimate operation at all. A
single solitary rundown truck in the yard was the only physical asset. A deeper
dive revealed that Southern Sales had operated under various names and had numerous supposed presidents.
The tangible remnants of the business were primarily in the form of hefty long
distance phone bills, some reaching as much as two thousand dollars a month.
Would be pretty valuable to investigators, though, yeah, I would think so.
The bills were mostly calls to El Paso and also to international locations like
Honduras, which suggested that Yurick actually had a web of operations far beyond what
met the eye. Yeah, and again, this was the late nineties,
so long distance phone calls were really expensive, and especially international phone calls.
It wasn't like today where everybody's got a cell phone. And you can kind
of call wherever you want for relatively reasonable You're racking up two thousand dollars a
month bills with calls to South America. You're probably up to something, which
meant you on both sides you had an interest in exactly where the calls were
from and two and how long they were. I mean, you'd get these
paper statements that were a complete list of every single call you made and how
long it was, and you'd get that in the mail. And yeah,
this had just been a missing person's case. But as Waco police became aware
of what was apparently some kind of international web of intrigue and nefarius deeds that
Gary Patterson's ex father in law was involved in, they realized that this case
might be a lot bigger than just a missing person and that they were probably
approaching or were already out of their depth. But help was on the horizon.
A Texas ranger named Matt Conthoron had been talking to a colleague of his
with the mcclennan County Sheriff's Office who mentioned to him in kind of an off
hand manner that he had heard about this missing person's case that might be a
lot more, and so Cawthorne reached out to Waco and offered to help detectives
January and Woodruff. And he also proposed that they ought to have a meeting
with local, state, and federal agencies to develop a comprehensive strategy. And
so they ended up including the mcclennan County District Attorney, the Assistant US Attorney
for the Western District of Texas, and representatives from both the FBI and the
US Marshals arre, I see what's going on there. One of the members
of this meeting was Matt Couthon. I keep wanting to say Cawthorne, but
there is no r there who was a Texas ranger. And he said,
at the meeting, we reviewed everything that Stephen Christina, Stephen Christina being detectives
January and Woodruff, respectively, from the El Paso Police Department, everything Stephen
Christina had compiled about the case. They outlined the contentious divorce and custody battle
between the Pattersons, delved into Urich's shady dealings, and discussed the connections they'd
established between Urick and Ted Young. And if you'll remember, I'm remembering myself,
Ted Young is the man that they've now realized posed as Ned Wright and
went to Patterson's workplace to recruit him, ostensibly offering him flights on private jets
and a new Chevy suburban and all kinds of enticements to come and work for
his supposed company. But it now seems as though Ned Wright aka Ted Young
was actually an operative for Patterson's father in law, who is the mister Yurick
we are currently discussing. As they were talking about Ted Young's history, Cassie
Rountree, a deputy from the local US Marshal's office, briefly left the room
to make a phone call, and then she returned, smiling and said,
we've got him. We know all about him, we know where she is.
She then provided a detailed account of the Marshal's office's investigations into Ted Young,
including surveillance efforts, and shared the latest update, which was that he
had just crossed the border into Warez, Mexico, pulling a trailer and this
was a major breakthrough in the case. Now. Detective Woodriff was a little
bit surprised by Roundtree's revelation about Young's location, because if the marshals new Young
was a fugitive and they knew his whereabouts? Why had they not? And
I was wondering this myself. Why had they not apprehended him? After all,
they are the US Marshals and apprehending fugitives is literally their job description.
Why had they not apprehended him before he fled into Mexico? It just didn't
make sense to me, said Woodruff. And maybe it didn't make sense for
a reason. Perhaps US Marshall Cassie Rountree was just trying to look good in
a room full of cross agency luminaries, because for weeks she assured them of
progress, implying that the case was exclusively under the Marshall's purview, But the
rangers and the detectives grew increasingly skeptical. Nearing three months following Patterson's disappearance,
they decided they had to proceed independently with their investigation, because despite all of
Roundtree's assurances, the US Marshals didn't actually seem to be making any concrete headway.
They got some help by the involvement of a man named Bill Johnson,
who was a Waco based assistant US attorney who was known for prosecuting and I'm
sure everybody's heard this story, knows this story known for prosecuting the Branch Davidians.
You remember the Branch Davidians as Yeah, tragedy. It really was a
terrible story for from all angles. So Bill Johnson comes along, and a
big help that he brings is addressing the jurisdictional challenge they're facing. Just exactly
who should really be in charge of this case? Is it the Marshals?
Is it the Texas Rangers? Is at the FBI, like, who's doing
what? So Patterson's got deep legal knowledge and he goes and identifies a crucial
angle. He says, the Patterson case could be federal if it involved crossing
state lines. So he finds a statute on interstate flight noting that Patterson's flight
to El Paso was scheduled to continue to San Francisco, which he suspected murderer.
No, Patterson, Patterson is just the guy who's disappeared. Yeah,
that's right. And I'm talking right now about US Attorney Johnston, who helps
the investigation because they're mired in this who's gonna do what? Now? They
thought the marshals were handling it. The marshals aren't doing anything. The Passo
police on their own don't have the resources to the cooks. Yeah, too
many cooks. The Texas Rangers are supposed to do things only in Texas.
They've now got this angle with Urick having a business that maybe goes all the
way to Honduras. They've got ted young fleeing into Mexico. They're just not
quite sure who the captain of his team is. And so Johnston comes in
and he says, well, look, Patterson, yeah, he only flew
to l Passo, but he was supposed to continue on to San Francisco.
And because of that, we can treat this like an case involving interstate flight,
which puts it under federal jurisdiction, which unlocks a lot of capabilities in
the case. They then could get subpoenas and support from El Paso authorities,
and also they got the FBI to open a missing person's case. So essentially
they were just able to bring a lot more leverage and metaphorical firepower to bear
in terms of moving the solving of Gary Patterson's disappearance forward. The relative weight
of the FBI is impressive, or so I'm told. I've never, had,
thankfully, any interaction with the FBI before have you answer, And I'm
sort of currently talking to the Department of Homeland Security, but that's probably as
close as I've gotten to the FBI. Yeah, and I imagine that's probably
something you don't want to comment on to extent. I'm not actually worried about
it. It might be it might work in my favor. Well, sure,
hey, if you want to tell us about it fired. But listen,
guys' answers not on any watch lists. But yeah, please tell us
about talking to the party. It's part of an attempt to recover a bunch
of stolen artwork that I've been slowly recovering over time. Wow. So where
does the Department of Homeland Security come into play with recovering stolen artwork? On
I'm on tent. They do work with international business crime. Okay. If
somebody sells something out of country or into country, and it's knowingly a stolen
item and it's a high value, then they will pick that up as as
it's actually a national security thing. It's financial security that kind of thing,
right, because high value pieces of artwork could be used to launder funds that
could then be used to do terrible things. Sure, I imagine. Yeah,
so to some extent then they're sort of your liaison with Interpol or other
international law enforcement agents. Yes, when they like, if they want to
search a piece of luggage in front of the people whose luggage it is,
they often will have to, you know, work with interpoal And yeah,
it's interesting, you know at such a time that you feel free to discuss
it fully. It sounds to me like the case of the stolen Ancinematics art
could make what heck of a future kind of murdery. I was actually thinking
that you might appreciate it. It could probably helped me put it to a
spoken word better because I have trouble dealing with it. It's it's not a
comfortable subject for me and George. So somebody else talking about it usually it
works great that way. I got to tell you, I would absolutely love
to do that kind of murdery. Is claiming the exclusive now the case of
the stolen Ansiematics art. That's not this episode. That's a future episode.
But I imagine if you've got Homeland Security and Interpol involved, these must be
some of your iconic pieces that you're you're attempting to recover. Yes, I
didn't sell many of my pieces. Most of them were stolen all at once
out of an out of my house. Yeah, but I mean it wasn't
every single one of them, but it was actually most of them. So
we're I mean, we're talking about Lana war here, Cyclopia Tomb. We
managed to recover Lena or Elves and kind of make dead wow, oh my
god. And folks, just so you know, these like these are truly
iconic pieces of pop culture. And we're talking, you know, six plus
figures in value. I am in a Facebook group for Original Magic the Gathering
Art and these pieces. First of all, they never come up for sale
ants and never sold them in the first place, but pieces by artists of
a similar stature and historical import these are extremely valuable works of art we're talking
about hence the involvement of homeland security and Interpol, et cetera. And boy,
I do look forward to doing that episode with you in the future.
Well, it did take forever to have it be your idea to do this,
so you've been wanting to do I've been thinking about it. I was
under the impression that you couldn't talk about it. There was a point in
time when you couldn't really talk about it. Is that's true, that's not
the one I can't talk about. Oh that's another Oh wow, okay,
so then maybe there's a mysterious future future episode. Well, so I didn't
realize. I don't want you to think I was ignoring this opportunity or you
I was confused about your ability to speak about this. But I want to
do a little peek behind the curtain real quick as we record. Anson is
painting, would you be willing to share with the with the audience answer and
what you're painting? This is something that you commissioned. I don't know how
long ago was it? Oh, not long probably probably November of twenty three
year. So yeah, I just happened to be working on your your order
in the backlog, and it's the typo that I'm not I'm sure if I
could, Yeah, you do this part. I'll give a little background.
So, as many of you who listen to the show know, Ans and
Mattox is the one of the original and a legendary artists for the game Magic
the Gathering. And in the original set of Magic the Gathering, there was
a card called Circle Protection Red. It's a white card that protects you from
red spells. Many of you may be familiar with the idea that wizards or
other sorcerers, people that practice magic, there's a long standing tradition that they
can create a circle around themselves, usually with salt in the practical application of
casting the spell. But then within that circle they could either trap a demon
or often protect themselves. And the idea is that as long as they stay
within the enchanted circle, that no magic can penetrate and harm them. So
in magic the gathering, there is a circle of protection for each color of
the opponent's spells. Circle protection red protects you basically from fire spells. And
the art for that iconic card was painted by Anson Mattos, But I'm sorry.
The art for that iconic card, thank you. The art for that
iconic card was painted by Anson Mattos very good childhood friend, Mark Tadan,
but the piece was credited to Anson. And so when you're a magic nerd
like me who loves the original art and loves Anson's art, etc. I
had an idea that a fun thing to do, since the card was painted
by Mark but credited to Anson, would be to send the card to Anson
and have him paint the circles of Protection as what Ansi Mattics in nineteen ninety
three might have painted if indeed he had done the original art for Circle of
Protection Red. So since it was credited to Anson, he is kind enough
to create for me Ansi Mattox's Circle of Protection Red. And one of the
things that Anson does besides painting all kinds of beautiful original art, is he
does alters on cards magic cards that he has painted the art for. In
fact, he will not alter someone else's art. This Circle of Protection Red
is an exception because of the crediting error and because he and Mark are very
good friends. But if you are a magic player who loves the art and
loves Danson like me, and you would like to have a card altered with
original work by Anson Mattox, you can visit ansonmatics dot com and commission a
piece like I did, and you will likely be communicating with his wonderful wife,
Brenda, who couldn't be a kinder, more awesome person. So I
do encourage you to visit Ansonmatics dot com whether you're interested in alters or any
of Anson's other incredible I have to be patient. It is true he is
extremely popular and extremely dedicated and has a long backlog, but I guarantee you
I've had him do work for me before, and it is worth the weight.
I am happy to wait, and you should be too. It was
a nice little advertisement. It's pretty cool because here as we're doing the podcast,
I'm watching an icon ply his craft. Man, I just want to
talk about the stolen art now. Fuck that will be coming. But again,
I better get back to this one before I'm skinned alive by people who
are hopefully engrossed to this story. I should probably keep telling it. So
here we are. They've brought the FBI in over the ensuing months, detectives
January and Woodruff. January is such a great surname for a police officer.
Can I just say that? They journey between Waco and El Paso. They
have trouble tracking down ted Young, but they do find Urich's contact list,
which opens up avenues into the shadowy world of fraudsters and swindlers who are linked
to him, maybe the sort of people who would steal Anthematis's art and sell
internationally. There's a man named Clark Paulson who's a quote house sitter unquote for
upscale properties who acknowledges knowing Urick and Young, and he tells the detectives that
Urick had requested the use of his truck for Young, which he delivered and
then retrieved at the Red Roof Inn in El Paso. There's another person who
owns a vast parcel of desert land near El Paso who confirms that Urick frequently
took extended visits to his property, and this person also hints that Urick has
deep tendrils extending into an underground criminal network. Among those linked to Sam Yurick
was an old friend who vanished before the investigators could fully interview him, who
was later charged with a near two hundred million dollar fraud case against the Royal
Bank of Canada. And then they also encountered a man named Olie Martinez who
admitted to knowing Young and mentioned that Urick had sought ted Young out at his
house Martinez's house several times. So Cawthorne tells Martinez how important it is that
they locate ted Young, and Martinez says, oh, I can I can
lead you to his whereabouts? And they all they're like really, and he
says, well, sure, he's in Honduras. So I guess he can't
exactly lead him to the whereabouts. That's a pretty long overland trip to Honduras.
Uric sounds like he's builds some confidence in making as many convolutions to the
backgrounds of the people involved, you know, like the headhunter, you know,
coming and looking for Pattison. Is it Patterson Patterson? Yeah, Gary
Patterson is the name of the man who has disappeared. Whose disappearance and like
probable murder we're currently investigating. So it seems like that that character in this
story is just gonna sort of vanish and even if they even if they find
him, you know, how solidly is he connected to Yurick. So it
seems like Urick is sort of trying to play puppet master with the different characters
and stuff. You're saying that he's put other people between himself and the actual
crime, other people with false identities, you know, to try to just
erode the solidity of tracing it back to him. Yeah, that seems right.
And I mean you said puppet master. I think we might also say
spymaster, which is pretty much the same thing. I think the jury is
out on whether master is the appropriate descriptor, but it may be. I
mean, certainly he seems to have a great deal of willpower and extend extended
network contacts and abilities to execute nerdy deeds, all that to to get this
father out of the picture. So is granddaughter isn't to you know, yeah,
inaccessible? Right? That is the prosaic, humanly acceptable explanation. And
it does seem that perhaps it was the trigger point, if you will,
But like I said, I suspect that it's more of like sociopaths hate to
have their pride wounded. From what I understand that they very often don't experience
very many human emotions other than sort of pride and rage. And it seems
like, more than anything, Gary's decision to no longer submit to being Yurik's
patsy probably inspired his eventual murder, even more so than the reason that we
can all sort of understand, although not agree that it justifies murder, but
the idea that his daughter wants custody of her child. The police tell the
US Marshals in El Paso that Ted Young is in Honduras, and the marshals
reply that Martinez is known to be a liar and that his offer to take
them to Ted Young may just be a way for him to be trying to
get back into Central America himself. That's Martinez, and they caution against going
with Martinez because they think he's going to basically try to slip away in Central
America, and so that leaves the investigation once again. It's sort of a
dead end until finally another breakthrough comes when Lisa Urick Patterson, Gary Patterson's ex
wife, is jailed for not paying court costs and fees post her probation for
kidnapping her daughter, and this gives law enforcement an opening to reapproach Lisa.
It gives them some leverage to try to get her to maybe tell them something
she knows that she hadn't disclosed. But before they reapproach Lisa, Texas ranger
Cathon pursues a lead inspired by local news of young female workers' bodies discovered in
the deserts near Warez, and he's wondering if Patterson's fate might align with that,
like perhaps Patterson is just buried in the desert. He decides to inspect
a ranch east of Warez, and upon arrival, a Dodge charger driven by
the property security head, an ex military and police enthusiast approaches the rangers kicking
up dust. After they share their purpose, the head of security expresses concerns
about the legality of their activities on the ranch, and he manages to get
them to agree to meet with him later. So the rangers meet with the
head of security, and the rangers steer the conversation towards the ranch's terrain.
The guard says, well, I've walked every inch of that six hundred acres,
and the ranger asks you ever find any bones out there? The guard
says, well, yeah, I've got some bones that home on my workbench
in my garage. Oh thanks for mentioning that, revealing, of course,
a potentially crucial piece of evidence. Speaking of having bones at home on your
work bench in your garage, don't you have some bones on your workbench?
Anson? Are you still working on that project for your friend who got his
hip bone removed? Yeah? It's soaking in mineral spirits right now. So
everybody, Anson, this is for totally non nefariously not much like this head
of security. Much like this head of security in El Paso. Anson also
has human bones on his workbench in his garage because a friend of Anson's had
his hip replaced and is part of that hip replacement, and anson, please,
in fact, why don't I just have you tell this? So why
do you have bones on your work bench in your garage? He thought that
it would be interesting to have me like carve it or painted or something.
And it just seemed like such a compliment to have somebody trust you with something
like that. But I just wasn't able to say no. And then later
I was thinking about, like, okay, wait, if I carve it
with power tools, that's going to kick dust up everywhere, you know,
humid dust, right, And can I just clarify slightly that this friend had
a hip replacement and they removed a piece of his what is it tibbia,
the upper leg, top of the beamer, top of the femur. It's
okay, so the ball, part of the ball and socket. So you've
got a piece of the top of the femur about about how about how long
large is this piece of fis okay? It's it's about the ball is about
the size. It's a little bit smaller than a tennis ball and just has
a very topic, you know, drop down of the femur. So that
was cut off and then replaced with a titanium ball that is has a stem
that they drive into the top of the femur. Got it, And your
friend wants you to create like a carved sculpture out of this. Yeah,
and you're concerned about the human bones, you know, as you might.
It's just yeah, it's just I mean, I'm not questioning the concerns.
It could be any animal and I would worry about it just smelling terrible.
So I'm trying to denature it as much as possible. I imagine you'll wear
a mask when you do any power tool carving, so it is not to
inhale chunks of your friend, right, all right, Well, I may
check in with you on future visits about the progress on that project. I'm
sure we're all curious to see what you decide to do with that piece of
hip bone when the time'd be a twenty sider Oh wow, a giant twenty
sided die wow, that would be very cool. So this head of security,
he is not giving these human bones that he found to anthematics to create
art out of. He's just got the moldering in his garage, and he
the Texas Rangers to his garage where they gathered the bleach bone fragments and then
they tell them, look, we're gonna have these analyzed by an anthropologist from
Baylor, and the guard says, sure, be my guest. Well,
they take it to doctor Susan mackey Wallace at Baylor University in Waco, and
she instantly recognizes that the bones are in fact human. And now that they
have this knowledge, they decide that it's time to visit the county jail and
to speak with Gary's x Lisa Patterson at first, recalls Detective January, she
wouldn't say anything. I explained to her that the window of opportunity was closing
pretty fast and had in the past day or so gotten even tighter. I
told her, you're never going to believe what we found out in the desert
in El Paso, and that finally seemed to get Lisa's attention. He revealed
that they had found human bone. That's a that's a pretty good trick.
You know, if she was spending any time out there in the desert,
and you know they suspected her of anything, oh, you'd have to say
is you'll never guess what we found out the desert, right, Yeah,
it is a good trick. And you know, if she knows that Gary
is buried out there, please let her assume that they found Gary's bones.
They don't have to tell her, and it seems they didn't. Just whose
bones they fold the trick, isn't it? Anybody? Not that I want
you to get away with anything bad, But if you're ever being interrogated by
the police for any like real felonious charge, know that there is no law
against them lying to you and promising you the moon and telling you whatever they
want. That's part of getting you to admit that you committed the crime.
So he tells her we found bones out in El Paso, and January says
when she heard that, she leaned forward, the veins on her temples popping
out. She was shaking, holding her stomach like it was cramping, and
twenty four hours later she was ready to talk. Dun dun dun So.
Lisa confessed that she was aware of her father's scheme to entice Gary to El
Paso, but then clarifies but only only to beat him up. She insisted
he knew that Gary would come as soon as they offered the new suburban.
Gary loved new cars and toys. Like that, But she also acknowledged that
it was her father's idea for her to request a photograph of Gary under false
pretenses. That was when she had asked Gary for a picture of himself to
put in their daughter's locket. But she reveals here that the real reason she'd
asked for the picture was that the man who was going to approach Gary needed
to know what he looked like. And remember, this was occurring, This
was all taking place, I believe in we're in nineteen ninety eight now,
so this was about nineteen ninety six that this was happening. So the Internet
existed, but barely. I remember having dial up internet at the time and
downloading a photograph on the Internet. I won't say what kind of photograph,
suffice to say I was fifteen years old, but it would take over an
hour for a single photograph to download, millimeter by millimeter. If you wanted
to quickly let somebody else know what another person looked like, a physical photograph
was really the only way to go, as strangers that may seem to us
in today's house. Yeah yeah. So at this point, Johnston, the
US Attorney, decides that it's time to issue arrest warrants for Sam Urick and
Ted Young and to obtain a search warrant to really search the ranch where the
bones were going to be. Lots of bones on a ranch, true,
lots of certainly cattle bones, I would imagine, but big goats, dogs,
cats, Yeah. Yes, Now they do have their bone expert at
Baylor University, but I think also, and who knows if it's some deep
seated evolutionary reaction, but I think even to the scientifically uninitiated, human bones
are fairly distinctive. I grew up very rurally and saw a lot of bones
scattered around the wilderness, whether they were cattle bones or you know, animal
bones, and it never occurred to me that any of those bones were human.
And I think I would have noticed it. That was the size of
the property and the means in which they would look for the bones, which
might be like dogs or put whatever, But running across a lot of other
types of bones would make the search maybe a little more difficult. No,
absolutely true, And I'm not sure exactly how they conducted that search. I
would imagine they started by having the head of security take them to where he
had found the now confirmed human bones, and probably started there and then worked
their way out, and in fact, they did find a body, which
brings us back to where we started this story. They found a body,
but it was not Gary Patterson's. It was a victim of a different crime,
and that's a different story. Meanwhile, they were closing in on Urich
through a trail of documents and phone records, and they learned that he had
been captured near Las Vegas by US Marshals, who hadn't here's the marshals being
helpful again, hadn't informed them of their knowledge of his whereabouts beforehand. But
finally the Marshals did in fact capture Uric. So Texas Ranger Cathon found out
that Urick had been arrested at a Sunday party for his kid's school friends,
and US Attorney Johnston pulled him aside to discuss next steps and told him,
you've got to go to Honduras. We need ted young. So. In
August of nineteen ninety eight, Kathon ranger, and you're about to hear the
best Texas Ranger name that I've ever encountered. Kathon along with Ranger Cleat Bucaloo.
That's Cleat cl Ete Bucaloo, b u cka Loo. That man was
destined to be a Texas Ranger from the very moment his mother signed the birth
certificate. You can't convince me that sounds like you stepped out of bucker Ubanzai
or something. Yeah, yeah, Cleete Bucaloo is pretty amazing, Cleete Buckaloo,
I'm going to keep saying it. And Secret Service agents flew from Miami
to to Gooka Galpa, Honduras, and this was really unfamiliar territory. I
mean, it was an unprecedented move by Texas law enforcement to apprehend a suspect.
Obviously, they have no jurisdiction in Honduras, they're not the Honduras Rangers.
But they went to the US embassy for support and they prepared a complex
operation. And it's interesting. Yurick was of course rumored to have been this
CIA or rogue CIA operative and whether or not that was true, and it
seems like it may have been. The nature and the details of this case
have turned it into something of a spy movie regardless. After all, here
are Texas Rangers flying to Honduras to try to apprehend a suspect and meeting up
somewhat clandestinely in the US Embassy to plan their operation. I mean, my
gosh, somebody by these movie rights. So their initial plan was to try
to detain Ted Young in Honduras, hoping that he could both through their case
against sam Urick. But it turns out that if you'll remember US Marshall Cassie
Roundtree, who had assured everyone that the Marshals had everything under control and then
proceeded to essentially do nothing for months, she kicks up a big fuss in
Washington. She escalates it all the way to Washington, DC, objecting vehemently
to the presence in Honduras and concerned about potential international fallout. So even though
there's this US government dispute happening about their presence in Honduras, Texas Rangers they
get shit done and they weren't about to let that stop them from getting their
man. I'm sure the Rangers said something like, well, hell, if
the US Marshals want to let bureaucracy keep them from capture in a fugitive,
they can go right ahead. But we're Texas Rangers. They uncover computer records
that document entries and exits from Honduras, and they discover that Ted Young had
entered using a passport issued to his twin brother, Fred, who aided him
in fleeing the country after his conviction in South Carolina. My brother, Yeah,
pretty handy if you're gonna be an international fugitive to have an identical twin
brother who doesn't mind handing you his passport whenever you need to go on the
lamb note to self, have identical twin brother if you want to be international
fugitive. And as they're uncovering these records of his in interances and exits,
they realize that the timing aligns with his appearances in Waco and El Paso.
And then some of the locals tell the rangers about a dilapidated junk yard that's
operated by the Gringo, that's what they call him. And they show the
rangers a wrinkled photograph of the junkyard, and so the rangers go and they
stake out the junk You can't kill me if I say I think it's dilapidated.
No, thank you a delight. It is dilapidated. Yeah, geez
no, No, you're not the only one who You're not the only one
who puts the tea in there. I bet I'm not, but still,
thank you. Everybody loves a grammar. Maybe I'm just pretending to be gracious
right now, answered, I'm secretly seated. I actually appreciate it when somebody
does that for me. You know, it's like something in your teeth.
Well, everybody, soak this all in because I want to let you know
that this will be Anson's triumphant final. Yeah. So they stake out the
dilapidated junk yard. So eventually, no, I'm just I'm just acting a
grief because I think it's good theater, dilapidated junkyard. And eventually they do
apprehend Ted Young and they take him to a nearby police station in San Pedro.
They take him to the Soula jail. So when he gets captured in
Honduras, he's convinced he's been apprehended for evading his South Carolina fraud conviction.
And he says to him, I'll tell you straight, the US government screwed
me over my entire life. I didn't do a damn thing wrong. They
were itching to throw me in prison. It ain't fair. But Cathon,
he interject swiftly says, Ted we're Texas Rangers. We're Texas Rangers in Honduras
Catcher. I'm sorry. I was Actually it's not bad. That's pretty good.
Hey, well, I was going to add some more. He's What
he actually says is Ted, we're Texas Rangers. We're not here to discuss
South Carolina or the government. That's all in the past. We're here about
Gary Patterson. When Cathon says this Young looks like he'd seen a ghost,
I don't know anything about that, said Horseley. So for the next thirty
minutes, the ranger meticulously outlined the evidence accumulated by himself and the Waco police.
He says, we're aware of your alias, is ned right. We
have information about your stays at the Fairfield End in Waco and the Red Roof
in and El Paso. We know you were in the company of Clark Paulson
and Sam Urick. We're well aware. Ted. The decision you face is
whether to cooperate with us or face a lifetime behind bars for shielding Sam Yurick.
Ted Young silently fixed his gaze on Cathon for a while. Then he
let out a heavy sigh. Fine, he relented, I'll tell you what
you want to know, and finally, the violent truth of the conspiracy behind
Gary Patterson's disappearance was revealed. Dun, dun, dun, You ready for
that violent truth there? Sam Yurick had reached out to Ted Young, urging
him to return to the United States and assist with a matter concerning his son
in law. According to Young, Yurick had been sending him used trucks to
sell ever since he'd been evading the authorities in Honduras. He owed him some
favors, Young confessed, so he agreed, it's pretty wild that he's hiding
in Honduras to escape capture for the fraud conviction, and yet he agrees to
come back to the United States to help with a murder plot. But he
must have really felt like he owed Urick. But killing Gary hadn't been as
easy as they thought. The Florida plan fell apart when Patterson insisted on bringing
his girlfriend like we talked about earlier. So Florida falls through, and then
they pick him up at the Waco Airport and take him to an area near
China Springs, where Yurik plans to kill him and dispose of the body in
an oil drum. However, Patterson doesn't show up, so they devised the
El Paso plan instead. Throughout most of that fateful day in May, Young
kept Patterson occupied, delaying their meeting and this was a meeting with the boss
for the supposed new job. Until it was dark, they had lunch and
visited a few bars until Patterson got pretty drunk. Eventually, Young told him
they needed to pick up a soil sample on the way to meet the CEO,
because, if you'll recall, Patterson was an environmental engineer, getting wasted
before your meeting with the new boss seems like a questionable choice. But I'm
not here to victim blame. So he tells him we have to pick up
a soil sample, and so they drive out to the desert and Patterson starts
to fall asleep because he's drunk. Upon arrival at the designated spot, Young
retrieves a twenty two pistol from under the driver's seat and aims it at Patterson,
who suddenly woke up. Sam Urick appears opening the passenger door with a
smile and says to Patterson, I've got you now, motherfucker. He proceeds
to bind Patterson's arms and legs with duct tape before pulling him out of the
truck. Sam told me to go back into town. Young werecalled. He
said, get out of here and don't come back until tomorrow. This is
going to take all night. Oh god. Young promptly returns to the red
roof in and calls a local escort service. The next morning, Young tells
the rangers, I asked Sam where Gary was, and Sam answered, He's
in the desert. Kauthon slid a notepad across the table. Show me where
in the desert, Young says, Well, the original plan was for that
old ranch east to town, but they had security there, so we chose
a spot nearby. Later that evening, Kathon contacts Detective Steve January and El
Paso, instructing him to assemble a search party. I'm faxing you the map
where Gary Patterson's body is buried, he says. On August third, nineteen
ninety eight, authorities unearthed the body buried in a shallow grave at a location
pinpoint that by a search dog. Detective January halted the digging, roped off
the area, and called for aerial photographs and video documentation. Dirt sifters and
metal detectors were employed to search for any evidence of bulletzer shell casings. The
medical examiner was also summoned a lieutenant from the l Paso Sheriff's Department. Gosh,
there's a lot of pissing matches in this story. But at A lieutenant
from the l Paso Sheriff's Department objects to the search, claiming it's outside of
the l Paso Police Department's jurisdiction and demanding that local authorities take over. Despite
Detective January's attempts to explain the federal nature of the investigation, the sheriff's lieutenant
remains adamant. To resolve the issue. US Attorney in El Paso Johnston suggests
stationing an officer at the road entrance and says, if the lieutenant attempts to
intervene, have him arrested. I like that. Yeah. I just was
like, oh, yeah, he doesn't respect federal authority. Well, how
about this. I knew the body was Gary Patterson, January reflects, and
all I wanted was to be absolutely certain we did everything as perfectly as possible.
We'd come too far to take any chance of messing something up. The
body phil clad in a white shirt and black jeans and the boots that Patterson
had reportedly worn, was carefully unearthed and transported to the medical examiner's office.
While the coroner would officially confirm the body's identity the next day, January had
no doubt from the moment the grave was uncovered, he felt certain that the
lengthy search had reached its conclusion. After fifteen months of investigation, everything had
finally aligned in just ten days. Gathering the exhausted search team together, January
expressed gratitude on behalf of the Patterson family in the Waco Police Department and the
Texas Rangers. There were more words he wanted to say, but his voice
faltered with a silent nod, he excused himself to find a moment alone.
Alone in the solitude of his SUV park nearby, January experienced a rare moment
of vulnerability. For the first time in his law enforcement career. He cried.
In a Waco courtroom. In late September nineteen ninety nine, Sam Urick
and Ted Young pleaded guilty to the murder of Gary Patterson. Uric Age fifty
nine received a life sentence, avoiding the possibility of the death penalty sought by
Bill Johnston by pleading guilty. Following the arrest, Uric confessed to repeatedly beating
Patterson with a pipe before burying him in the desert that night. However,
he refused to acknowledge the possibility that he had buried Patterson alive, despite the
coroner's findings indicating sand inhalation in the thorax. So he had buried Gary Patterson
alive. Man, that's tough. Buried alive is a particular horror in my
mind. I seeing there's many horror There are many horrors, but that one
ranks high on the list. Yeah. I think that sets off my mild
claustrophobia and turns it into a yeah, the big nightmare. Yeah, I
get claustrophobic sitting in like the third row of an SUV. So the idea
of being buried alive is just makes my skin crawl. As Sam Yurick was
escorted from the courtroom after sentencing, he briefly turned to glare at Gary's father,
who was present among the spectators. Man, that is one evil dude.
You murder somebody's son and take the time out of exiting the courtroom after
sentencing to give their parents the Stinkye oh my god. Ted young, aged
forty nine, pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder for hire and carrying
a firearm during a crime of violence. He received a twenty year sentence,
which would be added to the fifty one months he still owed South Carolina for
the bank fraud. Prior to injuring his flea, Young disclosed that Urick had
driven him from El Paso to Corpus Christi, where Yurick took one hundred and
eighty dollars in cash from Patterson's body. Using his twin brother's passport, Young
had been crossed the border into Mexico and eventually returned to Honduras. Federal Judge
Walter Smith, after handing down sentences to Urick and Young, expressed his concern
from the bench about the lack of fediare involvement in the investigation. After all,
fugitives who had fled to another country were ultimately captured by the Texas Rangers
and the El Paso PDE. While the judge did not directly mention the US
Marshal's office, those familiar with the case's convoluted history understood that it was a
clear criticism of the marshals on his part. Lisa Urick Patterson, who previously
pleaded guilty to misprision of felony for failing to report the plans to murder her
ex husband, received a three year prison term. This was added to the
two years she was already serving for violating the terms of her parole. She
also relinquished parental rights to her daughter, who now lives with Gary Patterson's parents
in El Paso. Craig Paulson, who had loaned the truck to ted Young
at the behest of Sam Yurick, faced the same charges as Lisa, but
he maintained that he had no knowledge of the intentions behind the pickup truck he
loaned, and consequently he was acquitted of all charges in February of two thousand,
US Attorney Bill Johnston, who had been instrumental in pulling the case out
of the quagmire of federal bureaucracy and also in the finding as we just heard
of Gary Patterson's body when he was able to stop the Sheriff's department from screwing
everything up. In February of two thousand, Bill Johnson stepped down from his
role as Assistant US Attorney amidst national controversy upon discovering that critical evidence regarding the
FBI's use of pyrotechnic tear gas grenades in the ninety three Davidian compound standoff had
not been disclosed by Justice Department officials. Johnston wrote a letter to Attorney General
Janet Reno to bring attention to the matter. Subsequently, he found himself marginalized
within his own Western district, stripped of responsibilities and excluded from staff meetings.
He resigned and returned to private practice in Waco. So Bill Johnston, who
is the undercover, low key hero of this story in some ways, again
did the right thing. Notified people that the US US Attorney's Office had concealed
key evidence in the Branch Davidian case, and for that he was blatantly punished
by Attorney General Janet Reno. He had his wings clipped badly enough that he
felt like he could no longer do his job and had to resign and go
into private practice. That's a bummer. Poor Bill Johnston got punished for telling
the truth to power and resigned and went into private practice in Waco. As
for the twenty two pistol that Ted Young had brandished at Gary Patterson during the
desert encounter, that would lead to Gary's murder. It was eventually surrendered to
authorities by Sam Yurick's wife. It now rests on a shelf in the Texas
Rangers headquarters office of Matt Cothon, who says the weapon is a reminder Xerich's
wife mentioned in the story other than just now, she was not he went
to prison for life, and I guess she had the pistol and turned it
over to authorities, But no, she was not mentioned previously. Anton,
I've started doing something at the end of kind murdery stories that I hadn't done
previously, but I've been doing it now. And what I do is I
offer three key takeaways and a moral of the story. I sort of imagine,
and not that the horrible events of a story like this should be reduced
in this way, but I sort of imagine that if this terrible tale was
an Aesop's fable, what would the moral of the story be. So now
I'm going to take you and the audience through what I see as kind of
the three key takeaways here and also the moral of the story. And I
make no claim to being correct. Everyone should draw their own conclusion, have
their own key takeaways. Their own morals. And I certainly invite you anson.
If you feel like I've left out something really important, or that the
things that I've chosen to be important are not so important to you know,
feel free to challenge me on these takeaways and the moral So do you promise
to be my harshest critic if you don't like what I have to say?
Tear you up? All right? All right? So takeaway number one from
the murder of Gary Patterson. Love can convince you wrong is right? And
again, as I said before, this is giving a sort of human motivation
to Sam Yurick that perhaps he doesn't deserve. But here we go. Love
can convince you wrong is right. The story of Sam Yurick's misguided actions,
to say the least, underscores how love, particularly paternal love, can blind
individuals to moral boundaries, leading them to justify nefarious deeds in the name of
protecting or avenging loved ones. Now, as I said before, I'm not
sure that this takeaway necessarily really applies to Sam Urick. I think he might
have killed Gary Patterson more because he was pissed at him for no longer wanting
to be his patsy. That said, as a takeaway and an insight into
human nature. I do think that there is truth to this, that love
and convince you wrong is right, and that we are very often willing to
do or do do things on behalf of those we love that we know intellectually
are wrong, but that don't feel wrong because they're in the service of a
person we love, and love often operates as a higher authority in our minds
and moral compasses. What do you think of that joyously murdered his granddaughter's father,
and it sounds like maybe maybe he wasn't a bad father, and that
key takeaway, well, well, no, no, it's just the you
know, the this you know, sociopathic aspect of this guy might sort of
take him off a list that I can relate to. Yeah, no,
I agree. I think that actually in this story, this key takeaway doesn't
apply. It only applies when we try to shoehorn sam Yorick's actions into something
that we could understand. Perhaps, but the context of the story and his
own history, et cetera, seems to suggest that it wasn't love of his
daughter or his granddaughter that motivated his violence. Yes, but I do I
still think that to the extent that we try to use the story to illuminate
larger truths about people and why they do things, that perhaps that this is
a this is a takeaway that can be applied elsewhere. If not, so
are you thinking the Fox and the Cheese, Well, we haven't gotten to
the marl. Let's do. And I would also just say that the reason
I decided to do these key takeaways and morals was because I realized that I
often lead people through these really dark, terrible stories that while they may be
compelling and fascinating and even thrilling in some way, it can be a pretty
harrowing journey. And I thought that maybe I ought to do some work to
talk to people and think about myself, why is it worthwhile that we just
went on this harrowing journey like it's It shouldn't just be masochism or sadism or
fascination or morbidity or whatever you more, or morbid fascination, whatever you want
to call it. Hopefully there should be something worthwhile to be gleaned from these
these terrible journeys we go on. It. So that's that's what I'm trying
to do. You know what Brenda would say, what's that. It's good
to keep in mind the possibilities of a situation that you might take you,
you know, by surprise. It's good to have some information, you know,
in your back pocket that you can use to maybe avoid a situation if
you see it coming. That's a really great point to be aware of what
medical are capable of. Yeah, I mean I often I've given my daughter
this advice, and I think it's very true. I would tell anyone,
not just my daughter. But it's essentially trust your instincts, if your animal
consciousness, if your instinct tells you that you're endangered, or something is off
or what have you, don't worry that you're being impolite or rude, or
judging a book by its cover or whatever it may be. Trust your instincts
and remove yourself from the situation. I think sometimes people's internal alarm bells go
off and then they stop and they say, well, it's not really right
or fair for me to feel this way for all of these other reasons that
I intellectually believe to be true, and they sometimes can override their own protective
instincts in service of trying to be a better person, and of course,
as a father. Only my paramount concern is my daughter's well being, and
for anyone, their paramount concern should be their own well being and the well
being of those they love. So oh yeah, trust your instincts. Okay,
on to takeaway number two. Takeaway number two something an old boss of
mine used to say, A favor will kill you faster than a bullet.
Ted Young's fatal allegiance to Urick, not that Ted Young was killed metaphorically will
kill you faster than a bullet. Ted Young's allegiance to Urik serves as a
stark reminder that indebtedness, especially when something is owed to those involved in criminal
enterprises, can swiftly spiral into betrayal and tragedy and sometimes worse. So yeah,
be careful who you do favors for. Okay, takeaway number three.
In jurisdictional pissing contests, justice is the only thing that gets pissed on.
The jurisdictional chaos surrounding the Gary Patterson case, highlighted by the US Marshal's mishandling
and ensuing power struggles, even kicking up a fuss in Washington to try to
hamstring the Texas Rangers in Honduras illustrate. It's how bureaucratic disputes can overshadow the
pursuit of justice, leaving victims and their families abandoned in the fray of legal
battles and ego clashes. In jurisdictional pissing contests, justice is the only thing
that gets pissed on. That's takeaway number three. Yeah, I agree.
The moral of our tragic story today is a heart set on evil attracts good
reasons. That's in quotes, good reasons like moths to a flame. A
heart set on evil attracts good reasons like moths to a flame. And this
is a bit of a rebuttal to that takeaway number one. Love can convince
you wrong, is right? Applying to Sam Urick, as we said,
it probably doesn't. But the moral of the story here to me is that
if you're set on an evil deed, if you've decided you want to murder
your son in law, you can always find applausible morally defensible, although again
not really, but a plausible reason why the evil that you want to commit
is not in fact evil, may in fact be good. That's why you
often hear tyrants speak of the greater good because their hearts are set on evil.
But a heart set on evil finds good reasons like a moth finds a
flame. And that's your scene is similar in it and I can't bolt together
right now. Well, thanks for sharing the inner workings of your mind with
us anyway you can hear the crickets right, No, but I love it.
It's it's it's all good stuff Anson. As always, it's been an
absolute joy and pleasure to spend this time with you, even when traversing tragic
terrain like the story of the disappearance of Gary Patterson, which really is much
more of an almost political thriller than I expected it to be going in.
This is the strongest dynamic, wasn't It was the clash with the different department
meant some different to jurisdictional problems. Yeah, and also the international manhunt and
all of that. I mean, wow. But it's always a pleasure being
here with you, my friend. Thank you Zevin for inviting me and let
me cover this story with you until next time. For Ans and Maddox,
I'm Zevan Odeleberg, and this has been kind of murdery. If you like
the show, please subscribe review and tell your friends. You can find us
on social media at kinda Murdery, for email at Kindomurdery at gmail dot com.
Apple Podcasts
Castbox
Castro
Goodpods
Moon FM
Overcast
Pocket Casts
Podbean
Podcast Addict
Podcast Republic
Spotify