Booze, Bullets & Boot-Leggin with Scott Davis - Mysteries, Mayhem & Merlot

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Back in the good old days, America tried to outlaw the bottle.

Instead, it uncorked a war.

When prohibition took effect, a lot didn't dry up the thirst for alcohol.

It only made it more valuable, more powerful, and more dangerous.

Behind barber shops, beneath dance halls and basements thick with cigar smoke and whisper

deals, illegal liquor flowed like currency, and where there's money like that, well, there

are men willing to kill for it.

Bootleggers weren't just hustlers and hidden flasks.

They were armed, organized, and ruthless.

They built underground empires, one shipment at a time, bribing police, intimidating rivals,

silencing anyone who talked too much.

A mispayment could mean you're not going to be breathing or you got a bad beating.

A betrayal could even mean your body manned up in a ditch.

It started as smuggling barrels of whiskey quickly turned in to turf wars, assassinations,

cold blooded murder.

Neighbors by day, gangsters by night, respectable businessmen impressed suits until the guns

came out.

Prohibition didn't create crime.

It industrialized it.

Tonight we're stepping into the shadow world of violent gangsters who turned bootlegging

into a blood-soaked business, or loyalty was fragile, power was everything and the cost

of crossing the wrong man was permanent.

Because when alcohol became illegal, violence became more profitable.

So with that being said, it's time to start the show, let's hit it.

Hi, welcome to another episode of Mysteries Mayhem, I am your host, Winnie Schrader.

Well, tonight I wanted to go over one of the eras of time that is one of my favorites.

I have two eras that I love when it comes to crime, and that's the Wild West, which I love.

I love the old, you know, post-civil war, the railroad gunslingon, you know, saloons.

I love all that, but another period in time I really love.

Which happens to be kind of tied to the Palmer, is the Art Deco era, the early 20s, 30s

and 40s, you know, just before World War II.

And the organized crime really blossomed during that time period.

Why?

Well, prohibition.

You know, when you make something illegal, it becomes more profitable for criminals to

get it across the United States and sell it to anybody who wants it.

That's the only way they can get it.

So I wanted to bring a friend on to talk about this, because this is kind of something he's

into, too.

He likes the history and everything.

So I got Scott Davis, who is a police officer, so he knows a little bit about the law, but

he sells them a medium, too.

So that gives him a different aspect.

You know, maybe some of these crimes are coming, blending into our time now.

And, you know, I mean, we have a lot of that here at the Palmer, especially dated around

the 20s and 30s and things like that.

So let's welcome Scott Davis to the show.

Welcome to the show, Scott.

Hi.

What's up?

How are you?

I'm good.

I'm good.

So you and I have, we both love history and, you know, we were, you know, when you'd mention

stuff about this time period, I was really like, oh my gosh, we have to talk about it because

it kind of ties in with the Palmer House, too, in the whole Midwest when it came to bootlegging.

But it's kind of funny how bootlegging started.

Well, what it started, actually, not bootlegging itself, but what bootlegging created was NASCAR.

And I don't know if a lot of people know about that in the Carolinas.

That's how NASCAR got started, because they were running moonshine.

And historically, yeah, they were like, we got to get this liquor to our cousins and

our buddies out there in the boondocks.

What we got to do.

Yeah.

Well, they souped up the cars.

That's what they did.

They souped up the cars so they could outrun the police cars.

And apparently, they thought that should become a sport, so NASCAR it is.

If it's enjoyable, we'll watch it, I guess, it's right.

And I mean, I'd be a line T5 set.

I didn't sit down every once in a while and watch the cars go around the track a little

bit.

No.

So might be my redneck love, who knows?

Who knows?

You know, like, where you're from in the East Coast, there's a lot of history when it comes

to the mob and organized crime all across the East Coast, from New York, Pennsylvania to

Rhode Island.

I mean, Rhode Island, people don't think that was kind of like a headquarters state for

a lot of mob families, because they didn't want to be in New York.

That's something funny that you don't realize that when you start looking into this stuff,

like even organized crime in the criminals would commute to work.

They wouldn't do their business in their neighborhood, they'd go somewhere else.

Right, right.

So they would, yeah, a lot of times a lot of them were kind of headquartered in Rhode Island.

And they would just send out their minions to New York and to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia

and all those places on the East Coast.

But I don't know much about like prohibition in that area.

Now I know a lot about the Midwest prohibition runs that John Dillinger did, but I don't

know many of the characters really that specialized in like boot lagging and things like that and

running illegal supplies and products to people on the East Coast other than the sopranos.

That's right.

Everybody's writing that.

They've seen in the movies.

That's a lot of talent soprano.

It's funny because that's exactly how I thought about gangsters growing up.

Like it was just like the movie gangsters and it was never something that I really thought

about maybe right outside my window, which is now that I'm 44 and doing a lot of research

on the topic.

Actually, this stuff was happening right outside the window over where I lived and live

right now.

Yeah, I mean, it's really crazy.

The stuff that I'm, we're going to talk about a little bit of it and of course because

I do so much in the paranormal, a lot of this has a paranormal tie-in.

The prohibition, right, for everybody listening or watching, that just meant that the government

took away alcohol, the middle legal and like when he said in the opening, when you take

something away, it creates a market or a black market for that problem.

Let me tell you something.

That's 20s, the Americans, the vast majority, it seemed like they didn't want to give up

drinking.

They didn't want to give up booze.

So what do they do?

They turn to illegal means to get it.

And while it was doing the research for this, I like stopped for a second.

I was like, these, I had to like think about it from the perspective of like where I'm at.

Blue collar worker, I go to work.

If I come home and want to have a drink, I should be able to.

So just because the law changed, did it make it a moral for these people to still want

to drink?

And I was about it while I was doing this and I said, no, I don't think so.

The morality changed somewhere up the line with the criminals where these, these men who

were definitely after money and influence and power.

As soon as that market was created, they jumped to it and they went to it in big ways.

And I'm going to tell you a little bit about that right here and some of the paranormal

stuff that I uncovered with it.

Wow.

Yeah, that's amazing.

Let's start this.

In the Midwest, I visited the Palmer last year.

I did hear some things about having something to do with bootlegging.

Are there any particular ghosts or cases that you can think of that directly relate to

like prohibition, bootlegging, or gangsters right in that time frame?

Well I know that Sock Center itself had tunnels running underneath the city.

So that was prime spots for them to run liquor from place to place underground.

So they would run it to all the businesses underground and they did come in off the water.

I must sue because they had Sock River not far from here.

So they could have ran it down the river.

Now I know in St. Paul, the Wabashastrake caves, the John Dillinger's gang, which he pretty

much ran the whole Midwest when it came to bootlegging liquor.

He was kind of the head honcho.

They were doing that in the Wabashastrake caves in St. Paul.

They were coming right off the river there, get it into the caves and get it out because

his job was to get alcohol running probably from Montana through the Dakotas, Minnesota,

Wisconsin, all the way down to Chicago.

Wow.

So it was like this huge network that they had.

I'm just like, that's what I'm finding doing the research with New Jersey.

So growing up where I live, I live in Middletown, New Jersey, I famously say it's the armpit

of New Jersey.

If you look at the map, we're right there.

Growing up, we'd hear stories, because there's a restaurant nearby and it's called the

Run Runner and that has to do with a prohibition term.

So growing up, we'd hear about it and maybe some secret tunnels in the town nearby, but

that's all it was.

Nobody ever really in my lifetime or anybody around me, nobody ever brought it to life.

So we'd hear about it, we'd talk about it.

I do investigations nearby for the paranormal stuff and it sort of would be on the outskirts

like something like, oh, this might have been near where they had prohibition tunnels.

I never really gave much thought to it until doing this project.

So here in New Jersey where I live, we have right down the road is the highest point on

the Atlantic seaboard.

I think it's something from New Jersey down to like South Carolina or something like that.

It's a huge stretch of land where this is like the highest point.

And this point of geography looks out over the bay that looks into New York City.

So if you were to go up to the top of this hill and look out over the bay, you'd see Manhan.

And this was really important for the run running.

So once the prohibition hit, we had a gangster move into town named Al Lilian.

And he bought a 30 room mansion about two miles from where I live right now.

And basically with this mansion, it was in this position where it could see over the

bay in the harbor.

And what this guy did was he built up the mansion to be sort of the headquarters for his liquor

empire.

Basically, he ran an empire from Montreal, Canada, down to Virginia.

That's how big of an area this guy ran.

It's crazy.

Like I'm doing this thing.

It's going to be little pockets of things.

And I'll find some neat stories and come to find out this guy.

In during the prohibition time, they estimated that he made about $35 million a year.

Then, and I did the math, and that's, that's a little over $800 million dollars a year

now.

Wow.

So that's a lot of money for you to see right like to think.

So that just means that, you know, there wasn't enough enforcement.

There weren't enough people that could stop, excuse me, what was happening.

But, but also when I'm finding, and maybe you've heard some of these things is that maybe

local law enforcement was kind of helping or at least not paying super close attention

kind of on purpose.

Is that, is that something you think might be fair to say?

Yeah, yeah, because I can't, you know, I don't, they tried to use the reason that prohibition

was enacted was they were trying to use it as this moral compass that it was, you know,

moralistically wrong to drink and be drunk and they felt like it was, you know, not

very Christian like to do that and things like that.

But there wasn't alternative mode.

There always is the government laying the laws.

And I'm sure, I'm sure that, I'm sure that the government was probably working with

somebody on the back and to say, let's, let's ban it and, you know, because I'm sure

they made money on the back and somewhere, yeah, they're truly promised somewhere, right?

Right, right.

That's why, you know, like drugs for a long time have, like pot wasn't, wasn't legal because

they made more money on it being illegal than they did make it, having it legal.

So I could see they use that kind of formula to come up with prohibition, but I could also

see police officers be like, this is stupid.

I like to drink too.

That's what I'm saying, you know, not, I mean, I'm not saying it, it's all the time,

but if you had a hard day and you just want to knock off for the day, you know, a drink

should be a lot.

Right.

But of course, back then that wasn't the rules.

So this huge network of canisters grows out of, how do the ground overnight seemingly.

And one of the really neat things that I learned about prohibition from this part of the,

the world here, there was a gentleman named Bill McCoy.

Now I'll ask this.

Have you ever heard of a term where somebody says, hey, this is the real McCoy?

You ever said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so that actually comes from this

guy named Bill McCoy, who was a bootleger and rum runner here in New Jersey.

And the reason that that term exists and what it means is when Bill McCoy would get liquor,

he wouldn't water it down.

So if you were getting liquor from Bill McCoy, you were getting 100% of the alcohol.

So they started calling it the real McCoy.

So that's where it comes from.

So yeah, so you know, yeah, right, neat, right?

So this guy, Bill McCoy, legendary over here, the law of prohibition and the United States

was after three miles off the coastline of the United States, that became international

waters.

That was back then.

Now I think my Coast Guard buddy told me it's 13 miles, but back then it was just three.

So what Bill McCoy would do is he would get ships loaded with alcohol and he would bring

them just three miles off the coastline of New Jersey.

And this would serve as two things.

One, they were floating liquor stores.

So basically he would get the ships there and then the guy's locally would go out and

they'd grab the booze and they'd bring it back in inland and they'd divvy it up and

send it to where it was going to go.

But the other thing that I found out that was really crazy is there are accounts of up

to 100 ships off the coast of New Jersey, loaded with alcohol and it was so popular that

they actually would ferry people from the Jersey shoreline out to the ships and they would

party out there where they out there, they would go through the legal.

You need to go to international waters.

You are so hard up and so against the government in doing what they wanted that you said, nope,

I'm going to go three miles out into the ocean with these modern day pirates, these

cool agains.

When a truck on a ship, they would bring fans out there and her team it like it was

like a cruise ship out on the out on our way to the water.

Nice.

Isn't that something?

That is hilarious.

Well, Mark says pick up a bottle of rum, you are meaty.

Thanks Mark.

Thanks Mark.

Yeah, it's just, you know, you have the lengths that people would go just to get booze,

you know, and in the premium price, I'm sure they were paying back on to.

Yeah, so I don't know what, I couldn't find anything really that said how much things

would cost.

But I'm guessing that at $35 million a year that the liquor was probably pretty expensive.

One of the things I even found out was like the guys who would go from the Jersey Shore

over to Manhattan with cases of liquor in their boats, those guys were making $20 a night.

And that back then was about a week's worth of work and a factory.

So in about six or seven hours, you could ferry your little boat across the bay and make

that in a night.

So my money's on, I know what I would have been doing.

You could work a week in this horrible fish factory and stink or you can just take the liquor

across the water.

I'd be like, load it up.

Let's go.

Yeah, let's go.

Let's hurry.

It's part of the world.

It's part of the world.

It's part of the world.

It's part of the world.

It's part of the world.

It's part of the world.

It's part of the world.

It's part of the world.

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Well, it seemed like, and I'm sure everybody was just like, this law is ridiculous.

You know, it's not immoral.

I mean, they serve wine at church.

I think they did, they did allow wine though during prohibition, didn't they?

I think wine was still available.

I would guess, but you know, it's one of those things, how much were those?

What were the ladies who started the whole thing called, oh my goodness,

people are going to beat me up for not remembering.

But all the ladies who voted it in, I wonder what their religious belief on that was.

So if somebody in the audience knows, put that down in the comments.

Let us know.

But the red hat ladies, I don't know.

I never really thought of it from that perspective before.

I would imagine that that would be okay for religious reasons.

They're not selling it.

It's just a part of the sacrament, right?

So I would say it's okay.

But for the places that it's not okay, what are the places that you would have to go to?

They will, they call them speakeasies back then.

Why do they, I don't understand what speakeasy means, I've never heard.

Well, it was illegal to have the alcohol and serve the alcohol.

So if you happen to know the location of an underground basement that was serving alcohol,

you have to knock on the door, give them the secret password.

And once you're inside, you have to be quiet and speak easy

so that the law doesn't hear the party from the inside and come in and bust up.

So you don't really talk like this at the party?

Yeah, you have to speak quiet.

I'm sure I got out of control.

But you know, Officer Smith probably joined in after his beat anyway.

Oh God.

So yeah, and it's really neat right here where I live.

There's actually a building that still operates today as a bar that was a speakeasy.

During that time, there's a reg, it's in a neighborhood like an irregular suburban neighborhood.

And basically, there's a house on the top and you have to go down to the basement and

that's where the bar is and that it's had started originally.

I think it opened up the year before prohibition started.

And then as they went for prohibition, they just continued as a speakeasy and it's still

still around today.

It's really cool.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah.

It's a small bar.

So it's a really cool place to go hang out and get that vibe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so have you gone in there many of times or just?

Yeah, I've been in there quite a few times.

People like to go there just for that reason because it just feels like you're kind of

in that time period.

The people who own it now really haven't changed anything.

It's called Murphy's in Rumps in New Jersey for anybody who's listening or wants to check

out a real speakeasy.

That's the place.

Yeah.

And that's kind of like the feel that we have here at the Palmer as well.

It's like you're stepping back in time and to kind of relive those moments and you

know, a lot of the paranormal aspects of the Palmer, I get more reactions when I talk

about the prohibition era than any other era when I do ghost investigations, especially

when I start talking about liquor, then they get old Jolly and happy.

Yeah.

They're still like, yeah, bring it on.

That's the same thing when we're at the the Shanley hotel.

Anytime you bring up anything about that time period and liquor, it seems to get the

spirits a little bit more spirited.

It's so as deep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It just seems like it was a lively time to be alive and just said that underground speakeasy

type of vibe and mindset that they have now with you doing any type of paranormal work

with us.

Are you trying to correlate like what you're picking up on when you go to a location and

kind of fact check it with, you know, possible records or, you know, text that has it written

down or has records of things happening at that place?

Yeah.

So this actually is happening the other way.

So from living here all these years, I've had lots of paranormal experiences that I couldn't

put my finger on why these things that happened.

So I started going back and looking at the locations where these things happen and then

doing property searches, tax record searches and finding out that the three main places

that I had really crazy experiences that were all a part of this wild bootlegging, rum

running, gangster, joy like that, for lack of better words on that, all three places

were places where there was confirmed killings happening, shootouts, secret hideout stuff,

just violence.

And then that basically just helped me understand that I was probably one of many people have

had these experiences in these different places and now I'm going to go back and I'm going

to tell the stories to why.

But then, because I want to go too far off, but there's certainly to me some sort of correlation

between that time in the gangsters and the ghosts that still are pushing through into this

timeline from then.

And one of the times that did not make it into the story that I'm doing because it's not

a place that I visited, I hope your fans like a little bit of ghost stuff, a little bit

of Ouija board stuff, but this has true crime aspects too and it's really neat.

We love it all.

Okay.

There were probably about 10 years ago, I was on Facebook and I was doing a Facebook

live to about 12 people probably.

And what I would do is I'd break out my Ouija board and I play with it live.

I always thought it was a really good tool to get engagement and to get people interested

in what I could do.

So I'm playing with the Ouija board and I'm looking at the comments coming up and through

and all of a sudden the board starts spelling out some really wild stuff.

And within a couple of minutes, one of the women in the chat is like, you're basically

like, you're freaking me out, you're talking about my house, you're talking about things

that only I would know about in this house and this is just a random viewer from Facebook.

So after the Ouija board session, I ask her permission and I'm like, can I call you

because I just want to confirm what was coming through against what you were telling me.

And she agreed to it and I talked to her, I think, like the next day.

And this is where things get really interesting.

In the session, there was a spirit who was coming through when he was really upset.

And he was telling me that he lived in this house and he kind of said that he was involved

with the mob during prohibition and that he was at unrest.

And as that message came through with the board, I started getting messages for myself.

And basically, he showed me that he had been decapitated and he was never properly

buried.

Now, this lady was like, okay, I'm going to take all the information you said.

A lot of it hits really home and this other stuff I don't really know.

And I would say about six months later, I get a call back from this lady.

And she says, my brother who does not believe in this sort of stuff actually wanted to prove

you wrong.

So he went and did some research on our house.

And as it turns out, this house was used during prohibition and the way that the mob got

rid of people who they didn't trust anymore in our particular area was they would cut

their head off and separate their body from their head.

So those two things lined up and then she said furthermore, I had done a part of a reading

and I told them that they were going to find something in the basement that was going

to validate the reading like that this house was heavily used for prohibition.

They went through a model of the basement, pulled a wall down and as they pulled a wall

down, 40 ounce prohibition bottle, Budweiser bottles came out of the wall, just like very

of them.

Yeah.

So.

Wow.

Basically, what I had prescribed to her was I said, I think that the spirit in your house

will stop being so mad if you can get him like his last rights read or like have a Catholic

priest come and kind of hold like a funeral for him because that's what he was so upset

about.

He was Catholic, it was murdered and there was no proper burial so he was really upset

about that and that was just one of these really weird like gangster prohibition stories

that I mean I don't like what happened to the guy or you know why it happened but what

an interesting like time to be stuck in and to be upset about and you know and this was

far up north in New York where this reading happened over this house was so that read

excited my love for that time period I want to learn more about it.

Yeah and I you know coming into the Palmer and you know I wanted to kind of brush up on

my history too of that time period as well the early 1900s going up into the 1920s and

30s and it seems like you know it was kind of like.

If you really look at it I mean aesthetically it's not like the wild west but it's like

the wild west and you had you had poverty you had a lot of crime even before prohibition

because a lot of you know we had the great migration where a lot of people were coming

over from Europe and you had Ellis Island and things like that so you know America itself

especially the East Coast was booming with people so I'm wondering if that time period

seems to be stamped more on the other side of the veil that maybe others because of the

vibe and energy that that era brought it brought you know it brought a lot of passion

for things a lot of drive a lot of motivation but it also brought a lot of crime and deforealyzing

lifestyles and things like that so I'm wondering if it was just kind of a rich time energetically

for America and that's maybe why some of these hauntings or whatever you want to call it

kind of stick around a little bit more or a little bit stronger than most because I know

when I did a private ghost hunt in the basement here at the Palmer we weren't getting anything

until I brought up prohibition and then everything was going off like a Christmas tree all the

equipment and the dead bells and everything and I found out that their favorite alcohol

is beer in the basement and I was like how's the smell of all these liquors and I started talking

about you know rum running and boot lagging and they were very responsive with the equipment so

it's like they have a story that they want to tell but nobody's nobody really looks at that

time period as a paranormal it's more of older stuff and it's like I I would like to be

interested to know what they thought of how things were back then because it was a lot different

than it is now in a lot of ways it is and a lot of ways it's not I keep coming back to to my guy

who was over here and I'm sure a lot of the gangsters in the Midwest these guys had networks together

that would be equivalent to drug cartels today like yeah you were sophisticated that the guy that

um I I'm doing those research on in the videos will come out um basically he had a secret

radio room in his mansion that he had a secret code to speak to that his drivers and his boat

boat drivers um he had a special system hooked up with the lights so that the guys in the water

could see um according to what lights were on or off or dimmed if it was safe to go or not um

and then he had uh airplanes that he had in his command so like if you know you're somebody

important you're like adding 50 cases of booze he could get on it on the radio with an airplane

and send it to you I mean this was crazy sophisticated and again just watching from like

thinking about it being um from a kid watching in the movies and never seeing that complicated

it was just like hearing the gangsters these are the cops that are after them and eventually

they'll be a shootout and the cops will win but um that's not really how it happened in real life

right and they didn't have the technology we have today to do all this I mean they didn't have

texts or burner phones like what the mob used today or at least in the soprano stated but like

burner phones and stuff they'll they had to have this uh everything was you know uh very

word of mouth uh you know just but it was so sophisticated and the mob the mafia I would say

itself they were very good at that they were kind of established social networking before social

networking they like they were in touch with everybody for anybody who's lost in this they're

gonna get um I I'm not gonna say this again until the video comes out because I just found this

out and I thought it was so cool and it has to do exactly what we're talking about so if you're

listening you're getting a little cool piece of exclusive knowledge here so when it came to networking

there have to be signs and symbols for these criminals to know like when it was safe together

where it was safe to gather and when it was safe to talk so here in New Jersey and probably many

other places they were they were gathering spots called blind tiger clubs and what this was

is basically um if you had a storefront or a house that you wanted criminal element to gather at

and it was safer them to do business there they would take a stuffed tiger and put it in their

window and when that would let other criminals know like this is a safe place to go and then when

they would blindfold the tiger it was safe to talk business because they knew they weren't getting

watched at that moment so there are places called blind tiger clubs that's weird see you knew

and think that somebody like the mob would think of those things but those little intricate things

that made that network work for so long you know and I wonder how they felt when prohibition ended

be like oh man there goes our money stream because now it's legal so here on the east coast and

following with the traditional mob after Alexander Lillian was relieved of duty as one of the

largest kingpins in liquor here in New Jersey another very well-known gangster moved into his spot

and his name was Vito Genovies so what I I had heard growing up again just like hey the mob used

to have ties to our town and it's like yeah we live like across the bay of for Manhattan of course

they did like you know but I didn't really think too much of it until I come to find out that

you know are the the prohibition gangsters just gave way to the more modern day organized crime

in the area and there is a paranormal element to that as well and I don't try to loosely tie

these things together they are just presenting themselves as I go through the story so

here in New Jersey where I live we have this some really rare stone called peanut stone and all

peanut stone is is it's iron and quartz and it's compressed together and it got left here by a

glacier a couple million years ago right on the east coast and we we think in the paranormal

that iron and quartz are really great conductors of paranormal activity a lot of people leave

believe in the stone tape theory and some just think that these sorts of elements can supercharge

the area well as I'm going through this I am finding that even the notorious gangster Vito Genovies

built a home here in the area and he used this peanut stone to build something called a meditation

pond and the only thing that I could think that he might want to build a meditation bath or pond

for it out of peanut stone would be because he understood that there was some sort of psychic

property to it and I think that that exact combination of stone and rock really adds to a lot of

the crazy paranormal stuff that happened here where we lived and has captured a lot of that

aggressiveness and anger and all that from the gangsters and the the people who lived here that

were just affected by the bad things that were happening around them you know well that's cool

yeah because like I know here in Minnesota we have a lot of limestone and the limestone in the

Wabashastry caves and there's a lot of silica down there now they're they use to have the Ford

plant there right there on the river in St. Paul and there is rumors and you know it's full floor

but that Ford put a vehicle of every year that they built down there and did it in the tunnel

I like that but what they also did is they used the silica in the caves to make the glass for the cars

so with that silica in there and things and the the street caves of St. Paul they are very haunted

it's like it's absorbed so much paranormal energy throughout the years so a lot of people have

experiences when they go to the the street caves in St. Paul and there's also a restaurant there

too and everything's made on a limestone and silica and all that stuff so I could see how that

having that peanut stone could kind of hold on or amplify that energy and then on top of that if

you have people from that time arrow arrow with high energy to begin with it you know it's just

double fine need even more so that means all that energy right just like imprinting down into it

and just getting remembered by the land and I I've even been in homes on actual police calls

in the vicinity of where the mansion used to be and the gentleman that was calling 911

thought that there were people in his home robbing him because he would see black shadow figures

moving what he thought were boxes and when I tell you this is in with like within like

an eighth of a mile of where this mansion existed and we know that they had secret vault full

of liquor and contraband it's it's it's crazy like this guy may have just been witnessing

the shadow of that time happening right in front of him in his living room and he didn't understand

what was going on wow yeah cuz I you know I'm wondering too it's like it almost seems like

when it comes to these type of hauntings and stuff it's like they're still hanging around are

they still trying to watch over their stash what are you know yeah that seems to be like as I'm

going through this and I'm finding that these spaces are are being held by spirit or by at least

something residual it feels like there's still a struggle for power and it's even affecting the

living people like myself the first encounter that I had that I can now I think go back and say

as a part of this bootlegging ring was one of I was in a basement and I was basically chased out

and I don't know a better way to put it I I was in a basement doing work for an electrician

and all of a sudden I started to feel feel queasy and uneasy I felt like somebody was kind of

approaching on me and pushing me and then all of a sudden in my mind I started seeing like

what looked like a murder and it was really graphic and it was just happening like in my

imagination space basically and I got chased out of this basement I was so scared and this was

when I was about 20 years old so I didn't know my ability I didn't know what I could do at this time

I was just having a really crazy paranormal experience from what I could tell and going back and

doing this research I found out that there was a deadly shootout within just a couple feet of

that building where somebody did die and it was right at that time it was directly related to bootlegging

wow yeah that's amazing

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yeah you know i think it does make sense that it is paranormal because of how traumatic

when you have traumatic death and when you talk about the mob taking people out there was nothing

pretty about it it was very just some of the way they left some of those people shot up like that

it was brutal i mean and like you said the guys were getting decapitated so that's very traumatic and

i guess if you can't find your head i'd come back for it too well somebody helps you're right

bright right and it's you know i know yeah i kind of get that feeling when uh because with my

abilities as well when i talk about prohibition it's almost like they kind of get defensive or

just unguarded with it yeah i'm just like hey this is we're supposed to be talking about this this is

on a need to know basis and you don't need to know what's going on you know all right

you know it's like they still have that mob mob moral like queen talking to you type of thing

i'm i'm all right this is for you and your audience so for for anybody who doesn't know

know me at all i don't bring the paranormal to my kids they know that i do this stuff they don't

understand what it is really they just know i talk about it but i don't talk about it to them if

that makes sense right like it's not something it's constantly in our house we have a regular family

life and ghost stuff isn't at the forefront of it um within two to three days of starting to

research this and the research wasn't getting done at home um i was out and about doing the

research my daughter tells me that she in my daughter's eight she tells me that she's starting to have

a hard time um sleeping in her room and i said well why what's going on and she said well i kind

of had a weird dream about a man that was in my room but when i woke up he was still there and i

said oh okay well tell me about him and she said well he was wearing kind of like old jeans and

like a dark striped shirt and he had on like a like a old man hat and i i was like okay so i

i said just describe him as best he can and i took it and i put it into the the chat she

beat the image generator and a picture showed up of a guy um dressed like he was in the 1920s

and i said this kind of it and she was like that's pretty close but it's not quite him

and i was like anything else she was like yeah he just wanted me to say i love New York City

and his name is Joe now i was like how i was like this is crazy so within just a couple days of me

researching this stuff seemingly this spirit of somebody dressed from that time period is showing

up in my house and he has to mention New York City for some reason which i thought was really

strange especially since a lot of my focus has been about the bootlegging going back and forth

across the bay from here to Manhattan yeah yeah oh whoa that's interesting he's just like oh it's

almost like he's like yeah i i see what you're doing there Scott he's watching you yes and why

tell you it's literally within miles of my house it's it's right here i drive past these places

every day of my life and i had no idea that um such crazy things happened here they i mean i'm

doing research i drive my kids to school down Leonardville road in our town and i'm finding out

that these gangsters just to drive down had same road and have shootouts with each others from

their vehicles like the movies there's actual accounts of it happening and it just blows my mind

i know and you know people just they kind of ignore that time era and it's like it i love watching

movies or doing you know documentaries on that time period because it was such an interesting time

where you had a huge influx of immigration so you had that going on and then you had so then

you had like the new Italians and then you had the old Italians that have been there for a while

and they've established in New York and they odd the Brooklyn accents and you know things like that

but um just the the way people live and then of course then you on top of that you know we had

the great depression and poverty so i can see how the mafia really blossomed during that time period

they took they were opportunists and they took advantage of what was going on around them and made

an empire out of it and honestly i mean that's how every other business has formed if you think

about it but just legally you know target yeah target didn't start off as these big box stores

it started at a little department store in Minnesota called Dayton's you know and then they just

went off from there right wow that's amazing now if you if you were to go to a specific place if

you had the opportunity to investigate a place when it comes to the mafia and mob new jersey new

your prohibition any type what is one mobster you would like to communicate with man that's a good

question i don't know if i'd directly want to communicate with any of them but um man probably like

you know one of these east coast mafia guys i would like i would just like to pick their brain

about not really about what they were doing here because we know what they were up to here

i i'd want to ask them where they are now like spiritually and would they have made those same

choices again knowing um you know if they ended up somewhere good or bad um if they would make

those same life choices again right because i i you know it you almost feel like when you watch all

these when you think of the mob and watch the movies it's like you you want to enter a club that

you know the only way you can get out is in a pine box and hearing from me i know it's like that

doesn't sound appealing at all no thanks but they but they make it so special to be in that club they

make it so special that um and you know it's it's they have a great board room and a great CEO

whoever was running it because they were successful and they've been successful up until

i would probably say after goddy got caught the mob stuff kind of fizzled out i don't know now they're

into mortgage scams or something i don't know what they're doing i'll tell you this i don't know

and i don't want to find out whatever they're up to they can they can do it privately away from me

i'm not going to go looking for them that's above my paint rate yeah but yeah you know and i think

this this era too is very important you know dealing with you know what what restrictions and laws

can do to a society as well i mean they create this whole criminal empire based off of just

outline liquor and i mean it's just crazy to think that taking away such an such an easy thing

like liquor it could turn a nation on its head like that and divide everybody which is something

we see a lot today unfortunately exactly and you know you had this more list of high ground you

had the people that were for prohibition and you had a lot of people that were against it and

you know i'm sure even people outside the mob could have died gotten into fights with people

over this oh yeah absolutely people stealing liquor from other people that bought it and you know

that was kind of another thing that yeah i found out was happening here a lot there was a very

famous guy with the last name will accompany was a what they called a hijack it which later turned

into a hijacker and he would wait for shipments of liquor to come through on trucks and he would

hijack the truck murder the driver and anybody with him and then take the liquor to sell himself

so yeah that's just a part of the business and it for that gentleman it ended up in a fatal

shootout in the middle of a street where six other people were bystanders were injured

yeah that is end yeah so yeah i i'm trying to think i think if you really want to get a good taste

of this era especially where you're at i would watch boardwalk empire though i didn't watch

the show because there was no humor in it i that's why i love the soprano so much because they have

a little humor but i can see where boardwalk empire well a lot of people did love that show it's

too high and chewy it was very good you watched it okay so is that i mean now you're doing the

research and things like that how close is is that show compared to what you've been researching

and researching and discovering and maybe even some you know some of your abilities that you've

have uh information coming to you doesn't pretty much align with that show i'm just trying to get

people reference point yeah i mean i would say that that is really very representative of the time

so if anybody has not seen boardwalk empire it's exactly the time we're talking about during

prohibition it's sent in Atlantic City New Jersey and uh of course that's a drama but yeah i

could see those same type of characters developing right here as i'm doing my own research that the

people who had to have law of the land and and knew probably what was happening and were either

profiting from it like you said or they were just um you know looking the other way and being

indifferent about it but then the gangsters that that came out of it that's a hundred percent i

mean the again these were ruthless men that were willing to do anything to get that dollar

for help them grow their empire you know um so yeah i would say that the that show is very

yeah it's on point well it looks like the thing you know they did a good job looks like the time

that that everything's there yeah and you know looking at back at the history at the Palmer House

you know um hearing the stories of how this place has transformed and transitioned and you know

it started off as you know a hotel and restaurant then it kind of became a brothel and at times

and even before the Palmer House was built we had the sock center house which was more of

like that old western with the saloon doors you had the saloon restaurant below you had the room

surrender above um you know and then when that burned down they built the Palmer House

and it was stated the art of it's time so it attracted a lot of businessmen

and salesmen coming through which attracted which brought money and where there's money

people are greedy and that's why i think sock center was very rich with prohibition because money

was flowing here and uh that's why they chose it and i'm sure that's why they chose parts of New

Jersey because New Jersey just like New York your Bay City you have access to waters so you get

shipments coming in your coastal city and that's you know when you have those openings that's where

you can make good money and they they knew what they were doing god bless them but man i

it's kind of sad though to think of how many people tragically died over liquor a lot unfortunately

it just liquor everybody knew the game though you know i mean everybody knew like

that that's the way that it was gonna be especially around here if you wanted to get away from it

you'd have to go more inland where there wouldn't be so much shipping going on right because that's

really what made this so dangerous is um just the fact that all the shipping was happening right

here like this was the hub this is where it was all coming to before it got distributed back out

to major hubs like New York City Boston um up to Connecticut and down into uh the Baltimore area

and then beyond so i mean this was this was the place and it that's what made it so dangerous um and

not only from from that point but for before that and onward um the eastern seaboard here has

always been very scary because of the the layout of the land yeah yeah it's i've been to New York

i haven't been to jersey yet i want to go to jersey that's my one bucket list place but

going to New York i literally experienced every single stereotype in 24 hours when i went to

Manhattan then um i could ever imagine it was awesome i'm not gonna lie i mean but yeah i mean

there it's so eclectic and different and vade burst over there and i'm sure it's like that in

jersey and it's always been that way so i could see during the you know the early 1900s how that

tension was just a powder cake ready to explode and then removing the alcohol the joys of people

back then you know they looked forward to having a drink you know dads would come home from

hard days working want a brandy and a cigar they couldn't do that and it was taking a vice away from

people and they were angry about it so you know it's like way well well there's a will there's a way

right and hence uh sputelagan that's another funny thing that i found out is that um so let's

just say that you're upstanding husband mr. Dave Schrader um commissioned you to go do some

bootlegging on his behalf and you went out and you were carrying a case liquor from uh the

Palmer to a business across town and johnny law got you and you got arrested um you know

they couldn't press charges against you uh because your husband told you to do it

that was the law you're new dirty so a lot of men would have their women uh the

wives to the bootlegging for them because once you got captured um with the the alcohol you couldn't

get charged and neither could he so it was like this weird loophole that they figured out and they were

eating the wives to that heavy lift listen that's the way it goes the bootlegging game you know

don't that genius isn't that funny it like you said where there's a will there's a way

hey we got to figure out how we can get get the other women to get pinched we're not in trouble

oh i know send Winnie she can't get in trouble oh you don't want to send me the booze wouldn't be

there it'd be absolutely the time they got back i'd be doing it but every husband knew that there

was a wife tax okay that's great because times times change people though oh that's hilarious

well thank you so much Scott for coming on this was a fun conversation i mean granted it's not

fun to talk about people getting to capitated but the whole history of it i i love history i feel

like we learn from history or that's the whole intent of it yeah um you know so looking back at

this i can see where like the drug cartels and everybody kind of use this road map that the mob

has kind of established throughout the years and they all kind of go off of what they've done and

the mob goes all the way back to Italy i mean they did stuff in Italy too so it's not like it's a

new thing that uh that just got here but now where's where's the place where people can find to

follow you catch up on any projects you're doing events that you're doing i know you're very big

on social media yeah um if they want to hang out with me um scott Davis is my facebook profile come

hang out with me there um youtube scottie the medium hang out with me there as well i'm going to put

these videos up and the name of the video series where you can check this out is going to be called

welcome to the violent coast oh so cool i can't you know that's gonna i that is such my java but i

i try and learn something new and different about each and every state and the east coast i have

to spend a lot of time on the east coast because it you could put a shovel down there 30 stories in

the dirt so yeah exactly exactly um and then you have a website as well correct uh yeah you can

hang out with me at uh scottie the medium dot com all right well thank you so much scott

and hey guys if you have any questions about what we talked about tonight you can always email me

at mysteries mayhem amberloidgmail.com um but like i said we i have talked about the Palmer House

and hopefully we can get you back out here soon i would love to have you back out here we had a

blast and i need you to have you have really good drone techniques so i might have to have you

bring your drone and take some cool shots of the Palmer especially outside they had a pretty

need but it's unfortunately i would love to go down in the tunnels here in stock center but i

guess they closed them all up so it's much more important yeah i don't get to go into the tunnels but

it's fun to root around the basement and see where things were and you know i'd like to go down

there and i even i even tell the spirits down there if they can not perform but if they interact

with us when we're talking i'll bring them a beer now so i always bring a beer down there for them

if they if they interact with us because apparently that's their favorite so

gotta pay them you gotta pay them all right well thank you so much scott and thank you all and i hope

to see you all next week thank you for joining me for another episode of mysteries mayhem amberlo

and until our next case my armchair detectives stay safe stay there to let them stay aware

i'll see you right here next week on mysteries mayhem amberlo

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