Fan Favorite - "Big Bang"

Today's episode is a fan favorite, the audio in the story has been remastered for today's episode.

On a fall evening in 1996, a young detective sped through the streets of Tucson, Arizona

towards an upscale country club. All he knew was that someone had reported an explosion in the area,

but he didn't know what had caused it. Minutes later, the detective pulled into the country club

parking lot, and as he got out of his car, it almost felt like he had stepped into a war zone.

Car alarms were blaring, shattered glass covered the ground, and nearby he saw a car with its

roof completely ripped off. The young detective quickly got to work searching the scene,

having no idea that he would spend the next 13 years of his life trying to close this case,

which would span across the United States and all the way to Europe.

But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious

delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and

we upload twice a week, once on Monday, and once on Thursday. So, if that's of interest to you,

when the follow button has finally made it to the last level of Candy Crush, politely asked

to borrow their phone for a second just to make a quick call. But instead of making a call,

permanently delete the Candy Crush app on their phone. Okay, let's get into today's story.

At about 5pm on November 1st, 1996, 52-year-old Gary Triano stood on the 18th

green at the La Paloma Country Club in Tucson, Arizona. Gary crouched down to line up a short

pot while three of his friends stood off to the side, giving him a hard time for taking so long.

Gary just blocked them out. Almost everywhere else, Gary was known for being loud,

impulsive, and never slowing down. But on the golf course, he always felt calm and focused.

Gary stood back up and prepared to take the shot. He took a breath, brought his putter back just

a little and swung. His friends shouted like that might knock the ball off course,

but Gary watched it roll across the green and drop right into the hole.

Gary let out a huge yell and thrust his fist into the air and celebration. He turned to his friends

and looked at them like they were crazy to think they could beat him. Gary grabbed the ball out

of the hole, slipped his club into his golf bag, slung it over his shoulder, and then followed his

friends into the Country Club bar. It was a few days before Gary's 53rd birthday, and he thought

there was no better way to celebrate than with a round of golf and a drink with his friends.

But what Gary didn't know was that this golf game was actually part of a bigger plan.

Gary's girlfriend had arranged this game with his friends, and she'd gotten some other friends

to invite him out to a different bar at 6pm. Also, she could get Gary's house ready for a huge

surprise party she was throwing him later that night. Gary and his friends took a seat at the bar

and ordered some drinks. And as they did, they all bragged about the best shots they had made that day.

The bartender handed Gary his drink, but before he could take a sip, he heard someone calling

Mr. Triano behind him. Gary turned, and he saw a young woman in her mid-20s coming his way,

and his face just lit up. It had been years since he had last seen her, but he recognized her

immediately. She was one of his daughter's friends from when they were young. Gary stepped

away from the bar, and the young woman hugged him like she was hugging her own father.

Gary asked how she was doing, and he wanted to know all about her life. The two talked for a few

minutes while Gary's friends drank at the bar. They were all very used to hearing somebody call

out Gary's name no matter where they went, because it seemed like everybody in Tucson knew him.

And in truth, Gary was really well known around the city. He had been a big-time real estate investor,

he'd open casinos, and he'd run businesses in a bunch of different industries.

And before he'd gotten divorced from his second wife, a socialite named Pamela Phillips,

they ran in the same circles as Hollywood celebrities and well-known politicians.

The young woman hugged Gary again and said how great it was to see him,

and she went outside as Gary made his way back to the bar. He glanced at his watch.

It was almost 530, and so it was just about time for him to head to the next bar to meet

his other group of friends. So he threw back his drink, and then reached into his pocket,

pulled out several bills, and carefully folded them into little origami flowers.

He put these flowers on the bar for a tip, then grabbed his golf bag, shouted goodbye to everyone,

and walked out. Gary's friends waved him off and then just kind of shook their heads.

Gary couldn't help himself. He always had to make a grand exit.

The sun was setting when Gary stepped outside, and so he looked out at the pink and red sky

over the mountains and desert in the distance. It was a beautiful day, just about 70 degrees Fahrenheit,

and Gary smiled. It was perfect days like this that had helped the Tucson real estate market boom,

and Tucson real estate had once made him millions of dollars.

But now, standing there, thinking about his money, all he could do was laugh, or he'd just get depressed.

Despite the continued growth of the real estate market, the last few years had been tough on Gary

financially. He had spread himself too thin, investing in too many high risk ventures,

and some of the deals he'd made had completely fallen apart and cost him a huge chunk of his

fortune. In order to deal with these massive losses, Gary had recently filed for bankruptcy,

and now he was slowly trying to rebuild his wealth. But Gary quickly shook all of this off.

From the time he was a young man, he had really believed that no matter what happened to him,

he would always land on his feet. And even though he was not making the kind of money he'd made in

the past, and his life wasn't as exciting as it was when he and his socialite ex-wife were hanging

out with famous people, Gary still just loved being here in Tucson. He traveled all over and gone

to lavish parties in some of the biggest cities in the world, but at the end of the day, nothing could

beat a perfect Arizona sunset over the mountains and the desert. Gary walked across the country club

parking lot to his 1989 Lincoln town car. He tossed his golf bag in the back and got into the driver's

seat. He was about to take off when something caught his eye. There was a small wooden box in the

floorboard of the passenger seat. His girlfriend must have gotten him an early birthday present and

somehow hidden it in the car without him noticing until now. Gary smiled, reached down, and grabbed

the box. As Gary was getting into his car, the bar inside the country club was getting louder.

More people had just come in from the golf course, and everybody was talking and laughing.

But suddenly, a huge bang echoed over all that noise. The glasses behind the bar rattled,

and some people hit the floor trying to take cover. They had no idea what was happening. A nearby

transformer might have blown, or they could be in the middle of an earthquake nobody knew. But one man

at the bar, who happened to be a doctor, took off running towards the parking lot, and Gary's friends

and some others followed. And when they got outside, they felt like they had just stepped into a

war zone. Car alarms blared, they saw smoke rising into the air, they saw cars with shattered

windshields, and they saw a Lincoln town car with its windows blown out, its doors shredded,

and its roof completely ripped off. The doctor ran right to that car, hoping that nobody was inside.

But as he got closer, he could see a man sprawled out in the front seat, and most of this man's

clothes had been torn off his body, and he looked burned and bloody. The doctor turned around and

shouted for the people who had followed him to call 911 and to stay back. He didn't know if they

were all still in danger, and even if they weren't, he didn't want anyone to see what he was looking

at inside of that car. The doctor leaned in through the space where the car window used to be,

he reached down and grabbed the man's bloody wrist. The explosion that had shaken the

bar inside must have killed this man instantly.

Detective James Gamber of the Pima County Sheriff's Department was clearing the dinner table

and putting dishes in the sink at his house when his phone rang. He walked across the kitchen and

answered it. It was one of his colleagues from the Sheriff's Department, and this colleague said

that there had just been an explosion at La Paloma Country Club, and Gamber needed to get down

there right away. So Detective Gamber ran out to his car and sped off through his residential

neighborhood. Gamber had only been a homicide detective with the Sheriff's Department for a

short time. In fact, he had only worked one homicide case at this point. But as he drove to the

country club, he had no idea if he was even heading to the scene of a murder. For all he knew,

the explosion he was racing towards could have been caused by an accident of some kind.

A few minutes later, Gamber pulled into the La Paloma parking lot and he saw first responders

everywhere. He also saw a different group of people, many of them in golf clothes,

standing with two police officers near the main entrance of the club.

The detective got out and walked over towards the first responders, and as he did,

the scene in the parking lot almost didn't seem real to him. He stepped over shattered glass,

and he thought he saw a car windshield stuck up in a tree. And when Gamber got to the car where

the majority of first responders were, and he looked inside of it, he knew he was not dealing with

an accident. There was no doubt in his mind that a bomb had gone off in that car. Gamber

stared down at the mangled body in the front seat. He glanced over at the first responders,

and even they looked completely shaken. They had seen people who had been pulled from fires,

but none of them had seen a man who had been killed by a bomb.

The detective looked back at the body, and he saw something that just seemed odd.

It looked like this man's clothes had been ripped off by the sheer force of the blast,

but his watch had stayed on his wrist. So Gamber leaned further into the car to get a better look.

The glass on the man's watch had cracked, and the watch had stopped at 538. And Gamber couldn't

really explain it, but seeing the watch really hit him hard. It was like this man's last moment

on earth was frozen in time. Gamber stepped away from the car and walked over to the crowd of

people standing out front. He briefly spoke to the other officers, and then he started taking

statements from everyone, and almost all of them knew the dead man in the car, and they said his name

was Gary Trianon. Detective Gamber continued to gather information on Gary from the people at the club,

and he learned a little about Gary's current girlfriend, and what people called Gary's

larger-than-life attitude. As Gamber wrote everything down in his notebook, he heard sirens blaring

and cars and vans speeding down the street towards the parking lot. He looked out onto the street,

and he quickly realized this case was about to get a lot bigger than anything he'd ever worked on.

Because most of the vehicles heading this way did not belong to the Pima County Sheriff's

Department or the local police. They belonged to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. And within minutes, Gamber watched as federal

agents from the FBI and ATF swarmed the parking lot and took control of the crime scene.

After Gamber finished his interviews, he walked away from the club entrance, but he hung back

and just watched the activity in the parking lot. This crime scene had overwhelmed him when he

arrived, and now there were law enforcement officers from multiple agencies searching a lot,

and forensics and explosives experts from the ATF and FBI searching Gary's car. Gamber honestly

wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. Finally, amidst all of this, he spotted his boss, the Pima

County Sheriff. So he weaved his way past federal agents towards Gary's car and approached the

sheriff, who looked kind of overwhelmed himself. The sheriff told Gamber that several of the federal

agencies spoken to, thought there was a chance that this had been a professional mob hit.

Technicians had already found fragments in and around the car that they believed were from a

homemade incendiary device, and they thought this device could be the type of bomb often used by

the mafia. This actually all made sense to Detective Gamber because he knew that the mafia had

been prevalent in this area since back in the 1970s, but Gamber wanted to know what their

department's role was in all of this. Clearly, the FBI and ATF were running things here, and if

the mafia was involved, both of those agencies would probably run the entire case for a while.

The sheriff said their department would coordinate with the feds, but he told Gamber that it was

still the homicide unit's job to pursue this like they would any other murder case. So Gamber

told his boss, if the FBI and ATF were going to start looking into big time suspects like organized

crime families, then he wanted to start on a much smaller scale. And right now, that meant

talking to the person who would almost always be the first suspect in a murder investigation.

The Victims Romantic Partner

A little over an hour after the explosion, a woman stepped out of her car and approached the

country club parking lot. She looked almost like she was sleepwalking, like she didn't see all

the chaos around her. Local police officers immediately stopped the woman from walking any further

into the parking lot, and she shouted that she was Gary's girlfriend. Detective Gamber saw this

happening. He'd been waiting for her. A police officer had called her at Gary's house to inform

her about what had happened. At first, she didn't believe the cop. She said Gary was out with his

friends, and then he was going to come home for a huge surprise party she was throwing him.

But eventually, she had accepted the truth, and she said she was coming to the country club

right away. Gamber rushed over to her and introduced himself. He said how sorry he was,

and he hated to put her in this position right now, but he needed to ask her some questions.

Gary's girlfriend looked back at him, still with this glazed expression, and said she would try to

help. Gamber glanced down at a few notes he'd scribbled in a notebook. He knew the doors on Gary's

car had been so badly damaged by the blast that it was impossible to tell if someone had broken

into the car to plant the bomb. But people had been in and out of the parking lot all day,

and so far nobody had reported witnessing a break in. So, Gamber thought there was a good chance

that whoever planted the bomb had easy access to Gary's car, so he asked Gary's girlfriend if she

had keys to the Lincoln. She said she did, but she said it didn't really make a difference,

because Gary always left his car unlocked. This threw Gamber off. Somebody leaving their car

unlocked, especially a nice car like Gary's, sounded like something that only happened back in

the 1950s. But Gary's girlfriend said that he had this foolish belief that nothing bad would

ever happen to him, and that people were actually good at heart. She said if it wasn't for her,

he very likely would have just left his house unlocked every night.

Gamber continued to talk to Gary's girlfriend for a few more minutes. He didn't want to jump to

conclusions, but this woman really did seem completely shocked by Gary's death. So he told her

before he let her go, that he just wanted to know if she could think of anyone in Gary's life

who might have wanted to harm him. Gary's girlfriend shook her head. She said Gary had a good

relationship with both of his ex-wives and his two grown children from his first marriage,

and the children from his second marriage were still pretty little, and she said everybody who

knew Gary loved him. He was generous and fun. Suddenly, Gary's girlfriend trailed off,

and the look on her face totally changed, like she had just thought of something. Gamber asked

if something was wrong, and she nodded. There was one past relationship in Gary's life that had

ended badly, and it just continued to get worse. She said Gary had an ex-girlfriend named Robin

Gardner, and Gary had left her when she got pregnant. But even before that, Gary had wanted to get

out of the relationship because Robin had a temper and had once attacked him with a flower vase.

Gamber asked if Gary had had any contact with Robin lately. Gary's girlfriend said that Robin

had called a few months earlier, and she left Gary a message on the machine.

And all Robin had said was, you're going to pay. Someday, you're going to pay.

The day following the bombing, FBI and ATF agents remained focused on possible mob ties to Gary's

murder, while Detective Gamber drove to meet Gary's ex-girlfriend Robin at her house. By this time,

the bombing was all over the news in the region, so Robin was well aware that Gary had died.

Robin opened the door, holding her baby girl in her arms, and she led the detective into the kitchen,

where her new husband was already sitting at the table. Gamber took a seat, and he didn't waste

any time. He said he knew that Robin had once physically assaulted Gary because Gary had called

911 and asked police to remove her from his house. Gamber also knew about the threatening phone

message she had left him. Robin's face immediately turned red and she looked very embarrassed.

She said she couldn't justify her actions, but Gamber clearly did not have the full story.

When she had gotten pregnant, Gary had openly doubted that the baby was his. He broke up with her

and didn't want any responsibility for the child, so she lashed out because she was hurt and

scared and didn't know if she'd be able to provide for her baby on her own. But after the baby

was born and a paternity test proved that she was Gary's daughter, Gary had said he would help

take care of her financially and Robin and Gary's relationship became a lot more civil.

The baby started crying a little and Robin asked if she could excuse herself. Gamber said of course

and Robin carried the baby out of the kitchen. Her husband watched to make sure she was out of

your shot and then he leaned toward Gamber and spoke quietly. He said there was no doubt that his

wife had a temper. If Robin was mad, she made it really clear. But despite the issues she'd had

with Gary, Robin's husband said that she told him that Gary was a good man for admitting he was

wrong and doing his part to make sure the baby was taken care of. By the time Gamber left the house,

he didn't feel like Gary's ex-girlfriend or his latest girlfriend were the likely killers.

He didn't want to eliminate any suspects until he had more clear evidence,

but he knew Gary's ex-wives and his grown children could also have a motive to kill Gary.

And all of them most likely knew about Gary's strange habit of keeping his car doors unlocked,

so they would know how easy it would be to place a bomb in the Lincoln Town Car.

During the week following the bombing, Detective Gamber checked in often with the sheriff and with

the FBI and ATF. The feds were still tracking leads connected to the mafia and they were delving

deep into Gary's financial records. It had become clear that Gary had racked up millions of dollars

in debt and he owed people money all over the world, so they were even following international

leads. But all of the agencies believed Detective Gamber's investigation held just as much weight

as theirs. It was still entirely possible that Gary's murder was personal and had nothing to do

with his business dealings. So Gamber arranged separate interviews with Gary's two ex-wives,

but both of these meetings played out almost exactly the same way. All Gary's first wife, Mary,

and his second wife, the socialite Pamela, really told Gamber was that they loved Gary,

thought he was a great father, and they had remained good friends with him after their divorces.

They were also both heartbroken by Gary's death.

After meeting Mary and Pamela, Detective Gamber did not feel like he had any new information about

the case, and he was already starting to get frustrated. Gary's somewhat tangled romantic life

had seemed like a strong lead, but his relationships with his ex-wives appeared to have both been

pretty healthy. And even as Gary had started to struggle financially, he always paid his child

support, so that was not a cause for conflict, and Gamber also had to admit that both women had

really solid alibis, neither of them had been in town when Gary died. Following the meetings with

the ex-wives, Gamber interviewed Gary's son and daughter from his first marriage, who were both

in their mid-20s, and he hoped they would give him something to go on. But they would both say that

Gary was a great dad and an amazing friend, he meant everything to them. They admitted that when

they were teenagers and their parents got divorced, they'd blame their dad at first, but they ended

up loving their stepmom and their two little half siblings, so any animosity they felt towards

their dad had disappeared. And so in about the span of a week, Gamber had met with the people he

believed had the clearest personal motives to kill Gary, but he felt like he still hadn't gotten

anywhere. At the same time, the federal investigations also seemed to be stalling. There were plenty of

leads, but each one of them fell apart under the slightest bit of scrutiny. So as November came to an

end, everyone involved in the hunt for Gary's killer worried that the case was already drying up,

and that the killer, who had set off a homemade bomb in the city of Tucson, would remain free and out

on the streets. In early December, about a month after Gary's murder,

Detective Gamber got a phone call at his desk. And as soon as the man on the line began talking,

Gamber could hear the urgency in his voice. The man said he was an investigator from Aspen,

Colorado. He'd just seen a news report about Gamber's ongoing investigation, and he had some

strange pieces of evidence that he thought might be connected to the car bombing. When Gamber

heard this, he felt like he'd just woken up after a long night of sleep. This was the first time

he'd been excited about this case in weeks. The Colorado investigator said he'd been working a

fraud case for months, trying to track down a man named Ron Young. Ron had built a bunch of people

out of thousands of dollars. In back in October, this investigator had found an abandoned minivan

in California that Ron had rented. Inside the van, the investigator said he'd found a sought-off

shotgun. He'd also found some potential evidence that he didn't really understand at the time.

But, after seeing the news report about this car bombing, he thought that evidence he found

might finally make sense. Gamber was now standing up at his desk, just waiting with anticipation

to hear what this evidence was. The investigator said he had found a map of Tucson, Arizona,

and a piece of paper with some names on it. And one of those names was Gary Triano.

Gamber felt his hands shaking. He wanted to run out of the station and go find Ron Young right

away. So he asked the investigator to please send over all the information he had on him.

The investigator said he would do that as soon as they hung up, but he gave Gamber a warning.

He said Ron was elusive and tracking him down would not be easy.

Throughout the end of 1996 and the first several months of 1997,

Detective Gamber worked with the FBI to try to locate Ron. But, after months of searching,

Gamber started to feel like the investigator from Colorado had made a huge understatement.

Ron was not just elusive. This man was a ghost. None of Ron's family or friends, or anyone he knew,

seemed to have any idea where he was. He might as well have just dropped off the face of the earth.

And even with Gamber and the FBI coordinating with state and local authorities across the country,

they could not get a viable lead on Ron's location. During this time, the other aspects of the

investigation had also hit a wall. And so even the federal agencies believed that finding Ron

was their only real option for keeping the case going. But, as more time went by and they still

could not find Ron, Gamber started to get the sick feeling that Gary's killer would never be

found and his family would never get closure. And for Gamber, who was still so new to the homicide

unit, this felt like a total failure. And by early summer of 1997, about seven months after Gary's

murder, there was still no sign of Ron. And detective Gamber's fears came true. The interagency

task force that had been working on the case disbanded. The feds left, and Gary's murder was no

longer considered a top priority for the Pima County Sheriff's Department. Gamber did his best

to try to return to the case files whenever he could, but he soon had other homicide investigations

to lead. And then Gary's murder almost completely disappeared from the news, and the case went cold

for a very long time. On November 19th, 2005, nine years after Gary's murder, a chiropractor and

Fort Lauderdale Florida came home after a day of work, sat down on his couch, and turned on one of

his favorite TV shows, America's Most Wanted. At the time, America's Most Wanted was a very

popular show that featured stories about criminals who were still at large, and the hope that the

viewers of the show might provide tips that could help lead to an arrest. The chiropractor walked

the show and listened to a story about a man who was wanted in a fraud case and had possible

connections to a murder. And as the chiropractor watched, he suddenly got off the couch and got

closer to his TV to make sure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing.

There was an image of the criminal on the screen. Now, the chiropractor didn't recognize the

criminal's name, Ron Young, but he definitely recognized the man because he had treated this man's

bad back on several different occasions. The chiropractor grabbed his cell phone from his pocket

and dialed the number for the America's Most Wanted tip line.

Two days later, federal and local law enforcement arrested Ron Young in Fort Lauderdale.

And days after that, Detective Gamber, who was still a homicide detective,

along with other Pima County investigators, flew to Florida to question Ron in connection to

the bombing that killed Gary Triano. Detective Gamber felt exhilarated to have the case reopened.

He had always regretted that he had not been able to bring Gary's killer to justice,

but Gamber would soon realize that he still had a long way to go.

Ron repeatedly denied having anything to do with Gary's murder, no matter how much police

pressured him. And so, it would take several more years of coordinated efforts between law

enforcement organizations across the country and multiple international agencies for investigators

to gather evidence to prove that Ron knew a lot more than he was willing to say, and that there

was someone else out there on the run who was directly connected to Gary's murder.

Four years later, on a cold December night in Vienna, Austria, in 2009,

now 13 years after Gary's murder, members of Austria's federal police force

approached an upscale hotel located in one of the wealthiest parts of the city.

The lead officer and his partner found the room they were looking for and knocked on the door.

When the door opened, the lead officer spoke in German, but the person at the door looked confused,

so the officer quickly switched to English and asked them to identify themselves.

And when the lead officer heard this person's name, he told them that they were under arrest for

the murder of Gary Triano. Soon after this arrest, the lead officer contacted a supervisor who then

got in touch with federal authorities in the United States to start the extradition process.

That process took months, but when the suspect was back in Arizona, Detective Gamber interviewed them,

and by the time that interview ended, all of Gamber's hard work had finally paid off.

After 13 years, he now knew who had murdered Gary.

Based on evidence collected over the course of the entire investigation,

the following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Gary on November 1, 1996.

At around 4.15 pm that day, the bomber sat at a small table in a hotel room,

breathing in slowly over and over until they could fill their heart rate slowing down.

When they felt completely calm, they reached out, picked up the homemade bomb they had spent days

putting together and then slowly placed it into an open wooden box laying on the table.

They secured the bomb inside the box and then walked across the room and grabbed the phone.

It took a small piece of paper out of their pocket with a number scrolled on it and dialed.

A friendly young man at the front desk of the La Paloma Country Club answered and asked how he could

help. The bomber, using an equally friendly voice, asked the young man if Gary Triano was out on

the golf course. The young man said he was, he said he had welcomed Gary into the club a little

while earlier. After that, the bomber hung up the phone and walked back to the table, picked up

the box with the bomb in it and walked out to their car. They set the box in the passenger seat

and then drove slowly down the road. No need to take any stupid chances by driving fast.

A few minutes later, the bomber pulled into the La Paloma parking lot. They spotted Gary's

Lincoln town car and pulled into a spot that was as far away as they could get while still maintaining

a clear view of Gary's car. The bomber scanned the lot and they didn't see anyone.

So they opened their car door, went around to the other side and carefully picked up the box with

the bomb inside of it. They kept their head down as they walked to Gary's car. When they got

there, they saw that the passenger side door was unlocked. They opened the door, crouched down,

and placed the box on the floorboard. The bomber closed Gary's car door and quickly walked

back to their car and climbed inside and then they watched and waited. At around 5.30 pm,

they saw Gary step out of the country club. The bomber reached into their pocket and slipped out

a small remote control. As they watched Gary get closer to his car, their heartbeat got faster.

Gary climbed into his car and after a second, the bomber watched as Gary leaned down towards

the floorboard and at that moment, the bomber hit a button on that remote.

The bomber heard a loud bang and saw the roof of Gary's car go flying into the air. In the chaos,

the bomber sped out of the parking lot and drove to a nearby pay phone. They dropped a coin in

and when the person answered, the bomber said the job was done. The person on the other side of

the call didn't say anything. They just hung up the phone and smiled at their two little children

who were playing nearby. Ron Young, the man who had alluded authorities for years before getting

caught by a chiropractor watching TV, built the bomb and placed it inside of Gary's car.

But Ron was not the person who had set any of this in motion. Gary's second wife, the socialite

Pamela Phillips, was the one behind everything. It turned out that despite what Pamela had told

the police, she was not happy about her relationship with her ex-husband. Because ever since Gary had begun

experiencing financial difficulties, he stopped giving Pamela the type of money he had given her

in the past. Gary still paid child support and alimony, but there was nothing extra for her like

there used to be. And so Pamela had decided that the only way she could get the kind of money from

Gary that she wanted was by killing him. Because Gary had taken out a $2 million life insurance policy

and he had made Pamela and his two kids the beneficiaries. But until those kids turned 18, Pamela

would receive the payout if Gary died, with the understanding that she would manage and invest

the money for the kids. But Pamela just wanted the money for herself and did not want to wait

any longer. So she offered a man she'd once had a romantic relationship with, Ron Young,

$400,000 to do the job. Ron already had a criminal past and he had some experience with explosives.

So together, Pamela and Ron started planning Gary's murder and they decided to use a

home made bomb. And in the fall of 1996, they found the perfect way to carry out their plan.

Gary's girlfriend had wanted everyone in Gary's family to come to the surprise party she was

planning. So she had invited Pamela and the kids and even told Pamela her plan to keep Gary out

of the house. He was going to play golf at La Paloma until around 530 and then go to another bar

before coming home. So Pamela now had the perfect time and place for Ron to pull off the murder.

She knew exactly where Gary was going to be and she knew Gary never locked his car doors,

so Ron would have no problem finding the car and planting the bomb.

This all took years for Detective Gamber and investigators to put together, mainly because

Ron had been so difficult to hunt down and to get any information from. But when they finally

had him in custody and started getting closer to connecting Pamela to the murder, she took off

to Europe. It took a while, but eventually law enforcement agencies in Austria found her staying

at a high end hotel in Vienna, so they arrested her and sent her back to the United States.

Ron Young and Pamela Phillips were both found guilty of murder and conspiracy.

Ron received two life sentences without possibility of parole. Pamela received life in prison

plus 25 years, also with no possibility of parole. And because of the amount of time this investigation

took, it was both Detective Gamber's second homicide case and his last. He retired from the

force not long after having helped solve Gary's murder.

A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms

to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive

produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach

Levitt, produced by Jeremy Bone. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Huss,

Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Calhan. Research and fact-checking supervision by Steven

Ear, audio editing and post-produced by Whit LaCacio, Jordan Stidem, and Cole LaCacio. Mixed

and mastered by Brendan Cain, production coordination by Samantha Collins, production support by Antonio

Manada and Delana Corley, artwork by Jessica Clogsden-Kiner, theme song called Something Wicked by Ross

Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you

want to hear more like it, go ahead and check out our YouTube channel, just called Mr. Ballin,

where we have hundreds more stories, a lot like this one, but most of them are not available on

this podcast. They are only available on that YouTube channel, which again is just called Mr. Ballin.

So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.