Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
If somebody says the right words, promises the right things, anybody can become a victim. Since the early 2000s, millions of handwritten letters were landing at people's doors all across America. She truly believed that this was going to save her mind from going further.
into the depths of demand shut. I'm investigative journalist Rachel Brown, and I'm going to tell you the story of a scam unlike anything I've ever seen in the shape-shifting mastermind who evaded capture for more than 20 years. We never in our wildest dreams thought that these schemes were at this scale. They'd been without water for two months. All they wanted in return was whatever it was that Maria Duval was promising them.
From ITN Productions and Sony Music Entertainment, listen to The Greatest Scam Ever Written. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes now, or listen weekly wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, show me what you got. This is Chameleon, Season 7. The Michigan Plot. A production of Campside Media. The Binge.
It's July 27th, 2020. FBI informant Dan Chappell is in Grand Rapids, Michigan to meet with Adam Fox at the vacuum cleaner store where Adam lives and works. Adam greets Dan with his barfy dog at his side.
As usual, Adam wants to leave phones upstairs and talk down in the basement. And as usual, Dan picks up the basement conversation on his hidden key fob recorder. For the last couple of weeks, Dan and Adam have been talking every day. Adam is still furious about Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's COVID-19 executive orders.
He's been thinking of ways to send her a message that enough is enough. One idea is to send a bomb to her office. But now he's having second thoughts about that. It's hard to hear, but he says, if we blow some shit up, they're going to label us as terrorists.
He says any terrorist act could be devastating to the community. Dan, who has been trying to get Adam and others to make any sort of plan at all, proposes a less violent alternative.
Fire a bullet through the window of Whitmer's vacation home when nobody is around. And have contacts in other states do the same with their governors. But even Adam, no stranger to harebrained notions, thinks that's a stupid idea.
In any case, he's got a better one. One he describes as the most peaceful option. Snatch and grab. Just grab the fucking governor.
It's over. Right, we'll think about it. God, like, where are they going? I mean, you can't do it at the Capitol. No, no, no. So, honestly, do it. You can't do it at the mansion. Like all the others Dan's heard, this isn't a very plausible plan. He starts to argue, you can't kidnap her from the Capitol or the governor's mansion. Too much security. I don't know. The thing is that we got to find out when she's going to be in a certain area. But I feel like if we could get her on the fucking island, that would be the spot. Right.
Adam says the ideal kidnap location would be the governor's summer residence on Mackinac Island in northern Michigan. And Dan says, hey, maybe we should start writing this stuff down. What do you think? Yeah, I didn't know if you want to write shit down. Maybe we should start writing shit down. Get a whiteboard or something. Adam hesitates for just a second. Yeah.
With Dan writing, Adam takes one giant hit of weed... Okay, so this is what we need to move forward. ...and launches into an absurd plan, straight out of a Michael Bay movie. As we do this, it's going to have to go down, like, it's going to have to be, like...
He says, if we do this, it's going to have to go down like movie-type shit, man. And we come in on motherfucking boats and get the bitch and take her on a boat in the middle of the lake, load her up on a helicopter and get her to the middle of that fucking area. Yeah.
To carry out this scheme, they need an A-team level squad of guys, each bringing their own expertise. We need electronics guys to start hacking some shit. Like, you know, some tech-savvy motherfuckers that maybe can see some shit. Some electronics guys to start hacking some shit. Some tech-savvy motherfuckers who can see some shit. Demolition experts. Demolition guys. Demolition. Demolition.
We don't write bomb. We don't write bomb, he whispers to the FBI informant. Don't say bomb. Next, it's on to the supply list. Drones and cameras. GoPros. Drones. Cameras. GoPros. A helicopter. Oh yeah, two truck-mounted heavy-caliber machine guns. At least two. I mean, right? A couple thousand rounds for those...
Dan mentions that heavy caliber ammunition like that would cost around two bucks a bullet. A couple bucks? Oh, fuck, dude. This is definitely worth it. Funding is obviously an issue in that Adam doesn't have any funds. But it's cool, Dan says. Steve Robeson offered them a credit card to buy whatever they want. Steve, can we get that card? We got $1,000 on the card, $5,000 on the card. Remember, Robeson is also an FBI informant.
Adam narrows it down to two possible locations where they could grab the governor: the official summer residence on Mackinac Island, or her personal vacation home, a cottage on a little lake near Traverse City. Dan says the first step is to do some reconnaissance on these places. Because that's what we did in the military. Before any kind of movement we would do, they're going to get up there on site, check everything over. But first, they need more manpower. Dan tells Adam to approach the Wolverine watchman about this plan at the next training.
Unless you want to go through while we're training and be like, hey, man, you want to get the governor with me? And be like, hey, if you're down, we're talking about this after training. If you're not, I won't see you there, and I'm doing you a favor. Okay, yeah, we could do that through training, yeah, absolutely. I really feel like the snatch and grab is all real. Adam tells Dan a snatch and grab of the governor seems like the best way to go. But it's going to be a catch and release.
Adam says it won't be catch and release. The plan is to charge Whitmer with violating the Constitution and then dole out some kind of punishment. They come up out of the basement, backed by Dan's phone, which is still recording. Dan walks out to his truck and gets in.
and he talks into his phone to the FBI agents monitoring the feed. Well, that was a really productive meeting. In just over three months with the Wolverine Watchmen, Dan had heard a lot of unfocused, violent, and downright crazy talk, but nothing even remotely resembling a coherent plot. Finally, a breakthrough. There was a target, a location, a supply list. Finally, there was a plan.
Well, sort of. I'm Jessica Garrison. And I'm Ken Bensinger. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Chameleon, Season 7, The Michigan Plot. Episode 4, Snatch and Grab. The following interview is being videotaped at the Dade County Public Safety Department, Miami-Dade County, Florida. And sir, would you identify yourself? My name is Ronald F. Carver III.
In 1976, a man in Florida tells a cop he has a confession to make. But instead of becoming his victim, I became his confidant, one of the people closest to him, as he recounted and was tried for his horrific crimes.
From Orbit Media and Sony Music Entertainment, listen to My Friend the Serial Killer. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes now, or listen weekly wherever you get your podcasts. It's July 23rd, 2020, and Dan Chappell is in his truck, lost, somewhere near Lake Orion, just north of Detroit. Like always, the fucking GPS doesn't take me to the right spot.
He's looking for the house of Daniel Harris, one of the guys from the leadership group of the Wolverine Watchmen. Oh, there they are. Nowhere near where this motherfucker took me.
Dan hops out and makes his way into the backyard, where Harris and a few other watchmen are setting up for a classic Michigan bonfire, complete with bug spray and beer. You know, if you had a Glock, you'd be able to open that beer bottle like a man. They gather around on rain-soaked chairs. It's all wet. That's probably the only thing you can get wet. And warm up around the fire. So, do we want to get started on the whole conversation in Shebang? Yeah.
Daniel Harris called this gathering to fill the guys in on everything they learned from attending the out-of-state meetings and trainings run by Steve Robeson and Barry Croft. Overall, Harris is unimpressed. He starts with the training in Cambria, Wisconsin. Most of the people there were pretty tactically inept. Tactically wise, they're kind of incompetent, but we're working with them on that.
Harris gives a recap of the meeting in Peebles, Ohio, how it was a lot of crazy people throwing out wild ideas. Storming the Capitol, shutting down interstate commerce, contaminating water supplies. He says they want to kidnap politicians.
Everyone around the campfire sounds sick of hearing these ideas. Dude, that is not what I'm here for. I'm not here to fucking grab any politicians and hold them hostage or go, first of all, first of all, just think about it. You might remember that at the people's meeting, Dan was one of the guys trying to push the group to come up with a plan. And sitting around the bonfire, their faces illuminated by the flames, one of the watchmen makes a pretty prescient point about guys who push for violent plans.
The dudes that are calling for fucking, we need to go assassinate people, we need to go fucking bomb government buildings, we need to do all this crazy shit, nine times out of ten, it's bullshit. A lot of these instigators are probably feds. I'm serious about this. Nine times out of ten, it's the feds talking about the crazy shit. Because they're trying to push people and they're basically, it's entrapment. They're basically doing entrapment.
Dan shifts in his seat. It's not to scare anybody, it's not to say some dumb shit, but I'm serious. I'm the Fed. Sorry guys. That sounds like something a Fed would say. Something a Fed would say! But seriously. And I've said this before, somebody sitting right here, right now, could be a fucking Fed. At a bonfire in Daniel Harris' backyard, one of the guys from the Wolverine Watchmen said that any one of them could be a Fed. He had no idea how right he was.
By August, there were a growing number of informants and FBI agents working this case. And one of them was this guy, an undercover agent who calls himself Mark, who had just flown in from Los Angeles to help out with the case. The time is approximately 1248 Eastern Standard Time on August
Saturday, August 1st, this will be a consensually recorded meeting between UCE, Adam Fox, and others. Mark first met Adam Fox in person at the training in Cambria, Wisconsin. He went there to gather information for the FBI on this newly formed coalition of militia groups. Now, on a rainy first day of August, he's headed to a barbecue at the house of Adam's second-in-command, a guy named Sean Fix. Yes, Fox and Fix.
Fix greets Mark outside. Hey, brother. What's going on? Sorry about the weather. No, hey, nothing you can do about it. Adam and his girlfriend Amanda show up not long after Mark arrives. What's up, brother? How was the drive? It was good. I stopped down at a grocery store over there. Yeah? I tried to get some dessert. Adam stopped off at a grocery store to pick up a dessert for the occasion. It's all, the dessert, it's all him. I didn't have nothing to do with it. Okay.
They head up to Fix's house, sit down on the back porch, and, of course, smoke a lot of weed. Mark abstains. Adam is about to tell them about his meeting with Dan and the plans they discussed when Adam's girlfriend, Amanda, stops him. Wait a minute. Shouldn't we swear him in before we talk about business? Probably should.
They want to swear Mark in before they talk business. Have him take the oath of the three percenters. Mark says, sure, why not? I will defend my fellow Americans, my family, and my country, so help me God. I will defend my fellow Americans, my family, and my country, so help me God. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you, bro. Thank you. Now that Mark can be trusted, Adam fills them all in on the plan. Listen, where we're at right now,
We're organizing our pieces. And that's what me and Dan started kind of establishing the other day. He tells them about the meeting with Dan at the vac shack that you heard at the top of this episode, the personnel and items they're going to need, and the possible locations to carry out the kidnapping of Governor Whitmer.
Adam says the location he prefers is the governor's summer residence on Mackinac Island, where they can kidnap her by boat and take her to a helicopter. Stuffy, like not even making a fucking noise. Like we'd be all quiet as shit. Come in by boat, grab her, leave by boat. Helicopter meets us in Superior. Mark tries to make sense of the plan. The helicopter picks them up in the middle of the lake? Yep, pretty much.
And where, you're probably asking, are these guys going to get a helicopter? Well, Sean Fix says, he's a former Navy SEAL. He could get a helicopter, no problem. This thing will be fully armored. Fully armored Blackhawk. And I can also get a Bell Huey. A fully armored Blackhawk and a Bell Huey helicopter? That really would be amazing.
Sean Fix likes to tell everyone how, as a SEAL, he did four tours of duty and saw a lot of combat. When I was in the SEALs, guess how many rounds we carried on us? We carried anywhere from 6,000 to 9,000 rounds. Fix didn't carry any rounds because he was never in the Navy SEALs.
The truth is, he's never even been in the armed forces. He's just a truck driver. And he absolutely, positively cannot procure a Black Hawk helicopter. I'm going to be the one that's flying the chopper. Unless somebody else knows how to fly a Black Hawk, I am going to take that risk and I will be flying. Again, no, he super won't. And
And even though this plan is dead on delivery, it's interesting to hear the wheels in Adam Fox's head turning when he contemplates, for what seems like the first time, what they will actually do with the governor once they have her. What are they going to do with her? This little part of the plan has stumped them before.
Adam has a suggestion. Once they have her, maybe they'll poll the general public on whether she's guilty or not. Do we dare take a public poll? Is this bitch guilty of treason? Yes. Public says yes? Okay. At that point...
And then what? Adam says, if you're just going to execute her, like, what's the point? They decide that killing Whitmer is probably not the best route. Maybe they'll figure out what they want to do with her later. For now, they're in the information gathering phase.
And that starts with doing what Dan recommended: laying eyes on the two possible kidnap locations: the summer residence on Mackinac Island and the governor's personal vacation home near Traverse City. We've got to scout our locations. That's our very beginning point right now. Like, this all starts now. Mark told Adam that he lives in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. So Adam asks the undercover agent if he will go and do reconnaissance on the summer residence.
Adam seems to trust Mark implicitly. I'm in. I'm in.
Adam has no idea that he's getting himself in deeper and deeper trouble. This is UCE 6331. This will conclude the consensual recording of Adam Fox and others. By this time, the Wolverine watchmen were starting to fall apart. Joe Morrison had taken a step back to work on his struggling marriage. Pete Musico was in Alabama, dealing with a family problem.
Paul Ballar had left the group in June after a spat with Morrison. And since then, he'd been kicked out of his apartment and moved in with his dad in South Carolina to deliver for DoorDash and try to save money. Still, depleted as they were, the Watchmen held a training on August 9th at Morrison's house in Munith. Adam and Sean Fix showed up. Dan did too, but we don't have the recordings from the training. We have to go off FBI reports and partial transcripts of what was said.
According to FBI files, when the training was over, Adam gathered the group and said, how does everyone feel about kidnapping? The general response was negative. Most of the Watchmen left after that, leaving only Adam, Dan, Sean Fix, Joe Morrison, and one other member of the Watchmen.
Adam and Fix said they were still into the kidnapping plan. But maybe because that plan had been so roundly rejected by the group, in another bizarre moment for an FBI informant, Dan started pitching alternate, less violent crimes. If you don't want to kill anybody or anything, and you don't want her to be there, find out number two, get some Tannerite, and put a den in her house or a driveway.
Number two was Adam's second location: the governor's vacation home near Traverse City. That's right, Dan essentially told the group, "If you won't kidnap the governor, would you at least consider blowing a hole in her house?" If you want to let them know that you're there, alright, find out number two, which is the actual structure, her place. She's down in session, okay? Put a den in her house, you know? Or a fucking boat. Can't take it out if the motherfucker's sunk.
Dan seems to push for that specific target: the governor's vacation home. He wants to make a recon trip up there soon, possibly funded by their friend from Wisconsin, Steve Robeson. Well, I think we need to start going up north. After the FTX, I'll talk to Steve about getting that card. At least checking it out. Try to find out where the actual residence is, just rolling through. Later that night, Dan called Adam to talk more about the idea of blowing up the governor's boat.
Then, Dan posted the idea to the encrypted chat. In reply, Adam posted a whole string of bomb emojis, target emojis, and fire emojis. The few others who replied didn't seem to know what the guys were talking about. And then a few hours later, Daniel Harris chimed into the group. In what he would later describe as a moment of exasperation at all that endless chatter about the governor, he posted this.
Laying in bed, craziest idea. Have one person go to her house, knock on the door, and when she answers it, just cap her. At this point, fuck it. I mean, fuck. Catch her walking into the building, act like a passerby, fixing to dome her, then yourself. Whoever does it, why create a manhunt? Do it in broad daylight and then end it.
Or just mug the pizza guy and take his shirt. Either way, if y'all want to go after her, just do it that way. Pass your shit off and just take a pistol in like three rounds. Harris would later say he was being sarcastic. Like, if you're going to do it, just do it and kill yourself while you're at it. The FBI, for its part, definitely did not read his messages that way. ♪
Adam Fox's relationship with his girlfriend, Amanda Keller, had hit a bit of a rough patch. Amanda wasn't happy with the amount of time Adam was spending with his boyfriend at arms, Dan Chappell. At one point, in the heat of an argument, Adam called Amanda a liberal, an unthinkable slur. He had to buy her flowers and chocolates to make up for that one. But by mid-August, their relationship was on the rocks.
We wanted to follow up with Amanda about this time period, but her internet was down. So she went to the one place she could count on for reliable high-speed Wi-Fi, her local McDonald's. Me and Adam were having some major problems. I was losing him to Dan. I was losing my boyfriend, my fiance, to a man. Yeah.
Around mid-August, after a particularly bad argument, Amanda sent Adam packing back to the Vakshak basement. She was upset and took to Facebook, looking for support. I posted on Facebook, can somebody call me? I need to talk. I don't want to text. I need a voice. She got a surprising DM in response from an acquaintance named CM Phillips. And he's like, call me. We got some things to discuss. Yeah.
I'm like, okay. I met this guy once, you know. So I called him and we talked about some of the problems me and Adam were having. And then after a while, he said, look, Amanda, the feds are in the group. They're already in. They know everything. I questioned him many times. I said, how do you know this? And the only answer he would give me is please just trust me. I know.
Phillips had been at the meeting in Dublin. He'd been at Peebles, too. And like many, many other people in this story, C.M. Phillips was working as an FBI informant. Now he seemed to be tossing a lifeline to Amanda Keller. He said, look, Amanda, you need to call the feds and you need to tell the feds you're not part of this. And if you do not, your door will be broken in.
Your dog killed, possibly your child killed, and then you're going to go to prison. By the time Amanda got off the phone, her head was spinning with panic. You think your life is happy and good and everything's going great, and your whole reality is completely altered and wrong. You don't have much of a sane thought in the moment. That breaks a person down.
Amanda went back and forth about what to do. If she told Adam the feds were on to him, she might get herself in worse trouble than she was already in. She could lose her freedom. She could even lose her kid. And I'm like, wait a minute. I didn't have a part in any of this. I'm not going to ruin my life over a man I was with nine months. And so I called them. And what federal crime or federal violation are you calling to report to me? Domestic terrorist.
On August 21st, Amanda called the FBI tip line. She told them everything. About the out-of-state meetings, the collection of states that were trying to come up with a plan. They were going to blow up buildings, blow up the electric grid, kidnap Governor Whitmer and choke him.
A few days later, the FBI summoned Amanda to their office in Kalamazoo. She was put in a room with Special Agent Jason Chambers, who was running the investigation. There was another agent there, too, named Richard Trask. I was scared, tired, mad. The whole fucking meeting, I just didn't lie. Because I knew if I lied, done. Amanda told them everything she knew about all the harebrained ideas they had come up with.
Blowing up power plants, destroying satellites, killing law enforcement, and of course, kidnapping and killing governors. She told them Barry Croft and Steve Robeson were leading the effort. And then she told them about Adam, that he had guns in the basement of the VAC shack, that if they tried to arrest him there, he wouldn't go down without a fight.
She told them Adam was planning a recon of the governor's vacation home in northern Michigan. But that, of course, was something the FBI was already well aware of. I told them that I wasn't involved and I didn't want nothing to do with this shit. The last words I said to them when I walked out was, just please leave me alone now. Trask laughed and said no.
While Amanda was in an FBI office telling them everything she knew about Adam's plans, Adam was busy planning a weekend recon of Governor Whitmer's vacation home with his best friend, Dan. The goal was to figure out where her boat was docked so they could blow it up or burn it. Adam had somewhat given up on the idea of kidnapping the governor. But over time, Dan convinced him they might as well check out her house while they were up there.
Adam and Dan agreed to make the road trip on August 29th. In the lead-up, Special Agent Jason Chambers was texting Dan, urging him to get as many people to go on the trip as possible. Dan pitched the recon to other Watchmen members, but in the end, no one else was willing to go. On the morning of the 29th, Dan picked Adam up at the vac shack, and they made the long drive up north.
On the way, they stopped in the town of Cadillac to pick up an acquaintance of Adam's, a security guard named Eric Molitor. People called Molitor Roadblock because of his stocky stature. But around the time of the recon, he'd slimmed down a bit and was going by a new nickname, Barricade.
In a 2023 interview, Mollinger told journalist Eric Van Dusen that when he got in the car that day, he barely knew who Adam was. He'd once covered a shift for him at a hardware store. We were not friends. We had communicated a few times. That was it.
But he agreed to go for a ride with Adam that day because Adam knew how to get something he wanted. This is embarrassing. I wanted to get some steroids from Adam. I wanted steroids. I want to get jacked. I want to look like these guys, you know what I mean? Adam hadn't told Molitor much, just that they were going to surveil a high-profile location house. He didn't know whose house until he got in the truck. Going to recon.
I'm tired of bitches fucking vacationing on their boat today, okay? Alright. The first thing that I did hear when I got in the truck was Adam said something about, "We're going to blow up the bitch's boat," or something like that. I'm like, "Blow that motherfucker up." A little message, you know what I mean?
Little message, hey, your bold preferences are revoked, bitch. I have a dark sense of humor. A lot of us guys do have a dark sense of humor in these circles. So I just thought he was making a fucking joke. He laughed about it.
Before hitting the road, Adam and Molitor got very high. Then, the three guys set out for the little town of Elk Rapids, just outside Traverse City, and wound up driving along the perimeter of Birch Lake, where the governor's home was located. Completely baked, Adam had problems finding the actual house. He didn't have an address, so he texted Sean Fix for help, and Fix gave him a description and a general location. He said it's on the lakeside.
Dan kept driving while Adam looked up Whitmer's address on a real estate website, which, disturbingly, worked. Finally, they found it.
Unlock all episodes of Chameleon the Michigan Plot ad-free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show, but you'll get binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts all ad-free. Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series. That's all episodes all at once.
Unlock your listening now by clicking subscribe at the top of the Chameleon Show page on Apple Podcasts or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. It was an understated little blue cottage on the western shore of Birch Lake, tucked back in the shade of a stand of fir trees. Suddenly, Molitor, through the haze of his high, realized that this wasn't a joke. I did not know that I had just hopped in a vehicle with two guys who were going to go plan to kidnap a fucking governor.
I'm thinking to myself, like, how do I, how do I handle this? To have two guys, one of them a fucking professional door kicker, are you kidding me? And another one, a jacked up, righted fucking hothead. It was pretty fucking intimidating, man. So now I have to sit in the back of this truck wondering how do I get out of this? Molitor's strategy was to play it cool and go along with it. They drove by the house a few times taking pictures. Then Adam had Molitor take a slow motion video as they went by.
Do slow-mo video real quick. Put this up against that window over there. On Dan's wire, you can hear Molitor wanting to leave. So we getting the fuck out of here now? We don't dare drive by it again. Fuck no. We did it twice. We've been by it four times. They drove back around the lake to a boat launch on the opposite side to see if they could spot the lake house from the launch.
While they were parked there, Adams started chatting with a random woman and just sort of wandered off to her car to smoke weed with her. Then he came back, freshly high, to lay out his master plan. The idea, it appeared, was to pull up to the house by boat, sneak into it, take out any security, and grab the governor. As usual with Adams' plans, what would happen next was equal parts confusing and absurd.
One idea had them zooming across the lake in the boat and then putting the governor in a car and taking her somewhere. Which, there's a road right by her house, so I'm not sure why you would need a boat at all if she's just going to end up in a car. But anyway, Adam had other half-cocked ideas. He seemed to believe Birch Lake is connected to Lake Michigan.
It isn't. But in another version of the plan, they would put the governor in the boat and drive the boat out to the middle of Lake Michigan, where they would disable the engine, then jump on a second boat that was apparently waiting for them in the middle of the lake, and then leave the governor out there, set adrift. While Adam spouted these wily, coyote-ass ideas, Dan discreetly snapped a picture of him on the lakeshore, looking across at the governor's house.
One day, prosecutors would release that picture to the media, presumably as proof of the extensive planning that had gone into what they described as an elaborate and terrifying plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer.
When you first look at the picture, Adam appears to be looking through binoculars. But when you look closer, you realize those aren't binoculars at all. That would have required some forethought to actually bring binoculars. Instead, Adam, deeply stoned, is holding a baseball cap up to his face, trying to squint through the little air holes in the top of the hat. You should look and see where the local police department is. It's like the fucking N.E.T. Fire Department. Yep.
After that, they drove around town and took note of a small bridge between the police department and the house. They tried to estimate how fast police could respond to a distress call from the governor. When they were done with all of this sophisticated recon, they stopped off at a local tavern, where Adam drew a map of what they had seen that day. Dan covertly took a picture of him drawing it.
Then they got back in the car. At that point, Molitor seemed wiped out. In the tapes, it sounds like Adam wakes him up out of a weed nap. You in? What's up? You in? What's up? You in? Mission? Yeah, is it on pause? I'm still paying attention.
Adam asks Molitor if he's in for the mission. But it's clear that Molitor still doesn't even know what the mission is. So what exactly is happening? Like, you still haven't... Like, I'm hearing bits and pieces, but I don't want to fucking... Extraction. Snatch and grab. Extraction, Adam says. Snatch and grab. He says the whole thing is going to be well planned out and professionally done. And given the events of this surveillance, who wouldn't believe him?
By the end of the ride, I had two idiots in front of me who didn't even have her address. They went on this operation with nothing. With nothing. They looked like morons to me, right? Dude, I'm in as long as shit. You know, you keep saying that it's going to be out professionally. As long as it's out professionally and shit's looked at, like you said, from multiple different angles. I'm not in on shit to get stupid. I've been around some stupid people. I'm not saying nothing about you guys. I just don't. Obviously, I'm just hearing about this stuff right now.
Fox Assures Molitor, they are far from stupid. They are far from stupid. Yeah. As farcical as it was, that recon trip was the first concrete step any of these guys had taken toward kidnapping the governor. But there was still, really, only one guy who was committed to the plan. Adam Fox. And you can't have a conspiracy of one.
But the FBI would have another shot at getting more guys involved. Ty Garbin, one of the Wolverine watchmen, was holding a training in September on his property outside of a town called Luther in northern Michigan. Adam would be there, along with a bunch of guys from the Wolverine watchmen. And maybe, with a little luck, a lot of behind-the-scenes planning, and a whole lot of coaxing, some of them would get on board with Adam's plan. ♪
In the meantime, Adam was still having problems with his girlfriend Amanda. And a few days after his trip up north with Dan, they got together to talk things out. We were helping one of his friends paint a house. And we were sitting in my car and we were just, you know, talking. We'd been going through a whole lot and we were trying to work things out. We were trying to fix things between us because we honestly loved each other.
And I started begging him. I said, let's leave. Let's go. Let's skip state. Let's start over. I don't care where we go. I was ready to do anything I could to get him out of this mess. I begged and begged and begged. I was bawling my eyes out, damn near on my knees, begging him to leave. He said, I can't. These guys depend on me.
At the end of the day, Adam made his own choices. Adam could have walked away just like I did. He could have. Meanwhile, Dan reached out to Adam, reminding him that they would be awfully close to the governor's vacation home again during the upcoming training in Luther. We'll have everyone there. We'll retrace our steps, check out that bridge. You want to show other states the standard, let's take it to 11 and show them. Better bring their boots, though. Gonna walk the walk, they all talked.
"'Who knows?' Adam texted back. "'But what I do know is we got lots of work to do "'if we're going to be labeled domestic terrorists.'" And then, after a pause, "'Just kidding!' Question mark, exclamation point, question mark, exclamation point, shrug emoji, crazy smiley face emoji."
On the next episode of Chameleon Season 7: The Michigan Plot, at the Luther Training, Dan struggles to get Adam to plan a night recon of the governor's house, while Adam stuffs his face with candy. No, no M&M's for you. No, no, no, no, no. And Adam makes plans to buy a bomb from a mysterious new guy he's never met. Do they come in like a variety pack?
Camelion is a production of Campside Media in partnership with Sony Music Entertainment. The Michigan Plot is produced by Ryan Zweiker. Callie Hitchcock and Henry Lavoie are associate producers. The show is hosted by me, Jessica Garrison. And me, Ken Bensinger. Story editing by Michael Canyon-Meyer. Josh Dean is our executive producer. Voice acting by Levi Petrie. Voice acting by Julian Weller. Fact checking by Annika Roberts.
Additional research by Julie Denesha. Sound design and mix by Ewin Lai-Tremuin. Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Epidemic Sound, and APM. A special thanks to our operations team, Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren, and Destiny Dingle. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriadis, Adam Hoff, and Matt Scherr.
If you're enjoying the show, spread the word and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people find the show. I'm Jessica Garrison, and thanks for listening.
I don't mind returning fire. I don't give a shit. I'm gonna be the one that's flying the chopper unless somebody else knows how to fly a flypaw. You know? The big negative. Out on that one, brother. I've never even been on an airplane. You can teach me. I love learning. I don't know if we should be learning that on the fly, though. Not the best idea.
