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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 September 11th, 2020.
Dan Chappell is standing in the parking lot of the Vac Shack in Grand Rapids, Michigan, waiting for Adam Fox. - What's up, Slappy? - Slappy. - Slappy. - Slappy. - Slappy. - Dan is driving with Adam to a weekend training that's being held just outside the town of Luther in northern Michigan. But with these two, no journey can begin without fuel. - What kind of fat pills you eating? - Food. - Chick-fil-A? - Where's Chick-fil-A?
Adam calls Chick-fil-A God's chicken, and he's far from the only person who loves it. When they pull up to the restaurant, there's a line around the block. Adam and Dan talk while they wait in the long drive-thru line.
It's been almost two weeks since they drove up to Governor Whitmer's vacation home on Birch Lake for a weed-fueled reconnaissance mission. And since then, Adam has started to get a little paranoid that there's a Fed in their group.
Not Dan, of course, but maybe one of the other guys, like Barry Croft or Adam's friend, Sean Fix. I want him to check out. I want him to be who he says he is. Fix, who claims to be a Navy SEAL with access to a Black Hawk helicopter and is decidedly not who he says he is, bailed out of the Luther training at the last minute. Adam finds that suspicious.
Finally, they get up to the front of the line and get their food. Thank you.
20 minutes. - My bad, dude. - I'm gonna punch you right in the dick. The old dick tweeze. - But out on the highway, Dan has to admit, it's some pretty damn good chicken. - Chicken's good? - Mm-hmm. Wasn't no 30 minutes of lying wasted, dude. - No. - It was still pretty good.
Adam's paranoia isn't limited to the people around him. Lately, he's been backing off of the plan to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. On a phone call a few days before, he told Dan, "I want to do everything we talked about, bro. I really do. But for now, we've got to do ghosts on it, right? We can't talk about it. We can't—it's ixnay on the plan A." Adam has floated a few nonviolent plans Dan's way, like buying a piece of property somewhere and starting a community.
He said that they're not ready to carry out the plan and that they should push it off until the spring. But in the car on the way to Luther, Dan doesn't think delaying things is such a good idea. I know you mentioned like spring and shit. I don't think we're going to have that long. Dan tells Adam that Whitmer might get a spot in Joe Biden's cabinet. And that means that if they wait until after the election, Whitmer might be gone. They'd have missed their opportunity. And then she's going to go. And Wally would be here.
Dan is telling Adam if they want to kidnap the governor, they cannot afford to wait. And to keep things moving, he tells Adam he's invited his army buddy to the training, a guy named Red. Red, he explains, knows how to get explosives. Adam asks Dan how much money they'll need. But I would assume around five. Five. For money. Well, again, it depends on what we're on to do. Are you on to do structure base? Are you on to do bridge work? Are you on to do...
Dan says the cost depends on what you want to do. Blow up a structure, blow up a bridge, and Adam says we need to be adaptable.
Dan says, well, what's adaptable? Are you wanting to make a statement? Are you wanting to take something down? Adam says he kind of wants to do all of them. They drive for about an hour, eventually turning off the highway and bumping along the North Michigan back roads.
They get a little turned around and Ty Garbin, the watchman who is hosting the training, guides them to his property. Now drive past the house all the way back into the woods. I see headlights. Okay, that's us. All right, bye. Bye. They pull down a long, rocky driveway toward Garbin's trailer.
Dan's been campaigning to get as many people to come to this training as possible. Wolverine Watchmen, Adams guys from the Michigan Patriot 3 Percenters, and even folks from out of state, like Barry Croft and Steve Robeson. There's quite a bit of people here already. The turnout is good. A lot of guys are hanging out, drinking beers, and getting rowdy. But two of the guys Dan has been trying to get there haven't showed. Joe Morrison and Pete Musico, the founders of the Wolverine Watchmen.
Are they even coming? Probably not. It turns out that Joe and Pete are still a little suspicious of Dan. Dan, I hear you're fed, bro. Come up here and inform me. What's going on, man? Dan's all fed, dude. But it's hard. Hey, Dan's our inside man to the feds. Like, he's going to point us out to that fucking CIA page. These guys all thought they were coming up to Luther for a routine training session. But Dan and the FBI have other plans.
In the lead-up to the weekend, Special Agent Jason Chambers was texting Dan about a second reconnaissance trip to the governor's vacation home. This time at night, with as many people as possible from the Luther training in tow. "Let's start talking details of the night up with Adam," one text from Chambers read. "Is Adam going to be telling people about the night recon ahead of time?" read another. The FBI has heard a lot of talk about a plan to kidnap the governor. Most of it has been from Adam.
But if everyone goes on this night recon to her house, that's what's called an overt act. A real step toward the plot that will turn all this talk into a criminal conspiracy. My name is Ken Bensinger. And I'm Jessica Garrison. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Chameleon Season 7, The Michigan Plot. Episode 5, Overt Acts.
In 1976, a man in Florida tells a cop he has a confession to make. I was looking for a hitchhiker, potential victim.
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 the morning of September 12th, 2020.
Barry Croft is making the last leg of a long drive from Delaware all the way up to northern Michigan with his girlfriend, Chassidy Knight. Over the past few months, Barry's been spending more and more time at these out-of-state get-togethers with his pal, Steve Robeson. Now, Chassidy, riding along in the passenger seat, wants to see one of these trainings herself. I was just curious. That's it.
I was like, I'm just, you know, I want to hang out with Barry, see what all this was that he was, you know, these friends, these people he was talking about. I wanted to see them, see what it was like. Finally, after many hours, they pull into Ty Garbin's long, bumpy driveway and park the car. Yeah, it was like back in the boondocks. There was campers that people were in. There was people all over. There was a lot of people there.
They're walking around, talking, socializing. There was a dog. It was like a big hangout, but they had guns. It's raining steadily. The campsite is soaked, and people are hanging out under a makeshift shelter.
That's where Chastity meets Dan Chappell for the first time. How are you? I'm good. I'm Chastity. Dan had just come back from a run into town with Adam Fox, where they picked up Dan's army buddy, Red. Dan introduces Red to Barry. Hey, I'm Red. Hey, how are you? Good to see you. How's it going? Yeah, how's the drive? Man, it was fucking unyielding. We slept in the back.
Barry starts to babble about how they slept in the car in Indianapolis last night. How he'd rather sleep on the sidewalk than risk getting bedbugs at a motel. Chastity is used to this and Barry's other habits. He wore a tricorn hat everywhere he went. He liked it. Kind of embarrassed me going out in public with it. For her part, Chastity is just taking it all in.
There are some people here she knows. She'd met Steve Robeson before at the meeting in Dublin, Ohio. Steve called me his gypsy friend. The act like he was my best friend forever and a day, like he really knew me, that weirded me out a little bit, but like...
Everybody looked up to him. Everybody, like, he was the person that was telling everybody, like, where they were going, what they were doing. By this time, Barry and Steve have become close friends. They talk daily. Barry would constantly be speaking with him.
He used to refer Steve as his left-hand buddy. Yeah, he thought a lot about Steve. But Barry had also made another friend at these out-of-state get-togethers, someone Chassidy did not like at all. Jenny Plunk was there. Can't stand that woman one bit. I have a wet T-shirt contest there. How are you? Good to meet you.
I never liked her. I just never liked her. My stomach just always disagreed with her. Jenny Plunk always seems to be around Robeson at these events. The two seem bound at the hip. Plunk has dirty blonde hair and hails from Tennessee, where she got her twangy southern drawl. Roby's playing Ohio. I thought about bringing my spot. So we can discuss all that. Yeah.
Plunk is already on Chastity's shit list because at these out-of-state events, Plunk has been trying to get closer and closer to Barry. I just knew she was trying to be more than just a friend. In fact, at the training in Wisconsin, they had gotten alarmingly close. I don't know if anything happened, but her and Barry shared a bed and it's just, that's not cool. Sorry, it's just not cool. You don't get in bed with another man.
You're not going to disrespect me like this. And at this training in Luther, Chasity's guard is up. Something about these people just seems off. Barry was at that time backing out. He was trying just to be a part of his family more and work on our relationship. The training for the day is pretty normal. Everyone splits into groups to work on combat skills.
As usual, Dan leads the training, running people through a shoot house Ty Garbin built on the property. You're going to be coming in this room so fast. By the time you get the jump on these guys, you're number two guys that are going to be coming in already plugging. At one point, Dan pulls Adam aside. He tells him that his army pal, Red, wants to show him a video of some of the merchandise he can provide.
Dan asks Adam who he wants to bring into the conversation and suggests Barry. But Adam is paranoid. He only wants people he's sure he can trust. Ironically, he picks Dan, Steve Robeson, who is also an FBI informant, and Mark, his friend from the Upper Peninsula who is actually an undercover FBI agent. The group goes off to a secluded area to see what Red has to offer.
Red pulls out his phone to show them a video. So, this is my guy up in Minnesota. So he can pretty much get whatever, right? He has access to whatever one would want. You can size that up, you can size it down. In the video, a bomb blows up an SUV, turning it into a heaping mass of smoldering metal. Off camera, a guy in the video comments on the destruction.
Adam is intrigued. What kind of price tag are we looking at? Depends on how big you want it. That right there, that's pretty cheap. Do they come in like variety packs? Does it come with a sing a song while we're doing it?
It just totally depends on... Could we dabble in a couple different options? Absolutely. That would be the way to do it, though. So I guess we need to figure out what our objective would be for it, right? Yeah. Because then I'd size it to whatever you're looking for, right? You're coming with us tonight, right?
Around then, Barry, whom no one could find in time for this meeting, just sort of wanders over. Robeson knows Barry likes to dabble with explosives, so he has Red show him the video too. I think Steve Robeson most definitely fed Barry's ego.
When you have a bunch of people that are so-called your friends and you're like Barry always wanting to look to fit in, you're going to say things just because your ego is being built up by other people. And see, the thing of it is, is like using something like that, the fireball that it produces. Like, let's say you use this when somebody's a private resident.
After showing Barry the video, the others stay quiet while Barry launches into a diatribe, a violent fantasy straight out of Mad Max. I'm dumb as shit, though. I put four guys on fucking crotch rockets and fucking send them in with fucking those bug sprayers. And I'm who's their fucking house down with napalm silently in the night and burn you while you're in there. I'm dumb, bro. Barry smoked weed every day the whole entire time I knew him.
When you're all in hide up, doesn't help. He might have said what he said, but when it comes down to it, Barry would not have hurt in the soul. Barry said a lot in front of Red that day. A lot of it violent. And let the fucking TV cameras see me stripping their stupid ass bodies down. Buckle. Buckle. Barry is a big talker. But now he's drawing away at what amounts to an illegal bomb buy. He's in big trouble.
Because Red is not Dan's army buddy. In fact, before that day, they'd never even met. Like many of the people who'd come to Luther that weekend, Red was working undercover for the FBI. You guys done with it all? Listen. They are. It's the afternoon of September 12, 2020, and Dan Chappell is having a private meeting with Adam Fox and Steve Robeson. Dan's trying to coordinate a night recon of Governor Gretchen Whitmer's vacation home that Adam was supposed to plan.
And while Dan and Robeson try to work out the details, Adam is eating fistfuls of M&M's. No, no M&M's for you. No, no, no, no, no. No. Dan asks Adam who he wants to go on the recon, and Adam, his mouth full of chocolate, drops the list. Steve, you, me, red. Barry. Barry.
Great. So far, Adam wants two informants, an undercover FBI agent, and Barry Croft to come along. But Dan guides Adam to try to rope in more people. — You can put some other people down for the other guys. — What do you want to— — Hey, how's everybody feel about kidnapping? — — Knock heads, though. They make plans to leave for the governor's vacation home at around 8:00 that night. Both Dan and Robeson want Barry Croft to go along. But there's a big problem.
Chasity, Barry's girlfriend, doesn't want Barry to go. Robeson and his right-hand woman, Jenny Plunk, pulled Anne aside to talk about the situation. With Barry's girl, she's threatened to throw Barry under the bus before. She just has a genuine issue with her because she's threatened to throw him under the bus before. Apparently, after Jenny and Barry shared a bed in Wisconsin, Chasity laid down the law and demanded transparency. And he freely talks to her, though. I don't.
They say that Barry tells Chasity everything, even puts them on speakerphone when they call so she can hear too. Jenny worries that Chasity is causing Barry to be more cautious. But the point is, Barry's already so paranoid. And we need him to be able to talk with y'all and give y'all the objectives because we're going to have an objectives meeting here after a while. Right.
You might be asking, why is Jenny Plunk so concerned about Barry becoming paranoid? You guessed it. Jenny Plunk is also an FBI informant. So this is a conversation between three informants discussing how to get a primary target of a domestic terror investigation to participate in a criminal conspiracy. Dan asked them quietly, can he come or not? Can he come or not? Does he know about it yet? No.
Robeson says he ain't got no choice. She ain't got no choice.
Like Dan with Adam, Robeson has gotten close to Barry. He's become a friend and a confidant. And he knows that Barry will do exactly what he tells him to do. Yeah, if I say he's going to go with us and she can't, he's going to go with us and she can't. As night closes in and the training wraps up for the day, Dan meets up with Red in his car to talk over the night recon.
Red says, when we leave, are these folks aware of what we're going to be doing? It's an important question because there's no criminal conspiracy if none of the people involved know what's going on. Adam is supposed to be telling the people he wants to come on the recon, but it appears he hasn't been very busy on that front. It seems like not a lot of them know about it yet.
Outside, most of the guys have started drinking and are preparing the grill to gorge themselves on burgers. But Adam is nowhere to be found. He's drifted away from camp, following the scent trail of his next meal into town. Food near me now. He's being driven, of course, by Mark, another FBI agent wearing a wire. I am not in Poland. It's just that this thinks I'm in Poland, dude. Well...
Mark gets to listen to Adam try to find a restaurant with his phone's digital assistant over and over again. Hey Siri, is there anywhere to eat near us? Hey Siri, where can we get something to eat right now? West Watergate Road in Cadillac. Alright, fuck off. Is that the one you want? No Siri, fuck off. I won't respond to that. Back at camp, the clock is winding down to the night recon and Dan is trying to get a hold of Adam.
— Hey, you got Adam's number? — Yeah. — No, he went to get food with Mark. So he's out. I don't know where we're going to meet him at. — The FBI has put a lot of planning and resources into this night recon. There are agents at the ready in cars nearby and secret cameras placed in key positions. They've notified the governor's security detail to make sure she won't be in the area. But Dan can't be the one to lead this recon. It has to be Adam. And Adam is AWOL.
After a while, Dan decides enough is enough. He's going to meet up with Steve Robeson and Barry Croft at their hotel in Big Rapids, about half an hour away, and try to get in touch with Adam en route. Hey, we're rolling. We're going? Yeah.
When Dan finally gets him on the phone, Adam is happily drinking and eating with Mark at some local dive bar. Dan wants him to drive back to camp to pick up more people for the recon. Adam doesn't even know the address of the property they spent the whole day at. And a couple minutes later, he calls back.
Yo, what's up? What's up? Did you send me the address? I'm sending it to you right now, motherfucker. I'm driving to... Sierra Kilo Hospital. Yeah, there it goes. All right, buddy. I got her. I got her. Thanks, DBS, motherfucker. Hey, eat a dick while you're at it. All right, sick. Fuck off.
You almost have to empathize a little with Dan here. After months of patiently working with Adam, helping him stay focused, he just can't seem to herd this particular cat. By the time he gets to Barry's hotel in Big Rapids, it's clear that Dan has had just about enough of Adam. There's a lot of jangling, but he says, I'm going to hold Adam's head underwater until the bubbles stop.
At around that time, Barry Croft and his girlfriend Chasity were hanging out at their hotel in Big Rapids. And Barry's like, oh, I got to go. Robeson called us to do a nighttime surveillance. We're going to do that. He just thought it was going to be at Ty's place, but he wasn't actually sure. He said it was an unknown place.
We kind of argued because it's like, well, we're here all day shooting guns. I don't understand why you have to do that. I was like, I just want a little time with you.
And then Robeson called Barry and asked if we could go get food. So me and Barry ended up going to a Wendy's and getting a bunch of food for everybody. And then from Wendy's, we went back to the hotel. There was a bunch of people there. I had a double.
I got a Baconator and a Son of Jacob. Barry hands out the various Baconators and double stacks. Once I ate, Barry took me inside, got me settled into the hotel room. He asked Jenny to check up for me and make sure I'm okay because he didn't like leaving me alone. And then Barry goes back down to the parking lot and jumps into Dan's truck. Sorry, I got hung up.
After hours of wrangling by Dan, everyone going on the recon rallies in the parking lot of a Walmart 40 minutes north. What's up, hot dogs? Dan and Robeson decide they want Adam and Barry in their truck, keeping the two big targets of this investigation close at hand. You're in here with us. Adam gets into Dan's pickup and, of course, starts stuffing his face with candy again. I feel like you brought that in here. Almost gone. The rest are for you. Thank you, guys. Thank you.
As they're about to leave, Red, who was concerned earlier that these guys don't know what they're getting into, asks a clarifying question. All right, fellas, where the fuck are we going? Adam says, the governor's house. But in the background, you can hear Barry say, destination unknown. Destination unknown. Hello, governor. The governor's house.
One day, prosecutors will call Barry one of the masterminds of this plot. But on this critical night, he has no idea where they're going. He mainly seems to be really, really high. And that underscores a very important point about all of this. The government would contend that the night recon was the culmination of a meticulous plan months in the making. But listening to the tapes, it's obvious it is being organized on the fly, mostly by informants and undercover agents.
There is a real question as to which of these people, other than Adam Fox, knows that the goal is to kidnap the governor. Maybe that's why, as they prepare to travel to Birch Lake, Red really wants to get on tape that these people know where they are going. So we are going to the fucking Michigan governor's house. It's their fucking private residence. It's their vacation.
The drive from the Walmart to Birch Lake takes about an hour. And on the way, Adam re-explains his crazy plan. He wants to kidnap the governor by boat and then take her out to Lake Michigan and leave her there. Barry seems no less confused. He mumbles, I'm definitely going to take a nap. But I'm down as fuck. Count me in. I'm definitely going to take it.
But I'm down. Count me in. See, Barry's just heard this plan for the first time, and he thinks they're kidnapping the governor tonight. He's down to ride right now. Barry, you are not on the same page as us, buddy.
There's one more element to Fox's bonkers plan: a bridge in Elk Rapids that he wants to take out to slow down any law enforcement response to the kidnapping. Now, as they drive north, Red, the undercover agent, says they should go under the bridge to get a closer look. Make sure you got your phone or something to take a photo. When they arrive, Adam and Red jump out of the car and proceed on foot along a walkway that goes under the small bridge.
When they're underneath, Adam jumps off the walkway and clambers up the cement embankment to the base of the bridge, where he takes a photo with his phone. While he's doing that, Red discreetly takes a photo of Adam. The whole thing takes about a minute. And then they walk back to the road where Dan is waiting to pick them up. Now it's on to Birch Lake and the main task at hand. So we're going to the dock. So we're going to the dock.
Adam and Dan have already seen the governor's vacation home. You might be wondering why they're doing it all over again in the dark. The logic goes the kidnapping will probably happen at night, and her house will be harder to spot at night from the water. So Adam's car heads over to the boat launch, while another car cruises by the governor's house and flashes its brights for Adam to see. That way, I guess, Adam will be able to find the governor's house when they come back for the real thing.
An average person might just use a GPS to find a house at night. Adam Fox is not your average person. Adam and Dan hop out of the boat launch and look across the lake, trying to spot some sign of the other vehicle. Hey Adam, you got him? You see him? There's just one teensy little problem. Adam gave the other car the wrong address. On the other side of the lake, those guys are lost. Did they mean 6815? Because I did see a 6815.
Brian Higgins, Robeson's friend, is driving. Wolverine watchmen Ty Garbin and Caleb Franks are riding along, squinting into the rainy dark at the house numbers going by. So what I would say is we should go back and hit 6815. So now here is 7364.
There's another problem. The radios they brought to communicate with each other aren't working. On the other side of the lake, Dan ends up just calling Garbin's phone to try to figure out where they are. Is he almost in place? Let's try to find the address. Oh, it's 71, 7815? Yeah. No, there's nothing starting with the 7 here. It's all 6,000 numbers.
With Dan's help, Higgins eventually finds the governor's place. They flash their brights over and over, but no one at the launch can see them. — Can you see the brights? — You got brights? — You got brights on right now? — I have no brights.
While Dan and Robeson try to troubleshoot, Adam seems to have lost the plot. Where do you want us to go now? Adam. Adam, where do you want them to go? Send vehicle three to him. We didn't hear a good mark on it. They tell him they're not going to be able to see the vehicle. Why the fuck can't we just come out here? There ain't no fucking gate. Eventually, they decide to leave and cut their losses. Yeah, let's go. Let's get the fuck out of here. Let's go to the gas station.
If the night recon seemed disastrous to you, it's because it was. They were barely able to find the governor's place. But for the FBI, it was a smashing success. Because it's not so much about what happened on that night as it is about the story prosecutors would be able to tell about it. They finally have their targets together in one place, advancing a plot to kidnap the governor with real action. Now, they just need to seal the deal.
It's the following morning, September 13th, 2020, the last day of the training weekend in Luther, Michigan. Red, the undercover FBI agent, pulls Adam Fox aside. He wants to give Adam a price on the bomb he needs to blow up the bridge in Elk Rapids. It's hard to hear, but Red says based on what he saw, four grand should do the trick.
Adam is, as he's fond of saying, broke as a joke. There's no way he can come up with $4,000. But Red is apparently that rare breed of bomb salesman willing to extend a line of credit. As long as I know we're good, I'll start working. Get all the money you need and just start the truck. I owe you. Later in the day, Adam pulls some people aside for a secret meeting. So...
It's very hard to hear, but he says, It's vague, and at first it's hard to know if anyone there even knows what Adam is talking about.
Red chimes in, trying to get agreement from the group to pitch in to buy the explosives. From my perspective, I just need to know. If you want me to go, like I said, IOUs work. I can go put stuff together.
At least one person agrees, but other people start to quibble about the plan. Barry Croft seems to consider, for the first time, what it would mean to actually go through with this, that he would likely have to leave his young daughters behind. I'm tired. I can't be watching. I mean, I got kids. I don't know. My daughter, she called me on it.
Robeson cuts Barry off to say there's no room for somebody who's on the fence about this. You know, you've got to be dedicated to be in charge of anything. You know, I can't have people watching you not show up at something. That's something you need to think about then. If we're going to carry out an operation of this magnitude, you are going to have to walk away from life. That's something.
I've been blessed with a good life. -My last 20 years, bro. I'm ready to roll. -Of course Red and Robeson are down to leave their lives behind for this plot. They know it's not really going to happen. They're also scrambling to counteract this rare moment of clarity for Barry, where he asks the group to really think about the consequences of what they're talking about.
Take a second to remember everything it took to get to this moment.
It took months of Robeson prodding this group to come up with a viable plan. Dan put a lot of effort in getting Adam in with the Watchmen and then spent months working with Adam on what he might want to do. It took three FBI informants and two undercover agents to herd these cats into the night recon, where some of them didn't even know what they were doing or why they were there. And at this meeting, those agents and informants are trying to get the group to agree to this plot.
And still, there's nothing even close to unanimous agreement on these tapes. — So, we're all in agreement. — That's the high end. Like I said, when we talked, that's the high end. — I'm just trying to give you a realistic picture. — The people who sound the most zealous are Adam Fox, the informants, and the FBI agent. — I'm gonna get this shit.
And so at that time, I'm not making a dime off this guy, I promise you. I'm not making a dime. We're simply paying the piper to bring it in. And you have to wonder, if the FBI had never infiltrated these groups, would any of them even be here? Maybe Adam Fox would still be smoking weed in the basement of the vac shack. Maybe Barry Croft would still be at home saying horrific shit on Facebook and spending time with his daughters. Would any of the meetings or trainings have ever happened?
Would any of these people even have met? Would there be any kind of plot at all? Now, there's no way to know. — Okay, so, obviously we're moving forward. There's no room for fucking mistakes at all.
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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's October 7th, 2020, almost a month after Luther. Dan is at the vac shack to pick up Adam Fox. What's up, man?
Since the night recon, Adam seems to be more amped up than ever. He's excited to see Dan, his partner in crime, to show off the purchases he's been making for their mission together. In the vac shack, Fox shows off a new gadget, a taser. It's all like right here. It's a flashlight. And then here.
- Motherfucker. - Get the fuck back, you guys are stupid! - And a pair of handcuffs. - You should've come across that bitch, say, "If we run into the rest of the women, I don't care, dude, we're going in, me and you, and we're making that arrest, bro." - Got cuffs and everything. - Got cuffs and everything, dude. We had to just thump her in the fucking head, and it'll hit her wrist, dude. Look, bitch, back! Bad bitch! We could take you for a little ride. - Today, Dan is taking Adam for a little ride.
He's told a bunch of the guys that Red has some excess gear he doesn't need and wants to give them. Plate carriers for bulletproof armor, some tactical belts, some bags. What time are we meeting Red? We're going to hit around six or so. Dan has volunteered to pick up folks and drive them to Ypsilanti to get the gear, and then take them to Buffalo Wild Wings for chicken and beer. He and Adam scoop up Ty Garbin, Daniel Harris, and Caleb Franks.
What's going on, man? Adam's sagging along. No survivors. And then they're on the road with Adam zapping away at his taser. And Harris cocking and uncocking a handgun and putting it to Dan's head. They pull off at Ypsilanti and into a big empty parking lot.
As Dan drives all the way up to a warehouse at the back of the lot, Ty Garbin suddenly gets spooked. Garbin says, what are you pulling all the way up here for? Then he says, where's he at? As Dan goes around to the back of his truck, where he says he has some rifle parts he wants to show everyone, Garbin looks around.
Maybe it dawns on him there's no such thing as free gear. He says, we're going to go to jail. And looking around some more, where are the cameras? These guys talked a lot about a day when the feds would come for them. It must have been surreal to have it actually happening. Don't move! Do not move!
Face down on the ground, the FBI agents cuff them one at a time. Look at the fucking truck! You, right there! Look at the fucking truck! Turn your head the other way. There you go. Stop right there. Some of the guys just seem confused. No one's told them yet what they're being charged with. They don't know that they're about to become the most notorious domestic terrorists in America.
On the next episode of Chameleon, season seven, The Michigan Plot, a peek behind the FBI's curtain at the agent who ran the show, a show the FBI has been running for decades. In most cases, the defendant didn't have the capacity to commit any significant violence on his own and didn't have any connections to real terrorists. These were cases that the FBI made entirely possible.
And Adam Fox finally wakes up to reality from behind bars. Adam really thought he had somebody. He really thought Dan was his brother.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media in partnership with Sony Music Entertainment. The Michigan Plot is hosted by me, Ken Bensinker. And me, Jessica Garrison. The show is produced by Ryan Swikert. Callie Hitchcock and Henry Lavoie are associate producers. Story editing by Michael Canyon-Meyer. Josh Dean is our executive producer. Voice acting by Levi Petrie.
Fact-checking by Annika Robbins. Additional research by Julie Denichet. Sound design and mix by Ewan 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 Grigoriadis, 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 Ken Bensinger, and thanks for listening. I'm sorry, man. They're normally really fucking fast. Can we just get our chicken, please? Let's see. Fuck! I ain't never gonna live this down. All right, no Chick-fil-A.