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I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murders.
Today's case is a very different case than so many others that we have featured here on AOM because it's going to feel like we're going on a journey to a different era and in some ways almost like a different world. But on the other hand, it's also going to feel very familiar because there are some aspects of today's story that you have seen in movies and on TV dramas.
Many of you may be too young to remember the TV show Miami Vice in the 80s, but you may remember the movie Scarface with Al Pacino. Both the TV show and the movie really highlighted the drug scene in Miami-Dade County in the 80s. And today's case will take you right into the center of it. They said to me, I want you to find out everything you can about these people. So that was my total thing in life. And it became known that if you wanted any information on this organization, I was a go-to guy.
We spoke with retired police chief Tom Stone, who was also a detective for the Organized Crime Bureau of the Miami-Dade Public Safety Division in the 1970s. Now, Anastasia, when I entered my law enforcement career in the late 80s, it was the late 70s where the drug cartels started operating in South Florida. And they were really known for enforcing their territories and taking out the competition. And for the general public getting caught potentially in the crossfire. Well, that was very real.
It was February 14th, 1974, and while many people were planning their Valentine's Day dinner, Tom was focused on something else. President Richard M. Nixon is in town, so they had the whole area blocked off, including where the public safety building was, where I was located at the time.
Days before a presidential visit comes to town, the Secret Service advance teams are already planning routes, deciding which roads to block, intersections, and of course, deciding what escape routes they should take in case the president's motorcade comes under fire. All of that coordination is with the assistance of local law enforcement.
And so all that really is going on on this particular day, when all of a sudden a detective rushes in to give Tom the news that a homicide has occurred. And that homicide is going to set off a chain reaction that's going to change how Miami-Dade police, the FBI, and the DEA investigate crime in South Florida. A guy from homicide came up from the second floor and said, "Tom, we need you to come right away. They found Stanley Harris and he's dead."
A layperson wouldn't recognize his name, but Tom and his colleagues were very familiar with Stanley Harvey Harris and the organization he worked for. We got in the car and we started heading out and there was a Secret Service agent who said, I'm sorry, you can't go this way. You know, we're the Secret Service. We say you can't go down the street. He looked at him. He said, we're the police. We're going down the street. We went down the street.
The first thing that was noticeable to Tom is when he arrived at the crime scene with Stanley's bullet-riddled black Lincoln Town Car sitting in the parking lot of the near Pirates Cove Marina. It was riddled, I mean, just riddled with bullets.
And just to really lay out what this crime scene is and where things are, you know, we have this restaurant called the Pirate's Cove, and then there's this field, and then on the other side of the field is basically a marina. And so when they now see the town car, of course, they're going to process the car to see if there's anything potentially of evidentiary value. Lying face up next to the car was Stan Harris, deceased shot multiple times.
The first detective on the scene was Lloyd Huff. We went over to the Pirate's Cove and in the parking lot, Lloyd was walking around and he said, wait a minute. And he looked and he found some chips of red plastic. Investigators began to key on several small pieces of red plastic chips near the body. Casings from a .30 caliber carbine rifle, which is a high-powered rifle, and some projectiles from a .22 caliber pistol.
Then he found some what looked like threads of leisure suits.
For those of you that are too young to even know what this is, it was made basically of polyester. And whenever I think of it, I think of like the white leisure suit that John Travolta, who was Tony Manero in the story Saturday Night Fever War. Not only can I explain it to you what it is, I'm actually going to repost a high school picture of myself wearing one. I'll upload it to my Wineburger Media Instagram account so you can take a look for yourself. I mean, that is a classic look.
And I still got the pictures in front of me of Stanley, and he was in a leisure suit. So, man, this is where the killing took place.
And as they were looking around the area and collecting things that might be of value, it became clear that bullets were found that had actually ricocheted off the Pirate's Cove restaurant. You know, I'm just going to ask, with so many rounds being fired, is this one shooter or several shooters? And another question would be, did the victim potentially return fire? And if so, was his weapon removed from the scene by the shooter? You know, it's likely that...
The fact that so many rounds were fired, you know, we're going to have some both ear and eyewitnesses in the area. When looking at the various places that this crime occurred, and they really figured out that there was more than one, there's going to be a second crime scene here, all that really means is that for detectives, there is more to figure out. You know, were things happening where they found them? Had things been moved? These are now these extra steps that they need to delve into.
But what they wanted to do first was speak to people who had actually been inside the Pirates Cove at the time of the shooting. They did have witnesses from inside who were luckily forthcoming about what they had heard as far as the gunshots. People heard the multi-gunshots. We can pretty well pinpoint it down to right about 6.30 a.m.
We've been talking a lot about the Pirate's Cove, and to a regular person, it didn't mean much. But police knew about its reputation. It was a popular hangout for gangsters. When you went into Pirate's Cove, there was a maitre d' who would steal lightning and grab at thunder. And if you were part of the organization or part of the band group, you went on one side of the bar, and if you were like a patron that happened to wander in there aimlessly, they put you in a different section of the restaurant.
It really does sound like something right out of a screenplay. To me, it's like Scarface meets Goodfellas. But it was very real back then, at the time, and here. You know, it's pretty well known. This is a real OC or organized crime hangout. And these types of cases really do find their way to Hollywood scripts. You know, it makes these movies, these TV shows, these dramas, you know, so much more realistic.
And, you know, sometimes people say, well, wait a second. If even the police know that the criminals are hanging out in this particularly establishment and they know who's who and what they're up to, why can't they just shut the place down, you know, or arrest them? And again, it's not that simple. It comes down to evidence and not just there's no such thing as being prosecuted for being a bad guy or bad girl. There has to be some specific crime. And same thing for a restaurant. There's no crime in letting people that have committed crimes come in and
patronize your establishment. So it really comes down to what they know about specifics, not who's hanging out where. So for investigators knowing the victims' reputations as they did, the first two theories, was this a rival gang going to make a statement, perhaps fighting for drug or a turf war, or members of Stanley Harris's own crew trying to move up the ladder?
After his body was removed from the scene, Stanley Harvey Harris's body was sent to the medical examiner. The medical examiner found 23 bullets. 23 bullets. And what was the reason behind this overkill? Rage? Or perhaps it was a message. You know, so the obvious thing is, well, who was Stanley Harris? And this does all kind of come back to the area that we're talking about.
At the time Stanley was killed, he was 26 years old. He was a fairly big guy, very brash. He had a horrible reputation in South Florida. When I say South Florida, I mean the Palm Beaches, Broward, Dade County, the Keys. But he was an enforcer in the Crevero organization, which was a criminal enterprise well-known by law enforcement at the time. He was mean. He was arrogant. But his trademark was a baseball bat.
If somebody knocked on your door at night and it was Stanley Harris, he would usually have a baseball bat. And he used it quite effectively. That would not be good for whoever opened the door. Anastasia, forgetting just for one moment how Stanley Harris lived his life, likely that did play a role into the homicide. What do you think?
Tom says that he's arrogant. He's not just this tough guy who is hurting people for a living, but that he thinks a whole lot of himself. So you start to wonder, well, wait a second. We know that people are always looking to move up in these organizations. You know, at least that's what the movies tell us. And those of us in the know, we actually see it within these crews when we've worked in this world. But you do start to wonder if it's something like that that played in and led to his death.
You know, Tom did have a lot of experience in dealing with organized crime cases. In the early 1970s, Tom was deep undercover in Miami as a security guard at a ritzy hotel where the criminal organization members would frequent. They said, well, we'll make you a security guard at a hotel over on the beach, give you an apartment in Miami, strip all your identity, give you new identity, and you'll live away from your wife and family for a while while you work this case.
In the 70s, South Florida was a hotbed for tourism. Perfect weather, beautiful beaches, and people from all over the country wanting a slice of that lifestyle. Behind the scenes, it was becoming a safe haven for organized crime crews from the Northeast, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, seeing lots of opportunity to set up shop.
What they were starting to see at the time was that the Colombian cartels were starting to take a foothold with cocaine.
And for those of you that don't know Miami and those of you that do, you know, there's a lot of canals all throughout the city, which is a pretty decent place to get rid of weapons. Certainly it was back then in the 1970s.
You know, they also had lots of small little landing strips, right? So as a member of law enforcement, you're finding these locations and you're thinking, okay, this is the next spot. But they've already been there. It was really a cat and mouse game back in the 70s and the 80s and really difficult to track. You know, we can't talk about the crime that was going on there at the time without also noting that there was also a lot of corruption.
So the smugglers would find vulnerable cops and you know, put 10, 15, $20,000. One of them, they paid him $50,000 when he came up on the load in cash and say, you know, you want the cash, you want to die. One of the two. They chose option one.
You know, Anasigar, there is no reason to sugarcoat this. Throughout history, some who are sworn to enforce the law are bribed or even take upon themselves to use the power of that oath to profit, or even some who do the so-called dirty work for criminals. And when possible, they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And we see that all the time.
Based on the way Stanley Harris was killed, detectives believed that his own crew had turned on him
We knew that Carvero and his group, that's the way they killed, if they wanted to kill like that because of other bodies that we had found involved with organized crime and the Carvero organization. But we didn't have the pieces to put the puzzle together. So who is this Carvero crew?
The Corvera crew eventually became associated with what was referred to as the Dixie Mafia, an organized crime syndicate that stretched all the way from Missouri down to Miami. And for those of you out there, had you even ever heard of the Dixie Mafia? Because it's certainly not the first few things that I would say if you asked me to talk about various organized crime families that I've either dealt with or certainly heard of around the U.S.,
Of course, if you look them up, you can find things about them, but that also talks about the quietness of their work. While it was no less criminal or no less lethal, they did work at least for a while under the radar more a bit. They partied at the Pirate's Cove where Stanley got killed, and the other place was the Executive Club.
So let's get a bit into the players who were around Stanley Harris when he was alive. So if you're able to sit down, sit down and get ready, because it's going to be more than one, two, or even three different names. At the time, the leader of the crew was named William Andres, otherwise known as Billy the Kid. He was sort of low-key. He did all of his business low-key that Billy would hurt you. He was in it to make money, and he was a smuggler.
Billy the Kid even had a police sergeant that lived in his building who was willing to play ball. In the back of Billy's house in the city of Miami, he had a garage apartment, and that's where the detective sergeant from Miami Beach lived. And between the detective's garage and Billy's main house was actually a pool, and Billy would sometimes put an alligator in that pool. Well, where did that finally turn up? Where did you see police with an alligator in the pool?
Miami Vice. First Scarface, now Miami Vice, Crockett and Tubbs. If you remember, just cue the Phil Collins in the air tonight music. The next is Richard Douglas Corvera, who went by Ricky, and we'll think of him as the front man of this crew.
Richard Douglas Cavero was an outlaw from the time he was conceived. A tough guy, had the persona about him, arrogant, in charge, walk into a place and be like part of the scene. You know, major these move people and things like that. He had that type of persona about him. So while Billy was pulling strings from the back, Ricky was the guy out in front. Ronald Clifford Chandler was Ricky's number two. He was the henchman.
Sort of goofy in some respects, didn't have a lot of brain power, but he had a lot of following power. In other words, when I say following power, whatever the master Ricky said, Ronnie would do without question. As far as being a thorough independent thinker, he was not.
And the next two we're really going to refer to together in one is Bobby Greenwood and the other is Paul David Jacobson. And they're both really the smugglers. Bobby Greenwood was a career criminal who started as a jewel thief, but he ultimately became a smuggler as well. And Paul David Jacobson, the other smuggler, well, he was known as Jake the Snake. And that really says a lot. He was a small-time smuggler with a talent for eluding the police. He would do whatever task would be needed out to him.
The killing got so bad, people have to understand that this was a terror organization. Everybody was susceptible to that wrath. Even if they got the hint that you could interfere, you were dead.
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There'd been a little rumbling on the street that there was some trouble in paradise. You know, everybody wants to climb to the top of the mountain. Now, Tom, better than most, really understood the nature of this crew. Remember, he'd been working on the inside as an undercover. And so he understood not only the crew, but this world. And he warned others within the department that things were going to unfortunately probably get much bloodier before they got better. This is going to be bad. When somebody...
shoots up standing like this. This is vengeance, this is anger. With that many shots, making that big of a statement, somebody saying, "We're here to take over." This is not where you just bring him aside like Billy was gonna do in his house and put one in the back of the head and dump his body in the Everglades. This was a true, true statement.
Now, there's always pressure to solve any homicide. But here, where because of the nature and why they think this happened and they just think it's going to lead to much more bloodshed, the pressure is really on. And police are obviously anxious to prevent more homicide or more hurt from occurring. Once details of the execution-style murder came to light, the Miami Herald jumped all over the story with screaming headlines, calling it the Valentine's Day Slaughter.
The first step for Tom and his partner Artie are going to do what most would do. They're going to go to those that they think will be cooperative and give information. So that's very obviously going to be friends, family here next of kin. So they go to see Stanley Harvey Harris's girlfriend Renee. And notified Renee that Stanley had been killed.
She was just vile. I mean, vile, if you can imagine, vile. And then threw us out the house for the longest time, refused to even talk to us or cooperate in any method whatsoever.
Tom and Artie knew that based on the world that the victim operated in, getting potential witnesses to come forward would be no easy task, fearing that they would be concerned just about talking, let alone potentially testifying in the future. Still, the pair visited well-known hotspots of Stanley's crew, hoping to learn something or anything about his murder. We were putting extreme pressure. I mean, we were hitting these bars and all of the associates.
Convincing them to talk will take a ton of work. The closer we would get to some people and get them to where they think they might want to talk to us or point us in the right direction, the next thing you know, we wouldn't hear from them anymore. And we'd either find them or they'd disappear and we'd never hear from them. And when we say disappear, this was leading to much more crime. A chain reaction murder started to happen all around them.
And every time Artie and I would get close to somebody on that side of the fence, there would be a body that would turn up. Here, it was happening over and over again. There was actual murders that this organization was making very clear to anyone around them that no one was safe and they were going to make very sure that no one would talk. But people in Dade County were terrified.
Because Ricky and the boys were walking around as even more kings of the mountains. You know, whatever fear factor they had prior to February the 14th, it went up tenfold. So think about it not only from the police perspective, but the community as well, and how terrifying this must have been. There were some just innocent people, might be a barmaid. They thought might have heard something.
And all of a sudden, these people disappear. You can't find any rhyme or reason. The homicide guys that got to the case would call Artie and I and say, "You all know anything about this person?" We'd say, "No, we don't." "Oh, but she used to work at the executive club." Bingo.
Police were able to connect these cases with the Stanley Harris murder. And investigators began to worry if these were potential witnesses who were being eliminated before police could even identify them or even question them for information. Did she hear something? Did she see something? Things look bleak, but they were about to get a big break.
Tom and Arnie approached a man named Lester Holt, and no, he's not the NBC News anchor, but this Lester Holt was an enforcer for the Corvero crew. Lester George Holt was a pretty bad guy, and this is very important. He smoked one cigarette right after another. We approached Holt. Arnie and I found him in sort of a compromising position or weakened position one night.
And so, you know, when Tom talks about that he was in this compromised position, well, I'm assuming he's talking about either under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and ultimately that's going to let his guard come down a bit. And he was scared. He says, you know, I think they're going to kill me. He was scared. And so what he makes clear to them is that he is so scared that he's actually thinking about switching sides and helping the police to then hopefully save himself.
You know, normally a tough guy like Holt would never go to the police for help. So the threat to himself, he must have really felt the heat. And to prove he was worthy for the protection he was asking for, Holt dropped a bombshell. You know, I know it was Ricky and Ronnie and Bobby that killed Stanley. And how do you know that? Because he told me.
And now let's remember who these guys are that he's talking about. You know, there's Ricky, who is the main player, the tough guy, you know. And then you have Ronnie, who's basically his henchman. And these are the guys that Lester is now talking about to the police. And so we started cultivating Holt. It was the first time that we had somebody who was in the organization who was talking to us. We chalked that one up as a victory.
This is a true insider. You know, they have many names for members of these violent drug crews who cooperate with the police. Somebody who may be like Lester. They call them rat, snitch, canary. And to members of law enforcement, we have a term as well. It's called shaking hands with the devil, meaning you are working with someone who you know probably has done some really bad things and even in some cases commit a murder.
But you need them. So you need to offer them some type of deal. And this is going to be huge for them because very often when you end up getting information from someone on the inside, it's because now they themselves are in trouble. But usually that means with the law. So they're trying to help themselves. Here, this guy is so petrified that he is going to wind up dead or missing next that he's willing to help the police for that.
But here's the thing. It's not like they're just going to say, hey, meet us down at the precinct and tell us what you know. No, you know, it has to be a completely stealth operation. You know, they're going to meet him somewhere that they don't think anyone's going to figure it out. They're going to get information here and there when they can, because it's so important for the rest of this organization, particularly when you're talking about organized crime.
to not think that there's anything amiss, because that will make sure that something happens to him, which is exactly why he was scared from the beginning. Tom got one person to talk, but could he get others? He made the decision to put a wire on Lester Holt. We were getting ready to wire him up, and we're pretty optimistic about what Holt could do for us. But before he could, Tom got a disturbing phone call.
I got a call and Artie and I went to the medical examiner's office. He says, I need you to help see if you can identify this body. When it comes to bras, stop compromising because now you can have it all. Beauty and comfort, support and breathability. At last, Bally Breathe has arrived. A breathable and breathtaking collection of bras, underwear and shapewear that feel as good as they look.
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So Tom is now called down to the Broward County Medical Examiner's Office to identify a body. He's brought into this room where they have an individual obviously dead, and that person is wrapped in blankets, chains, and extremely disfigured. But I looked at his, saw his right hand, and you could tell how he would hold cigarettes. The skin was dark. They confirmed that the victim was their only informant, Lester George Holt.
You know, when I was reading this section of the report, I believe that word got back that Holt was working with the police. And then it happens. Holt was found. He was taken out. He was murdered. And accomplishing two things as I see it. Silencing a potential witness, which probably was very important for them. And while also sending a very serious message to anyone who was also thinking about working with police.
I think that's exactly it. You want to silence him, you could just do it, you know, with one gunshot wound. This was a message to anyone else out there. Don't you even think about doing what this guy was about to do. But things didn't really totally grind to a halt for Tom and Artie. They may have been discouraged, but they didn't stop applying pressure. And then it paid off.
Throwing something into the canal? Really? Tom and Artie were insistent on not letting up.
We were putting a lot of pressure. I mean, a tremendous amount of pressure. It was even getting to Ricky, remember, the main player, the tough guy, and his behavior even started to become erratic. Ricky would get crazy. You know, if you looked at him wrong, sometimes people would go bye-bye. The next thing you know, there were some people turning up in the keys. On his orders, people were even being blown apart by dynamite. You just can't make this stuff up.
It's again something out of the movies because we all know, based on what you don't normally hear, is that most homicides are not committed using explosives. It does happen, of course.
And there's a lot of movies, as we know, especially the mobster movies, when someone gets into a car, turns the key, and then the car blows up. Here it seems to be part of the everything is bigger and bigger and it's more brutal, it's more violent, it's going to be taking all the resources they have at their disposal, and apparently dynamite was one of them.
But the reality is explosives can be traced, and there is some great technology that's been developed to identify types of explosives, identify a trigger mechanism that may have been used. And outside of an improvised or a homemade explosive, the industry is so tightly regulated that leaving a solid paper trail for investigators makes it the not-go-to weapon for bad guys.
So Ricky, the main player, is terrorizing anyone and everyone who could even potentially be a problem. And that was not limited to only people on the outside. It was people on the inside, too. Anybody who was involved or thought to be involved or had any information, they started running scared. And any time the police would contact them and word would filter back. So we had to be very, very careful.
So even those on the inside started to get wary. And that's why the house started tumbling down. In a surprise move, Billy Andres, a.k.a. Billy the Kid, reached out and said he had had enough. Billy said, look, they could soon turn around and kill me and kill my wife. And he had a daughter who was severely disabled. And it's time for me to get right with the Lord.
And so now once they have him, federal authorities take him in and they really want to talk to him about all their narcotic smuggling. This was great news, except for the feds, as it happens, threw up a roadblock. And according to Tom, it seemed like the DEA were more interested in the drug smuggling part of this case than they were about the murders involved in South Florida.
Different agencies don't always play so nicely at one another. I'd like to say that I think it's getting better and I do think it is overall, but it certainly has been one of these age-old problems from time to time and it certainly seemed to be on this case here.
You know, one of the main goals of the DEA, and I'm quoting from their website, is the investigation and preparation of prosecution of criminals and drug gangs who perpetrate violence in our community and terrorize citizens through fear and intimidation. And this sounds exactly what Billy the Kid's crew was operating in, you know, but it's a push and pull between these federal and local cops.
But the department wanted to make it very clear that this was urgent because it wasn't one homicide. It was many at this point, and the killing wasn't going to stop until they got everyone held accountable that had been involved. So it got to the point where we had to say to the feds, "We're getting all of these bodies turning up. We need to solve these, get the killers off the street." The feds held one of the keys to the candy counter,
because the Witness Protection Program was brand new at the time. It's called by various names, WITSEC, Witness Protection, and it dates back many, many years. But in the 70s, it was something that was brand new, and Billy the Kid was probably the first of a dozen of its kind offered protection and potentially relocation for their cooperation.
It doesn't take too many conversations between Tom and Billy Andres, remember, who are calling Billy the kid, that they have this instant rapport. And Billy starts telling him all about the plan to kill Stanley Harvey Harris. Billy Andres, Ricky Cavero, and Ronald Chandler had decided that Stanley had to be killed because they got word that Stanley was going to kill Cavero and possibly Andres so he would be the king of the mountain.
So a plot was put into place about a week before Stanley actually got killed, where Billy was going to have him come to his house, and they were going to kill him at Billy's house.
And then he and Ricky, remember the main player, well, they start talking about that after they kill Stanley, that they're going to start to kill his family too. They said they have to kill his wife and child. And that's when the light bulb went off in Billy Andre's head. He said, if we're not killing women and children, you know, we're going to kill Stanley. And that is when that plan that night was stopped. Now enter plan number two.
Stanley had a very, very attractive lady. I mean, she turned heads wherever she walked in that sort of thing. Sort of like you'd see in the movies or whatever. Stanley had a beautiful girlfriend who was being hit on by a man by the name of Sammy. She told Stanley that this guy was after her to ban her down and so forth and so on. And Stanley was quite upset about that. And so that worked into the plot, how he was killed on February the 14th.
Stanley's telling everyone that'll listen that he's on his way to go out and kill Sammy. And that's now opening the door for the next setup. On February 14th, Bobby Greenwood, who's one of the smugglers, calls Stanley and tells him that Sammy is going to be at Pirate's Cove. When Stanley got to Pirate's Cove, Ricky the tough guy, Ronnie the henchman, Bobby and Billy the kid were all there waiting for him.
They walked up to him and there was some, "Hi, how you doing? You know, I'm gonna remove a part of Sammy's body." And the next thing you know, the gunshots started out. There were two other men that were hired by Ricky to help with the homicide, but to this day, they've never been identified, at least not officially. They lit up the car with bullets, and once the smoke cleared, one of the unidentified men moved the car to a field just across the street from the marina.
And he pulled Stanley out of the car, laid him on the grass, and then robbed the body. Why move the body? What was the message that was going on there?
potentially was moving the body, taking the heat off from the owners of the Pirate's Cove, who were pretty friendly with Stanley's crew. And why rob him of his wallet and his jewelry? Maybe there was a thought that it may look like a robbery, but that doesn't really make sense considering how many bullets were fired. So the robbery of Stanley after he was dead is
obviously may have just been a crime of opportunity. So with this evidence, the dominoes are falling. But detectives know that while it's time to get these outlets off the street, they aren't ready, at least not quite yet. Do you remember the two witnesses that were from the Pirate's Cove who had actually heard the gunshots? Well, they just might be more involved than they originally let on. Want to connect with more family and friends and their native language isn't English?
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That's 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com slash anatomy. That's rosettastone.com slash N-A-T-O-M-Y. The pieces were beginning to fall into place. I mentioned two ladies earlier of
Barbara and Mary were two women who had heard the gunshots on the night that Stanley was killed. Two nights prior to the homicide, the 12th and 13th of February, Ricky had gotten them to rent hotel rooms. So they all could party, a party that also included planning Stanley's demise.
The night of the murder, the two women were more than just ear witnesses. They'd actually seen the men walk out of the club to meet Stanley in the parking lot. With an arrest warrant in hand, Tom and his partner took a few officers up to Broward County and arrested Ricky at his Hollandale Beach home. You know, he was so arrogant, he gave no resistance or anything like that. He was very vocal, but none of them gave any resistance when we arrested him. After his arrest, other gangsters also began to fall.
Winston started tumbling. For the lack of a better term, Artie and I were on a roll, and people trusted us and were talking to us, and that's how it all came down, because people wanted to live. The investigation and subsequent conviction eventually led to solving approximately 30 additional homicides. So now we have so many different players, you know, to keep up with. You know, how would you approach the prosecution in this specific case?
Well, I was already thinking about it as I was starting to list it out because it's a case like this that I would really start with all the small pieces and I would want to make it clear to the jury that you don't need just to rely on the testimony of Billy Andres or Billy the Kid. Because remember, he's so on the inside. He's actually at the top of this organization, but he's being used as some of the major evidence against these other guys for the homicide. So yes, you're going to use him, but it's like you want to make it clear that it is all these various pieces apart from that that also prove their guilt.
And then when you put this guy on the inside that you need so that you really understand how all the pieces fit together, well, then it's like, you know, one, two, three, game over. No matter which way you look, it is guilt beyond any reasonable doubt as to them all. Billy was given immunity to testify. Ricky the tough guy and Ronnie the henchman, they stood trial. And during that trial, Stanley's girlfriend testified against
The press packed the courtroom and to their delight, she really put on a show. She came in like, you know, looking at the nines and all that and took the stand. She laid her part of it out, which certainly substantiated Billy's story and the other witnesses that we had that put them there to homicide.
The jury ultimately came back with a verdict of guilty. And then in the sentencing phase, they voted seven to five in favor of the death penalty. However, the judge ultimately reversed that decision and instead imposed life. Now, I know this happens in a lot of different cases, Anastasia. What's the thinking there? What's potentially in the judge's mind?
This is always kind of a tough one for me to talk about because we have a different system in New York. You know, we don't have it that it's bifurcated like this and that the jury is going to come out in the same way and the judge can then just overturn it. But again, you know, we're talking about the death penalty and we don't even have that in New York. We had it for such a short period of time. But, you know, there is a reason that they've given judges this type of discretion because they look at the evidence differently than they do in New York.
And all I can think of is whether it's because of the quality of the evidence or some other factor that the judge felt that the appropriate punishment was life without the possibility of parole and not sentence these people to death. There was also a federal agency in the wings watching this trial. And when it was over, the DEA had their shot at putting Ricky into federal prison.
DEA loaded them up on smuggler charges, conspiracy charges. We were going to put them in federal prison, and they went in federal prison. And the minute they were finished their sentence in federal prison, they were remanded back to Florida custody. Everybody got a piece of them.
In a separate trial, Kenny Townsend and Paul Jacobson, they were acquitted. And the story wasn't over here because amazingly, 20 months into his life sentence, Ronnie Chandler actually escaped from prison. You know where the dumb guy went? Right back to Dade County.
Again, I picture something out of the movies. And he basically, he just doesn't leave town. He stays the place that he knows, that he's been the big shot for all these years. So of course they're going to find him. It's a very big country, but he stays local. Ronald Clifford Chandler was not a brain surgeon. He didn't have the cunning or the smarts that Ricky had. They're both in prison in Florida right now. They're in separate prisons. They're probably late 70s, 78, 79 years old.
And by the way, he did that more than once. He did it twice. So after his first attempt, he was ultimately recaptured by a task force of federal and local authorities. And yes, that happened the second time, too. As a result of the Stanley Harris homicide and the ensuing investigation into the Cavero organization, it had a big impact and changed some of the crime picture in South Florida and enhanced a lot of people's quality of life.
There's the saying that we've all heard, and it doesn't matter where you fall on the religion scale, thou shalt not kill. And that goes for everyone, no matter what the life is that they've led. And Stanley Harvey Harris obviously led this life of crime. But Tom and his partner and all those in the department, well, they handled this case as vigorously as they would any other.
Tom would be a police chief at several agencies around the country. And now after more than 46 years in law enforcement, he spends his time lecturing law enforcement executives. And I'm sure telling some pretty colorful stories along the way.
But, you know, something to note about this homicide was that it was the domino that really helped take this organization down. You know, unfortunately, so many other lives were upended and lost as part of Stanley's death. But it was his murder that ultimately helped investigators take this crew and their carnage out of play. I think if this had continued the way it was going, it would have had a horrific effect if it hadn't been stopped.
Tom, thank you for your service. Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original. Produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media. Ashley Flowers and Sumit David are executive producers. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before, and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice.
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