S-Town - Chapter IV
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Bank tok. Com to get started today. Equal housing render member F I C. Chapter four. My first visit to alabama, john's bedroom, when he was still alive.

go go limit, standing in front of john computer.

which its eyes level, a top of professional grade sound system, his prolific collections of cds and unopened furbies on the shelves behind us just scrawler through, showing me a manifesto.

He's right. How many pages?

It's fifty three. The document is filled with charts, graphs, images of violence and pornography of west burrow back to church protesters and lady gaga getting vomit upon by a so called void artist, as well as paragraph after paragraph, all laying out a maclaurin, an unified theory of economic, environmental and social decline. And oh, at one point, as you showing me this material, john quickly and casually pulls up this document.

oh yeah, have this own found at all times in cases is necessary.

You never know your suicide know .

weren't going to call IT outline out. You do well, we're .

looking at IT .

keep IT on file. We did have a camera, big mouth. He doesn't linger .

on the suicide no long enough for me to read IT he claims he doesn't want to talk about IT .

you should say fucking but he's the one that brought IT up.

And as the day goes on and he continues to tool around on his computer, moving under other topics, he keeps mentioning IT. I'm not sure why, what exactly john is trying to tell me, but after a while, I told what I think I would like IT, if you wouldn't kill yourself.

Well, not going to happen this afternoon. Pretty good note today.

This is what I .

was like to talk about suicide with john. He was so cavalry about IT. He d dismissed your concern. Laugh IT off and try to change the subject.

I found a Better video that describes the entire history of the fossil fuel industry. And about .

seventeen seconds, I want to go back to you. Dump in a lot on me here. Why do you have to kill yourself?

Turn away from the computer because you're getting distracted. I want you serious. Ly, think about this. Isn't everyone okay?

This is not distract, and this is another reason. F, D, I, C, B, O, A resolve.

I forget that you're you're change in the subject.

There was a very good chance that may not being a live at the time you get out here.

So why tired in .

a way that I can't put into words? Tired, tired.

I wasn't the only one. John showed a suicide note. Two apparently .

also mailed IT to town hall in my lawyer over there to keep on falling.

Detailed your shoes. I know the town hall on your lawyer.

Yeah, I actually a mild up a mail to the tale of people put up .

the email and reads the information .

he sent them guide, I don't father in the the at list of people a contact in case I A sad blow my day am heard off for some of the money is heading, but not all of IT. That is where some.

but not all of john money is hiding. He did not disclose those details to me.

There's thanks. I won't discuss what that thing turned down now, but i'm unbind and you can make as much as you want to make a viet.

John did tell me that if he died that afternoon, one hundred thousand dollars would go to Peter. He also .

said this often think I can continue to live and up saving, or I could donate IT to someone that might need IT more than Younger, whose life is ahead of Tyler and .

jake I want .

to leave in kids are shit pot full of money instead of the burning IT up staying alive.

From cereal in this american life, i'm brian read. This is ship out.

It's been more than two weeks since john died, and in the absence of a will, Peter was not equate to hundred thousand dollars entire. Goodson was not the quiet, the ship of full of money. In fact, there's not even money for john's own dogs Taylors taking care of a couple of them here at the tidy trailer he's living in with his girlfriend and two of his daughters and he's had to scrounge together cash to cover their vet appointment this morning.

But the more important appointment ment tillers preparing for today is at the bid county project court, the court that handles matters involving the states of the deceased. At ten am, john cousins from florida have a hearing scheduled to request permanent guardianship over johns mother mary Grace, which, because john didn't have a will, would mean the cousins would get control over the property and all of merry Graces and john's belongings and assets. So tiller is gonna as well to petition the provi judge, intervene and try to get with his.

He says he has a bunch of things over at john that belonged him, and the cousins won't let him on the property to get them. We've even put a gate across jon's driveway with no trust passing signs around IT. Tyler estimates the total value for all of this stuff conservatively and more than twenty five thousand dollars.

He typed a list with the description, location and value of each item that's very thoro you of black shaping, large glass jugs, extension cords, a copper teapot, toys. Taylor tells me john b off for his kids. Even the swing set is on there, plus a lot of tools, which Tyler says is a particular problem for him right now because he's had a falling out with his partner in the tattoo parlor.

So he no longer has that business. He doesn't have join any more to employ them. And now we can't even drum up odd jobs, he says, because he can't get to his tools, his won mower and his wilder and his Masonry stuff for a lot of these items.

Tyler doesn't approve ownership. So for a few of the big ticket, once he does, he shows me a couple short receipts, hand and no book paper and signed by the cellars. This is the deal sale .

for for school buses and stuff down there on slab, two buses and ninety will .

a trial those years.

Yeah.

john showed me these buses when he took me around this property. One's yellow and one's blue. There's also a big eighteen wheeler trailer. It's all really old. The buses don't run anymore, but they're chockfull wood and building materials and antia lianes john dan mention that stuff was tilers .

you say main job and plan on building that matter. For a while now we just been a cumuli ten old bricks and the lab to .

flock that I get just Better flying down or a build housework and about to lose IT off if something don't get done. But hopefully this a little bit approve.

helped me.

The probe court sits on the town square of central, the bib county seat in a drab and x building across from the main courthouse. It's not even a traditional courtroom. It's mostly just a waiting area in reception desk like a dmv.

As people come inside, they go under a sign hanging over the front entrance that says in elaborate font, through these doors past the most important people on earth, the citizens of bib county. When I arrive, Tylers sitting off to the side stoically, his tattoos peaking down his rests. I followed him here and let him going on his own because I have my own reason for coming to court today.

I want to introduce myself to john cousins and ask if they'll do an interview with me. And I don't want them to get the wrong idea. Think i'm working for Taylor or something.

The cousins are standing there not far from Tyler, the middle age couple I remember from the funeral. I've learned that their names are reda and charlie Lawrence. They're huddled with two other people.

I don't recognize reda, like Tyler is holding some papers. She's glasses and short grain hair. I walk over to her.

Excuse me, man, I say, are you read? Yes, he says, i'm brian read. Nice to meet you. I tell her i'm sorry for her loss that i'm very sad about what happened with john.

I explain who I am, where I work, how john got in touch with our radio show, and then I started investigating some local goings on with him. SHE seems so surprised and confused by me, which is completely understandable. Your cousin drink signed, and then a reporter shows up at court afterwards saying he'd been investigating potential crimes and corruption and wrongdoing with him for more than a year.

Something most Normal sequence of events. So where do you live? SHE, yes, new york.

I teller, are you serious? He says, you come down here from new york for this I have created to meet with me. I want to tell her more about the story i've been doing with john.

I want to ask her about him, his family history, and find out what's going on with his affairs. SHE seems okay with the inter. sure. After the hearing, we can go somewhere and talk, and then we stand there, awkward dly waiting for the judge to call the back to his chAmbers.

We make small talk, which i'll tell you staying at how longer you in town at that, suddenly read a leans in very close to me and whispers, we're leaving tomorrow. Why are you whispering? I ask her, do you know that guy there? SHE has stoned her breath twitching us towards Tyler, who's right behind me? Tyler? I say, yeah.

He says her voice is even quieter. We're leaving tomorrow, but I don't want him to know that we're leaving. He's been causing nothing but trouble.

Soon, judge Jerry pow will summon reda in her husband charlie, as well as the two others are hear with and johns lawyer boozer downs into his chAmbers to have a private meeting, and Tyler will go in with them to make his final plea, despite john having said that, he wanted to leave money and gold. Tyler, despite john texting Taylor minutes before he died that he could have anything in his house he wanted.

All Tyler will ask the judge for today is the stuff that he says with his to begin with, that he's documented easily on his list. Taller does not like going to court. He feels the courts and cops and lawyers have done nothing but victimized him since he became a teenager.

But here you will suck IT up and make this one last effort to do things the proper way within the system. And the system will not be sympathetic. Judge power will explain to Tyler that this hearing isn't about his stuff.

It's about signing guardianship over the reda. He's about to do that, he'll say. And once he does, should have control over the Michael ore property and everything on IT, Tyler will have to work things out directly with reader or take the matter across the street to civil court.

Tyler will try to protest, but read will sell everything before, have a chance to bring a suit, he'll say. And judge power, i'll tell him that if someone gives you something, he advises that you take IT home with you. And that will be the end of IT. Dejected, tother will walk out of the chAmbers to his car underneath the sign, reminding him that is one of the most important people on earth.

I wait for rea in the reception area and SHE in her husband leave. I ask where she'd like to go so we can have our conversation. But now he says he can't.

They have too much to get done before they head back to ford a the next day. We have for a bit though. And before he goes at the door, SHE does ask me a question about john. Quote, did he tell you where is the money was here on? quote.

I don't go to the downside really.

Less than a week after the cousins gained control of the Michael Moore property, teller tells me they've got to the damn place. And even though he's not supposed to.

he's been going over the property and check and must and everything and john shots gone, all the two boxes and everything let as somebody come down there probably about IT. Why is put flying out when you've been over there.

if you've been poking around for the for the very treasure, for the goal or the cash, whatever .

there is? yes.

I need to get IT before you strike off. We get the fun around.

Reader suspects that john had money or gold hidden somewhere, but others all but certain of IT, he says, when they would make purchases around town, john used to say, well, go to a go, give up some more money. And Tyler says he knows for a fact john was buying thirty thousand dollars worth of gold at a clip. John even showed him some of that once the small box out of which john pulled a single tiny gold bar, IT was clear.

The box was filled with others, Tyler says. And john strongly implied that there was much more gold where that came from. So where have you looked? You might tell me.

I mean, that could be in the ground yard, could be in image, that could be anywhere. But I think so one of the down to help for something.

Here's Tyler's theory about where the hidden treasures might be. The dog house is near the human house, and you can see IT from the kitchen window where john spent a lot of time talking on the phone, brewing highly caffeine tea, pissing in the sink. Tyler thinks john would have stashed a treasures in a spot where .

he could always see IT from the kitchen protected.

So have you, what have you poked around on that yet? What .

talk 好。 Look in the dog house and staying the third step of compartment failed to funder or what not in. I've been a funder, the house and i've been out. And flower bears and shit lost, but hail Brown. They had many wailed up these little metal door ways.

These are the gates Tyler once told me about that he built for .

the dune like tunnels and john basement have been pus and riots and snakes. And I saying the far sound of anything, you know, we know so many projects around there that is kind to be somewhere in one of them, projects that we've done, you know, somewhere that if anybody could found IT IT would be made. And, you know, he's probably left me some off a close.

tell her his phone cuts out for a second, but he was saying john n probably left him some type of clue.

Yeah, i'm sure left me some top of club. And I just like that in one of IT.

In one of our phone conversations, john didn't say this to me.

A wise man has his money where he can sleep Better tonight. A wise man does not have a lot of pipe for money. A woodfall me house. A wise man has some hard assets. So hard it's been different things to different people to some people that may mean sl and go a White, may may have some up about the fucking woods.

I didn't mention this to Taylor, partly because I didn't feel like I was my place to encourage treasure hunting on john's property, but also because I have no idea if joyful is literally, or was a saying stuff. Plus there are like a hundred makers of woods, anyway, something that tiger .

is very aware of. This is all that in, i'm like, and I want to have you have no detector and go over the backyard.

The next time I see Tyler, he tells me he has procured the metal detector and has been using IT to scale john's place every night for two weeks straight, he uses a police scanner wrap on his phone to keep in the erp for cops. What is there one of his most promising clues, where these pages he found of coordinate june written down lattitude and ladder ude for the town of woodstock, or shit town, as IT was labeled on the document, along with coordinates for k 3 lumber， the trailer park Tyler lives in, as well as, naturally, the nuclear reactor in noble. Among those were court next on Jones property.

One set was for johns house, and another set, when Tyler tag them in to google, brought him to the maize, though just a little bit to the side of the maize, which seemed promising in that spite, he saw an old plastic tub upside down on the grass. He kicked IT over and wave the medal detector over the grounded of been covering. IT started going off, beeping, tell or dog.

And he found a bunch of bottles, just a bunch hold glass bottles. He asked me if i've ever seen the movie holes, because that's what he looks like over there. After all, digging.

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I'm chef rick Wilson son, and I used made in cocoa for full details. Visit made in coquart dot com. That's M A D E I N coquart dot com. When Tyler cleared out all that paper work from john's house in the days right after he died, he did find something else that was curious.

It's a list, john route on a sheet yellow note of paper titled at the top people to contact tother send me a photo of IT and fake gamble. The town clerk told me that john and a copy to her as part of his instructions before he drinks signe. There are fifteen names and phone numbers on the list.

Tyler's name is not one of them, a handful. The people are local to bid count y, including john's lawyer, whom i've talked to. The number for wood, stuck town hall is vet, his cousin from florida, real Warreners on there.

But there's this whole group of names at the top who are all from out of town and in a number of cases, out of state or country. And each of those names is a mystery to me. And my very first phone conversation with john, he had told me that all of his friends had died off.

He used that word. All IT hears this list. And the strength ing about IT is that not one of these people? These first seven names at the top, not one of them showed up a john funeral. So this list, maybe it's a clue.

Do you have IT like a bomb when I often here? But believe or not, we know where that is. This is our clock shop.

On an early saturday afternoon, I mean, a man named Allen berdan at his clock repair shop in the back of an antique mall near the interstate in pal city, alama. He's the first of these names of genes list that I contact. Pl cities about an hour east of woodstock, on the other side of birmingham, and the vipers different.

The bid county is situated on the coosa river, which has all these switch packs and details that make IT look more like a mattering of lakes in a river. The place feels lively or than bib. There's a big radio going on, boats on the water.

Family's vacation ing. Allan is forties and athletic outdoor guy who makes time for me after a fly fishing lesson he gave in the morning. He's a clockwork store like john was, though he says he works in the quote horological field, which is a term i've never heard until talking .

Allen horology logy is the study of tom .

that makes Allen and john parole gist, or more precisely, because they fix old clock and query aroo gist.

Allen tells me horology .

experience the kind of hate in the nineties, particularly as anti lector took to ebay. But that boom has been over for a while and especially time, so easily accessible now on our appliances and cell phones. It's definitely dying trade, john saw that coming, Allen says. And by the time he met him, around two thousand and twelve, john had largely got out of a ology, except for the odd job here. There they met because Allen was having a problem with an elliot grandfather clock he was trying to fix.

That was a very important place. I was IT wasn't a clock. If you're saying every day this clock that actually come out of a jury, stone landed, all trapped squair.

How much was the worth?

Estimated ally could have been one hundred one thousand eight clock back in the nani. Well.

the clock was driving Allen nuts. He couldn't figure a proper fix for IT. He asked her horologist st. Friend of his for advice, and his friend said, you should call this guy jump by Michael.

Mr, I mean, I called him up one day in the shop right here, and I got him on the phone that was like, homy. Gosh.

Ellen heard a cocaine, any of dogs barking on the other end of the lion, and a man shouting of senators at them.

And i've been warned, you know, john, not the average person. I expect a lot of profit, expect a lot of strongin bold statements.

Allen explained to john that he was having trouble with a rare clock. And john said, well.

bring a by which i'd never heard a woodstack on. My was very hard to find this place. I had a physical address.

My G, P. S. Kept, cared me two, three miles down the road. I've been there. Yeah, you know, when I pulled up there, I was like, I went back in town.

It's a weird sensation. This man i've just met seems to be describing .

to me and experience that I once had came IT fixed, drive you truck around here and what not really any really kind of welcome you saying I was like, you had know me and i'm carefully in lonely clock moment into his sharp and what would you get here and, you know, tell them as earlier and a yeah that looks about right then just get set up for years. So we set IT upon his rack.

And now I thought he was just going to particular sly start looking over IT. First thing he did, he got a pair, grow drivers and stuff. He merely to started yanking stuff off the clock.

We don't need this. We don't need this. We don't need ideas. And he was thrown, and and these places were coming out the clock and fly over to the table, and he was just like talking them. Now, I mean, I just thanking myself of my god, i've made a horrible mistake. This guy is, I actually was so fable crazy.

Hazes running off to mouth about this and that, about the clock and how horrible the clock had been treated. Players must have been on this and competent court maker on IT. I mean, he wouldn't particular talking about me.

but john was referring to the other horologist over the last hundred years who, judging from the witness Marks, he was observing holes and impressions, and discolorations had objected the clock to sloppy workmanship over the course of its life. Allen knew what the problem with the clock was that he d been able to diagnose on his own. He was an issue with a piece called the gathering palot.

He says he probably could have machines, a replacement that would have made the clock run, but that would have been a quick fix, not a restoration. The kind of horologist Allen is and john was, they aren't trying to simply make the clock work again. The girls to preserve and reconstruct the original craft manship as much as possible. But Allen had never restored an earlier clock before, so he never seen this type of gathering palet in working order. And when he looked for diagrams of IT.

he could not find any john, you at shop is head with the garden pilot actually looked like just on his user experience.

What IT should have look like.

what I should have look like in what idiot was he took a piece of steel and he hand filed at, then got IT fixed and got to put IT down there. He did that. And funny.

that day he did IT.

That day he took him almost about three and half hours. But he said in hand balled out, after I saw that, I would just totally amazed, just a file, something blank on the top of your hair with some little files, and not have any kind of dog thing like that. I know he filed IT out and started fit into the clock.

What are you thinking when you .

watched IT? This is a master that .

Allen says was the ginning of his son. John's friendship, they emailed, often talked every few days, about once a month, alan will go visit and the troubleshoot clock together, wand around john's yard, get lunch of the local grocery store. Alan tried to get john to come to his neck at the woods.

He wanted to take him out boating on the lake, but john never came. He said he couldn't leave his mom for that long. Allen told me something I had known about, john. John had an impressive reputation for working on world class high end time pieces. Some of the finest .

clocks in the world know he was just an absolute genius. I mean, if you won't know something or had a problem, say, ma.

more really, that's like that was known throughout.

I was actually known, probable, I know on the eastern sea board, but he would have people coming down from our massu is driving their cover to woodstock at obama to get their broken clock, figs and stuff like that.

Because he was the closest and .

best they could find that I inside the closest for the best in .

his earlier years, john used to travel to england, where he visited with fellow horologist. He wrote about halloy consult ted on horology books. And he was known for doing elements of restoration that very few people still do, such as an ancient process for making things gold, known as fire building that is very dangerous and illegal in some places, because IT requires burning mercury could be. And another thing Allen tells me that I wanted to find out, join me, good money.

John popping in the nan could have said on his bird and work two or three days a week in my hundred fifty thousand thousand years. Easy now told how much money he made in the clock. Terry and giant is public packed the money away.

I mean, who knows? But that sounds to me like the type of money that could potentially a mass to a bountiful, hidden treasure. That comes a point, their conversation. When Allen has a question for me.

but for john, he said, you found that through .

taller his.

yes, that is as far .

as jon suicide. The one doesn't speak the word.

I think, was how long, how long ago.

I was able to, I went to the funeral. I was able to go the funeral right before.

were Better. Often was, I didn't find out to, no, a weekend, a high of later. You know, I never changed to, you know, so goodby to him.

sorry. Allen had been out of town for a watching clock convention, surely, before john died. And hand talked him for a while.

When he got back, he enjoined email ed a bit the day john were going to kill himself. Alan wrote ed, him telling him he wanted to conversions that week. That night, while alan was teaching vacation bible school, he saw a call come in from john.

He silence ed and then called him back. When he got home. No answer called him the next day. No answer. As the week went on, IT was the same.

Alan got in touch with a mutual friend of his and johns, a mechanic in birmingham, m, who's also on johns contact list, and asked him if he heard from john. He hadn't. Ellen wanted to drive the john's place to check on him, but his wife was pregnant and sick.

He decided to give you one more day. And if either he or the other friend heard from john, he was going to call the bid county share of department. He knew john hated cops in authority and might not forgive him for IT. But he also knew john to talk about suicide, so he was ready to risk IT.

You know, sometimes I head to wait that out. My hair was IT work. Lose him a friend to to see him get help and and I tried to get john here and I tried, just like john, you know, let me keep you to a doctor or something, this kitchen, some medicine or something, you know, I said we're not going to know sc atterson at my day.

I said we just go see a regular practice doctor and see if we can get you some kind of enter the present, some kind of the stabilizer and oh no, take no medical name. I'm not doing not doing that. Even went to the books award and get a urban book of more holistic, you know, hylan stuff that would help with our depression and mood swings and and cared to the last year later, this gold.

And I thought he would take on that. And you know, he liked hrc ult. Maybe he could not a good idea, good hell, or here and so of holistically and a that book. This sector is probably sitting near to this day in shot.

Well, I had no sense talking to him that he had people on his life like you, who were trying to help him this way.

I don't think john rela tiny people cared for and I just think it's really say that because that I actually like he died. I think he was only though i'm not sure there's .

much of a difference between being lonely and thinking you are alan never got to the point of asking the sherif to check on john because the night before he was planning to do that, he was driving home from church with his family and got a call from fake gamble, the town clare, who john called as he drink sign and to whom he'd given his final instructions and contact list.

Ellen says as soon as he told him he was with a woods duck town hall, he knew he immediately pulled over to the side of the road. He was devastated, his whole body was shaking, but then they told him win. Jon had actually died. And to the sorrow read at some other emotions when .

I found out when that happened, and I was kind of all right, I didn't find out to jana bb.

john had been in the ground for more than a week, and they was just now calling him Ellen said. He pressed fy on IT, asked why he was notifying him after the funeral, and he says he act kind of weird about IT.

SHE tried to slow that. He tried to call me, but i'll looked back in my home. There was no call, note, message, anything. I got that thing. I mean, that just seems like a pretty weak excuse and I can and say you will I tried, you know, couldn't get you on the phone and not leave a message or anything like that.

And it's not like he had to dig up his information .

or something. John sent IT to her. This would be like, this is her unit con contact. I mean, I just, I find that kind of, that kind of disturb me. IT disturbed Allan.

not only because IT caused him the mrs. Friend's funeral, but because it's pushing his mind to some unpleasant places the day before I met with Allen, he actually spoke with Taylor for a while and got the whole low down on the cousins redo. The cousin is listed halfway down on john's contact list. Allen finds a questionable that fy or someone else managed to reach her get. He and these other names are all the top of the sheet, and some of he was skipped over.

really interest you. The other people were they actually, like, all was IT just me was IT. The top people has contact list because I think they knew that these people new john based.

And I think the problem tried to keep us away from the situation. Really yeah I I mean, that's i'm talking to taller. Why still so played out in this? It's it's a little fish. Allen continues .

in this mode. Tip towing torn something.

I'm to trying to figure, you know, what would IT benefit a person not to try to contact person. I didn't know if they just want that people down on air til a situation was under control the way they warned IT to be. Maybe somebody trying to .

take .

control of something because they would know that johns close, close friends would know what i'm talking about.

I can tell Allen is being purposely vague here. I think maybe he's not sure what I know already or else maybe he knows I know so he knows he doesn't set out loud, but i'm not actually sure I do know what he's talking about, though maybe I do know. Anyway, he is now making weird eyes at me. Yeah, you're looking at me and like a coded way.

you know, I can tell you matter, but I IT on the air.

Do you think I should call the other people on the list?

I think that would be a good idea. I want to further investigate. And this was the simple fact. They could also not even know. I mean, could be doing john a favor because surely he would want people to know or that would be on the list.

And for the second time I find myself in barking on an investigation at the behest st. Of an alabamian horologist.

Hello.

hi. Is this bill mire?

yes.

Hi i'm bill, real friend of john.

Yeah um i'm .

going with some sad news that maybe you're aware of the heat passed away earlier this summer. John be Michael .

more yeah I didn't know that even when he responded and I called them, I think ah what we die from, he .

actually committed suicide, i'm sorry to say.

Forget like what happened to his mother.

the mere number seven on john's list. Clearly, he wasn't called. Bill was a friend and clock customer of john for decades.

He lives in utah in a house he describes as being more like a museum than a house. He died from utada. Obama sometimes to visit john.

John seems to have made a intermodal chAllenge out of living. And those sad, they hear .

that he finally did IT.

It's just. IT just makes me so incredibly sad. Hello, you have reached microbe and the a statement maker.

This is the answering machine of a horologist friend of johns in a small town of the pacific northwest, who asked that I not use his name because he's very private. He picked up as I was leaving a message. He says, fate did tell lm johna died, but only after the funeral.

John meant a hello, a lot to many eight minute leverage to me.

And then another brit from the list, duncan greek.

at the moment i've in front of, got a whole load of matters and photographs that john sent me. Over the years.

a respective clock restore from thun bridged england, who never met john in person, but over more than a decade spent many late night hours developing a friendship with him on the phone and via letters. I was the one who informed duncan of john deaf.

Yeah, as you can probably tell, i'm very sad about IT. I think he should have gone on to be marginally old gentlemen that survived the ravages .

of time .

the enigma, the john mack lamor e was.

And tom Moore, john chemistry professor in college, now a university chancellor, who went on to become a lifeline end.

One of the most I was our crime. I can help .

OK one .

of the most incredible people i've ever known.

like with others. Tom says the town clerk fy did call him about john suicide, but only after he'd been buried. After talking to the seven people at the top of john list, I learned that none of them were at john's funeral because none of them were contacted in time, and some not at all.

IT was interesting most of these men to know each other beyond maybe having interacted once or twice and horological circles over the years. The men talked to me for hours without betting an eye, even if I just called them cold and inform them that their friend had committed, which at first I thought was pretty remarkable. But then IT occurred to me that they were all friends of john b.

MaClaire, which means you're predisposed to having long, rambling conversations on the phone of these friends. The one who knew john the longest since he was a teenager was time Moore john, college professor john showed up in tom's general chemistry course as a freshman. Birmingham southern college .

in the early eighties. Walk into a class of eighty five to ninety five students and look around. And boy, what's that kid doing here? Birmingham southern .

is a small, private, liberal. Art college has been around in the eighteen hundreds, tom says. At the time when john was there, the student body was made up largely of children of professionals, doctors and lawyers. They were preppy. John was not pushy.

Read hair on kempt clothing. From a different social economic background, he was clearly different.

Tom says john didn't make any friends of burma, him southern, and he didn't live there every night. He drove back to his parents house, back to his childhood bedroom, back to bed county. And time could tell that as much as john didn't fit in a college, he didn't fit in back home either. Time got the sense that john had been picked on a lot over the years growing up.

He would do things as a college student to bring rather cool on himself. I want to say he would wear a red wig or a Green wig to class.

Sure enough, tom says the other kids would laugh at them. And that was the .

point I took IT to be out of this history that i'm going being made fun of. And I can't stand being made fun of just about being who I am. So i'll do some things that enable me to understand why people making fun of me.

And it's not just me being me. It's pretty tragic. I saw that in him, and that's part of when I reached out to him.

John bee, Michael morse, education is the source of some gossip in wood stock. I ve heard that he held multiple degrees in chemistry, in biology. I've heard that he quit school because he was smarter than the professors. I ve heard that he had to leave after blowing up the laboratory. The reality was less dramatic.

He was back to school.

John was a college drop out. He let burma him seller. After three years, according to tom, if john was studying a topic he was interested in, he would learn IT exhaustively.

Tom spent many afternoons watching john scribble on the blackboard in his office, obscure calculations and theories that we're beyond, even th's comprehensions. But he came to stuff that professors wanted him to focus on. Jom was almost alerted.

C to IT time thinks john got A D or maybe a sea in this chemistry class. But john spent hours in the lab on his own outside of class, figuring out technique he could use in his clock restorations. Tom is is getting in trouble and let jon access the lab when he wanted. Remember this? When john gold played a dying for me and his workshop one afternoon.

I might be taken on one day, but you'll have a souvenir from ship town, alabama.

I do still have the done, by the way, that electronic plating process. John worked IT out as a student at birmingham southern as a way to guilt clock pieces that doesn't require burning dangerous amounts of mercury. IT uses peason sign IDE instead.

Sometimes in college, when john came into tom's office in the afternoon for one of the blackboard sessions, thoms says john would seem depressed to the point where tom thought he might be trying to say goodbye for good. Tom says he recommended john to a school councillor, and john sar for a bit, even went on medication. But according to tom, john didn't like the way the medicine alta is personality, and he chose not to seek any more treatment. Tom figured out that if he asked john to tell him about a clocke y was working on or some other topic he was studying, he could get john excited and redirected his attitude so that by the end of the session he'd been lifted out of his despair. Though this could take hours, tom says he can vividly remember sitting in his office with john on a fall day, glencore at the sun, while IT set outside his window, watching the sky turned colors over campus as he thought about his wife waiting for him at home, but looking back at john and thinking.

i'm not sure, down, ready to go then .

listening to john go on as outside, the sky turned dark. I really enjoyed my conversations with the guys on john list. I learned a lot about john, but also about the people john keep his friends.

I learned about leaves and dividing engines and double Hillary gears and tolerances and cyberia al time, and also what an escapement is, the mechanism inside a clock or a watch that actually does the ticking. Many of these halo gist and clock collectors told me how they had become fascinated with clothes children, and how, even at age fifty seven or eighty, that fascination had to. One man told me the story of the clock that cemented his and john friendship, a clock.

The man retrieved himself from script near grilling germany, where IT had been hurried, disassembled by someone during war, war two, and hidden among st. The bones and remains. One friend told me about a clock that was so complicated no one else could restore IT, and he took john seven years.

And another about a job that was so difficult, the john started crying as he was hunched over in a shop and said, I can't do this anymore. One man remembers the time he started telling Joanna about a weird story he loved by ed garland. Pow called berry is but a man who becomes obsessed with his wife's teeth eventually digged them up from her grave.

And how is he was describing the story to john? John suddenly began resetting passengers from the story back to him for memory. One friend told me how his co workers will tell him not to talk to john so much because he was a weird.

And another told me, people think I am weird, like john b. As for the question of john assets, his friends have got ten different bits of information over the years. John told some of them he had been running down his savings after retiring from the clock trade a decade or so ago.

Some thought maybe he'd suffered some losses on his investments during the two thousand eight crash, but others got the impression that he did have a lot of money he'd mentioned, having pulled out of the bank, having converted some to gold, having hidden then he also talked clearly about putting together, or will. So IT was shocking to friends to learn that apparently there wasn't one that, coupled with the fact that they were all kept in the dark about his death for a while. A number of them did find that suspect.

but there's a lot of money he had. He.

I met with two of john friends in a restaurant one night, and they posited theories to each other. Maybe it's the cousins who are up to no good. One says.

got a piece .

of .

land, but the other says, maybe it's the good sense. Tyler and his brother jake.

Yeah name told me that I can come up with if good sons involved in, maybe they did you .

even that's probably true.

It's not like john friends think they are out. Anything from john will or want the goal for themselves. At least that's not what they say to me.

They just all share the feeling that someone might be taking advantage the situation, that someone is getting away with something they shouldn't. But who is the someone and what is the something IT seems like I should be able to figure that out. If you ask Taylor who's getting away with something they shouldn't, he says it's clear.

John cousins, rea and charlie, as the weeks go on, he keeps the updates coming about the steps they're taking to get him out of the picture. Ren charlie recently tried to get his girlfriend arrested for theft for picking up a package of the post office that was addressed to john. The nothing ever came of IT.

Also, john's lawyer, boozer downs, attempted to hold an informal mediation session between Taylor and john cousins. But I fell apart when Taylor tried to tell john's mother, mom, as he calls her, how much misses her and SHE looked at him coldly and said, don't towers. Convinced that the cousins read and charlie have brainwashed her against him, he says they've gone to new laws to secure all of .

john assets in course in china, attack the td during the think that they go on.

What that happened .

I thought told you about.

no, I have not heard anything about team removal. Apparently this information came to .

Taylor from boozer. John lawyer bosses said in rings and john city go or something .

they was trying to take out somehow I doubt that a vain coat from woodstock town, a turney boozer downs. But I let type paraphrase, the cousins were physically trying to do IT, or they're trying to get the mortician to do IT.

I don't know. He told me that the cousins was trying to take his city rings out at the more or something thank those go with. I said, know their brass, silver plated brass. I said I was. Then I was go .

trying to take a while. My g broken down.

Is this possibly true? I do not know, and one day Tyler text me and says, i'm reporting the buses and .

eighteen wheel trailer today.

He calls me while he's doing IT hangs this phone on his belt so I can hear he tells me he wanted to get this stuff, which he said as his before the cousins had a chance to sell IT like he says they did with his long mower and some other things. The buses and trailer don't run, so he's hired a crew of guys with big trucks to tell them out around the side of john's house and down his night of the intended, the driveway.

The buses are filled with number, and there's a clothed tub in a wood burning stove, stuff that Tyler says he was going to use to build a small house with a john's property. Now he wants to use IT to build a house on his grandmother's property for him and his daughters. The cousin s were home in florida while taller did this, but they must have gotten wind of IT because the next day he tells me a warrant has been issued for his arrest for trust passing. Eventually, a grand jury will charge him with multiple counts of felony theft.

It's not long before I realize, follow any finger that is being pointed in the aftermath, john suicide. And there will be another set of fingers on the other end, not only pointing right back, but in a bunch of other directions too. Everyone is pointing at everyone.

One afternoon of my best western along the highway, i'm walking to the elevator to go up to my room when who should pop out of the stairwell? But john's cousin reda, but the time IT registered in my brain that a turn, we've already moved past each other, and it's too late in awkward to turn back and say something. This is weeks after I met reda probe court and SHE declined to do an interview, a whole separate trip.

I had no idea should be in town. And now i'm afraid you might think i'm stalking her so I asked the front desk which room SHE in her husband or in four rooms down from mine and rider or no, which I slip under her door, explaining that I didn't know he would be here. But since we both are, would you be open the meeting with me? And by the way, sorry for creepy leaving a note a to the door the next afternoon, we'll sit around a table in the hotel common area.

It's reda and two other women who introduce themselves as cousins of johns as well as reas husband charlie. They don't allow me to record. They're livid with Tyler. They're saying he's the person is getting away with something, taking all sorts of stuff from john's house that they say is not his, the buses and trailer, but much more too, they call a conman.

They show me google map satellite images of johns yard with the buses and trailer in them, data from two thousand and ten, which means they were in his yard at least three years before the dates that are on Tyler spellings of sale, which are dated two thousand and thirteen. This is proof, they say that toiler's documents are bogus. And I have to say IT is suspicious, though toiler's not the only target of their suspicion.

There's fake gamble. The town clerk read to ask me if I spoke to her. I tell her, yes, that's interesting. He says kind of to herself. SHE says SHE didn't talk to you.

Reed charley say fy hasn't passed along any instructions to them from john theyve rgi as a list of people to contact. SHE hasn't given them that either. Then there's boozer downs.

John's lawyer, they tell me he was supposed to take a written statement from they what john told her that I ty killed himself, but has been more than a month now. And curiously, he doesn't done that. And then there's me. Charly clearly thinks this meeting is a terrible idea. He keeps getting up from the table and passing, speaking to me sharply, saying, I just want them to get in the quote, pissing match with Tyler.

At one point I ask, I thought, harmlessly, we are mary Grace is living now and read a things on IT for a moment, and then tells me i'd rather not say, I also ask about the text message Tyler showed me from john, which said the Taylor could have anything he wanted in the house. Read the thinks how a fabrick ated IT SHE tells me its strange that IT was sent from johns computer and not a cell phone. I teller, I don't think that's all that strange.

And one of the other woman cuts me off. Of course you don't. What do you mean by that? I ask. We know you're like friends with them, he says.

On and on, the accusations fly its head spinning. One day, Tyler suggests to me the boozer downs john attorney might be in ka huts with the cousins, and anybody have suppressed john's will so they could split the assets.

Meanwhile, boozer sends me an email asking if he can retract the interview he did with me because the cousin suspect him of being goods with Tyler IT got ugly in hearing he writes, I am concerned that I should not have spoken to you on the recording. Boozer says he did not hide Jones will because there was not a will to hide. I also get an email from one of john's friends who I met in the restaurant.

He certainly must be a reason he wasn't contacted about john's death. He includes the words, maybe I knew too much. Then I call back the first guy I met with, john fellow horologist Allen burden, and tell them i've done what he suggested, contacted the other friends on the top of john's list, and indeed, none of them was called in time for the funeral, and a few, not at all.

Now don't you find that very? And then .

alan clarifies this theory for me. He thinks all the weirdness surrounding john death, the fact that he and other people on john less weren't contacted is because someone has taken john's gold. He's not exactly sure who, but what he suspects is that there is a potentially large conspiracy taking place within the local woodstock town government .

and police to cover IT up. And you know, somebody came and get go, I mean, and puppy step were joined body and took her that before they even do job. Who did that I don't know, but I think if somebody do put inside the city hall, a whole thing is is, is very suspicious, really, really, really suspicious. Somebody has that you.

Finally, I make a second visit to the woodstock town clerk, fay gamble, who, after seeming not to have done a very thorough job contacting the people on john's list, has been the subject of much of the suspicion. And after some incredible responses to my questions, did you call everyone in a list everyone that could get in touch with? Yes, they insist he called everyone.

Problem did where they called before the funeral. Yeah, we come from town. How well? Yeah, face is most of the people SHE didn't reach at first, but he claims he left messages.

I tell you that according to everyone i've spoken to, that doesn't appear to be the case. What i'd personally thought that happened was that maybe he was so traumatized by john killing himself while on the phone with her. It's possible he just couldn't bring her self to make these calls, which would make complete sense to me.

And I think most people would understand. But I ask faith, that's what happened. And he says, no. SHE called everybody in the first few days after john died.

SHE also says he is since given the list to john cousins and contrary or or reader told me face said SHE never claimed to them that SHE hadn't spoken to me then I bring up the subject of the gold fy was the last person to talk to john and I know he'd given her instructions about his assets in the moments before he died. Did he tell her if there was gold? If so, did he say where IT was the first time I interviewed face, she'd cyp tic about all that.

But this time, I mean, can you tell me where you said I was? I understand you don't want to, but if you feel come in a towel in the freezer. So gold bars wrapped in a town in the freezer.

Did he say how much worth of gold just go bars where there are any other spots like outside or anything like that? After john's phone call, fae rushed over to his house along with the woodstock police, but he said he edited look in the freezer. SHE told the police officers that Johnson said there was gold there, but he doesn't know. They looked neither, and SHE doesn't believe the cops would have taken IT. What fate does happen to know, he says, is that when john cousin reda got into his house three days later and looked in the freezer, there was no gold there.

So what do you think was going on? Do you think there was going on someone to IT? Do you think there wasn't goal to just say have not found IT or that somebody had in there? But who I mean, like what how much time passed between you bing on the phone journey and arriving with the police? Well, I know that when reader came up that that he went into the house and they was things that SHE could not ban, things that were totally down from over there. What she's saying is that someone was in the house before reader got in there and could have raided the freezer because he knows for sure some other things that disappeared by then, things that were there when you were there. Like .

what?

Face starts moving her mouth without letting actual sound out. Eventually to reveal, when reader got into john's house, he could not find joan's mother's purse or a checkbook or john's laptop, which I know who has that born. I asked that who he thinks took that stuff.

He is purposely vague. I think maybe she's not sure what I know already or else may be he knows, I know so he knows SHE doesn't upset that loud. It's A A anyway. Now she's making weird es of me on your face and and knowing, like I I know probably who you think IT is so like, do you think like is the running theory that I was taller? Do you want to talk about that or no, okay, because things can talk that you know things you can talk.

I did eventually read john fifty three page manifesto. John e emailed IT saying IT was the most important thing he'd ever sent me. IT was his fifth revision, and he titled the critical issues for the future.

And if I had to steal its message, IT would be this, as we run out of affordable fossil fuels, as climate change renders the places that we live more difficult to inherit, IT do not expect a great coming together. Instead, john rights prepare for the U. S.

To crumble into a bunch of competing tony ous regions, a few of them may become cohesive society, says john, but expect many of them to descend into carnage, to quote, enter a new dark ages, a sort of new feudalism ruled by theocratic dictators. He goes on, quote, expect public mutilations, executions and torture to make a comeback in this region. Flagging, boiling, burning, hand cutting, hanging, evisceration, honor killings, game rape, due process will perish, he writes, and confederates will betrayed each other from mini school gains that gain maybe as mundane as a moral of food or a drink of water.

Goodbye to civil liberties and minority rights also, that was another byproduct of the cheap oil economy. Civil rights are not a consideration of the undernourished. I remember reading this in two thousand and fourteen and thinking, wow, john does not have a high opinion of modern humanity is ability to solve problems. I also remember thinking that's not really gna happen, at least at any time soon, which is the same thing I thought when john told me he was going to commit suicide.

The summer is here, at least the sky is so your cast, and no one brings a rose for anybody. SHE watches her flowers, girl love, go to give each other roses for a dream.

S town is produced by Julie snyder and me with editing from iver glass, saracenic and wheel drumming. We need danger field as our digital editor. Starting kind is a story consultant fact check king in research by ben.

FAiling that, lindis, our director of Operations, liver smith, mixes the show. Mattea ney is our technical director. The town staff includes Emily condon, alease bergson, Julie whittier er and Kimberly henderson. Music for the show is composed by Daniel heart trade polar, a lot of negro and map maginness music supervision by damian grave.

Our website is s town podcast dot word special links to David, raf I L, stephane, camera, ashly click and to all of john friends from over the years who were so generous and thought for talking me and who told me a lot about horology too. We're, of course, on facebook and we're on twitter and also follows on instagram at s stone podcast, where will we be putting some photos of some weird cool clock john worked on over the years? Test town is a production of cereal and this american life. And as three years go by, SHE will go on and die.

那 完了 for 过。