My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 404 - How Does Gambling Work?

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

On today’s episode, Georgia tells the story of boxer Sonny Liston and Karen covers disgraced plastic surgeon Anthony Pignataro.For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What a life these celebrities lead. Imagine walking the red carpet, the cameras in your face, the designer clothes, the worst dress list, big house, the world constantly peering in, the bursting bank account, the people trying to get the grubby mitts on it. What's he all about? I'm just saying, being really, really famous. It's not always easy. I'm Emily Lloyd-Saini and I'm Anneli Young-Rofi, and we're the hosts of Terribly Famous from Wondery, the podcast which tells the stories of our favourite celebrities from their perspective. Each season we show you what it's really like being famous by taking you inside the life of a British icon. We walk you through their glittering highs and eyebrow raising lows and ask is fame and fortune really worth it. Follow terribly famous now wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and

ad-free on Wondry Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app. 🎵 Hello! And welcome to my favorite murder. That is Georgia Hardstark. That is Karen Kilga. We got a really good explanation from someone on Twitter about why people confuse our names. Our names, our voices. Oh, like who, who's who? People believe that they misidentify the voice to the name.

I'd love to hear it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not your cheekbones. There's nothing to do with anyone's appearance. This is from Sydney Medlin on Twitter, she says, remixing up your voices. I've listened from the beginning and I mixed you up for the first 300 episodes. And I couldn't figure out why, finally realized,

it's because you introduce each other. So Karen's voice says Georgia's name and vice versa. It makes perfect sense. Now that Sydney says it, should we start introducing ourselves? That's a little like hoidy-toidy. I think we should change the entire format of the show. I think it's time.

That makes total sense. I hear that. Yeah, there's some logic. Also, you want to hear this? Yeah, always. This is from Rich, a Sundog 925 on Twitter. He says Karen, a ski tip my aunt gave me one time was if you get caught in an avalanche

and get covered and disoriented, dig out your mouth and spit. Your spit will fall down due to gravity and will help orient you. Brilliant. Brilliant, right? Figure out what up is and then dig that way. I feel like that's a good like life lesson,

which way does the spit go? You know what I mean? It always comes back to you. So true, the so deep. Don't spit in the wind. Yep. When it comes down to it, it just depends on where the spit's going.

That's right. It always will tell you where the spit lands. You're the one that has to generate your own spit. That's right. So make sure you're hydrated. Another great lesson. And if you're not, grab some snow. It's all around you.

Wow, I really came out right out of the gate with like corrections, corners, and commentary. No, it was good, because I had nothing. Not one thing? I don't know. What do you want? I'd like one long story and two short ones. Okay. Oh, fuck. We watched this documentary. Maybe one of the like hardest documentaries to watch I've ever seen. It's called Exposed

the Ghost Trainfire. Uh-oh. Did you know about the Ghost Trainfire? Because somehow when we went to fucking Australia and like, you know, we always look for local stories to do creepy things. It's the worst one I've ever heard. Oh no. This ghost chain fire in 1979 at the like Sydney amusement park, like old time amusement park. There was a fire that killed six people

and I had fast forward through that part. And like this really interesting flamboyant artist was like, I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. And so he died, and so one of the survivors of the fire, whose friends all died that night, he's making the documentary get to the bottom, and it goes all the way to the fucking top. No.

Of the Sydney like government mafia. What? It's bananas. That sounds incredible. It's on Netflix, expose the ghost trainfire. It was like Vince and I were on the edge of our seats. Like didn't make plans because we wanted to stay home and wanted to stay home.

Canceled all plans through the weekend. Well, do we have any? I'm talking about going out to dinner. Like we stayed home for dinner. Yeah, you decided to stay where you were and just eat from there. Yeah, we gave that a, our HelloFresh subscription will work out that way.

Okay, I'm just actually writing that down because every time I go to turn on TV, I just feel lost essentially. So those ones are like, it's really nice when you sit down and actually you're like, oh, I'm glad I watch that. Not like you're just scanning things all the time. Well, I don't know if you're going to be glad you watched it after you watched. I'm going to be left different than I was before having watched it.

Yeah, the word I think is devastated. But yeah, yeah, what about you, anything positive to watch after everyone's watched that? Yeah, here's something super positive. Wait, I'm just going to get the boys' doubts documentary. Oh my God. Is it the analytical Smith documentary? Like which one? Oh, I'm sorry. Someone said it was great.

I bet. I mean, what a life. This is what I have. And it is positive. Because as we all know, I'm addicted to TikTok. And there's so many wonderful things happening on TikTok right now, but there is an account. The name of the account is two-vok-twelve. And it's a huge account.

I believe it's the guy. I'm assuming his name is two-vok. But what these, it's a group of dudes who roll around a basketball hoop. And they're in like, oftentimes on like New York City streets. It's like six to eight guys rolling up this basketball hoop, going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and like cheering. And then they pass the basketball to a crowd member. And people take a shot.

And then they basically do this super cut of all the people taking their shots and getting like a rating. And the last person, when they hit it, these guys go, because everyone's like, oh, and there's a big reaction to every shot. And then when the last person hit it, these guys go, because everyone's like, oh, and there's these big reactions to every shot. And then when the last person hits it, everyone goes insane and like,

basically picks them up in the air and like cheers. Yeah, it's like this guy on his way to work or this girl on her way to the fucking, you know. Exactly. They do it, they fucking make it and the suddenly their day is made because this random thing, that's performance art. I love that.

The greatest. And it's like you would, performance art. I love that. The greatest. And it's like, you would, you want to have it happen to you and you also want to be there when it happens to somebody else. Like, it's, oh my god, this looks like the most fun, crazy thing. It's like, dude, it's bringing the most fun part of sports right to you on the sidewalk. It's great. Are they the same ones?

Because I've seen a similar thing where they run up to the crowd, roll out a red carpet and see if someone fucking walks it. I believe it's different because I've seen those guys too. And that is my favorite. When suddenly someone like, does a little turn, is like, yeah, walk your red carpet. Like, yeah, this is like, I've been waiting my entire life to show off the model walk I learned at fucking, what was the old modely? Barbazon. Barbazon schoolizon school model to be a model or just look like one like here it is yes I'm talking about myself yes I went to John Robert Powers to learn to be a model or just look like what what do you feel like after your education at John Robert Powers it was

the biggest piece of wisdom that you took home watch your face at night Like wash your makeup off at night. No, really, you're right. Cause we had this like premium, proper lady who was like the teacher, you know, and she was very into like, fashion and makeup. And she like gave us all a makeup lesson. And there was one girl who like, never wash her makeup off ever, she never washed her face. And she gave us a lecture. So hard, you know, we were like 12 or 13 of like wash your face at night or you will be sorry for the rest of your life. Yeah. And she was right.

You know, I have to say, or I will confess that I was absolutely the kind of young 90s riot girl, rebel alcoholic. I rarely wash my face at all. Very much like who cares, whatever. But recently, because I am obsessed with TikTok, I have been exposed to Korean glass skin like systems. Is that the double wash? What is the glass skin? Also, were you also wearing pancake makeup

at the time of the 90s? So it was not, you just wore it washing off. You're fucking basic powder. We wore, what was the studio fix? Max studio fix. Max studio fix. Max studio fix or the other guy. And we wore just pant like, pancake, pancake. It was like powder and wax mixed together.

It was like, what? You should absolutely wash it off the second you walked in your door. Like, it was not great for your skin. Okay, what's glass skin? Yeah. So it's like, yeah, you're supposed to wash, you have an oil cleanser, you have a water cleanser, so you double wash your face,

and then you start putting on a series of toners. Uh-huh. And they each have a different value and a different thing. You do some, you layer up some toners. I've seen people say you should do seven layers of toner, which seems, it seems made up, but I absolutely have tried a ton of toners. Then you go to your essence, then you go to your ampule, then you go to your serum, no

joke. It's like you're sitting there. I actually bought, I'm not kidding, I bought myself a hand fan because you have to just sit there and wait for the layer to dry. So, I'm like, this truly is self-care. As I hand fan myself. It's great to say. It's great to say.

You have a glow happening right now. Thank you. You have a glow. Do you have any makeup on or just the zoom filter? I do, because my skin was insanely red today. Earlier when we were on that FaceTime with Danielle, I had a layer of oil on my skin. She goes, can we just FaceTime?

And I'm like, well, I'd prefer not to. Because I, like, ate two inch layer of just straight up oil on my face. So I got rid of that. And, but it's very fun. I think people that are interested in beauty stuff know that like Korean skin hair has been the premium. Yes.

Everyone knows that for a long time. Yes, the best. Now there's this accessibility of Korean people teaching you how to do it and what the value is. And you see it like within days or weeks, there's kids that have really bad acne and their skin not only clears up,

but they get rid of the acne scarring and they get glass skin. I need that. I think it's really compelling. And also you stick it on the back of your hands. Then the back of your hands look really good. And you're like, well, this is working. Everything you do to your face, you should on the back of your hands. Then the back of your hands look really good. You're like, this is working. Everything you do to your face, you should do the back of your hands.

And neck. Don't forget. And neck. Okay. Oh, I have actually, sorry, I have another corrections corner. Okay. And this is for episode 402 when I covered the Claudette Colvin story. On Facebook, the Rosa Parks Museum

at Troy University left a comment for us. Wow. Correcting a few things in the research. All right. And I was like, oh no, God. What did I do? Okay, here's what they said. We're longtime fans of the show,

and we're so excited to hear Karen sharing the story of Claudette Colvin. She was certainly a trailblazer in the Civil Rights Movement, and we are committed to sharing her story along with that of Mrs. Parks and the countless other men and women who made the Montgomery bus boycott successful. We'd like to clarify just a couple of things, though, and then there's a smiley face. So gentle. So so gentle. Number one, the bus boycott did not immediately end with the Supreme Court's ruling. It lasted another month later.

And Montgomery's black citizens finally returned to the buses on December 21, 1956. 382 days after the boycott started. That's a long time. And number two, while Rosa Parks was fully aware of the attempts and plans for implementing a boycott, she was not planted on the bus to start a protest. She stated, quote, I did not intend to get arrested. If I had been paying attention, I wouldn't even have gotten on that bus.

End quote. And then it says in brackets, because she had run in with that same bus driver 12 years before. And then in parentheses, it says, Rosa Parks, my story by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins. So they're basically attributing that piece of information to that book.

And then it goes on to say, her arrest and the ensuing boycott was kind of a perfect storm of events coming together. Also Mrs. Parks was arrested and spent a few hours in the county jail, was eventually allowed to make a phone call and was finally released when Edie Nixon posted her bail. We'd also like to give a shout out

to the other ladies of Browder versus Gail, who were also arrested before Rosa Parks, including Aurelia Browder, age 39 at her arrest, Mary Louise Smith, age 18 at her arrest, and Susie McDonald, age 77. Hey girl, I love you. What a range, that's amazing. And then it just says a great job.

That is so nice of them. Thank then it just says, great job. That is so nice of them. Thank you so much for that lovely update. And that's a real honor to get that information from them. Thank you guys. Definitely. Incredible. That's incredible.

Thank you so much. We'd love to hear that stuff. And we love to learn. Never stop learning. We have no choice on this podcast. We have to learn. Wash your face. Put on sunscreen. Never stop learning. Seven layers of toner.

Never stop learning. That's right. Well, should we do exactly right corner? Yep. All right. We have a podcast network called exactly right media. It's our five year anniversary. Yeah. Five years ago, this week, we launched that podcast network, which is now home to more than 15 shows with all our favorite podcasters. And we also have a staff of 35 producers and other professionals who work on all aspects of the network. So we are so proud of that. We are business ladies now. It's wild. Five years. That's crazy. Yeah. This network has been through high school and is now in her

first year of junior college. Oh, I'm so proud of her. Yeah. Okay. So what's happening this week on exactly right? Well, over at I saw what you did with Millie DeCherico and Danielle Henderson, they have a new episode every Tuesday with a different double feature. And this week they're getting freaky with the movie seven from 1995 and no country for old men from 2000 and said, wow, those are strong Contenders and on do you need to ride a podcast that actually precedes the exactly right network? Can you believe it so old Chris Fairbanks and our friend Karen Kelgera are joined by comedian Brandy Posey A best friend of the network and the co-host of the podcast, Lady to Lady, on exactly right.

This episode is so much fun, it's gonna be a two-parter because of that. You can't fit all the fun into one episode, it has to be two. I feel like Brandy Posey when she's on DUNE Ride, it's actually the ideal of the version of that show because it really is just three people in a car hanging out together. There's nothing put on about it, it just is like blabbing as you drive around town. Yeah, trying to make each other laugh. Yeah, very authentic. Oh, and speaking of Lady to Lady, comedian Leah Rudnick is Bab Tess and Brandy's guest this week on Lady to Lady. She does hilarious impressions on TikTok. And this week, she's also on bananas with Curt and Scotty. And on Parent Footprint with my lovely cousin, Dr. Dan,

he chats with Kelly Corrigan, host of Tell Me More on PBS, and the Kelly Corrigan Wonders podcast, big time, big name. It's gonna be a great episode, so make sure you check out Parent Footprint. Also, we are fast approaching the deadline to order merch in time for holiday delivery, so head over to myfavoretburner.com and click shop and you can get all of your holiday presents and get them on time. I also

personally recommend adding the new cream SSD GM sweatshirt and dad style hat to your cart. Yeah dad hats are all the rage. Get a sweatshirt and a hat and now you're in disguise. I'm here to see my favorite murder. Thank you. For all your stocking needs. Stocking. Or stocking. Or stocking.

Right? Yeah. To go either way. It's a double-on-tundra. No, it's not. It is, actually. Ghosts aren't real. At least as a journalist, that's what I've always believed.

Sure. All the things happened in my childhood bedroom. But ultimately, I shrugged them off. That is until a couple of years ago, when I discovered that every subsequent occupant of that house is convinced they've experienced something inexplicable, including being visited by the ghost

of a faceless woman, and it gets even stranger. It just so happens that my wife's great grandmother was murdered in the house next door, by two gunshots to the face. Is the ghost somehow connected to her murder? I decided to go where no son-in-law should ever go, digging up a cold case and asking questions no one wants answered. And the guy who did the killing? It might have been my wife's great-grandfather.

This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence, and the things that come back to haunted us. Follow Go story on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes and free right now by joining Wondry Plus. The holidays are always kind of a disaster for Noah, and it's not because his family celebrates a weird hodgepodge of Christmas and Hanukkah, it's that visiting them is half the problem. His mom's always too busy, his sister only cares about work, and Noah never really got along with his older brother and sister-in-law. So where does that leave him during the most magical time of year? Looking for love in all the wrong places. Christmas is Annika, Meet Kutes podcast available on Wondery Plus,

starring Amy Sidideris and Noah Galvin tells the story of how Noah, in his quest to fight loneliness during the holidays, meets super sexy Eric, his dream man. If only it were that simple, Eric's in an open relationship, and Noah's not sure how he feels about polyamory. But Eric's really great, so much so that it forces Noah to reexamine some strongly held beliefs about what it means to love and to be loved. Because if he doesn't, this Christmas Susanneka is just in to be

the most solitary yet. Then Christmas Susanneka on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Christmas Susanneka exclusively on Wondery Plus. I'm first, I'm just gonna tell you what the story is and then get into it and we can talk more about it. I avoid so much sports stuff that I didn't know about this. So I don't know if you do either, you might. Okay. Vince knew all about it.

Now I know all about it and everyone should know about it. This is the story of the famed boxer, Sunny Liston. Oh, I know a little bit about it, but not that much. You know that famous photo of Muhammad Ali standing over his opponent on the ground? That's Sunny Liston on the ground. Yeah. Okay.

So we're starting in early January 1971. Geraldine Liston returns to her Las Vegas home that she shares with her husband, a famous boxer, and former heavyweight champion named Sunny Liston. She's been away for a few days, visiting family, but she could tell when she walks in her husband, a famous boxer, and former heavyweight champion named Sunny Liston. She's been away for a few days, visiting family, but she could tell when she walks in the door, that something is wrong by the smell. And very soon she discovers her husband's body

in their bedroom. He's been dead for about a week. The medical examiner will say that Sunny died of natural causes, but many people will be skeptical about this, and there are dozens of theories about what may have happened to him. In a documentary made at the end of the Clinton administration about him, legendary sports reporter Jerry Eisenberg says, quote, there are more theories about what killed Sonny Liston, who killed Sonny Liston, why he was killed, whether it was a natural death, whether he was a drug addict, whether he just died. There are more theories about that than there are about how many female visitors there were to the Ola Office in the recent White House.

And quote, so. Wow. So this story is a bit about those theories and Sonny's death, but it's also about the way he was treated in life. Sonny was a black man who grew up under the most desperate of circumstances, and then he was never really given a chance at any point after that. He named mistakes, but he was also mistreated by his father, mistreated by his managers, and mistreated by the press. And the main sources for this story are documentary called Pariah, The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston, which I just watched over the weekend, it was great. And a book called Sonny Liston, The Champ Nobody Wanted by AS Doc Young,

and the rest of the sources can be found on our show notes. So Charles Liston, who goes by Sunny, is born sometime around 1930 in Arkansas. He grows up never knowing his exact birthday, and this is just emblematic of his difficult childhood. Like he was the second youngest of, are you ready for this? 25 children.

No. Which are two marriages, but it was still 25 children. Well, yeah, 25 children is like, that just goes to show. It was bottom of the barrel in terms of attention, care, direct, and help. I mean, like, yeah. Like by the time he came along, it was just like another mouth to feed. I mean, like, yeah. Like, by the time he came along, it was just like another mouth to feed.

I was the second of two. And it was like, you? Right. Exactly. 12 of the children are his full siblings and 12 of the half siblings are from his father's previous marriage. But by the time he comes around,

I mean, it's shit's already hard and then it's another mouth to feed. So he doesn't even know his birthday, which I think says a lot. The family lives also in Jim Crow, era Arkansas and Sonny's father is a sharecropper, meaning he farms on a land owned by someone else and then gives a person who owns it

a percentage of what he grows. But Sonny's father is actually subletting the land from another sharecropper. So he gets even less of what he would already have made. They are extremely poor. Sonny has essentially no formal education, but the time he's eight years old, he's working full time in the fields.

Eight years old. Some reporters tell a story saying that when the family mule dies, Sonny, it becomes his job to pull the plow. His father is abusive and whips him and he won't learn to read or write until much later when he's an adult. So it is a hard childhood, a hard life right from the start. About his childhood, Sonny says, quote, I never had the opportunity to attend school more than two months in succession. I had to help out around the little plot of ground we grew cotton on. End quote.." So Sunny is beaten pretty much every day.

In 1942, when Sunny is about 12, his mother leaves the family and moves to St. Louis to find work in the shoe factory. And so shortly after she leaves, Sunny makes his way to St. Louis hitchhiking to live with her. She's like, gets out of there. Sunny's mother enrolls him in school, but Sunny doesn't take to it.

And after 12 years of a complete lack of formal education, it's too much for him. He's also physically large already as a young child. He looks like a man. So the other kids make fun of him, especially because he has several grades behind them. So he's even bigger than the little kids there. So it's hard for him.

He leaves school. And fairly quickly in St. Louis, he falls in with a bad crowd in his poor neighborhood. He starts committing thefts, which is kind of the only way a lot of them can make money. When he's around 18 years old, he's given a five year prison sentence for robbing a gas station.

He serves as a sentence at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. This prison has been referred to as, quote, the bloodiest 47 acres in America. Oh, God. Due to the rampant unchecked fighting and assaults, and it's so bad that some of the prison guards just like Wonu Minko in certain sections out of the area

because horrible. They're afraid for their lives, so you can imagine what it's like to be a prisoner. In this brutal atmosphere, it becomes clear that sunny is not someone you want to get in a fight with. Besides being a big guy, he's very strong, and a prison chaplain notices this, and wanting to help Sunny, he enrolls him in the prison's boxing program. And soon it's plain to say that Sunny has potential to box professionally, which is like a way out of his poverty, you know,

it can be a huge opportunity for him. He'll start his fight slowly, but he can take a punch. In fact, he can take many, many punches. And once he lands a punch on his opponent, it's lights out. And his jab, I mean, he has like the largest reach in his punch of anyone ever. Imagine that, like he doesn't even get close to you to fucking knock you out. Right. That's documented. It's great because you see so many of us fights and you're like, oh wow.

So a local professional is brought in to the prison to test sunny's abilities. Sunny wins in two rounds and the professional boxer calls it quits and says, I don't want no more of him." End quote, like the professionals over this shit. Yeah. I'm gonna get my ass beat. The professional's manager, a man named Jerry Mitchell, offers to manage Sunny and somehow Mitchell

and the prison priest, Paul Strings, and get him paroled in 1953 when he's about 23 years old. So in the same year he's paroled, he wins five amateur titles. He has to start in the amateurs, even though he's like so good because he needs like build up a name for himself Yeah, Sonny's first professional fight is in September of that same year It's supposed to last four rounds, but it only lasts seconds He knocks out his opponent with his first punch in the first round

Like this guy is good Sorry, but that must have been really satisfying to see because it would be like, did it, did it, ding, it's over, walk away. Yeah. Do you want to know a little bit about boxing in general? Because I didn't know anything about it. Absolutely.

I only know a little bit about it because of my father and because of my friend, Kevin Susha, who's obsessed with boxing. Oh. Listening to other people talk about it, who really love it, and kind of defend it, or say, there's more to it than you understand kind of thing. I feel like I have a little bit of appreciation.

It sounds like professional wrestling in my house. Yeah, same thing, you know? Like I could talk about it now. So boxing, and thank you to Ali, my researcher, she was like, I don't know if you want to read this, but maybe you need some information about boxing. I don't know if you know anything, I'm like, thank you, Ali, my researcher. She was like, I don't know if you want to read this, but maybe you need some information about boxing. I don't know if you know anything. I'm like, thank you.

I know nothing. Turns out boxing is our nation's oldest spectator sport that continues to operate. Nice. And the way it's organized is antiquated and confusing. There's no one organization that governs all of professional boxing the way we have, like the NFL, for football, and the MLB for baseball.

Like, that's not a thing. Instead, there are several sanctioning bodies and these organizations supervise individual fights and titles, but don't really regulate the athletes or managers and the boxers can bounce between fights organized by any of these organizations. So it's kind of like a free for all. It seems like it's by territory.

The amateur boxing circuit doesn't have a clear pathway to the professional circuit and amateur boxing and professional boxing Actually have different rules you pretty much box as an amateur and tell a professional agrees to fight you So it's not like they pair people up But it's like like that boxers managers negotiate and set up fights between their athletes And this is one reason why the sport is notorious for being corrupt but it's like that. Boxers, managers, negotiate, and set up fights between their athletes. And this is one reason why the sport is notorious for being corrupt. So professional boxers fight for a pre-arranged amount of money, split between the winner and the loser based on however the manager is negotiating the prize. So it's just kind

of all over the place. And this is another reason why the sport is notorious for being corrupt, is because the money is up to the managers. But title fights are kind of arbitrary. Anyone can challenge the current title holder. So if you're like the heavyweight champion and I show up and I'm like, well, I want to fight you and become the heavyweight champion, I mean, you shouldn't fight me. He has to fight you.

No, he can agree to fight me. It just takes like basically an invitation. Yes. It's not like the challenger has to be every other professional boxer in his weight class to then challenge the title holder. So this is so anyone could come up and do it. But generally a challenger does emerge

after winning other fights. And because different sanctioning bodies have their own titles, there are actually multiple heavyweight champion titles. And the way a boxer is seen as the real champion is if he has multiple titles or the more prestigious titles. Basically, the thing to keep in mind is that the organizations who give out the titles don't oversee the athletes and who fights whom is up to the managers and to some extent the boxers to boom, boxing in a nutshell on a true crime podcast. What more do you need?

It's all happening here. Never stop learning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Add that to your cocktail, repertoire. Yeah. As part of Sunny's parole, he also has a job at a St. Louis

construction company, which in the 50s, a construction company in a big city. What does that mean? The mafia. There you go. Ooh! The construction company is managed by a man named Johnny Vitale. I mean, has there ever been a more mafia name than that? I think there was a Johnny Vitale in my third grade class.

Not so much a classic name. Was he a maid kid? He was made. He drove to school backwards. It's clear pretty quickly that well, Jerry Mitchell is Sunny's manager on paper. Several mobsters are actually in control of his contract. This is fairly common at the time. This also means that when Sunny is not fighting, he is kind of an enforcer on mob business. He's a big intimidating guy. He kind of is sent to beat people up when they owe money. He's that guy for the people he works for.

So he gets out and he's like, you know, doing this cool, respectable job, boxing, but he's also having to do this stuff in the back. You know, it's like, it's a trade off. Right. Sonny continues to have frequent run-ins with law enforcement in St. Louis. One night in 1956, there's like an argument

with a police officer over a parking ticket or a legally parked cab waiting to fit something happens. And there are many accounts of what happens, but basically the officer goes to pull out his gun. Sunny is able to get a hold of his gun and beats the cop up and runs off. Yeah, you're not allowed to do that. No.

No. So, he gets arrested and before his trial, police target him relentlessly. Like, the cops know him and dislike him in St. Louis. He's harassed every day. He's arrested as many as 50 times. They just won't leave him alone. And once he's tried, he he sentenced to only nine months in prison for grabbing the gun and being up the cop, which is like, it's 1956 St. Louis, so it's not a long time.

Some people think that the short sentence is because of Sonny's mob connections. And once he's released, St. Louis police make it clear to Sonny and his handlers that he is no longer welcome in the city, like he better get out or something bad's gonna happen to him Wow, so Sonny's contract is sold to another mob connected manager boxing manager in Philadelphia So Sonny moves to Philadelphia. He marries Geraldine in 1957 and in the documentary and the photos of them videos. It's clear they have a very loving relationship. She supports him, she loves him, and she's the one who finally teaches Sunny how to read and write.

A friend of Sunny's name Willie Reddish Jr says quote, she was his blanket, I'll say, she covered him and protected him and kept him warm. So he finally like finds love. It's so lovely. Yeah, it's very sweet. So between 1956 and 1962, Sonny's management changes hands multiple times. So I'll under the table, I'll connect you to the mafia, and basically it's impossible

to act really tracked. By this point, Sonny has beaten nearly every other major professional heavyweight boxer. Like he's just knocking them down. There's nobody in his way. In boxing matches, the managers and the press create a narrative around the matchup. This is like what they always do. Same thing with today, same thing with professional wrestling.

There's a good guy, there's a bad guy. In Sonny's case, he's always cast as the bad guy. He's reported on relentlessly and always in a negative light. He has this great scowl that's so intimidating to his rivals, but they take that as him being a bad guy. And they also know that, you know, he's quote the black guy who beat up a white cop. So in 1950s, that's like the scariest thing that the white kind of culture can imagine is like, oh no, a violent like, right, big black guy that can knock people out in one punch. Totally. So he is the bad guy.

He's called, you know, things like savage and other racist names. When he comes into the ring, he's always booed because of this civilian character he's been cast as. And New York State won't sanction any fights he's in. They're like, ban him. So this does get to sunny. He's not perfect. He's been involved in violent crimes, but boxing should have been his opportunity to move to a better life,

to get some respect. But because he was contracted to criminals from the beginning, it never really becomes that opportunity for him. Yeah. Sunni wants to be seen as a person, as a force, and his Philadelphia neighbors say that in person he's polite and warm, he likes kids, and he wants the opportunities to volunteer and mentor them like other athletes do, but no one would ever let him do that because of his reputation. His niece says, quote, Uncle Charles, that's what he was called by this family, was really a soft and gentle person seriously. I think at some point they called him the bear, but he was never like that with me." End quote.

So in 1962, Boxing's heavyweight champion is a man named Floyd Patterson. Again, there's no organized system in boxing that would necessitate sunny fighting Floyd, but in 1962, sunny has beaten pretty much every other high profile heavyweight. And there's no one else to fight essentially. So there should be a title fight between him and Floyd. So Floyd is also black, but unlike

Sunny, he is a black celebrity with whom white people can find palatable. You know, he's smiling all the time. He's cute. And he's like digestible for this racist white world. Yeah. He also had a troubled childhood in New York, but he was sent to a reform school as a teenager where he got his start in boxing and was given chances that didn't involve having to be a mob enforcer. So he's a poster child of the Civil Rights Movement

whose strategy revolves around nonviolence and a clean cut professional image. you know, you have to somehow ingratiate yourself. And that's what he was able to do. So there's a lot of pressure on Floyd, not to fight Sany, because of his reputation. Sany wasn't part of the civil rights movement at all.

In fact, he had said derogatory things about it. So there was like this really bad reputation for Sany. And John F. Kennedy himself tells Floyd not to fight Sonny, like it'll tarnish your reputation kind of thing or like don't give him the opportunity. Right. He's invited to the White House. He is kind of this more like press-friendly boxer. Yep. So this is also very convenient because Floyd's manager, whose name is Cuzz Demato, is sure that Floyd can't win against Sonny. So they're saying it's because Floyd's manager, whose name is Kaz Demado, is sure that Floyd can't win against Sonny.

So they're saying it's because of these things, but really it's like everyone's kind of scared of Sonny winning. Eventually though, Floyd either has to legitimately protect his title or he has to lose it. So he has to agree to fight Sonny, saying quote, I think he has every right to fight for the championship despite his unfortunate background.

So he's like the nice guy. It sucks so bad, just like that idea of like, well, you're gonna be the villain to fight for the championship despite his unfortunate background. So he's like the nice guy. It sucks so bad. Just like that idea of like, well, you're going to be the villain because you grew up rough. Like you've all decided you're just a bad person. Right. It's like you had no choice but to join up with the mob

or go back to the streets. So. Right. So the fight happens in September of 1962 in Chicago, which by the way, my grandpa was a boxer in Chicago. Oh, wait, really? The day I wonder if he was that, I should ask my dad about it. Yeah, I'm sure he was not on this level.

He was like a lightweight, but he might have been in the crowd. He might have been in the crowd. He could have been friends with everybody. Sure. Best friends, even. It's a huge deal this fight because it's boxing's golden boy against its fucking villain. And as usual, Sunny walks into the ring

to loud booze from the audience. The fight lasts two minutes and six seconds. Sunny knocks Floyd out in the first round and the audience is eerily silent when it happens. There's no applause, there's no cheering on, like legit champion, you know, like what a bummer. I really fought my way to the top. I finally got this opportunity and I'm not getting any accolades for it, even though I'm like the villain. It's still, I still won. And when Sunny arrives back home in Philadelphia, he expects a crowd of

people to be waiting for him at the airport. He's the champion. He's bringing home that heavyweight championship. This would be normal for the return of a new heavyweight champion. There would be a parade, all this press. Instead, there's a smattering of reporters and no other fanfare. Sonny's friends and family say this totally deflates him. It's heartbreaking. I hate it. He wanted this reputation as like the champion.

He's worked hard. It's one thing to be like, oh, you're the villain. But it's like, this reputation as like the champion. He's worked hard. It's one thing to be like, oh, you're the villain, but it's like, if you win, you win. I mean, like, that's so awful. And just to think of that person being like, oh, oh, no, no parade, no nothing. And they do some really good reenactments in this documentary. And there's a scene of that.

It's just like heartbreaking. Sunny's friends and families say this totally deflates him and in the weeks and months after the fight, Philadelphia police continue to arrest Sunny and on one occasion arrest him while he's signing autographs outside a drugstore. The press continues to report on him using words like savage and jailbird. So about a year later, Sunny and Floyd have a rematch. This last four seconds longer than the first fight. Sunny wins again, but one major event happens after the fight. When the ring is full of press and officials

after he's like, you know, getting his fist pumped, whatever that's called, we're the champion fist pump. A 21 year old heavyweight, I know a lot of that boxing. A 21-year-old heavyweight contender named Cassius Clay jumps in the ring, just like jumps in, calling the fight quote, a disgrace, and challenges Sonny to his face.

Oh shit, that's really how it, yes, that's how they did it. I don't think this was normal. I think some people were like, this is rude, this kid, and a lot of people didn't know, did have like run his mouth and talk a lot of shit. And of course, we're talking not about Cache's clay. He will later become known as Muhammad Ali.

Right. So at the time, he's not Muhammad Ali just yet, but by the time they fight, he is. So I'm gonna start calling him Muhammad Ali here. This is like a lot of shit I didn't know about either about the nation of Islam. So if there's one boxer that white people hate, more than sunny-listened, it's actually Muhammad Ali, this monkey-tongued one-year-old kid. Well Floyd Patterson was sanctioned by the Civil Rights Movement. Muhammad Ali is a member of the nation of Islam and a close friend of Malcolm X. And he wants this fact.

Because black people have been violently oppressed in America for centuries, Malcolm X and his followers reject the idea that black liberation must be achieved without any violence. And this, of course, terrifies white people. Yeah. Besides his ties to the nation of Islam and Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali is famously boastful. And this is unacceptable to white people who expect black athletes to act non-threatening and deferential.

Like they need them served in the way that's palatable to them. And Sunny and Muhammad Ali refuse to do that. And thank God they did. Because the idea that anybody would listen to that bullshit and then we wouldn't have float like a butterfly sting, like a bee, like all the trauma and all the personality and authenticity

that Muhammad Ali brought to boxing and made it like this sexy, exciting, what the hell is gonna happen, kind of thing. Like thank God, it was like, who cares what you think? I'm doing it my way. Like, you can have equal rights, but you have to still be subservient, that's not equal rights. No.

Well, and also, it's the white framework. It's saying, we make this demand, and then you have to answer to it. It's like, no, you don't. You don't have to listen to any of that shit. Totally. And the boasting is actually part of Ali's technique. He talks up his own abilities. He plays mind games with his opponents.

And the same way Sonny did that scowl. Ali was super boastful. And the lead up to his fight with Sonny, Ali actually shows up outside of Sonny's house at night in the middle of the night blows an air horn and trash shocks his house, which is like, oh, she's, I don't think that's a very sportsman like, but I am not a sports person.

Yeah. He's getting creative. Yeah. So the fight takes place on February 25th, 1964, in Miami. For the first time in his career, Sunny is cast as the good guy. People cheer for him. Instead of Ali, he is also heavily favored to win the match.

Sonny is bigger than Muhammad Ali and has made quick work at every other heavyweight. There's this new kid, he's gonna sonny, he's gonna win, like he always does is the idea. What nobody accounts for is Ali's speed. Sonny simply can't catch him to land a punch. You've seen him fight, he's like all over the place. Yeah.

Ali on the other hand is able to land punches. Still, there's no him fight. He's like all over the place. Yeah. Ali, on the other hand, is able to land punches. Still, there's no knockout. The two fight for six rounds until Sunny refuses to keep fighting in the seventh round. They go to sit down in their corners and Sunny just refuses to get up, which many people find baffling and suspicious because he, of course, has been exhausted. He's taken punches. he's been hurt, but everyone is surprised at Sonny, just won't go back out for another round

and get knocked out, which is the way I think that these things are supposed to end. That is the sportsman way to do it or something, like a chess, I don't know. It's like maybe he was exhausted, but usually if no one gets knocked out, then you just have to wait for the score and the judgment at the end. So you have to do all nine rounds, right?

10 rounds, nine rounds. Probably. I'm saying whatever number, but you have to go to the end. Exactly. You have to go to the bell rings. Exactly. There's a way it's supposed to end, right? And this is not one of them. And so Ali does win because of this and Some people speculate that because of the odds favored sunny so heavily and because he was always under the thumb of the mob

This fight may have been fixed. He threw it. He threw it is what people think Wait, I'm looking up how many rounds I just have to because now it's trying to be crazy. It's 15 rounds. That's too many. That's too many. Where did I get nine? Because that's enough.

Can you imagine having to fucking stand up and go fight people for 15 rounds? Absolutely not. And it's three minute rounds. Oh, that's it. So exhausting. Oh my god. Let's just shorten it, guys. Let's do two rounds of seven and a half minutes.

And then. And then. And no hating anyone's stomach. Exactly. Nobody makes it too hard. It makes it too hard, right? Yeah. So the people who would have bet on Muhammad Ali

because he was not supposed to win would have made a shit 10 of money. That's how vetting works, everyone. But things could even more confusing. When Sunny and Ellie have a rematch in November. The fight is originally supposed to take place in Boston. The Kennedy family is like hell no, get out of our city. So, yeah, because of the reputations. So it's moved to rural Maine. So I'm sure this town in rural Maine is like hell, yeah. Yeah, nothing happens here in rural Maine.

So this rematch is even more puzzling and to some even more suspicious than the first bite. Halfway through the first round, Ali jab sunny. And it's difficult to see from the camera angle and it's difficult to see in person in the audience, but it doesn't look like sunny has been hit that hard and there's a video of it. I mean, a fucking punch from Muhammad Ali

is a punch from Muhammad Ali. It's a punch for a picture. It looks hard to me. And apparently he would do this punch where he'd then twist. It's like almost like a martial arts move. So it's like just double downs. And so Sonny stumbles, he falls from that one punch.

He tries to get up again and stumbles. And so that's the picture where Ali is standing over him and he looks like he's yelling at him. He's yelling at him to get back up because he's like, nobody's gonna believe this. He knows that that punch he just delivered either didn't look like or was not enough to actually knock Sunny out.

And so because that first fight was already suspicious that he threw it, it looks to everyone like he threw this one again. So it's like, Mulhaman Ali was actually kind of yelling, like, get up, don't cheat. Like, actually have this fight with me. He says, quote, nobody will believe this. Yeah, get up.

No one's gonna believe this. So eventually, Sunny does get back up the fight resumes and then their referee is informed that Sunny had actually been counted out on the ground. So the fight's over. So that one ends again in a like weird way that nobody is happy with. Wow. There's also rumors that Sunny would put this stuff in his glove that would blind his opponent like some ointment or something. And there is video footage of Muhammad Ali from that fight. Like, I can't see anything. His eyes are watering.

He's like sitting in the corner, tearing up and they're trying to wipe his eyes out. So that's a possibility as well. That'd be very upsetting if you were having to box someone and you couldn't see. You had to do it purely by instinct. Whoever you were fighting, you could literally be fighting a third grader,

but if you're doing it blind, that's very difficult. Definitely. So everyone is like, did he throw it? It's really suspicious. His reputation is just as bad, if not worse than it was before because of this. And he lost to Muhammad Ali.

Like he finally lost a fight. He's not the best anymore. The court didn't do that. So Sunny, Geraldine and their two children, they moved to Las Vegas. And here, Sunny actually finds a some degree of peace. He's not bothered by the police officers or dog by the press because much of Las Vegas is entirely run by the mob. Yeah. So no one's like messing with

him anymore. He moves into a really nice house in a nice neighborhood. But the problem is that Sonny doesn't have that much money because so many people were taking cuts of all the boxing prizes. He's one that he doesn't really have anything saved. You know what I mean? Like he's not in charge at all. He gets a cut of his own life.

When you work for the mafia, you're not like, hey, can I see the breakdown on that last check? You sent me. You're just like, thank you. You're appreciated. You're not getting 50-50. You're not. And he still has to get involved in mob business, and he still has to take more fights between 1964 and 1970,

even though he's in his late 30s at this point. So like, he doesn't have a savings that he can rely on. He still has to do this stuff. In Las Vegas, Sonny is closely connected to a mob figure named Ash Resnick, who had become one of his later managers, and Resnick has attracted attention from the FBI, who think he might be the clear connection point between the mob and boxing,

which they're always trying to take down. You know those FBI people, they hate it. They hate crime and the specific kinds of crime. Totally. So Sunny winds up working as an enforcer for Reznik, but also on the side becomes involved in dealing heroin. Oh. Friends say he would never actually use the drug

because he's terrified of needles, but he does start drinking very heavily and hanging out in the bad neighborhood. In Las Vegas, yeah. Seasors. In 1970, Sonny is now about 40. He has one more fight against a man named Chuck Wepner and Wepner and Sonny hit each other so hard

that they each get cuts on their faces. The whole thing is a bloody mess. But Sonny actually wins in the end. So anyone betting against him would have lost a lot of money. I think this was another thing that they thought was fixed. That Sunny was supposed to beat Webster, but in the documentary, it's like, there was never a chance for him to go down

in a way that made it look like it wasn't fixed. If you're not actually getting beat by someone, you can't just fall. Yeah, right. And so he was like, there's nothing I could do about it. So the mob is pissed about that too, because people lose a shit ton of money on that fight. Here's the thing, what does mob keep setting up fights for sunny, list and supposed to lose when he's huge and good at boxing and has an insane reach?

It's like, that's exactly why. Because no one's going to make a ton of money on sunny, winning. Oh, that's true. Because everyone's spending on him winning. That's gambling. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the whole idea. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Wait, how does gambling work though? You mean odds? Like you mean the odds would be really. Yeah, really against him going down. Girl, before I saw this documentary, I would have said the same fucking thing.

So no shame here. So at the end of 1970, as we said, Geraldine goes back home to visit her family. Sonny stays behind in Las Vegas when she returns on January 7th, she can walk in the house. There's a smell. She says, quote, I walked in and the house was smelling really bad.

I think Sonny must have been cooking something and let something spoil. My bedroom was the first bedroom, and he was laying there." End quote. When Geraldine finds Sunny, he's been dead for about five days, tragically, their young son Daniel is with her at the time. So just so tragic.

When police arrive at the scene, there's no sign of a struggle, there are no signs of wounds on Sonny's body, there are however needle marks and heroin in his system. And this is confusing because he doesn't like needles, but he was involved in heroin dealing. So, right, some people assume he was doing heroin. People are skeptical of Geraldine herself because she came home around nine and didn't call the police until like midnight, so they think maybe she was cleaning up drugs

that were around the house or, you know, stuff that would make him look bad. But she says this isn't true at all. So the medical examiner rules that the death is of natural causes, which isn't even right with what they found. You know what I mean? Doesn't make any sense.

It's unclear why it's not even ruled as like an accidental overdose. So that doesn't make any sense. Many people believe that Sunny was actually murdered, but no one particular theory has a lot of evidence to back it up. It's more that the circumstances of Sunny's life and death point to all sorts of reasons

why someone might have wanted to kill him. Unfortunately, there's a lot of suspects. Right. One theory is that Sonny was supposed to intentionally lose that last fight, and that his mafia bosses had lost a lot of money. Some people believe he was killed in revenge for not throwing that fight.

Or any number of other reasons tied to his mafia involvement. So that's pretty good theory in my mind. Yeah. If he didn't do heroin and he died of a heroin overdose, it's a perfect cover. Exactly. If he was dealing it, didn't do it, then it's almost like they force him to deal it

or whatever. It's like he's in with the bad guys. This is what happens. It's like the old saying of like, if you don't want a haircut, don't hang around the barber shop. You can't be messing with stuff going, oh, I don't do these drugs because eventually, you'll either start to do them,

or people will think you're on them. Right. So the idea I think is that it was incapacitated and someone shot him up with an overdose of heroin. Which then, like, societally, it's, oh, then, if you're on drugs, then you, whatever. Right. Or bad heroin. They didn't test the heroin that they did find there. Another theory relates to one of the heroine dealers, Sunny had been spending time with.

Just a few weeks before his death, that dealer had been arrested in a huge bust. Sunny had been there during the bust, but it seems like the cops like knew him and maybe knew he was connected or maybe were fans of his, so they let him go, which made it look to this drug dealer like he was an informant. Oh, so maybe he was killed for assuming that he was an informant. Another theory is that Sonny is latest manager and Las Vegas boss Ash Resnick, the dude.

Some people think that amid the growing pressure from the FBI attention to his mob dealings, Resnick had sunny killed. And there is a theory that Sonny had lost those Muhammad Ali fights on purpose. And one of his payouts was a cut of Muhammad Ali's prize money for the rest of his career. He was spreading that rumor. And whether it was true or not, it was true. People like Resnick were getting pissed off that he was like talking too much, right?

Yeah. Another theory involving Resnick revolves around one of the police officers who reported to the scene when Sunny died and he's interviewed in this documentary. A jailhouse informant claims that the police officer was corrupt and had been hired possibly by Resnick to kill Sunny with a lethal injection of heroin. These theories have swirled around for decades, but at the time, there's no homicide investigation at all.

And, you know, it could have been shot into him against his will. Maybe he was into heroin and someone else shot it for him, but purposely gave him an overdose, that kind of thing. But no one ever knows. There's no investigation. Sonny's family buries him with a headstone that has no exact date of birth because it's unknown and no exact date of death because it's unknown, which is just tragic. Yeah, that's sad. It simply says 1932 to 1970.

And beneath that on the headstone, it says, quote, a man, unquote, yeah. It says his name, the years, and then a man, like he was a man. And that is the tragic and mysterious story of the life and death of Sonny Liston. Wow. That was great. I really enjoyed researching that one.

I mean, that is a, that is a historical, incredible story. Yeah, the kind of behind the scenes stuff that actually really affects, say, things that are like multi-billion dollar industries like boxing or any professional sport where there's so much more influence and so much more going on behind the scenes than anybody knows, especially back then. Oh, there's kind of no transparency whatsoever.

And it was, yeah. God, incredible. And like, who knows what else is fixed now? It is. Everything's fixed. And then it's fixed and goes all the way to the top. It's all fixed. America's God talent is fixed.

It's all fixed. It's all fixed. Thanks. We're gonna take a soft curving arc lift. It's not a full hairpin left turn, but it is, I'm excited to say just a classic true crime story. One of the sources is a book by Anne Rule. So.

Okay. Yeah. We're working on the fundamentals. Love it. The sources used in today's stories are a 2004 episode of forensic files called Bad Medicine. Ah, this is classic. Right. The book Last Dance Last Chance by Anne Ruehl, The Great Anne Rule, and a 2020 episode of the Oxygen Series license to kill. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So we began in Western New York in the late 1990s.

A 26 year old woman named Sarah Smith lives here with her husband Dan and their two young children. Sarah has that special sparkly quality that brightens the day of everyone around her. Her husband Dan will later remember that his friends quote, told me I was so lucky because she was such a great person. And I knew I was lucky.

End quote. Yeah, it's always how it goes at these. Right? So in 1997, Sarah arrives at a medical office in West Santa Cah, which is a suburb of Buffalo, because she's going to get breast augmentation surgery. Obviously, this is a serious procedure, but Sarah has no reason to be concerned.

She trusts her doctor, a man named Dr. Anthony Pignotaro. Now, we're going to go into a true crime story where the doctor's last name sounds exactly like a rhyme of Tignotaro. And it's so distracting and it's going to distract us the entire time. Can we call him Dr. P? We can call him Dr. P, although that is like an intense P and P. We can, I might call him the doctor, I'll say Anthony. Sometimes I'll just say his last name for fun times. And while we're here, let's promote Tignotaro's new podcast with Fortune Feature and May Martin called Handsome

available everywhere you get your podcasts. Okay. Hell yeah. So Sarah trusts Dr. Pignotaro, Tignotaro, and it is easy to see why. He is a married father of two. He comes from a well-respected local family. His own father is a renowned surgeon.

Anthony has described as charming charismatic, an excellent communicator with his patients. He's also a bit flashy and over the top, he drives a red Lamborghini. Sometimes he even gives us patients a ride in the Lambo. He's also an inventor. His best known creation is a snap on to pay. Wait, how does that work?

Wars case scenario. It's a hair piece held on by four bolts that have been drilled into the patient's skull. There's got to be a better way. But you're just in the 90s? There's got to be a better way. Yeah, I don't, I'm not sure exactly what year he invented that, but it's pretty rough.

But the good news is Dr. Pignotaro isn't just the inventor. He's also a customer. He has Bolton his head himself for two pays, and he actually goes on to multiple talk shows to demonstrate the snap onto pay, snapping off full heads of hair and back on. You know, he wouldn't have you do it and not do it himself. That's the Pignatureo promise. So despite the doctor's reputation, when Sarah Smith goes in for her procedure, things feel off.

For starters, the doctor has set her up for surgery in the basement of his medical office. It's not a hospital, it's not a certified surgical space, it's a basement. On top of that, there are only four staffers in attendance for this operation, the doctor himself, and then a practical nurse, which is a nurse that is not yet an RN, and this practical nurse

only has six months experience in a non-surgical setting. And then also a 17 year old high schooler described as quote, an intern. And then the fourth person present is Anthony's wife Debbie, who works as his office assistant. She for some reason is also in the operating room. Oh, no, Red Flag is also in the operating room. Oh, no. Red flag's bound just everywhere. Yeah. There's no registered nurse on site. There's no anesthesiologist on site. What?

Right? No one's monitoring her the way an anesthesiologist needs to be doing during surgery. Yeah. This is not only extremely unusual. It's very dangerous. As one medical expert will later tell a local reporter, quote, you will not find any reputable plastic surgeon who gives general anesthesia in his office.

Wow. And it's so annoying too, because we're taught, especially as women, you'd be polite, you don't question the doctor, you don't question the man. Oh, no. Yeah, there's no, like you have to advocate for yourself. We know that now when you go into the doctor's office, you can have the confidence of saying,

hey, I don't think you should be running an after school program during my breast augmentation surgery, mother fucker. You're absolutely within your rights to say that. Something's wrong here, yeah, totally. Could we get the onlookers out of this surgical space please? But she probably didn't have a confidence to do that. I think that trust she had the trust piece. This is a man who's established in this town. His family is established. Who are you to go and say this is not

where this is supposed to be happening? I mean you said that yourself. And I didn't mean who are you? Who are you? Who are you? So of course, it won't surprise us when the worst thing happens here. Sarah wakes up during her surgery, which is such a nightmare. The doctor gives her more sedatives. It seems to do the trick, but then the doctor's wife Debbie,

the office assistant notices something is wrong. She later says, quote, I was watching Sarah's face and I could see that her skin was getting gray. I tried to tell Anthony, but he was too busy with what he was doing. End quote, just horrifying. So the doctor does brush off his wife in the surgical basement until Sarah's blood pressure monitor alarm goes off.

Her lips are turning blue. She's having trouble breathing. This is when the doctor starts to panic. At first, he taps on Sarah's chest, there's no response. Then he orders someone to call 911. Soon paramedics arrive at the scene, and according to reporter Ali Vanderhaden, they see, quote, Dr. Pignotaro, attempting

to create an airway for Sarah using a coat hanger. This whole scenario, the surgery and this is like so troubling. So Sarah's rushed to the hospital where she slips into a coma and sadly later passes away. She was only 26 years old. When her husband Dan learns that his wife is dead, he says, quote, it was like somebody grabbed my ankles. I fell on my knees with shock." And quote, now what's worse is that the doctor tries to kind of blame Sarah for the tragedy

according to Ann Rules book, quote, he insisted that Sarah Smith had come to him with a defective heart and liver dysfunction. End quote. This isn't the exoneration, the doctor thinks it is. After all, it's routine to investigate a patient's health before surgery. So, even if what he claims to know about Sarah's health is true, and it's not clear or proven in any way that it is, as her surgeon, he should have known it beforehand.

Absolutely. So, the doctor will also argue that as awful as the situation is, accidental deaths sometimes happen during surgeries, which globally is true, but Sarah's death doesn't seem like an unfortunate accident. There are obvious indications of negligence on the doctor's part, so much so that the paramedics who responded to the scene are compelled to file a police report. Wow. Yeah.

And they've seen some shit too, right? And they're like, right. I mean, not serious. So eventually, the Erie County District Attorney's Office takes over the investigation, and they make several alarming discoveries. One is that the basement that the doctor operates in is even worse than it sounds. It is stocked with outdated inadequate medical equipment. It's missing some life-saving devices that are standard in any surgical setting, and

it's eventually determined that had Dr. Pignotaro had the most basic tools like a ventilator Sarah's life could have been saved. Investigators also learn that Dr. Pignotaro isn't actually a board-certified plastic surgeon. He received some training as an ENT after getting a medical degree at a university in Puerto Rico, although he did not speak Spanish, and he had to learn it on the job. After graduating, the doctor reportedly struggled through his residency. He was described by his fellow residents as, quote, a disaster. Oh my God, that's not what you want to be called.

No, yet in the years since and against the odds, Anthony Paganotaro managed to build a decent reputation back in Western New York. But underneath his fear of success and trustworthiness and long before Sarah Smith's death, there was a trail of troubling medical accidents and potential malpractice hanging over the doctor. Investigators identify several former patients whose procedures were botched. This includes a 30-year-old patient who had worked on in his sinus area during the procedure, quote, Anthony clumsily entered the outer layer of the man's brain. And, quote, luckily that man survived without any nerve damage or an infection. But a woman named Terry Lamardi didn't get off so easy.

After going in for a liposuction procedure, Terry went home and extreme pain. That night, she said that there was, quote, so much blood pouring down her legs that her daughter had to soak it up with a mop. So Terry called Dr. Pignotaro, but instead of expressing any concern, he tried to convince her that the pain and bleeding were totally normal. Terry and her family didn't buy that.

She was brought to the ER. She was given serious news. Not only have the doctor nicked her intestine during this surgery, and now that intestine was infected, but he'd also cut off the blood supply to her abdomen during this surgery. And now that intestine was infected, but he'd also cut off the blood supply to her abdomen during the procedure. What the fuck, those are really big issues. This is very Dr. Death.

Like, it's that thing where you're hearing it and you're like, my neck is bracing and it's like, oh, this is worse case scenario, these poor, poor people. But because the blood supply got cut off to her abdomen, her stomach was now beginning to decay, and she would have to have corrective surgery, the first of many, to remove all that dead tissue.

And then the midst of all of this, Dr. Pignotaro shows up at Terry's hospital bedside to berate her for seeking outside medical care. Fuck you, dude. So those red flags turn into a fireworks display of get the fuck away from this person. Like, how insane do you have to be? Oh my God. He was told to leave security guards replaced outside of Terry's room until she was discharged.

And all of that took place only several months before Sarah Smith's procedure. Wow. Shortly after Sarah's death, the local media picks up on this story and according to author Ann Rul, Dr. Pignotaro seems delighted by the attention. What? She writes, quote, he was secretly pleased.

The media coverage was, quote, wild, and he'd always reveled in seeing his name in print and his face on television. Not, dude. I mean, that right there, that's one of the signs of a psychopath or a sociopath. Totally. A few months later, in January of 1998,

the doctor is arrested and handed five criminal charges. They are for second degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, second degree assault, reckless endangerment, and falsifying records. To avoid a trial, the doctor takes a plea deal, pleading guilty to criminally negligent homicide. He loses his medical license, he's fine $5,000. He's given 250 hours of community service, and he's sentenced to six months in prison.

That's it. That is not okay. Right. It's such an insane breach of trust. Six months and you have ended the rest of someone's life. That is just unacceptable. I would imagine, but this is just a guess, an uneducated guess, that doctors have the kind of insurance and the kind of like they make people sign the kind of waivers

that keep these numbers out of the putting them out of business. That's category. That's my guess. So, as a result of all of that, Anthony Pignotaro becomes the first doctor in Western New York to be convicted of homicide and imprisoned following a patient's death. So, it's rare. Yeah. Six months later, when he's released from jail, he returns to a life

that has completely changed. He's lost his medical license, he's facing several medical malpractice lawsuits from former patients, and he claims to be receiving death threats. He said someone, and he doesn't know who spray painted the word killer on the side of his family's home. So at the same time, inside that home, things are going very badly because Anthony's wife, Debbie learns that her husband has been cheating on her with a woman named Tammy. Tammy spelled T-A-M-I.

What a bummer to be like. My husband ignored me and killed someone. Yeah, it's like it just keeps coming. Totally. Which is kind of all of life, really. Right. Do you see that tweet that was like I always thought being an adult was just one bad thing after another. Nope,

it's all at the same time. Yeah. On slot. But this I think is that special, and I mean, I already said this in a way, but it's like when you are entrusting a person like a doctor that you can't question because you don't know and they do know, that's why that breach of trust is so extreme and so upsetting, is because the degree, the certificate, the title, the status they have, that's supposed to be guaranteeing you that this is an expert that's taking care of you.

Absolutely. This guy is so not an expert, it's shocking. Yeah. I'm surprised if his father was like prestigious that he allowed his son to do such a thing. Yeah, it almost seems like that's probably part of it. Right. Because I feel like that was a doctor death part

of the story where it's like when there's all this pressure to become a doctor. Totally. Okay, so the then doctor carried on this affair as Debbie stood beside him and acted as his fiercest defender in the dark days after Sarah Smith's death, all while juggling her own emotional trauma following the tragedy. So it turns out Anthony even wrote love letters to Tammy while he was in prison. So it's just kind of one betrayal after another.

So Debbie and Anthony split up only to reconcile a couple months later to sustain their household while Anthony's out of work. Anthony's mother, Lena, begins to support them financially, but she has one condition. Anthony must promise to end his affair and be a faithful husband to Debbie and a good father to the couple's two children.

Can I leave a soon? He agreed, yes, mother, I will do everything you say. So after all that things at the Pignotara House finally seem to be going well until the summer of 1999. And that's when Debbie comes down with a strange and sudden illness. Oh, no. Yeah. She says, quote, I thought I had the flu because I'd get nauseous and vomit and just not be myself, end quote. But then her symptoms evolve. She's no energy, her arms and legs are tingling numb. And she's having trouble walking. Georgia, what is that? What are those the symptoms of? Poisoning. That's right. Poisoning. It's so horrible that there are so many stories like this that that is the way you have to be. We've been watching forensic files and you know reading and rule books and we have been ingesting years and years and years of true crime. This is what happens. What a monster. What a fucking monster. What a selfish, horrible, empty human being.

Truly. So, Anthony insists that Debbie's gonna be okay, but she's worried and she makes no appointment with her doctor. The doctor's not sure what's going on. She's sent to specialists. They roll out diabetes, heart disease, meningitis. All the while Debbie is getting sicker. So now her doctors urge her to go to the hospital,

Anthony up until now has been critical of Debbie seeking medical help, but now he kicks into doctor mode. He tells hospital physicians that he knows exactly what's wrong with Debbie, it's her gallbladder and it needs to be removed at once. The doctors of course ignore him. They're like sir, you've been decertified.

I know. We know who you are. Fortunately Debbie makes a full recovery. And even though the cause of her illness is still a mystery, her doctors seem satisfied that she's out of the woods and they send her home. But once she's there, Debbie symptoms if we emerge. This time, they're more severe.

Her health deteriorates to the point where she has to use a wheelchair to get around. She's also experiencing memory loss. So she goes back to the hospital, but this time a physician named Dr. Michael Snyderman takes a sample of her bone marrow for analysis. He says, quote, I looked once, I looked twice and I couldn't believe my eyes. It looked like something I remember reading about in medical school. I ran down to the library and got a book about toxicology. And then I also went on something called Medline on the computer.

Thank God for the computer. He doesn't know. It's like, yeah, it's a website, sir. I was able to complete the description of arsenic in my mind and it fit her perfectly end quote. I mean, are you kind of like, shouldn't one of the many doctors who saw her before that have like just suggested poisoning.

I don't know. It's 1999. That's pretty modern. It is pretty modern. You're right. But maybe it's a combination of the thing where doctors tell you how sick you are. You can be saying anything to them and they'll be like, you need to lose weight. Pretty much almost every woman that goes to the doctor's office.

I mean, back then, starting to change now, but I think that kind of patient advocacy, if they're like, oh, yeah, I don't know, it's not diabetes, we don't know. Subsequent testing reveals that Debbie has consumed, get this, around 29,000 micrograms of arsenic. That sounds like a lot. You can hear the forensic files narrator saying that phrase. That sounds like a lot. You can hear the forensic files narrator saying that phrase. Yeah. Yeah, forensic files reports that this is one of the highest arsenic levels ever reported

in a living person. Holy shit. It's so much poison that the police immediately open an investigation. And the rest of the Pignotaro family is tested for arsenic poisoning. Anthony and their son are both clear, but their daughter has elevated levels of arsenic in her system. She had also come down with a strange and sudden

illness earlier that year, but she was not as sick as her mother. And I'm sure her mother being so sick, it was like no one could focus on it, maybe. To rule out incidental or environmental poisoning, the family's groundwater supply is tested for arsenic contamination But it is clean and investigators feel even more certain that this is a case of intentional harm So now they need to identify a suspect of course they start with the most obvious person the husband Anthony Pignotaro and given the timeline here with Debbie symptoms beginning not long after she reconciled with Anthony, he's looking very suspicious. But he denies ever harming his wife.

Instead, he actually floats a theory that Sarah Smith's husband, Dan, might be behind Debbie's poisoning. Was grieving widow or like, is somehow getting access to your wife and daughter? Just suggesting that theory, you might as well go, I did it. Yeah. Just suggesting it is so childish and so, and kind of like, I think I'm the smartest person on the planet. I was like, you fool. What are you doing?

Okay, so of course this theory falls apart because the Smith family was out of town. They actually left town shortly after Sarah's death. Samples of Debbie's hair show that she'd first been exposed to arsenic after the Smith family departure. So just impossible. Not only that, whoever did this to Debbie clearly had close and consistent access to her over the period of several months. And this basically only leaves members of the Pignotaro family, but the investigators do not think it's the children. In fact, they turn to them and ask them for information.

They begin to interview the daughter who tells investigators that right before she became sick, she'd eaten leftover soup that was sitting in a pot on the stove. And it turns out Anthony made that soup specifically for his wife. Oh, so he didn't even mean to poison his daughter? No, but he's cooking a big pots of poison. And leaving it on the stove? Yeah, and not letting anyone know. So this makes investigators think Anthony had been

lacing Debbie's food with arsenic and that the daughter's poisoning was accidental. The daughter also tells investigators about small pest traps. Her dad had purchased for the home. She describes them as quote, little round tins that he set out on the floor. And quote, investigators find one product that fits her exact description. They reach out to its manufacturer and they learn that two of these traps contain enough arsenic to kill 150 pound person. They also find this product for sale at a drugstore

near the Pignotaro family home. So with this point, investigators feel very certain Anthony is behind Debbie's near fatal poisoning. They're just searching for his motive and it doesn't take them long to find several, of course. Of course. It's revealed that while in prison, Anthony had unknowingly befriended a jailhouse informant. So through phone records, investigators confirm Anthony stayed in touch with this informant after his release from prison. So when the police go to talk to that informant,

the man shares a ton of incriminating information with them. He says Anthony has developed a heroin habit. That's our theme between the two stories. Yeah. Like I saw what you did. He was still seeing his mistress Tammy with 1M and 1i. And remember, his own mother threatened to stop supporting the family financially

if he went back to that affair. So investigators learned Anthony had recently taken out a life insurance policy on his wife Debbie. There it is. There we are. paraphrasing Anthony's own words, the informant tells police, quote, if he were to collect on it, he said he could start over with Tammy, end quote.

This informant even claims that Anthony once bragged that he, quote, knew how to poison someone. So if that isn't bad enough, investigators turn up more in criminating evidence while searching the Pignotaro home. They find a document labeled, quote, M.D. colon mass destruction. Do you see the play on words there? But then also mass destruction, M.D. It's the sort of autobiography slash manifesto written by Anthony, outlining a grand conspiracy by both the medical establishment and the legal system to blackball him after the death of Sarah Smith.

The investigators then make a connection. Anthony urged the doctors to perform gallbladder surgery on Debbie after she was hospitalized. In that delicate state that she was in, he must have known that a procedure like that could kill his wife. But if Debbie were to die on the operating table, that would prove Anthony's talking point that he tried to use after Sarah Smith's death that people do sometimes die on the operating table

during routine surgeries. So basically if Debbie died during her surgery, he'd be not only vindicated, but he might even earn the public's sympathy. Oh, my God. Which clearly is his theory because that sounds completely insane. Like no one would think that, sir.

The evidence now against Anthony is overwhelming. He's taken into custody where police ask him directly if he tried to kill his wife. Anthony reportedly looks down at the floor and says, quote, well, I can see why some people might think that. He eventually confesses to the whole scheme. It's now believed that the vandalism at the Pignotara House, the spray painted word killer,

was Anthony's doing, of course. If there's ever a spray paint message, I think we've learned this at this point. Spray painted messages are always done by the owner of the house or car, almost always. Right. Except for that one that's like, you or whatever, there's like one where a woman wrote on her husband's car.

I think it's like we have to assume that it's highly probable or possible that it was them themselves. That it's some kind of a weird move. It was seen as an attempt to craft a cover story ahead of Debbie's murder by poisoning. So like this people were out to get him. That's that kind of fucked up thinking, though. It's like, so you're trying to tell the world people are out to get you to somehow cover for your wife's death.

Totally, like, to never stop and think to yourself, this is backwards. This is bad thinking. Anthony Pignotaro is yet again handed multiple charges, including attempted murder and first degree assault, the letter of which carries a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. An Anthony once again takes a plea deal and pleads guilty to first degree attempted assault. He has given 15 years in prison the maximum sentence possible for this specific charge. But Anthony doesn't

seem to have much remorse for his actions, unsurprisingly. Instead, he harps on the grand conspiracy against him and continues suggesting that he's being unfairly blackballed by the medical community. Then in the early 2000s, Anthony tries to claim that Debbie was suicidal and likely poisoned herself. Let it go! Yeah, shut up at this point. Debbie answers this ridiculous claim saying, quote, I mean, if anybody knew me, they would know that I would never do this to myself.

First of all, I wouldn't do it to my children. Second of all, if I wanted to hurt myself, I wouldn't do it this slow, torturous, painful way. End quote. Which is just like Debbie's just like, you know what? Enough. Yeah. Now her life is forever changed by the enormous amounts of arsenic that she unknowingly ingested. She will experience physical effects because of that poison for the rest of her life. And it is actually

doctors now believe that her survival was a fluke. Her husband poisoned her so much and over so many weeks that she actually developed a tolerance level that saved her life. Wow. So insane. And thank God. So fast forward to late 2013, Anthony's released from prison. This of course worries both his family and investigators. They all consider him a dangerous person. So, our protection order is put into place so Anthony can't come anywhere near his own children. In 2017, investigation by Syracuse-based news station WKBW reveals that Anthony is back in Western New York and he's legally changed his name.

Oh, that's scary. He's also filed papers to start a business called Tony Haught, H-A-U-T-E, Cosmatique, LLC. Sorry. What the fuck? Which offers medical products and services out of a local apartment? Oh, no, thank you.

I'm gonna go over and get my laser peel. Sure. At 24 C, over a minute. Concert floor of this apartment building. Oh my God. This news motivates the New York State attorney to launch yet another investigation into Anthony Pignotaro in response. He skips town and heads down to Florida, right?

Two years later in February of 2019, a Miami-based news station, WSVN, learns that Anthony has been advertising his services on a website called eldercare.com. Stay away from them, dude. Oh, dark. Yes, leave the old people alone, you asshole. He's listed as a, quote, senior caregiver, and at the time was operating out of South Florida. As long as he's not providing medical services, then that's above board.

But some of his victims worry about the damage he could do while taking care of elderly patients. Terry Lamardi is one of those people. She ultimately needed 13 corrective surgeries to fix the damage of Anthony's botched liposuction procedure. And she says, quote, with Dr. Pignotaro being out there somewhere in the world was nobody keeping an eye on him. I guarantee you that he will hurt somebody else." And quote, it's unclear where Anthony Pignotaro is today and that is the story of

disgraced plastic surgeon the former Dr. Anthony Pignotaro. Oh my gosh. Let's all go to Google and make sure he's not our doctor. Or are like, you know, the threading expert at our right or on his stepdad, your new stepdad, you don't know. Don't let him apply eyelashes to you, please. Shit. Can I please repitch my idea of taking all sociopaths and psychopaths and putting them on an island?

I know you're against it. Let them work on each other. Yes, exactly. Let them do their bidding to each other. It's like escape from New York, but it's all these people who just have no conscience whatsoever. Oh, God. So bad.

So bad. Sorry, I left you on a real creepy down note,. But you know, I love it there on that island, on the creepy down note island. I mean, I feel like a lot of us really flourish there. I really thrive there. It's why we come here every week to do this with each other. We appreciate you guys coming onto that island with us. Thank you for canoeing over.

We really appreciate it. We do. Did you bring snacks? We love snacks. Give it. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered! Gah!

Elvis, do you want a cookie? Aaaaah! This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Crighton. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Leana Squilachi. Our researchers are Marin McClaashan and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns to my favorite murder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my fave murder.

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