The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 317 - The Butter Crime (live in Seattle)

Episode Date: February 28, 2018

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine creamery crime in depression era Spokane. SOURCES - Main Source - "Breaking Blue" by Timothy Egan  Dollop Tour Info Dollop Redbubble Merch

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Thank you. Yeah. No, no. No, we've gotten away without it I thought. And this is Dave. Nobody really argues about what his name is. Somehow kind of just got away with his own name. Was that a baby's crying? Is a baby crying here? Someone giving birth? Yeah. Okay. Or is it oh it's freshly out. Then congratulations and thank you. Where's the gift we never thought we'd have at one of our shows which is a newborn. Where is it? I don't see it. Where is it? Hold it up like Simba. Hold it up high. Like you're sad. Like you're sad. Where is it? I don't see it. Is it upstairs?

Is it upstairs? Oh, it's right up there. Oh, up there. Hi baby. I'm a henya. Hey baby. I'm an amici monama. We're going to eat you after this show. That's a young baby. Now did it come out with the one Xeon? Because I thought I was told it was a newborn and I think I was misled. I can only imagine like when you get on an airplane and there's a baby but I can only imagine walking into a doll and being like I'm sitting next to a baby. And you kind of like at some point explained to us the experience you had when you sat down and people like someone bring a baby to a doll. It would be great if you could look at everyone's Twitter feeds

just like right around you. Baby. It's dynamite. Gareth? Yeah Dave. You're listening to the dollop. This is a bisexual American history podcast. Once a week I have sex with a man and a woman while I read a story from history to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about or when this woman is showing up to these parties you keep inviting me. Linda get over here. Yeah she's always late. So you basically just said that I fuck you and Linda. Yeah I'm being honest with our audience dude. Yeah let them know the deal. It's all about

honesty. Yeah. There's a baby here god damn it. 1935. This is in Seattle. It's a state of Washington. I've always wanted to tell this story. Spoken Washington. There's some Spoken Knights here. Go Knights. Spoken. Is it Spoken Knights? Spoken Innis. Spoken Estanis. 1935 had a population of a hundred and twenty thousand with the depression and mid-swing and the dustball raging people looked to move west and Spoken was a destination for tons of families. Okay. Many of home were farmers. Oh weird. What a weird time. Is it was the only occupation you were allowed was better. You provided shoes or mail. Yep. So people hop trains to get there

which was super dangerous. Families. Yeah families with hop trains. That's a little like what we got up there tonight. We got one of those. We mean you got to have an order where you're like all right I'll go I'll throw the boy I'll throw the baby and then I'll throw myself and hopefully we could still meet up on that boxcar. That was pretty much it. Okay. On one line headed for Spokane a hundred and fifty people died hopping on the train just 1935. Holy shit. Yeah. And the population is not a lot. If you if you die hopping on a train that means you were fucking squished. Terrible. Terrible. Like popped. Terrible way to go. Yeah. Yeah.

Popped. Yeah. When the families arrived they found the situation in Spokane wasn't much better than what they had left. Okay. Interesting. It was the driest summer the city had seen in 50 years. The forests nearby were all on fire. Weird. Imagine. And black smoke clouded the sky. So they're basically like hey we came to Mordor. Yeah. So we threw the three toddlers in between trains for this. Okay. I guess I like the black sky now. Honey. Yeah. You didn't say everywhere would be on fire. They didn't tell us that part when they said to come here darling. Fortunately we're in the era when we just got to take people's words for

things. We were misled back there. Our son popped. Yeah. Yeah. Like a melon against a wall. Yeah. I just wish the guy I talked to about coming here and told me it was on fire. Because I can't get to him now by any means. Yeah. Our lives are just kind of over. So black smoke clouds the sky while some fires were started by lightning others were not. Okay. So we've got our lightnings and our non lightnings. Two camps of fire. FDR was putting to people to work with his jobs program and one job was getting work on a fire crew. So a fire meant work and that meant guys kept starting fires to get work. So it's kind

of the gun the gun situation in a way. Right. Yep. Yeah. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Someone's so kind of stand. He's upset about that one. Beaks the truth and everyone gets weird. Oh. Oh. Oh. 1935 was the first year the United States imported wheat. The dry weather affected everything. God. Think of that first year when people realized they were allergic to gluten. Yeah. I just feel sick. That's that's the wheat. Ever since the wheat came out like everything's on fire. You're breathing. No it's not that. No. No. No. It's this god damn wheat. I'm just all like I can't explain it but I'm like I have a cold but I don't. I'm just like

I'm so tired. You tired. Yeah. It's awesome because that's the air is back. Everything's lost it from wheat. I guess 1935 this Spokane Chronicle quote Spokane butter shortage looms. Oh boy. Oh shit. Creamery men report that a serious scarcity of butter. There's more beer in my nostrils than there was before you said creamery men. Creamery men. What did the creamery men say? Their alarm sir. God damn it. Creamery men reported that a serious scarcity of butter is developing in Spokane territory. We're here to see the Chronicle. We're the creamery men. Butter hit 40 cents a pound double what it had been a year

before. Oh no. A week's supply of butter now cost a working man an entire day's wages. Oh shit. So that's it right. Cut out the butter. Butterflation. Yeah. That's right. It's a butter market. The high price of butter led to butter crimes. Whoa. Alrighty. Strap in. Burglars would hit creameries in the middle of the night. There were several creamery burglaries outside of Spokane in August and early September. In the city they hit cafes and diners grabbing all the butter. Like a gang of French people just like gets their cream huh. Come on. It's for everything. Gets insulted. All right. Creamery men. Be still. Their vision is

best on movement. Now the local law in town thought migrant families were behind the thefts. Of course. Of course. Of course. Yeah. Absolutely. Why wouldn't you think that. There's these immigrant thirst for butter. Yeah. Come in here. Eating our butter. Go home and eat your own butter. Leave our butter alone. The families were already known to steal coal and with the price of butter now so high of course they figured they were stealing butter. They just got a roomful of coal and butter. Speaking a language that's not ours on a mountain of buttery coal. Foreigners. They're from Oklahoma and stuff like around Arkansas or

whatever. I'm not buying that. Did you think they came from Mexico. I'm just talking about a wall situation that maybe needs to happen. Vagrancy was the most common crime at the time. This meant half the people in Spokane were technically criminals. A man could get six months for not having a job but putting in someone in jail cost the city money. There were 1,200 arrests a month but the city only budgeted 300 a month to feed them. Oh god. Well. Let me just do the math. That's not good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Particularly if you only buy butter. Oh no. Due to the... One guy gets to eat butter today and that's literally all the

food for the day. Jimmy you can lick his lips. Yes. Yes. Yes Jimmy's gonna lick his lips again. Boom Jimmy. Boom. You're back Jimbo. Jimmy's back. Let me know when you're done swallowing. Okay. Jimmy time. You left a lot in there. Thanks. Permission to cry sir. Granted. So due to the city budget and all the vagrants cops would squeeze vagrants for food change or sex. Wow. Okay. One estimate was that the whole police force in Spokane was hauling in a hundred thousand a year. Yes. In 1935 Bill Parson was a rookie. He made $27 a week. He was given a leather strap, brass knuckles, a billy club and a 38. Sure.

The usual. Just go fuck some people up. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a utility belt for you so. Bill was told he could get in on the action. He could also moonlight helping out foreclosures which is one of the few financial areas making money. Good. Okay. Spokane was a city of vice. A lot of gambling, prostitution, drinking. Near the end of prohibition there were about 85 speakeasies. There were at least 42 brothels. That's a lot. These are solid numbers guys. That's a lot. Most of the vice occurred in a ten block section of downtown. The wealthy lived up on a hill above and promoted the greatness of the city in newspapers. The spokesman review

said the city had 156 churches and quote a Negro population of less than one half of one percent. White and native-born people far exceed the general average. I genuinely that was thinking they were gonna promote the population of black people but then I was like all right I forgot what year we're in we're there like we barely have any. Come on over. What a dream city we've got while we're all churches and white men. Come on. It's so I wouldn't expect that in Washington. No. Dave don't don't poke fun. Dave hey hey hey. Don't poke fun. They have firearms. Hey Zaris. Did you guys have a lot of Nazis? Oh boy. Someone just said Jesus

again. You both have Nazis. Fuck off. In Oregon. Idaho too. You're all big. It's the Nazi Crescent. I still would rather live here than California. Yeah. Even with. Only because you guys have what do you call it. You guys have water. Water. Fuck water. Okay. Man. Sand can be water dude. Yeah. All right. So Spokane was in bad shape. There was no money to repair roads. No money for parks. No money to pay city workers. Even the zoo had been shut down. Well what I can only imagine. Let's talk about that. No. Hey if you milk the zebra you could get a little bit of cream out of him. I'm saying during the shortage maybe we get milk from some of

these animals as an alternative source. Have you ever had giraffe milk. I have and I don't think it's milk. I think it's a sour sort of weird subs. I don't know what it is but I drank a bunch of it and I was sick behind the monkey cages yesterday. So when do I get to meet your wife. I'm wondering that for a while. My wife is a hippopotamus. You have met her. Love the zoo. Love to milk her. You have. Sorry I talked to another guy. After the city council voted to close the zoo the zookeeper tried to sell the animals but no one had any money. There's no takers. He then tried to give them away. Still nobody wanted them. That's

shocking. So the polar bears, deer, grizzly bears, buffaloes and other animals were killed stuffed by a taxidermist and put in the city museum. Of course. Profit, profit, profit. Well we're just gonna have to kill and stuff them. Turn a negative into a positive. Everyone's gonna still see them. Yeah. Yeah. How hard I mean it can't be that hard to like the polar bears I guess. You try to get rid of a polar bear in eastern Washington. Well that's essentially what climate they're living in now. They're like I mean. Just give them styrofoam. They'll be fine. Still more migrant workers poured in from the east. Many of them were

African Americans. Some got jobs in FDR's government jobs programs for $3 a day. They lived in tents. What's that in butter? Sorry. They lived in tents or shacks in big camps. Bill Parsons felt he was lucky to have landed the policeman's job. Hundreds of men applied for just five openings. There were no requirements. You didn't need a high school degree. You didn't know how I'd have to use a gun. You didn't have to have any knowledge of law enforcement whatsoever. You just had to be really big and be able to kick the shit out of people. You know that is we are engaging in a similar program in our schools now

right? That is you want a little muscle right? Get a bonus. Right? This is happening. At 25 Bill Parsons was 250 pounds and very tall. He'd worked for years in the forest as a lumberjack firefighter and trail builder. He had a moral code. Believing men should be fair and not screw each other over. Which was the exact opposite of the way this book hand please force worked. Oh boy. Oh boy. Bill found out quick. It was not the easiest job. He was constantly getting into fist fights on the street. In his first two months he was cut and bruised more than he'd ever been as a lumberjack. There was no police academy so you

learned the job by following an older cop around. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Bill would sometimes... Like a learner's permit sort of situation. Yeah. Bill would sometimes go out with Dan Mangan in the forces annual physical in 1935. Mangan was described as quote physically perfect. You are really setting a movie up here. Before I finish my report could you just stand there a while? How much longer is the report gonna take? Hold on. Jesus Christ. I feel like you filled out all the forms an hour ago. Yeah. What? My lips feel weird. You keep touching them. You've been touching them for 40

minutes. What? They're tingly. Like they want something. I'm going. You're physically perfect. You don't work here. Motherf... I'm a fireman. What? Oh my god. I live in the forest. No, wait. I'm you now. So Mangan had been a cop for six years and he was one scary son of a bitch. Bill started saying things that were off at the police station. The sergeant had a new Buick which he shouldn't be able to afford. They all dressed in very, very fancy suits. The night shift captain hung out at the Cotton Club with a bootlegger. Sure, sure. And they all talked about just taking money from people. Yeah, as you do, as one does. But

Bill couldn't say anything because there was a code what stayed in the police station, stayed in the police station. Lock a room. Yeah. So Mangan told Bill there were a lot of opportunities out there. Even though prohibition had been repealed, saloons still couldn't serve liquor. They could only serve beer. Okay. So Speakeasy... I like how we had that gray area. We were like, I think it's just beer we need. Yeah, we're good with beer, right? Yeah, I think that's what we've learned is we don't need hard liquors. Ah, yeah. First sip of beer. Alright, let's get the fucking whiskey back. No, I'm gonna let fuse right now. Let's go. So Speakeasy's thrived and the

cops paid him off and the dealers paid off the cops. It was a whole, you know, fucking thing. Mangan liked the night shift because he'd walked to the Speakeasy's and they'd give him cash. Sure. He told Bill a rookie could double a saloon. By just knowing which way to walk. This disturbed Bill, he wanted to tell someone, but there was no one to tell. And Mangan showed Bill the ropes, how to quickly pry open slot machines with his bare hands. Look at that, huh? Detective work. Boom. Yeah, you're not gonna do that in your first few months, Rook. You'll get there. Who just solved and made a crime? This guy. That's why I work at nights. More

money and we can get shit-faced. Wait. He showed him how to pick a lock with a kit that he carried around. He stole from a butcher shop and made sure all his fellow cops had meat. You boys get all your meat today. A local candy store he would pop up a back window and steal sugar and butter. Well, I mean, he's guilty of being adorable. I mean, that is very cute. He'd share it all with the guys at the station. All right, watch Peppermint. Don't forget who loves you. How about those steaks? I need, I like meat. The people he stole from were barely getting by, which upset Bill, but he didn't want to be a snitch. He decided he wouldn't take any

stolen goods or money. So the other cops became leery of Bill and stopped talking openly in front of him about all of their thefts. Oh boy. I don't think this new guy's cool. I think he's serious about being a cop. Cops like William Harrison Hacker Cox. Whoa. Take it easy. What's up? My name's Hacker Cox. All righty. We're in. He was Mangans' partner. He was on the take. After he applied to the police department, he was arrested for bootlegging and fighting in a hotel. Sure. Okay, whatever. He told the arresting officer that it would hurt his chances of being a cop. So the cop booked him under the name William

Harrison. Okay. Okay. And then soon he became a cop. And his nickname was Hacker because when he brought prisoners up to the jail in the elevator, he would hack at them the whole way. By the time they reached the top floor, they were a bloody mess. There goes Hacker again. That guy doesn't have a face. Hacker. Look, I don't want to do this, but I got a nickname. People call me Hacker. Just say you don't want to be in the elevator one-on-one with ol' Hacker. Hack time. The album sales weren't as good as we all hoped they would be for hack time. One night while walking his beat, Bill saw a liquor truck being unloaded, and he told the guys to

stop. The crew asked him if he knew Hacker or Mangan, and then they just went back to unloading the truck. Bill told them to stop again. Then they told him to go across the street to the mother's kitchen diner and talk to Detective Ralston, who was in there. Then one guy walked over and stuffed a 20 in Bill's shirt pocket. Bill let them go, and he kept the money. At the end of the shift that night, Mangan called him Buddy. Oh, no, he's Dave now. Yeah, he's in. He's crossing over, Dave. Are heroes tasting the dark side? Now, Mother's Kitchen was where the cops hung out. It was open 24 hours. They were given drinks and they

ate for free, and in turn they made sure no one fucked with Mother's Kitchen. Bootleggers had regular booths, and the diner was part... Boothleggers. Boothleggers. The diner was part owned by Bootlegger Virgil Birch. He lived in a back room with his wife and a parrot that ate wood. Okay, so... He lived with his wife? Boy, that's... Such as you, the Mrs. And The Parrot, huh? Yeah? Yeah, things kind of came together, I guess you could say. What's with the hole in the wall? Oh, the parrot chews through that. He likes wood. He mainly eats wood, and we run out of... He's eating it. He's eating through the

walls. He's a parrot. He lives back here, and he's eating through the wall. So... Go ahead. Now Virgil had been arrested before for stealing horses and once for bootlegging. So Mother's Kitchen had 29 waitresses. Okay. All very good looking. Many who did not serve food or take orders. Bussers. Right? Right, they performed other services. Like busing. Yeah. Su-chef. Now Virgil Birch also dealt in illicit butter. That really wasn't the back of my head open. The butter was going to be back. Okay, so he's got those greasy butter hands, huh? All righty.

Let me see your hands, Virgil. It was Crisco, I swear. Whoever told you that I know where to get a bunch of butter misled you. The fuck out here. I don't know where to get a bunch of butter. Still here, huh? You like cream, huh? Yeah, just go down there. No, in there. Go down there. There's butter. No, the butter in there. There's just a tarp on the floor. Go ahead. It's in the back. Just go ahead and get the butter. Good fellas' reference. Fuck you. You're all film literate. Get angry. No, it got weird. Yeah. I think it's guns and good fellas, the two things we can't push. It's sacred. What's going on with guns? So Birch always had huge amounts

of butter and cream at Mother's Kitchen. What? Cars would deliver large amounts of butter at night. In the summer of 1935, when other sellers were rationing, Mother's Kitchen had a surplus. Birch let other Spokane restaurants know if they wanted butter, he was holding. At first, they refused and asked him how he had so much butter. Okay. Interesting dance. And then they came to the diner to investigate and they saw it was full of cops and they left. Now, the cop who most frequently frequented Mother's Kitchen was Clyde Ralston. A lot of people were scared of Ralston. He was considered the toughest man in Spokane and quite the ladies' man, even though he was married. He was also the best shot on the force. His wife

had a stepdaughter who, when she was 12, he took to her first speakeasy and he ordered a whiskey sour and said, quote, swallow it, kid. It'll make a man out of you. Nice. Nice stuff. Top to bottom on that one. No notes on that one. Top to bottom. You ready to grow a dick, girl? What? This is dick whiskey. This is a wizard's potion that's going to turn you into the other gender. It'll pop your pussy out. And then this gin here undoes it. Welcome to Magix. The worst speakeasy in Spokane. We fucked up so many people's genitals. Top to bottom. 12-year-old at a bar, drink a whiskey sour. It'll make a man out of you. It's like, wait, you've never talked to me about what my goals are because that's not

on the list. Come on, you could be a big league pitcher. What? No. But by 1935, things were not going well for Ralston. His marriage was falling apart, mostly because he kept fucking other women. Sure. Well, Andy switched the daughter into a boy. She's a dude. Probably held a grudge there. People get attached. Stepdaughter, who is now 20, married a guy that Ralston did not like. So one night he drove over to their house and started beating the shit out of his son-in-law. He dragged him into the street, kicked his head against the pavement, and kept pummeling until his face was smashed in. A patrol car pulled up and Ralston said his son-in-law had attacked

him. And the bloody pulp of his son-in-law was arrested. That still happens. The attack only increased Ralston's reputation with his fellow cops. They were like, that's awesome. You kicked the shit out of your own son-in-law. He said he fought you? Good for you. He spent almost all of his off hours at Mother's Kitchen. And during the summer of 1935, 2,000 pounds of butter moved through the diner. What? So wait, they're butter laundering? Yeah.

Okay. I mean, I just, I get very attached to butter at this time, right? We're not as attached to butter now. No, we're not that, we're not that in the butter. But everything was like cream or... Our butter is now guns. David, we talked about that too. You're doing. So they need more butter because the diner is running out of butter. Now, Birch knew of a creamery in Newport. This isn't same.

You know, I know of a creamery in Newport. I'm listening. In the face of Mazoway, he'd worked there once as a plumber, so he knew the layout. Toilet-wise. Sorry. What I should say is I know where all the toilets are. Yeah, the rest of the bill, I don't really know the rest of it. I was, yeah, but it's a plumber, so I was really just toilet-centric gig. We break in. We each take a shit. Boom. And then we get the fuck out of there.

Boom. You know what I'm talking about? We go in, we grab the butter, and we flush ourselves out. Boom. Yeah, I think I know what I'm doing. I was a plumber. So Birch said it could be one of the all-time biggest butter heists. Sure. And did anyone push back? Everyone was like, no, this has literally never happened before, so you are right.

Now, there was an ex-con there named A.C. Logan. Oh, right. He was a fourth-grade dropout who was covered in tattoos, nude women, snakes, and cows on his arms. Sorry. Yep. Go ahead. The list again is nude women, snakes, cows. So did he get cow sleeves when he, like, butter was in demand? So he was like, badass.

And then, like, two years later, everyone was like, why do you have cows? He was like, well, remember when there was no butter? Yeah? They were crazy, crazy. Fuck. What was his eighth-grade like? Yeah, I got all the usual stuff, naked women, snakes, cattle, usual, lambs, you know. You should see the hamster on my chest.

Oh, he's beautiful. Holy fuck. Oh, I got a kidney. You remember the hamster shortage? Uh-uh. So the three men talked, and they decided to pull off the Newport Butter Job. Oh, boy. I've had a Newport Butter Job.

It's a hundred bucks extra. Extra hundo. Worth it. Smell like butter for a week. Did you have toast? Something like that. Do you work here? What's that?

Oh, my God. You again. God damn it. My lips. They're tingling. Huh. That's guy. It's like whenever I get you around to you, my lips tingle.

It's your deal. Move away from the door. God damn, I like to get some butter on these lips. Holy shit, you are perfect. 53-year-old Marshall George Conniff was the night patrolman at the Creamery and other businesses in Newport. Newport's a small town. Was he trained well?

Trained well. Butter. Top butter guy. At the most popular bar, Kelly's, one could wrestle a black bear that was kept in a cage. They would wrestle him out of the cage. Awful. Then why did the other animals have to die? Well, you can't wrestle a giraffe.

I think having a polar bear in a bar to wrestle would probably be something. This is a grizzly bear. Yeah, I know. But they had all that. Black bear, sorry. Yeah, but whatever it is, like in bar, I mean, I'm not saying it's right, but at that time it was just like, if you had something exotic, you'd let a guy wrestle a bear. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Why not be like, hey, come and have a picture with a giraffe? What? Oh, that's fucking crazy. Okay, yeah. That still happens. You just don't get bear wrestling. No, actually I do not. So George Conniff had not had a great life, he was in the military and he broke his back.

Recently his house had burned down in a forest fire when he was just about to retire. So then he had to go work as a patrolman at the Newport Creamery and in the town. Now the Newport Creamy, it's the big Fort Knox of butter. This is it, huh? We also sold at 10 cents a quart and there was more needed than being produced. Food crime is a big deal at this time. Man, it will be again. There wasn't enough wheat so people were robbing silos.

At Washington State University, students would barter for tuition with crates of peaches. I give up. I don't know what the fuck happened but the whole country is just a fucking idiot pile. Your grades aren't good and your essay is hard to read and not very comprehensive. Oh really? Yeah. How do you feel about peaches? I feel like your essay got a little better but I must say 12 peaches is not going to be nearly enough.

So unfortunately... Butter, maybe you didn't hear me. Oh I can hear you butter now. Welcome aboard son. How's your school? Terrible but have you had peaches? The Marshal who had been there before Conif in Newport had almost been beaten to death during a food heist. Now on this particular Saturday night, Conif was feeling good. He just received $1,000 after a long court battle with the insurance company over his house fire

and then he'd given two weeks so he's about to retire. Oh no. What? Oh boy. He may as well just say instead of retire, hey can I get killed? I'm putting in my two weeks and shoot me in the head. So Logan Birch and Rawlson back their car into the creamery at 9.30 p.m. They pop the lock, go in, find hundreds of pounds of butter.

Fresh, sweet fucking butter. Okay. Yeah. Cartons of cottage cheese, containers of cream. It's the fucking mother loan. Oh my god, look at all this cottage cheese. The stack on the butter by the car, I'm sure they're fucking giggling and dancing. Who wants more Monterey Jack?

No, no, no. And then George Conif comes in. He sees the car, he sees the stacks of butter and he reaches for his pistol. Not in time. One bullet went through his left wrist, another lodged in his shoulder. A third went through his groin and shattered his hip. Then they walked over and shot him in the heart while he was still on the ground. The butter gang sped away in a car.

Murdering for butter. I just, yeah, it's crazy. All right, well, he had to die. We got all the butter. This makes sense. People in town heard the shots and ran to the creamery and they found Conif gagging on his blood. He lived 10 hours and then died. Well, he kind of retired.

His last words were, I'm getting a little too old for this shit, to be fair. I'm two weeks from retirement, I'm not trying to do anything weird. Do you want anything, Conif? Just give me a little taste of the butter. Unfortunately, no. You know how tight it is and you're on your way out, so it feels like... But you can lick the inside of this guy's mouth if you want. You can...

Jimmy's ready. Lucky, lucky, Jimmy, Jimmy. Don't do that, Jimmy. Lucky, lucky, Jimmy, just stop it. Jimmy's back. Road's going into Spokane where quickly roadblocks are put up. So there's only two ways to escape at a new port. Oh, man, I hope they got to eat all this butter.

There's a twist. All right, guys, we got to eat it. So one, there's a paved road that goes into Spokane, and the other road goes into the Idaho woods. All cars were stopped and inspected. The cremary loss was counted up. Several hundred pounds of grade A butter were gone. It was a record.

And they are genuinely... There is a road stop where they're like, you guys have any butter in the car tonight? He's got cream. What are you guys doing? You guys just out? The cottage cheese? Oh, that's a boil. I thought you had cottage cheese on your face.

I didn't realize. I apologize. We're not... Ted's not supposed to be doing the communications anymore because of lack of compassion. Let me look it to make sure. Don't look it. Go ahead. We're just looking for a bunch of butter. It's good for weight loss.

You guys haven't had any butter tonight, have you? My butter cottage cheese. We talking about different things? I'm going to ask you to roll that window up, ma'am. Sorry, did you say margarine? Marginally. You're doing it again. I had time travel.

Murders were very rare in the area. In 1934, there had not been one homicide in Spokane. But this was the second cop to be shot in 1935 and the police in the Northwest were pissed. Cops from all over the Northwest drove in. Mangan led some cops out to the homeless camp and they beat heads and kicked ribs. Quote, anybody here seeing two guys show up in a car last night?

What? No, sir, they all said, butter, how about it? You seen a load of butter being moved around here? What? They are just going... You boys see butter! No, where would it be?

What? Where's butter? Oh, he's acting dumb. This guy's eating a bunch of butter. I can smell it. They said they had not seen butter for months. If butter had shown up... What's butter?

Word would have spread like wildfire. And plus, there was no place to keep it in the camp and it was so hot. What is he thinking? So, Mangan next headed... Go ahead. Mangan next headed for the train box cars and searched them.

He just found sad, dirty families. Tossing each other back and forth. No, we're just tossing our toddlers like luggage. What happened? No, nothing irregular as far as butter goes. Well, my husband, he popped like a melon earlier, so I'm kind of dealing with that. But nothing with butter.

I don't know if he's going to make it. Um... I kind of wish he fully fell. I'm just going to let nature take its course. I think his pants are caught or something. But, um... Hopefully, I threw them on the right train. Because, boy...

The cops next went to what was known as the hotel dig gink. It was a former brewery that had been shut down during prohibition and now is a big warehouse type place that housed hobos. Only men could live in the gink. There were tons of knife fights. Some men said they preferred to stay in the jail because the gink was so gross and dangerous.

A lot of booze at the gink. The gink? It took you that long? Well, I'm like... You were acting like it was so normal that I was like, am I crazy? Not the gink? Yeah, a gink.

Yeah, we're going to go kick it down the gink. He's in the gink now. On account of butter. So, they found tons of booze at the gink but no butter. Well, I mean, that sounds like if it was a restaurant, the tag. Come down to the gink. You'll find a bunch of booze but no butter. The gink!

So, Birch shows up at mother's kitchen in the early morning and he's frazzled and nervous. One of the waitresses asked him what he'd been up to and he yelled at her to shut the hell up. Shut up, nothing! You've been up to something! Nothing! There were a couple cops on their normal stools.

Birch was pale and he paced around. Ralston came after Don. He was calm and cool. He told Birch he was going to his brother's cabin to establish an alibi and if anyone asked he'd been up there hunting the whole weekend. George Conniff was buried in Newport. The funeral procession was led by motorcycle cops.

Sheriff Black of Pondo Ray County came to town. It was his case. Someone had pawned a pair of black pants in Newport an hour before the shooting. Black figured, why would someone sell their pants if they weren't leaving town? No. Now...

What I'm worried about is that he's going to be right. Because that's so insane that I feel like that's what's gonna... How'd you know? You sold your pants. Damn it, I know I shouldn't have sold my pants. Hey, I'm looking to sell some pants. I mean, how do you casually sell your pants like that?

Anyone want to buy my pants? Looking to do a swap or a buy. Oh, just one more thing. Nice pants. God damn it! Also, a green sedan had been stolen and found in Spokane. Yeah, but I really think this is a pants caper. This isn't about a vehicle.

This one comes down to pants. So Sheriff Black headed to Spokane and he walked around with the pants showing them to local tailors. You seen these pants before? Do you know these pants? Where were these pants, huh? You know what these pants are from?

Look at these pants, huh? Take a look at these goddamn pants. Did you fucking lie to me? Did you lie to me? Say, what's your inseam? Crazy. These are a 32. And I mean in as well.

Sniff them, huh? Sniff the pants. I'm a 36 waist. I didn't do it. Yeah, you're a waist all right. I'm a waist of space. Answer the question. Have you seen these pants before?

So he's just going around asking every teller if they remember the pants. Remember the pants? Do you remember these pants? He also brought a garage door with him. Hey, he's still a lump. All right. Okay.

All right, all right, all right. I know my partner was in here just now. Giving you the business with the pants. We do pants cop garage door cop, okay? And I'm... Look at this garage door, huh? It's crazy big, right? Did you know those pants?

What's the angle? It was from the garage that the sedan had been stolen from. Okay. And he wanted to see if the local cops could lift fingerprints. I don't know why you wouldn't just have the... What? Spokane cops go to the garage door. I guess I got to bring the house over there.

Unfortunately, the cops feet are all set in stone. So we got to take it to them. They won't come here. I haven't asked. I don't want to be rude. I'm going to move the garage in whole. He also had four bullets from the crime. After striking out with the pants,

Black brought the pants out to a homeless camp by the river to see if anyone recognized him. They're like, oh, no, he's back. We don't know where the butter is. Not the butter. Pants. These pants. Any boy know these pants?

You get all these pants? Nothing there either. Now at Mother's Kitchen, the butter was moving like crazy. They stashed some at Ralston's ranch, and the rest was at Mother's Kitchen. They rewrapped the butter and sold it. AC Logan wanted to make another butter score. Whoa, he's greedy.

He knew of a creamery four hours away in Stevensville, Montana. It was a big distribution center for dairy. Okay. The mother load of butter. Whoa. Birch and Ralston were fine with it, but they weren't going to do it. The next con, he knew, and the two men pulled it off.

Whoa. Okay. And they had other creamers in Montana, too. Coming back with trucks loaded with butter in the middle of the night, they stole so much butter they caused a butter shortage in the northwest. They're very greedy. The only guys who had butter to sell now were Ralston and Birch. So they are the only people with butter?

They're holding all the butter. So this is like breaking butter? It's just like... And they're rolling in fucking money. And butter. Birch became less nervous as the days passed. After a couple of weeks, when Ralston would come into Mother's Kitchen, Birch would look at him and say, quote,

Milk today, detective, and they would laugh. Ralston stayed on top of the investigation, and the police station all was good until a week later. Logan and Spinks were spotted by a cop making out with a couple of girls in a sedan in downtown Spokane. What's happening up there? I don't know. It's okay.

It's just some mechanical thing that's going to fall on us. Clank. How's the podcast going? Clank, clank, clank. Could it end any more appropriately than just a grid of lights killing us both at a live show? I wish we were professional comedians and we could do something right now. Is there a worry...

Are we worried that it drops or are we worried that it... No, the sound is going to be totally fucked. It's just the sound. Okay, so I can sit. That's what I'm mostly concerned about. The second I sat, it stopped. I think we're okay. Are we okay?

Sound... Alright, we'll continue. I guess... Can't wait to get the emails on this one. Oh, Dave. Dave, think of the emails, bud. It's going to be great for you. Alright, so...

Why does your audio suck? Why would you do that with a light there like that? Why would you keep doing it with a clunking noise? Why is there a clunk? What light clunks? I work with lights, they don't clunk. Did you ever think about unplugging the clunking light? Did you try unplugging the device?

Turn off the clunker. Do you not know how to reboot a light, you fucking idiot? And by the way, it's called clunker, okay? Idiot. Happy Sunday, dickhead. Thanks for all your work, asshole. Hey, Dave, I've worked in lights for a long time. Was the light blue or was it red?

Because I could actually work this out. Oh, the blue ones will get you. Okay, so a week later, Logan and Spinks are in a car, and they're making out with a couple of girls in downtown Spokane. And then they go into a hotel. So this cop sees them, he checks out the car, finds out it's stolen. Then he goes into the hotel, captures them, searches them. They had a 38 and a 32.

Then he goes to check the car. Bingo. No, wait, bingo butter bingo? Butter wrappers in the backseat. Dude, can you imagine your face when you pop that trunk and you're like, Oh boy. Hello, boys. No, that was the backseat. He didn't pop the trunk yet.

Oh no. When he opened the trunk, he smelled bacon. Which was another big item on the black market in Spokane. It's a red herring. It was the butter. There were also a dozen shoes. You guys aren't making business bacon people, are you? So the cop arrests the duo. He's one of the few guys.

For what? Possession of bacon. Butter bacon. Don't you know what year we're in? So he's one of the few guys who's not on the take. So Logan and Spinks are interrogated all night, and they gave up enough about the butter heist, that by the morning the police announced they had the butter thieves,

and possibly the murderers of Conif. I like that it's that order. We might have found the butter bastard. Yes! Yeah, he killed cops too. Anyway, but we got him. We got the butter guy. Also a murderer of a police officer.

Butter the nerve. Some guys think you can do anything. They had also stolen 200 pounds of ham and bacon, and sold it for $64. What? I think they got reamed? I don't know. That sounds like quite a deal.

Sounds like a fucking fantastic deal. The next morning a freaked out birch wanted to head out into the forest and go on a long hunting trip just to get away anywhere. I'm making another halibut for some reason. But Ralston's very confident. He said, quote, I'm the law. The cops in the police station wanted to beat the shit of the butter thief murderers.

The spokesman review ran pictures of the two men, puffy-eyed and battered. The guns, their guns were sent to the FBI and DC for ballistic comparison. Logan would not give up anything about Conniff, even though he was repeatedly being beaten. He would just ask for officer Clyde Ralston. He kept saying, quote, Waddle Clyde shows up.

Ralston told Birch to gather all the butter and dump it somewhere. Oh my god. Yeah, after all that. After the waste. And then imagine some kids just walking through the forest. Holy fuck. Mom, we're going to make cream on cream tonight.

Forest butter. Can I tell you a secret? I found a bunch of butter. But I can't tell nobody about it because it drives them crazy. Our family was better before this butter. I miss when we didn't have all the butter. This butter's a curse. Hands off that butter boy.

Your brother's dead. Your sister's dead. Your father won't look at anything but butter. And he won't fuck me anymore. I'm starting to think someone put this butter in the forest to test us. And our will is weak. So Ralston also went around contacting and getting his story straight

with their gang of butter thieves and butter fences. Middle butter selling guys. I'm aware of what a butter fence is. Barely. I mean, a butter fence is just what they did before barbed wire obviously. Butter fence. You can't get up it. It's a butter fence. Good luck.

Hey, you're running. You're like a cartoon, pal. Look at it. The cows just slip off. Those would be good tattoos. So after he takes care of everything, Ralston goes to the police station where he's told that Logan wants to see him. Ralston laughed it off saying he just one time arrested him and busted his head open. The lead detective said that they had the gun,

butter confessions, and that Logan was going to hang. Now for the first time, Ralston got nervous. The gun talk worried him. Back then, if a Spokane cop arrested someone with a gun, he could keep it. What? Yeah, why get rid of that rule? What could happen?

The people versus finders keepers. It's actually finders, v-keepers. Now Ralston's gun was from an old crime and it was the same gun he used to kill Conniff. So if Logan snitched, he knew they'd take his gun and connect him to the murder. The lead detective went around looking for the other butter gang members and found almost all of them had left town.

And then he learned that they had all been tipped off by Ralston. So he went to the police chief. After hearing the story, the police chief was furious and worried that this would make the department look bad. No, no, no. To the correct response. We're going to look like shit. Guys, people are going to think this is crazy.

So Mangan was summoned by the police captain. The captain told Mangan that Ralston was in trouble and Mangan should go see Hacker who would give him a package to get rid of. So Mangan takes Bill Parsons with him since he thinks Bill's now on the take. And they went to Hacker's house. They got the package. They drove to the river. Bill asked what was in it, but Mangan wouldn't tell him.

And at the Post Street Bridge, Mangan got out and threw the package in the river. And then he got back in the car and Bill drove off and Bill asked him what it was. And we threw a gun in the river. Bill said, we? That's right, you and me. Oh, no. Holy shit.

Oh, dude, this is... It's like when Denzel makes you smoke the angel dust. You're like, no. What? No. Three weeks later, AC Logan pleaded guilty to stealing shoes given a four-year sentence. Two for the left and two for the right.

You disgust me. Rawlston was demoted to uniform... That's amazing. Rawlston was demoted to uniformed cop and suspended for six days. The press was told Rawlston had tipped information about an important case. A year later, he was hit with a four-month suspension.

No reason was made public. Rawlston retired and he left his wife and headed to South America with one of the waitresses from Mother's Kitchen. Woo! Woo! Woo! When he turned in his gear, he said his 32 was missing.

Virgil Birch was arrested and charged with attempting to bribe a government witness. He tried to pay $500 to a guy in the butter gang to stop him from testifying, but Birch was acquitted. Witnesses lost their memories. Birch then sold Mother's Kitchen and moved to Portland. Mangun stayed on the force

until he almost beat his wife to death in 1946 and was forced to resign. He was not prosecuted. Why would you be? No, no, no. He lost his job. Yeah, but it's hard enough. Yeah, it's tough. He moved to Montana where he opened a bar

at the Dam Town Tavern. The Dam Town Tavern? The murder of Marshall Conniff was eventually forgotten. Until you solved it. Until 1980. Ah, damn it. I thought you were going to do this one. All right. 1980. Things are good.

Tony Bemonte was now sheriff of Pondo Ray County. Sheriff Black's old job, the guy with the pants. Just Bemonte still walking around with the pants. Have you? Yeah. Do you know? No, I know. I don't want to know. You've asked me before.

I don't want to. I'm not here for a Big Mac. I just want to know if you've seen these pants. What? I mean, what year are those pants from? Okay, I'll take a big number four. Okay, and what year are those pants from? Tony, have you seen these pants? 1934. None of us have seen these pants. How old are you?

I'm not comfortable with them. Have you seen the pants ever? No, no, no. They fucking killed the guy. Your number 54. They left these pants behind. I don't know. Did they? A lot of people talk about you.

You're known as the pants guy in town. Did you know that about yourself? People call you pantsy. People like the guy, they're like, oh, the guy with the pants. People are like, oh, yeah, pantsy. The guy was always like, did you see these pants? Those pants are from fucking the 1940s.

These are old pants. Move on, man. Get some new pants. I ate my toast dry. What? What? So, Bemonte was finishing his master's degree at Gonzaga and decided to do his thesis on past sheriffs.

And that led him to the cold case of the killing of George Connoff. So he reached out to the Spokane Police Department who told him there was no employment records of any of the people involved. What? A little strange. He kept investigating.

And word of his investigation spread. An 86-year-old man named Dan Mangan came forward. He told Bemonte, quote, I knew Ralston was fairly good. I knew he was into something. I didn't know what. I heard that he was involved in all the creamery burglaries and that he was peddling.

He's always mixed up with some dairy business. I mean... 1980. But that is like, he's mixed up in dairy business, like crime. Like, now that would just be like, what does he do in the dairy business? No, no, no, he's in the dairy business. No, hear me out. He's one of the creamery boys.

Okay, so he works in cream. The creamery boys. So he works... Pow pow. So he works... The creamery boys are shooting guns? Yeah. It's about butter.

Is butter code for something? Money. You thinking you can just walk into a store and buy butter? I absolutely think that is something that can be done. Yes. I can go do that right now. I could buy you a lot of butter. It wouldn't really cost me that much.

You can go into a store and buy butter. Let me tell you about the depression, you little son of a bitch. What are you talking about? You think you can just go into any place and buy butter now? So Mangan came clean about throwing the gun in the river. But Monty also learned that Bill Parsons had reached out to the FBI two days after Mangan had thrown the gun in the river. And the FBI told Bill Parsons to shut the fuck up.

But Monty also learned about a mother's kitchen waitress who had gone to the police back in the day and they told her to mind her fucking business. She was still alive, so he hunted her down. And she told Monty she handled the stolen butter. And when she moved into a house Virgil Birch had owned she found Newport Creamery Butter Wrappers stashed in a closet. What is he, like a fat camp?

Why can't this guy get rid of the wrappers? He's like, yeah, I like them. I'm going to do something with them at the end of the day. He's a hoarder. Those are my trophies. Those are my babies. Can't throw those out? You can't throw those out? I'm going to make them into a quilt. What is this? I'm going to make a butter flag.

And Clyde Ralston was still alive. He lived in St. Ignatius, Montana. After Spokane Ralston had landed a job in a Native American town of La Playa. First as a law enforcement officer and later he became the town judge. He and Virgil Birch stayed friends for the years. They owned a cabin together and they would hunt together. During World War II Ralston got a job as head of security at the Hanford Nuclear Project. Job well done.

Well, now we know how that happened. I'm going to break. I'm bushed. I really am. Ralston took great pride in keeping the secrets of the Hanford site. At some point Ralston married and moved to St. Ignatius. He was also known to get into fist fights all the way into his 80s. Oh, yeah. But who's fighting? You can't fight back.

There was a story of him getting into a fist fight on a Greyhound bus. When he was 80 years old and he beat up a 45 year old. And then there was a 25 year old who was like, I don't want to be part of this. I'm cooking your ass. I'm going lower in age. And if it's okay with everyone, I'm going to picture this on top of the Greyhound bus while it's moving. Yeah! So the papers in Spokane are super into the story. And they start reporting on Bumonte's cold case investigation.

And he's always finding out stuff and stories are coming up. So Ralston starts having a hard time sleeping. When he prayed with his wife in the morning, he started to say, Lord, get this off my back. And please, Lord, make this go away. Just classic prayers. And what does she know? Is she like, there's someone else here who's not the Lord who's just got two follow-ups.

Please take care of our family. And please, Lord, give us enough food to eat. Yes, your nourishment is great, Lord. And get that goddamn memory out of my mind, Lord. Lord, cleanse me of that shame! Cleanse me of the shame, Lord! And Lord, kill that motherfucking sheriff! Amen. When his wife asked about the investigation, he would just say it was all bullshit. It's all bullshit.

You don't need to worry yourself with that. So Sheriff Tony Bemonte went to St. Ignatius to talk to Ralston. But Ralston would not talk to him. He sent his lawyer who told Bemonte that he would kill Ralston with the stress from the investigation. And the people in the town of St. Ignatius loved Clyde Ralston. At the local flower shop, a woman said, quote, even if he did kill that marshal, it's so long ago, who cares? Oh, God.

Are they gonna hound the man to his grave? I mean, that's not fair. She was tweeting. I love floors. It's like a Trump tweet. It's so long ago. I didn't know the guys, so... The people just did not care in the town. Nothing burger. We're all just calling it a big nothing burger. Like, you can't kill someone in the 30s. Yeah, it's a nothing burger.

Some people in town said they thought it was great that he had gotten away with it. Kind of cool. Then Bemonte learned Ralston had killed a 15-year-old high school kid in 1937. Holy shit. The boy was unarmed and he had been running away. Oh, my God. Ralston shot him in the back and got away with it. And he shot to kill.

That's why he had left the force, but he was never charged. In August 1989, the Washington Water Power Company decided to inspect the river and to do this, because they have like a hydropower plant there. To do this, they had to draw it down. So Bemonte... There's a lot of people sweating that drain. They're draining it. Sorry. Do you say they're draining it?

I'm going on a hot dick trip! Hey, you're a scientist, right? Yeah? So how long can butter last underwater? Is it... Oh, I mean... 60 years? I mean, I suppose potentially with the right situation,

if butter were to find a drier area, it could last quite a while. I'm going hunting! A bunch of my friends are hunting without rifles. A right I love to protect. You say people are stressed, but there was a guy like up above on a walkway watching this occur. I'll tell you who's in a sec. So Bemonte...

What? There's a guy watching this. There's a weird guy watching this. They don't know what's happening. Bemonte waits right at the spot where Mangun said he tossed the gun. Bemonte found the gun in 10 minutes. Okay. It was a 32.

Oh, the best! Same type of gun that killed George Conniff, but obviously too crowed to do any ballistic tests. The guy up above comes down and throws something heavy down in the water after they fill the back up to see if the thing of that weight would land in the same place. Turns out the guy was an old guy who used to run crimes with Ralston. Oh, my God! So there's still fucking...

I mean, yeah, this is like Tommy Lee Jones. He's like, gotcha! So, obviously the guns do crowed it for any ballistic tests, but it is the same type of gun that killed Conniff. So Bemonte keeps investigating and he keeps talking to old witnesses, including Bill Parsons and a regular from Mother's Kitchen. In Saving Nations, things start to turn. By Ralston's final birthday party, people were starting to think of him as a killer.

An old friend wouldn't even come to the birthday party because he was convinced. An ulcer grew in Ralston's stomach and then his stomach was removed. He was in constant pain and he blamed Bemonte. Okay. Then a local MBC station broadcast the story. After that, Ralston wouldn't eat. He sat around cursing Sheriff Bemonte. Quote, why won't he leave me alone?

Everyone in that damn police department was crooked. All the way to the top. Why single me out? I don't deserve this. I mean, you murdered... Okay. You murdered a human. It's really the butter that I feel bad about. By the way, George Conniff's kids are following this.

The whole thing. Oh, yeah. He's showing up and crying and saying, please get him. So Ralston would sit there crying and his wife would wipe away his tears. His last few days, he was constantly called by reporters or people who wanted to scold him. He died in January 1990. Those close to Ralston think Bemonte's investigation killed him a few years early. A few months later, Sheriff Bemonte was up for election again.

As the election neared, the Spokane Police Chief called three press conferences in which he specifically criticized Sheriff Tony Bemonte. This was unheard of. All of the reporters were baffled. Tony Bemonte lost the election by 34 votes. After all those years, the Spokane Police Department still supported a fuckhead murderer. I don't know if this is related. It is probably not. The police chief's name, Terry Mangan. Oh, wow. Jesus. Jesus, Dave.

Credits. What? How about that shit? Jesus. Well, that's as serious as people can take butter. As real as butter can get. Butter. Fucking, I mean Spokane. Come on. Love that.

How many guys are from Spokane? Holy shit, yeah. One person said woo, another guy went drummer. You say drummer? He just always roots for drummers. What? Well, you give me the ones over, sir. Don't. I'm just glad we didn't die from that light. Yeah. Yeah, no, that was the first.

Although how great of a story would you guys have had? Oh, yeah. We're not out of the woods yet, cocky bastard. I mean, that's good light killing talk right there. Anything else? Want to use your towel a little? Yeah. Hell of a story.

Oh, wow. I am. Buttered out. Guys, thank you so much for coming out. We appreciate it so much. There's still tickets for the next show. If you want to come. Got another show next. If you want to come. Thank you guys. Appreciate it.