1 00:00:00,980 --> 00:00:04,380 Hello, this is Robert Riggs. Before I start this episode, 2 00:00:04,730 --> 00:00:07,900 this is a message to fans in Australia and New Zealand. 3 00:00:08,870 --> 00:00:10,130 As of September 30th, 4 00:00:10,130 --> 00:00:14,650 the True Crime Reporter podcast will no longer be available on the listener app. 5 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:17,800 I know from your emails how much of you enjoy my stories, 6 00:00:18,180 --> 00:00:23,160 so please keep listening by following the True Crime reporter on Apple, Spotify, 7 00:00:23,420 --> 00:00:25,200 and the many other apps where you can listen. 8 00:00:26,100 --> 00:00:30,640 You can also go to the true crime reporter.com/follow website 9 00:00:31,060 --> 00:00:33,040 to pick your preferred podcast app. 10 00:00:33,710 --> 00:00:38,100 We're developing new stories that I think you'll really enjoy. Now, 11 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:39,780 here's today's episode. 12 00:00:47,690 --> 00:00:50,750 The baby boomers are now getting really old, and there's, 13 00:00:50,750 --> 00:00:53,190 and there's a lot of us, and we're saying, gosh, 14 00:00:55,030 --> 00:00:58,070 I wonder how I protect myself from something like this. Uh, 15 00:00:58,190 --> 00:01:00,990 'cause if Robert worth hundreds of millions of dollars, 16 00:01:01,430 --> 00:01:04,150 couldn't get himself an aspirin, what can I do? 17 00:01:07,710 --> 00:01:09,510 Investigative reporter, Steven Micho, 18 00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:14,110 among the Nation's best spent six years unraveling how an, 19 00:01:14,130 --> 00:01:17,990 an iconic ranch was taken from a dying Texas cowboy, 20 00:01:19,150 --> 00:01:23,230 a ranch where the biggest producing gas well in the United States was struck. 21 00:01:23,230 --> 00:01:24,270 In 2004, 22 00:01:25,090 --> 00:01:29,870 the ranch and his mineral assets have amassed a $750 million 23 00:01:29,870 --> 00:01:30,703 fortune. 24 00:01:31,290 --> 00:01:36,150 But the cowboy who once owned it and his relatives never saw a 25 00:01:36,150 --> 00:01:40,110 penny. It's a case of elder abuse like none other, 26 00:01:40,220 --> 00:01:43,670 according to my guest. Hello, 27 00:01:43,890 --> 00:01:46,150 I'm investigative reporter Robert Riggs, 28 00:01:46,500 --> 00:01:50,950 here with a longtime friend and fellow investigative journalist, Steven Micho. 29 00:01:51,810 --> 00:01:56,150 You may recognize his name in the world of True Crime Micho in 30 00:01:56,430 --> 00:01:57,870 collaboration with Hugh Ainsworth, 31 00:01:57,870 --> 00:02:02,710 another giant of investigative journalism wrote the definitive book about 32 00:02:02,710 --> 00:02:07,190 serial killer Ted Bundy in 1983 titled The Only Living Witness. 33 00:02:08,010 --> 00:02:12,070 In 2019, Netflix premiered a four-part documentary entitled, 34 00:02:12,900 --> 00:02:14,550 conversations With a Killer. 35 00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:19,990 Based on 150 hours of audio recordings of their interviews with Bundy in 36 00:02:19,990 --> 00:02:23,790 prison, they really got into his head. Now, 37 00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:29,070 Micha is back with a fascinating look inside South Texas ranching 38 00:02:29,070 --> 00:02:33,430 royal families. If you ate steak in the 1960s, 39 00:02:33,970 --> 00:02:35,630 it likely came from these ranches. 40 00:02:36,010 --> 00:02:38,750 If you cooked with natural gas in the two thousands, 41 00:02:39,300 --> 00:02:42,430 some of it likely came from there. Sadly, 42 00:02:42,730 --> 00:02:47,590 people close to Texas Cowboy, Robert East, the sole era to all of this, 43 00:02:48,300 --> 00:02:51,030 allegedly took advantage of his simplicity. 44 00:02:51,690 --> 00:02:54,670 He died the lonely death on the iconic ranch. 45 00:03:00,310 --> 00:03:03,680 Stephen Micho has written about this saga in a, 46 00:03:03,820 --> 00:03:07,440 an amazingly detailed investigative book called Robert Story, 47 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:12,080 a Texas Cowboy's Trouble Life and Horrifying Death, 48 00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:13,320 and Aida was horrifying. 49 00:03:13,870 --> 00:03:18,600 Stephen set the stage for us because this involves two 50 00:03:19,160 --> 00:03:22,400 prominent Texas cattle ranching families, the King Ranch, 51 00:03:23,370 --> 00:03:26,800 which everybody in Texas knows about, and the East Ranch, 52 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:31,080 which I have to admit I did not know about. Will you give the listeners a, 53 00:03:31,480 --> 00:03:34,880 a history and how massive they are in the roots of these two ranches? 54 00:03:35,790 --> 00:03:40,560 Well, the King Ranch goes back to the middle of the 19th century when 55 00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:45,160 Richard King came down to Texas, became a steam boater, 56 00:03:45,380 --> 00:03:48,640 hooked up with a guy, and made a another, uh, partner, 57 00:03:49,060 --> 00:03:53,840 and made a mountain of money during the Civil War running Steamships 58 00:03:54,620 --> 00:03:58,800 up and down the, uh, Rio Grande River, the Rio Grande. That's, 59 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:01,240 that's an oxymoron, the Rio Grande. 60 00:04:02,460 --> 00:04:04,320 And when the war was over, 61 00:04:04,740 --> 00:04:09,640 he moved north from the border with Mexico and 62 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:13,760 bought a huge ranch, which became known as the King Ranch. 63 00:04:14,580 --> 00:04:16,520 And at its fullest extent, 64 00:04:17,220 --> 00:04:21,960 it was 850,000 acres. It was a huge, huge ranch, 65 00:04:22,420 --> 00:04:25,400 and the most famous, you know, ranch probably in the world. 66 00:04:25,940 --> 00:04:30,800 And it was led by King's grandson replaced him 67 00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:32,280 because King died young, 68 00:04:32,740 --> 00:04:36,440 and so did his successor of the Kleberg family. 69 00:04:37,340 --> 00:04:41,240 And the K Bergs have basically run the King Ranch 70 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:44,990 since the turn of the century, at the turn of the last century. 71 00:04:45,450 --> 00:04:50,110 So the Bergs are, are the one, uh, one family. The other family is that they're, 72 00:04:50,110 --> 00:04:51,550 they were an interesting bunch. 73 00:04:51,610 --> 00:04:56,150 The Easts all came down from Illinois after the Civil War, 74 00:04:56,810 --> 00:04:58,990 and it turned out that they were a farm family, 75 00:04:59,050 --> 00:05:01,990 but it turned out that they had a, 76 00:05:02,190 --> 00:05:05,670 a knack for taking care of cattle, for raising cattle. 77 00:05:05,770 --> 00:05:09,950 And they got started about 1880 and 78 00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:15,270 moved deep into Texas down towards what is now Kingsville, 79 00:05:15,850 --> 00:05:20,230 and founded the King Ranch there. And it was the beginning, I guess, 80 00:05:20,230 --> 00:05:22,590 of an empire. And one of the, 81 00:05:22,690 --> 00:05:26,230 the King Kleberg daughters met a, uh, 82 00:05:26,240 --> 00:05:29,590 young man from the East family, fell in love. 83 00:05:29,620 --> 00:05:33,550 They married and began a ranch together, way down deep, 84 00:05:33,610 --> 00:05:37,550 almost on the Rio Grande River called the San Antonio Viejo. 85 00:05:38,050 --> 00:05:40,790 It was an old land grant that they had purchased, 86 00:05:41,450 --> 00:05:46,390 and by the time they had the ranch to its fullest, fullest extent, 87 00:05:46,850 --> 00:05:48,630 around the time of World War ii, 88 00:05:49,370 --> 00:05:54,030 it was itself 200 and some thousand acres. Plus they had other land as well. 89 00:05:54,690 --> 00:05:58,200 So these were two baronial families, if you will. 90 00:05:58,900 --> 00:06:01,520 And Robert was a member of the East family, 91 00:06:02,300 --> 00:06:07,200 and his mother had married into the Kleberg family. So it was, 92 00:06:07,860 --> 00:06:12,360 um, it, you know, it it was what you would expect among an elite. Right. 93 00:06:13,180 --> 00:06:18,080 And give me a, are you listeners a sense of the scale? Uh, as I recall, 94 00:06:18,080 --> 00:06:20,960 the King Ranch covers an entire county in Texas. 95 00:06:21,510 --> 00:06:23,880 More than that, yeah, because the, the King Ranch, 96 00:06:23,910 --> 00:06:27,800 like a lot of ranches in Texas is not entirely contiguous. 97 00:06:28,510 --> 00:06:33,160 They would, they would start with 10,000 acres and then buy 10,000 acres 98 00:06:33,880 --> 00:06:34,880 somewhere in the area, 99 00:06:35,300 --> 00:06:38,360 but they would not necessarily be contiguous with one another. 100 00:06:38,510 --> 00:06:40,400 They would often that you had to, 101 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:43,480 needed an easement to go from one part of your ranch to another. 102 00:06:44,020 --> 00:06:46,080 So the King Ranch today, 103 00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:50,840 I think even still has parts of it that are not actually physically connected, 104 00:06:50,980 --> 00:06:54,960 if you will, re real estate wise with, uh, Kingsville, 105 00:06:54,960 --> 00:06:56,320 which is the headquarters. 106 00:06:56,940 --> 00:07:00,880 And these ranches may have started out as cattle, but, uh, 107 00:07:01,260 --> 00:07:05,280 oil and gas was discovered, and that really made them very, very wealthy. 108 00:07:05,510 --> 00:07:06,343 Empires. 109 00:07:06,510 --> 00:07:11,240 Well, you know, it's Robert, the, the whole thing has changed. 110 00:07:11,660 --> 00:07:15,440 You can call them cattle ranches, but you'll find very, 111 00:07:15,870 --> 00:07:20,200 very few of these operations, even the huge ones like the King Ranch, 112 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:24,440 which is still a giant mm-hmm. , um, they can't make money on, 113 00:07:24,580 --> 00:07:27,960 on cattle. Uh, they, right. And, you know, it's, you know, 114 00:07:28,660 --> 00:07:33,560 in that land, every cow needs about 30 acres. 115 00:07:34,140 --> 00:07:37,000 So the, when you start, when you look at it that way, 116 00:07:37,180 --> 00:07:38,600 the ranches have to be huge. 117 00:07:39,420 --> 00:07:43,720 And it's not a very lucrative business anymore because of competition from like 118 00:07:43,820 --> 00:07:47,080 Brazil. So there's two other ways to make money, 119 00:07:47,510 --> 00:07:49,840 hope that you find minerals on your land, 120 00:07:49,980 --> 00:07:54,680 gas or oil or increasingly these ranches are 121 00:07:54,950 --> 00:07:59,120 devoted to hunting, uh, south Texas deer hunting and bird hunting. 122 00:07:59,630 --> 00:08:04,560 It's famous for it. And the, the, the ranch that in question in, in my book, 123 00:08:04,560 --> 00:08:09,000 the San Antonio Viejo is becoming a hunting ranch 124 00:08:09,510 --> 00:08:13,520 against, I'll emphasize here, the repeated, uh, 125 00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:18,320 wishes of Robert East, the victim in this thing who said, who dies, of course. 126 00:08:18,620 --> 00:08:22,520 And, but before his death says, I don't want any hunting on my ranch. 127 00:08:23,380 --> 00:08:26,720 And that is an issue that we can get into later on. Of course. 128 00:08:27,150 --> 00:08:30,280 Yeah. Let's get into, uh, Robert, his older brother, 129 00:08:31,140 --> 00:08:34,320 who was really the business brains, his sister, 130 00:08:34,980 --> 00:08:37,560 but Robert just it, I'm struck by your book. 131 00:08:37,580 --> 00:08:39,840 He just wanted to be a cowboy on the range. Yeah. 132 00:08:40,630 --> 00:08:43,160 Well, Robert wasn't terribly smart. Um, 133 00:08:43,700 --> 00:08:48,240 he was the second of three children in the family. Uh, 134 00:08:48,340 --> 00:08:52,120 and he, he lived much of his life in his older brother's shadow. 135 00:08:52,260 --> 00:08:56,840 His older brother was a very respected and, and talented, uh, 136 00:08:57,200 --> 00:09:01,800 businessman and cattleman. And there was, as Robert put it, 137 00:09:01,800 --> 00:09:05,320 tension between the two, friction between the two brothers. 138 00:09:05,980 --> 00:09:09,440 And the problem with Robert is, as you just pointed out, 139 00:09:09,440 --> 00:09:13,280 is that all he wanted to do was get in the saddle and go out and ride around 140 00:09:13,380 --> 00:09:18,000 and, and chase cattle. And the only other thing he chased was skirts. 141 00:09:18,060 --> 00:09:20,840 He never, never married, but he had lots of girlfriends, 142 00:09:21,380 --> 00:09:24,960 and he took over the ranch when his older brother died, 143 00:09:25,560 --> 00:09:30,240 s suddenly of a heart attack in the 19 early 1980s. And Robert was, 144 00:09:30,340 --> 00:09:34,760 was not equal to what was given him. Yeah. He could, 145 00:09:34,760 --> 00:09:38,720 he could run a roundup, but he had, he, the business side was, 146 00:09:38,780 --> 00:09:43,720 was a mystery to him. He hated leaving the ranch, and he hated, frankly, 147 00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:46,080 leaving Texas. I, in six years, 148 00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:51,280 I only was able to confirm him actually leaving the ranch once to go to 149 00:09:51,300 --> 00:09:54,280 Las Vegas. And then a certain, on a few occasions, 150 00:09:54,280 --> 00:09:56,960 he would go across the Rio Grande to, uh, 151 00:09:57,540 --> 00:10:02,000 to brothels in north northern Mexico. But that was the extent of his travel. 152 00:10:02,140 --> 00:10:06,520 He did not care about anything but chasing around after cows. And from. 153 00:10:06,520 --> 00:10:09,880 Reading the book, he was an honor, unreal, cuss. 154 00:10:09,980 --> 00:10:10,813 Yes, he was. 155 00:10:10,820 --> 00:10:11,653 And his, 156 00:10:11,700 --> 00:10:16,640 his resistance to knowing anything about the business and his honoring 157 00:10:16,640 --> 00:10:20,520 us, his inability of not having emotional intelligence to deal with other people 158 00:10:20,530 --> 00:10:24,360 seems to me, me to set him up for how he was taken advantage of. 159 00:10:24,360 --> 00:10:25,520 That you detail in the book. 160 00:10:26,030 --> 00:10:27,720 Well, you're correct about that. 161 00:10:28,020 --> 00:10:31,520 Robert was protected because from his earliest days, 162 00:10:32,340 --> 00:10:36,080 he was jealous of his older brother. He was obstreperous, as you say. 163 00:10:37,020 --> 00:10:40,760 And so the family protected him, and they were able to say, okay, Robert, 164 00:10:41,300 --> 00:10:44,600 get on your horse and go out and chase around cows and we'll take care of the 165 00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:49,680 business and that, and that's how we're gonna do it. But he, you know, 166 00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:50,673 I, 167 00:10:50,680 --> 00:10:55,280 I believe he had what's been called second child syndrome that he, you know, 168 00:10:55,850 --> 00:10:59,720 there, his older brother got all of the, all the attention, he got all of the, 169 00:10:59,940 --> 00:11:04,680 all the good, uh, assignments, if you will. And Robert was resentful of that. 170 00:11:04,860 --> 00:11:09,080 And what's important about that for this story is that 171 00:11:10,510 --> 00:11:14,160 that kind of, of, of, again, as I say, 172 00:11:14,220 --> 00:11:17,960 he called it friction carried over after his brother's death. 173 00:11:18,100 --> 00:11:22,440 And there was a lot of ill will in the family going forward about, 174 00:11:22,830 --> 00:11:27,280 well, Robert had a nephew and, and two nieces, his brother's children. 175 00:11:27,940 --> 00:11:31,640 And although Robert had had control of the land, 176 00:11:32,050 --> 00:11:37,000 there was no comedy, if you will. And, and Robert was not a leader. 177 00:11:37,140 --> 00:11:40,080 He was, you know, he was not capable of it. I mean, 178 00:11:40,460 --> 00:11:43,480 if you ask Robert what his favorite dinner was, 179 00:11:43,590 --> 00:11:47,040 he'd say any Whataburger , that was the, 180 00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:48,840 that was the level of his sophistication. 181 00:11:50,010 --> 00:11:54,330 And his nephew appears to be smart Yeah. 182 00:11:54,970 --> 00:11:59,410 Business person and really try, wants to help his uncle. 183 00:12:00,270 --> 00:12:04,450 But his uncle is just so ornery, they can't come to any kind of agreement. 184 00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:05,410 It's just at odds. 185 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:07,410 Yeah. And there's the, 186 00:12:07,410 --> 00:12:12,090 the part about it was kind of interesting is that Robert wasn't just 187 00:12:12,430 --> 00:12:13,490 Ory, but he was stupid, 188 00:12:14,190 --> 00:12:19,170 and he was susceptible to fast talking attorneys and to a 189 00:12:19,170 --> 00:12:23,570 corrupt foreman who had been raised on the ranch. Robert thought he knew and, 190 00:12:23,590 --> 00:12:28,090 and trusted, but Robert, it was like he had a big target on his back. 191 00:12:28,270 --> 00:12:31,250 He said, you know, cheat me. Uh, in fact, 192 00:12:32,520 --> 00:12:37,500 one of his old vaqueros w was once heard to say that the only deal way to 193 00:12:37,500 --> 00:12:41,860 deal with Robert was to steal from him because of his chip on his shoulder, 194 00:12:41,860 --> 00:12:43,540 because of the fact he wasn't very bright. 195 00:12:43,760 --> 00:12:48,340 And because most importantly is that due to a lot of, of, 196 00:12:48,760 --> 00:12:51,660 of circumstances, he was isolated. 197 00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:57,260 And when the, when the conspirators, if you will, the wolves, 198 00:12:57,260 --> 00:13:02,180 as we call them in the book, found him. He was just, he was an easy target. 199 00:13:02,320 --> 00:13:06,220 He was a target. And they isolated him out on that ranch. 200 00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:10,780 Out in the middle of nowhere, there was enmity with his family. 201 00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:15,860 Robert liked being out there alone. And when he got old and infirm, 202 00:13:16,210 --> 00:13:19,220 they moved in and, and stole his money. 203 00:13:19,750 --> 00:13:22,860 Let's pause for a moment, and when we come back, we'll pick it up from there. 204 00:13:36,630 --> 00:13:39,770 All right. I'm talking with investigative reporter, Steven Micho, 205 00:13:39,900 --> 00:13:42,690 who's written a Robert Story, which, uh, 206 00:13:42,750 --> 00:13:45,930 is really a such an in-depth investigative book of, 207 00:13:45,990 --> 00:13:48,250 of tracking down how, uh, 208 00:13:49,070 --> 00:13:53,850 an infirm old cowboy lost everything he 209 00:13:53,870 --> 00:13:54,930 had. Um. 210 00:13:55,550 --> 00:13:57,410 And very rich as well. 211 00:13:57,690 --> 00:14:01,650 , very rich. So I, I know that, I guess it's around 2000, 212 00:14:02,110 --> 00:14:05,880 the biggest gas well discovery in the, 213 00:14:06,020 --> 00:14:08,160 in the world takes place on that ranch. 214 00:14:08,630 --> 00:14:12,680 They brought in a, well, in 19 or 2004, 215 00:14:13,190 --> 00:14:17,600 that was for a time the most productive gas well in the 216 00:14:17,600 --> 00:14:20,080 United States and possibly the world. 217 00:14:20,740 --> 00:14:25,080 It was just enormously productive for a number of years. 218 00:14:25,380 --> 00:14:27,160 And Robert, at the time, 219 00:14:27,940 --> 00:14:32,690 was probably worth about maybe 10 or $15 million after 220 00:14:32,790 --> 00:14:34,090 the, the well came in. 221 00:14:34,710 --> 00:14:38,610 He measured his wealth in hundreds of millions of dollars. You know, it's, 222 00:14:38,610 --> 00:14:43,490 it's one of the cruel ironies in this story is that had Robert just 223 00:14:43,490 --> 00:14:47,090 been left alone, this cranky old geezer out of the prairie, 224 00:14:47,850 --> 00:14:50,410 I don't think any of these con men would've had any, 225 00:14:50,410 --> 00:14:53,160 wouldn't have been interested in it, because land, 226 00:14:53,490 --> 00:14:57,440 while valuable is a little cumbersome to, to, to steal, 227 00:14:58,260 --> 00:15:02,000 but once all of this cash was coming in, 228 00:15:02,780 --> 00:15:07,520 Robert became a target. And part of the, it wasn't just to steal from Robert, 229 00:15:07,780 --> 00:15:10,640 but it was to keep Robert separated from everybody else, 230 00:15:11,290 --> 00:15:14,520 which contributed mightily to his death, his horrible death. 231 00:15:14,980 --> 00:15:18,760 Do they target him after the discovery of the gas, 232 00:15:18,860 --> 00:15:20,400 or They already moved in before. 233 00:15:20,820 --> 00:15:25,760 It, it already had begun, but the gas was like, wow, you know, we, we, 234 00:15:25,780 --> 00:15:30,120 we thought we might make 10 or 20 million here, but it, well, 235 00:15:30,620 --> 00:15:34,920 the foundation, I'll, I'll jump ahead here to, just to give you a sense of it. 236 00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:39,720 The foundation that grew out of this mess lists assets of 237 00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:41,480 $750 million. 238 00:15:42,140 --> 00:15:46,640 And that that money is almost exclusively gas and oil 239 00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:48,320 receipts. Gas receipts. 240 00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:51,100 My God. And I take it, 241 00:15:51,100 --> 00:15:54,820 Robert and the rest of the family never got a penny of it to speak of. 242 00:15:55,090 --> 00:15:59,780 Well, there was a lot of fighting that went on, but it was, it, it, it, 243 00:15:59,800 --> 00:16:04,140 it really never was about money or, or his, his nephew Mike, uh, 244 00:16:04,140 --> 00:16:05,380 who kinda led the charge, 245 00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:10,220 was only concerned about Robert getting what he wanted, uh, 246 00:16:10,220 --> 00:16:14,740 because it was his ranch. They, the family never really fought about money. 247 00:16:14,770 --> 00:16:18,300 They fought about what, where, you know, we're a ranching family, 248 00:16:18,800 --> 00:16:22,660 and especially with the death of Robert's, Robert's older brother. 249 00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:26,780 And after that, the death of his sister with whom he was, he was very tight. 250 00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:32,100 He was all alone out on that ranch with just his vaqueros isolated from his 251 00:16:32,100 --> 00:16:34,740 family. And the old ways of, 252 00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:37,700 of dealing with one another simply didn't work. 253 00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:41,580 So years went by without them exchanging more than a Christmas card. 254 00:16:42,950 --> 00:16:47,230 I wanna get into how they did it, how they Yeah. Got control. But first, 255 00:16:47,610 --> 00:16:51,510 how did you get on the story? I know it's, it took six years. Six. 256 00:16:51,510 --> 00:16:51,910 Years, yep. 257 00:16:51,910 --> 00:16:54,750 Working on this as a fellow investigative reporter, 258 00:16:54,850 --> 00:16:58,310 I'm really impressed by the documentation and the interviews. 259 00:16:58,310 --> 00:16:59,750 You've got court records, 260 00:17:00,010 --> 00:17:03,190 and I know how long it takes to ferret that stuff out so. 261 00:17:03,260 --> 00:17:06,630 Well, especially if you're dealing in a certain type of courthouse Oh. 262 00:17:06,630 --> 00:17:09,630 Yeah, yeah. No digital. Right. How do you, 263 00:17:09,680 --> 00:17:11,790 how'd you get the first cent of the story? 264 00:17:12,690 --> 00:17:16,350 You may remember, Robert, that back in the eighties, 265 00:17:16,590 --> 00:17:20,350 I co-authored a book called, if You Love Me, you will Do My Will. 266 00:17:20,990 --> 00:17:23,470 I wrote it with my old writing partner, Hugh Ainsworth. 267 00:17:24,290 --> 00:17:28,910 And it was the story of Sarta Kennedy East. Remember that name? 268 00:17:29,210 --> 00:17:29,660 Oh, yes. 269 00:17:29,660 --> 00:17:29,960 Yeah. 270 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:34,390 Right. Well, SARTA was Robert's aunt, 271 00:17:35,130 --> 00:17:37,350 and back in the 1980s, 272 00:17:37,890 --> 00:17:40,470 she was in her late fifties, 273 00:17:41,470 --> 00:17:46,150 a widow childless and an alcoholic living alone, 274 00:17:46,750 --> 00:17:49,110 isolated in her ranch, which was also huge. 275 00:17:50,220 --> 00:17:54,920 And one day over the hill came a rogue Trappist monk named Brother 276 00:17:55,060 --> 00:17:59,200 Leo, who was out raising money to build new monasteries, 277 00:18:00,020 --> 00:18:02,280 and had been sent to Serta, 278 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:07,280 who was a Catholic and was sweet talking her out of her fortune, 279 00:18:07,790 --> 00:18:11,000 half a half a billion dollars, first of all, 280 00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:13,920 supposedly to build new monasteries, 281 00:18:14,540 --> 00:18:18,240 but secondly to relieve the suffering of the poor of the world. 282 00:18:19,180 --> 00:18:20,640 And Serta went for it. 283 00:18:20,900 --> 00:18:25,840 And the only thing that went wrong for Brother Elias point of view was that she 284 00:18:26,080 --> 00:18:29,760 died before he could put the last dot on the I and, 285 00:18:30,220 --> 00:18:35,160 and cross on the T. So, uh, Hugh and I did that book, 286 00:18:35,580 --> 00:18:39,480 and I said, okay, now these family, and I have, I've met them all, 287 00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:41,120 and now we don't need, we won't see each other again. 288 00:18:41,700 --> 00:18:45,800 And then this story kind of erupted years later, 289 00:18:46,220 --> 00:18:51,200 and I was strongly urged by people who were familiar with the first story to, 290 00:18:51,580 --> 00:18:53,160 to return to the east family, 291 00:18:53,550 --> 00:18:56,240 because I'd spent so much time learning about them. 292 00:18:57,140 --> 00:19:00,800 And so with the agreement of Mike East, 293 00:19:00,860 --> 00:19:04,960 who survives, uh, I said, okay, I'll do it. 294 00:19:05,300 --> 00:19:07,240 And so that's how it all began. 295 00:19:08,630 --> 00:19:12,920 Well, in 1996, Robert hired a, a ranch hand. Yeah. 296 00:19:13,180 --> 00:19:17,720 Who really came to just exor. He was young, just total control over everything. 297 00:19:18,020 --> 00:19:22,600 Had Robert's health, uh, in mental state already deteriorated, 298 00:19:22,700 --> 00:19:23,720 or was it on the way? 299 00:19:24,590 --> 00:19:26,120 Well, it's interesting, 300 00:19:26,380 --> 00:19:30,880 the answer to this's a little complex because Robert never was particularly 301 00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:31,713 bright. 302 00:19:31,740 --> 00:19:34,920 So you would have trouble figuring if he was having a good day or a bad day. 303 00:19:35,740 --> 00:19:39,080 He spent most of his life in the saddle. 304 00:19:39,260 --> 00:19:43,640 And one of the consequences of it was not only severe bow legs, 305 00:19:44,020 --> 00:19:48,360 but he could barely walk. After all. He had had a number of, of, 306 00:19:48,420 --> 00:19:51,560 of accidents on horseback. He had broken bones. 307 00:19:51,820 --> 00:19:56,640 He had developed various conditions that you run into when you passed 70. 308 00:19:57,540 --> 00:20:00,920 And his health was deteriorating, uh, 309 00:20:01,500 --> 00:20:06,000 his limited ability to think rationally and to think 310 00:20:06,460 --> 00:20:09,680 in his own enlightened self-interest, deteriorated. 311 00:20:10,060 --> 00:20:11,600 And at the end of his life, 312 00:20:11,660 --> 00:20:15,840 as Robert was sort of facing the fact that he was dying or he was going to die, 313 00:20:16,500 --> 00:20:21,080 he only really ever said one or two things about what he wanted for the future. 314 00:20:21,300 --> 00:20:25,360 And he wanted the ranch run the way he had always run it, 315 00:20:25,360 --> 00:20:28,320 which was old fashioned. I mean, for example, 316 00:20:29,230 --> 00:20:33,280 they all use helicopters down in the valley today. Well, he refused to use them. 317 00:20:33,380 --> 00:20:35,520 It was all, everybody had to be down on horseback. 318 00:20:36,500 --> 00:20:38,680 He was backward in that regard. 319 00:20:39,540 --> 00:20:44,520 But the real core of of his existence was he and his 320 00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:49,000 sister loved all of the wild animals that lived on the ranch. 321 00:20:49,470 --> 00:20:50,920 They grew these huge, 322 00:20:51,310 --> 00:20:54,600 huge white-tailed deer ranch was famous for the, 323 00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:58,520 some of the biggest white-tailed deer in the world. And poaching was a problem. 324 00:20:59,140 --> 00:21:02,240 But he had no interest in the gas and oil business. 325 00:21:02,240 --> 00:21:06,840 He didn't want Exxon on his land, and neither did his sister. 326 00:21:07,740 --> 00:21:10,440 So, you know, he was in, in a way, 327 00:21:10,780 --> 00:21:14,880 Robert had really nothing much further to say or to do. He was, he was old, 328 00:21:14,900 --> 00:21:19,120 he was not well, but most importantly, he just was vulnerable. 329 00:21:19,790 --> 00:21:24,160 I've learned a lot about elderly abuse in, of course, of doing this book. 330 00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:28,600 Maybe we can get into that later on. But he just was this huge target. 331 00:21:29,460 --> 00:21:31,120 And elderly abuse is, 332 00:21:31,180 --> 00:21:34,800 is generally a crime of lower middle class to, 333 00:21:34,940 --> 00:21:39,040 to working class families. Robert was immensely wealthy. 334 00:21:39,660 --> 00:21:42,400 He had hundreds of millions of dollars, 335 00:21:43,340 --> 00:21:45,200 and he was kept out on the ranch, 336 00:21:46,110 --> 00:21:49,560 prevented from seeing a doctor prevented from going to the hospital. 337 00:21:50,380 --> 00:21:55,280 So what were basically issues of old age were just allowed to 338 00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:58,480 get better or get worse and worse and worse. And until he died, 339 00:21:59,120 --> 00:22:00,480 a horrible death, as you say. 340 00:22:01,180 --> 00:22:05,720 During this period. Yeah. How do these people really get their claws into him? 341 00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:10,280 Because a foundation is set up and in which the family really 342 00:22:10,490 --> 00:22:11,400 loses control. 343 00:22:11,530 --> 00:22:12,363 Completely. 344 00:22:12,460 --> 00:22:16,160 And he loses control of his wealth. And he was so wealthy, 345 00:22:16,500 --> 00:22:19,360 and yet his health was deteriorating, was kept isolated there. 346 00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:21,720 O other members of the family couldn't even see him. 347 00:22:21,980 --> 00:22:24,240 He could have seen the best doctors in the world. 348 00:22:25,140 --> 00:22:29,520 He could have flown them in. Most of his medical care was really, 349 00:22:29,520 --> 00:22:33,680 really suspect, including a woman who allegedly was a, 350 00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,000 a doctor who was gonna live on the ranch and take care of him. 351 00:22:36,060 --> 00:22:39,600 But as we write in the book, there was a, 352 00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:44,560 a real question about her competence or her even her willingness to take care of 353 00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:49,120 him. So it's the steep, ugly irony of him being, 354 00:22:49,420 --> 00:22:49,740 you know, 355 00:22:49,740 --> 00:22:54,560 richer than hell and living basically a hermit's life in bed, 356 00:22:54,930 --> 00:22:59,280 being taken care of by young Mexican, uh, boys, you know, 357 00:22:59,300 --> 00:23:01,680 who were illegals, but they were convenient. 358 00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:06,400 'cause none of them spoke any English. Right. And so there's a, we'll, 359 00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:09,520 we can talk about that a little bit later. 'cause there's one hero in the book, 360 00:23:09,980 --> 00:23:13,120 uh, that we can talk about who was one of these young boys. But go ahead. I. 361 00:23:13,470 --> 00:23:16,720 Well, and meanwhile, there are a lot of people getting rich and what, what, 362 00:23:16,750 --> 00:23:19,840 what, what is the purpose of this foundation? Oh. 363 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:21,920 Okay. Let go back. 'cause I, I did, yeah. I skipped, 364 00:23:22,120 --> 00:23:24,920 I I skipped part of your question. So, 365 00:23:25,380 --> 00:23:30,080 one of Robert's lawyers in the 1980s cooked up this 366 00:23:30,150 --> 00:23:34,840 idea of doing a foundation. Then Robert's parents' names. 367 00:23:35,430 --> 00:23:39,840 Basically, it was going to be devoted to, uh, 368 00:23:39,950 --> 00:23:44,640 promoting the welfare of wildlife, specifically wildlife, 369 00:23:44,980 --> 00:23:47,240 to coexist with, uh, ranch, 370 00:23:47,250 --> 00:23:51,280 ranch animals on the prairie in South Texas. So it was, uh, 371 00:23:52,140 --> 00:23:56,920 the idea was kind of like the deer and the antelope and the steers 372 00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:58,280 will play sort of thing. 373 00:23:58,820 --> 00:24:01,840 Robert never showed any particular interest in this idea. 374 00:24:02,580 --> 00:24:07,040 He was violently opposed to any program 375 00:24:07,700 --> 00:24:11,560 of, of hunting on his ranch beyond very, very limited hunting. 376 00:24:12,180 --> 00:24:16,080 He didn't like the gas and oil business. And had he had his way, 377 00:24:16,510 --> 00:24:19,960 they never would've drilled and found that well, that, well that they did. He, 378 00:24:19,980 --> 00:24:24,560 he, he opposed it. So what happened was, 379 00:24:25,060 --> 00:24:29,840 you have this isolated old man out on his ranch. You have a, uh, 380 00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:34,280 a series of unscrupulous lawyers and employees. 381 00:24:35,060 --> 00:24:40,000 And one by one they got into his will and rewrote it and 382 00:24:40,670 --> 00:24:44,120 established a foundation called it the East Foundation, 383 00:24:44,650 --> 00:24:47,480 which exists today, uh, most certainly, 384 00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,840 although there are no members of the east family connected with it in any way or 385 00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:56,480 ever will be, as far as I can tell, and without anybody knowing it, 386 00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:58,000 because of the isolation. 387 00:24:58,700 --> 00:25:03,640 One document after another was rewritten until at the end 388 00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:07,160 of his life, Robert's nephew, Mike, 389 00:25:07,930 --> 00:25:10,800 aware that his uncle was quite sick, but not how sick, 390 00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:14,720 because he couldn't get to see him end up ha having to sign a document, 391 00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:20,840 transferring control of the estate to these people in exchange 392 00:25:21,500 --> 00:25:25,840 for the chance to finally see his uncle. In his dying days, 393 00:25:26,540 --> 00:25:30,920 he signed, he signed it all the way. Um, four days later, Robert died. 394 00:25:31,890 --> 00:25:32,723 And that was the, 395 00:25:32,770 --> 00:25:37,590 the ranch had then had gone out of the family's control entirely, 396 00:25:38,610 --> 00:25:42,510 and a new regime pursuing goals that Robert, 397 00:25:42,690 --> 00:25:46,110 as we discussed, had no interest in, uh, took over. 398 00:25:46,650 --> 00:25:48,750 And, and the new regime, all of them become full. 399 00:25:48,810 --> 00:25:50,030 All of them. All of 'em. It was the, 400 00:25:50,030 --> 00:25:52,230 the bunch of attorneys and some of the people who had been on the, 401 00:25:52,450 --> 00:25:56,230 the ranch who had enabled some of this to go on, 402 00:25:56,530 --> 00:25:59,870 got new jobs at the foundation, right. That sort of thing. But. 403 00:25:59,870 --> 00:26:03,470 All, all of the young, the cowboys from Mexico that were taking care of him, 404 00:26:03,980 --> 00:26:05,350 they're all basically fired. 405 00:26:05,820 --> 00:26:09,270 Well, everybody got fired when he died. The new management said, look, 406 00:26:09,570 --> 00:26:11,750 we won't hire you illegals anymore, 407 00:26:12,370 --> 00:26:16,550 and we will not even pay you for the work you've done in the two weeks since 408 00:26:16,550 --> 00:26:20,310 Robert died. And, and we have consumed, we have taken over control of the ranch. 409 00:26:20,340 --> 00:26:22,870 They just, uh, these are in some cases, 410 00:26:23,310 --> 00:26:25,910 families that had worked for three or four generations on the ranch. 411 00:26:26,380 --> 00:26:28,270 They just said, you're all gone, you're outta here. 412 00:26:28,890 --> 00:26:31,430 And some of them went back to Mexico. 413 00:26:31,770 --> 00:26:36,310 Others were arrested and deported back to Mexico. And some of them, 414 00:26:36,540 --> 00:26:40,110 Mike East Robert's nephew, was able to absorb into his, his ranch. 415 00:26:40,530 --> 00:26:41,430 It was a massacre. 416 00:26:41,690 --> 00:26:43,960 And you said there is one hero in that group. 417 00:26:44,190 --> 00:26:48,840 This is such a heartbreaking story, Robert. It's, I mean, I, you know, I, 418 00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:53,000 I've been a, a reporter since, you know, since before Dirt, and I'm used to yes, 419 00:26:53,010 --> 00:26:57,280 awful things, but he's, well, you know, Robert's death is, is horrible. 420 00:26:57,460 --> 00:27:02,000 But one of the young men, again, who spoke no English, 421 00:27:02,460 --> 00:27:07,400 put in charge of his care one night, was sleeping in the room next to Robert. 422 00:27:07,590 --> 00:27:12,000 When Robert, this is, uh, Robert at this time is in his mid eighties. 423 00:27:12,460 --> 00:27:16,760 He has a, a, a dream, and he dreams Robert's dreaming that he's, 424 00:27:17,310 --> 00:27:20,240 he's, uh, uh, gathering cattle again. 425 00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:24,600 And he is go gooing and golfing and going out the, and so, uh, 426 00:27:25,140 --> 00:27:25,620 Ramiro, 427 00:27:25,620 --> 00:27:29,600 the young man goes into his room and gets him back into his bed and says, no, 428 00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:34,480 you're, you know, you're fine. You know, and he thinks at the moment, he says, 429 00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,640 you know, if he fell out of that crib, that bed, 430 00:27:38,120 --> 00:27:39,520 I would be blamed for it, 431 00:27:39,710 --> 00:27:42,360 because they would say that I was not taking care of him. 432 00:27:42,500 --> 00:27:45,120 So he had the inspiration of starting to, 433 00:27:45,140 --> 00:27:49,800 to audiotape all the conversations. Uh, he had, uh, 434 00:27:49,980 --> 00:27:53,120 he heard or was, uh, privy to around Robert. He had a cell phone, 435 00:27:53,180 --> 00:27:54,160 surreptitiously. 436 00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:55,040 Surreptitiously. 437 00:27:55,100 --> 00:27:59,200 Now, the, the, what made it fairly simple for him is, 438 00:27:59,260 --> 00:28:03,480 is that the Anglos who had taken over control of the ranch 439 00:28:04,100 --> 00:28:05,600 didn't, couldn't tell, uh, 440 00:28:06,180 --> 00:28:09,640 dis disintegrate between one Mexican kid and another. 441 00:28:09,700 --> 00:28:11,840 He was basically like a piece of furniture. 442 00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:14,960 They didn't pay any attention to him. So he could fairly, 443 00:28:15,340 --> 00:28:19,720 fairly easily tape record all of their conversations, 444 00:28:19,850 --> 00:28:23,240 these things that where they were trying to talk Robert into hating his, 445 00:28:23,780 --> 00:28:27,720 his nephew. And as he was doing this, he said, you know, 446 00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,040 it's not so much thinking to himself. He says, this is not just to protect me, 447 00:28:32,220 --> 00:28:36,080 but I need proof that what's going on, because he's being, he, 448 00:28:36,150 --> 00:28:37,840 he's basically slowly being murdered. 449 00:28:38,620 --> 00:28:43,320 And it was when Ramiro finally got the tapes to Mike, and, 450 00:28:43,420 --> 00:28:47,920 and Mike listened to him that the spell was broken, if you will. 451 00:28:48,420 --> 00:28:52,280 But as I said, by then, it was too late. All the transfers had been made, 452 00:28:52,420 --> 00:28:55,720 and they basically had to sign everything away just to say goodbye to, 453 00:28:56,300 --> 00:28:57,133 to their uncle. 454 00:28:58,290 --> 00:29:02,510 You quoted in the book someone that said it was their belief that this was at 455 00:29:02,530 --> 00:29:05,470 the least manslaughter as to what happened to Robert. 456 00:29:06,790 --> 00:29:10,040 Were there ever any criminal consequences for anyone? There. 457 00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:13,880 Was an investigation opened in Star County, 458 00:29:14,210 --> 00:29:18,840 which is South Texas. They investigated, but without, 459 00:29:19,390 --> 00:29:23,440 without any witnesses, without anybody be, you know, able to go and, you know, 460 00:29:23,500 --> 00:29:27,600 and to say this or, or, or access to any of the documents at that point. 461 00:29:28,460 --> 00:29:31,560 Uh, and the fact that Mike, in order to see his, 462 00:29:31,780 --> 00:29:35,280 his uncle had signed away his claims to the ranch. 463 00:29:35,790 --> 00:29:39,040 They had nothing to go on. They had nothing. And, and there was, 464 00:29:39,460 --> 00:29:41,120 the investigation was closed, 465 00:29:41,820 --> 00:29:45,120 and there was never anything close to an adjudication. 466 00:29:45,620 --> 00:29:48,000 Nobody was ever charged with anything. 467 00:29:48,540 --> 00:29:51,480 And there have been no consequences whatsoever. 468 00:29:52,180 --> 00:29:56,800 The foundation has, is now thriving as a hunting ranch. 469 00:29:57,220 --> 00:30:00,520 Uh, that's where you go to hunt the big deer in Texas now. 470 00:30:00,980 --> 00:30:02,000 And what do the, uh, 471 00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:06,400 federal filings show about that ranch in terms of the management? 472 00:30:06,500 --> 00:30:07,800 How well paid are they? 473 00:30:08,310 --> 00:30:09,360 Well, the, the, 474 00:30:09,460 --> 00:30:14,080 the c e o earns $490,000 a year. 475 00:30:14,540 --> 00:30:18,920 And the members of the board are com compensated in that, 476 00:30:19,110 --> 00:30:23,800 that range as well. Their, their executive, the total executive, 477 00:30:24,060 --> 00:30:28,200 uh, outlay for last year was in excess of $2 million. 478 00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:32,720 I, I, I can't comment on whether or not they earned that $2 million. 479 00:30:33,500 --> 00:30:37,000 But they specified in the, the, 480 00:30:37,060 --> 00:30:38,600 the documents for the foundation, 481 00:30:39,180 --> 00:30:42,960 the four members of the foundation board of directors work six hours, 482 00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:47,320 I think six hours a month for several hundred thousand dollars a year. 483 00:30:48,060 --> 00:30:52,640 Oh, boy. Have you received any pushback from the people you've exposed, 484 00:30:53,660 --> 00:30:56,040 uh, that in how they took advantage of Robert? 485 00:30:56,700 --> 00:31:00,880 You know, not a word, and I've been a little bit surprised by it, 486 00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:04,680 because this is not me making up a bunch of allegations. 487 00:31:04,830 --> 00:31:08,760 It's all You've read the book. Yes. It's all, it's, the facts are all there. 488 00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:12,800 I mean, much of it is taken directly from their published art, you know, 489 00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,480 they're published papers. Right, right, right. And tape recorded conversations, 490 00:31:16,700 --> 00:31:18,920 you know, where, where Romero comes in, 491 00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:24,200 I was concerned early on because the, the foundation or the, uh, 492 00:31:24,220 --> 00:31:29,120 the ranch foreman was under suspicion by various 493 00:31:29,340 --> 00:31:33,320 law enforcement agencies for smuggling immigrants, 494 00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:38,000 smuggling drugs, lots of other Sure. Types of crimes on, on the, 495 00:31:38,220 --> 00:31:39,020 that's border. 496 00:31:39,020 --> 00:31:41,160 And that's center before the cartel works. 497 00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:44,960 Y y well, yeah. And so I, you know, and, and as you know, 498 00:31:45,210 --> 00:31:49,120 south Texas at night is very dark . And there's, and. 499 00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:49,953 Very dangerous. 500 00:31:50,060 --> 00:31:52,640 And very dangerous. And so I, I, you know, 501 00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:57,280 I didn't do any driving by myself after, after, after, uh, sundown. 502 00:31:57,380 --> 00:32:01,240 But as it turned, no, as it turned out, no, I have not been, uh, 503 00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:05,240 I have not been threatened with anything. And I hope to keep it that way. What. 504 00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:10,240 Has this taught you? What have you learned about elder abuse in doing the story? 505 00:32:11,230 --> 00:32:15,240 Well, Robert, you know, since I'm now 75, I, you know, 506 00:32:15,330 --> 00:32:19,720 elder abuse has a little more immediate meaning to me than it has in the years 507 00:32:19,750 --> 00:32:20,583 past. 508 00:32:20,860 --> 00:32:25,800 But I didn't even think about Robert as the victim of elder abuse 509 00:32:26,450 --> 00:32:29,840 until the book was published. And the first response, 510 00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:31,620 I mean the, 511 00:32:31,620 --> 00:32:36,520 the vanguard of the reader response was people worried about elderly 512 00:32:36,850 --> 00:32:40,920 abuse and what had happened to Robert. And I, you know, part of it, 513 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:45,600 I think maybe Robert, is that the baby boomers are now getting really old. 514 00:32:45,620 --> 00:32:48,600 And there's, and there's a lot of us. And we're saying, gosh, 515 00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:51,920 I wonder how I protect myself from something like this. 516 00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:54,680 'cause if Robert worth hundreds of millions of dollars, 517 00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:58,200 couldn't get himself an aspirin, what can I do? 518 00:32:58,860 --> 00:33:02,640 My first impression as I read it was that it was elder abuse. Yeah. And, 519 00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:05,760 you know, the baby boomers have got all the wealth in the country right now. 520 00:33:05,870 --> 00:33:09,080 Yeah. Yeah. And wow, just, it, to me, 521 00:33:09,100 --> 00:33:13,950 it just signaled that you better not have Robert's personality 522 00:33:13,970 --> 00:33:18,030 of being this old ornery cuss that isolates yourself. 'cause boy, do you, 523 00:33:18,050 --> 00:33:21,230 do you become a target. And I then I wonder with the wealth, 524 00:33:21,230 --> 00:33:25,990 especially the wealth in Texas, how many other cases of this are taking place? 525 00:33:26,930 --> 00:33:30,950 I'm not in a position to extrapolate. Right. But the formula is, is really, 526 00:33:30,950 --> 00:33:35,150 really, really pretty clear. Get an old person who's got a lot of money, 527 00:33:35,210 --> 00:33:38,550 and their mind is, and their mind is, is, is going a little bit, 528 00:33:39,050 --> 00:33:42,110 and they don't have any, you know, they're, for whatever reason, 529 00:33:42,340 --> 00:33:46,830 they've been separated from their families. Mm-hmm. . Um, and it's, 530 00:33:46,980 --> 00:33:51,230 it's easy pickings. You should, you, you, you see in the book, I've, 531 00:33:51,230 --> 00:33:54,470 I've put examples of Robert's handwriting on all these, 532 00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:56,990 these documents that they Oh yeah. Have him sign. 533 00:33:57,650 --> 00:34:02,150 And it starts out being a fairly decent signature. And at the end, 534 00:34:02,790 --> 00:34:06,350 I say in the book, it looks like a drunk an has been walking across the, the, 535 00:34:06,730 --> 00:34:08,470 you've seen him, you've seen him like they're. 536 00:34:08,470 --> 00:34:09,670 Holding his hand. Yeah. 537 00:34:09,670 --> 00:34:13,270 Exactly. Who, well, we know that they held his hand, you know, to do this. 538 00:34:13,690 --> 00:34:18,230 We have witnesses who said that, but it, it was so blatant. 539 00:34:18,550 --> 00:34:18,850 I mean, 540 00:34:18,850 --> 00:34:23,750 all they had to do was play on the schisms that had occurred in the family. 541 00:34:24,690 --> 00:34:25,550 Uh, the natural, 542 00:34:25,990 --> 00:34:29,550 I guess then that's the fact that nobody lives next door to anybody out there. 543 00:34:29,620 --> 00:34:31,990 Everybody's 500 miles from each other, 544 00:34:32,650 --> 00:34:36,510 and you have a recipe for what happened to poor Robert. 545 00:34:37,050 --> 00:34:41,310 In effect, this is, you, you could call it the perfect crime. Yeah. 546 00:34:41,310 --> 00:34:43,430 Do you think they've, have they gotten away with it, 547 00:34:43,450 --> 00:34:47,710 or do you think your book is gonna cause some law enforcement agency to dig in? 548 00:34:48,340 --> 00:34:53,110 Well, we've been contacted, one problem is statute of limitations. Yes. 549 00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:56,430 Which leaves out a lot of things. But there are, 550 00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:00,550 there are issues that can be raised, such as, for instance, in, 551 00:35:00,570 --> 00:35:04,190 in the case of fraud, the clock starts when you discover the fraud, 552 00:35:04,250 --> 00:35:08,550 not when it occurred. I, I really, really doubt that they'll ever, 553 00:35:08,580 --> 00:35:11,830 they'll ever charge anybody with a physical crime. 554 00:35:12,550 --> 00:35:15,190 Although the person to whom you, you, uh, 555 00:35:15,630 --> 00:35:19,670 referred to was Helenita Groves, who is a great, great, 556 00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:24,430 great granddaughter of, the founder of the King Ranch and Robert's cousin. 557 00:35:25,370 --> 00:35:29,230 And she went to see him on his deathbed and said, 558 00:35:29,900 --> 00:35:33,270 your quote is that I've run around and I've seen a lot. And, 559 00:35:33,290 --> 00:35:36,910 and that was at least manslaughter. And Helenita, 560 00:35:37,460 --> 00:35:41,320 who is now deceased, was not given to exaggeration. 561 00:35:45,580 --> 00:35:49,320 In closing, here's my reporter's recap and reflections. 562 00:35:50,260 --> 00:35:54,840 People over 50 now own over 70% of all personal wealth 563 00:35:55,070 --> 00:35:56,440 held in the United States. 564 00:35:57,650 --> 00:36:00,080 Learn this lesson from Stephen Michel's book. 565 00:36:00,780 --> 00:36:05,360 If a baby boomer with a Texas fortune can become the victim of elder abuse 566 00:36:06,020 --> 00:36:08,920 and lose everything, it could happen to you. 567 00:36:09,780 --> 00:36:14,240 Do you have a plan and family members or people around you that you trust? 568 00:36:15,820 --> 00:36:20,720 You've been listening to the True Crime Reporter podcast. Stay true, stay safe, 569 00:36:20,860 --> 00:36:25,600 and stay tuned for more stories from inside the crime Scene tape. 570 00:36:26,350 --> 00:36:28,320 This is Robert Riggs reporting.