Transcript
Narrator/Host (0:00)
On the Crime House original podcast, Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, we're diving into the psychology of the world's most complex murder cases. From serial killers to cult leaders, deadly exes and spree killers, we're examining not just how they killed, but why. Is it uncontrollable rage? Overwhelming fear? Or is it something deeper? Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House Studios original new episodes drop every Monday and Thursday, Friday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.
Carter Roy (0:42)
This is crime house. Secret weapons, psychedelic drugs, government cover ups, and one journalist who was determined to expose it all. If you've been on social media in the last few years, you've probably heard about the Roman Empire trend. It started when women began asking the men in their lives how often they thought about the Roman Empire. The answers were surprising. Lots of men said they thought about it every single day. Since then, the trends evolved to refer to anything you just can't let go of. Whether it's a person, a topic or an idea. Your Roman Empire is that one thing you're obsessed with. Well, back in July 1991, journalist Danny Casolaro had a very specific Roman Empire. He called it the Octopus. Here's an explanation in his own words. With its tag team compartments, its exploitation of hundreds of people, and its formidable stealth, the Octopus will help to unravel the most compelling puzzles of the 20th century. End quote. To this day, we're not sure what those puzzles were, or the Octopus for that matter. But Danny claimed they held the key to exposing some of the most powerful men in the world as criminals. Most people who heard about the theory thought Danny had a few screws loose. But then, just a few weeks after going public with his suspicions, Danny was found dead. It didn't seem like a coincidence. All of a sudden, people started wondering if Danny was actually onto something. Maybe his death wasn't an accident. Maybe he was murdered because he knew to much. Welcome to the Octopus. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon. And we don't always get to know the real ending. Hi, I'm Carter Roy and this is True Crime Stories, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. New episodes come out every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Thank you for being part of the Crime House community. Please rate, review and follow the show and for early ad free access to every episode. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to another episode of Murder Mystery Fridays where I'm covering unsolved cases with questions that I can't get out of my head. The ones where the evidence points in multiple directions and every theory feels like a possibility. Today, I am diving into one of the most bizarre cases you've probably never heard of. The octopus murders. On August 10, 1991, 44 year old Danny Casolaro was found dead in a West Virginia hotel room. There was a brief suicide note beside his body, but his friends and family didn't buy it. They immediately suspected foul play. Danny was a freelance writer and investigative journalist, and before he died, he swore he was working on something big. According to Danny, there was a mysterious group he called the Octopus. Each tentacle supposedly referred to one of eight powerful ex government officials who were secretly influencing global politics. After Danny's mysterious demise, his co workers tried to learn more about the Octopus. But decoding it would prove nearly impossible. Many of Danny's notes on the conspiracy had suspiciously vanished when he died. And in the decades since, countless investigators have wondered, was Danny really onto something? Or was it all just the ravings of a madman? All that and more coming up. A wardrobe that actually lasts comes down to choosing the right basics. Pieces that feel good, look good, and hold up over time. That's what Quince does best. They focus on premium materials and thoughtful details to create everyday staples that are easy to wear and easy to trust you even when the weather can't make up its mind. Quince has all the essentials. Organic cotton sweaters, Polos for every occasion, and lighter jackets that keep you warm without feeling heavy. 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Connecting homeowners with skilled pros for over 30 years Angie the one you trust to find the ones you trust Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com. Danny Casolaro was always a colorful character. He was born in 1947 to a large and wealthy family. His dad, Joe was a prominent doctor who could afford to raise his children in an exclusive suburb outside of Washington D.C. danny grew up riding horses on their property and attending the best schools money could buy. And although he had everything he could possibly want, Danny wasn't content to stay in D.C. and he wanted to travel, to go on adventures and see the world. But Danny did more than just talk about his dreams. In 1963, the 16 year old left home and explored South America on an ill fated treasure hunt. A few months later, he returned without any riches but a lot of stories. For the moment, it seemed like Danny's itch for adventure had been scratched. After returning stateside, he settled into a life that was a little more conventional. Danny went back to school and enrolled at Providence College in rhode Island. In 1968, the 21 year old graduated with a degree in English. At some point, he also started dating a woman named Terrell Pace. They married in 1968, the same year he graduated and bought a home in D.C. a year later, they had a son named Trey. From the outside, it looked like Danny had it all. He was handsome, charismatic and deeply in love. He had family money to fall back on and hobbies like boxing and horse racing. Most people expected him to spend his days taking it easy. But just because Danny was comfortable didn't mean he was satisfied with the status quo. He spent the next decade working as a freelance writer, digging into exciting, unconventional stories. He published a novel called Ice King about mountain climbing. He wrote for a slew of newspapers and magazines including the World News, the London sun, the National Enquirer and others. He even did some investigative journalism about Chinese drug smugglers and Cuban spy networks operating in the US but just as his career was really taking off, his personal life was falling apart. In 1978 or so, his 10 year marriage ended in divorce. It seemed like the split was mutual. But 31 year old Danny was still heartbroken. Instead of spiraling, he put all his anxious energy into his work. Around the same time, Danny founded and edited several trade journals that focused on stories about the emerging computer industry in dc. He did that for the next decade, but eventually Danny got bored. He wanted to do Something important, something transformative. So in the spring of 1990, the 43 year old went back to his roots and returned to investigative journalism. He was determined to break a huge story. That's when some friends told him about the Inslaw case. Inslaw was a Washington D.C. software company founded by a couple named Bill and Nancy Hamilton. Their flagship program was called Promise. It was an early case management system designed for prosecutors and. And it was way ahead of its time. By pressing a single key, an attorney could find out about someone's prior convictions, known associates and the status of court appeals. Basically most things they might need to know about a defendant. By 1982, the program was pretty sophisticated. That same year, the U.S. justice Department happened to be overhauling its computer system. Promise was a perfect fit for the prosecutors in the DOJ. Bill and Nancy won a massive $10 million contract to tailor the software to the Department's specific needs. They were ecstatic. This was their big break and they worked hard to meet the government's specifications. But the Justice Department didn't hold up any its end of the bargain. Eventually, Bill and Nancy turned in a trial run of the software. The Justice Department was supposed to try it out, then either pay out the contract or return the program. Instead, they kept it and refused to pay up with all the money they'd poured into the program, Bill and Nancy's company was forced into bankruptcy. The case took years to resolve. But in 1988, a bankruptcy judge ruled that Bill and Nancy were telling the truth. He determined the Justice Department never intended to actually pay for the software. Instead they stole it by trickery, fraud and deceit. The Justice Department was ordered to pay bill and Nancy 8 million million. The government appealed and lost the following year. Then in 1990, just one day before the deadline to return the software, the Department won a second appeal. Bill and Nancy were ruined. And now they wouldn't get their product or the money they were owed. They asked the Supreme Court to hear the case, but it would be a long time before they got any results. In the meantime, it was up to journalists like Danny to keep the story alive. Danny wanted to learn more about the Hamiltons and Inslaw. He found it hard to believe the Justice Department had gone so far just to bankrupt a small software company. Bill and Nancy suspected it was coming at the command of one man, a guy named Earl Bryan. He'd served in Ronald Reagan's cabinet while Bill and Nancy's trial was going on. So he may have known about the Hamiltons powerful software. And when they went into bankruptcy, Earl's company came in with an aggressive buyout offer for Inslaw. Bill and Nancy were convinced that Earl had orchestrated it all so he could bankrupt their company, buy their software at a bargain rate and sell it himself. Eventually, Danny agreed with the Hamiltons. He was certain he'd found the scoop of a lifetime. He continued speaking to Bill and Nancy, trying to learn as much as possible. And before long, they introduced him to another source who could prove their theory. A man named Michael Rico Nashudo. If you take him at his word. Michael was a child prodigy and computer expert who became a weapons designer and then platinum miner. But according to the government, he was a drug dealer. Of course, Danny was wary of Michael. So he did what any good investigative journalist would do and researched him. He found some evidence that Michael really was the child prodigy he claimed to be. Back in 1960, when Michael was just 12 years old, a local paper in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington called him a modern da Vinci. Four years later, he made headlines for building some kind of underwater house, complete with a working television and radio. Before his junior year of high school, he was invited to work as a summer research assistant at Stanford for a Nobel laureate. The scientist remembered him vividly. Decades later, he said, quote, you don't forget a 16 year old youngster who shows up with his own argon laser. So Michael might have been some kind of genius, but he was a troubled one. In 1973, the 25 year old was sentenced to two years in prison for manufacturing psychedelic drugs and jumping bail. He insisted he was forced into making the drugs, but there's no evidence to support his claims. After Michael got out of prison, his life was a little harder to track. But apparently his engineering skills outweighed his criminal history because according to Michael, he worked on a secret project at the Cabazon Indian reservation in Southern California. Michael alleged the American government had built a facility on the tribe's land to develop high tech weapons. The reason he knew this, apparently Michael was the research director for the weapons company the government had hired. The tribe's legal status supposedly protected the research and helped keep it secret. But Michael said one of the technologies was similar to a nuclear bomb. And that wasn't all. As Michael told it, he met a lot of powerful government officials while working on the reservation, including high ranking CIA agents. And this was when Michael's story came full circle back to Bill and Nancy Hamilton. These agents allegedly sent Michael on a variety of missions in the 80s. These included everything from collapsing a shady bank, lobbying on Capitol Hill and laundering money through NASA. Michael didn't provide any proof of these activities. And honestly, I'd love to hear what you think, because I know it definitely sounds like a stretch, but one specific story seemed to have a kernel of truth. Michael claimed that one of his secret missions was related to Bill and Nancy Hamilton and their Promise program. Michael said he was hired by the government to install a backdoor in Bill and Nancy's software, which would make sense given his hacking skills. Michael claimed the plan was for the government to sell the program to other countries, then use the secret backdoor to access their files. If that was true, it meant the US wasn't just trying to spy on its allies. It was planning to hack into government computers around the world. When Danny heard that, he was floored. If this got out, it could ruin the US's reputation. Not only would it violate several international laws, but it could potentially damage US relations with other countries. He'd had a feeling he was onto something. He just didn't know it would be this explosive and that discovering the truth would come at a massive cost.