C (4:56)

Wait, you could you call it football? That's amazing. I mean, I think people do want to hear about my incredible free passes over the weekend, but not what the comments say.

B (5:06)

Not what the comments say. Do you guys want to listen to some goober talk about his weekend? That's every other podcast. We don't do that here. That's why you see those milestone numbers up on our Spotify that are, you know, 50, 75K and all that. Now, Sean is not in a tiny Asian Hotel room. He is in his living room. I'm in my living room. Because Spotify Studios is occupied, we are once again living the dream. For bonus episodes, which are usually interviews with interesting people knowledgeable in the criminal underworld or organized crime news updates, which crazy, I mean, the Louvre thing, right? The NBA thing. Like a real episode based on that stuff. Because it is, it is classic mafia stuff. But anyway, you can sign up right here on Spotify for those bonuses or an Apple podcast or at patreon.com/the Underworld podcast for the low, low price of $5 a month. Or just throw us a couple bucks a month, like $3 a month to support. We're averaging like one a week. That, that is a deal right there. For merch. Underworldpod.com and for tips, compliments, or if you want to pay us money to advertise your product or you want to send us free stuff, that's the Underworld podcast at gmail and dot com. Let's get after it. Sean. You know, I think we think about the 1950s in places like this, and I kind of do this too. Even though obviously there was a lot of, you know, civil rights stuff going on and other things going on. But we, I think of it as like Leave it to Beaver type stuff, you know, like rose colored glasses, I guess, for history and all that. But it was gnarly. Like lots of savage crime, sleaziness and corruption and people getting away with it. Like carving out these areas where law enforcement either didn't care, didn't exist, or were in on it. It's like you like, like feudal monarchies back in the day or feudal. Not monarchies, feudal lords back in the day. If you guys have listened to our Dixie Mob episode, I think Sean did one about the Texas millionaire murders. I did one on this. The whole organization. Some of this may sound familiar, but it's kind of a different beat. Even though they intersected, and we'll talk about that later on the state line, Mob centers around a particular area of the Tennessee, Mississippi border. Now, we talk about border towns all the time, but usually we're talking about like countries, right? Not within the same country, but apparently though, you know, I assume rural police did not really care about the codes or legalities or jurisdiction back then, but according to this, they, they did. So this area kind of becomes this free for all where they just hop back and forth across the border to like get away from the local police who have no jurisdiction, you know, two feet away. So you had gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, a whole lot of robbery and scamming on tourists or people passing through. And with that, a whole lot of violence. It all seems pretty wild for this sort of lawlessness to have existed around that time. Like it's basically deadwood over there. The seeds of this underworld, they're planted during Prohibition when the country, country folk, moonshiners are sort of moving stuff across the state border, paying off different local cops and playing them against the feds. When Prohibition ends in 1933, the moonshine racket doesn't disappear in places like this because first of, there's still taxes to avoid and blue laws and some of these counties are dry, effectively still under Prohibition. By the late 1940s and early 50s, you have these illegal whiskey houses, you know, from hidden sites in, in the Tennessee hills. They're feeding the roadhouses and honky tonks that sprout up like mushrooms. Along U.S. highway 45, right along the border of McNair County, Southwest Tennessee and Alcorn county, northeast Mississippi. You got, you know, the southern pine trees, some farmland, like real Americana country music songs, pagan cattle farms, barns, church steeples. You got some lumber mills too. Wood industry, logging, and a few small factories. I mean, it's not like this is an industrial area, right? But you have the, the sort of basics I think of the southern economy right there. The stateline area really starts to kick off in the 40s, so way after nationwide prohibition. But just like the 1920s, it is a boon to organized criminals who ju the bootlegging train. And this is where Jack Hathcock starts his empire and becomes a sort of mobster prince of the area. A lot of this stuff, most of it comes from the book the State line mob by W.R. morris. That is the main source. And as we'll find out, it was written like in the, I think late 80s, early 90s. And there are some issues with it that we'll, that we'll talk about, but I think for a large part of it, it's the best source on this material. Jack's born on July 26, 1920 in Michi, Tennessee. His parents work in the cotton fields. They can barely afford to feed their 10 children. This is like depression era Mississippi and Tennessee. Brutal poverty, limited opportunities, just survival mode. Hathcock's dad bootlegs whiskey and he has a general store on the state line that keeps him afloat. And Jack soon gets involved in the family business at a very young age. And by the time he's in middle school, he's transporting moonshine whiskey and selling.

C (10:04)

It to classmates that somehow Sounds idyllic. It's far nicer than the kids from my school who dealt drugs and then one of them ran the other kid over while they were trying to rob a warehouse. And I mean, my school wasn't even that bad. That was like a regular story for kids around my way. I would rather they were transporting moonshine because that sounds much nicer and I probably would have rather done that than whatever the I was doing back then.

B (10:28)

I mean, back then, if you're like 12 years old, like you're, you know, going to school, going to the coal. The coal mine mines, right? And then just smoking a bunch of cigs and ripping darts and drinking whiskey right after. After your 15 hour day is done.

C (10:43)

Welcome to Australia. That's. That's pretty much.

B (10:45)

Are they still there? He was providing a service. His family, though, is crazy and not in the fun way. His dad's a violent alcoholic who beats on his wife and kids. And in 1934, after one of many violent confrontations, his dad and brother end up shooting each other to death. Like, you know, sort of draw sort of situation, which is pretty insane and probably leaves a mark, you know, like mentally and emotionally. Later, his sister stabs a boyfriend to death. So this is not the best environment for youth to come out well adjusted.

C (11:17)

It's just some good old boys getting into hijinks and such.

B (11:20)

They are. I mean, that is. That is nuts. He gets in some trouble early as a teen, gets locked up for burglary. At 15, he's breaking into houses and like stealing stuff. So he's sent to a reformatory school in Nashville. And when he comes home at 16, he's back doing delivery for the general store when he gets introduced to the nightlife scene and hustles up a job there, which calling it the nightlife scene feels like I'm saying the wrong word, you know? Like what? Yeah, they like, talk about, like, clubs and like bar, and I'm like, this is not like whatever picture you have in your head of a club and a nightlife scene. It's probably not. Not that, you know, he gets a start working at a bar called the State Line Club, which literally half the bar is in Tennessee and half is in Mississippi, which means that again, if the local cops come by, or even the state cops, you could just kind of flee the state while staying in the bar.

C (12:12)

That's awesome. Is it? So how close this to Memphis? Because that's right on the border, right?

B (12:17)

I think it's kind of far from Memphis. This is like super, super rural you know?

C (12:22)

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't really know much about that state at all.

B (12:25)

In Memphis, they don't flee from the cops. I think they just shoot at them. As is my understanding of the crime rate in Memphis right now. Although I hear it's getting better. Um, okay, yeah. I mean, that's how the story goes, right? This like, back and forth across the state line thing. But, like, were small town cops in rural America really that concerned with jurisdictional law back then? Like, like, were they, like, really follow the rules? I mean, I don't. I don't know if I buy that completely. Like, these are. These guys are that concerned with protocol in the 1940s. I mean, come on. Right?

C (12:55)

I mean, that's. If you, if you shoot a guy across the bar and he drops in Mississippi, but you shot him from Tennessee, like, what.

B (13:05)

That's a great.

C (13:06)

What. What's going on there?

B (13:07)

That's some. That's a question I feel like I should know the answer to. I assume it's fet. It's federal then, right? I don't know, dude. This is like, I have more fun.

C (13:16)

If you just throw a pint glass at someone and it hits them across the state line. Like, what. What's going on there? Who's involved?

B (13:23)

These are great, great questions. You're probably going to prison. But maybe back then things were different, I assume. I don't know, dude. The Pine Class one is better, but I'm pretty sure that, like, doesn't, like, you can't, like, get into a. I don't know, man. I got no idea. If you're a lawyer, chime in, let us know. We are.

C (13:40)

Yeah, let us know.

B (13:41)

I think we might be morons.

A (13:43)

All right.

B (13:44)

At the club, which is run by like, another dirtbag, Jack learns the fine art of conning customers and stealing from the register, which honestly, like, is just what you do when you work somewhere as a teenager. Like, who didn't steal from their job when they were 16, you know? No, I mean, yeah.

C (14:00)

I mean, I could tell you about the video they showed us at one of my first jobs where they were like, this is what you shouldn't do. And they showed someone just walking out the back of the warehouse and putting like a camera in the skit or the tip behind. And everyone just did that.

B (14:13)

And we're like, thanks for saying we used to work. We all worked in like, like a bunch of my high school friends. Like, we worked in like, one of the malls. Because that's what people did in the 90s. You worked in malls and in the early 2000s and we would just go into each other's stores and just steal from each other. But like. Or you go up to the register with like eight things and they would just ring you up for one thing. Like that's just what you did, dude. Shout out to dappies and, and Sharper Image, man. Definitely. Yeah.

C (14:35)

I mean we all. I mean, I remember having Spencer to England World cup shirt and I think my friend got about 20 of those from one of the supermarkets. So. Yeah, thanks for that.

B (14:45)

So anyway, no fault there, Jack. I'm stealing from the, from the register. That's just what you do. I, I still think this guy sounds relatively insane for now. Shortly after he starts working there, he gets a big old crush on a woman there named Louise, who I take it is a little hottie. She's a couple of years older than him. I think like 19, though. She's definitely a budding sociopath. And what is it? What is it, Sean? You always say when we're off the air, it's always the hot ones, right? Isn't that your.

C (15:09)

That is, yeah. Yeah, I'm saying that at least once every 30 minutes. Yeah.

B (15:14)

She is from a poor family in Mississippi. And no disrespect to Mississippi, but I'm Pretty sure like 95% of families there in the 1920s and 1930s were, were poor. That's just my assumption. Anyway, her family are small time cattle farmers. During the Depression, they really struggle and she kind of swears to herself she's going to get rich by any means possible. She had come to the state line area to find a job. Jack persuades his boss to hire her as a waitress. Jack's already kind of bawling at this point, right? He keeps a roll of bills in his pocket and that's when bills meant something. And he's telling Louise he's going to take over the club someday. Selling her dreams, you know how it is. She apparently thinks he's kind of a dummy, but realizes he's motivated and can make things happen. So even though she's not really in love with him, they get married after three months. He's 17 and she's 18 or 19.

C (16:00)

That's all you can really hope for. Like they're always going to think you're a dummy, but at least as long as you're motivated and it's, everything's all right.

B (16:08)

Yeah. Motivated, huh? In the early 1940s, the owner of the State Line Club goes off to war. After Pearl harbor, he leaves Jack in charge, though, he kind of doesn't really trust him. Like, he's just a shady guy. I take it Jack, though, takes control. He starts running things with Louise, handling the books. And he also starts buying up his own small bars and clubs. I think he's the money man for them. I don't think he's actually running them with names like Jack's House of Suds, the Rainbow Room, things like that. And he starts being the money man behind a whole bunch of these different bars and honky talks in the area.

C (16:39)

I love Jack's House of Suds. I can imagine, like, Homer Simpson heading there on a road trip or something.

B (16:45)

It's very Simpsons, right? Kind of a classic line. When the owner comes back after the war. He glassed, like, a few more years. But kind of realizes Jack has taken control. In the late 1940s, like, he wants out. He wants to go down to Biloxi and get into the casino game. So he officially hands it over to Jack and Louise. And Louise is like, you know, Jack is a hustler and a criminal and a scumbag, but he's practically illiterate. So she really does the books and gets things organized, which is gonna play a role in the future. By then, these guys, you know, they're all playing a cat and mouse game with the local law who. They raid the bars, they shut them down for a few days. Then the guys just reopen. They get fined for the booze, they pay the fine. On and on and on. In 1948, the local Tennessee sheriff shuts a bunch down, including the State Line Club. Jack gets the fines. He pays them. He pays off the right people. Closes for a little, and then he reopens. It's like a game of whack a mole. And these guys just, like, keep persisting. They'd fake sell the property to a friend after it gets shut down. Or they'd burn it down. They'd rebuild it and open as someplace new with a different name.

C (17:47)

Yeah, this is exactly how new media publications work, too, by the way.

B (17:52)

Yeah, except they make a lot more money by getting some poor investor to spend 100 million launching something. Remember Quibi?

C (18:00)

Oh, my God. Yeah. Remember Aussie?

B (18:02)

I didn't get. Oh, yeah. I didn't get Quibby money. All right, around then. This was in 1948. The state line Club finally gets shut down for good. And Jack actually blows it up with dynamite to pretend like he was washing his hands of it. Then gets right to building a new spot right in the same property called the 45 Grill, this time in Alcorn County, Mississippi, which is same property but different state. I think the last one was in Tennessee. So what did they actually do with the state line mob? I mean they ran the rackets, right? You had a whole mess of bars, honky tonks, even motels, bands playing backroom poker, slot machines, bootleg whiskey, high stakes gambling. Prostitution was a big thing. Just the whole menu of vice, like anything goes. And they weren't just making money legit off the racket. Money legit off the racket, you know what I mean? Like obviously not legit money, but from legit rackets, right? They nickel and dime anyone fix dice, crooked poker games, shout out to Chauncey Billups, I loved you on Colorado, but going down bud, big mistake. They would have the working girls pickpocket somebody. They cheat everyone they could, like any way they could in blading ways. Just everything they can. Like, you know, someone would give change for like a 20 and they would give them change on a 10 and then pretend that they had only gotten 10. Just like real scumbag stuff.

C (19:21)

Jesus.

B (19:22)

And when people often kick up a fuss afterward, which some did, they had these goons, real violent thugs who were there, like real roughnecks who. So if somebody stirs up trouble after they get ripped off or threatens to go to the cops, they just have the goons beat the hell out of them to make sure they never complain again. Sometimes it's just a bad beating. Sometimes they straight up would leave a body on the side of the road or throw it in the river nearby. They really like did not play around. Even Luis was famous for cracking people in the dome with a ball peen hammer that she carried on herself.

C (19:53)

Geez, this is like something I read dead like absolutely lawless. It seems like you said this should be way further back in time, man. This is nuts that it's in the 50s, 60s.

B (20:02)

Yeah, yeah. WO Hathcock, who's Jack's nephew, he owns a few bars too. He's one of his partners. And one time at one of his bars, the Plantation Club, they give a guy back the same thing, like I said, change on a 10, set of a 20 that he had handed the waitress, you know, it's just real, real scumbaggery, man. The guy starts arguing, threatening and everything to go to the cops and w just wo. Just shoots him dead. Leaves his body on the side of the highway. He even calls the cops on himself and claims self defense. He does get arrested, but. And I think he's Health for a couple days, but eventually just gets let go because they don't have witnesses, you know? You know. You know what it reminds me of too? Have you ever seen. I mean, this is a much more fun version of that. You ever seen Porky's? It's like a great 80s movie. It kind of reminds me of that, like right down to the corrupt local law enforcement and the county line stuff. But I mean, they had like a brothel and booze and ripping off the kids when they go there and stuff like that.

C (20:53)

Yeah. Oh, man. Kim Cattrall. I think I saw that back in uni, but I'm 100% going to watch it again this weekend. It was great movie.

B (20:59)

I mean, that was back in the 80s where you can get away with a lot. Like that era of like that and like Weird Science and the one where the guy takes the pill that makes him black and pretends to be black into Harvard. What's it called? You ever see that?

C (21:11)

No.

B (21:12)

Soul man. Dude, Soul man is soul man, isn't it? But also like the plot lines are like weird science or like, dude, those movies, that's. That's why everyone was great in the 90s because those movies just raised us with the weirdest nonsense ever.

C (21:25)

Nothing wrong with us.

B (21:26)

Porky's is a classic. It's a classic. Like a classic of the teen high school genre. Where was I? How it worked, the state line stuff, right? You can't just rip off the local population. People wise up pretty quick and everyone there was. Was relatively not wealthy. So you rip them off once, you're not gonna be able to rip them off, rip them off again for years. So. So what they do, they'd advertise these places as having good southern home cooking, right? They put up signs on the highway, luring in tourists, truck drivers coming off Highway 45, anyone sort of traveling for work or just passing through, which because it was this major highway in the area, you got a lot of it, say like steak dinner, ham dinner for cheap. And these people, they think they're stopping for a home cooked meal at a nice roadside diner. But they come in, maybe they see the working girls, the poker rooms, the booze. Instead of just getting a nice meal, they either, you know, get into their vice, they get hustled, or usually both. So basically you got this strip of bars on either side of the road where anything goes. And any sucker who comes through is soon conned out of his money with no recourse. It sounds like kind of how people describe Times Square like the 70s and 80s. Or like the Barry in the early 1900s, right? Not when you imagine the south are like good old boy America. Yeah, the people, they really did have no recourses. Witnesses would get scared to show up. Evidence is weak or disappears. And law enforcement is often on the take as our prosecutors, defense attorneys, all judges, all that. And if someone ever even had the fortitude to follow through and bring charges to court, which happened rarely, Larisse, Luis or Jack or whoever would just find a way to settle with that person so they drop the charges nonetheless. The state line mob crew, they're constantly in court for minor charges, whether it was like, you know, illegal whiskey, concealed weapons, things like that, but nothing ever sticks. And, you know, there's definitely no repeat offender law back then. Deputies, county commissioners, even some small town mayors are on the payroll. If a raid's coming, word arrives. And plenty of time to hide the liquor and move the roulette wheels to another joint. Across the border, local juries are stacked with friends or relatives of the gangsters. Witnesses who got to talkative. Like we said, they often disappear or turn up dead in shallow creeks. And the ordinary citizens, they learn to just kind of keep their heads down and keep their mouth shut.

C (23:42)

Yeah, I guess that's what it comes down to, right, when you think about these guys. Because if they're just targeting crooks and gangsters, they're saying of a code about them all. They kind of like underdog carnies, but it just sounds more like they're a bunch of psychopath murderers. How did you read it in the book? Like, what do they come across as? Do they have any kind of moral code at all?

B (24:01)

Dude, it really rubbed me the wrong way. Like I just, you know, we do a lot of, of reporting and reading on, on like very vicious, vicious people. Like, even the cartel stuff. I mean, Ms. 13 preyed a lot on citizens too, but this was just like so personal in the way they did it. It just like you're like, what's wrong with these people? You know? Yeah, yeah, it's psychotic in a way. It sounds weird to say, but it's psychotic in a way that like cartel guys couldn't. Killing 10 other cartel guys. I mean, I guess that. What am I trying to say? You know what I'm trying to say? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

C (24:32)

There's something like extremely like, venal about the way they're doing all this, right?

B (24:38)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It just. It bothered me in a way that a lot of this other stuff doesn't. In a real Visceral sort of fashion. But yeah, they. They pay off everyone they can buy. Those they can't buy, they threaten. Every now and then, they pony up cash for, like, a local cause to get the cops off their backs. Whether it's $800 for a kid's playground, that kind of thing. Money to political campaigns for local officials and sheriffs and Jack and Louise, they've got an army of young men, teenagers, basically. Who are their soldiers? They're goons. They work in the restaurant and bars, but they're also doing jobs and errands. Enforcers, collectors, muscle. They do build, like an actual organization. Everything runs smoothly for a bit. There's even guys with, like, specific jobs. Like, there's the one guy who's a smooth talking kind of pimp, who cons women easily. Another is the crooked dice and card guy who's the hustler.

C (25:23)

Yeah. Does it just upset you that you don't want to walk into. Into a brothel and get pwned over? Is that. Is that what you're really getting upset over? Or is it the casino?

B (25:32)

If you're looking to lose your money gambling or to women of the night, you should be able to lose it the honest way by making stupid decisions and just straight up gambling. Like, what kind of casino needs help cheating people? I've been to a lot of casinos, buddy. I never walk out with money. All right. It's not how it works. By the way, our rare earth minerals not doing good. Not doing good these days. Hopefully not. I mean, they were doing good, I think, from the time we mentioned them. But if I think when the episode of the episode aired, they had to hit the peak and have gone down considerably. All right? So again, do not take our financial advice ever. So things are progressing and things are about to get wilder because in the early 1950s, you get the Phoenix City, the legendary Phoenix City, Alabama, known for its brothels and casinos and just complete lawlessness, entertainment, nightlife situation. But like, real good nightlife. Not like this hillbilly stuff. Though in 2007, BusinessWeek actually named Phenix City the nation's number one best affordable suburb to raise a family. So congrats to them, because in the 1950s, things get so bad there that the governor declares martial law to clean it up and sends in the National Guard.

C (26:40)

Yeah, I had Phoenix see on my potential episode list. It seems like chaos. Yeah, I would love to do that. There was another show that we did years and years ago. I remember I was in Berlin at the time, but it was about the Vapors in Arkansas, which is another kind of crazy criminal casino town down south. They all sound absolutely nuts and I should do it as a great episode.

B (27:02)

I've had Phoenix City in the back of my mind too. I think that'd be a cool. Yeah. Thing to do.

C (27:05)

Yeah.

B (27:06)

So all the hustlers and pimps and prostitutes and gamblers and con man and criminals, well, maybe at all, but a lot relocate from Phoenix City to the stateline area where it has turned into a haven for that sort of thing. One of these young degens who makes his way there after the shutdown is a young man by the name of Carl Towhead White. A teen really at this point. He's born on December 31, 1936 in small town Mississippi. Stad's a mechanic. Parents get divorced when he's young and he chooses to stay with his dad. He's a football star in high school, but not for long because he drops out sophomore year and by 14 he's hanging out in juke joints, getting drunk, gambling and fighting enough that it attracts police attention. He's like 6 foot 2, wiry, good looking, but known to be a hothead. Tough and kind of evil, but capable of turning on the charm. A lot of people really thought he could have been anything he wanted to. But what he really wants to be, ever since he was young, is a gangster. Specifically, he's known to tell people he wants to be the Al Capone of the South. He had gone AWOL from both the army and the Air Force, both of which he had joined or lied about his age to join. And he shows up in the state line area at 18 years old, already an outlaw. He gets a job manning the grill at Jack and Luis's and he fast becomes one of their top goons. Soon enough, he gets arrested for beating the crap out of a sailor who had gotten ripped off and left the bar in a huff. The sailor catches a sudden case of amnesia in the hospital and Towhead skates the charge. He isn't able to stay out of trouble completely though. He gets pinched on a few charges and has to do a bid, but will catch up with him later because he plays a main role in this. You know, every person in this story sounds like a, like a, like a character and justified. You know, like someone who has like a four episode arc before Raelyn Givens puts a bullet in their head. Or like, like the Hathcocks. Definitely could have been the main antagonist for a season or two.

C (28:50)

Yeah, I only watched a couple episodes. Justified.

B (28:53)

It's so Good. Dude, it's so good. It takes a little while to build up. It's incredible.

C (28:58)

Yeah, like Elmo Leonard, the guy, right? Like, he's one of those American writers I keep meaning to read but never do. And I feel like he's written every decent movie or every decent book that's been made into a great American movie in the last, like, 50 years. So, yeah, maybe if our listeners can let me know which one to read first, because I think they're going to be awesome.

B (29:16)

Speaking of, there is also a new sheriff in Alcom county who gets sworn in. At the same time, though he brings in new officials who swear they're going to put a stop to the state line mob. He starts pressing them all on the moonshine and the whiskey and all that. And Jack and his lieutenant, a guy by the name of Peewee Walker, are still running things, but the new sheriff is taking shots at them. In one incident, Peewee actually rips off a pro boxer in a crooked dice game. The boxer decides he's actually going to go to the law about it. He's not intimidated. He goes to the new sheriff to press charges, and the sheriff actually arrests Peewee and locks him up. But since it's mostly just kind of a slap on the wrist, Pee Wee's talking nonsense the whole time. The sheriff sets it up so. So Peewee and the boxer can settle things one on one in the jail. And the guy, of course, beats the hell out of Peewee and Jack, though he gets tired of the sheriff kind of leaning on the 45 grill, so he burns it down again. And then he opens up the new Shamrock Bar and Motel on the same property for which he needs to borrow 18k off Pee Wee to complete the construction of. Meanwhile, Jack and Louise separate. He's, like, overcome, just handling it really poorly. But he's kind of a moron and not good with the books, which Louise handles, so he has to let her stay on. She's also clearly the one with all the power in the relationship, and he's kind of like a whiny little guy where she is much more cold and calculating. And she starts sleeping with his partner, Peewee, which just, you know, no morals, these people. Jack is trying to track her down. He's losing his mind. And she's sleeping with Peewee secretly at an off the path motel. Damn, we really are going into like, stereotypical true crime territory here. You know, like the joke I used to make about how, like, you know, making fun of true crime podcasts, how it's like you know, this guy shoots his wife in the trailer park because he's sleeping with her sister. And the sheriff messes up the DMA and all that. We don't do that. We talk about cartels and the Russian mob and now we are really just doing the first one, you know? My little. My little murder muffins.

C (31:05)

Yeah. Oh, my God. Well, this is how we get rich, right? So I'm looking forward to. To you doing tons more.

B (31:11)

Switch to that. Yeah. Soon enough, Jack starts to suspect Peewee, who always seems to disappear for like three hours or so a day of sleeping with his wife. Which, good for you, Pee Wee. Really making the effort. Unlike a young Sean Williams, who, rumor has it, did not believe in the concept of foreplay. The whole time, Jack can't find his wife Louise at all. Finally, he breaks down, kind of figures it out and accuses Pee Wee. They yell, threaten each other. Then a few days later, Jack calls to apologize and says he was just being paranoid. Soon enough, though, Pee Wee's body is found by the side of the road, beaten with a single bullet to the base of the skull, execution style. Left out in the open to send a message. Jack is of course the prime suspect. And now he also doesn't need to pay Pee wee back that 18k. Within the week, Jack and three of his goons are arrested for the murder and freed on bond. They actually, they fail lie detector tests, which I didn't know they had back then, but are eventually let go on account of no evidence. One consequence, though. Luis declares her intention to divorce her husband. But after his whining, she agrees to stay on and help him run the business. Word comes soon that Jack had paid a crooked former Chicago Police Department officer to kill Pee wee Walker for 1,000 bucks. But again, no charges.

C (32:28)

I mean, the police are even more like useless than they actually they usually are in these old timey yarns, just full of gang mad men going around dropping bodies, leaving bodies by like sidewalks and in parks. And what has anyone done more than a day behind bars so far? Has anyone done any timing?

B (32:48)

Couple of them end up spending a couple weeks here and there, you know, but they're usually out. The Shamrock. Yeah, they just chug along. The Shamrock Stateline mob. Hustling, stealing, pimping, selling booze. Right around that time, the late 1950s towhead shows back up. He's 21 now. Had just done a year long bid for trying to rob a safe that saw him end up getting shotgunned by the owner. But I imagine it's probably like Birdshot from far away. Because he is able to recover. And he is just a bat out of hell. He's a man on a mission, trying to live that Capone life and willing to do whatever it takes. So, being a slick talking outlaw type, he sees the newly divorced Louise as a potential score and soon starts sleeping with her. Angling to rise up through the ranks of the operation. He's also going in and out of town on robbery trips all over the southeastern U.S. soon enough, Jack sells the Shamrock to Luis and builds his own new nightclub called the White Iris. And again, I feel like the phrase nightclub is pretty generous here, like, doing some real heavy lifting. Probably just means like it has a jukebox or something. It's not like some spot. One of the underworld hosts allegedly used to rail speed in and Berlin in his younger days.

C (33:53)

No, wait a minute. Wait a minute. All right, so you've accused me of being bad at sex in this episode, which is fine, but this is where you're speedy. Okay, look, I was a young Berlin work writer in Berlin. I had a failing marriage and a.

B (34:07)

Drug habit, but nothing I say is true.

C (34:09)

I could afford better substances than that, Danny, you know, the word on the.

B (34:12)

Street is Sean is clean heart, pure living and a fantastic lover. That's what I've heard. I just like that. We do bits, you know. We do. We do bits. Jack and Towhead have an uneasy Dayton at this point. He loves Louise and wants her back. So they keep it somewhat civil because I think he's a little scared of Towhead. Tensions are rising, though. Toad eventually has enough. He wants Jack out of the picture because he knows he can manipulate Louise to take control of the State Line Mob for good. So the whole power balance thing with. With her and Jack, it's the opposite with her and Towhead. So he plans to kill Jack with Louise's help. And we get that cold open. And now Towhead White is running things. The boss of the Stateline Mob, like in his early 20s. Luis is still around, and so is the nephew, W hathcock, but he's in control. And that's when Buford Presser shows up, running for sheriff in 1964. And yes, those who know the recent developments, we will get there. But for now, what you need to know about Buford is he did not come to mess around. And he is well familiar with the State Line Mob hustle because he's seen it go down multiple times as a civilian. Buford has been in the area since he was young. He first enters a Stateline Mob establishment when he's 17 and he witnesses Louise beat a guy's head in with that ball peen hammer after robbing him. The story goes, she killed the sailor that night and got off scot free. Two years later, 1957, Buford is 19 and he comes back to the Plantation Club, W.O. hathcock's place. He's just been discharged from the Marines after getting injured in a car wreck. He's 6 foot 6, 250, and he wants to play some dice that's a big boy. I mean that's like Dexter Lawrence size right there. He starts winning a bit of cash and then he sees them try to switch out the dice for a rigged pair, calls it out and he starts some ruckus. Four of the Hathcock dogs grab him, they pistol whip him, they tell him they're going to teach him a lesson for accusing them of cheating. They steal his cash, they beat him thoroughly and toss him out in the gutter. And he's going to end up needing 192 stitches to close his wound. And he swears revenge.

C (36:11)

Yeah, that has stretched the definition of ruckus to its absolute limit there. I like it.

B (36:16)

Yeah. I mean, imagine doing that to a dude who's six'6,250 and like a brawler like those guys.

C (36:21)

Like I said, yeah, I can.

B (36:24)

In December of 1959, two years later, again, he rolls back to the Plantation Club with two of his friends and they, they got a plan. At some point in the night, he buys a gun off Hathcock, who doesn't recognize him. Then him and his boys wait till early in the morning until the place is cleared out. At some point when it's like empty, they grab WO Hathcock, they pistol whip him unconscious with a gun they had bought off him, and they run his pockets for $120 and take 1200 out of the register. It is a wild move, but Buford is fearless. Crazily, Hathcock actually files charges against the three men. They get charged with armed robbery and assault with intent to commit murder. It actually goes to trial, but all three are found not guilty of the robbery and then the murder charges are dropped. But Buford, he is not done. And like I said, he's a big old boy. At some point earlier he had gone to mortician school, which. Okay, weirdo. And then we know he joins the Marines but has to leave because of asthma or that car wreck. He then moves to Chicago. He becomes a professional wrestler, but eventually makes his way back to Tennessee and Gets a job with his dad, who is a cop. And he is in aggressive cop. Buford doesn't mind shooting people, and he rises through the ranks. So it is not good news for the state line boys when Buford runs for sheriff in one of their counties in 1964, and they donate a lot of money to his opponent. The opponent, though, dies in a car crash two weeks before the election. And Buford is elected, becoming the youngest sheriff in Tennessee history. He actually ran on the slogan, quote, elect me sheriff and I'll put the state line thugs out of business.

C (37:58)

Yeah, I mean, who is not voting for that? I love him running for office. And he's just out there pointing at the bad guys and going, yep, him. I'm gonna. I'm gonna turn him over. Just vote for me. Done.

B (38:07)

Yeah, but this guy still had to die in a car crash. I think he wasn't. I mean, I don't remember if I'm accurate on this, but I think he wasn't projected to win. I could be wrong. So Buford takes over September 1, 1964. Towhead is running the Shamrock Club in White Iris, and Buford starts showing up to all his bars and hassling his goons, while Towhead gets his revenge by making anonymous threatening phone calls to his office and his wife. Very easy to do crank calls. Back then, you know, there was no star 69. Wait, do we. Do kids even know what star 69 is?

C (38:37)

I fear they do not, Danny. No. Yeah, you couldn't see.

B (38:41)

You couldn't see the line. The number of the phone that was calling. Is this generation of sixth graders growing up without the ability to make prank phone calls.

C (38:48)

Yeah, I think they just tell each other to kill themselves on Reddit or something. Right? I don't know.

B (38:52)

That's a goddamn shame. I mean, that. How do you bond with your friends when you're. You can't prank call, like, a pizza place, you know?

C (38:59)

Oh, I. I got some good old stories.

B (39:01)

That's why the youth are so lonely. These. That's why the youth are so lonely these days. Dude, they're not bonding over prank phone calls.

C (39:06)

Yeah, let's bring them back.

B (39:08)

There was a thing when the soundboards came out, and you could, like, push a button and it would do, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice or, like, quotes from, like. This is, like, very early Internet days. You could do, like, quotes from, like. Like kindergarten. You don't remember using that. Like, you'd call, like, your friend's mom and you play, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger saying it's not a tuma. No, just me. All right, well, fans, if you have done this, dude, it was the best you ever did that. It was great. I mean, we're talking like jerky boy.

C (39:35)

I never used Arnie's voice. No, no, I would have told your son, dude. Town on that, man.

B (39:41)

Yeah, it was. It was incredible, dude. Buford is showing up at the clubs constantly. He's raiding, he's arresting, he's smashing up equipment. He's got this big walking stick like a, like a cudgel, like a. Like a nut, like a medieval fucking peasant, you know, doing his business. And he walk into the establishments that no honest lawman had set in for years. He just started like, busting up the gambling equipment. Slot machines, car tables, roulette wheels. Played by his own rules, Sean. Played by his own rules. But he's also smart enough to bide his time before making a big move. One night, he stakes out the white iris. He waits and he watches until he sees Towhead leaving on foot. Then he pulls up to him, gun drawn, and starts patting him down. He finds an illegal pistol and immediately handcuffs him and throws him in the car. But he doesn't take him to jail. He takes him to the river. Towhead is begging now, pleading, telling Buford he's a sheriff and he can't do this. People say, I don't know how they know this, but they say it's the first time in his life that Towhead was ever scared. And Buford just starts wailing on him, like cracking him in the face with his massive fist. He's just straight up beating the hell out of him.

C (40:46)

Now also, when we say staking out the. The. With a white iris. This is a 6, 6, 250 pound guy sitting in a car on an empty highway outside a shack. There's just something like kind of comical about this as well. It's. Even though it's like incredibly violent.

B (41:01)

Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, it was dark then. They had a lot of street lights. I feel like you get away with it, you can make it happen. So Buford's beating the crap out of him. He's telling him it's over, he's done, he's gonna kill him. He's gonna dump his body in the river where no one will ever find him. Just like the Stateline Mob had done to so many others.

C (41:18)

Yeah, this is actually what the guys at Spotify has told us when we. We said we didn't want to do videos.

B (41:23)

So.

C (41:23)

Yeah, thanks for that, Sean.

B (41:24)

Do not do I. There's no such thing. They've been wonderful to us and I love them all dearly. Do not listen to.

C (41:31)

Sorry. Forget what I said. That was just a joke. What Danny said is the truth. Yeah, okay, let's just swipe that.

B (41:39)

He doesn't pull the trigger. Instead he just laughs and he throws Toad back in the car, issues a warning and drops him off at the white iris. It's kind of like psychological warfare right there. He's letting Tohen know that he's not protected anymore. The rules have changed and he is in charge and can get to him at any time. And it works. Word goes around and other law enforcement finally find some inspiration. The sheriff on the Mississippi side, who hasn't been able to do anything for years or hasn't wanted to, finally gets motivated. In December 1964, his department and Buford's department, they team up along with some state police and they all raid the Shamrock and some other bars. They arrest half a dozen top Stateline mob players, including Luis and W.O. hathcock Jr. Towhead manages to avoid it because he actually smartened up after that. After the beating, he got the hell out of town. He's linking up with the Dixie Mob down in Biloxi to rob a gambling joint.

A (42:30)

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C (43:00)

Biloxi is still pretty shifty today, right? Like organized crime, casinos and drug running along the Gulf. I feel like I spent a night there years ago doing a joke suck thing. And it was a weird place is kind of nice run down downtown. But the hotel I stayed at was full of Hell's Angels and they were just getting hammered in the middle of like the quad in the middle of the hotel. And would you believe it, Danny? I just put earplugs in and tried to sleep instead of saying something to those lovely fellas.

B (43:30)

I've never been. I thought it was like, like, you know, fancy Southern plantation type stuff. Now I didn't realize it was still like my town.

C (43:36)

That was be. Yeah, I just remember going there in Mobile and I remember going to Mobile and telling someone I thought it was Mobile in a bar. And then everyone laughed at me and I left the bar. So that was my time in Mobile, which was really nice. I thought the two cities were completely different.

B (43:52)

How did you get greeted as an English guy? Were they like, enamored? They think just for existing?

C (43:58)

Weirdly not. No, no, no. Like in other parts of the country. Yeah, that was the case, but. But not there. They did not take to me at all. And I don't know why, Danny, Because I'm a charming general.

B (44:08)

You're fun. A lot of fun. From Britain, the pressure is being applied on the state line mob and they start retaliating. Buford had taken Louise's brand new Cadillac as evidence. So to get him back, Toed stages a fake 911 call, lures Buford out to the woods and burns down his patrol car. After, Buford wanders off to try to find out what happened. It is a bold move, but Buford doesn't stop. The raids Continue. By the mid-60s, Towed has set up a three state moonshine enterprise. He's making serious cash. He's doing good. But of course, with Buford on the scent, it does not last long. Towhead now needs to score some more cash. So he leaves town, goes on a serious crime spree, at one point becoming one of the top 10 most wanted men in Texas. He somehow wiggles his way out of that predicament, but does end up getting convicted of moonshining charges in Tennessee and has to serve three years. So Towhead's in prison, and while he's locked up, Something major happens. February 1996. Buford goes to arrest Louise Hathcock. She robbed some tourists, stole 125 bucks from a purse, the usual, like, petty, petty stuff. When Buford shows up, she's drunk and combative. Buford walks around the office at the Shamrock. He's poking around looking for more dirt, and he finds it. He finds some illegal whiskey and says he's going to charge her with that too. Luis, obviously frustrated, she tells him, look, I'll level with you about the whole operation, but we've got to go up to my private office. She leads him back to the office, and as soon as she gets in the door, she pulls a gun on him and fires. They get into a shootout right in those close quarters. She has the drop on him, but her pistol actually misfires and he's able to kill her and save himself. And then, just like that, Louise Hathcock is dead. The woman who'd pretty much been running The Stateline Mob for over a decade gone. So the story goes. That's how the book and a lot of other sources cover it. But honestly, like, who knows how it actually went down at this point.

C (45:59)

Yeah, it's insane and maybe bullshit, but I guess if you shoot a deranged lunatic criminal and it was only you versus her in a room, I guess you get to tell the story, right?

B (46:09)

Yeah. I mean, she clearly wasn't a good person who murdered people all the time with a hammer, you know, that's like. So it could be. And she was drunk. You never know. I mean, she could have just had enough and pulled it. So, like, I don't want to say the story is not true, but we don't know is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Towhead actually gets himself released from jail temporarily to go to the funeral. And he uses the time to convince the marshal escorting him to let him steal some of Louise's hidden money and hide it in the woods. And that's just good hustle, baby. I mean, the guy had a gift, clearly. But then months later, Towhead just has enough. He walks out of his minimum security prison. He escapes. And then In January of 1967, someone does a drive by and shoots Buford. He's hit three times, though two are just grazes. This is not the main shooting that we'll talk about in a little bit. Everyone assumes it's Towhead. Fed, state, local authorities all zero in on him as the main suspect. But the thing is, it wasn't. It was actually this woman named Pearl who was dating Buford at the time, unbeknownst to his wife. And apparently there was also a love triangle. Towhead, another insane love triangle. This episode, which is just really getting, you know, real, real trashy. And Pearl was biracial, which was a obviously in the 50s in the south 60s, with a sheriff and a scumbag crime lord, kind of a big deal. So very Well, I mean, that's. There's a true crime episode in that, right there. Towhead, potentially fearing for his life, surrenders and gives up being on the run. So he heads to jail again. Now, here's where things get interesting because the main source of this episode, the book called the Stateline Mob by W.R. morris, is written in 1990. Most sources on the Stateline Mob tell the same story the book does, though the stuff I'm about to tell you, there were rumors and allegations about it even back down in the 60s, even though most people dismiss it. But of course, new information has since come to light in the last year or so, which we're about to get into. The old story goes that Towhead White and a Dixie Mafia madman by the name of Kirksey Nix. Listen to our Dixie Mafia podcast if you want to know more about him. From prison, they hire three top notch hitmen to kill Buford. They call in a fake 911 call. Buford gets going to it. His wife gets in the car too. Not sure why he would take his wife with him to a scene of a potential drunken shootout, which is what the call said, but I guess now we might have the answer. When Buford and his wife arrive on the scene, there's nothing there except a black Cadillac which pulls up next to them and lights up their car with bullets, killing his wife. The car doubles back and then shoots Buford, hitting him in the jaw twice. So he does. He gets shot in the face. Buford is in the hospital for weeks. You know, you have toed and Kirksey these like organized crime mad men. And then once Buford heals up, the no nonsense rule breaking sheriff who goes on the war path against the Dixie mafia and the state line mob to get his revenge for them killing his wife. And then you get this. The original Walking tall movie in 1973 Based on this, which is a hit. And then the 2004 remake starring the Rock, which I still haven't seen. But if it's as good as the other Rock action movie from around the same time, which is the Rundown with Stifler and Christopher Walken, it's going to be awesome because that movie is incredible. Watch it immediately if you haven't seen it, okay?

C (49:17)

It's on the list. I mean, I just finally looked at a picture of Buford and. Oh my God, you would not want to be called down an alley with that guy. He's got a face like about five thumbs. It's nuts.

B (49:28)

Professional wrestler dude. Six foot six. Yeah, so that's how the story goes. Except the investigation into that 50 year old murder gets reopened in the last year or two. 50 year old murder? 60 year old. 60 year old murder.

C (49:39)

60, yeah.

B (49:40)

And just last month the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations concludes that Buford should have been charged with the murder. That his wife was likely killed by him and his wounds were self inflicted. So yes, that, that complicates things a bit in this story.

C (49:54)

Crazy.

B (49:55)

Yeah, yeah. But Buford survives. He needs multiple surgeries. Hospitalized for nearly. Hospitalized for nearly three weeks, which, I mean, I don't know man, like it seems pretty wild to shoot yourself that badly in the face. I just. I don't know what I believe this. Like, why not, you know, the fleshy part of the. Of the leg? Or like in the. In the Sopranos when Bobby Bacala shoots the rapper in the butt. In the fleshy part of the butt. Because he wants street cred. Like, why not that. Why shoot yourself in the face?

C (50:22)

But maybe he was trying to kill himself after turning the gun on her. Like. I don't know.

B (50:27)

I don't know, man. It's pretty nuts. There's actually rumors about Buford doing it himself back then, that it had to do with his affair with Pearl. But those are cast aside and he becomes folk hero, the sheriff, targeted because he was cleaning up a lawless town. So what happens to towhead after the 1967 shooting? Great question, Sean. Well, again, hard to say. But the story goes, Towhead White wants to finish the job. Finish off Buford, who is on the war path, which even if he's not involved in the shooting, is. Is true. Toad goes free from jail in September 1968. Remember, he's not charged with the murder, but at that point, and with Luis dead, he really has no major stateline mob connections whatsoever. Jack's nephew wo he had taken over the bars, the shamrock and the white Iris. But Buford managed to shut down the Iris, and the whole state line situation was nearing its conclusion. Some of the major players left. They're feuding with each other, and the law just keeps cracking down and cracking down. White heads off towhead. White heads off to Alabama to rob some poker games with a partner and allegedly commits a double murder for hire for the Dixie mob. Eventually, he doubles back to the state line area, and Buford finds out where he's staying and just shoots up the mobile home he's staying at. Unfinished business. Of course, no one else knew it was Buford. Everyone just assumed it's like a gangster feuding thing. But Buford leaves a funeral wreath on Towhead's front door to sort of let him know what's up. Towhead actually leaves town again. He heads to Mississippi to partner with a police chief on a jukebox racket, which is a thing that was happening back then. But Buford is able to lure him back to town with the offer of a truce, which is a trap. And less than a month later, everything comes to a head. April 1969. Towhead is hammered, driving back home from Alabama with a woman named Shirley Smith that had hollered at him the night before to hang out. She tells him to Head to the El Rey Motel. And when he gets there, a single gunman from the roof who'd been waiting shoots him clean in the dome with a.30 30 rifle. Just one shot. Dead. Now, the guy who shot him is allegedly Junior Smith, who owns the El Rey Motel and is the husband of Shirley, the woman with him, with Towhead. But it's not what it seems. A month earlier, Smith had been busted with a whole lot of illegal liquor by none other than Buford. Buford goes really easy on them. So Smith and his wife, they owe him a favor. And this whole thing, the shooting, it's said to be a setup. When the police come to investigate the shooting Smith claims Towhead shot first, they find his cold, dead body with a.38 in his hand and two spent cartridges nearby. But it's pretty clear that they've implanted his wife, though she tells the same story, and the charges are eventually dropped. Even though they get locked up for a bit, Rumor spreads immediately that Buford set the whole thing up, that he might have been the triggerman himself, but nothing's ever proven. There's also rumors that say Smith hired a sniper and that Towhead had tens of thousands of dollars in the trunk of his car that just disappeared. So there. That ends the life of Towhead White. And really the kind of reign of the state line mob, because it starts getting federal attention, additional state police resources, all the bars in honky tonks get shut down or cleaned up. Buford doesn't run for election in 1970, his work clearly done, and the movie comes out about him cleaning up the town. A few Years later in 1973, big hit. And Highway 45 now just a highway. Those old establishments are long gone. McNary and Alcorn counties are quiet rural areas, and you would never know what happened there unless someone told you or you listened to this fantastic podcast from your friends Danny and Sean.

C (54:05)

Yeah, I was looking on Google Maps for ages reading this script, but there's nothing there. It's like, barely even a couple of towns, just. Oh, man, I love looking at American towns on Google Maps. Anyway, I need to take a deep breath. That was nuts and brilliant. And, yeah, now we need to do shows about trashy trailer park killings. We really. We really just do it all here. True crime, organized crime. Is there any other type of podcast? That's it. That's the only two, right?

B (54:29)

There's only two that matter. We could do political rants, but no one wants to hear that. And we just make the world a worse place. All right, patreon.com podcast and that's all we have for you.

C (54:59)

SAM SA.

B (55:53)

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