My Fugitive Dad | 6. Settling Accounts 50:53

The Bench. After opening the presents, there's time reading a book. Oh, hi. It's been over half a century since Ted Conrad walked out of the bank, and the secret is finally out. It's 2021, and Ashley is in her childhood home on Carter Road. So it's super quiet, and I'm sitting up in bed, and the only light I have on is from my iPad, so I'm just sitting in the dark, and I start reading books.

about this man. And I realized alone in my room that this was my dad. I was just sort of numb because there was so much happening already that this felt like it couldn't quite sink in.

And I think I stayed up for four hours reading every single article. I was on page 15 of Google reading every weird sub-thread that I could about this man who's been missing. And that's when I read that he had siblings and parents. And eventually that night, I just had to close everything and try to sleep because there was nothing to do. It was the middle of the night.

It was just so much that I needed to write down. I was afraid I'd forget something. Yeah, I bet. Can you read us some of those notes? Yeah. Let me just grab my notebook. The first question I have on here is like, what is your full birth name? Why did you change your birthday? Do you know where your family is? And the last thing I wrote in my notebook was, I feel like I don't know who I am anymore.

So he told you not to tell anyone. Did you actually think about keeping this secret for him? For a moment, yes. But that would have been impossible. Yeah. Like, there's no way to hold that all to myself. And it would not have been fair to Kathy. At this point, Tom only had weeks left. So I went into the living room and dad was laying on the couch.

That was his spot where he was the most comfortable. Stairs were a little difficult. But he also just liked being on the couch in the living room because that's where we were. That's also where the really large television was. And I sat down next to him and I said, "I'm very sorry, but I didn't listen to you. And I looked you up and I know what happened." And he looked really shocked and almost scared.

You know, this is a lot of information and you and I can't know this and mom doesn't. You have to tell mom. You have to. And he very shakily said, I can't tell her. I cannot bring myself to tell her. And so then I said, well, then I have to tell her. She has to know and we cannot keep this secret from her.

From Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Smokescreen, my fugitive dad. I'm Jonathan Hirsch. And I'm Ashley Randall. Chapter 6, Settling Accounts. Ashley went upstairs to break the news to Kathy herself. So we should talk. Dad told me his name. You just have to look it up. And she looked at me weird. She's like, all right, I'll just look it up and...

She opened her iPad and I said, put in Ted Conrad Cleveland. Because by that point, I knew that would be the fastest way to find it. And she looked at me like I'd hit her in the face with a brick. And we just sat quietly. And I just remember her saying, oh, my God. Oh, my God. And we could have sat there for 10 minutes. We could have sat there for two hours. I could not tell you. And then we went downstairs into the living room where dad was on the couch.

And we said, "So we should probably talk about this." Did you ever see her get angry about it? Oh yeah. I mean, not directed at him, but later we had many discussions and she was super pissed that he never told her. Did she ever feel naive for like not suspecting him all of those years?

I remember when people started finding out, she was genuinely terrified that people would judge her. I had to tell her, you are not dumb. It's not like you had blinders on to red flags everyone saw but you. He told me he didn't want to tell me because he was afraid of my reaction. Would I have stayed with him? Would I have married him? And the thing with him is that, you know, when I found out,

I loved the man. I mean, there's nothing more I could say. I loved it. He was my heart and soul. Everybody has their faults. This was a big one, but he was the kindest person. He'd do anything for anybody. On May 18th, 2021, Tom Randall passed away. We are here to celebrate Tom's life and share our grief together at his passing. I am Joe Melio, of course.

The service happened during COVID, so they didn't expect a lot of people to show up. But there was a line of 200 people out the door and around the block. Our dentist even closed his office so everyone could come to my dad's service. That whole day was a blur. On top of everything else, mom and I were the only people who knew my dad's real name. We were all so devastated by his death.

Mom wanted to speak, but she was too sad. But I got up and spoke. Thank you so much. The outpouring of love, especially... His best friend Joe couldn't even read the eulogy he'd written. He asked someone else to read it. Well, I'm going to attempt to read the eulogy, the celebration that I was not able to speak on the day of Tom's service. So for the first time,

I get to actually acknowledge my friend. Thank you all for coming to celebrate Tom's life and share our grief together at his passing. I'm Joe Melio, or as Tommy often called me, Joseph. Joseph!

He and I have been close friends for many years, at least 23, but it is hard to recall exactly because while time passed and as my hair got thinner and I got thicker, Tommy always looked exactly the same. We would joke that hidden in his attic there was a portrait that aged because he didn't, something like Dorian Gray. For over two decades, whenever I needed to purchase an automobile, I just called Tom. He would always say, "Okay, I'll call you when I have your car."

That was it. No additional information. No talk about cost or color. When Tom knew it was my car, it became my car. It was that sense of calm and caring that made Tom the person we loved. He was dependable and a wonderful guy. And that may be the hardest part for me, that we can always depend on him. His presence, his humor, his caring, and the respectful way that he made so many feel okay. This is how I remember Tom.

Did you ever get to ask him why he left behind his family? His mother had remarried to his stepfather, and his stepfather was, as he describes, pretty awful. Really emotionally and verbally abusive to him. Dad said the phrase that he would call him constantly was a good-for-nothing phrase.

He had told us a story about when he was younger. His stepdad had a house painting business, and Ray would have him working from sunup to sundown and wouldn't let him have water or food until he had finished whatever he needed to finish. And dad would pass out. I asked my dad if he was ever physically abused, and he wouldn't answer me. If I infer from the way his body tensed up and then he shuddered,

I would guess that it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. And he said that that could not be his life, that he would not make it. And he had to leave. He had to get away from everybody and start over. He had a stepfather who was an absolute terror. This is Kathy Einhaus, his girlfriend at the time of the heist, back in 1969.

He had two little brothers that he really liked and he wasn't allowed to have anything to do with them. And as far as he was concerned, he felt abandoned by his mother. His dad wasn't in Cleveland, I don't think. So, you know, so I mean, he really, what kind of a life did he have? And, you know, because he could and because he did, he probably had a better life. He got to move to another place, marry a really lovely woman and have a gorgeous little child. So, hey, he was a lucky guy. ♪

Tom and Kathy Randall were married for the better part of 40 years. Now that she's a widow, she's realized that Tom was who he was, in part because of the abuse he survived. She couldn't see it then, but she does now. Do you wish you'd known about Dad? I do. Because if I'd known about him, what he went through, it would have made a difference in how I reacted, right?

We could never work on a project together in the house because he didn't want me watching him. I grew up watching my dad build stuff in our barn, doing stuff with him. Tommy couldn't do that with. If I had known why, I wouldn't have been so hurt by it probably. I mean, do you think you would have been able to carry that?

Knowing that secret, that's what I always wonder about with you. If I'd ever known about carrying that secret, I would have been in therapy a lot longer. Well, that's for sure. Did he ever talk to you about why he did it? He made it clear to me that it was not about the Thomas Crown affair. I mean, sure, he loved the movie, but the movie did not inspire him to pull a bank heist.

The root of it really was that deeply terrible relationship he had with his stepfather. He first tried to get out by moving to New Hampshire with his dad and his dad's new wife for college. But pretty quickly, his dad told him he wasn't welcome there anymore. And then he comes back to Cleveland, feeling like nobody wants him. And even though he was 20 years old and had his own place, that was still his life. And he didn't see a way out.

I guess from the conversations we've had so far, it also feels though like part of this was premeditated. You know, talking to Kathy Einhaus, the money part was like a bit of a joke. You know, he's inviting people into the back of the bank to scoop up fistfuls of money. And it also seems like he maybe thought he'd be back at some point for his girlfriend. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

I think that he always would have hit the point where he had to leave, cut contact with everybody, and start a new life. But doing that with a big bag of money makes it a lot easier. So he didn't have options and this was his opportunity. It would also explain, you know, why he was so secretive. But why he also avoided conflict, you know? He built something out of the rubble and he didn't want that to go away too.

And so it was this fear of being a burden to others that also got him into all of this financial trouble. Oh, I mean, if we're going to go there, there is something else that we need to talk about. So it was the week right before dad passed. Okay. And there's always some kind of like terrible but necessary things you need to do. Yeah.

One of those was my mom needed to find the life insurance policy for my dad. Fuck. And she looked like every day for about a week, rifling through all the papers on my dad's desk. And I just remember thinking when she was looking for it, like there was this little scratch at the back of my brain that said, oh no, like I don't think she's going to find it. I just felt like

If it were there, the first day she looked for it, dad would have said, oh, it's in the top drawer on the left. And she'd asked him, do you know where it is? And he would just say, oh, it's in the desk somewhere. And it was finally, I think like three days before he passed. And she very gently went over to him and said, I hate to be asking you this, but I really need to know where the life insurance is. Oh my God. And he just looked at her.

And he looked so sad. And he finally admitted that he did not have it because he had stopped paying it over a year ago because they could not afford the payments. That secret is more awful than hiding the fact that you're a wanted fugitive to me. In that moment, she was devastated. And I remember her saying, what am I supposed to do now? So...

The man who supposedly got off without a hitch with $215,000 dies, leaving his wife and daughter nothing. Okay, so the other thing we haven't talked about, you've just witnessed a confession of a federal crime. It's all over the internet. It's 52 years old and still not closed. What do you do in that situation?

Well, first, you don't tell the cops. Okay, so you decide to keep it a secret then? In all seriousness, Mom and I decided that we would probably wait a year because after a year, maybe some of the grief would be a little bit less. But by then, you probably also knew that the Marshalls had been looking for your dad?

I had read about Pete Elliott and I knew he was still on the hunt. I felt bad. And I remember feeling really guilty that Pete had taken up this mantle from his father and was still looking for my dad. And that I knew and he didn't. And from everything I'd read about them, they were these stand-up, straight-shooting guys. Yeah, Pete is a stand-up guy.

So we figured we'd give it a year and then we were going to reach out to the U.S. Marshal Service and tell them because we thought they deserve to know from a legal and authoritative standpoint to say, you know, you can close this case. But honestly, it was more so on a personal level so that Pete would have some resolution. So the obit runs on Tom, late May 2021. Yeah. Not long after that.

I'm guessing that's when you get a knock on your door. What happened? Well, somebody tipped off the marshals. A year after Tom Randall passed away, I went to Cleveland to meet Pete Elliott. I retraced Ted's steps at the front of the old Society National Building. I walked down Bonnevue Avenue in Lakewood. But there was one more trip I needed to make. 45 minutes south of Cleveland is the town of Akron,

Tucked away in the northwest part of the town are what I can only describe as a series of cul-de-sacs. Little pockets of houses alongside other pockets of houses. Greenery everywhere. I'm here to meet the person who first received a tip that Tom might actually be Ted. Well, my name is Jane Androzilo. I'm an author and I write about, I like to call it, vintage true crime in Ohio.

We sat down at her kitchen table. Jane offers me a drink. She dedicated an entire chapter of her book, Ohio Heists, to the Ted Conrad story. She's written about it multiple times over the years and knows all the main players in the story, like Pete Elliott.

One morning I got up, I was fixing my coffee and I checked my email on my phone and here was an email from somebody I didn't know asking me if I was still interested in Ted Conrad. And they wrote back and sent me the obit. I started to read it

And it gave the birth date, and the birth date was the same except for the year. The year of Thomas Randell's birth was 47, and of course, Ted was born in 49. So I continued to read, and it said his parents' name were Edward and Ruthabeth Randell.

Kruger Randall. And I saw that name, Ruthabeth Kruger. I continued to read and it just, it fell in. I mean, you know, everything was, was Ted Conrad. So I started looking up the newspaper article and I think I found the exact same thing. I think I found it in one of the Florida newspapers. And I thought, holy cow, this looks like it might be real, you know? After all these years, it's incredible. Ted Conrad finally turned up.

So I sat down and I composed an email to Pete. This was November the 2nd. And I sent it to him November the 3rd. And five minutes later, he emailed me back and he said, Jane, call me. So I called him and I told him everything, you know, and I sent him the person's name. You know, you have to wonder how somebody would have come across an obituary like that. Well, it was in the paper.

And I, you know, and I wonder, I wondered how they knew to send it to me. Can you tell us who did send it to you, ultimately? No. Pete declined to divulge the source of the anonymous tip, too. We've come to know Tom quite well through this story, but you have to remember that in Pete's world, the source shared the details of a wanted fugitive. The person's identity must be protected in the event the fugitive or accomplices might act in retribution.

So back in 2021, Pete did his diligence. He pulled bankruptcy records from Tom and Kathy. He took the signature from those and compared it with records his dad pulled in 1969 from Ted's college and employment history. They were confident that Ted Conrad and Thomas Randall were a match. And now, after over half a century, he was one step closer to closing the case that haunted his dad.

for his entire career. No one thought it would take this long. Pete never did have the chance to stand alongside his dad as he perp walked his nemesis into the arms of federal custody. He was, however, able to close the case. It happened one chilly morning in front of a yellow two-story house on a quiet street in Linfield, Massachusetts, with Deputy U.S. Marshal Eric Mydock. Pete

The U.S. Marshal came to our house on a Tuesday. It was a nice day out in November. I said, "Eric, let's go up there. Let me do the talking." A beautiful little suburb of Boston, just what I would have imagined Boston suburbs to look like. There was a car in the driveway, and the front door was open, and there was probably going to be somebody home. I knocked at the door.

And Kathy came to the door and identified myself as Pete Elliott, U.S. Marshal out of northern Ohio. You know, I would like to talk to you for a few minutes. She looked a little bit shocked. She said, OK. And I said, you're not in any trouble. I want you to know that I'm not here because of you, but I'm here to talk to you about your husband. And she goes, maybe I should go get my daughter. And Ashley came down and the four of us met in their living room.

Our house was in disarray and mom's sorting through bills and there's just everything everywhere. Bills stacked upon bills and bills. I've never seen so many bills in any one place in my life. It's like my whole lifetime was imagining this guy, Ted Conrad, being on a

island by himself with fast cars, all the money, this whole lifestyle. So looking around the house, you know, just seeing the way they lived was way different than the way in my dad's head and our head too that we thought it would end up for Ted Conrad. He said he just felt so awful that he was almost dropping something else on us.

He immediately explained to them that, you know, we're here because we believe that, you know, Thomas Randell, your husband and your father, we believe him to actually be Theodore Conrad. I still remember what Ashley said to me.

in the house. Obviously they did some research because she goes, "I don't know which one of you guys said that, but I can remember one of you guys said that you're sitting around the dinner table and it'd be like pasta and mashed potatoes and when am I going to catch Ted Conrad?" And I'm like, "Yeah, that was me, Ashley." I still remember looking over the corner, there's a hat from NCIS. I'm like, "What's that about?" And she goes, "Tommy loved that show. He used to watch cop shows all the time." I'm like, "My dad did too. How about that?"

So here he was, Pete Elliott, the son of John Elliott, the man whose lifelong mission was to catch Ted Conrad, the man who went to his grave without ever getting the chance. Here was Pete, in the living room of the man his dad so devotedly pursued, and whom Pete dreamed of carrying out in cuffs with his pops. And what remained? In Pete's worldview, these were victims of a crime.

victims he had a responsibility to protect. Thomas Crown finally decides to turn himself in. It's perhaps the most charming and unsurprising scene of the whole film. He agrees to meet the authorities at the Cambridge Cemetery, where he first picked up the sacks of cash after the heist. Authorities, including the gorgeous investigator Vicki Anderson, played by Faye Dunaway, lie low around the perimeter of the area.

All right, move in. Box him up. A black Rolls Royce enters the cemetery and pulls up. The cops descend upon the vehicle. With Vicki in the lead, they get to the door. But inside is someone else. Are you Miss Vicki? The driver says to the stunned investigator and officers. Listen, I have a telegram for you. The driver hands her a letter. The camera zooms in on her furrowed brow.

Then, a quick shot of a plane high above. The trail of the jet stream long behind it. Then, the out-of-focus camera comes into view. Thomas Crown looks out the window of the airplane. Down below, Vicky reads his telegram and smiles. Left early. Please come with the money or you keep the car. All my love. Then she tears up the note and begins to cry. Checkmate. Pete...

The U.S. Marshal came to our house on a Tuesday and by the end of the conversation had let us know that the press release was happening on Friday. After the news of Tom's identity reached the press, everything changed for Ashley and Kathy. They've since developed a relationship with Pete, actually. Hey, Ashley. Pete Elliott. Just checking up on you. I don't really need anything important. If you get a chance, call me back. I'll talk to you later.

In a way, they were brought together because of the strange nature of this crime. But it's more than that. And I truly think that

If my dad were still alive and had not committed this crime and he and Pete had just met at a golf tournament or if Pete had come in to buy a car and my dad was selling him the car, I think that they would have become friends. I think that they would have gone and played golf together. I think they would have just kept in touch because they are very, very similar people.

Everything doesn't always end up like the movies, right? It doesn't always end up like the Thomas Crown Affair. In this case, it's a lifetime of stories, really, about my father that was a very honest, very dedicated law enforcement officer.

And somebody that was a criminal and stole a lot of money and then at some point, I believe, regretted it and became this great father and great family man and great friend to a lot of people. My dad had a job to do and I have a job to do. But sometimes things are bigger than a job, right? It's about a lifetime of dealing with real people in real situations in real time and, you know,

This game's over, I guess, when all our lives are over, right? Pete talks to Kathy almost weekly still. When Ashley was deciding whether or not to take on this project, she called Pete to ask for his advice. Like, you might call your dad. So, Ashley, thinking back to the beginning of this project, I had a list of questions that I wanted to answer about the Ted Conrad story. The first one was, how did he pull the whole thing off?

And I think we've answered that. Yeah. And my second question was, where did the money go? And from what we can tell, really by the time he got together with Kathy, the money had all but run out. By some accounts, according to Kathy, or at least what he told Kathy at the time, he had lost some of his insurance money in an investment or something like that. But this is all to say, like, the money was no longer there after a period of about eight or nine years. Yeah. Yeah.

My third question is, did he contact anyone from his family back in Cleveland or elsewhere? As far as I know, he never did. That's what I thought, too. And as you know, the show is supposed to launch in like 72 hours. And we heard from Joe Marsh, Ted's younger half-brother. Hello, Mr. Marsh.

And he says Ted did write his mom a letter the next day after the heist. It was postmarked from D.C. Mom passed away, and I remember at the bottom of this drawer, I found a letter. It was addressed to my mother, and it was from the day after that he had committed the robbery. And I followed up with the U.S. Marshals, and they said...

that Joe had mentioned a letter like over a decade ago in one of their interviews, but wasn't able to supply the physical letter. And so we'll never know for sure whether or not it actually exists. But do we know what the letter said? We do. I mean, at least according to Joe.

And it just said, "Dear mom and Ray, I can't stand to see you working so hard every day just as grounds by. I never want to live like that." So this is why I did what I did. And one day, "Mom, you won't have to worry about a thing. I'm going to take care of you." Wow. It was always so weird to me that

My dad never reached out to his mom because by all accounts, he absolutely loved her. And this sounds more like the guy I knew, that he did at least once reach out to his mom. Yeah, and I guess we'll never know for sure, right? But...

Joe had also mentioned that for many years, whenever the FBI or the U.S. Marshals would follow up with his family and interview Ruthabeth, sort of asking whether or not she had heard from Ted,

over all these years. Yeah, it is.

I did get a chance to ask him also about Ray. He told me he never saw Ray raise a hand to Ted, but he did acknowledge that his dad was a tough individual and that he could be intimidating and sometimes confrontational.

But do you think there was a chance that Ted saw him as verbally abusive to him? That's about the only thing I can think of because my dad, my dad was a wonderful father. So, Ashley, we are in the sort of unenviable position of trying to land this plane without the pilot, right? Yeah. Tom's not here to tie up all these loose ends, right?

But I was thinking we could try to make one more phone call together. Hello there. Hi, Russ. This is Ashley Randall, Ted's daughter. I'm going to try to not be emotional, but it is very, very great to finally talk to you. Hearing Ashley and Russ swap stories about Ted for the first time

It felt like the two lives of this man were coming together. Then he said goodbye and, you know, it just... I had no idea it was going to be the last time I saw him. So that was 54 years ago now? Yeah, 54 years ago. So... But I, uh... Sorry. Um... He, uh...

What else can I tell you? He was easygoing. He wasn't afraid to take risks. Clearly. You know what? And I'm going to tell you this, and I don't know if you've heard this before, but I honestly believe he did what he did to try to prove that he could do it. And then he couldn't show anybody. And

His stepfather was the epitome of the cruel stepfather. I'm sure Ray hit him. You know, he'd show up and have a little bruise. And I always joked it was from football. But I think Ray was just a very abusive man. And just he didn't like the fact that he was having to bring up some other person's child.

I got pictures of him in a 1953 Buick Roadmaster. He just looks like James Dean. And I hope you understand that the reason I talked about Ted to the press was I tried to make clear what a good guy he was. It just makes me happy to know that he was a good father.

Whew. Okay. So what do we make of talking to Russ after all these years? I realized that his reason for talking to anyone who would listen for the last 50 years is sort of the same exact reason why I'm doing this now, is that I wanted the world to know who my dad was. The other piece, and I know that this will sound weird, is that it was oddly comforting to

to hear Russ talk about the relationship my dad had with his stepfather. Because although it's very disturbing to have someone say, yeah, I'm sure he hit him, I'd seen the bruises, it was comforting to know that my dad's motivation really was because he was in such a bad spot and that he got out of this terrible, terrible life and found what he was looking for, which by all accounts...

from Russ especially, is that my dad was always looking for a family. Yeah. He was always looking for a loving, stable family, and that's what he built. Okay, Dad. I've been working on this project for... God, it's been like a year. And you're like the one person I want to talk to about this and to get advice from. And you're not here. I just thought we were going to have more time together.

To be honest, Dad, up until a couple days before you died, I thought we had a few months together. So did you. And so here I am, telling the story of your life, and you and I haven't gotten to talk about any of this. I still just miss you so much. I thought that two years later, the pain would somehow be less. But it's not. I wish you were still here.

Moment to moment how I feel changes. There's a mix of grief and anger that's hard to reconcile. Some days I'm just so pissed off with you for keeping secrets. Then other days it hits me all over again that you're really gone. When I'm angry, I wish you hadn't left mum and me in such a tough spot. I wish you'd paid your life insurance.

Mom puts on a brave front, but I know she's scared and worried a lot. She's 74, on the tightest of fixed budgets, and doesn't know how she's going to come up with an extra $300 for a car payment. She shouldn't be thinking about having to get a job to pay the bills when she retired years ago and should have been fine. Your life was messy, and you sort of dumped that mess on Mom and me when you died.

The week after you were cremated, the last thing we should have been thinking about was if and when to notify the authorities about your real identity. Living with your secret for months was unnerving. I was terrified the day Pete Elliott knocked at our door, but at least it was over. Not everybody's going to understand why you stole the money, but I get it now.

You did it because you were a scared, broken kid who would do anything to start over. Even if it meant leaving everyone and everything behind. Even if it meant being a fugitive and a liar. I'm so thankful you found mom. And with her parents, you found a place you belonged. A family who loved you unconditionally. I never had a chance to tell you some things at the end.

So I want you to hear it now. Thank you for just being you. You were an amazing dad, and I couldn't have asked for better parents. I hope there's a heaven, and that you get to play unlimited golf with all the Diet Dr. Pepper you could ever drink. I hope that in a decade when someone Googles your name, there's more than just splashy headlines of a 50-year-old bank heist.

I wanted the world to know the real you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear pumpkin head. Happy birthday to you. I love you, Dad. You don't have to worry about us anymore. I've got this. We'll chat soon. Love ya. Bye.

That's all from Smokescreen for now. But I wanted to tell you about another true crime story that may be one of the most outrageous and twisted criminal schemes to ever be documented on a podcast. It's called Cover Up, Body Brokers, and it's available now wherever you listen.

We travel to the small town of Montrose, Colorado, where we meet Megan Hess, who runs the local Sunset Mesa Funeral Home. Megan was known to be thoughtful and kind amongst her community. She offered discounts on normally expensive cremations in a town where many were poor.

But in the shadows of kindness lurked a shocking and disturbing secret operation. In the back of the funeral home, Megan's elderly mother, Shirley, was dismembering the bodies for Megan to then take the parts—heads, torsos, legs—to companies that claim to do medical research. Megan and Shirley were body brokers, trading on a dark network where people buy and sell bodies. What exactly were the two women after?

Who was really buying these stolen bodies and why? How did this twisted operation eventually come crashing down? Find out on Cover Up Body Brokers. Here's a preview. About 10 years ago, a woman named Sharla Downing was working for a funeral home in Colorado. The place looked homey, a low-slung ranch-style house, off-white, sort of stucco-looking, neatly mowed lawn.

Sharla was in her late 50s, petite, energetic. She didn't always go into the office, but on this day, she had to get a few things done. She wandered into the back of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home, where the embalming took place. I remember one day going into the prep room, and I can't even remember why, but I opened the freezer door, and the bodies, there were so many bodies, and I was like,

They were stacked on the shelves where they were supposed to be, and then they were just kind of piled together on a couple of garnets in the middle. Some of them had sheets over them. Some of them didn't. Some of them were actually laying flat. Some of them looked like they had just been thrown in.

Bodies in a funeral home, that's normal, right? But not like this. A freezer in a funeral home is supposed to be neat and organized. Bodies should be covered and tagged. That is not what Sharla saw. Here, the bodies were naked, haphazardly tossed on top of one another, legs intertwined with legs. There were so many bodies, there wasn't even room for Sharla to step inside further.

She quickly found her boss, the owner of the funeral home. Her name was Megan Hess. I said, Megan, what in the world? And she said, oh, there's a funeral home in Grand Junction that's way behind on remains and cremating, and we're trying to help them get caught up. Their crematory broke, and so we're cremating for them. Sometimes when I get in a situation where it is just totally beyond me, I just clam up.

Charlotte tried to calm down. She was in a difficult spot. What she saw didn't seem right, but she really needed this job. And her job was to tell everybody how great Sunset Mesa was. She was the funeral home's PR person. So she told herself, what do I really know about the nitty gritty that goes on in a funeral home?

And Megan had an explanation. She always had an explanation for everything. She could be very intimidating, but also she had so much confidence in herself that when she said something, you believed it. She never stuttered.

But Megan's confidence was hiding something. Sharla had no idea where those bodies were heading next. She was going to get swept up in a sprawling cross-continental criminal enterprise, and Sharla would pay a very steep personal price.

I'm Ashley Fonce. I've been an investigative reporter for decades. I've covered a lot of crime, some really dark stuff. But the story I'm going to tell you about the place where Sharla worked, Sunset Mesa Funeral Home, it's not like any crime you've ever heard of. It's so much stranger, so much more twisted, so much more strange.

What happened at that funeral home violated something at the very core of what makes us human. It changed how people in this small town think about death and what happens to us after. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Cover Up Body Brokers, Episode 1, The Funeral Director. ♪♪

We see this funeral home as this big mystery. Mysterious building and... Oh, I'm so sorry. If you want to, you can reach behind you and we'll shut the door. That might help. We only have four chiming clocks in our house. Only four.

When I first learned about Sharla, I knew right away that I wanted to talk with her. From what I could tell, she had a complicated relationship to this story. She's a grandmother who wears wireframe glasses. Her blonde hair is in a neat bob and it's gone gray near the roots. Even when Sharla's saying something serious, she'll punctuate it with a laugh, something self-deprecating.

I'm going to check in with you as we go along because I want you to feel comfortable. Yeah, because you're the one that got me in this mess. Oh, Sharla, I'm going to enjoy this despite the heavy stuff that we're going to talk about because it's just so easy to talk to you. So, Sharla, why did you want to talk to us for this story? As you know, because we have discussed it, I vowed I would never give an interview about what had happened. I've tried to keep a very, very low profile.

Ready for the rest of the story? Search for Cover Up to listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Smokescreen, My Fugitive Dad is an original production of Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment. It was written and produced by me, Jonathan Hirsch. Ashley Randall and I co-hosted it. Our editor is Catherine St. Louis. She's also Neon Hum Media's executive editor. Our executive producers are me and Ashley.

Sound design and mixing by Scott Somerville. Theme and original music composed by Matt McGinley. We also use music by Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Our associate producer is Ann Lim.

And the voice of young Ted Conrad, Johnny Boss.

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