Episode Transcript
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Okay, so. This
1:09
is Chameleon the Season Seven.
1:11
The Michigan Plot. I have a production of
1:13
Kept Side Media Thought. It
1:26
September eleventh. Twenty Twenty Then Chapel The
1:28
standing in the parking lot of the
1:30
Back Shack in Grand Rapids, Michigan waiting
1:33
for Adam Fox. Was
1:36
of Slavin, Men
1:38
left when. Flat.
1:43
Dan is driving without him to weaken
1:45
training. it's being held just outside the
1:47
town of Luthor in Northern Michigan, but
1:49
with these two know journey can begin
1:52
without fuel. Cell A
1:54
Fat Hills need. To.
1:58
check for i wish you from Adam
2:03
calls Chick-fil-A God's Chicken, and he's far from
2:05
the only person who loves it. When
2:08
they pull up to the restaurant, there's a line around
2:10
the block. We gotta go, we're getting that big-ass line
2:12
right there, bro. What the fuck, dude? Yeah.
2:14
It's gonna be tomorrow by the time we get to the hotel. It
2:17
won't, dude. Fuck my dick. Adam
2:20
and Dan talk while they wait in the long
2:22
drive-through line. It's been
2:24
almost two weeks since they drove up
2:26
to Governor Whitmer's vacation home on Birch Lake
2:28
for a weed-fueled reconnaissance mission. And
2:30
since then, Adam has started to get
2:33
a little paranoid that there's a fed in their group.
2:36
Not Dan, of course, but maybe one of
2:38
the other guys, like Barry Croft or Adam's
2:40
friend, Sean Fix. I want
2:42
him to check out. I want him to be who he says he
2:44
is. Fix, who
2:46
claims to be a Navy SEAL with access
2:48
to a Black Hawk helicopter, and is
2:50
decidedly not who he says he is,
2:53
bailed out of the Luther training at
2:55
the last minute. Adam
2:57
finds that suspicious. I
3:00
just want to know that what he's saying is
3:02
true, and I said, I'm not being stupid. I
3:04
don't have someone who's feeding me a bunch of
3:06
bullshit or... Finally,
3:08
they get up to the front of the line
3:10
and get their food. Yeah, Fox, you
3:12
guys are all safe here, and if you hold me, then
3:14
you're horrible, Ducky. Thank you. 20
3:17
minutes. Hi,
3:20
baby. I'm gonna punch you right in
3:22
the dick. The old dick queen.
3:27
But out on the highway, Dan has to
3:29
admit it's some pretty damn good chicken. Chicken
3:32
chicken? Mm-hmm. One
3:34
of the first minutes of my life, which is... It's
3:36
a super shit. Adam's
3:41
paranoia isn't limited to the people around him.
3:44
Lately, he's been backing off of the plan
3:46
to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. On
3:49
a phone call a few days before, he told Dan,
3:51
I want to do everything we talked
3:53
about, bro. I really do.
3:55
For now, we've got to do ghosts on it, right?
3:58
We can't talk about it. We can't... It's
4:00
Ixne on the plan A. Adam
4:03
has floated a few nonviolent plans Dan's
4:05
way, like buying a piece of property
4:07
somewhere and starting a community. He
4:10
said that they're not ready to carry out the plan
4:12
and that they should push it off until the spring.
4:15
But in the car on the way to Luther,
4:17
Dan doesn't think delaying things is such a good
4:19
idea. I, uh... I
4:22
imagine like spring is just... I
4:25
don't think we're having a long time. Dan
4:27
tells Adam that Whitmer might get a spot
4:29
in Joe Biden's cabinet. And that means that
4:31
if they wait until after the election, Whitmer
4:34
might be gone. They'd have
4:36
missed their opportunity. And then
4:38
she's like, oh... That... I
4:40
can't hold him up. Dan is
4:42
telling Adam if they want to kidnap
4:44
the governor, they cannot afford to wait.
4:47
And to keep things moving, he tells Adam
4:49
he's invited his army buddy to the training.
4:52
A guy named Red. Red,
4:54
he explains, knows how to get explosives.
4:57
Adam asks Dan how much money they'll
5:00
need. What I would have said around 5, a
5:02
guy like a bird was located in the middle
5:04
of a ocean. And the train was in
5:07
the ocean, and he wanted to be in the river. And
5:09
he wanted to be able to serve for as well as the people.
5:12
Dan says the cost depends on what
5:14
you want to do. Blow up a
5:17
structure, blow up a bridge, and Adam
5:19
says we need to be adaptable.
5:22
What's the depth? What do you want to screen for? Where do
5:24
you want to make a statement? Do you want to take something down? Dan
5:27
says, well, what's adaptable? Are you wanting
5:29
to make a statement? Are you wanting
5:31
to take something down? What do
5:33
you mean? I don't know. Okay. I
5:35
don't know. All right. Adam
5:37
says he kind of wants to do all of them.
5:44
They drive for about an hour, eventually turning
5:46
off the highway and bumping along the north
5:48
Michigan back roads. They
5:51
get a little turned around and Ty Garvin,
5:53
the watchman who is hosting the training, guides
5:55
them to his property. Now drive
5:57
past the house all the way back into the woods.
6:01
I see headlights. Okay, I'll be right back. Right
6:04
back. They
6:07
pull down a long rocky driveway toward
6:09
Garbins trailer. Dan's been
6:11
campaigning to get as many people to
6:13
come to this training as possible. Wolverine
6:15
Watchman, Adam's guys from the Michigan
6:17
Patriot 3 percenters, and
6:19
even folks from out of state like Barry
6:21
Croft and Steve Robeson. This white has been
6:23
a hit here already. The
6:27
turnout is good. A lot of
6:29
guys are hanging out, drinking beers and getting
6:31
rowdy. But two of the guys
6:33
Dan has been trying to get there haven't showed. Joe
6:36
Morrison and Pete Musico, the founders
6:38
of the Wolverine Watchman. Are
6:40
they even coming? Probably not. It
6:44
turns out that Joe and Pete are still
6:46
a little suspicious of Dan. Dan, I hear
6:48
you're Fed bro. Yeah. Dan's the
6:50
Fed's fucking news man. Hey,
6:53
Dan's our inside man to the Fed's. He's
6:56
going to point us out to the fucking CIA, baby. These
7:05
guys all thought they were coming up to
7:07
Luther for a routine training session. But
7:09
Dan and the FBI have other plans.
7:13
In the lead up to the weekend,
7:15
Special Agent Jason Chambers was texting Dan
7:17
about a second reconnaissance trip to the
7:19
governor's vacation home. This
7:21
time at night, with as many people as
7:23
possible from the Luther training in tow. Let's
7:26
start talking details of the night up with Adam. One
7:29
text from Chambers read, Is Adam
7:32
going to be telling people about the night recon ahead of time? Read
7:34
another. The
7:38
FBI's heard a lot of talk about a plan
7:40
to kidnap the governor. Most of
7:42
it has been from Adam. But if
7:44
everyone goes on this night recon to her house,
7:47
that's what's called an overt act.
7:50
A real step toward the plot that will
7:52
turn all this talk into
7:54
a criminal conspiracy. My
7:58
name is Ken Bensinger. And I'm
8:00
Jessica Garrison. From Campside Media
8:02
and Sony Music Entertainment, this
8:05
is Chameleon Season 7, the
8:07
Michigan plot. Episode
8:26
5, Overt Acts You
8:31
can't fully understand the moment we're living in
8:33
without knowing where we've been. On
8:36
every episode of NPR's Doo Line, we
8:38
go back in time to where it
8:40
started. Like really sorry.
8:46
To answer one important question, how did
8:48
we get here? Find
8:50
NPR's Doo Line wherever you get your
8:53
podcasts. For most of
8:55
us, crime is something we see on the
8:57
news. We never think it could
8:59
happen to us until it
9:01
does. Loved ones are
9:03
gone, and for the survivors, the scars
9:05
will never heal. I'm
9:08
Nancy Hicks, a senior crime reporter
9:10
for Global News. And on this
9:12
season of Crime Beat, I'll take
9:14
you inside some of the most
9:16
serious crime stories I've covered. Season
9:18
6 of Crime Beat is available
9:20
now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon
9:22
Music, and all podcast platforms. It's
9:29
the morning of September 12, 2020. Barry
9:32
Croft is making the last leg of a long drive from
9:34
Delaware, all the way up
9:36
to northern Michigan with his girlfriend, Chassidy Knight.
9:40
Over the past few months, Barry's been
9:42
spending more and more time at these
9:44
out-of-state get-togethers with his pal, Steve Robison.
9:47
Now, Chassidy, riding along in a
9:49
passenger seat, wants to see one
9:52
of these trainings herself. I
9:54
was just curious. That's it.
9:56
I just, like, I just want to hang out with Barry,
9:59
see what happens. what all this
10:01
was that he was, you know, these friends,
10:03
these people he was talking about wanted to
10:05
see them, see what it was like. Finally,
10:08
after many hours, they pull into
10:10
Ty Garvin's long, bumpy driveway and
10:12
park the car. Yeah,
10:17
it was like back in the
10:19
boondocks. There
10:22
was a camper that people were,
10:24
and there was people all over. There
10:27
was a lot of people there. They
10:30
were walking around, talking,
10:32
socializing. There
10:35
was a dog. It
10:37
was like a big hangout, but they
10:40
had guns. It's
10:42
raining steadily. The campsite is soaked and
10:44
people are hanging out under a makeshift
10:46
shelter. That's where Chasity meets
10:48
Dan Chappell for the first time. How
10:51
are you? Dan
10:54
had just come back from a run into
10:56
town with Adam Fox, where they picked up
10:58
Dan's army buddy, Red. Dan
11:01
introduces Red to Barry. Barry
11:13
starts to babble about how they slept in the
11:15
car in Indianapolis last night, how he'd
11:17
rather sleep on the sidewalk than risk getting
11:20
bedbugs at a motel. Chasity
11:22
is used to this and Barry's
11:24
other habits. He wore
11:26
a tricorn hat everywhere he
11:28
went. He liked it. Kinda
11:33
embarrassed me going out in public with
11:36
it. For her
11:38
part, Chasity is just taking it all in.
11:41
There are some people here she knows. She'd
11:43
met Steve Robeson before at the meeting in Dublin,
11:45
Ohio. Steve called me his
11:47
gypsy friend. He acted
11:50
like he was my best friend forever and
11:52
a day. He really knew me. That
11:55
weirded me out a little bit, but like
11:58
everybody looked up to him. like
12:00
he was the person that was telling
12:03
everybody like where they were going what
12:06
they were doing. We gotta
12:08
place the top. It's all dried out
12:10
with chairs. It's wonderful. Yeah. Fuck yeah.
12:13
By this time, Barry and Steve have become
12:15
close friends. They talk daily.
12:18
Barry would constantly be speaking with
12:20
him. He used
12:22
to refer Steve as his left-hand
12:24
buddy. Yeah, he
12:27
thought a lot about Steve. But
12:31
Barry had also made another friend at
12:33
these out-of-state get-togethers. Someone
12:35
Chasity did not like at all.
12:38
Jenny Plunk was there. Can't
12:40
stand that woman one bit. My
12:42
buddy, Rindy. I have a wet t-shirt, so I can't sit
12:44
up. How are you? I
12:47
never liked her. I just never
12:49
liked her. My stomach just always
12:51
disagreed with her. Jenny
12:54
Plunk always seems to be around Robeson
12:56
at these events. The two seem
12:58
bound at the hip. Plunk has
13:00
dirty blonde hair and hails from Tennessee, where
13:02
she got her twangy southern drawl. Robie's
13:05
playing all night. A lot about bringing myself off. I
13:07
think that's all I have. Yeah. Plunk
13:09
is already on Chasity's shit list because
13:11
at these out-of-state events, Plunk has been
13:14
trying to get closer and closer to
13:16
Barry. I just knew
13:18
she was trying to be more than just a
13:20
friend. In fact, at
13:22
the training in Wisconsin, they had
13:24
gotten alarmingly close. I don't
13:26
know if anything happened, but her and Barry
13:28
shared a bed, and it's just, that's
13:31
not cool. Sorry, it's just not cool.
13:34
You don't get in bed with another man. You're
13:37
not going to disrespect me like this. And
13:40
at this training in Luther, Chasity's guard is
13:42
up. Something about
13:45
these people just seems off. Barry
13:47
was at that time backing out. He
13:50
was trying just to be a
13:52
part of his family more and work
13:55
on our relationship. My.
14:01
Own comic comic me. The training for
14:03
the day is pretty normal. Everyone split
14:05
into groups to work on combat skills.
14:07
As usual, Dan leads the training, running
14:09
people through a suit, house tie carbon
14:11
built on the property for your mood.
14:13
I'm in Israel so fast yadda thanks
14:15
to the jump on his ass yeah
14:17
he doesn't come out a of. At.
14:20
One point Dan for that. Him
14:22
aside, He. Tells him that
14:24
his army pow read wants to show
14:26
me videos some of the merchandise he
14:29
can provide. You
14:33
a smoker? Dan
14:35
ask Adam who he wants to bring
14:37
into the conversation and suggests Barry. But.
14:40
Adam is paranoid. He only
14:42
wants people he sure he can trust. Ironically,
14:45
he picks Dan Steve Robeson who
14:47
is also an F B I
14:49
Informant. And Mark his friend from
14:52
the Upper Peninsula who is actually an
14:54
undercover F B I agent. The
14:58
group goes off to a secluded area to see
15:00
what read has to offer. Read
15:02
pulls out his phone to show them a video.
15:05
So my guy from
15:08
minnesota of he seems
15:10
pretty much get whatever
15:12
pressure that with whatever
15:15
one would want Bomb!
15:20
Inside inside. Be back! In
15:23
the video, a bomb blows up an
15:25
S U V, turning it into a
15:27
heaping, massive, smoldering metal. Off camera, a
15:29
guy. the video comments on the destruction.
15:36
White boy gets me.
15:39
Adam is intrigued. What are
15:42
her pressure You admit when
15:44
the harming your favourite their
15:47
favourite there as pretty cheap.
15:50
To do a common like
15:52
variety. Karma
15:56
Thing a song. why would you are. Missing.
16:00
They will it be and when. Damn
16:02
different options as your first. Suggests
16:05
weeks ago While we use our
16:07
objective of before yeah we are
16:09
presented just I'd sizes the whatever
16:12
you're looking for I phone us.
16:16
Around then bury whom no one could
16:18
find in time for this meeting. just
16:20
sort of wanders over. Lascivious
16:24
Cancel Robeson knows Barry likes
16:26
to dabble with explosives, so
16:28
he has read show him
16:30
the video too. Esoteric Valley
16:32
right? As bad as I
16:34
think, I
16:37
think Stephen since most definitely said
16:39
barry seat down. When.
16:41
It. Is. Have a bunch of people.
16:44
That. Are so called Your friends ensure
16:47
like Barry always one the look
16:49
to sit and you're gonna say
16:51
things just because you're He goes.
16:53
Been built. Up. While or people and
16:55
visa thing of it is like using
16:57
some like as the fireball that it
17:00
produces like let's say he isn't some
17:02
of these private rest. After
17:04
showing bury the video, the other,
17:06
stay quiet while Barry launches into
17:08
a diatribe, a violent fantasy straight
17:10
out of Mad Max. I'm dumb
17:12
as shit though. Up or four
17:14
guys or fuckin crotch Rockies and
17:17
flocking Sandal me with walk in
17:19
those bug spray and I'm who's
17:21
are fucking house down Napalm silence
17:23
in the night. Burn you are.
17:25
You're in New. On Dobro.
17:28
Like there's Smith's we have every day
17:30
a whole entire time. I know on.
17:33
When you're all and hideout
17:35
does and how. He.
17:37
Might have. Said what
17:39
he says, but when it comes down
17:41
to wit, Very. Would not
17:43
have hurt us all. Barry.
17:49
said a lot in front of
17:51
read that day a lot of
17:53
his violent and let the falcons
17:55
the camera zooms person or stupid
17:57
a as bodies they're awful awful
18:00
Barry is a big talker, but
18:02
now he's drawing away at what amounts to an
18:04
illegal bomb buy. He's in
18:07
big trouble. Because Red
18:09
is not Dan's army buddy. In
18:11
fact, before that day, they'd never even met.
18:14
Like many of the people who'd come to Luther that
18:17
weekend, Red was working
18:19
undercover for the FBI. What
18:30
are the objects that define espionage?
18:32
Right now in my hand is
18:34
a pen with a hidden microphone.
18:37
So you've got a compass that
18:39
is concealed inside one of the
18:41
buttons on your jacket. Maybe the
18:43
Germans won't find it.
18:46
We're opening the archive and
18:48
diving deep into their iconic
18:50
designs. Enigma is one of
18:53
the most famous code machines of
18:55
all time. I'm Alice
18:57
Lockston, and this is A
18:59
History of the World in
19:01
Spy Objects, a new
19:04
series from Spyscape Studios. Listen
19:07
wherever you get your podcasts. For
19:10
most of us, crime is something we
19:13
see on the news. We never think
19:15
it could happen to us until
19:17
it does. Loved ones are
19:19
gone, and for the survivors, the
19:21
scars will never heal. I'm
19:24
Nancy Hicks, a senior crime reporter for
19:26
Global News. And on this
19:28
season of Crime Beat, I'll take you
19:30
inside some of the most serious crime
19:32
stories I've covered. Season 6 of Crime
19:34
Beat is available now on Spotify, Apple
19:37
Podcasts, Amazon Music, and all
19:39
podcasts out there. You
19:45
guys down with the deal? Listen. There you are. It's
19:48
the afternoon of September 12, 2020,
19:51
and Dan Chappell is having a private meeting with
19:54
Adam Fox and Steve Robison. Dan's
19:56
trying to coordinate a night recon of Governor
19:58
Gretchen Whitmer's vacation. that Adam
20:00
was supposed to plan. And while
20:02
Dan and Robeson try to work out the details, Adam
20:05
is eating fistfuls of M&Ms. No,
20:08
no, M&Ms. No, no,
20:10
no, no, no. No. Okay, 10
20:13
or 8 or what? Dan asks Adam who he wants to
20:15
go on the recon, and Adam,
20:17
his mouth full of chocolate, drops the
20:19
list. Steve,
20:22
you, me, red.
20:24
Berry. Berry. Great.
20:28
So far, Adam wants two informants,
20:30
an undercover FBI agent, and Berry
20:32
Croft to come along. But
20:34
Dan guides Adam to try to rope in more
20:36
people. You can put some of my feelings off
20:38
the other guy. What do
20:41
you want to... Hey, how does everybody feel
20:43
about kidnapping? Not
20:45
a case, though. They make
20:47
plans to leave for the governor's vacation home
20:50
at around 8 that night. Both
20:53
Dan and Robeson want Berry Croft to go
20:55
along, but there's a big problem. Chasity,
20:58
Berry's girlfriend, doesn't want Berry to
21:00
go. Robeson and his
21:02
right-hand woman, Jenny Plunk, pulled Dan aside to
21:04
talk about the situation. With
21:07
Berry's girl, she's threatened to
21:09
throw Berry under the bus
21:11
before. She decides a
21:13
genuine issue with her because she's threatened to
21:15
throw him under the bus before. Apparently,
21:17
after Jenny and Berry shared a bed in
21:19
Wisconsin, Chasity laid down
21:21
the law and demanded transparency. And
21:24
he freely talks to her, though. Eight times
21:27
her everything. When he talks to us,
21:29
he has a door-to-door phone. And
21:31
I didn't know that until yesterday. They
21:34
say that Berry tells Chasity everything, even
21:37
puts them on speakerphone when they call so she
21:39
can hear, too. Jenny worries
21:41
that Chasity is causing Berry to be
21:43
more cautious. But the point is, Berry's
21:45
already so paranoid. And
21:48
we need him to be able to talk with
21:50
y'all and give y'all the objective, because we're going
21:53
to have an objectives meeting here after a while. Right.
21:56
You might be asking, why is Jenny
21:58
Plunk so concerned about Berry becoming paranoid.
22:01
You guessed it, Jenny Plunk is
22:04
also an FBI informant. So
22:06
this is a conversation between three
22:08
informants discussing how to get a
22:10
primary target of a domestic terror
22:12
investigation to participate in a criminal
22:14
conspiracy. Dan asked
22:16
him quietly, can he come or not? Can
22:19
he come at her not?
22:21
Does he know about it yet? No.
22:23
What did you just say? Can he come
22:26
and hurt on tonight? No, because she won't
22:28
let him. Well, he
22:30
can come with us tonight. But when he's
22:32
asking this, will she let him go? She
22:34
ain't got no choice. She ain't got no
22:36
choice. Robeson
22:38
says he ain't got no choice. She
22:41
ain't got no choice. Like
22:46
Dan with Adam, Robeson has gotten close
22:48
to Barry. He's become a friend and
22:50
a confidant. And he knows that
22:53
Barry will do exactly what he tells him
22:55
to do. Yeah, if I
22:57
say he's going to go with us and she can't, he's
22:59
going to go with us and she can't. As
23:05
night closes in and the training wraps up for
23:07
the day, Dan meets up with Red in his
23:10
car to talk over the night recon. Can
23:14
we leave? Are these folks aware of
23:16
what we're doing? Red
23:19
says, when we leave, are these folks aware
23:21
of what we're going to be doing? Yeah.
23:24
Adam's not putting it off
23:27
them. It's an
23:29
important question because there's no criminal conspiracy
23:31
if none of the people involved know
23:33
what's going on. Adam
23:35
is supposed to be telling the people he wants to
23:37
come on the recon, but it appears he hasn't been
23:39
very busy on that front. It
23:42
seems like not a lot of them know about it yet. Outside,
23:45
most of the guys have started drinking
23:47
and are preparing the grill to gorge
23:49
themselves on burgers. But Adam is
23:52
nowhere to be found. He's
23:54
drifted away from camp following the scent trail
23:56
of his next meal into town. near
24:00
me now. He's
24:03
being driven, of course, by Mark, another
24:06
FBI agent wearing a wire. I am
24:08
not in Poland. It's us, it's me,
24:10
I'm in Poland. Well? Mark
24:12
gets to listen to Adam try to find
24:14
a restaurant with his phone's digital assistant over
24:17
and over again. Hey Siri, is there anywhere
24:19
to eat near us? Hey
24:22
Siri, where can we get something to eat?
24:24
Westwater, Dayton, and Cadillac. Alright,
24:26
fuck off. Do you pack them when you want? No Siri,
24:28
fuck off. We got a...
24:37
Back at camp, the clock is winding down
24:39
to the night recon, and Dan is
24:41
trying to get a hold of Adam. You
24:44
got Adam's number? Yeah. No, he went through
24:46
with food with Mark, but he's out. I don't know where
24:48
we're going to meet him at. The
24:50
FBI has put a lot of planning and
24:52
resources into this night recon. There
24:54
are agents at the Reddy and cars nearby
24:57
and secret cameras placed in key positions. They've
25:00
notified the governor's security detail to make sure
25:02
she won't be in the area. But
25:04
Dan can't be the one to leave this
25:06
recon. It has to be Adam. And
25:09
Adam is AWOL. After
25:12
a while, Dan decides enough is enough.
25:15
He's going to meet up with Steve Robeson and
25:17
Barry Croft at their hotel in Big Rapids, about
25:19
half an hour away, and try to get in
25:21
touch with Adam en route. Hey,
25:23
we're going. We're going?
25:26
Yeah. Yo.
25:31
Hey, what's up? When Dan finally gets
25:33
him on the phone, Adam is happily drinking
25:35
and eating with Mark at some local dive
25:37
bar. Dan wants him to drive back
25:39
to camp to pick up more people for the recon.
25:42
You want to swing in to pick them up? Turn the
25:44
timer after. All right. I'll give it to you
25:46
as soon as we park here. Adam
25:48
doesn't even know the address of the property they spent
25:51
the whole day at. And a couple
25:53
minutes later, he calls back. Yo,
25:57
what's up? So, you sent me the address? I'm
26:00
sending it to you right now, motherfucker. I'm driving too.
26:02
There, kilos. Yeah, there it goes. All right, buddy. I
26:04
got her. I got her. Thank you, DVS motherfucker. Hey,
26:06
eat a dick while you're at it. All
26:10
right, dick. Fuck off. You
26:13
almost have to empathize a little
26:15
with Dan here. After months of
26:18
patiently working with Adam, helping him
26:20
stay focused, he just can't seem
26:22
to herd this particular cat. By
26:26
the time he gets to Barry's hotel in
26:28
Big Rapids, it's clear that Dan has had
26:31
just about enough of Adam. There's
26:35
a lot of jangling, but he says, I'm
26:38
gonna hold Adam's head underwater until
26:40
the bubbles stop. At
26:43
around that time, Barry Croft and his
26:45
girlfriend Chasity were hanging out at their
26:47
hotel in Big Rapids. And Barry's like,
26:49
oh, I gotta go. Robeson
26:52
called us to do a nighttime
26:54
surveillance. We're gonna do that. He
26:57
just thought it was gonna be at
26:59
Ty's place, but he wasn't actually sure.
27:01
He was said it was an unknown
27:04
place. We kind of
27:06
argued because it's like, well,
27:08
we're here all day shooting guns. I
27:10
don't understand why you have to do
27:12
that. I was like, I just
27:14
want a little time with y'all. And
27:17
then Robeson called Barry
27:19
and asked if we could go
27:22
get food. So me and
27:24
Barry ended up going to a Wendy's
27:28
and getting a bunch of food for everybody. And
27:30
then from Wendy's, we went back to
27:32
the hotel. There was a bunch
27:35
of people there. I had a double. I
27:38
got a bacon aider and a bottle of bacon.
27:41
Barry hands out the various bacon aiders
27:43
and double stacks. Once I
27:45
ate, Barry took me
27:47
inside, got me settled into the
27:49
hotel room. He
27:52
asked Jenny to check up
27:54
on me and make sure I'm okay. Cause
27:57
he didn't like leaving me alone. And
28:00
then bury goes back down to the parking
28:02
lot and jumps into dance track. After
28:11
hours of wrangling by Dan everyone going
28:14
on the recon rallies in the parking
28:16
lot of a Walmart forty minutes north
28:18
of. Dayton
28:21
Robeson decide they want Adam and
28:23
burying their truck, keeping the two
28:25
big targets of this investigation close
28:27
at hand. Adam
28:30
gets into dance pick up and of
28:32
course start stuffing his face with candy
28:34
again. As
28:41
they're about to leave, read who
28:43
is concerned earlier but these guys
28:45
don't know what they're getting into.
28:47
Ah, say clarifying question I posed
28:49
for the fucker. Adam
28:55
says the Governor's House but in
28:57
the background you can hear Barry
28:59
said destination and no. One
29:06
day prosecutors who carberry one of
29:08
the masterminds of this plot. But.
29:11
On this critical night, he has
29:13
no idea where they're going. He
29:15
mainly seems to be really, really
29:17
high. And that underscores a
29:19
very important point about all of
29:21
this. The government would contend
29:24
that the night recon was the culmination
29:26
of a meticulous planned months in the
29:28
making. But. Listening to the
29:30
tapes, it's obvious it's being organized on
29:32
the fly, mostly by informants and undercover
29:35
agents. There. is a real
29:37
question as to which are these people
29:39
other than adam fox knows that the
29:41
goal is to kidnap the governor maybe
29:43
that's why as they prepare to travel
29:45
the birch lake read really wants to
29:47
get on tape that these people know
29:50
where they're going through his own the
29:52
first in this isn't just All
30:02
right. The
30:06
drive from the Walmart to Birch Lake takes about an
30:08
hour. And on the way,
30:10
Adam re-explains his crazy plan. He
30:12
wants to kidnap the governor by boat and then take
30:14
her out to Lake Michigan and leave her there. Barry
30:18
seems no less confused. He
30:20
mumbles, I'm definitely going to take a
30:22
nap, but I'm down as fuck. Count
30:24
me in. See,
30:26
Barry's just heard this plan
30:29
for the first time and
30:32
he thinks they're kidnapping the
30:39
governor tonight. He's
30:41
down to ride right now. Barry,
30:45
you're a solid man. There's
30:50
one more element to Fox's bonkers plan.
30:53
A bridge in Elk Rapids that he wants
30:55
to take out to slow down any law
30:58
enforcement response to the kidnapping. Now,
31:00
as they drive north, Red, the undercover agent,
31:02
says they should go under the bridge to
31:04
get a closer look. Make
31:06
sure you got your phone or
31:09
something to take a photo. When
31:14
they arrive, Adam and Red jump out of the
31:16
car and proceed on foot along a walkway that
31:18
goes under the small bridge. When
31:21
they're underneath, Adam jumps off the walkway and
31:23
clambers up the cement embankment to the base
31:25
of the bridge where he takes a photo
31:27
with his phone. While
31:30
he's doing that, Red discreetly takes a
31:32
photo of Adam. The
31:42
whole thing takes about a minute and
31:44
then they walk back to the road where Dan is waiting
31:46
to pick them up. Now
31:53
it's on to Birch Lake and the main
31:55
task at hand. So we're going to dock.
31:58
So we're going to jump. We're
32:00
going to the dock. Adam
32:04
and Dan have already seen the governor's vacation home.
32:07
You might be wondering why they're doing it all over
32:09
again in the dark. The logic
32:12
goes, the kidnapping will probably happen at night,
32:14
and her house will be harder to spot
32:16
at night from the water. So
32:18
Adam's car heads over to the boat launch,
32:21
while another car cruises by the governor's house
32:23
and flashes its brights for Adam to see.
32:26
That way, I guess, Adam will be able to
32:28
find the governor's house when they come back for
32:30
the real thing. An average
32:32
person might just use a GPS to find the
32:35
house at night. Adam Fox
32:37
is not your average person. Adam
32:42
and Dan hop out of the boat launch and look
32:44
across the lake, trying to spot some
32:46
sign of the other vehicle. There's
32:53
just one teensy little problem. Adam
32:55
gave the other car the wrong address. On
32:59
the other side of the lake, those guys are
33:01
lost. Did they mean 6-8-1-5? Because
33:04
I didn't see a 6-8-1-5. Brian
33:07
Higgins, Robeson's friend, is driving.
33:09
Wolverine Watchman Ty Garberton and Caleb Franks
33:12
are riding along, squinting into the
33:14
rainy dark at the house numbers going by. So
33:17
what I would say is we should go back and hit 6-8-1-5.
33:21
So now here is 7-3-6-4. There's
33:25
another problem. The radios they brought to
33:27
communicate with each other aren't working. On
33:30
the other side of the lake, Dan ends
33:32
up just calling Garban's phone to try to
33:34
figure out where they are. Is
33:36
he almost in place? Shut up, I'm
33:38
out of this. 7-8-1-5-5-8? Yeah.
33:44
No, he's not starting. 7-8-1-5-5-9-6. Dan's
33:48
help. Higgins eventually finds
33:50
the governor's place. 6-8-1-5-5-R. 6-8-1-5-5-9-6.
33:55
Is that a blue house? I
33:58
mean, no. They
34:02
flash their brights over and over, but
34:05
no one at the launch can see them. While
34:12
Dan and Robeson tried to troubleshoot, Adam
34:14
seems to have lost the plot. They
34:27
tell him they're not going to be able to see the
34:29
vehicle. Eventually
34:34
they decide to leave and cut their
34:36
losses. If
34:45
the night recon seemed disastrous to you, it's
34:48
because it was. They were barely
34:50
able to find the governor's place. But
34:52
for the FBI, it was a smashing success.
34:56
Because it's not so much about what happened on
34:58
that night as it is about the story prosecutors
35:00
would be able to tell about it. They
35:02
finally have their targets together in one
35:05
place, advancing a plot to kidnap the
35:07
governor with real action. Now
35:10
they just need to seal the deal.
35:19
It's the following morning, September 13, 2020, the last
35:21
day of the training weekend in
35:24
Luther, Michigan. Red, the
35:26
undercover FBI agent, pulls Adam
35:28
Fox aside. He wants to
35:31
give Adam a price on the bomb he needs to
35:33
blow up the bridge in Elk Rapids. It's
35:35
hard to hear, but Red says based on
35:37
what he saw, four grand should
35:40
do the trick. Adam
35:48
is, as he's fond of saying, broke
35:50
as a joke. There's no way
35:52
he can come up with $4,000. But
35:55
Red is apparently that rare breed of
35:57
bomb salesman willing to extend a line
36:00
of credit. Later in the
36:02
day, Adam pulls some people aside
36:04
for a secret meeting. It's very
36:19
hard to hear, but he says, so a
36:22
lot of you who went with us last night
36:24
kind of know what our intentions are. It comes with
36:26
a price tag. There's a lot of other shit
36:28
we got to do to be able to do
36:30
what we want to do. It's
36:32
vague, and at first it's hard to know if
36:35
anyone there even knows what Adam is talking about.
36:38
Red chimes in, trying to get agreement from
36:40
the group to pitch in to buy the
36:42
explosives. From my perspective, I
36:44
just need to know if you
36:46
want me to go, like I said, IOUs work. I
36:50
can go put stuff together. The
36:53
question is, you guys want to shoot or what?
36:55
Fuck yeah. At
36:58
least one person agrees, but other people start
37:00
to quibble about the plan. Barry
37:02
Croft seems to consider, for the first
37:04
time, what it would mean to actually
37:06
go through with this, that he would
37:09
likely have to leave his young daughters
37:11
behind. I'm tired of my
37:13
group. I can't be watching. I mean,
37:15
I got kids. I don't know. My
37:17
daughter, she called me on. I can't
37:19
think of her. She's ready. There's
37:24
no room for a fence sitter. I'm going to tell you
37:26
right now. Robeson cuts
37:28
Barry off to say there's no room for
37:30
somebody who's on the fence about this. You've
37:32
got to be dedicated to be in charge of
37:35
anything. I mean, you can't have people watching you
37:37
not show up to something. That's something you need
37:39
to think about, then. If we're going to carry
37:41
out an operation of this magnitude, you are going
37:43
to have to walk away from life. That's something.
37:46
I've been blessed with a good knife. My last
37:48
20 years, bro. I'm ready to roll. rare
38:00
moment of clarity for Barry, where he
38:02
asks the group to really think about
38:04
the consequences of what they're talking about.
38:07
Guys, it was all about walking away forever, man.
38:09
This is serious, man. That's something. I'm
38:11
going to look at this a little bit different. I'm going
38:13
to say it for everybody here, Miter. That
38:15
is an option. It very well could
38:18
be we ended up walking away and having to
38:20
do our shit. But again,
38:23
it doesn't mean that, either. Take
38:30
a second to remember everything it took to
38:32
get to this moment. It
38:34
took months of Robeson prodding this group to
38:36
come up with a viable plan. Dan
38:39
put a lot of effort in getting Adam in with
38:41
the watchman and then spent months working with Adam on
38:43
what he might want to do. It took
38:46
three FBI informants and two undercover agents to
38:48
herd these cats into the night recon, where
38:50
some of them didn't even know what they
38:52
were doing or why they were there. And
38:55
at this meeting, those agents and informants
38:57
are trying to get the group to agree to
38:59
this plot. And still, there's
39:02
nothing even close to unanimous agreement on
39:04
these tapes. We're all in
39:06
agreement. That's what I am. Like I said, when
39:08
we talk, that's what I am. I'm
39:11
just trying to give you a realistic picture. The
39:16
people who sound the most zealous are
39:18
Adam Fox, the informants, and the FBI
39:20
agent. I'm going to
39:22
get this shit. And so at
39:24
that time, I'm not making
39:26
a dime off this guy. I promise you, I'm
39:28
not making a dime for simply paying the piper
39:30
to bring it in. And
39:33
you have to wonder if the
39:35
FBI had never infiltrated these groups, would
39:37
any of them even be here? Maybe
39:40
Adam Fox would still be smoking weed in the
39:43
basement of the back shack. Maybe
39:45
Barry Croft would still be at home saying
39:47
horrific shit on Facebook and spending time with
39:49
his daughters. Would any of
39:52
the meetings or trainings have ever happened? Would
39:54
any of these people even have met? Would
39:58
there be any kind of plot at all? Now,
40:02
there's no way to know. Okay,
40:05
so Rob's the removal force. There's no room
40:07
for property in the state at all. Don't
40:23
want to wait for that next episode? You don't
40:25
have to. Unlock all episodes
40:27
of Chameleon the Michigan Plot ad-free right
40:29
now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast
40:31
channel. Just click subscribe
40:34
at the top of the Chameleon show
40:36
page on Apple Podcasts or visit getthebinge.com
40:38
to get access wherever you get your podcasts.
40:42
As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to
40:44
new stories on the first of every month.
40:47
Check out the Binge channel page
40:49
on Apple Podcasts or getthebinge.com to
40:51
learn more. It's
41:00
October 7, 2020, almost a month after Luther. Dan
41:05
is at the Vax Shack to pick up Adam Fox. Since
41:14
the night recon, Adam seems to be more
41:16
amped up than ever. He's excited to see
41:18
Dan, his partner in crime, to show off
41:20
the purchases he's been making for their mission
41:22
together. In the
41:24
Vax Shack, Fox shows off a new gadget, a
41:27
taser, and a pair of handcuffs. If
41:39
I went to an nest, not really, but if you haven't
41:41
playedizio yet, please don't listen to
41:48
me. Time for me to listen to my
41:51
own favorite puppy actually. I love it. Bye
41:54
guys. Today,
42:02
Dan is taking Adam for a little ride.
42:05
He's told a bunch of the guys that Red has
42:07
some excess gear he doesn't need and wants to give
42:10
them. Plate carriers for
42:12
bulletproof armor, some tactical belts, some
42:14
bags. Dan
42:20
has volunteered to pick up folks and drive
42:23
them to Ipsilanti to get the gear, and
42:25
then take them to Buffalo Wild Wings for
42:27
chicken and beer. He and
42:29
Adam scoop up Thai Garbon, Daniel Harris,
42:31
and Caleb Franks. And
42:42
then they're on the road with Adam zapping
42:44
away at his taser. And
42:50
Harris cocking and uncocking a handgun and
42:52
putting it to Dan's head. They
42:58
pull off at Ipsilanti and into a big
43:00
empty parking lot. As Dan
43:03
drives all the way up to a
43:05
warehouse at the back of the lot,
43:07
Thai Garbon suddenly gets spooked. Garbon
43:14
says, what are you pulling all the way
43:17
up here for? Then
43:19
he says, where's he at? As
43:27
Dan goes around to the back of his
43:30
truck, where he says he has some rifle
43:32
parts he wants to show everyone, Garbon looks
43:34
around. Maybe it
43:36
dawns on him. There's no
43:38
such thing as free gear. He
43:43
says, we're going to go to jail. And
43:46
looking around some more, where are the
43:48
cameras? These
44:00
guys talked a lot about a day when the
44:02
feds would come for them. It
44:04
must have been surreal to have it
44:06
actually happening. Based
44:13
down on the ground, the FBI agents
44:15
cuffed them one at a time. Some
44:32
of the guys just seem confused.
44:35
No one's told them yet what they're being charged
44:37
with. They don't
44:39
know that they're about to become
44:41
the most notorious domestic terrorists in
44:44
America. On
44:50
the next episode of Chameleon season
44:52
seven, the Michigan plot, a
44:54
peek behind the FBI's curtain at the agent
44:56
who ran the show, a show
44:59
the FBI has been running for
45:01
decades. In most cases, the defendant
45:03
didn't have the capacity to commit
45:06
any significant violence on his own
45:08
and didn't have any connections to
45:10
real terrorists. These were cases that
45:12
the FBI made entirely possible. And
45:15
Adam Fox finally wakes up to reality from
45:18
behind bars. Adam really thought
45:20
he had somebody. He really
45:22
thought Dad was his brother. One
45:33
is a production of Campside Media in
45:35
partnership with Sony Music Entertainment. The
45:37
Michigan plot is hosted by me, Ken
45:40
Bensinger. And me, Jessica
45:42
Garrison. The show is produced
45:44
by Ryan Swikert. Callie Hitchcock
45:46
and Henry Lavoie are associate producers.
45:50
Story editing by Michael Canyon Meyer. Josh
45:53
Dean is our executive producer. Voice
45:56
acting by Levi Petrie. Fact
45:58
checking by Annika Robbins. Additional
46:01
research by Julie Denesche. Sound
46:04
design and mix by E. Winlai Tramuen. Music
46:07
by Blue Dot Sessions, Epidemic
46:09
Sound, and APM. A
46:11
special thanks to our operations team,
46:14
Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren, and Destiny
46:16
Dingle. Campside Media's
46:18
executive producers are Josh Dean,
46:20
Vanessa Grigoriadis, Adam Hoff, and
46:22
Matt Schayer. If
46:25
you're enjoying this show, spread the word, and
46:27
leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It
46:29
helps other people find the show. I'm
46:32
Ken Bensinger, and thanks for listening. Sound
46:35
design and mix by E. Winlai
46:37
Tramuen. I'm
46:40
sorry, man. They're normally really fucking bad.
46:42
Can we just get our chicken, please?
46:45
I see. I ain't never
46:47
going to live in this town. Alright,
46:50
no chick-fil-a.
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