1504: The Red Collar Killer part 2

Speaker: Last year, New Year's 2022. I got the strangest call. It was from a serial killer. I want to be really clear that I don't feel like a serial killer. You know, and, and, and when I think of the word serial killer of a person who's a serial killer, I think of a guy like Ted Bundy or, or a person who, who, Does things for compulsion or emotional needs, emotional reasons. And I, myself, I'm not a person who has any blood lusts. These terrible things I did, I did, you know, um, starting about 15 years ago. And, and, and I was just a heartless, cold blooded asshole who hurt and killed people for money. You know, I don't have a compulsion to kill people or a desire necessarily to do that. I interviewed William Holbert for my other podcast, Criminal Conduct, and almost every night for a couple weeks, Holbert would call me from his burner phone hidden inside his jail cell. We spoke so often that we ended up getting seven episodes out of it. William Holbert, who is best known as Wild Bill, murdered five American expats in the country of Panama. And my goal was to get a detailed confession out of him. It's not like I ever, like, Hey, come here, I'm going to kill you. None of that thing. Nothing like that ever happens to anybody. And I always shot people in the back of the head when they weren't looking. Nobody ever knew that it was going to happen. Wild Bill killed these people, including a family with a teenage boy, in order to steal the deed to their property. His victims were expats who moved to the country of Panama to get away from it all. Some were running from the law. Others just moved to the Central American country looking for an island home to retire. But little did they know that one of their island neighbors, Wild Bill, was closing in on their property. The plan was simple. Kill the Americans, claim the deed to their house, and cash in. He figured, who's going to miss these expats anyway? Like Wild Bill said, he does not consider himself a serial killer. Here's another clip from Criminal Conduct Season 3. So was the intention just to steal his property? That was an afterthought, but, but again, I don't even know how to answer the question because in order to answer the question, we're going to open up a whole bunch of doors. Like they, they try to say that I, I, I dreamed up. I'm going to kill this guy for his house. Nobody ever got killed for their fucking house. Nobody. And I mean, it is the truth that I took them, when I killed, when I killed the Browns, I took that property. So in this short clip, he went from saying he didn't kill people for their property. Well, then why did he do it? If it wasn't for the money, did he kill them to cover up his crime? This was what it was like talking with Wild Bill over several nights. He didn't want to talk about the murders. And when he did, it was filled with contradictions. I took that property in lieu of any payment for anything that I did because I wanted it. And then after I did that, when I, when I did the thing with Bo, I did it as well. But the thing with Cheryl Hughes, I never took any property from Cheryl Hughes. Never changed any property. Never did anything. So why did you kill them? I was broke. And, and, and so what I'm trying to say with these things is that whether you believe me or not, I'm telling you how it was when I was there. I don't want to open up. I don't want to tell you the story, to be perfectly honest with you. I don't want to tell anybody the story, because it involves a whole lot of other people who are not in prison, and I don't want them to come and kill me. Finally, while Bill says that he was a contract killer, a hitman, but working for who? He refuses to say, but is this true, or is this just another lie? In the previous episode of Pretend, we attempted to define a red collar criminal. A red collar criminal is not a killer who happens to branch out into white collar crime. It's much more specific than that. Frank Perry, author of the book Red Collar White Collar Crime, defines a red collar criminal as someone who resorts to violence in order to conceal fraud. The question is, is William Holbert considered a red collar criminal? We're going to discuss him and other criminals to see who best fits this definition of a red collar criminal. I'm Javier Leyva and this is Pretend. Stories about real people pretending to be someone else. A red collar criminal, by Frank Perry's definition, is someone who commits murder in order to prevent the detection of their fraud scheme. I asked Perry if he considers William Holbert, the serial killer I interviewed, a red collar criminal. It depends why he's killing him. Is he killing him to, is he killing them to get the deed or to prevent them from disclosing his fraud? What you're referring to is what is called this criminal enterprise homicide, where you have to kill the person to get what you want. Interesting. I would have considered Holbert a great candidate for a red collar label. But after talking with Frank Perry, it does seem that Holbert was more interested in his victim's property. And wasn't too concerned about getting caught. They just happened to be in the way of what he wanted. For example, I have an insurance policy on somebody. For me to collect the money, I have to kill them. So that's not a red collar crime. That's not fraud detection of violence. You have to back into the motive. Right? The fact that white collar offenders committing violence in and of itself does not make them a red collar criminal. That's the key here. You might be thinking to yourself, who cares? Criminal enterprise homicide, red collar criminal. Are we splitting hairs here? Maybe, but that's the point. What red collar offenders are is a subgroup of white collar offenders who kill or attempt to in order to prevent detection and or disclosure of their fraud scheme. Words matter, especially if you're a prosecutor. And it's not just labels themselves that are important. If we have a better understanding of this particular subset of criminals, their motivations, then maybe one day future victims can pick up on the warning signs. If you're somebody who is very entitled, if you have low regard for life, if you are remorseless in what you do, do you have a higher risk of engaging in violence as a solution versus somebody who isn't? Now, I want to make it very clear, I am not saying that all red collar offenders share these type of personality traits, but I'm saying it needs to be explored. I think I have a case that's going to help us. There were these two older women, their names were Helen Golay and Rita Watership. What were they doing? They were taking care of homeless people. They took out insurance policies on them. They kept these men fed and housed for two years because in order to avoid suspicion of wrongdoing after that two years, what they would do is that they would sedate these homeless men, take them out into some secluded area and run them over. Then they would go take the insurance policies and collect on their death. That's a criminal enterprise homicide. They had to kill these men in order to collect on the money. They're not red collar offenders. They may have committed fraud, but guess what? They weren't killing these men in order to prevent the detection and or disclosure of their fraud schemes. They killed them to collect the money. If William Hobart is not a red collar criminal, and Helen and Rita are not red collar killers, then who is? Well, when you start looking at it, we can categorize red collar crime into different buckets. The first example of a red collar criminal is not someone who you'd typically expect. It could be your son, your daughter, your husband, your wife. Family is one of the more disturbing ones. A lot of family members don't understand how this happened in their family. They need some explanation. Not necessarily closure, because there is no closure when you learn that your brother took out your parents or your siblings. There's not going to be any closure, but they need to at least understand the risks factors that led to it. Let's take, for example, the case of Frederick Tokar. In 1992, Tokar was an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, who advertised on TV. He represented drug dealers and he helped them incorporate businesses that hid their earnings. He basically lived a double life as a kind of conseiller to Atlanta drug lords. This is until his wife, Sarah, started to suspect something was wrong. According to news reports, Sarah stumbled upon evidence in a safe that her husband was laundering money. Atlanta police believe that she may have found a large sum of cash. Three weeks before Sarah's death, something else happened that may have put her life in danger. While all this was going on, federal prosecutors zeroed in on her husband. Little did Sarah know that she could possibly be called as a witness in her husband's case. What happened was his, his wife, Sarah found out about this and as law enforcement said that she was a ticking time bomb and that if law enforcement found out about this, this would have been Fredericks. He then said that we have to do something about this. He then. Had one of his criminal associates say, I'm going to give you 25, 000. I need you to do this for me. You need to take Sarah out. Sarah and her two sons were returning home from a Thanksgiving trip to see her parents when a man suddenly appeared and kidnapped them. He forced them into the van and made Sarah drive. Within minutes, the kidnapper shot Sarah point blank in the head with a sawed off shotgun. He did this in front of her two young boys. After the gunman fled, her six year old son, Ricky, reached over his mom's dead body and stopped the car. He grabbed his four year old brother, Michael, and they ran to the closest house. When the person who he contracts the kill with said, What about your kids? He says, They're young. They'll get over it. Think about it. This was set prior to the homicide. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, the fact that he did not, uh, feel any empathy for his kids. He was able to, like, turn that part of his brain off. That's kind of weird, right? Maybe you're not turning any part of your brain off. Maybe that's who you are. And that's why I'm sharing with you the, that anecdotal evidence of somebody who might be psychopathic, who is a white collar criminal. Let's talk about Eric Hansen. That one stands out, and I'm glad that you pointed it out. Actually, that happened in Illinois, not that far from where I live. Eric Hansen was a 29 year old living with his parents, and the whole time he was living with his folks, he was stealing from them. According to the prosecution, Eric Hansen stole more than 150, 000 from his parents through forgery, mail fraud, credit card fraud, and identity theft. Eventually, one of his sisters figured it out and confronted her brother. The sister confronted him about the fraud. He says, you know what, I'm going to go to mom and dad. I'm going to tell them what's going on. He says, you know what, stay out of my business and threatened her. And what did he do? He threatened to kill her if she told their parents. A month later, Hanson drove to his parents house and shot them in their sleep. Now, what's interesting is the mother tried to help the son out. About five weeks after the detection of the fraud by the sister, he ends up. Going into the parents' bedroom and shooting both of them while they're in bed. He then goes and to the sister's house and the brother-in-Law's house. Blunt Force trauma kills the sister and the brother-in-Law and takes the two bodies of the mother and father and brings them there. According to Frank Perry, this is a classic case of red collar crime. Here you have a son who is siphoning money out of his parents bank account. He gets caught so he kills his parents and his sister to neutralize the threat. So he kills his parents, his sister, his brother in law to neutralize the threat of being exposed. Here's another example of red collar crime in the family. Christopher Porco was a college student who took out 30, 000 in fraudulent loans under his parents names. You see, Christopher Porco was a big spender and he lost tons of money gambling. His parents eventually confronted him about forging their signature on loan documents. In an email, the father explained that he had no choice but to report his son to the bank. He ended the email by saying, quote, We may be disappointed with you, but your mother and I still love you and care about your future. The very next day, Christopher Porkel took out another fraudulent loan to purchase a Jeep. And I actually have the, the emails, but you see the progression of this tension between the two. About 10 days after the threat of them going to the authorities, he goes, drives from the University of Rochester back to upstate New York. I believe it was Delmar, New York. Sneaks into the house and what I would consider to be a long handled axe, cleaves the father to death in bed and also to the mother, but left the mother for dead, meaning she did not die. When police found the mother, her brain was exposed, her jaw was dislodged, and she even lost one of her eyes. At the scene, while paramedics are tending to her, a police detective asked Joan if a family member had committed the crime, and Joan nodded her head yes. Look at the similarities between Eric Hansen and Porco, both while they were sleeping in bed. Okay? Did the parents see this coming? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. When we return from the break, we're going to look at red collar crimes in the workplace. And guess what? It's more common than you think. This is a pretty startling statistic. When I first heard about it, I didn't even believe it. But did you know that according to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, homicide is the fourth leading cause of death in the workplace? Often, what happens at the workplace is that, especially with fraud examiners, for example, who are the ones that are investigating these type of cases, are prone to being victims. We see this in one case, her name is Sally Rohrbaugh. She went to an insurance agency. The person who was selling insurance was keeping the money. That's right. Prosecutors say that Michael Howell, the 150, 000 from his clients. When the client started complaining, she started pulling up bank statements and boy, was that a mistake. You know, sometimes following the money can inadvertently lead you to a death trap. She detected the fraud and blunt force trauma killed her. Michael Howell struck Sally with a computer stand, killed her, and later dumped her body in the woods. Let's go back to our stereotypical depiction of a white collar criminal. Usually it's a white man from an affluent background. Now we know that assumption is wrong, but it got me wondering, how often are women involved not just with white collar offenses, but rather with violent red collar crimes? For that, let's discuss the case of Nancy Siegel. One afternoon, a widower in his 70s named Jack Watkins Answer the door. It was a 46 year old attractive blonde saleswoman named Nancy Siegel. She was going door to door selling burial plots. But this wasn't just a routine sales pitch. Not only did she sell the man a spot in the mausoleum, Nancy Siegel managed to wiggle her way into his life. Soon after that, Nancy was over all the time. She even met all of Jack's friends. Jack even told his stepdaughters that he was planning to marry this woman. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of dollars in debt appeared in credit cards that Watkins never opened under his name. She even took out a 44, 000 mortgage on his home. Everything was fine until Jack Watkins smarted up. That's when Siegel tried to commit him into a mental hospital. When that failed, He ended up basically giving him sedatives and then strangling him. She then took his body, I believe stuffed it in a, like a trunk and dumped it. What a lot of these predators do is that they are all before they kill their victim, they are already moved on to another relationship. And that's what's important for your listenership. These exploitative ones, the same one with a man, his name was Robert Patrick. He killed his wife. He was already engaged to another woman before he killed his wife. So look at the similarities between Nancy Siegel and Robert Patrick. They're planning to kill and before the kill, they're already moving on to another relationship to exploit all of these involved, trying to cover up or get away with the white collar crime, right? Like, that's what makes all of these red collar. Right. And they're trying to still engage in their fraud. They don't want anybody to interfere with their goals. I want my money. You're getting in the way of what I want, and I'm going to have to take you out. Now the question becomes, are there warning signs? It's very difficult. Again, it's very, because you're not going to see it coming. Why? Because if part of your job can be routine in nature. You just see it as one more place to go and investigate like any other. What Frank Perry is trying to say is that you and the red collar criminal are on two different wavelengths. Let's just say that you're a bookkeeper or an accountant and you stumble upon fraud. You might think that the right thing to do is to report it or to talk to the person responsible. After all, you're going under the assumption that white collar offenders are non violent. But what if that person had a narcissistic personality disorder and could resort to violence? If there's a sense of argumentation, if there's a sense of personal spaces being violated, personal spaces being violated, that's problematic. Are there ways to mitigate it at best, let other people know where you're going? All right, time and place, is this at night? Is this someplace secluded? That can be dangerous. That's a risk factor. I want to thank Frank Perry for joining me on this episode. This framing really changed the way I view white collar criminals. Talking about it this way takes out the randomness of these cases. And suddenly when you look at violence with white collar offenders, you suddenly see a pattern emerge. If you're interested in learning more, Frank Perry actually wrote a whole book about this. It's called Red Collar White Collar Crime, Corporate Predatory Violent Fraud Offenders. It's an excellent read. In the book, Frank Perry discusses some other examples of red collar offenders, much like we did in this episode, but in much more detail. I'm even going to drive to Charlotte to go see Frank speak at the ACFE chapter there. Alright, that's it for this week. We'll be back with a new episode next week. This episode was written by me, Javier Leyva, and edited by Poonath Shenoy, with the podcast pundits.