Brother helps solve ‘Sonic Gary’ cold case

the story of Sonic Gary Kurgan reads like a twisted psycho thriller it's characters the kind that creep into the storyline of your own surreal dreams like Delilah the exotic teenage hooker stripper with a taste for psychological torment she was kind of enamored with the the Manson thing her much-older boyfriend Ron a man of dubious ambition he worked part-time as a clown in the French Quarter Mike of balloon animals there was Lila's paranormal protector squeaky who was squeaking well at that time they believed in a ghost that they call squeaky poison guinea pigs mutilated corpses we could go on but what this story is really about the vicious calculated slaughter of Gary Kurgan a savvy hamburger magnate with a wife and a young son and the brother who spent 30 years hunting down his brother's killers well I was I'm gonna do was let him get away with it I mean the hell no there's no way that was gonna happen back in the 80s an astute businessman named Gary Kurgan predicted the sonic burger chain had massive potential for growth you drive up you have the car of experience where the car hop brings your feet out to the car and you eat in your vehicle gary was the vision guy I was very much more of the nuts and bolts operator these two men were far more than business partners they were deeply bonded siblings my story is my dad had a heart attack the day after I was born Gary was in many ways like the dad that I didn't have and into adulthood they remained inseparable Ted even moved to Louisiana from Michigan to get in on the sonic explosion with Gary Gary had negotiated a development agreement with Sonic to build a lot of restaurants in the New Orleans area and this was something that the time was pretty unheard of Gary was married to Suzy they had a young son named Wade Ted was single at the time it was a tight-knit family enjoying a good life with a promising future soon another partner would team up with the kurgans his name was Larry Tucker my dad owned sonic drive-ins too and Gary and my dad Larry were planning on buying a bunch of stores in the Baton Rouge area together since the partners lived hours from Baton Rouge where they were doing business they rented an apartment just so I can understand the apartment in Baton Rouge that was who lived in there and was it also an office just give me an idea cuz it just sounds odd it takes a lot of work and time and energy long days to put Sonic together and make it work well they realize we need to get an apartment that we can share when we're both in town so we're not staying in hotels one very late November evening Gary called Ted with some incredible news Gary had gone to Mississippi and had secured funding to build all these restaurants so it was a huge deal for us and a huge milestone in our business Gary was beyond excited at what he had accomplished he told Ted he was coming over to his house he wanted to talk about it and we kind of wanted to you know celebrate our success at this big milestone so I said yeah this is great strangely Gary never showed I fell asleep on the couch I didn't realize he hadn't showed up till I woke up in the morning and I I thought it was a little odd that he hadn't at least come by and and woken me up if it had been anyone else Ted may not have immediately panicked Gary was absolutely 100% coming to my house he never said he was coming to my house did he didn't the anxiety was no more bearable for Gary's wife Susie it was a significant enough event that Susie was almost hysterical she knew something was wrong I have my office call all of our restaurants Gary told Larry the exact same thing and that he was on his way to my house how did this affect your father he was at the time very upset he was with Gary a lot they were very great friends it was a shock to the system Ted went on a mission canvassing every square inch of Baton Rouge when I'm talking about no stone unturned I mean I went to the to a store that I knew he had bought some shirts at I mean I literally went to every single place that he possibly could have been to and it was literally like Gary just disappeared off the face of the earth it was late when Gary was supposed to be on his way over Ted worried he had fallen asleep at the wheel or took a wrong turn and ended up in a dark Louisiana swamp Gary Kurgan along with his brother Ted and another partner Larry Tucker played the odds on a chain of sonic burger drive-ins the odds proved to be in their favor at that time they were on the verge of really making it author Chris Blackwood details the Kurgan brothers journey in her book my brother's keeper a lot of money yep 1984 Blackwood tells crime watch daily Gary was a respected and humble man but one who didn't mind showing off a few of the perks of his success he was driving a Cadillac Eldorado he dressed flashy I mean it was 1980s you know he had the gold chain and the open neck so could do present as having money did all that bling attract robbers kidnappers while police investigate Gary's brother Ted becomes a rabid citizen sleuth Ted had plenty of access are you an investigator both my brother and I were fully commissioned deputies with the Cady Parish Sheriff's Department we knew the sheriff very well and had assisted in some investigations and I probably should leave it at that so far the only clue was a scrap of paper with the name Erica written on it business partner Larry Tucker found the paper in the Baton Rouge apartment he shared with Gary Larry had cleaned the apartment up and throwing away piece of paper with someone's name on it and Gary had relayed to him that he did him a favor yeah gary said you did me a favor probably saved me from going out on my wife as far as anyone knew gary was a devoted husband and father I was trying to get my arms around us this concept so to speak that there could be another woman well sure and that I didn't know who she was Ted went on the hunt for Erica he was led to a strip joint called the hot spot well I walked in and one of the dancers looked at me and said hi Gary which was interesting because Gary and I looked enough like that that's understandable I said no I'm Ted I'm Gary's brother have you seen him and she said yeah he was here last night and sure enough Ted learned that his brother was last seen leaving with a dancer named Erica police jumped on the lead first checking out details found on Erika's license application to dance in Baton Rouge so who was Erica erica ultimately turned out to be lila mola who it was a 19 year old she was a former high school honor student uh a violinist a tack star she was very attractive gorgeous very much Ohio born Lyla came from a very wealthy family but God herself caught up in substance abuse and chose the life of a rebel wild child landing her restless soul in Louisiana having just escaped from rehab Lyla worked as a stripper and a hooker she lived in this scrappy duplex with her jolting ly bizarre drifter boyfriend Ronald Dunnigan he was twice her age and called the shots she was gorgeous he was not named he didn't have much money and he wasn't educated I mean the guy was a clown on the street life as a part-time street clown didn't pay the bills Lila's stripping and hooking did and it turns out Gary the burger boss was a regular customer Gary paid her better than anybody else yes he did there was a kind of simi relationship between the two of them gary was sweet on her Gary was intrigued there's some part of me wondered if this had something to do with Gary not showing up cops hightailed it to the duplex where Dunnigan and Lila lived Ted insisted on coming along I started to think that you know maybe Gary's in there and he's tied up in a closet and you know maybe he's in in some kind of distress there was no Gary it turned out but cops made another daunting discovery it was blood everywhere there were parts of the walls that looked like someone had beat them with a hammer and that's when I knew for sure you knew what well I knew Gary wasn't coming back and then they find his car yeah I think the next day or the day after that Gary's brand-new Cadillac had been left in a business parking lot for five days it's beautiful champagne color now tainted with red blood red the crime investigator said what you're looking at is someone died in the trunk of that car Gary's despondent wife Susie had been clinging to hope did you have to tell her I I did I did my brother and Susie were latter-day saints so they had somebody from their church there we went in to the house I told him I just came back from the crime lab that Gary's just not coming back even with no body to prove it it seems inevitable that Gary had been murdered violently and cops have a good idea who the killers are she was a gorgeous 19 year old temptress from a wealthy family but fate led the troubled Ohio runaway to a life of stripping and hooking on the seediest corners of Baton Rouge Louisiana tangled up with a him street clown boyfriend twice her age she saw Ron as her protector she's a very smart person so she looked for someone who could protect her and that she could kind of order around Lila Mullah was the last person to see missing businessman Gary Kurgan owner of a sonic burger franchise empire and one of her regular clients blood was found in Gary's car and in the house Lila shared with Ronald Dunnigan now the dubious duo is on the run they're gone oh yeah they're gone and something else that would later prove to be significant one of the neighbors said that they gave them some hamster cages picture the Bonnie and Clyde of Baton Rouge with all the ruthlessness and none of the cachet the two got out of Dodge in Dunnigan old Blue Dart destination Sin City they reappear Lila decides to go and get a an escort license in Vegas and she goes into the Sheriff's Department to get this license it turns out Lady Luck didn't welcome them with open arms it was more like cuffed wrists the police in Baton Rouge have put a warrant out for a material witness for a missing person what a stroke of luck that she goes to sign up for this license and he goes to the police you know she comes I mean she literally walks right into our arms Vegas cops detained Lila but here's where it gets tricky Dunnigan is hanging around the sheriff station thinking Lila's still working on the escort license Vegas police have no legitimate reason to hold him no one had seen Dunnigan with Gary so there's no chance of hooking them up to the material witness turns out Dunnigan had a bench warrant for non-payment of a traffic ticket vegas police are very much you know i don't think we can hold a guy on a parking ticket but vegas cop said they'd do their best while louisiana detectives strategized the police come to me and they asked me if I knew anybody in the travel business and I said yeah we got to get there they said yeah I said fine there isn't a second to waste it's Ted to the rescue he hires a private luge and I put it on my American Express card and y'all flew to Las Vegas and we all flew to Las Vegas detectives raced to the Vegas interrogation room on a mission to get Lyla to talk and talk fast she spills all right pointing the finger at her drifter boyfriend Ron Dunnigan she said Dunnigan killed Gary by accident he said that Gary deserved to die and she said no was that considered a confession on her part yeah the police definitely considered that a confession while cops searched the couple's Vegas apartment Ted comes along and waits in the kitchen and it turns out that's where the investigation into the brothers disappearance is really heating up literally I'm opening up kitchen drawers and I pull out a notebook and a diary Ted's about to stumble upon some horrifying entries in that diary which belongs to Lila I get to a point in the diary close to when Gary disappeared where she says if Gary next time Ron will hide in the closet that good man when you read that did you feel ill or did you feel like oh my god I have them my boy just went cold and I turned to the Baton Rouge detective and I said think maybe you need to read this and they read that and they said we got it's premeditated they had a plan police bring Dunnigan and Lila back to Baton Rouge and the district attorney's office at the time is ready to pounce it's circumstantial evidence but we have plenty of circumstantial evidence we have the people we have the blood and in part we have blood in the trunk of the car we have a diary for God's sakes but when a new DA named Brian Bush took over police and prosecutors were forced to close the murder book on the case Brian said oh we don't have a body we're gonna let them out just like that in an hour I went from we're absolutely going to convict them we have them we have the diary we have everything we need - oh never mind we're just gonna let him out former Assistant Prosecutor Prem burns was assigned to the case back in 1984 she knew then it would have been a gamble we had never tried a case without a body at that point in time very few jurisdictions ever tried a case without a body and at the time DNA testing didn't exist not only was there no body there was blood in the back of a car that today could have been subject to DNA testing but the biggest hurdle was Lila who was charged as an accessory she was clever enough to know that without her the murder charge against Dunnigan wouldn't hold up the woman was refusing to testify against him and had been offered basically a walk immunity from prosecution were she to testify she absolutely refused these are the images that crushed Ted kurgan nearly three decades ago the anguished brother of missing Gary Kurgan didn't keep his dismay to himself you must have been so deflated so defeated no I went into a panic it wasn't defeated it was shock I was absolutely went into shock it's 1984 Lila Mulla and Ron Dunnigan are freest birds they flew while Ted fumed for three frustrating decades at this point I'm pissed they murdered my brother and they're out but hope is reignited enter the era of DNA and the newly funded cold-case unit of the Baton Rouge Police they started looking back through old file cabinets for cases that they could successfully reopen and successfully prosecute they start reading the word sonic Gary and they see the name Tucker as in Larry Tucker memories father and the kurgans friend and business partner the one who thirty years earlier discovered that piece of paper with the name Erica he was listed as one of the people who reported him missing and his fate would have it 30 years later memory Tucker now a district attorney investigator on the case I made the murder book and we started looking for the old witnesses everybody's name who was in any police report step number one was to get Wade Gary's son to submit a DNA sample to see the blood in the trunk actually matched Gary's blood the results were that the blood in the trunk of the car belonged to Wade kurgans father so we knew then that it was Gary's blood and we knew we could probably prosecute the case successfully of course when investigators say does anybody know where these two are you do oh yeah I knew exactly who over those 30 years you hired private investigators to track them over those 30 years I did everything you could possibly think of and probably a few things you can I literally knew where they were almost every day they never made contact with each other again Ted discovered that Lyla eventually got a nursing degree and moved to New York where is Dunnigan what happened to him he drifted back to Louisiana he lived on a disability check which he's told one of my people that he faked the now aging Louisiana loser still pined for Lila we talked about after Lila he was never able to have sex again this is true I mean Lila was a big love of his life she was the last person he had sex with he's 36 years old Ted recruited his close friend a woman named Anne Edelman to buddy up to the lonely drifter using Ted's money and paid donegan's expenses even a cellphone she won his trust Ted even disguised himself as a chauffeur driving an and the clueless Dunnigan around town the joke was on the clown now all these years later Ted could lead cops right to Lila and done against doorsteps when he was really was living in a Ramada Inn in Bossier City Lila was now a nurse and a divorced mother of two living in New York City I had actually gone to New York the day before the police had flown up and scoped out her apartment building and when they arrested her at her apartment yeah I was outside Ted had disguised himself as a homeless man and went unnoticed did you see her walk out I did I could hear and she said I knew you would come back Lila is being led to a very familiar place the interrogation room this is your day to tell your sad story I think that you were used so that's gonna be up to you you have the key to your future Lila knows what's coming and from the start portrays herself as Dunnigan psychological hostage he had threatened me threatened my family they'd had me out on the street to try and pick people up did he take all the money Dunnigan told Lila a ghost named squeaky had his eye on her squeak is the ghost took a part of donek sweetie was really done when he wasn't around squeaky was watching even Lila's diary entries revealed her belief in squeaky's powers thank God for the spirits and squeaky for they keep us together and keep the bond tight did you buy it no but I saw it's not only my job to see what I believe which is very important I have to determine what I think a jury will believe and what a jury believed Lila was forced into seducing rich men like Gary kurgan two times at the club Dunnigan was always talking about you know getting someone further money Lila's diary entries portrayed Dunnigan as some sort of Messiah he accidentally bit me too hard I was bleeding he meditated and it's healed it was a miracle now Lila Mulla turns on oh I'm so vulnerable I'm this weak female I was very young I was under his spell kind of thing stay on this journal entry you have plans to get him next time I hid in the closet I'm that good man I said let's say I had 240 dollars from Sonic Gary interrogators have had enough of the cat-and-mouse game I think you like you have selective memory you're gonna talk to me you've been dragging this on oh I snore tell them let's quit the dance Lila slowly lays out the cold-hearted plan note the journal entry that reads let go of animals he bought some type of poison and was poisoning animals Dunnigan experimented on guinea pigs and mice he'll learn did you ever see it I think it was a powder Lila's role was to lure Gary to their home and serve him a deadly concoction it's true about the the wine it was tainted Dunnigan was hiding in the closet Gary started to and Donna can come out of the room according to Lila Dunnigan took Gary into the bathroom and performed the unthinkable if Lila story is to be believed Gary's remains were stuffed in trash bags thrown in the trunk of his own car and driven by Dunnigan and Lila to dumpsters along a highway as foresty it was a green dumpster I remember there were lights though so I mean I know it wasn't it wasn't a rural area Lila says they cabbed it back to Baton Rouge then Dunnigan wiped the apartment clean cops are dubious let me tell you something when a body gets cut in half the guns come out and blood goes everywhere but I did not see anybody for all its peculiarities Lila's story was strong enough for prosecutors to move forward even without a body once again Lila was offered a plea deal in exchange for her testimony could you have convicted Ron Dunnigan without Lila testifying we didn't have enough evidence to indict him without flipping her on him this time she accepted a plea deal that no one would call sweet I honestly can't believe she took the deal thirty years in prison thirty years in prison maybe guilt was weighing on her because of Lila's testimony Dunnigan got life behind bars perhaps the sickest part of this crime was the motive if you thought it was money you were wrong they wanted to kill someone according to Lila just to see what it was like a thrill kill my thrill kill it's really sad that over those 30 years Gary's mother passed Gary's wife passed family members passed away never getting to the point of seeing justice it is sad it's very sad I'm just so grateful that Ted was able to you know push the case keep the case alive because he did he kept the case alive and was able to see justice sir that's huge Ted is satisfied as well he just expresses it in a less delicate way at the end I said after 30 years I gotcha

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 230,442

Rating: 4.8346524 out of 5

Keywords: Gary Kergan, Ted Kergan, Sonic Gary, True Crime Daily, Crime Watch Daily

Id: dubqw_LYAUY

Length: 27min 58sec (1678 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 09 2019