Jimmy Keene (Black Bird) on Drug Business w/ Cartel, Going Undercover in Max Prison (Full Interview)

foreign here we go today we have Jimmy Keane who went undercover in prison in order to get serial killer Larry Hall to confess to his crimes which was depicted in the Apple TV series Blackbird where he's played by Taryn Edgerton I always mess up his name Taryn Edgerton welcome to Vlad TV hey bud nice to meet you man well it's your first time here and I actually watched the Blackbird miniseries great series by the way yeah now it's uh it turned out to be really good I'm pretty happy with it yeah you're the exit producer one of the exact producers of that Series right right congrats on that and it's based on my book too exactly and your life story correct okay this is your first time here let's get into the whole thing let's start in the very beginning so you grew up in Kankakee Illinois did I pronounce that right no you didn't it's Kankakee okay and I was born in Kankakee it's uh right on the southern edge of Chicago it's the southern suburb of Chicago at 17 years old I moved deep into the city though but yeah so I was born in Kankakee so okay and in your book you talk about how Kankakee was actually voted one of the worst places to live in the U.S at one point in terms of crime and unemployment correct actually that's really good that you brought that particular thing up because I actually looked at statistics today in the 1980s it was the highest crime rate place in the whole nation's live and had the highest unemployment rate in the state so it wasn't a lot of opportunities growing up there okay and your parents James Keane aka Big Jim and Lynn Keane correct and your dad was actually a fairly decorated police officer yeah yeah dad was a very accomplished guy decorated police officer a very big guy uh six foot five 300 pounds real big muscular guy kind of funny when you know at first it was going to be Jeff Bridges was going to play my dad and then we went to Ray Liotta to play my dad and my sisters were like do me he's not as big as Dad I said yeah well you know you're not going to find a lot of guys that are as big as Dad period you know right especially in Hollywood I don't know any uh six six uh Hollywood actors exactly right okay so you went to high school and uh your captain of your football team and you thought you'd actually play pro football or you'd become a cop those were the two ideas I had in my head right you know I had the statistics for pro football but you know it wasn't in the cards in the long run so once the divorce happened with the family it all fell apart then well I mean while you're still in high school you started to sell weed even younger than High School okay what Junior High 12 years old I came across I I don't know if you've read my newest book The Chicago Phoenix I go into great detail about there was me and my brother and three or four other guys we were out in the cornfields riding our bicycles and we came across about six seven eight big Hefty bags of marijuana heading out in the cornfield and it was added up to be about three or four hundred pounds of weed and at that point we said you know what our older buddies that are 15 16 years old they'd like this so we snatched it one night and that's what got us started into the weed business okay so now you have all the Swede and you're not even a teenager yet so you start selling to what the kids in the neighborhood well like I said I went to the older kids that were like 15 16 years old and they pretty much did all the moving but they were shocked that this little younger kid me had this kind of quantity all of a sudden you know okay and then I think at 17 your mom kicks you out of the house yep they got they got divorced when I was 10 uh and there was literally no adult supervision from 10 on and pretty much no Financial income coming in the house either and uh my mom just let it be known at 17 you know I was the oldest we got to start everybody's got a one at a time start leaving the nest so at 17 I was out and that's when I moved deep into the heart of Chicago okay so you get kicked out of the house you move to Chicago and then your younger brother Timmy gets kicked out of the house also and then he moves in with you right one year later right yeah one year later right okay so it was you your brother and I guess your friend Kevin and you guys started the the Wii business kind of together yeah pretty much you know us three it's pretty good you got Kevin in there Kevin was a wild wild character he just recently passed away so I'm pretty heartbroken over losing him but uh one of my best friends I ever had in my life that's for sure my condolences thank you I appreciate it my condolences okay so by 84 you're you're 20 years old and uh there's a quote from your book he said I realized I could put the college education on hold and become a millionaire very quickly so by 84 you were in your sophomore year in college and you ended up dropping out essentially well I played football and wrestled my first two years got the lower study degree and then I did take time off from college I eventually went back and did get my degrees but I did quit after my sophomore year because the money was just coming in like like crazy you know it was the 80s right and then around that time was that when you started working with the Chicago Mafia yeah about 20 years old is when I got what they call indoctrinated in I got hooked in with them and uh started making really good money with whatever product I was able to get they were able to move it for me and then of course whatever they got I was able to move whatever they got to so some of the best days of my life okay so you're 20 years old you're living in Chicago you're working with the Chicago mob and you're moving you know marijuana in weight during this time and I guess there's a situation uh in the Gulf where all the stuff that was coming from Panama couldn't make it through so suddenly there was this huge drought correct and the mafia guys actually approached you and said Jimmy the boss needs product and he feels it's time for you to pay tribute right if you're one of us you need to give us part of the deal same price straight across correct so so what does that mean does that mean that they were basically you'd have to pay them like a bigger cut or or like I'm confused with that yeah no what what it what it was is they were getting all of their product was coming through Panama through Miami through Florida up to Chicago I had gotten mine through Arizona through Mexico so I had a whole different line and that's what they call it as a line to product well when everything dried up on the Panama because remember the whole Noriega thing in the Panama Canal thing and all that when that whole route dried up it was bad I mean nobody could get anything but they knew I still had an open source so they came to me and they said hey Jimmy you know we know you still have your open source pay tribute to us and give it to us at your cost so whatever I was getting it for was what they wanted it for okay so the Chicago mob is kind of pressing you to to give up your plug essentially pretty much yeah and uh how did you react to that I was okay with it Vlad I mean I said I would do it but not at my exact cost because my cost I had a lot of uh risk management so to speak tight in it having to get it from through Mexico through Arizona to here so I wasn't just going to give it to everybody exactly what I was getting it for and that's where they were saying I had to pay my dues well look I'll give you my cost with just a small premium on it and uh that did cause a little bit of a conflict for one whole summer there but uh it all worked out in the end okay and you talked about while while doing all this you encountered a lot of landmines from crooked police task forces to murderous crazy Street Thug gang bangers uh your words uh so crooked police task forces what exactly did that mean during that time well you get crooked police task force that will just break the law they'll do whatever too I mean I had a task force that was on my payroll that I knew what I needed done they would do it for me and that was pretty much for all my life um everybody thought it was Affiliated to my dad but it wasn't it was a whole different task force so if you get the wrong task force that wants to mess with you you better hope you got a good task force that's on your side too you know what I mean which I did have so okay and then the crazy Street the gangbangers how you described it what does that mean exactly well as everybody knows Chicago's got one of the highest crime rates in the whole entire nation I mean it's crazy you get into the wrong parts of Chicago it's it's a death trap I mean it's bad here in certain parts it's still that way to this day so you would have groups that would want to try to rip you off or uh set you up for a bus to take you out of the game but one thing that was very unique about me is I always had the respect of everybody they really did not want to mess with me and my group but you always had to be on guard for it you would see a lot of land mines blowing up around you of different things happening but like I said that a lot of people gave Jimmy a lot of respect you know I got my respect in those days especially and a lot of people just didn't mess with me cops or bad guys okay and at one point you just couldn't get enough products so you had to find a cartel connection correct um I was uh the demand was so great it was Unreal I mean the demand for everything was just off the charts and we still had a nice amount coming in but it wasn't able to suffice what the demand was so I had to try to find somebody higher up the scale in the cartel an actual cartel leader to get to it okay you talking about the Mexican cartel yep okay so how did you end up hooking up with a cartel leader well I went out we had a a ranch house out in Phoenix and I would spend a lot of time out at the ranch whereas that's eventually where I ended up finishing my last two years of college too but I would go out there and we'd spend a lot of time out there and the lower level cartels that we were connected to would bring things up out of Mexico and we put it into the place out at the ranch out there so I was in a nightclub One Night in Arizona and I don't know which book you've read or not but I can tell you're coming up with some references there do you remember Richie O'Reilly I think so yeah okay Richie had introduced me to a guy in the club one night and the guy and I hit it off and we started getting close and come to find out he was one of the main cartel guys out of Mexico and he and I hit it off great and uh so began a new whole business proposition with them okay so now you have a cartel connection yep what changed once you had an actual cartel connection as opposed to going through a middleman yeah um boy I became the man in demand I guess you would say um people the mafia here in Chicago the regular people people that all wanted Supply weren't getting it and now not only had I still kept a steady Source I had now escalated up to a real big source so that made me the man of the hour I guess you would say you know what I mean where people came to me in my organization and said hey Jimmy what do you got for us okay what was the biggest shipment you ever got from the cartel marijuana wise yeah well we got picked up with a semi full one time so and we ended up beating that case in trial so we did get arrested on that one um there was a period in time which is kind of interesting they were shipping by FedEx three four five hundred pounds of weed in a whole refrigerator-sized box and I'd get two or three of those delivered to the doorstep of a drop house that we would have we had four or five different drop houses where we would have product delivered to and they would deliver it right to the doorstep so that's one way um nobody get the wee we got a matter of fact I was talking to an old friend just yesterday he says Jimmy goes I remember when all the guys used to get around and they would bag up all the weed once it would come in from Mexico he goes I remember it like it was yesterday so that was kind of cool you know he brought that up you know so well I mean weed is is cool but it's not as profitable as cocaine right uh or pills or other substances and it's also a lot bigger and harder to pack and everything else like that why why stick with weed as opposed to moving up to a more profitable substance yeah um never got into anything but weed and eventually blow no pills no with this fentanyl crap that's around now or none of that stuff but we had just grown up on the weed right and the weed was uh bulky as you said it was hard to get in and eventually like I said when I got up in my upper 20s that's when the cartels said are saying hey you know you might want to consider getting kilos instead of the truckloads you know it's a lot easier to move and that's what led us into that too so okay and when it comes to the cartel you know they're they're fairly vicious when it comes to people ripping them off oh yeah but in the drug business rip-offs are almost a regular occurrence I mean not only do things not make it in the shipment but cops come and rip you off uh other drug dealers will rip you off there's kick doors there's scams I mean it's a con you know and you can't go call the police and say hey someone just stole my My Illegal substances you have to deal with it yourself have you ever had a situation where the cartel sent something and and you ended up losing everything and now you owe them potentially millions of dollars no never no I had uh we had a very fail proof system um the worst thing that ever happened was probably what you read about Richie where he had pinched quite a bit out of one load that had came in and uh I didn't even know he did it and when I went down and was you know I hung around with these guys down to the cartels I'd stay at their big mansions down there and we'd have you know women Galore parties and we'd have big food parties and everybody would have a good time and he called me one night and the cartel head guy and he says look he goes uh your guy clipped us and I stuck up for him didn't believe it he goes well we got him so they had kidnapped him out of Arizona and took him down to Mexico and they had him they were going to kill him so that would probably be the worst thing that ever happened um but yeah nobody ever ripped me off and I never ripped anybody off I think that's why I lasted so long because I was a fair guy you know I ran a fair trade business okay but your friend got kidnapped and sent to Mexico and they were torturing him and everything or yeah they had him down there for about three days they were they had beat him pretty bad and tortured him we're making him smoke the pipe you know saying hey you want to get dope here do all the dope you can get and I was in bed with the girlfriend one night and I got a call late at night and it was the cartel guy and he says hey look uh as he said in his language he we got some [ __ ] friend down here Jimmy right now this [ __ ] ripped us off man he goes and I'm gonna kill this dude tonight and I says hey wait a second I said what's going on he explained it to me I said I'm gonna get on a plane and come down there right now so I flew to Tucson I rented a Corvette at the rental place there and I cut through Nogales because I knew the back roads to get down there through no checkpoints came to his place and now the mood wasn't the same as it had been in the past the mood was usually happy and upbeat never was having a good time and you gotta remember this guy's got this giant mansion on top of a mountain it's like a resort so when you come in the kitchen is like a restaurant kitchen a big giant kitchen it's not a regular little kitchen and when I came in normally all the girls because he had a whole Bevy of girls that he he ran women too and uh when we came in they were all out at the pool where usually they'd be converting around the house a lot where now they're all out the pool and I came in and he had his guys all around me they had machine guns and we headed to the kitchen and I could hear him crying in the kitchen something crying through the door anyway and when I came in there was my friend he was beat bloody to a pulp stripped naked and I walked in and the head cartel guy had a nickel plate at 45 and his hand he's going Jimmy is so glad to see you my friend we're gonna have a party and we're gonna kill your friend tonight see you again too you know so I came in that night how did you talk them out of killing your friend um I don't know how much you know about my background valet but you know I've got four different black belts from martial arts so I wrestle for 22 years I was a champion wrestler I mean I'm uh pretty kind of guy you don't really want to cross too much you know what I mean so when I got there I was in a situation where it doesn't matter how much Brute Force you have you're not going to be able to beat down eight guys surrounding you with machine guns and a head guy with a 45 you know what I mean it's just not going to happen so this had to be a matter of smoothness and suaveeness and keeping your cool about you I'm sure you've seen in Blackbird where Taran goes to get Danny remember that yep do you see how hyped up tearing got in that okay if that happened in real life like I was in you're dead that's not going to happen you're not going to be able to escalate it like that so when I got in there I tried to talk sense to him and I said Hey listen I said I don't know what happened I don't know how this happened but I'll handle my guys at home and your guys when they came up to these states if they mess up up here I'll send them back to you and you deal with your guys he kind of liked that idea that I'll handle my guys you handle your guys and then he he's he's a very high strung individual so he kind of had to watch you never knew what his next move would be either the cartel guy very unpredictable he turned around he shoved the gun in my friend's mouth and I could see on his finger on the trigger he was just starting to pull the trigger and I swooped the leg of the chair and I knocked the chair down and he fell on his back my friend who was all tied up on the chair and I jumped on him and I slapped him in the face and I started telling him you [ __ ] up everything you [ __ ] idiot and I made it seem like he was in Jeopardy from me now and he of course the cartel guy's cheering me on get him to me get him get him and I lifted the chair back up and when I lifted the chair up I started untie my friend he goes Jimmy what are you doing man there's no way this guy he's dying tonight man and I said look we already talked about this he's not going to do nothing to me the lad because he knows him as money guy that's where I had the Ace in the Hole because you killed me what do you got you just lost millions of dollars a month coming in you know so I ended up sitting him up and when I got him up right we had a little bit of a discussion he finally seen it my way the cartel guy did I untied my friend he couldn't even get up I had to pick him up physically and wrap his arm around my neck help him physically get dressed and then I drug him out the door to the car when we got in the car he was laying over all beat up and he looks at me and he goes thank you man you saved my life and I told him shut the [ __ ] up dude we're not even out of here yet I mean because these kind of people are very unpredictable they can turn on on a dime hey go get him he's not going nowhere you know and I didn't let him talk to me until we were almost out of the desert and I could see a sign saying United States two miles you know so that's when I let him talk and I told him then I said you're out this is it man I go every other month is some new big disruption from you and this isn't going to happen anymore so that was it gotcha gotcha Okay so you're building up your organization and the problem with these types of businesses is that you have all this cash but you're not paying taxes and you have to figure out a way to launder your money so you set up a few businesses you had a an exotic car dealership and a strip club and an Italian food business and a trucking business and a real estate business and I still have two of those businesses to this day I started the real estate business when I was 20 years old so I had I had legitimate businesses all the time all the way through from about roughly 20 years old so you know the younger years with the weed you know no I didn't have businesses but I actually tried my hand at jobs in those days working in a gas station putting 60 hours working in these were full service gas stations those days and he'd work 60 hours a week and after taxes you take a check home for 70 bucks you know go to a house party at 17 years old and sell three bags of weed and you just made six seven eight hundred dollars you know it doesn't take an Einstein to tell what a young kid is going to do at that point your mind goes that way you know what I mean there's just there's no Rhyme or Reason you don't ration at that age you don't sit there and say oh is this right or wrong am I doing a bad thing oh is this cool or not you know so yeah but I had legitimate businesses from about 20 years old clear to the end and still due to this day okay so 1992 rolls around you're 28 at the time so we had talked about this I know my age better than I do at that age but I'll tell you take your word for it okay and you talked about this earlier how the cartel would send you refrigerator boxes uh to your Arizona Warehouse filled with weed they'd send those to Chicago some of them would be sent FedEx to Chicago and we would have them drop houses in Chicago and next thing you know FedEx guy come up and deliver four or five big refrigerator sized boxes and he'd leave leave them sitting right on the porch and we'd sit down the street with binoculars and watch it for you know a day or two to make sure the coast was clear and then we come in and get them take them go to you know take them to our warehouse we had in Chicago now okay but in 1992 there was this huge shipment that you guys are supposed to get and uh I guess a commercial truck was gonna deliver it right and they stacked up the boxes and they left and you know you guys waited around waited around uh to see if any cops are actually going to pick it up right no one picked you know no cops showed up so you guys went and picked it up and as you're driving away you looked in the rearview mirror and you noticed something well what's even more unique about that is when we picked it up look the cops you got to give them credit they are slick I mean they really are they had a van sitting in there pulled in backwards that had smoked out windows and they were right there in the windows of the van watching us the whole time so they had us pretty cold from the second we pulled up so we loaded it into our trucks took off and we got probably about 10 miles away I mean they let us go pretty far where they made a big mistake we were only about a mile from our warehouse they should have let us get to the warehouse and get inside the warehouse and then raid Us in the warehouse with the product open because where they messed up is when they we were in traffic I was watching my brother in the front truck and he had all the product in his truck I was the spotter truck behind him and I seen had to be 30 long-haired hippie kind of guys running up out of nowhere in a blizzard it was a snowstorm outside and they come running up out of nowhere and I thought it was a hit they were going to try to try to Rob us for the stuff and all of a sudden you could see a badge here and there flashing and they surrounded my brother's truck and then I seen a whole bunch of them coming up from behind my truck and actually you know I was surrounded and it was a narc Squad that had got us on that one so okay so what happened with this particular case uh we got put in the county Slammer um they tried to get us cooperated no luck uh we had a great attorney at that time he was uh well I shouldn't even say who he was because he's related to some very famous TV people he's their cousin and he used to be the state's attorney here in Chicago and he was my get out of jail free guy this guy had been my attorney all through my life and he was the smoothest slickest attorney I'd ever seen and he says Jimmy he goes look he goes they got nothing on you guys because you have to open these boxes up and know the contents let's say uh Vlad all of a sudden you get a ring at your doorbell and you go there and there's a box sitting at your doorbell at your door you don't know what it is so you take it in naturally you got a delivery right if the cops come busting in 10 minutes later and you haven't opened that box your defense is no knowledge of the contents I don't know what's in the box but now let's say Vlad you've opened it you got it all out and you got scales out in your bagging and up or anything pretty hard to deny you don't know what it is then right you know what I mean and that's why I say if they would have just let us get a little further to the warehouse they would have got us at that stage but they didn't so we built up the no knowledge defense is what we did so you had ended up beating the case yeah we beat the case yeah okay so when we were moving furniture for a girlfriend yep okay I mean some people would have said hey I just dodged a a massive bullet uh I'm out completely I'm just gonna take the money I have and go run a legitimate business but you said well I haven't reached the Mountaintop yet so I'm just gonna be smarter yeah I went back to it and you got to remember something I I had such a gigantic Network I mean I don't think people can even understand that I had thousands and thousands of people that wanted product the network was unbelievably huge I mean when I would have parties at my downtown big uh Brownstone I'm sure you read about the Brownstone when we would have parties at The Brownstone you would have celebrities some of the most famous people you would ever meet there and it was just a free-for-all and again what was my addiction the lifestyle and the money because I don't do drugs I've never done any drugs uh but it was the money in the lifestyle so what was my mind telling me at the time you know 28 years old you're still not really in my opinion a 28 year old guy is still not fully developed all the way in his mind you know what I mean you can still be very much a younger 28 year old if that makes sense you know and my mind just told me I'm not to the top of the mountain where I want to be because I had to go I'm a very goal-orientated person I set goals on anything and everything I do in my life so my goal was a certain thing to get out and I wasn't there yet and I thought I could fly under the radar and get away with it and apparently that wasn't the case you know was there a dollar amount that was in your head like once I reach X dollars I'm gonna stop yeah you know I want to ten clear and free 10 million clear and free with everything I own houses businesses everything paid off and then 10 million put in the bank where it was seed money for the rest of my days so that was my goal and I you know I was really close to it I mean you know I love my dad dearly but had I not done so much stuff for him over the years I would have had my goal and I would have gotten out of the whole thing you know so but the love of my dad was more important to me and it still is to this day okay and during those four years you tried to evade you know the task forces by having about a bunch of like counterintelligence you know techniques uh surveillance yeah yeah anti-surveillance uh you know you had I did that my whole life though okay yeah you had a pen that scanned your car for tracking devices you put heat sensors on your cell phones to see if there's anyone else on the line you installed heat sensors over the doors to see if someone was wearing a wire or a bug I mean these things actually there was a red light above the door and if you walked in and you had a wire on it would turn red and I know you had extra heat on your body there was a reason that red light was going on same thing with the phone if there's a tracking device in the phone there will be extra heat in the line and the red light Will Go On and then of course the uh the pin was phenomenal I love that thing I had a blast with that all the time it was almost in every other day occur inside walk out and check one of my nice pretty cars and up what do we got here and you know what I would I think you're reading the one about where I placed it on the Jaguar at the airport right yep other times I knew they were close by so I would take off and race way out into the country and I would jump out and I would take the tracker off and throw it in the ditch so they would now be tracking that Tracker out in the dicks all night long out in the country and I was gone you know so I had fun with it so you're actually finding the bugs and trackers and everything else along the way oh yeah yeah and I took them off the Jaguar incident that you're bringing I think you were referring to I just got back from O'Hare coming back from seeing the cartels o'hare's the big airport here in Chicago and when I came back I seen a guy coming into the airport parking lot and he pulled into a handicap Zone and he got out of the car and he was perfectly fine there was nothing wrong with this guy and I walked over I had a Lamborghini that day and I walked over to the Lamborghini and I took my pin and I went around the car and deep deep there it was so I pulled it off and I took it over and I put it on the guy's Jaguar so now they've been watching him all night following him around okay but then in 1996 it all comes crashing down so you came back for a business trip from California and you went into your house and what happens next I had a housekeeper girl that was a a good friend of mine since I had been very young and she actually we had been boyfriend and girlfriend in our little younger years 10 11 years old and she got married to a guy I knew and their relationship was really bad and I had just split up out of a 15-year relationship with a girl so she's like Jimmy I know your big house over there you're going to need somebody to take care of the house because I know how you are can I be your house cleaner so okay so she'd been being my house cleaner for about a year and I did not know she had gotten busted on something completely unrelated to me didn't have anything to do with me at all and that time when I went to California she kept calling me and bugging me over and over three four times a day when are you coming home when you come home I go why are you calling me and bugging me to come home so much oh I'm just curious I'm just curious you know they had her wired for sound that's why she was calling right I didn't I didn't know anything about it and it's kind of funny they always thought I was going to California and that's where my product was all coming from they thought to this day they really still thought I was always getting everything from California that was the furthest from the truth I never got anything in my life from California I just happened to have a lot of friends out there if you read the book my one friend was the number one porn star in the whole world for almost 20 years and we would go out there and we would have Beverly Hills parties like you can't even imagine I used to own a place in Malibu too I was out there all the time you know so through the 80s and until my bust I I was living a really cool life so I got home that night I was exhausted from flying you know and then driving home from the airport I made myself something to eat and uh I will give them a little Credit in the Blackbeard series that it was at night though but when I thought I heard a rattle at the door I stopped and I kept looking at the door Taryn did a good job of displaying that when he was being you know in this series and uh I went back to eating and I thought I heard something at the door again and I went back to eating and I was saying boom they blew that whole door off the hinges and I'm looking at a door right now that's what I'm looking at and when they blew that door off the hinges that thing flew about 15 feet where it landed and they came in and single file and they had their black uniforms with their little Nazi helmets on and they're guns with the laser lights you know and underground [ __ ] will kill you get down get down and I knew it was a bust but I didn't know why that was the thing so they they had this kind of heavyset guy in the front of the line he charged me he was going to try to crash into me on purpose which would get a Ruckus started and I sidestepped him and he flew past me and he flew on the ground and I knew that could start a bunch of trouble so I just fell down to the ground and I laid down next thing you know I had about 20 guns to my head and they're like make a move make a move we'll blow your head off so I sat there for a little while and I said you guys want to tell me who you are so they got me up to my feet and they put the cuffs on me he wants to know who we are huh this guy's digging his pocket he goes D.A that's who the other guy FBI that's who and I go oh well at least I know who you guys are now you know there's a little bit of smart mouth Cockiness at that point you know because I just knew they didn't have anything on me you know so they took me in the kitchen they had me on a chair like this and they handcuffed my hands behind me and interlocked the the handcuffs into the chair so I couldn't go anywhere without the chair and I went through the longest interrogation I mean you've ever seen in your life you know 10 15 hours of just being interrogated you know while they tore my house apart and they searched the house for six seven eight hours they didn't find anything then they brought the dogs in the dogs came in they didn't find anything and finally they kept walking in and they had two little 25 pistols and they threw them on the table I had a girlfriend that had just moved back from California and this was that really big house I was telling you about and she wanted to have one of the rooms to herself and she had drove all the way back from California cross country with a U-Haul and her ex-husband had bought her these guns so there were two legal 25s little pistols that fit in the palm of your hand not AK-47s like the movie portrayed um they threw him on the table and I thought oh my gosh I've never seen these before I think they're trying to set me up and they told me they found them in the brown bedroom in the nightstand I said well you know I've got a girlfriend from California staying there they got to be hers which eventually she did come forth and she signed an affidavit and took responsibility and they were registered so the gun charge was dropped so okay but you were still arrested you were indicted I wasn't arrested that night um they they tore the house up they finally found my safe room found a bunch of money in my safe room found a nickel bag of weed and they found you know very small amount of cocaine I would say 13 14 15 grams something like that and the only reason that was there is because we had a hair stylist that would come over once a week and before we would all go out to the club she'd do everybody's hair so we had a little Salon set up in the house so that was for her the weed some guy had swung by and was showing me this real rare weed that I hadn't seen Colombian gold in ages I mean I hadn't seen real Colombian gold in ages so he left me a nickel bag just as like a souvenir thing so they really had nothing to actually charge me of anything that would have amounted to anything it barely could get me on probation on that charge they kept telling me we've got something more on you we want you to cooperate and they kept pushing and pushing and pushing I said no no no no no long story short I never cooperated four months later they found three two three three four months later they came back on a very cold Winter's day they knocked on my door here was all the FBI and DEA guys in plain clothes they got regular uniform cops with them because when they're going to serve uh you know an arrest they got to have some plane or you know uniform guys with them and they said are you James here and they hold the paperwork up to the door and I go oh you guys know who I am already but they want you to say for the record yes it's me so you can officially acknowledge it's you and you're being arrested so I finally said yes they came in they arrested me on operation snow plow and took me in still didn't know what they were even arrested me for at that time okay and since you refuse to cooperate right ultimately you were given a plea deal and I mean the way it was depicted in Blackbird it was supposed to be like probation or just like a slap on the wrist but it turned into 10 years without parole again there's a lot of fictionalization in Blackbird and Dennis lehane the writer he's the first one to admit my Jimmy is different than the real Jimmy okay so if you've read my book I was arrested on a hearsay conspiracy no drugs really it was all witness testimony there was no guns there was no drugs there was nothing I was arrested on a conspiracy charge I don't know how much you know about conspiracies but they are nasty man because how do you beat hearsay you know 177 people got arrested on that whole thing I was the target of the investigation they had two witnesses hidden in the Woodwork CIS had no idea who they were and they tried to get everybody to flip and of course people start flipping all over the place on everybody I didn't and I said look you guys have nothing on me I'm going to take this to trial Beaumont the U.S attorney who's now a good friend of mine we actually hang out on a regular basis uh he works with my lawyer and we're buddies we go out to lunch every other weekend you know but he said look he goes take a plea deal he goes plead out and you get out in probably less than five years and I said but you don't even have anything Amigos trust me take the deal we were about to take the plea deal and at the last minute I told the lawyer why am I getting this new letter sent to me in the mail and I got a letter and it was a indictment charge in the mail for a conspiracy charge and a conspiracy they added by way of hearsay relevant conduct they attributed and that's the definition of the legal term of a conspiracy and he acts omissions or Confessions by any co-conspirators counts as factual evidence towards the conspiracy now just think about that for a second and he acts omissions or Confessions by any co-conspirator counts as factual evidence to the conspiracy so if some guy comes in and says hey he sold me five kilos a week ago it counts like you did and you're like that never happened I mean I was like I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone for real you know so Beaumont hit us with the the conspiracy charge and the conspiracy charge by way of conspiracy attributed and that's the word in the federal law attributed well over you know 500 grams of cocaine to me put me three grams over the mandatory minimum and I would think you valad you you seem like you're kind of a liberal or more liberal kind of guy I would think okay they've got families against mandatory minims look it up fam f-a-m-m they take these hearsay cases and the federal prisons are packed with these people and they pack these people in based on hearsay how do you beat hearsay so I got pissed and I told my lawyer deals off we're going to trial so we went to what they call an evidentiary trial hearing we're going to challenge the amounts of the hearsay and then of course the female witness had to come in and then my best buddy Richie was the other witness they had got him and flipped him the girl actually got him and got him to flip it was just like dominoes you know what I mean and the day before the trial I was out on my motorcycle on July 6 1997. trial was on July 7 1997. and I'm out on my motorcycle I got a girlfriend in the back with me and here comes Richie pulling up next to me at his bike he's like Jimmy man I'm so sorry dude I'm so sorry this is a federal witness man you get 10 years for intimidation of a federal witness I said dude get away from me man I'm not talking to you please dude forgive me forgive me just please forgive me I said meet me out in the country behind this old it was an abandoned church out there so he met me out there on the backside he got off his motorcycle and he got down on his knees and was begging me for forgiveness what can I do what can I do anything Jimmy I don't want to lose our friendship I said I'll tell you what you can do you've got 10 years of hearsay testimony against me ten years man you're going back you don't even know what you did three weeks ago let alone 10 years ago right needless to say you can see these conspiracies I don't think should be legal at all I think it's a total Injustice these conspiracies so anyways I told him what you can do is you can change your witness testimony I'm three grams over the mandatory minimum I was facing 20 to life at that time by three grams you know what three grams is about this much so you got three grams and you're gonna get an extra 10 years tacked Onto You by hearsay testimony so anyways he he sobered up really quickly oh [ __ ] I can't do that man I can't do that I go then dude you and me have nothing to talk about get the [ __ ] out of here I jump back on my motorcycle I took off interesting Richie was a good looking guy he looked like Rick Springfield he had at his Prime real cool hair good looking guy dressed sharp all the time I still did not know who the main witness was so the next day when the trial started here comes the female witnessing and I'm like you've got to be kidding me in the book it's Brandy you probably remember that name Brandy right right and I'm like you got to be kidding me of all the people it's her she was in my house she knew the inside makings of my house but I had never done anything with her so it had to be something unrelated they brought her in now this is a out in the clubs hellraising girl right mini skirts high heels as well fun time girl now they bring her in the court and she's in a little Sunday school outfit and got her glasses on and oh I wouldn't hurt a flea and I'm like you got to be kidding me man I mean it was like I said felt like I was living in the Twilight Zone man so they bring her in she gets on the stand oh you know so five years ago Jimmy met you out by the ferris wheel at the uh at the carnival out there is that right and she's like well yeah well uh what did he tell you oh I'm not quite sure the U.S attorney goes well can you give us a description with your hands of how much he sold you and she goes well it was kind of like about like this and he goes so maybe the size of a kilo she goes I would say about the size of a kilogos your honor let the record note the witness just said Mr Keane solder a kilo and I'm telling you man I felt like I was totally in the Twilight Zone you know I'm at my defense table I got a little microphone sitting there and I'm like this is [ __ ] I'm yelling through the microphone the judge told me he's gonna hold me into temp contempt the court at least four times you know I told him Judds are up there lying through their teeth so anyways my attorneys get up there and they cross-examine her they say to her do you remember was it spring summer or winter or fall when you met Jimmy I don't recall do you remember it was day or night when you met Jimmy I don't recall do you remember what he was wearing I don't recall remember what he was driving I don't recall do you remember what your conversation was I don't recall stack in the transcript this thick of a whole bunch of pages to say I don't recall and then my lawyer I thought did a really good job he goes It's funny the only thing you seem to recall is this imaginary pile of drugs it's all you seem to remember you know anyways uh some of it stuck some of it didn't then came in my Rick Springfield buddy you know Richie he takes a stand man he was like a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof man he was just as nervous as could be now she wouldn't look at me the whole time she was on the stand now he made eye contact with me and any make eye contact with the U.S attorney and he make eye contact with me so he goes okay now Richie let's start talking about these amounts of drugs you've gotten from Jimmy over the years he starts pulling I don't want to pull the collar so he might knock this mic off again but he starts pulling on his collar and he's like yeah you know so yeah about those amounts you know I can't really be sure about those amounts and I'm telling you the whole courtroom went up in arms you know what I mean and he goes Mr Mr O'Reilly I have your transcript here in court so he says I can't remember those amounts and the whole courtroom went up in arms the U.S attorney threatened him with his proffer agreement I don't know if you know what a proper agreement is yeah of course that's your narc agreement and he goes I'm going to take this proper agreement away from you and you will do prison time and this and that and thank God the judge stepped in and the judge goes no no hold on Mr U.S attorney I'm going to take his in-trial transcript over his behind closed doors testimony and we'll take that what's on the record and he started still making all these false claims of amounts that were sold to him over the years but he lessened the amounts brought me that little three gram amount now I was brought under that amount and that brought me down to 10 to life and I was of course hoping that it might even get lower and lower and lower you know but it I got stuck at the tend to life and that's where it you know bottomed out at so found guilty I lectured the judge for about 20 minutes as you can tell I can rabble on at times I lectured that judge for 20 minutes I'll tell you what that old Sea Hag he sat here and he looked at me and I didn't think he was listening to me and he quoted back to me Mr Keane does not think the court is being fair Mr team thinks the court aired and he went through every little thing I said for 20 minutes I'm like damn this old fart he was listening you know he goes therefore I find a guilty out the back door I went you know so okay so you got 10 to life not just ten and I mean listen I I I've known of people that get you know known of people to get three to life and end up doing 20 years so yeah that two life is a very scary statement it is because any little thing and fraction that happens in there boom it keeps going up it keeps going up going up it's going up right and you could just keep getting denied for parole every time over and over again first of all there's no there's no parole in the federal system okay right yeah and and not only that I'd like to make this clear for the record too because I've seen tons of Articles written on this where they got it all screwed up oh he got sentenced to 10 years with no parole nobody gets Parole in the federal system nobody okay there is no parole right and I don't mean new I'm just saying these articles because some of these articles really pissed me off you would think they should have to come to you and ask you hey I want to interview you tell us what really happened before you just write an article up kind of based on hearsay I'm so tired of here saying this world it's not even funny man you know but yeah um there's no parole in the federal system for anyone doesn't matter anything now back in the 80s there was a parole system they call it they call it old law in a 92 when Bush went crazy you know with Bush senior and Reagan went crazy with these drug laws and then stupid Biden got in next and he went even crazier with the drug laws you know with the five you know five grams of crack is mandatory five and all this kind of stuff that's when the parole system changed too so when you would get in there like a guy like me and the first thing a lot of people would ask you are you under olar new law you were jealous of the Old Law guys you really were like damn this guy's got a chance to get out I don't get a chance to get out you know okay so you start your federal prison sentence right and then seven months in you get approached by the FBI right I I had been approached by the DEA and the FBI probably about three or four times prior to that they came up to Detroit where I was at and tried to get me to roll on the cartel and the mob guys and I shut them down every time I mean and that's really important to me Vlad that I wanted to be known I never rolled on anybody and I don't call what I did with the serial killer dude knocking or snitching or anything because when you're out there killing little young girls somebody needs to stop this kind of guy and I do it for free come and get me I'll help you out with anything like that you know I'm still on the profiling task force to this day so but uh yeah you know um but yeah if I wanted to have snitched or gnarked or been an informant I would have done that early on and never seen a day in jail you know but that's not in my DNA so okay and the offer they gave you was they want to transfer you to another Prison a maximum security prison for the criminally insane right and to try to befriend a guy named Larry Hall who was considered one of the most prolific serial killers of all time correct they're saying that he killed and raped between 40 and 50 young girls right have you heard of this guy prior to them approaching you I heard about the murders but I hadn't heard his name attached to them so you know I'd heard about some of the murders in the area going on but I you know I was a free-spirited guy in those days and I was just having fun and you know I knew no serial killer was a threat to me because I'll I'll knock the serial killer into his next life you know what I mean so I wasn't worried about it but you would hear you know through the woodwork you know that hey you know this girl got killed over here today that one over there that one there so you knew something was going on but I just never thought I was going to end up being a part of it you know right and Larry Hall has a kind of an interesting story because they would catch him and then he would confess to a bunch of murders and then he would recant and say oh no I didn't really mean it and then they were having problems trying to keep him in prison because of all the recanting and everything else like that so the idea was to send you in there to try to find get some hard evidence from him to try to keep him in prison right correct um what's what's very interesting about the hall thing too is I see a lot of these articles written and they he was allegedly a serial killer he was a suspected serial killer no he was a convicted person for kidnapping that resulted in murder death they go holy wasn't even convicted of murder kidnapping that results in death as the federal term for murder okay he was in for a life without parole now the reason that he kept being able to you know he beat his first appeal he won the first one and the reason he did was not because of his recanting confessions it was because the judge the same judge I had that old fart I told you about he was an old he was an old batter Badger you know I mean he was a rough guy and he wouldn't allow them to have professional testimony you know like psychiatrists come in and say you know some people are susceptible to you know false confessions people you know some people like to get attention to themselves so he denied any you know character Witnesses from professionals so that's why he won the first appeal okay so you get transferred to the medical center for federal prisoners in Springfield right and they tell you okay we want you to get close to this guy wait around six months you know before actually approaching him but you were like okay look I I don't have time for this so right away you kind of cozied up to him right well interesting that part I I had a FBI task force assigned to me and I became what they call an FBI operative I was officially hired on with the FBI to do an undercover assignment completely unrelated to my type of story so this was something completely different if you're an informant you're over here knocking on your own crew but if you're hired on as an operative I mean if you could stop a serial killer they would hire you as an operative you know you become an actual agent you're on the task force then so anyways they had a task force that was assigned to me the female girl was not an adversary to me at all we actually kind of fell for each other from day one and uh I mean the very first conversation we had she was just as nice as could be and we had a very uh steamy relationship let's put it that way you know I have a lot of respect for her so I'll leave it at that you know but when I got there you know you know they said well you know you got to watch this guy you know we want you to profile him for six months you know get close to them see who he's talking to you know see if you can hear what his friend's opinion is about him and I looked at all these FBI guys and I said look your boss the U.S attorney hired me to do this case not you you're not going on the inside because I even asked Beaumont I said why don't you send one of these FBI guys in he goes because he would figure them out in two seconds and when you'd see these FBI guys you knew they were cops I mean you just knew it you know they got a suit on that's one size too small they got crew cuts they're all foaming at the mouth ready to dive across the table after me I'm like hey take it easy guys I'm on your side now you know what I mean so but anyways when I got there they were trying to coach me of what to do I said look I'm not going in and following the FBI rule manual 101 and try to do this your way your boss feels that my skill set will win the day and you gotta remember when Beaumont came to me the U.S attorney he said Jimmy goes look he goes I have never seen anybody in my life that has the Charisma that you do from the street level to the boardroom he goes you've been training martial arts and wrestling your whole life so you know how to protect yourself in a dangerous environment and you've been trained in police surveillance so you know what to do they all thought my dad trained me in police surveillance wasn't kind of accurate either you know I mean yeah I learned things through the years but I wasn't officially sat down and say son I'm about to train you you know what I mean so I they asked me to say well okay mister what what is your plan what are you going to do and I said well you know what I never make a plan that's true I don't make plans I didn't rehearse to come in here I don't do any of that stuff I go in and I handle it in the moment and whatever's happening in the moment I believe works the best for me when I was in college I would take big tests right if I stayed at home and studied for a week for the test I'd mess the test up if I just briefed the material over the night before I did great so I got inside I had just barely got in and they gave me my cell and I got into the wild crowd of all the maniacs and went down to the child Hall and as soon as I walked in there he was and you're talking thousands of people and there he was and I was like holy [ __ ] you know and I'm telling you Vlad it was like this magnet was pulling me to him you know it was like pulling me to him and I'm moving closer and closer to him and I'm thinking you know I'm just going to sit him down and talk to him say hey man you know tell me what happened so I could get out of there and I'm like no that's never gonna work one of the last things Beaumont told me too he goes Jim he goes please don't beat a confession out of him because in the FBI guys like meet a confession out of me might get killed in there what do you think he's going to be anyways so I'm thinking this maybe I should just beat a confession out of him no that's not going to work either so I had no plan got closer to him closer to him and I bumped into him on purpose I said oh oh excuse me man I go Hey listen I'm new here um I I'd like to know where the library is at do you know where it's at and he looked at me all spaced out of his mind he goes uh yeah man uh you go down the hallway and you make a right and you go down you make another right and it's right there I go thanks man I appreciate that from a cool guy like you and I kind of smacked him in the arm and he goes he goes you think I'm cool I go oh yeah dude I go look at all these other people in here I go I knew right when I seen you you were a cool guy man I go [ __ ] look at all these people I go [ __ ] you could be my kind of guy he goes do you want me to show you where the library said I said yeah so anyway he walked me down to the library very Spacey character I mean he could see be sitting there and you could be having a conversation with him and all of a sudden his eyes would start spinning in his head and also he just walk away you know and it's a conversation he started it's like dude where the [ __ ] are you going we're in the middle of conversation so he's a very bizarre guy very bizarre yeah I mean obviously um okay so now let me say one thing Vlad so you got to remember when the cops arrested him they had one chance to sit down with him and interrogate him Beaumont U.S attorney never interrogate him nobody I sat down with this guy every day for six months face to face nobody ever except for me has sat down with him and talked to him every day for six months and believe me that [ __ ] wears on you after a time you know what I mean talking to a Madman every single day it's like man I got better things to do with my life than this you know what I mean but the point I'm making is none of these people involved in this whole entire thing know him better than I do I knew him better than anybody so well yeah you said before long I was sitting with him and other baby killers which are men who've been convicted of child rape and murder at every meal right so you're just hanging out with the most despicable disgusting human beings on the planet every day essentially yeah I mean this one guy he had had a dispute with his own family in his house he went and grabbed a chainsaw and came in and killed everybody in his own house with a chainsaw he thought the neighbors heard him and he ran out and ran next door to the neighbors and kicked their door and went in there and killed them all with a chainsaw and that was one of his best buddies that he was hanging around with you know so these are the characters that were all around him mentally ill crazy Killers you know I mean even beaumont's been on many talk shows I mean we've done tons and tons of shows together and he's been like look there's no doubt everybody in there's a killer and Jimmy was going into a very dangerous environment and you know it's not even just Hall you got to worry about it's all of them you know all of them you got to worry about I mean did anyone try to kill you or hurt you the whole time you were there yeah yeah I mean if you read my book I've been in at least 20 different life or death fights inside there you know did you remember Blackbird when he's at the telephone yeah and the big dude comes up behind him in real life there was three guys they came up behind me they started giving me Jazz about the phone I was talking to my dad on the phone and my dad's Like Son you tell them people you're on the phone I go Dad I'm in prison you don't just turn around tell people hey [ __ ] you get out here I'm talking to my dad you know what I mean and the guy kept getting loud like he did in Blackbird and I told my dad I said this guy says one more thing he's done and he did he said something again and he was about this close and I took the phone I hit him right in the head and he will you can tell he's seen stars and I immediately took the other two out knocked all three of them out and they were laying there at the phone and that's when I dropped the receiver and I asked Dennis I said Dennis why didn't you put that in there he said you know it might be too violent for society I go hey people want to see the real deal they don't want this you want the phone be my guest you know what I mean it didn't go that way because remember that's what he said in there right yeah in Playford you want the phone be my guest oh yeah oh okay yes I I had a lot of major life or death fights in there a lot got it okay but you're you know getting closer to Larry Hall and you're having more and more conversations and he starts actually admitting certain things about certain murders that he did along the way yeah um it was a lot more detailed than that we uh we're in the TV room you remember the TV room thing now that guy was a really big guy he was six three or four very big muscular guy they bring this little hillbilly dude in the in the show you know I mean the guy was a big monster in real life and he had came in and he turned the TV and they were all watching Larry and all those guys were watching America's Most Wanted and it was a segment on serial killers believe it or not it was pretty weird actually and they were like just transfix on this like oh my God serial killer stuff so this guy comes in he turns the TV and Hall mumbled to me he didn't Mumble to the guy he goes man I was watching that and like yeah I was too so I figured this is the right opportunity to get kind of more in his good graces so I went up there I turned the TV back dude jumped up started cussing at me telling me he's going to knock my head off and all this and that he turned the TV again so I got up and I turned the TV again we started having a little verbal argument and he took two wild swings at me in blackbird he hits the guy first no the guy took two wild Swings with me first and I took this guy out in two seconds I mean I'd hit him with an uppercut and then jumped up kicked him through about five rows of chairs landed on him and then it was pretty realistic just pounded him into the ground right well after that Larry felt like he was protected by me and he clung to me after that so we were buddying it up so to speak you know getting a little closer and I come walking out of the child Hall a couple days later and these big ass dudes about five of them big muscular guys come up to me and they go hey the old man wants to talk to you right now you gotta go right now like what the [ __ ] you mean the old man so they hustle me down this dark Corridor in there right and this is where people do get stabbed and problems happen especially in them days you didn't have cameras everywhere like they do now even they don't even really have a lot of cameras in some areas now still you know so anyways it hustle me down the hallway and I'm thinking okay I don't see a shank on any of these guys so I think I can take these guys all out if I have to you know and I get down there and there's this little old guy and it was Vincent de chinjaganti and the chingos hey boy what are you doing talking to them baby killers you don't hang around with them no more after today after the day you hang with me and my people he grabs me by the chin and go you're the Italian boy aren't you you stay with us you don't go with them you stay with us you know somebody come up put a knife in your back meaning the good guys my guys will come up put a knife in your back and all like if you keep hanging around with them so that really put a uh a big uh fly in the ointment so to speak between me being able to get to Larry now because the next morning I had to come down and there's his little crew and him sitting over there and I had to sit with the Mobsters now you know which is fine I didn't mind that but I still was on a mission you know what I mean so I laid in myself for night after night and I thought how can I get this guy to open up and I remembered when he used to go to the library all the time he would read the Wabash plane dealer that's the local homedown paper that he was from my mom was from a little town in Illinois right on the Indiana border called Momence right there and that paper could conceivably be got by her little town right so I come up with this plan that I'm going to approach him in the library tomorrow which I did I walked up and I sat down I go hey Larry man I said I thought you and me were supposed to be friends oh we are James he only called me James by the way that was all he ever called me um we are James why do you say that and I go you know you know my mom gets this Hometown paper you read every day and I said in the paper has these all these stories about you murdering girls and my mom told me don't you know who that guy is he's a murderer because I was telling her you were my new friend in here and he got really paranoid that he thought he was going to lose my friendship and that's when he said he goes it's not like they say James they make it seem like I just pounce on these women and kill them but they really liked me they really did they were my girlfriends and then he started opening up kind of like you've seen with Taryn and him in the the first scene of him opening up I think I want to say it was episode three maybe where he opens up and uh you can see the pain in taran's face having to try to take this conversation you know what I mean so he opened up a little bit there and started telling me stuff and it basically kind of snowballed from there I mean I would get more and more and more now remember something also Vlad it wasn't just two girls I got confessions out of him on about 20 girls so this is a lot of stuff I got on him and you know you see a lot of these write-ups and papers oh he was supposed to get the bodies he blew his cover with the map and all that that's not true either these people write stuff that they don't even know what they're writing most of the time you know the primary goal was to keep him in that was the primary goal of the mission secondary was if we can find any of the bodies that's icing on the cake and they really wanted to find Trisha reitler for sure we had already found Jessica wrote so they wanted to find Trisha regular but if he gets out it doesn't do you any good even if you haven't found her then because now he's back out to kill again so we have to stop him from getting out was first so that was my goal first was to get all these confessions on him and I got tons on him in detail confession stuff you can't even fathom some of the stuff he would come up with how he concocted acid cocktails that he learned by working in the cemetery how he would concoct these acid cocktails when he buried the girls that would dissolve him you'll never find nothing in the ground you'll just find DNA you're not gonna you know people think oh if you could find the burial spots you got a misnomer going on there you're thinking of a cemetery with a perfect six by Four Hole you know dug out squarely you know these are little Graves that are maybe two or three feet long and two feet wide and he's got them stuffed in bags drowned in all these acid stuff and he puts them in these holes and drowns him in acid and you don't find them for years you're not going to find nothing but DNA in the soil so try try to find x marks the spot in a 400 mile Forest you know what I mean exactly but then at one point he actually drew a map that showed where he was basically burying the bodies or what it whatever was left to the remains correct so so the map was I I had had six months of confessions out of him so he was already nailed to the cross we had him I mean he was already had and he if you if you see at the end of Blackbird when he comes back in for his appeal the judge says the petitioner now in court once he files a appeal he becomes the petitioner so new evidence that was found out about the petitioner within the scope of the investigation clearly shows that the killer news things that only the killer could have known about that was true she was right how she stated all that that is exactly right because the things he told me there's no way anybody else could know and we found out certain memorabilia things too you know where like you know a girl's driver's license a stationary um her hair piece shoes whatever you know and he can tell you where those were at so yeah they have some kind of contact with the girls to be able to do that you know so this whole thing oh well you know when you came in and he had the map the Falcons I thought were more important than the maps because the Falcons were his spiritual connection to the girls that's why he was making those Falcons he was going to have them sent home and he was going to later give his brother the twin coordinates to where they were exactly and he had a map now here you got a map with a three or four hundred mile Forest right and there's a Red Dot in front of the map oh boy so we get the map let's say what's that going to tell you still there's a girl in that three or four hundred mile Forest how are you going to find x marks the spot you know I have sat down with FBI CSI professionals tons of them and they're like look Jimmy there's no way you're going to find them there's just no way and if you find them you have to find DNA in the soil because there's not going to be anything left you know everybody thinks you're going to find this perfect corpse and a little coffin and all that this that's not how it works you know so yeah I I came in he had the map he had all the Falcons um I walked up and I picked one of them up and when I picked it up I said wow this is pretty cool I said what is it and he named the Falcon and for the life of me I've never been able to remember the exact name of that Falcon but he says they're the Falcons that watch over people's spirits in the afterlife until I join them in my afterlife he really thought that these girls were like you know how um you know in certain cultures they believe that if you kill yourself you have these virgins waiting in the afterlife he really thinks that these girls are waiting for him in the afterlife he really thinks this this guy's nuts I mean he's a split personality if I've ever seen one for real you know so we got to talking about he rolled the map up fairly quick and we got to talking about the Falcons and their meaning and what they meant and all that and you know unlike what happened in the show and I unlike what I've heard Written In Articles they act like I pounced on them right at that moment no I left out of the wood shop went to the FBI girl and I called her I said hey you're not going to believe what I've got now in addition to the last six months of stuff you're not going to believe what I've got now he's got a map with red dots all over certain burial locations that's not specific but it gives you a good General location Andy's got all these Falcons he claims watches over the Dead normally she answered every time so I don't know what happened but anyways I left her a message went back to my cell and I know three four hours later they're getting ready to do lockdown and I just thought to myself I thought you know what this isn't blowing your cover like they try and make it sound so dramatic in these stupid articles when they write articles I had a point where you know what I'm pretty smart guy I know we've got this guy nailed to the cross already with these six months of Investigation already he's now got a map we know he's sending home he's given us this spiritual meaning of these Falcons I'm gonna go over here and I'm my goal was to provoke him into a fight with me because I'd almost feel bad beating him up because it wouldn't even been fair you know what I mean I would I would have murdered that dude you know so I went across the hall to his cell and he was sitting in there and he had the light he had a cover over the light so it was kind of dimmer in there and he had tennis balls on the bottom of his chairs which is a special treatment thing you can get after you've been in there for a while because most chairs when you slide him you know his was slide with the tennis balls so I came in and I said hey Larry and he goes hey James what's going on man I said yeah man I said I'm going home tomorrow man he goes going home I thought you got 40 years the FBI's deal with me was they'd have me out in 24 hours that's in writing I call you you get me out of here out you know what I mean so when I said that to him he goes what do you mean I go dude I want to tell you something I think you're one of the most despicable forms of human life on this planet man like you're sick in the head [ __ ] monster and Taryn I give him credit his acting was great he laid it out in depth really emotional you [ __ ] monster you know he did it you know you sick demented monster that's what it was so I I went off on him I I read him the riot act and he slid on his chair with the little tennis balls away from me and he hit the wall because there's nowhere to go in these little cells and he goes huh Beaumont sent you didn't he Beaumont sent you didn't he and I just glared at him I'm not going to tell him yes or no I go all I know dude is you're [ __ ] and you're never gonna win your appeal and I'm going home tomorrow and then you could hear the bells going for lockdown and stuff and I left out of this cell probably about four in the morning I'm sleeping and I'm happy I'm going home tomorrow I'm out of this [ __ ] finally this nightmare is over you know and I hear say drug case of basically nothing you know to put a guy through all this living hell for a hearsay drug case there is no parallel between the two cases you know like I said you see some of these articles and they're written up oh you know alleged serial killer suspected serial killer you left out the part about being a convicted kidnapper that resulted in death you left that part out conveniently but oh Jimmy's a convicted drug dealer no Jimmy was convicted but it was overturned and he was completely clear to everything he forgot that part too you know what I mean so anyways so the next uh morning about four in the morning also my cell opens up man about 10 guards come flying in and here comes his little psychiatrist chick who was actually a cute woman actually she was short long dark hair had her little white doctor smocking she walks in she goes I want to know who you are who are you I go uh you can read my file because you got to have your file posted on the locker in your cell right you can read my file right there see no I want to know who you're working for are you with the FBI what are you doing here she told the guards take him and throw him in the hole until I can find out who he is and that's how they took me and threw me in the hole which if you've seen in Blackbird in that episode you seen it right when when they take Taryn down and take him to the hole that's me that does that did you notice that that's where yeah you had a little Cameo at the end there I shot in there did some wrestling stuff picked him up took him off to the to the hole then yeah so well eventually the FBI gets you out yeah and a pretty long time yeah Larry Hall goes to trial and because of the information you provided he ends up losing his appeal and stays in prison yeah did he end up I remember in the movie they said he tried to kill himself right after that yeah that's true he did tried to commit suicide yep and uh to this day he's still there in prison doing life multiple life uh what exactly okay so life without parole and in the federal system again when you get life without parole you're screwed man I mean you were just screwed and I've talked to U.S attorney Beaumont many times I said hey look we have so much information on him about other girls we have plenty to take him to trial and other girls why don't you take him to travel because Jimmy he goes This Is How They say it in the federal system he goes he's buried he's done for Life he's never getting out why do we want to waste the emotional pain of everybody taking people through trials again all the taxpayer money and all that just to get him another life sentence we've got him he's never going anywhere so it makes sense when he says that I get it you know what I mean what he's wanting to do but of course the the mob out there wants more they want more blood so they're like why don't they get them take them to trial and get more you know I so I agree with both sides I think they should get him for more you know I've had Cold Case cops come to me and we've sat down which is really cool this one particular group they get him on a murder case down in Indianapolis and I know that case really well and he told me about that case too and Indiana has the death penalty so they had enough evidence on him that they were going to take him and get him capital murder and pull him out of the federal system and throw him to state prison on death row that scares Larry that really scares him and he's already said he would talk more if that happened I don't know why they don't do it though you know I mean there's certain things that I can't find figure out myself you know but uh interesting though when the Cold Case guys called me they said hey you know we'd like you to review some videos with us are you opening to help us with the cold case this is after I'm out you know and I said sure I'll come and help you I've helped out on several other serial cases since I've been out by the way but I came I sat down with these guys they had videos of Halls original raid at his house right and they go we want you to look at the video and tell us what you see okay you know he's got an engine in the front room and a car engines tore up on newspapers you know hillbilly stuff you know and you go into his bedroom and surprisingly his closet in his bedroom was kind of big and he's got another engine on the floor and there and it's tore up he's got a little desk about the dresser about this high and he's got two shelves up on the walls up here with a bunch of knickknacks on all these shelves right I mean just like Dodge labels and Chevy labels and all this kind of stuff right and these Cold Case guys are going go up to that first shelf and what do you see so I name off everything I see on the Shelf they go okay go up to the next shelf what do you see up there I name everything on the Shelf they go look closer what do you see and I'll be damn man there was one of them Falcons sitting on the shelf and that was pre him getting arrested so this was something that he was doing his whole life with these Falcons and when I brought the Falcons up to the U.S attorney and the FBI and everybody they're like Falcons what the [ __ ] is that you know and they thought you know I don't even know how that fits in so interesting Dateline Lester Holt he was able to get his hands on one of the Falcons from his brother and he we did a dateline show about me I don't know if you ever seen that one or not and on that when they showed the Falcon and I thought that was pretty cool and Lester says you know seeing that Jimmy what do you think and I said well you know what this proves that everything I said about the Falcons was correct and true because most people were looking at me like Falcons I just don't get it I didn't get it either I'm just telling you those Falcons there you know well you end up getting released from prison because of your contribution to this case right if you were you know based on all your conversations with Larry Hall how many girls do you think he actually killed because no one really knows yeah yeah um a couple close friends have asked me that before nobody's ever asked me an interview so it's a good question I don't think it's the 40 something that they say I think it's about 20 22 in there I mean it's definitely a lot you know I mean because the I got 20 confessions out of him I'm 20 different girls and let me tell you valad when he went into detail on these there is no mistaking you know you can tell when you're sitting there looking in the eyes of a killer and you're up close and he's telling you something you can tell the [ __ ] from the reality you know what I mean and when you can find little tidbits of proof that prove this you gotta remember when the FBI sent me in there they did not tell me anything there was no history on the background of the murders you see when sepi's in the the FBI girl sepius her name that we all call herself anyway but sepi she says he says hey I got a question about Jessica Rose and she goes yeah he goes how did he kill her he goes she said he was strangle he goes yeah I know but how did he Strangler she goes you tell me that they left me in the dark on everything you know I got a basic little outline of who he was and what he did you know and for a living and things like that but no details of the murders so when I came back with the facts and told them all these they're like holy [ __ ] he knows these things that nobody else could have known like when he took the double belts and strangled her to the tree that's the truth you know how would I have known that any other way that was stuff that was never released to the media ever you know and he went into detail about it and why and yes she was crying for her mother and all that stuff you know I mean look he's a sick dude he really is there's no question about it you know and then you hear you know the more uh you know soft-hearted people and she's like well maybe you know he was just a Confessor well first of all he wasn't okay I mean I was there I talked to this guy and he was not just a Confessor but go ahead how many people go around confessing in detail to murders on a regular basis unless you're already sick in the head you know there's something wrong I mean when's the last time you convinced convicted or confessed to a murder never never no I mean clearly clearly this guy did the majority of the stuff that he's being charged with if not all of it if not more of it so you know I'm very happy that he is where he is you know what I'm saying and I appreciate your you contributing to keeping him there because I would not want him you know walking the streets trying to go after kids okay now when I do my book signings and you'll there'll be people lined up out in the rain down the block around the corner right and all of a sudden I'll get a whole bunch of mothers all at once about 10 of them all in a group they all got my book in their hand they're like you know and they come up and they're already crying by the time they can get up to the table to reach me right and they say we want to thank you on behalf of all mothers out there for stopping him because our daughters could have been the next one he killed yeah I can't do anything about the ones he already killed but I could stop him from killing other ones you know what I mean so I'm glad you said that because uh all law enforcement the FBI you know they're great with me the Cold Case people are great with me but when I see certain articles written up oh he blew his cover and he didn't get the map that map wouldn't help with nothing zero you would have got a map and it's got a area of woods of three or four hundred miles of woods with a red dot next to it okay yeah have fun in those woods you know what I mean oh there's another Red Dot over in another state by three or four hundred miles of woods I personally don't think I think he's been jacked up on medications for so long now I don't even know if he could find these spots anymore I think he's that [ __ ] up in the head now you know so but did he do it without a question without a doubt you know I mean there's no doubt he did it well then in 2022 the mini-series Blackbird comes out which is based on your whole experience and like we mentioned many times throughout right this was played you know your character was played by Taryn Edgerton right you know who's had a very prolific movie career uh he was in um the kingsman he was in uh Robin he played Elton John Robin Hood Robin Hood the new Tetris movie Billionaire Boys and so forth right it's actually kind of amazing I didn't realize that he was British until I started watching some interviews because he plays an American you without hey knowing there's an accent yeah do you know the history of all this uh yeah well originally uh Brad Pitt's uh company purchased the rights uh bought it Paramount Motion Pictures bought it Brad gray he used to be the president of of uh Paramount he bought five of my movies actually I still have other ones we we were supposed to start filming another one called American Sparkle in June of this year but because of the strike that's postponed right now but yeah Brad Pitt was going to play me he was signed Jeff Bridges was going to play my dad he was signed Johnny Depp was going to be the serial killer he was signed score Stacy was directing so Brad Pitt's like Jimmy look I got a good writer of my own we can bring my writer in now this is after three or four 18 month periods so you're looking at six seven years in development so Brad brings in his writer uh Daniel futterman who wrote enough with JLo so he comes in and butter is a good guy I really like him and he wrote a really good script it was took him about 18 months so you know now we're up to nine years you know and when we all read the script it was good but it was completely unrecognizable to the real story so Brad Pitt and everybody asked me they said well what do you think do you want to use this script and I said look man at the end Jimmy gets killed so how am I going to be on interviews with everybody and how I got killed was Larry gets out of prison he goes back and joins the colonial war games right and he's got a musket with a big spear on the front and me and him get in a fight and he gets me with the spear and kills me you know so I'm like yeah I don't think that's going to be a realistic show so so we shelved it then HBO came along and HBO wanted to buy it and do a Sopranos type series um which I was cool with and they talk some really big numbers so I was very happy about that we got over to HBO at T within nine months bought HBO and Warner Brothers the President and Vice President of HBO who had been there since the early 80s did not like the new management or something I don't know what the deal was but they left and they went over to Apple and they said will you go to Apple with us I said actually I'm going to go back to Paramount so I was on my way back to Paramount and then they got me to go over here to Apple and now we had to find a you know Brad Pitt was not going to be able to play a 28 year old anymore so they were like hey you know we got all these younger guys what do you think of these names and they laid some names on me and they go we really like Tara and Edgerton what do you think of him like oh he's too small he wouldn't be realistic in the in the in the park so they get a hold of Taryn and taryn's like tell him that I'll get as big and muscular as him and if I do is he cool with it and he did you got to give him credit I mean the guy got yeah yeah he was ripped in that series he got ripped so he looked realistic you know what I mean you can't go into one of these mad houses with all these crazy killers and be a small guy you know they get cannibalized in there you know so Taryn pulled off the part really well I mean I've got old friends of mine that go clear back to high school they get a hold of me like Jimmy man he's got your walk down he's got your talk down he's got your head motions down I'm like okay didn't know you remembered all that from high school but okay that's pretty cool all right well ultimately uh Blackboard got nominated for three Golden Globes and character who played Larry Paul Walter hosser actually won a Golden Globe for best supporting actor um so congrats you know and it also got nominated for two Critics Choice Awards so ultimately you know and everyone I saw really loved the series including myself so congratulations he got nominated for two SAG Awards after that I didn't know that then it got nominated for the Apple Siri or the uh Rotten Tomatoes series of the year and now we just got nominated for four Emmys just last week wow just last week congrats yeah congratulations and it's a great series for everyone who hasn't seen it yet go to Apple Apple TV and pull it up it's it's very very well made very well produced and uh you know because originally when when the interview got got pitched to me I was like I don't know but I'm like let me go watch the series and let me you know let me actually give it a real right you know a real look and after watch the series I was like okay yeah I want to do this yeah no they did an excellent job with the series um you know Dennis lahaine he's a great writer Dennis you know he Mystic River Shutter Island um Gone Baby Gone these are all his other shows uh wrote was a staff writer for HBO for Boardwalk Empire the wire he's you know he's been around as a writer and Dennis you know he collaborated in a very fair way with me through the whole process and uh you know we came out with a nice product in the end I personally think they should have let a little bit more of the realistic stuff in like the phone thing and you know I came back to my cell one night and this big giant biker was in my cell and he wanted to try and kill me and my cell and I had to fight him off too I mean crazy stuff happened you know so but I guess when you look at it from like a writer's point of view it gets convoluted if you put too much of that in so I get it you know but I'm just happy everybody loves it I'm happy that I'm out of the whole situation my record was clear I have nothing on my record man I mean and I you know I'm happy you know I was I was interviewed by uh one interviewer for a big newspaper story uh front page story of the Chicago Sun Time and the guy was great great interview I mean it was a great interview and at the end he goes you know Jimmy goes you seem like a real happy guy in a real fun cool down to earth guy and he goes and and that kind of throws me off I go what do you think I'm supposed to sit here and be sad the rest of my days because I went through a trauma with the serial killer thing I go that shit's over man it's behind me I I let things be in the past you know know so I live in the moment man I live in the moment and too much in the future sometime you know but yeah I'm a happy person and life turned out great you know so I don't have to ever go back to the crime World in my life again I'm making movies in Hollywood now you know and it's it's cool you know I have you know we're talking in talks for season two right now with Blackbird I've got the other one I just told you about American Sparkle we're supposed to be start filming I'll have a book out for American Sparkle I just released my other new book The Chicago Phoenix just about a month ago which will be the material in the fighter for season two of Blackbird so a lot of cool things are happening you know and that's how life's supposed to be cool things and fun things are happening you know so well that's what it is Jimmy Keane definitely appreciate you sitting down and sharing your story and thank you so much for keeping a monster Like Larry Hall still in prison thank you man I appreciate you know I I've interviewed a lot of different people over the years I've interviewed murderers uh and so forth but I kind of draw the line when it comes to rapists and people who kill kids and so forth I've interviewed I've interviewed like Sammy the bull and hit men and stuff like that but I feel in situations like that it's it's a war with other soldiers who all are aware about what's happening and so forth but when it comes to people like this I don't really want them on my platform I don't want to have anything to do with them I feel like they're disgusting human beings and Larry Larry Hall was one of those and I'm glad that he's exactly where he needs to be I'll be even happier when he's actually dead but for now I'm okay with him being in prison unable to harm any other little girls out there I agree you gotta remember Vlad you I said it earlier when somebody's a kid killer little girls 12 year old girls yeah come to me I'll do it for free I don't you don't even have to ask me I will help you know I I don't have to be in a predicament I was in and to make that decision to help I will help because these are sick people that need to be out of society they can't be loose in society you know so I appreciate you saying that man that was big agreed Jimmy King man uh thank you for everything and I'm looking forward to your next projects that are coming up cool thank you that's appreciate it brother peace later

Channel: djvlad

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Id: fF1pXV0mhoU

Length: 94min 1sec (5641 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 11 2023