If you're listening to a ten or foot TV podcast.

Or girls, what's up Crook County fans, it's been a while, Frankly, I missed you.

I just got back from Crime Con and it was such a great experience to meet fans face to face.

I've never really done anything like that before.

It really actually may be quite emotional.

You know, you build this stuff and you create these stories, these podcasts in a box by yourself for the most part, and.

Then they go out into the world.

Then, yeah, you get comments, and I've wanted people to send me voicemails, and that's cool.

Been really great listening to those.

But to in person talk to people face to face about a story that has meant so much to them and that story just happens to be my story.

It's a very surreal experience.

And I'm extremely grateful for those interactions and to meet so many people and to talk about it and to connect with them and to relate with them with their own issues and their own struggles that they're trying to overcome, and to hear that, you know, my story can help them in some way very powerful stuff.

So, yeah, it's been it's been a really interesting week.

And I'm just very humbled and grateful.

And it reminded me about those voicemails that I told you guys to said during the season, and I hadn't listened to them in a long time, and so when I got home, I opened them up and I said, you know what, I'm going to answer these.

I need to answer these.

It's about damn time.

So yeah, let's get into it.

This is Crook County Voicemails.

Here we go.

Yeah, you got a lot of fucking questions.

Fuck yeah, let's fucking go.

When I heard your podcast in the radio, like number one podcast, Mafia Guy, whatever, firefighter, but it's a fucking.

Banger, a fucking banger, no fucking joke.

Yeah, well that's a good way to start this, I guess.

Yeah.

I don't know if there was a question in there, buddy, but you sound like you're a fun guy, sound like you're having a good time.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate that you listen to this, and I appreciate that you liked it.

I'll just leave it at that, all right, Let's uh, let's try the next one.

This one is from David from Indiana.

What do we got?

Good morning, Kyle.

This is Dave Heckel, morning producer for JED in the region on AM twelve thirty w j olb out of Ham, Indiana.

We do a morning show and our on air personality, Jim did Low and I had both listened to your podcast and we're very intrigued and would like to discuss it with you on air if possible, and if you're interested, we'd like to sit down and chat with you on air.

If it sounds like something you're interested in, give me a call and we'll get something.

Schedule something that's conducive to your schedule.

We'll work around it.

Oh yeah, I remember this one.

I opened this one up when they sent it like eight months ago and I responded.

So apparently they didn't want to interview me that bad because I heard nothing back.

So David with the morning show in Indiana, Sorry, buddy, you missed the boat.

All right, who's next?

Kayla?

Hi, my name is Kayla.

I just finished listening to the second episode.

Man, it's really hard to hear this stuff.

I come from a family of first respect as well.

All four were officers and putting my step parents and I have a brother who died of a heroin overdose, and just we have a lot of you know, rough drug use in the family, and then like that juxtaposition of first responders and you know, addicts, and and.

I'm just so sorry for your brother and what he went through and just all the things that I witnessed in my own life of you know, the violence and the chaos that comes with people who can't stop using drugs and inflict it all over their families.

And those of us that love them and just want them to be better.

And I'm just so sorry to you guys, because it really is just like a very special situation.

And I don't mean specially in a good way, but once you've.

Been through it, you're really the only one who can understand it.

So anyway, this podcast is incredible.

I'm going to be listening further, and I just I just my heart goes out to you guys, and I'm just so sorry that this is what you guys have had to go through.

Oh wow, wow, Hey, Kayla, thank you so much for calling in and for just being so open and honest.

I could feel your pain.

I could feel, you know, the trauma that you've been through with your own experiences with drug abuse.

And you know family that just refuses to, I don't know, live a productive life, a cohesive family life.

You know, there's a lot of selfishness that goes with drug addiction.

There's a lot of pain and emotional stunted behaviors that come with it, and everyone is affected.

It's not just a single person.

It's not just the addict to is suffering.

It's the whole family.

It's not a victimless crime.

And it's just so hard to deal with it.

What do you do?

Do you drain your finances and your emotional capital trying to help this person or people over and over again.

When do you stop?

Should you stop?

You know, like, at what point do you say enough is enough?

At what point do you say, I won't let you drag me down with you?

At what point do you say that's it, I'm done.

I don't know.

I don't have the answers to those questions, and I don't think anybody really does.

It's a really tough situation, and I guess my only advice is to remember that this isn't your fault.

You had nothing to do with these people choosing a life that is counter to yours, that is at odds with yours that is destructive to yours.

You shouldn't feel guilt, You shouldn't feel like you are responsible to fix these people.

They have made these choices themselves at the end of the day.

Yes, of course they are external factors, but they have made these choices themselves, and it's completely up to them at the end of the day whether or not they're going to remedy their issue, whether they're going to try and get help, whether they're going to try to clean up, whether they're going to try to redeem themselves.

In your eyes, you can't put that pressure and responsibility on yourself.

If you have your own family, kids, a significant other, just focus on them, focus on being the person that you wish these other people would be for you.

I wish you the best, Kala, I really do.

Thank you so much for sharing with me.

Hey, I had a quick question.

I don't know if your dad ever mentioned this, but my father off and on had mentioned different ways that the outfit had done some different embuzzling and little money laundering through business at all, so I wanted to see if your father had ever mentioned how the object laundered money.

Really interesting question.

I mean, of course, the outfit had strangleholds over dozens and if not hundreds of legitimate businesses across the Chicagoland area, running money through them, running drugs, or utilizing them in some way that could help push their agendas and assist in the running of their operation.

But you know, my dad, as we know, he had his sort of little niches that he was in charge of, the whorehouse being one of them.

Now he was around, he did a lot of stuff.

He saw a lot of things.

I just don't think he can speak on a high level about exactly the kind of intricacies that are going on other than just simple observations.

But I do remember a conversation during the interviews where he started to kind of dabble into a couple examples, and I just didn't really find, I guess a place in the show to put it, so I didn't put it anywhere.

But you've reminded me of this, So why don't we just hear from the man himself?

Here's ken anyway, I did anything and everything in the outfit.

I did muscle work, I repossessed furniture for a company called Swingles, who was directly involved in the outfits.

I don't know if anybody out there knows that, but they were Swingles furniture rental to delivering paper checks from Chicago to Wall Street in New York a couple of banks that were involved and taking the hard paper check time stamping them for interest.

But back then you did everything by hand.

You actually took the checks on an airplane in a big bag, would a gun, got picked up at either La Guardia or Kennedy and Drew, and you would take a helicopter to a bank on Wall Street.

I just remember flying around the Statue of Liberty with my two big bags paper checks that no one was allowed to touch except me, and delivering it to a bank.

So I believe back then the interest from the time the check was deposited at the particular establishment or personal to the time it got to that particular company, central bank or somebody central I don't know a bank on Wall Street, money was made.

Interest was made on every one of those checks.

And there was thousands of them, thousands and thousands of them.

And I don't know if the outfit got all the money for that already got a piece of it.

I'm not sure, but I know my.

Job was to protect that money from Chicago to Wall Street Boom.

It's been a while since I've heard that.

I kind of forgot the details of it, but yet Swingles Furniture.

How funny is that.

I just did like a business search, and it looks like this thing went out of business a long time ago.

There may have been a version of it that ended up in Florida.

I don't know if it's connected in any way, but that is also out of business.

A furniture store, furniture rental.

You know.

Just how innocent and random is that.

I think it's actually a perfect example of the kind of influence the outfit had on everyday regular folk who were just trying to make a living, and they use them to their advantage.

And then the helicopter stuff.

I mean, geez, that sounds like something straight out of a movie.

I know everything is electronic these days, but with the checks, I mean, I know carried interest is a real thing.

So yeah, I mean, someone much smarter than me should answer this question and dig into it.

That's fascinating.

Who's next.

My name is Kyle Murray, and I grew up in the Takla household for probably four years.

Corey and I were we met through a mutual friend and him and I hit it off, and so myself, him and Frankie.

You know, we were in separa bowl for you know, a few years, and it was nice there.

It was I loved going there.

You know, Hollie I would see quite a bit, you know, she was always home, but I didn't see Ken until morning time and he would come down to the basement, you know, after we were down there whatever, smoking weed, playing music, being you know, stupid fucking kids.

But he he never scared me.

He came off as a person that you don't want to fuck with, but he was never mean.

He was never an asshole.

He was just like, hey, if you guys are fucking doing this and fucking do it right, And I appreciate that about him.

And to find out, you know, what he was doing while we're smoking weed in his basement is pretty fucking crazy.

Kyle, what's up, buddy?

Oh man, I haven't heard from that guy in a long time.

There were so many people, so many friends over at the house growing up.

It was we kind of did have the house like it was the spot to hang out where everyone would come and so many sleepovers, just huge gatherings of people.

We had a little pool, above ground pool.

It just felt like we were a clubhouse.

It felt like people.

The kids felt comfortable at our place, and man, so many incredible memories.

My brother's friends, we were three years apart, so by the time we got into high school, we were all kind of hanging out together and it was a really great time.

And yeah, I've talked to quite a few of the old crew and very similar you know, take as you man is like, what the hell are you talking about?

Like, how is that even possible?

We never could have guessed that in million years kind of thing.

So yeah, I mean he fooled everybody, right, he really did.

And to his credit, you know, he really created him and my mom really created a welcoming, friendly, fun environment to grow up in.

And I'll never forget those times, and I'll always remember them fondly and be grateful for those times, for the good times.

While they were there.

Great to hear from you, Kyle.

Thanks for calling me.

Hey, Kyle, I just wanted to share my message.

Hearing your father's story makes me think of my own.

I grew up in a rough, a rough neighborhood, and purely for survival, I joined a gain, and I did a lot of stuff.

I'm not proud of a lot of stuff I've never told nobody.

I am married.

My wife only knows extremely surface level stuff.

She knows not depressed.

I know not to overshare, and it's not something I'm ever going to tell my kids because it's not something they ever need to know.

You know, my story was all about survival.

I did what I had to do to survive.

It was either I joined again and did what I did, or I could have been dead by twenty no problem.

I couldn't, you know.

And that sounds silly, you know, in hindsight, is I put myself in more danger to survive, But it was really my only option, my only option out of the situation I was in.

So thanks for sharing your dad's story, and thanks for sharing your view of it.

Makes me think of how my kids might react if they ever found out they wouldn't.

Ay Stan, Thanks for sharing.

Man.

Yeah, you know, throughout this process, I've had quite a few people reach out to be kind of.

Similar ish stories.

You know, they had their own you know, CD past, I guess you could say, and you know they're they've straightened out in their family people now and they're just to live a decent life and move on, and I think that's great.

I'm glad that you found your way.

You know.

Look, I mean, obviously everyone knows my story because I put it out there into the world, and I don't think I ever would have known anything if my dad hadn't basically been on the edge of death from heroin and alcohol addiction and reached out to me in total desperation asking for my help.

I think that if he didn't have that addiction, that crutch, I think he probably would have taken this to his grave and none of us ever would have known.

So, you know, I'm just trying to put myself in your shoes, and also in your kid's shoes, your wife.

You know, just because you've had a life that you don't want to share it doesn't mean you need to share it with them.

Everyone reacts to things differently.

If my dad was a normal guy and lived a normal life and we had a normal relationship and I never knew about this stuff, that would be great.

I would prefer that.

I would much prefer to have a loving, normal, healthy relationship with with my dad.

And you know that that goes from my mom too.

You know, the whole family would be completely different if this went a different way.

And so if you have a great relationship with your kids and your wife and you feel like telling them this stuff would blow the whole thing up, then don't do it.

Man.

If you feel like.

You need to tell them and it's destroying you and you're going to do something stupid, or you're you're doing drugs to deal with it, maybe then I don't know, maybe you consider it.

I don't have the answer here, but but I am happy that you it seems somewhat come to peace with your past and our moo forward in a healthy way.

That's bravo.

Good on you, Bud.

All right, we got a question from Mike.

Dude, where is your Monday episode?

I've already quit other podcasts because they don't come out weekly, and sometimes they don't come out at all period, But I respect you so far.

Monday's every day awesome.

Hey, carry I'm a man, but we're looking for today's see you.

Hey, Mike, I'm glad you like the show.

This is a little late.

I probably should have answered this question a long time ago, but the show comes out on Tuesdays every Tuesday.

So the reason you're not seeing them on that Monday.

It's because it comes out on Tuesday.

I hope that helps.

Who's next.

Hello listener from Wisconsin.

Right on the border Illinois.

I just wanted to say that.

Your your story has really touched me, and your father's struggle with drug addiction is one that I also share and I think it's it's amazing what you did for him and the progress he's made and that he's opening up to you.

It's a beautiful thing.

And uh, I just want to.

State to all the other addicts out there that you can get help.

There is someone out there to help you.

Everyone around you who loves you wants to help, and just you've got a lot of men and and I think you're doing You're doing a great thing here, so just keep it up and stays over uh bit, Thank you for everything you're doing.

Hey man, appreciate that.

Yeah, this kind of pairs up with what I was saying earlier.

It's completely up to the person and having support helps absolutely.

You know.

It seems like this guy had a loving family that really cared for him and helped him get through a really tough time.

And it seems like, well, at least I hope that he's doing okay now and he's he's gotten through the worst of it, and if so, I'm happy for you.

And if not, you know, it's a journey.

And I think anyone who's dealing with with this intimately knows that there's just huge ups and downs, and sometimes it feels like you've got it all figured out, and sometimes it feels like the whole damn thing is just falling apart again, and that's frustrating.

That's hard.

It's hard to deal with it.

It is a lifelong journey, and you know, it helps if it helps when there's love.

It helps when there's love in the home.

Sometimes it starts out with love and patience, and then just through all the trials and tribulations and heartbreaks, that love can go away, and that's when it gets really, really hard.

Again.

I don't have an answer for that, but if you are struggling, or if you do have a family member that's struggling, just to your best.

Sobriety is a journey best taken together.

Bill.

What's up, hey, Kyle, Just wondering about your dad.

If your dad was a firefighter and he got injured on the job, why did he not get disability or what we call three quarter pay, because by the sounds of it like he's struggling.

And I mean, if he went off on three quarter pay, which is a disability pay, he should be okay.

Yeah, but that's a really interesting question.

I know that when he got injured really badly, he was obviously on disability because he was not working for a while.

But then he went back and continued working as a firefighter paramedic for a few more years before he ended up leaving the department and he became a life insurance agent, like my senior year in high school, and you know, for a few more years in college until the drugs just took over and he lost that too.

So yeah, I'm not quite sure how to answer that.

I'm pretty sure he had some disability and then he started working again, so I guess it went away.

Aaron, you're out, Hey, Kyle, I am loving the podcast so far.

I went ahead and purchased the early access to Tenderfoot so that way I could listen to all of kirk County ahead of time.

I am originally from the suburbs of Chicago, so I can really a lot to this story.

My mother is one hundred percent Italian and went to high school and grew up all in Cicero.

Her family all from that side of the town as well.

My grandfather grew up on Taylor Street, so we always would hear a lot of stories, you know, just some friends and Shenanigans.

I guess that he would get into.

Definitely nothing as violent or as crazy as what I'm hearing in the podcast, but yeah, I just felt like, in a small little way, your podcast was a little bit relatable to my family.

Anyways, and I'm again, I'm really enjoying the podcast.

I just heard that you went to SIU Go su Luki's.

Yeah, thanks, looking forward to finishing it.

Hey Aaron, Yeah I did.

I went to Southern Illinois University to study film and dropped out my senior year.

But yeah, we were broke at that time, completely broke, and my I guess we just couldn't pay for anymore semester.

So I just left in the middle of my senior year and moved to Atlanta, and that's where I met my wife and started my career.

And you know, it's just been head down and moving forward since.

But but yeah, you know, there's there's a lot of people out there.

You know, Chicago is an outfit town.

There's a lot of Italians there, there's a lot of Irish.

You know, there's all sorts of gang related activity going back one hundred years.

Chicago.

It's it's just one of those story towns, you know, and it feels like, you know, our our grandparents were just living through the wild West sometimes, you know.

But I'm glad you can relate to the show.

I'm glad you like it.

And you also bring up another good point, which is Tenderfoot Plus, which is three ninety nine a month, and you get to listen to all these incredible shows that Tenderfoot puts out ad free.

By the way, one of the biggest complaints I've had from people on Crook County is that there's a ton of ads, and they're not wrong.

There's a shit ton of commercials.

I don't know why there's more on mine than others.

I have no control over this shit, but yeah, there's quite a few.

iHeart must be doing really well with it, so I guess good for them.

But you know, look, you guys are rating my show a one star and just ripping me a new one in the comments because of fucking commercials.

Will you grow up?

There's a fast forward button, Just click it a couple times and move on.

Will you My God?

Who's next?

Hey, Kyle, My name's Thomas Kennedy's live in West Texas.

I'm a cotton farmer during the long summers.

I spend a lot of time on the tractor and always looking for interesting podcasts and really enjoyed yours.

Question I have that I never really understood was when your dad from the time he started getting bed into the drugs to getting clean, it sounded like his jobs with the mafia or the outfit kind of disappeared, and it seemed like he could never actually get away from that.

So was there a specific time he was able to just cut ties with them, or did he go to rehab and they just all kind of disappeared, or do you know exactly what happened?

Thanks, keep up the good work.

That is a great question.

First, let me say thank you for listening.

I'm so glad you found this show.

I bet it's a really interesting kind of contrast to be riding around on a tractor in a cotton field in Texas listening to a mob story from Chicago.

That's pretty cool man.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, I don't have a real answer for this, because there have been all sorts of weird happenings around my father.

Now that I know what I know, and looking back, there's all sorts of weird stuff.

You know, there's gunshot wounds that I mentioned in the show.

There's you know, there's other injuries that seem a little fishy, other disappearances that are short but somewhat unexplained.

Then there's one huge incident that happened about fourteen fifteen years ago before I brought him out to California to get help, where I was living in Los Angeles with my wife, and I got a call from my mom that Ken had fallen.

It was the winter time and he had fallen while taking off the trash and his leg was completely broken, like in half almost and he had crawled from the curb all the way up into the house screaming saying, you know, call nine one one, call nine one one.

And he maintained throughout this whole time that he had fallen and gotten his you know, slipped on some ice and his leg was caught under the garbage can and it just snapped when he fell.

I mean, I guess that's a reasonable story.

He was also doing drugs at this time, so maybe he was high.

We don't know.

But it's just one of those things where you're like, what really happened?

And I had a chance to ask my dad about that incident, and what he told me it shocked me.

It absolutely shocked me.

It just when I thought I couldn't be shocked anymore.

Here's what he said.

I was out of the business completely.

I haven't really.

Heard anything or experienced anything, except for one time.

I was taking out the garbage, pushing it to the curb, and we had those large containers that there was a handle that are about waste time, maybe a little bit higher, two wheels on the back, pull them towards you, and you push them out to the curb.

Well it was a little slippery, but you know, not that bad.

But that was good for my story.

Three guys pulled up.

I didn't recognize them.

I don't know how they were, but man, they were.

Many.

They had me targeted.

Baby.

I had no idea what the hell was going on, but that I was targeted.

I'm thinking to myself, holy shit, I know these guys are coming at me and I'm.

Racking my brains here.

Come to find out they were Nefuser I don't know, associated with what was left of the Italian, not the Italian, the Irish mob in Chicago.

And it was a payback and I don't know how the hell they found me, but it was a payback for something I did.

I think I remember what I did do.

But it was simple and it was fast.

It probably lasted fifteen seconds.

They bum rushed me, put my right foot under the container.

And then.

Left it under there, actually forced it under there with their feet or feet, and then they pushed me back and my tibia phibia snacked.

Something was gonna give and it wasn't the garbage container.

It was my tib and fib and I'll crash those bones right through my skin.

And the snapping sound and the way it echoed back was more terrifying than the actual fracture.

These guys were going on a heartbeat.

I can't even remember what car they were in.

So there I am open fracture right tip fib.

No one home.

I am pushing myself on my ass from the sidewalk all the way up the driveway into the garage and then pulling myself on my ass still into the kitchen, but managed to get ahold of Holly, my wife and in the hospital got everything all patched up.

Now, the reason for this was, I believe, in a sense the remnants of the Irish mob we took out morel was part of myself and another guy took out a relative of one of the Irish heavies.

And I thought it was clean.

Man, at least I thought it was clean and they could ever travel us, you know.

But you know, things have a way to catch up to you sometimes when you at least suspect it.

But I was told as they were leaving payback, which meant which made me understand that it was probably an Irish mob thing.

And I knew I wasn't going to get killed because and that was the payback.

They fractured me up really good, you know what.

I'll take their payback anytime over over a murder.

So what does that mean?

Is that real?

Whether people after him all these years later?

Was it an actual gang mafia related incident if it did happen, is it a drug related incident?

Has nothing to do with the mafia.

I don't know.

I don't think i'll ever know.

I just, man, it's like I don't even want to think about it anymore, you know what I mean, Like I don't even want to know if it's true.

At a certain point, I'm just like, I'm just kind of over the whole thing.

You know, it's a lot, it's a lot to deal with, and that being such a recent event, I mean, it's a bit unsettling.

Gonna lie, it's concerning.

So yeah, well it's out there now, and if it's true, God help us all.

Hello.

My name is Aaron.

I'm a listener from Minnesota.

I just finished all of that, actually listened to all of it and one day while I was at work, and it was fantastic.

And one thing I just kind of wanted to mention is that your dad breaking down when he was talking about playing God just absolutely ripped my heart out, because I mean, you see, you know, like these crime bosses and all this stuff, and you know, like the Sopranos and the Godfather and all that stuff, and it's just your dad is the real thing.

And I don't care how awful the people are that you have a hand in murdering, you don't ever get over that.

And he's he's.

Just living proof of that, and the fact that despite being this badass who runs around punching people in the face all the time and all those stories that you had about him being so tough, he was a deeply broken person by what he experienced.

And there's such humanity in that story and I did not expect that.

I was deeply moved.

It's stunning and I will be the first one to watch it on Netflix or wherever it ends up.

And I've been casting this whole thing in my head and it was like, Jeffrey Dean Morgan needs to play your dad and I don't know, but I just wanted to say thank you very much for being brave enough to share all of that.

Aaron, thanks a lot for those really kind words.

Yeah, you know you're not the only one that's picturing this in their head as a TV show.

I'm not gonna drop any bombshells yet, but let me just say it's in the works.

Yeah.

To be continued, all right, last question, Ryan, what you got.

Hey, Kyle, my name is Ryan.

I just want to say that your story is absolutely unbelievable.

The way you tell it is just amazing.

I really enjoy listening to it and I've listened to the series a couple of times, so I just can't wait for you to publish another podcast.

But your story is just unbelievable and I wish you the best.

Hey, Ryan, thanks so much for that.

Glad you love the show.

Yeah, they're in the works.

I have several more seasons of Crook County deep into production right now, and a couple other non Chicago related stories that are just incredible and I am so excited to tell them.

I think you guys are going to love what I have in store for you, so just be patient.

I know for a fact there'll be one out sometime midnext year.

In the meantime, I would love to do another one of these, So if you have any questions for me, go ahead and leave me a voicemail at speakpipe dot com slash Crook County Podcast.

Speakpipe dot com slash Crook County Podcast.

Leave me a voicemail.

Can't wait to answer him, talk soon.

Yeah, you got a lot of fucking questions.

Fucking what fucking go go?

I love this guy.

He's the best.

I don't know who he is, but he's the best.