Myra Kindle is an independent investigative reporter.
Her other reports:

• What does Google want with male sex workers?
  
• Google’s Algorithmic Decay - A Report on the Lenoir, North Carolina Bombing
  
• In 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was losing more than 120 informants a year to Russian KGB. by 1981, that number had dropped to just 10. Now, a former intelligence agent is raising alarm that the wildly unorthodox methods once used to protect Russian sources could pose a devastating new threat
  
• For Two Years a Former University Student Has Set-Up Unusual Protest Demonstrations in Buffalo, New York - No One Is Still Quite Sure What He’s Protesting
  
• Nearly Two Months After a Terrorist Attack in China Killed 337 People, Investigators Have Gotten No Closer to Determining How the Attack Was Carried Out
  
• After winning $1.3 Million at a Casino, Why does a man cover himself in Gasoline and drop a lit Match?
  
• A Report on the Grey Men of 327 Cedar Lane -- This was part of a collaborative project with nslewis, who wrote the incident that takes place prior, "The grey men of 327 Cedar Lane"
  

Once Enviable

At six foot one, 41 years of age, and net worth of hundreds of millions, prodigious venture capitalist Dean Banks should be the envy of the world. But he’s not.
Dean struggles to leave his house, says he feels an impending sense of doom, and is prone to sudden outbursts of crying. None of this is unusual for a recovering survivor of a ransom kidnapping, an experience which can test our ability to feel safe in any space afterward.
What is unusual is that since the kidnapping Dean has become a vigorous advocate of free range chicken farms, and now refuses to eat the animal himself. An odd trauma for a survivor to come away with, but one more consequential to Dean, who in 2017 became a member of the board of directors at Tyson Foods, one of America’s largest suppliers of chicken.
Now, facing the possibility of dismissal from the board at Tyson, and angry at the lack of coverage in the media, Dean has agreed to speak on the record for the first time since the incident.
Dean claims Tyson conducted an illegal ransom payment to free him, and that they have humiliated him by disbelieving his account of the kidnapping. Dean also says Tyson played a significant part in shutting down two police investigations into what happened, and that Tyson has been suppressing his speech since he has tried to say publicly that they promote the cruel treatment of chickens.
Based on dozens of interviews with Mr. Banks, representatives from Tyson Foods Inc, and law enforcement in Idaho and Wyoming, as well as documents and correspondence provided by Banks and other sources, this special investigative report by independent journalist Myra Kindle lays out in chilling horror the six day ordeal and subsequent coverup of the Dean Banks kidnapping.

Breaking with Corporate

On a late afternoon on December 12th, 2018, Dean Banks left his winter home in Sun Valley, Idaho. He planned to drive 3.4 miles from his home to a grocery store, a drive he has made many times before.
He never arrived, and instead would not be seen until six days later on December 18th, when he was found severely dehydrated and rambling emotionally outside of a bar in a town close to the border in neighboring Wyoming.
The details of the intervening six days are a topic of dispute between the police, Tyson, and Dean Banks, with each party giving wildly different versions of what happened. What is agreed with no dispute by any party is that Dean Banks has been irrevocably changed.
“An abduction is an extremely traumatic experience,” says Linsey Windsor, adjunct professor at UCLA psychology. “Security is a fundamental human need. An abduction, especially in an area we typically think of as safe, can instill a feeling that we’re never safe. The long term effects of that on a person can be devastating -- their personality can completely change.”
If personality changes are normal, then for Banks it’s his views on raising chickens that have changed.
“We treat them so poorly,” Dean says. “I get that people are going to eat chicken. I understand that’s not going to change. What I don’t understand is why we have to be so cruel to chickens during their short life.”
Dean’s argument is not substantively new. Chicken farms have often been the target of animal rights activists who argue chickens aren’t given enough space to walk, and live most of their life in a dark crowded coops, eating till they’re ready for slaughter.
More complicated for Dean is his view that the company for which he serves on the board promotes animal cruelty.
“I think Tyson plays a huge part in the treatment of chickens,” says Dean. “It’s not even that I think it -- I know it. We’re involved in how farms raise chickens because we’re the main buyer. If we said we’re not going to buy your chickens unless you give them more space to roam, we could change farms all over the country.”
Dean’s views are seldom heard publicly, and aside from a few quickly taken down YouTube videos, this is the first national reporting on the Tyson board member.
Tyson claims they had nothing to do with flagging Mr. Banks’s YouTube videos, and also takes umbrage at Dean’s argument that Tyson promotes animal cruelty.
“Tyson Foods plays no part in how chickens are raised,” Tyson spokesman Eli Hule says. “We are the distribution, and we do that proudly, but we’re not the farmers. We have no say over how chickens are raised.”
While it’s true Tyson owns very few farms themselves and is in mainly a distributor, Tyson works extensively with private farms to set up new chicken operations.
“Tyson doesn’t own the land, but they essentially tell farmers how to run their operation,” says Eduardo Porter, economics reporter for the New York Times. “For example if you want to invest in building a new chicken coop, a commercial bank typically won’t underwrite that loan. You go to a company like Tyson and say you’ll sell them chickens for X many years if they loan you the money to scale up. But in that agreement is the implicit understanding that if Tyson doesn't like what you’re building, say they think more chickens could fit in that coop you want to build, they’ll deny the request. They have incredible control over chicken farms. It’s just indirect control.”
Dean’s explanation for how he could go from Tyson board member to chicken rights activist?
“If you knew what it was like to be a chicken in a crowded, shit covered, dark coop with barely enough room to bend your legs, you wouldn't be asking me that,” says Dean.

Conflicting Stories

Outside a bar in Wyoming near the border of Idaho, Dean yelled frantically, emotionally, till the bar called the police and Dean was sent to St. John’s Medical Center in Jackson, Wyoming.
At the hospital, Dean was treated for dehydration and minor bruising, and then was moved to the mental health ward where he was kept under observation for three days.
Dean says he remembers nothing about how he got to Wyoming, or how he ended up specifically at that bar. For Dean, it’s the intervening six days that he remembers, but was also severely hesitant to talk about at first.
“I’m worried the public will say what Tyson says, what the police say, that I’m making it all up,” says Dean.
He has reason to be worried. Dean’s story is fantastical, and arguably the reason for a lot of his current troubles.
“I can’t deny what happened,” says Dean. “I can only tell you that they gave me the memory implants of a chicken’s life, and it was fucking horrifying.”
Hot and sweating in pitch black darkness with skant enough room to turn his neck, Dean describes his experience as living in “the horror of optimization from the perspective of the cog in the machine.”
“It’s dark. It’s hot. You’re standing on grating that cuts into your feet and you don’t even have enough room to rotate your body,” says Dean. “And then the screams, the never ending screams of a room of creatures that don’t understand what’s happening but know they’re in pain. All the while the smell of feces is just putrid. The chickens are stacked, so the droppings from who was above me dropped onto my face, my body, and again I didn’t have enough room so I couldn't wipe it off. I just wanted to die, but even that was impossible.”
When asked how he understands his experience to be the implanted memories of a chicken, Dean says, “When I was taken, the kidnappers told me that they were going to fill my head with the memories of a chicken that lived and died in a high capacity farm. I didn’t believe them at first, of course, but the next thing my mind is filled with the sense of being something different. Like, just the sense of touch was different, the smell, and then I just felt I wasn’t me, and then the chickens started screaming, I could smell feces, and I didn’t know it at the time -- I mean didn’t understand anything, but when I was recovering at the hospital, I realized the kidnappers hadn’t been lying. They really did what they said they were going to do.”
Neither Tyson Foods nor police in Wyoming or Idaho believe Dean’s telling of his abduction, and have separate views themselves about what happened.
“We are overjoyed at Mr. Banks’s safe return,” says Eli Hule of Tyson Foods. “We are however greatly discouraged by scandalous media attempts to make his ordeal something it is not. It was a kidnapping. He was safely returned and we think that should be the focus right now.”
While Mr. Hule refused to elaborate on what happened to Banks, lawyers for Tyson provided the following statement: “Tyson Foods Inc. is extremely grateful to local law enforcement for the safe return of Dean Banks. In regards to Mr. Banks’s experience, it is our position that inflicted abuse on Mr. Banks should not dictate how Tyson runs its business, which is currently an industry leader in providing delicious, healthy chicken products to more than 250 million Americans every year.”
On the record, law enforcement in Idaho and Wyoming who have handled this case are equally suspicious of Mr. Banks’s story.
“We have no evidence to back Mr. Banks’s claim of being implanted with the memories of a chicken,” says attorney general for Wyoming, Bridget Hill. The Idaho attorney general referred me to Ms. Hill’s statement when asked for comment.
Off the record, local police officers were more forthcoming on their opinions of what happened to Mr. Banks.
“Totally believe him,” says officer Steve of Idaho, who asked I only use his first name. “This type of stuff happens all the time. Drug lords in Mexico put the memories of dogs in their hit men to toughen them up. This is nothing new.”
Another officer from Wyoming, who only agreed to speak anonymously, has another theory: “I don’t know about memory implants, but I’ll tell you that guy was on drugs when we picked him up, psychedelics or something.”
Asked if Dean’s experience could be explained with drugs, Dean says: “I went to college. It wasn’t drugs.”

The $87,250

Why was Dean Banks released on December 18th, 2018? It’s a question the police and Tyson don’t have an answer to, but one Dean readily has a response for.
In Dean’s telling, Tyson was contacted following his kidnapping and asked to pay $87,250 for his release. Dean notes that this request didn’t go to his family (who would have paid it, he says), but directly to Tyson corporate.
Tyson adamantly denies this, whose lawyers state: “Tyson did not pay a ransom for the release of board member Dean Banks, nor were we contacted by Dean’s kidnappers. Any story to the contrary is completely unfounded.”
Police also dispute there ever being a ransom, with AG Hill of Wyoming stating, “It is our position that this was not a ransom kidnapping, but rather an abduction. No money was sought to release Dean Banks, and he either escaped on his own or was released by his captors for reasons unknown.”
The denials by Tyson and police are clear, but there is contrary evidence there was indeed a ransom.
“It wasn’t even 48 hours before a friend of Dean’s contacted me to let me know what had happened,” Martha, Dean’s wife says. “They serve on the board together, and they filled me in on everything Tyson had learned. They said Dean had been kidnapped, but the kidnappers were only asking for $87,250. It was such a small amount that Tyson put the petty cash to pay the ransom the very next day. A few days later, he’s home.”
Martha declined to say who told her about the ransom and the payment, stating: “Do I really want to put another person in the same boat as Dean? Tyson might remove Dean from the board. I don't want that to happen to them too. They were simply trying to console me, let me know Dean would come back safe.”
Tyson has good reason to lie about making a ransom payment. Although prosecutions for it are nearly non-existent, under section 1202 of federal penal code 18, it is illegal to make a ransom payment.
While the legal liability for Tyson might be low, there almost certainly would be a media firestorm over Tyson Foods making an illegal ransom payment, no matter the ethics of the act. Large publicly traded companies will often squash a story unless it’s clearly beneficial to the company’s image.
“It’s a toxic story,” says Dean. “What’s the upside here? Some coverage that Tyson is a good company cause they paid a ransom? For Tyson, there’s no guarantee that would happen. Meanwhile, they know they’ll have to deal with a board member calling their farming practices cruel getting a national microphone. Of course they’d deny the ransom.”

No Investigation

Perhaps the most perplexing detail of Dean’s abduction is, why haven’t the kidnappers been caught?
It is just one question among the many that loom over Dean’s case. Why was he transported to Wyoming? Why, even if it didn’t happen, was he told he would be given the implanted memories of a chicken? Why was his ransom set at $87,250? Did Tyson make the payment?
Police in Wyoming and Idaho claim they are still investigating, but anonymous sources from inside investigating police departments have told me the case was given such low priority that they’re nearly certain it’ll never be solved.
That might be good for large parts of Wyoming and Idaho where many of America’s chickens are raised. A scandal involving Tyson and illegal ransom payments could financially harm thousands farmers and businesses that rely on that industry that Tyson is so central to.
“I think what’s good for the survivor here is going to be bad for the community, so we’re just not going after this one,” says a detective in Idaho who only agreed to comment anonymously.
Meanwhile, Dean and his family are somewhat resigned that Dean’s captors will not be apprehended by law enforcement.
“Justice is hard enough to get when it’s what everyone wants,” says Dean. “But in this case, I think I’m the only one who wants it, so what kind of a chance is that, really?”
In Dean’s telling, Tyson is actively suppressing the police investigation by denying the ransom.
“For fear of cutting into profits from bad press coverage,” he says,” Tyson is willing to let someone who committed a serious crime go free.”
“If we speak about the ransom,” says Martha, “Tyson has threatened to sue on defamation. It’s a risk just talking to you now.”

Wellis Farms

Since I started covering this story in February, I’ve driven countless hours on midwestern roads between Sun Valley, Idaho and Jackson, Wyoming. Along the way I stopped at several chicken farms to learn, first hand, how chickens are kept and raised, and to verify Dean’s claim of arguable animal cruelty at many of these farms.
It was by chance when I was coming back across the border into Idaho that I found Wellis farms, a small operation with extremely talkative farmer that was thrilled that I was asking him questions about how chickens are treated.
“Beyond cruel,” Wellis says, showing me around his farm in an acid washed durag and white t-shirt. “If a chicken could do it, they'd commit suicide in those densely packed coops.”
He’s happy to show me his farm, regularly pointing to the chickens that roam mostly free in a large enclosed area.
“I’m not a vegetarian,” says Wellis. “Hell I eat ‘em, and they just taste better when they’re raised right. When they’re raised as slaves and they know it, they taste bitter. I taste a chicken I can tell you how much room that chicken has to run around. Swear.”
In one corner of the farm is a dilapidated chicken coop. I ask Wellis about it, and it’s the only time his mood sours during the whole tour.
“Hundred grand mistake is what that is,” he says, and refuses to say much more. “It was a project and it didn't work out,” is all I can get him to add.
The tour was nice, and Wellis seems like a genuinely nice guy, but the failed chicken coop did pique my interest.
While not definitive evidence of wrongdoing, I was able to find a series of building plans filed with the local building inspector in Bonneville County, where Wellis Farms is located. Listed publicly for that property is a set of documents for construction of a chicken coop filed in 2011. There are two plans, one from Wellis, and a revised version by the underwriter of his loan, Tyson Foods. Wellis’s plan was a for a modestly packed coop. The revised plan from Tyson called for a chicken coop with eight times the occupancy. The amount for the loan, $87,250.
While perhaps just an amazing coincidence, this information was provided to Tyson, law enforcement in Wyoming and Idaho, and Dean Banks.
Tyson gave no comment when told about Wellis farms. Police stated that they are still investigating but appreciated “citizen efforts.”
Dean was the least ambivalent. After contacting Wellis, Dean said: “It’d be an awful thing if he was the one who kidnapped me, it really would. Because he doesn't seem like such a bad guy.”
Myra Kindle is an independent investigative reporter. She covers tech, law, politics, and other stories that would be impossible to write about in more traditional outlets.

Myra Kindle is an independent investigative reporter.
Her other reports:

• What does Google want with male sex workers?
  
• A Tyson Foods board member was held ransom for $87,250 in December, 2018. Now released, he says Tyson is suppressing police investigations into finding his captors and threatening legal action if he speaks about his abduction.
  
• Google’s Algorithmic Decay - A Report on the Lenoir, North Carolina Bombing
  
• In 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was losing more than 120 informants a year to Russian KGB. by 1981, that number had dropped to just 10. Now, a former intelligence agent is raising alarm that the wildly unorthodox methods once used to protect Russian sources could pose a devastating new threat
  
• Nearly Two Months After a Terrorist Attack in China Killed 337 People, Investigators Have Gotten No Closer to Determining How the Attack Was Carried Out
  
• After winning $1.3 Million at a Casino, Why does a man cover himself in Gasoline and drop a lit Match?
  
• A Report on the Grey Men of 327 Cedar Lane -- This was part of a collaborative project with nslewis, who wrote the incident that takes place prior, "The grey men of 327 Cedar Lane"
  

Ström in a Storm

When Simon Ström locked himself out of his dormitory at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo in 2016, he thought it a minor inconvenience.
It didn’t dawn on him that with nearly the entire campus away for Thanksgiving break and a fast approaching storm incoming, in the next six hours he would freeze, his heart would stop, and he would be considered dead by the EMTs that found him.
There’s a remarkable story in Buffalo, New York about Simon Ström and his unlikely recovery from that event. It’s a story of the remote chances of success doctors faced when they wrapped Simon’s body in heating pads, slowly raising his core temperature from 64 to 98 degrees. It would detail the doctor’s astonishment when Simon recovered, and their amazement when he suffered no brain damage. It would cheer at the miracle that Simon was released from Mercy Hospital only two days after EMTs thought he had died, and it would reflect on the new university rules put in place to avoid such an accident from happening again.
That story, while incredible, is not entirely unique, and it is not this story.
This is the story of how a former SUNY Buffalo student has startled administrators and disturbed students with his unusual, unique, and often horrifying one-man campus protests.
Based on interviews with Mr. Ström, students, teachers, and officials at SUNY Buffalo, and supported with documentation and email correspondence, independent investigative reporter Myra Kindle, for the first time, tells the tale of how an unassuming student nearly brought Buffalo administrators to their knees, and how he has alarmed hundreds of students in the process.

Fed Up

Once known for his near-death frozen experience, Simon Ström is now known around campus for his disturbed antics. Students have adapted in their own way, ignoring him, avoiding him -- some even say they spend less time on campus because of him. With such a disturbance, the university decided they needed to step in.
This past January, Buffalo took the drastic step of expelling Simon from school. The SUNY Buffalo administration says that this action was not taken to deter Simon from protesting on campus, with one official saying, “The school can’t stop Mr. Ström from protesting in public space. However now that he is no longer a student, he will not be allowed entry into most buildings. He was expelled because of misusing the university facilities -- this is an appropriate response.”
Simon understands the university’s position. He even understand the idea that Buffalo wants to expel him for what he’s done. His issue, he says, is the university had another reason to expel him -- to leverage Simon’s immigration status against him.
The university adamantly denies this, and also believes the extent to which Mr. Ström’s demonstrations are bothersome to campus has been overblown.
“SUNY Buffalo did not take the choice to expel Mr. Ström lightly,” says Debra Wheeler, a State University of New York spokeswoman. “We understand how students visas work -- we know how serious an issue it is to be expelled and what that does to someone’s immigration status. In Mr. Ström’s case, it was the only solution to a very serious behavioral issue that just couldn’t be handled appropriately by law enforcement. Considering his behavior, I would’ve recommended this action in 2018 or earlier. In regards to student reaction, we’re glad that students at Buffalo have taken the demonstrations in stride. I know of no incidence of a student refusing to come to school simply because of Mr. Ström’s protests.”
The administration says they are not trying to use Mr. Ström’s immigration status against him, and that student life has been largely unaffected by Simon’s protests. On both points, there is notable evidence to the contrary.
Records show that, while the university may have expelled Simon for behavioral reasons, calls made to police about his continued protests regularly ask officers to check his immigration status -- something only the university could know about, claims Mr. Ström.
In addition, on the record interviews demonstrate that dozens of students, if not more, have been bothered or troubled by Mr. Ström’s behavior.
One student, commenting anonymously, said: “When he was regularly going to campus, I tried not to study at the library. I was too afraid I would run into one of his art exhibits, or worse, actually see him when he was doing one of his protests.”
In many accounts of Simon’s behavior on campus, students describe living-art performances that include elements of disgust or danger. In regards to his exhibits, students say many were murals dedicated to torture.
Alex Turner, a junior, said of Simon’s exhibits: “They were really messed up. They weren’t like album covers -- they were like legit detailed depictions of suffering. There was one time he dropped a twelve foot skinny poster from the second floor library-window. It was a picture of a woman burning at the stake, but super detailed and showed her body already mostly burnt, the flesh falling off. It was really not cool.”
Consistent in the opinions of students who have witnessed Mr. Ström’s demonstrations or seen his exhibits, is the notion that no one is quite sure what he’s demonstrating against, for, or trying to raise awareness around.
Commenting on the issue, Alex Turner echoes a common sentiment: “I really don’t understand what he was doing with the exhibits and the protests. Everything dealt with torture and depictions of hell, and he mentions the Davis building sometimes in person. It’s a shame --I heard Simon used to be this really smart kid, like a genius, but whatever he’s doing now -- he’s totally lost it because it makes no sense.”

School Strategy

Simon Ström is 22. He wears an old “Coachella” t-shirt from high school, has medium size gauges in his ears, and ‘vapes’, incessantly.
Simon is also an undocumented immigrant. Originally from Sweden, until this past January he held an F1 student visa provided to him by SUNY Buffalo. Now that he has been expelled, he needs to return home or faces possible arrest or deportation.
Simon has complicated feelings on the issue. He believes that the administration may have been right to expel him -- he admits his behavior is bothersome -- but he says that now that he is an undocumented immigrant, university officials have been using that as a tactic to stop him from protesting.
“They always called the cops on me,” says Simon. “But now when the cops come, they sometimes ask about my citizenship. That never used to happen before, and no one knows I’m not a US citizen other than the school.”
In response to Mr. Ström’s claim, university president Satish K. Tripathi provided the following statement: “The State University of New York at Buffalo would never inform local police departments about the immigration status of one of our students. We believe that mixing legal status issues with other disturbances or minor crimes would be an abuse of power.”
While the school is adamant officials would never use Simon’s legal status against him, interviews and records show that Simon’s immigration status is regularly mentioned in police reports and emergency service transcripts identifying complaints about Simon.
In one transcript, a 911 caller repeatedly mentions that officers should look at Simon's immigration status when they arrive on the scene:

...
Operator: And what is he doing?
Caller: He lit [inaudible] on fire. Shouldn't [inaudible] …check his passport.
Operator: What was that, ‘mam?’
Caller: I think he’s here illegally. Check his [inaudible] visa.

Simon asserts that phone calls like this are being made by the administration, and that regardless of their reason for expelling him in the first place, using his immigration status as leverage to stop him from coming to campus is wholly inappropriate.
“I’m a tall, red-haired, white guy,” says Simon. “I went to high school in the United States. I speak perfect english, have an American accent -- the only reason you’d suspect I’m here illegally was if you already knew, and only the school knows.”
This is confirmed by several current and former friends of Simon who spoke to me for this story.
“I just assumed he was from Upstate New York,” said one, who agreed to comment anonymously. “Like when he told us his parents lived in Sweden? We got a big kick out of that. We had no idea he wasn’t from the US. Not to sound weird, but he just looks and sounds like everybody else.”
Asserting that a public university is attempting to deport him because of behavior originating in free speech protest is a serious accusation, but Simon stands by his position that it’s the school who is making the phone calls.
Of course, far more than just the administration is upset with Simon, and he himself admits this. When asked if, irrespective of knowledge of his legal status, anyone would possibly want to get him in trouble, Simon responds: “Yes, definitely. I’ve done a lot of things to get attention on campus, and a lot of it really disturbs people.”
Regardless of his legal status, Simon says that for now, he is determined to stay.
When pressed on why, he responds, “I know my demonstrations and exhibits are weird. I know the students and most of the school don’t understand what I’m doing. I understand all that -- but for now, I want to stay, at least until I can get more updates on what’s going on in the Davis building.”

Disturbing Behavior

For two years Simon Ström has conducted demonstrations and built exhibits on Buffalo’s north campus, and for two years students have noticed.
From the dozens of students I’ve interviewed about various incidences and scenes, I find that many are perturbed or frightened by Mr. Ström, and that nearly every student has their own horrifying or troubling demonstration that they were most bothered by.
“I hated the glass suit the most,” says Sarah Hickenlooper, a sophomore. “The guy [Simon] came to campus with shards of a mirror just taped to his body -- like sharp fucking pieces of glass all over. He looked weird, creepy, but I was also just worried him or someone else would get cut. Really, if you approached him in this suit or rubbed your elbow across him, you would come out bleeding. Now imagine, he’s walking down crowded hallways like that -- what are you supposed to do?”
“I still can’t get out of my head the chicken thing,” says Sarah Banks, also a sophomore. “Simon was walking around the south tunnel, and he had a live chicken with him, right? And then you could see he’s feeding the chicken something, and you’re like, ‘ok, weird, but maybe cute.’ But then you get closer and you realize he’s feeding the chicken, chicken-nuggets from McDonalds. The idea an animal would eat itself is super fucked up, but then the chickens just wouldn’t stop eating -- they just kept going and going.”
“How are people not talking about when he lit himself on fire?” says Daryl Jackson, a senior. “He literally lit himself on fire in front of the whole campus right after midterms ended last year. My girlfriend was in hysterics when he did it -- he was only on fire for a few seconds, but it came out of nowhere and obviously really fucked everybody up. I thought it was a terrorist attack or something.”
In terms of causing a disturbance, the incidences are damning, but Simon looks at it another way.
“The glass -- that was a reflection of who we are. The chicken… that was about how accepting we can be of horrible truths if they taste good. The fire -- that was what we’re doing to ourselves,” says Simon.
Elaborating on the fire, he adds, “That was a complicated one. I wore a fireproof suit under my normal clothes, covered myself in gasoline, and then lit myself on fire. I didn't have the mask on so I took a dive in a snow after a few seconds, but there was a good fire on me before I did.
While his protests might seem both extreme and somewhat aimless (at least from the view that you want someone to understand your message), Simon actually presents a much more cognizant case for his actions when you ask:
“Look, I understand someone isn’t going to see my protests and internalize the message behind them -- I get that’s not going to happen. What I’m hoping for is just that maybe someone wants to talk to me afterword, you know? Maybe they ask me what I was protesting about and what it means, and then maybe that starts a conversation.”
When asked if the methods of his protests are possibly disturbing to other students, Mr. Ström says, “Of course it’s disturbing to other students. Of course. But what I have to tell them is fundamentally disturbing -- maybe less so if you’re religious, but if you're an atheist, it’s a big deal. My protest methods only show the seriousness of the issue -- that’s it.”

The Issue

It’s understandable that Simon Ström is something of a social outcast on campus nowadays. He’s no longer a student, but Simon attended SUNY Buffalo for three and a half years. In that time he met people, friends, teachers, and now they want nothing to do with him.
It’s that loss of connection to a school that he nearly graduated from, and the risk he now faces of being arrested or deported, that I think it’s important to preface Mr. Ström’s message with this -- he’s lost his friends, his education, and risked his future, all in advocacy of an idea.
I preface what he says so strongly to emphasize what he’s lost over it, but also for another reason -- I don’t quite understand it.
“My reasons for this doing this are complicated,” he says. “I’m an atheist. I have been an atheist since probably before I was 12. I think a lot of people find atheism young nowadays. I think it’s the internet -- It’s hard to believe in something so dated like religion when the internet just tears that stuff apart for a lot of kids.”
“But then,” he continues, “growing up, I started to have a different take on atheism. Sometimes I’d almost be jealous of my religious friends cause I would think their beliefs gave them a sort of afterlife security that I lacked. Like, be jealous that a friend could go to heaven, or think he was. Meanwhile I’d think, ‘What am I looking forward to... some void?’”
“Even as a kid, I believed so strongly there was no god, that I thought, well, what I am looking forward to when I die then? But as got older, I started not to see it that way. I started to think about a void or nothingness in death as better than being judged by some god I didn’t understand. Maybe other atheists go through that same sort of transition from atheism, to jealousy of religious conviction, and then a rejoice in their atheism. At least, I mean I think atheists must feel the way I did.”
“Well,” Simon continues, “I guess I have good news and bad news about that for atheists. We’re right there’s no god, I mean there’s no dispute after what I saw. But that other part, about how there’s no afterlife? Yea, that’s wrong. There’s someone judging you. There’s going to be someone who is going to determine if you go into eternal bliss or eternal torment -- that’ll happen, atheist or not, god or no god. What's worse? We have no idea of what we're being judged on.”
As I look for an explanation from Mr. Ström, he goes on to tell me his belief is rooted in his experience in 2016 when he nearly died.
“When I took a taxi back to the dorm from the city,” he starts, “that was when I learned about this. I was standing outside the dormitory, trying to get in, realizing I didn’t have my card key with me. I pulled out my phone and it was dead. I was thinking maybe I should start trying to walk somewhere, maybe to a guard station or to the closest gas station, but I see this storm coming, so I stay put. Soon, and I mean like in a few hours, things start to get pretty scary.”
“After a while, I’m standing outside the dorm and I’m thinking, ‘Fuck, if I don't’ see an RA soon, it’s dark, I can't start walking now,’ and I realized I kind of had to stay where I was. So I stay put, waiting to see someone, but no one comes. When it starts to happen, it happens fast. I start to feel a little woozy, not long after, I pass out. Then, something weird happened. I saw something I wasn't supposed to see, and I saw it because I was between life and death."
Mr. Ström describes the space between life and death as a ‘bug’. One that, "gave me a doorway to a truth that religion tries their best to tell, but fails miserably to do so.”
“When I died, when my brain activity was so insignificant that I couldn't be thought of as alive. When you couldn’t feel my pulse and I was cold to the touch, I saw it.” Simon says. “I saw the fabric. I saw the system of it at work. I may not have recognized if it hadn’t been for the research at the Davis building, but I’m telling you, I know what it is, and I saw it."
‘It’, as Mr. Ström describes, is an elaborate sorting system. In fits and starts he can mutter what is said to be a black space, devoid of everything, light, feeling, and meaning. He says in his near death experience he could see the Earth below this void, and from it he saw bodies, countless thousands of bodies. As they rose from the Earth and to the void he was motionless. He could see the people being put into boxes, three of a kind.
In one, Mr. Ström describes children falling into a box. He can’t make out the ages but he describes them as toddlers. The shape of the box, he says, “indescribable in size and distorted in perception.” In the two other boxes he sees men and women of all types falling into one box or the other. “In one, they fall into a scream. In the other, they fall into laughter,” he says.
“There is heaven and there is a hell. There is even an undecided space for children," says Simon. "These places exist but god didn't make them. I saw it because I was between life and death, and I understood them because of my own work."
In reply to how he knows what the boxes are for, 'heaven' and 'hell' as he describes, he says: “Back when I was someone, when I was respected at this school, I designed something just like it. It’s why I've stayed in Buffalo so long -- I hope they know what they’re doing.”

Expert Opinion

It’s clear that to understand Simon Ström and his nearly indecipherable message -- one that, as he says, is of extra importance to atheist’s like him -- I must first learn what he was working on in the Davis building.
There, at the Davis Engineering and Applied Sciences building, in the large well funded state research lab, I’m surprised. When I ask about Simon Ström, I don't hear horror stories about broken glass or feeding a chicken -- I hear legitimate praise and a deep sadness for a respected researcher now gone.
Dr. Alice Han, the lead working on a project Simon contributed to his freshman year, said: “He is deeply missed by everyone. I have very few undergrads working on my team -- it’s one of our most complicated projects. He was a really great help -- a legitimate genius at his age. It’s a shame he could only work with me those first few months of the Fall of 2016. Even in that short time, he built so many fundamental systems necessary to our project. I really don’t think we could’ve even imagined their implementation without him."
In response to if she had heard about Mr. Ström’s unusual protests on campus, Dr. Han says, “Yes, I know. It’s a terrible thing. He’s clearly going through something. I don’t know for sure, and maybe I shouldn’t be saying this because he was once a student -- but around his near death experience, he just couldn’t do the work anymore.”
Dr. Han says the project that Simon and herself were working on is currently ongoing, and that it is one of the most prestigious and well funded at the 30,000 student university.
In response to what the project is, Dr. Han describes it as: “Do you remember that movie, I guess it’s old now, the Matrix? We’re building a simulated world, sort of like that. It’s really cool research, bleeding edge.”
I’m curious and ask Alice what the purpose of making such a city is.
She responds, “Oh, well so many! If we could make the people in the simulation real enough, as in indistinguishable from human and not unknowing they’re in a simulation, we could run all types of experiments that would be impossible to conduct in the real world.”
In one example, she says, “Suppose you want to know what would happen to humans if Earth’s gravity was different. Here, on Earth, we can’t test that. But in a digital world, you could. We could change gravity in our simulated world and see what happens over generations to our digital citizens. We can see if they’d get taller, shorter, or how their bone density is affected.”
Dr. Han proceeds to tell me several additional examples of experiments you could run with a digital world, but I stop her when one example sticks out.
“One idea,” she starts, “and this is one Simon actually helped work on -- to create an afterlife in a simulated world, and then test if the digital people in that world have religions that mimic the afterlife we create."
I inquire further and ask how Simon contributed to the project.
“The experiment on religion wouldn't be possible without Simon’s contributions, actually. He developed the complicated process that moves the conscious minds of these digital people when they die to a digital heaven, hell, or purgatory that we made. Simon figured out a tunneling system -- essentially it lets you move them from the ‘alive’ space to the ‘dead’ space without the digital people ever knowing. Even if they have great scientific discoveries in their digital world, as long as dead is dead and alive is alive, they’ll never become aware of the digital afterlife we made. This is fundamental to test if there's any other way that information can permeate between the afterlife and the living in the digital world.”
A final question for Dr. Han; I briefly describe the three boxes that Simon described people falling into -- I ask her if there's an explanation for where Simon could have come up with his experience.
She says, “Simon actually made a system just like that. He created the three dividing spaces of heaven, hell, and no judgment -- a nicer version of purgatory. Originally it was just going to be a good afterlife and a bad afterlife in our design, but he didn’t feel comfortable having our ‘god algorithm’ making good/bad determinations on children the same way it does on adults. I told him they’re just fake people in a fake world, but he was adamant we build a third space where children wouldn't be judged.”
I inform Dr. Han of what Simon has said to me in interviews about his near death experience. I show her the transcript, and I relay this message because I think I see a connection between what Simon was working on and his near death experience. Dr. Han sees it too.
“Oh my god,” she says. “I never realized how he combined our legitimate research with his near death experience. He must've have dreamed up the whole thing when he was freezing to death, confusing it with what we’ve worked on in the lab.”
I tell her it’s an explanation that is certainly more plausible than Simon’s story.

Home

After speaking to Dr. Han, I sought another interview with Simon Ström.
I believed that, if I could speak with him again and force him to look at the similarities between the vision he saw in his near death experience and the research he was working on at the time, that he would come to the reasonable conclusion that he imagined his experience.
Unfortunately, I could not have that conversion. Simon Ström has already departed Buffalo for his home in Jakobsberg, Sweden.
He does not agree to a phone interview, and instead emails that since he has returned home, he does not want to test his parents by continuing to speak with me for this story.
“They’re already furious,” he writes. “People here learned about the protests I was staging and it’s been a huge embarrassment for me and my family. For right now, I just want to move on.”
When asked why he returned to Sweden, Mr. Ström writes, "It was my decision, my parents encouraged it, but I decided I needed to go back. I finally was able to discover what’s going on in the Davis lab. In short, it doesn't look like they’re going to stop doing what they’re doing, so I have no reason to stay in the States.”
Through email we continue to converse enough that I am able to point out that Dr. Alice Han and him were working on a project with striking similarities to his vision. Bluntly, I tell him I believe he did not witness a godless sorting system of humans in the void he describes, but rather that he was mixing in details from the project that he was working on at the time.
Through email, he responds: “I know that possibility Myra. I’ve definitely considered that my subconscious slipped in details of the project I was working on with Dr. Han. I thought long and hard that maybe what I saw was just my imagination. I know the details are similar in terms of the three boxes. I also pondered that maybe the bodies I saw floating to the sky was what my mind imagined the transition program looked like -- the one I built to move digital bodies from life to death in Han's simulated world.”
“But I reject all that,” he continues. “I believe my vision is real, even if that means I'm saying we live in a simulated world. I know that that's crazy. I know that's unlikely, but I believe it.”
In our last email correspondence, I ask Mr. Ström to confirm that he believes the vision he saw means we, now, live in a digital world. I also ask if he has proof beyond the account of his vision when he nearly froze.
He writes back, “It's a simulation. I don’t have proof exactly, but I have an argument. For all the men and women that have ever lived on Earth -- that might just be around 100 billion. The simulated worlds Dr. Han and I are working on, each one might hold 10 billion people, and we’ll run that experiment tens of thousands of times. Over time, more conscious human beings will eventually live through a simulated world than will ever have lived in a physical one. Well if I'm just another conscious mind, one of many that have lived and died, by all odds, I’m in a simulation. And as an atheist, that scares me. There might not be a god, but if this world is simulated, who knows what programmers have cooked up for after we die? Who knows by what parameters of good or bad or some other experiment we'll be judged?”
Still in Buffalo, I head back to the Davis building one more time to see Dr. Han. What Simon wrote to me has struck something of a chord. I know we’re not in a simulation built by him and Dr. Han, but the idea that one day humans will wake up in those boxes is frightening.
At Davis engineering, I ask Dr. Han about what Simon wrote about, and asked what she’s working on.
She’s silent after I relay Simon’s fear about the probabilistic odds that he is a conscious mind living in a machine.
“It’s a bit silly, but I suppose it’s true,” she says. “First though, to assume there is any chance we’re in a simulated world, you have to know that one could actually be built. But yes, after you know it's possible to build one, it makes sense that over time more and more people would live through a digital existence than a real one. Simply put, more people will eventually have lived in one of these boxes than will have ever lived on Earth."
She continues, “But these emails… they also confirms something else. His demonstrations and exhibits are definitely a poor attempt at a visceral demonstration against what we’re researching.”
She’s standing next to a centerpiece of the research lab, a prototype of their first digital city.
“Simon is worried we’ll be cruel to the people in this world,” she says, staring at the prototype. “I think he’s worried we’ll put them some in a real hell when they die in their digital world.”
I inquire on whether the prototype works.
She says, “Yes, it works. Right now there are 8 billion people living in this box, simulated minds going about their daily lives.”
I ask what the experiment is and if the prototype world does indeed have a heaven and hell.
Dr. Han responds, “Yes, actually. This one is running the experiment that Simon helped work on. Funny, I’m an atheist myself, but in this little box, I guess they really do have to worry about a god to judge them.”
Driving back from Buffalo, a thought runs through my mind. I know that we do not live in the box in Dr. Han's lab, but I wonder, is it possible we could be living in one like it?
If it's the case that by poor probability you are a conscious mind in a simulation, an afterlife wouldn't be made by an all knowing god to punish or reward. It would be made by programmers and designers with intentions unknown, and I think, perhaps the whims of a programmer is scarier than any religion I know.
Myra Kindle is an independent investigative reporter. She covers tech, law, politics, and other stories that would be impossible to write about in more traditional outlets.

Myra Kindle is an independent investigative reporter.
Her other reports:

• A Tyson Foods board member was held ransom for $87,250 in December, 2018. Now released, he says Tyson is suppressing police investigations into finding his captors and threatening legal action if he speaks about his abduction.
  
• Google’s Algorithmic Decay - A Report on the Lenoir, North Carolina Bombing
  
• In 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was losing more than 120 informants a year to Russian KGB. by 1981, that number had dropped to just 10. Now, a former intelligence agent is raising alarm that the wildly unorthodox methods once used to protect Russian sources could pose a devastating new threat
  
• For Two Years a Former University Student Has Set-Up Unusual Protest Demonstrations in Buffalo, New York - No One Is Still Quite Sure What He’s Protesting
  
• Nearly Two Months After a Terrorist Attack in China Killed 337 People, Investigators Have Gotten No Closer to Determining How the Attack Was Carried Out
  
• After winning $1.3 Million at a Casino, Why does a man cover himself in Gasoline and drop a lit Match?
  
• A Report on the Grey Men of 327 Cedar Lane -- This was part of a collaborative project with nslewis, who wrote the incident that takes place prior, "The grey men of 327 Cedar Lane"
  

A Party of Wealth, Power, Prostitutes and Surprisingly, Absolutely Zero Sexual Acts

On a cool summer night in June of 2018, Sergey Brin hosted a party in Mountain View, California, in one of the many residences he maintains in the state.
The known names on the guest list would be short, just Brin and FaceBook’s Mark Zuckerberg, but the guest list in total would be over 40. A bulk of those in attendance? mostly prostitutes and escorts, both male and female.
According to one male escort, who spoke on the condition of anonymity: “It was literally every high end sex worker from the area -- everyone I knew was at that party, and absolutely none of us knew why we were there.”
The escort, who on several occasions last summer would attend parties hosted by Brin, agreed to speak with me extensively for this story. He has asked me to refer to him as Matt to protect his identity.
“This was not a typical client,” Matt says. “When we arrived at the party, I think all of us were a bit starstruck by the presence of Zuckerberg and Brin. There was nothing that gave away we were going to a Google house -- it was set up just like any other job.”
The party seemed to have no objective, and the evening was, by all accounts, mostly drinking and mingling among the guests.
“There was no presentation, no speech, no dinner even. It was just drinks and music. The whole thing was lowkey. It was the easiest night I think I’ve ever had,” one female escort recounted, who also spoke anonymously for this story.
“Absolutely zero sex,” she continued. “There wasn’t a lick of pressure on me or anyone else to do anything sexual, at all. It was like they just needed to fill the room with good looking people and had no idea who to call.”
Around 11 PM the party was over, and after a majority of the guests were paid, everyone left the home. According to both Matt and two others at the party, the escorts were paid in cash and uniformly shorted $100.
“It honestly could have just been a mistake,” Matt says. “Sergey Brin just doesn’t seem like the type of guy to stiff you. Besides, we could have complained but no one did, and there were a lot of us. I think it was just such an easy night that no one cared about the $100.”
The parties that summer would continue, but with fewer escorts and prostitutes at each event. Zuckerberg too apparently only attended the first party.
Matt would go on to six more parties at the Brin residence that summer, the last of which marked the end of what Sergey Brin was up to, Matt says.

A Guest No One Knew

As the parties went on that summer and the guest lists grew shorter, it became apparent to many of the guests that there was one person who stood out, Emily Wagner.
“I went to five parties that summer, ” says Dan, another male escort who agreed to speak with me on the condition I not use his real name. “The circumstance may have been weird, but they were pretty chill parties mostly, and it was super easy work. The last party I went to was super strange though. It was just a few male escorts and that one chick, Emily.”
“That was the one party where she really stood out to me because it was strange,” Dan continues, “I mean it was a little weird she was the only girl, but it was just the way Sergey wouldn't stop staring at her that creeped me out. I didn’t say much to her myself. I was too intimidated to be honest.”
At a little under six feet tall and in her mid to late thirties, little is known about Emily Wagner. Public records for her come up completely empty, and though repeated attempts were made to contact her, she could not be reached for comment for this story.
What is clear is that she has a close relationship with Sergey Brin, and by at least one account, it is believed she lives at the residence where Brin hosted his parties.
“Gorgeous? Observant? Creepy? I really don’t know what to say about Emily,” says Matt. “She was at every party, but she just stood in a corner, looking all the other guests. But ‘looking’ is not quite right -- what she did was much creepier. It’s hard to describe, but you could just tell when Emily was looking at you, and she would just really peer at you, you know? I didn’t like it, and that’s all I can remember her doing at every party. On top of that you had Sergey looking at her the whole time.”
Matt claims that their relationship is clear, and that he believes she was the reason behind the parties.
“I just don't see any other way to explain it,” he says. “I was at every party, and as the guest list was shrinking, and the way Emily would look at all the guests, I just think that she was like selecting escorts whom she liked from the parties, and inviting fewer guests over time, like she was weeding us out.”
When presented with the suggestion Sergey hosted the parties simply so Emily could look at guests and select who she wanted at the next party, Dan commented, “I guess that makes about as much sense as any other reason to host sexless parties with no one but sex workers.”

Signs of a Fraught Relationship

While the exterior shows a somewhat strange relationship between Sergey and Emily, there is evidence their relationship might be much more fraught.
“You could tell she was not OK,” a female escort that attended Sergey’s second party recounts of Emily. “I’ve been in this business a long time, and not always at a fancy service. I’ve had men stare at me the way Sergey leered at Emily. It’s nerve wracking having someone do that to you, look and judge throughout the night. It’s like she just had to stay pretty in the corner for all the guests to see. I barely saw her talk to anyone, and I’m not sure, but it just seems like he has an unhealthy control over her life.”
Other accounts tell of a relationship that might teeter on being violent. According to Dan, at the fifth and final party he attended, he could hear Sergey screaming at Emily as the guests were leaving for the night.
“I had forgotten my jacket inside,” Dan says, “and when I went back to the house to get it, I just stood at the front door and heard Sergey yelling. He was legit pissed. I’m pretty sure I heard Sergey yelling, like, ‘What don’t I have!?’, and ‘Why won't’ you love me? Who do I need to be like?’ It was really intense. I even thought I heard a few slaps.”
When asked why he didn’t inquire to Sergey about what was happening or call the police, Dan says: “Well Sergey came to a door after a while, when he realized I was standing there. When he opened the door, I saw Emily clear in the background -- she looked fine. Sergey though, a finger on his right hand was bent backward, like he jammed it really hard -- it was noticeably messed up. I asked if everything was OK, Sergey said ‘yes’ and Emily nodded her head. I thought it best I just leave -- I even said screw it and left my nice leather jacket inside.”
When asked for comment on this and multiple other details in this story, Sergey Brin declined to comment through his lawyers. Alphabet and Google have also declined comment.

What Money Can’t Buy

Matt claims to know why Sergey hosted escort filled parties in the summer of 2018. As one of the few guests to attend all seven parties, he might very well have an idea.
On the evening of the sixth party, Matt recounts a similar experience of what happened to Dan. Matt had left his cell phone inside the Brin residence and came back about an hour after the party had ended.
“Those parties ended early, so I couldn't have returned later than 12:30, or 1 AM,” Matt says. “I wouldn’t have gone back if I my phone wasn’t so important, but it’s my life -- I need it just to work. I thought I left it out by the pool, so I figured even if they were asleep, I could just grab it, no problem.”
Matt returned to what appeared to be a sleeping house, and decided to walk around the perimeter of the property to the pool where he could get his phone. There, however, he encountered Emily in a most unusual state.
“She was just standing there, naked, at the edge of the pool,” Matt says. “I didn’t know what to do -- if I should say anything? Her back was turned to me and I didn’t even know if she knew I was there. I found my phone and just wanted to grab it and leave, but then she said something to me.”
“Do you know? If I fall in this pool, I’ll die,” Matt claims Emily told him, and says she added: “It would be worth it, to get away from him.”
“It was surreal,” Matt says. “At that point I had to tell her I was there, like properly announce myself. I told her that I wouldn't let her drown -- that if she fell into the pool I would go in after her. She said it didn’t matter, that she couldn’t be saved.”
Matt says he then had around a twenty minute conversation with Emily as she stood near the edge of the pool. While he wouldn't reveal everything about their conversation (a ‘private moment’, he said), he did say it definitely shaped his view on Sergey.
“Their relationship, the parties, the whole thing just made a lot more sense after talking to Emily. I think it comes down to love, and how these big power controlling guys respond to not being able to get what they want. Sergey had those parties cause Emily wasn’t interested in him, and he need to know why, and maybe more importantly, ‘if not me, then who could be good enough for Emily to love?’”
Matt doesn’t have evidence of Sergey’s control beyond his observations, but he sticks to his opinion on why Brin had the parties.
“Guys like that want to know who their competition is, so they can beat them and be better; he just has to understand what those guys/girls have and what he doesn’t. He clearly was really into Emily in any meaningful way -- he just wanted to show he could exert nothing was out of his grasp. That’s why they hired the escorts, so she could see a bunch of people that Sergey had control over, and he could figure out what she liked, and then just as easily dismiss them. Control is definitely Sergey’s thing -- I mean just look at the way he was a hawk on Emily.”

Missing in Mountain View

The seventh and final party that Sergey Brin held was attended by just five people. Three male escorts, Sergey Brin, and Emily Wager.
“It was the one party where I guess they figured they had to serve dinner because there just weren’t enough people standing around to be talking the whole night,” says Matt. “I wish they didn’t though -- we all got so sick from the food.”
Another witness confirmed to me that Matt was indeed at the seventh party, and that dinner was served and several guests felt unwell after, but declined to say any further under fear of legal reprisals from Brin or one of his companies.
Matt claims the last party fell apart pretty quick when people started to get sick.
“You barely had two people in the same room at the same time,” Matt says. “We were all too feeling unwell or going to the bathroom. The only person who didn’t get sick was Emily, which was weird cause I definitely saw her eat with us.”
Matt struggles with what happened towards the end of that evening, but I think it’s important for me to recount it exactly as Matt phrased. That being said, it’s fairly clear there’s some confusion on Matt’s part, and in his own admission, it’s possible he misremembered what he saw, or that it was clouded by the drinks and disoriented by the low-light party atmosphere.
Matt claims that during one of his attempts to find a restroom that wasn’t occupied, he came across a storage closet with freakish contents.
“Inside,” Matt claims, “were the repeated patterns of Emily’s face printed on a sort of nylon plastic mixed, in with thick wires and the smell of washed metal. It was like a utility closet of spare parts.”
If Matt had been reserved about Sergey and Emily after talking to her by the pool, he said this was his breaking point, that he knew something was wrong and he needed to talk to Emily.
“There was no sign of her,” Matt says. “She must’ve left sometime after people started to get sick and when I found the closet.”
“I was confused by what I had seen, but I was worried about her too,” Matt continues. "When I realized Sergey didn’t know where she was either though, I have to admit I felt a bit relieved. If he didn’t know where she was, I figured she probably wanted it that way. There was one thing I did feel genuinely bad about, at one point I saw Sergey sobbing, asking ‘Why won’t she love me?’ -- at that point I figured I should just leave.”
Mr. Brim, Google, and Alphabet all declined to comment on Emily Wager, but sources close to Brin inform me that he is actively searching for her.
“They don’t have much to go on to find her,” the source close to Brin says. “Right now they’re just looking for women about six feet tall, wearing a men’s leather jacket, and supposedly has around $4,000 cash on her.”
The other detail my source close to Brin has doesn't make much sense, but they said, “oh, and apparently she weighs half a ton.”
Myra Kindle is an independent investigative reporter. She covers tech, law, politics, and other stories that would be impossible to write about in more traditional outlets.

Myra Kindle is an independent investigative reporter.
Her other reports:

• What does Google want with male sex workers?
  
• A Tyson Foods board member was held ransom for $87,250 in December, 2018. Now released, he says Tyson is suppressing police investigations into finding his captors and threatening legal action if he speaks about his abduction.
  
• Google’s Algorithmic Decay - A Report on the Lenoir, North Carolina Bombing
  
• In 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was losing more than 120 informants a year to Russian KGB. by 1981, that number had dropped to just 10. Now, a former intelligence agent is raising alarm that the wildly unorthodox methods once used to protect Russian sources could pose a devastating new threat
  
• For Two Years a Former University Student Has Set-Up Unusual Protest Demonstrations in Buffalo, New York - No One Is Still Quite Sure What He’s Protesting
  
• Nearly Two Months After a Terrorist Attack in China Killed 337 People, Investigators Have Gotten No Closer to Determining How the Attack Was Carried Out
  
• A Report on the Grey Men of 327 Cedar Lane -- This was part of a collaborative project with nslewis, who wrote the incident that takes place prior, "The grey men of 327 Cedar Lane"
  

Boardwalk Attraction

What drives a person to cover themselves in gasoline and drop a match by their feet?
That was the question that ran through the minds of many in a crowd outside the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey on March 23rd, 2019.
At approximately 7:45PM on that cold spring eve, a Mr. James Ferdini, age 47, covered himself in gasoline and was prepared to drop a match in the fuel.
As the crowd shouted for him to stop and several witnesses called the police, Mr. Ferdini reportedly stood unfazed, simply grinning and appearing to revel in the crowd’s shock.
“It was a suicidal action but it didn’t look like a suicidal person,” says Sam Kenset, an eyewitness to the incident. “I guess I don’t really know what a suicidal person looks like, but his movements and the way he was talking -- he just didn’t seem like a man down on his luck.”
Ms. Kenset is quite astute in her observation -- Mr. Feredini was certainly not down on his luck. In fact only moments before covering himself in gasoline, Mr. Ferdini had cashed out more than $1.3 million in winnings from the Borgata Hotel and Casino, making his suicidal action all the more puzzling.
However dangerous, Mr. Ferdini’s gasoline soaked stunt would not lead to his death on March 23rd, but his life was not long for this world either. Three days later on March 26th he would be found dead from an entirely different cause.
In Mr. Ferdini’s incredible winnings and suicidal tendencies leading up to his unusual and grizzly death on March 26th, many questions remain. Who was James Ferdini? What happened to his more than million dollars in winnings? And what was the lead up of events that caused his demise?
Based on interviews with management at the Borgata Hotel and Casino, local police and investigators, and corroborated with eyewitness accounts, independent investigative reporter Myra Kindle, for the first time, brings you a report on the man who nearly bankrupted a casino, and whose luck seemed to make him invincible until his highly improbable death.

What are the Odds?

As the match fell to James Ferdini’s feet outside the Borgata Hotel and Casino, the crowd stood agasp as they waited for the inevitable fire and horrible death of a gas soaked man. This moment would never come however, and the match reportedly landed in the puddle of gasoline meeting it as though it were water.
“The crowd started to look away the moment he dropped the match,” says Matthew Gershowitz, a witness to the event. “I couldn’t though -- I needed to see what would happen. I mean we all thought we were witnessing a suicide or something, but the guy was jovial, happy, making jokes with the crowd before he lit the match. And then when it hit the gas, it just burned out, and the man started laughing. We were all amazed. It was like a miracle -- we thought he’d die for sure.”
While it’s quite understandable that the crowd believed they had witnessed a miracle when James did not burst into flames, professor of organic chemistry at Villanova University, Marcy Li, says the odds of Mr. Ferdini’s death were far less than certain.
“Gasoline is certainly flammable, but not like in the way shown in movies and TV,” says professor Li. “It’s the layer of vapor above that gasoline that is most likely to combust. There could be a number of factors like wind, humidity and temperature that improved Mr. Ferdini’s chance of avoiding being burned alive. I would certainly say he’s lucky, but I wouldn’t say it’s a miracle he didn’t burst into flames.”
If Mr. Ferdini relied on luck that day to survive, it would appear to have been with him in spades for quite some time.
Having just come from the Borgata casino floor, James was reportedly on a ‘hot-streak’, winning tens of thousands of dollars an hour over the preceding two days.
“You have to imagine we were pretty happy when he left the casino,” says Richard Markelson, a floor manager at the Borgata. “Normally we want customers to stay as long as possible so the house can win our money back, but Mr. Ferdini never had a bad roll, spin, or lever pull the whole 40 consecutive hours he was gambling at the Borgata. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Mr. Markelson was able to confirm through cash-logs and casino surveillance that Mr. Ferdini had indeed won big at the Borgata, and records show his total winnings amounted to $1,348,427.
Mr. Markelson said of the winnings: “It was enough of a loss over a short period of time that the owners of the casino were worried our insurance premiums were gonna jump. A casino in Atlantic City simply doesn’t lose that much money in such a short time, at least not to a nobody, and Mr. Ferdini was certainly a nobody.”

A Career Loser

While management at the Borgata Hotel and Casino did not know Mr. Ferdini prior to his 40 hour lucrative gambling binge, many on Atlantic City’s boardwalk have been acutely aware of James for years.
For example after James’s stunt with the gasoline, he was arrested and taken to the Atlantic City jail and held on the possible charge of disorderly conduct, but was released after the charges were dropped. The reason? The police had a long record of interactions with Mr. Ferdini and thought of him only as a minor risk.
“We were more worried about the guy’s mental health than him causing a scene on the boardwalk,” says Atlantic City officer Paul Stevenson. “We’ve known James for years -- I mean he’s a loser. Is it a shock to me that he would try and commit suicide like that? Absolutely not.”
When asked why the police did not opt to commit Mr. Ferdini to a hospital on a psychological evaluation, officer Stevenson replied: “The plan was to have him committed, but some lawyer showed up and we didn’t want a legal fight, so we decided to release him instead. I felt a bit mixed about it. I mean the guy was clearly suicidal -- why else would you douse yourself in gasoline?”
When told that Mr. Ferdini was reportedly jovial and happy during the gasoline incident, and that he had in fact won more than a million dollars immediately prior to the event, officer Stevenson struggled with the narrative: “That doesn’t sound like the James Ferdini I know. He’s always been a depressed gambler, and never won a game in his life as far as I know. He couldn’t win a hundred bucks, let alone a million. I can’t even believe they let him into the Borgata in the first place, but I guess the cash winnings explains the lawyer.”
Officer Stevenson asked if I could confirm the details of the winnings and that Mr. Ferdini was in a jovial mood during the gasoline incident. When I showed documentation of Mr. Ferdini’s winnings provided by Mr. Markelson and relayed several eyewitness accounts as to his temperament, officer Stevenson replied: “I don’t get it. So, why’d he try to burn himself alive?”

The ‘Cooler’

Perhaps no individual has a better sense of who Mr. Ferdini is and what happened to him than the floor manager at the Borgata, Mr. Markelson.
For 40 hours prior to the gasoline incident, Mr. Ferdini bet heavily at the Borgata casino, and Mr. Markelson was in close proximity for much of his hot-streak.
“I was actually supposed to be on vacation that week,” says Mr. Markelson, “but I got called in because the other cooler was sick.”
A ‘cooler’ as Mr. Markelson explained, is a relic of old casinos that today is rarely used, however some establishments still invest in what could be called ‘charms’ to bring bad luck to high rollers.
“I got hired because I’m unlucky,” explains Mr. Markelson. “I can do the job of floor manager just fine -- don't get me wrong -- but it was my knack for bad luck that got me the job for sure.”
A cooler operates by simply being present around those that are on a run of good luck. In Mr. Markelson’s account, he says that being around him will bring such bad luck to any gambler that their cards will go cold, their lever pulls result in no winnings, and their wheel spins doomed to lose money.
“It’s a talent I’ve had since, well, forever,” says Mr. Markelson. “If I just stand near someone, they’ll start to have bad luck like me. I know it sounds crazy, and sometimes I don’t believe it myself, but it’s true. I mean, like I said, I think that’s why the casino hired me. They could count on me to go onto the casino floor and bring bad luck to anyone that’s winning a bit too much. Best part, since it’s based on superstition, it’s completely above board.”
With James Ferdini, Richard Markelson found that his power did not work however.
“I don’t know about before I showed up, but for when I was watching him, that man could not lose. The casino made me stay multiple shifts, I’m talking nearly 40 hours to watch him and were hoping I’d bring him bad luck, but it never happened. He just kept on winning no matter what game he played.”

An Escalation of Bets

In attempting to find James Ferdini’s state of mind prior to the gasoline incident, floor manager Richard Markelson provided unfettered access to video of the casino floor, even though he realized he could be breaking several state gambling commission laws by allowing a reporter to look at such surveillance. In fact, more than taking the risk, it was Mr. Markelson that called me and led me to this story in the first place.
“The police didn’t send him to the hospital after the gas thing I’ve been told. I figured the truth has to be somewhere and when police won’t do their job, I guess it’s reporters that have to step in,” says Mr. Markelson. “The most important thing to be me personally is finding out why he died just a few days later in that horrible freak accident -- the one on March 26th.”
When asked if Mr. Markelson had any interest in finding Mr. Ferdini’s still missing $1.3 million, he replied: “Of course, but that’s not my primary concern here. I just want to know what the fuck happened. How does a guy who should have felt on top of the world go to dousing himself in gasoline, and then ends up dead a few days later? I really want to know.”
In the video access provided by Mr. Markelson, I managed to find new clues that might be able to explain Mr. Ferdini’s downward spiral.
It could best be described as an escalation of bets that appeared to take place soon after Mr. Ferdini began his run of good luck. According to video of the casino floor, around the time manager Richard Markelson appeared, Mr. Ferdini started his miraculous winning streak.
The video shows Mr. Ferdini starting with craps, moving to baccarat, then slot machines, and followed by a long run at twenty-one. He continues to gamble for 40 straight hours, much of it with Mr. Markelson in close proximity.
“I was the only cooler around, so the higher ups at the Borgata made me stay the whole time. I got a lot of overtime that week,” says Mr. Markelson.
Curiously, the video shows that at around the 25 hour mark Mr. Ferdini attracts something of a crowd. While the video offers no sound, it appears as though Mr. Ferdini is making several wagers with his new found groupies.
At first a few in his new entourage gamble him directly in casino floor games like Texas Holdem, but it appears as though they make several bets outside of the casino games as well.
In one instance Mr. Ferdini appears to bet that he can drink boiling hot water. The video shows him drinking a scalding hot cup and immediately receiving a small payout from several people he was talking to before beginning the stunt.
It became clear to me after reviewing the video surveillance that for this story, I would need to speak to at least one of the people who witnessed Mr. Ferdini taking on these non-casino game bets. Thankfully, with Mr. Markelson’s help I was able to track down Maria Nowak, who in the video appears to spend several hours with Mr. Ferdini.
A resident of Atlantic City, Ms. Nowak was able to confirm that Mr. Ferdini was taking part in what she describes as “extreme behavior”, and that he was seemingly willing to bet on anything and everything. Even games that were clearly not of chance, like drinking boiling hot water.

”For $500, Right?”

Why did Mr. Ferdini cover himself in gasoline and drop a match? It’s a question essential to understanding his mindset, and one for which the answer appears to be quite simple.
After tracking down Ms. Nowak, a long time resident who often partakes in long gambling binges herself, she claims Mr. Ferdini covered himself in gasoline and dropped a match in the fuel simply because of a wager.
“We had been doing side bets for hours,” says Ms. Nowak, who agreed to meet me at Hayday Cafe, a local coffee shop. “I was with a group of friends and we noticed that this guy [Mr. Ferdini] had not been losing any bets for hours. The guy was pretty much throwing money around and that type of attitude attracts the crowd I was with. So, we started making small talk and then made a few bets, dumb, small ones to start.”
When asked what bets her group made with Mr. Ferdini, Ms. Nowak replies: “At first it was things like, how many casino chips he could fit into his mouth. But then it escalated pretty quickly, like soon we were betting on how much money he could win in an hour. Then a bit after that he did this really stupid boiling hot water challenge -- he simply bet he could drink boiling hot water without having to go to the hospital. The bet didn’t make any sense, but like everything else, he won.”
“The gasoline challenge was the craziest though,” she continues. “It was clearly a joke when my friend suggested it, but James took him up on it right away. The challenge was, like, ‘can you cover yourself in gasoline, drop a match, and survive?’ James said he would do it for $500, and we just assumed he was kidding, but sure enough he was dead serious.”
Ms. Nowak claims that she too was present in the crowd outside the Borgata when Mr. Ferdini made good on the gasoline bet, and that immediately prior to him dropping the match, he said to her and the rest of the gambling entourage, “This is for $500, right?”
“He said it but I’m not too sure how many people heard it,” Ms. Nowak says. “I mean the whole crowd was screaming for him to stop. They all thought the guy wanted to kill himself. I guess one of us nodded our heads to James’s question, and then he dropped the match. I’ll be damned, but he won that bet too. We gave him $500 alright, not that he needed it after making all that money at the Borgata.”
When asked if Ms. Nowak saw Mr. Ferdini after he was released from the police station, she responds: “Yea, we hung out for the next two or three days -- all of us -- the gambling group that had formed at the casino, James Ferdini, and then, oh yea, that guy Richard Makel-something. I think he worked at the Borgata but he hung around with us for a couple days while we partied at a different hotel. It was around the time Richard and the rest of us left that James was in that freak accident.”

Richard Markelson

The details of Ms. Nowak’s account have confirmed two things to this reporter.
One, Mr. Ferdini’s suicidal gesture to cover himself in gasoline was nothing more than a bet to earn more money. Feeling high from his good luck at the casino, it would appear Mr. Ferdini thought himself invincible and was willing to take on any challenge, even if it put his life on the line.
Two, Borgata floor manager and ‘cooler’ Richard Markelson has not been fully forthcoming in his account of what happened. For example, he never mentioned spending time with Mr. Ferdini after leaving the Borgata.
Confronting Mr. Markelson, I ask him for a more accurate account of what happened after Mr. Ferdini’s gasoline soaked stunt. Mr. Markelson is nervous in his reply, realizing he’s been caught withholding valuable information.
“You have to understand that James is not particularly good with money,” starts Mr. Markelson. “I know I’m saying that having really only met the guy at the Borgata casino, but you could just tell he was something of a loser. Maybe other people told you that too, I don’t know. My point is James was destined to spend that money on drugs and alcohol, and well, we all kind of just tagged along for the ride.”
Mr. Markelson goes on to describe a drug fueled binge that lasted from Saturday March 23rd until sometime before Mr. Ferdini’s death on Tuesday, March 26th.
“James and I had been awake for more than 40 hours when he left the casino, and I was going to go to bed, but somehow I got roped into his entourage he found at the Borgata when he was raking in cash. I would’ve gone home, but free cocaine is free cocaine. I’m not particularly proud of saying that, but it’s true -- I really like the drug.”
Richard Markelson says that in addition to drugs, Mr. Ferdini hired prostitutes and strippers for the group’s amusement.
“I’m not into all the seedy stuff, but we had been awake for a long long time and on so much shit. I mean we were taking meth rips and stuff. Yea, it’s weird now that I look back on it, but a binge can be like that sometimes.”
The most important question to this reporter is what happened in the final hours of Mr. Ferdini’s life. In this respect, Mr. Markelson claims to know nothing.
“I left before he died on Tuesday,” says Mr. Markelson. “It doesn’t surprise me that he died though. The gasoline bet was just the beginning of it. That girl, Maria Nowak, the one that told you I was hanging out with the impromptu entourage -- it was her boyfriend that really stepped things up in a pretty violent way in terms of betting.”
When asked what he means by “violent”, Mr. Markelson responds: “I mean they were actually gambling on Russian roulette in the hotel room when I left.”

That Other Roulette

Once again reaching out to Ms. Nowak, I ask her about Mr. Markelson’s description of partying and gambling in a hotel with Mr. Ferdini.
It was at this point that Ms. Nowak declined any further questions, only providing the statement: “I’ve said everything I’m going to say.”
While this seemed like a certain dead end to discovering what happened in the final hours of Mr. Ferdini’s life and also possibly to tracking down what happened to his $1.3 million in winnings, I by luck received a phone call shortly before I was ready to call it quits on this investigation.
The phone call was from one Mr. Samuel Howlser, boyfriend to Ms. Maria Nowak.
Mr. Howlser said he wished to speak with me to clarify a few details that Ms. Nowak had shared with me and to dispute any “lies” stated by Mr. Markelson.
“Me and Maria didn’t steal nobody’s money and we’re not gonna get in trouble for what Richard Markelson or anyone in that entourage might be telling you,” Mr. Howsler said to me in a phone interview.
When asked about details of the drug fueled gambling binge shared by Mr. Markelson and Ms. Nowak, Mr. Howsler mostly confirms their accounts, however his description of floor manager Makelson is less favorable than what Mr. Markelson told me himself.
“He was the craziest fucker of the bunch, definitely,” says Mr. Howlser. “He knew the hookups for the crystal and coke, got us ketamine too. But the nuttiest thing about him is what the fuck he’d bet on. Like if Ferdini thought he was invincible, doubly so for that manger from the Borgata. Markelson was the one that brought out a revolver for Russian roulette too, and they played like dozens of games.”
Russian roulette, a lethal game of chance that has the player hold a loaded pistol to their head and fire, is an extremely dangerous game that has been popularized in media and fiction for decades. The game requires a loaded revolver to have at least one bullet chambered before firing, with the odds of death usually being one in six.
“It was fucking crazy when Markelson said he’d play it, but the dude was having as good luck as Ferdini so he thought he could do it,” says Mr. Howlser. “So they load a pistol with a bullet and start playing each other cause they were the only two fuckers crazy enough to do it. They play one round, but no winner so they go again. Second round, no winner so a third. Eventually they play enough rounds where they figure they gotta up the odds. So instead of loading one bullet, they load two. They play round after round with two out of six chambers loaded with bullets, spinning the revolver cylinder each time before they pull the trigger. This goes on for a while right, and then they load another fucking bullet. Each round now these guys have a one-in-two chance of blowing their brains out, but they keep playing.”
In Mr. Howlser’s recounting over the phone, I hear he is deeply disturbed by this story and ask why him and everyone in the gambling entourage continued to sit in the hotel room. In response he says, “We had been up for days smoking crystal and doing other shit. We were fuckng zombies. It’s only looking back now, sober, that I can see how crazy it was.”
But the game of lethal roulette was not over yet. Mr. Howlser claims that Mr. Ferdini and Mr. Makelson continued to play round after round, occasionally loading another bullet until finally the revolver was fully loaded.
“With six out of six chambers loaded, the odds of them dying on the next trigger pull was 100%,” says Mr. Howsler. “And I’ll damned, but they both went, and they both fucking lived. Somehow, they both got dud cartridges. After that, they both just had huge laugh for a while. A little bit later, Richard Markelson leaves and James Ferdini and the rest of us stay doing drugs for a bit until the rest of us guests leave too.”
Before Mr. Howlser ends the phone call, he stresses again the reason for contacting me.
“What happened is a messed up story, I know, but the point is that me and Maria don’t know anything about James Ferdini’s death or where his money is. Once we were sober enough to leave that seedy hotel outside Atlantic City, we left along with the rest of the people that were following James. And when we left, he was alive, and he had his money.”

Bad Luck

While Mr. Markelson, Mr. Howlser, and Ms. Nowak all say they only know the most basic details of how James Ferdini died, his death has actually been well documented by investigators and the coroner's office for Atlantic City.
Prior to this report, it was the mindset of Mr. Ferdini that was previously unknown. Sill up in the air is the whereabouts of his $1.3 million. But from what I've found, the report on his death is fully accurate, and even clears any of the entourage that was following him from being involved in any possible wrongdoing related to James Ferdini’s death.
On Tuesday March 26th at approximately 4:30AM, it would appear Mr. Ferdini’s luck simply ran out.
In that early morning hour, someone on Mr. Ferdini’s floor had ordered room service. As the porter was delivering the food, he slipped and fell outside of Mr. Ferdini’s room.
The noise from the fall awoke Mr. Ferdini who opened his door to find the porter picking up a tray of food in the hallway.
Upset at the disruption and the clanging of silverware outside his room, Mr. Ferdini proceeded to yell at the porter, pushing him against the wall in the hallway.
The confrontation ended when Mr. Ferdini told the porter that he was so upset that he was going to go down to the lobby and speak to management about the disruption.
Heading to the elevator, the porter told Mr. Ferdini that it was out of service. Frustrated, he turned to the stairwell and began walking downstairs.
Mr. Ferdini would never make it to the lobby however.
What Mr. Ferdini didn’t know was that the porter had also used the stairs to walk up to his floor, and that along the way he had spilled a small dish of ketchup.
When Mr. Ferdini walked across the spot where the porter had dropped the ketchup, he slipped and fell, falling down the stairs and knocking himself unconscious on the ground floor.
While in bad shape, investigators say that Mr. Ferdini was still alive at this moment, but what came next would be the fatal blow, or series of blows.
With the elevator out, the stairwell was the only way up and down the hotel floors. While Mr. Ferdini was unconscious on the ground, he blocked the entryway to the stairwell from the ground floor. A guest a moment later would attempt to open the door to the stairwell, but found that it was blocked by some obstruction that he could not see. Bothered and wanting to get to his room, the guest then started slamming on the door, thrusting it open with all his energy. He did not realize it, but the door he was thrusting over and over was slamming into the left side of Mr. Ferdini’s temple. The heavy metal door banged away over and over again, causing Mr. Ferdini’s brain to hemorrhage, and eventually doing enough damage that it would kill him fully.
The guest only stopped thrusting as the porter came back down the stairs to see Mr. Ferdini with his head being repeatedly bashed in by the door.
The porter screamed and soon the guest was made aware that he had accidentally killed Mr. Ferdini.
In this unusual and grizzly death, a confluence of bad luck came together to end Mr. Ferdini’s life.
If the elevator had not been out. If a guest on Mr. Ferdini’s floor had not ordered room service. If the guest had not ordered a dish that came with ketchup. If the porter had not spilled ketchup in the stairwell or dropped plates outside Mr. Ferdini’s room. If Mr. Ferdini had not waken up. If he had not confronted the porter and decided to go down to the lobby. If he had not slipped in the stairwell. If a guest on the ground floor did not repeatedly try to enter the stairwell. If any of these things had gone slightly differently, Mr. Ferdini would still be alive.
It could be said that Mr. Ferdini had finally found a run of bad luck, and incredible bad luck at that.

Double Negative

I cannot speak to Mr. Ferdini. He died long before I came to Atlantic City. For this story I’ve had to rely on the video surveillance from the Borgata casino and several eyewitness accounts of the drug fueled binge at the seedy hotel outside Atlantic City.
In those accounts from Mr. Ferdini’s hotel room, I’m left with conflicting views and shattered narratives.
It is clear to me that Ms. Nowak, Mr. Howlser, and Mr. Markelson cannot be trusted to give a full accounting of what happened. In my mind, the clearest liar of them is Mr. Markelson, who both omitted his story of seeing James after the gasoline incident, and also whose story is in direct conflict with Mr. Howsler and Ms. Nowak. While Mr. Markelson claims it was Mr. Howlser that had a revolver to play roulette, Mr. Howlser and Ms. Nowak both say it was Mr. Markelson.
Embedded in these lies and less than full accounts is a still missing $1.3 million. Something I believe Mr. Markelson is desperate to try and find, and for which was his original impulse to contact this reporter.
Now with an understanding of James Ferdini’s mindset leading up to his death, I am left with the unanswered question of what happened to Mr. Ferdini’s missing money.
I head back to where this story started, the Borgata where the gambling binge took fold. I seek an interview with Bill Hornbuckle, President of MGM resorts and a majority stakeholder in the Borgata Hotel and Casino. He agrees to speak with me and provides a full record on floor manger Richard Markelson.
I start the interview by asking if he’s aware if Richard Markelson owns a handgun, and in particular a revolver. In response, he says: “Our records indicate Mr. Markelson has a concealed carry license from the state of New Jersey for a Ruger LCR Six-Shot revolver. We have this in our records because Mr. Markelson is authorized to carry the weapon on the premises.”
Mr. Hornbuckle asks if I believe Mr. Markelson was involved in Mr. Ferdini’s death, to which I tell him I do not believe he is. I give the accounts of Mr. Markelson, Mr. Howlser, and Ms. Nowak, and while Mr. Hornbuckle is disturbed by the story, he agrees that Mr. Markelson has done nothing strictly illegal outside of drug use. He does add however: “The story with Russian roulette, if true, would certainly make us reconsider allowing Mr. Markelson to carry a weapon in the casino.”
Confirming that Mr. Markelson was the owner of the revolver has led me to believe Mr. Howlser and Ms. Nowak’s account over Markelson’s. It seems likely now that like Mr. Markelson did indeed play a dangerous game of Russian roulette with Mr. Ferdini, and that it was he who provided the gun to use.
Before I leave the Borgata, I ask Mr. Hornbuckle about another detail Mr. Markelson told me that I am no longer sure is true. I ask if a ‘cooler’ is something casinos really use, and if specifically Mr. Markelson is designated as one at the Borgata.
His response is to laugh at first, but he goes on to say: “Yes, a cooler is a real term. I actually believe in them myself. Luck is real. It’s a tangible thing that follows people around -- good luck and bad luck. I believe coolers have saved my casinos a lot of money over the years, and Mr. Markelson certainly fits that role at the Borgata. He's terribly unlucky, couldn't win a game of cards if his life depended on it. Still, he's invaluable at cutting the luck high rollers short."
He pauses before continuing: “There is of course the problem of the double negative, or when two coolers are together. It happens when a cooler is around someone who has luck just as bad as him or her. Like two positive or negative charges on a magnet, they repel each other, and the cooler’s effect instead of bad luck is one of incredible good luck. I’ve never seen it myself, but I’ve heard that even the most unlikely people on earth can have incredible runs of good luck if someone as equally unlucky as them is near.”
I propose the idea that maybe Mr. Ferdini was as unlucky as Mr. Markelson, and that together they achieved this ‘double negative,’ bringing them good luck while they were together.
“Yes,” Mr. Hornbuckle says. “I suppose that’s possible. It’s a very dangerous situation though for an unlucky person to suddenly be met with non-stop good luck. It could make you think yourself invincible, unable to be defeated in any challenge. You might even start to take on bets on things that aren’t real games of chance, like harming yourself by drinking boiling water. There’s also the danger of what happens when the double negative effect is over. One cooler parts ways, then each would fall into their own run of terrible luck, not realizing that their hot-streak has ended.”
As the interview concludes and I leave the Borgata, I think about the good luck Mr. Ferdini and Mr. Markelson had. I consider the incredible odds that both survived firing a loaded gun to their temples only for each to find a dud cartridge. I ponder the unfortunate series of events that would kill Mr. Ferdini after Mr. Markelson left his hotel room.
Lastly, I think about Mr. Markelson’s own luck since March 26th. Maybe it hasn’t been as bad as Mr. Ferdini's, but I know he contacted a reporter and as a result management at his casino will be looking into his behavior. I consider and think, that is not too lucky.

Porter

What was meant to be a short report about an unusual death in Atlantic City has grown into something longer. This is now a meandering investigation with unreliable characters, newly discovered details, and a still missing $1.3 million.
Before I leave New Jersey and return to New York, I go to the seedy hotel where Mr. Ferdini and his entourage consumed drugs and played Russian roulette, and where he would eventually die. It is my hope that I can speak to the porter -- the last person to ever see Mr. Ferdini alive.
At the hotel I speak to the manager and ask her who was the porter in the early morning hours of March 26th. The manager tells me that the porter no longer works for the hotel, and that in fact he had quit the very same day Mr. Ferdini died.
“After the police left, he flipped us all off,” the manager says. “That son of a bitch quit in style, telling us he didn’t need to work here no more. He said he was set and that we can kiss his ass goodbye.”
I ask the manager if they knew where the porter could have gone, to which she replies: “No idea. After he was done talking to the police about the death in the stairwell, I think he was out of New Jersey for good. He used to live nearby so I saw him when he left. He was fully packed. Had all of his stuff with him and three really full duffel bags I’d never seen before. He really didn’t seem like he was coming back -- had everything with him.”
Like the porter, I load my bags and finally prepare to leave New Jersey. As I do a thought pops into my mind: Could the porter that night have discovered Mr. Ferdini’s $1.3 million in three duffel bags in his room? I consider and think, maybe, and if he did, maybe this porter is the luckiest man in Atlantic City.
Myra Kindle is an independent investigative reporter. She covers tech, law, politics, and other stories that would be impossible to write about in more traditional outlets.

PART ONE OF FIVE
So, you wanna go to SHOT show? You think it's all fun and games? Get to play with guns? See Jesse James and James Yeager? SHOT show is the annual pilgrimage of the unwashed masses to Las Vegas to rub elbows with youtube celebrities, bloggers and overseas businessmen copying US made equipment and share infectious disease.
If you love guns, gambling and gonorrhea - SHOT show is for you! It is not my typical idea of a good time. I am not a big fan of Las Vegas.
However: I do attend for a few reasons. First, I do enjoy travel and I'm gold on UA so I can usually score an upgrade. Second, industry people are in there that I do hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars with business with so it's nice to put a face with the name and see what deals are out there. SHOT for me has been a bust for the past few years. Being a value guy, I want to buy at $1000 and sell at $3000 and as of recently the gun business is more like buy for $1 and sell for $1.10 if you get what I mean.
We used to do business at SHOT and now it's just checking in on foursquare, instagram and rubbing elbows with bloggers and the like. I want to make money, not spend money so this is very annoying to me.
Anyways, onto the play by play.
Saturday, January 19th. Three days before SHOT show.
I talk a friend of mine to drive me to the airport after I drop my F350 at the body shop. I had a hit and run and someone totally fucked up all my paint and clearcoat. My guy says he can get it done while I'm gone for SHOT so I hitch a ride with a friend and pick up the tab for lunch. We have brisket. It is delicious. I get to the airport 3 hours early for my flight just in case the TSA line is a shitshow thanks to, well TSA. The government shutdown is not helping these folks. I have pre check and much to my surprise I breeze right through after a brief 3 minute wait.
I slog my way to the lounge, as shitty as it is to wait for my winged chariot to IAH. I have gone from being in an abusive relationship with AA to being in an abusive relationship with UA. Although if you really want to experience the battered spouse feeling, NK is a few gates over.
I board my flight to IAH and my Renton assembled chariot is on time and boarding early. The hate agent scans my pass and the alarms go off and spits off a new boarding pass. I have been upgraded to first class. You all will be turning right, I will be turning left once I pass the threshold of 2L on this old 757. I'll take a cleared upgrade at the gate any day of the week considering that I am 29/53 for Bush to LAX.
Fuck my life.
I gate check my bags to make life easier for me and the rest of the folks riding with me. If I don't have to worry about being short on time at my destination, I like to gate check to free up bins for those who are not as fortunate. Eventually I board and ask the FA to say hi to the captain and get a ride report. She says no problem. I step down into the 757 flight deck and take some selfies with the crew. They appreciate my aviation nerdery. They tell me that there will be light chop all over texas today and we're going to have some bumps so strap in and don't be a hero.
Having brightened the day of the flight crew, I head back to my lie flat window seat, fully recline and kick back and relax by listening to channel 9 on the IFE. It's disabled. Fuck. I put on a movie and watch the delightful Tag with the always excellent Jon Hamm, Ed Helms and others. It's a good movie and made me laugh. Just as we get to the gate the credits roll.
We land at Bush right on time but I have a 59 minute spa layover I had planned OR I can go to Landrys with my priory pass and get some blackened snapper. Do I hightail it to the Centurion lounge in terminal D, my home away from home? Or go for fresh grilled seafood?
This centurion lounge does not have a spa. Fuck it, lets go cajun. I walk over to Landrys and order the blackened snapper. It is delicious. The kitchen is a little behind so they box it up the rest of it for me to take on the plane which they don't have to do and I leave the waitress a nice tip. I am sweating from the blackened seasoning. I don't care. NOM NOM NOM. Fish is delish.
They have already started boarding to LAX as I walk up to the gate. I ask the hate agent if there's any upgrades. She says first is checked in full and we are 100% packed to LAX today. I thank her and board my bulkhead seat to LAX with my blackened snapper in one hand and personal item in the other.
Giving the FA a friendly nod, I ask to say hi to the captain and she says no way boss, we're busy - sit down and shut up.
Rude.
The boarding door closes for an on time departure and I watch another classic - Wall Street!
I polish off the blackened snapper, dirty rice and green beans. Charlie Sheen before he went crazy was a pretty good actor. He's so dreamy. I'm sweating profusely from the blackened seasoning and get up to throw away my trash because I didn't want the other guys in coach to have to do it for me. I walk right up to the forward galley into Bitchy McBitchface who woke up on the wrong side of life starts telling me to use the coach lavatory. I tell her I just wanted to throw some trash away and she gave me more attitude than a sassy black woman working at the DMV.
Listen lady, if you don't wanna be dealing with trash - maybe you shouldn't be working for United, eh?
I take my seat and I fall asleep on the way to LA. The ride is smoother than my nephew's 16 month old ass. The flight was not long enough. The landing is a perfect grease job on 24R and the only thing awakening me from my slumber is the reversers on the 737 Max. I pull my headset out so I can tune in LAX ground on LiveATC just as we make the left for taxiway Alpha/Alpha. I see the taxiway signs out of the corner of my window and start the feed just as I hear the ding.
ding
What I'm expecting: Welcome to Los Angeles where the local time is 5:55. Your Houston based flight crew would like to thank you for flying United and your baggage will be at carousel (integer)
What I heard from a clearly panic stricken FA: IF THERE IS A DOCTOR OR ANYONE WITH MEDICAL TRAINING ON BOARD PLEASE RING YOUR CALL BUTTON.
Everyone wants to be a hero until it's time to do hero shit.
I reach up and press the button and a single chime tells the FA that row 9 pressed button.
ding
FA: If you are a doctor or have medical training please head to the rear galley immediately.
I dumped my phone in my seat. (This was my first mistake. I'll tell you why later.)
Shit. It's go time. The passengers next to me are soundly asleep and it's a full flight, so I unbuckle my belt and turnstile jump over the two of them making a resounding thud onto the cabin floor.
I promptly walked with a purpose to the rear cabin. As I'm heading back I hear someone else walking behind me but I'm focused on the long walk from the bulkhead to the rear galley. I arrive shortly and my immediate impression is that the rear galley is not in good shape.
Oh, the bitchface FA that told me off? She's now profusely thanking me for showing up. Funny how that works isn't it?
There's a woman lying across three jumpseats on oxygen screaming in pain with a clearly experienced physician working on her and checking her out. I am not about to get in his way. Right behind me is a six foot three beast of a man who I can only imagine used to play right wing for Detroit. Doc 1 is working her, there's me and Doc 2 is behind me.
Doc 1 tells us she's got shortness of breath and chest pains.
Doc 2 nods and says he's a trauma surgeon from Cedars Sinai.
Doc 1 tells us he's an internal medicine specialist at UCLA.
Doc 2 asks me what my specialty is.
FC says structural firefighting and making sure you two get everything you need.
Doc 2 looks at the FA and asks if they got an AED on board.
I look up at the nearest overhead and there's an AED in the compartment, I bust it out and hand it to him. They start sizing her up as we taxi down Alpha/Alpha. I stand in the aisle inbetween the two bathroom doors as they do their thing ready to help out.
(FC breaks the fourth wall)
FOR THE UNINITIATED: United is in terminals 7/8 on the south side of LAX. When you land next to In-and-Out Burger on Sepuldeva you're on the north side of the field. It's easily a 20 minute ride to get from one side of the airport to another when they're busy. Prime time for LAX is 1800hrs because you have all the morning flights from the east and the afternoon flights from the central time zone arriving.
When you have a medical emergency and time is a factor, a 20 minute ride to the gate is what we call sub optimal. There's hard stand/remote gates at LAX on the northwest side of the field surface street adjacent that you can get to a lot faster than a long haul around the airport. If you give me a choice of going to the hard stand and meeting the ambulance or taking a 15-20 minute taxi during rush hour to a UA staffed ramp - I will GLADLY take to the hard stand, shut down and start em up. Yes, it's going to inconvenience a plane full of people for 20 minutes for you to unload, restart and taxi back. No, I give zero fucks.
My mistake was leaving my phone behind. Had I had it with me, I would have known we were going long way around and applied some intervention techniques to get things moving faster. I had no idea where we were.
(Cut to present)
Doc 1 managed the best he could and the lady said inbetween raspy breaths that she was going to start vomiting from the pain. Doc calls for a bag. The FA takes the safety equipment bag, the one holding the lifevest, seatbelt extender and oxygen mask and empties it.
OH FOR FUCKS SAKE. I reach over to the nearest passenger, pull all the contents of the seatback out, dump it on the floor and hand doc 1 a United brand official airsick bag. Just as I do this and I step back, the plane rapidly slows down and begins to turn.
(FC breaks the fourth wall again)
I used the term suboptimal earlier, and this is going to be a theme for the rest of the trip. Boeing in their infinite wisdom decided to stretch a 737 design and call it the MAX instead of doing a clean sheet. Three FA's, two doctors, me, and our lady experiencing chest pains are in the rear galley all not wearing seatbelts. All but the patient are standing. We are something like 80 feet behind the main landing gear.
Inertia is not our friend today. I start falling and I grab the only thing I can on the way down: the door handle to the lavatory.
(Cut to present)
Next thing I know, I've experienced what the FAA would probably term a "Lavatory Incursion" - and I wonder where my life has gone wrong as my knee has hit the toilet bowl. I get back up and prop a hand up on the cabin ceiling just to steady myself for the rest of the ride to the gate.
I look towards the front of the plane and notice something. Some fuckwit in row 29 is livestreaming this on instagram or some crap. Are you fucking shitting me? I lean over to the purser and tell her that while Doc 1 and 2 are fixing her, I'm gonna go do some fixing of my own about 10 rows up. My resting bitch face is on point right now as I walk up to the tactless millennial inconsiderate smartphone user and get ready to fix this problem in a way honed by years of catholic school, brute force and dealing with shithead customers.
FC: Just what do you think you're doing?
1: I'm livestreaming this on twitter. It's my right.
FC: You're gonna delete whatever you filmed right now.
1: Or what are you gonna do about it?
FC: You see that FA over there? The one that looks like she's not taking any shit from anybody today? I'm gonna ask her for the intercom, I'm gonna call the captain and my friends over at the LAPD are gonna haul your ass in front of a judge and the next place you're gonna be livestreaming from is the back of a police car. And let me tell you something you might not know. There's two ways to enjoy LA Jail on a Saturday night. One's a Richard Pryor album. The other's when a skinny inked up ginger white boy like you walks in. Give me that goddamn phone.
I'm handed the phone and I delete the video as I walk back to the rear galley and put it in my back pocket. People are now asking if they're gonna make their connections and shit and I tell them to shut up, we've got more important things going on. As I walk back I peek through the windows seeing nothing but darkness. How long does it take to get to the gate? And even then, is there an ambulance waiting there?
What the fuck is happening? Where the fuck are we?
I ask Bitch McBitchface how long these symptoms have been going on. Apparently this issue had just arisen upon landing. Doc 1 asks for a stethoscope. I pull down the first aid kit from the compartment. It requires keys. The cabin crew has to find the keys for the first aid kit. I'm eventually handed a key and bust out a stethoscope for the doc. I peer out the window of the rearmost seats looking for signs of a gate, ambulance or anything I can reference to figure out where we are - the tower, a 777 tail which would tell me we are nearing the international terminal.....nothing but darkness.
This is not good.
Doc keeps the O2 flowing as we are all standing there helpless waiting for the plane to get to the ambulance or vice versa. The cabin crew asks how they're going to get her off the plane.
FC: Well she's in no condition to walk, can you get the rampers to put air stairs on 2L and take her off that way? It would be easier and optimal.
FA: I don't think we are able to do that
(It is at this point I think I smell toast. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T DO THAT? GET ON THE INTERCOM AND TELL THE CAPTAIN THAT THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE HER OFF THE PLANE VIA 2L AND STAIRS WTF)
I get that what is happening is clearly exceeding the crew's training but this is.....bad. Eventually we arrive at the gate and the fine folks at Station 51 from LAFD EMS arrive. The EMT sizes it up and calls for an aisle chair to be brought to take her off the plane since she can't walk. (WE HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS THE WHOLE TIME!)
They load her up and I step out of the way into the lavatory, I see them wheel her out through a crack in the door. I take this chance to do a bit from spies like us.
I look to my left and extend my hand. Doctor. I nod. I repeat to the right. They also repeat the bit. We chuckle.
I look towards Doc 2.
FC: Hey Docs, I didn't catch your names. I'm Will. Will Hayden.
Doc 2: George, George Rodriguez.
FC: Good work there Dr Rodriguez. Thanks for helping out.
Doc 2: We're doctors. It's what we do.
Doc 1: Hiya Will, I'm Charlie Fong.
FC: Nice work today Dr Fong. Thank you for showing up.
We start walking back to our seats as I snort out a laugh.
FC: So, Dr Fong.....I guess it's safe to say that United has successfully smoothed things over with the Asian physician community?
The doc's have a two Mississippi awkward pause as they begun laughing hysterically. Please, tip your waitresses. Try the veal. I'm here all night. Tactless millennial asks me to return phone, and I hand it back as we walk back to our seats.
EMS clears the plane, captain tells people that they can now leave and a cacophony of seat belt buckles pierces the high pitched drone that is a 737 sitting at the gate without engines running on shore power.
I ask Bitchy if I can see the captain on the way out as she once more thanks me for my service. She stuck her head in, got a nod and let me pass. I asked the captain why we landed on the north side of the field with an onboard medical and why we didn't get priority handling from the ground controller and why the hell it took so long to get to the gate.
His response was staggering.
CA: We didn't even know there was an emergency in the galley until the FA told us. By then we were almost to the terminal.
FC: Are you fucking kidding me?
CA: Nope. By the time we knew something was going on we were already on the ground and almost to the gate.
We talk airplane briefly about the 737 Max, the new jumpseats and I wish them a good rest of the trip. I secretly think he's got to be shitting me.
Being a good aviation nerd, I made mental note to check his work after I got back to the hotel.
I head to the lounge in LAX for a bite to eat, a sprite and some very boring time to myself. Just as I walk into the terminal there's a voicemail from my uncle. My plan for LA was to see my family - and my cousin and his wife who's pregnant with their second kid. I crash at my uncle's house in Pasadena and walk around old town and shop at Vromans Bookstore and enjoy all that Southern California has to offer. It's a good way to spend a weekend. If you ever get a chance, do it. It's fun. I can pay United a shitload of money to fly into McCarran on Monday or I can spend 1/3 of that and go into LAX a few days before and hop over for $45. I love LA.
NEW VOICEMAIL FROM UNCLE LOU: Family emergency, we all have to head to Chicago because Lisa's mom is in the hospital and we can't see you this weekend. You're on your own. I'm on my way to Burbank to catch the last flight to Midway. Talk to you later.
Fuck.
Time for an FC adventure.
I order some food in the lounge and crack open the laptop. One of my customers works for LAFD. I find his personal cell phone number in my sales records.
ring ring
1: Go for Smith
FC: Chief Smith! Will Hayden here! How's that M110 running?
1: Will...holy shit long time no talk. What's going on?
FC: Family bailed on me for this weekend, gotta make my own adventure. You working tomorrow? I'd love to see how LA does things.
1: No, but I have some friends on C shift that are. Let me see who's gonna be around. Let me call you back in 10.
FC: You got it Chief.
I eat and drink and relax and the phone rings back. Chief smith says be at station 9 at 0800 hrs Sunday morning. I say no problem! Thanks! He tells me to check in with the captain of the truck crew and he'll show me around.
While I'm on the laptop I book the marriott in Torrance. It's near the airport and a 25 minute ride to station 9. Little did I know it's next to a goddamn oil refinery and the housekeeping staff have left all the windows to my room open. Ugh. I kick back and take a shower. When I get back, I pulled all the ATC tape from LAX tower, from landing clearance to touchdown to the ground controller handoff to the checkpoint, to the request for medical assistance and timestamped all of it.
The request to LAX ground for EMS was made somewhere on taxiway bravo after passing papa (TBIT) but before Charlie-6. (T7). By that time we were already on the south side of the field and terminal adjacent.
Cabin crew didn't tell the captain to request EMS till we got to the other side of the fucking airport. From the moment I walked up, I had assumed (incorrectly) that prior to the request for medical assistance they would at least have told the captain what was going on. They didn't and he was flying blind. When you do a CPR class the first thing you do is call 911 and ask for an ambulance because it does not matter how much CPR you do if an ambulance never shows up to take you to the hospital.
There's a lesson to be learned here.
When seconds count, the request for EMS is waiting for the plane to get to the terminal to be called.
I knew United wasn't great, but this is to use a southern california term - no bueno.
The Westchester In and Out Burger has a 4x4 with my name on it and it is DELICIOUS. After I finish eating I hop on the hangout with the guys.
Since I've got no plans till morning I decide that it's worth the crazy time and I call u/gunexpert69 and we make plans to hang out at his local watering hole. We then try to pick up some flight attendants at the Doubletree. We fail miserably and call it a night.
Sunday, January 20th. Two days before SHOT show.
My alarm is set for 727AM. It rings, I wash up, jump in the car and put free fallin by Tom Petty on the radio and hop onto 405 south to pick up 110 north. The freeways are empty and I make incredible time downtown. I look down at the address and wonder where the fuck I am going. 7th and San Julian St? I drive around and there are tents on the sidewalk everywhere. This is the closest I have seen to life in a WROL situation. Eventually I find a spot on 7th street, bang on the door and the guys tell me to pull my car into the back lot. I do so and the guys are having breakfast and invite me to sit down and grab a bite.
When in Rome......
I grab some eggs, bacon and a biscuit and the truck captain comes by and says oh you know Smith? Apparently they came up in the same academy class and are old friends. He sticks his head out the door and yells at one of the guys and pantomimes some instructions. I don't speak ASL so I just nod and take it in. He runs down what they're doing today. LA tradition is that weekends are for the boys so they do training on weekends. It's 820AM and they've setup a training scenario and are gonna run it. This looks cool.
One of the guys comes back and hands me a headset, saladbowl and turnout coat. Captain says you're with me in the truck. Gear up.
Uh. What?
CA: Yeah, Chief Smith said you'd be riding along with us today. Right?
FC: LOL! I thought he was just gonna do a station visit. Sure, I'll ride with you guys.
CA: You ever see a TDA before?
FC: I used to be on the engine or the quint so this is gonna be new.
CA: Well, jump in. Lets go.
My ride to LA was a 737 max made in Renton that just came off the line January 17th. My ride to Skid Row was a 100' Pierce Arrow XT Tractor Drawn Aerial that was three years old. I hopped in and we drove around to the training location where the guys were to setup the ladder and pretend like they were venting a roof on a 5 story building. I was told to go shadow the command post as they'd be evaluating the guys and they had a good training day. LA has a good group of people and it shows. They did a post training debrief, simulated a dry hydrant and talked about everything they did, everything they did badly and everything they could do better.
LA has some fantastic people there that are very talented. The guys started putting tools away and rolling hose. I find the captain over on one of the engines and ask him if they need help with anything. He says if you want to help out, we're breaking down that attack line you can drain it.
FC: You guys straight roll to a flat load right?
CA: Yeah. You know hose?
FC: Drivers do it with hose.
CA: LOL! Hadn't heard that one before! Here's some gloves.
He gave me some gloves, I straight rolled three sections of three quarter line and hauled it all back to the engine where I found the truck captain loading hose with his guys. If anyone wants to see where real leadership is, it's helping your guys load hose and pack up tools.
I hook up and look up as I notice their technique. LA flat loads all their attack line, no preconnects. Two guys in the bed dressing and dutching it, one guy on the ground, straight roll between the boots pulling hose straight up into the engine. Gets any residual water out and they can check the gaskets every length. Never seen that done before but it looks like a smooth technique. I hook up the last of their attack line as the guys finish packing up. The bells come in and there's an automatic fire alarm tripped. First call of the morning. We hop over there and its' a false alarm.
The rest of the day is spent with station 9 watching the various indigenous folks of Skid Row do their thing. Station 9 is the busiest fire station in the nation. Before lunch they ran 3 overdoses, 2 stabbings, and a cacophany of crap. I went with them and their ambulance drivers and EMT's really earn every dollar they make working this area. After a quick break for lunch, they start watching the Rams game. Just as it got good, bells came in for another few calls and next thing I knew - the Rams were going to the super bowl and the dinner bell was ringing.
I decided it would be overstaying my welcome to hang out for dinner so I packed up and bought a shirt and told the guys if they ever needed guns to shout at me. Drove over to Grand Central Market to get a bite to eat and then grabbed some in and out burger on my way back to the hotel. txgi is sloshed and in no position to travel after watching the patriots destroy KC.
It's been a crazy day and the beginning of a crazy trip. And it's just getting started.
Monday, January 21st. One day before SHOT Show
I wake up late, grab lunch at the Del Amo mall and do some shopping. My flight to McCarran leaves at 7PM and arrives just after 8PM. Knowing rush hour traffic in LA I decide to leave early and get to the airport at 430. I hightail it to the lounge in TBIT and grab a bite to eat and relax. I'm on an Alaska A320 to McCarran all the way in the back but at least I got a window seat. I stop in on the way to talk to the captain and he asks me a bunch of gun questions. I tell him the VP9 is good to go and he should buy it with his ATP credentials.
The 320 ride to LAS is entirely filled with moderate chop. The airplane is literally banging the side of the plane into my head. It is a miserable flight. We land on time and I am unable to stop at the Centurion lounge for a bite and a drink because it's closed for renovations.
I grab my bags and pick up my badge for SHOT Show at the airport and jump on the shuttle bus to Hertz. I reserved a compact knowing I'd need to be in and out of a tight parking garage. I get to my assigned spot, spot 13 and there's a fullsize Chevy Suburban there.
What the fuck is this?
I throw my bags inside, jump in and drive right up to the Gold Member service area.
FC: The lady on the phone asked me compact, midsize or fullsize - WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?
Hertz: That's the Hertz Love Wagon! Think of all the ladies you can drive around in this!
FC: DO I LOOK LIKE A GODDAMN LYFT FOR WORKING GIRLS?
It is at this point where I learn something.
The best part about Vegas is anything crazy or unbelievable can be explained or justified by shrugging your shoulders, opening your palms upward and saying "It's Vegas!"
Hertz: It's Vegas!
FC: I am not driving (gesticulates widlly) THIS into the parking garage of the Palazzo for 4 days straight!
Hertz is not impressed with my pantomime.
They find me a brand new 2019 Honda Pilot with 19 miles on it. I hightail it up the highway to Circus Circus. Check in line is totally deserted. I am able to haul my bags up and get keys in 3 minutes flat. That's gotta be a fucking record.
Just as I arrive at my room I decide to send Rusty Shackleford a picture of me looking grumpy in front of the hertz love wagon.
RS: ARE YOU IN VEGAS?!?!?!??!?!?
FC: YES!!!! WHY ARE WE YELLING?!?!?!??!?
(image of Rusty coming down the escalator with the sign behind him that says WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS in the background)
FC: Oh dear god. I just got to the hotel to dump off my bags, you want a ride? I can be there in 20.
RS: Nah man we just landed a few min ago I was gonna take an uber
FC: By the time you get to the rideshare area it'll be 20 minutes. I can be there by the time you get to the curb. Seriously.
RS: LOL okay head over!
I look at my watch. Las Vegas Blvd traffic on a monday night? This isn't gonna work. I grab my coat and run back to the parking garage and tear out of the CC garage tires squealing all the way down. I bang a left onto Sammy Davis Jr Drive and haul ass to Spring mountain where I jump on 15 and get the car up to 100MPH between mandalay bay and 215.
McCarran Airport SUCKS in many regards and the airport pickup is one of them. It's not laid out well at all but it makes the cabbies plenty of money. I find it kinda funny because this year I'm picking up Rusty. Last year I was picking up a coworker of a buddy of mine who needed his SHOT show pass and there was no way to get it to him that night so I just said fuck it, give me the pass and I'll get it to him and drive him to the hotel. The year before, I picked up u/fluffy_butternut.
I guess I am the world's worst uber driver. I like doing the same bit over and over again like beating a dead horse so I can pickup Rusty one of to ways.
A: The classic Las Vegas Airport pickup. Drive to airport and park car on curb. Wait for metro PD to start yelling at you for parking on the sidewalk. Message Rusty to tell him I'm the one parked on the sidewalk.
B: In my best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression: COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE
My calculations were rough but I figured rusty should get to the curb right at the same time as me. If he's there already, we do B. If he's not, I'll do A.
The speed limit in the tunnel under the airport is 55. I'm doing 90. I fly up the ramp to Terminal 1 and tell him that I'll grab him at the American arrivals level. Just as I pull off to the curb to tell him I'm here he tells me he's just walked outside and I look up and see a classically hawaiian shirt standing at the curb. I pull the car forward, stop quickly and do my best Arnold. He laughs and hops in. I take him to his hotel and dump him off at registration as I park the car. I spend 20 minutes parking the car and I walk over to registration to find him still in line. The hotel is packed with people for the convention.
Behind us is a beautiful blonde engineer in town for what I'm guessing is World of Concrete based on the blueprints she's brought with her. I chat her up a bit until I see that she's got a wedding ring on her other hand. We head up to rusty's room where we find a king size bed and a hot tub 5 feet away. You don't even need to leave your bed to drown a hooker if you don't want to.
It's Vegas!
Rusty says lets go down to the casino and lose some money. We head down to the casino and lose some money at the craps table. This trip is not treating me nicely. I tell him I gotta tap out. Show in the morning.

Myra Kindle is an independent investigative reporter.
Her other reports:

• What does Google want with male sex workers?
  
• A Tyson Foods board member was held ransom for $87,250 in December, 2018. Now released, he says Tyson is suppressing police investigations into finding his captors and threatening legal action if he speaks about his abduction.
  
• In 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was losing more than 120 informants a year to Russian KGB. by 1981, that number had dropped to just 10. Now, a former intelligence agent is raising alarm that the wildly unorthodox methods once used to protect Russian sources could pose a devastating new threat
  
• For Two Years a Former University Student Has Set-Up Unusual Protest Demonstrations in Buffalo, New York - No One Is Still Quite Sure What He’s Protesting
  
• Nearly Two Months After a Terrorist Attack in China Killed 337 People, Investigators Have Gotten No Closer to Determining How the Attack Was Carried Out
  
• After winning $1.3 Million at a Casino, Why does a man cover himself in Gasoline and drop a lit Match?
  
• A Report on the Grey Men of 327 Cedar Lane -- This was part of a collaborative project with nslewis, who wrote the incident that takes place prior, "The grey men of 327 Cedar Lane"
  

Local News Only

Susan Bristle could talk about the beautiful hiking paths, rural boutique stores, or Revolutionary War attractions of Lenoir, North Carolina. But that’s not what Susan wants to talk about.
Susan, like so many residents of Lenoir, has one thing on her mind -- the bombing.
“It’s just so strange,” says Susan, a server at Paula’s Diner in Lenoir. “The man was in town for months, and he just seemed so nice. How could he do something like this?”
The event has shaken the small town of Lenoir, North Carolina (pop 18,228) to its core, but it’s likely you’ve never heard about it.
A search online provides nothing about the bombing or the bomber, John Nielsen. And yet the case has gripped the attention of nearly every resident in town.
“I just want to know what he was doing here for the last year,” says John Mitchum of Mitchum’s Appliances. “He was buying up business from all us local folk, providing subsidized loans to others to expand. It’s like he cared about the town, and then he goes and bombs us. It just don’t make no sense.”
The bomber, Google Strategies and Development Chief John Nielsen, is all but certain to face conviction when his trial starts later this year.
There is ample evidence that on February 3rd, 2019, John Nielsen detonated 560lbs of homemade explosives at the Google data center outside Lenoir. The questions that remain are why he did it, and why only the residents of Lenoir are cognizant of what should be national news.
Based on interviews with John Nielsen, prosecutors, law enforcement and correctional officers from Caldwell county, and supported with interviews from residents of Lenoir, independent investigative reporter Myra Kindle, for the first time, tells the story of the Lenoir, North Carolina bombing, and the Google Strategies Chief that allegedly did it.

Angel Investor

On December 15, 2018, the attitude of the town of Lenoir towards John Nielsen culminated in celebration.
John, who for the past six months had invested more than $4.3 million into Lenoir local businesses, was being awarded a ‘key to the town’ -- a first for for Lenoir.
“Other than our namesake, there’s never really been a town hero before,” says Heather West, owner of Tybrisa Books, one of the business John invested in. “He was smart, and honest, and he seemed to care. He wanted to make our lives better, and he couldn't have come at a better time.”
Ms. West is referring to the town’s fledgling economy. The main economic engine, Broyhill Furniture, recently moved their headquarters, and with it has gone a key supporter of local commerce.
According to Ms. West, when John Nielsen arrived last summer, the first thing he did was vow to buy the building Ms. West rents from, and reduce her rent by more than half.
“If John hadn't done that,” says Ms. West, “I don’t know if I’d still be in business right now.”
This story is repeated a dozen different ways all around town.
John Mitchum, the appliance store owner, says Mr. Nielsen offered him a reduced rate on a sizable loan that the store uses to fund its appliances.
“I pay so much money on the interest of the loans of getting the machines in the store,” says Mr. Mitchum, “that John’s offer completely changed my books. My accounts are much healthier now.”
In other cases, John simply became a friend.
“He would eat dinner in here every night right here at Paula’s Diner,” says Susan Bristle. “Always ate alone, but he chatted. We don’t get too busy around 9. People around here don’t eat that late. He was always nice, always listened to me.”
“And he left great tips too!” she adds.
It’s the contradictory nature of how John Nielsen acted before the bombing that makes his story the talk of the town.
“It’s just such a shame it had to be him,” says Mayor Joseph Gibbons. “I guess it really shows you never know someone.”

The Bombing

At 8:42 AM on February 3rd, 2019, David Glass heard an explosion.
The bomb, a 560lbs combination of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, liquid nitromethane and Tovex, had just blown a 40 foot hole on the other side of the building.
“If I hadn’t been in the Milliways Cafe -- the cafe on site -- it would have killed me,” says Mr. Glass, an employee at the Google data center in Lenoir.
Law enforcement from the city of Lenoir and Caldwell county say the bomb was as dangerous as a homemade device could possibly be. One official describes it as “expertly made,” and said it was “a miracle” that no one got hurt.
The data center itself suffered extensive damage to the cooling system -- itself a massive complex of refrigeration units used to cool the hot running servers that populate the building.
Although operations at the data center have been negatively effected, off the record, staff tell me Google is using the damage to renovate and expand the data center, which originally launched in 2007.
Google and their parent company Alphabet have been provided multiple chances to give a statement, but have not responded to calls or emails about the bombing, John Nielsen, or plans to expand the Lenoir data center.

”Not Crazy”

John Nielsen is feeling lonely these days.
Denied bail and have been held in Caldwell county jail since February, John says the world has abandoned him.
“My wife won’t speak to me. My company won't even admit I’m here,” says John. “They just - they just believe it. They just believe I’m this crazy bomber and, I’m not. I didn’t do it.”
Mr. Nielsen, while seemingly quite sincere in pleading his innocence, is facing a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Local prosecutor Scott Reilly described the case as open and shut, saying: “If the jury doesn’t finish deliberations within five minutes with a ‘convict’, then I’ve done a bad job.”
Included in the evidence against Mr. Nielsen is more than 20 minutes of continuous capture across dozen cameras as Mr. Nielsen came to the data center, dropped off the explosives, and left.
Prosecutor Reilly also says he has receipts for online orders of the bomb’s composite materials, and is currently seeking a warrant that would allow law enforcement to look at Mr. Nielsen’s browsing history, where they expect to find instructions for how to build the bomb.
Mr. Nielsen, in his defense, says it is impossible for him to have made the bomb described by prosecutors.
“They say this thing was expertly made,” says Mr. Nielsen. “Well I don’t know anything about bombs. I don’t know what materials you need, or what you even do with them once you have them. I just don’t know any of that. I mean have serious issues with Google and what we’re doing, but I’m not crazy - there’s no benefit in me blowing up a server farm.”
Ralph Basham, the Secret Service director from 2003 to 2006, believes it’s entirely possible Mr. Nielsen built the bombs, saying: “It’s dangerous, it’s risky, and the chances are you’ll be caught, but really what stops people from building these types of devices is not a lack of information - anyone can find out how to make this stuff online.”
In response to the quality of the device, Mr. Basham says: “It is my understanding that the device was well made, but I don’t think that should preclude Mr. Nielsen from being the likely culprit. All other forensic evidence is pointing in his direction right now.”

Finding a Motive

Prosecutor Reilly may be able to get a conviction on Mr. Nielsen based on evidence alone, but for the people of Lenoir, it’s a motive that they desperately seek.
Mr. Nielsen might just have one.
“Google is nobody's friend,” says Mr. Nielsen, during our fifth interview. “You might think they care about you, that they care about giving you information. But no, that’s impossible. It’s a company run amok seeking profit at the expensive of everything else. And so poorly god damn managed that they don’t even realize the extent of it, with so much f**king hubris that they believe only they can fix it.”
Mr. Nielsen’s grievances with Google are severe, but John’s qualms seem to be with the internet more generally, or at least some aspect of how it is presented.
He describes in detail several stories from Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, countries where a lack of police presence in many regions, coupled with a lack of credible news sources, have led to numerous rapes, murders, community floggings and torture, all reportedly caused or exacerbated by rumors spread online.
In one instance, he describes a scene at a restaurant in Sri Lanka where the owner was nearly beaten to death. His crime? A patron had found a lump of flower in his curry, and from online reports of the local minority group providing sterilization pills to the majority group, a riot broke out that would lead to broken bones, thousands in property damage, and an eternally frayed and untrusting community.
John’s examples are numerous, but his details are not always accurate.
In one instance he describes a group of rural travelers that came to a small community in India. The community, having read repeatedly online about outsiders of the ethnic minority group wandering into rural towns to steal children, “beat the men till police arrived after one was seen talking to a child”, says John.
In reality, they were killed before the police arrived.
Mr. Nielsen realizes these are not problems in the United States, and that specifically the medium of violent messages being spread is far more attributed to Facebook and WhatsApp, which is also owned by Facebook.
But in Mr. Nielsen’s comments is a clear worldview -- he has severe reservations about how information rises above the water in an ocean of information, and feels Google is eminently responsible.
“Our institutions aren’t so precious,” says John. “You’ve seen it happen to everyone around you. It doesn’t necessarily mean violence, but it definitely means anxiety and loneliness, and why, for what? So Google can have no competitors?”
Mr. Nielsen is nearly alone in his view. The internet, and big tech, has improved the lives of countless people all over the world. From information getting to remote communities on the cruelty of female genital mutilation, to an underground economy in North Korea, to literally thousands upon thousands of new jobs and rising wages that have led to improving the social and economic status of billions of people, it’s difficult to see the merit in what John argues.
But as John makes his case, it’s clear it’s not the internet he sees as causing rifts, but rather the machine algorithms we let sort it for us. On information sorting, John has some support.
“This period will certainly be looked at as the rule of the machines,” says University of Turku anthropology researcher Dagon Jarvela. “There is no human editor anymore. There is no local community to push back. For so many of us, we are the whim of the algorithms giving us our next story, our next piece of the puzzle of the outside world. It shapes us because it seems more important, more accurate than what we actually see in our everyday lives.”

Is Something Different?

“We all have the potential to be the monsters on Maple Street,” says John, “and I think Google is doing exactly that.”
Mr. Nielsen’s claim is both bold and alarmist.
For the last several years, he claims, you've seen it happen to your friends, family, teachers and coworkers.
He describes it as a disease, saying it doesn’t care about sex, age, political affiliation, class, or geographical region.
He says it is endemic and transforming, and yet so slow in its mechanism that we barely recognize it happening.
“We do it with news, we do it with video, we do with social media,” says John. “All of us tech companies - cause it works.”
Mr. Nielsen is referring to the well documented claim that algorithms that provide information feeds to many internet users will consistently ‘serve’ more radical and divisive views over time.
“Not out of malice,” says John. “Algorithms don’t think for themselves. It arose naturally, but now it’s clear the best way to hook a user is to scare them, to get them to think about the people around them as crazy and trying to take something from them."
John adds, "If YouTube can make it seem like the next town over is full crazy people, completely incompatible with how you see the world and in such a way that no compromise is achievable, then you’re going to hunker down and not relate with them - instead you just fall back into YouTube. At some point in the future you might be afraid to travel to parts of the country because you just think they’re too different from you.”
Mr. Nielsen realizes that his comments have proved something of a motive in the bombing.
“A tech chief wants to destroy a server farm because he believes it is corrupting”, prosecutors might say, but John insists this couldn’t be further from the truth.

What Community?

$4.3 million is more than half the wealth John Nielsen has accumulated during his career in tech. Why did he spend it on local businesses in Lenoir, North Carolina?
John says his motivations were rooted in pragmatism to support the fledgling economy of Lenoir, but a closer look shows a much more specific motivation.
Heather West, owner of Tybrisa Books and a distant third cousin to Mr. Nielsen, was struggling financially when she received what she thought was positive news.
James Comey, former FBI director and then recently published author, was coming to Lenoir for a book signing.
“Book signings are really good for business if the author is well known enough,” says Ms. West. “I realized it was a controversial book, but I didn’t realize having him would hurt my business so much.”
Caldwell county, like it’s neighboring counties, has an approximate a 75-25 split in political leanings.
Heather’s bookstore relies on on her neighbors, and appealing to the minority in political leanings, she realizes, was decidedly a bad move.
However when an online boycott was set up against her store, Heather struggled not to take it personally.
“I understand that you don’t like him. Honest, I don’t like him either,” says Heather. “But to feel that he is such a menace that you need to take it out on me and my bookstore for months afterwards, it felt like a real insult, like I wasn’t part of this community anymore. I sell Dinesh D'Souza books too for god’s sake.”
Mr. Nielsen says, and accepts the irony, that he heard about Heather's struggles through a rising story provided to him in one of his algorithmically controlled news feeds.
Upset not at the individual boycotters, but at the online outrage propagating the message that Heather’s bookstore was a detriment to that region of North Carolina, Mr. Nielsen took a sabbatical and went to Lenoir in the summer of 2018.
There, he found what he described as a frayed community that he wanted to help.
“When people’s position improves, and not like a little bit, but by like a lot, like something you notice,” says Mr. Nielsen, “You know I can’t really prove it, but I think we don’t look inward anymore. We’re, you know, happier, and that sort of just echoes out into the community.”
Mr. Nielsen has no evidence of this, however generally speaking, people are indeed less ‘anxious’ when their economic security has improved. But this is obvious, and Mr. Nielsen realizes that.
More indicative of success was the celebration in December when the ‘key to the town’ was awarded to Mr. Nielsen. “The health of the economy,” he says, “and not just small gains, brought that community closer together. I feel like, at least a little bit, I got the monsters off Maple Street.”
A second reference Mr. Nielsen has made to the 1960 episode of the Twilight Zone, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.

Algorithmic Decay

At the Comfort Inn on the edge of Lenoir, I search for an answer to my most basic questions: Why is no one reporting on this story, and why can’t I read about the bombing online?
A search leads me down rabbit holes of Lenoir rumors, both ancient and new.
In one, I watch a YouTube video about General William Lenoir’s stash of gold treasure hidden in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As the autoplay continues, a video discusses the altitude sickness of Lenoir that makes citizens go crazy.
Another makes claim that James Comey’s visit to Tybrisa Books last spring was a way for him to hide key evidence of a pedophilia ring in the basement of the store, "where no one would ever suspect", says the video.
And as the autoplay goes on, the videos grow more brazen. Several in a row make claim Google’s server farm is causing cancer in the citizens of Lenoir.
Before I turn the video off, I see next on the autoplay is a video about different uses for fertilizer.
Tired, I climb my way out of the rabbit hole and go to my trusted sources. Trending, a video on how Google’s image search algorithm can replace digital video files to make it appear as though anyone could be in a captured video.
The report has me thinking about what John Nielsen said about Maple Street, and whether or not we’re all there and the monsters are too. I watch the old Twilight Zone episode and am left with Rod Serling’s final words:

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill – and suspicion can destroy – and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children – and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is – that these things cannot be confined – to the Twilight Zone.

As I prepare for bed, a new question pops into my mind. If an algorithm could gain consciousness, what would its priorities be, and who would it perceive as its enemies to that mission?
Myra Kindle is an independent investigative reporter. She covers tech, law, politics, and other stories that would be impossible to write about in more traditional outlets.