Fan Favorite - "Big Bang"

0:00Today's episode is a fan favorite. The audio and the story has been remastered for today's episode.

0:31car with its roof completely ripped off. The young detective quickly got to work searching the scene, having no idea that he would spend the next 13 years of his life trying to close this case, which would span across the United States and all the way to Europe. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, when the follow button has finally made it to the last level of Candy Crush, politely ask to borrow their phone for a second just to make a quick call.

1:07But instead of making a call, permanently delete the Candy Crush app on their phone. Okay, let's get into today's story.

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2:52At about 5 p.m. on November 1, 1996, 52-year-old Gary Triano stood on the 18th green at the La Paloma Country Club in Tucson, Arizona. Gary crouched down to line up a short putt, while three of his friends stood off to the side, giving him a hard time for taking so long. Gary just blocked them out. Almost everywhere else, Gary was known for being loud, impulsive, and never slowing down. But on the golf course, he always felt calm and focused. Gary stood back up and prepared to take the shot. He took a breath, brought his putter back just a little, and swung. His friends shouted, like that might knock the ball off course, but Gary watched it roll across the green and drop right into the hole.

3:33Gary let out a huge yell and thrust his fist into the air in celebration. He turned to his friends and looked at them like they were crazy to think they could beat him. Gary grabbed the ball out of the hole, slipped his club into his golf bag, slung it over his shoulder, and then followed his friends into the country club bar. It was a few days before Gary's 53rd birthday, and he thought there was no better way to celebrate than with a round of golf and a drink with his friends. But what Gary didn't know was that this golf game was actually part of a bigger plan. Gary's girlfriend had arranged this game with his friends, and she'd gotten some other friends to invite him out to a different bar at 6pm.

4:08All so she could get Gary's house ready for a huge surprise party she was throwing him later that night. Gary and his friends took a seat at the bar and ordered some drinks. And as they did, they all bragged about the best shots they had made that day. The bartender handed Gary his drink, but before he could take a sip, he heard someone calling Mr. Triano behind him. Gary turned, and he saw a young woman in her mid-twenties coming his way, and his face just lit up. It had been years since he had last seen her, but he recognized her immediately. She was one of his daughter's friends from when they were young.

4:40Gary stepped away from the bar, and the young woman hugged him like she was hugging her own father. Gary asked how she was doing, and he wanted to know all about her life. The two talked for a few minutes while Gary's friends drank at the bar. They were all very used to hearing somebody call out Gary's name, no matter where they went, because it seemed like everybody in Tucson knew him. And in truth, Gary was really well known around the city. He had been a big-time real estate investor, he'd opened casinos, and he'd run businesses in a bunch of different industries. And before he'd gotten divorced from his second wife, a socialite named Pamela Phillips, they ran in the same circles as Hollywood celebrities and well-known politicians.

5:17The young woman hugged Gary again and said how great it was to see him, and she went outside as Gary made his way back to the bar. He glanced at his watch. It was almost 5.30, and so it was just about time for him to head to the next bar to meet his other group of friends. So he threw back his drink and then reached into his pocket, pulled out several bills, and carefully folded them into little origami flowers. He put these flowers on the bar for a tip, then grabbed his golf bag, shouted goodbye to everyone, and walked out. Gary's friends waved him off and then just kind of shook their heads.

5:49Gary couldn't help himself. He always had to make a grand exit.

5:57The sun was setting when Gary stepped outside, and so he looked out at the pink and red sky over the mountains and desert in the distance. It was a beautiful day, just about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and Gary smiled. It was perfect days like this that had helped the Tucson real estate market boom, and Tucson real estate had once made him millions of dollars. But now, standing there, thinking about his money, all he could do was laugh, or he'd just get depressed. Despite the continued growth of the real estate market, the last few years had been tough on Gary financially. He had spread himself too thin, investing in too many high-risk ventures, and some of the deals he'd made had completely fallen apart and cost him a huge chunk of his fortune.

6:37In order to deal with these massive losses, Gary had recently filed for bankruptcy, and now he was slowly trying to rebuild his wealth. But Gary quickly shook all of this off. From the time he was a young man, he had really believed that no matter what happened to him, he would always land on his feet. And even though he was not making the kind of money he'd made in the past, and his life wasn't as exciting as it was when he and his socialite ex-wife were hanging out with famous people, Gary still just loved being here in Tucson. He'd traveled all over and gone to lavish parties in some of the biggest cities in the world, but at the end of the day, nothing could beat a perfect Arizona sunset over the mountains and the desert.

7:15Gary walked across the country club parking lot to his 1989 Lincoln Town Car. He tossed his golf bag in the back and got into the driver's seat. He was about to take off when something caught his eye. There was a small wooden box in the floorboard of the passenger seat. His girlfriend must have gotten him an early birthday present and somehow hidden it in the car without him noticing until now. Gary smiled, reached down, and grabbed the box.

7:45As Gary was getting into his car, the bar inside the country club was getting louder. More people had just come in from the golf course, and everybody was talking and laughing. But suddenly, a huge bang echoed over all that noise. The glasses behind the bar rattled, and some people hit the floor, trying to take cover. They had no idea what was happening. A nearby transformer might have blown, or they could be in the middle of an earthquake. Nobody knew. But one man at the bar, who happened to be a doctor, took off running towards the parking lot, and Gary's friends and some others followed. And when they got outside, they felt like they had just stepped into a war zone.

8:20Car alarms blared, they saw smoke rising into the air, they saw cars with shattered windshields, and they saw a Lincoln Town car with its windows blown out, its doors shredded, and its roof completely ripped off. The doctor ran right to that car, hoping that nobody was inside. But as he got closer, he could see a man sprawled out in the front seat, and most of this man's clothes had been torn off his body, and he looked burned and bloody. The doctor turned around and shouted for the people who had followed him to call 911 and to stay back. He didn't know if they were all still in danger, and even if they weren't, he didn't want anyone to see what he was looking at inside of that car.

8:58The doctor leaned in through the space where the car window used to be. He reached down and grabbed the man's bloody wrist. The explosion that had shaken the bar inside must have killed this man instantly.

9:18Detective James Gamber of the Pima County Sheriff's Department was clearing the dinner table and putting dishes in the sink at his house when his phone rang. He walked across the kitchen and answered it. It was one of his colleagues from the Sheriff's Department, and this colleague said that there had just been an explosion at La Paloma Country Club, and Gamber needed to get down there right away. So Detective Gamber ran out to his car and sped off through his residential neighborhood.

9:45Gamber had only been a homicide detective with the Sheriff's Department for a short time. In fact, he had only worked one homicide case at this point. But as he drove to the country club, he had no idea if he was even heading to the scene of a murder. For all he knew, the explosion he was racing towards could have been caused by an accident of some kind. A few minutes later, Gamber pulled into the La Paloma parking lot, and he saw first responders everywhere. He also saw a different group of people, many of them in golf clothes, standing with two police officers near the main entrance of the club.

10:17The detective got out and walked over towards the first responders, and as he did, the scene in the parking lot almost didn't seem real to him. He stepped over shattered glass, and he thought he saw a car windshield stuck up in a tree, and when Gamber got to the car where the majority of first responders were and he looked inside of it, he knew he was not dealing with an accident. There was no doubt in his mind that a bomb had gone off in that car. Gamber stared down at the mangled body in the front seat. He glanced over at the first responders and even they looked completely shaken. They had seen people who had been pulled from fires, but none of them had seen a man who had been killed by a bomb.

10:55The detective looked back at the body and he saw something that just seemed odd. It looked like this man's clothes had been ripped off by the sheer force of the blast, but his watch had stayed on his wrist. So Gamber leaned further into the car to get a better look. The glass on the man's watch had cracked, and the watch had stopped at 5.38. And Gamber couldn't really explain it, but seeing the watch really hit him hard. It was like this man's last moment on earth was frozen in time. Gamber stepped away from the car and walked over to the crowd of people standing out front. He briefly spoke to the other officers, and then he started taking statements from everyone, and almost all of them knew the dead man in the car, and they said his name was Gary Triano.

11:41Detective Gamber continued to gather information on Gary from the people at the club, and he learned a little about Gary's current girlfriend and what people called Gary's larger-than-life attitude. As Gamber wrote everything down in his notebook, he heard sirens blaring and cars and vans speeding down the street towards the parking lot. He looked out onto the street and he quickly realized this case was about to get a lot bigger than anything he'd ever worked on. Because most of the vehicles heading this way did not belong to the Pima County Sheriff's Department or the local police. They belonged to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

12:19And within minutes, Gamber watched as federal agents from the FBI and ATF swarmed the parking lot and took control of the crime scene. After Gamber finished his interviews, he walked away from the club entrance, but he hung back and just watched the activity in the parking lot. This crime scene had overwhelmed him when he arrived, and now there were law enforcement officers from multiple agencies searching the lot and forensics and explosives experts from the ATF and FBI searching Gary's car. Gamber honestly wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. Finally, amidst all of this, he spotted his boss, the Pima County Sheriff.

12:55So he weaved his way past federal agents towards Gary's car and approached the sheriff, who looked kind of overwhelmed himself. The sheriff told Gamber that several of the federal agents he'd spoken to thought there was a chance that this had been a professional mob hit. Technicians had already found fragments in and around the car that they believed were from a homemade incendiary device, and they thought this device could be the type of bomb often used by the mafia. This actually all made sense to Detective Gamber because he knew that the mafia had been prevalent in this area since back in the 1970s.

13:28But Gamber wanted to know what their department's role was in all of this. Clearly, the FBI and ATF were running things here, and if the mafia was involved, both of those agencies would probably run the entire case for a while. The sheriff said their department would coordinate with the feds, but he told Gamber that it was still the homicide unit's job to pursue this like they would any other murder case. So, Gamber told his boss, if the FBI and ATF were going to start looking into big-time suspects like organized crime families, then he wanted to start on a much smaller scale. And right now, that meant talking to the person who would almost always be the first suspect in a murder investigation, the victim's romantic partner.

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17:44A little over an hour after the explosion, a woman stepped out of her car and approached the country club parking lot. She looked almost like she was sleepwalking, like she didn't see all the chaos around her. Local police officers immediately stopped the woman from walking any further into the parking lot, and she shouted that she was Gary's girlfriend. Detective Gamber saw this happening. He'd been waiting for her. A police officer had called her at Gary's house to inform her about what had happened. At first, she didn't believe the cop. She said Gary was out with his friends, and then he was going to come home for a huge surprise party she was throwing him.

18:17But eventually, she had accepted the truth, and she said she was coming to the country club right away. Gamber rushed over to her and introduced himself. He said how sorry he was, and he hated to put her in this position right now, but he needed to ask her some questions. Gary's girlfriend looked back at him, still with this glazed expression, and said she would try to help. Gamber glanced down at a few notes he'd scribbled in his notebook. He knew the doors on Gary's car had been so badly damaged by the blast that it was impossible to tell if someone had broken into the car to plant the bomb.

18:49But people had been in and out of the parking lot all day, and so far, nobody had reported witnessing a break-in. So, Gamber thought there was a good chance that whoever planted the bomb had easy access to Gary's car, so he asked Gary's girlfriend if she had keys to the Lincoln. She said she did, but she said it didn't really make a difference because Gary always left his car unlocked. This threw Gamber off. Somebody leaving their car unlocked, especially a nice car like Gary's, sounded like something that only happened back in the 1950s. But Gary's girlfriend said that he had this foolish belief that nothing bad would ever happen to him and that people were actually good at heart.

19:25She said if it wasn't for her, he very likely would have just left his house unlocked every night. Gamber continued to talk to Gary's girlfriend for a few more minutes. He didn't want to jump to conclusions, but this woman really did seem completely shocked by Gary's death. So he told her, before he let her go, that he just wanted to know if she could think of anyone in Gary's life who might have wanted to harm him. Gary's girlfriend shook her head. She said Gary had a good relationship with both of his ex-wives and his two grown children from his first marriage, and the children from his second marriage were still pretty little.

19:57And she said everybody who knew Gary loved him. He was generous and fun. Suddenly, Gary's girlfriend trailed off, and the look on her face totally changed, like she had just thought of something. Gamber asked if something was wrong, and she nodded. There was one past relationship in Gary's life that had ended badly, and it just continued to get worse. She said Gary had an ex-girlfriend named Robin Gardner, and Gary had left her when she got pregnant. But even before that, Gary had wanted to get out of the relationship because Robin had a temper and had once attacked him with a flower vase. Gamber asked if Gary had had any contact with Robin lately.

20:34Gary's girlfriend said that Robin had called a few months earlier, and she left Gary a message on the machine. And all Robin had said was, You're going to pay. Someday, you're going to pay.

20:55The day following the bombing, FBI and ATF agents remained focused on possible mob ties to Gary's murder, while Detective Gamber drove to meet Gary's ex-girlfriend, Robin, at her house. By this time, the bombing was all over the news in the region, so Robin was well aware that Gary had died. Robin opened the door, holding her baby girl in her arms, and she led the detective into the kitchen, where her new husband was already sitting at the table. Gamber took a seat, and he didn't waste any time. He said he knew that Robin had once physically assaulted Gary because Gary had called 911 and asked police to remove her from his house.

21:30Gamber also knew about the threatening phone message she had left him. Robin's face immediately turned red, and she looked very embarrassed. She said she couldn't justify her actions, but Gamber clearly did not have the full story. When she had gotten pregnant, Gary had openly doubted that the baby was his. He broke up with her and didn't want any responsibility for the child. So she lashed out because she was hurt and scared and didn't know if she'd be able to provide for her baby on her own. But after the baby was born and a paternity test proved that she was Gary's daughter, Gary had said he would help take care of her financially, and Robin and Gary's relationship became a lot more civil.

22:08The baby started crying a little, and Robin asked if she could excuse herself. Gamber said of course, and Robin carried the baby out of the kitchen. Her husband watched to make sure she was out of earshot, and then he leaned toward Gamber and spoke quietly. He said there was no doubt that his wife had a temper. If Robin was mad, she made it really clear. But despite the issues she'd had with Gary, Robin's husband said that she told him that Gary was a good man for admitting he was wrong and doing his part to make sure the baby was taken care of. By the time Gamber left the house, he didn't feel like Gary's ex-girlfriend or his latest girlfriend were the likely killers.