Aftermath and Legacy of the Scandal

It's may nineteenth, nineteen eighty four And the audience in a Los Angeles television studio is going absolutely wild The man sitting on stage in front of them is as euphoric as they are in the background is a giant blinking game board that he has just Conquered The man claps his hands, shakes his head, and makes a sound that no one has ever heard before, or since, not quite a scream, more like a high pitched yodel. The outburst is a mix of excitement, exhaustion, and utter disbelief. Basically his way of asking what the hell? just do. This is Michael Larson And what he has just done seemeems impossible. or at least Fishy. That day, he appears on press Y luck It's a pre taped daytime game show on CBS in every half hour long episode Three contestants take turns playing a massive gamebard Each square on the brightly colored grid holds cash, prizes extra spins, or a little red monster. You've heard that correctly. A little red monster tiny animated boogeyman or boogey womoman is Oh whammy What's a whammy? Well, it's a day ruiner. If you buzz in and land on a whammy inststantly lose all of your winnings. It's the show's signature gimmick About one in six spins results in a whami prevents contestants from piling up big sums of money Usually But on this fateful afternoon forty two years ago Michael Larson goes on a hot streak that leaves those who witness it flabbergasted. The network brass, the host of Pressour Luck, Peter Tomarkin, the studio audience, and most of all Michael himself He racks up a whopping forty five consecutive spins without a whimmy The shocking run helps him win one hundred ten thousand two hundred and thirty seven dollars in cash and prizes If you adjust for inflation That's a little over three hundred and fifty grand At the time It is the highest single payday in the history of game shows It's a spectacular TV moment ' still One mystery left to be solved How exactly Cub with a thrift store dress shirt. ack gray hair, bushy beard and a chipmunk smile manages to take press Y luck for a hundred grand Is he a cheater Is he just Supernaturally lucky or as he made his own Welcome to Conspiracy theories. Spotify podcast Carter Roy, you can find us here every Wednesday and we would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts, or check us out on Instagram at the Conspiracy Pod 's with us Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. 'Twas a lovely SUV, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight We feast An offer you can feast on. seell your car today on Carmana Pick up these My The FIFA World Cup is here, and you can now feel the thrill of the pitch in FIFA World Cup Launch Edition on Netflix, a fast and fluid football game where your phone is the controller and the TV is the stadium. Play for your country in sixteen different stadiums with up to four friends. all included in your membership, scroll to the games tab on your TV and play FIFA World Cup Launch Edition Now, only on Netflix Hey, I just Venmoed you for rent. Nice. Now I can instantly spend it whether I'm checking out online with Veno or using a VMmo debit card Say more More exactly? Because the more you do with VenMo, the more you get, likeike earning up to five percent cash back with VenMo Stash on a bundle of brands. So, order more pizza? The math demands it. Get the Venmo debit card. Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. See terms with Venmo. me slash dash terms. Venmo check out notot available at all merchants. VenMo Master card issued by the Bancor Bank NA As Michael Larson is making history, the constant beep bp sounds of the game board become almost hypnotic the audience is transfixed prodducers of press Your luck start to panic doesn't take a genius to realize that he has figured something out It's just unclear what. The mood in the control room is pretty grim Darlene Lieblich Tipton is a prractices Department exxecutive at CBS Here's how she says it went down After about the third spin, the question that is sort of mentally being asked of everybody is, is he doing And then it was just How is he doing that? And then it was just, oh my God, he's doing that The quick and dirty theory is that Michael must be running some kind of scam no one could be that lucky. Michael certainly wouldn't have been the first game show contestant caught up in a scandal The game show scandal is practically an American tradition In the nineteen fifties, several network quiz shows get in hot water for prearranging outcomes The most notorious of those incidents involves a Columbia University lecturer named Charles Van Dorn He becomes a celebrity after winning one hundred twenty nine thousand dollars over the course of several months in nineteen fifty six and nineteen fifty seven on the NBC game show twenty one Fe good story curdles when news breaks that the show's producers have rigged the game in favor of the telegenic Van Dorn F decades later Robert Redford makes a movie about the scandal called Quiz show It turns out that Michael Larson is nothing like Charles Van Dorn But there is a conspiracy afoot., sort of. By definition, conspiracies involve two or more people working together conspiring Michael is a lone wolf ough that's a slightly overdramatic way to describe an ice cream truck driver That's right? Michael drives a Mr. Sofie truck in his hometown of Lebanon, Ohio He also finds work as an air conditioning repair manan Neither job pays terribly well. The man has never been great with money, though making more cash and fast has been a lifelong obsession To understand what makes a guy like Michael Tick, we need to go all the way back to his childhood in Ohio Even back then, he fixates on making a quick buck From a very young age, Michael believes that good old hard work is for suckers In middle school, Michael sells candy bars to classmates at inflated prices When he grows up, he starts to cook up money making schemes that fall into well, ethical gray areas. becomes a habit, he never quits At one point, Michael starts a small business in a family member's name then hires and fires himself so he can collect unemployment checks He also takes advantage of a bank's five hundred dollars offer to open an account then After waiting the minimum amount of time he needs to in order to collect the cash, he closes the account and opens another under a different name. is the kind of guy who works hard to find shortcuts in life. but hates doing Michael is one of four boys. His oldest brother James can see where Michael is headed. James later describes his brother as someone whose desire to make money fast will doom him to self destruction Even as Michael approaches middle age, he doesn't seem worried about the path he's chosen. It's nineteen eighty three and Michael is now well into his thirties still doesn't have his life figured out been divorced twice and is now in a common law marriage to a woman named Theresa. That year, she notices her husband doing something strange. Michael collects a bunch of television sets and stacks them on top of each other in their living room He watches the TV's for hours. He has plenty of time on his hands It's late fall in the Midwest. It's cold. Neighborhood kids aren't begging their parents for spare change to buy bomb pops Michael Fixates on game shows, recording episodes on VCRs with hopes of finding an edge. It's around this time that he discovers a series that he has never seen before It's called press your look. The show is partially the brainchild of producer Bill Carruthers. Back in the nineteen seventies, he co creates a game show called Second Chance forat will probably sound familiar. Three contestants answer questions for chances to play on a giant game board On every spin, a randomized light moves around that board It's up to the player to buzz in and stop the light on a square containing a sum of money At first glance, it seems easy to pile up lots of cash. fast. but There are three spaces on the board that hold little red devils. Land on one of those and you lose all of your winnings Michael Brockman, the head of daytime TV at ABC in the seventies, loves second chance. It premieres in nineteen seventy seven They Flumps The network cancels it after only a few months Unlike most scrap shows, second chance gets a Second chance said life Brockman moves to CBS in the eighties and encourages Carruthers to resurrect that game show concept This time he retools it into something more aesthetically pleasing pise board is bigger and brighter. and the motionless devils who take all the contestants money are replaced by Wemmies who show up to viewers at home in animated form Basically the Whammys are a more sinister version of the minions. And for those of you who weren't around in the eighties This was ubiquitous. No, Whammy's was almost like six seven. It's what you said all the time when you didn't want something to happen You're at the vending machine, hoping it doesn't get stuck. No whamyiess at the black jack table. No whamys going through a red light, hoping you don't get a ticket from a cop. No whammies. Carruthers also wants to make the prize round even more entertaining In the news show The light will move around the board slower than on second chance That makes it easier for the audience to follow. and unlike on second chance, the squares on the board will no longer be fixed. pes will have three different configurations that shuffle in real time That means that on some spins, a square will hold a prize And on some spins, the same square will hold A whammy. This makes the game more unpredictable Most contestants and people watching at home care about any of that You just want to see someone buzz in and stop that moving panel of lights on a square with a big proz While developing the new show, Carruthers is concerned about one thing. randomization He really doesn't want an enterprising contestant to be able to memorize the board's movements problem is a computer program that makes each spin truly random is not in the budget It the early eighties Compromise, Carruthers asks CBS for a light system that cycles around the board in twelve separate patterns Totally random but it's random enough the network says yes to the request. First Then it comes back with a computer program that can only provide Five patterns. After CBS officially picks up, press your luck Carruthers tries to tell his bosses that five patterns just aren't enough tells them that some contestant will eventually memorize the board, not if. When Executives at CBS Iignore the warnings Brockman, now the head of daytime programming at the network claims that the consensus among the brass is that the low number of patterns on the board is not a risk Later he admits the obvious They were wrong Press your Luck preremieres in September nineteen eighty three That's shortly before Michael Larson starts binge watching it. long before binge watching becomes a thing. To understand why he might be so determined to try to game this particular game show I want to take you through ical episode Michael notes that every episode has two question rounds and two prize rounds Every episode starts with a question round host Peter Tomarkin, tosses four questions at three contestants two ways to answer each question. By buzzing in first and answering off the top of your head You're even allowed to answer before Tom Markan finishes the question to picking one of the three answer options to Mark and provides If you buzz in first and answer correctly, you're awarded three spins on the game board. If you answer correctly via the multiple choice option, you are awarded one spin Michael also notices that these questions aren't exactly brain busters. They don't really test academic knowledge, but they're barely even trivia They're based on the kind of topics that used to pop up on family feud. Here's a real press your luck question Crow's feet are those facial lines around the eyes that we get from squinting. According to American Health Magazine, what age does the average person get them? is the correct answer? forty Thty. The questions seem designed to get the contestants to the prize round as fast as possible After all That is the main event in the prize round personers who's earned the fewest spins gets the first shot at the big board which features eighteen squares when it's a contestant's turn panel of lights cycles through the grid seemingly at random But in reality, the lights only move in those five patterns I mentioned Each contestant has a buzzer. There are two goals. One is to smash that buzzer down and stop the lights on a square containing a prize. And the other is to avoid whammies. Like I said before, landing on a whammy zeroes you out by design Whammies are the producer's way of keeping winnings down Doesn't always work though On press your louck Several contestants go on to take home mid five figure sums just a note on that fact All of that cash isn't always collected in one episode If you win, you can play on for five total episodes Naturally, this is what Michael wants in on. a show where you can make Michael spends weeks trying to crack press your luck He studies game film like an NFL coach, slowing down the tape and pouring over it frame by frame He sits in front of the TV's in a trance Ping the light flashes on the prize board This leads to acccording to his common law wife. Theereresa. he starts acting like a kid at Christmas. What Michael has realized is that on each spin, the lights on the prize board move around the squares on the grid in five predetermined patterns This is the vulnerability Bill Carruthers had tried to warn his bosses about If Michael memorizes the patterns then he can conceivably buzz in and land on any space he wants what Michael has also figured out is that there are a handful of squares on the prize board that never contain Whammies twow squares in particular only hold cash prizes and extra spins. This is the good of grass if Michael can land on those two spaces over over He'll be able to pile up cash, keep spinning, and Avoid whammies That is, if all goes to plan Get rich quick schemes take a lot of work of luck So Michael Larson has a plan. He buys a cheap plane ticket to Los Angeles. In those days, Press Y luck holds open auditions One day, Michael walks in for a try out and immediately plays up his humble background He does exaggerate his life story a little, claiming he's just gotten off a bus from Ohio the Homespun charm offensive works Rrothhers is the executive producer of the show. is impressed by Michael. who he finds charismatic and funny. And I mean Michael is an ice cream man an underdog America loves underdogs But not everyone is buying Michael's a Bob Edwards is the contestant coordinator at Press Your Luck He also gets a kick out of Michael's story Edwards finds it too good to be fully true. Michael seems off to him Edwards thinks that the guy must be hiding something. just doesn't know what Edwards is suspicious enough that he tells Carruthers that they should not put Michael on the show He brothers overrules him. Carruthers says years later that he should have listened to Bob. And that's how Michael ends up. on press your luck Before the taping, Michael meets his competitors. One is Ed Long, a Baptist minister. He's the returning champion who's coming off an eleven thousand dollars payday. The other is Janie Litrice Dacin, a dental assistant looking back on that day. She describes Michael as Creepy person with a creepy smile She also admits to underestimating him On the press Y Luck stage, Michael is in the middle with Ed to the audience's left and Janie to the audience's right. At the beginning of the episode, the host interviews each of the contestants Naturally, Peter Tomarkin asks Michael about being an ice cream truck driver. Michael says that he hopes to win enough money so he doesn't have to drive his ice cream truck that summer When the game starts Michael doesn't play like someone who's about to strike it rich during the first multiple choice question round He earns three spins on the big board the fewest of the three contestants That means that he gets to go first in the prize round Right before his turn, Michael positions his hands a few inches above the red buzzer. Then the board starts lighting up Come on Michael slams his hand down on the red buzzer. He gota win That's the sound of Michael landing on a whimmy and in auspicious start The failed spin serves an important purpose It helps Michael get his timing down come in handy later On his next spin, Michael wins tw two hundred and fifty dollars, and on his next one, his last of the round, he lands on the same square and pockets another tw two hundred fifty dollars Michael ends the first round with a modest two thousand five hundred dollars, putting him in third place behind Ed and Janie As far as anyone's concerned, there's absolutely nothing abnormal about Michael's performance So far No one knows her yet But Michael is about to make TV History good, so good, so good. New summer arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Get ready to save big with up to sixty percent off brands like Rag and Bone, Levi', Adidas, and Free People. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack Bonjour, compomadre, it's the How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget Pricine app. It's got hotel deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle, deals, game day deals, concert trip deals. No one deals more deals than prriceline Bold your horses, there's more. The apple let you filter hotels by neighborhood, vibe, star level and amenities like pools and spas and beachfronts Wait, I'm not done. Stop cutting the off. I slide So Michael Larson has cracked the code But there's no way of predicting that an ice cream man would find the key to exploiting the show's vulnerability The only person who believes he's capable of doing it is Michael himself. The way he sees it, all it takes is memorizing some patterns That is easier said than done Each spin is a lightning fast sequence of flashing lights Even if you know the patterns, it takes an extraordinary amount of mental acuity and energy to recognize them and then hit the buzzer at the exact right moment A split second early or late then you could land on a whimmy also Imagine pulling all that off in front of a rackous studio audience with a motor mouth game show host in your ear Michael is under serious pressure keep that in mind as we return to the game During the second question and answer round Michael earns seven spins But since he has the lowest money total of the three contestants, he gets the first crack at the prize board The stacks of cash up for grabs are bigger now than they were the first time around On his first spin Michael lands on a square that awards him four thousand dollars in prize money and one more spin This is the start of a serious heater Michael kicks off the round with seven successful spins in a row. He has piled up nineteen thousand three hundred and thirty six dollars in total winnings. Like I mentioned earlier The odds of hitting a whammy are about one in six Michael is in the zone now. Bobs up and down in his seat. He claps his hands. He screams. He raises his arms in the air. Whammy fearing, press your luck contestants usually pass control of the board to the other contestants after a handful of positive spins but not Michael He waves his finger at Til Mark and as if to say, goo go, go. Michael even shrugs and says I ain't never loseem Manwhile control room at CBS is pure chaos. Brockman, the head of daytime programming, later describes the situation as nothing short of bedlam couldouldn't stop this guy. prodroucers decide that the show must go on can't spot any obvious cheating Filming continues, and Michael keeps rolling After fifteen spins on the board, he has almost thirty seven thousand dollars in winnings, already a one day show record The taping has now flown past the time limit for a single episode of Press Your Luck That's never happened before This is why the original broadcast of Larson's Run is a two partter. Nothing. notot even the allotted time limit can stop Nichole Larson Soon he passes forty thousand dollars D thousand then sixty thousand, then seventy thousand, then eighty thousand, then ninety thousand dollars. If you rewatch Michael's run now, you can pick up on his pattern recognition skills. but remember Michael's research helped him figure out that there are two squares that never hold whammies You're looking at the big board on TV. O of those spaces is at about twelve o'clock, the other is about three o'clock These are Michael's hotsots He starts aiming at them on every turn during a long stretch of the game. he lands on one of those two squares on thirty straight spins Each one contains a cash prize and and extra spin This allows Michael to keep spinning and keep piling up the cash. By then, the host of Press Y Luck has seemed to run out of things to say about Michael's performance He's as shocked as the studio audience Michael himself seems to be exhausted or at least in a haze At L, one of the other contestants has begun to notice that Michael looks drained, both mentally and physically Eventually, Michael passes the one hundred thousand dollars threshold. Coming in, his goal is to win one hundred grand Mission accomplished. With one hundred two thousand eight hundred and fifty one dollars banked, Michael finally decides continuing to press his luck seems awfully risky When Michael passes, Both of the other contestants openly congratulate him. It's Ed's turn now. He can't believe what's happening. Then he spins and promptly hits a whammy. three spins later, his last spin. Ed whammyies out again Control the board goes to Janie, who spins her way into nine thousand three hundred and eighty five dollars in cash and prizes With three spins left, She decides to make Michael press his luck one last time, so Janie passes And that means it's Michael's turn again Acording to the rules, he must take her three spins And then he feels like he's running the final mile of a marathon. just wants to cross the finish line without collapsing Around that time, he starts to lose his concentration and discipline. the stakes could not be higher One mistake on the buzzer and Michael might lose all his money as if he's not under enough stress His memory starts to fail him Michael somehow stays sharp enough on his next two spins to land on his preferred squares at twelve and three o'clock He wins cash on both Th thenen on his third spin. His mind goes blank He suddenly forgets where the whammies are When Michael slams on the buzzer He accidentally lands on an unfamiliar spot on the board one where whammies have appeared earlier in the game And in this case, he gets incredibly lucky This time There's no whimmy The square reveals a trip to the Bahamas He's safe Michael wipes his brow, his relief is palpable Now that he's used up the three spins Jamie gave him, he's allowed to pass his remaining two back to her. So that's what he does. On her next spin, Janie wins seven hundred and fifty dollars, but doesn't earn an extra spin She has one spin remaining. When Janeie hits the buzzer again, she lands on a prize, a cruise to Mexico there are now No spins left. game is over. That means Michael is the champion. He finishes his run on Press Y Luck with one hundred ten thousand two hundred and thirty seven dollars in cash and prizes celebrates unleashing his high pitched yelp The show's announcer, Rod Roddy, who you may also remember from the Price is right, almost loses his voice listing all the things Michael has won. A sailboat, a vacation to the Bahamas, a trip to Hawaii. Oh, and over a hundred thousand dollars in cash The host of the show, Peter Tomarkin, is dumbfounded He has spent the whole show watching Michael in awe He never tries to throw Michael off his game, nor is he asked to by the producers. Peter is as amazed as the audience He announces to Michael, You have won more money than anyone has even thought about winning on press Your luck The host looks as exhausted and relieved as the champion Peter had been scared that Michael was tempting fate by spinning so many times He didn't want Michael to lose all his money Peter's amazement, Michael survives the roller coaster ride Before the credits roll Peter interviews Michael one last time and they hit on all the underdog story beats Michael reminds the audience that he has borrowed money to travel to Los Angeles He says that he's wearing a dress shirt that he bought for sixty five cents at a thrift store. explains that until now He didn't have enough money to pay for birthday gifts for his daughter And he's excited that he won't have to drive an ice cream truck anytime soon Not this summer, he says No way One thing Michael doesn't talk about is Now Exactly won all that money. Did you know Sam's Club isn't a store? It's actually a club. with cool finds and like a whole community. It's a club. Of course, Jason, it's in the name. Sam's Club. Oh, yeah. comeome join us. Sam's Club In the immediate aftermath of Michael Larson's press Y luck Heist, executives at CBS scramble to get to the bottom of it Tiffany Network doesn't even want to air Michael's amazing run, at least not without investigating Michael first The execs don't want the blood of a cheating scandal on their hands But it becomes clear that Michael isn't a scammer at all He's just an astonishingly keen observer All he needed was a bunch of TV's, some VCRs, and too much time on his hands Years later, one game show exc says this What he did was legitimate It was like being a card counter at Blackjack After all, nowhere in the rules did it say that you tension CBS immediately and quietly tweaks a few things about the game. To prevent anyone else from copying Michael's strategy, the producers of Press Your Luck increased the number of prize board patterns from five to thirty two They also decide to cap a contestant's winnings It's seventy five thousand dollars In june nineteen eighty four, the network reluctantly airs Michael's episode as a two part special It is, after all, a TV moment too good to hide from viewers But beyond that, CBS doesn't exactly celebrate his incredible performance. Executives decide to show the two part episode once then stash it away decision not to rerun it seems misguided By then the cat is way out of the bag, but also It's understandable They don't want any copycats Even if Michael is Sui Jarz. Press your luck, runs for three seasons on CBS There are rumors that the network's decision to eventually cancel it is because of Michael's windfall isn't true In fact His run causes ratings to jump at first in twenty nineteen, ABC reboots Press Your luck with Elizabeth Banks as the host The revival is still going, but it's never reached the heights that the original did on that surreal day back in nineteen eighty four. G it The uncut original footage of Michael Larson's performance doesn't officially resurface again until two thousand three, when the Gamehow Network airs a documentary about the incident called bus, the press your luckx scandal. It's narrated by Peter to Mark. As for Michael No It doesn't exactly triumphantly ride off into the sunset Pulling off one of the most clever get rich quick schemes in American history teaches him the wrong lesson Over the years, his small scam snowball into bigger ones thingsings get ugly. in his post game interview Michael claims he's going to invest his winnings in real estate. He later says in an interview with TV Guide cash flow problems throughrow a wrench into that plan. A few months after his press Y luck appearance Michael hears about a radio station contest Every day, a DJ in Dayton, Ohio reads a serial number on the error. If that serial number matches the serial number of your one dollar bill, then you win thirty thousand dollars So what does Michael do He withdraws one hundred thousand dollars in singles from the bank Actually, he needs five banks to find that many small bills Michael and his wife, Theereresa spend weeks sifting through the cash trying to find the winning serial numbers They don't have any luck After a while, they put half of the stack back in the bank. But there's still fifty thousand dollars in loose bills scattered around the house One night, they go to a Christmas party, but when they return door has been kicked in and the money As the police investigate, Michael becomes paranoid He accuses Theeresa of stealing his money. or if not putting someone else up to it Teresa seriously starts to think that he might try to kill her Wh she's sleeping He stands at the end of the bed and stares at her It gives her the creeps The alleged robbery is never solved and Teresa leaves Michael He is out of her life for good It doesn't take long for America to forget about Michael Larson in nineteen ninety four. He makes one last documented public appearance. When the movie Quiz show comes out Good Morning America interviews him about his own game show scandal. during the segment He claims that it had taken him six months to fully memorize all the press Y Luck prize board patterns He also expresses interest in being a contestant on Jeopardy. He smiles and says that he's figured out some angles on that show veryer curious to know how you can trick jeopardy. I guess if you spent six months memorizing encyclopedias, maybe that's what it is Alas Michael's Game show days are over. At some point in the nineties, Michael moves from Ohio to Florida It turns out that he isn't just trying to escape the harsh Midwestern winters He's on the lamb You see Michael has helped orchestrate a multi level marketing scheme through a shell company called Pleasure Tim inccorporated There are bogus investments in fake Native American lotteries. Michael allegedly bilooks twenty thousand people out of a total of three million dollars He is a pioneer Until investigating the scheme, the Security and Exchange Commission had never pursued a serious internet fraud case. The SEC files charges against the sham company in nineteen ninety five the law catches up with Michael in nineteen ninety nine, he dies of throat cancer in Apopka, Florida at age forty nine It's still unclear why Michael Larson decides to go from small time scammer to full on con manan Maybe he's desperate for money Or maybe he's delusal enough to believe that he can outwit the powers that be. he'd done it once before Long after his brother's death, James Larson says that he believes Michael's performance on Press Your Lucks was the start of his downfall James also says that Michael always thought that the media didn't celebrate his feat as much as it should have. As his former common laaw wife, Teresa puts it The game show is one thing he did do that was honest. In reality, Michael Larson's legend doesn't actually die with him In the early two thousands, Bill Murray is in talks to play Michael in a movie about the ice creream man's wild run on Pressour Luck The film is never made, but Two and a half decades later, another actor, Paul Walter Hauser, takes up the mantle He plays Michael in the luckiest man in America. true ish silver screen adaptation of his story debuts in twenty twenty four forty years after Michael's appearance on Press Your Luck Hauser nails, Michael's mannerisms, right down to his high pitched yelp It's a performance that Michael himself would have approved of Th we might quibble with the movie's title. if you asked him He'd say his most famous accomplishment had nothing with Luck Thank you for listening to conspiracy theories We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at the Conspiracy Pod. If you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts Our sources for today's episode include the TV guide article The D the Game showow Got Whammied. this American Life segment, donon't hate the playayer, and the Gamees showown network documentary Big bucks. Press your luck scandal Until next time, remember The truth isn't always the best story and the official story isn't always the truth This episode was written by Alan Siegel Eedited by Mickei Taylor and Justin Sales by Sophie Kamp. and engineered, video edited and sound designed. H by Alex button I'm your host, Carter Roy Three decades ago, a young woman named Angie Dodge is found brutally murdered in Idaho Falls. Police put a man behind bars, but as the years pass, doubts emerge about whether the real killer was ever caught. That's when Angie's own mother embarks on a decades long mission to uncover the truth Listen to the Snare, the new series from ABC Audio Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts