Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] By the one year point, Muriel Files murder had birthed not one but two investigations. One, of course, was the investigation into her murder. The second was the inquiry into Neil McKay's fitness to assume custody. To assume full custody of Scotty McKay. And fitness was the operative word.
[00:00:25] Mural had already set up the ground rules by openly declaring that Neil McKay was unfit to for fatherhood.
[00:00:32] And up to this point McKay had effectively lost every single battle. But. But let's be clear, both investigations were fraught and it was sometimes hard to say which brought the bigger circus.
[00:00:50] The custody case was itself a growing cast of characters. Scotty Sawyer, Scotty's maternal aunt and uncle, his maternal grandmother, Scotty's paternal aunt and uncle Carolina and Albert Willis, with whom he now lived.
[00:01:09] There was his father always a controlling presence, always lurking, always fighting a gladiator.
[00:01:16] As one of the psychiatrists on the case noted, Scotty has more than seven parent figures in his life right now. This too much for a child. Yet it it's amazing he isn't a basket case by now. Adding that the child had been moved around so much he began carrying his suitcase with him to breakfast.
[00:01:46] Neil McKay's Neil McKay's biggest obsession, other than his son was Robert Wagstaff, Scotty's court appointed attorney. Now Wagstaff was many things, among them a founding member of the Alaska branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, a proponent of marijuana liberalization. Most important here, however, was a case recently decided by the Alaska Supreme Court, decided In fact only one year earlier, Wagstaff vs Superior Court Family Court Division, in which Alaska's top court decided that minors under the age of 18 were entitled to legal representation in non delinquency matters. A case came against opponents who argue that parents should choose the child's attorney since they were monetarily liable.
[00:02:40] The court in fact decided in favor of the children, not the parents. Without going too deep into the weeds, here's what they said. Where the parents are hostile to the child's interests, the parents may not select the child's attorney.
[00:03:00] The child may retain the attorney of his choice or in the alternative, ask the court to appoint an attorney for him.
[00:03:08] If the child has retained counsel, the court must respect the child's choice.
[00:03:16] The court ultimately decided that a child is permitted to retain counsel to represent him or her at a child in need of supervision hearing. Without going too deep into the woods. Here's the key part of their ruling. Where the parents interests are hostile to the child's the parents may not select the child's attorney. The Child may retain the attorney of his choice, or in the alternative, asks the court to appoint an attorney for him.
[00:03:47] If the child has retained counsel, the court must respect the child's choice.
[00:03:57] Now, clearly, in Scotty's case, age three and a half, it was the court, Judge Matson, who was making that decision.
[00:04:08] Neil McKay was none too happy about it.
[00:04:14] To be clear, his. His interest might well have been hostile to Scotty's, but payment was coming out of Scotty's estate.
[00:04:29] So there's no way Neil McKay could ever be happy with that or with Robert Wagstaff.
[00:04:35] Somewhere in Leo McKay's legal brain was William Blackstone's 19th century proclamation that children belong to, and I'm quoting, the Empire of the Father.
[00:04:49] So, yeah, it's kind of dry. It's legal language.
[00:04:53] But the essence is this.
[00:04:55] If you're a kid and you are involved in a hostile situation with your parents, you have the right for somebody who's going to represent your interests, not theirs.
[00:05:13] And if they're hiring the attorney and paying for the attorney, there's a good chance there's going to be undue influence. And that's what they're trying to avoid here.
[00:05:29] Okay, not everybody agrees with that principle, but you have to kind of think here, where the kid is three and a half years old and his father may have murdered his mother, then you damn well better give that kid an independent attorney.
[00:05:53] Sorry.
[00:05:55] That's okay.
[00:06:29] Well, it wasn't just that. Wagstaff one of the experts to weigh in not only on McKay's Fitness for Parenthood, but also hear from anyone who could speak to Mural Files Homicide.
[00:06:46] He wanted to know whether or Not Neil S. McKay was involved in Muriel's death or who else might be involved.
[00:06:55] And at a minimum, he agreed with mural file, Neil McKay was not fit to have custody of Scotty.
[00:07:02] His condition, make that conditions plural, were not temporary in Wagstaff's estimation. Mr. McKay would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And the only thing he wanted was Scotty.
[00:07:18] The animosities were mutual.
[00:07:22] McKay said Wagstaff was in, quote, fairyland. That he lived in a, quote, make believe world. McKay also thought was convinced that he'd identified Wagstaff's core motivation.
[00:07:36] He was also convinced that his underlying motivation was enough to get Wagstaff kicked off the case. Now, that's animosity. And Here he is, McKay, spreading the love.
[00:07:48] Mr. Wagstaff knows as well as everyone else that the bottom line of this proceeding is the estate of Mural A file deceased. There are assets available And Wagstaff is not adverse to make material misrepresentations to any court. And he is not adverse to to withhold information which would be to the benefit of Scotty. In fact, Mr. Wagstaff is not averts to doing anything so long as he can make money at it.
[00:08:17] Mr. Wagstaff was a money making machine so long as he is an attorney for Scotty. Simply stated, he is not representing the best interests of Scotty. If he were, he would certainly be protecting Scotty's rights rather than hiding behind a bush.
[00:08:57] Foreign.
[00:09:02] Was just getting started. His aim here was to permanently remove Robert Wagstaff from Scotty's care and representation. Wagstaff fought back. He kind of knew the Supreme Guard been there before, had won there.
[00:09:19] And here's a portion of the Alaska Supreme Court Court's ruling in that matter of Wagstaff representing Scotty. It is our conclusion that the attorney representing NPM, Neil File McKay, Scotty, Robert H. Wagstaff should not have been removed unless good cause existed for his removal.
[00:09:44] They suggested there was no cause, but the Superior Court should perhaps decide. As if that wasn't enough to ruin Neil McKay's day, Judge Matson temporarily awarded custody of Scotty not to McKay but his sister Carolina. His rationale? Neil McKay had failed the parental fitness test.
[00:10:07] Prescription drug use mostly. Oh, and his erratic behavior. Something about him being a danger to his son.
[00:10:17] McKay took it badly and if it a peak, he abruptly pulled the plug on his sister who with her husband was a live in caretaker at a McKay owned apartment building.
[00:10:30] And I'm quoting here from Carolina, if they were going to carry out the order of the court, Carolina quoted her brother. I could get my ass out and kiss his.
[00:10:42] While she was in Scotty's bedroom packing up to move Scotty one floor down to her apartment, Neil barged in and gave Carolina an envelope. Told her it was their termination checks. Which meant they had to get out of the building and find some other place to live. Which ultimately ended up in Eagle river north of Anchorage. They were managing an apartment building.
[00:11:09] We would be remiss if we didn't mention an incident that occurred on February 23, 1977. Was supposed to be a simple deposition. Although the truth was nothing was going to be simple about this case.
[00:11:24] The three attorneys were there, of course. Neil's attorney, Robert Files, attorney Scotty's attorney. The man being deposed was Neil S. McKay. The time was 9:30am and Robert Files attorney Doug Bailey was taking the lead. His first question, has anyone given you the name of anybody that might be involved in Muriel's death.
[00:11:49] Have you gotten any names from any source?
[00:11:53] Here's McKay. Well, counsel, if I relied on the information that I have received, we would be here for 15 days. It's my understanding that it's a possibility that it was a mistake.
[00:12:04] And the identity of the car, that the car was parked in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have received. I've been queried as to whether Bob File might have been responsible for it.
[00:12:17] Bob File immediately jumped from his chair, went after Neil McKay. There were fisticuffs, the attorneys clamoring to break it up. The court reporter wondering, do you need me to call somebody?
[00:12:30] And Neil McKay's attorney responding. We're okay, but the deposition is over for today. And then in the background came what the court reporter wrote as unidentified voice. And that voice was, well, who knows? Here's what that unidentified voice was saying. You rotten bastard. You rotten bastard.
[00:12:57] Robert File. That was Bob File.
[00:13:01] By August of 1977, Neil McKay was back on offense. He filed an estate suit against Robert File, Robert Wagstaff, Muriel Files, estate attorneys, and Douglas Bob Bailey, Robert Fil's attorney. And the Scotty custody matter, the cause, that the defendants had wrongly misappropriated funds under quote circumstances amounting to fraud. At issue were the costs associated with the legal actions pertaining to Scotty's custody. One estimate put it at $70,000.
[00:13:40] They were just getting started.
[00:13:42] So that number looked ominous. And all of it was coming out of Scotty's inheritance.
[00:13:51] And here was Neil McKay using the courts in full vengeance mode.
[00:13:56] The suit further demanded punitive and exemplary damages against the defendants and demanded a jury trial. Yeah, make this as public as possible. Let's bring back the stocks and the chains.
[00:14:13] Okay, I'm getting too glib here, but there was some other things going on.
[00:14:22] Members of the medical community who are now warning that McKay might go even further in his quest for Scotty.
[00:14:41] Sa.
[00:15:06] Mid September of 1977, Anchorage newspapers both ran stories about the one year anniversary of Mirop Files murder.
[00:15:16] Neither of them wrote anything remotely resembling ecstatic prose or hey, we've solved it. Instead, the headlines read, bureau files death A one year case without clues. That's from the Anchorage Daily News or this from the Anchorage Daily Times. A year later custody battle.
[00:15:36] On the law enforcement front, Anchorage Police Capt. Ralph Christensen told reporters that investigators were still working the case.
[00:15:45] Most are anonymous type tips with someone claiming to have information on the bombing. Christians had said.
[00:15:53] And he added, so far, the tips have led investigators no closer. Defining Miro's killer.
[00:16:01] He said the chances of solving the murder are, quote, slim, but there's always a chance that if the right person comes along with the right information, it can be solved.
[00:16:12] There was one piece of progress.
[00:16:16] Detectives had ruled out the use of dynamite. That's the type of bomb used, which meant which was soon determined to be plastic explosive C3 or C4.
[00:16:28] Here's the language from the relevant report taken directly from court records.
[00:16:36] Analysis of the crime scene by local police, the FBI laboratory and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms concluded that a high velocity explosive, probably a military explosive such as C3 or C4, had been planted on under the hood of her car and that a blasting cap connected to the explosive had been wired to her engine in such a way that an attempt to start the ignition would result, as it did, in an explosion.
[00:17:40] There are, it must be said, critics of the Anchorage Police Department department during these years, the 70s, especially former APD chief Ron Audie, remembers well some of the deficits of those years. In a 1988 Sheila Toomey article in Anchorage Daily News, Audie recalls a scene that shocked him.
[00:18:03] He was a young officer fresh on his first crime scene, and he saw a body sprawled on the bedroom floor. The man had been shot to death in his own home.
[00:18:14] When I got there, audie recalled, a couple of detectives were standing around talking, and one was sitting at the end of the victim's bed smoking a cigarette. He had his foot propped up on the guy's shoulder. I thought to myself, hey, this can't be the best way to do this.
[00:18:29] Other memories of anchorage in the 70s lead directly to serial killer Robert Hansen, about whom I've written extensively. Hansen's crimes went unsolved for a decade, a full decade. Some APD detectives, not all thankfully, believed him when he gave his tried and true alibi. It was just a dispute over money, he said, complaining about the prostitutes of Anchorage.
[00:19:06] Now let me adamantly add this APD investigator Joe Acton was not among that bunch.
[00:19:16] As he noted of the Mural file investigation at the one year mark and I'm quoting, it gets to you. I get up in the morning and I think about it. I think about it all day. Then I get in bed and stare at the ceiling and count the squares.
[00:19:31] We're in the stage now where the physical evidence isn't going to turn the case.
[00:19:36] Someone is going to turn up who wants to talk to us.
[00:19:43] One thing for sure, Joe Acton could not solve this case all by his lonesome. And then one tantalizing clue turned up staring the cops in the face.
[00:19:55] As the court record indicates, a short time before Becoming Hero was killed, Neil McKay had allegedly been making inquiries concerning how to contact a professional assassin.
[00:20:09] And let's be clear, the method of the murder indicates the work of a professional. Further method timing location of the bombing indicate that the person who arranged the murder insisted that Scotty not be harmed.
[00:20:26] Insisted. This, as prosecutors would come to believe corroborated McKay's identity as the one who employed the killer.
[00:20:34] Like I said, tantalizing. Which if you're familiar with the myth of Tantalus, not entirely good news.
[00:20:42] No, no, Sam.
[00:21:17] I like to also add this little post script because some of you may be wondering if or whether Robert Hansen ever crossed paths with the folks featured in Kill Brother, Kill Sister. It should be said up front that the files and McKay traveled in different circles than Robert Hansen. But there is at least one documented intersection between the two Bobs. Bob Hansen and Bob File. The year was 1975.
[00:21:52] Bob Hansen was working at the Safeway Bakery in Anchorage. He was on parole for the attempted kidnapping of a real estate secretary in 1971.
[00:22:04] And by some accounts, Hansen was, despite his parole status, still on the prowl.
[00:22:17] 1975 was also the year that Robert File and several hundred friends surprised Rita and Bob Scholten at Pioneer hall for their 15th wedding anniversary. Scholten was known for his flying freighters using DC6s to fly freight to remote sites in Alaska.
[00:22:36] Also the founder of Northern Air Cargo now list among those who helped plan the Schulten Fett was Bob Hanson.
[00:22:48] When I first saw the listing on the Anchorage Daily Times society page, I did a double take until I saw the last four lines. One feature of the birthday party was a fancy four tiered cake.
[00:23:04] Quoting from the Acreage Daily Times article, the cake was decorated with an airplane, a log cabin and a model army truck similar to the one the Scholtens used for their honeymoon in 1960.
[00:23:19] By the way, when I read the description of the cake, it sent chills up my spine. The airplane, the log cabin.
[00:23:36] See you next time.
