Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] If you've been paying close attention, you'll recall my mention of Fairbanks, Alaska. Now, I've only been there once, but it reminds me of what some acquaintances once told me, asking if I'd ever been to Alaska. I answered, yes, Anchorage. They scoffed. If you haven't been to Fairbanks, you haven't been to Alaska. Now, maybe that's because in December there's under four hours of daylight or January where the temperatures are minus 15 degrees.
[00:00:41] Oh, excuse me, between zero and minus 15. And it can get colder than that.
[00:00:49] Or it's the opposite.
[00:00:56] Like the days in May and June when there's 20 hours or more of sunlight. People are playing baseball at midnight, no lights required.
[00:01:14] You need dark curtains to be able to sleep.
[00:01:18] That's Fairbanks.
[00:01:20] Land of extremes.
[00:01:23] Gotta love it.
[00:01:26] And I'll tell you, Northern lights.
[00:01:29] You're gonna see him there.
[00:01:32] And it's in this town, Fairbanks, that Neil McKay meets someone who will play a prominent role in his life.
[00:01:41] Her name is Jean Sullivan.
[00:01:44] You could call her a connector. I'd even call her a fixer.
[00:01:51] The other element here is what's happening in Fairbanks at this time in the, really the late 60s, the early 70s, and, and it's a city which is increasing in its importance, not just locally but, but globally.
[00:02:11] Alaska's second largest city, but it's also the city closest to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, which are only 500 miles north.
[00:02:23] It's kind of a, I won't say an accident of history, but it's also connected. Fairbanks is to a rail line that goes all the way down to the deep water port in Seward, 500 miles to the south.
[00:02:38] It's one of really only two real deep water parts in Alaska. So location, location, location puts Fairbanks at the center of Alaska's growing oil boom. And by 1976, they were only one year away from the start of production.
[00:03:02] And it's this part, this place, this oil patch that ultimately connects Neil McKay to Gene Sullivan.
[00:03:10] You can say it was just another chapter in Alaska's boom and bust cycle. Gold, timber, fish, mining, and then oil and gas. It goes deeper.
[00:03:19] Because here's the thing. This happens every one of those cycles. The possibility of great fortune attracts and everyone.
[00:03:38] By July of 1976, it was the criminal underbelly of Fairbanks that was really starting to peak above the horizon. First, there was the mysterious disappearance of Fairbanks teamster Jack Martin, better known as Red.
[00:03:56] And then only days later, another one, this one hitting teamster Harry Pettis.
[00:04:02] They were both out of the Northstar warehouse In Fairbanks, A building that held millions of dollars in equipment and supplies destined for the North Slope.
[00:04:13] And what was that about? The Fairbanks Daily News. Minor speculated drug trafficking in the pipeline. Theft or embezzlement of equipment. Maybe an in house power struggle. Missing Teamster. Pettis, for example, was a job foreman. And the number two teamster at the North Star warehouse.
[00:04:33] Martin was a warehouseman and job steward.
[00:04:36] So both positions of power.
[00:04:39] Soon there would be answers. Sort of.
[00:04:44] Red Martin was found about a month later. His body dumped in a drainage ditch. Hidden in the dense foliage of the Alaska Bush.
[00:04:54] Just 11 miles northeast of Fairbanks on a road that led deep into the Alaskan wilderness.
[00:05:01] There were two gunshot rounds to his head. It was an assassination.
[00:05:07] The power struggle angle was growing wings.
[00:05:12] And of course, that wasn't all that investigators found. Because once questions started being asked, people started talking. One tip led to the next.
[00:05:22] And cops found out that a teacher named Jack McCracken.
[00:05:26] It seems benign, but had given a female friend a.38 caliber pistol for her protection.
[00:05:33] But he was a convicted felon. And was a crime for McCracken to possess that handgun, Much less supply it to someone else.
[00:05:42] So In August of 1976, McCracken was charged with possession of a concealable firearm. Stay with me here. This. This is going to lead into some connections, I promise.
[00:05:56] And things got heated.
[00:05:58] During McCracken's September 8th bail hearing. Fairbanks prosecutor Harry Davis argued that he considered the man to be one of the most dangerous offenders in the state.
[00:06:09] Colorfully known by defense lawyers as Mad Dog. Davis was variously described as a hard nose, cantankerous, tenacious and bullheaded.
[00:06:19] And that was by his friends.
[00:06:22] Opposing counsel took him seriously. Especially when Davis told the court that he intended to indict McCracken as a habitual criminal. Why? Because his prior conviction involved a shooting with intent to kill a witness.
[00:06:39] McCracken was suddenly looking at the possibility of life imprisonment. And the Teamsters, knowing the full implications of Mad dog Davis got McCracken one of the finest defense lawyers in the state.
[00:06:58] But what really strikes us here are the dates and the connections between this maybe not so random collection of crimes.
[00:07:07] First, the dates.
[00:07:08] We're talking about early August to early September 1976. Just months prior to Muriel's car bombing.
[00:07:18] And the connections for that. All we need is a roster of the spectators at McCracken's bail hearing.
[00:07:27] One was red forgo number one at the North Star warehouse. Another one, Bernard Johnny House, number three at the warehouse. It was House who came up to McCracken on break, tapped him on the shoulder and in a stage whisper said, keep your spirits up.
[00:07:50] Perhaps it was nothing more than solidarity, you know, union brothers. Except that you'll recall that House had a murder conviction in his past.
[00:08:03] So now we get to the details. Twenty years prior, House had killed a bar owner named Jack Perry in a Fairbanks bar in cold blood.
[00:08:14] House's homicide indictment noted that he did purposely and of deliberate and premeditated malice, killed Jack Perry by shooting him with a shotgun.
[00:08:25] That's some rough stuff.
[00:08:27] One might call it frontier justice.
[00:09:04] So let's go a little deeper on this, Bernard. Johnny House. We'll start with the Fairbanks Daily News Minor, which wrote about him on May 5, 1958. And I'm quoting. According to territorial police, the shooting of Jack Perry stemmed from a gambling argument at the Club Esquire, which Perry owned.
[00:09:26] Police said Perry pulled the pistol from under the bar of the Club Esquire to quote clear the house after an argument developed between him and another man, Johnny House, over a dice game in progress.
[00:09:43] Parenthetically, Johnny House was engaged in a dice game with another patron and the two of them were yelling quite loudly and swearing profusely.
[00:09:57] Okay, back to the story. House allegedly ran to a parked car, returned with a shotgun, fired into the narrow barroom and hit Perry in the chest.
[00:10:10] Perry was rushed to St Joseph's Hospital, where he died six days later.
[00:10:17] House was first charged with assault with a deadly weapon, but this was changed to murder when Perry died.
[00:10:28] The disappearance of Harold Pettis, meanwhile, went unsolved for many months.
[00:10:34] By December of 1976, Pettis sister had filed a presumption of death petition in Anchorage. Her petition noted that because Pettus had not returned to his Fairbanks apartment and did not return to work on July 27th of that year, he was presumed dead.
[00:10:53] The petition noted that another team, Sir Ernie Freeze, went to Pettis apartment at around 7pm on July 27 and found Pettus dinner uneaten on the table. His wristwatch, wallet, keys and diabetes medicine also on that table. Fries added that the apartment door was open, as if Pettis meant to return.
[00:11:19] Pettus body was found one year later, May 1977. Was so badly decomposed that authority sought positive identification. Would be anywhere from difficult to impossible. For one, the skull was missing, dragged off by critters and then dragged into a guy's front yard by somebody's dog.
[00:11:41] Even with that, a dental match was not in the cars. No skull meant no teeth and the rest of the remains just bones.
[00:11:49] No indications of bullet marks. Their only Hope prior medical records and X rays, if there were any.
[00:11:58] And remember, these were the days before DNA testing.
[00:12:03] With some luck however, the body was positively identified by June of 1977. Pettis x rays sent from Seattle were compared with his autopsy results and they matched.
[00:12:16] So the cops now had two dead warehousemen from the teachers controlled North Star warehouse.
[00:12:46] Foreign.
[00:12:54] Forgive us here, but we're still thinking about Johnny House. Because Johnny House also seems to be a connector for proof. Let's go all the way back to 1958. That was the year the Fairbanks Daily News Miner displayed a five word banner Jury convicts House of murder.
[00:13:18] That was your House met Jane Sullivan and that was the woman who could connect him or possibly him to other people.
[00:13:36] Perhaps with deadly consequence.
[00:13:40] I'm emphasizing ability, but we start here.
[00:13:44] Bernard John appealed his murder conviction and By June of 1958, a judge granted his motion of appeal.
[00:13:52] There was one condition. He had to post a $25,000 bond, which in those days was that was money.
[00:14:00] In part that was because Alaska was still a territory and his appeal had to be heard in San Francisco.
[00:14:10] But even with that, House had to somehow convince that being close by and the lower 48 would be of assistance in his case. And the judge said okay, so there you are.
[00:14:25] The vaccine question was who goes his bail Because Johnny House didn't have it.
[00:14:34] Yep, Johnny House's sponsor was Jean Sullivan. She was president and owner of a local realty. She had connections and she pulled in a friend and together they put up the $25,000 bond that was to ensure that House not only arrived in the lower 48 as required, but also would return to Alaska if so requested.
[00:14:59] Bail secured, House moved out of Alaska, set up a new home near Tacoba, Washington under the alias John Hampton.
[00:15:08] Details, details.
[00:15:10] The premise was he could still consult with his San Francisco based attorney as needed from Tacoma. Except that on December 29, 1958, house was ordered held in the state of Washington on a charge of transporting a woman across state lines for the purposes of prostitution.
[00:15:33] Okay, it was a case stating from May 1956, but yeah, this guy was a sweetheart.
[00:15:39] The Alaska judge was not happy. He ordered Johnny House back to Alaska within 10 days.
[00:15:47] House made it back all right. Thanks to the influence of Jane Sullivan.
[00:15:53] It was a short lived victory. On his return to Fairbank's, House was involved in a brawl at the Gold Rush Saloon. He was Char with three counts of disorderly conduct and later with two more disorderly conduct and four assault and battery charges. His bond totaled $2,900. And it was posted by Gene Sullivan with a friend, Savannah Brown. The two women who by that time were also holding the $25,000 bond for House's murder appeal. It was all for naught. House's appeal on the murder case failed spectacularly.
[00:16:30] He would soon be moving again, this time to Alcatraz on charges of murder on a government reservation in the first degree.
[00:16:39] And, and this is the crazy part, House was gone, but not forgotten.
[00:16:45] Indeed, Mrs. Jean Sullivan couldn't seem to get too much of the man. She played a recurring role in his life. By May 9, 1968, he was pardoned by Alaska Governor Walter J. Hickel. Something about friends in high places.
[00:17:02] And in 1963, while House was a resident in her Fairbanks hotel, the aptly named Sullivan Hotel, Bernard House sustained minor injuries in a traffic accident. It seems trivial, but there they were again, this time living in close proximity.
[00:17:22] And so it was that during this same period that Jean Sullivan gained another friend.
[00:17:30] Enter one Neil S.
[00:17:33] McKay.
[00:17:35] They first met, likely met in 1961, when McKay was involved in helping to build a new automobile dealership in Fairbanks.
[00:17:47] But it was during the bidding process for oil and gas leases on the North Slope that they really formed a common bond. He was the owner of the McKay Building in Anchorage, 14 story apartment complex. And Sullivan owned that Fairbanks hotel along with other properties. Jean Sullivan, her husband Charles, and Neil McKay shared that bond for many years until. Until it no longer made sense.
[00:18:14] Yes, we're referencing a future we haven't even dreamed of yet.
[00:18:19] Let's take a peek.
[00:18:52] Now, when I said we were jumping ahead a little bit, I meant we're jumping into the phase that ran somewhat parallel to the murder investigation.
[00:19:05] Criminal investigation proceeded drudge by drudge. Slow, depressing slow.
[00:19:14] Neil McKay and Robert File were fighting it out over custody of Scotty. It was up to the courts to make the final determination.
[00:19:26] Now, in a twist on the usual plaintiff versus defendant configuration, a third party had joined the case with his own legal representation. It was fairly novel at the time, but the assigned judge made the decision that Scotty McKay deserved his own lawyer, the better to represent his interests as against two powerful men, each with a claim on his soul.
[00:19:59] The following excerpt is from the deposition of Neil McKay taken in April of 1978.
[00:20:06] He's being deposed by attorney Robert Wagstaff, there as the attorney representing Scotty McKay in his ongoing custody case, still unsettled two years after his mother's death.
[00:20:21] And to be clear, the core of this conflict is simple. Neil McKay wants full custody of Scotty.
[00:20:28] And to put a finer point on it, I have it on good authority that Wagstaff seriously considered placing blame for Muriel's murder on Neil McKay. Because if that was the case, if McKay, in fact plotted the murder of Scotty's mother, there was no way any court could ever condone giving custody to him.
[00:20:51] This is.
[00:20:53] This deposition is as close as Wagstaff ever got.
[00:20:59] There's also this, the criminal friend to which Wagstaff refers during the deposition.
[00:21:04] None other than Bernard Johnny House.
[00:21:11] So let's set the scene.
[00:21:14] Professional Business Services is essentially a place where court reporters can take depositions, especially in civil matters.
[00:21:23] So it's a room just large enough for a court reporter and a tape recorder and two attorneys. One of them, of course, Robert Wagstaff, representing Scotty McKay, and the other one, a guy named Dave Talbot, who is Neil McKay's lawyer.
[00:21:42] We start off with the court reporter doing what court reporters do.
[00:21:49] She's addressing Neil McKay. Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, then nothing but the truth, so help you God?
[00:21:59] Neil McKay answers, I do.
[00:22:02] Set your name for the record, and please spell it.
[00:22:05] Neil S. McKay. N, E, I, L. Middle name, S, like in sugar. M A, C, K A, Y.
[00:22:15] What follows are some preliminaries. And then Wagstaff goes to the heart of the matter.
[00:22:20] Question, what kind of people does Jean Sullivan associate with?
[00:22:26] McKay says, well, it's pretty hard to describe how other people associate themselves with other people. And then he sort of mumbles off, well, I. I appreciate that, Mr. A.K. wagstaff responds, let me ask the question a little bit more specifically. Has Jean Sullivan, to your knowledge, ever associated with persons who have been convicted of crimes?
[00:22:52] At this point, McKay's attorney, Dave Talbot, jumps in. Object to that. Well, let's see now. Withdrawn.
[00:23:01] McKay goes ahead with his answer. I. I can't. She. She operated a hotel there in Fairbanks for many years. Association with everybody from every walk of life, I'm sure.
[00:23:12] I'm not talking about persons who stayed at her hotel. Wagstaff says, people that she's had a relationship, either business or social.
[00:23:21] I know nothing about her relationships or friendship or association.
[00:23:26] She has an awful lot of friends. She has a lot. She's just a very remarkable woman.
[00:23:33] To your knowledge, has she ever associated with or been associated with a person who's been convicted of a crime?
[00:23:41] McKay says, I have no specific knowledge, but I venture to say that she has, from operating a hotel, being living in Fairbanks in Alaska, as long as she has I know nothing about her personal friends. She and I are friends.
[00:23:56] I have friends. She has friends.
[00:23:58] Her. Her particular taste and what she might consider a friend wouldn't necessarily be my taste. I mean, but I wouldn't criticize her friends. And I'm sure she wouldn't criticize mine.
[00:24:13] So there it is. Neil McKay. Non committal. Completely non committal.
[00:24:21] Still, the devil's advocate in me asks, what should a guilty man say? And how would he say it? Equally important, what should an innocent man say?
[00:24:32] And on thought, they should actually say the same thing. I want a lawyer.
[00:24:38] McKay had his lawyer. Maybe he should have objected more strenuously, but McKay was able to speak and say nothing.
[00:24:50] He had not forgotten his law school lessons, not by a long shot.
[00:24:58] More important, of course, is what about Jean Sullivan's Fairbanks connections? Could Johnny House arrange a murder?
[00:25:05] I don't know. What do you think?
[00:25:18] Addendum. I know this dates me, but when neil mckay was asked to spell his name n, e, I, l, biddle, initial s, like in sugar, m a, c, k a y. I was reminded of the mickey mouse club of my distant youth. Especially when he got to his last name. M a c, k a y just glides into m I, c, k e, y, m o, u, s e.
[00:25:47] A little off key there, but this whole thing is a little off key there.
[00:25:55] Enough of that.
[00:25:56] And if I'm scoring it, it is mckay. One.
[00:26:02] Wagstaff.
[00:26:14] See you next time.
