Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Who done it?
[00:00:02] It's the obvious question, right? Who done it? That's what everyone wants to know.
[00:00:08] So let's start to unravel that question and see how far we get.
[00:00:13] One thing up front, I'm going to stipulate that what we're talking about here is premeditated murder. You don't just casually walk up to a car and put a bomb in it. It's not a situation where, hey, somebody gets a man, grabs a gun and then says, I'm sorry, your honor, the gun just kind of accidentally went off.
[00:00:33] No.
[00:00:35] And this is the kind of murder that forces us to ask about motive. Who benefits? Who benefits from this?
[00:00:45] And there's one thing we quickly come to realize. We didn't know it right away. There seems to be a prize on offer.
[00:00:54] His name is Neophiscotti McKay, the offspring of Mural File and Neil McKay, a child whom his father regards with a complex set of emotions.
[00:01:09] Certainly fathers are called to love their sons as much as their mothers do. And Neil McKay, because he came to fatherhood fairly late in life, sometimes feels inadequate to the task. And others point that out.
[00:01:35] But there's some other sentiments that are mixed in with that.
[00:01:40] And, and to illustrate it, I'm, I'm actually going to provide a couple of examples. And the first one we'll start with is I'm going to call it poetry.
[00:01:53] That's with air quotes.
[00:01:56] Which was found on the wall of a house that McKay owned, a spot where he had to move his office once his high rise apartment building was condemned. It was on the wall and here it is in all its glory.
[00:02:11] First there was a father, then a son.
[00:02:15] Neither wore kilts, but both had fun.
[00:02:19] They romped and they stomped, it is to be said, and the son became as father. So The Bible read McKay's they were a proud Scot line. A bond formed between them that was just fine.
[00:02:33] As a seedling the father took the boy in tow and shall all remember now with God's help, we all watched Scotty grow so that little scrap of dog. Girl, I was once a poet. I can call it dog, which means really bad poetry. Okay, Rhymey rhy, you know, I, I, I use it to illustrate some of the feelings that, the deep feelings that motivated Neil McKay to file in 1979, a legal notice concerning Scotty. And it was, of course, he now had full custody of the son.
[00:03:18] It was in the state of Hawaii. The cause in his petition read, in the matter of the petition of Neil Southernland McKay, father for and on behalf of Neil File McKay, a minor for change of name.
[00:03:36] The petition was granted.
[00:03:39] And I'm going to quote a little bit from the decree, and it's.
[00:03:45] That's funny legal language, but you'll get the point. Upon consideration of the petition of deal Sutherland McKay, and there appearing to be good reasons for granting the same. Now therefore, by virtue of the authority in me, by law vested, and thereby enabling I, Jean King, Lieutenant Governor of the state of Hawaii, to hereby order and decree that the Name Neil File McKay is hereby changed to Neil Sutherland McKay Jr.
[00:04:18] In one stroke. In one stroke, Neil McKay had moved to sever Scotty's ties, his identity, just take it away from his mother's family, from his.
[00:04:33] Removing that file name, that was the whole point.
[00:04:38] Okay, well done, sir.
[00:04:41] Well done.
[00:04:43] By the way, we also know that his grandmother. Grandmother file kind of a little notice in the. In the mail.
[00:04:53] You know, that kid that you know is Scotty, he's. Now, you know, he's no longer the file. We took that away.
[00:05:36] So whatever Neil McKay's feelings were toward his son, and those are hard things to measure to plum whatever they were, Mural had stood in his way.
[00:05:52] See, she actively blocked any semblance of possession. And that's the word I want to emphasize here. Any semblance of possession whatsoever.
[00:06:04] Remember, her last act before dying was to block expansion of Neil's custody rights for. For two years until Scotty, then three, turned five.
[00:06:20] This since then. And it was right in Neil McKay. He'd lost control.
[00:06:27] He'd lost whatever power he ever had and he was trying to get it back. That's. That's a theory of the case, right?
[00:06:36] So if she. If Mural was eliminated, if she's gone, if she's dead, then he, the presumptive father, can stand there and say, I'm the father. I'm the surviving father. Give me my child. He's mine. Sounds simple, right? Or stupid.
[00:06:56] The complication, of course, is that getting from that theory of the case to proof that Neil McKay actually did it is not quite. Quite so straightforward. You expected that, didn't you?
[00:07:09] Because as soon as they started investigating and they meeting the Anage police, the realm of possible suspects started to expand.
[00:07:20] In fact, as the investigation moved forward, the cops ended up with about 17 suspects. Seventeen.
[00:07:27] That's too many, right? I mean, what you want is to narrow the list down to the one person or persons who were directly responsible.
[00:07:39] And actually, in many cases of intimate homicide, and that's, you know, what we're thinking again, our theory of the case it's reasonably easy to reduce that number down to one to the perpetrator. Maybe he was wounded in the struggle. Maybe he left behind proof. Hair or fingerprints or other kinds of evidence. Maybe there's a history of violence, even witnesses, eyewitnesses.
[00:08:05] But that's not what happened here.
[00:08:09] Instead, this bombing birthed an aura of fear in Anchorage. The suspect list blossomed. Really a bandwagon of folks showing up. Hey, consider, for example, the guy who owned the Baranoff Lounge. Sort of a typical Alaska bar, live music kind of joint. That guy was convinced the bomb was actually meant for him.
[00:08:33] He'd had threats against his life. He drove a car that was very similar to Mural Files. Car. In fact, he left Alaska out of fear that there'd be another attempt on his life.
[00:08:47] So. So what's that about? Mistaken identity? It was Mural File. Simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
[00:08:56] That seemed possible after police came across several other incidents. And one stands out. While at a local bar, actually a restaurant, an Anchorage police investigator observed $15,000 in cash changing hands. And this was at a time close to the bombing. So he's suspicious it's not a home run.
[00:09:19] Because neither of the participants looked like Mr. McKay. Okay, we perhaps have blinders on. And more to the point, they both got away before the investigator could identify them or determined why there was such a large transaction. And I got to ask, how hell does he know there's 15 grand on the table? He's seeing packets of $100 bills straight from the bank, Sam.
[00:10:16] But let's keep going, shall we?
[00:10:19] Another informant told investigators that the bomb that killed Mural File was actually meant for a female reporter who'd been doing freelance investigations into alleged corruption in the Fairbanks Teamsters organization. Yeah, we've already mentioned her. So that informant later revised her opinion. But police learned that the journalist was, in fact doing a Teamsters Union expose. Something about corruption. And the thing was, this partner was based in Anchorage, did drive a car, similar bureau, and parked in the lot where the blast occurred.
[00:10:58] So, yeah.
[00:11:00] And then there was the lawyer who later became a judge. His name was Carl Johnstone.
[00:11:05] He provided a statement to the police indicating that he felt he had been the intended victim of the blast.
[00:11:15] A pro business lawyer who often helped companies fight off union activities. He'd been involved in many a battle that pitted store owners against their workers. Most of them, of course, demanding better wages, better working conditions.
[00:11:30] We know that story.
[00:11:32] And one of Johnstone's Most recent actions, June 1976, had been in support of Alaska Fish and Farm A restaurant wholesaler.
[00:11:43] Now, the Teamsters were leading a boycott of that very wholesaler. And Johnstone, representing Alaska Fish and Farm, said his clients were seriously considering filing a damage suit against the union. And if that suit went forward and the wholesaler prevailed, Alaska Fish and Farm could seek to recover not only actual damages, but. But also a punitive award against the Teamster. So that might make somebody mad. John Stone, in fact, told investigators that he routinely parked his car in the lot where the blast occurred, a spot that was noted where Mural file did not usually park. And he added he'd received threats.
[00:12:30] You might take a car bombing as an escalation of those threats, maybe.
[00:12:38] Yeah, I would.
[00:12:41] But if you want to get really, really down into the interesting part, you have to follow me around the corner. Because within weeks of the murder, all those suppositions were in the past tense. A young man had come forward and confessed.
[00:13:02] His name was Donnie Wayne Pitts.
[00:13:06] He was at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute in the adolescent facility.
[00:13:12] In other words, he was still in his teens and he might be crazy. Okay, so that tells us a little bit about him. Where were you, Donnie? Why were you there, Donnie? Well, mental problems. He got it on him. Unstable.
[00:13:25] And this is where it gets kind of weird. Two hours before the bomb went off, Pitts was telling anyone who'd listened, there's a bomb and it's going to go off within a block of the Captain Cook Hotel. As it turns out, that's exactly how close the actual bombing was. And he's saying this, like I said, before the bomb goes off, and then after the bomb goes off, he's complaining, should have gone off by now.
[00:13:57] The cops found out and of course they confronted him, interrogated him. He said, yeah, I had plans for the bomb and I passed them on to a friend of mine.
[00:14:08] And once this guy learned the bomb had finally gone off, this guy Pitts, he went awol, skipped out of the place.
[00:14:16] I mean, the Psychiatric Institute went to collect his 100 bucks because of course he helped plan the thing.
[00:14:25] And the cops going, really, Donnie? Are you sure?
[00:14:29] And Donnie started backpedaling, recanting.
[00:14:33] The cops asked, what about a polygraph? Which was canceled because Donnie Wayne Pitts was schizophrenic.
[00:14:46] What about the other suspects?
[00:14:48] Police couldn't ignore 24 year old William J. Wells, who just months after Muriel was killed, called in bomb threats to several downtown buildings.
[00:15:00] The break in that case, if you can call it that, came when Wells made threats in front of witnesses at the New Start center downtown Anchorage.
[00:15:10] Still a dead end. Nor could they ignore allegations that someone in Miro's travel agency knew something.
[00:15:17] Predictably, that too went nowhere.
[00:15:21] And then there was another one, off on a sort of an angle.
[00:15:27] Maybe it was meant for Robert File, this bomb, because of his activities in support of the airline pilots union. And whether Robert File actually borrowed Muriel's car was speculative.
[00:15:47] And of course, there were always those for whom any association with a notorious case brings a sense of sick satisfaction. At the one year mark, the lead investigator for the Anchorage police noted that at least two dozen people had tried to take credit for the crime.
[00:16:10] And here's the money quote from the cop, but we have nothing solid on anybody.
[00:16:49] May be asking yourself, what about Neil McKay? I mean, you've hinted, have they already given up?
[00:16:56] And the answer is no.
[00:16:59] This leads closer to, shall we say, the source.
[00:17:04] And some of those things had emerged all the way back in the 70s during the divorce proceedings between Neil McKay and Mural File. It wasn't quite a smoking gun, but there was an uncanny sense of the man's, shall we say, arrogance, even, perhaps his propensity. But by propensity, I mean for violence.
[00:17:26] Let's set the scene. Neil and Mural's divorce was the biggest and longest in Alaska history, at least up to that time. It took two years, and even then they still weren't done.
[00:17:38] But back in 1974, Neil McKay was subpoenaed into a deposition by Muriel's divorce attorney. The question at hand was a simple one.
[00:17:48] What are your financial assets, Mr. McKay? It's pretty important in a divorce proceeding where child custody is at the center. So they ask, does he have any interest in the McKay building, which he owns, and by the way, it's where he lives at that time.
[00:18:08] He replies, that's none of your goddamn business what I've got.
[00:18:11] Like, okay, where is that coming from? Shortly thereafter, he gets up and leaves the deposition to, quote, take a piss.
[00:18:20] Yeah, and a half.
[00:18:23] When he returns, when McKay finally returns, he says, and I quote, the reason I walked out was that I lost my temper and I walked out to get cooled off.
[00:18:35] But here's the thing. Shortly after resuming the deposition, Mr. McKay is just as pissed off as he was before it was. If the cooling off period had little to no effect, the underlying anger remained. That's not enough to say, hey, buddy, you're guilty of Mural's murder. It's not enough.
[00:18:59] But there's more. During this same period, after the courts ruled that he had to share his wealth with his ex, Neil McKay started plotting. He formed A series of holding companies with names like Shanga and Masalama. The latter is Arabic for with safety. He started hiding his money in offshore accounts. Hiding his assets. Again, doesn't have guilty written all over it, but it has something written on it like.
[00:19:32] And incredibly, the most incredible part of this, he doesn't do this asset manipulation all on his lonesome. No, he enlists his legal secretary, Virginia, and his wife, his ex wife, because these are the people he truly trusted.
[00:19:53] And if we look a little deeper, we really see his rage, the inescapable bits and pieces of his anger, his influx of disability.
[00:20:05] It's all over the court records. Before his separation from Mural, there were in fact allegations of physical abuse.
[00:20:13] When she finally filed for divorce, Mural file asked for and received a temporary restraining order.
[00:20:23] Psychiatric reports ordered by the court found that McKay had, quote, propensities to violence and irrational conduct and, quote, a tendency to violence and stressful situations.
[00:20:38] Again, doesn't mean he did it, but it doesn't get him off the hook either. Right, Sam?
[00:21:22] And.
[00:21:23] And there are examples. There's an incident where McKay grabs a sailor's cap off Scotty's head and throws it in the snow. Screams that it's a silly thing for him to wear. That's followed followed by a physical confrontation with Muriel. In fact, McKay's brother in law somehow finds himself in the middle, trying to keep him apart.
[00:21:49] Then there's the incident where he grabs a doll from among the toys at grandma files house and throws it across the room shouting, no son of mine will ever play with dolls. Pay no mind, Scotty. Your two older cousins are girls.
[00:22:04] And then the coup de grace when Neil McKay went total angry man at murals travel service stormed in to Manichee range. An unscheduled visit with Scotty.
[00:22:18] Call your mother. Call your mother.
[00:22:21] Not now, not now.
[00:22:25] Mir replied, I'm busy. He went ballistic. Grabbed paperwork, tore it up, tossed it like confetti. She threatened to call the cops. She had. You can't do that in my office. And McKay, by this point, thoroughly enraged, yelled back, it's my building. You. You can't tell me what to do in my building.
[00:22:45] He goes on a rampage, slams an adding machine against the wall, tosses furniture, tosses a typewriter and her telephone slams them on the floor.
[00:22:58] Nutcase.
[00:23:00] As a footnote, let's note that Muriel file, in fact had a legally binding lease with Neil McKay that turned out to be her final lease, was granted February 14, 1975, after their divorce and gave Muriel the option to renew it after March 1, 1978, with said extension running to February 28, 1981, which, of course, did not anticipate her murder on September 30, 1976.
[00:23:35] Let's also remember, at the time of her death, Muriel had petitioned to receive 11 pieces of their joint property. Neil, in contrast, was set to receive five. Did that anger Neil McKay? Well, we do know that in years following, one of his lessees noted that McKay complained bitterly whenever they happened to drive through Anchorage.
[00:24:02] This used to be mine, he said, pointing to a former property. And that one was mine, too, he added, pointing to another.
[00:24:11] Yes, but let it be, said Neil Sutherland. McKay was just a lovable old fool, generous to a fault.
[00:24:36] See you next time.
