Matthew Vanderhorst: 0:01
Thank you for listening to Lost Heroes, Missing Money. During this bonus episode, Amy and I will talk about the background of the four agents and the embezzler and share some information that we think you’ll find interesting but didn’t quite make it into the main story. Also, if you haven’t already listened to the first two episodes, we encourage you to listen to them first.
Amy Frederick: 0:19
Now. We faced a few challenges while researching this project. Matthew, why don’t you talk a little bit about that?
Matthew Vanderhorst: 0:24
Well, remember, this happened in 1982. There was no Internet, which means there was no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, no Tik Tok or anything like that. There were no personal computers, at least none that were connected to the Internet. There were no cell phones. Cable TV wasn’t widespread yet. In fact, CNN, just started two years prior to the strategy. We mainly relied on interviews, old newspaper articles and TV reports and information. So really, the information we had to go on was pretty slim.
Amy Frederick: 0:51
Yeah, I think so, too. But even with these challenges, I think we were able to come up with a compelling story and properly recognize the agents in their families. So let’s start with the embezzler, Carl Henry Johnson Since this tragedy really wouldn’t have happened without him. We learned that Johnson was a family man. He was 48 years old with a wife and three sons. He and his wife were estranged at the time. He had worked at a Chicago bank, and his boss described him as someone who was quiet and came to work and did his job. So it was shocking. We left one day with $640,000 of the bank’s money.
Matthew Vanderhorst: 1:21
And we know he split with the cash. He went on the run, came to Cincinnati and lived under assumed name of Ed SHAPIRO. I think that was one of the three aliases that he had. But that’s the one we know of. He didn’t really stay hidden when he was in Cincinnati. We knew he joined the Unicorners Reading Dancing Club. But after spending some time in Cincinnati, he disappeared again and spent a lot of his time in San Diego.
Amy Frederick: 1:41
Another thing that we found interesting is that during this time, while he was on the run, the FBI searched for Johnson. They even looked throughout the world. They focused on countries like Zimbabwe, which had no extradition agreements with the U.S. at the time.
Matthew Vanderhorst: 1:54
You know, after 70 years, he got tired of being on the run and turned himself in. He told his parents that he grabbed the money out of the bank vault while feeling depressed about his recent separation from his wife, Lois. He led FBI agents to some of the money, including in a church, a Chicago area nature preserve, and his parents house, which was in Chicago.
Amy Frederick: 2:10
Now, during this time, while Johnson was on the run, his wife, Lois, she had her husband declared dead so she could collect more than $22,000 in life insurance. Lois was also worried that the bank might find her liable for the stolen money. So she filed for divorce.
Matthew Vanderhorst: 2:24
And, Amy, you might think that after all that Lois went through, she might be angry at her husband, but she reportedly said she still loved him. She actually waited at her house all those years waiting for him to come home. In fact, there was a quote in a news article that said every time the doorbell rang or the somebody knocked at the door, she thought it was him. She and her three sons all had warm feelings about Carl.
Amy Frederick: 2:43
So just looking at that and thinking, after researching this project and learning more about Carl Henry Johnson, Matthew, what are your thoughts about him?
Matthew Vanderhorst: 2:51
Well, he was a criminal. He admitted to what he did. It wasn’t a secret or anything, but he wasn’t a violent guy. At least he didn’t come across as that. He just made that colossally bad decision that led to him losing his life and five others.
Amy Frederick: 3:05
Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I kind of feel like he was a family man that one day made a really, really poor decision. And unfortunately, it resulted in a tragedy. So now that we’ve talked about our embezzler let’s talk about our heroes, our four FBI agents.
Matthew Vanderhorst: 3:20
The agents were Charles Ellington, Robert Connors, Terry Hereford, and Mike Lynch. All of them served the country in the military. They were all in their mid-thirties and they all left behind young families.
Amy Frederick: 3:29
Let’s take a closer look at Charles Ellington. He was a marine and before the FBI he was a police officer in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the cases he worked on was the disappearance and murder of 20 children. You may have heard of this case. It’s commonly called the Atlanta Child murders. One man was arrested for those crimes. And the FBI said because of the Ellington’s work on the case, he saved lives. Charles Ellington was married and he had a ten year old daughter.
Matthew Vanderhorst: 3:53
Terry Hereford served in the Army. He was wounded in action in Vietnam and received the Purple Heart. He also had a master’s degree in clinical psychology and served as the director of psychological services at a San Diego hospital before becoming an FBI agent. He was also a licensed pilot, and he, too, was a family man. He had a wife and four children.
Amy Frederick: 4:12
Robert Connors, known to his friends as Bob. He was one of two agents that was born here in Ohio. He’s from Dayton and he served in the Air Force serving as a pilot and a pilot instructor. Now, Connors was very experienced. He had about 3000 flying hours. He was also married with four children. And another part of his life that we learned that he had a twin brother that was killed in military action.
Matthew Vanderhorst: 4:34
Mike Lynch was our other agent from Ohio. He was from Lima. Lynch was also in the Air Force. He received a Distinguished Flying Cross for a mission that he was part of that dropped supplies at the Battle of Kazan. He joined the FBI and first served in Indianapolis before transferring to Chicago. The FBI said that he was instrumental in the investigation and conviction of Teamsters President Roy Williams. He tried to bribe a senator to bring down a bill that impacted the trucking industry. Mike Lynch was also married. He had four children. His youngest was one at the time of the plane crash.
Amy Frederick: 5:04
Such a tragedy. I mean, these men went to work that day as Joni had talked about in our podcast. They had every expectation of coming home. It’s just such a tragedy that this plane went down and took their lives.
Matthew Vanderhorst: 5:18
All the agents were young. They all had young families. Which makes it even harder. They didn’t die in a firefight or any dangerous situation like that. It was just an accident. And it’s an accident that didn’t have to happen if it wasn’t for one poor decision of one man seven years prior.
Amy Frederick: 5:37
That’s right. So we want to thank you for listening to Lost Heroes, missing money. We want to give a special thank you to all the people we interviewed for this podcast.
