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Chapter 4 My first visit to Alabama, John's bedroom, when he was still alive. Go, go, go, go, go, go... Standing in front of John's computer, which sits eye-level atop a large professional grade sound system, His prolific collections of CDs and unopened furbies on the shelves behind us, John's scrolling through, showing me a manifesto. How many pages is this?
I have to fucking cut. It's 53. The document is filled with charts, graphs, images of violence, and pornography of Westbrook Baptist Church protesters and Lady Gaga getting vomited upon by a so-called vomit artist. As well as paragraph after paragraph, all laying out a Maclamourian unified theory of economic, environmental, and societal decline.
And oh at one point as you showing me this material John quickly and casually pulls up this document Oh, yeah, I have this on file at all times in case necessary. You never know your suicide No, we're gonna call it out loud, but you do well. We're looking at it right here We didn't have a camera big mouth He doesn't linger on the suicide note long enough for me to read it He claims he doesn't want to talk about it. You shouldn't say it But he's the one that brought it up and as the day goes on and he continues to tool around on his computer moving on to other topics He keeps mentioning it.
I'm not sure why what exactly John is trying to tell me, but after a while I tell him what I think I would like it if you wouldn't kill yourself I'm gonna have a separate, but a pretty good note today This is what it was like to talk about suicide with John. He was so cavalier about it He dismissed your concern laugh it off and try to change the subject I found a better video that describes the entire history of the fossil fuel industry in about 17 seconds Oh, but wait a minute. I want to go back to this because you're dumping a lot on me here Why do you have to kill yourself turn away from the computer because you're getting distracted? Well, you seriously think about this This is not distracting.
This is another reason if the ICBLA resolving So, stimically, I don't forget that you're just you're changing the subject There was a very good chance of me not being alive at the time you got out here. So why? Tired in a way that I can't put into words tired tired I wasn't the only one John showed a suicide note to apparently also emailed it to town hall and my lawyer over there to keep on Filing you emailed your suicide note to town hall and your lawyer Yeah, I actually mailed a email to the town of people's it up the email and read the information you sent them I mean dogs ahead the way to identify them in the vet list of people to contact In case I decide to blow my damn head off Where some of the money is hiding, but not all of it that is where some but not all of John's money is hiding He did not disclose those details to me There's things I won't discuss with that thing turned on now But I'm unbanked and you can make as much as you want to make of that John did tell me that if he died that afternoon a hundred thousand dollars would go to pita He also said this I've often thought that I can continue to live and burn up my saved money or I could donate it to someone that might need it more that's younger whose life is ahead of Tyler and Jake. I want to leave them kids a shitpot full of money instead of me burning it up staying alive From cereal and this American life.
I'm brine reed. This is shit It's been more than two weeks since john died and in the absence of a will pita was not bequeed to hundred thousand dollars And tyler goodson was not bequeed to ship out full of money In fact, there's not even money for john's own dogs Tyler's taken care of a couple of them here at the tidy trailer he's living in with his girlfriend and two of his daughters And he's had to scrounge together cash to cover their venom appointment this morning But the more important appointment tylers preparing for today is at the bib county probate court the court that handles matters involving estates of a deceased At 10am john's cousins from florida have a hearing scheduled to request permanent guardianship over john's mother mary grace Which because john didn't have a will would mean the cousins would get control over the property and all of mary graces and john's belongings and assets So tyler's gonna go as well to petition the probate judge to intervene and try to get with his He says he has a bunch of things over at john's that belong to him and the cousins won't let him on the property to get them They've even put a gate across john's driveway with no trespassing signs around it Tyler estimates the total value for all of his stuff conservatively and more than $25,000 He's hyped a list with the description location and value of each item. That's very thorough You got a case of black spray paint large glass jugs extension cords a copper teapot toys tyler tells me john buffers kids Even the swing set is on there plus there are a lot of tools which tyler says is a particular problem for him right now Because he's had a falling out with his partner in the tattoo parlor So he no longer has that business He doesn't have john anymore to employ him and now he can't even drum up odd jobs He says because he can't get to his tools his lawn mower and his welder and his masonry stuff For a lot of these items tyler doesn't approve of ownership So for a few of the big ticket ones he does he shows me a couple short receipts handwritten on notebook paper and signed by the sellers This is the bill of sale for sales for them school buses and stuff down there on slab two buses and 19 with a trailer Those years. Yeah John showed me these buses when he took me around his property ones yellow and one's blue.
There's also a big 18-wheeler trailer It's all really old the buses don't run anymore, but they're chock full of wood and building materials and antique appliances John didn't mention that stuff was tylers You see me and john been playing on building something out there for a while now We just been accumulating old bricks and the lumber and stuff like that I got just better everything down there to build a house with I'm about to lose it off if something don't get done But hopefully just a little bit of proof will help me The probate court sits on the town square of centerville the bib county seat in a drab annex building across from the main courthouse It's not even a traditional courtroom. It's mostly just a waiting area and reception desk like a dm-d As people come inside they go under a sign hanging over the front entrance that says in elaborate font Through these doors pass the most important people on earth the citizens of bib county When I arrive tyler sitting off to the side stoically his tattoos peeking down his wrists I followed him here and let him go in on his own because I have my own reason for coming to court today I want to introduce myself to john's cousins and ask if they'll do an interview with me And I don't want them to get the wrong idea. I think i'm working for tyler or something The cousins are standing there not far from tyler the middle-aged couple I remember from the funeral I've learned that their names are Rita and charlie lorens. They're huddled with two other people I don't recognize Rita like tyler is holding some papers she has glasses and short-grained hair.
I walk over to her Excuse me, man. I say are you Rita? Yes, she says i'm brine reed nice to meet you I tell her i'm sorry for her loss that i'm very sad about what happened with john I explain who I am where I work how john got in touch with our radio show And then I started investigating some local goings on with him She seems both surprised and confused by me which is completely understandable your cousin drinks cyanide and then a reporter shows up at court afterwards Saying he'd been investigating potential crimes and corruption and wrongdoing with him for more than a year Something was normal sequence of events. So where do you live she asks?
New York? I tell her are you serious? She says you come down here from New York for this I ask readers she'll meet with me. I want to tell her more about the story i've been doing with john I want to ask her about him his family history and find out what's going on with his affairs She seems okay with it and says sure after the hearing we can go somewhere and talk and then we stand there awkwardly waiting for the judge to call the back to his chambers We make small talk which i'll tell you staying at how long are you in town?
At that suddenly Rita leans in very close to me and whispers We're leaving tomorrow. Why are you whispering? I ask her. Do you know that guy there?
She asks still under a breath twitching her eyes towards tyler who's right behind me tyler? I say yeah She says her voice gets even quieter. We're leaving tomorrow, but I don't want him to know that we're leaving He's been causing nothing but trouble Soon judge jerry pao will summon reed on her husband charlie as well as the two others they're here with and john's lawyer boozardowns into his chambers to have a private meeting And tyler will go in with them to make his final plea Despite john having said that he wanted to leave money in gold to tyler despite john texting tyler minutes before he died that he could have anything in his house that he wanted All tyler will ask the judge for today is the stuff that he says was his to begin with that he's documented neatly on his list tyler does not like going to court he feels the courts and cops and lawyers have done nothing but victimized him since he became a teenager But here he will suck it up and make this one last effort to do things the proper way within the system And the system will not be sympathetic judge pao will explain to tyler that this hearing isn't about his stuff It's about signing guardianship over to reedah. He's about to do that He'll say and once he does she'll have control over the macamour property and everything on it tyler will have to work things out directly with reedah Or take the matter across the street to civil court tyler will try to protest but reedah will sell everything before I have a chance to bring a suit he'll say Then judge pao will tell him that if someone gives you something he advises that you take it home with you And that will be the end of it dejected tyler will walk out of the chambers to his car Underneath the sign reminding him that he's one of the most important people on earth I wait for reedah in the reception area and as she and her husband leave I ask where she'd like to go So we can have our conversation but now she says she can't they have too much to get done before they head back to florida the next day We chat for a bit though and before she goes out the door she does ask me a question about john Quote did he tell you where his money was hid unquote?
They don't go to the downplace Really less than a week after the cousins gain control of the macamour property tyler tells me they've got to the damn place And even though he's not supposed to he's been going over to the property Well, that's not down there, you know, I always go there checking all my stuff and everything and john shops going all the toolboxes and everything They don't have somebody come down there and probably bought it all from you know Different quarks that was on the wall all of my shit my welder and all that stuff gone Like just cleaned up When you've been over there, have you been poking around for the for the buried treasure for the gold or the cash or whatever there is? Well, hell yes I need to get it before it gets dragged off We got to find the ground Specs that john had money or gold hidden somewhere but how there's all but certain of it He says when they would make purchases around town john used to say well got to go dig up some more money And tyler says he knows for a fact john was buying 30 000 worth of gold at a clip John even showed him some of it once the small box out of which john pulled a single tiny gold bar That was clear the box was filled with others tyler says and john strongly implied that there was much more gold where that came from So where have you looked you might tell me? I mean it could be integrated could be in the maze it could be anywhere, but I think So far in the down doll house or something Here's tyler's theory about where the hidden treasure might be the dog house is near the human house And you can see it from the kitchen window where john spent a lot of time talking on the phone brewing highly caffeinated tea Pissing in the sink tyler thinks john would have stashed the treasure in a spot where he could always see it from the kitchen And plus i think all them dogs protected it So have you have you poked around on that yet? Well, i've went out and i've looked in the dog house and saying if there's any type of Importments built upon rid or whatnot and i've been up under the house and i've been out and fly over here this shit like that But held brian up under john beat house.
He had me welled up these little metal doorways These are the gates tyler once told me about that he built for the dungeon like tunnels and john's basement But i've done been up under there. I've done been all up under there and all them fucking spider webs and rats and snakes And i ain't seen this first sign of anything You know, we've done so many projects around there that it's got to be Somewhere in one of them projects that we've done, you know Somewhere that if anybody could find it it would be me and you know, he probably left me some type of clothes Tyler's phone cuts out for a second, but he was saying john probably left him some type of clue Yeah, i'm sure he left me some type of clue and i just ain't thinking of it And one of our phone conversations john did say this to me A wise man has his money where he can sleep best at night A wise man does not have a lot of paper money in a wood frame house A wise man has some hard assets the hard assets mean different things to different people to some people it may be silver and gold A wise man may have some all my other fucking woods I didn't mention this to tyler partly because i didn't feel like it was my place to encourage treasure hunting on john's property But also because i have no idea if john menth is literally or was just saying stuff plus They're like 100 acres of woods anyway something that tyler's very aware of It is all in that stuff in property john I'm thinking i'm gonna have to get a mow detector and go over the back yard The next time i see tyler he tells me he has procured the metal detector and has been using it to scour john's place every night for two weeks Straight he uses a police scanner app on his phone to keep an ear out for cops while he's there One of his most promising clues were these pages he found of coordinates done and written down Latitudes and longitudes for the town of woodstock or shit town as it was labeled on the document Along with coordinates for k3 lumber the trailer park tyler lives in as well as naturally the nuclear reactor internuble Among those were coordinates on john's property one set was for john's house and another set when tyler Tied them into google brought them to the maze though just a little bit to the side of the maze wishing promising In that spot he saw an old plastic tub upside down on the grass He kicked it over and waved the metal detector over the ground it had been covering it started going off beeping Tyler dug and he found A bunch of bottles just a bunch of old glass bottles He asked me if i've ever seen the movie holes because that's what it looks like over there after all is digging The honk continues in a minute Hi, this is ashley i live in san francisco with my boyfriend We would love to officially share my new york time subscription with separate logins We both love cooking love being in the kitchen, but i'm a 30 minute and under efficient dinner GIRLIE i want a sheet pan mill he is very elaborate He wants to get into the storytelling I want to be able to save my easy meals and check off the ones that i've completed and i think him having his own profile would be great Ashley we heard you it's why we created the new york times family subscription you get your own login and mr elaborate kids is plus room for two others Find out more at nytimes.com.com When tyler cleared out all that paperwork from john's house in the days right after he died He did find something else that was curious It's a list john wrote on a sheet of yellow notebook paper titled at the top people to contact Tyler sent me a photo of it and fae gamble the town clerk told me that john sent a copy to her as part of his instructions before he drank cyanide There are 15 names and phone numbers on the list tyler's name is not one of them A handful of people are local to bib county including john's lawyer whom i've talked to the number for woodstock town hall is vet His cousin from florida reallorans is on there But there's this whole group of names at the top who are all from out of town and in a number of cases out of state or country And each of those names is a mystery to me In my very first phone conversation with john he had told me that all of his friends had died off He used that word all it here's this list and the strange thing about it is that not one of these people These first seven names at the top not one of them showed up at john's funeral So this list maybe it's a clue On an early saturday afternoon i meet a man named allen bearden at his clock repair shop in the back of an antique mall near the interstate in pelsity Alabama he's the first of these names off john's list that i contact pelsity is about an hour east of woodstock on the other side of bermingham And the vibe here is different from the bib county It's situated on the kuzo river which has all these switchbacks and detours that make it look more like a smattering of lakes and a river The place feels livelier than bib there's a big rodeo going on boats on the water families vacationing Allen's in his forties an athletic authority guy who makes time for me after a fly fishing lesson he gave in the morning He's a clock restorer like john was though he says he works in the quote horological field Which is a term i've never heard until talking to allen horology horology is the study of time That makes allen and john horologists or more precisely because they fix old clocks antiquarian horologists Allen tells me horology experienced a kind of heyday in the 90s particularly as antichollectors took the ebay But that boom has been over for a while and especially with time so easily accessible now on our appliances and cell phones It's definitely a dying trade John saw that coming on says and by the time he met him around 2012 john had largely got not a horology except for the odd job here They met because allen was having a problem with an eliot grandfather clock. He was trying to fix It was a very important piece. It was uh It wasn't a clock that you're seeing every day This clock had actually come out of a jewish door and london all trapper squire how much was the worth?
uh, estimatedly, uh Could have been 100 something o'clock back in the 90s. Wow The clock was driving allen nuts. You couldn't figure out a proper fix for it He asked a horologist friend of his for advice and his friend said you should call this guy john v mackelmore I mean i caught him up one day in this shop right here and i got him on the phone that was like oh my gosh Allen heard a cacophony of dogs barking on the other end of the line and a man shouting obscenities at them And i've been warned you know john's not the average person I expect a lot of profanity Expect a lot of strong and bold statements Allen explained to john that he was having trouble at a rare clock and john said well bring it by Which i'd never heard of woodstock alabama in my life It was very hard to find this place. I had a physical address but my gps kept carrying me two or three miles down the road Yeah You know when i pulled it up there it was like i went back in time It's a weird sensation this man i've just met seems to be describing to me an experience that i once had He came out and met me in a driveway and he was immediately uh, well if we're gonna get it fixed but i'll be stuck around here And uh, it wasn't really a really kind of welcome or anything.
It was like you know, he had known me and um, i'm carefully unloading this uh Clock movement into his shop and he's like what he got here and i said, you know i was telling him it's alien And he said yeah, that looks about right and then he said let's get set up here So we set it up on his rack and Nothing's thought he was just gonna meticulously start looking over it first thing he did he got a pair of pliers And screwdrivers and stuff he immediately started yanking stuff off the clock We don't need this we don't need that we don't need this and he was throwing and these pieces were coming off the clock and flying over to the table And he was just like tossing them and i mean i was just thinking to myself oh my god i made a horrible mistake This guy is actually certifiable crazy He's just running off the mouth about this and that about the clock and how horrible the clock had been treated, you know pliers must have been on this incompetent uh Clockmaker on it. I mean he wouldn't particularly talk about me But John was referring to the other horologist over the last hundred years who judging from the witness marks He was observing holes and impressions and discolorations had subjected the clock to sloppy workmanship over the course of its life Alan knew what the problem with the clock was that he'd been able to diagnose on his own It was an issue with a piece called the gathering palette He says he probably could have machined a replacement that would have made the clock run But that would have been a quick fix not a restoration the kind of horologist Alan is and john was They aren't trying to simply make the clock work again Their goal is to preserve and reconstruct the original craftsmanship as much as possible But Alan had never restored an Elliot clock before so he never seen this type of gathering palette in working order And when he looked for diagrams of it, he couldn't find any John knew out of top of his head with that gathering palette Actually looked like just from his years of experience what it should have looked like what it should have looked like and um What he did was he uh took a piece of steel and uh he hand-filed that thing up by hand And You got it fixed and got it put it on there. He did that in front of you that day He did it that day. It took him almost about three and a half hours, but he sat there and hand-filed that out And after I saw that I was just totally amazed just to file something blankly out the top of your head with some needle files And not type any kind of diagram or anything like that.
I mean he just filed it out and started fitting it to the clock What were you thinking when you watched it? This is a master That Alan says was the beginning of his and John's friendship They emailed often talked every few days about once a month Alan would go visit and they troubleshoot a clock together Wander around John's yard get lunch at the local grocery store Alan tried to get John to come to his neck of the woods. He wanted to take him up voting on the lake But John never came. He said he couldn't leave his mom for that long Alan told me something I hadn't known about John.
John had an impressive reputation for working on world-class high-end time pieces Some of the finest clocks in the world You know, he was just an absolute genius. I mean if you wanted to know something or had a problem with clocks, you need to go say John Mcamore Really? That's like that was known throughout. I was actually known probably I know on the eastern seaboard He would have people coming down from Massachusetts driving their car to Woodstock, Alabama to get their uh bracket clock fix and stuff like that Because he was the closest and best they could find well not the closest probably the best In his earlier years, John used to travel to England where he visited with fellow horology He wrote about horology could salted on horology books And he was known for doing elements of restoration that very few people still do Such as an ancient process for making things gold known as fire-gilding that is very dangerous and illegal in some places because it requires burning mercury And another thing Alan tells me that I wanted to find out John made good money John probably in the 90s could have sat on his butt and worked Two or three days a week and made $150,000 a year Easy.
It's not telling how much money he made in the clock trade and John just probably packed that money away I mean who knows but that sounds to me like the type of money that could potentially amass to a bountiful hidden treasure There comes a point in our conversation when Alan has a question for me But uh as far as John's you said you found out through your toddler Uh his sister-in-law. His sister-in-law. Yeah, that is as far as John's suicide though Alan doesn't speak the word I guess that was how long how long ago? I was able to go to the funeral.
I was able to go to the funerals right before Well, you were better off than I was I didn't find out to a uh a week and a half later You know, I would have a chance to uh You know say goodbye to him. You know, sorry Yeah Alan had been out of town for a watch and clock convention shortly before John died When he got back he and John emailed a bit the day John would go on to kill himself Alan wrote him telling him he wanted to come visit that week That night while Alan was teaching vacation bible school. He saw a call come in from john He silenced it and then called him back when he got home. No answer called him the next day No answer as the week went on it was the same Alan got in touch with a mutual friend of his and john's a mechanic in Birmingham Who's also on john's contact list and asked him if he'd heard from john He hadn't Alan wanted to drive to john's place to check on him But his wife was pregnant and sick he decided to give it one more day and if neither he nor the other friend heard from john He was going to call the bid county sheriff's department He knew john hated cops and authority and might not forgive him for it But he also knew john had talked about suicide so he was ready to risk it You know, sometimes I had to weigh that out my head was it worth losing his friend to uh to uh say him get help And I tried to get john help when I tried i was like john, you know Let me kill you to a doctor or something let's get you on some medicine or something, you know Uh, I said we're not going to have psychiatrist something like that I said we just got to a regular practice doctor and see if we can get you on some kind of antidepressants I'm kind of mood stabilizer and it's like oh no, I ain't taking old medicine.
I'm not doing this not doing that Even went to the bookstore and got a herbal book Of more holistic, you know healing stuff that would help with depression and mood swings and And uh carried up to them once here right here and see if you can get something else You probably had this in your yard and I thought he would take on that since you know, he liked water culture Or maybe he could it's a good idea to help or heal himself holistically And uh that book just sat there. He's probably sitting there to this day in his shop Wow, I had no sense talking to him that he had people in his life like you who were trying to help him this way I don't think john realized how many people cared for him You know, I just think it's really sad because I actually like he died Fucking he was my home Though i'm not sure there's much of a difference between being lonely and thinking you are Alan never got to the point of asking the sheriff to check on john because the night before he was planning to do that He was driving home from church with his family and got a call from fae gamble The town clerk who john had called as he drank cyanide and to whom he'd given his final instructions and contact list Alan says as soon as she told him she was with woodstock town hall he knew He immediately pulled over to the side of the road. He was devastated his whole body was shaking But then fae told him when john had actually died and to the sorrow read it some other emotions When I found out when it happened, I was kind of I read I didn't find out after john it didn't then me John had been in the ground for more than a week and fae was just now calling him Alan says he pressed fae on it. After why she was notifying him after the funeral and he says she acted kind of weird about it She tried to say that uh she tried to call me but I looked back to my phone there was no Call no message or anything.
I'm got nothing. I mean that just seems like a pretty weak excuse somebody called and say you will I tried you and I couldn't get you on the phone and not leave a message or anything like that And it's not like she had to dig up his information or something john sent it to her I mean i'm like fourth on the list right there. This would be like this is who you need to call on contact I mean I just I find that kind of uh That kind of stirred me It disturbed Alan not only because it caused him to miss his friend's funeral but because it's pushing his mind to some unpleasant places The day before I met with Alan he actually spoke with tyler for a while and got the whole low down on the cousins Rita the cousin is listed halfway down on john's contact list Alan finds a questionable at fey or someone else managed to reach her Yet he and these other names are all at the top of the sheet and some of he was skipped over Be really interested to know like you know the other people when were they actually called was it just me? Was it uh the top people on his contact list because I think they knew that these people knew john best And I think they probably have to try to keep us away from the situation for some reason or something really Yeah, I mean that's from talking to tyler way stuff so played out in this Uh, it's uh, it's a it's a little fishy Alan continues in this mode tip towing toward something.
I'm just trying to figure you know What would it benefit a person not to uh try to contact a person? I didn't know if they just went they didn't want people down there until A situation was uh under control the way they wanted it to be maybe somebody trying to uh Take control of something Because they would know that john's close close friends would know What i'm talking about I can tell allen is being purposely vague here. I think maybe he's not sure what I know We're ready or else maybe he knows I know so he knows he doesn't say it out loud But i'm not actually sure I do know what he's talking about so maybe I do know anyway. He is now making weird eyes at me Yeah, you're looking at me in like a coded way.
Um, you know, I could tell you my theory on something But i'm not gonna do it on the air Do you think I should call the other people on the list? I think it'd be a good idea. I mean it's a further investigate and just for the simple fact that they could possibly not even know I mean you could be doing john a favor because surely he wouldn't want people to know or It would be on the list And for the second time I find myself embarking on an investigation at the behest of an alabamian herologist Hi, is this bill mire? Yes.
Hi bill were you a friend of john maclemore's? Um, i'm calling some sad news that maybe you're aware of but he passed away earlier this summer john b maclemore yeah Respondent and I called him. Um, he actually committed suicide. I'm sorry to say Bill mire number seven on john's list clearly he wasn't called Bill was a friend and clock customer of john's for decades He lives in utah in a house he describes as being more like a museum than a house He drive from utah alabama sometimes to visit john john seems to have made a insurmountable Hello, you have reached micro and the abscatement maker This is the answering machine of a horologist friend of john's in a small town of the pacific northwest Who asked that I not use his name because he's very private he picked up as I was leaving a message He says fate did tell him john it died, but only after the funeral john meant a hell of a lot to me He meant a hell of a lot and then another Brit from the list don't greg At the moment I've in front of me got a whole load of this and photographs which all sent me over the years A respected clock restorer from ton bridge england who never met john in person But over more than a decade spent many late night hours developing a friendship with him on the phone and via letters I was the one who informed don't come up john's death.
Yeah as you can probably tell i'm very sad about it I think he should have gone on to be uh, communing the old gentleman that survived the the ravages of time the enigma that john maklimore was And tom moor john's chemistry professor in college now a university chancellor who went on to become a lifelong friend One of the most incredible i will start crying. I can't help it. Uh, okay One of the most incredible people i've ever known Like with others tom says the town clerk fey did call him about john's suicide, but only after he'd been buried After talking to the seven people at the top of john's list I learned that none of them were at john's funeral because none of them were contacted in time and some not at all It was interesting most of these men didn't know each other beyond maybe having interacted once or twice in horological circles over the years They've been talking to me for hours without batting an eye Even if i'd just called them cold and informed them that their friend had committed suicide Which at first I thought was pretty remarkable But then it occurred to me that they were all friends of john v maklimores, which means you are predisposed to having long rambling conversations on the phone Of these friends the one who knew john the longest since he was a teenager was tom moor john's college professor john showed up in tom's general chemistry course as a freshman at bermingham southern college in the early 80s Walking to a class of 85 to 95 students and look around and boy What's that kid doing here bermingham southern is a small private liberal arts college That's been around since the 1800s Tom says at the time when john was there the student body was made up largely of children to professionals doctors and lawyers They were preppy john was not bushy red hair unkempt clothing from a different socioeconomic background It was clearly different tom says john didn't make any friends of bermingham southern and he didn't live there Every night he drove back to his parents house back to his childhood bedroom back to bib county And tom could tell that as much as john didn't fit in a college he didn't fit in back home either Tom got the sense that john had been picked on a lot over the years growing up He would do things as a college student to bring ridicule on himself I want to say he would wear a red wig or a green wig to class Sure enough tom says the other kids would laugh at him and that was the point I took it to be out of this history that i'm gonna be made fun of and i can't stand being made fun of Just by being who I am So I do some things that enable me to understand why people making fun of me and it's not just me being me It's pretty tragic I saw that in him and that's part of why I reached out to him john b mcklemour's education is the source of some gossip in woodstock I've heard that he held multiple degrees in chemistry in biology I've heard that he quit school because he was smarter than the professors I've heard that he had to leave after blowing up a laboratory. The reality was less dramatic.
He was bad at school john was a college dropout he let Birmingham southerner after three years According to tom if john was studying a topic he was interested in he would learn it exhaustively Tom spent many afternoons watching john scribble on the blackboard in his office of scare calculations and theories that were beyond even tom's comprehension But when it came to stuff the professors wanted him to focus on john was almost allergic to it Tom thinks john got a d or maybe a c in his chemistry class But john spent hours in the lab on his own outside of class figuring out techniques he could use in his clock restorations tom risk getting in trouble and let john access the lab when he wanted Remember this When john gold plated a dime for me in his workshop one afternoon I might be dead in gone one day, but you'll have a souvenir from shittown, Alabama Oh, god, oh, motherfucker go play a dime Shit I do still have the dime by the way That electroplating process john worked it out as a student of Birmingham southerner as a way to guild clock pieces that doesn't require burning dangerous amounts of mercury It uses potassium cyanide instead Sometimes in college when john came into tom's office in the afternoon for one of their blackboard sessions Tom says john would seem depressed to the point where tom thought he might be trying to say goodbye for good Tom says he recommended john to a school counselor and john sar for a bit even when i'm medication But according to tom john didn't like the way the medicine altered his personality and he chose not to seek any more treatment Tom figured out that if he asked john to tell him about a clock he was working on or some other topic he was studying He could get john excited and redirect his attitude so that by the end of the session he'd seem lifted out of his despair But this could take hours Tom says he can vividly remember sitting in his office with john on a fall day glancing at the sun while it's set outside his window Watching the sky turn colors over campus as he thought about his wife waiting for him at home But looking back at john and thinking i'm not sure john's ready to go yet Then listening to john go on as outside the sky turned dark I really enjoyed my conversations with the guys on john's list I learned a lot about john, but also about the people john kept his friends I learned about lathes and dividing engines and double helical gears and tolerances and siderial time And also what an escapement is the mechanism inside a clock or a watch that actually does the ticking Many of these horologist and clock collectors told me how they had become fascinated with clocks as children and how even at age 57 or 80 That fascination hadn't dwindled one man told me the story of the clock that cemented his and john's friendship A clock the man retrieved himself from a crypt near griling germany where it had been hurriedly disassembled by someone during war war two And hidden amongst the bones and remains One friend told me about a clock that was so complicated No one else could restore it and it took john seven years and another about a job that was so difficult that john started crying as he was hunched over In his shop and said i can't do this anymore One man remembered the time he started telling john about a weird story he loved by Edgar Allen pau Called berry niece by a man who becomes obsessed with his wife's teeth Eventually digging them up from her grave and how is he was describing the story to john? John suddenly began reciting passages from the story back to him from memory One friend told me how his co-workers would tell enough to talk to john so much because he was a weirdo and another told me People think i'm weird like john b As for the question of john's assets his friends had gotten different bits of information over the years john had told some of them he'd been running down his savings after retiring from the clock trade a decade or so ago Some thought maybe he'd suffered some losses on his investments during the 2008 crash But others got the impression that he did have a lot of money He'd mentioned having pulled it out of the bank having converted some to gold having hidden it He also talked clearly about putting together a will so it was shocking to friends to learn that apparently there wasn't one That coupled with the fact that they were all kept in the dark about his death for a while A number of them did find that suspect But there's a lot of money he had it in he hid it I met with two of john's friends in a restaurant one night and they posited theories to each other Maybe it's the cousins who are up to no good one says And if you you know you're talking about some real distant florida They show up here. We got a piece of lamb Though the other says maybe it's the good sins tyler and his brother jake You know i'm wondering if they got the money If the good sins did? Yeah, they told me that they have these things I don't think I can come up with if the good sins were involved in any of this Maybe they didn't want you or I didn't even know about any of this That's probably true It's not like john's friends think they wrote anything from john's will or want the gold for themselves At least that's not what they say to me They just all share the feeling that someone might be taking advantage of the situation That someone is getting away with something they shouldn't But who is the someone and what is the something?
It seems like i should be able to figure that out If he asks tyler who's getting away with something they shouldn't He says it's clear John's cousins Rita and charlie As the weeks go on he keeps the updates coming About the steps they're taking to get him out of the picture Rita and charlie recently tried to get his girlfriend arrested For theft for picking up a package of the post office that was addressed to john So nothing ever came of it Also john's lawyer boozer-downs attempted to hold an informal mediation session Between tyler and john's cousins but it fell apart when tyler tried to tell john's mother Mama as he calls her How much he misses her and she looked at him coldly and said Don't call me mama no more Tyler's convinced that the cousins Rita and charlie have brainwashed her against him He says they've gone to new lows to secure all of john's assets And him cousins trying to take their damn t-d rings out Thinking that they'd go or something Wait what that happened? I thought I told you about that Um no I have not heard anything about t-ring removal Apparently this information came to tyler from boozer john's lawyer Boozer said Is him rings and john's t-d's gold or something they was trying to take him out Somehow I doubt that's a verbatim quote from woodstock town to turn your boozer down But I'll let tyler paraphrase The cousins were physically trying to do it or they're trying to get them more attention to it I don't know I mean he told me that the cousins was trying to take his t-d rings out At the moor or something Thinking they would go where I said No they're brass Silver-plated brass They said they was thinking they would go trying to take them out Oh god fucking damn Is this possibly true? I do not know And one day tyler texts me and says I'm re-pointing the buses and 18 wheeler trailer today Hey come on up with it He calls me while he's doing it Hanks his phone on his belt so I can hear He tells me he wanted to get this stuff which he showed us his Before the cousins had a chance to sell it Like he says they did with his lawn mower and some other things The buses and trailer don't run so he's hired a crew of guys with big trucks to tow them out Around the side of john's house and down his 9-0-10-foot driveway The buses are filled with lumber and there's a cloth-foot tub and a wood-burning stove Stuff that tyler says he was going to use to build a small house with on john's property Now he wants to use it to build a house on his grandmother's property For him and his daughters The cousins were home in florida while tyler did this But they must have gotten wind of it Because the next day he tells me a warrant has been issued for his arrest for trespassing Eventually a grand jury will charge him with multiple counts of felony theft It's not long before I realize follow any finger that is being pointed in the aftermath of john's suicide And there will be another set of fingers on the other end Not only pointing right back but in a bunch of other directions too Everyone is pointing at everyone One afternoon at my best western along the highway I'm walking to the elevator to go up to my room When who should pop out of the stairwell but john's cousin Rita? By the time it registers in my brain that it's her We've already moved past each other and it's too late and awkward To turn back and say something This is weeks after I met Rita at probate court and she declined to do an interview A whole separate trip I had no idea she'd be in town and now I'm afraid she might think I'm stalking her So I asked the front desk which room she and her husband are in Four rooms down from mine and right or a note which I slipped under her door Explaining that I didn't know she would be here but since we both are Which would be open a meeting with me and by the way Sorry for creepily leaving a note under your door The next afternoon we all sit around a table in the hotel common area It's Rita and two other women who introduce themselves as cousins of john's As well as Rita's husband Charlie They don't allow me to record They are livid with tyler They're saying he's the person who's getting away with something Taking all sorts of stuff from john's house that they say is not his The buses and trailer but much more too They call him a con man They show me google maps satellite images of john's yard With the buses and trailer in them data from 2010 Which means they rent his yard at least three years before the dates that are on tyler's bills of sale Which are data 2013 This is proof they say that tyler's documents are bogus And I have to say it is suspicious Though tyler's not the only target of their suspicion There's Faye Gamble the town clerk Rita asked me if I've spoken to her I tell her yes That's interesting she says kind of to herself She says she didn't talk to you Rita and Charlie say Faye hasn't passed along any instructions to them from john They've heard she has a list of people to contact But she hasn't given them that either Then there's boozer downs, john's lawyer They tell me he was supposed to take a written statement from Faye At what john told her that night he killed himself But it's been more than a month now and curiously he still hasn't done that And then there's me Charlie clearly thinks this meeting is a terrible idea He keeps getting up from the table and pacing Speaking to me sharply Saying I just want them to get in a quote pissing match with tyler At one point I ask I thought harmlessly Where Mary Grace is living now And read a things on it for a moment and then tells me I'd rather not say I also ask about the text message tyler showed me from john Which said that tyler could have anything he wanted in the house Rita thinks tyler fabricated it She tells me it's strange that it was sent from john's computer And not a cell phone I tell her I don't think that's all that strange And one of the other women cuts me off Of course you don't What do you mean by that I ask?
We know you're like friends with them She says On and on the accusations fly It's head spinning One day tyler suggests to me that boozer downs John's attorney Might be in cahoots with the cousins And anybody suppressed john's will So they could split the assets Meanwhile boozer sends me an email asking if he can retract the interview he did with me Because the cousins suspect him of being in cahoots with tyler It got ugly in hearing he writes I'm concerned that I should not have spoken to you on the recording Boozer says he did not hide john's will Because there was no will to hide I also get an email from one of john's friends Who I met in the restaurant He's certain there must be a reason He wasn't contacted about john's death He includes the words Maybe I knew too much Then I call back the first guy I met with John's fellow horologist Alan Bearden And tell him I've done what he suggested Contact the other friends on the top of john's list And indeed None of them was called in time for the funeral And a few not at all Now don't you find that very strange, bro And then Alan clarifies his theory for me He thinks all the weirdness surrounding john's death The fact that he and other people on john's list weren't contacted Is because someone has taken john's gold He's not exactly sure who But what he suspects is that there's a potentially large conspiracy taking place Within the local woodstock town government and police to cover it up Bit the gold was there I think you know somebody came and got that gold I mean it probably stepped over john's body and took her a little before they even did john Now who did that I don't know But I think it's somebody who What inside that city hole? The whole thing it just it's very suspicious Very very suspicious, but it has that gold Finally I make a second visit to the woodstock town clerk Faye gamble who after seeming not to have done a very thorough job Contacting the people on john's list has been the subject of much of the suspicion And after some inscrutable responses to my questions Did you call everyone on the list? Everyone that can get in touch with you Fancest, she called everyone I promise you I did Were they called before the funeral? Yeah, you called from town hall Yeah Face as most of the people she didn't reach it first But she claims she left messages I tell her that according to everyone I've spoken to that doesn't appear to be the case What I personally thought had happened Was that maybe Faye was so traumatized by john killing himself while on the phone with her It's possible she just couldn't bring herself to make these calls Which would make complete sense to me and I think most people would understand But I ask Faye if that's what happened And she says no She called everybody in the first few days after john died She also says she's since given the list to john's cousins And contrary to what Rita told me Faye says she never claimed to them that she hadn't spoken to me Then I bring up the subject of the gold Faye was the last person to talk to john And I know he'd given her instructions about his assets in the moments before he died Did he tell her if there was gold?
If so did he say where it was? The first time I'd interviewed Faye she'd been cryptic about all that But this time Gold bars wrapped in a towel in the freezer Did he say how much worth of gold? Uh just gold bars And were there any other spots like outside or anything like that? After john's phone call Faye rushed over to his house along with the woodstock police But she says she didn't look in the freezer She told the police officers that john had said there was gold there But she doesn't know if they looked either and she doesn't believe the cops would have taken it What Faye does happen to know she says Is that when john's cousin Rita got into his house three days later And looked in the freezer there was no gold there So what do you think was going on?
Do you think there was gold in someone got to it? Do you think there wasn't gold? Either have not found it or that somebody had not run in there But who? I mean like how much time passed between you being on the phone johning and arriving with the police Well, I know that when Rita came up that she went into the house and there was things that she could not find Things that were totally gone from over there What she's saying is that someone was in the house before Rita got in there And could have raided the freezer because she knows for sure some other things had disappeared by them Things that were there when you were there Like what?
Faye starts moving her mouth without letting actual sound out Eventually she'll reveal that when Rita got into john's house She couldn't find john's mother's purse or a checkbook or john's laptop Which I know who has that But when I asked Faye who she thinks took that stuff Faye's purposely vague I think maybe she's not sure what I know already Or else maybe she knows I know so she knows she doesn't have to say that loud etc etc Anyway now she's making weird eyes at me No, grin on your face and a knowing like eye roll here I know probably who you think it is So like do you think like is the running theory that it was Tyler? Do you want to talk about that or no? That's not a nice thing you can talk about You know things you can talk about I did eventually read john's 53 page manifesto john emailed it saying it was the most important thing he'd ever sent me It was his fifth revision and he titled it critical issues for the future And if I had to distill its message it would be this As we run out of affordable fossil fuels As climate change renders the places that we live more difficult to inhabit Do not expect a great coming together Instead john writes prepare for the us to crumble into a bunch of competing autonomous regions A few of them may become cohesive societies says john But expect many of them to descend into carnage To quote enter a new dark ages a sort of new feudalism ruled by theocratic dictators He goes on quote expect public mutilations, executions, and torture to make a comeback in this region Flogging, boiling, burning, hand cutting, hanging, evisceration, honor killings, gang rape Do process will perish he writes and Confederates will betray each other for minuscule gains That gain maybe as mundane as a morsel of food or a drink of water Good bye to civil liberties and minority rights also That was another byproduct of the cheap oil economy Civil rights are not a consideration of the undernourished I remember reading this in 2014 and thinking wow John does not have a high opinion of modern humanities ability to solve problems I also remember thinking that's not really gonna happen At least not anytime soon Which is the same thing I thought when john told me he was gonna commit suicide Esstown is produced by julie snider and me With editing from ira glass to sarah canig and neel drumming Winnie dangerfield is our digital editor starly kind is a story consultant fact checking and research by ben phalan cephalinda's our director of operations lyris michsus the show matt tyranny is our technical director yes town staff includes emily condon elise bergerson julie wittaker and kimberly henderson music for the show is composed by daniel heart trepahlord elado nagro and matt mcginley music supervision by daniel graff our website is stownpodcast.org special thanks to david rafael sefney kimmer ashley clique and to all of john's friends from over the years who were so generous and thoughtful talking to me and who taught me a lot about horology too we're of course on facebook and we're on twitter and also follows on instagram at stown podcast where we'll be putting some photos of some weird cool clocks john worked on over the years stown is a production of cereal and this american life