0:00

Everyone, it's Ben. I wanted

0:02

to give y'all a quick update on

0:04

a few things that have happened since the season

0:06

two finale came out. And also

0:08

to let you know about an amazing new show

0:10

that you don't wanna miss called Alphabet

0:12

Voice. Okay. First off, the updates.

0:16

We've been getting a ton of messages

0:18

via our Strangeland podcast

0:20

dot com and on our Instagram

0:23

at strangeland pod. And

0:26

it's been amazing to see how many people

0:28

have connected with this case and with

0:30

Sasha and Anisha's story. If you're

0:32

sitting there thinking, what can I do

0:34

to help? Here are two ideas

0:37

and they're both important. First,

0:40

share the story. Tell your friends,

0:42

tell your family, keep Sassy and

0:44

Initi's memory alive. Then,

0:47

if you're up for it, Give the Burlington County

0:49

prosecutor's office a call. We put

0:51

their contact info up on the Strangeland

0:53

website and Instagram. Let

0:56

them know that we need justice for

0:58

Sassy and Anish. As criminologist

1:00

Wendy Regazzi told us in the season

1:02

finale, keeping the pressure on

1:05

can get results. If you

1:07

have a case that's high profile

1:09

or you have families that are

1:11

demanding justice

1:14

and keeping stories

1:16

about the homicide in

1:18

the public domain, that

1:21

can certainly exercise and

1:23

impact on police practices

1:26

or procedures

1:27

to be able to solve that crime.

1:29

We've received numerous emails from

1:31

listeners who have reached out to the Maple Shade

1:34

Police Department and at the Burlington

1:36

County prosecutor's office. And

1:38

unfortunately, authorities still

1:41

do not seem to be taking our investigation

1:43

or this case very seriously.

1:46

WingSorts told us that the prosecutor's office

1:49

is still using the open and

1:51

active investigation line Another

1:53

source informed us that the prosecutor's office

1:56

said the Strangeland podcast is not reliable

1:59

because, quote, The podcast includes

2:01

interviews with a bunch of homeless people,

2:04

unquote. That's what they said.

2:07

Interviews with a bunch of homeless people.

2:10

Please, voice your support, Prasay

2:12

and Anish, by continuing to put pressure

2:15

on authorities to solve this case.

2:17

Those numbers again are at Strangeland

2:19

podcast dot com and on

2:21

our Instagram at strangeland

2:24

pod. And just in case you have

2:26

a pen and paper handy, you can call

2:29

6092655035.

2:34

Okay. Also, the sixth anniversary

2:36

of Sassy and Anish's murder is coming

2:38

up in one week, and some

2:40

listeners in the Maple Shade area are organizing

2:43

a vigil at Anisha's memorial

2:45

garden this Saturday, March

2:48

eighteenth at eleven AM. If

2:50

you're interested in participating, hit up our

2:52

Instagram for more info and get connected

2:54

to the organizers. Again, that's

2:57

Instagram at strangeland pod.

3:00

I wish I could be there. We all do.

3:02

Please do send pics and we'll definitely

3:04

put them up on Insta. Okay.

3:06

Here's one last thing. A podcast

3:09

recommendation. Since you've Strangeland

3:12

and no doubt already binge the deck

3:14

investigates. Shout out to Ashley Flowers.

3:16

It's an amazing show. We got your

3:18

next bench all lined up, Alphabet

3:21

boys. Have you ever wanted to go

3:23

deep undercover with law enforcement? And

3:25

see what happens when they target people for

3:27

arrest. Alphabet Boys is a

3:29

new show that immerses you in

3:31

secret underground investigations from

3:34

the Alphabet agencies. CIA,

3:36

FBI, ATF, DEA,

3:39

ETC, What

3:41

you'll find is that for every James

3:44

Bond adjacencies born, there's

3:46

a very heavy dose of Reno nine

3:48

eleven. It's great show. Season

3:51

one of Alphabet boys is called Trojan

3:53

Hirst. You'll hear why in the first

3:55

episode. It tells a story of a man

3:58

named Mickey Windecker who the FBI

4:00

hired to infiltrate the Black Lives

4:02

Matter movement in the summer of twenty

4:04

twenty. It's a wild story.

4:07

How wild? Well, here's a short

4:09

excerpt. How about with that voice?

4:18

Okay. It is August August

4:21

twenty eighth two thousand twenty in approximately

4:24

402 PM. A

4:27

special agent got off from with special agent

4:30

Vyron

4:30

Mitchell, CHS for

4:33

meat with the Zebadiah's hull.

4:36

Thank you. You can hear this

4:38

output in my front pocket. Right? Yeah. Okay. Got

4:40

it. It's

4:43

late afternoon on a warm day in Denver, Colorado.

4:46

It's drizzling outside, and Michael

4:48

Adam Windecker the second, or Mickey,

4:51

as he prefers, is sitting in

4:53

the back seat of an FBI

4:54

car. Two federal agents

4:56

are with

4:57

them. And one of them, FBI

4:59

special agent Scott Dollstrom, has

5:01

just handed Mickey a small hidden camera.

5:05

Micky turns the camera to his face, shooting

5:07

from an unflattering angle below his chin.

5:10

You can see Mickey's thin red mustache and scraggly

5:12

goatee that's turning gray. He's

5:14

propped his large sunglasses on his forehead and

5:16

he's looking straight down into the tiny camera

5:18

lens.

5:19

Mickey is not ready for his

5:22

close-up. Video look good.

5:24

Yep. Alright. See

5:26

you guys shortly.

5:28

The FBI agents tell him to remember his instructions.

5:30

Which were given to him before the camera started recording.

5:34

Yep. I got it. Hey, mom.

5:36

Thanks, Chad.

5:40

Micky then walks to his car, the silver

5:43

hearse, and places the FBI's camera

5:45

on the passenger seat.

5:56

Micky looks down toward the camera. And addresses

5:58

the FBI agents who are watching the live

6:00

feed remotely. I

6:04

got a song for you guys.

6:22

Micky has good reason to feel patriotic in this

6:24

moment. The FBI has signed them up as

6:26

an informant, or in the FBI's

6:28

term of art, a confidential human

6:30

source. And Mickey's getting paid

6:33

thousands of dollars every few

6:35

weeks. Cash. And

6:38

Mickey, he's got a very specific assignment

6:40

from his employers at the go

6:42

after his new friend, the young black

6:44

activist, Deb Hall, and find

6:46

a way to bring federal charges against

6:50

At the song end, Mickey again looks down

6:52

toward the FBI camera. America.

6:58

I'm Trevor Aronson. This

7:00

is Alphabet voice.

7:26

SL, to come right out and say it,

7:28

Mickey Windecker wasn't a badass

7:30

antifa warrior after all, as activists

7:32

like Zebel had thought. He was

7:34

an informant, a snitch, working

7:37

for the FBI, which

7:39

seems to go against everything Mickey claims

7:41

to be. Right?

7:43

Remember his little life rule? I have

7:45

an old biker saying, which is called, fuck the

7:47

three piece.

7:49

The politicians the press

7:51

in the police. It's just the way

7:53

it is. Fuck the three Ps.

7:56

Yeah. Turns out, That's

7:58

bullshit. Fuck the two piece,

8:01

maybe. Because this Mickey guy,

8:03

he's in bed with the

8:04

police. And the cops are not only

8:06

helping him, they're paying

8:08

him.

8:11

Today, the has more than fifteen

8:13

thousand registered informants. And

8:16

in the summer of twenty twenty, Mickey

8:19

is one of them. That conversation

8:21

you heard in the last episode, when Mickey

8:23

and Zeb were talking about training at Zeb's apartment?

8:26

Mickey, On his own initiative, had

8:29

secretly recorded the whole thing and delivered

8:31

it to the FBI, apparently in the hopes

8:33

of getting hired on as an informant.

8:36

I need your help in doing this. But I also need to

8:38

go to loan that fine.

8:41

Well, here's the date. You

8:44

have and that's where I'm coming around to is

8:46

you have to decide where what you're gonna

8:48

do. You know, I can't see her tell you, oh, yeah. You

8:50

should totally, like,

8:52

blow out rich neighborhoods and shoot

8:54

the white people and burn the federal courthouse

8:56

down. This recording ended up being Mickey's

8:59

audition tape for the FBI. The

9:02

official explanation for how Mickey

9:04

Wind Decker became an informant can be

9:06

found in FBI reports. Internal

9:09

investigation reports focused on

9:11

racial justice demonstrators in Denver. These

9:14

reports aren't public, and

9:16

the FBI didn't intend to have them out

9:18

there, maybe not ever.

9:21

They were provided to me along with Mickey's

9:23

undercover recordings by someone

9:25

who was deeply concerned about the FBI's

9:28

surveillance and infiltration of black activist

9:30

groups. According

9:32

to the FBI's reports, Mickey had returned

9:35

to Denver after being a volunteer fighter with the

9:37

Peshkabir, the Kurdish military force in

9:39

Iraq that was fighting the Islamic State

9:41

or ISIS, Micky told

9:43

the FBI, and I'm quoting here

9:45

from the report, that he

9:47

found sense of purpose and honor there

9:49

and made an oath to always fight against threats

9:52

both foreign and domestic. War

9:56

with ISIS Kurdish troops

9:58

in a frontline battle with an enemy

10:01

that took their land. Mickey

10:03

was among dozens of Americans who volunteered

10:05

to fight for the Peshkabir. With them

10:07

a half dozen Americans, veterans

10:10

of the war in Iraq, back as

10:12

volunteers. Once

10:14

back in Denver, Mickey started participating

10:16

in the protest following George Floyd's death.

10:19

And he saw what

10:20

was, in his view, a

10:22

new domestic threat.

10:26

Mickey said he witnessed protesters damaging property

10:29

and threatening violence. SL Mickey

10:31

started providing information to police in the

10:33

Denver area. Local

10:35

police there then introduced him to the FBI.

10:37

Part of something known as the Joint Terrorism

10:40

Task Force, which is a partnership between

10:42

local hubs and the FBI. Every

10:44

major metropolitan region in the United States has

10:46

a joint tears on task force or

10:49

DTTF. Mickey's

10:51

motivation for being an informant was,

10:53

And again, I'm quoting from an internal FBI

10:55

report to fight terrorists. And

10:58

Mickey believed that, quote, people

11:01

who participate in violent civil unrest

11:03

are terrorists. So Mickey,

11:05

the big bad ice is hunter just back from Iraq,

11:08

now has a new target. Racial

11:11

justice protesters whom he considers, terrorists.

11:16

But for him, there appears to be

11:18

and even deeper psychological impulse.

11:21

Mickey saw himself as an anti hero,

11:24

someone who operates in the gray

11:27

areas of the law, delivering

11:30

his own brand of justice. Mickey

11:33

wore a chain around his neck and hanging

11:35

from that chain was a medallion of

11:38

the logo for the punisher.

11:41

A vigilante from the Marvel Comics Universe,

11:44

who fights crime, with

11:46

an obscene level of violence.

11:50

He literally thought he was the punisher

11:53

anything you see. The punisher load was on

11:55

it. And he would always wear the punisher necklace.

11:58

He when he took a shower or a bath, never

12:00

came off. Just

12:02

like a big kid in the worst way.

12:05

In the worst

12:06

way, it's awful.

12:09

This is Trojan Hirst, season

12:11

one of Alphabet boys.

12:18

Okay. Right? Go check

12:20

out Alphabet boys right now. It

12:22

really is one of the funniest, wildest,

12:25

and also scariest shows. You'll

12:27

ever hear. Again, it's alphabet

12:30

boys. Just search up alphabet boys

12:32

and then click on the red cover art with

12:34

the gray FBI horse. And

12:36

I'll be back when we have more to update

12:39

you on for our season of Strangeland. Again,

12:41

thank you so much for sharing Sassy

12:43

and Anisha's story. Let's keep the faith

12:46

and keep pushing for justice.