The 1972 Bombing of a Small-Town Cop

A police lieutenant turns the key, presses the brake, and his truck erupts. He lives. The case almost disappears. We set out to learn why a 1972 Springdale, Arkansas bombing barely made the paper and what the town didn’t (or wouldn’t) say out loud. Along the way we sketch the real backdrop: a rural region on the cusp of change, where Walmart and Tyson were still rising, Sundays went quiet, and a hard-edged meth trade simmered under the surface.

We walk through the device itself—DuPont gelatin dynamite, electric blasting caps, a likely brake-trigger—and how ATF and the FBI traced components that later surfaced in a routine DWI stop. The names matter here: a farmhand with easy access to explosives, a serially arrested dealer named Dennis Eugene Cortis who joked about “a bomby night,” and witnesses who remember him bragging at house parties the cops already knew about. The evidence lines up enough to raise eyebrows—brand continuity, relationships, and loose talk—but not enough to become a clean courtroom story.

That’s where small-town dynamics cut in. FOIA requests yield lab notes but not a complete record. A grand jury is rumored yet untraceable. Prosecutors may have done the math—stack drug manufacturing and theft for decades inside, or risk an attempted murder case with thin forensics and 1970s procedures. And then there’s the twist of family: Cortis’s mother slipping him tools to escape the county jail, sending him on a run that added more crimes in Oklahoma before the time finally stuck.

Read more or get your SWAG here: Paul G Newton's Blog — Paul G. Newton

What emerges is a candid portrait of how communities navigate scandal when the truth threatens comfort. It’s Arkansas true crime with all the texture: meth networks, ATF trails, missing records, and the stubborn persistence it takes to keep asking hard questions long after the headlines vanish. If stories like this keep you curious—where evidence ends and influence begins—hit play, subscribe for more deep dives, and leave a review to tell us what we should dig into next.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Banter, Life Updates, Teen Drama
• 7:30 Setting The 1970s Arkansas Scene
• 13:45 The Bombing Of Lt. Carl Martins
• 20:05 FOIA Roadblocks And Missing Records
• 26:20 Dynamite Trail: Evidence And Suspects
• 34:10 Dennis Cortis: Bragging And Busts
• 41:00 Why The Case Fizzled Publicly
• 47:30 Escape Aid From Mom And More Crimes

Transcript

Music: 0:07

I need to know eve rything who in the what in the where I need everything.

Paul G: 0:10

So welcome again to our little world of George, I happen to be a little bit of a I don't know, what do you what do you want to call this?

Andrea: 0:20

We need to know everything.

Paul G: 0:22

Do we?

Andrea: 0:22

Yeah.

Paul G: 0:24

What if we don't get to know everything?

Andrea: 0:27

Uh, we can try.

Paul G: 0:31

My esteemed mistress.

Andrea: 0:35

I'm your wife now, thank you very much. No. You don't need one.

Paul G: 0:40

Uh one's enough. I don't need more than one. What? Things I wanna know. That's who we are, what we're doing, and if you don't know that, then now you do. So there you go. What's been going on, anything? Last week we had a lot of craziness happening, if I remember correctly.

Andrea: 1:04

Yes, kid stuff. Yeah.

Paul G: 1:06

And the week before that we were just like, I don't care anymore. We were tired.

Andrea: 1:11

Yeah, we had a lot going on.

Paul G: 1:13

We did.

Andrea: 1:14

Yeah.

Paul G: 1:15

Did we?

Andrea: 1:16

Yeah, we always seem to. It's called life, you know.

Paul G: 1:19

Eh. Who knows about life? Life isn't that important, is it?

Andrea: 1:24

You gotta work to eat. Oh, there you go.

Paul G: 1:27

Sometimes I have to eat to work. I really don't know what that means.

Andrea: 1:35

Well, you've been putting a lot of work in with this for you.

Paul G: 1:39

Yeah, I've been working on this. I've been trying to get these things going pretty hard. The uh the podcast, the podcasts here. And uh uh, you know, it's been interesting.

Andrea: 1:51

Well, the podcast gods answered you on this one, but the rest of them they won't seem to want to help us, I guess.

Paul G: 1:57

The podcast gods?

Andrea: 1:58

Yeah.

Paul G: 1:58

Are they gods? I just or are they just like, you know, elves?

Andrea: 2:03

Well, whoever does the FOIA requests, if you're not very specific enough, they'll like deny.

Paul G: 2:07

Oh, yeah. Well, and the government shutdown hadn't helped any either, because now I've been trying to get a hold of um the you know, the FBI and ATF reports for things, and there's no way it's ever gonna happen.

Andrea: 2:18

Yeah, didn't they say that they like couldn't find any record of this current one we're gonna talk about?

Paul G: 2:22

Yeah. They said they it might be someone alive that they don't want to offend.

Andrea: 2:27

I think in your counterclaim you proved that they weren't.

Paul G: 2:30

I sent obituaries for just about everybody.

Andrea: 2:32

You did, didn't you? I do remember that. That's funny.

Paul G: 2:35

But and paste it and send it in. You really don't have a leg to stand on people because here's their obituary. They are dead.

Andrea: 2:41

Newspapers.com. We love you.

Paul G: 2:44

Yeah. Well, what we don't love is the Arkansas Democrat Daily or Arkansas Democratic Gazette because they didn't digitize anything from the 90s.

Andrea: 2:53

You have to have basically, you know, pay their little monthly fee to have access to the current newspaper plus anything past. It's like they're I get it, it's their work, but they're holding on to it's like some stingy little kid.

Paul G: 3:03

So Well they, you know, they they don't even they they send you out one paper a month or a week on Sunday, and you have to read it on an iPad. And when my father was alive, he took him probably six months to figure out how to use that iPad.

Andrea: 3:19

Well, I mean uh technology for people that are older is not their thing. I mean, I I get it. I'm kind of not I'm not that old, but I still don't completely embrace everything on the iPhone.

Paul G: 3:32

You won't even use the iPad. I'm like, I'm using the iPad constantly.

Andrea: 3:35

My daughter confiscated my iPad, so I'm you could use mine. I just I don't think about it, honestly.

Paul G: 3:42

You don't want to.

Andrea: 3:43

I just don't think about it. I mean I have a computer, but no, I might as well just give that iPad to Emily because she like uses it for a TV.

Paul G: 3:50

I got a TV she can borrow, but she won't do it because she didn't like me anymore.

Andrea: 3:55

Well, I don't know what's between you two. That's between you two, but it's not between me.

Paul G: 3:58

I didn't do nothing, man. I'm just sitting around going, whatever.

Andrea: 4:01

All you guys out there that have teenagers, I think you can relate.

Paul G: 4:05

I'm the evil, evil person in in there's always one person that's evil in teenager land.

Andrea: 4:12

That's probably so.

Paul G: 4:13

And I'm the evil one today. I'm such a bad person.

Andrea: 4:18

I don't know. They'll she'll get over it like they always do.

Paul G: 4:22

Uh maybe. And the really the problem, the thing that you have to think about is I really don't care.

Andrea: 4:28

Yeah, I know.

Paul G: 4:30

Nothing I can do about it. I I really don't care. She can be mad at me off. She wants it's not my kid, so fine. If you want to act like that, fine. Well, I don't care. It's not like I got a vested interest other than, you know, your your mother.

Andrea: 4:42

Well, you know, if mom's not happy, nobody's happy, isn't that the rule?

Paul G: 4:46

Well, sometimes.

Andrea: 4:49

You could spin that a lot of different ways, but we won't do that on air.

Paul G: 4:52

Oh, but well, I mean, we could. I mean, you just have to put an explicit rating on the front. No, we don't want to do what what you brought it up.

Andrea: 4:59

So I can say we're not gonna tip or gore and put a rating on it. Tipper gore? Yeah. Tipper gore? Isn't she the one you told me? Yeah, there was.

Paul G: 5:08

You can go and watch a clip. She was on Oprah, uh, arguing with Izzy Pop, I think it was. Uh, and he's like, What are you doing? And she's like, she's just telling him, You're gonna make our kids go crazy, and they're all gonna worship the devil and they're gonna go to hell.

Andrea: 5:25

They're gonna do that all on their own, so I'm not worried about anything.

Paul G: 5:28

Don't need rock and roll for that.

Andrea: 5:29

No, it's called they have friends.

Paul G: 5:31

It's it's it's just called being a teenager.

Andrea: 5:34

Oh yeah.

Paul G: 5:36

But Tipper Gore, it's weird because it's Al Gore's wife.

Andrea: 5:39

Yep. Who knew?

Paul G: 5:42

The earth is going to Well, see, when when when the rock and roll didn't turn the world and into evil, see, and Al, he went and said, you know what? We'll just make sure that the climate change is going to kill everyone. Because if you remember correctly, the world world should have ended 10 years ago. According to the inconvenient truth.

Andrea: 6:03

I do remember that, and I remember laughing, going, Well, at least I'll be going to a better place than hearing you complain.

Paul G: 6:10

But I mean, you know, uh, that's a whole other topic on its own, but you know truth, you know, you can have consensus and all this other garbage and all that stuff, and we're not putting down anybody's theories. No, no, no. If you We're just like, come, let's let's just face this head on. They said we were all supposed to be underwater and the earth was supposed to be too hot to inhabit 10 years ago.

Andrea: 6:32

Yeah, I do remember that. But you know, one day at a time, if you're gonna obsess over that stuff, then you're not living your life right now to the fullest. And to me, that's the most important thing you should be doing within you know reason.

Paul G: 6:42

The earth will live on, and the cockroaches will soon evolve into the new species that flies into space.

Andrea: 6:50

I hope not because I hate cockroaches. Those things. Those things give me the key.

Paul G: 6:55

At least a million years for the cockroaches to learn how to drive a stick shift.

Andrea: 6:58

I mean, uh no, I can't go there. He knows how much I hate cockroaches because those things just make my skin crawl, and I'm like the lady out there with like the thousand cans of raid going after them because I can't stand them.

Paul G: 7:12

Oh, you would you probably hated that movie Joe's Apartment.

Andrea: 7:15

I couldn't I couldn't watch it. I could not, guys.

Paul G: 7:17

I guess friends with the company.

Andrea: 7:20

I couldn't, I got like 25 minutes into it, and I'm like, I can't do this. I can't. I don't like those things. I can handle bears, I can handle, you know, any type of marine life. I mean, I can just I cannot handle a cockroach.

Paul G: 7:35

So I was gonna do this nice little read like we've been doing.

Andrea: 7:38

Oh yeah.

Paul G: 7:39

But I don't know if it's appropriate now. It's kind of weird now the transition and just out of our banter into the the read. What do you think? We're trying to figure out this this the formatting that works best here. Because people really just like to listen to us bicker.

Andrea: 7:53

And some people fast forward when we bicker, so I guess you know you can't play that. Who said that? Nobody, but I'm just guessing. Some people out there are like, I just want to get to what you want to tell me about. Zip, zip, zip. Go on 30 seconds. We don't care. Yeah. But um other people like to hear us and they laugh because they can relate to us because there's somebody out there that hates cockroaches, and there's some guy out there that's mad at his teenagers, so we're relatable.

Paul G: 8:12

That's probably true. That's not my teenager.

Andrea: 8:15

Well, it's mine.

Paul G: 8:16

Yeah. So I guess.

Andrea: 8:18

Well, she graduated high school soon, so please.

Paul G: 8:23

Colleges, if you're listening, accept her and give her a full ride in a dorm.

Andrea: 8:28

Make my life easier. She's gonna listen to this and be like, Mom, why are you so mean to me? She's gonna say that I'm talking about her without her permission.

Paul G: 8:39

And what planet does she think she lives on?

Andrea: 8:44

I haven't said her name, so nobody knows who she is.

Paul G: 8:47

It doesn't matter.

Andrea: 8:48

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Paul G: 8:49

What planet does she think she's living on?

Andrea: 8:51

I don't know, her own. I don't know.

Paul G: 8:52

Yeah, yeah. Because if if we couldn't, if we had to ask permission to talk about somebody, no one could ever talk about anything.

Andrea: 9:00

Yeah, that's true.

Paul G: 9:01

So I don't think that really matters.

Andrea: 9:04

Yeah, I don't when we were kids, none of that was a thing. You didn't ask permission, you did you just did it. And if you didn't like it, you just kind of like ducked your head down in the class hallway and run around and afraid, you know. You didn't like go.

Paul G: 9:17

The teacher throws stuff at you.

Andrea: 9:18

You didn't give me permission, you have to take it down. We didn't have to deal with any of that. You know, if a bad face was in the yearbook, oh well, move on.

Paul G: 9:25

I mean I tried to make a face in the yearbook.

Andrea: 9:30

Didn't you try to join clubs or something in your I just wanted to join.

Paul G: 9:33

I joined golf because there's a really hot chick that was playing golf.

Andrea: 9:37

I do remember you telling me that, yeah.

Paul G: 9:39

She was and then she quit and I was like, damn, now I'm in golf. What am I gonna do for the rest of the semester?

Andrea: 9:46

I don't know. Hope for more pretty girls. I don't know.

Paul G: 9:49

Oh, I was a bunch of dudes.

Andrea: 9:50

Oh well, I wanna tell you.

Paul G: 9:52

I just like, can I not come up and you just like transfer me to another class, please?

Andrea: 9:56

They were all probably in the same class with the same idea you had.

Paul G: 9:59

Yeah. No, no, see, I had four knowledge because I lived by the country club. Oh, so I knew who was gonna join.

Andrea: 10:06

Oh, okay.

Paul G: 10:07

So I was like, hmm. She had money, she went to Fayetteville, but she had the same, but they did golf class together.

Andrea: 10:14

Oh, okay.

Paul G: 10:15

Yeah. So I was like, yeah, she didn't know who I am. I can get away with stuff.

Andrea: 10:19

Okay. Glad you, you know, told me this a little bit before we got married.

Paul G: 10:24

I told you everything before we got married, and you said, stop telling me stuff.

Andrea: 10:28

There is some stuff I just don't want to know. Even though there's things I want to know. There's certain things ladies should know.

Paul G: 10:33

Things she doesn't want to know.

Andrea: 10:34

You don't want to know that you're some stuff your husband did in the past. I'd just rather not.

Paul G: 10:38

Especially a disreputable woman like me.

Andrea: 10:41

What? Disreputable. I don't want to know any of those. All right.

Paul G: 10:46

But when we were growing up though. So I was born early 70s, you were born late 70s.

Andrea: 10:53

77. Yeah, I guess that's late 70s.

Paul G: 10:55

Yeah. And when we there was little bitty towns then.

Andrea: 11:01

Yeah, it really was. I I just distinctly remember as a kid between Rogers and Bentonville, the road 102, these people who have no idea like about Arkansas. Just picture like two towns in the distance, and in between the two these two towns is a bunch of farmland. That's what I remember.

Paul G: 11:19

Between Springdale and Fayeville was a few hills and a giant junkyard. Two giant junkyards.

Andrea: 11:26

I remember the interstate being nothing but cowfields in the n early 90s.

Paul G: 11:32

Yeah, now if going from Springdale to Rogers. Yeah.

Andrea: 11:37

Yeah.

Paul G: 11:38

Yeah, that was it. Springdale to Rogers, and you had Lowell, which is a little and then we had actually had in the 70s, there was actually a um uh go-kart track outside of Springdale. I don't remember in the Benton County.

Andrea: 11:50

I don't remember that.

Paul G: 11:50

Yeah, it didn't last very long, and Roger got to go on it, and I was too little, they wouldn't let me go on it. So I got to watch, and then like the next year it went out gone.

Andrea: 12:00

Because Roger, my brother Roger's nine years older than me, so no, I don't I just remember like all the farmland we used to have, and now that farm well we need to eat some we need beef somehow, somebody's gonna grow it.

Paul G: 12:13

Where's the beef?

Andrea: 12:14

Yeah, where's the beef? I do. It was out there in the fields. I do remember that little s commercial from the 80s.

Paul G: 12:19

So I it's just a small farm towns, just but you know, Tyson's and Walmart. Walmart hadn't even gotten big. It was still I think it was just barely Walmart by 72. Right before I was born. Yeah, I I They might have had just one Walmart store.

Andrea: 12:39

I didn't really realize how big Walmart was until I lived in Michigan.

Paul G: 12:47

Yeah.

Andrea: 12:48

And you know, for college, and I thought Walmart was everywhere. No, Walmart's not.

Paul G: 12:52

They weren't. They are now.

Andrea: 12:54

Yeah, and then even in in Texas.

Paul G: 12:55

Vermont has a Walmart now. They they were held out for years.

Andrea: 12:59

Yeah, I mean, I guess it didn't really hit me. When you grow up here, like it's Walmart, you have a Walmart, you have a corporate office, you don't really realize that it's Walmart and Sam's Club is everywhere here.

Paul G: 13:09

There's no Costco here because Sam's Club owns the place.

Andrea: 13:12

Yeah, you don't really realize how big something is until you see it. Like, I guess you can get stock. I do remember stock, and I didn't you're a kid, you don't know what makes someone be in the stock exchange.

Paul G: 13:21

And it was just a little bitty town. We were just, you know, it was almost, almost May um Mayberry. Almost Mayberry.

Andrea: 13:30

Uh it was bigger than that, but I mean I don't know if I'd say Mayberry, because I think of like smaller towns when we were driving through to go to Florida and then Arkansas, to me, that's Mayberry.

Paul G: 13:42

Well, I'm just saying for the listener who doesn't, it's not maybe not familiar.

Andrea: 13:45

Uh yeah, it's I guess in those days when I was in elementary school, there was a couple elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. And it was one high school until I graduated a little bit after that. It stopped.

Paul G: 13:59

Same, same. But the reason I bring all this up is though to kind of set the scene. You know, Tyson's wasn't this major conglomerate, big giant Tyson's. They were still just a small chicken processor.

Andrea: 14:11

Yeah.

Paul G: 14:12

And, you know, Georgia's had some eggs. Now those two companies are the was two of the Tyson's, obviously the largest in the world as far as protein is concerned. But we were just a little bitty town, right? Everything rolled up at 6 a.m. uh 6 p.m. Nobody went out of their house on it except to go to church on Sunday. Nothing was open.

Andrea: 14:33

I do remember nothing being open on Sundays vaguely. And I remember as I got older that changed.

Paul G: 14:38

But so this is 1972.

Andrea: 14:41

Yeah, before I was born.

Paul G: 14:42

What I didn't know, what I learned from researching this case is that in 1972 there was a huge methamphetamine problem in northwest Arkansas. Monster.

Andrea: 14:52

Bigger than the we have now?

Paul G: 14:53

Yeah.

Andrea: 14:54

Really?

Paul G: 14:54

Yeah. That's what's that's that's kind of where I've come out of this. It's like, oh my gosh, I did not know it was that large.

Andrea: 15:00

I mean, I pictured the 70s, I hate to say this off the 70s show when it's sitting a smirks circle in their all smoking pot, and uh everybody talks about dope and all that other stuff.

Paul G: 15:07

That's what you had bennies and all this other stuff that you're able to get a hold of back then. Now none of those things are legal and they're very hard, you can't, they they don't make them anymore.

Andrea: 15:16

Well, they just came up with other things.

Paul G: 15:18

Well, now they hate the only thing they really can make, because bennies or benzodiazepines, right? Yeah, they they don't make those pharmaceutically anymore. There's no reason, there's no call for them to be made in the but back then they were being uh prescribed to housewives and all sorts of good stuff.

Andrea: 15:37

Valium, benzodiazepines, Atavan, all that stuff was highly prescribed.

Paul G: 15:42

I don't know if Atavan was out yet.

Andrea: 15:44

I know, but symptoms similar to Atavan.

Paul G: 15:46

Yeah. But uh propofol was probably still around. I don't know.

Andrea: 15:48

I don't think propofol came around until later. I don't know, I have to look it up. That's what I know.

Paul G: 15:52

Morphine was out for sure.

Andrea: 15:53

Morphine's been around since the Civil War.

Paul G: 15:55

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, what these people were doing, there was an underclass in Northwest Arkansas that they made their own crank and then and they sold wheat and they grew their own weed. A lot of the weed back then came from these rural areas like uh what we call Booger County, which is what Madison County? Madison County. Well, no, it's what the locals called it back then. They called it Booger County.

Andrea: 16:21

Oh, okay.

Paul G: 16:22

Yeah. Dad still called it Booger County until he was dead.

Andrea: 16:25

Really? Yeah. Not to make fun of that, a lot of those counties, but if you own property, like I own used to own property, and I remember Carroll County. And uh my kids would make a joke about how I can have my own moon moonshine still and I can make my own pot. And I'm looking at them and I'm like, you don't need to be knowing that's a thing.

Paul G: 16:42

Well, it you you would you think you're alone until you till the banjos play, and then you're like, mm, they're still there.

Andrea: 16:49

That bad.

Paul G: 16:51

Some guy yelling squeal out in them. I don't know. It was just disconcerting.

Andrea: 16:55

No, that didn't happen. We had pigs in around the area, but we didn't hear like that.

Paul G: 17:00

So this is 1972, and I guess a couple of the cops and uh uh Lieutenant Carl Martins of the Springdale Police Department, right? He he I guess he roughed up a couple of people that were making, you know, he's after them.

Andrea: 17:17

Right. Yeah, this is an update from a previous episode.

Paul G: 17:19

Yeah, so what this is all the information that I found. He is uh, you know, he's roughing him up. You're gonna put him in jail. Don't want him around because you know, this is Bible-built country, and everybody's kind of stuck up with Baptist out there.

Andrea: 17:31

It's still kind of Bible-built country. That's not really changed much.

Paul G: 17:33

Not a whole lot. Well, it's changed a lot compared to back then. I mean, if you were gay back then, you probably got disappeared.

Andrea: 17:39

Well, if you were gay up until the early 2000s, it was highly, highly not acceptable.

Paul G: 17:44

Yeah. Remember this middle of Burt Reynolds and all this other stuff, too, you know?

Andrea: 17:47

The 70s, yeah.

Paul G: 17:48

It's like, oh, I'm a man, how about you? I got my mustache and chest hair. Yeah, I got my chest hair.

Andrea: 17:53

I just remember that.

Paul G: 17:54

Everybody likes my chest hair.

Andrea: 17:56

Pictures from the 70s when the guys got their shirt all veg on when they're changing. Looks like a bear.

Paul G: 18:01

Yeah.

Andrea: 18:04

We know what Paul doesn't like.

Paul G: 18:06

No. I if you grow chest hair, I'm leaving. I'm just saying right now.

Andrea: 18:10

If I grow chest hair, let's put me as a sideshow freak. We can make some money.

Paul G: 18:14

Put a sign out in the front yard. Come see the hairy woman. No, I would never do that. Mrs. Sasquatch lives here.

Andrea: 18:22

Make some extra money.

Paul G: 18:26

I just open the window. We can close it. Another dollar, please.

Andrea: 18:30

Oh my god. There'd be some more on doing that. Probably.

Paul G: 18:35

So I guess he was messing with these guys who are growing growing weed and selling weed and making meth and selling meth.

Andrea: 18:41

And I'm sure that disrupted their business, and people probably got arrested for it and put in jail.

Paul G: 18:46

And so one, you know, so Martins gets off his shift, right? It's 1147. Right? And he gets into his truck. Now, what I found out was he didn't have a decent truck. He had a truck where the door didn't shut. This is how little they're paying cops back then. He couldn't even buy a regular car. He had an old junk truck.

Andrea: 19:08

How did he keep the door it didn't open or he wouldn't shut?

Paul G: 19:11

It wouldn't shut.

Andrea: 19:12

So how's he you how you can't just drive down the road and it flies open? All I picture is what is it? He probably had a string or something.

Paul G: 19:20

Oh shoot. Believe it or not. So yeah, he probably just put it together with a rope. Closed it. Oh my gosh. So he gets in his truck. Poor thing. And he starts it and it blows up. It explodes. But it doesn't kill him. Yeah, do you remember that? It doesn't kill him. Which is interesting. When you figure out, when you find out what they use to blow him up, you'll be surprised that he's not dead.

Andrea: 19:44

What did you say? It was a bunch of powder caps?

Paul G: 19:47

No, no, no, no, no. So they blew him up, right? And then the case makes the newspaper four times.

Andrea: 19:56

I remember when we talked about that last time, four times. Only four times. And this little area, I would think that that would be all over the front page for weeks.

Paul G: 20:03

Yeah, you would think people would be killing themselves to figure out what the hell somebody bombed this policeman for. What did he do? Was it a jilted lover? Was it drugs? Was it the biker gangs? Because at the time Hell's Angels are really big.

Andrea: 20:18

And I remember we talked about this. I was thinking it was like an ex-girlfriend. You're the one that called it and nailed it, though.

Paul G: 20:24

Yeah. I figured that's what it was. Some idiot.

Andrea: 20:28

That's usually how it starts.

Paul G: 20:31

Yeah, you know it does. Uh sadly, unfortunately.

Andrea: 20:36

But I mean, here's my thought process. You're a guy, you're mad. He's messing with your drugs. So you're gonna build a bomb. You can't Google this. How do you what do you go to the library? How to build a bomb? I mean, what do you do? Well, I wouldn't know the first thing to do.

Paul G: 20:50

So what they did, so immediately the ATF is called.

Andrea: 20:54

I didn't know we had ATF back then.

Paul G: 20:56

Yeah, ATF and FBI are called in immediately.

Andrea: 20:59

I thought ATF was like a Clinton thing that he started, to be honest.

Paul G: 21:03

No, that was already around. I think uh I think ATF might have been Nixon. I'd have to go look it up. Nixon started a lot of this crap. Alcohol, tobacco, firearms. Um so they come in, right, and they're they're they're interviewing all the cops and looking around and gathering up suspects, and what they had found is that uh somebody had used dynamite. Dynamite. A stick of dynamite to blow him up.

Andrea: 21:32

He's lucky to be alive. Yeah.

Paul G: 21:35

But see, while we're going off as references from the A-Team, yeah, you know, in in different TV shows. A stick of dynamite, boom. Do they really blow up the was one stick really blow that blow up that big? I don't know. I've never actually seen it in life. Really?

Andrea: 21:50

I haven't either. It's not like we can go buy dynamite and use in the back porch to figure this out because we get arrested.

Paul G: 21:55

Well, in dynamite, you like a firecracker. If you take it take a piece of dynamite and put it out there on the on the pavement and set it off, boom, you're gonna have a hole.

Andrea: 22:03

Yeah.

Paul G: 22:03

Right. But if you stick it in a rock with a little hole that's just big enough for the dynamite, what's gonna happen? The whole side of that mountain our hill's gonna be blown off.

Andrea: 22:14

Yeah, that makes sense because the amount of energy.

Paul G: 22:17

Yeah, it's all con it's all compacted right there. So more than likely, because these are a couple of crackheads, don't know what the hell they're doing, what we found out. They're it just blew up. And probably most of the force went down and out.

Andrea: 22:32

But how did they how'd they light it, for lack of a better term? It's not like excuse me, officer.

Paul G: 22:38

No, that's not, it's not in here. I don't know, I don't know. So the Spritting Springdale PD called in the uh forensics assist from the ATF. When they did, they found out it was a DuPont special gelatin dynamite with the electric blasting caps. Oh, that's a six-volt battery uh ignition.

Andrea: 22:56

So probably something about maybe when he sat in the seat that triggered something, maybe.

Paul G: 23:01

If it was in the seat. Well, he put he put his foot on the brake.

Andrea: 23:04

Oh, that too, correct. Something had to charge it.

Paul G: 23:07

See, he said that he said in the in the in the interview that when he put his foot on the brake, it sent it off.

Andrea: 23:13

Wow.

Paul G: 23:13

And I imagine the fact that he can remember that. He was pretty severely injured, though. He's off for a while. That's really he'd be as a police, but he came back and he he became kept himself as a police officer for until he retired.

Andrea: 23:26

I mean, that's good that it didn't keep make him disabled to the point he can't work.

Paul G: 23:30

Yeah, but the thing is it made the newspaper four times. He never got any more never any more talking points about it. And because it was 72, you can't go back to the TV stations and pick up the old tapes.

Andrea: 23:43

They're gone. Yeah, they're probably gone.

Paul G: 23:45

Because we dug deep into newspapers and you know, you called lots of people and so I called my I called my buddy who who's a retired, used to be run basically, not the chief of police. He used to run the uh Springdo Police Department for a very long time.

Andrea: 24:02

Okay.

Paul G: 24:02

As like the highest guy underneath the the the high people. You know, he's the way he would be like the uh master sergeant, for example.

Andrea: 24:15

Master sergeant, really. Wow.

Paul G: 24:17

If you were military. So he runs, you know, the master sergeant tells everybody what to do. And then then the second lieutenant comes by and tells him to do something, and he goes tells him to piss off because I'm I outrank you even though I'm enlisted. That's actually the way it works. Anyhow, um, so they had to come all the way in from Seattle, the ATF. Why Seattle sounds like it's where they were. Oh, okay. Uh they had one uh then the FBI came out of Kansas City, and then they had to ship all the stuff that they gathered to s uh to the laboratory in Seattle.

Andrea: 24:54

We didn't have our own FBI in Arkansas at that time.

Paul G: 24:57

No, no.

Andrea: 24:58

I guess the 70s we didn't have flyover country, man. Oh yeah.

Paul G: 25:02

We probably were first off, they're looking for the unibomber and whatnot. Not they're not yet, but you know what I mean?

Andrea: 25:08

Yeah, yeah. I'm just thinking like I because we have our own now, don't we, in Little Rock? No, I think it has to go to like Atlanta or really I'm thinking we had our own office for some reason.

Paul G: 25:19

Well, Fable has what I found is Fayable has an office for the FBI, but there's no one there. Okay, that sounds like it's a an office where they come in from Little Rock if they need to come up here and they can go in there and use it.

Andrea: 25:31

I feel like that's a waste of government funds.

Paul G: 25:34

It's a federal building, so they've already paid for it. I mean, what's the difference? I'm just I'm just saying. Right. Right. Uh here's the thing. They never return the evidence. We never asked for it back.

Andrea: 25:47

Why would we not W wouldn't we ask for it back?

Paul G: 25:50

No, they didn't.

Andrea: 25:51

Why would we not?

Paul G: 25:53

I have no idea. It's just it here's the thing about FOIA. They uh they redact some of it.

Andrea: 25:58

Well, yeah, yeah, they have to.

Paul G: 26:00

And but m it never said what it said is that they sent it off, but there was never a filed request in the paperwork at the Springdale PD to get the information back to give to the prosecutors.

Andrea: 26:15

That sounds like to me they're just like, we're doing our due diligence, but we really don't care.

Paul G: 26:19

Yeah, isn't that weird?

Andrea: 26:21

I mean there has to be a reason why they don't care.

Paul G: 26:23

So now a little while later, after this bombing, uh Rogers police officer uh pulled over uh Fran Philip Francis S. Eslinger for a DWI. And you have to be super drunk in the 70s to get pulled over for a DWI. Because it's my father drove like that all the time, and they were just like, eh, just go home. It'd be okay.

Andrea: 26:51

That's so scary if you think about it.

Paul G: 26:53

It's not just like it is now, man.

Andrea: 26:55

No, you like weave in a little bit the which they should. I mean, these people's lives, you know, they should they should do that in case you know someone is like, I'm just gonna fall asleep and you can go over center line and kill somebody.

Paul G: 27:05

Yeah. So get this. When they when they pulled him over, they searched his car. Back then you could search your car, you didn't have to have probable cause as much because it hadn't been set forth yet. Because we just net we just got uh have to read your rights in 72. Hey, wouldn't it have been 68 wouldn't it?

Andrea: 27:24

Whenever that I was thinking we got that sooner than that. Maybe not.

Paul G: 27:28

No. So they just now got the fact that they have to read the rights, and now we've got this guy drunk driving, and he's searching his car because they could back then, and it was fair game. And they found in Philip Francis Ess Esslinger. Eslinger? It's hard to say. Uh two DuPont gelatin sticks, caps wiring, batteries, and tape. The exact same ones that was in Martin's car.

Andrea: 27:56

I take it Springdale and Fable didn't talk to each other about it. No, it was Rogers. Rogers, excuse me.

Paul G: 28:00

Rogers and they they got it.

Andrea: 28:02

They got it, okay.

Paul G: 28:03

Yeah, Evans logged and was logged and given to the ATF. When they found this, they gave it to the ATF. Right? Because in the FOIA I found the agents' names. Uh the lab notes later show the brand continuity of fragments from the bombing.

Andrea: 28:20

Oh, okay.

Paul G: 28:21

So they got the notes back, but they didn't get the the actual uh chemical test back.

Andrea: 28:27

Okay.

Paul G: 28:28

Maybe they didn't think they needed it.

Andrea: 28:30

I mean, if it's the same okay, I mean i i i it to me it can be maybe circumstantial at best. Okay, it's a little bit ironic that he's driving around town with the same thing that blew up a police officer, but at the same time, unless it's the same component, yeah. You could probably argue that it's just you know, a coincidence.

Paul G: 28:48

So the police r are running this down, right? And they they have this one dude, Billy Mac Miles. Mac Miles Mac Miles. Two words. Billy Mac Miles or Billy Mac Miles. I don't know. Who cares? It doesn't matter. I'm gonna put their mugshots up on the website.

Andrea: 29:07

Oh, that'd be like their mugshots. Oh, that's interesting.

Paul G: 29:10

Yeah, it's pretty actually pretty cool. And they look like, yeah, those guys probably did that. So he says that uh this one dude, Dennis Eugene Cortes, who was hurt uh who was my buddy's main suspect from the PD. Yeah, he's like, I believe he did it. Uh but this guy, Dennis Eugene Cortes, came by this dude's house uh days after the blast and joked to him when I asked him about the bombing. Because you know, this lieutenant had been busting the chops of Billy Mac and Eugene Cortes, right? Dennis Cortis. For like days, months. Because he's after him, he wanted really quit. Cortis jokes. The air was a little bommy that night. Oh gosh.

Andrea: 30:05

Yeah.

Paul G: 30:06

Yeah, he said that to this dude. So this Dennis Cortis guy, he's been arrested so many times. It's ridiculous. Over and over and over again.

Andrea: 30:18

Was it drugs?

Paul G: 30:20

Yeah, always drugs and stealing. Drugs and stealing.

Andrea: 30:23

How come he didn't serve any jail time?

Paul G: 30:25

Well he he did a little. He did a little. Um but they also another here's the thing. There's two other guys, Edmund Ford and Jay Frederick. I don't know if they're dead or alive. They could still be here and come knocking on our door after hearing this. Hey, how's it going, Jay? I ain't answering the door. He'd be in a walker. Anyway, I could outrun him. Um they both said, yeah, Cortis came bragging about he knew about the cop car getting bombed up and blown out. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so basically he was running around telling everybody, you know, hey, I did this, I did that. Ha ha ha ha huh.

Andrea: 31:10

No, that's usually what they do. That's how they get caught. They can't keep their mouth shut. They want to brag about it. They want some accolades for doing something like that.

Paul G: 31:19

So he what he was doing, he was just he thought he was some kind of big bop boss. Running methamphetamine. What happens when you use too much methamphetamine, by the way?

Andrea: 31:29

You're pretty much your brain becomes just molten mush.

Paul G: 31:34

You get very angry though.

Andrea: 31:36

Yeah, you do get very angry. Paranoid. Paranoid. Some of them are coming off meth, have this really sense of strength. Yeah. You know.

Paul G: 31:45

Like that guy with the gun at the hospital?

Andrea: 31:47

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul G: 31:48

That was cool. Not really. Too bad. You could shoot you should have got the uh the uh the camera out of the from that, the security cameras from that. That'd be cool. You show it to all your, you know, prospective suitors.

Andrea: 32:01

No.

Paul G: 32:01

Here's what happens if you fuck with me.

Andrea: 32:05

I wouldn't have gotten married again. That's a gaze.

Paul G: 32:07

No, I'd loved it. What are you talking about? That's like one of the this there's two incidents in your life that I went, that sounds really cool.

Andrea: 32:16

So this poor guy, not poor guy, but this guy's going around town going, I blew up a cop, I blew up a cop, and nothing was done.

Paul G: 32:24

They didn't Well, they they they popped him on a bunch of other stuff. It took him a minute. But uh Philip Esslinger, right, he worked on a farm, so that's why he had the dynamite. So he didn't go to jail for the dynamite, right?

Andrea: 32:39

Oh, that's pulling strings there, a touch.

Paul G: 32:41

Yeah. But that's the only reason he didn't have to go to jail for the dynamite. Nowadays, you just go to jail. You have to have a license and federal license and all this stuff. Back then, you could just buy dynamite.

Andrea: 32:52

But do you really need a dynamite for a farm?

Paul G: 32:55

Yes. Stumps. That's how they got rid of stumps.

Andrea: 32:58

Okay, all right.

Paul G: 32:59

You get a bunch of rocks or something like that, then yeah, you need it. I mean, it's you know, what here's the sick part about this Esslinger guy, though. He claimed he was using it to fish.

Andrea: 33:11

Oh, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. What's he gonna do?

Paul G: 33:14

He was using the blasting caps and and dynamite to blow up fish and collect the fish.

Andrea: 33:20

So the fish are gonna die because the bomb went off and you're just gonna go. The pressure from the bomb. You're just gonna scoop them up with a net.

Paul G: 33:26

Exactly. My my grandfather did that a couple times.

Andrea: 33:29

Oh, that's a thing, really.

Paul G: 33:30

No, it's a thing. It's abstract.

Andrea: 33:32

Okay, because to me, I'm thinking like, dude, you're just trying to find some excuse that doesn't sound very good.

Paul G: 33:38

No, no, they the the the pressure in the water, because water doesn't compress, right?

Andrea: 33:42

Yeah.

Paul G: 33:42

So the pressure in the water knocks the fish out and they they pass out and they float to the top.

Andrea: 33:47

To me, that seems like a cheating way of fishing, but it's very illegal and you cannot do that.

Paul G: 33:51

It's like spotlighting a deer. You you take a bright light and shove it in a deer's face, they're not gonna go anywhere, you can shoot them.

Andrea: 33:58

That's cruel.

Paul G: 33:59

Yeah, well that's what my grandfather used to do with rabbits.

Andrea: 34:03

I guess it works.

Paul G: 34:05

Hey man, those back then people were hungry. Yeah you know, my grandfather grew up, he had a dust bowl and all that good stuff he had to deal with. So anyway, so this Dennis Cortis guy and uh this uh uh Philip Essinger. S. Eslinger, right? They're friends. And he talked Philip into making the bomb for him. The weird part is it's in the case file. They've got the evidence, they can link everybody together, yeah, but they never filed a case on them.

Andrea: 34:38

Okay, I guess if you think about it, to my my head, they're all linked, but circumstantial at best, if you think about it. You can brag about it.

Paul G: 34:49

Well, the ATF did say that the dynamite found Esslinger's car is the same batch as the dynamite blown up that blew up the lieutenant.

Andrea: 35:00

Yeah, I guess that's the only thing you really probably would have. But I can see a um a defense attorney twisting that. Well, sure. That's their job, and they have to do it well. You have to counterclaim everything, and I think in this one you might be able to a touch.

Paul G: 35:14

So what I think what we kind of gathered out of this looking at the um evidence in the FOIA is that kind of the city civic pressure kind of pushed it out of the they wanted it to go away. It's an assumption, but it feels like that, and the people of the time were able, you know, that was things that were able to do back then. Now nobody'd stand for it, we'd all be mad.

Andrea: 35:43

I um I guess it makes sense why it only made the paper four times. Yeah, you probably just want it over with, done with, and maybe there's something else that this guy they can charge him with that'll keep him longer than a bombing of a cop. I don't know what the charges were. How things worked in the 70s as far as like laws, I'm sure we've evolved since then. But yeah, maybe if he got uh we'll say, like, for instance, he goes to trial for the bombing um and gets, you know, not guilty, then what are you gonna do?

Paul G: 36:11

You can't, yeah. You you I mean the prosecutor's gotta be able to prove it and and and maybe there's just not enough to prove. Here's the wild thing though. The what's really wild about this thing is that Dennis Eugene Cortis, right? This guy through the 70s and 90s, they could have arrested him then. Really? They could have arrested him then.

Andrea: 36:31

But I think if they arrested him in the 90s, they still have to give him the same amount of charges and time in jail as if it happened in the 70s.

Paul G: 36:37

Well, no, no, yeah, this is true. I mean, they could have arrested him in like 74, 75. There was a grand jury held about this, and then we can't get grand jury. The the the the Washington County is where it was held, and they said they don't have any record of it, didn't exist. Well, it could be grand juries, though, are usually secret.

Andrea: 36:54

Well, yeah, I remember reading the paper, it was it was not just that, but it was potential police misconduct on top of it, and that was one of the things on top of other things that the grand jury was looking at.

Paul G: 37:05

It's true. I mean, we don't know. Those guys could have back then you could interrogate somebody and beat them up. Yeah, they couldn't that was n that was allowed in this in 72. Especially in Arkansas.

Andrea: 37:18

Who knows? Maybe the mayor or whoever was like, nope, nope, find something else to get this guy on.

Paul G: 37:23

Usually the prosecutor, but yeah.

Andrea: 37:25

Prosecutor, yeah.

Paul G: 37:26

So they've arrested him multiple, multiple times between the 70s and 1990s.

Andrea: 37:31

Obviously, rehab didn't uh rehabilitation in the jail does not work for this person.

Paul G: 37:35

No. So he's in he he is for he's going to jail, right? 31 months uh or 51 months to run consecutive to a long state sentence of 31 turning into a 31-year prison sentence for this Dennis Cortis.

Andrea: 37:53

What did he do for that? All the drug sketchup on it?

Paul G: 37:56

Yeah, all the methamphetamine manufacturing.

Andrea: 37:58

Well, I think that would be a better sentence than what he might have gotten for the bombing.

Paul G: 38:01

Yeah, the attempted murder given five years.

Andrea: 38:03

But it makes sense why they didn't pursue it.

Paul G: 38:05

Yeah. Especially in 72, you didn't really get huge sentences back then.

Andrea: 38:09

Yeah, they've changed a lot since then the laws, yeah.

Paul G: 38:12

So he was basically he was facing 31 years in c in in in custody. In here's the wild part about this guy. This is why I'm still going. Oh my gosh, this guy's absolutely insane. Helen Wilkins, Cortis's mother.

Andrea: 38:27

Oh no.

Paul G: 38:28

Right? Um, she helped him by slipping him um items to escape the Washington County jail where he was serving most of his time.

Andrea: 38:43

Okay, did they not have metal detectors or something that you walk through for that? No.

Paul G: 38:48

I mean it's the Washington County jail. I mean, there's it was 200,000 people living in the area.

Andrea: 38:53

Well, was she slipping it in food or pie or purse? What? I mean I don't I don't know. And up her butt? I mean, I don't know.

Paul G: 38:59

Well, she might have been.

Andrea: 39:00

I mean, I'm not trying to recruit here, but I mean like you don't know.

Paul G: 39:03

There's a couple extra pockets there, I suppose.

Andrea: 39:05

I mean Okay, I would like to think that contraband was a thing in the 70s, even more so than now.

Paul G: 39:13

Well, it was the 90s.

Andrea: 39:14

You need to check, check, check.

Paul G: 39:17

Yeah, there wasn't. See, back then, in the late 90s is when I was a skip tracer, which is also known as a bounty hunter.

Andrea: 39:26

Oh, yeah, I do remember you telling me some stories about this.

Paul G: 39:28

And I was working for a bail bondsman and the bail bondsman said, you know, you're supposed to have such and such long-term term time to be a bail bondsman in Arkansas. I'm just gonna say you do. And I said, Okay. Sounds good. Sounds fishy, but okay. He's paying me, what do I care?

Andrea: 39:45

Yeah.

Paul G: 39:46

I said, All right, I'll do it. And I went and busted about four people about four people. And it was the most stressful time. I didn't want to do it, man. My eye was twitching the entire time.

Andrea: 39:59

I guess because you're trying to catch these people, and they're they're probably we've seen cops. It was fun though. They like have them hidden under a mattress or hidden in the room.

Paul G: 40:07

I went up on top, I had to I've got this one guy on top of a church. I showed it to you the other day.

Andrea: 40:10

Yeah.

Paul G: 40:11

We're downtown Rogers, right across the street from the Rogers police station. And I went up on the roof and said, Boy, you can come down here with me, and you got a warrant for you. He goes, What? I said, You want to have to walk to the police station. And we walked him in there. I have my I have a cowboy hat on, my boots. I had a big old Lariat with me. I was like, Yeah, here we come.

Andrea: 40:34

Oh, that really just screams like 70s 90s Arkansas right now. I know, it's fun.

Paul G: 40:41

So But the Sheriff's Department in Washington County. So if I could do that, I mean nobody's paying attention to anything, right? Because I was a I wasn't even 21. And I was running after skip tracers.

Andrea: 40:56

So how did she how did he get out of jail?

Paul G: 40:58

I don't know, but just the sheriff's department in Fayetteville was right off the square.

Andrea: 41:02

Okay.

Paul G: 41:03

And the jail, when you drove by, whenever they let the prisoners out for their daytime, yeah, in the yard, it was right by the highway.

Andrea: 41:11

Oh, geez, that's not thinking at all. You could walk go by and wave at the prisoners, hey, how's it going?

Paul G: 41:16

You know, as you drove by.

Andrea: 41:17

Who thought of this? This I don't know.

Paul G: 41:18

That's the way it was.

Andrea: 41:20

So I'm just picturing this like old lady like snip shoveling in or in a pie or whatever purse, these like nail files. I don't know. And then, like, you know, what are you gonna do? Get these nail files, and when everyone's like, what, having music time like they did at Alcatraz? Sawing down the bars? I mean, what?

Paul G: 41:38

So I he got out and he ran. He ran to Oklahoma where he committed more crimes. Oh, that's lovely. Yeah, see this one. So when he's done with his Arkansas sentence, he's gonna serve time in Oklahoma.

Andrea: 41:50

Well, there's goes the rest of your adulthood.

Paul G: 41:53

Yeah, this guy is nuts. He's a real jerk and a real ass. He's an ass hat. He's an ass hat with no scruples at all.

Andrea: 42:03

What happened in the bomb? I hope at least she got some time for she ended in abetted.

Paul G: 42:07

She didn't get any time for the she got I it does I can't find any record of her going to jail. Well But it was all over the it's all over everything. Um the man, my man from the police department goes, he's he's telling me all about how she helped him break out of jail, out of the Washington County jail. And I can't FOIA that because they won't talk to me about it.

Andrea: 42:25

Oh, it makes sense. But I mean, I know mothers love her children, but I'm sorry if my kid did something stupid, he's in jail. Like, you're gonna sit there and get your sentence. I'm not slipping you anything to get out.

Paul G: 42:35

Wow, and so this guy is absolutely insane. He thought, his whole thing was he thought he was Al Pacino, right? In South Miami. Say hello to my little friend.

Andrea: 42:46

In 90s, Arkansas?

Paul G: 42:48

In 70s, Arkansas. 70s, Arkansas. That's who we thought he was.

Andrea: 42:51

Oh lord.

Paul G: 42:52

He's watching too many gangsta movies, man.

Andrea: 42:54

There was no gangsters here. There was cowboys and chicken farmers. Chicken farmers.

Paul G: 42:59

I mean, yeah, that's all it was. I mean in 72, we we just got a new hotel called the Holiday Inn that no one's seen before.

Andrea: 43:09

Seriously.

Paul G: 43:09

It's been open like a year.

Andrea: 43:12

Really? I didn't know that.

Paul G: 43:13

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was my gosh, we're must be Brussel and we have a holiday inn.

Andrea: 43:20

And this guy's thinking he's like gangsta city.

Paul G: 43:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the chicken coop was right down the street. Uh, and they had all these house parties. How they found that all these people that knew he that told him he did it was that they had all these house parties, and the cops knew who was who was holding these house parties and went and held them up.

Andrea: 43:41

Well, I mean, if you're gonna get information, I guess that's the only way you can.

Paul G: 43:44

Yeah, yeah. And they were having all kinds of house parties, and the house parties were pop parties. You know, it was drugs, it was where you go and party have drugs. Right? And the cops knew about it, but they couldn't do anything about it for some reason. And I don't know, I don't know why that he just didn't bust them.

Andrea: 43:58

So the one cop that decides he wants to do something about it gets blown up.

Paul G: 44:01

Yep, gets blown up because this guy thinks he's Al Pacino, South Miami. He thinks he's that guy. Or he thinks he's he thinks he's he's he's what's his face with the marbles in his mouth in the godfather movies.

Andrea: 44:14

Oh, the yeah, oh the head godfather guy, yeah.

Paul G: 44:18

That's what meth does to you, I think.

Andrea: 44:22

I mean, he definitely doesn't, you know.

Paul G: 44:24

It's an absolutely crazy story because it's like, what is this guy thinking? How why they let him get away with that for 20 years is what I don't understand.

Andrea: 44:33

It kind of makes sense if you think about it, just talking off the cusp here. 70s was like the big, I don't know. I was born in 77. I'm just talking here. Uh it was the I picture it the drug decade. And in the 80s, you get Reagan in the office and it says, you know, say no to drugs.

Paul G: 44:49

Just say no.

Andrea: 44:51

I mean, think about it. We needed that. If nobody was gonna drink drugs, no, not drugs. But if you think about it, we need we needed that to stop because I mean nobody was doing anything.

Paul G: 45:02

Yeah. Yeah. And really, everything points to Cortis as well, too. When they they looked over everything. So I guess it was it was probably him.

Andrea: 45:15

Probably was him. He was mad that this cop's busting him and his friends.

Paul G: 45:19

He thought his manhood was bigger than everybody else's in town.

Andrea: 45:23

Well, his mommy bailed him out of jail somehow.

Paul G: 45:25

She didn't bail him out of it, you broke him out of jail.

Andrea: 45:27

Well, broke him out, but you know, I mean that poor woman. She honestly probably thought her baby was like could do nothing wrong.

Paul G: 45:35

Or she knew exactly what was going on. She's like, you need to get out of there now because you're now I can't make the rent.

Andrea: 45:41

That's true. That's a good point.

Paul G: 45:42

Sell some drugs.

Andrea: 45:43

I mean, people do do that to make ends meet.

Paul G: 45:46

It's not the right thing to do, but yeah, so this is the most interesting case I've ever been across because it's a small town, Arkansas, and here we have a mob style bombing.

Andrea: 45:56

Yeah.

Paul G: 45:57

But it wasn't. It turns out it was just some stupid goofballs thinking that they were hot stuff.

Andrea: 46:03

The village idiot.

Paul G: 46:04

Yeah, the village idiot, basically. That's exactly what it was. Don't do that. And if anybody's alive that was involved in that and hears this, man, I'm sorry, but that was stupid. And that's my opinion. So you can't sue me for for liable, because I'm not liable to agree with you that you're not stupid.

Andrea: 46:22

Well, and that's my opinion. So that's just tell us the other side of the coin.

Paul G: 46:25

Yeah, come by and talk to us. No, no, just call it in. We'll just we'll just call it in. I don't want you coming to the house. I mean no offense.

Andrea: 46:32

Yeah, we we don't we don't need that. My kid would lose her mind. I would lose my mind. I would have annoyed that.

Paul G: 46:40

Well, I mean, it'd be 90.

Andrea: 46:42

I don't think they could do anything to us at 90, but guns are the great equalizer. I mean, I do know that people like do things in order to afford food on the table, but I don't get that impression from this guy.

Paul G: 46:53

Yeah, yeah. I think he was just partying and wanted to be in control.

Andrea: 46:56

Maybe he was the hot cheese of getting your meth around the area. Probably was. I mean, I don't know. Just speculation. Because I mean, none of the other people that were getting busted went after the cop. Just this guy did that we can prove that we think have some evidence on.

Paul G: 47:10

And the other guys didn't really care.

Andrea: 47:11

So they're probably like, okay, I'll just go to the next town or I'll do it, I won't get caught.

Paul G: 47:15

So that's the crazy, crazy case of Dennis Cortis blowing up cops for no freaking reason other than he's just an idiot in high-on meth. Village idiot, yeah. Who knew though? Little town, Arkansas has like when I first read it, I thought it was big deal, but it wasn't. It was just an idiot.

Andrea: 47:35

And then we asked my mom about it, and she said she kind of doesn't even remember it either.

Paul G: 47:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrea: 47:40

Yeah.

Paul G: 47:42

Anyway.

Andrea: 47:42

Anyway, yeah.

Paul G: 47:43

So that's that's it for that one, I guess.

Andrea: 47:46

Yep.

Paul G: 47:47

I had to know though. I had to know about that case because it was crazy.

Andrea: 47:51

Things we want to know. Things I want to know.

Paul G: 47:53

I want to know, damn it.

Andrea: 47:54

Which is why we played the I call it the the funny Curious George song.

Paul G: 47:58

Curious George?

Andrea: 47:58

It makes me laugh. I don't know why. But he's talking about weird stuff. I don't know, but it just makes me laugh. The beginning part of it at least.

Paul G: 48:06

Really?

Andrea: 48:07

Yeah, I don't know why. I think it's funny.

Paul G: 48:09

That one?

Andrea: 48:10

Yes, this guy. I need to know everything. He needs to know everything.

Paul G: 48:14

Yeah, need everything. I wanted to know everything until I found out a bunch of stuff, and I'm like, man, I wish that couldn't have not known that.

Andrea: 48:24

He needs to know everything.

Paul G: 48:25

He needs to know everything. Alright, so if you guys enjoyed the episode, go to the website. W W W? Is it W or W?

Andrea: 48:39

I don't know. W.

Paul G: 48:41

W. W. If there was two of you, I don't know what I'd do. At least the house could get cleaner.

Andrea: 48:47

Hey.

Paul G: 48:49

You know, it wouldn't it be all on you?

Andrea: 48:51

Oh, that's true.

Paul G: 48:52

It'd be on you and you.

Andrea: 48:53

Yeah, no, I don't want a twin.

Paul G: 48:55

I mow the yard.

Andrea: 48:56

You do a good job with that.

Paul G: 48:57

Not really.

Andrea: 48:58

It looks good.

Paul G: 48:59

I just I pretend to mow the yard.

Andrea: 49:00

It looks good. Hey, you put Christmas lights on the house.

Paul G: 49:02

I did put Christmas lights in the house.

Andrea: 49:04

And it looks nice.

Paul G: 49:05

Way too early.

Andrea: 49:06

Hey, it was a warm day yesterday. Now i yesterday was what 72 and today it's like 42?

Paul G: 49:11

Yeah.

Andrea: 49:11

Welcome to Arkansas.

Paul G: 49:13

I need to know everything. Should have the country version. I need to know everything. No? No.

Andrea: 49:20

Okay.

Paul G: 49:22

W W W. Debbie.

Andrea: 49:26

Paul G Newton at Paulg Newton.com. No, Paul Gnewton.com. Okay.

Paul G: 49:30

It's if you want to email me Paul G at Paulgnewton.com and I will read all comments from all comers.

Andrea: 49:40

Yes, positive or negative.

Paul G: 49:41

Eventually.

Andrea: 49:43

We do read them.

Paul G: 49:44

Yeah. That's true.

Andrea: 49:46

And we have swag there too.

Paul G: 49:48

Some haunted t-shirts. Not really haunted. They're just weird.

Andrea: 49:51

Yeah, they're pretty funny.

Paul G: 49:53

I've been putting some good ones up there.

Andrea: 49:55

You have been. They look really good.

Paul G: 49:56

And then you can get like a hat and stuff like that. Or you can just send us money. Either way.

Andrea: 50:01

T-shirt. I think you have a hoodie. What is it? The something space wars or something?

Paul G: 50:06

Remembering the remember the galactic wars of 2175.

Andrea: 50:11

It's a bunch of cats fighting. It's pretty funny, actually.

Paul G: 50:13

Well, cats fighting squids.

Andrea: 50:14

Yeah.

Paul G: 50:15

Squids and spaceships.

Andrea: 50:16

That feels like our house at night with our cats.

Paul G: 50:18

We don't have squids.

Andrea: 50:20

Well, we have one cat, we call it squidbird, so.

Paul G: 50:22

Well, he's weird. Anyhow. So I guess that's it. Yep.

Andrea: 50:29

That's it.

Paul G: 50:29

All right. If you need to if you want to know anything, want to ask anything, or if you have a case you want us to look into, because we're actually getting into it pretty hard right now.

Andrea: 50:37

Yeah, we are. I'm working on one later.

Paul G: 50:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just email at Paul G at Paul Gnewton.com. Or don't, I guess. But visit the website and share this podcast. Give us a bazillion stars. If you give us one star, that'd be okay too, I guess. I don't know. What did the guys say? Comment. It doesn't matter if you say in the com in the in the in the in the like, share.

Andrea: 51:03

Yeah.

Paul G: 51:04

Give us a comment. In ratings, yeah. Ratings. You can rate us as terrible. Just give us five stars and say terrible, terrible, terrible. And it'll still be fine.

Andrea: 51:11

Yeah.

Paul G: 51:13

I guess.

Andrea: 51:14

We're good. Right. We'd love it. We love doing this. Bye. Bye.