This podcast is brought to you in part by Stash.
Are you still putting off saving and investing because you'll get to it someday?
Stash turns someday into today.
Stash isn't just an investing app.
It's a registered investment advisor that combines automated investing with dependable financial strategies to help you reach your goals faster.
They'll provide you with personalized advice on what to invest in based on your goals.
Or if you just want to sit back and watch your money go to work, you can opt into their award -winning, expert -managed portfolio that picks stocks for you.
Stash has helped millions of Americans reach their financial goals and starts at just $3 per month.
Don't let your savings sit around.
Make it work harder for you.
Go to get .stash .com slash htw to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures.
That's get .stash .com slash HTW.
Paid non -client endorsement.
Not representative of all clients and not a guarantee.
Investment advisory services offered by Stash Investments LLC and SEC -registered investment advisor.
Investing involves risk and investments may lose value.
Offer is subject to TNCs.
Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast.
Making financial decisions shouldn't feel like picking a new streaming show.
Too many options, too easy to fall for the hype, and you wish you'd just done more research before committing.
That's where NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast comes in.
Their finance journalists break down real -world money decisions from investing to home buying to credit cards with clear research -backed insights.
The nerds help you cut through misinformation and get straight to the facts.
Make your next financial move with confidence.
Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app.
The History Channel original podcast.
This episode contains descriptions of assault.
Listener discretion is advised.
History This Week, February 11th, 2005.
I'm Sally Helm. For months, some of the guys living in the little yellow bungalow at 613 Beaumont Avenue have felt like they are characters in a movie.
Everything is thrilling, larger than life, sometimes scary.
And reality is about to come crashing in.
Around 6 a .m., a SWAT team breaks down the door of that little yellow bungalow in Kentucky.
Most of the college students living inside have no idea what's going on.
They emerge leery -eyed in their boxer shorts.
One of them, a young guy in flannel pajamas, thinks at first that the house is being robbed until he realizes, oh no.
The feds are here for me.
Agents arrest Warren Lipka, Eric Borsik, and Chaz Allen II.
At the same time, they're picking up another accomplice, a guy named Spencer Reinhart, from his dorm at nearby Transylvania University.
And in the basement of the little house at 613 Beaumont Avenue, the agents find all the evidence they're going to need.
Stun guns, disguises, a how -to for opening a Swiss bank account, and a first edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, plus four other rare manuscripts.
all stolen in a heist that, until very recently, has had the authorities mystified.
Today, four friends go Ocean's Eleven.
How did these disillusioned college students decide to steal almost a million dollars worth of precious rare books?
And how did they plan to get away with it?
Hey everyone, this is your producer, Ben.
Or should I say, yo soy Ben -Hamin, because I'm here to tell you how you can learn naturally and speak confidently with Rosetta Stone.
Rosetta Stone helps you absorb a language the way you learned your first language, through real -world context and conversation.
No memorization, just practical skills you can use right away.
Rosetta Stone is the leading language learning program.
It's available on your desktop computer or mobile device, and is designed to immerse you in your chosen language to make the learning process as natural and effective as possible.
I think you'll be surprised with how quickly you can pick this up, fast enough to maybe prep for that faraway vacation you always wanted to take, some place where you can really blend into the town, hang out with locals.
Rosetta Stone can help make that happen.
It's an intuitive learning process.
You start with words, then phrases, all the way to full sentences.
and it's a great value.
A lifetime membership to Rosetta Stone gets you access to all 25 languages so you can learn as many as you want whenever you want.
Don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential now.
History This Week listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50 % off.
That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life.
Visit rosettastone .com slash history to get started and claim your 50 % off today.
Don't miss out. Go to rosettastone .com slash history and start learning today.
Legacies shape who we are, but who's shaping them?
In the new season of Black History Year, our chart -topping history podcast by Push Black, we're breaking down the meaning and power behind the personal, familial, and systemic legacies that define our world.
From the iconic legacies of Black family dynasties to the far -reaching impact of laws like the death penalty, We're diving deep into how political and cultural forces have historically molded Black communities and what it means for our future.
Join us on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts for a new season of Black History here dropping this February.
Let's shape our collective memory and legacy together.
Hey, everyone. Sally here.
This episode of History This Week is sponsored by Quince.
And producer Ben is here to tell you all about them.
Ben, take it away. Thank you, Sally.
You know, we've covered some people on this show that were really able to enjoy the finer things in life.
Pharaohs, kings, Gilded Age robber barons.
But why can't you enjoy a little luxury, too?
That's what Quince is for.
Quince offers high -quality items with prices within reach.
Clothing, jewelry, blankets.
There's a ton to choose from and it's all produced in factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices.
And premium materials.
I got a Mongolian cashmere sweater from Quince and I can genuinely say it's one of the softest, most comfortable sweaters I've ever owned.
So, give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince.
Go to Quince .com slash history for free shipping on your order.
and 365 day returns.
That's Q -U -I -N -C -E dot com slash history to get free shipping and 365 day returns.
Quince .com slash history.
Lexington, Kentucky, 2003.
On campus at the University of Kentucky, students do what college students do.
Go to class, toss frisbees, try to get into bars with their bad fake IDs.
Just down the road, more college students doing much the same, though in a different setting.
Transylvania University, known affectionately as Transy, is a private liberal arts school less than a mile away from the big state university.
It's small, just under a thousand students, and among a handful of notable traits, One stands out.
Transy has an especially impressive collection of rare books.
Well, the Audubons are simply beautiful.
B .J. Gooch was the special collections librarian at Transy for nearly 30 years.
She's recently retired.
She says the gem of the collection at Transy was John James Audubon's four -volume series, Birds of America.
Their size is so dramatic.
I mean, it's about the size of a large coffee table.
And it was Audubon's intention to make the birds look alive.
When I talked to Gooch, she said the books in Transie's collection felt almost alive to her.
She spent a lot of time alone with them.
They were almost her companions.
People asked me if I missed working.
And I say, I don't really miss working, but I miss the collections.
I miss taking care of those incredible collections.
It was her job to protect them.
That's pretty much how a book ended up under Gooch's care.
If it needed special protection, special handling, because it was valuable or one of a kind, an illuminated manuscript from the 1400s, those autobons, which were worth millions of dollars.
But Gooch says you don't just keep books like that locked up in a temperature -controlled vault.
As a special collections librarian, And you have to walk a fine line between preserving something and providing access to it.
And I always tried to err on the side of providing access.
And one thing I loved about my job was I got to help all sorts of people.
It wasn't just academics.
I had a garden club group visit once who wanted me to pull some old botany books.
And I had such fun pulling these books.
A group of women arrived.
They spent the whole afternoon there just oohing and aahing over these books.
She also spent a lot of time with students.
She'd give them tours of the collection, trying to spark their interest.
And one day, a routine visit sets off a chain of events that will end up changing Gooch's life forever.
The visitor is a transy student.
Spencer Reinhardt says he was part of a tour when he was a freshman that came up, and supposedly he's the one who told his buddies about, you know, these incredible books and special collections.
One day, one of my friends had the bright idea that they wanted to rob it.
This is Eric Borsick, one of the buddies who gets recruited for the heist.
In 2004, Eric is a student not at Transie, but at nearby University of Kentucky.
He knows another student there named Warren Lipka.
And Warren is high school friends with Spencer Reinhart, that Transy student, the one who had gone on a special collections tour and realized, wow, there is some really valuable stuff just sitting here in special collections.
Warren contacts Eric in the spring.
He says, hey, I'm planning a heist.
He explains his plan to steal rare books from the Special Collections Museum at Transylvania University.
Tells Eric, you should join me.
I've already laid the groundwork.
He had gone to Amsterdam and established contacts with black market dealers there that they said they could unload the stuff to once we had it.
It all sounded really weird.
Eric says it kind of didn't seem real.
Warren always had a lot of schemes and ideas, and I, at first, just assumed this was another one of them and it'll probably never happen.
But Eric was a little bored.
Life felt kind of dull.
He'd been living in a bland Kentucky suburb, only to find himself shuttled off to a college campus with nice manicured lawns, kind of exactly where he expected to be.
He was like, planning a heist would be something different.
It sounded sort of exciting, so I just said yes.
Eric is in Along with Warren and Spencer And soon a fourth guy, Chaz Allen II They're a four -man crew Hanging out together in the bungalow near the Kentucky campus Where Eric and Warren rent rooms Smoking weed and talking, kind of idly About how to make this thing happen First task, reconnaissance They literally watch the heist movie Ocean's Eleven for inspiration I want to know everything that's going on in all three casinos from the rotation of the dealers to the path of every cash cart.
I want to know everything about every guard, every watcher, anyone with a security pass.
I think we kind of just kept pushing this fantasy of it along further and further, never actually believing that we would actually rob a museum.
Still, they're doing recon, putting together some actual plans.
Over the course of a year, we would have meetings about the heist.
And, you know, at first it was just kind of like a joke, but then it's just getting more and more serious.
Eric says he was starting to get sucked into the fantasy.
He remembers one moment in particular during the planning phase when he said something that surprised him.
Maybe like halfway through the year one night, I, you know, suddenly just said something to the group.
You know, even if we get caught for this, I still think it'll be worth it.
And I kind of stopped after I said that.
And I was thinking, like, what does that even mean?
Like, what's the purpose of this if you're getting caught?
And so that really caused me to take a step back and think about, oh, well, clearly we're all doing this for something else.
It's really not about the money.
It's about just a sense of escape.
When Eric and I talked, he told me that it's honestly still kind of a mystery to him how this fantasy got pushed into actual reality.
The best he can explain it, they were college freshmen, with romantic ideas about living some kind of bold, nonconformist life.
A heist would be a shortcut to that kind of life.
It just kind of snowballed into what happened.
So what was the plan?
Initially they wanted to go in at night and kind of break in and that seemed very Ocean's Eleven -y and cool and okay, no one gets hurt and all that.
But we realized pretty quickly that the security there was just really too much.
But during the day?
During the day, all you had to do was just get an appointment to get in.
The problem then being that there was always a librarian who was always in the museum doing the appointments.
A librarian, BJ Gooch.
Well, Warren Lipka made the appointment and he used an alias, of course.
He calls himself Walter Beckman.
Gooch gets an email from this Beckman saying, a friend told me about the amazing books you have.
I'd love to come see them.
I didn't think anything of it because I was used to getting requests that way.
I was used to setting up appointments for researchers that way.
The problem was that we had trouble setting up a specific day in time.
And I remember being very apologetic because my schedule was unpredictable.
So I'd had to cancel on him maybe once.
And you felt apologetic.
Does it make you angry in retrospect?
Yeah, it does. Eventually, the appointment is on the books.
Eric says the plan was this.
Warren and Spencer will show up for Walter Beckman's appointment with B .J.
Gooch. They'll disguise themselves as old men so that no one will recognize them.
They'll go up to the rare book room on the upper floor.
And they'll subdue B .J.
Gooch. somehow take her down.
Then they'll call in Eric Borsik and Chaz Allen to help carry the books and drive away.
I mean, my whole issue was always I don't want to be involved with any kind of curator or librarian being tied up or anything like that.
Eric says he didn't want to be there for that part, the part with the librarian.
It was never the plan that she would get hurt.
It was the plan that Warren would deal with her, And that was something that I didn't have to be a part of, be in the room, or even really know what he meant by that.
And so I think that really caused me to kind of keep going along with this idea.
It was sort of like my way of justifying it to myself.
I think, okay, well, no one's going to get hurt.
I'm not involved in anything with her.
And so... Well, but I guess, I mean, those are slightly different, right?
Like, did you, when you say justify, like, did you feel guilty about knowing that this was going to happen or bad about it?
even though the plan was that you weren't going to be there?
I mean, I say justify the fact that I didn't have to be in the room.
Not that it was right.
It's just that's how I justify it in my mind.
On December 16th, they're ready to do it.
Bring the plan from fantasy to reality.
I think everything that could have gone wrong that day did.
I had an appointment with Walter Beckman for that afternoon.
I think at three or something like that.
It was like two days before Christmas break, yet the place was packed.
Everyone must have been cramming for final exams and we were planning on it being empty that day.
I had a meeting with someone in the reading room.
I remember checking my watch and saying, well, you know, I'm going to have to stop because I have an appointment who's coming in.
and right as I said that I see these two guys I think I remember correctly coming up the steps and they were dressed very oddly.
It was pretty obvious very quickly that we were not going to pass as old men.
There were people talking about them going through the library they thought they were someone from the drama department you know like it was toward the end of the semester you you know, doing something crazy.
And so everything immediately was like, okay, this isn't working.
We need to abort this mission.
The crew retreats. So yeah, we took off and definitely a huge sense of relief that we had not just committed this major crime.
I went home and had dinner with my family that night and just distinctly remember looking around the dinner table and just kind of like feeling this sense of relief Like, if I had gone through with that earlier, who knows what would have happened.
I could be in jail.
And just kind of thinking about what it would have done to my family.
I mean, but it's interesting because like, you guys don't turn around then.
Like, you feel the relief and then you go right back the next day, right?
Yeah, I definitely wasn't planning on that.
But yeah, that changed really quickly once I got home.
After dinner, Eric heads back to the bungalow, where he's met by Warren, Spencer, and Chaz.
The rest of the guys are all waiting for me.
they've got a new plan.
And I could see that everyone was in agreement.
This is what they wanted to do.
They thought it was a good idea.
It doesn't take long before he's convinced to try again.
I finally said, OK.
Why? Was it loyalty or what was it?
I think seeing how confident they were about it, that they wanted to go through with it.
And then also, you know, having spent this past year thinking about this thing constantly, it was like this obsession that we kept just pushing along further and further.
The new plan is a lot like the old plan, except they're going to lose the bad disguises.
Warren, still using the alias Walter Beckman, reschedules his appointment with BJ Gooch for the following morning.
Just him. And this time, he shows up at Special Collections.
He appears at my door.
I've never seen him until this day.
And my first thought was that he was a lot younger than I had imagined him to be because his emails made him sound like someone maybe 30s maybe or 40s.
And this guy was obviously younger than that.
She also notices that he's dressed wrong for the weather.
It's pretty warm outside, but he has on a heavy coat and a toboggan, a warm hat, kind of like a beanie.
And he seemed very nervous and very tense.
Some people are like that when you first meet them.
So I just thought it was my job to make him feel more comfortable.
So I had him sign our guest register.
I have the books laid out in the rare book room that he had asked to see.
He's asked to see some of the library's most valuable books.
An original copy of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, 500 -year -old horticultural volumes and illuminated manuscripts, and John James Audubon's massive set of illustrated prints, Birds of America.
Gooch and Warren, aka Beckman, are in the reading room, oak tables, leather covered chairs, and Gooch leads him through a set of double doors to the rare book room.
He's looking at the books and he's making the appropriate remarks about how beautiful they are or how impressive they are.
And then he says, do you mind if I call a friend?
He would just, you know, loves seeing these.
And I think he's, you know, he's on campus.
So I remember hesitating a little bit, but I said, okay, that'd be fine.
Warren calls Eric. So he makes a phone call and just very quickly, someone else is at the door and it's Eric Borsuch who calls himself John.
He also seemed very nervous.
I was just like, just dumbstruck.
Eric says he is shocked to see Gooch answer the door.
She was supposed to be subdued.
He came in, I got him to sign the guest register.
She's trying to make small talk with me and I'm thinking to myself, like, what's going on?
Is Warren backing out?
Like, maybe he couldn't do it, so now we're just gonna, of, like, go on a tour of the museum and then just leave?
Or maybe I should just leave?
He doesn't leave. All three of us go back into the rare book room, and I was standing between the two of them.
Warren Lipka makes his move with a stun pen.
This is when things started happening very quickly.
Lipka took out a stun device, Started pressing it into my right arm.
The stun pen fires an electric shock into Gooch's body.
150 ,000 volts. I remember feeling really weak and falling to the floor.
And I'm thinking, what are they doing?
You know, and then I hit him.
I said, they're gonna rob us.
There's nothing she can do to stop it.
They get me on the floor.
They tie my hands with zip ties behind my back and my feet.
They put the toboggan that Lipka had been wearing over my head, my eyes and nose.
They try to put duct tape on my mouth but it won't stick and they're frustrated by that.
And then they just start loading up and I think I must have said something to them and Lipka tells me not to talk or it will just hurt more or something like that.
But I'm terrified. I really thought I might.
I might not survive.
Eric and Warren are now standing over an immobilized BJ Gooch in the rare book room.
The treasures of the library are still spread out on tables around them.
At that point, we had already, the line had been crossed.
In my mind, I'm thinking, well, it doesn't matter now.
I'm a part of this.
However much I justified it to myself that I wouldn't have to be a part of this, my actions and planning this heist led to it.
Wow, so that's kind of like when the reality really hits you.
That is definitely when the reality really hit me, and I don't say it figuratively.
I literally felt my life change in that moment.
I mean, it was like a train just switching tracks, and I knew that life would never be the same again after that because of the line that we had crossed, and it's one that I don't think you really come back.
Is it a moral line?
For me, it's a moral line.
A line he crossed when he took those zip ties and used them to tie up B .J.
Gooch. Warren and Eric stuff the smaller books into their backpacks.
The 54 -pound Audubon volumes they wrap in bedsheets.
But the size and weight of the books makes them very awkward to carry, even for two young men.
They manage to lug them into the elevator and ride down to the main floor.
And, of course, right when the elevator door opens up, one of the other librarians who works there sees us.
She just immediately knows something's wrong.
Librarian Susan Brown starts walking toward Warren and Eric.
She shouts at them to stop.
They get back in the elevator, start frantically hitting buttons.
Elevator goes down to the basement, and we're kind of panicking.
Like, oh, God, yeah, we're trapped down here because we knew there wasn't a door down there.
So Eric and Warren head back up to the main floor.
We just started making our way to the planned exit route, which was through a fire escape door where the van was waiting for us outside.
Meanwhile, BJ Gooch is still tied up in the rare book room on the upper floor.
I was thinking, how will anybody know I'm up here?
It's a Friday. How am I going to get loose?
My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest She manages to crawl To her office I'm on my hands and knees Trying to dial My boss, Susan Brown To let her know what's going on But I'm shaking so bad I can't hardly do it And then who should open the door But Susan herself And I just look at her And I said, Susan, they're robbing us And she took off Like a bat out of hell pardon my fridge susan brown runs down the staircase to the main floor where she spots warren and eric and that's when i just hear this like blood curling scream what the hell are you guys doing and it was the librarian who had
caught up to us and she just starts barreling down the staircase at us and she was clearly intent on like taking us out tackling us eric freezes suddenly I feel Warren just like grabbing my shoulder and he was like come on come on just drop the books the Audubons are weighing them down so they drop the precious volumes on the floor they run as fast as they can from Susan Brown and make it outside to Chad's in the getaway car he sees us bursting at the doors and he's like oh I can see it on his face he starts putting it in reverse Warren and Eric fling themselves into the car.
Meanwhile, the librarian catches up to us and starts pounding on the windows and she's screaming at us.
The car screeches away.
I remember Warren's got his head out the window and he's throwing up.
Yeah, I can see the vomit just, like, streaking down the windows.
I'm in the back. Like, what the hell is going on?
I mean, definitely one of the craziest moments of my life for sure.
The young men flee the scene of their crime.
Once again, they've made a mess of things.
But in the backpacks at their feet is a set of rare books worth nearly three quarters of a million dollars.
Hey, History This Week listeners, your producer Ben here.
We talk a lot about time on this show.
History moves pretty fast.
Maybe sometimes you feel like you don't have time to treat yourself, like go out and get a gourmet meal.
Well, that's where Factor comes in.
Factor arrives fresh and fully prepared, perfect for any active, busy lifestyle.
And you can pick meals that match up with your dietary preferences, like CalorieSmart, ProteinPlus, or Keto.
I really liked their Garlic Butter Chicken, which tasted like it came straight from my favorite restaurant.
Reach your goals this year with ingredients you can trust and convenience that can't be beat.
Eat smart with Factor.
Get started at factormeals .com slash factorpodcast and use code FactorPodcast to get 50 % off your first box plus free shipping.
That's code FactorPodcast at factormeals .com slash factorpodcast to get 50 % off plus free shipping on your first box.
If you're like me, you've always been fascinated by technology, the innovations shaping our world and the brilliant minds behind them.
That's why I'm excited about Tech Unheard, a new podcast from Arm and NPM that takes you behind the boardroom door with some of the most inspiring leaders in tech.
Hosted by Arm CEO René Haas, Tech Unheard explores what drives top tech leaders, dives into today's biggest industry trends, and even shares some entertaining stories of success and failure along the way.
In the very first episode, René sits down with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wong.
It's a must -listen.
They talk about his journey, the future of AI, and how NVIDIA's relentless culture of innovation keeps pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
The conversation feels natural, insightful, and totally unscripted, like you're right there in the room.
I love how this podcast captures real candid moments with tech's biggest names.
Whether it's discussing keynote nerves or the potential of AGI, every episode leaves you with something to think about.
Tune in to Tech Unheard from Arm and NPM, wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, History This Week listeners, your producer Ben here.
We talk a lot about time on this show.
History moves pretty fast.
Maybe sometimes you feel like you don't have time to treat yourself, like go out and get a gourmet meal.
Well, that's where Factor comes in.
Factor arrives fresh and fully prepared, perfect for any active, busy lifestyle.
And you can pick meals that match up with your dietary preferences, like Calories Smart, Protein Plus, or Keto.
I really liked their garlic butter chicken, which tasted like it came straight from my favorite restaurant.
reach your goals this year with ingredients you can trust and convenience that can't be beat eat smart with factor get started at factor meals dot com slash factor podcast and use code factor podcast to get 50 percent off your first box plus free shipping that's code factor podcast at factor meals dot com slash factor podcast to get 50 percent off plus free shipping on your first box December 2004.
Police swarm Transylvania University's campus in Lexington, Kentucky, searching for the perpetrators of the so -called Transy Book Heist.
Well, I remember when the police showed up.
One of the first things I told them was that I had kept the email that Walter Beckman had sent me, which was normal for me.
I do it just, you know, so I'll have a record of what someone has asked for.
That email is the crucial lead.
They took my keyboard, you know, computer, everything.
I realized at that time, oh, they think I might be a suspect, I bet.
But I went to the police, spent hours there working with a police sketch artist and just relating in detail what had happened.
I drove myself home after the police station.
I was a mess, so. Remember, I couldn't go see my mom because I was just too shaken.
And I told my husband to please tell her I had a migraine, I couldn't come visit.
So I went to see her the next day.
And life resumed. When Gooch returns to work, she and Susan Brown try to put together good descriptions of the books so that other libraries and auction houses can keep an eye out.
But they don't have a lot of hope.
Our first thought was that a collector had paid these guys to steal the books and we'd never see them again.
Meanwhile, the thieves have the books.
But there is something they need to do before they can actually sell them to their black market contact.
Oddly, they need to have the books appraised.
They need someone to officially say how much the books are worth.
Someone legit. Christie's is, it's not my opinion, it's the world's opinion, I think, fair to say, one of the greatest auction houses in the world.
Tom Leckie worked for Christie's Auction House in the early aughts.
He was a specialist in printed books and manuscripts.
In December 2004, he receives an email from a man named Walter Beckman asking for an appointment.
It'll be a standard appraisal.
That involves looking through the book to make sure it's authentic.
not a fake, to make sure it's not damaged and take notes on where it comes from.
That all the pages are there, that any illustrations that should be in it are there.
Another part of that process is its ownership.
Does this book smell like something that shouldn't be in my hands?
Is it supposed to be someplace else?
What is its history?
It can be hard to tell.
Books, especially books that have been around a long time, they've lived colorful lives, let's say.
They've lived through wars.
They've lived through famines, floods, fires.
And books don't always come with detailed records.
They don't carry their stories with them.
There's no letter that says where it came from.
There's no bookplate that says who owned it.
There's no ownership inscription.
It just moves through time and it moves from place to place and it ends up where it is now.
And that's only where it'll be temporarily.
It's not gonna be there forever.
Leckie tells Walter Beckman, sure, come on in.
But at the last minute, he has to ask a colleague to cover the meeting for him.
And later he asks her how to go.
She says, actually, there were a few red flags.
The two men were dressed oddly, like they were trying to make themselves seem older.
And they knew almost nothing about the origins of the books.
But they did make sure to ask the big question.
So how much could we get for these?
Leckie's colleague wouldn't say.
No values or estimates or anything were shared at that point because it was preliminary.
And that was that. Except...
They gave her their email address and cell phone number.
We never heard back, but I said keep that piece of paper.
Warren and Spencer tell Eric and Chaz about this meeting, how they didn't really get anything out of it.
And Eric says he senses that something isn't right.
They were just acting really guarded and closed off, and eventually I got out of Spencer that he had realized after the fact that he gave someone there his real phone number and that could actually really come back to hurt us.
It certainly could.
The guys just try to live their normal lives, but they sense that the authorities are closing in.
And in fact, pretty soon after that Christie's meeting, the FBI matches Walter Beckman's emails to BJ Gooch with Walter Beckman's emails to Christie's auction house.
And they trace those emails to a computer lab on the University of Kentucky's campus.
When they contact Christy's, they're able to get surveillance footage of Warren and Spencer.
And they get Spencer's real phone number.
The FBI puts Warren and Spencer under surveillance.
Eric says Spencer's convinced they've even assigned undercover agents to his classes.
We were all living in pretty deep states of paranoia.
Eric has dropped out of college.
He knows it's only a matter of time.
Someday soon, the jig is going to be up.
I used to go to bed fully dressed in a sweatsuit and my shoes tied because I was just, like, waiting for the day to come.
The wait ends in the early morning of February 11th, 2005.
I just remember suddenly one night waking up, just standing up straight up out of bed because I had heard this loud bang at the front door.
And at first I thought I was dreaming because it was exactly like what I had always envisioned it sounding like and feeling like.
And I was just like frozen that it was actually reality, not just my imagination.
A SWAT team storms the house, throwing flash grenades and shouting at the people inside.
I lived in an extension of the house and they clearly didn't know that I was back there.
And so I was just sitting back there in the darkness just listening to everything that's going on in the house, everyone being arrested and FBI agents, police officers shouting.
And I always had this escape route sort of planned out where I would make a short jump out my window and our house backed up to the university track and fuel complex and I would slip through this hole in the fence and, you know, just be gone through that complex. Eric now faces a choice, one he has to make without Warren, Spencer, and Chaz.
I had one leg out the door and I'm thinking, like, do I really want to do this?
Do I really want to be on the run now?
And I kind of had this moment where I just had to answer that question and decide that I just needed to, like, face up to this and just get this whole other life started, which was going to be prison and jail.
Eric pulls his leg back inside and walks out of his little annex into the main part of the bungalow, where he's arrested on the spot.
December 2005. Eric, Warren, Spencer, and Chaz sit in a Lexington courtroom.
They've each pleaded guilty to six federal charges, including theft of cultural artifacts from a public museum and interstate transportation of stolen property.
Now it's time to receive their sentences.
In the room with them is B .J.
Gooch, rare book librarian at Transylvania University, the woman they'd knocked to the floor with a jolt of electricity, then bound and gagged.
She writes a victim statement for the judge and testifies at the hearing.
I described the events, how it made me feel, how terrified I'd been.
She also talks about how deeply she's been affected by her assault, which she feels the media has downplayed in its coverage of the robbery.
They kept saying I was okay, that I wasn't injured.
I had a big bruise on my arm from the stun device, and I had some marks on my wrist, where my wrist had been bound.
But otherwise, physically, I was okay.
But boy, I was just really hurt psychologically.
Remember, Gooch spent so much time in that rare book room, often alone, but for the books.
It had been a comforting, largely private place.
When I was attacked up there, it was very much a personal violation of what I thought as personal space.
I felt as if someone had come into my home and attacked me.
Eric, Warren, Spencer, and Chaz are sentenced to seven years in federal prison.
BJ Gooch tries to move on with her life.
There are some good things.
Her mother, who'd been sick, actually makes a miraculous recovery.
And Gooch returns to her job, but it's hard.
She feels anxious at work, scared.
Her boss assigns some students to work with her.
But Gooch is really struggling.
I remember one day this researcher came in.
He was using some books from the medical collection, and the researcher had asked me to copy some things for him.
So I went to the back room, and while I'm back there with the photocopier, I realized I was standing there planning escape routes in my head.
If he had a knife, if he attacked the student or me, how we would get And I would have dreams at night about, you know, people attacking me.
So it was really tough.
What did you feel and think when you learned about who had done this?
I felt like these were entitled, troubled kids who wanted to be rich and famous in as easy a way as they possibly could.
I mean, they didn't want to work for what they wanted.
They just wanted to take it.
To be honest, I don't know if I understand where they were coming from.
And I still don't have much empathy for them.
I mean, I hope they've turned their lives around.
They messed mine up really badly for a long time.
When I talked to Eric, he expressed remorse for what he did to BJ Gooch.
He said he'd wanted to offer a personal apology back then, but his lawyers had advised against it.
What do you think you would say to her if you had the chance to talk her?
Obviously, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I'm 30, almost 38 now.
This happened when I was 19.
Very different person now than I was back then in a lot of ways.
I think I was young and naive and foolish, and I would just hope that she knows that it was never, certainly never a part of my plan for her to be hurt in any way from our actions and uh just really sorry for the pain that's caused you you made this decision when you were a young man I mean how do you feel about that decision now like do you regret it is a difficult question for sure I definitely regret the pain that I've caused people the librarian my family you know anyone who had to suffer from this crime at the same time I I know that I wouldn't be the person I am today if I hadn't gone through
prison, if I hadn't really gone through that experience.
Definitely like the most formative moment of my life was having to go through the American prison system.
It really shaped who I am today and it made me a much better person and it showed me a side of life that I'd never experienced.
He says, don't get him wrong, prison was hell.
Coming out of prison and trying to rejoin society was in many ways even worse.
But he says, one of the cliches is true.
Prison gives you a lot of time to think.
Eric spent some of that time writing a memoir about the robbery called American Animals.
He admits that he and his college buddies were driven by shallow notions about the glamour of the heist.
But he also remembers what it was like during those brief weeks before the arrest, when they had those rare books to themselves.
The ironic part is that most all of us involved really actually appreciated art and rare manuscripts, Like, it was something that we really value.
After we stole these things, we used to stay up late at night reading them and just, like, knowing that we would never hold anything so beautiful and valuable ever again.
Also ironic, Eric and his co -conspirators could have so easily avoided the pain they inflicted on others and themselves.
They could have held those same exact manuscripts at almost any time.
They could have read them in the very same rare book room they stole from.
All they needed to do was make a normal appointment with B .J.
Gooch. Thanks for listening to History This Week.
For moments throughout history that are also worth watching, check your local TV listings to find out what's on the History Channel today.
If you want to get in touch, please shoot us an email at our email address, historythisweekathistory .com, Or you can leave us a voicemail, 212 -351 -0410.
Special thanks to our guests, BJ Gooch, retired Special Collections librarian.
Eric Forsyck, whose memoir about his crime is called American Animals, A True Crime Memoir.
And Tom Leckie, rare book and manuscript specialist.
Thanks also to Beth Musgrave, reporter at the Lexington Herald -Leader.
In putting together this episode, we consulted a great article in Vanity Fair about the crime.
The writer of that article is John Folk.
This episode was produced by Corinne Wallace with help from Hazel May.
It was sound designed by Brian Flood and story edited by Jim O 'Grady.
Our senior producer is Ben Dickstein.
History This Week is also produced by Julia Press and me, Sally Helm.
Our associate producer is Emma Fredericks.
Our supervising producer is McKamey Lynn, and our executive producer is Jesse Katz.
Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review History This Week wherever you get your podcasts.
And we'll see you next week.
Thank you for listening.
