Queen of Meth 1x1

1. My name is Lori Arnold.

2. I'm a material technician.

3. The money I make a week,

4. I used to make that in a few minutes.

5. Even though, it was 30 years ago,

6. I will always be remembered as the Queen of Meth.

7. The use of methamphetamine has skyrocketed over the past several years.

8. It's now trendy. It is now cheap. And it is now spreading.

9. Meth makers have spread into the countryside,

10. bringing tragedy, death and violence.

11. Lori was one of the first

12. to move significant quantities of methamphetamine

13. from the west coast to Iowa.

14. She was a major supplier making $200,000 or more a week.

15. I had a lot of respect. I had a lot of power.

16. I could buy houses. I could buy cars, airplane, race cars.

17. Lori was the queenpin,

18. I guess you could call her, instead of the kingpin.

19. She was on top of the world.

20. And then, this all came crashing down.

21. Federal prosecutors allege for the past six years,

22. Lori Arnold ran a five-state drug ring.

23. She's the sister of comedian, Tom Arnold.

24. Sister-in-law of Roseanne Arnold.

25. - Do you think your sister is a threat to the community? - I don't think so.

26. Lori needs to get fucking angry at my mom.

27. I feel the pain of what happened to her.

28. What she did was wrong.

29. - No, no, she ruined your life. - What she did to me...

30. I had to grow up a lot faster than other people.

31. I shouldn't have had to.

32. Like the people that created the tech world in Silicon Valley,

33. my sister created the meth world.

34. I walk like a truck driver,

35. I cuss like a sailor, and I fight like a man.

36. It's kind of a combination between my dad and my mom's walk, I guess.

37. I go to work, I come home,

38. I sit in my pajamas and I watch TV.

39. That's my life now.

40. Moved to Sandusky, Ohio, two and a half years ago.

41. Me and my fiance bought this little house.

42. This box is full of memories,

43. old pictures, things from the past.

44. Right on top here,

45. there's a picture of me at my ranch.

46. I was actually chopping a line up in my lap at the time.

47. I've got my little grinder

48. and a little drug paraphernalia on my lap there.

49. I'm more embarrassed about my past than I used to be.

50. This is me and my son Josh...

51. when he was about two.

52. So that means I had to be in my 20s.

53. I hurt Josh a lot and...

54. I don't really want to talk about it.

55. It's hard.

56. He's the only thing that gets my emotions...

57. all screwed up.

58. 'Cause I love him.

59. He went through hell after I got locked up.

60. I've always been very guarded, because of the things I've done.

61. You know, a lot of people never even thought, including myself,

62. never thought I'd make it this far,

63. because of my lifestyle, I guess, growing up.

64. But here I am, big 60.

65. So I'm just trying to open myself up,

66. and I am taking a journey back to Ottumwa, Iowa,

67. where everything went down 30 years ago.

68. I'm gonna see a bunch of old friends and my family.

69. All right, careful.

70. And I want to relive some good memories,

71. and also, relive some bad memories.

72. But it's time to face it.

73. She was a gangster, all right,

74. a big-time drug dealer gangster.

75. "Scarface in a Skirt."

76. Well, I've never seen her in a skirt.

77. I just hope to discover why it began, how it began.

78. Can't change history, but you can learn from it.

79. She'll always be the queen bee of Ottumwa.

80. You can go and ask people today

81. that they know who Lori Arnold is, you know.

82. They know Lori Arnold.

83. She was on top of the world.

84. Like we say, when she walked into a bar, you knew she was there.

85. Iowa stands for I Only Want Amphetamines,

86. and I think she put the name on the marquee.

87. She was very generous with helping people out

88. and donating different things.

89. But at the same breath, it was destroying our community.

90. I don't think you'd live in Ottumwa without hearing about it.

91. People's lives were devastated.

92. At the crossroads of the nation

93. in southeast Iowa lies the city of Ottumwa.

94. It might be your town, or any town U.S.A.

95. You know I grew up here and everything so...

96. And just turning 60, it's like, man,

97. that was a long time ago.

98. Ottumwa is a town that hasn't quite caught up with the rest of the world.

99. This whole neighborhood is exactly,

100. like it hasn't changed anything.

101. Houses look same.

102. It's like a little country town.

103. Last time I was with my family was at my Dad's funeral.

104. This time, I'm hoping it's not gonna be as painful.

105. Remember this place?

106. Oh, my God!

107. - That's Skateland. - Skateland.

108. - Yeah. Nice, huh? - Boy, I can't believe it.

109. Looks like now, but...

110. - Oh, had a lot of fun here. - Yeah. Oh, my God.

111. That was a thing we did all the time.

112. Yeah, yeah, we did it. We did.

113. I mean, there wasn't a whole lot going on in Ottumwa.

114. - Yeah, well— - That was one thing but—

115. - Maybe. You made... You made stuff go on, yeah.

116. Ottumwa is a working-class town.

117. And everything revolved around the meat packing plant.

118. Gee whiz. Look at all them rumble cars. Yeah.

119. That's how I grew up and my family.

120. Watch as hog carcasses are broken down into primal cuts.

121. Working in places that slaughter cattle,

122. slaughter pigs.

123. Slaughtering 6,000 hogs a day, and it's rough.

124. The company, Hormel,

125. kept making deals with us saying, "We're not gonna pay you overtime."

126. We had to work faster and faster.

127. And it seemed to get more and more dangerous.

128. A beautiful sight, isn't it?

129. Finally, it's like, "We got to fucking strike, man.

130. We got a strike, like, Ottumwa, Iowa, strike."

131. They say give back, we say fight back!

132. Hormel employees blocked the main gate

133. to the meat packing company's corporate headquarters.

134. We're gonna stand up, and we're gonna fight this company.

135. We're gonna fight international if we have to.

136. It was like, "Yeah, we're... We're doing this."

137. Police declared the situation a riot,

138. then hurled teargas canisters into the crowd.

139. Back up! Back up!

140. Hormel says there is no more time

141. for the strikers to come back to work,

142. and there are no longer any jobs left to strike against.

143. Eventually they ended up firing everybody in Ottumwa.

144. The town will continue to hurt, because of the past year.

145. It was devastating.

146. Nobody got their jobs back.

147. You could just feel a dark cloud all over the place.

148. That was rough.

149. The reason people do drugs and start with

150. is they're trying to escape from something.

151. Boredom, loneliness, self-esteem.

152. There's something going on that when you do the drug,

153. all that disappears.

154. But once all this meth comes in,

155. everything started picking up around there.

156. Everyone is partying pretty hard.

157. The money just came in so fast...

158. I didn't have time to reflect on what I was doing.

159. And it lasted about six years.

160. And then... It was over.

161. And it was almost like a balloon deflating.

162. Tom Arnold's sister faces six drug charges

163. in connection with the distribution of methamphetamines.

164. Psychological evaluation was done

165. for my pre-sentencing.

166. "We cannot blame Lori Stockdall completely

167. for her present circumstances.

168. Lori Stockdall's tragic life has been influenced by adults

169. who did not have her best interest in mind."

170. This is a picture of my mother.

171. Beautiful lady. She was a lot of fun.

172. My dad was Jack Arnold.

173. My mom, Linda Graham Arnold.

174. Brother Tom was the firstborn,

175. and then me.

176. And later on, had another little brother, Scott.

177. We were just your everyday average brothers and sister.

178. I always followed around Tom, because he's my big brother.

179. He was a little rowdy, very boisterous,

180. sometimes mean.

181. One time, Tom wanted to go outside to play

182. and told me to hurry and he'd wait.

183. He was holding the glass storm door for me while I was tying my shoe.

184. As soon as I got there,

185. Tom slammed the door and my arm went right through the glass,

186. causing me to get five stitches.

187. Scott, he was my little brother,

188. so I had to kind of take care of him.

189. There's Lori, the Queen of Meth,

190. and then there's Tom, the bad actor,

191. and then there's me, the good-looking one with no record.

192. Scott was a disturbed kid who liked to eat bugs.

193. He said red ants were his favorites.

194. I remember once when he held down a kitten

195. and ran over its neck with a tricycle wheel.

196. I think we found this cat at the swimming pool

197. in a garbage can or something.

198. The life of me, I don't know why I would run it over or anything,

199. but apparently, I thought I was playing with it

200. until it stopped moving.

201. And, uh, I got grounded for a long time for that.

202. I still feel bad about it to this day 'cause I love animals.

203. Yeah, she's insane.

204. We're just your everyday average brothers and sister.

205. Oh, there she is, our mom,

206. smoking in the hospital just besides the baby.

207. And there I am just born.

208. I guess that's my mom there, yeah.

209. My gosh, how young would she have been,

210. about 16 or 17, yeah.

211. Dad, he's a teenager, too.

212. That's hard to believe.

213. My mom was out of picture

214. since I was, like, three.

215. I really don't remember her ever being in the picture.

216. Don't remember her and dad ever being together or anything.

217. When I was four, Lori was three,

218. my parents got divorced.

219. They were doing a custody battle for the kids.

220. They got to a day where they put me,

221. would put me on the stand back in the day

222. to basically say, "Who do you love more, Tommy?

223. Your mother or your father?"

224. And my dad didn't want to do that.

225. And so he surrendered and he gave us to my mother.

226. The next day, my mother came out to his office and said,

227. "Here's the keys to your... The house.

228. The kids are there with the babysitter. They're yours."

229. I was told that mom had a, you know, wild streak,

230. and she knew dad would be a better parent,

231. so she actually gave us to dad to raise.

232. That was the greatest thing my mother could do as a mother.

233. That's how I look at it now.

234. But at the time, it was a rough deal.

235. And so my dad raised us.

236. Until I was almost ten...

237. and he married our next-door neighbor Ruth.

238. Ruth, there, there's Ruth, next door neighbor,

239. looking, uh, cute.

240. Dad's, boy, dad thought she was so cute.

241. Oh, he loved her.

242. Ruth had two kids from her first marriage.

243. And then she and my dad had two more.

244. So there were seven of us total.

245. Ruth was strict.

246. She always had like a little contest.

247. Whoever was the best kid of the week gets a little star.

248. I just liked to win.

249. So, you know, I did what I had to do to win.

250. I didn't wanna call her mom because she wasn't my mom.

251. Ruth wanted me to wear dresses or girl stuff.

252. First ethos was girl, Gloria.

253. Well, you're a girl, so we got to do pink, we got to do this.

254. But I was a tomboy, and I didn't... I didn't wanna wear that.

255. So I would leave the house, I'd have it on,

256. but I threw my jeans out the window,

257. and I'd just change in an alley somewhere.

258. Washington Junior High School.

259. I'm going into seventh grade and it's all older kids there,

260. because they had eighth, ninth grade there, too.

261. So there's teenagers, I'm just coming in.

262. My brother Tom is there, very popular.

263. Lori and I were very smart and did well in school.

264. We were very intelligent.

265. Lori, I met in seventh grade at Washington.

266. They put her in a lot of the, I think, in the accelerated classes,

267. because she was pretty smart.

268. I was good in school.

269. Played sports.

270. I always got A's and B's,

271. because school work came fairly easy to me.

272. But I was known as a tough girl.

273. And I was always joking in class and I was cutting up.

274. Lori always had a drive in her.

275. Was always thinking what she could do next

276. to get a better place in life.

277. I had this gal that was afraid to walk home,

278. because this bully kept picking on her,

279. threatened to beat her up, and everything else.

280. So, well, I'll tell you what, I'll walk you home every night

281. since you didn't live that far from me,

282. you just give me lunch money every day.

283. So she gave me two dollars every day,

284. and I'd give a dollar of it to the bully

285. that was threatening her.

286. And we'd go down to Mr. Quick Hamburger and get hamburgers.

287. That worked for quite a while, too.

288. I don't know if she's having issues at home,

289. but she skipped a lot of school and that kind of stuff.

290. My parents went on a vacation.

291. So Tom decided to have party at the house.

292. There they used to wear the hell out of it, whatever.

293. So they got into a big deal and Tom moved out.

294. He moved in with our real mom.

295. I moved in with my mom so I could grow my hair,

296. and I could stay out and party and, you know, no rules.

297. I walk in the door and she says, "Hey, there's beer in the fridge.

298. You can bring your girlfriend here. You could blank her.

299. You do whatever you want. I'm leaving for a week."

300. I was 15 and a half, and I was like,

301. "Oh, this is... This is not good," you know.

302. Tom was like my hero.

303. And so I was kind of lonely without him there, you know.

304. And all the little kids always got all the attention and everything.

305. Started turning to my real mom more,

306. because she showed me attention.

307. But mom would buy me what clothes I wanted,

308. you know, I got to wear my big bell bottom jeans,

309. and mom was more my style, I guess.

310. Don't really know what exactly snap,

311. made me do the final decision,

312. but I just wanted out.

313. I eventually decided to move in with our mom, too.

314. That's when everything changed.

315. - Oh, boy. - Yeah, there's Mom.

316. Yeah. Me and mom.

317. Little bob...

318. Why was she in your school picture?

319. No, it wasn't a school picture. This was... We...

320. We went and got our pictures taken down—

321. Together, you and Mom went

322. - and got your pictures taken together? - Yeah, yeah.

323. - Oh, that's creepy.

324. - Why? - People don't do that.

325. My mom was the manager of the Elks Club.

326. And they had a lot of big parties.

327. So I went up there to cocktail waitress

328. and help set up tables and stuff like that.

329. You know, it was long hours.

330. So she said, "Here, this will help you,"

331. because she got Preludin from her doctor, diet pills.

332. I took a half of one.

333. It woke me up good and we sat up all night long.

334. I liked the feeling of it.

335. I was starting to get into more boys, you know.

336. And so weight is always an issue with teenage girls.

337. And it helped me lose weight at the same time.

338. I wanted the other half.

339. I also worked at the Elks Lodge for mom

340. - when she was there. - Yeah.

341. What struck me about working there

342. was how everybody called her mom.

343. - Yeah, yeah. - Except me.

344. Well, everybody... Everybody liked her,

345. because she joked all the time and stuff like that.

346. - They'd be like, "Oh my God." - Yeah.

347. - "You're so lucky that she's your mom." - Yeah. Yes.

348. - I'm like, yeah. Yeah. - "Your mom's so cool." You know.

349. - She's letting us drink on the job. - Right, right.

350. When we were in the womb, we had our first alcohol and pills for real.

351. Me and her were more like friends than like mom,

352. and mom and daughter type deal.

353. She's a bar person, so we go to the bars.

354. "Lori Stockdall was addicted to alcohol at age 14

355. as a result of her mother's influence.

356. Lori would not have done this on her own."

357. It's true.

358. "She not only encouraged her to drink beer,

359. but encouraged her son Tom to do the same."

360. Mmm-hmm.

361. Mmm-hmm.

362. True.

363. Her best buddy. It was...

364. Hmm.

365. Most of us were pretty naive at 14, I think,

366. but not Lori.

367. Lori grew up a little faster than the most of us did.

368. I was around so many adults that drank and partied,

369. and, you know, I just grew up really too fast.

370. I was getting ready to marry Bobby Roberts in that one.

371. Really?

372. Yeah, Bob Roberts, fucking guy.

373. I liked Bobby.

374. You could tell he was tough just the way he was built and everything.

375. He was cute, funny, and he had a car.

376. You know, that was a big impression

377. to me at the time.

378. Told my mom he was 18,

379. but his divorce was in the newspaper

380. and it stated his age as 23.

381. One day, I was going to meet him here at the skating rink.

382. You know, I was 14, I'm in love, you know, and I'm defiant.

383. "Mom said I can't go. She's a bitch."

384. And as soon as I said that, all I got was a roundhouse punch.

385. Mom come around the corner and punched me,

386. knocked me down on the kitchen floor,

387. and then she went in the other room.

388. And when she did, I left anyway.

389. Stepdad come walking in the skating rink.

390. He said, "You either dump her, marry her,

391. or you're going to jail for statutory rape."

392. And Bobby's like, "Okay, fine, we'll just get married."

393. I didn't wanna get dumped, you know.

394. I didn't want him to go to jail.

395. So, what am I gonna do?

396. I'm gonna have to marry him.

397. Couldn't get married in Iowa, I was too young.

398. Mom drove us to Lancaster, Missouri,

399. went to courthouse.

400. We got married, and then we went across to the bar and had drinks.

401. And then she... She drove us home

402. to the apartment.

403. And see, here's the difference.

404. I got to be a kid.

405. I got in a lot of trouble,

406. but nobody made me marry an adult

407. who was a serial pedophile.

408. Yeah, I miss my child— I miss my childhood, yeah.

409. - I agree. - Yeah.

410. No, I honestly can't say if I thought he was a predator or anything.

411. I just, guess I blame myself because I flirted with him.

412. His wife that he'd just divorced

413. was only a year older than me.

414. So, you know, it didn't seem weird at that time.

415. I mean, now, you know, 23, 14...

416. Yeah, it's a little odd.

417. I was a full-on alcoholic, very young.

418. Very young.

419. But, you know, I did miss out on

420. having a mother like you did.

421. But it's no comparison what you happened between me and you.

422. "At 14, Lori was not capable of helping herself.

423. She wanted her mother's love.

424. Her mother taught her how to get it the wrong way."

425. I think it's... I think it's...

426. I think it's...

427. I guess, I think it's bullshit.

428. It's sad. It makes me mad.

429. It's true. I think it's, uh...

430. It's... It's...

431. Hmm.

432. Awful, it's...

433. Anyways...

434. It's the deal.

435. That was the end of it.

436. That was the end of Lori's life really, her childhood.

437. When I got married to Bobby,

438. we used to walk down to this Casey's store,

439. steal ham and bread...

440. 'cause we lived off ham and bread because he wasn't working

441. and we were poor.

442. I tried to keep in school.

443. I really did, but it just didn't work 'cause I had to have a job.

444. We were all like, "Wow. We can't believe she quit school

445. and she's living with a guy."

446. And so in the mornings, we'd all walk to school

447. and we'd walk by her apartment.

448. All of us girls are like, "Gosh, he's so old."

449. I was in awe, like, wow.

450. But she seemed pretty confident about it.

451. You know, today, he'd be arrested for being a pedophile.

452. Bob, her husband,

453. to me, he always treated me decently.

454. He was, you know, a decent guy to me, you know.

455. But I heard there's a lot of other stuff going on, extracurricular.

456. He was watching TV and I was in the kitchen,

457. and there was a boxing match on TV.

458. And he was just goofing off, you know,

459. pretending like he was boxing and everything else.

460. Then come up and he kind of jabbed me a couple times,

461. like he pretend boxing,

462. and then he just punched me real hard.

463. It's like it triggered something in him or something, you know,

464. and he pushed me up against the window,

465. and then he stopped and he goes,

466. "You need to leave now because..."

467. He goes, "Now that I did that, it's gonna happen again."

468. He hit me a couple times in the kitchen,

469. and told me get... Get the fuck out.

470. Last straw was I found out that Bobby was screwing around on me,

471. and she was 12.

472. I called my brother Tom,

473. and I told him to come get me, you know, I've had enough.

474. We were only married six months.

475. I packed all my stuff and went with Tom.

476. "Physical, psychological abuse for Lori was common place,

477. and thus a learned behavior."

478. After my divorce from Bobby Roberts,

479. went back to the school to see if I could get back in eighth grade.

480. And they sent me to the Board of Education for an IQ test,

481. and I had a high IQ,

482. so they passed me from eighth grade to tenth grade.

483. But, you know, at that time, I was already married, divorced,

484. I drove, I bartended.

485. The rest of the kids in tenth grade seemed so young

486. that I had to quit school.

487. Then I quit school, I went and got my GED.

488. I had a goal.

489. Decided I was gonna do something.

490. Even if it's wrong, I'm gonna do something to take care of myself.

491. Lori needs to get fucking angry at my mom,

492. feel the pain of what happened to her.

493. She served my sister up,

494. her daughter, to a rapist

495. and a... A serial pedophile.

496. She said, "Here he is."

497. That's beyond bad judgment.

498. That was a big deal.

499. It really set the tone for me versus my mom.

500. I mean, openly hostile from that point on.

501. I loved my mom.

502. She was a lot of fun.

503. She died when I went to jail. She's only 52 years old.

504. So that hurt.

505. That was... That was really tough,

506. because the prosecuting attorney

507. wouldn't let me go to the funeral.

508. He said they'll have my brother Tom film it

509. and show it to me in 20 years when I get out.

510. There's old mom. You didn't go to her funeral.

511. They wouldn't let me. Yeah. I didn't go.

512. I know you didn't. And I tried to tell you, you should have.

513. - Oh, well, really? - Because you'd regret it later in life.

514. - I... I have absolutely no regrets. - You should.

515. She was never a mother.

516. No, she wasn't a mother. To me—

517. No, but that's what I wanted her to be.

518. My youngest memory after she left

519. was going out and looking for her.

520. - You guys were best friends. - Yeah.

521. - Except you were 14. - Right.

522. And that was the worst thing.

523. Well, I didn't think so at the time.

524. - No, of course, you didn't, because you're 14. - Yeah.

525. So but everybody makes mistakes.

526. No, but stop it, because you...

527. Did you ever give Josh drugs or alcohol?

528. - Oh, no. - Okay. Why?

529. - Because I wouldn't do that. - Why? Because why?

530. - Because he's my son. - That's right.

531. Because there's just some shit that mothers don't do.

532. Well, yeah, she... What she did was wrong.

533. - You know, what she did... - No, no, she ruined your life!

534. - What else she did? - Yes, she fucking ruined your life!

535. - But I forgave that. I forgive her. - Yeah, I know.

536. - Fine, that's good for you. - Because I don't want it

537. - to tear me up... - I don't want—

538. - I'm not telling you— - ... inside to hate her.

539. You don't have to hate her.

540. But for you to get over it, you got to fucking know how shitty it was.

541. - It was shitty. - Yeah.

542. I had a lot of time to think about it.

543. But I'm standing here strong,

544. because maybe, because of what I went through, I don't know.

545. - Not because... No, no, no. - Maybe because I love her.

546. - Don't give a fucking— - I don't know.

547. - No, I'm not saying because of her. - Yeah.

548. I'm just saying all the different things

549. that I went through made me stronger.

550. - Made me a survivor. - That's right.

551. - You know. - That's right.

552. - That's what I'm saying. - That's right.

553. All right.

554. "Lori Stockdall is a young woman

555. who is a product of a broken home

556. and an upbringing characterized

557. by a total lack of continuity

558. of the morals and values necessary to function in society."

559. She became a big-time drug dealer and ended up in prison.

560. Well, fucking right she did.

561. I didn't meet Lori till I was probably 16.

562. We were all going to the bars back then.

563. We just really hit it off.

564. You know, we're a lot alike,

565. we're really outgoing and, uh, like to laugh

566. and like to, you know, kind of be the life of the party.

567. Yeah, she's a wild child,

568. out front, outgoing, wanted to be herself,

569. but she kind of felt like she couldn't,

570. because she was married at a young age.

571. Her stepdad being a cop, and it's just, I don't know,

572. I just kind of felt that she was trapped in a way.

573. I didn't feel like I fit anywhere.

574. It's like I can't go home, I'm... I'm no longer a child

575. wanting to go to my parents' house.

576. I was looking for something,

577. I don't know what, I still don't know what,

578. but just somewhere that I belonged

579. where I didn't have to pretend like I was good

580. or pretend like I was the wife,

581. like, with Bobby, and be something I wasn't.

582. And then I met Shirley Inman at the strip joint,

583. the Horseshoe Club.

584. She was always there at the poker table,

585. and she always had a wad of money

586. stuffed down her bra.

587. Everybody knew her.

588. She was like... Like a madam, I guess.

589. And I got along very well with Shirley.

590. She was somebody to look up to another woman.

591. My mom believed it's a cold day in Hell

592. before she deprived somebody of a place to stay,

593. a hot meal and a shower.

594. She brought Lori over to the house

595. and Lori... Lori lived in our house for a couple years.

596. Scotty Inman.

597. I met him when I moved into his mom, Shirley's house.

598. And he's been by my side for years.

599. Scotty was a good kid. He's... he's younger than I.

600. - How old are you now? - Now I'm 58.

601. - All right, so— - I was probably—

602. Yeah, he's two years younger than me.

603. He was two years younger than me.

604. - I was probably 14. - But to me, he's a kid,

605. you know, but he was a good kid.

606. He's always been a good kid.

607. So he's always like a little brother to me.

608. I love about Lori Arnold. She's... She's like my sister.

609. She's always been outgoing, outspoken person,

610. uh, stand up for what you believe in.

611. Basically, you don't take no shit off nobody type person.

612. And that's kind of like the way I... I was raised.

613. You tell it like it is and be told like it... Like it should be.

614. I wasn't a very good influence on him, I think.

615. But he was always fun and laughing,

616. and he didn't... He didn't do drugs.

617. He didn't drink.

618. - I smoked weed. - Uh...

619. He just might have smoked weed,

620. but, you know, to me weed is not... No big deal.

621. Shirley, um, she would do anything to make money.

622. She had a couple girls that stayed with her at her house.

623. And she would not only have poker games at her house

624. with lots and lots of money involved,

625. but she would also supply people with girls.

626. It was basically an escort service,

627. I would... I would have to say, you know.

628. She would like pimp them out to help build up her clientele,

629. because they were like big shots around towns.

630. They were like powerful type things.

631. I told her I don't wanna be a hooker or anything.

632. But I had a car,

633. so she wanted me to do her drug running.

634. So she would send me down to a pharmacy

635. and go up to pharmacist and say, "I need to pick up Shirley's order."

636. - And they would have it ready. - Yeah.

637. So I thought, well, she's got clout

638. because, I mean, she's getting shit,

639. the real shit from the pharmacist, you know.

640. So I was impressed by, you know, she had connections type thing.

641. She had to have open heart surgery.

642. They wouldn't give her any disability at the time, no help.

643. So that's kind of the reason why she kind of started selling,

644. you know, this a little bit here and there.

645. But, you know, I mean, it was nothing to... To hurt anybody.

646. Then one day, I went in to get her order,

647. and the regular pharmacist guy wasn't there.

648. I said, "I'm here to pick up Shirley's order."

649. He goes, "Well, you just get it right there."

650. And it was just over-the-counter stuff

651. that I could have just grabbed myself and got.

652. I was thinking it was all illegal drugs and this type of thing.

653. So I thought, "Hmm."

654. Haysma, it was the name of it, and it was for hay fever and asthma.

655. So she would take a bottle of 110.

656. She'd take 100 of them, put them in a baggie

657. and sell them as speed for,

658. you know, five times what... What's paid for them.

659. And then, you know, just save up the other ten until she got another 100.

660. I'm like, "I could do that," you know.

661. So I was going to get my own over-the-counter,

662. and started selling the speed to other people

663. making the whole profit for myself.

664. I didn't do that for very long.

665. That was the first time I made money off of drugs.

666. I was attracted to the power and respect

667. of the people that were over there in the card game.

668. You never know when you might need somebody like that.

669. If you get to know people like that,

670. it may take you in higher places.

671. I never was gonna be like Lori.

672. I used drugs and I drank and...

673. But I've also known there was something else out there.

674. Lori, you know, she was probably

675. abused so much by men,

676. and, uh, that she just didn't have the confidence.

677. She also didn't have the dream that I had

678. to be an entertainer.

679. And that's the difference between Lori and I.

680. She also was buddies with all the cops,

681. who I was not a fan of.

682. Cops in Ottumwa were a lot of fun back then.

683. I mean, I would pull up next to them in my car

684. and drag racing down the road.

685. Or they'd pull me over for something stupid or...

686. "Aren't you too drunk to drive?"

687. I'm like, "No, I'm too drunk to walk home, so I have to drive."

688. When I was living at Shirley's,

689. Delmar Collier was the captain of police at the time.

690. And he'd come up to the Elks Club and hang out.

691. Mom's divorced and everything. And they hit it off.

692. And it was kind of crazy my mom married a cop,

693. but, but, uh...

694. That's the way it happened.

695. I went to a party at a cop's house

696. with my mom and Delmar.

697. Everybody was drinking and everything else.

698. And I'm like, "Man, you guys are boring as hell."

699. I said, "I don't know about you,

700. but I need to smoke a joint or something,

701. you know, liven this party up a little bit."

702. And one of the cops asked me, he goes, "What, you got some?"

703. I just fired it up,

704. and the cop next to me goes, "Hand it here."

705. Mom and Delmar had already left,

706. so I was there just with three cops.

707. And one of them was flirting with me.

708. You know, "Have you ever been handcuffed?"

709. I'm like, "It's gonna take more than you to handcuff me,

710. I'll tell you that right now."

711. There was two of them and they're putting this handcuffs,

712. and I'm kind of wrestling with them, you know, and everything.

713. But they finally got the cuffs on me,

714. and I'm like, "All right, you win."

715. But they wouldn't let me up.

716. Then they started trying to get down on my pants

717. and up my shirt,

718. and kiss me on the neck and stuff like that.

719. And I'm like, "No, come on," you know, "Joke's over."

720. Fought them off.

721. I wasn't gonna get, two guys,

722. you know, messing with me like that, that was just little weird.

723. So I acted tough and took care of it.

724. I was 18 at the time.

725. And then Floyd came into the picture.

726. There's no bullshit about Floyd Stockdall,

727. uh, who is the, the captain of the Grim Reapers,

728. the Grimy Reapers, as I would call them.

729. Well, his nickname was Sin.

730. And you didn't want him coming out.

731. Floyd is a great person, you know.

732. Do anything in the world for you.

733. Just don't, don't cross him.

734. First time I saw Floyd, he came into Dona's place

735. with the Grim Reapers.

736. And it was just such a powerful sight

737. to see all them choppers just come in

738. and all these bikers walk in.

739. He was very well respected.

740. And usually, when you have a lot of respect, you've earned it.

741. We just kind of hit it off,

742. because I wasn't afraid of him, you know.

743. And he wasn't used to people coming up and just...

744. You know, challenging him in anyway,

745. because everybody was afraid of Floyd.

746. Floyd looked mean.

747. He had that mean look. He had that unapproachable.

748. And that's the kind of people I approach

749. because I like a challenge.

750. This group of guys were specifically

751. about running drugs at this point and crime.

752. Because of the socioeconomic situation in Ottumwa,

753. it was on.

754. Fight clubs are known for their involvement

755. in drugs, guns,

756. pretty much anything to make money.

757. They're a band of brothers, and they trust each other,

758. and they have each other's backs.

759. So when you're moving illegal stuff to make profit,

760. you want people around you that you can trust.

761. Floyd said, "Tell you what, if you'll take me to pick up."

762. He was getting white cross, he was getting black beauties,

763. uh, all the different kinds of speed.

764. He'd just be giving me money,

765. and all I had to do was drive him to Des Moines,

766. and then drive him back to Ottumwa.

767. I went to one of his biker friend's house.

768. This guy had money stacked on a coffee table,

769. and he had a pound of cocaine laying there next to him.

770. He told me to sit down and, "Would you want a line?"

771. I'm like, "Sure."

772. I had never done cocaine.

773. I said, "This isn't just little pills you can get off the pharmacy

774. or selling truck driver drugs, you know, speed.

775. This is big time here."

776. Just looking at that stack of money laying there,

777. and everybody was very calm, very cool,

778. no paranoia, nothing,

779. just having a good time, I'm like, "I like this,"

780. you know, "I can get into this."

781. Floyd had a big Grim Reaper party at his house.

782. So Floyd, I said, "Look, your birthday party's great,

783. everybody's fun and everything."

784. I said, "So, what do you want for birthday?" He goes, "I want you."

785. I'm like...

786. I didn't know that he was...

787. You know, I didn't know he was romantically interested in me.

788. I wasn't sure exactly how to handle that.

789. I thought we were just friends,

790. and I was just trying to make money.

791. But he just kept pursuing me.

792. So we started dating.

793. It took me a while to love him.

794. He was 16 years older than me, and he was super possessive.

795. I mean, it was like after dating

796. when he asked me to marry him,

797. like, well, uh, "When?" He's like...

798. He said May, and this was, you know, the year before

799. and he said May, like...

800. Well, if our relation lasts till May, then I will.

801. She was funny and gregarious,

802. and he was more silent and tough.

803. And she brought out the, you know,

804. more humane side of Floyd

805. and the funnier side of him.

806. And I... He really liked that.

807. And I think she really liked his protection.

808. He'd exude power.

809. I liked it.

810. You know, back in the days of the club,

811. women had to sit in the background, they had to sit in the corner.

812. They couldn't speak up.

813. They had no opinions.

814. Well, that wouldn't happen with me.

815. So after me and Floyd got together, Floyd's like,

816. "I think it's, maybe it's time I retired,

817. because you're gonna get us both killed."

818. So, finally, I got married in 1980 with Floyd.

819. May 17, 1980.

820. There's me pregnant.

821. That's Floyd.

822. We wanted to have a kid.

823. I would drink a beer or two once in a while,

824. but I stayed away from drugs.

825. Josh was born in January, 1981.

826. There's Josh looking for food.

827. He was a ham boy. He liked to eat.

828. And me holding him.

829. I was a little bigger back then.

830. When he cried out, it sounded like he said mom.

831. But I didn't feel motherly.

832. So it took... Took me a little while

833. to get more the motherly or realize I actually had it.

834. I just didn't know how to show it, you know.

835. But, yeah, he... He grew on me quick.

836. We'd been renting a trailer,

837. so we had to find somewhere to move,

838. and my friend had a cabin on the river,

839. and she wanted to sell it.

840. It's more like a fishing cabin, you know.

841. So it wasn't winterized or anything like that.

842. But we weren't selling drugs or anything at that time,

843. so it was all we could afford.

844. I remember her and Floyd living out at the cabin on the river.

845. I don't wanna say dirt poor, but they were pretty poor.

846. It was hard living.

847. But there wasn't a whole lot going on in this town.

848. For people in their 20s,

849. you know, there was just nothing to do.

850. Still walk the same.

851. - Shh.

852. - What's up, Murph? - Nothing. How you doing woman?

853. Well, you know, I'm always doing. Ah.

854. Our kids are only a couple months apart.

855. And so, we hung out a lot.

856. We would just get high, and the kids would play,

857. and me and Lori would smoke weed and talk and laugh.

858. And they'd have their time and we had ours, you know.

859. Oh, now I'm, you know, I'm just horrified.

860. But, you know, that was the life,

861. that was what we were doing then,

862. that was just, you know, kind of normal behavior.

863. - Back then, we didn't have anything. - We didn't have nothing.

864. I mean, we didn't... We had to, you know, put our money together

865. - to get a dollar pack of cigarettes. - Right.

866. Smoke somebody else's cigarette butts.

867. So that was a thing.

868. Yeah, I remember I was smoking someone else's cigarette butts.

869. - Yeah. - And Floyd was on unemployment,

870. - I think at the time. - Yeah.

871. So we had no money.

872. I mean, we owned the cabin at the time,

873. because we'd paid it off little by little,

874. it's only six grand total, anyway.

875. But we just had nothing,

876. and we were fighting and struggling, and hauling water,

877. and, you know, it was just the cabin was cold.

878. - I was just tired of living poor. - Yeah.

879. I was feeling I was entitled to something better than what I had.

880. You know, I thought I deserved something, you know.

881. And then one day, Floyd's brother Mike came down.

882. He goes, "Today, I've got something I want you to try.

883. I got a way you can make a little money."

884. Methamphetamine.

885. He goes, "Well, I want you to try it out."

886. When it hit, it's like... Like you just felt really good.

887. You had all this energy,

888. and we were talking and laughing, and...

889. You weren't thinking about how broke you were.

890. You weren't thinking how tired you were.

891. Nothing but all right. I like this.

892. And my mind started thinking,

893. you know, that maybe I can get out of this rut.

894. He says, "I'm going to give you...

895. It's an eight ball, three and a half grams."

896. He said, "What you do is you package it up in little quarter grams.

897. You can sell a quarter gram for $25.

898. So you sell it all, you got $350."

899. You send now, "I'm gonna charge you $200.

900. That's $150 profit."

901. So I went to the bar, I said, "Hey, wanna try this?"

902. I was hooked for the first line.

903. It was just this seductive, utopian feeling.

904. The meth lasted longer than white cross,

905. black beauties, robin eggs.

906. It had a stronger effect.

907. I was transported into this new wonderful world

908. of crank use.

909. It was electric.

910. So I sold the whole thing that night.

911. I called Mike and I said, "You know, I really like that stuff.

912. Bring some more, because I think I can get rid of more."

913. She moved into the drug world.

914. Then you move up and you move up,

915. and the best you could do

916. is eventually become the big cheese in that world.

917. So it fell on my hands,

918. and it was just like a dream come true for me, you know.

919. Loved it.