Transcript of interview with Judge Lee Koury by Claytee White, February 6, 2013

An Interview with Judge Lee Koury An Oral History Conducted by Claytee D. White The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ©The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2012 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Editors: Barbara Tabach, Melissa Robinson Transcribers: Kristin Hicks Interviewers and Project Assistants: Barbara Tabach and Claytee D. White ii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of Dr. Harold Boyer. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. Claytee D. White, Project Director Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada, Las Vegas iii Table of Contents Interview with Judge Lee Koury February 6, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Claytee D. White Preface .v Born in 1932 and raised in Los Angeles; mother was a housewife and later became a painter; mention of Olvera Street; Pio Pico first Mexican governor of California; Pico House; member of the Army; Deputy Sheriff; Mother Pauline Brown and father Lee Koury; Los Angeles County Sharon Tate; LaBiancas; Spahn Ranch; "the three girls on the comer" - Lynette Fromme, Sandra Good, and Nancy Pitman; Family - referring to the Manson case - Charles Mason, Robert Beausoleil, Susan Atkins, Steve Dennis Grogan, Patricia Kernwinkle, Mary Theresa Brunner, Bruce McGregor Davis, and Leslie VanHawten; Shorty Shay the person in charge at Spahn Ranch; mention of Polaroids mailed to prisoners that ended up being an important part of the Manson c a s e 6-11 Comments on plans of how they were going to free Manson; Isadore Greenbaum and his involvement; Listening device planted in van; Manson's living arrangements in jail; Kenny Como; Explanation of informant placed in Manson's cellblock; Manson's attempt to escape jail; Kenny Como's escape from jail; Search for Kenny Como 12 - 19 Ronald Hughes - Manson's attorney; Hughes goes missing; mention of Ventura County; Sespe Creek; mention of Bugliosi, deputy district attorney; Ronald Hughes death; further information on Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme; move t o M i s s o u r i ; r a n f o r sheriff i n Boone County 20-28 Nominated as the United States Marshal of Missouri; move to Las Vegas; argent trial the trial for organized crime taking over the casinos in Las Vegas; mention of Oscar Goodman, defense attorney; became municipal judge- criminal court judge in Boone County 29 - 36 Sheriffs Department; LAPD; Manson trail; 1 - 5 Index 37-38 iv ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER AT UNLV Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Use Agreement Name of Narrator: Name of Interviewer: CuMT££ J). m//T£ We, the above named, give UythtyOral History Research Center of UNLV, the recorded intervievv(s) initiated on sL [ L /<£o/3 _ along with typed transcripts as an unrestricted gift, to he used tor sucli scholarly and educational purposes as shall he determined, and transfer to the University of Nevada I .as Vegas, legal title and all literary property rights including copyright. This gill does not preclude the right of the interviewer, as a representative of UNLV, nor the narrator to use the recordings and related materials for scholarly pursuits. I understand that my interview will he made available to researchers and may he quoted from, published, distributed, placed on tire Internet or broadcast in any medium that the Oral History Research Center and UNLV libraries deem appropriate including future forms of electronic and digital media. There will he no compensation for any interviews. Library Special Collections 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-7070 (702) 895-2222 This is Claytee White. It is February 6th, 2013. We're in the Reading Room in Special Collections and I am with Judge Lee Koury. How are you this morning? I'm just fine, thank you. Wonderful. My last name is spelled K-O-U-R-Y. My first name is Lee, no middle initial. Okay, and Koury...is that the way it's pronounced, your last name? Yes. Wonderful. So Lee, I want you to just start this morning by talking about your early life; just tell me where you grew up and what your family was like. I was born in Los Angeles and raised in Los Angeles, spent most of my life there. I had siblings, but we lived separate from each other. Basically my mother was a housewife as a younger woman and then in later life she started painting and made several paintings that one of them ended up in the Olvera Street community because she painted the first Mexican governor of California, Pio Pico Tell me what Olvera Street is. Olvera Street actually is in downtown Los Angeles and it's a little piece of Old Los Angeles, the Mexican culture there that people like to visit locally in town and tourists. So it was nice. In fact, I visited less than a year ago because I hadn't been there in years. It was interesting. It's a tourist situation, but it was nice. I like Los Angeles. Where is your mom's picture hanging; her painting? It used to be in the Pico House there on Olvera Street, but we tried to trace it and they've moved and nobody really knows for sure where. 1 I think it's at Mark Harrington's house. Oh, sorry. Okay. So we're not sure where it's at, but it's around somewhere I'm sure. After growing up in the Los Angeles area, I ended up after being discharged from the Army after the Korean War, I - Okay, so prior to that, when you were young and growing up what area of Los Angeles did the family live? Basically the west Los Angeles area, I was born in what is old downtown; it was 51st and Main in Los Angeles, and then we ended up living in the west Los Angeles area. And by west Los Angeles do you mean Olympic and Pico or ... Yeah. In fact, I lived right off of Pico in Los Angeles. I actually went to work for the phone company at about eighteen, nineteen years old; the general telephone company there in Santa Monica. Then after getting out of the service I went back to the phone company. And then at twenty-three years old I took the exam to become a deputy sheriff. So you were born in 1932. Yes. Okay. Tell me about going to school in Los Angeles as a young boy. Where did you go to school in that area? Basically I went to school at different grade schools, but I did my junior high at John Burls Junior High, which was off of Wilshire Boulevard, and then I did my high school at Fairfax High and I believe it was 3rd Street or Santa Monica Boulevard, somewhere in there. Can you just give me your parents' names for the record and if you had any brothers and sisters? 2 Yes, I had four sisters and one brother. My mother's name was Pauline Brown and my father's name was Lee Koury; I m basically a junior—or was. There again, they moved quite a bit around L.A. and they lived up near Fresno for a while, too, which I did not; I was living with my grandparents at that time. And your grandparents lived in Los Angeles proper? Yes. Wonderful. Thank you for that background. So what attracted you to law enforcement? It's kind of odd because I used to see police officers on the street and I worked for the phone company. I did telephone repair. I thought 'Gee that looks like a nice job.' They appeared to have it easy. I had no big desire for it at that time, but it just looked like a good job. Actually I didn't really get engrossed in it until I passed the test and went to the academy and then I started getting a real interest in law enforcement and spent the rest of my life in law enforcement, in fact. I think law enforcement is something that - and I've seen it in other people - a lot of people think you get involved in law enforcement because you get to throw people in jail and hit the bad guy over the head, that sort of thing, and that's furthest from the truth because most of the time in law enforcement you're actually helping people, you're not throwing people in jail and it's a very satisfying job for that reason. So it's really to protect and serve. Yes, it truly is. And I found people who get into law enforcement and don't see that, they don't last very long; they usually end up leaving on their own or otherwise. So early on; we're talking now probably the late '40's when you first get into the sheriffs department, or later? 3 It was later than that. I got into the sheriffs department actually in October of 1955 and I had just turned twenty-three at that time. What was the environment like in Los Angeles in 1955? I think the law enforcement was in a change at that point because law enforcement in Los Angeles had difficulties with the people. They didn't know how to deal with people and they had a lot of problems both in the Los Angeles Police Department and in the sheriffs department. And tell me the difference in the two for people who don't know. All right, the difference is the Los Angeles County Sheriff s Department is actually the largest sheriff s department in the world. They are nine thousand deputies. They operate hundreds of patrol cars, I think twenty-five helicopters and two fixed-wing aircraft and three patrol boats; so it's a unique service. It has one of the largest jails in the country; it's either second or first; I don't recall now. But because of all of that it's a major department. The Sheriff of Los Angeles, of course, is elected and he happens to be the top law enforcement executive in the county. And under California law, the sheriff can move in and take over any police department if he feels they're not doing the correct job, and that's been done several times. It was done in Compton and in another city; Signal Hill had to be taken over at one time. As a deputy, depending on what your assignment was, you basically had the jurisdiction of the entire county. After my first year in the sheriffs department, I went to work on the vice detail. That's where they had problems years before because vice became a corrupt thing for both Los Angeles and the sheriffs department; and they cleaned that operation up. In fact, I remember to this day, the first day I went to work in the vice detail, my captain called me in the office and he said, 'Don't ever come in here and ask me whether you can arrest somebody; if 4 Preface Judge Lee Koury was born in Los Angels, CA the son of Pauline Brown and Lee Koury. He spent his childhood in Los Angeles and after moving to Missouri he finally retired in Las Vegas, NV in 2010. Judge Koury was a member of the United States Army. After the Army he became a Deputy Sheriff for the Los Angeles County Sheriff s Department. While his time as a deputy Sheriff Judge Koury was involved in the popular Charles Mason case. Judge Koury recalls inside details about the Mason case. He mentions and discusses in detail members of the "Family" who were involved with Charles Mason, and the murders of Sharon Tate and the LaBiancas. He describes in depth about an informant who provides information and leads that ultimately help law enforcement in the Charles Mason trial. He goes on to explain the attempt of an escape by Mason and an escape and rescue of a Manson partner, Kenny Como. Once retired from Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department Judge Koury moved to Missouri. He became the United States Marshal for Missouri. After serving as a U.S. Marshal during two different president terms, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. he became a municipal judge - criminal court judge in Boone County. v they re committing a crime, you arrest them.' And he said, 'You don't have to worry about any political problems; you just do your job and everything will be fine.' Why do you think it was necessary for him to say that? Well, I think it was a hangover from before because a lot of times people with political power or whatever would be exempt from it and this captain didn't want that; that was basically the judgment of the sheriff s department. When I first went to work for the sheriffs department, the sheriff was E. W. Biscailuz, which is an old name in law enforcement. In fact, he became sheriff the year I was born and he was still the sheriff at the time I came on the department. Several years later he retired and Peter J. Pitches became the sheriff and he was a good man to work for, too. I had personal contact with him, well, sometimes during the Manson thing, as well. But because the department had cleaned itself up... Now, there was a problem with LAPD. LAPD in the attempt to clean it up, they were broken down in divisions and each division was like an independent police department. For example, homicide detail from... West Molly wood Division was not to contact a different division about their investigation; they had to go through what they call headquarters; homicide, they had to go through there and it made a poor job of communications, and that happened in the Manson trial, too. One of the things; you had the two killings - the Sharon Tate killing and the LaBianca killing the next night were two separate police divisions. So they weren't communicating with each other. I didn't know that. A good friend of mine, Bill Gleason, who had handled the—Gary Hinman case - this is a musician who was killed by the Manson Family just prior to these other murders in Malibu - he 5 handled that investigation. It didn't make much of a press release because it wasn't somebody significant, but they had the writing with the blood on the wall; the same thing. So since you have already started talking about that, let's go ahead and start from the beginning about the Manson trials. And I guess you've already started, so there were three bloody incidents. Yes. Okay, so you've told me about the singer who was killed in Malibu. Yes. Then they did - go ahead and tell me about those two that became well known. There again, I wasn't involved in those investigations. Right, but just give me some background. The Sharon Tate killing took place about two weeks later. And when that happened, my friend, former detective who just died last month, he tried to tell L.A. that he thought his case was related to theirs because of the blood writing. They didn't buy it at first and, of course, they had that murder the next night of the LaBiancas. Again, LAPD assumed that that was just a copycat, which it turned out not to be, of course. Then they finally got the right information and made the arrest. But one of the things that was unique is at the Sharon Tate killing, when the people involved in that killing left the house, they threw the gun out the window; that landed in another jurisdiction of LAPD, so you had three divisions involved. In fact, they made a kind of a joke about it because the gun was unique because part of the gun broke off and was found at the Tate murder site. When the gun was found, it was found by a citizen who turned it into the police department; it was on the side of the road. And even the citizen realized that's what the gun was and, yet, the press had been talking for a couple of weeks after that that they were still looking 6 for the gun. He finally went to the press and says 'I gave it to this other division; they've got it. And they finally put it...so that's where that problem was. I see. I mean, LAPD; the officers were doing a good job, but because of the lack of communications by the desire of their own department made it difficult. So after they made these arrests and were getting ready to go to trial, which was - So who was arrested? If you don't have names, it's okay, but it was the same family ... Yeah, it was the - So tell me about this family and what they were and how they got together and lived together. Well, that's again basically hearsay on my part. They lived out at the Spahn Ranch and they had contacted people out there. They were stealing cars and several people that they stole cars from are basically still unknown. They don't know where they're at; it's assumed they probably killed them, but it's never been proven. Bodies were never found? No. Okay. Where was the Spahn Ranch located? Inyo County. Another jurisdiction? I think it was, yeah. Yeah, it had to be because when they were first taken into custody I think they went to the Inyo County Jail first and then were transferred, all of the ones that were involved. They were basically arrested for stolen cars. Is this near Los Angeles or is this south or is it north of it? It's north of it. 7 So out in one the valleys? One of the desert areas out of Los Angeles County. So are we talking about near Lancaster, that area? Further north than that, north and east of there. And there again, I was not involved in that. It wasn t until we got ready to go to trial that the rumors were coming up that they were going to try and break Manson out of county jail. This is prior to the first trial? Prior to the trial? Prior to the trial. And they — who is going to try to break him out? How many people were arrested? Well, that was the problem. We knew the people that were arrested and in custody, but we didn't know anybody in the Family other than that. We knew there were people and other than the three girls that were on the corner... Explain that, 'on the corner.' All right. When the trial started or was ready to start—I'll look at my notes here because we're talking forty years. Yes, take your time. I can't remember things that happened yesterday, so please take your time. I know what you mean. So is this a typical notebook used by an officer? No, not really. This is what we developed because of the problem. We didn't know who was in the Family. The only ones that we really knew were the three girls on the corner because they sat there and they started preaching to the people on the street, 'Free Charlie,' you know, he's a 8 good guy, that sort of thing. For that reason the three girls on the corner were the only lead we had. So we set up under this I say we; the sheriff s department set up an operation, which we called essential to this thing. What we did is we took a detail of people, and I was part of that detail, to find out who the members of the Family were and find out what they were planning to do, if anything. It turned out that their rumors were basically true that they were trying to do something and we had to use the only leads, which were the three girls in the van. And they were |shuffling pages| Lynette Fromme, which her nickname was called Squeaky and she was in the van. Sandra Good, she was known as Sandy; she was in the van. And Nancy Pitman; she was in the van., Who had been arrested other than Charles Manson? And just take your time. If I could read their names that are typed in here.. .those were the ones. So we have Charles Manson. We have Robert B-E-A-U-S-O-L-E-I-L. Susan—what is Susan's last name? I'm not sure what Susan's last name is. It looks like it could be A-T-H-E- M. Do you think that's Susan or is that - Atkins. Susan Atkins. It's Atkins, okay. Susan Atkins. And Steve Dennis Grogan, G-R-O-G-A-N. Okay, so those four were arrested first. Yeah, and so were these at the same time. At the same time we also have Patricia Kernwinkle; that's K-E-R-NW-I-N-K-L-E. We have Mary Theresa Brunner, B-R-U-N-N-E-R. Bruce McGregor Davis. And Leslie VanHawten, V-A-N, capital H-A-W-T-E-N. Yes. 9 So these are members of the Family. Right. And I put the homicides that they were involved in right above it. For example, that Susan Atkins, she was involved — Hinman was the musician I was telling you about I couldn't think of his name — but that was Gary Hinman. Susan Atkins was present for that murder and she was also present at the Tate, where five people were killed at the Tate house. So how much do we know? Do we know how they were captured or how they were found? I think it was when one of the girls—I just saw her on TV the other day. She was the one that ended up being the primary witness and she was a participant at the Tate house but did not do any of the killing. I think she was also present at the LaBianca residence the next night; but again, she was there but did not take anyone's life. She ended up being a witness for the prosecution and testified as to who did what and what she saw. She's the one that blew the whistle in the first place to where they decided to charge these people. And that was again the problem; nobody knew who was in the Family and there was quite a few members of the Family. Some of them were passive, but some of them were very active. That's where I got involved when we decided we've got to know more. I say 'we;' the sheriffs department has to know more about these people to make sure they don't attempt anything because they had high security on the court and the court house, but we weren't sure what these people.. .because they were capable of doing anything. Other than the car thefts that you knew about, were these the first murders, that musician in Malibu? As far as you know, were these the first? No, I think there were others. Some of them can't be proven. But Shorty Shay, the person who was in charge of this Spahn Ranch, he was killed by Manson. But we didn't know at that time 10 because they didn t find his body, I think they found his body just a couple of years ago. We knew that he had killed him, but we didn't have any evidence of it. So getting back to the three girls in the van, you started to tell that story. So please continue. Okay. We had to set up an operation, and I think I have the paperwork right here. It was almost like a fly-by-night situation because we had to hit it on the fly; we had to set up surveillance. Now, the old Hall of Records was across the street from the courthouse and we set up a twenty-four hour observation post there because the van — and there again, we allowed the van to stay there. We could have made them move probably because there was no parking in that area. But we allowed it to stay there because that was our only contact to find out who's in the Family and what they were doing. So the three people in the van—again, besides having the observation post, we had detectives from our unit doing car surveillance, as well. If the van moved we did a tail on them and followed them wherever they went and they began to know. We had good chase cars because our cars were not police cars; they were truly undercover cars and sporty-type cars, which was new to police work at that time, at least in L.A. So whenever they left, we tailed them with both cars. Within a couple of days they knew who was doing the tailing. When somebody came in contact with them at the van, when they left we stopped them and identified them and saw what their contact was. Also, during this same period we were getting a copy of every letter coming out of the jail that Manson or any of the girls was sending to anybody. That's how we found out that they were sending these pictures, for example. Tell me about those. Okay, they were sending pictures. 11 These are pictures with some of the members, bare breasted. Yes. With guns. Yeah, they had rifles and they had shotguns, such as these here. They took Polaroids. Now, the one up here is original, these are copies that we made. They sent these pictures to prisoners at Folsom Prison because at that time, and it may still be so, prisoners — no matter what their crime was, whether it was murder or what — they could get time out of jail; they could go home for a weekend. Furloughs. Yeah, a furlough from the jail, which I don't believe is correct when you've got somebody doing time for murder, but that's my personal opinion. So they were soliciting these guys. Now, some of them did come out, and instead of staying a weekend they stayed with them. They escaped? Well, no, they came out on leave and then never returned, so that would technically be termed an escape. So this happened quite frequently. It was interesting because they would come and join the girls. They didn't care about Manson, but they liked the idea of the sex and the drugs and the rest of it and so it worked out pretty good. But with all this mail, we knew who was doing what. They had their own code system and I have a copy of the code, here. Everybody had nicknames. It took a lot of work to put these nicknames up, like Sunshine or Starshine, that sort of thing, were certain people in the Family. We had to identify, okay, who is Starshine? And we found out where she was supposed to be or who she saw and when we knew that, we knew who Starshine was. So it was a matter of piecing this all together. 12 As a result, we determined that there were several attempts; overt acts as far as legality is concerned, because they would get weapons and they had planned on - in one case planning on going into the Hall of Justice late at night and actually taking the jail elevator up and freeing Manson. They probably wouldn t have succeeded, but somebody would have died as a result of that. So when we knew they were going to do things like this, we'd pounce; arrest them and take the prisoner that got out ol Folsom and any weapons they had and that would stop that. But then they'd plan another one. And there again, this trial lasted nine and a half months, the longest sequestered jury at that time in California history. So this continued. The number of characters that came along, like I say, these young people that came out to the van we kind of knew who they were; I mean, once we identified them we knew who they were. And they wouldn't stay long, but enough for us to find out who they were. There was one individual that surprised us. That individual was an older man that used to come and see Squeaky Fromme. His name was Isadore Greenbaum; they called him Izzy. He worked at a clothing manufacturer and he ended up being in our book. Everybody that worked the field had a copy of this book because there were so many people we couldn't remember them and we couldn't remember what they looked like without having a book. You needed a program. He would come and visit her a couple of times a week and they'd get in the van. We were aware she was probably having sex in the van with any of these people that got in the van with her. In one of their attempts , to break Manson out of jail we recovered a gun. Well, the gun happened to be stolen from the night watchman where Izzy worked. He stole the gun from the night watchman's locker and gave it to the Manson Family. So these are the kinds of things we had to 13 deal with. He was purely innocent as far as the crimes were concerned other than stealing the gun, but he got conned by her to steal that gun and he ended up in trouble for it, obviously. So this was the kind of thing that went on for the entire thing. But we were able to stay on top of it only because we had their mail, we knew who was doing what and there were a couple of houses that they dealt with during the trial where they went; took baths or something like that or got drugs. Tell me about the listening device that you tried to plant in the van. And how could you do that with them in the van all the time? I don't know the individual who planted it or how it was; I just happened to be there and recover it when it fell out and Squeaky Fromme found it. Like I say, it wasn't successful because whenever they were in the van in the cab where the bug was placed with the engine running, you couldn't hear anything on it. So it didn't do much good. So now, these girls would go to the trial every day, leaving the van parked on the street? No, they stayed on the street. I think they went up very rarely, very rarely. They stayed on the street and that was their contact. Now, there was one thing that did occur and let's see if I can find the photo of the guy. Like I say, there were several attempts to break out of the county jail. Now, there was one attempt that I was fortunate to find out about because I had an informant and he said that Manson was getting ready...let's see what the other guy's name was...there was a guy that was in the same cell with Manson. Manson was kept in a section of the jail which only had two cells and a shower. It was an exclusive, closed area. I had an informant that I was fortunate enough to place in the cell next to him on the basis that they had been in jail together; not Manson but the individual - I'll find his name in a moment. 14 So the person that you planted beside Manson had been in jail with... With the individual that is going to make the escape. With the individual that's going to try to break Manson out of jail? Right, well, Manson like I say.. .can we pause this? Of course, yeah, we can pause it. Okay, so continue. The informant that I had that was put in the same cellblock with the excuse that he had been in jail with this guy Kenny Como, this individual, who was in Manson's cell because Kenny— Who was in Manson's Family? Yeah, he was because he was with the girls when they committed a robbery to get those weapons that we saw; that was in Hawthorne, California they robbed a surplus store and they actually ended up with a gunfight. So was that during the trial, well before the murders? No. That was just before the trial started; these people wanted to get weapons. That's I think part of what alerted us. We figured these people — Family members — are getting weapons; what are we going to do? So Como was in the same cell with Manson. My informant, who really did a good job, he knew Como. They had been in jail together, so that's why I used that excuse to put him in, he was in the next cell. The security was so tight. The deputies watching that cellblock.. .on the graveyard shift there was one deputy watching just that cellblock with the two cells. He was instructed that if he had to go into the cell for any reason to call for a backup. Well, they got to the point where they realize that once in a while he wouldn't call for a backup and what they were going to do was hopefully get the deputy to come in - because he 15 would come into the cellblock — not into the cells but just the cellblock walkway to give them aspirins. He wasn t supposed to come into the cellblock without a backup. So he was supposed to come in and they wanted my informant, who was bigger than Kenny Como and Manson; Manson was only like 5 2 and 120 pounds or 125 pounds. Como was not much bigger than that, if that; but my informant was a bigger man. So they wanted my informant to grab the deputy and then they would come out of their cell and kill him. So he made the excuse — The deputy had the keys to the cells on him? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So he made the excuse the first night—what Como and Manson had done...every time they'd go in and out of the cell they'd take the leaded toothpaste tubes, roll them up and slide them into the hole where the locking mechanism went in. If there was enough to block that mechanism from going all the way, you could slide it back without a key, because if it didn't go all the way the latch didn't lock. So what they would do is they would hold the bar when the deputy would close the door. He would turn the key and they'd ask him a question and he wouldn't listen to the lock tumbling. So they knew they could get out. So my informant made the excuse he had hurt his back; he wanted to wait a day or two to where he felt he could hold the guy. Well, it turned out that he got ahold of me the next day — How? We had a code where he would say he wanted to see his attorney and they would take him out to the attorney room and I would see him there. He told me what they were up to and that