Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Season Six: Holiday Episode 14 (2025)
6 Plays6 minutes ago
This podcast was made possible by www.labrottiecreations.com Check out their merchandise and specifically their fun pop pet art custom pieces made from photos of your very own pets. Use the promo code CRIMEXS for 20% off a fun, brightly colored, happy piece of art of your own pet at their site.
Music in this episode was licensed for True Crime XS. Our theme song is No Scars from slip.fm
You can reach us at our website truecrimexs.com and you can leave us a voice message at 252-365-5593. Find us most anywhere with @truecrimexs
Thanks for listening. Please like and subscribe if you want to hear more and you can come over to patreon.com/truecrimexs and check out what we’ve got going on there if you’d like to donate to fund future True Crime XS road trip investigations and FOIA requests. We also have some merchandise up at Teepublic http://tee.pub/lic/mZUXW1MOYxM
Sources:
Various News Sources Mentioned by Name
Ad Information:
New Era Caps: https://zen.ai/dWeCYLHxxANOaZ6NcKocEw
Liquid IV: Link: https://zen.ai/45lYmDnWl1Z3cR66LBX5mA
Zencastr: Link: https://zen.ai/SFkD99OGWGNz_plc2c_Yaw
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Fascination with Historic Standoffs
00:00:50
Speaker
This is True Crime XS.
00:01:00
Speaker
So as much as I get fascinated with stories that are from like the Old West, which is ah there's at least one of those in here um that I know will be kept in the edit.
00:01:11
Speaker
I also get fascinated by stories that sort of are akin to Waco or Ruby Ridge. Those are interesting to me because of like the amount of misunderstanding that can be attached to what's going on there.
00:01:28
Speaker
And with Ruby Ridge, uh, It occurs in 1992. It's one of the most interesting standoffs. There is definitely like a lot of material out there on it. So it's not as interesting to cover those stories as it is to just kind of read about them.
00:01:46
Speaker
um Same thing with Waco. There's a ah lot of coverage. of the The Waco stuff happens
The West Texas Hostage Crisis
00:01:53
Speaker
later. It actually happens in 1993 But there's one story that does not get covered as much, and it puts us back kind of in the the center of America to the West.
00:02:07
Speaker
But also in the 90s again, um it's definitely a hostage crisis, and it has like some really strange elements. Yeah.
00:02:18
Speaker
ah The sources for today come from a number of papers over the years. um I used a book. I used um the Chicago Tribune.
00:02:30
Speaker
ah The book that i read about this case has been a minute, but the author's name is Donna Marie Miller. And it was called the Texas Secessionist Standoff, which secession is its own very interesting idea to me.
00:02:47
Speaker
And I used the court documents. There's just quite a few court documents related to this case. When it was happening, there were there was like a lot of immediate
Rick McLaurin and the Republic of Texas
00:02:57
Speaker
news coverage. And then it sort of.
00:02:59
Speaker
like dissipate there was an interview from the texas standard that i pulled for this uh from april of 2022 by shelly brisson it's uh shelly brisbane wrote uh an article about this and it's kind of done in interview style and the way that it runs down is rachel monroe ah is interviewing One of the the members of this named Joe Rowe, one of the people involved, and it talks about the standoff. She was writing for The New Yorker. Texas Standard picked it up and they ran like the long version of it.
00:03:35
Speaker
And I thought it was interesting from the perspective of like clarity for the situation, um which weirdly that says the article is edited for clarity. But I wanted to use that as kind of the basis for this because i don't think a lot of people know about these groups.
00:03:51
Speaker
This is an armed militia. They have a standoff with law enforcement in West Texas. And that's sort of where we where we pick up. And the first question they ask is more of a give us a narrative type situation. It says, this is a remarkable story from 25 years ago.
00:04:11
Speaker
And at the time it would have been 25. Now it's 28 years ago that many people remember and quite a few have never heard of before.
Secessionism in the U.S.: History and Legalities
00:04:18
Speaker
Can you tell us a bit about what this Republic of Texas group was and its leader, Rick McLaurin? So Rachel Monroe is talking about her interview with Joe Rowe and she says,
00:04:30
Speaker
Rick McLaurin was not a native Texan. Interesting to note this because he becomes sort of a notorious figure in West Texas in the 80s and the 90s.
00:04:42
Speaker
Have you ever heard of McLaurin, by the way? Not before we were getting ready for this. Okay. Okay. He was one of the people doing paper terrorism, which we've talked about recently. He would file an enormous amount of legal filings, mostly spurious, and then kind of caught on to the idea that Texas, as he saw it, so this is Rick McLaren that Rachel Monroe was talking about, had never actually rejoined the United States after the Civil War.
00:05:10
Speaker
And so he decided to declare it was its own separate country. He convinced a lot of folks down there that this was true. And if you became a member of his Republic of Texas, a lot of taxes and rules and regulations would not apply to them.
00:05:25
Speaker
And so he turned out to be, from what and she's saying it from hers her perspective, from what I've heard, he's an incredibly persuasive person, very fast-talking, and people liked what they heard.
00:05:38
Speaker
Okay. So I have to just throw this out there. Secessionism. What do you think about that? Um... I think that here in the United States, ah we have the First Amendment.
00:05:51
Speaker
We have the right to speak out about whatever we want to. However, it's unlikely any act of succession is going to be successful.
00:06:03
Speaker
Right. And it seems like it's always going to be more trouble than it's worth. Yes. Not to mention, um it's a federal crime, I believe. Anything to overthrow the government.
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah, it depends on how it's presented, which is, it's almost like McLaurin thought he found a loophole. So... Right, but that couldn't that wasn't really the case, right?
00:06:28
Speaker
No, no, no. It's just, that's the way he was selling it to try and not be essentially guilty of insurrection. Right. Exactly.
00:06:39
Speaker
So ah jokingly, people call this Texit after Brexit with um the way things went down in Britain. ah It's also known as the Texas independence movement.
00:06:51
Speaker
The idea is that for the most part, to get around the whole concept of being like against the United States government, which, by the way, the U.S. Constitution does not address secession of states.
00:07:07
Speaker
um The way that they get around it is is with the concept that Texas, during the American Civil War, became the Republic of Texas, a sovereign state, and never really became part of the U S again, which is, it's complicated, but it's, it's really more paper terrorism kind of,
00:07:29
Speaker
um You said that the Constitution doesn't address succession. Right. And there's a very simple reason why that would be. Like, a successful succession would no longer have the constitutional protections of the United States.
00:07:44
Speaker
Right. Okay. Right. And the Supreme Court has ruled this in 1869, in fact. The case was Texas versus White, which is why people look at it and go, there's something to this.
00:07:58
Speaker
So the court ruled from the perspective of legally speaking, Texas was and remained a state in the United States since it first joined the union in 1845. Now it later purported to join the Confederate States of America and it was under military rule at the time of the decision in the case, but in deciding the merits of what's going on here.
00:08:29
Speaker
Texas never left the Union during the Civil War because the state cannot unilaterally secede. It's actually related to U.S. Treasury bond sales happening during Confederate Texas during the war. So that's how we get to Texas versus White.
00:08:45
Speaker
like the The argument is that any U.S. bonds that were owned by Texas since 1850 are could potentially have been illegally sold by the Confederate state during the American Civil War.
00:08:59
Speaker
That's where this all comes about. But that's the decision that essentially holds on is Texas a state, is Texas not a state. Discussion about the right of U.S. states to succeed is not new. It actually started shortly before the American Revolutionary War.
00:09:16
Speaker
Each of the original colonies, they started by separate grants from the British Crown. And they had evolved really distinct ah cultures and environments prior to the entire United States being independent of Britain. You can read about this. There's a number of people that write about the Supremacy Clause, which would weigh against the right to secession, or the Republican Guarantee Clause, which...
00:09:48
Speaker
if It can be interpreted to indicate that the federal government has no right to keep a state from leaving the United States as long as it maintained its own Republican form of government. And we're not saying Republican like the political party today. We're saying Republican like the form of government.
00:10:07
Speaker
I just want to point out there's a lot of interest involved in the entire United States not having a state somewhere in the middle succeeding successfully and then being invaded by a foreign country. Right.
00:10:24
Speaker
Right. Like a lot of succession movements in the United States. They're not realistic. They're based on a lot of really flimsy types of belly aches, so to speak.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah. And like they're not looking at the bigger picture because there's a lot at stake. If you know anything about... you know foreign policy history i mean it took a lot to get the united states to where it's at and it's still not where we all want to be and we gripe and complain ah about things that they are frustrating but at the same time there's a payoff right there's a payoff to we have this way of life that we live
00:11:09
Speaker
And, you know, that involves taxes and crooked politicians and all kinds of issues, right? And at the at the end of the day, none of the states can do it on their own. Right.
00:11:24
Speaker
And that's why initially there weren't 13 separate countries, right? Right. And you can look, I mean, it's the same deal with, you know, Europe. They had they split off into countries as opposed to states, right?
00:11:39
Speaker
And then a eventually they became the European Union, right? Right. And so it's a whole thing. And anytime you've got this movement, usually they're never big enough, for one, really to make any sort of difference. And the reason for that is the line that's being sold can only be sold to so many people because other people look it up and they find the facts of the situation and they're like, that's not correct.
00:12:08
Speaker
Right? Right. And so it really, and and then you have to wonder, or at least I wonder, sort of like with cults, like is the line that the leader is spewing, if it's self-serving, then why are you going along with it?
00:12:26
Speaker
I would agree with that. I would say, like, I could see circumstances where a U.S. state would succeed. We're not there yet. It would be very difficult. And the Supreme Court has tried to hold that they don't have that right. Like, there's several justices that have mentioned this over the years. But the truth is, it's never been tested. The closest we've gotten is Texas.
00:12:46
Speaker
And Texas is complicated. Yeah, i I, for one, i don't think that ah that a state could successfully succeed, but that's just my opinion. No, I'm just saying, like, do they have the right to?
00:12:59
Speaker
I don't know if they could successfully do it, but in terms of the Supreme Court saying they don't have the right to, like it's it's very weak, and they the only way that they were able to make it a holding was under Texas versus White, even though Scalia tried to say that like the this issue had been resolved by the Civil War. like By that point, he didn't know what the hell he was talking about, and i'm just I'm saying it that way because he's wrong.
00:13:24
Speaker
Well, the argument, ah okay, but saying that it's weak, I mean, I don't know that it's actually like a feasible thing that needs to be. That's the issue is like, is it feasible financially is one of the huge questions. And you have never, like like you just said, we've never had a sane enough and large enough and like determined an enough group that had enough money to successfully do it. Because we've watched Texas from the perspective of,
00:13:55
Speaker
Texas is a secession state. it so It seceded 1836 to become the Republic of Texas, but not from us, from Mexico.
00:14:07
Speaker
Now, over the years, the way that Texas has become part of the United States is because Texas had trouble surviving on its own financially and infrastructurally.
00:14:21
Speaker
So that's how we end up with Texas being a state in the first place. And technically, in 1861, it did so secede. It left the Union and became a part of the Confederacy.
00:14:35
Speaker
But that's a different thing than a secession of a state.
The 1997 Hostage Crisis
00:14:38
Speaker
That's an in entire rift in a country that is trying to form its own new country. Well, I was going to say, one of the things about that, about the difficulty of a state succeeding is...
00:14:50
Speaker
We also can't just kick a state out. Right. Okay. And so there's some balance there to that, right? Agreed. As far as, you know, the powers that be. And, you know, sometimes we have to remind ourselves, like, the people of this country are who make up the country. Right?
00:15:11
Speaker
Correct. And i do realize that if you... I don't think... Just because you hate... It's always political, right? I mean, succession is always political. And so usually it's a gripe about a tax, a bill, a politician, ah a expectation. that Like, it's that kind of thing, right?
00:15:37
Speaker
Right. um And you have to just learn to live with it. Just like the United States isn't going to kick a state out because of any particular gripe. Right, right. Well, McLaurin, the guy that we're talking about in this interview, and we'll come in and out of this interview as we talk, um he is one of these people that is kind of culty.
00:16:00
Speaker
And he does something... sort of, I was just defining as being batshit crazy. But the way the way that we the way that we get here is in March of 1997, he sends a letter to the federal government and he says it is time for the federal government to make things right with Texas. And he demands or claims $93 trillion dollars in reparations to Texas.
00:16:29
Speaker
So at this time, this organization, the Republic of Texas that he has created, and to be to be clear, I'm talking about the Republic of Texas organization founded by Richard Lance McLaurin.
00:16:44
Speaker
Because he is one of those guys that gets, you know, pretty close to being a lunatic that might be able to lead a cult and do something. But even him being pretty close is not really close, if that makes sense.
00:17:00
Speaker
Well, close to being successful. Yeah. Yeah, well, or or to just starting the correct movement. Like, he just is unable to do it. Right, and what he was saying was absolutely ridiculous. Yeah, so with this Republic of Texas, which is a general term that could represent a lot of different things, so in this instance, I will let you know that he called it the provisional government of the Republic of Texas.
00:17:27
Speaker
And a lot of these Republic of Texas groups were either secession-related or militia-related. Their claim is that the annexation of Texas by the United States was illegal and that Texas is still an independent nation to this day, but is occupied by representatives of the United States.
00:17:48
Speaker
So, you know, anybody can write fiction, right? Yes. Yes, I do. I mean, I could come up with all kinds of scenarios. It doesn't make it true.
00:18:00
Speaker
Right. And so the backstory for all of this is the backstory about the legal status of Texas is this movement created by Richard Lance, Rick McLaren.
00:18:11
Speaker
He claims that in 1861, Texas voted for one to leave the union. The most union loyalists were prevented from voting by violence, threats and terrorism. And he ignores that.
00:18:23
Speaker
McLaurin still concludes that Texas met the qualifications under international law of captive nation of war since the end of the American Civil War. So he's basically saying they made that decision and four years later in 1865, they did not rejoin. That's not supported by evidence or by the people who studied this nonsense.
00:18:47
Speaker
So this movement that he has, this Republic of Texas movement, it splits into three groups. One is led by McLaren, one by David Johnson, and one is a led by Archie Lowe.
00:19:00
Speaker
So this is 1996, by the way, when this split, so to speak, happens. Now, David Johnson is backed up by a guy named Jesse Enloe. Archie Lowe is backed by a guy named Daniel Miller.
00:19:19
Speaker
this rabbit hole, so you guys are aware, is deep and long and crazy. A lot of this argument from this 1997 incident that we're going to talk about is still going on today.
00:19:34
Speaker
So to give you an idea of what's happened, April 27th of 1997, the McLaurin faction of the Republic of Texas nonsense They kidnap Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe from their home at the Davis Mountain Resort, which is this remote community in the Davis Mountains.
00:20:03
Speaker
ah They originally had been known as Olympia Mountains. They're range of mountains out in West Texas. There was a fort there named Fort Davis. ah This was all named for Jefferson Davis, in case you're wondering. That's the president of the Confederate States of America.
00:20:18
Speaker
So this faction, when they commit this kidnapping, they demand the release of Joanne Turner. And Joanne Turner had been jailed on charges related to the nonsense that this group is involved in.
00:20:34
Speaker
And Richard McLaren declares that his nation is at war with the United States government.
00:20:41
Speaker
He says he'll free the Rose if the United States frees Joanne Turner. Negotiations for multiple days here. the According to all the records, the McLaren faction is fortified within the Davis Mountain Resort, and they are heavily armed.
00:20:56
Speaker
Just to point all of this out, this is a bunch of crazy people. ah Do we know if there was any rhyme or reason as to why Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe were abducted?
00:21:09
Speaker
So, okay, the way that Joe Rowe gets looped into this he He is living up in the Davis Mountains Resort.
00:21:20
Speaker
It is on like paper in April of 1997. It is marked as a subdivision. So that gives you the sense that it's like going to be something suburban, but it is not. It a very rural, remote area. It's more like farmland or like hunting cabin type land.
00:21:40
Speaker
so you've got a lot of people up there who are kind of living off the grid. Well, right, but they've banded together for certain reasons, which is why it's grouped together. And, he like, in a lot of settings, that is a neighborhood, right?
00:21:53
Speaker
i mean, it it would be a neighborhood. It's a little remote to be, like, connected to the rest of a neighborhood, so I would call it suburban. No, right, exactly. it's It's definitely still rugged territory. It's just—I don't even know, like— what um they might have gotten together on but a lot of times you've got to get a whole group of people to get things like a road or trash service and and so joe roe is leading that organization so it's technically a homeowner's association yeah pretty much yeah and he's in charge of this homeowners association for the davis mountains resort and he could be recognized basically
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. He's recognized this association that he's a part of is maintaining the roads. You have to pay a fee to this association if you own property there. And Rick McLaurin does not like that fee. So that's not going well.
00:22:50
Speaker
He does not like being told ah that they have to pay it. So he goes around telling the other neighbors, you don't have to pay that. And the other thing is Joe Rowe's house is one of the first properties you would see along this road.
00:23:05
Speaker
It's at the edge of the community. So if you're trying to take over all this land out there, it's his house is a strategic position. So he wakes up one morning and he finds these people that he's known as his neighbors.
00:23:20
Speaker
They have surrounded his house and they're telling him to surrender the house. So that's how Joe Rowe gets dragged into this. So they he's basically being held hostage in his own home.
00:23:33
Speaker
Now, One of the problems that happens early in this situation is as the neighbors are coming in this is essentially a home invasion. It's just by people you know. So it's not a stranger home invasion. And it's happening in the daylight.
00:23:48
Speaker
One of the neighbors who's coming in to take over this house, he doesn't understand what he's doing with his weapon, and he ends up shooting Joe Rowe in the shoulder. He's not someone that's like going to need immediate critical care, but he is bleeding quite a bit because of where he's
Law Enforcement and Legal Outcomes
00:24:03
Speaker
shot.
00:24:03
Speaker
So the minute that this happens, this is going to sound terrible, but the home invasion plan like plan
00:24:16
Speaker
Essentially, they are just negotiating themselves out of this nonsense from the moment that happens. Because they don't want to reveal that Joe Rowe has been shot in the process because that's a different set of crimes. And they're trying to trade Joe and his wife for Joanne Turner.
00:24:35
Speaker
Makes sense? Well, I guess they shouldn't have shot him. Right. Not to mention it's not going to work to begin with. Well, no, it never makes sense. You were like, this is this went to shit really fast, and I'm like, if only they had foreseen that.
00:24:49
Speaker
Right. so Because it's going to go to shit, right? I mean, it just is. Well... There is a massive response after the shooting and after McLaren announces what he's doing.
00:25:02
Speaker
Like everybody kind of looks at it and they're like, this is insane, but it's Texas. And I'm just going to say that like Texas at the time, because remember we've already had other shit go on out there.
00:25:16
Speaker
All the cops come out of the woodwork, like all the police, the Rangers, the state police, the troopers, everybody shows up at this scene. Well, right. And honestly, I'm surprised the way that we know about Texas, I'm surprised that people trying to invade the house didn't get shot, honestly, the homeowner.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know exactly. I think Joe Rowe might be the sane in this group of crazy neighbors. And like he's trying to like legitimately build something out there and make sure the road's maintained, and that's how he becomes a part of this. He's got a nice house, and then here we are.
00:25:57
Speaker
A lot cops show up right away. they have helicopters. And this isn't... but I mentioned Ruby Ridge and Waco because that's going to be fresh on all these law enforcement officers' minds. It's also going to be fresh on the minds of the people that are involved in this standoff.
00:26:14
Speaker
Now... So the hostage taking in this situation, which I'm sorry to ruin this. I know it's the holidays and we're talking hostage taking for the holidays. um It doesn't last very long.
00:26:28
Speaker
So the rows are held for 12 or 13 hours. And then there's basically an exchange to get them out and get the medical care. Because the truth is they don't want to end up being charged with murder.
00:26:43
Speaker
And also, they took their neighbor hostage. Like, it's so dumb. So, even though they let him go, and he's out and he goes to the hospital, they're going to stay here at this Davis Mountain house from April till May till may fourth Well, i' was just going to say, like, I guess maybe that's how, because, you know, they the Rose House was like a centralized location. And, you know, if they weren't going to kill them, how are they just going to take over the house? I guess they felt like maybe they'd just surrender it to them.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, essentially. i mean, that's just bullying, right? That has nothing to do with succession or activism or anything. It's just bullying. Because ah at least to our knowledge, Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe owned that home. It was theirs.
00:27:35
Speaker
And they had no right to that home, right? Right.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, they didn't have any right to be doing that. No, no. Or even, and it would be like insane for them to even think that that's a great idea, right? I don't know what they're thinking here. Like you have to realize we're not dealing with people that are starting from a good place. Like they're saying all this crazy stuff to begin with.
00:28:02
Speaker
And like, I don't ever understand where, like, I understand people call them charismatic and all that. For this to have happened in a circumstance that is amazingly average, like is a little weird. It's always, to i we don't get an idea of how many people it is. Do we? Three people come into the home.
00:28:24
Speaker
Three? They don't, three people come into the home. Yes. That's it? That's all. wow way the way it ends is also going to blow your mind. but so like What I was going say is, what's always astounding to me is how this charismatic dude or not charismatic dude, depending on how you look at him, can get so many people to believe his garbage.
00:28:48
Speaker
Right. Well, you know, it's interesting because joe Rowe in all of this, he didn't believe the garbage. of course I say that because it turns out at trial, we find out that essentially Joe Rowe had seen what was happening. And this is in the book by Donna Marie Miller.
00:29:13
Speaker
Joe Rowe had essentially been the one who was responsible for Joanne Turner being arrested. He had seen what this group was doing to her.
00:29:27
Speaker
And he called the local sheriff. Which is what you do That's what you do when someone is being essentially abused. And and Joanne Turner was being abused by these people. She she was in a lot of debt. she didn't have ah like She didn't have a place to really turn.
00:29:46
Speaker
And they dragged her into this. And she gets arrested, i think it's for financial crimes at that time, because of Joe calling the sheriff. So Rick McLaurin at this time had appointed himself the ambassador of this group.
00:30:04
Speaker
And he was going to be the one negotiating for them. So he's the one who makes all of the calls related to, like, essentially the abduction of Joe and Margaret Enbrow.
00:30:16
Speaker
And the way that it goes down, he's essentially charged with RICO statute level crimes. does that make sense? Well, right. ra Like racketeering. Yeah.
00:30:28
Speaker
Right. So wait, were they abducted or were they just held captive in their home? Right. They're held captive in their home, but they're considered abductive because they they could not ah they could not leave. They had been moved room to room, and and they weren't left safe because he was essentially Joe was shot.
00:30:47
Speaker
And I think what I was reading on the Internet, somebody says, oh, they were unharmed. That's not the case. Joe Rowe was shot. And multiple faction members are eventually taken into custody. I'm just throwing that out there. like the three of them?
00:31:00
Speaker
Well, there are other people outside. i think they take seven people into custody based on the arrest reports from that weekend. Did you have a number on this movement at all?
00:31:11
Speaker
So the Davis Mountain area had less than 30 members of the Republic at the time. Okay. um I think it's much, much lower than that. I think it's more like seven. Okay.
00:31:28
Speaker
And I say that because law enforcement seems to identify detaining a total of nine people, but I think they include Joe and Margaret Ann in the original total. And when I look at that, i kind of like raise my eyebrow because you know a lot of these like really famous standoffs that seem huge they're not like they're only a couple of people like if you look at ruby ridge it's definitely like different for waco waco because waco had a whole cult thing going on there right but it was ah legitimately one dude causing our one dude and a couple of other dudes causing the issues
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah, there was one guy, i found this article in the New York Times. that It was also repeated in the Deseret News from 97. It was really interesting. And it said men felt duped before dying and chewed out.
00:32:23
Speaker
And it says the Republic of Texas sympathizer killed after the group's standoff ended was willing to die for leader Richard McLaurin, but had been duped into believing the group would never surrender. This is according to Mike Matson,
00:32:37
Speaker
who turns out to be the only casualty of all of this, his older brother, Ralph Mattson is telling the story. It says it must've been the nightmare of his life when McLaurin told him that he would give up, which going to tell you a little bit more about here in a second.
00:32:51
Speaker
He said, Richard McLaurin left my brother hanging. My brother said, I will never again spend a minute in jail. I will fight to the death with anyone who tries to arrest me. And Mike Mattson said,
00:33:03
Speaker
ends up dying on a Monday um before this article in 1997 in a shootout with authorities. But he had fled the encampment outside Fort Davis after McLaurin, the self-styled Republican, Republic ambassador, agreed to go into state
Standoff Conclusion and Reflections
00:33:19
Speaker
custody. so when he found out that McLaurin is surrendering, he lost his shit.
00:33:23
Speaker
So Ralph Madison is 54. He said his brother was not even a member of the Republic of Texas, but he was a sympathizer. He was there because he felt like Rick McLaurin needed protection, but he volunteered his services to protect him on on the basis that Rick McLaurin not surrendered.
00:33:47
Speaker
So that's really interesting to me. i feel like um we're talking about a whole different type of hostage situation when we're talking about people that believe Movement leaders wouldn't lie to them. Yeah. You're almost talking Stockholm syndrome.
00:34:08
Speaker
it's It's a different thing, but close. Like everything that um I won't say like. I won't say McLaurin lied about everything consciously, but everything was suited to what he was trying to accomplish. And that made a lot of it not true,
00:34:30
Speaker
Yeah. yeah And the fact that he would say, i will never surrender. I need you. I need your gun. ah You know, whatever. You're a hired gun. I won't surrender. It never, i mean, he wasn't going to die. McLaurin was not going to die for this.
00:34:48
Speaker
No, not at all. i feel sorry for especially Ralph, but also Mike Mattson, who died, because he he probably was a genuine guy, Yeah.
00:35:01
Speaker
yeah And again, I would say that it's a whole different hostage situation when you put somebody like that, like McLaurin, and you're like, okay, but you can't surrender, and then you actually believe them.
00:35:14
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, so the way this goes down in terms of the hostage situation itself, this standoff with Texas, it ends up ending on May 4th. So it starts on April 27th, and it's going to end on May the 4th.
00:35:34
Speaker
In between there... Seven days. Yes, we have seven days. Now, in between there, on May the 3rd, there is a situation that escalates when there's a firefight.
00:35:46
Speaker
There's a firefight between the group and law enforcement and some of the militants are shooting at a Black Hawk helicopter and dogs that are coming up.
00:35:59
Speaker
Now, when this happens, Mike Mattson ends up being shot and killed. Now I've read that another person was killed. I never found the name for this other person.
00:36:13
Speaker
And I believe that like some people summarizing this have just made an error. I believe it is Mattson that we're talking about. And the way that goes down is so Mike Mattson and this other guy, Richard Keyes, they are part of a group of hanging out with McLaurin.
00:36:34
Speaker
From what I can tell, there's only five people with them. So seven people total is what I was going They, Mike Mattson and Richard Keyes, they're like, I'm out because of whatever is going on with this surrender, which i'm going tell you about a second.
00:36:52
Speaker
And they leave their arm with handguns. They've got a hunting rifle. It's alleged that they fired at a black Hawk helicopter and that supposedly in the return fire, Mike Mattson is killed.
00:37:05
Speaker
Keys gets away and he is caught months later in September. And by November 1997,
00:37:14
Speaker
Rick McLaurin is convicted of kidnapping, and he's going to end up being convicted of other things as well. But he's essentially immediately sentenced to 99 years in prison. From what I can tell, he's still there today. he' scheduled for release in 2041.
00:37:30
Speaker
I don't think he's going to make it. um There are multiple groups that still exist that claim the Republic of Texas on different websites and newsletters. They claim that they are that original group, but none of them talk about McLaurin at all anymore.
00:37:48
Speaker
What's interesting in the insanity of all this is a Texas Ranger captain on the day that the surrender is going to happen. He like has seen what's happening. He doesn't want there to be a loss of life. And he decides to do something that you and i always think should happen. um It's about two hours before the surrender.
00:38:11
Speaker
Richard McLaurin and Texas Ranger Captain Barry Kaler, they... they prepare an agreement that Richard McLaurin wants. And you and I have said for a very long time that when law enforcement is in an impossible position with essentially a terrorist or serial predator or whatever, in this instance, a hostage shaker, which I don't know that that counts anymore because Joe is long gone and Joe's wife is long gone.
00:38:39
Speaker
But I, I am assuming at this point, they're thinking that maybe, The others could be potentially hostages. I don't even know how to keep the standoff going. But they want an agreement, and Captain Barry Caver does the right thing and says, we will sign your agreement.
00:38:57
Speaker
So Richard McLaren requests a ceasefire agreement, and Barry Caver prepares a document called the International Agreement in Terms of Ceasefire, and everybody signs it.
00:39:10
Speaker
This was... quote, to provide a peaceful resolution to the standoff and its agreement providing that the Republic of Texas will commence legal actions in and the District Court of the District of Columbia for the rights of the inhabitants on the soil of Texas to, by popular vote, decide the issue of Texas independence.
00:39:31
Speaker
Okay. That was genius. He basically says something. We will let you be heard on your Texas independence, but you have got to end this peacefully before people die.
00:39:46
Speaker
And i think the reason this doesn't really catch on as being like as big as Ruby Ridge is one, nobody dies, which is good.
00:39:57
Speaker
But two, it ends with such a whimper. It literally just peters out. Right. But he could have done that without that ah agreement.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, like, all he had to do was walk outside and it would have been done. You know i mean? know. I mean, like, he could have done all the things that were stated in the agreement, like, gone to district court and tried to get a vote on, you know, the general vote as to whether or not. Yes, yes. to be Like, he could have done all that without the agreement. Like, the the ranger didn't give him anything.
00:40:33
Speaker
He just made him think that he had. No, he didn't. doing all he did was All he did was like make a a guy with a worthless idea, sign a worthless piece of paper, and stop being an idiot and wasting the time of all these law enforcement agencies.
00:40:51
Speaker
Right. And so he had given in. And at that point, Mike Mattson and another dude, they fled, right? Yeah, they were theyre but they bolted because of the surrender talks. Yeah.
00:41:02
Speaker
Right. And so they weren't shot out, but they were chased and they shot out a Black Hawk ah helicopter. And Mike Mattson was killed in the return fire. Correct. And I think you're right about, i don't, they refer to militants and troopers in hot pursuit. And I think that that's misunderstanding a whole lot of things.
00:41:26
Speaker
Oh, I think some state troopers were just trying to figure out who was running away with the guns and make sure they weren't going to be a problem. Well, right, and i believe the Black Hawk helicopter was not um a United States military helicopter, was it?
00:41:41
Speaker
It was the Texas Department of Public Safety. Okay, and so there were no militants, so to speak. That's weird. This is weird. Like, we don't have militants anymore.
00:41:55
Speaker
um We don't have... Members of the militia? Well, there are there are militias around. There are definitely militias. Not that are sponsored by the U.S. government. um No, we have National Guard and different things that like qualify as like actual parts of the military.
00:42:14
Speaker
Militias are formed. I'm not saying they're sponsored by the U.S. government. And I don't know how they'd get a Black Hawk helicopter, but I'm sure it could happen. Well, right, but... I see what you're saying. The militants in this instance are the two guys with guns.
00:42:28
Speaker
So ah Mike Mattson, he was the only person killed. Correct. and And it was returned fire after they shot at the helicopter. And that sucks.
00:42:42
Speaker
Yeah, it' ah there's some really good articles about this one. You can read, um there's an April 2022 article ah by Rachel Monroe called Surviving the Sandoff with the Republic of Texas. There's bits and pieces of it here. She gets close up with ah Joe Rowe. It's a cool story to hear it from his perspective.
00:43:00
Speaker
um Overall, this was one of the weirdest hostage takings I had read about because of the fact that the hostages are basically out within 12 hours of a seven-day standoff.
00:43:12
Speaker
Right. And it's really kind of hard to wrap your head around like, you're you know, the hostages were out within 12 hours. Why does this continue? you Except that, you know, you've got like these people who are going, they they literally want to accomplish something or they're going to hurt somebody. Right.
00:43:33
Speaker
Right. And I don't, I guess law enforcement just feels like they can't walk away from that. I don't know. Well, it so maybe I downplayed a lot of this. The idea Rick was declaring them ah sovereign nation at Davis Mountain.
00:43:49
Speaker
He was circulating flyers saying we got to take Joe Rowe out. He was like declaring military targets. It almost reads like it's so rudimentary and like dumb that it almost reads like someone really struggling with like some kind of mental health break.
00:44:07
Speaker
Well, right, because just because Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe left to get medical treatment, it didn't mean that he now owned the house and that... They did vacate the house shortly thereafter, by the way. Well, I don't blame them. Honestly.
00:44:25
Speaker
it's kids The court documents on this case are so crazy. Well, right, but, you know, this this is actually very similar to... I mean, it's just mayhem, right? Because we don't bully people out of their houses. And that's not how that works. Can you imagine if the biggest bully wins? I mean, come on. We're not doing that.
00:44:46
Speaker
ah Speaking of that, like so the thing that was so strange in the court documents that I realized that nobody's ever said out loud, and I don't know why Rick McLaren was using radios to talk to like Mike Mattson and to talk to Richard Keys.
00:44:59
Speaker
And on the radios, the Rangers were listening to the scanner, right? and they were able to pick up the radio signal. and they weren't sure how many people were there.
00:45:12
Speaker
Because just like everything else, Rick McLaurin had managed to make it seem like a much bigger thing than it was. Remember, like I said, they come in and it's basically they can't tell if it's seven or nine people, but the nine number that kind of includes the hostages. And then you've got the two guys.
00:45:32
Speaker
Are they a part of it? Are they not a part of it that ran away? That's it. That's all the people that are here. But they were preparing for it like from ah the perspective of firepower based on what they hear on this radio, where, and this is in the court documents, take it with a grain of salt, Rick McLaurin was saying things like, you have authorization to shoot, um second military target identified.
00:45:58
Speaker
he was making it seem like a much bigger thing than it was, like cult leaders do.
00:46:07
Speaker
and Yeah, they fake it until they make it, right? Yep, they they fake it until they make it. So some early accounts of this say there are as many as 30 or 50 people. I'm going to go ahead and tell you, I've looked through all the documents at this point, there was not more than 10 people there.
00:46:25
Speaker
If we count the rows, there was not more than 10 people involved in all of it. That's actually kind of refreshing. Yeah, and that makes it, for me personally, I'm like, how did they manage to do that?
00:46:38
Speaker
But the cops couldn't know. They had no idea how many people were out here, who was actually home. They knew how many people lived in this area, but they didn't know who all was involved in it until they start rolling out Joe and Margaret Ann and getting them medical assistance for Joe.
00:46:56
Speaker
Then they start to realize, like, oh, he's saying there was only three people that came in in early morning hours. Like it's not as big as we thought it was. And one of those people was not great with a gun because they clearly shot him, which is like the worst way to start hostage situation.
00:47:15
Speaker
so it' so dumb, isn't it? it is it's It's all so weirdly dumb. um I don't know what they were thinking with the demanding reparations. I have no idea where they thought this was going to go. But I promise you that 99 years in prison is not the way Rick McLaren thought he was going to be cresting into the 2000s. Is he still alive?
00:47:39
Speaker
ah Yeah, I think he's still in prison. um I looked him up. my I looked him up at some point. he's still alive. He's in a Texas prison.
Misconceptions and Motivations of Secessionists
00:47:47
Speaker
I did try and hunt down his wife, Evelyn, and I couldn't find her. But I thought would be interesting to see what she was up to. assume she's also in prison. don't think they were legally married.
00:47:58
Speaker
Really? Yeah, I don't think they were. That's interesting. and that' not like I've seen wife in quotation marks. but She had his last name. Well, that's what she told people her last name was.
00:48:12
Speaker
i gotcha. I mean, did it's people can tell you a lot of names, right? There's very few circumstances where you actually have to prove to anybody just in a casual relationship what your name is, right?
00:48:26
Speaker
Right, that's true. um And so you may just have to look ah more creatively. If you want to find her. I mean, whatever. He is available for visitation.
00:48:40
Speaker
ah He's still alive. He's also eligible for parole, although estimated release date is way out in the future. But McLaren is in Bill Clements. That's the name of the prison he's in, out in Texas.
00:48:53
Speaker
That's interesting to me that he's still out there. i I wanted to look up Richard Keyes. as you say So Richard Keyes is also in prison.
00:49:06
Speaker
He's convicted for the same stuff. ah Habitual burglary is what they get him for. His parole eligibility date is September 18th, 2027. His projected release date is September 2087. he the that was with Mike Mattson?
00:49:27
Speaker
yeah okay so he was young probably less likely to hold the same it's hard to distinguish who was like a hired gun and thought like they were working for a cause versus who the stupid people were that were believing this like if you could have talked to um rick mcgillaren before he did this what would you have told him i would just tell him what's going to happen right and like that's all i can think of i would tell him how this was going to go
00:49:58
Speaker
Well, right. And I sort of would tell just about anybody we've ever talked about on this show, like, just don't, don't do it. This isn't, think of every single thing that could go wrong and then like triple it. And that's what's going to happen. Right.
00:50:14
Speaker
And you're not going to get anywhere. And anybody who comes at this position this way, they are not absorbing information correctly. Right.
00:50:28
Speaker
I guess. Is that a way to put that? Like he just was wrong all around. It was very strange that um the his direct approach to it, like just give me, i can't even, $73 trillion. dollars Is that what he said? Something like that? It's either 63 or 93. Okay. Well, give me like a lot of money and he's suing the federal government for that.
00:50:59
Speaker
And, you know, obviously all of it's ridiculous. every It's really hard when you can't even make sense out of what they purportedly want from all this activity, right? You can't even make sense out of it. What were they going to do?
00:51:15
Speaker
Like they were going to have their own little country
00:51:23
Speaker
I don't know. I just... Right in the middle of Texas, apparently. ah I mean... I don't know what they were thinking. And, and you know, largely... Okay, so that's largely why succession doesn't work or won't work, right? Right. It's not a good idea. it causes divides. The best thing we can do as a country is to, you know, you can maintain your difference of thought, but you have to band together to to stay strong basically. And see, there was nothing about anything in his cause that really was anything except he wanted a bunch of money from the federal government.
00:52:09
Speaker
That's it. that's all he was that's That's all he was going after. and that's ridiculous, right? I mean, there was nothing like concrete...
00:52:21
Speaker
tangible, anything that would say that's a righteous cause right there. Right. I just can't imagine how anybody looks at a situation and goes $1 trillion, dollars let alone 93 trillion or 63 trillion or whatever trillions of dollars this guy thought he was going to get. up He have even asked for a gazillion because he wasn't going to get anything. And, you know, obviously it that,
00:52:50
Speaker
That's a ridiculous stance to take. We are our government. okay The people of the United States are the government. I realize sometimes that can fall by the wayside and we can get really hung up on lots of political things that in the long run will not matter.
00:53:11
Speaker
um But at the end of the day, no you don't want to screw the government over. We are the government. like The people make it up. And it's it's there for us.
00:53:23
Speaker
And I do realize that it's easy to clash with people who are playing different parts to represent the government, right? But I don't even see that occurring here.
00:53:35
Speaker
i don't even see him having a specific issue. yeah that he can actually put his finger on and say, like, this is why this needs to happen. All he was doing was saying, um i found this loophole. Texas never rejoined.
00:53:51
Speaker
I need reparations. And you said earlier, he wasn't even from Texas. Yeah. So it doesn't even apply to him.
Crisis Resolution Strategies
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah, this one is just one of those stories that was so interesting to me. And I kind of like, it's kind of a win for law enforcement how they had changed since Waco and how they had changed since Ruby Ridge.
00:54:17
Speaker
And they were able to look at this. And once they got the hostage out, they were able to, like, I think that Ranger signing the fake peace treaty with Rick's country is like the best thing I've ever heard of.
00:54:29
Speaker
Because like there have been multiple instances where I'm like looking at lawyers who are like fighting back against something. that like Even if Rick McLaren has that piece of paper, it's worth it's not worth anything. but Just do it.
00:54:45
Speaker
And I always wonder, Sarah, the only thing I could see, I could see possible ethical concerns if in a different situation. In this situation, these people were...
00:54:56
Speaker
batshit okay and they needed to go but i would say like that's when you need almost like a neutral like not a law enforcement person to do it or something because all you need to do is make the person feel heard and sometimes it's okay to make someone who is thinking outlandishly make them think that you have heard them and are going along with what they're saying just to bridge the gap between like where you're at and where you need to be. Right. Which is exactly what was happening here. Right. Yeah. hundred percent Nothing that he put on that piece of paper meant anything at all.
00:55:38
Speaker
Right. It was just outlining what he wanted and saying, you have every right to pursue this, which he has every right to pursue it. And you know, the judge will shut him down.
00:55:52
Speaker
yeah Right? that's That's essentially what was happening there. But he could have done all that without this hostage taking. But I do see the ranger's point. And I have been, 100% for that in a lot of situations. And I think a lot of times it just escapes people because they're trained to do things a certain way.
00:56:11
Speaker
And it's almost like without the training, they they can't like rationalize and and logically work their way through it. And having not been like trained by law enforcement, I don't have that reflex response and I logically think my way through it. and All you want to do when someone is bullying, holding someone hostage, whatever else. I don't even know what was really happening at that point, but he had taken hostages and released hostages and there was a standoff situation.
00:56:43
Speaker
all All you have to do is ah appease them. Yeah. If you appease them, you will like you will end any possibility of the violence. I mean, ultimately, these guys go into state custody. And and like that's where they still are today, so obviously it worked.
00:56:59
Speaker
Exactly. And you know this is how it should have ended. And kudos to the ranger who you know took it upon himself to do that because a lot of people could have gotten killed.
00:57:09
Speaker
All the law enforcement officers around. i mean, it doesn't seem like there were...
Conclusion and Credits
00:57:15
Speaker
anywhere near as many people in the faction as we thought but you know anytime people are dying over things like that it's it's it's a waste it is i don't have anything else on this one this one was an interesting one i wanted to share it with people it was an odd kind of hostage taking with them like not having hostages for the bulk of the hostage taking um it just became a standoff uh but other than that did did you have anything else on this one
00:57:41
Speaker
Yeah, lock your doors so your neighbors can't come in and take you hostage. Yeah, but what, how's Santa going to get out? Chimney. Yeah.
00:57:53
Speaker
um And I heard that, I heard he may have a teleporting device.
00:58:00
Speaker
Special consideration was given to True Crime Access by LabradiCreations.com. If you have a moment in your favorite app, please go on and give us a review or a five-star rating.
00:58:11
Speaker
It helps us get noticed in the crowd. This is True Crime XS. s
01:00:16
Speaker
True Crime Access is brought to you by John and Meg. It's written, produced, edited, and posted by John and Meg. You can always support True Crime Access through Patreon.com, or if you have a story you'd like them to cover, you can reach them at TrueCrimeAccess.com.
01:00:34
Speaker
Thank you for joining us.