Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. In this fifth episode of the six-part series documenting the life and crimes of the marijuana smuggler kingpin Jimmy Chagra, Gary interviews Jason Cavanagh, an expert on Charles Harrelson, and they examine whether or not Jimmy Chagra paid Charles Harrelson to assassinate Federal Judge John H, Wood aka Maximum John. Cavanagh extensively researched Charles Harrelson’s life and relationship with his two sons. One of those sons is the famous actor Woody Harrelson. Jason produced and hosted a 10-episode podcast series titled Son of a Hitman.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

GARY JENKINS, Jason Cavanagh

00:00

Well hey guys, all you Wiretappers out there. Welcome back to the show. You know, I’m back here to studio gangland wire. But I’ve got a famous man here. A guy that that agreed to come on the podcast, Jason Kavanagh. You know, I got on to Jason. I was researching his stories, Jimmy Chagra story and I found this podcast called Son of a Hitman and I listened to it was about Charles Harrelson who was the man who was convicted of murdering Judge John Wood and Jimmy Chadwick was not convicted. He was arrested and accused of paying Charles Harrelson and Jason did a real in-depth. Deep Dive into the life of Charles Harrelson, the hitman who has a great podcast. It’s called Spn of a Hitman. And I highly encourage you to listen to that. Jason, welcome. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks so much for having me. Now working guys find that Son of a Hitman is not on the Apple app. So you explain to him how to find that.

01:00

Sure. So it is you know, we originally produced it for Spotify with Spotify. So it is exclusive to Spotify at the moment. Although actually today, I just spoke to Spotify, we’re going to be getting a wide release where it’s going to be available on all platforms in the near future, probably in a couple of weeks. So at the moment, check it out on Spotify. But yeah, it will be it will be wide very soon.

01:23

Okay. And by the time this is released, guys, just look out look for set of the Hitman on whatever podcast app you’ve gotten, you’re gonna be able to find it. So I looked at this story. And it’s a story that just keeps on givin this Jimmy chakra and his whole marijuana smuggling operation as we’ve already had a couple of episodes, three episodes by now. And it’s just, it’s the most complex, interesting. And he is the most complex and interesting guy and story that I have done that I can find so much information about to it’s just, it’s amazing. And I want to go in on a deep dive on Charles Harrelson with Jason because he is the expert on Charles Harrelson. And as you all know, he is the father of Woody Harrelson, the actor. And as I understand and what he’s not really crazy about anybody doing that there’s no movies about this. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that guys, but there’s no movies about this. And I don’t know if there ever will be. Jason, you know, we talked a little bit before in Harrelson goes back into South Texas, Texas roots and he was a Texas criminal for sure. From day one. Tell us a little bit about that first murder. I think that that Berg murder, the first

02:39

murder that Charles Harrelson was charged with was Alan Berg. He was a carpet salesman in Houston, Texas. I was introduced to the story of Charles, you know, based on the rumors, you know, he claimed that he had been involved in the JFK assassination. So that was how I, like entered into the story in the first place began looking at it then of course, the judge would murder. The assassination of a federal judge in 79 is huge news. But then when you you know, you start doing research looking back further, right, he killed this carpet salesman, whether it’s the first murder he committed, I don’t know. It’s the first murder he was charged with. He was found not guilty for this murder.