February 21, 2023 • 39 mins
Mickey is obsessed with The Punisher, the Marvel Comics antihero who delivers his own brand of arbitrary, violent justice. In this episode, we talk to Casandra Windecker, Mickey’s ex-wife. Cassie met Mickey through the Denver Hearse Association, a community where Mickey was well known for his participation in zombie apocalypse cosplay events and a bit part in a locally produced grindhouse movie. But their relationship quickly turned toxic, and Cassie began to wonder where Mickey was getting thousands of dollars in cash that he’d spread out on the bed.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If FBI informant Mickey Windecker has a favorite movie, I'm
pretty sure I know what it is. The Punisher and
certain extreme situations The Law is Inadequate. In the two
thousand and four film, actor Thomas Jane plays a guy
named Frank Castle whose family is murdered by the mafia.
(00:22):
As a result, he becomes a bone crushing vigilante on
the hunt for his family's killers. The Punisher is an outlaw,
a man who meets out his own brand of justice
as a way to make up for what he sees
as the failures of the police and the criminal justice system.
He's not bound by rules or laws. He's bound only
(00:42):
by his own sense of morality and justice. He's judged
jury and Punisher. This is not vengeance. Revenge is not
a valid motive. It's an emotional response. No, not vengeance.
(01:05):
Mickey two thinks of himself as being bound only by
his unique sense of morality and justice. But there's more
to it than that. Mickey wants to be the Punisher,
and you know who helps make that happen, the FBI.
(01:30):
I'm Trevor Aaronson from Western Sound and I Heart Podcasts.
This is Alphabet Boys, episode four, The Punisher. I drive
(02:08):
out to a nondescript apartment complex north of Denver. I
knock on a first floor unit near the parking lot,
and Cassie Windecker opens the door wearing sweatpants and a
baggy tshirt. The door opens to Cassie's living room, which
has a floor to ceiling stripper pole in the middle.
On the wall our movie posters for Beetlejuice and Friday
(02:29):
the Thirteenth. Gothic decorations are strewn throughout the apartment. Halloween
isn't anytime soon. Cassie's just really into the imagery. I
start setting up my recording equipment. I was like, gosh,
it's this video. Cassie was working late the night before
and she's just rolled out of bed. She sees I
(02:49):
have an audio recorder, not a camera, and she's relieved
because I'm known as this model, like might be good
for our reputation. I don't know. So I'm recording now.
If you could just introduce yourself the way you'd like
to be referred. Okay, Hi, my name is Cassieky. Did
(03:10):
you go by Cassie Windecker? Honestly, so the whole vin
Decker thing Windecker. I hate it. I'm trying your intimate.
I'm so tired of it. Cassie started seeing Mickey in
twenty fifteen, about five years before Mickey would become an
FBI informant investigating racial justice activists in Denver. Cassie is
(03:33):
Mickey Windecker's third ex wife. Her hair is long and
her eyes are green. She has gauges in both of
her ears and tattoos all over her body, including a
Halloween pumpkin on her neck, an anchor below one eye,
and large letters across part of her forehead that read confidence.
These days, Cassie works at a strip club and as
(03:55):
an adult model. Online, she's known as kill A Cassie
Cassie with a A if you want to look her
up on Instagram. Cassie is short for Cassandra, you know,
the Trojan princess in Greek mythology who uttered prophecies that
were true, but we're doomed to be ignored to the
extent she can. Cassie has been warning people about Mickey Windecker,
(04:18):
who entered her life when he came to her aid
over a torn ear. One of my gauges, well, my
left ear lobe it had ripped, and I made a
status on Facebook, like can anybody at a shop or
anything like fix my ear? And he had commented on it.
And he used to work at like all the strip clubs.
He used to go to Hers Call and he did
(04:39):
all the stuff I did. He has known as like
the vampire guy, like the guy with the hers, the
cool guy. You know, everybody loved him. And I go
down there and like he fixed my ear, which is cool.
You know, it was fine. It's still fixed by him.
Like he did a good job. But like that's how
I met him. Mickey and Cassie had been acquainted through
(05:01):
Denver's Gassine and the Denver Hearse Association, an organization for
people who drive around in hearses and want to show
off their rides. The Denver Hearse Association publishes photos of
young beautiful women posing next to what some people call
undertaker's limousines or more crudely, meat wagons. Cassie was the
(05:23):
Hearse Girl of the Year two years in a row.
Mickey was known for driving around Denver and his hearse,
for participating in Zombie Apocalypse cosplay events around town, and
for playing a bit part In a locally produced grindhouse
movie called Killer Inc. About a tattoo artist who doubles
as a serial killer. About an hour into Killer Inc,
(05:45):
Two women, one blonde, the other burnette, pull into a
wooded area and a black hearse. The hearse was one
Mickey owned at the time, with a biohazard symbol painted
on the hood. Jamie, Mickey's second wife, played the burnette.
In the scene, both women get out of the hearse.
(06:06):
I thought you were tired, Mickey's x Jamie says, as
the blonde woman takes off her top. The two women
then start making out in the back of the hearse
as Mickey, baseball bat in hand, walks up and watches
Peeping Tom style. He's flipping the bat in his hands
as if getting ready to attack the two women. Just then,
(06:30):
Killer Ink's main character sneaks up behind Mickey, snaps his neck,
grabs the baseball bat, clubs one of the women, and
then strangles the other with his bare hands. Mickey didn't
get a single line in the movie, and honestly, his
scene didn't make a whole lot of sense. But then
(06:51):
no one watches a grindhouse movie for the story. I
guess anyway back when Mickey fixed Cassie's ear. This is
what she knew of him her sky zombie cosplay role
in that Grindhouse movie. And at that time, Mickey had
a girlfriend and Cassie a fiance, but that didn't stop
them from getting together. Yep. It was nuts because we
(07:13):
didn't date, we didn't anything. We moved in together immediately,
and then he at my grandma's house asked me and
Miriam was in a couple of days. Typical military men,
which is unfortunate. Not all of them, but a lot
of military men. I want to marry right away because
(07:33):
I've had happened before. I should have learned the first time.
Those are at least real military men. Cassie's infatuation with
Mickey wasn't based on any physical connection. I didn't even
find him attractive the whole time, which was crazy. The
infatuation was based on drugs, which Cassie says Mickey provided
to her. My drug of choice was heroin and xanax
(07:56):
at the time, and on money, which Mickey appeared to
have lots of in cash. And he laid down all
this money on his boat like ten gran and he
took a picture of it and he send it to me,
and he was like, do you want to come home
to this every day? And I was like, oh, you know,
all stupid about it. Some people are like that. I
was very shallow with the money. Cassie says Mickey didn't
(08:19):
work much, not any sort of official job anyway, and
the drugs he provided to her acted as a kind
of leash. He could pull her in any direction he
wanted to, so long as he had pills to offer.
Their relationship could get pretty dark and violent. Many of
Cassie's allegations about Mickey in this episode are impossible to corroborate.
(08:41):
In most cases, she and Mickey were the only witnesses
to the alleged behavior, But the claims Cassie makes about drugs, money,
and violence are similar to others about Mickey that can
be found in criminal and civil court files over the
last two decades. Some of these claims are also documented
in the FBI's internal reports about Mickey. Throughout their relationship,
(09:05):
Cassie says Mickey was controlling. For example, he would go
to the strip club when she was working and count
the number of private dances she did in a night,
and then calculate how much money she should have and
if I was short or like got too much, he
would flip his shit. Oh it was bad. Any money
she earned was his, none of it was mine. And
(09:28):
when we would go shopping, he'd be like he'd drained me.
And by the time I'd get to a store, I
wanted Cassie, that's stupid, and it's just like we're at Claire's.
Let me get some cool I'm a girl and I'm
a stripper. I want some glitterary perfume or something that's stupid.
And you know you're gonna guys are gonna want you.
That's my job. I want them to want me so
(09:49):
I get money. I hope I'm asking this. Was he
sexually or physically abusive. Yeah, So he would always and
this is this is gonna make me laugh, because I
do get nervous. I have a nervous laugh. He would
always say, I don't know why, but I have sex
in my sleep. And I would say, huh, that sounds weird.
(10:10):
I was like, what dreams? You know? I can understand that,
And I could understand fantasizing and you know, you're you're
you're a human being. We all do it. But no,
he would literally have sex with me while I was
asleep and I would catch him. He would be wide awake,
and I'm just like, I'm not I'm not a woman
that's like I need consent. You know, you're my husband,
(10:31):
totally cool. I tell every boyfriend and whatever this, You're
totally fine. Do whatever you want when I'm asleep. So
it wasn't like a rape thing or anything. I'm not
I'm not hashtag me too. I'm not doing that. But
I will say it'd be weird because he would only
want to do stuff when I was like asleep, and
I feel like that's so he could do what he wants,
(10:52):
get it over with and that'd be it. And whenever
I wanted anything sexual, it was just like I don't
want to right now. Phsd's acting up, YadA, YadA, YadA.
But if you go do anything like you're cheating, I'm like,
how is porn cheating? How is anything you know besides
another person cheating. I mean he met like masturbating with yeah,
(11:14):
and I was like, you know, I was a lot
younger at the time too, and you know, being on
drugs and just you know, you you want to do that,
and even even anybody come on, you know, thirty forty
fifty doesn't matter who you are. There's times when you're
not getting anything. If you're not happy, you're gonna want
to master ate. And he would, like he would, he
(11:36):
would just abuse you for that. He had abuse it
for being on your period. I remember he used to
have me put up a little red string when I
was on my period because he hated the word period.
He hated me talking about it. I had to go
to therapy just to be able to learn how to
talk about my female organs again and use the word.
(12:00):
And even I feel disgusted saying period because of Mickey.
So yeah, he would, um, he would. He would say,
women who bleed are disgusting, And I'm like, we all bled, dude,
how do you think you were made? How do you
think you were on this earth ruining shit? Like, oh,
(12:21):
I mean, this is all classic woman hating stuff. But
Cassie stayed, I don't really know what I want was doing,
to be honest, but it was just like I was
constantly getting spoiled too, and I know that was probably
dirty money. I think, you know, he never worked, but
it was like constantly, you know, every finger I had
(12:43):
had a ring on it every finger, and one time,
out of curiosity, I went to like, you know, get
it tested. All of them were real, you know, real gold,
real diamond. It's like, wow, did did he ever say
you know where he would have gotten the money to
bude us? Yeah, because once in a while I would ask,
and if the gift was really big, I wouldn't even
(13:04):
I'd be like, whoa, I'm not even gonna ask. I
don't want to know. I don't want to know. It's
kind of like that would be the good Fellas. You're like,
what is he doing? But I don't know because I'm
happy and I got nice dresses and shit, so I
don't want to ask, you know, just go on your day.
Mickey would tell Cassie that his father had owned a
taxi company and left him a bunch of money, but
(13:27):
that never made sense to her because Mickey's money came
in erratically and always in cash. So one time I
remember we go to some type of like court house
slash like just police station thing and a rappahole, and
I remember I waited in the car again and he
(13:50):
came back out and he was just like, here's a
new iPhone. And I was like, huh new iPhone, huh,
and it was a government building that he got it from. Yes,
And at the time I'm just like, oh iPhone, like
you know. But then also I'm like, did he go
in there? Because it was like evidence, you know, it's
a police station. Cassie began to suspect that Mickey was
(14:13):
working with the cops and that's how he was getting
his money more after the break so, Cassie began to
suspect that her new husband was secretly working for the police,
(14:36):
or maybe Mickey just liked pretending to be a cop.
Cassie wasn't sure. Mickey, remember, has been accused multiple times
in criminal and civil court proceedings of impersonating a police officer.
One time, we went downtown and we were near the library.
There's this like water fountain thing by the library, watching
(14:57):
homeless people and like drug dealers hang out there, just
kind of the spot to be when you're doing bad shit.
So we're down there. I'm kind of like, you know,
why are we down here? I remember I was smoking
weed eat a hot dog, and I'm like, huh, this
is weird. Why are we down here? And I keep
asking him, you know, why are we down here, and
his excuse was always like, oh, I'm gonna take you
(15:18):
somewhere to eat, but I'm want to cruise around and stuff.
There was this guy, you know, he like rolled up
to the window and he's like, hey, you guys want
to buy anything, And Mickey was like he went to
grab towards his shirt like he had a little intercom
speaker and went, there's some activity going on down here,
and he is some like weird code. I don't remember
the code, so we'll just go with four eight nine
(15:39):
to something and the guy said whoa whoa wall put
his hands up the drug dealer and he goes, dude, please,
I'll do anything. And then Michael pulls out his iPad,
grabs it, takes picture of the dude and it is
like again reaching for like his upper shoulder, and he's
like nine oh two, we gotta da da datta da
(15:59):
cha cha chid to the left, to the right, boom
boom bam, and the guy just he runs and Michael
literally were in my Honda Civic chasing this dude and
I'm like, why are we chasing this guy? Like what
do you do to you? And he would just like
shut up. Cassie like just shut up, like he wouldn't
tell you, he'd just shut the fuck up, like and
he would like abuse you while you're like, you know,
(16:21):
like shut up, like use force, like press you down
on your seat type, like you know what, you're about
to get in a car accident and somebody called you back.
He would do that in my car. It wasn't his car.
I remember at that moment, I was like, he just
impersonated a whole as Coop and I was right, there,
can I get in trouble? Like what in the fuck?
(16:43):
Like whoa? And the way he did it was just
so nonchalant and so natural. He's done this before and
he's doing it again. Mickey had an obsession with the Punisher,
the Marvel Comics anti hero, and He's not alone. The
Punisher logo, a skull with long teeth, has been widely
adopted as a symbol by police officers and pro police
(17:05):
Blue Lives Matter demonstrators. It's not uncommon these days to
see T shirts and flags adorned with the Punisher logo,
an American flag and a thin blue line. During the
summer of twenty twenty, the Punisher became a symbol of
police solidarity against the Black Lives Matter movement that was
critical of American policing. Some of the January six insurrectionists
(17:26):
also wore clothing with the Punisher logo. Anyway, back to Mickey,
anything you see, the Punisher logo was on it. Anything
you see, And he would always wear the Punisher necklace
even when he took a shower or a bath, like
never came off, just like a big kid in the
worst way, in the worst way. It's awful. Cassie says
(17:50):
that obsession bordered on identity crisis. He literally thought he
was the Punisher and the Punisher's badass, so that's a disgrace.
But yeah, no, he definitely thought that was who he was.
And that's the hard part, right when you're dealing with
the psychopath or somebody who's narcissistic, they believe themselves so
(18:13):
much that they will believe their own lies to the
point where it becomes true. They lie to themselves so
much to where if they were to take a polygraph,
they'd pass it because he believes he's the Punisher. If
you ask, are you the Punisher, Michael Vindecker, yes, fullhearted me.
He would pass with flying colors because when you believe something,
(18:37):
you become that thing. And narcissists, that's the number one
rule that they have. It's like fight club, you know,
that's their number one rule, believe what you think. In
the comic book series, The Punisher is a marine, but
Mickey I couldn't find any record of him ever serving
in the US military, and as far as I can
(18:58):
tell from court records, Mickey's never been one for steady
employment either. He was divorced twice before he married Cassie,
and then one of those divorce filings, Mickey listed that
he was unemployed and had been unemployed. But people who
knew Mickey also told me that he was flushed with cash,
always with wads of money in his pockets. Where did
(19:20):
the money come from? Why do you have so much money?
And he's like, you like money, that's why he got
with me, and it's just like, okay, you have a point. True. However,
now is the time to ask questions because I could
show you where I get mine. I bust my ass
literally on a poll. What are you doing? I remember
(19:41):
when I said that, he got really pissed and left again,
took the car again, and I would just go walk
to friends houses because it's like you took my car,
so I would just go walk and it was like
he had come back in the night and just flip
it around. I need to do that creepy shit where
(20:01):
he'd like sit in the corner with the cigara and
all dark so you can just see like the cherry
of it all read, and then he flipped the line
on them, but like where have you been, just as
he did when he introduced himself to the racial justice
protesters in twenty twenty. Mickey wore military fatigues when he
was married to Cassie. He had patches all over his shirt,
the kind that looked like they have to be earned
(20:21):
in battle. He spoke some Kurdish and he told Cassie
he'd fought in the Rock. But she soon learned that
his uniform and patches weren't exactly standard issue. He'd buy
his uniform at the local army surplus store, and those
patches he'd get them printed at a local shop. We've
got to calar on the middles a lot because they
(20:41):
knew like screen printing and patches and stuff. And he's
always like Kurdish this, Kurdish that, And there was actual
like Kurdish people who worked there. Oh, they hated him
because they were like, this is illegal. But he pumped
him up so much and made him believe that he
was actually Kurdish like because he learned the language. One day,
Mickey began telling Cassie that the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting
(21:03):
force in Iraq, had called him up for duty. She
had to buy his plane ticket, which even then she
thought was strange considering they was being called up. But whatever,
Cassie thought, maybe that's how it works with the Kurdish forces.
So Mickey the Punisher in his own mind, flew to
Iraq to join the Peshmerga fighting the Islamic State. But
(21:26):
Mickey's tour in the Middle East didn't last long. I
spoke to several people who were with Mickey in Iraq,
and few of them wanted to be publicly associated with
him in any way. You know how when you first
meet people or either go to a job, you know,
everyone wants to do like a little round table, introduce
yourself stuff like that. Well that's what we did. One
(21:46):
of these guys agreed to be recorded if I didn't
use his name. He remembered meeting Mickey when he first
arrived in Iraq, and Mickey, out of everybody, he was like, yeah,
I'm retired sergeant major of Army, which already knew that
was bullshit because the dude was only like forty years old,
forty two something like that. But he was like, yeah,
(22:09):
I was retired from the French Foreign Legion after ten years.
So obviously all that time doesn't actually add up. How
much combat did did Mickey c in A Rock and
Syrie when you were with him, Oh the sea, So
our very first fight, firefight, he showed up very very late,
(22:31):
like right at the tail end of the firefight. I
mean he was going around telling everybody he was a
demolition specialist. Dude was going around literally cutting wires off
of IDs, so he could have got anybody's killed, you
know in the vicinity. Was he a skilled fighter or
(22:53):
you know, like, how would you despire them? No? Okay,
call of duty. There you go that he got most
of his training from video games, I would say, more
or less TV. When Mickey was with the Peshmurga and
I Rock, he'd posts pictures of dead bodies on Facebook.
(23:14):
Sometimes he'd pose with them. These pictures always seems suspicious
to me. Because the bodies Mickey would pose next to
appeared to have been dead for a while. I found
a guy named Alan Duncan, a Scottish volunteer fighter for
the Peshmerga. At the time I contacted him, he was
in Kiev helping Ukrainian forces as a medic during the
(23:35):
early months of the Russian invasion. Power things in Key
for you, Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's fine. It depends
on the part of the city that you're in. You know,
the sorry rens go off every now and again, but
there's no blinkket carpet and they seemed very target at
the minutes. You know. Duncan knew about Mickey's tour with
the Peshmerga, and he told me that it wasn't uncommon
(23:58):
for Americans to come to a rock, take pictures and
then return home as if they were war heroes. There
is this really suspicious photo that I saw he had
posted where it looked like it was it was I
assume it was an ISIS fighter, could have been another fighter,
but this guy had clearly been shot in the head
and his body had been out for quite a while,
like just based on the deterioration, and Mickey is standing
(24:21):
over it, like he killed the man. It's like, I
think that body's been there a while, you know. It's
like it did seemed like that that he was just
trying to kind of, you know, take pictures that put
himself in the in the action kind of thing. Pretty much. Yeah,
he probably went down a few days later. I thought,
probably what it is, probably there for a couple of hours,
and then they took him away back wherever he was
(24:43):
living up. This is all in line with what Cassie
was hearing. Back in Denver. Mickey had bragged to some
of his Kurdish comrades that he was married to a
model back in the United States, and some of those
men looked up Cassie online and started messaging her. And
it was pretty cool. And I was having people send
videos if I love you, kill a Cassie and I
(25:03):
love you, you know, in their language. I was felt
so loved, and they would tell me things. They'd be like,
Mickey is like a volunteer. Mickey is just having fun
all days, sleeping, like telling me the truth. In Iraq,
the American volunteers began complaining about Mickey in private conversations
(25:24):
as well as on social media. One of Mickey's fellow
American fighters posted the Facebook fucker is a liability to us.
We would like to ship his ass out. After just
two months in a Rock, Mickey arrived back at the
Denver Airport. He said he was honorably discharged, portraying himself
as a war hero. Once back in the United States,
(25:44):
Mickey would tell everyone he could that he was a
Kurdish diplomat and that he had diplomatic immunity. He uses
that twos and now at the restaurants. If this food
comes back wrong, he'll be like, I'll beat your the
shit out of you. I got the diplomatic community any
chance he gets. That word comes out of his mouth
like it's saliva. And Mickey also started providing information to
(26:09):
a small local police department outside Denver. He began giving
officers a lot of tips, and that started to annoy
the cops. That's that's the break. After Mickey had returned
from a Rock, Cassie kicked drugs and left him. I
(26:32):
got out, I got my cats. Didn't even grab my stuff.
I just grab the cats. Mickey through everything in the trash.
It's like whatever, it's material, I'm not me and my
cats we're not material. Well, we're literally gonna die. We
need to get out. But a couple of weeks after
leaving him, Cassie needed to return to Mickey's apartment to
(26:53):
collector mail. And this is gonna sound very petty and stupid,
but I'm a female and I was waiting for a
tooth lightning kit. I paid a lot of money for it,
and all my mill is still going there, all my checksum.
I ended up ordering like another debit card too that
got sent there by accident. Had no choice but to
go and get my mill. Cassie asked a friend named
(27:16):
Travis to accompany her. As she and Travis entered the apartment,
Mickey was holding the mail in his hand. Cassie remembers
Mickey asking, this is what you fucking came for, right?
He was like, you left me, You left the best
thing of your life, like you and now you're not
leaving at all. And he goes in to his room,
our old room, grabs his gun, and I'm just like, oh,
(27:39):
so I turned to leave. Travis leaves and I am
just like, oh shit, oh this is it. I'm done.
This is exactly what I was afraid of. I'm done
over mail, and so he gets the gun. Michael gets
the gun. There was a wooden table in the little room,
(28:00):
and we're both standing there and I'm just at this point,
I'm like, fucking do it. I'm tired of your ship.
Just do it. Like you've ruined me so much, just
kill me, please, Like I was begging him to just
do it, kind of just testing him to fucking do it.
I kept saying that, and he was like, if I
cannot have you, nobody's gonna have you. You're gonna die today.
(28:23):
And all I remember is he picked me up, but
my throat body slam me onto the table like literally
like wwe type shit, And I blacked out for a
little bit and then I woke up to the gun
and him just right on me, like like straddling on
top of me with this gun. And I remember I
was I was sitting there and I was like, don't
(28:46):
die like this. Don't let Michael be your ending. He
already fucked it up enough. So I took everything in
me and I got up and got somehow I kicked
the back door out and like I started screaming bloody murder,
like help me, he's gonna kill me. Local police from Sheridan,
a city just south of Denver, responded to nine one
(29:09):
one calls about Cassie screaming as she ran out of
the apartment. The officers who responded were wearing body cameras.
Cassie was sitting in the driver's seat of her Honda Civic,
holding the back of her head and complaining of pain.
I went inside. He like walked on the doors. I
tried to leave and start getting violins. If you're not
gonna leave, I'll kill you. I'll kill you, So then
(29:29):
I please leave it. Tell him twenty times, please back up,
Please leave? What's his name, Michael? What's his last name?
Michael Windecker? Want to go? Where's Michael at now? He's
like he threw me against the table. Michael Windecker, He's
inside the apartment. Through cheers, her voice cracking with emotion
and fear, Cassie told police the story you just heard.
(29:51):
She went to get the mail. Mickey got a gun
and then grabbed her and slammed her against the table.
Why do you think able to style? Okay? The police
officer then walked up to the apartment where Mickey was waiting.
In the video, I see he's wearing black pants with
a wallet chain and a black short sleeved shirt with
(30:14):
a punisher logo printed on the upper left side. On
Mickey's bedroom door was another larger logo for the punisher.
Inside the bedroom, police officer saw what appeared to be
a gun. Hey, why don't you come out of her?
You get guns in there? It looks like an air
fifteen right there. No, that's my airsoft, Mickey said. An
(30:35):
airsoft rifle looks similar to a real one, but it
fires pellets instead of bullets. Mickey told the police officers
that Cassie was lying. He didn't assault her, she assaulted him.
In fact, he said he was so sure this would happen,
that she'd assault him and then claim he did it,
that he secretly set up a camera to record Cassie's visit.
(30:57):
But oddly, the camera only recorded the first minute after
Cassie arrived and then shut off comes down. I try
to record it with my camera right there. For some reason,
they don't record the amount of time while I'm sitting
down and shut off. I don't know why. So then
hafter it's all said and done, she comes over and
I'm like, look, I told her, I still love you.
(31:18):
I'm still worried about you. Look, I know you're on drugs,
You're fucking these other guys, you're doing prostitutions. I say,
I still care about you, but you know this is
not cool. She starts getting like she gets defends it
the entire time. I'm like, cass I'm I'm trying to
defense it. I'm trying to talk to you, be civil here.
So literally, I'm sitting. She literally blows the head gasket.
(31:39):
So I stand up. Now, literally I'm this far away
from her the whole entire time, not twenty minutes. She
blows a head gasket. Well, that's why I'm trying to waiting.
So she I'm standing this far away from her. I
stand up at the chair and I'm like, Cassie, I'm like,
the fuck are you talking about? I'm trying to be
cool and civil here. And she's like whatever, bro, fuck
you da dada, and she starts going off the fucking chain.
So then she starts fucking screaming. She tosses the fucking table,
(32:02):
starts fucking throwing the fucking chair. I lay fell over
the fucking chair. Okay, that's how I got the She
got the claw mark on me and on my fucking face.
I literally followed her in the chair. I get up,
I'm like, what the fuck. Then she goes to fucking
come out. What do you mean you got the claw
mark by falling off the chair. I got cover because
she called me. She fucking called my fucking face in
my hand. Okay. So then she starts fucking screaming da
(32:25):
da da da Da da da da da. Then she
fucking goes fucking ape shit ballistic, tossing the fucking table,
and then she's like next day, No, I'm over here
like this. Lewis down here and she's like, fuck you, dadda.
She grabs the fucking table, throws the fucking table, goes
down with the fucking table, gets back up, starts fucking screaming.
(32:46):
I'm like what the fuck. She storms out the door,
So I try to build. I'm like, Cassie, what the
fuck is wrong? If you calm down, don't act like
a goddamn heathen. So I go outside to talk to
her and she starts running down the street screaming of
bloody fucking murder. I'm like, what the fuck. One of
the officers shined his flashlight on Mickey's neck trying to
(33:07):
find the claw marks he was claiming to have. They
couldn't see any. That's when the officer asked Mickey a
specific question. So, Michael, you always call us for everything.
Why didn't you call us for this? Because I already
saw she was on the phone with you. Guys, how
do you know she was on the phone with us.
I could hear screaming outside. I can hear her. That
doesn't make any sense. You call us for everything, the
(33:30):
police officer told Mickey. What he meant was Mickey would
constantly call the Sheridan Police Department, claiming to have information
about crimes. His calls were so frequent that the officers
knew Mickey. Mickey reported all sorts of alleged crimes, most minor.
He reported a verbal disturbance when two of his neighbors
were arguing. He reported a kid who was shoplifting, He
(33:53):
reported a couple trying to steal a motorcycle, and on
and on call after call to police. Yeah, Mickey was
a snitch, and so if Cassie really assaulted Mickey, police
officers appeared to reason, why wouldn't he have been the
first one to call them to report the incident? They
(34:14):
concluded inside the apartment that Mickey was the one who
assaulted Cassie. All right, what's your phone down for me? Yeah,
you're under arrest. Turn around, but chance bend your back.
Her spreads feet for me. Putch hands together, alish fingers.
There you go, so she should not be arrested for anything.
No thrown in a jail cell. Mickey tried once again
(34:41):
to demonstrate his value as an informant, presumably to help
him wriggle out of his current predicament. A police officer
walked up to Mickey's jail cell door, the body camera
recording the interaction. Somebody one of the officers said that
you had to speak to me about a murder. What's that? Okay? Well,
(35:03):
actually you'll need to probably talk to two detectives about that.
Well it's tough to hear. But Mickey says, when I
get out, I'll go to the scene where the murder happened. Okay,
So it didn't happen in Sheridan. This has nothing to
do with Sheridan, Okay, all right, hang tight, all right.
(35:25):
Mickey appeared to be offering information for sale. Meanwhile, Cassie
was taken to the hospital and within like thirty minutes
that I was in the hospital, I get a text
from Michael, Hey, bitch, I'm out, and I'm just like
the cops were still they're getting statements from me, and
(35:47):
I'm like, excuse me, hello, hello, Like when I show
them in the text and they were just like, we
don't know how he's out. Mickey was never charged with
a crime for his alleged assault of Cassie, and Cassie
continues to live in fear that one day he'll try
to kill her. Everybody excuse me as this very you know,
(36:08):
I go by kill a Cassie. Oh she's strong, she's
never been through it really much. You know, she's she's
a bad girl, you know. Oh yeah, I am terrified.
Every day when I hear a motorcycle, my ibs flares
and I'm like, where's the emmodium? Like you gotta laugh
at it, because what else you gonna do. I had
(36:29):
told Cassie that the reason I was interested in Mickey
was because he'd worked as an FBI informant who had
been infiltrating racial justice activist groups. I asked her if
she found that surprising, I'm not surprised. If anything, I
was like, Wow, he's still doing that shit. He didn't
calm down. I'm not gonna lie as a little selfish.
(36:51):
I was like, at least he's staying away from me.
You know. I felt really bad for the people that
I knew he was screwing over Everything he does just
gets expunged because he's working for the cops, and it's
freaking terrifying. He can literally murder somebody and they're like, well,
you're giving us good information. We're just gonna sweep that
(37:13):
body under the rug. Because it happens a lot. Happens
way more than we think. People get sweeped under, you know,
put in the dirt, get cremated, and then they wipe
their hands, they move on because it's a good dirty cop.
And that's exactly what's going on. Mickey's long history of
deception and violence. It didn't appear to give the FBI
(37:35):
any pause when they signed him up to spy on
protesters around Denver in the summer of twenty twenty, and
it also didn't appear to concern federal agents that Mickey
became a leader in the very movement he was supposed
to be spying on. The activists even had a nickname
for him. They called him Drill Sergeant. Can I feel
(37:56):
so a jickin here? You? That's in the next episode.
This is Trojan Hearse, Season one of Alphabet Boys. Alphabet
(38:18):
Boys is the production of Western Sound and iHeart Podcasts.
The show is reported, written, and hosted by me, Trevor Aaronson.
For more information about the series or to drop us
a tip, head to our website Alphabet Boys dot xyz.
You can contact me on Twitter and Instagram at Trevor Aaronson.
We believe this story is important and could result in
(38:39):
changes to FBI oversight and public policy. But to have impact,
people need to hear the story, so we need your help. First,
tell your friends about the show. Personal recommendations are the
best recommendations. Second, spread the word on social media. At
alphabet Boys dot xyz. You'll find FBI undercover recordings and
secret documents. You can share stuff the government never wanted public. Third,
(39:04):
help us ride the algorithms by leaving a rating or
review on your favorite podcast app that helps other people
find us. And thanks for listening.
If FBI informant Mickey Windecker has a favorite movie, I'm
pretty sure I know what it is. The Punisher and
certain extreme situations The Law is Inadequate. In the two
thousand and four film, actor Thomas Jane plays a guy
named Frank Castle whose family is murdered by the mafia.
(00:22):
As a result, he becomes a bone crushing vigilante on
the hunt for his family's killers. The Punisher is an outlaw,
a man who meets out his own brand of justice
as a way to make up for what he sees
as the failures of the police and the criminal justice system.
He's not bound by rules or laws. He's bound only
(00:42):
by his own sense of morality and justice. He's judged
jury and Punisher. This is not vengeance. Revenge is not
a valid motive. It's an emotional response. No, not vengeance.
(01:05):
Mickey two thinks of himself as being bound only by
his unique sense of morality and justice. But there's more
to it than that. Mickey wants to be the Punisher,
and you know who helps make that happen, the FBI.
(01:30):
I'm Trevor Aaronson from Western Sound and I Heart Podcasts.
This is Alphabet Boys, episode four, The Punisher. I drive
(02:08):
out to a nondescript apartment complex north of Denver. I
knock on a first floor unit near the parking lot,
and Cassie Windecker opens the door wearing sweatpants and a
baggy tshirt. The door opens to Cassie's living room, which
has a floor to ceiling stripper pole in the middle.
On the wall our movie posters for Beetlejuice and Friday
(02:29):
the Thirteenth. Gothic decorations are strewn throughout the apartment. Halloween
isn't anytime soon. Cassie's just really into the imagery. I
start setting up my recording equipment. I was like, gosh,
it's this video. Cassie was working late the night before
and she's just rolled out of bed. She sees I
(02:49):
have an audio recorder, not a camera, and she's relieved
because I'm known as this model, like might be good
for our reputation. I don't know. So I'm recording now.
If you could just introduce yourself the way you'd like
to be referred. Okay, Hi, my name is Cassieky. Did
(03:10):
you go by Cassie Windecker? Honestly, so the whole vin
Decker thing Windecker. I hate it. I'm trying your intimate.
I'm so tired of it. Cassie started seeing Mickey in
twenty fifteen, about five years before Mickey would become an
FBI informant investigating racial justice activists in Denver. Cassie is
(03:33):
Mickey Windecker's third ex wife. Her hair is long and
her eyes are green. She has gauges in both of
her ears and tattoos all over her body, including a
Halloween pumpkin on her neck, an anchor below one eye,
and large letters across part of her forehead that read confidence.
These days, Cassie works at a strip club and as
(03:55):
an adult model. Online, she's known as kill A Cassie
Cassie with a A if you want to look her
up on Instagram. Cassie is short for Cassandra, you know,
the Trojan princess in Greek mythology who uttered prophecies that
were true, but we're doomed to be ignored to the
extent she can. Cassie has been warning people about Mickey Windecker,
(04:18):
who entered her life when he came to her aid
over a torn ear. One of my gauges, well, my
left ear lobe it had ripped, and I made a
status on Facebook, like can anybody at a shop or
anything like fix my ear? And he had commented on it.
And he used to work at like all the strip clubs.
He used to go to Hers Call and he did
(04:39):
all the stuff I did. He has known as like
the vampire guy, like the guy with the hers, the
cool guy. You know, everybody loved him. And I go
down there and like he fixed my ear, which is cool.
You know, it was fine. It's still fixed by him.
Like he did a good job. But like that's how
I met him. Mickey and Cassie had been acquainted through
(05:01):
Denver's Gassine and the Denver Hearse Association, an organization for
people who drive around in hearses and want to show
off their rides. The Denver Hearse Association publishes photos of
young beautiful women posing next to what some people call
undertaker's limousines or more crudely, meat wagons. Cassie was the
(05:23):
Hearse Girl of the Year two years in a row.
Mickey was known for driving around Denver and his hearse,
for participating in Zombie Apocalypse cosplay events around town, and
for playing a bit part In a locally produced grindhouse
movie called Killer Inc. About a tattoo artist who doubles
as a serial killer. About an hour into Killer Inc,
(05:45):
Two women, one blonde, the other burnette, pull into a
wooded area and a black hearse. The hearse was one
Mickey owned at the time, with a biohazard symbol painted
on the hood. Jamie, Mickey's second wife, played the burnette.
In the scene, both women get out of the hearse.
(06:06):
I thought you were tired, Mickey's x Jamie says, as
the blonde woman takes off her top. The two women
then start making out in the back of the hearse
as Mickey, baseball bat in hand, walks up and watches
Peeping Tom style. He's flipping the bat in his hands
as if getting ready to attack the two women. Just then,
(06:30):
Killer Ink's main character sneaks up behind Mickey, snaps his neck,
grabs the baseball bat, clubs one of the women, and
then strangles the other with his bare hands. Mickey didn't
get a single line in the movie, and honestly, his
scene didn't make a whole lot of sense. But then
(06:51):
no one watches a grindhouse movie for the story. I
guess anyway back when Mickey fixed Cassie's ear. This is
what she knew of him her sky zombie cosplay role
in that Grindhouse movie. And at that time, Mickey had
a girlfriend and Cassie a fiance, but that didn't stop
them from getting together. Yep. It was nuts because we
(07:13):
didn't date, we didn't anything. We moved in together immediately,
and then he at my grandma's house asked me and
Miriam was in a couple of days. Typical military men,
which is unfortunate. Not all of them, but a lot
of military men. I want to marry right away because
(07:33):
I've had happened before. I should have learned the first time.
Those are at least real military men. Cassie's infatuation with
Mickey wasn't based on any physical connection. I didn't even
find him attractive the whole time, which was crazy. The
infatuation was based on drugs, which Cassie says Mickey provided
to her. My drug of choice was heroin and xanax
(07:56):
at the time, and on money, which Mickey appeared to
have lots of in cash. And he laid down all
this money on his boat like ten gran and he
took a picture of it and he send it to me,
and he was like, do you want to come home
to this every day? And I was like, oh, you know,
all stupid about it. Some people are like that. I
was very shallow with the money. Cassie says Mickey didn't
(08:19):
work much, not any sort of official job anyway, and
the drugs he provided to her acted as a kind
of leash. He could pull her in any direction he
wanted to, so long as he had pills to offer.
Their relationship could get pretty dark and violent. Many of
Cassie's allegations about Mickey in this episode are impossible to corroborate.
(08:41):
In most cases, she and Mickey were the only witnesses
to the alleged behavior, But the claims Cassie makes about drugs, money,
and violence are similar to others about Mickey that can
be found in criminal and civil court files over the
last two decades. Some of these claims are also documented
in the FBI's internal reports about Mickey. Throughout their relationship,
(09:05):
Cassie says Mickey was controlling. For example, he would go
to the strip club when she was working and count
the number of private dances she did in a night,
and then calculate how much money she should have and
if I was short or like got too much, he
would flip his shit. Oh it was bad. Any money
she earned was his, none of it was mine. And
(09:28):
when we would go shopping, he'd be like he'd drained me.
And by the time I'd get to a store, I
wanted Cassie, that's stupid, and it's just like we're at Claire's.
Let me get some cool I'm a girl and I'm
a stripper. I want some glitterary perfume or something that's stupid.
And you know you're gonna guys are gonna want you.
That's my job. I want them to want me so
(09:49):
I get money. I hope I'm asking this. Was he
sexually or physically abusive. Yeah, So he would always and
this is this is gonna make me laugh, because I
do get nervous. I have a nervous laugh. He would
always say, I don't know why, but I have sex
in my sleep. And I would say, huh, that sounds weird.
(10:10):
I was like, what dreams? You know? I can understand that,
And I could understand fantasizing and you know, you're you're
you're a human being. We all do it. But no,
he would literally have sex with me while I was
asleep and I would catch him. He would be wide awake,
and I'm just like, I'm not I'm not a woman
that's like I need consent. You know, you're my husband,
(10:31):
totally cool. I tell every boyfriend and whatever this, You're
totally fine. Do whatever you want when I'm asleep. So
it wasn't like a rape thing or anything. I'm not
I'm not hashtag me too. I'm not doing that. But
I will say it'd be weird because he would only
want to do stuff when I was like asleep, and
I feel like that's so he could do what he wants,
(10:52):
get it over with and that'd be it. And whenever
I wanted anything sexual, it was just like I don't
want to right now. Phsd's acting up, YadA, YadA, YadA.
But if you go do anything like you're cheating, I'm like,
how is porn cheating? How is anything you know besides
another person cheating. I mean he met like masturbating with yeah,
(11:14):
and I was like, you know, I was a lot
younger at the time too, and you know, being on
drugs and just you know, you you want to do that,
and even even anybody come on, you know, thirty forty
fifty doesn't matter who you are. There's times when you're
not getting anything. If you're not happy, you're gonna want
to master ate. And he would, like he would, he
(11:36):
would just abuse you for that. He had abuse it
for being on your period. I remember he used to
have me put up a little red string when I
was on my period because he hated the word period.
He hated me talking about it. I had to go
to therapy just to be able to learn how to
talk about my female organs again and use the word.
(12:00):
And even I feel disgusted saying period because of Mickey.
So yeah, he would, um, he would. He would say,
women who bleed are disgusting, And I'm like, we all bled, dude,
how do you think you were made? How do you
think you were on this earth ruining shit? Like, oh,
(12:21):
I mean, this is all classic woman hating stuff. But
Cassie stayed, I don't really know what I want was doing,
to be honest, but it was just like I was
constantly getting spoiled too, and I know that was probably
dirty money. I think, you know, he never worked, but
it was like constantly, you know, every finger I had
(12:43):
had a ring on it every finger, and one time,
out of curiosity, I went to like, you know, get
it tested. All of them were real, you know, real gold,
real diamond. It's like, wow, did did he ever say
you know where he would have gotten the money to
bude us? Yeah, because once in a while I would ask,
and if the gift was really big, I wouldn't even
(13:04):
I'd be like, whoa, I'm not even gonna ask. I
don't want to know. I don't want to know. It's
kind of like that would be the good Fellas. You're like,
what is he doing? But I don't know because I'm
happy and I got nice dresses and shit, so I
don't want to ask, you know, just go on your day.
Mickey would tell Cassie that his father had owned a
taxi company and left him a bunch of money, but
(13:27):
that never made sense to her because Mickey's money came
in erratically and always in cash. So one time I
remember we go to some type of like court house
slash like just police station thing and a rappahole, and
I remember I waited in the car again and he
(13:50):
came back out and he was just like, here's a
new iPhone. And I was like, huh new iPhone, huh,
and it was a government building that he got it from. Yes,
And at the time I'm just like, oh iPhone, like
you know. But then also I'm like, did he go
in there? Because it was like evidence, you know, it's
a police station. Cassie began to suspect that Mickey was
(14:13):
working with the cops and that's how he was getting
his money more after the break so, Cassie began to
suspect that her new husband was secretly working for the police,
(14:36):
or maybe Mickey just liked pretending to be a cop.
Cassie wasn't sure. Mickey, remember, has been accused multiple times
in criminal and civil court proceedings of impersonating a police officer.
One time, we went downtown and we were near the library.
There's this like water fountain thing by the library, watching
(14:57):
homeless people and like drug dealers hang out there, just
kind of the spot to be when you're doing bad shit.
So we're down there. I'm kind of like, you know,
why are we down here? I remember I was smoking
weed eat a hot dog, and I'm like, huh, this
is weird. Why are we down here? And I keep
asking him, you know, why are we down here, and
his excuse was always like, oh, I'm gonna take you
(15:18):
somewhere to eat, but I'm want to cruise around and stuff.
There was this guy, you know, he like rolled up
to the window and he's like, hey, you guys want
to buy anything, And Mickey was like he went to
grab towards his shirt like he had a little intercom
speaker and went, there's some activity going on down here,
and he is some like weird code. I don't remember
the code, so we'll just go with four eight nine
(15:39):
to something and the guy said whoa whoa wall put
his hands up the drug dealer and he goes, dude, please,
I'll do anything. And then Michael pulls out his iPad,
grabs it, takes picture of the dude and it is
like again reaching for like his upper shoulder, and he's
like nine oh two, we gotta da da datta da
(15:59):
cha cha chid to the left, to the right, boom
boom bam, and the guy just he runs and Michael
literally were in my Honda Civic chasing this dude and
I'm like, why are we chasing this guy? Like what
do you do to you? And he would just like
shut up. Cassie like just shut up, like he wouldn't
tell you, he'd just shut the fuck up, like and
he would like abuse you while you're like, you know,
(16:21):
like shut up, like use force, like press you down
on your seat type, like you know what, you're about
to get in a car accident and somebody called you back.
He would do that in my car. It wasn't his car.
I remember at that moment, I was like, he just
impersonated a whole as Coop and I was right, there,
can I get in trouble? Like what in the fuck?
(16:43):
Like whoa? And the way he did it was just
so nonchalant and so natural. He's done this before and
he's doing it again. Mickey had an obsession with the Punisher,
the Marvel Comics anti hero, and He's not alone. The
Punisher logo, a skull with long teeth, has been widely
adopted as a symbol by police officers and pro police
(17:05):
Blue Lives Matter demonstrators. It's not uncommon these days to
see T shirts and flags adorned with the Punisher logo,
an American flag and a thin blue line. During the
summer of twenty twenty, the Punisher became a symbol of
police solidarity against the Black Lives Matter movement that was
critical of American policing. Some of the January six insurrectionists
(17:26):
also wore clothing with the Punisher logo. Anyway, back to Mickey,
anything you see, the Punisher logo was on it. Anything
you see, And he would always wear the Punisher necklace
even when he took a shower or a bath, like
never came off, just like a big kid in the
worst way, in the worst way. It's awful. Cassie says
(17:50):
that obsession bordered on identity crisis. He literally thought he
was the Punisher and the Punisher's badass, so that's a disgrace.
But yeah, no, he definitely thought that was who he was.
And that's the hard part, right when you're dealing with
the psychopath or somebody who's narcissistic, they believe themselves so
(18:13):
much that they will believe their own lies to the
point where it becomes true. They lie to themselves so
much to where if they were to take a polygraph,
they'd pass it because he believes he's the Punisher. If
you ask, are you the Punisher, Michael Vindecker, yes, fullhearted me.
He would pass with flying colors because when you believe something,
(18:37):
you become that thing. And narcissists, that's the number one
rule that they have. It's like fight club, you know,
that's their number one rule, believe what you think. In
the comic book series, The Punisher is a marine, but
Mickey I couldn't find any record of him ever serving
in the US military, and as far as I can
(18:58):
tell from court records, Mickey's never been one for steady
employment either. He was divorced twice before he married Cassie,
and then one of those divorce filings, Mickey listed that
he was unemployed and had been unemployed. But people who
knew Mickey also told me that he was flushed with cash,
always with wads of money in his pockets. Where did
(19:20):
the money come from? Why do you have so much money?
And he's like, you like money, that's why he got
with me, and it's just like, okay, you have a point. True. However,
now is the time to ask questions because I could
show you where I get mine. I bust my ass
literally on a poll. What are you doing? I remember
(19:41):
when I said that, he got really pissed and left again,
took the car again, and I would just go walk
to friends houses because it's like you took my car,
so I would just go walk and it was like
he had come back in the night and just flip
it around. I need to do that creepy shit where
(20:01):
he'd like sit in the corner with the cigara and
all dark so you can just see like the cherry
of it all read, and then he flipped the line
on them, but like where have you been, just as
he did when he introduced himself to the racial justice
protesters in twenty twenty. Mickey wore military fatigues when he
was married to Cassie. He had patches all over his shirt,
the kind that looked like they have to be earned
(20:21):
in battle. He spoke some Kurdish and he told Cassie
he'd fought in the Rock. But she soon learned that
his uniform and patches weren't exactly standard issue. He'd buy
his uniform at the local army surplus store, and those
patches he'd get them printed at a local shop. We've
got to calar on the middles a lot because they
(20:41):
knew like screen printing and patches and stuff. And he's
always like Kurdish this, Kurdish that, And there was actual
like Kurdish people who worked there. Oh, they hated him
because they were like, this is illegal. But he pumped
him up so much and made him believe that he
was actually Kurdish like because he learned the language. One day,
Mickey began telling Cassie that the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting
(21:03):
force in Iraq, had called him up for duty. She
had to buy his plane ticket, which even then she
thought was strange considering they was being called up. But whatever,
Cassie thought, maybe that's how it works with the Kurdish forces.
So Mickey the Punisher in his own mind, flew to
Iraq to join the Peshmerga fighting the Islamic State. But
(21:26):
Mickey's tour in the Middle East didn't last long. I
spoke to several people who were with Mickey in Iraq,
and few of them wanted to be publicly associated with
him in any way. You know how when you first
meet people or either go to a job, you know,
everyone wants to do like a little round table, introduce
yourself stuff like that. Well that's what we did. One
(21:46):
of these guys agreed to be recorded if I didn't
use his name. He remembered meeting Mickey when he first
arrived in Iraq, and Mickey, out of everybody, he was like, yeah,
I'm retired sergeant major of Army, which already knew that
was bullshit because the dude was only like forty years old,
forty two something like that. But he was like, yeah,
(22:09):
I was retired from the French Foreign Legion after ten years.
So obviously all that time doesn't actually add up. How
much combat did did Mickey c in A Rock and
Syrie when you were with him, Oh the sea, So
our very first fight, firefight, he showed up very very late,
(22:31):
like right at the tail end of the firefight. I
mean he was going around telling everybody he was a
demolition specialist. Dude was going around literally cutting wires off
of IDs, so he could have got anybody's killed, you
know in the vicinity. Was he a skilled fighter or
(22:53):
you know, like, how would you despire them? No? Okay,
call of duty. There you go that he got most
of his training from video games, I would say, more
or less TV. When Mickey was with the Peshmurga and
I Rock, he'd posts pictures of dead bodies on Facebook.
(23:14):
Sometimes he'd pose with them. These pictures always seems suspicious
to me. Because the bodies Mickey would pose next to
appeared to have been dead for a while. I found
a guy named Alan Duncan, a Scottish volunteer fighter for
the Peshmerga. At the time I contacted him, he was
in Kiev helping Ukrainian forces as a medic during the
(23:35):
early months of the Russian invasion. Power things in Key
for you, Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's fine. It depends
on the part of the city that you're in. You know,
the sorry rens go off every now and again, but
there's no blinkket carpet and they seemed very target at
the minutes. You know. Duncan knew about Mickey's tour with
the Peshmerga, and he told me that it wasn't uncommon
(23:58):
for Americans to come to a rock, take pictures and
then return home as if they were war heroes. There
is this really suspicious photo that I saw he had
posted where it looked like it was it was I
assume it was an ISIS fighter, could have been another fighter,
but this guy had clearly been shot in the head
and his body had been out for quite a while,
like just based on the deterioration, and Mickey is standing
(24:21):
over it, like he killed the man. It's like, I
think that body's been there a while, you know. It's
like it did seemed like that that he was just
trying to kind of, you know, take pictures that put
himself in the in the action kind of thing. Pretty much. Yeah,
he probably went down a few days later. I thought,
probably what it is, probably there for a couple of hours,
and then they took him away back wherever he was
(24:43):
living up. This is all in line with what Cassie
was hearing. Back in Denver. Mickey had bragged to some
of his Kurdish comrades that he was married to a
model back in the United States, and some of those
men looked up Cassie online and started messaging her. And
it was pretty cool. And I was having people send
videos if I love you, kill a Cassie and I
(25:03):
love you, you know, in their language. I was felt
so loved, and they would tell me things. They'd be like,
Mickey is like a volunteer. Mickey is just having fun
all days, sleeping, like telling me the truth. In Iraq,
the American volunteers began complaining about Mickey in private conversations
(25:24):
as well as on social media. One of Mickey's fellow
American fighters posted the Facebook fucker is a liability to us.
We would like to ship his ass out. After just
two months in a Rock, Mickey arrived back at the
Denver Airport. He said he was honorably discharged, portraying himself
as a war hero. Once back in the United States,
(25:44):
Mickey would tell everyone he could that he was a
Kurdish diplomat and that he had diplomatic immunity. He uses
that twos and now at the restaurants. If this food
comes back wrong, he'll be like, I'll beat your the
shit out of you. I got the diplomatic community any
chance he gets. That word comes out of his mouth
like it's saliva. And Mickey also started providing information to
(26:09):
a small local police department outside Denver. He began giving
officers a lot of tips, and that started to annoy
the cops. That's that's the break. After Mickey had returned
from a Rock, Cassie kicked drugs and left him. I
(26:32):
got out, I got my cats. Didn't even grab my stuff.
I just grab the cats. Mickey through everything in the trash.
It's like whatever, it's material, I'm not me and my
cats we're not material. Well, we're literally gonna die. We
need to get out. But a couple of weeks after
leaving him, Cassie needed to return to Mickey's apartment to
(26:53):
collector mail. And this is gonna sound very petty and stupid,
but I'm a female and I was waiting for a
tooth lightning kit. I paid a lot of money for it,
and all my mill is still going there, all my checksum.
I ended up ordering like another debit card too that
got sent there by accident. Had no choice but to
go and get my mill. Cassie asked a friend named
(27:16):
Travis to accompany her. As she and Travis entered the apartment,
Mickey was holding the mail in his hand. Cassie remembers
Mickey asking, this is what you fucking came for, right?
He was like, you left me, You left the best
thing of your life, like you and now you're not
leaving at all. And he goes in to his room,
our old room, grabs his gun, and I'm just like, oh,
(27:39):
so I turned to leave. Travis leaves and I am
just like, oh shit, oh this is it. I'm done.
This is exactly what I was afraid of. I'm done
over mail, and so he gets the gun. Michael gets
the gun. There was a wooden table in the little room,
(28:00):
and we're both standing there and I'm just at this point,
I'm like, fucking do it. I'm tired of your ship.
Just do it. Like you've ruined me so much, just
kill me, please, Like I was begging him to just
do it, kind of just testing him to fucking do it.
I kept saying that, and he was like, if I
cannot have you, nobody's gonna have you. You're gonna die today.
(28:23):
And all I remember is he picked me up, but
my throat body slam me onto the table like literally
like wwe type shit, And I blacked out for a
little bit and then I woke up to the gun
and him just right on me, like like straddling on
top of me with this gun. And I remember I
was I was sitting there and I was like, don't
(28:46):
die like this. Don't let Michael be your ending. He
already fucked it up enough. So I took everything in
me and I got up and got somehow I kicked
the back door out and like I started screaming bloody murder,
like help me, he's gonna kill me. Local police from Sheridan,
a city just south of Denver, responded to nine one
(29:09):
one calls about Cassie screaming as she ran out of
the apartment. The officers who responded were wearing body cameras.
Cassie was sitting in the driver's seat of her Honda Civic,
holding the back of her head and complaining of pain.
I went inside. He like walked on the doors. I
tried to leave and start getting violins. If you're not
gonna leave, I'll kill you. I'll kill you, So then
(29:29):
I please leave it. Tell him twenty times, please back up,
Please leave? What's his name, Michael? What's his last name?
Michael Windecker? Want to go? Where's Michael at now? He's
like he threw me against the table. Michael Windecker, He's
inside the apartment. Through cheers, her voice cracking with emotion
and fear, Cassie told police the story you just heard.
(29:51):
She went to get the mail. Mickey got a gun
and then grabbed her and slammed her against the table.
Why do you think able to style? Okay? The police
officer then walked up to the apartment where Mickey was waiting.
In the video, I see he's wearing black pants with
a wallet chain and a black short sleeved shirt with
(30:14):
a punisher logo printed on the upper left side. On
Mickey's bedroom door was another larger logo for the punisher.
Inside the bedroom, police officer saw what appeared to be
a gun. Hey, why don't you come out of her?
You get guns in there? It looks like an air
fifteen right there. No, that's my airsoft, Mickey said. An
(30:35):
airsoft rifle looks similar to a real one, but it
fires pellets instead of bullets. Mickey told the police officers
that Cassie was lying. He didn't assault her, she assaulted him.
In fact, he said he was so sure this would happen,
that she'd assault him and then claim he did it,
that he secretly set up a camera to record Cassie's visit.
(30:57):
But oddly, the camera only recorded the first minute after
Cassie arrived and then shut off comes down. I try
to record it with my camera right there. For some reason,
they don't record the amount of time while I'm sitting
down and shut off. I don't know why. So then
hafter it's all said and done, she comes over and
I'm like, look, I told her, I still love you.
(31:18):
I'm still worried about you. Look, I know you're on drugs,
You're fucking these other guys, you're doing prostitutions. I say,
I still care about you, but you know this is
not cool. She starts getting like she gets defends it
the entire time. I'm like, cass I'm I'm trying to
defense it. I'm trying to talk to you, be civil here.
So literally, I'm sitting. She literally blows the head gasket.
(31:39):
So I stand up. Now, literally I'm this far away
from her the whole entire time, not twenty minutes. She
blows a head gasket. Well, that's why I'm trying to waiting.
So she I'm standing this far away from her. I
stand up at the chair and I'm like, Cassie, I'm like,
the fuck are you talking about? I'm trying to be
cool and civil here. And she's like whatever, bro, fuck
you da dada, and she starts going off the fucking chain.
So then she starts fucking screaming. She tosses the fucking table,
(32:02):
starts fucking throwing the fucking chair. I lay fell over
the fucking chair. Okay, that's how I got the She
got the claw mark on me and on my fucking face.
I literally followed her in the chair. I get up,
I'm like, what the fuck. Then she goes to fucking
come out. What do you mean you got the claw
mark by falling off the chair. I got cover because
she called me. She fucking called my fucking face in
my hand. Okay. So then she starts fucking screaming da
(32:25):
da da da Da da da da da. Then she
fucking goes fucking ape shit ballistic, tossing the fucking table,
and then she's like next day, No, I'm over here
like this. Lewis down here and she's like, fuck you, dadda.
She grabs the fucking table, throws the fucking table, goes
down with the fucking table, gets back up, starts fucking screaming.
(32:46):
I'm like what the fuck. She storms out the door,
So I try to build. I'm like, Cassie, what the
fuck is wrong? If you calm down, don't act like
a goddamn heathen. So I go outside to talk to
her and she starts running down the street screaming of
bloody fucking murder. I'm like, what the fuck. One of
the officers shined his flashlight on Mickey's neck trying to
(33:07):
find the claw marks he was claiming to have. They
couldn't see any. That's when the officer asked Mickey a
specific question. So, Michael, you always call us for everything.
Why didn't you call us for this? Because I already
saw she was on the phone with you. Guys, how
do you know she was on the phone with us.
I could hear screaming outside. I can hear her. That
doesn't make any sense. You call us for everything, the
(33:30):
police officer told Mickey. What he meant was Mickey would
constantly call the Sheridan Police Department, claiming to have information
about crimes. His calls were so frequent that the officers
knew Mickey. Mickey reported all sorts of alleged crimes, most minor.
He reported a verbal disturbance when two of his neighbors
were arguing. He reported a kid who was shoplifting, He
(33:53):
reported a couple trying to steal a motorcycle, and on
and on call after call to police. Yeah, Mickey was
a snitch, and so if Cassie really assaulted Mickey, police
officers appeared to reason, why wouldn't he have been the
first one to call them to report the incident? They
(34:14):
concluded inside the apartment that Mickey was the one who
assaulted Cassie. All right, what's your phone down for me? Yeah,
you're under arrest. Turn around, but chance bend your back.
Her spreads feet for me. Putch hands together, alish fingers.
There you go, so she should not be arrested for anything.
No thrown in a jail cell. Mickey tried once again
(34:41):
to demonstrate his value as an informant, presumably to help
him wriggle out of his current predicament. A police officer
walked up to Mickey's jail cell door, the body camera
recording the interaction. Somebody one of the officers said that
you had to speak to me about a murder. What's that? Okay? Well,
(35:03):
actually you'll need to probably talk to two detectives about that.
Well it's tough to hear. But Mickey says, when I
get out, I'll go to the scene where the murder happened. Okay,
So it didn't happen in Sheridan. This has nothing to
do with Sheridan, Okay, all right, hang tight, all right.
(35:25):
Mickey appeared to be offering information for sale. Meanwhile, Cassie
was taken to the hospital and within like thirty minutes
that I was in the hospital, I get a text
from Michael, Hey, bitch, I'm out, and I'm just like
the cops were still they're getting statements from me, and
(35:47):
I'm like, excuse me, hello, hello, Like when I show
them in the text and they were just like, we
don't know how he's out. Mickey was never charged with
a crime for his alleged assault of Cassie, and Cassie
continues to live in fear that one day he'll try
to kill her. Everybody excuse me as this very you know,
(36:08):
I go by kill a Cassie. Oh she's strong, she's
never been through it really much. You know, she's she's
a bad girl, you know. Oh yeah, I am terrified.
Every day when I hear a motorcycle, my ibs flares
and I'm like, where's the emmodium? Like you gotta laugh
at it, because what else you gonna do. I had
(36:29):
told Cassie that the reason I was interested in Mickey
was because he'd worked as an FBI informant who had
been infiltrating racial justice activist groups. I asked her if
she found that surprising, I'm not surprised. If anything, I
was like, Wow, he's still doing that shit. He didn't
calm down. I'm not gonna lie as a little selfish.
(36:51):
I was like, at least he's staying away from me.
You know. I felt really bad for the people that
I knew he was screwing over Everything he does just
gets expunged because he's working for the cops, and it's
freaking terrifying. He can literally murder somebody and they're like, well,
you're giving us good information. We're just gonna sweep that
(37:13):
body under the rug. Because it happens a lot. Happens
way more than we think. People get sweeped under, you know,
put in the dirt, get cremated, and then they wipe
their hands, they move on because it's a good dirty cop.
And that's exactly what's going on. Mickey's long history of
deception and violence. It didn't appear to give the FBI
(37:35):
any pause when they signed him up to spy on
protesters around Denver in the summer of twenty twenty, and
it also didn't appear to concern federal agents that Mickey
became a leader in the very movement he was supposed
to be spying on. The activists even had a nickname
for him. They called him Drill Sergeant. Can I feel
(37:56):
so a jickin here? You? That's in the next episode.
This is Trojan Hearse, Season one of Alphabet Boys. Alphabet
(38:18):
Boys is the production of Western Sound and iHeart Podcasts.
The show is reported, written, and hosted by me, Trevor Aaronson.
For more information about the series or to drop us
a tip, head to our website Alphabet Boys dot xyz.
You can contact me on Twitter and Instagram at Trevor Aaronson.
We believe this story is important and could result in
(38:39):
changes to FBI oversight and public policy. But to have impact,
people need to hear the story, so we need your help. First,
tell your friends about the show. Personal recommendations are the
best recommendations. Second, spread the word on social media. At
alphabet Boys dot xyz. You'll find FBI undercover recordings and
secret documents. You can share stuff the government never wanted public. Third,
(39:04):
help us ride the algorithms by leaving a rating or
review on your favorite podcast app that helps other people
find us. And thanks for listening.
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