>> the fastest racer on earth... >> my dad was the first american to ever go over 400 miles an hour. >> ...won't let his son take the wheel. >> i wanted to beat him. >> you wanted beat your father. >> at everything. >> but when the legend meets a tragic end... >> everything changed for the thompson family. >> ...he leaves behind one heck of a challenge. >> danny, you didn't dress me up like this for nothing, did you? >> we want you to get the real feel for what it's like to sit in a 400-mile-an-hour car. put your hand here and on your other side so you can let yourself down slowly. [ door creaks ] [ wind howls ] [ thunder rumbles ] [ bird caws ]

>> i'm jamie colby on a beautiful, snowy day about 40 miles east of telluride, colorado, here to meet a man determined to set the record straight with his strange inheritance, a legendary drag-racing hot rod. >> my name is danny thompson. when my father was killed, he left me a car named "challenger 2" plus a big piece of unfinished business. >> danny, i'm jamie. >> so nice to meet you. welcome to colorado. >> inside danny's garage, i get my first look at his strange inheritance. >> this is challenger 2. this is the beast. >> oh! challenger 2, a 50-year-old supercharged, piston-powered racecar -- all i can say is... god bless america and racing, danny! kind of looks more like a spaceship than a car. >> kind of like a spaceship,

trying to make it be as aerodynamic as possible. >> the story of this racecar starts with this little traffic cop, mickey thompson, danny's dad, born in 1928 in alhambra, california, a boy who loves tools more than toys. >> he took apart the family washing machine because it had a gasoline-powered engine. >> fox sports vp erik arneson. >> he took apart his sister's roller skates to get the wheels. mickey was going to use whatever he could to make something he was playing with go faster. >> as a teen, mickey gets his hands on an old model "a," soups it up and hits 89 miles per hour. he's hooked. in 1945, 17-year-old mickey is idling at a traffic stop when he spots a blonde in the next lane. he decides to impress her with his wheels. the cute blonde is up for the challenge. >> this guy looked like he was really hot stuff. i said, "oh, okay,

we'll give it a go." light changed, and i put my foot on the pedal, and it surprised him so much that he hesitated for a second, so i naturally got ahead of him. >> she makes him eat her dust, and they become high-school sweethearts. you spent an awful lot of time with cars. >> yeah, i loved it. we used to meet at the drive-in with all these guys, and that's all they talked about, cars, not girls but cars. >> the teenagers marry in 1947. they spend their time building fast cars so mickey can set records with them, like the one he sets in his innovative slingshot dragster, 151 mph. meanwhile, in no time flat, their first kid, danny, comes along. >> danny was born right into the heart of the drag-racing part of mickey's career. >> he was my idol, racing this and doing that and inventing that. that's what my dad did. >> to pay the bills and fund his racing dream,

mickey takes a part-time job as a track manager at a drag strip in long beach. it's there that 9-year-old son danny starts entering events in quarter midget-class racing on a kids' track behind the grandstands. >> early on in life, danny looked up to his father in a way that he constantly felt like he had to prove himself to his dad. >> one day at the midget track, danny is sure he's earned dad's approval when he scores a big win. not so fast. what happened that day? >> he come running over, and i thought he was coming over to congratulate me. i won the race. i was standing there with the trophy girl. i was happy. >> but evidently there was an accident on the track, and another child injured his back, and it was announced over the pa system that danny had injured himself, and mickey came running over. >> but your dad thinks that you're the kid that got hurt? >> yep, and that feeling in his heart of me laying there hurt, that did it. he just came and said, "that's it. you're done. you're never racing again ever in your life."

my dad took my car away, sold it that night. >> he was just panic-stricken. he'd been doing racing, and he knew the dangers. >> a lot of people got killed in those days, and he just didn't want that to happen to his own son. >> but mickey is still willing to risk his own life. in fact, he's setting more and more records as a hot rodder. he breaks many of them at the bonneville salt flats, a 40-square-mile dry lake bed at the utah-nevada border. it's here that the world land-speed record is set, a blistering 394 miles an hour, john cobb, a brit. mickey is determined to beat it. >> british had the speed record on american soil, so he says, "going after that record will be my challenge," and that was the birth of challenger. >> in 1958, mickey and his best friend, mechanic fritz boyd, start brainstorming plans for a racecar with four whopping piston engines.

>> so no rockets, no jet motors. this is all piston-powered, the same kind of car that you would drive to work. they were mechanical geniuses, but they had to come up with transmissions and rear ends and fuel tanks and all of these things. this was a dream. this was a pipe dream. >> some 120 miles west of... >> finally, in 1960, mickey and challenger 1 hit the salt flats. ♪ he spits off from the starting line... then rockets through the finish at a speed of 406.6 miles per hour. >> my dad was the first american to ever go over 400 miles an hour, and he did that in 1960 in a car that he built in his garage. bonneville is what made my dad an american hero. >> but mickey's achievement comes with an asterisk. bonneville rules require two trips on the 8-mile course. official results are the average of the two speeds

to account for wind resistance. on the second race, challenger 1's engine craps out, so mickey starts again from scratch, this time spending 8 years to finance his vision of the ultimate streamliner, one with enough juice to smoke through the finish line more than once. >> the frosting on the cake was going to be challenger 2. >> mickey plans to break the land-speed record during the 1968 speed week at the bonneville flats, but a freak rainstorm turns the flats back into a lake. the event is canceled. it rained? >> it rained. >> the speed week cancellation turns into one of life's fateful detours for mickey. at the time a growing number of deadly racing accidents leads major sponsors to exit the racing world, so mickey now in his 40s, switches gears, going from the man behind the wheels

to the man behind the deals. he launches a high-performance tire company and an entertainment group that holds indoor racing shows. he and judy divorce, and in 1971, he marries 24-year-old trudy feller. as for challenger 2... >> so that car went in a trailer, and it sat in a trailer for years. >> until the day danny gets a mind-blowing call from dad offering the challenge of a lifetime. >> it took 25 years for him to say, "danny, this is your shot." the answer after the break. hi.i just wanted to tell you that chevy won a j.d.power dependability award for its midsize car-the chevy malibu. i forgot.

chevy also won a j.d. power dependability award for its light-duty truck the chevy silverado. oh, and since the chevy equinox and traverse also won chevy is the only brand to earn the j.d. power dependability award across cars, trucks and suvs-three years in a row. phew. third time's the charm...

♪ >> so the bonneville salt flats serve as a backdrop in which hollywood blockbuster? >> danny thompson always wanted to be like his dad, mickey, a drag-racing legend, but mickey, knowing the dangers of the sport, forbade his son from racing. until i left home, and i started racing motorcycles, and i didn't tell him. >> against dad's wishes, danny begins indy car racing, too. >> i had my own career, but not from anything

he gave me. he owned a tire company. when i needed tires, he made me buy the tires. >> in time, danny marries and has his own son, travis, but he still harbors resentment toward his father. >> i wanted to beat him. >> you wanted beat your father. >> at everything. >> then, in 1988, to danny's surprise, mickey calls his son out of the blue and offers him the chance to do just that. >> he says, "i want to run challenger 2." and he says, "i would like to have you drive it." sorry. after all of these years, the number-one thing, he comes back. he wants me to drive it. >> what changed? >> maybe he just finally got to that tipping point where the scales just rolled the other way, and he decided this was the time. >> danny and mickey set about getting the mothballed challenger 2 ready to run the bonneville salt flats. >> bonneville is a whole unique character all to itself,

so when we're talking about of salt, this is it right here. here's a chunk. >> that's the surface? >> that's the surface. now running at bonneville is the same as driving on slushy snow. that's how slippery it is. >> what does it take to run on this kind of salt? >> this was a tire that goodyear designed for my dad. as you can see, there's no tread on it. tread weighs a lot, and as it starts spinning, the centrifugal force, the tire gets bigger and bigger. these tires will grow 2 inches bigger at 400 miles an hour. >> in once race? wow. >> so a lot of really technical things that were developed just for bonneville. >> and as they prepare for the big run, danny, now 38, finds himself rebonding with his 57-year-old father. >> he'd call me at 1:00 in the morning, and he'd say, "i got this idea." he wouldn't let you sleep. >> there's another surprise call from mickey coming soon, but this one will stop danny in his tracks. >> i can't ever remember worrying about my dad. i never worried about him

coming home. the answer when we return. marco: there's a lot of fear of coming back to school. i wasn't sure if i could do it.

i'm a 40-year-old man that walked in there to get his high school diploma. it was very hard for me but the teachers, the counselors they help you. one of the teachers was ms. araceli. ms. araceli she gave me direction. every single time i had a question, she'll put down whatever she's doing and she'll come over and she'll sit there with you until you get it. thank you ms. araceli, i know you make a difference in people's lives because the person and teacher you are. i wanted to be here because i wanted to thank for helping me get a beautiful gift. fifty-percent of getting your high school diploma is walking through those doors. the other fifty-percent is doing the work. getting your high school diploma, it is a life-changing experience. it really is. narrator: find free adult education classes near you at finishyourdiploma.org ♪(somber piano)

♪you may say i'm a dreamer ♪but i'm not the only one ♪i hope some day you'll join us♪ ♪and the world will live as one♪

♪ >> it's "a," when in 1954, pontiac introduced the bonneville special. >> danny thompson's childhood dream is coming true, a chance to get behind the wheel of his dad, mickey thompson's, prized racecar. >> my dad and i were going to

do this as a father-son project. here we are, team thompson. >> then danny receives a frightening call from mickey. he warns him to be extra careful and watch over his wife, valerie, and his newborn son, travis. mickey is spooked about a bitter dispute with a former business partner named michael f. goodwin. >> michael goodwin's way of doing business was very different than mickey's way of doing business. lawsuits went back and forth, and the more that mickey won, the more michael got upset. >> what did he say? >> travis had just been born, and he told me i needed to watch valerie and travis very closely. and when my dad said that, i paid attention because my dad was not afraid of anything. >> on march 16, 1988, in l.a. just around dawn, mickey thompson is walking to his car with his wife, trudy, when two men on bicycles approach. >> they had trudy out of the car in the front of the driveway and executed her,

and then they went up, and they shot mickey multiple times. mickey and trudy die on the scene. that morning, danny gets a call telling him to head to his dad's house right away. >> police were already there doing the investigation, so his dad just kind of laid in the driveway. his hero, the man that he saw as unbeatable, undefeatable, that changed everything for him that day. >> how could somebody that's invincible be gone? >> police believe michael goodwin contracted the hit in an act of revenge, but it takes more than a decade to arrest him. >> michael goodwin stood as jurors walked into the pasadena courtroom. >> goodwin is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. >> it was 18 years till they finally put the guy in jail. >> by this time, danny has retired from racing, thrown everything into storage, and moved here to colorado. as the years click by, you'd think challenger 2 would become just a relic of racing's past. instead, it's a nagging piece

of unfinished business for danny thompson. do you hear your dad in your head? >> yeah, he'd be wanting to kick my buttif i didn't do i, if i didn't get it done. >> what's your "strange inheritance" story? we'd love to tell it. send me an e-mail, or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com.

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♪livin in this crazy world ♪so caught up in the confusion♪ ♪nothin' is makin' sense ♪for me and you ♪maybe we can find a way

♪there's got to be solutions ♪how to make a brighter day ♪what do we do? ♪we've got to give a little love♪ ♪have a little hope ♪make this world a little better♪ ♪try a little more ♪harder than before ♪ >> now back to "strange inheritance." >> when danny thompson's father, racing legend mickey thompson, is gunned down in 1988, danny inherits dad's stable of racecars, including one they hoped would set the land-speed record, challenger 2. >> when my dad died, it all went away. so the car went back in the trailer. i didn't want to do it without him. >> but by 2010, danny is nearly as old as his dad was when he was murdered, and he's starting to look at things a little differently. he wants back in. >> i always wanted to go to indianapolis and be an indianapolis car driver, and i didn't make it,

and the bonneville thing has always been in the back of my mind. >> the "bonneville thing," a quest that began at the salt flats in 1960, when mickey drove 406.6 miles per hour, the record at the time for a piston-engine vehicle, if only that vehicle, challenger 1, had not broken down during the required second run. since then, a few, but only a few, racers have beaten his dad's mark. that's why, says danny, on the 50th anniversary of mickey's historic feat, he pulls challenger 2 from storage to see if he can get it in shape to officially enshrine a thompson in the 400-mile-per-hour club. >> there's only been 12 people in history to go over 400 miles an hour with a piston-powered car, so this is a pretty elite group that i'm getting in step with. >> the first crew members danny recruits -- his 31-year-old son, travis,

and his wife, valerie. >> i think finally he just decided, "you know what? i can't not do this." >> there's a lot of similarities between my grandfather and my dad -- the drive, the determination and just a love of going fast. it's almost genetic. >> travis signs on sponsors to help foot the bills, but the lion's share comes from danny and valerie's own savings. >> everything we have -- and, valerie, i love you for this -- is in that car. >> nobody believed that he could really do this. as the time passed, he found individuals to help him complete this car, the best people that anyone could ever ask for. >> finally, after 6 years, in 2016, challenger 2 is ready to race. danny, who's now pushing 70, and his 50-year-old challenger will need to be in top performance mode.

>> so what have you done to your dad's challenger 2, the one that you believe will get you that record? >> so the body shape and all that is almost the same except for 32 inches added to the back. two engines still, but now we're making 5,500 horsepower. >> that's legal? >> it's heaven! i'm a 5,500-horsepower sandwich! >> it's an extra tight squeeze when you have to dress like the michelin tire man. >> we want you to get the real feel for what it's like to sit in a 400-mile-an-hour car. >> okay, the moment of truth -- can i fit in that teeny, tiny space? >> first thing, steering wheel is coming off. >> uh-huh. >> next thing is, put a leg all the way over and into the seat. there you go. put your hand here and on your other side so you can let yourself down slowly. >> so i'm fitting. i'm fitting. >> you got it. >> i did! there were doubters among the crew that thought i couldn't do this.

>> you don't have much room between your head right there. now imagine having a helmet on, a hans device, and gloves on. >> you know what i wish i had on? a blood-pressure cuff because my heart is racing. i can only imagine the thrill that you have at the start of that race. >> august 14th, 2016, the weather at the bonneville salt flats clear and dry, 97 degrees. ♪ as danny rockets across the desert floor, he's hoping to break the current land-speed record in a piston-powered vehicle, 437 miles an hour. but is his 50-year-old strange inheritance up to the bonneville challenge? >> wow, look at it go. >> he clocks in at 411 miles

an hour, good enough to join that 400 club if, per racing rules, he can do it again tomorrow. but remember, it's the second run that foiled his father. danny is back the next day. anything less than 392 miles per hour will be disaster. he'll fall short of a 400 mph average. and to beat his dad's mark, he's got to hit 402 or better. there he goes. his official average time, 406.7 miles per hour. that tops his dad by just a hair. >> after 60 years, we beat him by one-tenth of one mile an hour. that was one of the most fulfilling days of my life, bar none. >> but it still doesn't quench

the need for speed danny inherited from his dad. he tells me he'll keep hauling challenger 2 back to bonneville until the world record is officially his. >> how many more years of racing you have? >> what, is my wife back there? >> in his heart, you know, he's a racer. that desire and that passion to always go faster is always going to be there. >> danny swears the utah salt flats are heaven to him, but not so much during the 2010 bonneville world finals. he's driving this souped-up beauty, at the time the fastest mustang ever, 260 miles an hour. the mustang flies out of control. i mean, really flies. it lifts off the sand, flips end over end in the air for 1,100 feet, and tumbles back to earth. danny emerges unscathed thanks to the racecar's awesome safety features. just a day in the life

of a hot rodder. i'm jamie colby. thanks for watching "strange inheritance." and remember -- you can't take it with you. help! get me out! i'm stuck. >> he risks his life to take down gangsters... >> your uncle met al capone and even spent time with him? >> he lived with him. >> he was like the james bond. he was the serpico. >> ...and helped crack the crime of the century. >> "the kidnapping and murder of charles augustus lindbergh jr." >> wow! >> this will forever change how this story will be viewed. >> but to his family, he's a total mystery. >> a real shadowy figure. >> very shadowy. >> now his heir is on a mission to honor him. >> are you obsessed with this? >> absolutely. >> as we go undercover with the mob. >> you know, i didn't do it. [ cell doors slam ] ♪

i'm jamie colby, in laguna beach, california, about an hour south of l.a. i think my favorite "strange inheritance" stories are about regular folks who discover something in mom's attic or grandpa's basement that not only changes their lives but reveals something i never knew about american history. >> my name is marty dolan. for decades, a few boxes collected dust in my mother's attic. when i opened them, i discovered my family's link to some of the most sensational crime stories of the 20th century. >> i meet marty, a 70-year-old retired anesthesiologist. hi, marty. i'm jamie colby. >> welcome to my home. >> he tells me this true detective story begins in 1960, when marty's great-uncle, mike malone, a longtime irs employee, passes away.

marty's grandmother, molly, heads to st. paul, minnesota, to collect her brother's personal effects. it's there she makes a bizarre find under the pillow -- a gun. >> no serial numbers on the gun. they were etched out. >> why would he, as a government employee, have a gun with no serial number? >> that's a good question. i don't know. >> molly also inherits a pair of handcuffs and several boxes of official-looking papers. it all winds up in the crawlspace of the family home in new jersey. >> and no one really took it upon themselves to dig into these. >> when molly dies, in 1977, marty's mother, dolly, inherits the boxes, and they continue to collect dust in an attic. >> my parents's generation -- they didn't do anything with it either. >> in the mid-1980s, the inheritance moves to the attic of marty's sister, eileen. she and marty become curious about those documents. >> i said, "you know, for the sake of completeness, maybe, we'll take a look at things."

i didn't know what they were or what they were about, 'cause i was young when he passed away. >> how long had they been sitting at that point? >> 25 years. >> how many documents are we talking about? >> thousands of pages. ♪ >> a lot of it looks like dull audit reports, but, then again, some of the files don't seem to belong. one says, "regarding alphonse capone" and another that reads "the capone cases." whoa! this is incredible. >> how about this one? "the kidnapping and murder of charles augustus lindbergh jr." >> that's amazing. marty wants to find out why his great-uncle would have these case files. his first step -- re-examine everything he thinks he knows about mike malone. do you remember much about uncle mike? >> not really. he'd show up, periodically, to visit my grandmother. >> what did he look like? >> he had deep-set eyes and he was mysterious-looking, honestly. i mean, he had this fedora on and an overcoat, even in the summer times. >> a real shadowy figure.

>> very shadowy. >> did he participate a lot with the family? >> no. >> over the years, "mysterious mike" keeps his distance, until the day he dies of a brain aneurysm, in 1960. 25 years later, marty learns it ain't easy to dig up details on the secretive life of his great-uncle and the curious documents he left behind. marty even hires a private detective. >> no one really could give me a feel for what i had. i felt like it was a dead end. >> so marty packs away his uncle's documents and tosses them back into storage. and there they sit for decades. decades. >> yeah. i had my fill of them, basically, and i had a life to live. got married and had my children and started practicing anesthesia. >> after their mother dies, marty and his sister officially inherit their great-uncle's belongings. then, in 2011, just on a whim, marty does an online search of

his uncle's name. after decades of wondering, in the pre-google era, some clues finally surface. it seems uncle mike was no ordinary taxman. >> he was like the james bond. he was the serpico. >> and the papers he left behind hold long-hidden secrets. >> it's a total bonanza. he's opening up aspects that nobody even knew about. >> here's a "strange inheritance" quiz question. while new york and chicago are well-known as towns corrupted by the mafia, the first mob family in america traces its origins to which u.s. city? the answer after the break. ♪ (daniel jacob) for every hour that you're idling in your car, you're sending about half a gallon of gasoline up in the air. that amounts to about 10 pounds of carbon dioxide every week

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>> so, the first mob family in america traces its origins back to which u.s. city? it's "b." during the late 1800s, an influx of immigrants from italy made their way to new orleans, bringing sicilian gangs with >> retired doctor marty dolan is starting to realize that his strange inheritance -- secret papers, as well as handcuffs and a gun with no serial number -- may reveal his great-uncle mike malone's true identity -- battling organized crime in its heyday. >> the united states had a problem. we were about ready to fall off

the cliff. >> paul camacho, a retired special agent in the irs criminal investigations division, tells me that, in the 1920s and '30s, organized crime plagues america. bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, and worse. gangsters like al capone, waxey gordon, and nucky johnson are getting away with murder. >> and as these gangsters grew bigger, it was overwhelming. you have gangs controlling aspects of commerce. >> all that commerce changes the gang-busting game. in 1927, the supreme court rules money made from crime could be taxed. that means crooks who don't declare their ill-gotten gains on their federal returns are committing serious crimes. enter the irs. >> they decided they were gonna use the criminal statutes of the internal revenue code to go after corruption and tax evasion. >> the agents charged with

pursuing these gangsters -- an obscure division of the irs called the "t-men." "t" for treasury department. the t-men. >> yes. >> lots of people have heard of the g-men. >> right. >> less of the t-men. why is it so few people know? >> the t-men, out of principle and investigative prowess -- they didn't talk about what they did. they just went on from one case to another. >> t-men like michael francis malone, born jersey city, new jersey, 1893. >> poor irish from the streets of jersey city. he learned italian, yiddish, greek, a bit of spanish, and, obviously, hobokenese and jerseyese. >> when mike's 20, he joins the army, serving with the flying cadet squadron during world war i. after he returned stateside, he gets married and starts a family. then tragedy strikes. >> two of his children died. >> oh, my. >> after the death of their second child, there was an estrangement that never really got better. he became this nomad and put his

life at risk. >> mike joins the bureau of investigation, the precursor to the fbi. he quickly makes a name for himself, then jumps agencies to the t-men. malone's new job -- go undercover with the mob. that's pretty risky stuff. >> it was extremely risky. he really -- his life was put in danger. >> in 1929, malone is put on the case to take down public enemy number one, al capone, the brutal chicago mob boss known as the original scarface. malone leaves behind notes from his undercover work. marty shares them with irs agent paul camacho, who is shocked. >> it's a total bonanza. he's opening up aspects of the case that nobody even knew about. >> so, they send him in on a pretty dangerous assignment. what do they tell him to do? >> they knew what capone did, but they didn't really know how and they didn't really know who. who were the specific players, the details of how they did it?

>> according to the case-file notes that marty inherited, malone goes by the alias mike lepito, posing as a philadelphia gangster on the run. >> even though he was as irish as guinness stout, he can pose as a greek. he can pose as an italian. he was this chameleon. >> he had the whole setup done, from the fedora to the double-breasted suits to the silk underwear, even with the initials m.l. on it for mike lepito. >> mike checks in to the lexington hotel in chicago, capone headquarters, and slowly infiltrates his gang. your uncle, mike, met al capone and even spent time with him? >> he lived with him. >> for a year plus, malone secretly collects evidence that capone and his cohorts are making a lot more money than they're telling the irs. he keeps detailed notes on capone's spending sprees. $7,200 on furniture in a single order. nearly 39 grand paid to the

lexington hotel for long-distance phone charges. 1,000 bucks a week spent on food. all key evidence leading to the arrest of capone on tax-evasion charges. >> it really is an amazing feat of undercover work. >> even more amazing, after the arrest, malone doesn't break cover, remaining by the gangster's side during his 1931 trial. but as this handwritten note reveals, his time as a capone confidant abruptly comes to an end -- in the courtroom, after malone notices something odd about capone's bodyguard, philip d'andrea. "i noticed a man carrying a gun." in the courtroom? >> in the courtroom, with bullets. >> oh, my gosh. the whole courtroom could have been shot up. mike grabs d'andrea, pulls him outside, and arrests him. now everybody knows mysterious mike is not a mystery. >> absolutely. his cover was blown. >> he could have been killed.

>> certainly, but capone said, "you took your chances and you won. i lost." and mike said, "you get a lot farther in life with a badge than just a gun." >> capone is sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. and he's not the only crime boss mike malone helps take down in his 40 years of undercover work. >> they smashed the capone organization. they smashed the new york organization, waxey gordon. they took down nucky johnson. >> it reminds me a lot of "boardwalk empire." >> sure. same team, same chief. mike was involved. >> and marty discovers that his great-uncle's undercover work isn't limited to bootleggers and gangsters. he also plays a key role in cracking the "crime of the century." it's all there in marty's strange inheritance. >> and i positively guarantee that this will forever change how this story will be viewed. >> here's another quiz question. more than 80 actors have portrayed al capone on tv or in

the movies. which of these tough guys never did? the answer when we return.

♪ >> so, which actor never portrayed al capone on tv or in the movies? it's joe pesci. de niro played capone in "the untouchables," and robards in "the st. valentine's day massacre." ♪ >> marty dolan is unlocking the secrets of these original documents left behind by his great-uncle, mike malone, which tell the story of the crime-fighting division of the irs, called the t-men. >> they cleaned up the wild,

wild west in chicago, took down the gangsters in new york city, cleaned up the politicians, and dealt with the hollywood elite. >> including charlie chaplin, who had to pay more than a million bucks in back taxes. the case files also include new personal details on the kidnapping of the 20-month-old son of charles lindbergh, the first man to fly nonstop across the atlantic. lindbergh's worldwide-hero status made this the crime of the century. how would you describe the magnitude of the lindbergh case for the time? >> the world was obsessed with this case. >> robert zorn is the leading authority on the kidnapping. >> this was the great manhunt in american history. >> the investigation begins in march 1932, when charles lindbergh jr. is abducted from his crib at the lindberghs' estate near hopewell, new jersey. the crime goes unsolved and shocks the nation. lindbergh's father-in-law,

former u.s. ambassador to mexico, dwight morrow, had strongly distrusted j. edgar hoover. so lindbergh chooses to collaborate with the t-men, including marty's great-uncle, mike malone, over hoover's g-men. >> i have 80-some-odd pages of daily memorandums so detailed, you can actually deconstruct the crime. >> marty shares the lindbergh documents from his strange inheritance with zorn. was it a "wow"? >> absolutely. and i positively guarantee that this will forever change how this story will be viewed. >> the biggest revelations come from accounts of behind-the-scene interactions with lindbergh himself, who's known for his extreme privacy. the documents depict a distraught man clinging to hope. >> for example, lindbergh brought a machine gun onto a boat. there was a man who was coaxing him, saying that he was in touch with the kidnappers. that's completely unknown to history.

>> he was desperate. >> he was. i'm convinced this man would have done anything to save his child. >> the case file even includes details about lindbergh's diet, the clothes he wore, and how, out of agony, he stopped shining his shoes. >> these are the kind of details that put you kind of on the ground with lindbergh as he's wrestling to solve this problem. >> it's mike and the t-men who convince lindbergh to pay the ransom in rare gold certificates and documented bills. the money is painstakingly tracked, as this note shows. >> the ransom money was $50,000. i have the complete accounting of that to $49,986. >> that forensic accounting helps apprehend bruno richard hauptmann, who's found guilty and executed in new jersey's electric chair in april 1936. unfortunately, by then, young charles jr. had been found dead.

>> nobody would have been caught had it not been for the t-men. >> there's no denying marty's strange inheritance is a groundbreaking historic find, says ray sherrard, a retired criminal-investigation special agent. how unique are the dolan papers? >> there's only one in the world. >> how do you know that these are a "one of," as we say in the collectors world. >> i was looking for those in 1980, when i was sent back to washington to write our agency history. and there was a little three-drawer file cabinet, broken. and i went over and looked, and there was just a mess of papers in there, no organization, no nothing. >> that's it? >> that's when i said, "that's it? so,where's the rest of the stuff?" >> how did mike get these documents? did he steal them? >> no. these records, i'm convinced, were given to him by elmer irey, the chief of the unit. i truly believe that he wanted to have mike tell the story of the t-men. >> and now marty believes that job has been left to him. >> are you obsessed with this? >> absolutely. >> so, how does marty discharge

his duty? and what reward will he collect? you've got to line up to find out. you know i didn't do it. [ cell door slams ] what's your strange-inheritance story? we'd love to tell it. send me an e-mail or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com. man: i got scar tissue there. same thing with any dent or dings on this truck. they all got a story about what happened to 'em. man 2: it was raining, there was only one way out. i could feel the barb wire was just digging into the paint. man: two bulls were fighting, (thud) bam hit the truck. try explaining that to your insurance company. woman: another ding, another scratch. it'll just be another chapter in the story. every scar tells a story, and you can tell a lot more stories when your truck is a chevy silverado. the most dependable, longest-lasting, full-size pickups on the road.

i want some more what's he doin? but, he can't look at him! it's just not done! please sir. i want some more more? more? more? more? please sir he has asked for... thank you what? well he did say please sir yes he did and, thank you yeah. and thank you he's a wonderful boy (laugh) a delightful boy

(all boys): thank you, thank you, thank you.

♪ >> now back to "strange inheritance." >> marty dolan has finally uncovered the true story of his great-uncle, mysterious mike malone, one of the original so-called t-men, irs agents who took down some of america's most notorious gangsters, including al capone. and what's your goal? >> to get this story told. i want my strange inheritance to become america's inheritance. >> marty thinks he's found just the place to make that happen, with the opening of a new mob museum in las vegas, which is my next stop. this is one cool museum.

senior director of content geoff schumacher shows me around. this is where the story of organized crime comes alive. st. valentine's day massacre -- the wall? >> these are the actual bricks from the wall against which the victims were shot. >> here, you'll get the inside scoop on america's most infamous gangsters. just watch your step or you may find yourself behind bars. you know i didn't do it. [ cell doors slam ] the mob museum also highlights the good guys, like the t-men. so marty agrees to sell mysterious mike's smith & wesson revolver to the museum for >> what's unique about the gun is that the serial number has been scratched off. >> and you wouldn't expect it from a law-enforcement officer. >> no. but this is what the gangsters would do, and he was an undercover agent. >> marty also loans out mike's handcuffs, which he believes were used in the 1939 arrest of

atlantic city mob boss nucky johnson, and several of his never-made-public case files. what does it mean to the museum to get these mike malone documents and artifacts from marty? >> the information that he has assembled is astonishing. so we're really proud to be able to show this in the museum. >> and marty's efforts to honor mike malone aren't done yet. >> i'm trying to get him the presidential medal of freedom, the highest civilian award that can be honored. >> and why do you think mike is deserving? >> my uncle put in 47 years of service to this country. but he did this with great risk to his life, great honor to the country. >> are you obsessed with this? >> absolutely. i truly believe this story of courage and character could be used by this country -- nowadays especially. >> a hero helps take down notorious crime bosses, serving america while remaining in the shadows, until a few dusty, old

boxes reveal the true story of an unsung gangbuster. what do you think mike thinks about all this? >> i think he would be a bit embarrassed, because he kept things to himself. but hopefully he's got a smile on his face. >> maybe he still wanted to remain...mysterious. >> probably. >> before we go, one more tale from the mike malone case files. after taking down al capone, mike sets his sights on infamous bootlegger waxey gordon. he heads to a lake in upstate new york, where waxey's rumored to be hiding. when mike arrives, it's pitch-black. he slips and falls in a puddle, making a huge commotion. all the nearby cabins turn on their lights to see what's up, all except one. in an instant, mike knows that's where waxey's hiding. once again, mystery mike gets his man.

i'm jamie colby. thanks so much for watching "strange inheritance."' and remember -- you can't take it with you. ♪ >> democrats want judges who will rewrite the constitution and destroy your freedom. >> the senate should reject on a bipartisan basis any justice. gerri: breaking news this morning. president trump gets a new supreme court judge to replace anthony kennedy. a fiery rally on who he may nominate. trade was that the story coming out. a wild ride for investors at the tao of 300 points within end of the day down 165. look at what is driving all this volatility which seems to be