402: The Reno Redfield Heist w/ Gavin Schmitt

Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast

Erik Rivenes

True Crime, History, Education

4.7 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The 1952 burglary of eccentric multi-millionaire LaVere Redfield’s mansion in Reno, Nevada was the largest of its time, but also a comedy of errors. "Masterminded" by a French-Canadian woman with a questionable relationship to Redfield, it also included a failed safecracker and a crew of Italian-American hoodlums from the Milwaukee underworld. My guest is historian, author and podcaster Gavin Schmitt, and he shares details from his book Big Safe: The Milwaukee Crew and the Reno Redfield Heist. The author's website: https://gavinschmitt.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers podcast.
0:08.0	I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers
0:11.9	in the history of the world.
0:13.7	These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Magellan, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark,
0:18.4	and so many other famous and not so famous adventures from throughout history.
0:22.8	Go to Explorespodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app.
0:27.0	That's the Explorers Podcast.
0:28.3	That's the Explorers Podcast. Welcome, everyone to another episode of the Most Notorious podcast. I'm Eric Riveness.
1:02.2	Thanks for tuning in. And it is so great to have Gavin Schmidt with me today. He has researched the dark side of Wisconsin history for decades and has written multiple
1:13.0	books related to Wisconsin true crime, including the book that is the topic of our interview today.
1:19.7	Big Save, the Milwaukee crew and the Reno Redfield Heist. And by the way, he knows an incredible
1:26.9	amount about the Milwaukee Mafia, so much so that he hosts the Milwaukee Mafia podcast and Fox City's Murder and Mayhem podcast.
1:37.8	And it is so great to meet you, Gavin. I'm surprised we haven't connected before because we're neighbors in a sense.
1:45.2	I'm a crime guy in Minnesota, and here you are in Wisconsin.
1:48.1	Yeah, my pleasure.
1:49.1	Yeah, I thought about that too.
1:50.8	I was like, you know, I'm not a college sports fan, but if I was, I'd give you some crap.
1:56.1	So screw you, gophers.
1:58.9	No, but I don't care.
2:00.6	It's not really my thing.
2:02.3	Yeah, I was thinking about saying something derogatory about the Packers.
2:07.2	Yeah.
	...

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