Today is Saturday, February 8th, 2020.

On this day in 1983, Champion Racehorse,

Shurgar was kidnapped during during an unsolved nighttime raid on his stable in Kildare, Ireland. Welcome to today in True Crime, a parcast original.

Today we're covering the theft of Shurgar, a thoroughbred horse worth over $15 million.

Let's go back to the evening of February 8, 1983,

just after 8 p.m.

relentless freezing rain pounded on the roof of the stables as James Fitzgerald closed the door to Shergar's stall. Fitzgerald was the head groom at Bellimenny's stud farm and lived with his family in a cottage across the road.

He closed up the stables and quickly returned home, hunching over against the pounding rain.

There was no security at the Stud Farm,

save for a thick wooden gate at the end of the entrance road.

The heavy rain and darkness made it difficult

to see anyone entering the farm property.

At 8.40 p.m. a man in a long coat and hat knocked on Fitzgerald's cottage door.

His son opened it, surprised to have a visitor at such a late hour.

As soon as the door creaked open, the man burst inside and pinned the boy to the floor.

Fitzgerald heard the commotion and rushed downstairs.

Two more men burst into the house, wearing Balaclavas to cover their faces, and waving big black

handguns at the terrified family.

One of the masked men eyed Fitzgerald and aimed his gun at the terrified studgroom. In a low menacing voice he said,

We've come for Shurgar.

Two of the men ushered the family into the dining room at gunpoint, while the other men took Fitzgerald out to the stables. They forced him to open Shurgar's stall and put a leather halter over the

horse's head. Shurgar was a gentle and obedient horse and Fitzgerald was a

...