THE MURDER OF SONNY LISTON-Shaun Assael
True Murder: The Most Shocking Killers
Dan Zupansky
4 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2017
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On January 5, 1971, Sonny Liston was found dead in his home—of an apparent heroin overdose. But no one close to Liston believed that his death was acci\xaddental. Digging deep into a life that Liston tried hard to hide, investigative journalist Shaun Assael treats the boxer’s death as a cold case. The result ia page-turning who\xaddunit about a glorious and grimy era of Las Vegas.
Middle America was flocking to the Strip, transforming it from an exclusive playground for the mob to a mecca for corporate dollars. But the city was also rotting from within. Heroin was pouring over the border from Mexico, and the segregated Westside was on the cusp of a race war. The cops, brutally violent, were barely holding it together.
Driving through town with the top of his pink Cadillac down, Sonny Liston was the one celebrity who was unafraid to bridge the two sides of Las Vegas. Cashing in on his fading notoriety in the casinos, he was dealing drugs, working for a crime syndicate, and trying to break into Hollywood—all with a boxer’s faith that he could duck any threat, slip any punch. Heroin addiction was the only knockout blow he didn’t see coming.
THE MURDER OF SONNY LISTON: Las Vegas, Heroin, and Heavyweights-Shaun Assael
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode is brought to you by Royal London, the UK's largest mutual, life, pensions and investment company. |
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| 0:30.0 | This episode is brought to you by Royal London, the UK's largest mutual, life, pensions and investment company. |
| 0:38.0 | What even is a mutual anywhere? Well, Royal London is customer owned. |
| 0:43.0 | It has been since 1861. They work to support customers and wider society, |
| 0:48.0 | to help build financial resilience, while investing responsibly, to help build a future worth returning into. |
| 0:54.0 | into. It really is Efron's business. Learn more at RoyalLondon.com slash Mutuality. |
| 1:02.0 | This episode is brought to you by Royal London, the UK's largest mutual, life, pensions and |
| 1:07.8 | investment company. What even is a mutual anywhere? Well Royal London is customer owned. It |
| 1:13.5 | has been since 1861. They work to support customers and wider society, to help build financial |
| 1:19.6 | resilience, while investing responsibly to help build a future worth retiring into. It really |
| 1:25.3 | is Efron's business. Learn more at RoyalLondon.com slash Mutuality. |
| 1:30.1 | You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history, and |
| 1:46.5 | the authors that have written about them. Gacy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker, D.C.K., |
| 1:54.6 | every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers |
| 1:59.3 | in true crime history. True Murder, with your host, journalist and author, Dan Zufanski. |
| 2:07.1 | Good afternoon. On January 5, 1971, Sonny Liston was found dead in his home of an apparent |
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