Author Charles Brandt discussed his investigations of Jimmy Hoffa through nearly five years of recorded interviews with Frank Sheeran, who claims to have handled more than 25 hits for the mob, and for his friend Jimmy Hoffa. Brandt said that he met and befriended Sheeran after acting as his attorney on an early release from a jail sentence. Sheeran asked Brandt to help write a book about his role in Hoffa’s disappearance. The phrase "I heard you paint houses" (which is the title of the book) was the first thing Hoffa said to Sheeran when they met on the phone. The phrase is Mafia slang for the blood that splatters on the wall when a victim is killed. He said Hoffa hired him to be his enforcer with the assistance of Sheeran’s mafia "godfather," Russell Bufalino.
Brandt recalled that when he mentioned the JFK assassination to Sheeran, he "turned to stone" and for the next eight years, would not continue the interview. Part of the plan for killing JFK, Brandt’s contacts suggested, was to get Lyndon Johnson in the White House, where he would fire Bobby Kennedy, who was famous for prosecuting organized crime. Bufalino became alarmed when Hoffa decided to try and get his Teamster president job back after his release from jail, and began implicating the Mafia. Brandt said Bufalino told Sheeran to carry out the hit because Hoffa trusted him and they were close friends. Sheeran had no choice, since he would have been murdered if he didn’t follow orders. A forthcoming Netflix film based on Brandt’s book will be released late in 2019.
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In the second half, author and paranormal investigator Rosemary Ellen Guiley helped to celebrate the holiday season by discussing Christmas customs and legends as well as her research into angels. Guiley said that "we have blended a lot of things together over centuries" for the present celebration of Christmas in the United States and "absorbed old pagan rituals and festivals." Many of our present customs and rituals were codified in the 19th century, such as the tradition of the evergreen tree, which Guiley said was begun during the reign of England’s Queen Victoria when Albert, her German husband, imported the custom in 1840. She said that the figure of Santa Claus is also an "an amalgam of different figures," such as Saint Nicholas, who gave gifts and redistributed wealth to the poor, and Father Christmas, who dressed in green and represented the Winter Solstice.
Guiley then described her research into the angel phenomenon. She said that as a child, she "always felt the presence of angels" as a protective force. She believes angels "are real beings and have a particular role in creation as we do," intervening on our behalf to provide unseen guidance and assist us in exercising our free will. She also mentioned the phenomenon of the "mysterious stranger," who will appear when there is a problem, help to solve it, and then disappear without a trace, such as a medical professional who will assist in a miraculous cure, yet no one in the hospital seems to know who they are. As far as the idea of miracles, Guiley’s opinion was that they are possible, saying that "the universe can reorganize itself in dramatic ways for the individual, as well as for the collective."
News segment guests: Dr. John Curtis, Mike Bara