03x04 - Death in a Vegas Motel

[bunniefuu]

[announcer on TV] From
Las Vegas, Nevada.

It's the Buffalo
Jim Buffalo Wrestling Show.

[rock music playing on TV]

He was Buffalo Jim,
and he was a light of joy and life.

No matter where
you go, "Buffalo Jim!"

[Jennifer Barrier] The Las
Vegas Review-Journal voted him

Las Vegas's Most Colorful Character
in 2005.

He even b*at out
the current mayor.

- Peace and love.
- [customer] We can do that.

- From the heart.
- [customer] Thank you.

[Buffalo Jim Barrier] From the
heart, my friends.

This weekend, outspoken enemy of the mob
Buffalo Jim Barrier,

was found dead in
a local motel room.

There were no obvious signs of foul
play, but, tonight,

Barrier's friends and relatives
are voicing their strong suspicions.

My family, we all
believe he was m*rder*d.

[reporter on TV] Despite what he
thought were ongoing threats to his safety,

Jim Barrier
refused to back down.

[Jerica Barrier] We thought it was,
like, a setup.

It didn't feel right.

[Jennifer Barrier]
I know that there's people out there

that want the
truth as bad as I do.

We deserve
justice for our father.

[mysterious music playing]

[tense music playing]

[Lewis A. Roberts]
On April 6th, 2008, at 11:30 a.m.

at a Motel 6 on Boulder Highway,

housekeeper knocks
on the door to room 105

to check to see if it's okay
to clean the room.

When she opens the door,

she notices a gentleman
asleep on the bed.

She comes back at 12:30
and notices that he's still asleep.

At 1:10 p.m., the housekeeper returns
and finds him in the same position.

Another housekeeper shakes him
to see if he's awake,

at which time they
believe he's dead.

The violent crimes detectives responded
out to the scene in the early afternoon.

The body was found lying face up
on the bed with his shirt open,

with a pillow behind his head,

and his pants down
around his ankles.

There was a white powdery substance
found on his beard and on his shirt.

The nature in which the body was found
was a little suspicious

because there wasn't a clear sign
as to why he was deceased.

At some point, they identified him
as being James Barrier.

Went by the name of Buffalo Jim.

I'm Buffalo Jim, and
it's another Friday night, brother,

here in Vegas Town!

[reporter on TV]
Barrier was a true Las Vegas character,

a pro-wrestler, auto mechanic,
political candidate…

Here you go, sir.
Buffalo Jim Barrier.

[reporter on TV] Barrier
built a gigantic,

animated,
smoke-belching papier-mâché buffalo.

I thought the people of Las Vegas
would like it, brother.

[Jennifer] My father,
Buffalo Jim Barrier, loved Las Vegas.

The bright lights

and the excitement,
the shows, the restaurants.

[Jerica] And he was someone
who was larger than life.

He was someone who just lit up a room
when he walked in.

Just a character.

His dad was a Cherokee Indian.

[Jerica] He would
educate us on our background

and always would
remind us, you know,

that remember your ancestors
and remember your bloodline lineage.

It's important.

His childhood wasn't very easy.

[wistful music playing]

[Jerica] He began working
at a gas station at the age of 15

with his older brother
doing oil changes.

He slept on the
gas station floors,

you know, and his older brother
was teaching him the ropes.

[Jennifer] He started off
doing mechanics out of his van.

And eventually made his way up
to the level he was at

with owning his own auto repair shop
that he started in the late '70s.

[phone ringing]

Auto & Marine, can I help you?

He fixed a lot of
incredible cars.

I know that he fixed a car once
for Wayne Newton and Robert Goulet.

I know there are celebrities
even in other states

that would bring their cars
to his shop as well.

He was a very caring
and hardworking person.

He always made sure
to provide for our family.

There were four
of us growing up.

I have an older
sister named Jessica.

Then I have a
sister named Elise.

And then our baby sister Jerica.

My mother was in love with my father.
She still loves him.

But in the year 2000,
my mother left my father,

and we moved to Seattle, Washington,
because my mom has a sister up there.

But, eventually,
Jerica went to live with my father,

and he treated
Jerica like a queen.

They went everywhere together.

They were just inseparable.

Every day was an exciting day.
Something new.

[all exclaiming]

He was so much fun.
He would always bring the excitement.

[all laughing]

[all] Yay!

And he always loved wrestling.

[commentator]
Fireman's carry!

Oh, man!

New Heavyweight
Champion of the World,

Johny "Psycho" Paine!

[Johny] Buffalo wanted to run
his own school and wrestling company.

I'm here tonight at the Buffalo Jim's
Pro Wrestling School, brother.

So he called it
Buffalo Wrestling Federation.

[commentator 1] Whoa!

[commentator 2]
There goes out the Tall, the Twin!

His style was badass!

A ring on every finger.

It's Friday night!

He would wear this bulletproof vest
that was literally made with b*ll*ts.

It's Buffalo Jim!

[Johny] Everybody
wanted to be up around Buffalo.

We're going to the top, Buffalo!

[Johny] Buffalo, he was just
cool to be with, and we clicked.

Became very good friends
right off the bat.

[commentator] He's
got him up! Body slam!

[Steve Miller] His television show
was on late-night cable TV.

And he had a tremendous following.
It was so camp.

It's another Friday night.
Buffalo Jim's Wrestling Show!

I'm here with Little Buffalo!

I decided that I'd participate
in his wrestling show for an episode.

[Buffalo Jim]
Get him, Buff!

The name Little Buff came about
because I was like his sidekick.

[Buffalo Jim] I
like it! I like it!

[Jerica] It was fun.

I mean, he knew
how to put on a show.

You never know
what's gonna happen.

[Jerica] It was
for about six years.

It was just him and I.

So we're standing in front of
my family's home.

Um, this is the home that we lived at.
This was my father's dream home.

He loved it up here.

He looked up at the
mountain, and to him,

he saw an Indian chief in the mountain,
and he was like,

"This is going to
be my mountain."

[voice breaking] And being back here now,
it just doesn't feel the same.

It's not the same without him.

[somber music playing]

[Jerica] That night,
my father mentioned

that he was going to go meet
with a friend for dinner.

He said, "I'll be
home by 12:00."

[suspenseful music playing]

[Jerica] Around


but he didn't reply.

I gave him another call
later in the evening,

and he didn't answer.

I tried calling my father
in the morning again,

and he didn't answer.

And that really
was alarming for me.

Like, "Dad's not answering his phone."
Like, "What's going on?"

[phone ringing]

[Jerica] So around, like, 2:00 p.m.,
I was with my sister Elise,

and I get a phone call
from a police officer

saying that she's
calling about my father.

And she said,
"I need to speak to an adult."

I was only 15.

Elise was 20
years old at the time.

So then I frantically
went to go get Elise.

Um, I turned the volume of my phone up
so I can hear the conversation,

and Elise took the call, and I heard
the police officer on the phone say,

"Your father is dead."

"And we need you to come to Motel 6
on Boulder Highway

to come and
identify the body."

During the whole
car ride there to the Motel 6…

we were just
crying uncontrollably,

and Elise was driving,
like, 100 on the highway.

And we were trying to make it there
as fast as we possibly can.

When we pulled up
to the front of the motel,

we both were approached
by a police officer from Metro

and invited into the motel room

to identify my father's body.

This is the room
that my father was found dead in.

He was right here on the stretcher
when we walked in the room.

He was in a body bag
and the bag was unzipped.

[Jerica] That moment…

is so painful to…

to remember and think about.

[Jerica] They found him
lying on the bed here.

[Jerica] We were in
a state of disbelief

that our father was lying dead
in front of us at a motel.

[breathes deeply]

[sniffling] It's, um…

It's really difficult to…
It's really difficult to see this room.

It was the last place I saw him
before the funeral,

and I gave him a hug.

The last time I touched him
was in this room.

And he was so cold.

And I just remember
that the police actually had to…

to tell me to let go
'cause they needed to take his body away.

I didn't wanna let him go.

[somber music playing]

The police didn't give us any information
and details of how he was found

or what happened to my father.

[Jerica] The police
handed my sister Elise and I an envelope

with his car keys, his wallet,

his cell phone,
and the receipt to the motel.

I immediately took out the phone

and thought that I should look
through the call log

to see who the last person was
that he had spoken to.

[intriguing music playing]

[Jerica] There was a message.

So I went ahead
and I listened to his voicemails

to find out who
had left that message.

This person may be the last person,
you know, that he spoke to.

In her message, she had said,
"Hey, Buffalo, this is Lisa."

"Is everything okay?"

And she had said it
with a tone of concern.

And so I called the number,
and the woman picked up, and I said,

"Are you Lisa?"

And she didn't reply.

I said, "Do you
know Buffalo Jim?"

And she goes, "I don't know Buffalo
Jim," and she hung up.

The woman that
spoke on the voicemail

was the same woman
that answered my phone call.

Why would she leave a voicemail
voicing concern for my father?

I was telling Elise, like,
"No, she knows something!"

"She knows something. She's lying.
How could she not know our father?"

"There's call logs here.
She left a voicemail."

[Jennifer] I was in California
on a vacation,

and I receive a phone call
from my sister Elise.

And she said,
"Jennifer, Dad was found dead."

"I just signed
off on the body."

I was shocked.
I just didn't know what to say.

[pensive music playing]

[Johny] It was weird 'cause Buffalo
hadn't called me for a couple days.

And then, phone rings.

It says "Buffalo Jim."

And when I picked it up,

it was his daughter.

She goes,

"Johny, Dad's gone."

To go from that
presence in your life all the time…

It was different
when everything just shut down.

Boom. Right there.

[Dr. Lary Simms]
On the morning of April 7th, 2008,

I was assigned
Mr. Barrier's autopsy.

Anytime anybody is found dead
in a hotel room,

it's out of their
normal environment.

If you're gonna be conservative,
which I was,

you would want to consider that
a homicide until proven otherwise.

Mr. Barrier had
no significant external trauma.

He wasn't sh*t. He wasn't stabbed.
He wasn't beaten. He wasn't strangled.

He had a white powdery substance
on his nose and on his beard.

There was a number of dr*gs
that I tested for

in addition to the
standard dr*gs.

The only positive was cocaine.

The minimum lethal
levels for cocaine

is kinda in the 100 to 200 nanograms
per milliliter range.

Mr. Barrier's blood level
was right around 250.

Mr. Barrier had
significant heart disease,

and his cause of death was a combination
of the heart disease and the cocaine.

I put his death between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m.
on April 5th, 2008.

Once we got the information back
from a toxicology report,

I was in so much shock.

And we couldn't believe it

because I never saw
him once use any drug

or drink any alcohol or party.

[Johny] Buffalo loved to go out
and have a great time.

But he never did
any dr*gs around me.

I have this memory in my mind
of Buffalo saying, "I'm eating clean,

and I'm in the best
shape of my life."

[Jennifer] My dad told me
that in the '80s,

he used to take some cocaine
every once in a while.

He was not proud of that,

but in my entire 24 years
of knowing my father,

I've never seen him ever do
any dr*gs of any kind.

If it was true that he had cocaine in him
and that he had done it himself,

I would be shocked.

That would have been
completely uncharacteristic

of the Buffalo that I knew

because Buffalo had a cocaine problem
in his early years

and was proud
of the fact that he had beaten it.

[Jerica] When we
went to identify his body,

there was no evidence of cocaine
in the motel room at all.

Where did this cocaine come from
and why wasn't it at the scene?

The white powder substance that was
found on his beard and on his mustache,

we don't even know
if it was really cocaine or not.

[Steve] They don't know
if it was straight cocaine.

They don't know if it was cut cocaine.
They don't know what it was.

All they said was it
was white powder.

Did anybody ever test the cocaine
that was on his nose,

or on his shirt, or on his beard
to see what the level of it was?

No.

We're sitting around
at the dining room table,

and my sisters looked at me and said,
"Jennifer, he was set up."

"What are we gonna do?
Is anything going to be done?"

Something was not right.

Foul play was involved.

[Jennifer] The
night my dad d*ed,

we know he received a voice message
from a woman named Lisa.

And I told the police,
I said, "Please look into this woman."

[Lewis] Detectives, at some point,
had tracked down

a young lady who was in the room with
Mr. Barrier on the night of his passing.

And she had told them that

she had a long relationship
with Mr. Barrier.

She stated she
called Mr. Barrier

and put a friend on the phone,
another male,

who wanted to discuss
selling him a motorcycle.

According to her statement,

she said that the reason
why she called him

was because she had
a friend with her in town from Arizona,

and he needed money
and wanted to sell the motorcycle.

However, that person
was never brought up ever again.

My dad somehow left the house,
decided to leave and go meet her.

[Lewis] Lisa said
she and Buffalo Jim

agreed to meet at the gas station
on Charleston Boulevard,

and then they drove to the Motel 6
on Boulder Highway.

The young lady said
that Mr. Barrier parked a Rolls-Royce

around the back of the Motel 6.

At 8:22, Buffalo Jim is seen
in the lobby of Motel 6

getting a key card for room 105.

And about 30 seconds later,

Buffalo comes shuffling
in front of the motel office very slowly.

And behind him
is a short female in silhouette.

And she's following him
three or four steps behind.

That was Lisa.

[Lewis] Lisa says
once inside the room 105…

they were playing a
sexual fantasy game.

The young lady stated that
Mr. Barrier was using a lot of cocaine

and acting paranoid.

She tried to calm him down by
telling him he needs to drink some water.

She says that Mr. Barrier
lays down on the bed

and he starts convulsing.

He's clutching his chest with both hands,
she says, a little like a mild seizure.

[suspenseful music playing]

She leaves Buffalo
Jim in the motel room.

Lisa said she took a taxi back
to the Chevron, where she left her car.

[phone ringing]

[Lewis] At 9:30, she leaves a message
on Buffalo Jim's cell phone

asking if he's okay,
but he never answered her back.

She mentioned that
she had known him for years.

So if you had known someone
for many years,

why wouldn't you call the police
if they have a seizure?

[Jennifer] And, also, I still wonder
about the guy that she was with

who wanted to
sell the motorcycle.

Where was this guy?

He was never interviewed.

Where is the motorcycle?

Another thing, my father checks in
at the motel at 8:22 p.m.

However, his room was accessed
seven minutes before he got there

by a guest room key.

There was a key swipe,
meaning the room had been entered

shortly prior to
Buffalo going in.

[Jennifer] It was late in the evening.
Could it have been a maid?

Highly unlikely.

Maids usually
work in the afternoon.

Also, on the key access report,

it identifies which
key is being used.

Like, if it's a manager's key,
a housekeeping key.

It said it was a guest key.

That tells me that someone was in the room
waiting for him to check in.

We just are in shock that
that wasn't investigated or looked into

as possible foul play,
and that is alarming to us.

[Jennifer] When my father
was found dead on the Motel 6 bed,

he had a one-dollar bill
in his wallet folded.

He never folded
money in his wallet.

My father was known
to carry large amounts of cash.

Why was my father left
with a one-dollar bill?

I had heard that
that's a very notorious mob hit sign.

The message behind having a dollar left
in his wallet was a message of,

"Hey, we got you.
Hey, this is a hit. Joke's on you."

[reporter] Barrier's longtime
friend, former councilman Steve Miller,

suspects foul play

and says Barrier had
received death threats in recent days.

[Jennifer]
Before he d*ed,

there were numerous
death threats my father had received,

and they came in various forms.

[Jerica] The first time I noticed
that my father was getting

thr*at letters and thr*at calls

was two years
before he passed on.

He'd get phone calls…

[phone ringing]

[Jerica] …at his office
from unknown numbers,

with a male
screaming in the phone,

"I'm going to k*ll you!
I'm going to k*ll you!"

I used to tell him, "Dad! Oh my gosh!
You're getting threats! Are you worried?"

He's like, "No, no, no, I'm just…"
You know, "I just laughed it off."

"I just have
to be careful."

"Watch my back."

He said, "I will not back down

and let anyone
take anything away from me."

The death threats
that my father received

were believed to come from
the long-standing feud

between a neighboring business,
The Crazy Horse Too, and my father.

The Crazy Horse Too
was a gentlemen's club.

[sensual club music playing]

[Steve] It was right next door
to Buffalo's garage.

And it was ultimately the most successful
club the city could ever have imagined.

It was owned by a
man named Rick Rizzolo.

[Gus] Rick Rizzolo had a reputation
around Las Vegas

as not a nice person
to folks that were adverse to him.

There was some rumors
of mob involvement with the Crazy Horse.

Some of it been
substantiated? Yes.

[Steve] The feud
started about maybe 1998

when Buffalo wouldn't
relinquish his space

for the expansion of
the Crazy Horse Too,

and it just got worse.

They wanna move me out,

and I've got four children to feed,
and I don't think so.

It was probably worth a million and a half
to move him out of there, correctly,

but they were offering him zip.

Buffalo says, "Why
should I move?"

"If you're not gonna
pay me, I'm staying."

And that's when the problems arose,
from that moment forward.

[Gus] He's got an
Auto Marine store,

and so, like any other mechanic,
people leave their car overnight.

[Jennifer] There was a lot of vandalism
that occurred at the shop.

My father would
leave for the night.

The next day he would come and,
you know, show up at the shop,

and cars were damaged…

tires were flattened.

My father would lose business.

It was an ongoing battle.

My father had to come out of his pocket
to repair any damages that had been done.

[reporter] Auto
mechanic Jim Barrier says

the topless club has brought nothing
but trouble to the neighborhood.

[Buffalo Jim] They put in
phony fire lanes,

use city parking enforcement to come by
and ticket only my customers.

[Steve] Over the years,

the club had begun to really
develop this reputation for v*olence.

There was a lot of talk about bouncers
who were b*ating up some of the patrons.

[reporter] One of the alleged
victims is this man, Kirk Henry, a Kansas tourist

who said he had his neck broken

after a night of lap dances
and drinking at the Crazy Horse.

[Gus] There was a host of things
that were alleged,

a lot of them documented
that were occurring.

And it got to the
point where now

Buffalo's got
a tremendous amount of damage.

And it was getting up there

in the hundreds of thousands of dollars
over time here.

And so with all this lost income
and the interference with his business,

and intentional infliction
of emotional distress on Buffalo,

I did file a lawsuit on Buffalo's behalf
for a million dollars on this matter

to try to get him some relief.

While this lawsuit went forward,

it came out that
sometime about 1995,

the feds had actually been taking a look
at the Crazy Horse

before Buffalo was even
having his battle with them.

[Robert Clymer] I was assigned to work
the organized crime program with the FBI.

And back in the '80s,
and '90s, and 2000s,

the mafia was involved in running
these various strip clubs around town.

Strip clubs make more money
per square foot than a casino.

For the most part, it's cash.
Nobody paid taxes on any of this money.

One of the places in Las Vegas
where you could find representation

of every single mafia family
in the United States

was in the Crazy Horse Too,

and Buffalo Jim's auto garage
was next door.

So we had an ongoing investigation
because they, at the club,

were involved in
tax evasion, extortion,

and various other types
of illegal activities.

[reporter] Numerous employees of
the Crazy Horse have come under FBI scrutiny.

The club's owner, Rick Rizzolo,

freely admits hiring people
with criminal backgrounds,

but he has denied engaging
in any criminal wrongdoing at the club.

[Gus] During that timeframe,
Buffalo was supplying the FBI information

about what was going on
at the Crazy Horse.

Buffalo Jim was sending us
boxes of evidence,

usually on a weekly basis,

for I would say
approximately two years.

He would write down what people told him
and send it in to us.

It was very helpful.

On February 20th, 2003,

we ex*cuted the search warrant
on the Crazy Horse Too.

We had two SWAT teams

and, like, 80 or 100 agents.

[Buffalo Jim]
It's been a long time coming.

There's been a
lot of problems here

since the day
the Crazy Horse Too moved in.

[Jennifer] After all these years,
they're finally getting this guy.

[Gus] Sometime in about 2006,

there was a plea deal reached

where Rick Rizzolo would plead
to income tax evasion.

And then in early 2007,

Rick Rizzolo was sentenced
to a year and a day.

[Jerica] My father felt relief
that Rizzolo had gone to prison,

knowing that Rizzolo had caused him
and my family much turmoil.

He always reassured me
that everything would be okay,

that I would always be protected,
and that I would always be safe.

[Gus] Unfortunately, Rick Rizzolo only
served ten months for good behavior.

So he got out in March 2008

and went into house arrest.

[reporter] Days before Buffalo
Jim's mysterious death in a motel room,

his longtime nemesis,
crooked club owner Rick Rizzolo,

was released
from federal prison.

Rick Rizzolo's house arrest
only lasted a week, till April 4th, 2008.

Buffalo d*ed on April 5th.

You know, Rizzolo gets out of prison,
and Buffalo's dead next day.

You know, "What the eff here?"
Something's up.

[Steve] Another
really strange coincidence.

I was told that Lisa,
the woman in the motel room,

she was a stripper,
and she worked at the Crazy Horse Too,

and had for many years.

If she worked at the Crazy Horse,
she had to know Rick Rizzolo.

And Buffalo ends up dead that night
with Lisa in the motel.

This leads me to believe
she was part of the plan

to set my father up.

[Jerica] There was
another thing that alarmed me

and made me feel
that something was not right.

After we got the call from the police
that our father was found dead,

my sister and I drove
around this entire building here

looking for our
father's vehicle,

and we didn't see it anywhere.

His Rolls-Royce was
his favorite prized possession.

And so we asked the police officer,
"Where's the car?"

And the police officer said,
"Well, we don't know where the car is."

[Jennifer] You can see
it's a very small parking lot.

You can't miss a Rolls-Royce
anywhere in this parking lot.

There's no hidden
spots anywhere.

Where is it?

[Lewis] On April 6th, 2008,
the day the body was found,

police released room 105
back to Motel 6 management.

Then at 5:30,

Mr. Barrier's Rolls-Royce is located
in the parking lot of Motel 6

after officers previously
could not find it.

[Jennifer] Elise received a call

from a sergeant at Las
Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

And they said the car is there.

She's like, "What do you mean
'the car's there'? It wasn't."

"The car's there."

[Jerica] There was
so much confusion about it.

The police have started
a missing car report,

and then the car just shows up
in a few hours.

[Lewis] I don't know
what happened to the vehicle.

Maybe they, you know,
didn't see it earlier in the day.

Maybe somebody had
access to the vehicle.

[reporter] Barrier's
car was searched by Metro.

That search did not turn up
any suspicious evidence.

[Gus] No prints,
no hairs, nothing.

It's just very strange.

There's quite a
few things that just…

I think maybe there should have been
a deeper and harder look at this.

[Jennifer] Something else
that is a huge inconsistency in the case

is that there are two phones
that are listed on the police report,

and they were not
my father's phone.

This was my father's phone.

This phone is not listed
on the police report at all.

There's a phone that's shown.
It's a silver phone.

They have it listed on the report,
but we never received it,

nor do we know our dad
even having this phone.

So whose phone is this?
And why was it in his room?

And this is the front entrance to the
infamous Crazy Horse Too nightclub.

Jim Barrier's relatives are convinced
that the former club owner here

may have somehow played a role
in what happened to Barrier.

[Jennifer] I talked to my father
that Thursday before he passed away,

and he goes, "Rick
Rizzolo just got out of prison."

My father told me that
if they were to get him,

specifically the Crazy
Horse Too people,

"They would make it look like
I d*ed of a drug overdose with women."

That was my last conversation
with my father.

And also my father
received a letter the day he d*ed.

And it says,
"Mr. Barrier,

meetings have been taking place
at various locations around town

by Rick Rizzolo."

"Be careful. He's
up to no good."

"He's using people
to get close to you."

"He discussed using a female
to get access to your business."

[reporter] Over the
weekend, the body of the 55-year-old Barrier

was found in a motel room
on the Boulder Highway.

Metro says there will be
no formal investigation.

You're always supposed to look at
any possible suspects.

[phone ringing]

[Lary] If it is true
that he had anonymous threats

and that there were a number of
negative things done to his business,

and then they wind up dead,

there's enough
there to investigate.

[Gus] When Buffalo d*ed,

the lawsuit against Rick Rizzolo
d*ed with him.

You just can't lose
your star witness.

You know, the
case was strong with him alive.

With him not alive,
it wasn't a very strong case.

[Jennifer] My father made enemies
with some very powerful people,

and I do believe he
was m*rder*d for that.

My theory would be that
they got him into a vulnerable situation.

Maybe they forced
cocaine into him.

[Lary] In Mr. Barrier's case,
there's no doubt

that there could be something
in his system that we didn't detect.

The possibilities would be that
somehow he was either forced in some way

to take cocaine at a level that was…
that he was not used to,

or he was tricked

because definitely cocaine
can come in different concentrations

when you buy it on the street.

[laughs] You don't
exactly know how strong it is.

[Jennifer] I think my father
did get lured out by that woman, Lisa.

We don't know
what really happened.

What was the trajectory of how
he ended up at the motel? We don't know.

It wasn't investigated properly
for us to be able to tell.

[Steve] So many people tell me
that as a get-out-of-jail gift,

somebody's decided
to get rid of Buffalo.

That would have been the biggest favor
anybody could have done for Rick Rizzolo.

Who knows if it happened?

The whole thing has
got a bad smell to it.

He d*ed under highly,
highly suspicious circumstances.

This needs to be
looked at as a m*rder.

[Robert] I think that timing
is very suspicious.

I don't know if Buffalo Jim
ingested that cocaine willingly or not,

but I am left with
more questions than answers.

[Steve] In September 2006,
the Crazy Horse finally closed

after its liquor
license was revoked.

And by August 2019,

the building had fallen into a state
of very serious disrepair.

It had been broken into by vagrants
and was finally condemned.

[Robert] After Buffalo's death,

Jennifer Barrier took it upon herself
to run Buffalo's shop, you know,

to finish those ongoing projects,
those vehicles.

Then the auto shop
closed eventually.

[Steve] Here in Las Vegas,
we lost our most colorful character.

He's just a big lug
that everybody loved…

and funny,

and it just made a hole
in our city when he d*ed

that we'll never
be able to fill.

[Jerica] Hi!

- [Johny] Baby Buff! Good to see you!
- [indistinct chatter]

Buffalo had a way about him.

When he was there,
people followed him.

He loved to be Buffalo Jim,
and that made him happy.

I miss him a lot.

I hope his daughters know
that they meant so much to him,

and he would be
very proud of them.

He, he really loved the girls.

[Jerica] The past


very difficult.

I lost my best friend.
I lost my father.

I felt alone for many years
after he passed.

[Jennifer] In 1999, my father and I
drove up to Mount Charleston.

It's a place we went up to
every couple of months.

And we were sitting at the lodge
drinking hot chocolate together.

And my father said to me,

"If anything were to ever happen to me,
would you stand up?"

And I said, "Yeah.
Yeah, but what does that mean?"

I now know what that meant.

There are people out there
that know the truth.

I hope they come
forward and talk to us.

We just wanna know
what happened to our father.

[mysterious music playing]