X marks the spot. Having worked in sales I have great admiration for that approach Theo. Thanks for telling the story. Look, man its the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life, but its a good story. I was in the shower, and I came out, and they were shouting and armed with all this stuff. Honestly, I think that it was the creative decisions that we were making. Absolutely. Hes always quicker to laugh about himself," Love told Refinery29. Hyden owns a construction business in central Florida (a state hit harder than most others) which was booming untilthe real estate bubble burstand triggered a huge part of this story. You cant sell our articles for a fee but you may place them alongside ads. Regardless of the cards you we, Willie T. Stokes, Kevin McCallister, and the Grinch. Because its a crazy story. But Ive been called a lot worse in the industry that I work in, so I thought that was a compliment. [Julian is] probably wondering why its taken me so long to come back to him, but I just didnt want to commit to him or commit to you guys until I knew it was golden. They make it and head to Club Seabournea resort Rodney gets at a cut rate, a hundred and fifty bucks a nightand Rodney settles in with the map. Still from The Legend Of Cocaine Island. Wed tell you more about it but we have a plane to catch and some digging to do. Is something that we recommend people doing in the future? Yeah. RH: Everybody has been asking about it. Woman, 66, has been missing for weeks, Miami cops say, Date night: Ivanka Trump posts picture with Jared Kushner at this Miami hot spot, DeSantis elevates second in command to lead new Florida State Guard, Man caught with water gun full of poison was on way to kill ex-wife in Texas, feds say, 1 dead, 7 wounded by gunfire at event honoring Martin Luther King Jr., Florida cops say, Driver fleeing cops after party crashes into vehicle, killing one, Florida officials say, A Palm Beach sex offender changed his name online. TL: No, I havent. Rodney Dangerfields net worth was around $10 million at the time of his death. He had 130 oxycodone pills in the car. RH: Who else has brought a guy in that lived it and did it, and said look, youre gonna be a part of it if you want to. The little he didI say a little, the lot he didhe said that he could do it and then, two hours later, eat, go to bed. How I didnt see it, how I didnt realize what was going onbut out of all the bad and the ignorance and the stupidity on my part, there has been some good from this story. by Wess Haubrich, Citizen Truth December 6, 2019, This article first appeared on Citizen Truth and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.. Im gonna see some real money. All rights reserved. Buried Treasure in the Caribbean? That feels amazing as a storyteller and as a filmmaker. "Cocaine -- over 70 pounds -- just waiting for someone to dig it up," the trailer continues. (Rodneys about 300 pounds, his top half shaped like the parentheses around this sentence.) Rodney Hyden The Great Recession of 2008, desperation, and the documentary of the Great Cocaine Treasure Hunt: meet director Theo Love & Rodney Lets see. Forced to abandon a luxurious home and move his family into a double-wide in Archer, Fla., Hyden starts getting desperate. "One thing I learned in there is that once the governments got you in the crosshairs, youre asking for trouble," said Hyden. A calcified blend of seawater, sand, and coke-ish rock. Scarface. Rodney, we should do it together. After a few Mason jars of wine, the silver-haired, perpetually-barefoot Julian would repeat a familiar tale. Youll have to watch the film to find out trust me, you wont regret it. TL: Its this attitude, Wess, that I heard on the very first call where I called Rodney. Ive worked hard my whole life in the general-construction business, Rodney continues. Mossel Bay, South Africa (December 2013), Go Inside Frank Lloyd Wrights Mysterious LA Mansion, the Ennis House, The Real-Life Diet of David Swenson, Who Treats Yoga Like Medicine. Carlos wants to make the handoff that very same afternoon. Drug dealers sometimes throw things overboard or out of a plane when they think the authorities are on their trail. Turns out Julian had been telling the same damn story for years. TL: Yeah. RH: Tell me what Im getting into first before we make that decision, Theo. As the documentary shows, Hyden is still with his wife, Jamie, with whom he has one daughter, Emily. Carlos never went to Culebra; local agents dug up the coke. Weight and local value: 55 pounds, $2 millionCountry of origin: Well never know, one local authority concluded, unless a body washes up behind it.. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. So I called Rodney up one day and asked if he wanted to make a movie. Hyden was sentenced to 60 days in prison, 5years probation and five years of community service for Habitat for Humanity for 20 hours a week. An early review called this movie, possibly, Netflixs craziest documentary ever. What do you both think of that? Back in 2012, Hyden found out about the legend that a huge stash of cocaine worth $2 million was allegedly hidden on an island of Puerto Rico called Culebera. A second trip was also unsuccessful. However, years later, he couldnt resist sharing the story of his uncanny find with his friends as they sat around a campfire, drinking beer. "Look, its the stupidest thing Ive ever done in my life; Im not proud of it," he said. They couldn't find the cocaine. Thank you so much. Where you would take off from. It's not hard to see why. "Everyone involved thought the whole time, 'Somebody is going to make a movie out of this one day,'" McEnany said. Inside was 32 kilos, or 70 pounds, of cocaine, which the documentary values at around $2 million. TL: It shouldnt be this fun making a movie in the Caribbean. Cocaine. Music critic known for his work with Grantland and the A.V. Lets see. The judge struggles to arrive at what he deems to be a just sentence, ultimately handing down sixty days behind bars followed by five years of community service. All Citizen Truth original articles licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Webveronica rubio net worth; malinda sapp parents; zurich zr4 software; edta titration calculations; louisiana time zone right now am or pm. But Danny keeps coming by the office, stoking the notion. Hed always accepted the verity of the story, but never considered for a moment what hed do if he had a chance to dig it up himself. Andy, in spite of his fucking big mouth, might prove helpful on recon. Andy heads to a bar, talks to a kid on a skateboard, finds some weed. But yeah, it made me think of that with this storys very Florida-centric nature. Not totally related, but a little related. RH: Yeah. I want to bother you first. Thats a huge compliment. Hes got his arms crossed and a fat lip packed with Copenhagen, spitting into a Solo cup, sort of bouncing in his chair. The residents of Archer, FL had heard Julian Howell's outlandish story so many times they could recite it themselves embellishments and all. On the way home, when they land in San Juan, customs pulls every bag off the plane and brings out a couple of German pointers. View FREE Public Profile & Reputation for Rodney Feltner in Hyden, KY - See Court Records | Photos | Address, As Julian did not want to involve Puerto Rican police, who likely would not have believed he was innocent in all this he generally wanted to avoid that hassle he decided to bury the package near the trailer he was living in at the time and leave it there. I mean, come on. It seems, per The Gainseville Sun and another LinkedIn page, that the company was previously called R. Hyden Construction Inc. You see that? Hyden asked. You may not modify our content except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. My pleasure. Rodney Hyden in Florida. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Weve done a lot of favors, and so people owe us a lot of favors, Carlos says. Its buried treasure, with a twist.. Like Pirates of the Caribbean.. After Rodneys arrest, the question of Julians culpability hung around unresolved. In late June of 2012, Rodney books a last-minute trip to Puerto Rico. Yeah, another question Id like to ask everybody. Just a bunch of yellowed wrapping and a little white. El Neg gives us cash for coke, and we split. Keep in mind, Hyden was a businessman in his 50s. Someone in jail said, 'Hey man, that would make a great movie,'" Hyden said. If Im completely honest this may have been the main reason I said yes to the project is that we got to film on a tropical island. Tom Ford. RH: They held a gun to my head and made me show them where it was buried. Theyre all going to try to copy this man. Its a unique part of America, he said. The silver hair down around Julians shoulders, the big Gandalf beard distracting from his slight frame, the bare feet, and always that Mason jar of wine that kept bottoming out and filling right back up again. He e-mails Carlos: Did you find the nest? And then, just like that, bam, an e-mail with a photo. Work dried up. What do these three have in common? Now, its producers hope the film will be the next big hit on Netflix. One of the mans friends just couldnt get the strange tale out of his head. Still, hes able to locate the cistern, where the bale is buried. Definitely. Not even close. By the time I got into movies, it was just the bigSteven Spielbergblockbusters. But I intentionally kept it to myself because I think in the back of my head I knew they would talk me out of it. It was a tremendous gamble which really paid dividends in Loves final product that is the film. Especially when someone new, like Rodney, came around. Rodney Hyden: Ive even got the ring in my back pocket. The competition for that title is fierce. "I'm a dreamer, but I'm not a greedy person. And he had no other drug-dealer connections besides Danny and the undercover cops he met. Julian Howell and his wife moved to Culebra, an island off Puerto Rico, in 1986 to work for the sea-turtle-preservation project. Rodney hustles across the neck of northern Florida, calls and texts Danny along the wayAnswer the damn phone. Because theyre entrusting me with their stories, and I dont take that lightly. "Almost anything you do can be construed as a crime.". I chatted with The Legend of Cocaine Islands director Theo Love and Rodney Hyden, the man who lived this bizarre and wickedly-entertaining tale of desperation, big dreams, and the power of a crazy story. Rodney Hyden wasnt exactly a kingpin. He slides the duffel onto the bench seat in the back. Between 15 and 20 years ago, on the shores of the Pirates of the Caribbean-esque island Culebra, Julian stumbled upon a bale of cocaine. "I was talking that smack, that drug talk," Hyden says in the trailer. ", "Thats the great thing about Rodney. Yeah, and even your first movie, Little Hope Was Arson is excellent. Rodney, what do you hope people will take away from your story? Did I learn a lesson? They know what they were feeling at the time. Believe what you want. But if, in the end, were all still looking for a named thing to hang the blame on, we could do worse than this: Blame the four-mile dirt road. Rodney had never thought seriously about it. In Puerto Rico, Carlos is in touch with Rodney via text. Hyden,a builder in Gainesville, got the idea when a neighbor told him he had found and buried a bale of cocaine two decades ago. And then you come along and its like: There is a God. Yo Rodney, you said that you were waiting for somebody from Hollywood to call you when I first called. RH: [Laughs] Theres only one Let me tell you, man. (Perhaps thats the ponytails power of suggestion.) 5 Real-Life Hunts that Unearthed Loads of Loot, Burna Boys Love, Damini Tour on Curacao: 5 Things to Know About the Most Anticipated Concert, Woman is seasick on land for months, after cruising the Caribbean, A Christmas Miracle: Anonymous Donor Pays to Evacuate Couple from the Bahamas, Caribbean Islands: a closer look at the region. The News4JAX Morning Show team brings you breaking news from overnight -- local, national and international stories, as well as weather and traffic to start your day. Along with some of the story's other primary characters (like Andy Culpepper, who accompanied Hyden to Culebra), Hyden narrates his own story. Everybody in the back of their mind thinks, Whats it going to look like when its over? Thats Julian.. This fact is paramount to Rodneys lawyer, Mark Rosenblum, a Jacksonville attorney who looks a little like Joe Lieberman minus the parts that remind people of the emperor from Star Wars. He had been the owner of a successful construction company. Rodney maintains relationships with many people -- family, friends, associates, & neighbors -- including Sarah Hayden, Melissa Suhoney, John Hayden, Delena Sage and Shandi Russell. RH: Well, to be honest with you, I never really thought about it again until I was approached by Dee (a drug dealer interested in partnering with Rodney to make millions off the cocaine). I watched that the other night, too. Lifetime Jacksonville resident anchors the 8 and 9 a.m. weekday newscasts and is part of the News4Jax I-Team. Interesting. As seen in the latest additions into the Black horror canon, the scariest thing in the world can so. Carlos seems ecstatic. That was more than fifteen years ago. A little later in the afternoon, at what people who are not Rodney and Julian might call the magic hour, the biting bugs swarm and the rain steams right back up off the ground and into the clouds. After putting in his hours at the bar one night, he built up enough courage to head back to the beach. Treasure, treasure, treasure," Hyden says, describing how the story fired his imagination. They were a little nervous when they walked up on me, Julian tells me as a light rain begins to fall. Ill tell you that. He wanted the quick money, he wanted the reward. The first time Rodney heard the story, a Friday in July 2004, he could tell by the way the others reacted, the way they oversold their delight at the laugh lines, that this was not the first time theyd heard it. TL: Thats a really good point. And with good reason, Julian always started with the turtles. In a 2018 interview with Daily Mail, Hyden said he regretted letting his friends story tempt him into making such a bone-headed decision. Never thought about it until after I saw this movie and I thought: damn. For years, Hyden and friends passed beers around a campfire, just off the beaten path in Archer. 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