Maiden Mini Plaza Storage Facility.
This is where I... This is where I put all my stuff,
had to be the late summer of 2005.
Everything I owned was in this storage building.
Two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, family heirlooms.
I think it was number 48.
Number 48.
As you open this lock,
and you pull this door open,
the very first thing, right there, was that grill.
Well, in the town of Maiden tonight,
a case that has police there scratching their heads,
it's all because of what was inside a smoker
that was sold at a storage facility auction.
(MEN SPEAKING)
NEWSREADER: It all started with this innocent, old smoker grill.
Whisnant bought it at an auction
after the owner of one of these
storage units didn't pay up on his bill.
I talked to my Uncle Fudlow last night on the phone
and he said I've always been famous,
just now everybody's finding me.
When I was a kid,
sometimes I would just look up at the stars.
And there was many a falling stars
and I made many a wish.
One of them was being on TV a bunch, and...
One day I might be a movie star.
One day I might be rich and have plenty more money,
you know, buried in money.
But... That'd be like super cool.
NEWSREADER: Indeed, it was just a man
who'd had his leg amputated years ago
and wanted to keep it.
There is an inexplicable polarization
between me and Shannon Whisnant.
And it continues up till today
I just don't understand it.
You know, if there's a soulmate for somebody out there,
it would stand to reason that if there is actually
somebody out there, it's
your Antichrist, you know?
This man had a receipt and done got plans to,
how to display it and everything.
MAN: (ON TV) Whisnant hopes to invoke "finder's keepers" for Wood's leg
and says if Wood cared, he wouldn't have left it there.
(GRUNTING)
So this is an Ottobock Triton 3, suction type socket.
January 17th, 2004. I lost my leg in a plane crash.
(JOHN SPEAKING)
He talked the doctors into letting him keep the leg.
He claimed he only buries a whole man.
He thought he was going to be getting back
skeletal remains from the hospital. No.
(JOHN SPEAKING)
And he handed it to me right out there on the driveway,
it was this white trash bag...
Hell, let me show you what it looked like.
(JOHN SPEAKING)
And I looked at Duane, and I said, "Uh-uh."
And as I was breaking this bag open,
I got about right here, like this,
and I heard the damn door shut, and I see nothing but dust
going up the road right there 'cause he was gone.
We're talking about a fourth generation mortician out the door.
He didn't say bye or nothing.
I said, "Oh, no. What's going on?"
And I looked in there and sure enough,
they sent my whole leg back to me.
I could see my tendon, my tibia, my fibula hanging out the top.
There was five toes, and this calf muscle down here.
I ain't never seen nothing like that before in my life, man.
Not even in a World War II flick.
I've seen some legs blowed off and stuff like that,
but, I mean when you're looking at your own stuff...
(SIGHS)
Damn.
(JOHN SPEAKING)
And, I know this girl that worked down
here at this Hardee's in Maiden.
I slipped it by there and asked her, you know,
"Can you store this thing for a couple of hours?
"Just let me find another place for it?"
I guess she went back and laid it right on top of the sausage biscuits
or something right in the breakfast rush hour.
(JOHN SPEAKING)
The manager done found this leg.
I just went around to the drive-through there
and kind of picked this thing up.
And she slipped that thing out of the window to me.
So he gets his friend who works at the mortuary
to get him some embalming fluid
and he had it in a roasting pan out in his shed.
In the shed, trying...
Basting this thing like a roast with embalming fluid.
MARIAN: So he tore the screen off his front door...
...and wrapped it up like a doobie.
Till I got the bright idea to mummify it.
And then hang it up in the possum tree, let it sun-dry for six months.
But it wasn't long after that he got evicted.
Yeah so that's when the leg ended up in his smoker.
In his smoker.
That's when the smoker and all of John's possessions
went into the storage unit. TOM: The storage unit which he...
And John moved down to South Carolina.
Never paid his bills.
And my mom paid the first three months of the storage unit
and said, "After that, John, it's yours."
Well, he didn't pay it. And here we are today.
Take it home with you.
Don't you need a tricycle?
I can't ride it no more.
You can't ride it no more,
that's for a one-legged young'un anyhow.
(MAN SPEAKING)
Yes, sir, sure enough.
That's an antique military diver's tank.
Oh. Is it? Yeah.
It's galvanized.
He's always been kind of a wheeler dealer.
I mean, ever since he was a kid.
I've seen him buy something and not pay that much for it
and then turn around and make a $40, $50 profit on it.
I know it still got some air in it.
Little bit of antique air. (AIR HISSING)
(SHANNON CHUCKLES)
That's what the air smelled like back then.
What you getting on your jar here?
(MAN SPEAKING)
SHANNON: Sold.
I think I know what this is.
Give you a dollar.
There's no other way it could've happened. I don't believe.
I was meant to be there at that auction sale.
I had been buying up a lot of odd and end stuff, you know.
I'd seen a grill at the front of the storage building.
I bid on it and ended up in buying it.
We took the grill away after the sale was over.
It was the last piece we loaded
and the last piece we unloaded.
So I dragged the old grill.
I said, "Well, let's just see what this is."
And I opened the grill up.
I pulled this thing out
and it sort of looked like driftwood, you know,
shaped odd, but it's kind of heavy, so I knew it wasn't driftwood.
He let out a yell in the building.
Sounded like a war whoop.
My hand was dripping wet with cholesterol.
What done run out of it.
"Ma!" I said, "What?"
My mother and her boyfriend come running
and they said, "What did you find, Shannon?"
He said, "It's a human foot."
They said, "A what?" I said, "A foot!"
And they said, "A what?"
"You're full of it." "No, I'm not." I said, "Yes, you are."
I said, "A foot, you know, five toes and five toenails."
It was just unreal.
SHANNON: I drove up to the mini warehouse and I took that foot with me.
And I said, "You need to call everybody
that you sold something to and tell them
"they need to look and see if there are any body parts in it."
And he said, "You just need to throw that in a dumpster."
I said, "Buddy, you're..." I'm thinking,
"You've bumped your fucking head. You're about as crazy as hell.
"You think I'm gonna throw this son of a bitch away."
SHIRLEY: Well, he called the sheriff's department
and they came and they confiscated it.
And, Shannon said, "Well, it's mine. I paid for it."
Yeah, I saw it. I just would not pick it up.
I guess the best place to put anything like that, if it's a body
you put it in the funeral home.
If it's a part of a leg you put it in the funeral home.
We don't need it.
NEWS REPORTER: Whisnant called the police
and officers were able to find the owner of the leg,
who for some reason decided to keep it after it was amputated.
WOMAN: (ON TV) He lost his leg three years ago in a plane crash and he says,
that's just one of the many hurdles life has thrown at him.
I've been shot, run over by a state dump truck, electrocuted...
I have been through a lot.
We had the big house on the block.
Mostly everybody worked for Tom.
If they didn't they wanted to.
MARIAN: My dad was a
larger-than-life character.
TOM: He was. He was.
I mean, everybody knew him.
And everybody respected him and liked him.
I mean, he was a good guy.
JOHN: Doesn't everybody want to follow their dad?
Be like their dad? "This is what dad does."
"Come here boy, get in this go-kart.
"I want to see you power slide through the corner over here."
Tom bought the kids everything.
Whatever the kids wanted, he bought it.
MARIAN: I would describe Dad as a bush pilot. TOM: Yeah.
That's what he...
Daredevil, he'd have been bungee jumping,
he'd have been doing all that kind of stuff.
MARIAN: Before I knew better, he would take me and John out
when we were little and do loops
and you know, all this crazy stuff.
And we just thought it was cool
because our coat would float in the air, you know.
Tom was always out underneath equipment.
He never stayed in his office.
He knows how to do everything.
Is it working now? I hope so.
(TOM WOOD SPEAKING)
(JOHN CHUCKLING)
There's John and his daddy
when he graduated from Boot Camp.
John had got all his honors.
Tom Wood was the happiest man in the world.
He went on leave after Boot Camp and...
Got messed up with some drugs
and ended up breaking in Ended up AWOL and...
and he kicked him out.
Blood test and that was it. "You're out of here."
MARIAN: I think that really disappointed my dad.
John felt like he never could do
as well as his father wanted him to.
And, therefore, John got into drugs.
MARIAN: He would disappoint my dad and that would make him feel bad.
And then he would self-medicate, and that would make it worse.
And it was just this horrible...
Spiraling thing, yeah. Yeah.
MARIAN: So he was sober,
for about, almost a year before the plane crash.
And he was doing pretty good,
and he was starting to get back in with Mom and Dad,
and have a relationship with them real tentatively,
and then, this all happened.
TOM: Yeah, your dad was going for one last flight
'cause he was selling the plane the next day.
It was sold. It was already sold.
And he turned and looked at me and said, "All cowards wait here."
My son was with me and I looked at him and, it's like,
you know, we all climbed in.
It was a good day, it really was.
I mean, him and Tom were getting along good.
JOHN: It was a very sunny, winter day.
But when we popped over the top of the mountain,
we ran into a weather front.
TOM: The whole plane was just vibrating terribly, man,
and like, the plane was going to stall out.
Yeah, she don't like to hear this part.
This is, it still bothers me.
And her dad turned around and said,
"All right, everyone make sure your seat belts are tight."
JOHN: Engine started sputtering.
It was like pulling the choke out on your lawnmower, when it goes... (VOCALIZES)
The thing cut out altogether and we just... Bam!
Straight down, nose first.
I think he has some guilt about the crash itself, too,
'cause John was co-piloting that day.
TOM: Maybe he feels like he could have done something, I don't know.
Maybe he should have done something.
Maybe, I didn't take control of the plane soon enough.
And, I got a lot of regret, and I got a lot of remorse.
And I got a lot of guilt.
You know, I'm reminded of that crash every day.
I get up and I put this prosthetic on every day.
I take it off every night.
I'm always reminded of that crash.
I don't think that's ever going to go away.
That part is never going away.
After the crash my thinking was,
I want to keep my skeletal remains and make a memorial
to my, you know, my father.
And this turning point in my life.
If he can hang on to this leg and keep it
in this world with him, then that's his dad.
(MEN LAUGHING)
Mother.
BOBBY: When I first met Shannon, he says,
"Haven't you seen me on TV?"
And I said, "No, I ain't never seen you on TV."
And two, three people was to my house was like, "Yeah, we know him."
Said, "Yeah, there he is, right there, there's Shannon on there.
"There's the Foot Man himself, in all his glory."
Everybody around here knows him as the Foot Man.
(ALL CHUCKLING)
Some folks just call me Foot for short.
Come on, Lisa. Get out here.
God.
I didn't ever think...
...that it would be so big,
like, somebody cares about somebody finding a foot in a grill.
Me and Lisa met here in Startown at a...
Used to be a little bar down here where Subway and Exxon is.
LISA: He was wearing shorts,
no shirt, and a cowboy hat and cowboy boots,
and I thought, "What is he doing?
"He is so stupid." (LAUGHS)
(INAUDIBLE)
I thought she was just absolutely beautiful, you know?
And I liked her charisma and the way she held herself,
and the way she talked, and the way she walked.
And she took my breath away.
He just come up and put his arm around me.
"Want to play pool?"
We started dating then, you know, steady.
He likes the recognition and the fame,
that come with finding the leg in the smoker.
I've been through quite a bit.
Me and my wife, since we've been together,
we've lost everything and started over from nothing.
I did rig me up a chandelier here.
With all donated stuff that had something to do with the foot.
John was kind of a spoiled brat.
The basement of his home where he grew up, was a roller rink.
And he had a go-kart track and go-karts to ride.
And, if you didn't know John Wood,
why, you was a "nobody", you know.
And, if you didn't have your birthday party at John Wood's house,
you was a "nobody".
And everybody who was anybody,
had their birthday party at John Wood's house.
I guess I'm a "nobody".
My daddy taught me, you know, if you buy something
and you're planning on reselling it, you've got to make money.
WCNC reporter, Tony Burbeck,
live now with a new twist in the story. Tony?
Yeah, Chris, the battle tonight is, just who does
that leg belong to?
What's gonna happen to it next?
Kept for posterity or used to make money?
NEWS REPORTER 1: That BBQ foot smoker? Yeah, it's that way.
Where Shannon Whisnant charges $3 a peek for adults, $1 for kids.
You can come see it.
Bob Cook Road off Business Street 21, $1 admission.
NEWS REPORTER 2: The smoker grill is now a tourist attraction of sorts.
It's a regular PT Barnum.
An unbelievable character, isn't he?
NEWS REPORTER 3: Whisnant has a bum left leg. It runs in his family,
same side as the one found in the smoker.
We just sort of looked at it like it was heaven-sent.
And when came across it we sort of got an extra left leg now, you know.
But that guy, he will... (LAUGHING)
He'll end up a radio talk show host or something.
He'll get something out of this. You think so?
Fifteen minutes of fame.
After the 911 call went out, it hit that media.
They don't want to see no empty grill, man,
they want to see some skin, man, where is it at?
It sort of slowed down a little bit, you know, and...
There would've been a hell of a lot of people showed up,
you know, if I had, if I had had that foot.
Not a doubt in my mind.
Because they would want to see it,
and watch the cholesterol drip out of it.
Hell, it was mine, I bought it.
I still got the receipt in me pocket.
I decided to take the business matters in my own hands
and, you know, just do what I do.
(RAINING)
(THUNDER CRACKING)
The guy from the funeral home called me
and said that Shannon Whisnant was down there
pounding on the table, and waving that receipt around
and yelling at his receptionist and demanding his property.
I was flabbergasted.
I mean, I was just like, "What?"
I wasn't there, but they wouldn't give it back to Shannon.
So, I'm sure it was chaos.
He said, "He's gone now, but he's gone to find a judge,
"who may be crazy enough to grant him possession of this leg."
(SHANNON SPEAKING)
You know, I can't believe.
I mean, who is this guy? You know what I mean?
MARIAN: I hate being censored. I really hate being censored.
But it's just "fuckery and shenanigans". That's what I call it.
Really want to come when I get the foot
in my possession.
MAN: (ON TV) That's right. He wants the foot back.
NEWSREADER: The man who lost the foot in a plane crash three years ago...
Is reportedly heading to Maiden this week,
to reclaim the foot.
Whisnant says he wants to talk with the man
and try to work something out.
All local media knew I was coming up,
and I said, "Listen, I'm gonna do this one time.
"I'm gonna pick my leg up in Maiden.
"I'll meet you outside Dollar General."
TOM: I don't know how they ended up in the Dollar General part.
MARIAN: I don't know. Well, it's across the street from the storage unit.
Oh, yeah, that's right. It is. Mmm-hmm.
(BOTH CHUCKLING)
Dollar General. Anyway...
JOHN: So, basically I was just telling the media, you know,
"I'm not up here to make money.
"I'm just here to pick up my belongings,
"give you guys some backstory on how this thing happened.
"And get my stuff and I'm going back down to South Carolina."
News media called me up and asked me
if I was going to be there to his news briefing.
And I asked them what time,
and I'd be more than glad to oblige them.
The place was just crowded with news trucks out here.
I mean I guess there was
at least five out here in this parking lot at the time.
I'm Kristen Hampton.
We thought there might be some sort of resolution
to this story today,
but we were wrong.
Whisnant wants the foot for a tourist attraction.
Wood wants no part.
He came to Maiden today,
to read a statement about the issue.
To hold any personal belongings ransom
and to call it a tourist attraction,
without any regard for my family's grievance, is despicable.
JOHN: Next thing I know, here comes Shannon Whisnant,
coming out of the car, you know,
sticking his big grape up in the air.
I went up there, you know, and I watched him like a hawk.
It was just this glaring and this posturing attitude,
you know, this real aggressive posturing.
You know, just this...
I was like, "Really? Is it gonna be pay-per-view out here
"in the Dollar General parking lot or what?"
SHANNON: John's talking about how crazy I am,
or whatever it was, he was saying. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
"I'm Shannon Whisnant. You know, that leg is mine.
"Turn the camera on me."
And the next thing I know, he's right up in the camera shot
interrupting the girl that's interviewing me!
KRISTEN: (ON TV) Neither of the two have the foot right now.
Until today, neither of the two had met.
It started off somewhat heated, but ended like this.
Whisnant asked Wood to discuss the foot
out of the presence of the media.
Paul? It is a freak show. No question Kristen,
and at last check, the foot was still in the custody
of a funeral home,
in the town of Maiden.
JOHN: It didn't take me long to realize why he had me over there.
It was so he could try and talk me into some kind of deal.
You know, about, "Let's go into cahoots on this thing,
"and we could play the media and do what we need to do here,
"and make some quick cash."
I did discuss a few,
minute amount of business opportunities with him.
(IMITATING) "Mr. Wood, you and I could be famous and rich."
You know, I was like... (SCOFFS)
"Really, man?" For him it was just all about,
"Let's cut a deal and start getting rich today."
We were talking about, you know,
split custody and different things
and yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
and bringing the foot up to my place,
and display it around Halloween there in Maiden.
I don't know what I actually absorbed, what I said to him,
but when I said no, he just kept talking.
And he said, "That sounds good,
that's great, blah, blah, blah.
"Let's do this. We can make some money, blah, blah, blah."
(MAN SPEAKING)
I never had a deal with Shannon Whisnant.
Let that be explicitly clear.
I never, ever made any implications or otherwise,
to have a deal with Shannon Whisnant
about anything going into business with him,
in any way, shape or form.
Do I need to repeat that slowly?
No.
PEG: I think, right from the get-go...
It turned into sort of a,
"A Barney Fife Maiden cop, the leg and the smoker, and..." Ha-ha-ha.
It's a funny story.
But, it's born of tragedy.
And that's the part where I am, it's about the...
What I lost. What I lost. I didn't lose a leg.
I lost my husband.
I brought him home in what the crematory sent,
and I thought, "I'll just put him here."
He built the house, so...
And this is where he's been ever since. In that little box.
She didn't even buy Dad an urn or nothing.
Just had him cremated, cheap as they could be.
MARIAN: He's just sitting in a cabinet.
In a carved box, yeah.
I got a resentment against Mom about that.
We didn't even...
The family didn't even sit down and burn a couple of candles.
And sit around with some pictures
and have any kind of, you know,
a celebration of Dad's life, or nothing.
There was none of that.
Who grieves like that?
Ain't you going to have any memorial service for my dad?
A memorial. He didn't want all that fuss.
He never wanted that kind of fuss.
And all that whining, and crying
and carrying on that goes on at funerals?
Forget it.
And you know how much it costs for a funeral?
Well, that was her big FU to Dad.
"Screw you, I'll just throw you in a box." You know.
"I'm not gonna honor you at all
"by putting you in a nice urn or anything."
"You controlled me my whole life..."
"...and now I control your ashes."
They had a very complicated marriage.
It was a very misogynistic marriage.
The man rules.
If the man wants to go out and have a fling, he does.
And this is just want men do.
He treated her very often as like, an employee.
She carries a grudge forever. Yeah.
"Forgive and forget." What kind of dumb statement is that?
Let's not.
Tom is just happy as hell right here in the house.
So, let's leave it like that. It's my decision.
He was mine, he was my husband.
He gave all his assets and everything to me.
If I choose to keep it, well, I choose to keep it.
The kids have to get over it, right?
I mean, we weren't happy, but it's her life, you know?
Nothing we can do about it. But, I think, John took it pretty hard.
JOHN: My sister had written some inscription on a river rock.
You know, "We love you, Dad", something to that effect.
She placed this little rock just off into the wood line,
from, you know, directly adjacent over here
to the crash site, the impact site.
The site where Dad died.
(MAN SPEAKING)
He didn't say anything.
I didn't know at the time, but he was having a heart attack.
He couldn't talk.
He didn't have any air.
He couldn't talk.
He looked at me.
So, I guess maybe he spoke with his eyes, but...
That was it.
He just keeps thinking that
there was something he could have done.
And, there's nothing he could have done.
It wasn't John's fault. None of this was John's fault.
The only thing that's John's fault, is his addiction problem.
(LAUGHS)
"Don't take with alcohol."
Man, come on, that's the first thing you do, is go get a beer.
PEG: He and I were alone here together.
I moved my bed right beside him,
where I could bathe him and clean him and help feed him.
And fix him.
PEG: It was really a close, nice time for us,
but I wasn't going to have a drug addict in my house.
JOHN: It's not about how much you want to do, it's how much you can do.
Let's just see how loaded I can get.
And I did that for night after night after night.
And he started stealing from us.
He stole my Cadillac out of the garage right down here.
Finally, I got it.
And that's when I went... (VOCALIZES)
"I'm done enabling."
It was like, "My gosh, how can you just cut your son off?"
You know, I perceived it as being kind of harsh and cold.
You can't help but like John.
There are times, most of the time I don't know that I love him.
I like him.
(JOHN SPEAKING)
The plane crash was very painful.
And lot of blood and guts
and a lot of people got hurt and injured
and trauma and stuff like that.
But...
The following 18 months or so, man, was...
That's what about killed me.
PEG: I think John would like to have a relationship with his mother.
I think, John would like, perhaps, his life a little bit different.
Yeah, sure he wanted
acceptance from his father.
And now he's having a little trouble about acceptance with me.
I'm pretty smart. I'm sure y'all figured that out by now.
I've heard from many a folk,
kin to me, and close to me, and the ones that know me.
They tell me that I've got the best business mind
that they've ever seen.
Here's some shirts I had made. Here's one.
This is the front of it, Foot Smoker Bar-b-que Grill.
The new ones, I'm gonna make some new ones,
and they're gonna be totally different.
I mean they'll be a little bit like this.
If it would've been a normal person that found the leg and said,
"Oh, my God, here are the police."
And then just went on with their lives, you know.
But Shannon found it and blew this whole thing up.
Come 'n see it live from Maiden, North Carolina.
This is the Foot Man.
It was like everywhere. It was crazy.
Everybody I talked to, in the radio, I told them,
"If you don't mind, if somebody asks for my number,
"how about passing it along."
MAN: (ON RADIO) 104.5...
1010 CFRB.
Let me help you out, Shannon.
If you want to buy one of Shannon's human leg t-shirts,
do you have a website?
I was working on building a website,
and the website was called footsmoker.com.
I had different things on there.
(JOHN READING)
Guaranteed not to leak, rust, bust,
collect water or dust as long as you use it,
redneck made in America.
I think he actually thought this was his big break in life,
and he was gonna be,
you know, the next Billy Bob Thornton.
A gentleman told me today
I was a household name in Hollywood, California.
I haven't worked anything out with any of these guys,
me and John.
I don't do business with anyone
when I haven't made a friend first.
It was kind of odd. They first caught me with John.
When I was talking to somebody in the news who's been here
and I was telling them
I thought John was, you know, a nice man,
and we had talked a little bit,
and was gonna try to do some things and stuff. And...
They said to me, "Well, he's saying completely opposite."
You know? And I said, "Really?"
And they said, "Yes."
Well, today, the owner of the foot wants no part
in the finder's plan to profit.
He was telling the news media that I am crazy,
he don't know what's going on.
Yeah, I'm crazy, but, good crazy.
WOMAN: (ON TV) John Wood doesn't want a thing to do with displaying it publicly.
Ask anybody that has ever pissed me off and you'll find that out.
I don't fuck around. I do not fuck around.
When you piss me off, you can bet your ass
you are going to feel me.
Somewhere, some way, one way or another,
you'll know you pissed me off.
(SHANNON SPEAKING ON RADIO)
I kept seeing these radio shows pop up, so I'd listen to the podcast.
And it was just all this garbage coming out of his mouth
and he was provoking me.
At the time I didn't see what he was doing
but he was actually provoking me
to come out and rebuttal.
(SHANNON SPEAKING ON RADIO)
But when he started calling my dad a hillbilly pilot,
and started attacking my dad and my family and some stuff like that.
It drawed me out.
An exclusive interview
with the man, the myth, the legend,
John Wood.
(LAUGHING)
JOHN: They didn't want to hear about the plane crash.
Nobody wants to hear about that shit.
Could really care less about the story
or any of the integrity of the truth.
Nobody was actually sure who had possession of the leg
'cause Shannon was still claiming he had it.
(MAN SPEAKING)
(WOMAN SPEAKING)
(MAN SPEAKING)
Well, I've talked to an attorney and...
That's just sort of sticky right now.
Um...
I'm just waiting to see what's going...
What all is going to perspire one day at a time.
It was round about that time that I was getting some airtime
and Shannon wasn't getting his fair share of airtime, so...
He busted out with... Sued me in small-claims court.
I decided to sue John because he had a forked tongue.
He had possession of my property.
He lied to me. He told me one thing
and tell news media something else, and...
You know, it just went on and on.
PAUL: It's his, he says.
MAUREEN: He said it brings up a good legal question
'cause he bought the smoker. It's a great legal question.
Does it come with it? That's right.
It was in there.
MAN: (ON TV) But even Whisnant's attorney is not sure of the laws regarding it.
Well, the guy whose leg is gone, whose leg it is,
he makes for great television.
Yeah. He's fabulous. He's awesome.
'Cause obviously the guy who bought the smoker
did not know he was getting the leg
and now he's just up to no good.
The news media tried to make me look like a bad guy.
You know, they just butchered it up like cutting a hog up
for a sausage or something and just put what they wanted in it.
Yeah, $3 a peek for adults and $1 for kids.
I want to know who is, really, seriously, spending money to see this?
What I was gonna say is,
who really is seriously going to take their kid to see it?
SHANNON: I can't understand why...
They chose him to be the victim.
I just... I don't get it, I mean...
Because they didn't hear where I was coming from
or what I had to deal with.
WOMAN: Get you all spiffed up.
Yeah.
Any time you do something that's fun,
you like to do it and make money doing it, hey.
It's a win-win-win.
And any time you can win-win-win
you're win-win-winning, you know?
If you're just winning or win-winning,
that's just winning or win-winning,
but when you're win-win-winning, you're win-win-winning.
When it comes to comedy, I'm sort of like...
A little bit of Eddie Murphy: Raw, and...
Well, several others.
(MAN SPEAKING)
Uh...
Probably my father, I would say. He was...
He kind of liked to get a good laugh every chance he could.
My father was...
He was pretty mean.
Young'un ought not be whooped like I was whooped.
When you whoop a young'un till they can't get their breath
that's going too far.
He had a lot of whippings growing up.
And the way I look at it,
it's probably affected him some.
It's a hard way to be brought up, I guess. You know?
Well, to me, I don't think he got enough attention.
Did he? From his daddy?
Mmm... Probably not.
And he acts like he's done everything he could.
To get the attention and I think that's continuing on,
even though his dad's gone.
He's always been that way.
Yeah, he'd do stuff to get attention when he was small.
I used to listen to a hell of a lot of Gene Tracy, on the tape.
GENE: You've heard about the harelip that was gonna
get married on Monday?
(ALL LAUGHING)
I can't wait till Monday for something that good.
I'd tell lot of his jokes and talk harelip.
GENE: You think that'll keep till Monday?
(ALL LAUGHING)
Anything for a laugh, literally.
And I do mean anything for a laugh.
You would not believe some of the stuff
I've done for a laugh sometimes.
MAN: (ON PA) Let's bring him out. Here's Shannon.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
MAN: Yeah, this is for the hillbilly in the white shirt.
Do you mind if I get a lap dance from your bitch?
(ALL EXCLAIMING)
Whatever he wants to do, he is 39-something years old.
I mean, he's obviously going to do what he wants to do, so,
just 'cause I don't like it, don't mean he ain't he ain't gonna do it.
(CHUCKLING)
Being on camera, live like that,
with the camera hot, it's like it just wakes me up.
If I could take the adrenaline that I get off of that
and bottle it up and sell it,
I could buy Bill Gates and Apple out.
And combine the two and have a conglomerate.
Excellent.
World's number one salesman.
I could sell snow to the Eskimos.
This is it. We're ready to work.
These are the tools of the trade.
I've been doing this for about 15 years.
Cleaning houses. Domestic engineering.
If you ever needed somebody to
hover over you and make you sure you were so comfortable,
and make everything right,
Mary's the one to call.
And she was that way with her brother.
I would go over there and keep his house clean,
and do his laundry and buy him groceries,
and I was taking money that we couldn't afford to give,
and giving it to John.
But he needed it more than we did. He did.
I didn't tell Tom I was doing that
because he would've been pissed.
And he... Our marriage really got strained
because of the help that I was giving John.
PEG: That's just the way she is.
"I better go over, see about John.
"He didn't call so I better go see."
But she's got to throw him out there.
She's got to let him go.
At the time, I never showed that leg publicly to anybody
to try to gain monetarily.
But I guess, it kind of created a mystique
about this whole thing.
"The guy never really... What does this thing look like?
"What does this leg actually look like?
"And why hasn't he taken the money and run?"
SHANNON: (ON PHONE) It actually looks pretty good.
I had a real nice pedicure before it was done.
And I see you have a sense of humor about it too.
SHANNON: And he doesn't have a leg to stand on.
RAOUL: A buyer paid good money at an auction for it.
It's his property.
But he bought the cooker. He didn't buy the leg.
What about when you get a chest of drawers or something?
You find something in it, you own it.
It went international.
Newspaper interviews. Tokyo, one in Australia, one in China.
I was at a customer's house.
And she goes, "Do you realize, your brother, he's all over the Internet?"
SHANNON: He's telling the news media.
He's just going in a whirlwind, round and round.
You switch over to CNN, right there it is.
Turn it over to Fox, and there it is.
Good Morning America and there it is.
And I was like... That was a high.
Then I get high on top of that. It was a fiasco.
Well, you know... It's not really...
It's like what I said it was
originally and two years later, you know...
Another thing I'd really like to gain out of this,
all of the fame and of the fortune is,
my original intentions were to get the preserved skeletal remains back.
And it really wasn't a good time for John to be famous.
(MAN SPEAKING)
Because he was still in the throes of alcoholism and drug use.
Yeah, the crack dealer who knew when John got his check,
he'd be waiting on his door step.
Got a call from the Johannes B. Kerner Show
in Hamburg.
It's very like The Jay Leno Show of Europe.
TOM: Rather than bringing someone from your,
member of your family with you,
he brings his drug dealer with him. Mmm-hmm.
Now, here I am, busting my ass every day.
TOM: Yeah. And I'd like to go to Europe.
TOM: Yeah. I was resentful. But he gets to go.
And this producer, "You got that leg?"
"Yeah, I got it."
"We're gonna have to see it, to keep the integrity of the show."
They offered me some money.
"Let's get this thing on here tonight, here's some money."
"No, man, I ain't interested in that."
(MAN SPEAKING GERMAN)
Uh...
I own the leg.
They'd taken me to the green room and everything,
and we get up in there
and the champagne and caviar
and Jack Daniel's and Jim Beam.
And just all kinds of goodies.
We got some liquor drinks in me
and got me up there to take some snap pictures of it.
Paid me for that.
(SPEAKING GERMAN)
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
JOHN: This made me kind of ashamed.
Here it is, I'm gonna throw it out there
and do like Shannon was gonna do with it.
"Here, come look." Sell it.
MARIAN: I was trying to move through this
and get through the whole plane crash and my dad, and the grieving,
you know, no closure or not.
John was still just dredging it up
and forcing it down our throats.
Yeah, I can't even tell you how much I hated him for that.
As a matter of fact, I think I sent him a pretty nasty letter about it.
And I was like, "God damn it, John,
"you're making a bad situation, a billion times worse.
"And you're forcing us to relive this over and over and over again
when we are just trying to heal."
As with all addicts, they're wonderful when they're in crisis.
And they're kneeling at the foot of the cross
and they're like, "I'm so sorry,
I promise, I promise, I promise."
And as soon as you get them out of crisis,
they head straight for their drug dealer.
I had to get mean at one point and just say, "I'm done."
It was so hard.
I told him, "You're not to call here,
you're not to come in the driveway,
"you're not allowed on this property."
JOHN: I felt some shame.
"I can do better than this. I am better than this.
"And yet, here I am."
I would cry when I saw him 'cause it was like,
"Is this the last time I'm gonna see him?"
He just looked awful and he smelled bad.
And he just looked like death was around him.
I was preparing myself, mentally, at that time
to get a phone call,
and say, "We found your brother dead."
Sometimes even today I wish I'd have got took out in that crash.
I just wished I would have.
My family wouldn't have to grieve twice.
I dwelled on that for a long time. I just wanted to...
God, man, it was a perfect opportunity for me to go.
Why didn't you take me?
Why didn't you just take me then?
Why have I got to go through this now?
Why have I got to continue through this mess, man?
What's it gonna take to kill me?
Bye.
Okay. (CHUCKLES)
Bye, honey.
LISA: I just want it to be all over with.
And Shannon is not gonna be happy
until Shannon gets what Shannon wants.
And I don't think he's gonna stop till he gets to that.
SHANNON: My telephone rang
and it was the producer of the Judge Mathis Show
on NBC.
He asked me if I'd like to come on their show
and try to resolve this.
That made me feel good, like, "Hey, I've got somebody else
"on my side."
"I would like to congratulate you on having your case selected
"for an upcoming hearing with Judge Greg Mathis."
JOHN: By the time the producers called me,
Shannon had already FedExed his papers up there.
It was just about getting me to agree though.
JOHN: (READING) "Dear John, please note, judgments are final,
"unlike regular court, where there is an appeal process."
"So Mr. Whisnant would not be able
"to take you to court ever again."
"Okay, let's do this damn thing."
Gangs? Jail?
I was there.
Second chances? I got one.
In my court room, the disputes are real,
the cases are real.
(MAN READING)
I had bought a
It was the season premiere.
MAN: The case
(READING)
It's your leg? Yes, sir.
He's suing you for your own leg.
MAN: Now on Judge Mathis.
It could go either way. It is an actual civil case.
It's nothing locked in stone and anybody can win this thing.
I was absolutely expecting him to rule in my favor, absolutely.
I mean, it was a no-brainer.
Start with you, sir.
Uh...
This is a very bizarre and off-the-wall case
and I am serious about it.
The Judge Mathis was,
kind of, the final straw with everything.
Because I want it back. It's mine. (ALL LAUGHING)
You want his leg back?
Yes, sir.
Step out.
All right. You don't need one.
I had proof, compelling proof.
Evidence, I mean.
Looked like open-and-shut to me.
This is off-the-wall. You're right.
(ALL LAUGHING)
Everything has perspired through the news media and everything
and I've had people call me from all over the world...
Foot man, that's your name now. The foot man.
SHANNON: Yeah, I've had a lot of friends giving me a lot of different nicknames.
Boy, you have the leg on a barbecue grill.
(ALL LAUGHING)
You just trying to get famous off this man's leg.
No.
JUDGE MATHIS: Yes, you are.
What are you on the radio for talking about you have the man's leg?
"I have a leg. I got it from the warehouse.
"It's mine. I'm gonna put it on display.
"You gonna have to pay me $10 to see it."
Ha-ha!
JOHN: I just didn't know where this thing was going next.
There was no precedent set for this thing.
Did you receive notice that your things were being auctioned?
I got about five days' notice. I told them...
I told the person who owns the main warehouse,
I said, "Don't open that door."
MARK: It was neat seeing John, on TV.
But John looked like hell.
John was so blown out on coke and drinking.
Man, I was seeing everywhere like this,
but I thought my eyes would come out of my head.
It's been quite a thing.
I've had this leg for 42 years now.
Still trying to keep up with it.
(ALL LAUGHING)
This is so messed up.
I calmed down and after I calmed down
then it was time to raise hell.
Well, as that auction man said before he started,
"All sales are final."
(ALL LAUGHING)
Like if you was to pull a mattress out
with a million dollars in it,
and it falls out,
nobody is gonna want to give it back
and that's considered content.
Quite frankly, you're right, sir.
I am gonna grant your monetary judgment.
You're not getting that leg.
I'm not giving you the man's leg.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
JOHN: The judgment went down, it was
a $5,000 judgment for Shannon Whisnant,
finder's keepers.
I won monetary damages. He didn't.
I lost possession of my foot.
Or my extra foot.
And he got to keep it.
Counterclaim dismissed. Keep your leg.
After the show was over,
right in front of where I was sitting at the...
A crowd come out from nowhere.
They just sort of flooded just right there and...
They was hollering,
"Mr. Whisnant, this way. Mr. Whisnant, this way."
There must have been 25 or 50 cameras out there
just clicking and flashing and flashing and clicking.
"Mr. Whisnant, this way. Mr. Whisnant, over here, please."
I reckon it's...
One of the...
Something you'll never forget, I guess, you know.
None of that had ever happened before in my life.
That's something you'll never forget, you know.
This family got pretty well torn apart because of John's addictions.
Uh...
I don't know if we can recover from that part.
I just... I have trouble with that right now.
I was homeless. Down and out.
No family, no friends.
It was really all I had, was that leg.
When I saw those two on Judge Mathis,
I thought, "This is the stupidest thing ever."
But it turned out, Judge Mathis saw John had a problem.
The Judge Mathis producers, and I was told Judge Mathis, himself,
had recommended they pull these strings out in California
to get me down
to probably one of the best treatment centers in the country.
MARIAN: I had given up on John, and I'm like,
"Who would've thought, of all the people in the world to save John,
"it was Judge Mathis." I mean...
JOHN: They filmed that movie down there, 28 days, with Sandra Bullock.
I'm telling you, there was people that are
walking in here with Gucci,
and people pulling up in limos,
dropping them off at the halfway house.
Here's just me, coming straight out of this
corn field up here in South Carolina.
Really, things kind of started calming down in Atlanta
when he started getting some good, real therapy.
That counselor down there, what was that dude's name?
He has a weird name. His first name is like a last name.
It's tough to talk about. I harbor a lot of guilt.
All things that I should've done different.
And could've done different.
I think my brother is a lot like my mom, in respects that...
The holding on to objects,
like, Mom with Dad's ashes.
And here's John with his leg.
They're more alike than either one of them wants to admit.
CARLTON: With his leg he's got a reason to stay motivated.
It's given him a purpose, which,
I don't think he really had one before.
He's very good about going to AA all the time.
He's very good about following up with the psychiatrist.
He does everything he's supposed to do.
Today was 226 days,
34 weeks, seven months.
This is my blue and gold, her name is Kai Opaka Sulan.
And any Star Trek aficionado would know that,
that was the religious leader of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
I'm sure there's a name for this hobby,
but I don't know what that name might be.
I make sure the bones are in good condition,
to make it easier to put it back together.
I heard about John, on Judge whatever show.
But when I came back from the hospital,
it wasn't preserved skeletal remains.
The whole time I was listening, I was like... Hmm...
He wants to make this memoriam to his father and the crash.
I wanted to put that knowledge that I had,
to help somebody else on the planet.
JOHN: (READING) "To John, finally, some closure."
Kati Wilk was jumping at the chance to,
you know, do this thing for me.
Free of charge.
And, I took her up on it.
I'm at that point in my recovery now,
take this leg up there and get it bona fide.
(CHUCKLING)
Well, hi there.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
I can't believe I finally get to meet you.
Kati.
As soon as I walked in the door
I knew I was in the right place.
Well, come on in, John.
Could you work with that?
That's not too bad.
That little fungus on your toenail.
I couldn't get drunk enough to do that.
Well...
But now I'm comfortable in my own skin today
and I'm comfortable holding my own skin today
and we'll get this thing back.
That's gonna be some closure, I think.
There's got to be. There's just got to be.
Here's the official hand-off.
Or the foot-off. Or the foot...
Nice one.
If anything was heaven sent, it was probably that person right there.
I just want to be on a reality TV show.
That's being filmed right close to where I am in.
That'd be super cool if I get to go wherever.
To David Letterman Show, or Jay Leno or Conan.
LISA: He likes the spotlight.
It's all he thinks about.
For some reason, he wants to go further with it, every day.
It's just took him over.
It's like, I don't know. What would cause that?
I don't know.
(LAUGHS)
Chip off the old block.
Well, I'm glad you made it. Yeah, me too.
(BOTH SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)
All right, cool. This could be fun.
I'm wound tighter than a banjo.
Are you? Nice. Can't wait to see it.
(BOTH CHUCKLING)
Nice. Very cool.
Where we come into the story, he has a backstory now
which changes everything.
It's auction time. Come on!
Yes!
SHANNON: Somebody gonna buy my leg lamp.
'Cause I'm a legend in this area.
I am the foot man.
I'm the foot man.
I'm a legend, you can google me. (ALL LAUGHING)
MAN: (ON PA) Here we go.
Got 20! (AUCTIONING) 20.
$40. 15. $15. 17.
$140.
All right!
Thank you, buddy.
I appreciate that.
I bought it because of the Christmas Story movie.
It's an iconic lamp.
Everybody's got to have one.
All right, there it is.
MAN: (ON PA) All right, if everybody would move over towards the sign.
Last item, we're gonna sell everything out the rest of the night.
Okay.
Well, it's hard for me to watch,
yeah, because for him, everything...
He's all excited thinking that everything's reality,
and then you get slapped in the face with, like, it's a joke.
(MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY ON PA)
(SHANNON SPEAKING)
What the fuck happened to reality, man?
It's supposed to be a fuckin' reality show,
I mean, it's so fuckin' stupid, you know, and...
MAN: Hey, man. What's up?
(SPITS)
He's kind of confused, maybe.
And don't know how to act or what to say or think.
But I don't think he'll ever not want to be on the camera.
(MAN SPEAKING)
SHANNON: They're ready for me...
There's things about me you don't know.
I'm gonna be staying at home. (LAUGHS)
I don't want anything to do with it.
It's crazy.
(MAN SPEAKING ON PA)
SHANNON: The leg lamp was a lot of fun. I had a ton of fun
going through the sale, telling everybody, "I'm the foot man."
You know, "I'm a legend." You know,
I mean, it was a trip, I had a ball.
Lord, thank you for another wonderful day.
And all the blessings you've given me and it's a...
It's a pleasure to be here
and I'm really grateful
for everything you've done for me today.
(GRUNTS)
I just, recently, did some nine-step work with my family
made some amends for my behavior.
(KNOCKING)
MARIAN: Hello.
If he's trying, I'm trying.
And that's kind of, where it stands with me and John now.
That's some good. Give me some good.
That's some good, right there. Give me some good.
MARIAN: He's definitely made strides in there. I won't say he's there.
I mean, it takes a long time to,
to gain somebody's trust back.
PEG: He would send me an email with a picture of something
where he was or whatever.
Unfortunately, John, a lot of times
will tell you what you want to hear.
I looked at all of them and I saved it for a while
and I'd look at them several times a day but I refused to answer them.
JOHN: I can't go back and give one thing that my mom,
did not sacrifice
to give to us to have opportunity for...
To be happy, joyous and free as adults.
Did I take it all and use it?
No, it's like Merle Haggard, "Mama tried to raise me better."
(LAUGHS)
Yeah.
And I finally was like, "You know what? You all need to work this out.
"You're 70 and you're 40 and deal with it, you know."
PEG: Mary called me and she said,
"John would really like to come up Memorial weekend."
JOHN: I would like to have had a little something, you know,
just a little small get-together, you know, to...
To look over some photographs
and some old 8mm's one evening and whatnot.
And spend a day in reflection of my father.
And I stepped foot through the door
and I got on the phone and I called him.
I'm always waiting for the other shoe to fall with John.
I always am. There's always that little
piece of me that's just well...
He always manages to take a great situation and screw it up.
JOHN: I'm really interested to see what this thing looks like.
I'm interested to get it back in that Gatorade bag and in my place.
I'm here.
Well, hello, there, John. Kati.
Well, come on in, John. Oh, wow!
KATI: Are you ready for the unveiling?
All right. I'm ready for the big moment. Are you?
I'm ready. Are you sure?
I know I am. Okay, close your eyes.
Oh...
Oh, I suppose you can just turn around.
JOHN: Okay, all right. (CHUCKLING)
Well, now, turn around and see your leg.
Oh, no, well, that's me.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
That's your leg right there.
I'm losing it.
Is that crazy or what?
This is... This is...
I'm at a loss for words. You know, really, it's like...
Look at this, look at that.
See, I had some problems when I molded it
and I'm just not as happy with it as I'd like to be.
I'm gonna beg you to let me keep it for a little while and redo it.
We can't move forward until there's an ending for this leg.
I think you'll be a lot happier with it when I redo it.
I'm just worried it's never gonna be over.
It's never, ever gonna be over with John.
Motherfucker.
What the fuck?
What in the hell have I gotten myself into now?
You don't wait for John to come home.
He's supposed to be here for supper.
And, you know, stay here for the weekend.
There's nothing but silence.
I don't hear a motorcycle riding in the driveway.
Let's... Let's look at this thing again.
I honestly think I can clean this thing.
You think? I think I can.
Okay. And it just is what it is.
And it gives you, it gives you something to do
about the finished product, you know.
I'm going back down the road.
It's 6:30. Damn. It's about time I get on the big road.
It's 20 till 7:00. Oh!
There he is.
What did you bring me?
I'm sure I've got something in the bag.
(PEG LAUGHING)
Oh, my God.
All right, good. You finally got here.
You've been here and you finally got here, good.
All right. So your supper's ready.
And you're late.
As usual.
Well, at least you know what to expect.
Yeah, I do.
Okay. Here we go.
(JOHN CLEARS THROAT)
LISA: He's not been in a very good mood.
He used to be a happy person and he would always make me laugh.
And didn't matter what mood I'm in,
he can always come in the room and make me smile.
And now, there's none of that. There's no communication.
We talk about divorce a lot, lately.
I feel like me finding that foot in the grill,
fucked me more than making me famous.
It's changed Shannon a lot
'cause he keeps chasing
something that he's wanting to happen.
I just wish he'd find out what he wants to happen and make it happen.
Take the stress off of me.
And...
(SHANNON SPEAKING)
LISA: That's what I'm saying, isn't it?
LISA: Yeah.
What was really good was that her and John got together
and they talked for a long time.
MARIAN: Yeah, they were laughing... TOM: Yeah.
All was forgotten and forgiven for that, at least for that day.
It was good. It was good.
I watched John's body language, he seems calmer.
I could feel it.
And it was a very nice weekend.
I'm just now beginning to, you know, really start grasping
how to be this responsible adult male in society again.
I've talked to him more now than I have his whole life.
It's not getting Uncle John back,
it's getting an Uncle John, period.
I never really felt like, I had an uncle to begin with.
I would say, John is taking a long time, but he's sober.
And that's a good thing.
But, you know what?
The best way to pay homage to my father would be his wishes,
of what he wanted to happen.
What would my father want for me? To be my own man.
To be independent.
To be sober.
To just be happy.
Whose father doesn't want that for their son?
MARIAN: As bizarre and weird as it all is, this is the direction it took
and on some level I would like to thank Shannon
for being the douche that he is
because he was a catalyst.
Sometimes it is important to hold on to certain merchandise.
And sometimes it's important to liquidate.
Sometimes you can hold on to something too long
and it's gonna cost you more than it's worth.
Sometimes it's better to cut a little bit of losses
and let it go, so you can get that paper back.
And then you can do it all over again, you know.
Anybody else would've just gave that leg and the grill back to me.
And I would've just kept on doing what I was doing.
Him doing what he did, I got my life back.
(INAUDIBLE)
(MAMA TRIED PLAYING)
MAN: (ON RADIO) What is your announcement, Shannon?
SHANNON: (ON RADIO) I have been asked to run
for the President of the United States...
...and I have decided to run.
MAN: Yeah. Yes. (CLAPPING)
(SINGING ALONG) ♪ Mama tried, mama tried
♪ Mama tried to raise me better ♪