Rocked Episode 6: The Violent “End” of Muff and Uncle Biff

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0:00 When I was in my late teens I spent a summer with my great aunt Penelope in the Hamptons. Surrounded by opulence and excess, I recall feeling a bit out of place. We would dine at fancy restaurants, eating caviar and chateaubriand. The patrons would snap their fingers at the waitstaff and laugh at the way that they would quote. Get so happy after a measly one hundred dollar tip. We would spend the weekends sipping cocktails, mocktails in my case, on million dollar yachts. I would listen to the conversations from afar. My friend at Goldman Sachs says this, and my brother at Harvard Law says that. It was both exhilarating and exhausting, seeing how the other side lived. That summer, surrounded by the so called elite, I learned to appreciate the humble lifestyle I enjoyed at the time.

1:02 put it succinctly. Those people were the worst. From NEOZAZ and something sketchy in Orlando, this is Rocked. I’m Larah Nimoi. Trying to find that unique gift for your loved one, but don’t have a crafty bone in your body? By the textile arts of long ago, but don’t have the time or desire to put the work in? Do you have a retired loved one who’s bored and driving you insane? Hey, so bored. Seeing this episode of Price is Right. That’s why there’s Baetsi. We kill two birds with one stone, as my Nana would say. We take lonely, bored nanas and put them to work, creating precious works of craft that you can’t find anywhere else. That Bob Barker is a looker. Need to cover your toilet paper with a crocheted dolly? We’ve got you covered. Grandfather, I’ve already seen this murder she wrote and I know who did it. What an Afghan to cover those cold Tootsies on a winter evening? Brrr! Baetsi’s got you! Each of our nanas, Mimas, and Mimis have been thoroughly vetted as crafting queens and sewing gammas. No cross stitch is too hard, no quilt is too big for these above-average abuelas.

2:24 And now, Baetsi is catering. Need a casserole? Say no more. We’ve got a bubby for that. Our grannies can sew anything from purses to prom dresses. A board babushka of your own? Call Baetsi and we’ll put her to work. Just drop her off at one of our convenient warehouses and we’ll do the rest. Gamma will come home at the end of a 10-hour day with calluses on her fingers and a feeling of purpose she’s not had in decades. And best of all, she earns 10 whole cents on the dollar. For those ladies who’ve lived through the Depression or 2008, that’s a fortune. Kidding me? So the next time you’re looking for something cheap but meaningful, check out Baetsi.com. It’s made with love. Any grannies injured in the making of products are exempt from personal injury claim. Baetsi takes no responsibility for any grannies who wander away during work hours. Product quality not guaranteed. It’s late January 1993, Palm Beach, Florida, a mecca for the super wealthy from New York looking to avoid the frigid winter weather.

3:40 On any given night you could party with Wall Street playboys, supermodels, real estate tycoons, and a plethora of celebrities from every medium imaginable. It seemed to be an idyllic place. Free from the troubles of the real world. But it might surprise you to know that even in this small ocean side town there Crime could rear its ugly head. It’s a lovely evening in Palm Beach. The party is in full swing at a large, garish mansion on the coast. Amongst the guests two local socialites. Muff Vandermuffen, and Biff Duffet. Known by everyone as Uncle Biff. I would always see them dancing at the yacht club with the snowbirds. They were always the life of the party. That was Brad W., a longtime resident of Palm Beach and owner of the Permanent Vacation Travel Agency. Uncle Biff was this big shot lawyer from New York.

4:44 He was loud and abrasive, but he had this ability to draw people to him like no one I’d ever known. He’d call you a bastard, but it would still make you feel amazing. here was crazy. Brad was not the only person to say this about Uncle Biff. Uncle Biff was very direct. He didn’t ask you to do anything. He would tell you, walk this way, talk this way. Give me a kiss. fan of a turn on. That was Angel Hamilton. She was known in the nineties as one of Palm Beach’s wallet riders. She was at all the big parties and knew all the players, Now in her fifties, her main focus is acting as CEO of Just Push Play, a non-profit which provides super stretched limos to take underprivileged children to the rock concert of their choice. As nice as he made you feel, there was always this feeling that it was all just a mask. Like an act he was putting on for everyone. I don’t know how to describe it, but there was this

5:45 darkness I could feel in the air when he was around. I didn’t ever want to be alone with him. Then there was Muff. She was your stereotypical rich white woman, shallow, vapid, and absolutely awful to anyone she felt was below her. She would definitely be on one of those real housewife shows if she was around today. Victoria Muff Vandermuffen was a staple of the Palm Beach party scene from the 70s through the early 90s. The daughter of Reginald Vandermuffen, she was the heir to the scratch-and-sniff sticker fortune. She always smelled of money. and faintly root beer. Those two would always order a top-shelf martini and a bottle of Dom to start off every party. Biff would then head to the pool and spray champagne on all the young girls at the pool. Usually just pour her Dom right into her empty martini glass after finishing it, usually emptying the bottle in less than 10 minutes.

6:51 I never could figure them out. Were they a couple or just friends? All I know is where you saw one, you saw the other. They were like Gin and tonic. That was Lenny Kramer, a bartender who would frequently work weekends at various house parties around town in the nineties. I thought they were amusing, but Stephen, man, he hated them. hated all of them. But he especially despised Muff and Uncle. Stephen Tyler was another bartender on the scene back then. He and Lenny often paired up at these events. Stephen had moved from Boston in the seventies and made a pretty decent living bartending in clubs around Fort Lauderdale and Miami. before meeting Lenny, who convinced him that the real money was in private events. I met Stephen at Ragdolls, a themed techno nightclub on Miami Beach that featured life-size, scantily clad Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls everywhere. He was the demon behind the bar, spinning bottles, lighting them on fire, pouring shots 15 at a time.

7:58 For the guests and five for him. Man, he could pound them back in those days. He never seemed to get drunk. The only way you could tell he was wasted was when he started going off about the Muppets. Kept saying that in like 35 years, we’d all be replaced by Muppets. Weird God. Anyways, after a crazy brawl between these ravers and some goth kids that nearly got the place burned down, Stephen quit bartending. tried his hand at DJing. Didn’t really have what it takes, so I convinced him to get back in the saddle again and come to Palm Beach with me to work the party scene. He seemed to like it at first. The money was great. Those rich a-holes tossed around wads of hundreds for tips just to show off for whatever girls they brought with them. But eventually he really started to hate them. He said they made him feel dirty, cheap. I spoke to several other people who worked the party scene back then, and they all said the same thing about Stephen.

9:03 He really seemed to hate the rich, and for some reason, The Muppets. I remember Stephen. He was so sexy with his long hair in tight pants. He had the most luscious lips I’ve ever kissed. They were plump like Barbara Hershey’s in the movie Beaches. He was a good time. but he hid a darkness within him. he was always living on the edge. That was Svetlana Yakminov. She was the pool girl at the home of a man everyone simply referred to as Jeffrey. Svetlana came to Palm Beach from Russia as a girl, looking to break into the modelling business. After little success she ended up working for this Jeffrey, serving cocktails to wealthy businessmen by the pool. The money was good and Jeffrey gave me a place to stay most nights. I guess I had it pretty good all things considered. Anyways, I started dating Stephen in 1992. You were so fun.

10:04 Unless you mention the rich people. Or the Muppets. Then he was mostly fun. I started to notice Stephen doing little things to mess with the rich pricks. Nothing major. Stuff like spitting in the drinks or giving Donald a regular Coke instead of diet. I asked Lenny, Donald Who? Come on, you know. A mysterious non-answer. What was going on in Palm Beach in the early nineties? Then he started to put Ex-Lax or visine in the drinks. over serve people just to get them to pass out or puke. I told him to cut it out or he’s gonna get us fired. I thought things were getting better until the night that Muff and Uncle Biff disappeared. On the night of January 24th, 1993, at a party at the Guggenfeller Residence, Muff and Uncle Biff vanished without a trace. I recall that night quite well. I was with Muff and Biff in the Grotto Pool when Jeffrey and Dawn came over with a bunch of young ladies that were in town for some pageant. You know, the same old song and dance.

11:11 Biff ordered a case of Dom from this long-haired bartender and began spraying everyone with it, concentrating most of it on this pretty blonde in a green bikini. All of a sudden, this drink monkey ran in front of her, taking the brunt of it. And then he started spouting obscenities as he stalled off to change his shirt, pulling this blonde away with him to the other side of the grotto. That was Hampton Guggenfeller, heir to the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Fortune, one of the last people to see Muff and Biff alive. I thought it was hilarious, even more so when Biff tossed a wad of cash at him and yelled, Hey, maybe you can try off with this. Muff laughed so hard I thought her Botox was gonna give out. Stephen was so angry. He didn’t expect his baby sister Janie to be there. She was freshman, just seventeen. Living in New Hampshire. studying archaeology. It’s one reason why Stephen was working so hard to put her through school.

12:15 But he could only do so much. found that pageants were another way for her to pay for education. She knew that men involved were creeps. But she could take care of herself. She was just as surprised to see Stephen as he was to see her. I was in a storage shed piling up pool noodles for a party when Stephen and this half-naked girl came in arguing. He kept saying these rich pricks couldn’t be trusted and how they would use her like a Bolivian ragamuffin. He said that there were better ways to earn an honest living and their parents wanted better for her. She said she could take care of herself and stormed off. That was Joe Perry, Hampton’s longtime pool boy and amateur foot model. I met with him at a pier where he was doing a photo shoot featuring flip-flops with bottle openers in the solar system. Stephen went back to the party, but he kept a close eye on the blonde, continually muttering under his breath that he was gonna teach them all a lesson and how he was tired of how they always called us the ordinary people and how we make them sick.

13:17 Stephen was still pretty mad when I talked to him in break room. I asked him what’s wrong, he said I am sick of other beaching about the poodles in their pills. I said Stephen, it’s kinda funny, they play joke on you. took a big drink of Jack Daniels and laughed. He say, a joke? just can see no humor about their way of life. Then he went to snack table and picked up some utensils and said, I think I could do more for them with this here fork and knife. Then he put them in apron he was wearing. We all stole silverware from those parties, so I think nothing of it. Once I walked out with entire candelabra under my coat. The gathering went on into the wee hours of the night, and it was the usual scene of excess and drunken debauchery. Until witnesses say that Janie was cornered by Muff and Uncle Biff by a life-sized naked cherub fountain with the face of Mario Lopez. They said it was a heated exchange, which ended with Janie storming off into the house and the couple following her.

14:20 Stephen left the bar and followed close behind. They never came back to the party, and no one ever saw Muff and Uncle Biff alive again. When the party was finally over, about 4am, I was the last one to leave the gate. And since I couldn’t find Stephen, I had to pick up all the bikini tops in the bushes and pack up all the bars by myself. I went out to my souped up Ford and I saw that Stephen’s van was gone. What was unusual about that night was that not only had Stephen left the party in a hurry before collecting his tips, but a Soviet-issued handgun was missing from the wall display in the Guggenfellers library. Since they didn’t work, no one in Palm Beach noticed that Muff and Biff were missing until the next big party on the island, two days later. Those two never missed an island party, especially when it was a theme night. That night it was toys in the attic. All of us dressing up like our favorite childhood toy. I was a tinker toy. Donald was the Monopoly Man, and Jeffrey was the guy from Operations.

15:28 Good thing it wasn’t too cold. We were sure that Muff and Biff would walk through that door dressed as sexy furbies any minute, but they never showed up. When the police went to Muff and Biff’s house, they found the house ransacked and several valuables missing. But most disturbing was what they found in the refrigerator. We turned over every inch of that house and, you know, that’s hard work. You get peckish. And hell, cold cuts aren’t evidence, right? I opened the fridge and there was a lot of booze, but not much food. Except for this weird green jello mole. I was hungry enough for jello, but… Then I noticed things floating in it. they were peaches, but then I realized they were some ladies’ fingers. So, while we didn’t have lunch, We found a clue. Fingers had these long manicured nails with little diamonds on the tips. We figured they had to be muffs. That was Deputy Joseph Simmons from the PBPD.

16:28 Thanks to forensic science, they were able to confirm that they had indeed belonged to Muff. They weren’t just cut off and put in there. They seem to have been prepared like bursting at the sides like overdone hot dogs Five days later, in Bossier, Louisiana, another hand was found in front of a discount liquor store called Cheers. I was uh first on the scene. of cheers, Mr. Cliff Peterson. Found the hand on an empty wine crate. to a crisp and was holding an empty champagne flute. That was Detective Daryl McDaniels of the LPD. And that wasn’t all they found that morning. There was a note. stabbed onto the crate with a big barbecue fork. It read, don’t get mad, get even on one side and on the other side, a toast to Biff. He always loved his champagne. The hand in question was Uncle Biff’s right hand.

17:31 wearing a gaudy ring with the initials B D written in diamonds. It also had a bite mark on the side. A very large bite mark. Whoever took a bite out of that hand Had a very big mouth. I followed the reports westward. The next stop was in Beaumont, Texas at the Nine Lives Tavern. It was here that a cocktail waitress named Luanne made a startling discovery on the morning of February 10th, 1993. It was a foot. To be cooked about medium rare. It looked like something took a bite out of it before it was stuffed into a crystal slipper about three sizes too small. There was a note pinned to it with a barbecue skewer. It said, Sorry, Muff. No prince charming for you. I ain’t never seen nothing like this. Kinda sicko does something like that. That was former Deputy Jay Bryant. He quit the force after this incident and opened his own business, Jay’s, jellies, and jams.

18:33 Where he’s known as Jam Master J. I interviewed him over a cup of coffee and a delicious scone with Boysenberry preserves. An eyewitness saw Mr. Tyler and a young blonde outside of Nine Lives around 3 a.m. serving folks from a food truck with the word flesh spray painted on the side. I was living down under the overpass. And all of a sudden, I smelled this heavenly smell, like roasted pork shoulder. So much better than the rats in the cellar I’d been eating. That was Randy B. He didn’t give me a last name. But he lived on the streets for several years when he met two people matching Stephen and Janie’s descriptions. I see these two broads working this food truck. So I came up to the window to ask for a nibble. They were both working the grille with their backs to me. I said, Well, hello, ladies. I must have scared them because they both jumped and turned around and holy crap one of them’s a dude. That was a surprise, cause hell, that dude looked like a lady. The dude said, You don’t want any of this.

19:38 Might be too rich for you. Then they both started laughing like maniacs. They laughed for like a minute. I don’t know what was so funny. I looked at the grill and I swear I saw what looked like a butt cheek with the word Muff in cursive like a USDA mark on it. I was so hungry I didn’t care. They gave me a little bit and I was on my way and I never saw them again. It wasn’t half bad though. Tasted like chicken. And I didn’t think it was very rich at all. I don’t know what was so funny. The clues were fading fast, and there seemed to be an end to the trail of broiled body parts. I had almost given up hope and was camped at the Duck on a Rock formation in the Grand Canyon when I received an intriguing email. I found myself back on the road on my way to Palm Springs. We were changing out the sand on Hole 17 after a pretty bad gopher infestation. You gotta change it out every few years. It’s a bit of a scavenger hunt. You find loose change, lost balls, sometimes a club or two. But I was not prepared for what I found. That was Rob Fawcett, a caddy at the Deuces are Wild golf club and casino in in Palm Springs.

20:56 He saw my post on Reddit and claimed that he found something relevant to the search in a sand trap back in June of 1997. I thought it was a branch when I hit it with my shovel. But uh that hole is nowhere near a tree. Pulled it out, and it was a human leg, foot and all. Words carved into the bone. It said, I take one bite now, come back for more. Stuck it into my golf bag. This kind of thing can destroy the reputation of a club. And we were not doing well. I took it to the cops a few days later, but I said that I found it on the grassy knoll outside of the property. I was running out of time before I had to return a book to the library back in Chicago. I understand the importance of a timely return, and I don’t want to keep anyone from being able to borrow Sweet Emotion, the latest romance novel from Velvet Hartwell. I followed one last lead from old police blotters. In February of 1994, a local convenience clerk in Santa Clara claimed to have been robbed at gunpoint by a couple with a food truck who sounded oddly familiar. I had been at this job for just five hours.

22:13 And all of a sudden this long haired guy with a bunch of silk scarves wrapped around his face comes in with this tall blonde woman. And they started yelling for me to give them what’s in my register. He says Janie’s got a gun and she knows how to use it. It looked really old. I didn’t even think it was real. She got mad and threw a box of raisinettes at him and said, Damn it, don’t use my name. I started crying. and the guy just shoved me aside and reached into my drawer and took everything. And then he grabbed a map of Beverly Hills and they laughed. I know there are risks anywhere you work, but I draw the line at getting robbed. That was my first and last day there. It was much safer going back to beauty school. That was Betsy Collins, now a hairdresser in San Dimas, specializing in wigs for pets. With this clue, I fueled up my RV and headed to Beverly Hills. It was there that the trail seemed to have come to an end.

23:20 So I was doing my weekly maintenance of cacti when I noticed this whole bunch of cats, a clouder, if you will. gathering around this one clump of stones. That was Jim Honey. Retired groundskeeper at Beverly Hills Garden Park. So this Grey Poupon jar sticking out of these two white rocks and When I went to pick it up, thinking one of these rich guys was littering in my park, and I realized. They weren’t no rocks. Butt cheeks. Nothing else, just just disembodied butt cheeks. Well when I looked up I noticed there was a note stuck on the cactus behind the behind. picked it up and it read I believe in rags to riches. Your inheritance won’t last. He reported this incident to police, who for years were unable to identify the body part, referring to it only as John Doe’s Rear JDR for short.

24:31 I convinced the Sheriff’s Office to conduct DNA testing on JDR, and they found out that it was. Indeed, The End of Uncle Biff This is the final clue I was able to find. If you have any information on any body parts found after 1993 between Florida and Beverly Hills, please let me know. With this gruesome end to such a charmed pair of lives, he It leaves me with questions. What happened to Janie and Stephen? Did they in fact eat the rich, and if so, did they go well with wine? Will I ever solve a mystery? Or should I just dream on? All great questions with few answers. Until next time, this is Rocked. I’m Larah Nimoi.