On October 21st, 1986, in Miramar, Florida, a woman returned to her townhome to find her boyfriend, 28-year-old firefighter Billy Halpern, lying dead in a pool of blood. Billy had been bound, gagged, and his throat cut from ear to ear. There was no murder weapon, no sign of forced entry, and no immediate suspects.

It's just a shame that they took him from us.

This had all the signs of a professional hit. When four of Billy's friends also turned up dead, detectives couldn't help but think Billy was mixed up in something big and bad, tangled in a web way darker and deeper than anyone expected, involving some of South Florida's most dangerous criminals. So how did they cross paths with Billy? The Apollo Gym, a no-frills prison yard-style facility dedicated to pain and gain, a place where cops and crooks could share a safe space to pump iron. It was owned by a jacked ex-cop named Gil Fernandez.

That guy is a gangsta.

I'm Scott Weinberger, podcaster and investigative journalist. But before that, I was a Deputy Sheriff in Brouhaha County, Florida, the very same county where Billy's brutal murder took place in the 1980s, a time where drug traffickers flutter the state. Just picture the movie Scarface. I worked those streets and I saw the violence firsthand. Billy's case, even 37 seven years later, was as cold as they come, but that was about to change.

My name is Danny Smith. I'm a Detective with Miramar Police Department. This is Scott Weinberger. We're actually reopening an old case, and your name came up.

Danny was on a mission to reopen Billy's case, and I was on a mission to join him, documenting step by step in real-time. This was a case of a lifetime, especially if we could solve it. I We never expected what we'd find out along the way and how deep the corruption would go.

You were a cop. You know that there's good ones and bad ones.

I thought they were going to kill me, so I kept my mouth shut and I didn't say anything all these years.

People were afraid to go to the law because he was a former cop.

What we learned shocked us, and it will shock you, too.

And this was up to 33.

Are you talking about homicides? Yeah. Join us as we finally expose the chilly motive behind a string of brutal murders and unearthed new evidence.

We got some info back. There is DNA there.

Including the DNA of Billy Halpern's killer. Listen to Cold-Blooded: The Apollo Jim murders starting on April 22nd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.