"Gene Baxter and Kevin Ryder were lying." That Robert Stack soundbite from "Unsolved Mysteries" still shows up from time to time on KROQ's "Kevin & Bean" morning show, but with little explanation.
"Kevin & Bean" is now No. 1 in Los Angeles, nationally syndicated and celebrating 21 years on the air. But back in 1990, they were brand new to the station and still getting a handle on the show. (And it was quite a different show vs. today. The duo regularly joke about their show's unprofessionalism, but these days it's actually an extremely well-polished, well-executed affair with a staff pulling the whole venture together.)
In those early days, Kevin and Bean tried out all sorts of different things -- and that's when they got fellow KROQ DJ Doug "the Slug" Roberts (now known as "Sluggo") to call in and pose as a man who had killed his girlfriend.
It definitely got them attention -- from the authorities, who started investigating the case. "Unsolved Mysteries" even did a bit on the case, but Kevin and Bean stuck to their guns and denied any involvement. In the end, the truth came out -- and K&B were suspended for a brief time and ordered to pay a fine. Here's the 1991 story from the L.A. Times:
The three KROQ-FM disc jockeys who concocted and broadcast a phony murder confession that generated a lengthy law enforcement investigation will pay out of their own pockets a $12,170 bill from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deptartment, the station's attorney said Monday.Kevin and Bean still get in trouble from time to time -- but now mostly for pretty harmless stuff, like the time France president Jacques Chirac thought he was talking to Jerry Lewis. The difference now: Fans are in on the jokes and impersonations -- so much so that sometimes they're accused of faking real guests.
The sheriff's department had presented the bill to the station earlier this month to compensate for the 149 hours that a homicide detective spent attempting to solve the murder case.
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