The Return of Fred Carrasco explores the life of the infamous international heroin importer, his decision to come back home to San Antonio after his escape from a Mexican prison, his rise as an anti-hero, his arrest and imprisonment, and his controversial death after a failed prison escape.Carrasco's return to San Antonio in 1972 unleashes an avalanche of violence, death, and media coverage. I follow the story on TV, listen to reports on the radio, and read it in print. In the English language press, he is the quintessential "bad hombre," rumored to have a "kill list." Yet Spanish-language radio stations play songs that honor the man known as El Señor. In the barrios, Carrasco becomes a mythic-like figure. I, and many others, are enthralled and thrilled by rumors of sightings around town. The outlaw and his symbolic challenge to authority strikes a chord inside of a lot of us.In 2018 I start a series of visits to San Antonio to explore the Fred Carrasco story and better to understand San Antonio in the early 1970s and myself. Over seven years, I talk to cops, reporters, former heroin addicts and dealers, Carrasco associates, criminal defense attorneys, and my own relatives. I assemble a team to research FBI files, police records, birth records, and autopsy reports.The main tension in the story is the years long battle between a detective named William "Big Bill" Weilbacher and Fred Gomez Carrasco. Both men are deeply flawed.This is a San Antonio story removed from the revelry of the city's famed riverwalk, the extravagant Fiesta parades, and Alamo mythology. It's the San Antonio city cheerleaders don't talk about. The Return of Fred Carrasco is about race, poverty, addiction, and police corruption.
Episode One – Fred Carrasco Comes Home
A classic anti-hero is embraced by a
community searching for a symbol of resistanceEpisode Two – Intersecting Lives
Carrasco and Weilbacher’s paths to powerEpisode Three – Meteoric Rise/ a Spectacular Fall
Carrasco in MexicoEpisode Four – Finding Fred Carrasco
The search is on for the man known as El SeñorEpisode Five, Six, Seven, & Eight
TBA
I am an award-winning producer and executive producer. I have worked for The Boston Globe, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and WGBH Boston. At the Globe, I brought together podcast company Wondery and the Spotlight investigative team to produce Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc. I served, with Martha Minow, as an of Executive Producer of Legal Lens, a series of short form documentaries produced by Harvard Law School students and Boston filmmakers in 2019.I served as the Sr. Vice President & Chief Content Officer at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Projects supported under my leadership at CPB include the Primetime Programming block, the Independent Television Service, Veterans Coming Home, Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, TED TALKS: War and Peace many other specials.For seven years I was part of the editorial team at The American Experience, at WGBH. produced, directed, and wrote Zoot Suit Riots, a film on the youth culture of 1940s Los Angeles, and Remember the Alamo, a film about the Mexican families living in San Antonio during the epic battle, for the Emmy award-winning series. I am a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America member.I was 17 and living in San Antonio when Fred Carrasco returned to San Antonio. My first cousin, Librado "Baby" Andrade, Jr, a heroin addict, and dealer, was executed on the streets of San Antonio, three days after Carrasco is captured the summer of 1973.
Executive Producer
Lesley NormanResearcher & Consultant
Noi MahoneyResearcher and Private Investigator
Michelle MondoHost & Producer
Joseph Tovares
