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View Full Version : Boating on TV Tonight! Should be cool, the Don Aronow murder



C-2
03-05-2003, 12:01 PM
This was passed on to me, it airs tonight on the A & E Network, “City Confidential” is the program.
10:00 p.m., which I believe is 7:00 p.m. for us West Coast peeps. The guy who narrates City Confidential has a cool voice, itÂ’s like riding on the haunted house ride at Disneyland for an hour!
“Miami Beach: Smugglers & Speedboats
In the 1980s, Miami was perhaps America's hippest city. But the murder of wealthy Miami boat builder Don Aronow, shot while sitting in his Mercedes coupe on famed "Thunderboat Row" in 1987, put the spotlight on the city's glitz, glamour, and drug culture. And for years, Aronow's murder remained one of South Florida's most notorious mysteries. Narrated by Paul Winfield. TV PG”

HavasuDreamin'
03-05-2003, 12:12 PM
Gonna have to check it out. Thanks for the info. :cool:

uvindex
03-05-2003, 12:16 PM
Thanks for the heads-up, I'm gonna watch it. :)
I checked my local listings (Cox Cable in Orange County) and it's on at 10:00pm here too (with a replay at 2:00am.)
Thanks again.

Back To Havasu
03-05-2003, 01:01 PM
Thanks for the info. I'll tune in too.. :D

Thunderbutt
03-05-2003, 01:12 PM
Thanks for the info. I'm watching it. Did they ever figure out what happened to Christenson at Havasu.

Kilrtoy
03-05-2003, 01:31 PM
I think they showed that show on Discovery a couple of months back, it was a very good show. It talks about how he was building boats for the sumgglers and then the DEA wanted some boats to catch them. He built them some boats and well we know the rest.

bordsmnj
03-05-2003, 03:21 PM
hhmmmm...Gonna hafta check that out then. :cool:

mbrown2
03-05-2003, 03:29 PM
Thunderbutt:
Thanks for the info. I'm watching it. Did they ever figure out what happened to Christenson at Havasu. Here is one article that tells how it ended up...that incident was a travesty, but another telling tell how his family and company stuck together and kept the company alive. It was earlier that year that his son had died in a Boating accident.
Ex-con gets two life terms
with no parole in murder case
PHOENIX (AP) — A man was sentenced to two life terms without possible parole for the murder of a championship power boat racer whose body was found in the New Mexico desert four months after he and his airplane vanished.
Bobby Joe Keesee, 65, admitted in U.S. District Court on Friday that he shot Harry M. Christensen, who also owned a custom boat business, Advantage Boats, in Lake Havasu City.
To avoid a possible death sentence, Keesee pleaded guilty in November to felonies that included air piracy, interference with commerce and murder using a firearm.
The FBI and police were baffled for months as they searched for Christensen’s missing body, even after they arrested Keesee.
Christensen’s blood-soaked twin-engine Cessna 340 had been found at Coronado Airport in Albuquerque, N.M., the day after the 48-year-old businessman disappeared.
It wasn’t until four months later that a rancher stumbled across the body in a remote desert stretch in Sandoval County, N.M.
Keesee had met Christensen by responding to an advertisement for Christensen’s plane in January 1999. Christensen met with Keesee twice, once allowing him to fly the plane, before Keesee said he wanted to buy it.
They met at the Lake Havasu airport on Jan. 6, 1999, where Christensen was shot in the chest and the head, authorities say. Keesee shoved the body into the plane’s cabin and took off.
He used Christensen’s credit cards to refuel the plane in Winslow before flying to Albuquerque. Once there, authorities say, he borrowed a friend’s van and drove Christensen’s body to the remote desert where he dumped it.
Keesee disposed of Christensen’s bloody clothes and the mats from the airplane in a family member’s trash can.
He was arrested the next day with Christensen’s rings, Rolex watch and credit cards but refused to tell authorities where Christensen was.
Keesee’s wife, Hildgund, was arrested later and pleaded guilty to helping the convicted felon get a gun. She is to be sentenced April 20 in New Mexico federal court.
Keesee has a criminal history dating from 1962.
He twice served time for posing as a federal official in schemes to obtain airplanes. He also served prison time for attempting to bilk a company in a purchasing scam, for theft of a plane and for conspiracy in the death of a U.S. consul in Hermosillo, Mexico.
Four months before Keesee killed Christensen, he had been released from prison after a term for kidnapping and ransom.
‘‘It’s plain for all to see that Mr. Keesee is, in the truest sense of the word, a career criminal,’’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Frederick A. Batiste said in court. ‘‘He is truly evil.’’
Christensen’s daughter, Jennifer Porter, told Judge Roger Strand the two life terms weren’t enough. She said prosecutors should have gone after the death penalty.
The ‘‘sorry excuse for a man’’ deserves nothing, Porter said as she broke down crying.
Christensen was a well-known figure in the boat-racing world. He and his son, Jeff, won the Pacific Offshore Powerboat Racing Association season points title in 1997.
Jeff was killed in September when he was thrown out of his boat during a race.