The Disappearing Mercedes Story

                                       The Disappearing Mercedes Story

                                                             1975

                                        A true story from the Florida Keys

                                   Written 05/2013 and Re-written 02/2016

                                                      Howard Yasgar

     When I first moved to Miami Florida in 1963, it seemed like everyone was always talking about the Florida Keys, and Key West.

     I knew that Key West was an Island, somewhere south of Miami, and I knew from looking at maps, it could be reached by driving down U.S. 1.

     I learned that US 1, once it left the Florida mainland  was called the “Overseas Highway”, and I wondered why.

     So I started doing a little research and I found out that the city of Key West, was 160 miles south of Miami, and the only road to get there, was U.S. 1, which was now called the Overseas Highway.

     The Overseas Highway was built on top of what was once the old Henry Flagler Key West railroad.

     Flagler’s railroad was destroyed in the hurricane of 1935 the government bought all of the railroad land for $80,000.00, and then they built a highway on top of where the old track was before.

     Where ever there were bridges, they paved over the old railroad bed and used Flagler’s steel railroad tracks as guard rails.

     The Overseas Highway to Key West was completed a long time ago, so now by 1963, you can get on the highway and drive through a long string of islands that were called the Florida Keys.

     So now in about 3 hours or so, you could drive from South Miami to Key West, and the entire highway has green mile markers so you always know how far you are from Key West.

     Once you leave the Florida mainland (Florida City) on US 1, you enter the 18 mile stretch.

    The 18 mile stretch is a long stretch of highway running right through the everglades. Henry Flagler had used big dredges o build it. His dredges were just like monster gold dredges, he had one on each side of the road, as they dug, the dredge on the left put its dirt on the right, and the dredge on the right put its earth to the left. In that manner they built a  road with 12 foot deep canals on both sides. 

     Once you are past the 18 mile stretch you enter Key Largo, then after Key Largo you drive into Islamorada, and from Islamorada you have around 90 miles of bridges and small islands to cross before hitting Key West.

     As you head South, and once you hit Key Largo, the Atlantic ocean is on your left side, called Ocean side. On the right is the gulf of Mexico and it is referred to as Bayside.      

     Once the road was built, lots of people started moving to the Florida Keys, and they

Started building houses all along the ocean side as well as the Bayside.

     Many of the houses on the water were considered very exclusive. They were hidden from view by tropical woodland, and they all had easy access to the ocean.

     In some of the Oceanside areas the homes were referred to as millionaire’s row.

   According to what I was reading, drug smuggling was rampant everywhere in the Keys, and because the Keys had so many wooded coves, nooks and crannies along the shoreline, it appeared that lots fishing captains and local people were getting involved with smuggling drugs.

     By 1963, Key West and the city of Marathon had become famous as the entry points for Marijuana and Cocaine coming in to the United States.

     The city of Marathon was about half way to Key West and had a fairly small population of a few thousand people, but it had a good sized airport, and the drugs came in by the planeload.

     Some of the residents became so prosperous that a Mercedes Benz dealership  opened up there.

     So it appeared that by 1963 the Florida Keys was not only the fishing capitol of the world but now it was also the drug capitol as well.

     Everyone knew that the marijuana ships loaded with drugs were coming up to the Florida coast, and just off the Keys, they were unloading the bales.

     The bales were off loaded onto smaller fishing boats that brought them ashore. The business was so common the bales were referred to as “Square Grouper”, by the locals.

     One day in 1975, the Miami Herald ran the following story.

     It  seems that a Florida State Trooper, who was hiding somewhere on the 18 mile stretch, spotted a late model white Mercedes Benz coupe with a red racing stripe, it was  traveling South down the eighteen mile stretch at a very high rate of speed. He said they were doing way over 100 mph.

     The State Trooper opted not to chase the Mercedes, he simply radioed ahead for a roadblock to be set up either in Key Largo or Islamorada.

     A roadblock was set up in Islamorada.

     But for some reason, the white Mercedes Benz never arrived there.

   The police assumed that whoever was driving the Mercedes was probably staying at  a hotel somewhere in Key Largo.

     They put out an “APB” for all officers to be on the lookout for a white Mercedes Benz coupe with a red racing stripe.

     Over the next few weeks the state and local police looked in every parking lot of every hotel and resort, but no white Mercedes car was ever found.

     So after a month, they sort of lost interest and stopped looking.

     One morning there was a frantic 911 telephone call, the call was from a young women living in a house on millionaires row.

     She had just found her boyfriend shot to death in their sailboat, the boat was moored at the end of their dock.

     When the police arrived, they met a young blond girl, who took them down to the sailboat.

    Besides from finding her boyfriend’s dead body in the sailboat, the police also found six late model Mercedes Benz coupes, parked next to the house, all were different colors, and one was white with a red racing stripe.

      In the trunk of one of the Mercedes they found marijuana residue, and scales for weighing drugs.

      The case of the disappearing white Mercedes with the racing stripe was solved.