Ah, yes, the mystery of the secret safe. Here's the story.
Back in August 2011, the former Bill's Casino, in Stateline, Lake Tahoe, was undergoing major construction work during its conversion into a CVS pharmacy and Dotty's casino, when a hidden safe was found underneath a staircase and completely sealed off behind Sheetrock. Speculation immediately started to fly around, due to the history of the property, which was formerly called Barney's.
In its previous incarnation, the casino had been owned by Richard Chartrand, who was killed on August 22, 1968 by a massive car-bomb explosion as he left his home in the Skyland neighborhood. The murder was never solved, although the technique suggested it was mob-related, and there was talk at the time of a lot of money missing from the casino.
Fast forward to 2011 and the secret safe, which had a broken handle and proved on initial attempts to be completely impenetrable by a series of locksmiths, which only served to fuel the hype around it, had the cold-case investigators speculating about whether it might be connected with Chartrand's death and perhaps contain the missing loot.
The story went national, and it was reported that the Oprah Winfrey Network, of all unlikely outlets, had paid lots of money for the exclusive media rights to film the opening of the safe for a series that was apparently "in development," according to a network spokesperson at the time.
In mid-September, a select group, including reps from Oprah's network and Sgt. Jim Halsey of Douglas County Sheriff's Office, gathered for the big reveal, with everyone present required to sign a confidentiality agreement. However, after all the hype and speculation, the official word from law enforcement was that there was, "Nothing of substance for us inside, and the contents are being kept a secret until the Oprah Winfrey show airs in a month or so," Halsey wrote.
That's the last we ever heard of this story, and we could find no trace of any Oprah show ever having aired, doubtless because the whole episode turned out to be so anticlimactic, much like Geraldo Rivera's 1986 "Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults" show, when another much-hyped opening revealed nothing but an "old stop sign and a couple of empty gin bottles," according to a retrospective by Rivera.
