How does the Hammer Family keep getting away with murder? From Armand to Armie, investigators and informers uncover the truth.
Casey Hammer tells all about the rampant abuse in her family and it’s clear that the “Life of the Party” may have been a deadly misnomer. How does the Hammer Family keep getting away with murder? Is it the money, the power, or something else? From grandpa Armand to grandson Armie, investigators and informers uncover the truth.
Find episode transcripts here: https://dark-dynasties.simplecast.com/episodes/the-hammer-family-murder-is-a-family-tradition-part-3
SYD 0:00
This podcast is intended for mature audiences episodes discuss
emotional physical and sexual violence listener Discretion is Advised
OLIVIA 0:15
Welcome back to Dark Dynasties
SYD 0:22
This is a podcast where we focus on different rich and powerful
families who have ultimately expose themselves to be corrupt messed up
and well, you know, very dark.
OLIVIA 0:32
We're still talking about the hammer family. Last time we talked
mostly about army hammer's great grandfather, Armand Hammer. Today
we're gonna get into Arman's twisted relationship with his son,
Julian. Julian is also the father of Kc hammer armies and,
SYD 0:48
and we remember Casey hammer because she came out against her family
and said, I'm going to be exposing the secrets of the hammer family.
She wrote a book about it.
OLIVIA 0:56
She wrote a book, she was in House of hammer, doing interviews, she is
very cool, very badass, very impressed by her ability to come out and
try to stop all all the fuckery
SYD 1:09
so if you want to follow along, make sure you watch House of hammer on
Discovery. Plus, we'll probably be going over stuff from episodes two
and three today.
OLIVIA 1:16
I'm Olivia.
SYD 1:17
I'm Syd. And welcome back to Dark Dynasties.
OLIVIA 1:26
Last time, we mostly talked about army hammers great grandfather
Armand Hammer. Today we're gonna get into Arman's twisted relationship
with his son Julian Julian is also the grandfather of Armie Hammer and
the father of Michael and Casey hammer. Casey hammer is army's aunt
SYD 1:42
and we know about Casey hammer because in House of hammer on Discovery
plus which please watch and follow along.
OLIVIA 1:47
This podcast is mostly based off of that Docu series.
SYD 1:51
Casey hammer,
she wrote a book about her family's corrupt nature, she comes out to
expose the secrets of the hammer family and it's pretty risky because
she's incredible.
OLIVIA 2:02
And she's going up against very scary powerful people. Yeah, long live
Casey hammer. She's incredible.
SYD 2:08
We love her. So let's focus on Julian first father
OLIVIA 2:11
Casey's father, Armand Hammer, the oil tycoons son,
SYD 2:15
Julian. So Armand didn't want Julian to be his son.
OLIVIA 2:19
That's a bad start.
SYD 2:20
It's true. It's not a good start for a father son relationship.
OLIVIA 2:23
It's really not Armand wanted to prove that he was, you know,
completely in alliance with America and not at all with
SYD 2:30
Russia. For some background on that Armand's father, Julius was one of
the founders of communism in the US.
OLIVIA 2:38
Yes,
the American Communist Party. And of course, Armand Hammer was
actually named after the arm and hammer in communism. Armand, he
didn't want to have a son in Russia to link him with Russia.
SYD 2:51
He has this wife Olga, back in Russia. He has a son there. His name is
Julian. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm totally American. I'm totally
in line with all of the American believes. Like,
OLIVIA 3:02
I've never met that son. I don't like that son. I don't want that son
asks for a paternity test. Yeah, to prove it's not his son. You know,
Julian grew up being absolutely loved and treasured for who He was.
SYD 3:14
Oh, yeah,
that just sounds like a perfect childhood.
OLIVIA 3:16
But you know, the good news is, even though that's all kind of sad, we
don't actually have to feel bad for Julian at all. No, he is a
horrible dude.
SYD 3:23
Yeah, let's flash forward. Some years. Julian is now married. Yeah.
That woman is pregnant. And Julian does what any person does, which is
he shoots a person in cold blood.
OLIVIA 3:35
Yeah. Julian Hammer was at his own birthday party at his own house.
And yeah,
SYD 3:41
he got into a fight with his friend his friend
OLIVIA 3:43
at the party came up to him and was like, Oh, by the way, you gamble
all the time, and you owe me 400 bucks.
SYD 3:49
Now for this guy who's the son of an oil tycoon? Yeah, $400 is just
not that much.
OLIVIA 3:54
I'm gonna say $400 is something you could drop on the ground and
forget if you were that guy.
SYD 3:59
Yeah. But instead, Julian hammer is like, No, I'm not gonna give that
to you.
OLIVIA 4:03
Instead of just being like, no,
SYD 4:05
they get into a fight and he grabs a gun and he shoots him twice.
OLIVIA 4:08
Julian loves
guns. He loves drugs, alcohol. These are his things he loves so much.
SYD 4:13
he murders his friend. And in the classic hammer tradition. Yeah. He
takes no accountability for it. He gets arrested. Yeah. And his father
Armand, the billionaire tycoon,
OLIVIA 4:25
you know, his son is in jail for killing a man. And so out of the
goodness of our man's heart.
SYD 4:29
No, no, it's to protect his own reputation. To protect the reputation
of the hammer family.
Armand pays out $50,000 to sweep the whole thing under the rug and the
charges disappear.
OLIVIA 4:42
And I'm just going to do a little bit of math, but I would say that
$400 is less than $50,000.
SYD 4:48
I would call that less than $50,000.
OLIVIA 4:50
So you know, Julian does the whole murdering his friend thing he gets
away with it because of daddy.
And then when the daddy is like, well? What are you going to do for
work? You can't Just kill people.
SYD 5:01
Yeah. Instead, you could do something much more wholesome and spy on
people. For me. Who needs that position?
OLIVIA 5:07
That's a crazy job title. Imagine my father's personal spy.
SYD 5:11
Imagine seeing on LinkedIn, like a job posting for daddy's personal
spy? That it's just not something I'd ever applied.
OLIVIA 5:19
Yeah, no. So So you know, Julian's doing the respectable job of being
Daddy's little spy.
SYD 5:25
And what this means is, you know, Armand, he loves recording
conversations like we met
OLIVIA 5:30
earlier, recording people and then bribing them, and then recording
them and then showing them the recordings of them being bribed and
blackmail.
SYD 5:37
Yeah, because if he offered someone a bribe on a tape recording,
then he has dirt on them forever. Yeah. So basically,
Julian joins the family business. And he becomes the go to guy for
bugging and taping everybody and has basically all of our secrets,
OLIVIA 5:53
which is, which is a crazy thing to hire your son who you've you
openly hate. Yeah, like, like I would... I don't know, I would think
twice about that.
But at the same time, I'm kind of glad he didn't because it ended up
interesting.
Anyway, this is all Julian's kind of pre having kids are like earlier
adult life.
SYD 6:14
Yeah, this is kind of just like who he is as a guy. So Julian is also
a, an abuser.
OLIVIA 6:21
Yes. And even worse, combined with that a father
SYD 6:25
and a husband husband. So Casey writes about in her book and talks
about on House of Hammer
OLIVIA 6:31
Yeah, how her father was just super abusive.
SYD 6:35
She remembers seeing her mother being beaten. She remembers thinking
like,
Oh, is that like, not necessarily normal for my mom to have blood on
her? For me to be like covering my ears, so I don't hear the sounds of
my mom being beaten. It would be really, really dark stuff really bad.
OLIVIA 6:52
And the mom would take the kids to a motel when the dad would get too
drunk and abusive.
And it just is even more awful because even though the mom wanted to
leave Julian she, like couldn't for a long time, Armond, Julian's
father said, you know, if you leave Julian, I will destroy you.
SYD 7:14
Yeah. Which is Armand's answer to everything
OLIVIA 7:16
he loves to destroy people who don't deserve it.
SYD 7:19
Yeah. So, you know, Armand had all of his lawyers, all of everything,
all of his money, and lawyers are going to protect his son who is
pretty evil.
OLIVIA 7:29
He's just an evil dude.
SYD 7:31
So it's just kind of like a cycle of abuse that continues. It's just
terrible.
OLIVIA 7:36
Yeah. And so Julian, you know, spends a long time tormenting his
family and then eventually, his wife does divorce him.
SYD 7:42
Yeah, his wife leaves eventually, which is like wildly brave. It's
incredible of her
OLIVIA 7:47
and and the thing of course, that's horrible is that Armand kept his
promise. He just ruined her in court.
He had the most lawyers have just like, just like the craziest lawyers
for for Julian.
SYD 8:00
Yeah. And she, you know, eventually leaves and she has Casey with her.
And Michael, Casey's brother, Armie's father. Yeah. Stays with the
Father Julian.
OLIVIA 8:12
And I remember Casey says in the Docu series that her mother's biggest
regret was letting Michael stay.
SYD 8:17
Yeah, Julian because Julian's a bad influence. Yeah, like Casey
remembers visiting her father after the divorce. Yeah.
OLIVIA 8:25
And And the worst part is to like after the divorce, her father
decided that he was like the Hugh Hefner of the Pacific Palisades.
SYD 8:31
Yeah. And basically what he means by that is he's gonna wear a robe
and have a bunch of young women are in his house and a bunch of drugs
and
OLIVIA 8:39
weird comb over weird robe underage girls. Yeah, drugs and guns, you
know. Gambling.
SYD 8:46
Casey remembers finding like photos of a bunch of, you know, pretty
sexually explicit stuff.
Yeah, she's a kid.
OLIVIA 8:54
She's 12.
SYD 8:54
probably shouldn't find that.
OLIVIA 8:56
And like her dad has all these 16 17 year old girls around the house
that he calls his housekeepers. Yeah. And it's like,
No, those are actually called
Children
Unknown Speaker 9:04
Minors. She explains in the documentary that she was taught that women
are disposable,
Unknown Speaker 9:08
that like women are for use, you know,
OLIVIA 9:10
and she's like, 12 years old. And anytime she's visiting her father,
she's in this horrible environment, and her older brother is, you
know, mimicking her father.
SYD 9:19
And he's basically like, you know, chalking it up as like, No, I'm
just like, a party guy. I'm the life of the party.
OLIVIA 9:25
I'm a playboy. I love to party I'm in the party.
SYD 9:28
Unless even though it's like you're pulling out guns, you have
underage girls here like this is not being the life of the party.
OLIVIA 9:34
Yeah, so you know, in case any one of you guys out there listening to
this sees themselves or aspires to be the life of the party. We're
gonna just do a quick segment to clarify this segment is called Life
of the Party or Unmistakable Threat to all Mankind.
SYD 9:54
So we'll just give a couple of examples and kind of try to guess
OLIVIA 9:58
yeah, we'll say like what if you do this thing at a party? Does that
make you like the absolute king of parties?
Or like an absolute fucking danger to any man woman or child in a 100
foot radius?
SYD 10:07
Yes, absolutely. So okay, here you go. Olivia. Are you ready?
OLIVIA 10:10
Yeah no this is gonna be hard. Okay,
SYD 10:12
if this describes you, okay, bringing some incredible homemade gwoc to
game night. Are you a life of the party or are you an unmistakable
threat to all mankind?
OLIVIA 10:23
Okay, I'm gonna say life of the party. Oh my god. Okay, great.
SYD 10:26
That's correct.
OLIVIA 10:26
Okay, great. Well, this
is easier than I thought. Okay. How about oh,
renting out an entire club for your birthday?
SYD 10:33
Oh, life of the party?
OLIVIA 10:34
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Great. I was just hanging out at a club
that so fun that is totally life of the party.
SYD 10:39
Everyone on board with that is fine with it. Okay, here's one. Getting
drunk in Vegas. Staying up three days in a row blowing all your money
in one night of poker. Whoo.
OLIVIA 10:51
I would say you're probably tired and maybe now poor, but definitely
the
life of the party.
SYD 10:56
Yes. Would be the life of the party. You're definitely tired. You
might be poor now. Yeah, I would suggest maybe not doing that. But
you're the life of the party.
OLIVIA 11:03
You're the life of the party.
Okay, how about this one?
Bringing minors...
SYD 11:06
Already a no.
OLIVIA 11:07
Including your own 12 year old daughter.
SYD 11:09
No.
OLIVIA 11:09
to a room filled with bowls of cocaine.
SYD 11:11
Oh, no thank you.
OLIVIA 11:12
Loaded guns everywhere. And sexually aggressive old men.
SYD 11:15
That's a threat
OLIVIA 11:16
so that you can get fucked up out of your mind and act out your most
debauched sexual fantasy
SYD 11:22
God no.
OLIVIA 11:22
abusing your power and controlling young women to make up for the fact
that your dad tried to disown you.
SYD 11:28
Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, that's not even that's not even slightly a
fun game. That is a threat to all mankind.
OLIVIA 11:33
That's the correct answer.
SYD 11:34
Yeah that's a threat.
OLIVIA 11:35
So just all you out there. I hope we know the difference. Now this has
been Life of the Party or Unmistakable Threat to all Mankind. You're
welcome.
SYD 11:53
One of the people who had to witness all of this partying, slash being
an unmistakable threat to all mankind was Cathy Bowl.
OLIVIA 12:02
Oh my god, Cathy.
SYD 12:04
Cathy Bowl was a 28 year old housekeeper and actual housekeeper.
OLIVIA 12:07
Yeah, so he had his quote unquote housekeepers who were just a
children that I hope are okay now.
SYD 12:14
Now. Yeah, just underage women who he would surround himself with who
shouldn't have been there.
OLIVIA 12:18
They would just like make out stuff
SYD 12:20
and he just he got terrible photos that Casey found it gets really
bad. You should watch House of Hammer. It's pretty rough.
OLIVIA 12:27
Really bad.
SYD 12:28
So Cathy Bowl was Julian's actual housekeeper. She was there. She she
had a child of her own, and she was married
OLIVIA 12:38
and he was like, You should you know, you should live on my property.
You can bring your kid.
I have these parties where I gamble for like six days straight and
like shoot at the wall.
SYD 12:47
He convinces her to eventually leave her husband and they enter a
romantic relationship.
OLIVIA 12:54
Yep, they it took it took him like six months. And then she's just
like, I have no husband
SYD 12:59
and they're engaged. Yeah. So Cathy Bowles and Julian are engaged. She
is in this very difficult position.
OLIVIA 13:06
And Julian
now this is a shocker. Yeah, Julian starts acting really shitty and
possessive towards her.
SYD 13:11
No way.
OLIVIA 13:12
This guy, really?
SYD 13:11
this guy who murdered someone and his terrible? one instance. She
explains in the house of hammer
OLIVIA 13:19
Very interestingly
SYD 13:20
Very interesting is that, you know, she was like, we hadn't been on a
date in a while. I wanted to go out.
OLIVIA 13:26
So they so he gets as one would hammered. Yeah.
Oh, boy.
SYD 13:30
And they, yeah. And they and they go out, they go to some like club.
And halfway through, she realizes Julian is kind of flirting with all
these guys.
And she's like, wait, what? Like, I don't understand. Like, why are
you flirting with all these guys?
You should be flirting with me.
OLIVIA 13:47
I'm right here. This is our date night
SYD 13:48
she realizes that they're at a gay club. And that he is like, really
going for it.
OLIVIA 13:54
Yeah, he's like, I don't want to leave.
SYD 13:57
He wants to flirt with these guys more. And she basically gets
jealous. Yeah. You know, as one would if you're if your significant
other is flirting with anyone.
You're engaged. And I'm sure she was like, Wait, what the heck? Yeah.
So she leaves and she puts her thumb out and she's trying to hitchhike
home.
OLIVIA 14:12
Yeah, do not hitchhike. That's, oh, yeah, this is PA: do not Hitch.
SYD 14:15
This is not an endorsement for hitchhiking. But they didn't have Uber.
Yeah. So this guy who's like 19, or something.
OLIVIA 14:22
A 19 year old boy, like, picks her up.
SYD 14:24
picks her up and drives her back to Julian's house. Yeah, so Julian
races home when he sees that this is happening.
And he gets home right as the as his fiancee and Gary are pulling up
to the property. And as he has always done with all of his problems,
he loves to bring out a gun.
He pulls out a gun. Julian threatens Gary with this gun. And the cops
are called Yeah. Because that's what happens
OLIVIA 14:53
when you threaten people with guns all the time.
SYD 14:55
And Julian gets put in jail again,
OLIVIA 14:58
as the cops are coming Julian Literally shoots the gun. And it like
goes into the ceiling or something. And Cathy Bowles' like 10 month
old kid was there.
SYD 15:06
Yeah, in the room.
And she was so afraid. She was like it could have ricocheted off of
something and killed her son.
OLIVIA 15:12
Yeah, her baby.
SYD 15:13
So that made her decide like, Oh, I am definitely leaving now. But in
typical Julian fashion, he's arrested and then released with an $1,000
bail.
OLIVIA 15:23
That's way cheaper than his last bail.
SYD 15:25
It's really cheap. And obviously, he leaves because the $1,000 is
nothing to them.
OLIVIA 15:29
So once again, Julian learning that lesson.
Like if, if your dad has the money to make something go away, you kind
of don't have to ever be held accountable for anything you ever do.
And you can be just like a big piece of shit.
SYD 15:39
Yeah, it's pretty wild. So you know, this keeps happening, and Julian
remains his father's least favorite family member. And all of the
assets from the family are given to Michael Julian son when Arman
dies.
OLIVIA 15:54
One more interesting thing about Julian and his son, Michael, is that
during a party that Casey was at when she was a kid, she saw her
father and brother scream, fighting, arguing, trying to like kill each
other and threatening to kill each other because Julian asked Michael
like,
how much if I gave you a million dollars could I buy your girlfriend?
SYD 16:17
Oh my god.
OLIVIA 16:17
Which is first off a crazy ask
SYD 16:20
you can't buy people
OLIVIA 16:21
you shouldn't be able to anywhere on this whole wide Earth.
SYD 16:25
No, you can't do that.
OLIVIA 16:26
And and so you know, they got in a huge fight. The cops pulled them
off each other the cops let them both drive home drunk. And of course,
Michael's girlfriend, left with Julian
SYD 16:39
and then lived in his house
OLIVIA 16:40
for eight months to like, calm down the situation.
It's like it took you have to live at your boyfriend's father, who is
now your boyfriend's plays for eight months to just calm everything
down. Like that's crazy.
SYD 16:53
I just can't believe the power this guy has. Oh, yeah, it's so fucked
up. The amount of power to be able to buy a person is just shocking.
OLIVIA 17:00
There's really only one good thing Julian ever did, period. But it's
not even that good. It's just spiteful.
SYD 17:05
As we mentioned earlier, Julian had all the dirt on Armand because he
was his little spy.
OLIVIA 17:10
He was hired to be daddy's personal spy.
SYD 17:12
And so Julian besides you know, partying and stuff had all of this
info and his father dies and in the will Julian's left with really not
that much stuff.
OLIVIA 17:24
Julian is left with $500,000 and his son gets the entire estate $40
million.
SYD 17:29
And the Rolls Royce and the Rolls Royce. And that's a Julian
apparently was like, wait, you get the Rolls Royce, like
OLIVIA 17:37
ignoring the $40 million part being like,
I want the Rolls Royce.
SYD 17:41
Stupid. But the thing is that, you know, Julian obviously is like,
wait a second, why did I only get $500,000? Yeah. And my father was
supposed to be a billionaire.
I now hate my father with everything in me even more than I did
before. And I'm going to be vicious to this man's memory.
OLIVIA 18:00
Yeah. So he literally, you know, he hits up this reporter Edward J.
Epstein. He's like, listen, here's every file every recording every
secret fact about Armand Hammer and spread it.
SYD 18:12
And so now this family is kind of falling apart in the public eye.
Yeah. Like we're starting to see this darker underbelly that we didn't
see before.
OLIVIA 18:20
I mean, yeah, all the Watergate stuff comes out all of you know, like,
just every single thing him bribing presidents and stuff, like
everything is out now. Which is so cool.
Because then you know, you can't get away with it. Yeah, speaking of
not being able to get away with stuff.
This is also a definitely a way darker part of the episode, but just
wanted to give like a light trigger warning and just talk about how
Casey is so incredible,
and brave for coming out and actually saying out loud, all the things
her dad did to her.
Because it's just got to be the hardest, most traumatic thing in the
world. And the fact that she is doing it for the reason of trying to
stop the cycle of abuse and not being quiet about abuse. Yeah. And
that is just incredible. But
SYD 19:07
yeah, I mean, besides the obvious stuff of like the physical abuse
that happened in her family,
I mean, there's even a story about her being at a party and Julian
tells her to hold a phone book near her face
and he shoots it
OLIVIA 19:19
he shoots the phonebook as she's holding it in her face.
SYD 19:22
And then like a fun game.
OLIVIA 19:24
Yeah, like a game with all his drunk friends who all have guns
SYD 19:26
or you know, he would wake her up in the middle of the night with
foaming at the mouth, foaming at the mouth from meth.
He was on meth and with a gun to her head and being like, you need to
open your eyes to show me if you're possessed. Yeah, if you're
possessed, I'm going to shoot you.
It's the scariest thing and you know, and besides all this, obviously,
like a trigger warning to anyone who's faced sexual abuse or if that
bothers you. The episode of House of hammer kind of ends with finding
out that
Julian possibly sexually abused maybe both of his kids Definitely
Casey, which is just I mean another example of like, okay, well this
cycle of abuse continues so this basically concludes our episode where
we're talking about Julian, but it continues
OLIVIA 20:18
Yeah, Julian had a son Casey's brother, Michael, Armie Hammer's Dad,
what's up with that guy?
SYD 20:24
And let me tell you, it's not good.
OLIVIA 20:26
None of it's good.
SYD 20:27
The track record on this family is pretty bad. If you couldn't tell by
now
OLIVIA 20:31
it's a zero out of 10 for me
SYD 20:33
so keep listening. Keep watching House of hammer on Discovery plus,
because this is where we're getting our info. It's pretty good show.
It's hard to stop watching
OLIVIA 20:41
It's crazy
and it's amazing to see people having to be held accountable even
after they passed away.
SYD 20:49
Yeah, so we'll see ya on the next episode. I've been Syd.
OLIVIA 20:52
I've been Olivia
SYD 20:53
and thank you for listening.
OLIVIA 20:55
This has been Dark Dynasties.