I finally figured out what George Trepal was doing (or at least I'm pretty sure I've figured it out). We know from his criminal history that he had some kind of thallium compound left over from his days running a meth ring. So somehow this dude was using thallium in the production of meth. I had never heard of such a thing before. But as it turns out running an oxythallation reaction using thallium(III) nitrate on alpha-methylstyrene produces phenylacetone in 81% yield. That has to be what he was doing. I have to say it's a clever precursor to use and it's a fascinating way to use it although the best dude could have hoped for was the prep of a racemate by this route. Which is kind of lame. This is before the days of PE being regulated. Dude could have been making enantiomerically pure product without having to work with thallium quite easily. Oxidation with bis(pyridine)silver(I) permanganate followed by a Clemmensen reduction would have done the trick I think and it probably would have attracted less attention. I'm really having a hard time accepting that this guy was in MENSA because he was pretty damn stupid.