By Mark Gray
3:00pm PST, Feb 14, 2024
_
Bryan Cranston was once on the run from police without even knowing it. In fact, he was briefly wanted for murder. During a February 2024 appearance on Jesse Taylor Ferguson's "Dinner's On Me" podcast, the highly-popular actor recalled a summer in the '70s when he and his brother decided to drive across the country on their motorcycles. In Florida, they ran out of money and decided to get jobs at the Hawaiian Inn restaurant, where they met a disgruntled cook named Peter Wong. Peter, according to Bryan, was "awful" to deal with. He would soon have a stunning — almost life-altering impact — on the "Breaking Bad" actor.
Keep reading for more on the wild story…
MORE: Follow Wonderwall on MSN for more fun celebrity & entertainment photo galleries and content
_
Bryan Cranston said the staff at the Hawaiian Inn would often joke about ways to get rid of the mean-spirited cook.
"There was just no way on earth you were ever going to get on his good side. But he liked the ladies. And so, all the men knew, oh, if we had any problem in the kitchen, we had to send them in," he recalled. "We'd all discuss how rotten and mean Peter Wong is, and we'd all discuss, if one were to do away with Peter Wong … how would one do it?"
Bryan insisted everything was said in jest.
_
Bryan Cranston and his brother eventually decided it was time for them to leave Florida and ride "all the way to Maine on our motorcycles." Unbeknownst to them, Peter Wong, the cook at the restaurant where they worked, went missing around the same time they left the Sunshine State. The cook was missing for about two weeks before he was found robbed, killed and stuffed in the trunk of a car.
_
Police soon came to the Hawaiian Inn with some questions.
"My friends were saying, 'Homicide, what's going on?'" Bryan Cranston said on Jesse Taylor Ferguson's podcast. "They're saying, uh, 'Peter Wong was found murdered.' And everything just drops because this is serious stuff. And then [police] said, 'Is there anyone ever that you can remember talking about hurting or maiming or doing any harm to Peter Wong?' And everyone's like, 'Um, yes.'"
Employees apparently told police about the cook's cankerous attitude and recounted their jokes about killing Peter.
"'Well, this is not a joke This really happened and the man's dead. Is there anybody who was joking as you put it, and is not here now?'" Bryan said the police asked his former co-workers. "And they were like, 'Well, the Cranston brothers.'"
_
Police asked employees when Bryan Cranston and his brother left town, and the timeline matched perfectly with Peter Wong's disappearance.
Police wondered where they could find the siblings, who were suddenly persons of interest. Police even put out an all-points bulletin for them.
"Little did we know they put out an APB on us and to find us. We were somewhere in the Carolinas, I think, at that point," Bryan said.
_
In the end, the Cranston brothers were never stopped by police and the real killer was caught.
"We didn't know any of this," Bryan Cranston said. "We were just tooling along. I can just imagine if someone really pulled us over… We were this close."
