In the mid-1970s, Malcolm in the Middle star Bryan Cranston was traveling the country with his brother, Kyle, when the pair decided to stop in Florida for a while. To earn some cash, the Cranstons got themselves jobs as waiters at a restaurant called the Hawaiian Inn. The head chef there was the ill-tempered Peter Wong, who reportedly hated everybody. According to Cranston, there was no chance of anyone getting on Wong’s good side.

While appearing on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s on Me podcast in 2024, Cranston called Wong “awful” and said that the staff would frequently have meetings where they’d joke around about how they could get rid of him. One person suggested using a meat grinder on Wong; another proposed hitting him with his own wok. It was all in good fun, of course, and nobody at the restaurant was seriously planning to kill Wong. After a short stay, the Cranston brothers set out to go to Maine on their motorcycles, leaving Wong and the Hawaiian Inn in their rearview mirrors. 

A Young Bryan Cranston Was Once Named in an All-Points Bulletin After His Boss Was Murdered

Coincidentally, it was around that same time that Wong went missing. Roughly a week or two later, his body was found in the trunk of a car. Wong, who apparently always carried a wad of cash with him, had been hit over the head with a board during a robbery. When homicide investigators started asking people at the Hawaiian Inn if anybody had talked about doing Wong harm, the Cranstons came up immediately. An all-points bulletin was put out as the brothers were making their way through the Carolinas.

Luckily for them, the police pieced everything together before they were able to track the Cranstons down. Witnesses and surveillance footage led them to the actual culprits, who were arrested shortly thereafter. A man named Billy Wayne Waughtel pleaded guilty to killing Wong, with the help of two accomplices. Waughtel was subsequently murdered in prison at some point while serving his sentence.