Red Ink Letters is a website born from fascination and many, many hours of research and interviewing.
The concept is taken from the dissertation which I submitted as part of my degree in journalism from Sheffield Hallam University, all work is original, and all interviews were personally undertaken.
This website is a study into into why serial killers feel the need to communicate with the media, or use the media as a tool to communicate with others.
This is an area which has never been studied to it’s full potential, and I hope that many of you will have information and opinions which will prove to be invaluable in my research.
So, enjoy the site, and please feel free to comment or pass on any information which you feel will help me in my study of the most evil people to walk the earth, and why they need to communicate through the press.
As you will no doubt be aware, it is some time since I added any new content onto this site. The reason being that I am currently working on a very exciting project, alongside another fine crime writer. Our project will made up of a bi-monthly magazine, and an annual conference. the magazine will be released in late January, and the conference will take place on May 2nd. The poster for our conference is below.
As you will no doubt be aware, it is some time since I added any new content onto this site. The reason being that I am currently working on a very exciting project, alongside another fine crime writer. Our project will made up of a bi-monthly magazine, and an annual conference. the magazine will be released in late January, and the conference will take place on May 2nd. The poster for our conference is below.
The case of the Axeman of New Orleans, like the Cleveland Torso Murders, should really be sitting alongside the cases of Jack the Ripper and Zodiac in regards to being fascinating unsolved crimes which involve taunting letters to the Press.
Pre-dating both the Zodiac and Cleveland cases, the setting for these horrific murders was New Orleans, 1918, a melting pot of cultural influences and home to a seedy underbelly of organised crime.
The reign of this mysterious killer held the city (and surrounding areas) in a state of unbridled fear for over 18 months.
Not one person residing in The Big Easy would escape the panic fuelled frenzy that was to whip the city up into one final night of terror which has never been matched by any killer.
And then, as instantly as the killer materialised, he vanished into the fragrant air of the Cajun streets.
The first victims were Italian immigrants Joseph Maggio and his wife. Butchered as they slept, the scene of sheer horror which was to greet detectives would soon become a familiar site.
Having chiselled a panel out of the apartment door (the Maggios lived above their grocery store) the killer entered through this hole and carried out his terrible crimes.
The murder weapon, an axe, was left at the scene, propped nonchalantly against a wall, and covered in the blood of the unfortunate couple.
Investigators were reminded of three similar murders which had taken place in 1911, in which the victims had all been Italian grocers, killed by an axe after the assailant had made entry through a chiselled-out door panel.
At first these crimes were attributed to the Mafia, due to their Italian connection, but it would soon become clear that these were not revenge killings or contract murders.
A maniac was on the loose.
The next attack looks to be a failure on the part of the killer in that the chosen couple both survived the attack.
Louis Bossumer and his wife Annie Harriet Lowe were attacked in an identical manner to the previous crimes, with the killer making his usual entry through a removed door panel, and leaving his axe in the blood drenched room.
Having left the couple for dead, the killer again absconded. But despite receiving several axe blows to their heads, the couple were soon able to describe their attacker.
Annie’s description however was the kind of tangled thought which one would expect from someone recuperating from axe wounds to the head, as she described a “very dark young man” before changing her story to claim that her husband had attacked her!
Bessumer, however, was allowed to go free after recovering from his injuries, as detectives ascertained that even the most dedicated killer would stop short of attacking his own skull with an axe!
The mysterious axe man was also to fail in his next attempt, as he, in a change to his usual modus operandi, attacked a lone female victim.
A Mrs Schneider is reported to have woken to see a “large phantom-like form” standing menacingly over her bed. She screamed as the axe fell onto her head, alerting neighbours who found her unconscious and with missing teeth from the attack. She later made a full recovery from her injuries.
The next victim wasn’t so fortunate. Joseph Romano was set upon in the textbook Axeman manner. A missing panel in his door and a discarded axe was all that remained of the killer when detectives arrived to study the crime scene. Romano was killed instantly by the heavy blows to his skull.
By now, panic in the city had reached fever pitch, with local men forming vigilante groups and taking shifts to watch over their streets and homes as their terrified families tried to sleep.
Rumour and urban legend was also rife, with reports that the killer was masquerading as a woman, or wasn’t of earthly form, circulating around the garden fence grapevine.
However, evidence that the killer was indeed human was soon to be unearthed, as local man, Al Durand reported to police to have found an axe and chisel on his doorstep one morning, with deep scratch marks in the door itself. It would appear that this phantom killer found the heavy door too strong to penetrate, no doubt leading to every carpenter in Louisiana rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of a massive surge in the need for new, expensive doors within the city!
The next three attempted entries were aborted in a similar way, and the city breathed a collective sigh of relief as the attacks seemed to stop as quickly as they started.
It was several months before the killer was to appear again, this time across the river in nearby Gretna, but this time he left his most gruesome crime scene yet.
The wife of grocer Charles Cortimiglia awoke to find her husband wrestling with a shadowy figure. Despite his struggles, Charles was struck with an axe and fell to the floor. The killer than turned to Mrs Cortimiglia, who by now was shielding her 2 year old daughter.
The dark, hulking shadow then turned the axe on both, fracturing the skull of the mother, and killing the child with one blow.
The testimony of Mrs Cortimiglia was to stump investigators. She described the killer as a large man, yet the panels chiselled out from doors which had been his means of entry were barely big enough for a man of smaller stature to wriggle through.
The police further antagonised the already tumultuous public feeling by describing the killer as “a bloodthirsty maniac, filled with a passion for human slaughter.”
It was also around this time that the killer decided to go public, writing a chilling letter to local newspaper the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The letter, addressed to the editor read;
Hell, March 13, 1919
Esteemed Mortal:
They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman.
When I see fit, I shall come and claim other victims. I alone know whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with blood and brains of he whom I have sent below to keep me company.
If you wish you may tell the police to be careful not to rile me. Of course, I am a reasonable spirit. I take no offense at the way they have conducted their investigations in the past. In fact, they have been so utterly stupid as to not only amuse me, but His Satanic Majesty, Francis Josef, etc. But tell them to beware. Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they were never born than to incur the wrath of the Axeman. I don‘t think there is any need of such a warning, for I feel sure the police will always dodge me, as they have in the past. They are wise and know how to keep away from all harm.
Undoubtedly, you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished, I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death.
Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is:
I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it on Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.
Well, as I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and it is about time I leave your earthly home, I will cease my discourse. Hoping that thou wilt publish this, that it may go well with thee, I have been, am and will be the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or realm of fancy.
The Axeman
The events of that strange Tuesday night are told beautifully by Troy Taylor on his fabulous website www.prairieghosts.com
“The people of New Orleans did their best to follow the Axeman’s instructions to the letter. Restaurants and clubs all over town were jammed with revelers. Friends and neighbors gathered in their homes to “jazz it up” and midnight found the city alive with activity. Banjos, guitars and mandolins strummed into the night while Joseph Davilla, a well-known local composer, created the theme song for the night. He titled his composition “The Mysterious Axeman’s Jazz” and in typical New Orleans fashion, it became a huge hit.
When the sun rose the next morning, it was learned that not a single attack had occurred that night. Even though it’s doubtful that every home was filled with the sounds of jazz, the Axeman passed the city by, perhaps well satisfied by the celebration that was held in his honour.
Another quiet period followed this incredible night, until a young woman was attacked in her home by an axe-wielding assailant.
Sarah Laumann survived the attack, but due to the fact that the attacker strayed from his usual modus operandi (the girl was not a grocer, nor was any of her family, and the method of entry was different) the public felt that any one of them was now a target for murder.
Many believe, however, that this was either a copycat attack, or somebody had used the Axe Murderer as a convenient cover to settle their own scores.
The next victim was Steve Boca, who was seen staggering from his home on Elysian Fields Avenue covered in blood. He made it to a friends house, who treated his wounds and called the police. Boca survived, but he was extremely lucky, as police found all the tell-tale signs of the killer at the crime scene.
A few weeks later, pharmacist William Carson disturbed an intruder in his home and fired several shots at the retreating figure. On returning to his residence, he found a chiselled out panel in his door, and an axe resting menacingly against the wall.
The final victim was Mike Pepitone, who was butchered as he slept, luckily, his wife and six children who were sleeping in an adjoining room were left untouched. The killer only wanted one victim.
Here the killings ended, and life in New Orleans slowly returned to normal, however, police were still no closer to uncovering the identity of the killer than they had been at the beginning.
Someone had literally got away with a string of brutal murders.
The case remains unsolved to this day.
To read Troy Taylor’s wonderful article on the Axeman of New Orleans, go to www.prairieghosts.com
The Maury Travis case is fascinating, not least because it contains a letter and a map sent to the press, but also shows that advances in technology are making it more and more difficult for a serial killer to remain active.
Travis has the dubious honour of being “the first serial killer to be caught by Google”, although, as you will already be aware, Dennis Rader (BTK) also met his downfall due to traced computer documents.
The difference is that Travis was caught using co-operation between the police and internet service providers (ISP’s), whereas Rader simply didn’t realise that his Word document could be linked to his log-in details.
Unfortunately, Travis was never able to shed any light on his decision to communicate with the press, or his embracing of internet technology, as he was found hanged in his cell at St Louis County Jail in 2002 before standing trial.
Born on the 25th October 1965 in Missouri, Maury Troy Travis was to become a rarity in the world of serial killers. Firstly, he was to join the small number of killers who use the media as a tool to communicate, secondly, because he used technology to revisit his crime scenes, and thirdly, because he was one of a small number of black serial killers.
Little is known of his early life, but we do know that when he was arrested on the initial murder charge, he was working as a waiter and was also on parole for a previous robbery.
The wheels of this case were set in motion when a St Louis Post-Dispatcher reporter received a letter praising him for his story on a murdered prostitute which featured in the newspaper some time earlier.
Accompanying the letter was a map of West Alton, an area of St Louis, Missouri, which bore a large “X” at an area in which the writer claimed that a body could be found.
The letter was immediately handed over to the police, who quickly found the skeleton of a woman at the spot marked on the map by the killer.
All attention was then turned to the map itself, with the FBI becoming involved in the investigation.
It was quickly discovered that the map was downloaded from Expedia, and the investigating team swooped into action, contacting Expedia with a subpoena which compelled them to give out the information of any customer who had downloaded the map of West Alton between May 18th (the day the original newspaper story was printed), and May 21st (the date of the postmark on the letter).
Expedia directed the FBI to Google, who handle the information for its map site.
A positive result was found within a fortnight.
On June 3rd, Microsoft told the investigators that only one computer had accessed this map during the specified time period, but were unable to give a name or address.
The only information which could lead to the killers identity was the code 65.227.106.78. Travis’ I.P address.
Unfortunately, the FBI was still a long way from catching the killer, as it is not easy to track an I.P address. They were forced to enlist the help of WorldCom, a telecommunications business whose role was to assign a temporary I.P address to any customer dialling-up an internet session (don’t forget, this was before the days of broadband and fibre-optic technology!).
This was still far from simple, as a different I.P address was assigned every time someone logged on to the internet, with each I.P address having been used for thousands of people to connect to the web.
It was a question of who used that I.P address at that specific time, and due to all hands at WorldCom being put to deck, the result was found the next day.
The user was identified as MSN/maurytravis.
The customer was later officially identified as Maury Troy Travis of Ferguson, Missouri.
By June 7th, the case had been sufficiently strengthened by DNA evidence and tyre tread markings for an arrest to be made.
36 year old waiter Travis was arrested for two counts of kidnapping, which linked to him to several murders around the state. Video tapes of him committing sexual assaults on several women were later found at his address.
Travis hanged himself on June 17th, having never commented on his crimes.
The two murders Travis almost certainly committed are those of Alycia Greenwade and Betty Smith, both from the Missouri area.
However, the FBI believe that Travis could be responsible for up to 10 unsolved murders.
Below is a timeline from the website of the St Louis Post-Dispatcher which makes this complicated case much easier to dissect.
1. THE DOWNLOAD
MAY 20: Someone dials up MSN and downloads a map from Expedia.com. The map is mailed to the Post-Dispatch.
2. INVESTIGATION BEGINS
MAY 24: The Post-Dispatch gives the Illinois state police the map and letter. They identify the map as from Expedia.com.
3. THE FBI GETS INVOLVED
MAY 30: Expedia.com informs the FBI that records of access to the map can be obtained through Microsoft Corp.
4. THE IP ADDRESS
JUNE 3: Microsoft tells the FBI that only one computer downloaded a map of the area during the time in question. Microsoft provides the IP address of that computer.
5. THE USER NAME
JUNE 4: The FBI asks WorldCom Inc. to identify the user name for the computer assigned the IP address on May 20. WorldCom provides the user name MSN/maurytravis.
6. THE INFORMATION
JUNE 4: The FBI asks Microsoft for the account information on MSN/maurytravis. Microsoft provides the name Maury Travis along with his address and phone number.
7. THE ARREST
JUNE 7: After round-the-clock surveillance reveals that Travis lives at the house, he is arrested.
Also provided by the Post-Dispatcher is an explanation of I.P addresses, and their functions.
WHAT IS AN IP ADDRESS?
Sources: FBI, Microsoft Corp., The Computer Glossary
The IP address, written as four numbers separated by periods, identifies a particular computer’s location on the Internet. Computers linked to a network through a fixed connection typically have a permanent address, while computers that dial over a telephone line to reach the internet are assigned an IP address for each session.
THE MATCHING IP ADDRESS
65 . 227 . 106 . 78
(First set of numbers ex. 65:) Identifies network to which a computer belongs
(Rest of numbers: ex. 227.106.78) Identifies the actual computer on that network
A map downloaded from the Internet led the FBI to suspected serial killer Maury Troy Travis.
Below is a map similar to that sent by Travis to the Post-Dispatcher, along with a crime scene photograph from the spot marked “X.”
Below is short documentary regarding the Maury Travis case.
Killers from the former USSR are always a tricky subject to research, as many details failed to make it past the Iron Curtain. This is certainly true in the case of Gennady Mikhasevic.
The story is quite extraordinary, but this brutal killer was unknown to the western media until Soviet news agency Tass reported in 1988 that Mikhasevic, a metal worker, had been executed by firing squad for “savagely kill(ing) women in the the Soviet republic of Byelorussia” the only other details revealed were that authorities had been investigating the murders since 1973, but “regrettably the investigation veered from the right track.”
The lack of information available to western reporters at the time was nothing unusual, news from Eastern Europe always had a sense of “Chinese whispers” due to the circuitous route any news had to travel to arrive at the desk of a western reporter, and also the fact that the former USSR certainly didn’t like to air its dirty laundry in public.
Despite the sketchy information, Mikhasevic has the dubious honour of being the first Soviet serial killer to be acknowledged by the former eastern superpower.
In recent years the details of the case have been uncovered due to the advent of the internet and the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and with it the crumbling of the former USSR.
Much of the following information is taken from Michael Newton’s An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers – Hunting Humans.
Little is known of Mikhasevic’s early years, apart from the fact that he was born in the village of Ist, Vitebst Oblask, in 1947 and at some point served with the once-mighty Red Army.
The only real information starts to come at the point of his first murder, which occurred on May 14th 1971.
He was on his way from Vitebst to Polotsk to visit his parents. It was late and he had missed his bus. He was reportedly suffering from depression after a break up with his girlfriend, and had already gone to the trouble of making a noose from which to hang himself.
His thoughts turned from suicide to murder as he encountered a young woman on the lonely, desolate road.
It is not known how the murder actually took place, but police records claim that all of Mikhasevic’s murders followed a strict modus operandi. On the strength of this, and what is known of his later murders, we can only assume that he raped the young woman, before removing his scarf and strangling her to death with it.
No information is available to corroborate this story, or to describe the crime scene.
We know that Mikhasevic murdered again in 1971, and twice near Vitebst in 1972. Again, information is sparse, but points to similar situations to the first murder. The victims were, again, young women choked to death after being raped.
He left technical school the next year and went to work on a sovkhoz (a communist-run farm).He married in 1976, but according to police reports, the murders continued.
His methods changed slightly over the years, as many of his later victims were believed to have been lured into his car (a distinctive red Zaporozhets).
He, like many serial killers, has been described as a “solid citizen and a good family man”, and, to keep up this appearance, he never carried a weapon, even with murder firmly on his mind. He killed with every day items such as his scarf, pieces of twine etc.
It was not until 1980 that police finally began to suspect that the mureds had been committed by one person, they were still treating each as a seperate attack. A young investigator, Nikolay Ignatovich firmly stood his ground and managed to convince the authorities that this was the work of a serial killer, a phenomenon rarely heard of in this part of the world.
After tying together the testimony of many witnesses, the police narrowed the search down to a man who owned a red car, as this had been seen in the vicinity of the crimes by several witnesses. However, by this time Mikhasevic had become a druzhinnik (police volunteer) and was never suspected. In fact, he was often given the job of interviewing the owners of red cars throughout the area!
His position within the police also gave him the inside information on which line of investigation the police were about to use, meaning that he could easily stay at least one step ahead of the authorities.
In 1985, at the height of his “usefulness” to police, he killed 12 women in the kind of prolific spree that only a man who believes himself to be above suspicion would have the nerve to attempt.
It was, however, an attempt to further derail the investigation that would become Mikhasevic’s downfall.
He decided to further deflect the investigation away from himself by writing a letter to a local newspaper (the name of which unfortuantely cannot be found at this time) claiming to be a member of the “Patriots of Vitebsk” (a fictional underground organisation) and calling upon his “fellow members” to continue the uprisal against “lewd women.”
A similar note was also left next to the body of his last victim, giving the police two samples of handwriting by which to identify the killer.
It is not known how Mikhasevic failed to get wind of the police’s new tactic, but he provided a handwriting sample (as did every man in the area) which was to eventually incriminate him.
He was arrested in December 1985 and after an initial period of denial, he finally admitted to the charges, claiming that he had killed 43 woman over the last 14 years.
The case became something of a landmark in the fromer USSR, known as the “Vitebsk Case”, many believed that it uncovered the high level of corruption in public office, and incapability within the police.
The main reason for the case becoming such a benchmark is that, sadly, 14 men had been convicted of the murders, two of which were falsely executed.
Little is known of most of the falsely accused, but it seems only right to give the details of the ones we know about.
O.P Glushahov was sentence to ten years imprisonment in1974.
N.S Tereniv was wrongly executed in 1980.
V Gorelov spent six years in prison (years unknown) where he went blind.
Adding the destroyed lives of 14 innocent men to the 43 brutally murdered women, Mikhasevic left behind a story which epitomises human tragedy and the frailty of life.
Unfortunately there are no videos available to accompany this article.
Some of the most fascinating cases of serial murder are those which, even today, remain unsolved. The Jack the Ripper and Zodiac cases have captured the imagination of millions of people around the world, all of whom will have their own theories as to who committed those terrible crimes.
However, there is a similar case which never seemed to gain the same level of notoriety, despite the killer claiming more victims, and creating much more gruesome crime scenes than Jack the Ripper, and being hunted (and ultimately defeating) the legendary law enforcer Eliot Ness.
The name given to these murders by the press were the “Cleveland Torso Murders” and the killer was christened “The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run”. For the sake of brevity, the killer will be referred to as the “Mad Butcher” throughout this article.
The setting for these horrific murders was 1930’s middle America. Brought to it’s knees by the Great Depression, the city of Cleveland, Ohio, was at that time awash with transient workers, hobos, and displaced families from all over the US.
In “Dead Men Do Tell Tales”, author Troy Taylor sets the scene with a description of Cleveland, specifically the area of Kingsbury Run at the time of the murders.
“Kingsbury Run was a barren wasteland on the east side of Cleveland in 1935. It tore through the rugged area, sometimes plunging to depths of 60 feet, and was scattered with overgrown weeds, patches of wild grass, tumbling pieces of old paper, piles of garbage and even the occasional skeletal remains of an abandoned car. Along the edges of the ravine were ramshackle frame houses, built close together and of such shabby construction that they seemed to almost be teetering on the brink of collapse. As the ravine angled toward downtown, it emptied out into the muddy waters of the Cuyahoga River, where concrete and steel bridges, tanks and old factory buildings dotted the banks.
Kingsbury Run was a forbidding and shunned place in those days and yet among the refuse and decay were small cities of homeless men, forced into the ravine by the blight of the Great Depression. They squatted there in cardboard boxes and in shacks made from scavenged wood, huddling near small campfires and trying to ignore the lonesome cries of the freight trains that passed nearby.”
The first body was found in September 1935 by two young boys who were racing along the ravine. The older of the boys, James Wagner, was first to reach the bottom, and must have been terrified to discover the decapitated body of a pale naked man.
When the police arrived to investigate, they also discovered that the victims genitals had been removed. And if this whole situation wasn’t gruesome enough, they soon found another body a short distance from the first.
This was of an older man whose head and genitals had also been severed.
In what must have been one of the most shocking investigations in police history, the heads of the two men were found a short time later. One had been partially buried and was only noticed as it appeared that a shock of hair was protruding from the soil, the other was found thrown into some bushes, along with the genitals of both men.
The corpses appeared to have been moved to the ravine after death and mutilation had occurred, as there were no signs of blood in the vicinity.
More puzzling was that the body of the older man seemed to have been covered in some kind of chemical, as if the killer had tried to preserve is victim, and had discarded the body when the decay became too advanced
The body of the older man was never identified, but police eventually managed to identify the younger victim. He was Edward Andrassy, 28, who had a small criminal record and lived in the Kingsbury Run area.
Another strange clue as to the identity of the killer came when forensic detectives remarked that the decapitations had been carried out extremely neatly and “professionally” suggesting that the killer could be a surgeon or a butcher.
This lead, however, amounted to nothing, and the police began what would be a long and fruitless search for the man the press had nicknamed “the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.
The next victim wasn’t discovered until December, when a local resident went to investigate the howls of a neighbourhood dog and discovered that it was trying to rip open and eat the contents of a basket left by a fence.
Having told a neighbour the basket contained “hams”, the two peered into the basket to investigate more closely. The “hams” were actually the arm and torso of a woman!
The unfortunate victim was later named as Florence Polillo, an “overweight and unattractive” prostitute who was well known around the neighbourhood.
This discovery caused the police to reassess their line of enquiry, as they had been convinced that the murders had some kind of homosexual motive, now with the body of a woman being discovered, the nature of the case had changed.
This also spurred the memory of some of the investigating officers, who recalled the discovery of a female torso on the banks of Lake Erie the previous year. The victim of this earlier murder was named “victim zero” and was added to the ever-growing list of the “Mad Butcher’s” victims.
The sense of public hysteria was soon to be soothed by the arrival in Cleveland of the legendary law enforcer, Eliot Ness, fresh from having “cleaned up” the streets of Chicago from organised crime.
However, it would soon be apparent that the only person who wasn’t convinced that Ness would get his man was Ness himself!
The killing resumed the next summer, with the head of a young man being found on the 22nd June, again by two young boys, wrapped in a pair of trousers near a bridge in Kingsbury Run. This time the body was found around a quarter of a mile away, and the blood at the crime scene indicated that the victim had been decapitated at the scene.
The victim could not be identified, but was described as being in his mid-twenties, and “heavily tattooed.”
Another body was found three weeks later by a hiker, again it had been decapitated, but it was in a more advanced state of decomposition than the previously discovered corpse and was impossible to identify. Police ascertained that this victim had been killed some time before the previously discovered cadaver.
Later that year, another body was found which bore all the hallmarks of the earliest victims. A man of around thirty had been decapitated and his genitals removed. This body was also sliced neatly into two pieces. A hat lying nearby gave police a rare clue, as it contained initials. It was identified by a local housewife as one which she had given to a homeless man who was living in a nearby “hobo camp.”
The trial went cold for a while, but the mood in the city was certainly hotting up, with the press whipping the residents into a frenzy of fear and mistrust. The police and local government bore the brunt of the criticism.
In February 1937 another body was found. In a very similar crime scene to that of “victim zero”, a young woman was found dismembered, again on the banks of Lake Erie. She was never identified, but the discovery of another body soon after brought some much needed luck to the weary investigators.
Like the body found by the hiker, this was another previously undiscovered victim who was also badly decomposed, but her distinctive teeth led to her being identified as Mrs Rose Wallace, a local woman.
The ninth victim also seemed to have brought some luck to the police, as the body of an unidentified young man was found in a river, decapitated and badly mutilated (the head was never found). This time, witnesses claimed to have seen two men in a boat the night before the discovery, near to the area where the body was found. This lead, however, also failed to produce any results.
Again the killer went to ground, but resurfaced after several months as the body parts of a young woman, wrapped in burlap sacks, were fished out of the river.
This time, the killer would go for more than a year without leaving any more corpses.
The final two victims were found the next year, the dismembered body of a young woman was found in a lakeside dump, and the body of a decapitated man wrapped in a quilt was found during the investigation.
Neither victim was ever identified.
This appeared to be the final straw for Ness in his fruitless search to bring the killer to justice. He was convinced that the killer was selecting victims from the transient hobo camps, and was possibly living there himself, so Ness took the bold step of ridding Cleveland of these camps, burning down the shanty villages and forcing the vagrant population to move on.
Whether by luck or good judgement, this seemed to do the trick, and the murders would finally cease.
However, the murders had been stopped, but the killer had escaped from the clutches of the most famous lawman in US history.
Once again, the story can be taken up by Troy Taylor.
“The Cleveland Torso Murders were officially never solved, but that has not stopped scores of crime historians and curious readers and investigators from speculating as to who the “Mad Butcher” actually was. Detectives in the case believed that they were close to catching the killer several times. They spent many hours searching for the killer’s “laboratory”, believing that the Butcher was slaughtering his victims in a convenient location and then dumping the bodies somewhere else. At one point, they believed they had found it. They found a photographic negative that had been left behind by one of the early victims, Edward Andrassy, and when it was developed, it showed Andrassy reclining on a bed in an unknown room. The photo was published in newspapers and was identified as being the bedroom of a middle-aged homosexual who lived with his two sisters. Detectives searched the house and blood on the floor of the room and a large butcher’s knife hidden in a trunk. Unfortunately though, the blood turned out to be the suspect’s (he was prone to nosebleeds) and the knife showed no traces of blood on it. To further prove the man’s innocence, another Butcher victim turned up while the man was in jail for sodomy and it became obvious he was not the killer.”
To taunt Ness further, a letter was sent from Los Angeles to the Cleveland Press newspaper, which read;
You can rest easy now, as I have come to sunny California for the winter. I felt bad operating on those people, but science must advance. I shall astound the medical profession, a man with only a D.C.
What did their lives mean in comparison to hundreds of sick and disease-twisted bodies? Just laboratory guinea pigs found on any public street. Nobody missed them when I failed. My last case was successful, I now know the feeling of Pasteur, Thoreau and other pioneers.
Right now I have a volunteer who will absolutely prove my theory. They call me mad and a butcher, but the truth will out.
I have failed but once here. The body has not been found and never will be, but the head, minus its features is buried on Century Boulevard, between Western and Crenshaw. I feel it is my duty to dispose of the bodies as I do, it is God’s will to not let them suffer.
X
Despite no head ever being found in the give location, amny believe that the letter is genuine, and was sent simply to taunt Ness in front of the the baying public and the hostile press.
Ness was adamant until his death that he was “reasonably certain” he knew who the “Mad Butcher” was, and despite a trickle of bodies being found in the city over the next couple of decades, none of them bore the unmistakeable characteristics of the “Cleveland Torso Murders.”
There are many theories as to the identity of the killer, some of these can be found in the excellent article by Troy Taylor which was the inspiration for my work. The article can be found at http://www.prairieghosts.com/torso.html
Below is a link to radio show which discusses the case of the Cleveland Torso Murders.
Joining Vlado Tanevski in the tiny group of killer journalists is Johann “Jack” Unterweger. This is a remarkable case, yet one that seems to have avoided the media limelight or the epic Hollywood treatment.
Born in 1950 to a young Austrian prostitute, Unterweger was put into the care of his grandfather, an abusive alcoholic. Little is known about his early years, but his teenage years were a tangle of petty crimes and violent behaviour.
In 1966, at the age of 16, he was arrested for assaulting a prostitute, something which would occur many times before his drawn-out crime spree was eventually over.
Ten years later, Unterweger committed his first murder. The strangulation of Margaret Shaefer was the first of a long list of murders attributed to Unterweger. However, this should not have been the case, as the young killer was sentenced to life imprisonment for this early foray into the realms of murder.
It was, however, prison life which created the Jack Untgerweger which was to become a national celebrity. While serving his life sentence, he learned to read and write, and wrote his best-selling autobiography, Fegefuer (Pergatory).
This gave the Austrian prison authorities something of a dilemma, this man certainly seemed to have been reformed during his years in prison, and as a popular writer and darling of Viennese society, the pressure was on the prison system to do something unusual. They would make an positive example of a prisoner.
Unterweger was released after just 14 years of his life sentence.
His fame grew every day upon his release, and he was soon a well known journalist and TV panellist. He was seen as something of an expert on the prison system, and the world of crime in general.
His new found fame also led to a constant string of glamorous girlfriends and a champagne lifestyle.
His stardom reached its peak when his autobiography was made into a feature film. Every newspaper and media outlet wanted Unterweger to work for them.
However, things were about to change. After only two years of freedom, Unterweger was linked to a series of prostitute murders around Austria. Although police could find no evidence to make an arrest, the famous journalist was constantly under police surveillance, apart from when he made a business trip overseas.
As well as the six prostitutes killed in Austria, strangled to death with their own undergarments which were tied in an unusual slipknot, thousands of miles away, the LAPD were experiencing a spate of prostitute murders.
Unbelievably, Unterweger had recently travelled to Los Angeles on “business”, claiming that he was researching an article on the different ways prostitution is viewed in the US and in Europe.
The eureka moment came when a retired detective was readong of the murders in Austria, and immediately recognised the killers “signature”, the unusual slipknot.
It was Unterweger, he was sure.
Having made the relevant calls, detectives began to look into murders around the globe, as Unterweger was a frequent traveller.
It was discovered that he was indeed in LA at the times of the murders, and even stayed in the hotel which was the last place two of the murdered women were seen alive.
Unterweger went on the run with his 17 year old girlfriend, leading police on a chase through Europe, Canada and the US. He was eventually caught in Miami, Florida and transported to Los Angeles to face the courts.
However, as California has a death penalty, and the evidence against him was circumstantial, Unterweger was allowed to be repatriated to Austria to stand trial for the six murders committed in his homeland.
All of the evidence against Unterweger was circumstantial, fibres found from his trademark red scarf on one of the victims, receipts and sightings from places in which the murders were committed, the fact that he had no alibi for any of the murders, and, of course, his previous crimes.
This led to one detective stating that “either Unterweger is guilty, or he is the unluckiest man in the world.”
Unterweger was found guilty by six of the eight jurors (which is enough in Austria, only a majority is needed) and sentenced (again) to life imprisonment. This time there would be no chance of parole. Unterweger would die in prison.
His death came significantly sooner than most people expected, in fact, it came six hours after his conviction. Using a cord from his drawstring trousers, Unterweger hung himself from the light fitting in his cell.
In the kind of finale perhaps expected of a journalist of his magnitude, unable to deny himself the big Hollywood ending, the former media star used the same unique slipknot used on the victims to end his own life.
John Leake, a leading journalist has spent years researching the life of Jack Unterweger, and has written a book, Entering Hades, which tells the story in the detail which it deserves. The website to accompany his book can be found at http://www.enteringhades.com/
Unterweger was eventually found to be guilty of 9 murders, but is believed to be responsible for 13. The victims of the 9 definite murders committed by Jack Unterweger are listed below.
Margaret Schaefer
Margaret, age 18, was murdered in 1974. A bra had been used to strangle her to death.
Marcia Horveth
Marcia was murdered in 1974. there was no formal sentence for this case because Unterweger had already received a life sentence.
Brunhilde Masser
Brunhilde was murdered in 1990.
Blanka Bockova
Blanka was murdered in 1990. Her remains were found on September 15, 1990.
Shannon Exley
Shannon was murdered in 1991, in Los Angeles. A bra had been used to strangle her to death.
Irene Rodriguez
Irene was murdered in 1991, in Los Angeles. A bra had been used to strangle her to death.
Peggy Booth
Peggy was murdered in 1991, in Los Angeles. A bra had been used to strangle her to death.
Below is a link to a three part documentary, Jack Unterweger “the Vienna Strangler”.
This particular case is fascinating, in that it is still on-going, and the news surrounding the murders committed by Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog is constantly being updated on a day-to-day basis.
To really understand the events which have led the identification of two more bodies within the last 24 hours, we need to start at the beginning.
Shermantine and Herzog are known as the “Speed Freak Killers” and were charged with three joint murders (Shermantine was also convicted of a fourth murder which saw him sentenced to death).
Their nickname was due to their high intake of methamphetamine, a factor which many believe caused they two to commit such violent and unthinkable crimes.
The murders for which the two were sentenced took place in the eighties and nineties, and began when the blood of a missing woman, 25 year old Cyndi Vanderheiden was found in Shermantine’s car.
She had last been seen in the company of the two men before eventually being reported as missing.
The two were arrested and during subsequent questioning were also linked with three more murders committed in the area during the eighties.
They eventually confessed to both the Vanderheiden murder, and the deaths of two men shot in a car in 1984.
Shermantine also admitted the murder of 16 year old Chevelle “Chevy” Wheeler, who disappeared from Franklin High School in 1985, after she told friends she was joining Shermantine on a visit to his parents’ cabin in San Andreas.
Herzog was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Shermantine was handed down the death sentence.
However, due to a technicality, Herzog was released after just 11 years after an appeals board found that his confessions appeared to have been coerced.
He was paroled to live in a trailer park just a stone’s throw away from the prison, but was soon to find himself anything but absolved of his murderous past.
Shermantine had long since hinted that there were more bodies, which still lay undiscovered.
In 2011, bounty hunter Leonard Padilla offered to pay Shermantine $33,000 to reveal the locations of the missing bodies. On hearing that his former partner in crime had agreed to this, Herzog committed suicide, by hanging himself outside the trailer which had become his last place of freedom.
Shortly after, Shermantine started to send letters and maps to the Stockton Record, a local California district newspaper. These were passed on to the authorities and at least three more bodies were quickly found in an abandoned well.
Two of these bodies were eventually identified as Kimberly Billy, and Joann Hobson.
Many believe that there will be at least another 12 sets of remains, as many girls and young women went missing during this time.
Shermantine, however, denies any active part in these murders, claiming that he simply helped Herzog to dispose of the bodies. This would seem unlikely, but as Herzog can no longer offer his side of the story, this is set to become a long legal conundrum.
Sadly, in the last twenty four hours, two more bodies have been recovered due to information given by Shermantine.
The skeletal bodies of a 16 to 18 year old girl and a 28 to 32 week old foetus have been found in an undisclosed area.
I will, of course, keep you informed of any developments in the case.
This case is remarkable in that it shows the true power of a letter sent to the right place. Without this correspondence, the remaining victims would have never been found, and Herzog would have been enjoying his freedom, and knowing that he got away with multiple murders.
Shermantine remains on death row at California’s San Quentin Prison, and is in regular contact with Leonard Padilla and the Stockton Record, who (in a ground-breaking piece of journalistic inspiration) chose to tweet live from an interview with Shermantine.
The latest victims are now believed to be a black 14-18 year old girl, and her unborn child, although no names have been released as yet. Next to the bodies was a ring bearing a set of initials (also, as yet unreleased).
According to Leonard Padilla, Shermantine is currently refusing to give any more information because his payment (in the form of a TV, sweets, and beads for his art class) has not yet materialised.
Padilla believes this to be a temporary setback, and is calling for Shermantine to be released from his cell to help in the search for victims (under close guard of course!)
Govenor, Jerry Brown had signed legislation making this possible on July 17th of this year, but authorities have yet to use this vital resource.
In by far the most contemporaneous of my case studies, I have been researching the case of Shawn Lamb, a man charged, but not yet convicted, of serial murder.
The Shawn Lamb case is also a hotbed of communications between Lamb himself and the media, and has proved to be an incredibly interesting area of research.
Native American-born Lamb was born Darrell Dokus on the Aamjiwnaang First Nation reservation near Ontario in 1959 according to information found recently by CBS News. He was, however, removed from the care of his teenage mother at a very young age and placed into a non-aboriginal foster family.
This was part of a government programme which took place in the early sixties, in order to “give aboriginal children a better way of life.” This programme has since been widely criticised and no longer exists, but it certainly left a legacy on the newly-baptised Shawn Lamb.
Lamb is reported as having suffered physical, sexual, and psychological abuse throughout his childhood, and attempted suicide at just 10 years old, when he mixed a handful of painkillers with soda.
He also started drinking at the age of nine, and had developed into a very heavy drinker by the time he reached his 16th birthday.
He was a prolific runaway, and absconded from his foster home many times, before dropping out of high school in the tenth grade.
His late teenage years were awash with drug addictions (heroin and cocaine) and petty crime. His life continued on this downward spiral and he spent much of his twenties and thirties behind bars.
2008 was a turning point for Lamb, as he discovered his aboriginal roots, and was granted an Indian status card. This was also around the time that Lamb made his first approaches to the press.
He wrote the first of four letters to journalist Colleen Simard, detailing his past and giving information regarding his newly found roots. Despite the tragic story of his life, nothing was to come of this, or any of his letters, until his eventual arrest for the murders of three women.
The main thing that struck a chord with Colleen Simard was a visit he paid to her in her offices a few months after she received the letters.
I have chosen to tell the story of this visit using Colleen’s own words from her excellent article “Alone with Shawn Lamb” which appeared recently in the Winnipeg Free Press.
Was it the same Shawn Lamb I’d met?
There were two reasons why I remembered him: his 2008 letter to me and his visit.
The letter was an 11-page “story of my life.” It detailed a childhood of severe abuse, foster care and jail.
He was part of the ’60s scoop that put thousands of aboriginal children into CFS care. He said he found out about his Ojibwa and Chipewayan heritage 11 years before and found hope in native spirituality.
He said he was going to try living a positive life once he got out of jail.
I think it was a few months later when Lamb paid me a visit at my office on Selkirk Avenue where I was publishing Urban NDN.
It was a sunny day and I was alone. I thought he was my son coming up the stairs.
Lamb looked like an ordinary white guy. I thought he had the wrong address until he introduced himself.
He was friendly enough but had that tense, “just got out of jail,” vibe. He kept looking around as if he expected someone to come up behind him.
I was a little surprised by his fair appearance and long, scruffy, dirty blonde hair. But he was unassuming and polite.
At the time, he didn’t seem much taller than me. He looked taller in news photos now, making me doubt it was him.
He made me a little nervous. It wasn’t the ex-con thing; I’ve known many jailbirds throughout the years. I’ve just learned to always be on guard when I’m alone with a man — even if it’s just for an elevator ride.
I was uneasy but made sure he didn’t notice. I played it cool. We talked a bit about his past and what he was doing now. He said he was taking a class somewhere down the street.
Then he did something that worried me. He said he had something to show me and turned away to dig in his bag.
Oh great, I thought — he’s going to pull out a knife or something creepy.
I glanced at my desk. I decided I’d whip my stapler at him if he tried anything.
I was relieved when he just pulled out a book and some papers. The book was about his home reserve and its history.
He showed me a few pages and spoke proudly of his heritage.
We talked about his letter. He told me he was still afraid to visit his birth family on the rez. I told him he should go in spite of the difficulty, that he had an important story to tell and should think about writing a book.
I kept hoping someone would show up. Eventually, my son came in.
Lamb told me he had to get going. It bothered me that he took his bag but forgot his book. He never came back for it.
That’s all I remember.
— — —
My mind was racing. Was it really the accused serial killer I met that day?
I locked my doors and sat glued to the news all day.
Finally a photo of the suspect appeared. It looked like the guy but I wasn’t 100 per cent sure. If I could find that letter I’d know for sure.
— — —
More facts about Lamb unravelled in the news and they matched what I remembered.
The next day, I started digging around in my basement, tearing boxes of papers and files apart. I’d done some major recycling and threw out a bunch of Urban NDN stuff.
Maybe I threw away the letter Lamb — or whoever that guy was — had written to me.
I was about to give up when I spotted a stack of boxes tucked away in a corner.
There it was. A name jumped right off the page: Shawn Lamb. The hairs on my arm stood on end and I half-ran, half-stumbled upstairs. There was no denying it now.
“Was it him?” my son asked.
“Yes,” I said.
I started reading. There were four letters in total. I couldn’t believe it. My mind is still boggled today. What would have happened if my son hadn’t shown up?
My heart goes out to the families of those three lost young women.
If there’s a lesson to be learned from meeting an alleged serial killer it is this: He was just like anybody you’d meet, and he could have been anyone.
Please trust your instincts, even if you think you might look foolish. Take care of yourself, and never trust anyone completely. You could meet someone today and not have a clue about what they are capable of.
This fascinating article shows a side of Shawn Lamb which few people have ever seen, the bewildered and lost man searching for his roots.
However, there is another, less pitiful side to Lamb.
This is a man with 109 convictions, many for robbery, theft, assault, threatening behaviour and fraud. Despite his plight to find his past, his present was extremely violent.
He also served four years for a sexual assault, a crime which he was to commit again in 2011.
This time, his crime bore traits which rang bells across the law enforcement community as being extremely similar to those seen in a trio of killings in Manitoba, Winnipeg.
Lorna Blacksmith, 18, was found fairly recently in a yard on Simcoe Street, Manitoba, she was allegedly killed in January 2012.
Lamb has also been charged with the December 2011 killing of 25-year-old Carolyn Sinclair, whose body was discovered in March.
The third victim, Tanya Nepinak, was reportedly killed last September. Her remains haven’t been found.
Since his interrogation and arrest, Lamb has, again, turned to the press to tell his story. He made a phone call from his remand centre to the Winnipeg Free Press to claim that he is innocent of a number of other murders linked to him by police, but would not give a direct answer as to whether he was guilty of the three murders for which he is charged.
Once again, I will let the Winnipeg Free Press take up the tale, this time in a fascinating article by Mike McIntyre.
Accused serial killer Shawn Lamb says he knows what triggered a massive Winnipeg police sweep of downtown and West End yards, buildings and Dumpsters.
“I imagine they’re out there looking for one thing. They’re looking for bodies,” Lamb told the Free Press Thursday in an exclusive 20-minute telephone interview from the remand centre. “They have a list with so many names on it.”
But Lamb — who was charged this week with killing three young Winnipeg women in the past nine months — denied suggestions he could be linked to any other unsolved homicides in Winnipeg or across Canada.
“I’ve given them voluntary DNA, not to include myself but to exclude myself,” he said. “The police are going to say what they’re going to say.”
Lamb, 52, was arrested last Thursday on a sex-assault charge against a 36-year-old woman. He spent more than 48 hours in custody, going through a grilling marathon interrogation with homicide investigators, before the three charges of second-degree murder were laid.
“The main thing for me is the victims. There are many people who are suffering out there,” Lamb told the Free Press. He said police likely also want to show “their goodwill” to the community by making such a public display of their search.
Police discovered the body of one of Lamb’s alleged victims, Lorna Blacksmith, 18, in a yard on Simcoe Street last Thursday. She was allegedly killed in January. Lamb has also been charged with the December 2011 killing of 25-year-old Carolyn Sinclair, whose body was discovered in March.
The third victim, Tanya Nepinak, was reportedly killed last September. Her remains haven’t been found.
Lamb said police also confronted him with the names of dozens of other young Manitoba women who have been killed or have gone missing.
There are also ongoing investigations in other provinces to determine whether Lamb, a drifter, could be connected to any cold cases.
“I hope everyone who’s responsible will be caught,” said Lamb. He was asked to clarify if that meant there are many killers still walking the streets.
“Exactly,” he replied. “It’s a sad thing for the victims and their loved ones. There are so many questions.”
Lamb was specifically asked if he plans to fight the allegations he killed Blacksmith, Sinclair and Nepinak. He refused to give a direct answer.
“I’m definitely going to fight to make sure this is done properly,” said Lamb. He said that means his “charter rights” must be upheld, but he offered no further details.
Lamb said he was speaking to the Free Press without the consent of his defence lawyer, Evan Roitenberg. He decried the conditions at the remand centre, where he is confined to a maximum-security segregated cell 23½ hours per day.
“I know I’m not getting out of here any time soon,” said Lamb. “I don’t have a radio, I’m last on the list to get a newspaper. I get out for half an hour a day to shower and use the phone, that’s it.”
His conversation with the Free Press had to be cut short because his daily allotment of time outside the segregated cell was about to expire.
Still, Lamb expressed concern about some of the limited news coverage he’s been able to catch, wondering why media outlets are focusing so much on his tragic background.
As reported earlier this week, Lamb has 99 prior convictions dating back to 1976 in four provinces and 11 cities. They include multiple acts of violence, meaning he has spent much of his adult years in and out of custody. His most serious sentence was four years for a sexual assault in Peace River, Alta., in 1992.
The Free Press has also published excerpts of Lamb’s various writings, parole reports and court-ordered assessments into his background.
They paint a picture of a highly intelligent man with bipolar disorder who harbours anger over neglect and abuse he says he experienced at the hands of several important women in his life.
Lamb also expressed interest in writing a self-help book and working with at-risk youth to steer them toward a better life. He admits to struggling with drug and alcohol abuse.
Lamb was seized from his now-deceased biological mother’s care at the age of two as part of the Sixties Scoop, taken from his First Nations community and raised by a white family in Ontario. He claims his foster mother, who is no longer alive, sexually and physically abused him while also introducing him to alcohol when he was nine.
He makes similar claims against his estranged stepsister, saying she molested him as a young child.
Lamb told the Free Press Thursday he was recently able to visit the grave of his birth mother for the first time during a visit to Ontario last month.
David Berkowitz, also known as the “Son of Sam” or the “.44 Calibre Killer” is one of the most infamous of all serial killers. His reign of terror held the entire city of New York in a state of panic during the first half of 1977.
Killing six people and wounding several others, Berkowitz concocted an incredible tale of demonic possession in order to fool the jury into finding him insane.
Part of this façade began before his arrest, during a period in which he wrote letters to the police and media, one of which was received by Jimmy Breslin of the New York Times.
However, In this case, I believe that he story should be told in full before concentrating on the communications sent to the media.
The case of David Berkowitz
Berkowitz, born 1st June 1953 was adopted by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz after being given up by his birth mother. He was raised in the Bronx, New York in a typical middle class home, and was doted on by his adoptive parents, especially his adopted mother.
Despite the attention he received at home, Berkowitz always felt rejected and scorned because of his adoption, most of this anger was because he had been told that his birth mother had died during labour. His size and squat appearance also added to this sense of isolation, often making him the target of schoolyard taunts.
He was a poor student at school, with no particular flair for anything apart from baseball. During his school years he became to be known as a hyperactive child, and also as a bully.
It would seem that the intense guilt and anger caused by the belief that he had, in some way, caused his mother’s death was still plaguing him as a teenager.
Breaking point was to come soon after, with the death of his adoptive mother, Pearl, from breast cancer. Berkowitz now believed that there was some kind of plot against him, and that Pearl had been taken from him as an act of vengeance by an unknown power.
His schoolwork began to slip even further into the realms of failure, and his behaviour began to grow more erratic and unreasonable.
His adoptive father remarried just four years later, but Berkowitz could not accept this new arrangement. Nathan and his new wife moved to Florida, leaving behind a maladjusted teen in one of the world’s biggest cities, with thoughts of murder and vengeance.
Berkowitz enlisted with the army, but was discharged after three extremely unspectacular years. The only incident of note is that he had his first sexual experience with a prostitute, but caught venereal disease in the process.
After his discharge from the army, Berkowitz decided to look into his family background, and made the discovery that would eventually tip him over the edge. His birth mother was alive and well and living in the same city.
However, the happy reunion was never to materialise. The relationship between mother and child was awkward and stunted to say the least. Despite becoming fond of is newly discovered half-sister, the reunion had been just another rejection in the life of David Berkowitz.
His fantasies and delusions were about to take over.
His first release of rage came on Christmas Eve, 1975, when he took to the streets with a knife, plunging it into two young women. Both survived, but Berkowitz managed to make a getaway, and the reign of a serial killer was soon to begin.
Soon after the knife attacks, Berkowitz moved from his home in the Bronx to a shared house in Yonkers.
By now his mind was filled with rage and thoughts of revenge, and he spent his nights listening to the distant howling of dogs, turning them in his mind into orders to kill women.
The quiet couple with whom he shared the house, Jack and Nann Cassara, were also suspected by Berkowitz as being part of a deep, demonic conspiracy, with Berkowitz claiming to have firmly believed that Jack Cassara was Captain Jack Cosmo, who was commander in chief of the army of howling dogs.
After moving away from the Cassara’s home, Berkowitz lived alone in a flat on Pine Street. This did nothing to soothe the demons in his head, and in a cruel twist of fate, his neighbour, Sam Carr, also had an incessantly barking dog.
It was this dog that Berkowitz claimed had given him the orders to kill, and although he shot and killed the dog, he believed that it had been possessed by Satan himself.
This was the period in which Berkowitz became a serial killer.
Berkowitz’s Crime Spree:
•July 29, 1976 – Jody Valenti and Donna Lauria were shot as they sat talking in a parked car outside Donna’s apartment. Lauria died instantly from a gunshot wound to her neck. Valenti survived the attack.
•October 23, 1976 – Carl Denaro and Rosemary Keenan were shot while sitting in Denaro’s parked car. Both survived, but Carl was struck in the head by one of the bullets.
•November 26, 1976 – Donna DeMasi and 18-year-old Joanne Lomino were walking near Joanne’s home after a late movie. Berkowitz followed them briefly, then shot them. Donna survived without suffering permanent physical harm, but Joanne was paralyzed for life.
•January 30, 1977 – 26-year-old Christine Freund and her fiance John Diel were shot as they sat in a parked car. Christine died and John Diel survived the attack.
•March 8, 1977 – Virginia Voskerichian, a Barnard College honor student was shot and killed while walking home from class.
•April 17, 1977 – 18-year-old Valentina Suriani and her 20-year-old boyfriend Alexander Esau, were both shot twice. Both died as a result of gunshot wounds. Berkowitz left a letter at the scene, signed “Son of Sam.”
•June 26, 1977 – Judy Placido and Sal Lupu were shot while leaving a disco. Both survived although Judy was shot three times.
•July 31, 1977 – Bobby Violante and Stacy Moskowitz were shot in the car while parked at a lover’s lane. Stacy died from a gunshot wound to her head and Bobby lost vision in one eye and partial vision in the other eye.
The Moskowitz murder was to be Berkowitz’s last. He was arrested after receiving a parking ticket near to the latest murder site. Investigating police officers saw the infamous .44 calibre handgun left unhidden in the car and laid in wait for his return.
When he was arrested he immediately surrendered to police and identified himself as Sam. After being evaluated, it was determined that he could stand trial. He pleaded not guilty and received a 365-year sentence.
The letters:
Despite a number of taunting letters sent to police, the most interesting correspondence came in a letter sent to Jimmy Breslin, a daily columnist with the New York Times. The letter is fascinating as it hints at desperation to become known for his “work”, even going as far as to take on a boastful tone, and suggest possible nicknames for himself.
If ever there was an example of a serial killer wanting to be recognised for his work, this is it.
Below is a six part interview with David Berkowitz. This candid and revealing film is unmissable.
Red Ink Letters 