Film about Upstate NY serial killer debuts in Syracuse. Film about Upstate NY serial killer debuts in Syracuse. Oct 04, 2012 Begin with a look at the forensics of a true drowning and the complete Smiley Face Serial Killer case background. Then read in-depth i nterviews with families of other 'Smiley' victims, by author Eponymous Rox. ABOUT KILLING KILLERS' BLOGGER: Eponymous Rox covers cops, curs and killers and has been featured in Crime Magazine and on NBC.

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Vincent Johnson

Vincent was born on the 6^th of January 1969, and is known as the Brooklyn Strangler. Vincent was a homeless man who used crack cocaine and showed interest in sadomasochistic sex.

Between 1999 and 2000, five prostitutes were killed in Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant area and the police arrested a homeless man for the murders. But they had to let him go as his DNA did not match those left at the crime scenes.

The police questioned all the homeless men in the area, and when they asked Vincent for his DNA, he refused. One of the detectives working the case saw Vincent spit on the street and his salvia was retrieved. After testing it, it matched four of the crime scenes.

After the police arrested him, he confessed to killing Patricia Sullivan, Elizabeth Tuppeny, Joanne Feliciano, Vivian Caraballo and Laura Nusser.

The victims were drug addicts and had a record for prostitution; he said by killing them he did them a favor.

He stated he killed these woman out of hatred for his mother. Interestingly he murdered his victims only Thursdays; it was the only day of the week his mother had an off day from work.

The women were strangled with shoelaces, drawstrings of their pants and electrical cords. He did not try to hide and left them on rooftops, vacant lots and in a utility room under a bridge. Surprisingly all of these spots were places he used to sleep.

Vincent was sentenced to life in prison without parole; he is currently incarcerated at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York.

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Arohn Kee

He was a computer whiz, self-styled rapper, and thief who evaded the police for a few years before he got arrested. Arohn was born in 1973, and by the looks of it, he was a criminal for some time. Several times he refused to give the police his DNA, and as a result continued with his crimes unmolested.

His victims knew him as they all lived in the same building and was killed there as well. On January 24, 1991, he strangled and stabbed 13-year-old Paola Illera, three times in the chest. In 1997, he raped, choked and burned Johalis Castro alive on the rooftop. Arrogant and self-assured he told Rasheeda Washington, 18, she was lucky to be raped by such a handsome guy and he strangled her to death leaving her in a stairwell in 1998.

The investigators had some evidence against him but, needed his DNA as concrete proof. They decided to put him under surveillance, and after a few days detained him for theft charges, he was still not willing to give up his DNA saying he is Jewish and it is against his religion. The investigators did manage to obtain a sample of his DNA by using one of the coffee cups before he got released.

The DNA evidence not only linked him to the three murders but, six other rapes. He fled and was captured in a hotel in Miami on the 19^th February 1999, with his seventeen-year-old girlfriend. He insisted the police planted his DNA on the victims because, they had no other suspects.

During his trial his defense attorney argued the DNA was obtained illegally and ignoring the advice of his attorney he testified in his own defense rambling for two days that he is innocent and the police wants to frame him. Arohn was found guilty and on the 25^th January 2001 and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He is incarcerated at Attica State prison near Buffalo.

Arohn made news as it was discovered he was selling rape cards on the internet. The cards were sold for 19 dollars each, describing in detail how he raped his victims. Extremely proud of himself he also sold a worn t-shirt, color mug shot and a hot dog wrapper all signed by him. The website managers of murderauction.com and prisonboundserialkillers.com approached him to sell his murderabilia on their websites, and there was a nationwide fight to ban his goods on eBay, they were successful at stopping the sales.

The victim’s parents were outraged, and the prison immediately started an investigation as it violates prison rules to have a business and to make money. It is unknown if any of the items were sold but, the state Crime Victims Board said they would try and recover any money earned.

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Carl Menarik

Carl was born in Vienna on the 2^nd of October 1889 and made New York his home in 1914. He went by the name of Frederick Mors. Through Immigrant Employment Bureau he found employment at the German Odd Fellows as a porter. The house had 250 orphans and 100 men and women. After a few months of working at the German Odd Fellows he began to walk around with a lab coat and a stethoscope.

He showed symptoms of megalomania and would terrify the residents telling them they should call him Herr Doctor. Between September 1914 and January 1915, 17 people died an unusually high number for such a short time. No one gave it a second thought as most of the people were old and they died from natural causes.

On the 2^nd of February 1915, he was neatly dressed and went to the district attorney’s office and confessed to killing 17 elderly residents. Carl murdered the residents with arsenic that he bought from a drug dealer. After a few difficulties, he switched to using chloroform. He killed them to put them out their misery and to make room for more older adults.

After confirming his story, the detectives arrested him and in jail his story change; he said the officials of the home told him to kill the residents as they were a lot of trouble and no good. On the 5^th of February 1915, three other employees and the superintendent were put in jail as material witnesses.

The police did not exhume the bodies but, the evidence and his confession was enough for a trail. After the psychiatric test, he was found to be criminally insane and was committed to the Poughkeepsie’s Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane.

After his admittance to the hospital, the case was dismissed and his co-workers were released.

A week before he was to be deported to Austria, he disappeared. It did not seem the police wanted to recapture him and he went missing. He was considered not dangerous.

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Altemio C Sanchez

He was born on January 19, 1958, in San Sebastian, Puerto Rico. His mother took a large dose of pills to terminate the pregnancy but failed. After his mother caught his father with a prostitute, his father left the family; he was only two years old. The family immigrated to New York near Buffalo.

Altemio’s mother remarried and had a drinking problem. She and her new husband abused him sexually and physically. He was happy but, a shy child and in high school was active in sports but had no girlfriends as he was afraid to talk to girls. While in high school his mother told him he was a mistake and he started to have black out’s in school. When he was 17(1975), he committed his first rape.

In 1978, he met Kathleen Whitley at the college he was enrolled at in the industrial arts program. She was the first and only woman he had a relationship with. When she became pregnant, he took a job at a factory, and two years later they got married.

After the birth of his second son(1983), he got a job at American Brass where he continued working until his capture.

He was the coach for his sons Little League Baseball team, enjoyed playing golf and gardening. Altemio was active in the community and well-liked.

During the year of 1980, he raped over 15 women. On the 29^th September 1990, he killed his first victim Linda Yalem, she was jogging on the Ellicott Creek Bike path and was raped and strangled.

One of his co-workers told the police that he saw Altemio twice in fourteen months on the bike path and since the police thought it was suspicious they put his house under surveillance in October 1990.

He decided on the 31^st of January 1991, to talk to the police voluntarily, they questioned him for an hour and only took his fingerprints. Altemio was arrested for solicitation in May 1991, for attempting to pick up a police officer, for some reason the charge was reduced to loitering, and he paid the fine.

His second murdered victim was Majane Mazur 32. She was a prostitute and knew him from a previous encounter they had. The murder of Majane did not fit the description of his other crimes, he raped her and realized she could identify him and put a bag over her head and suffocated her. She died in November 1992, and her body was found on the Exchange Street in Buffalo.

He beat, raped, suffocated and strangled his victims with a rope and a cord. Later years he used a wire and garrotte to kill his victims.

His mother died in May 2005, and his father in 2006.

He took the life of his last victim 16 years after he killed the first time on the bike path. Joan Diver 45, was killed on the Clarence Bike Path, on the 29^th of September 2006, she was strangled but not raped. Her body was found on the 1^st of October.

During the police investigation, the police found a droplet of sweat in Joan’s car. He was a suspect in the investigation but, the police could not link him to the murders. On the 13^th of January 2007, after a dinner in a restaurant with his wife the police collected a DNA sample from their table. The tests confirmed the DNA matched those found at the crime scenes and he was arrested on the 15^th of January 2007.

On May 2007, he pleaded guilty to the murders and sentenced on the 14^th of August 2007. The penalty was 75 years in prison with no possibility of parole.

He is currently incarcerated at the Clinton Correctional Facility and his wife divorced him in October 2007.

In the same year Altemio was sentenced, Anthony Capozzi was freed from prison after severing a 22year sentence for raping two women on the bike path.

All the years Anthony maintained his innocence. The police realized the murders were in the same area and Anthony and Altemio resemble each other.

When the police tested Altemio’s DNA against the rapes Anthony was convicted for in 1985; it was a match to Altemio.

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Lesley Eugene Warren

Lesley was born on the 15^th of October 1967, in Candler, North Carolina. He was the eldest of three children. His father abused him physically and psychologically and burned the family trailer in 1971. Soon after, his parents divorced, and his mother gained sole custody of the children.

He was an average student but was withdrawn from school in 1982 at the age of 14. After a few encounters with the police which included vandalism, stealing guns and a B&E. Lesley was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder, and after being transferred to a new school, he was withdrawn again after only 33 days.

With all the built-up frustration, he held a neighbor up at gunpoint, tied her up in his basement and luckily for the neighbor Lesley’s cousin found her, and she escaped.

At 15, he attempted suicide and was transferred to the Juvenile Evaluation Centre. In 1985, when he was 18, he was released from the center and move back to his mother’s house.

On the 10^th of April 1986, he joined the army and went to Fort Benning in Austria for his basic training.

Lesley got married to Tracy Bradshaw on the 9^th of May 1986, not much is known about his wife or marriage.

Aged 19, 1986, he joined the 10^th Mountain Division in Fort Drum, New York.

In May 1987, he met Patsy Vineyard in a bar. Patsy’s husband Private Michael Vineyard was out of town, and after Lesley wooed Patsy, they left the bar together and went to the abandoned Madison barracks.

He sexually assaulted and strangled her to death and threw her body in the Black River near Sackets Harbour in New York. When Patsy’s husband returns and saw his wife was not home, he immediately reports her missing.

Lesley’s son was born on the 20^th of January 1988, and he started to feel guilty for killing Patsy and gave his wife clues that he killed her, his wife was spending so much time with the baby she didn’t take any notice of him, and he felt left out. At the age of 20, he was convicted of larceny and confined to the base for 75 days without payment; he was also demoted to first class private.

On the 17^th of May 1988, he was dishonorably discharged from the military as he heavily used alcohol and drugs. His life became more complicated as he and his wife parted after a heated argument about drugs and he moved out and became a cashier in a shop close to his mother’s house.

On the 19^th of December, he enrolled in a 3 month training program for truck driving at Alliance Truck Driving Centre. He wanted to show his wife he can get a job and he wanted her back.

In 1989 his efforts were rewarded, his wife took him back. Now he was a qualified truck driver and worked for AM-CAN Haulage Company, and although it seemed his marriage was on the right track, he increased his drug usage.

Lesley and Tracy divorced in the summer of 1989, and he moved back to his mother, he also found out his wife is pregnant with their second child and he started to send child support checks.

On the 26^th of August 1989, Velma Gray crashed her car in Spartanburg, South Carolina and Lesley just happened to be there. He offers her a ride and then proceeds to beat her up and chokes her to death. He disposed of her body in Lake Bowen. The next day her body was found by fishermen.

The 25^th of December he met Jayme Hurley, she was a JEC Councillor. He claimed he called her on the 24^th of May 1990, to do cocaine with him and he choked her to death.

The following day after work his brother Laron dropped him off so he can bury Jayme. Laron felt remorseful and left a marker so he could find her again. Jayme’s father reported her missing on the 26^th of May.

He met Katherine Johnson at a picnic, and the two of them drank and just clicked.

The next day he drove Katherine to a deserted soccer field, they had intercourse, and he strangled her to death.

He was good looking and charming and would only seduce and kill beautiful women aged 20 to 40.

The police issued nationwide news reports about the suspected serial killer and his involvement and his brother saw the report and showed the police where the body of Jayme Hurley was buried. The police guarded the body overnight and dug it up the next day.

Lesley was arrested on the 20^th of July 1990, and he claimed he had blackouts and memory loss. He is known as the Baby face killer.

The test results found him sane to stand trial, and on the 15^th April 1993, his trial began.

On the 6^th October 1996, he was sentenced to death for the killing of Velma Gray, Jayme Hurley, and Katherine Johnson.

Lesley was never tried for the murder of Patsy and the police believed he was responsible for eight to ten other murders. He is currently on death row at the Central Prison in New York.

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Lemuel Warren Smith

Lemuel was born on 23 July 1941, in Amsterdam, New York. His parents were religious African -Americans.

From a young age he stalked, kissed, touch and manually penetrating girls with foreign objects.

Head injuries

At the age of ten he got his second head injury by falling out of a tree and was unconscious for a few minutes. His first head injury was not known.

By the looks of it he was an unlucky guy as he had two more head injuries, the first one snow sledding, and the other head injury by playing basketball in his teenage years.

By the age of 12, Lemuel lost his faith and refused to attend church with his family. At the age of 16, he was indicted for a burglary at a coffee shop in Amsterdam, New York.

Another murder case with evidence pointed to him and that was of Dorothy Waterstreet. She was robbed and beaten to death in the area where he lived on the 21^st of January 1958, and all the evidence point to him. The district attorney was trying too hard to get a confession, and he was not charged for the murder. The police continued to investigate his involvement in the murder and for this reason, he relocates to Baltimore, Maryland.

In Baltimore, he kidnapped a woman and beat her nearly to death, fortunately for her, a witness interrupted the crime and Lemuel was arrested. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison on the 12 April 1959. After ten years he was paroled in May 1968.

He moved back to New York. On 20 May 1969, he kidnapped and raped another woman who managed to escape. On the same day, he captures his mother’s friend. The woman pleaded with him to let her go and he does. He is later arrested and sentenced to 4 – 15 years in prison.

Lemuel is rereleased released on the 5^th of October 1976.

On the 24^th of November, he brutally murdered Robert Hedderman, Robert’s Secretary, and Margret Byron, they were found in the back of their religious store in Albany. During the investigation, the police found hair, blood and feces at the crime scene which made him the main suspect.

While the police were investigating the Hedderman murders in Albany, Joan Richburg was raped, murdered and her body mutilated. This all happened in her car at Colonie Center Mall. The way she was killed and hair evidence made him the prime suspect in Joan’s murder as well. While the investigations were ongoing, he was still a free man, and he used it to his advantage.

On the 22^nd of July 1977, he strangled and mutilated Maralie Wilson, she was found near the train tracks of Schenectady, New York. Lemuel was seen in the area a few times and a witness could identify him as the man with Maralie. He was the prime suspect in Maralie’s murder.

Not wasting any time on the 19^th of August 1977, he kidnapped and raped Marianne Maggio and forced her to drive to Albany, the police stopped the car and arrested him.

The police noticed there was a bite mark on the nose of Maralie and when she was exhumed it was an exact match to his teeth. Further evidence against him was when he and four other men were transported to the Bleecker Stadium in Albany in October 1977. He and the men were on one side of the stadium and on the other side a police dog was given the scent of the feces recovered from the Hedderman murders. The dog ran straight to Lemuel, the test was done three times, and every time the dog ran to him.

He confessed to five murders including Dorothy Waterstreet on the 5^th of March 1978. According to Lemuel, he suffered multiple personality disorders and other mental problems. He claimed the spirit of his unborn brother controlled him and told him to kill. In light of all his claims, he was still declared sane to stand trial for all the murders.

In Saratoga County, he was found guilty of rape and was sentenced 10 to 20 years in prison. He was sentenced another 25 years to life for a kidnapping in Schenectady. Not long after his sentences, he attempted suicide. On the 2^nd of February 1979, in Albany he was sentenced to another 25 years to life for the Hedderman murders.

Lemuel was incarcerated at the maximum security Green Haven Correctional Facility in 1981.

On the 15^th of May, correction officer Donna Payant was on duty and told her co-worker she had to deal with a problem when she missed a roll call hundreds of corrections officers combed the grounds throughout the night to the following morning. During the search, a garbage truck was on route to the dumpsite with the prison’s garbage. When they searched the garbage they found her mutilated body.

The New York governor Hugh Carey vowed the murder case will take priority and they will find the murderer. Five thousand officers attended the funeral and it was the first time in the United States a female correction officer was killed in prison.

The medical examiner immediately recognized the bite marks on the body of Maralie is the same as the bite marks on Donna and he was charged on the 6^th of June 1981, for her murder, the charge was a mandatory death sentence.

The capital murder trial started on the 20^th of January 1983, and he was found guilty on the evidence of the bite mark the 21^st of April 1983. At the time New York law states if he already served a life sentence he is automatically sentenced to death.

He was successful in his appeal on the 2^nd of July 1984, and his death sentence was commuted to another life term. As he poses a threat even in prison, he will spend the next 20 years in near-isolation. It is the longest a prisoner will be in isolation in the nation so far. He is currently 76 and is incarcerated at Five Points Correctional Facility.

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John Francis Roche

John was born in 1927, and although there is not much information about him he is still classified a serial killer.

The killings occurred from 1953 to 1954, in Queens, New York, and his method includes rape, beating and stabbing with a knife. He was 27 and a plumber’s helper.

On the 30^th of November 1954, he confessed he killed 5 people. His victims were 2 men and 3 women, including a 14 year old Manhattan girl, Dorothy Westwater, who he raped. According to sources his motive for the killings was sex. It did not seem he had a preferred race as he killed men as well.

John was convicted for the murder of Dorothy on the 9^th November 1954, and was sentenced to death by electric chair in Sing Sing prison on the 10^th January 1955. With his transportation to Sing Sing, he was in a sombre mood, unshaven and barley said a word.

Source 1

Larme Price

Larme was born in 1972, Brooklyn, New York. His criminal career started in 1989, where he was charged for robbery, assault, burglary, and possession of a weapon.

One of the ways Larme made a living was by selling stolen textbooks near the New York University Campus.

After the 9/11 attacks, he was scared to walk around in the streets and would often remark that he wants to join the war. His mother Mrs. Price said she tried several times to admit her son to the Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn as she believed he is mentally unstable, but the hospital lets him go every time. He stated the Central Intelligence Agency was after him and planted a device in his hand.

The murders occurred on the 8^th of February to 20^th March 2003. His reason for the killings was to avenge the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre.

His first victim was John Freddy, 43. John owned a grocery store in Ozone Park Queens, and he was gunned down in his shop. Not waiting long to kill his second victim, Sujit Khajala,50 who owned the Around The Clock Mini Market in Queens was gunned down by Larme.

On the 10^th March, he killed Albert Kotlyar, 32, who owned a laundromat in Bedford, Stuyvesant. Ten days after the attack on Albert, he killed yet another store owner Mohammed Abdul Nassar Ali, 54. Mohammed owned a corner store on Eastern Parkway and Buffalo Avenue and was standing in his doorway when he was shot.

After the killings Larme went to the 77^th police Precinct and offered his help to the police to find the serial killer, the investigators were suspicious of him as his walk and appearance were the same as the killer, but the police did not have enough evidence to detain him.

The next day when he spoke to the detective over the phone, he confessed to all the murders. He said he hated the Arabs, and therefore they needed to be killed, but his victims were different types of ethnics. He said he read the Bible and the command thou shall not kill and felt remorseful; he was also concerned about his two daughters. The police arrested him on the 29^th of March; his mother said his anger for the Middle Easterners was because; her son is mentally ill, and it is not ethnic related.

During the investigation, the police found evidence linking Larme to the crimes. They found the handgun, hat, gloves and other clothing he wore during the killings at his girlfriend’s house.

He disposed of the 40.calibre handgun he used for the first three murders because he was out of ammunition and he knew the police were looking for the gun.

In February 2004, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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DeVernon Legrand

DeVernon was born in 1924, and according to him, he moved with his parents to New York when he was 12.

DeVernon was ordained in 1954, on Long Island and it is unknown when he received his doctorate in psychology and theology at an unnamed institute in Newark.

DeVernon starts a church St. Johns Pentecostal Church of the Lord in Crown Heights, New York. It was a four-story townhouse, and he had done his recruiting by seduction. He would impregnate the young women working for him and then threaten them if they did not beg for money or food on the streets.

He had 11 nuns working for him with 47 children in total most of which he fathered. His Nuns were often seen at Grand Central Station begging. In 1965, he was arrested on charges of kidnapping, assault and firearms possession, the police had no idea what went on in the church, and he was never convicted. The police even dug up the basement of the church to look for bodies after two of his members vanished but, could find no evidence.

It seemed that his church flourished with the money his nuns collected while begging and in 1966, the church bought a 58acre in Catskills near Springs.

For eight years the police received numerous complaints from the neighbors about child abuse, wild parties, health violations, and gunfire. Some of the children roamed the countryside begging, and the horses on the property were beaten and starved to death.

In October 1968, the police raided his camp and seized drugs, photographed clogged toilets and squalor, it did not stop him and his parishioners to return every summer. Not even the opinion of the public could keep them away.

DeVernon’s reign of terror ended in 1975 after he and his son were convicted of first-degree rape of a 20-year-old, they repeatedly sexually assaulted her. Soon after the conviction Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Holman, two cult insiders told the investigators DeVernon, killed his daughter in law Gladys Stewart 18, in a fit of rage.

This was just the tip of the iceberg and when the police started to investigate the properties they were disgusted and could not believe he got away with killing, raping and starving women and children so long.

By March 1976, bones were found in the Briscoe Lake, and the police found bloodstains in the Crown Heights Townhouse. The evidence concluded he killed more than 12 people including his three wives, two of his stepchildren, two sisters and two of his employees who worked in the church.

He even bragged how he killed his ex-wife and the two Steward Sisters. Their bodies were cut up into pieces and dumped in a pond upstate. In 1986, he was arrested for killing his wife and the Steward Sisters, and on the 7^th of May 1977, he was convicted for 25 years to life in prison. He and his son were tried together for the murders of the Steward Sisters and the two employees who worked in the church.

He received 25 years to life, and his son Steven also received a 25-year sentence.

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Richard Kuklinski

He was born on the 11^th of April 1935, in the family apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey. His father was a Polish immigrant and his mother a daughter of a Catholic, Irish immigrant from Dublin. His father was a railroad worker an alcoholic, who violently abused him from an early age. His mother was a devout Catholic and also beat him and was a strict parent.

Richard began killing cats at a young age and rejected the role as altar boy in the Catholic Church. According to the records, his first murder was when he was 14, he killed a teen from the neighborhood gang and removed all identifying marks from the body and the body was never found.

His father beat his brother to death and upon realizing he killed his son he told his wife to tell the hospital the boy fell of the stairs hitting his head. Soon after the death of his brother his father left the family.

At the age of 16, he was known for his temper and willingness to kill and dropped out of school. He put his killing methods into action and would kill anyone who would annoy him or reminded him of his father, from friends at the pool table to random people in the street. The West Side of New York City became his killing grounds and the police thought it was homeless people and bums killing each other.

He worked at a warehouse loading dock in New York, where he met Barbara Pedrici his future wife; she was working as the secretary at the trucking company. While he courted her she discovers he was already married with two boys and confronted him about it, he responded by pushing a knife in her back and told her he could not live without her and she should not try and leave him.

They got married in 1961, and they had three children together. The family lived in suburban New Jersey, where he held barbeques and organized family trips to Disney World.

By the age of 18, he won the respect of the mafia. They selected a random man om the sidewalk he should kill and it would secure his place as a hitman. His career included robbery, hijackings, pornography but, he was mainly used as a hitman. He became the Genovese’s crime family hitman and disposing of his victims by removing teeth and fingers and dumping them in the river or down mine shafts.

He also worked for the Newark’s DeCalvacante crime family and 5 other New York crime families. His work for the Gambino family went on for a lot of years and his different way of killing is partly why the police could never track him down. He would use knives, tire irons, poison, fire, explosives and strangulation. His favorite was cyanide as it was not detectable in a toxicology test.

Upstate Ny Serial Killer Haunted Netflix Show

The way he disposed of the bodies was through putting them in an oil drum, dismemberment, placing the body in a car in the junkyard and feed his live victims to huge cave rats in Pennsylvania. Richard earned the nickname Ice Man for the experiments he did on his victims by freezing them in an industrial freezer.

His neighbors never knew about his activities as a hitman and believed he was a successful businessman. Barbara sometimes had a suspicion he was involved in crime as he brought in a lot of cash, she never talked to him about it and carried on being the dutiful and loving wife. He did not exhibit any of a standard serial killer categories or motives for the killings. Richard was not an abuser, womanizer, used drugs or alcohol or was even part of gambling. It puzzled everyone why he would kill.

Upstate Ny Serial Killer Strays

For 25years he was a loyal hitman of different mafia groups in New York and he decided to start his own crime ring.

Paul Hoffman was a pharmacist and wanted to buy a large amount of Tagamet at low cost to resell through his pharmacy. On the 29^th of April 1982, Richard met Paul in a warehouse and agreed to buy the Tagamet for $25,000; after Paul gave him the money Richard placed the pistol under his chin to kill him.

The gunshot did not kill Paul, and he tried again, and the gun jammed so he beat him to death with a tire iron.He ended up making a good profit. He put the body in a drum on a sidewalk near a hotel, and for some time he monitored the drum and then one day the drum was gone. He did not concern himself too much with the disappearance of the drum.

On the 27^th of 1982, the body of Gary Smith was discovered in a hotel room in North Bergen, New York. Gary ran car theft scams with Richard and another associate Daniel Deppner. Daniel and Richard gave Gary a cyanide burger on the 23^rd.

Growing impatient that Gary was taking too long to die. Daniel strangled him with a lamp cord. They put his body between the springs of the mattress, and for four days the room was rented to clients. No-one realized there was a body under the mattress.

In West Milford, New Jersey, Daniel’s body was found by a cyclist on the 14^th of May 1983. Richard put the body in a green garbage bag, and the mistake he made was to dump the body not far from a farm he and his family often went on riding trips.

On the 25^th of September 1983, a third business associate of Richard was found dead. Louis Masgay was found near a town park in Orangetown, New York. He had a bullet in his head. The body was frozen for two years; the medical examiner found iced crystals on the body and connected the murder to Richard. If the body had been unfrozen, they would never have known who the killer was.

The police linked him to five unsolved homicides, and he was also the last person to see all of the victims alive.

The division of the New Jersey Criminal Justice Department, created a task force in 1985, to arrest and convict Richard. The task force name was operation Ice Man, and the case was built around the testimony of an undercover police officer Dominick Polifrone and a case, the New Jersey State Police built up over the course of six years.

On the 17^th of December 1986, Dominick acted like he wanted to hire Richard for a hit. While going on in detail how he would carry out the murder, he was being recorded. Richard was arrested two hours later at a roadblock, his wife was charged with preventing him from being arrested. He was 51 on the day of his arrest.

Richard was charged with five counts of murder, weapons violations, attempted murder, attempted robbery and robbery. In March 1988, he was found guilty of five murders and sentenced to life in prison; he would have been eligible for parole at the age of 110. According to records, he killed more than a hundred people, a lot of the murders were difficult to prove as most of the bodies were never recovered and he was good at covering his tracks.

During his trial, he was interviewed by prosecutors, psychiatrists, and criminologists and there was about, three documentaries made about him and his life in the mafia.

In one of the interviews, he said he would never hurt or kill a child. However his wife received no mercy from him as she was beaten up, her nose was broken and he tried to smother her with a pillow, pointed a gun at her and almost ran her over with a car.

Killing Killers: Family Massacred In Upstate NY

In 2003, he pleaded guilty to murdering New York Detective Peter Calabro; he received another 30 years in prison.

He said he lay in wait for him and gunned him down, he claimed he did not know about Peter being a detective at the time, but would have killed him either way.

Richard was kept in solitary confinement at Bergen County Prison in New York, where he befriended another criminal Pavle Stanimirovic and for six months he told him his entire life story which is to become an award-winning book called The Making of a Mafia Hit-Man by the author Burl Barer.

After being in prison for 17 years, he was diagnosed with a rare and incurable inflammation of the blood vessels and was transferred to a wing in the St. Francis Medical Centre in Trenton, New York. His wife has signed a do not resuscitate order and a week before Richard had died in hospital they asked her if she changed her mind and she said no. Richard died on the 5^th of March 2006, at the age of 70 and his body was cremated.

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Upstate Ny Serial Killer 1970s

10 Ruthless Serial Killers From New York - Crimes Lab