THE ULTIMATE EVIL
An Investigation into a
Dangerous Satanic Cult
By Maury Terry
XXI
An Investigation into a
Dangerous Satanic Cult
By Maury Terry
XXI
A Coast-to Coast Conspiracy
What about your children? You say
there are just a few? There are many,
many more, coming in the same direction. They are running in the streets—
and they are coming right at you!
—Charles Manson,
testifying
at his trial
"That's right," Vinny said, warily glancing about the dreary
visiting center in maximum-security Dannemora prison. "The
Children—that's what the inner circle of twelve called themselves. Just like Manson's group. It was all part of the same
setup, going from New York to L.A., and to Texas and North
Dakota—with Texas weapons shipped up through Tampa,
Florida. They also had some stuff in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and I think in Jersey."
Mike Zuckerman and I listened in silence while Vinny recited the scope of the cult's operations as whispered to him by
Berkowitz. Later, we'd ask countless questions. But I was already mentally comparing Vinny's remarks with Berkowitz's
1977 "cult warning" to police in the tri-state area. Now I knew
what he meant.
"The Children were the core in the East; in Westchester,
anyway," Vinny went on. "Counting fringe people, there were
sometimes as many as forty. But twenty-two was the official
number of the cult itself, with the twelve planning and doing
the killings."
It was late spring 1982. Vinny was first on the visiting list, and would be followed by Danny a month later. For five
straight hours Vinny spoke, not once leaving his seat at the
small table. The story was compelling, and would later be supported by months of street investigation. The road to Dannemora had been a tricky one; it took a while to convince
Vinny of my sincerity. But he finally wrote:
Just got your letter. You aren't bullshit. You do
know. Did Berkowitz tell you, or do you (like I) have
evidence? Berkowitz is probably scared of me now,
but I never violated his trust. As a fact, all I know
would only make things better for him.
The fat cat on Long Island? That's easy—R.R. I
know where the L.I. house is. My notes with the
name of the town were burned, but I can remember
it. Here is the guy's face. [Vinny drew a rough sketch
of a round-faced man with curly hair, a beard and a
mustache.] I know that looks absurd but I've seen his
photo. I can recognize him anywhere.
There is a "church" in Westchester. We must locate it. They hold meetings. I can tell you enough to
find it. There is a fat cat in Westchester that's really
significant. It gets complicated. Eventually, I'll give
you arsons, and crimes in other states, too. I'll give
you info on others. The final chart will prove itself
undeniably. There are drugs involved, and interstate
transport of weapons. That's FBI domain—and
maybe only the FBI can be objective (and effective)
enough. I'll give you a few names when you come—
and locations.
One is the "church" in Westchester. You'll find it
OK. But the real fat cat lives on L.I. I had the name
of the town—two-word place. But I know his name,
and lots more. He lives in some sorta mansion, and I
can describe it to a "T." I used three or four sources
to double-check.
Drugs, transported from Hawaii. The weapons
come from Texas, via Florida. They are taken up in
vans by outlaw bikers. I've sent these facts out secretly to five separate sources. None know what they
have. This is not a game. I must be vague in print.
Written stuff can be lethal.
How do we know these facts are sound? Shit, tell Santucci to go through the shit I have. How do I
know? Maury, if I gotta waste time on that crap,
fuck it. Just give him the facts. I got enough shit to
deal with, let alone having to gift-wrap it for him,
also.
Berkowitz said D.L. [Donna Lauria] was hit. Yes,
he said that. His reactions on that were complex,
obscure. Christine Freund was a hit.
He was not
vague on that one. A hit.
I'm gonna have my contact contact you. We'll
have a voice communication. I'll mail this out. If you
can send stamps, I'll use 'em for our letters. Hit Gannett for them. Hang in there. Write all you need to.
Chew my head off if you disagree. We're on the same
side.
I'm not a cop, or a D.A. How the hell did I get
into this situation? I feel like a fucking cop sometimes—that turns me off. Peace.
I'm not a hero, and you ain't immune to bullets,
either. Bear this in mind.
Eventually, my Vinny and Danny file would grow to more
than a hundred letters that were enhanced by over a dozen
personal visits spanning the years 1982-86. All the information was marked by a common trait: consistency. Vinny and
Danny also agreed to submit to polygraph tests, but Tom
Russo in Queens said they weren't necessary. "We've got
enough details here," he said. "If we need to test anybody in
the future, we will."
But now, in the spring of 1982, right under Berkowitz's
unknowing nose, Vinny laid out the cult scenario for me and
Mike Zuckerman. As we began, I stipulated some ground
rules: "One lie, one tiny lie, and you're done. We're going to be
out there in the streets checking all this out, so if you shaft us,
we'll never listen to another word again."
"Hey, I want you to check it," Vinny said. "That's why I
agreed to talk. Berkowitz wanted it checked, too. That's why
he talked to me in the first place. He wanted legal help. I
challenged him left and right and told him my lawyer would
dump me if I fed him any shit. So he went into this thing in
heavy detail, and I asked him all sorts of questions about it. I
can just tell you as best I know it," Vinny said. "Then you go
check it out."
"How is he these days?" I asked.
"Pissed at the publicity. He was almost convinced to write you to set up a meet with Santucci—but he changed his mind. He's scared. He knows he could get zapped anytime, and he does want the truth out—but he doesn't trust anybody anymore. And that includes you. But he told me you were there from the start."
"Yes, from the first freaking day after he was nailed."
"Well, he thought you'd be able to understand this shit, but he just stopped trusting and later said he didn't want you to know any of it. But fuck him. He's getting torn all sorts of ways. .. . He showed me your letters, written in code, right? He told me what you were asking about."
"Yeah, they were in code. No use letting the censors in on it."
"That's how I sent out my stuff," Vinny said. "Hidden in books, written in sound-alike names and nicknames. I made it sound like jokes and gibberish, but it all meant stuff."
"What about Sisman?" I asked. "You had his name before he was knocked off."
"Shit, neither me or Berkowitz knew it was gonna be him. I just knew something was going down Halloween, and that it was gonna be either in the Village or Brooklyn Heights. I tried to stop it."
As he talked about the Sisman murder, tears welled in Vinny's eyes. "That was bad shit," he finally said. "Knowing about something like that ahead of time but not being able to do anything. This is all bizarre, but I swear to you it's true as I heard it, and you gotta get Santucci and investigate it."
"Why don't you just tell us what you know?" Zuckerman asked quietly. And Vinny did just that.
The information was concise and involved. It also included names—names of people who, it turned out, did exist. Berkowitz himself provided Vinny with the specifics about the .44 shootings, the cult, Ronald Sisman and others. In some instances, other prison contacts confirmed or supplemented Berkowitz's general familiarity with the group's drug and porn links in New York City, drawing on their own more precise knowledge of that apparatus.
In fact, the informants explained that an alliance existed between the cult and related narcotics and pornography enterprises. This arrangement blended at least two independent franchises which had united for mutual benefit: they could use each other.
It is helpful to remember that the informants emphasized that crossovers between groups occurred. And since an understanding of the Son of Sam shootings would be incomplete without first looking at the overall picture, the sources' description of the entire interwoven operation will be discussed first. Fleshed out by subsequent interviews and letters, here is Vinny's account, which was later substantially corroborated by Danny.
The Westchester group, whom we will call the Children for identification purposes, planned and carried out the Son of Sam attacks. The cult was an offshoot of a parent group which originated in England. As such, it did not exist in a vacuum. The Children were linked to similar groups in the United States, with Houston, Los Angeles and the Dakotas prominently mentioned. The cult maintained a primary headquarters in Venice, California, an L.A. suburb.
In New York, the Westchester Children interacted with another satanic operation in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and a certain occult shop within the city limits functioned as a clearinghouse and rendezvous point for cult members from Westchester and elsewhere, who intermingled. As an example of the cross-connections, at least one New York City female occultist was said to have been on the scene of a Son of Sam shooting, which blended with what Berkowitz told Harry Lipsig.
Westchester and New York City members also convened occasionally in a brownstone, occupied by a woman, in Brooklyn Heights—a trendy neighborhood where still another woman involved with the city faction also lived. The brownstone was said to be located on Henry Street, between Love Lane and Atlantic Avenue, which was a number of blocks south. The other Brooklyn woman resided about a block west of Atlantic and Henry. Additionally, another spot near Love Lane was described as a cult meeting site. (Vinny later provided a map of the area, which was accurate down to the most intricate detail —including the location of trees on a block.)
"They work the colleges," Vinny said. "They recruit for the cult and the prostitution on campuses. One of those Brooklyn women was involved in the college coordination." He provided two names, saying he believed the woman in question was one of them. Both exist.
David Berkowitz, Michael Carr and other Westchester members knew and were known by the New York City group. Michael Carr, whom Vinny and other sources categorized as gay, also associated with cult-connected people who were affiliated with Columbia University, and some of those acquaintances lived in that area of uptown Manhattan. Vinny said that many of Michael Carr's companions were homosexual or bisexual. This proclivity, he said, was a common thread which, even beyond cult links, wove a considerable number of members and associates together.
Vinny (and Danny) said the Children counted women among their members, as Berkowitz also told Harry Lipsig.
The top leader of the Children, not surprisingly, was said to be a lawyer who dealt in real estate, or a real estate man who also held a law degree. He was said to have been middle-aged, perhaps forty-five to fifty-three years old, in 1977. He was described as balding and thin, and was said to wear glasses, at least on occasion.
This leader was said to have maintained an office in the White Plains vicinity during the Son of Sam era, and perhaps still did in 1987. The office, rather than being in a high-rise building, was described as then being in a "residential-type" dwelling in or near White Plains.
The leader's home was said to have been somewhere other than White Plains, in a location unknown to the informants. But he was described as having been active in local politics, "town board or something," either in his hometown or in connection with his business. This leader, who may have been divorced, allegedly had a son or son-in-law who also was an attorney and who was perhaps in his mid-twenties at the time. The leader also may have had a daughter, who would have been of "college age" in the 1977 time frame.
The Children's leader was further said to be a Mason, rank unknown, and to have owned or kept dogs. "Berkowitz occasionally watched the guy's dogs for him," Vinny said. This major cultist also owned a boat during these years. "Not a yacht, but a pretty big boat," Vinny explained.
This man—about whom multiple, intricate details were provided—is allegedly responsible for directing the group which committed the Son of Sam murders and other violent crimes.
Berkowitz offered no information about the other Westchester leaders, the informants said. But he did reveal that one group member was then employed at a large Westchester automotive facility, where he held an administrative, sales liaison or dealer coordination post. He was said to have been married to the daughter of one of the company's executives or managers. The informants were given a first name for this member, which will be withheld here.
Regarding other Westchester members, Vinny said Berkowitz told him: "A couple of Yonkers cops are involved. I don't know if they were present or former cops." Vinny didn't have their names, but prior investigation had unearthed three suspects, including former Yonkers officer Peter Shane.*
Some cult members, in both Westchester and New York City, were said to own or work in "art stores. Small, artsycraftsy places," Vinny said. "Like throwbacks to the hippie days."
In Westchester, the group met at Untermyer Park, which confirmed our own investigation; an old mansion in Greenburgh, central Westchester, which was said to have been "burned out"; and an abandoned church—which was said to be located near Central Avenue in the White Plains vicinity. The church, Vinny wrote, was "near the old mansion."
The cult leader, via his real estate or other dealings, allegedly learned of this church's existence and obtained access to it in some manner. The church, no longer in use by a congregation, was said to be devoid of pews; and the group allegedly stored satanic material in a small shed attached to the building. (Vinny later sent me a drawing of the church.)
Another abandoned church offered yet one more meeting site. This edifice was said to have been an "eastern headquarters" for the group. The informants said it was privately owned (perhaps partially converted) and was located in the vicinity of the northeast corner of Westchester County, somewhere near (and possibly over) the adjoining Putnam County and Connecticut borders. Vinny couldn't pinpoint the exact location but, quoting Berkowitz, he mentioned "Salem" and "Brewster."
North and South Salem, with their historical witchcraft names, were in Westchester, and the village of Brewster lay a few miles north in Putnam County. The area was largely rural, with homes, estates and some farms and stables hidden from the few main roads by thickets of trees. It was a perfect cult site, and a difficult, extensive setting in which to try to locate the old church.
Vinny said the church's interior (in 1976-77) was adorned with a silver pentagram on one wall; and silver-wire inlays, some in the form of the German SS lightning bolts—a symbol of the cult—appeared on the ends of some pews.
Vinny also said that besides the Son of Sam and other murders, the group committed rapes in Westchester and set a number of fires.
One particular fire involved a considerable loss of life, and an investigation into the alleged cult participation in that crime is ongoing. But data supporting the Vinny-Berkowitz allegation have been uncovered. Another cult-ignited fire allegedly occurred in or near Brooklyn Heights.
The Children's murders, while cloaked in satanic "theology," occasionally also served to eliminate weak links or enemies, Vinny stated. And except for major satanic holidays, the group met on Thursdays that coincided with cycles of the moon.
Danny later remarked: "This is a whole subculture the cops don't know about or understand. That's why these idiots can get away with all they do. If somebody gets caught, he shuts up—so they think it's just an isolated thing. And they don't get caught too much in the first place. They got smart people heading it."
Danny and Vinny were very clear as to why they were willing to assist the probe. First, if arrests were made, Santucci could ease their plights with recommendations to the parole board. Second, there is a caste system within every prison population. Robbers, dope dealers, even killers are repelled by the types of crimes the Sam cult engaged in: the murders and rapes of innocent young women. Accordingly, the informants preferred an uneasy alliance with law enforcement and me to sitting back silently with the information they gathered—some of which concerned the cult's drug connections.
The Children and the New York City cults, or their leaders, were said to be involved in the drug business on a medium scale. This brought the Children into an alliance with the simpatico Ronald Sisman, who, while not a cult member, was known to the cult (and the police) as a dope dealer with porno connections aplenty. Sisman, Vinny said, was directly tied to R.R., the wealthy Long Island overlord.
Into this upper stratum of the cult's drug and kinky-sex operations walked other professional and white-collar types: doctors, lawyers and businessmen. Some were satanically bent, most likely in elitist OTO directions; some weren't. But there was a considerable amount of money to be made and sexual savoring to sample even if one's interests were limited to narcotics and porn.
"They keep looking for bigger kicks," Vinny said. "They got everything, but it ain't enough. So they get into weirdness. And it ain't exactly a secret that doctors get hooked on drugs and start dealing, too. And they all think they can get away with anything—that they're above the cops. If not, they try to buy them. There's a lotta money in coke."
Vinny said that R.R. was perched atop this kink-and-cultic social whirl—using middlemen, underlings and other contacts to fill in whatever blanks he couldn't personally inscribe. Enter Sisman and one James Camaro, whose name Vinny also mentioned in the notes he compiled before Sisman's murder. Camaro wasn't the man's actual name, Vinny believed, trying to remember. "But the real name is close to that."
Camaro was an olive-skinned Caucasian or Hispanic, who Vinny said "dressed like an Indian," because "he wore a headband and stuff like that. I saw his picture." Camaro was in his late twenties to mid-thirties, Vinny thought, and had dark hair.
Vinny described Camaro as R.R.'s "insurance, but I don't think he was as close to him as Sisman was." He added that Berkowitz and other Westchester cultists feared Camaro, who acted as a go-between from R.R. and Sisman to the Children. Camaro, Vinny reported, also had some "loose organized crime connections," which wasn't surprising for one involved in pornography and upscale prostitution.
Camaro and Sisman, as R.R.'s operatives, administered a porno enterprise which involved, the informants said, a call girl ring which utilized college girls and produced private sex films, stills and videotapes. Some coeds, first enticed by the New York City cult's innocent come-on, were later fed to the call girl network, Vinny remarked.
While Camaro specialized in this area, Sisman branched out and handled a fair amount of drug dealing. The Children in Westchester used drugs provided by the R.R.-Sisman link and, to some extent, were part of the dope distribution network. (A Yonkers resident has said he occasionally picked up hard drugs from David Berkowitz's apartment.) This narcotics pipeline, Vinny stated, accounted for the presence of Berkowitz and Michael Carr at Sisman's brownstone.
The drug operation, while not large by organized crime standards, managed to accomplish its purpose. Coke was its prime substance and was said to have arrived in New York from South America, via Florida.
Heroin from Southeast Asia was also shipped, Vinny said. "They used hospital and medical connections. [Name withheld] told me they used a hospital and another company in Hawaii as two places that got the shit ready to come to the U.S.—to New York and maybe other places. The heroin was supposed to go into blood or plasma shipments and other hospital accomplices would then handle it here."
Once again, we were looking at medical links.
Vinny, incarcerated in a New York prison, sent me the names and phone numbers of several Hawaiian locations, including a large hospital and a quarrying company. An FBI agent confirmed via the Bureau's Honolulu office that the addresses and phone numbers were in fact accurate. The list did not originate with Berkowitz.
Vinny was uncertain of R.R.'s role in the heroin operation. "But it fits somewhere in the picture," he said. "He's involved with other people besides the cult. Maybe that part was someone else's more than his. You've got to understand that the Children and the city cult were one thing—they had their own links. R.R. and his crowd, at least some of them, were not in the cults. But they used them and formed partnerships. That's how it worked."
Vinny explained that Berkowitz "didn't let on that he knew a lot of the particulars about the dope and porn stuff. But he knew names and some basic stuff. And he'd been to R.R.'s house, and Sisman's, and he knew Camaro. But other people knew more details than he did. Berkowitz said what he knew, and other people confirmed it. . . . If R.R. and them were meat wholesalers, you don't think they're only dealing with you, right? They got other customers, too. A couple of other customers have been in this place [prison]. Berkowitz knew what he knew, and they knew other things."
Regarding the porno and call girl system, blackmail was sometimes employed to keep the girls in line, Vinny said, adding that Camaro sometimes used the Auto Pub restaurant in Manhattan's General Motors Building as one location where well-heeled clients and collegiate call girls met.
Enter the world of television. Vinny wrote that Camaro appeared in a "home porno flick" with a woman who held a responsible production post with a TV network in Manhattan. The woman's title and network were specified.
Vinny didn't know her name, but he did have her description—which was so precise I identified her after just one phone call to a friend in the television industry. Since the woman was not an on-camera personality, Vinny couldn't have picked up her description from a TV screen.
This story, in conjunction with Berkowitz's fascinating list of phone numbers, illustrates how people connected to the cult's upper echelons seemed to fraternize easily in prestigious, though bizarre social circles.
The call girl operation, Vinny said, was responsible for at least two murders in Manhattan—both linked to Columbia University. One victim was a male medical or graduate student (name unknown) who was slain after learning a young woman he was dating was involved with the ring. Vinny said she told the victim about it, and he was killed either because he raised a fuss trying to wean her away from the group's clutches or simply because he'd acquired inside knowledge of the operation.
"Camaro had something to do with that," Vinny wrote. "I think they tried to make it look like a robbery."
Subsequent investigation revealed that at least two unsolved homicides bore similarities to the slaying to which Vinny referred. A Columbia grad student was slain in the immediate area of the school in February 1981. After dropping off his girlfriend, he returned to the street and his killer tossed some money to the pavement and said, "Hey, pal, you dropped this." When the student turned around, he was shot dead. Police said the victim's girlfriend witnessed at least part of the incident.
Another victim was a medical resident at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, which was affiliated with the university. He was shot dead while walking on a street near the hospital in the autumn of 1981.
The other murder Vinny specified was said to have been that of a coed—probably a Columbia or Barnard student—who was slain in Manhattan after trying to extricate herself from the call girl network. Vinny, quoting sources other than Berkowitz, said that Camaro also played a role in this murder, and said he thought the victim was disfigured in some way by her killer or killers.
If Camaro indeed had a hand in those murders, he didn't operate alone, Vinny said. "He had his own guy, a landscaper or gardener. He was a Puerto Rican or some kind of Hispanic. I was told this jerk worked at [a northern Manhattan park] and also did some part-time gardener work at Columbia."
Vinny went on to say: "There's a fag named Fred Reese,* who does secretarial-type shit—he's in this, too. He's the fag boyfriend of Lenora Stein,* who's part of that cult shop crowd. It's all one large circle. They come and go and mix it up with each other."
I asked Vinny if Berkowitz (or another source) ever spoke of the horrible December 1979 murders of Brooklyn residents Howard Green and Carol Marron, who had all the blood drained from their bodies with a veterinarian's syringe. Green and Marron were occult devotees, according to the police.
"Nobody ever spoke of that," Vinny said. "But they lived in Brooklyn? Who would you nominate? Who else is there around New York that would do that to a couple of devil worshippers except some of their own? That wasn't any one man operation that did them in."
I also asked if Vinny later heard who was responsible for the Sisman-Plotzman homicides. He said he hadn't, but "Camaro would be a top choice for either doing it or having it done. Sisman went down over that Moskowitz tape, which was made for R.R. on Long Island. And from what I know, Camaro was one of his goons. So I'd say Camaro was somehow involved."
Vinny then brought the entire scenario into focus. "I was told directly by Berkowitz that Camaro was on the scene of the Moskowitz thing and also acted as a go-between on the Christine Freund murder—which wasn't a random shooting. And neither was Donna Lauria's."
Mix and mingle again. With these explosive charges, we were now back to the .44 shootings.
But before examining those attacks, the following supporting data, in addition to what I have already listed, were uncovered during the investigation of the Vinny and Danny statements:
The abandoned church in central Westchester, which Vinny accurately sketched, was immediately identified by Captain Gerry Buckhout of the Greenburgh Police Department, as was the nearby "burned-out" mansion, which turned out to be the former Warburg-Rothschild estate. Vinny's precise drawing of the church was remarkable in that the building was torn down in the mid-seventies—more than seven years before he sketched it from a description provided by Berkowitz.
The church, abandoned at the time, was dismantled after a suspicious fire destroyed its adjacent parish hall. Before that, it stood empty since the late fifties, when its congregation moved to another edifice—taking the original pews with them. Vinny had said the church contained no pews.
Buckhout interviewed the man who subsequently purchased the old church and its adjoining buildings—the parish hall and a rectory.
"When he came in during the seventies, a woman who claimed to be a witch was on the site. She had a business there, selling paintings and arts and crafts out of the parish hall," Buckhout explained. "There were also strange hippie types living upstairs in the former minister's house. It was something of a crash pad, and was painted purple. The 'witch' was a suspect in the fire that later destroyed the parish hall."
The owner's revelation that the "witch" sold paintings, etc., supported Vinny's allegation that some cult members owned or worked in "art stores." The woman was in her mid-forties and had sons who'd run afoul of the law, Buckhout learned.
"One was arrested in Yonkers for public lewdness and another was picked up in Long Beach, California—near L.A.— for cursing out a cop," he said. "One of them also worked in a lower Manhattan design place; he was in the same field as Michael Carr."
Buckhout also discovered that one of the woman's sons was later killed in an apparent accident. As for the "witch" herself, she had left the area and has not been located. "This church was the place," Buckhout said. "Your prison guys are on the money."
Three years earlier, John Carr's friend Phil Falcon had told us that the Westchester group met in a "witch's church." At the time, the significance of the statement escaped us. Falcon had meant his comment to be taken literally. Berkowitz, too, had underlined a church clue in the book he mailed to North Dakota in 1979.
There were more than a dozen abandoned or converted houses of worship in the rural northern Westchester-Putnam Connecticut sector, any one of which might have been the "eastern headquarters" Vinny described. By itself, the very existence of numerous abandoned churches was something of a confirmation, since other sections of Westchester didn't have any to speak of. In other words, one would have to know they existed in that area in order to make an accurate claim. But for our purposes, surveilling such a large number of locations around North Salem was impossible because our manpower was limited and no one knew how frequently the church was used by the secretive group.
Interestingly, in 1979 this region was the scene of documented satanic rituals. In one instance, a Ridgefield, Connecticut, police officer heard chanting in a wooded thicket near the Westchester-Connecticut border. While investigating, he was attacked and beaten. The cultists fled.
"They must have had guards there, and they weren't afraid to jump a cop," Sergeant Bernie DePrimo of the Connecticut State Police told me in mid-1986. "Nuns at a nearby convent also heard chanting and saw torches on occasion. There was a group there all right. There was scattered cult activity around the area."
In the wake of the assault, DePrimo said, the State Police developed confidential information which led them to a curious location: the same New York City occult store later targeted by Berkowitz, Vinny and Danny.
DePrimo also offered another startling piece of information. "We heard that whoever headed this around here was a successful guy involved in real estate."
This dovetailed precisely with the prison allegations about the occupation of the leader of the Children. It was a significant development in the case.
Moreover, at the time of the Connecticut border incidents— which happened nearly three years before the Vinny-Danny statements and months before the Son of Sam case was reopened—David Berkowitz wrote to Lee Chase and pointedly mentioned satanic rituals occurring near North Salem.
Another intriguing series of events happened in this same region in 1979. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones was then ensconced in a secluded rented home in the immediate vicinity of the cult activity. In fact, it was reported that scorch marks were found on an isolated section of his property.
Richards, who'd lived in the home since about 1977, was frequently touring with the Stones while his girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, remained at the house. A number of publications, including biographical sketches of the band, described Pallenberg as a student of the black arts. During the 1979 cult era, while Richards was away, a teen aged boy was found shot to death in Pallenberg's bedroom. Authorities determined that the youth committed suicide.
Keith Richards, who had known Pallenberg since the sixties, was a guest at the 1968 London wedding of noted film director Roman Polanski and the beautiful young actress Sharon Tate. Among his many credits, Polanski directed the famous devil epic Rosemary's Baby for Paramount Pictures. Paramount's vice president of production, Robert Evans, who later was caught in a cocaine bust, was deeply involved with the film and became closely acquainted with Polanski. At the time Rosemary's devil-child was born (1967-68), Evans was back in Hollywood from a London assignment as head of Paramount's European production team.
In Beverly Hills, Evans, Polanski and Sharon Tate were friendly with John Phillips, songwriter and lead singer of the Mamas and the Papas rock group. A decade later, Phillips would be an occasional visitor at the home of his friend Keith Richards, hidden away in Satanville. Phillips himself was leasing a house nearby in Connecticut at this time.
Phillips' late-sixties relationship with Polanski and Tate was an intimate one. He was frequently in their company and was entertained in their rented Benedict Canyon home at 10050 Cielo Drive—scene of oncoming slaughter—on several occasions. In fact, both Phillips and Polanski have acknowledged that Polanski, while married to Tate, conducted a brief affair in London with Phillips' wife, Michelle, who also sang with the Mamas and the Papas. This liaison transpired several months before Sharon Tate and four others were butchered by Charles Manson's killers in August 1969.
Because of his affair with Michelle, Polanski at first suspected an angry John Phillips was involved in the murders—to the point of holding a knife to his throat before slinging it into a wall.
Ironically, Phillips has admitted to a passing acquaintance with Manson himself, to whom he was introduced by drummer Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. Manson and some followers even lived at Wilson's Sunset Boulevard estate for a time in 1968, before the friendship soured. Wilson subsequently occupied a slot on Manson's enemies list.
Manson moved easily in show business circles, and developed a close relationship with Terry Melcher, son of singer actress Doris Day and the producer of her TV show and other ventures. Melcher, to Manson's great interest, was also a record producer—and Charlie was determined to make it big as a singer. He was anxious to ingratiate himself with Melcher, from whom Roman Polanski sublet 10050 Cielo Drive.
Melcher, too, was acquainted with John Phillips. And in tune with Phillips' association with Manson, author Ed Sanders reported that he uncovered information indicating Manson attended a 1968 New Year's Eve party at Phillips' Los Angeles home.
Phillips, Sanders also said, apparently referred members of the Process to a Los Angeles real estate operator named Artie Aarons in 1968, when the English occultists were seeking to pitch tent in that city. Sanders obtained this information from Jonathan de Peyer, known as Father Christian to his fellow Processans.
There were also stories about which held that Phillips contributed some cash to the Process, with the reported amounts ranging from the ten dollars Phillips said he gave to "some cult dressed in black" to a figure much higher. In any case, Father Christian said that with Phillips' recommendation Artie Aarons found lodging for a Process contingent at a large home he managed at 1882 South Cochrane in Los Angeles.
Neither Sanders nor I imply that Phillips was directly affiliated with the Process. From all indications, his interests—by his own account—were elsewhere: music and drugs. But, the interweavings and connections among people and events in the Son of Sam and Manson cases are provocative—especially in light of Manson II's alleged involvement in the .44 killings, the further contention that Charlie Manson belonged to the same satanic organization Berkowitz later joined, and the North Salem cult link to the Sam case.
And the Process itself was even located in that area. In the mid-seventies members of the cult occupied a house off Salem Road in Pound Ridge, a rural community several miles south of North Salem. Even more curious, Process leader Robert DeGrimston himself was residing in a private home in East- Chester—a scant few miles from Untermyer Park—in the early and mid-1970s. The "coincidences" were simply too numerous to be written off. Too many people were in the right places at the right times. It was as if the players and environment from the Los Angeles scene of 1968-69 had been magically transported to the specific areas Berkowitz and the prison informants referred to.
The reason for this interest in the California and New York connections case is simple. According to Vinny, Manson II was involved with the original Charles Manson. And more than that, Vinny said: "When Manson had the Tate murders done, he was not just doing it out of some Helter Skelter fantasy. That was part of it, he believed in that shit. But there was a real motive, Berkowitz told me. He said Manson was working for somebody else when those crimes were committed. He said Manson 'volunteered to do the killings' for somebody else."
This was an incredible charge. Vinny said Berkowitz got the information from: "Who else? Manson II."
But to return to the Vinny-Danny information about the Son of Sam operation in New York: the allegation that John and Michael Carr's disdain for their father, Sam, sparked incidents of violence against him and inspired his inclusion as an object of hatred in the Borrelli letter was essentially confirmed by an ex-boyfriend of their sister, Wheat—and by Wheat herself.
The boyfriend told me: "The brothers hated the old man. I knew each of them somewhat when I was dating Micki [Wheat's nickname]. I was told Sam used to severely punish them and even locked them in closets and things like that."
In a recorded interview with Santucci's probers, Wheat simply said: "O.K., there was a lot of bad feeling between both John and Michael and my father."
As I'd noted as early as September 1977, the Borrelli letter read as if it was written from inside the Carr house—not by Berkowitz from his apartment high on the hill above it. The later confirmations put vital pieces of the puzzle in place.
In other categories, the names, locations and people Vinny and Danny described or named turned out to be real. Beyond that, two New York City women they identified were positively tied to OTO cult activity. The investigation also established that one of them, as Vinny said, indeed "worked the colleges"—recruiting for the cult on various campuses. "She also knows R.R.," Vinny said.
At every turn taken by the probe, the credibility of Berkowitz and the informants was bolstered. But in the case of James Camaro, since Vinny said the man's name apparently wasn't Camaro but "close to it," we were stuck. Berkowitz had offered the real name, which Vinny failed to remember when he saw his own coded substitution for it months later. Although he did have an approximate Manhattan address where he said Camaro once lived, we were unable to locate him. We needed the real name.
Once, however, we thought we'd found him. In early 1985 a motor vehicles computer run led Hank Cinotti and me to a freezing, midwinter stake-out of an apartment on the ocean in Long Beach, Long Island. For three days, while we shivered and complained in Cinotti's drafty van, the suspect, smarter than we were, remained indoors. Finally, at eight o'clock one morning, he emerged to lead us on a wild trip at high speeds all the way to Staten Island—to a funeral home.
Since Vinny had seen a photo of Camaro and could identify him, our goal was to obtain his picture. So we followed the line of cars to a cemetery and blended in with the crowd at the gravesite, waiting for the photo opportunity, which didn't come.
After the service, the suspect and two companions drove to a distant section of the graveyard to place flowers at another tomb—which they couldn't find. Cinotti and I watched their search from the van. Suddenly, "Camaro" walked right to us. It was a tense moment. Fortunately, because of the van, he assumed we were cemetery workers.
As he stood near the passenger's door asking me for directions, Cinotti lowered the camera out of the suspect's line of vision and snapped his photo. "Click, click."
"Camaro" heard the camera, looked startled, but probably imagined he was hearing things. After steering him to the section he was seeking, Cinotti and I leisurely drove away.
Two days later, I visited Vinny and showed him the snapshot.
"It's not him," he immediately said.
"Look again," I pleaded. "Hold it upside down, turn it sideways; close your eyes and feel it like it's Braille—shove it up your ass. You don't know what the hell we went through to get this damned thing."
"It's just not him," Vinny said again.
It was not one of my better days.
Camaro would be positively identified and located in mid-1987. But as of this writing, there was still not enough corroborating evidence to formally charge him in any of the cases.
The informants didn't have the name of "Mr. Real Estate" either, since Berkowitz hadn't given it up. But the details they did supply led us to several possible suspects who could have functioned as the leader of the Children. That investigation continues. Similarly, several possible choices were identified as Camaro's alleged accomplice, the Hispanic gardener.
Berkowitz cautiously held back several key cards while dealing to the informants, including the names of most of the Son of Sam shooters. He did offer a first name for the elusive Manson II. The name Vinny gave me was Frank, but we didn't know if Berkowitz revealed an accurate name or if Manson II assumed an alias in New York.
Berkowitz, according to the informants, had further stated that John Carr was a triggerman and that Michael Carr, if not a shooter, was on the scene of some .44 attacks. This complemented what Berkowitz told Harry Lipsig in a portion of the deposition withheld from the public.
Berkowitz also named a New York City female cultist who Vinny said was at one .44 scene, at least—as were Manson II, Sisman, Mickey and someone named Tom. Mickey and Sisman, as noted, allegedly participated in the Moskowitz videotaping, and Camaro also was said to have been at that attack.
Regarding women at crime scenes, Vinny had the names of two—both of whom exist. He said the woman in question was one of them. (Santucci had uncovered the name of a third suspect.) Vinny also said that someone named Rudy was involved with the cult in either Westchester, New York City or Long Island.
His original coded note included the names of a few others, who were also said to be affiliated with the group. He explained that his allusion to New York University in the letter meant that some young women connected to the New York City group had attended school there. "Something like photography and drama courses," he recalled. Out of the blue, we had another photo link, of which there were many in the investigation.
The initial stage of the Vinny-Danny investigation, which is still monitored today, lasted more than a year and was coordinated by me, with assistance from Santucci's office and the police officials and others previously listed.
The "big picture" of the cult's operations was valuable for intelligence purposes, but DA John Santucci's attention necessarily remained on the .44 shootings themselves. Other facets of the group's activities weren't in his jurisdiction, although he remained apprised of developments.
In mid-1983, we convened in his office and analyzed an extensive report I'd prepared on the investigation of the informants' charges.
"A considerable amount of support has been found," he said. "And many allegations as to the existence of people, places and the like have been confirmed directly. Of course, from where I stand, the ultimate test would occur in a courtroom, if we can ever carry the damned case to that point. But I agree there's substance to what these people have been saying."
"It's all been checking out," I said. "Talk about 'smoke and fire.'"
"Yes, but we can't lose sight of the earlier work on the .44 incidents. That's what I need to bring somebody to trial. Half the people we're interested in are dead, and we don't know who this Manson II is either. I need a Queens shooter."
Santucci was right. The Son of Sam attacks also remained my prime concern. It would have taken an interstate task force to dent the rest of the operation. But like the informants' statements about the drug and porn activity, information they offered on the Sam shootings was enhanced by buttressing details.
And once again, the charges were sensational.
The sources said that David Berkowitz, while an active conspirator in all the shootings, had pulled the trigger in only two of the eight Son of Sam attacks. Whom did Berkowitz actually shoot?
"Here's a direct quote," Danny said. " The Bronx was my territory—only the Bronx.' "
"And that's directly from him?"
"Yes. He wanted out after the first one but couldn't get free."
Based on this information, which was supported in various Ways, Berkowitz murdered Donna Lauria and wounded Jody Valente on July 29, 1976; and killed both Valentina Suriani and Alex Esau on April 17, 1977.
"That's all he did," Danny insisted. "Not that it isn't a lot, but it's nowhere near being the so-called Son of Sam."
Vinny added: "He was able to handle that lovers' lane thing [Suriani-Esau] because he said he was conceived illegitimately in a car and he was against that shit. But he said he wouldn't have anything to do with shooting nobody on a street or a porch or anything."
This was a reference to the Virginia Voskerichian slaying and the wounding of Joanne Lomino and Donna DeMasi in Queens.
The sources also said, as Berkowitz told Lipsig, that several cult members were at each crime scene. And they added that two Son of Sam shootings were done by women.
Women were also present at scenes because, Danny said, "the cops were looking for one guy. They could breeze through roadblocks with girls in the cars—or even with two guys. And there was always more than one car."
"What kinds of cars?" I asked.
"Well, the VW, for one. He didn't say who drove it. And there was a yellowish or tan compact and a small red car, too."
"Any more?"
"That's all I know about."
"How big was this yellow or tan compact?"
"Like the size of a Chevy Nova."
This was a direct hit. This type of auto had been spotted near the Elephas disco, driven away with its lights off by the man with the mustache. A similar vehicle was also spied across the street from Donna Lauria's home by her father not five minutes before that shooting. It was occupied by a lone white male. A car fitting this description also followed Brooklyn cyclist Michelle Michaels shortly before the Moskowitz/Violante shooting. It, too, was occupied by a lone male, who had a "pinched face," high cheekbones and wore sunglasses— even though it was the middle of the night.
And the same-size yellowish or tan vehicle would soon surface at still another .44 site—bringing the total to four.
"Where was the small red car used?" I asked.
"Manson II used that in the Freund murder," Vinny said. Confidential police reports would soon show that an identical vehicle sped from that scene moments after the shots were fired.
The informants didn't know which victims were shot by women, but their statements considerably strengthened the original suspicion held by Santucci, Herb Leifer and me that the killer of Virginia Voskerichian—who wore a ski or watch cap—was a woman. By process of elimination, I then reasoned that the Queens wounding of Carl Denaro—during which the assailant fired wildly as if unsure of the gun and unable to control its recoil—was most likely the other female-perpetrated attack.
Regarding weapons, Vinny said: "They weren't always carried from Westchester. Sometimes they were able to store them nearby, at 'safe houses' or something." And as previously noted, the informants insisted that different .44s were used, at least in the earlier attacks before the NYPD announced it was searching for one gun and one gunman.
Danny wrote: "Yes, more than one instrument [gun] was gotten in Texas. Yes, all gotten at once. Yes, yes, yes. If no one looked into that possibility it's simply because they are morons."
The statement that Berkowitz shot only the Bronx victims was heavily supported by the composite sketches and other information gleaned from extensive study of the other crimes —all of which has been outlined earlier. His so-called detailed knowledge of various crime scenes was easily explained by his presence at them. And even in the Bronx, the existing evidence demonstrated the conspiracy was active there as well.
And then, in 1986, a witness came forward to say he was on "personal business" in the area when Valentina Suriani and Alex Esau were slain on the Hutchinson River Parkway service road at about 3 A.M. on April, 17, 1977. The witness, Will Levine,* said he remained silent out of fear and to protect his own interests—which doesn't make him eligible for Man of the Year accolades.
Levine said he was on the block when he heard the shots, turned around and saw a stocky man with dark hair peering into the victims' car while holding "something white" in one hand—apparently the Borrelli letter, which was dropped at that scene.
Levine said he then saw the shooter walk east on an intersecting block, St. Theresa Avenue, where he met up with another man at the second corner. The shooter then handed what Levine thought was the gun to the other man, who then entered the passenger's side of a waiting auto—which drove from the scene.
The shooter, meanwhile, climbed into the passenger's side of another car, Levine said. That vehicle then drove off—followed closely by a third car. The third auto, Levine said, appeared to be an unmarked police car.
"All three cars were involved together," Levine said. "One of them was blue. I was trying to get plate numbers, so I didn't pay much attention to the makes. But that last one looked just like an unmarked cop car. I got a good view of that."
And the shooter? "It looked like Berkowitz to me."
Levine, saying he fears reprisals, has refused to speak to authorities, but Queens DA John Santucci was informed of his statement. If Levine's account is accurate, the presence of an unmarked police vehicle wouldn't be surprising: three former or present Yonkers officers were previously suspected to be members of the cult.
An unmarked police car, tuned to official frequencies, could also help explain the group's remarkable success in eluding massive dragnets. In Brooklyn, witnesses said the yellow VW contained a CB radio as well, and Berkowitz may have carried a hand-held scanner at that scene.
But for all the knowledge we'd now assimilated, there were still several important questions to be answered. What actually happened to Donna Lauria and Christine Freund? Who was the wealthy R.R. from Long Island? And who was Manson II, and how did he tie in to Charles Manson—who himself was alleged to have committed the Tate murders by "volunteering" his services to another party?
The answers were now in sight.
next
A Call to Copco
"Pissed at the publicity. He was almost convinced to write you to set up a meet with Santucci—but he changed his mind. He's scared. He knows he could get zapped anytime, and he does want the truth out—but he doesn't trust anybody anymore. And that includes you. But he told me you were there from the start."
"Yes, from the first freaking day after he was nailed."
"Well, he thought you'd be able to understand this shit, but he just stopped trusting and later said he didn't want you to know any of it. But fuck him. He's getting torn all sorts of ways. .. . He showed me your letters, written in code, right? He told me what you were asking about."
"Yeah, they were in code. No use letting the censors in on it."
"That's how I sent out my stuff," Vinny said. "Hidden in books, written in sound-alike names and nicknames. I made it sound like jokes and gibberish, but it all meant stuff."
"What about Sisman?" I asked. "You had his name before he was knocked off."
"Shit, neither me or Berkowitz knew it was gonna be him. I just knew something was going down Halloween, and that it was gonna be either in the Village or Brooklyn Heights. I tried to stop it."
As he talked about the Sisman murder, tears welled in Vinny's eyes. "That was bad shit," he finally said. "Knowing about something like that ahead of time but not being able to do anything. This is all bizarre, but I swear to you it's true as I heard it, and you gotta get Santucci and investigate it."
"Why don't you just tell us what you know?" Zuckerman asked quietly. And Vinny did just that.
The information was concise and involved. It also included names—names of people who, it turned out, did exist. Berkowitz himself provided Vinny with the specifics about the .44 shootings, the cult, Ronald Sisman and others. In some instances, other prison contacts confirmed or supplemented Berkowitz's general familiarity with the group's drug and porn links in New York City, drawing on their own more precise knowledge of that apparatus.
In fact, the informants explained that an alliance existed between the cult and related narcotics and pornography enterprises. This arrangement blended at least two independent franchises which had united for mutual benefit: they could use each other.
It is helpful to remember that the informants emphasized that crossovers between groups occurred. And since an understanding of the Son of Sam shootings would be incomplete without first looking at the overall picture, the sources' description of the entire interwoven operation will be discussed first. Fleshed out by subsequent interviews and letters, here is Vinny's account, which was later substantially corroborated by Danny.
The Westchester group, whom we will call the Children for identification purposes, planned and carried out the Son of Sam attacks. The cult was an offshoot of a parent group which originated in England. As such, it did not exist in a vacuum. The Children were linked to similar groups in the United States, with Houston, Los Angeles and the Dakotas prominently mentioned. The cult maintained a primary headquarters in Venice, California, an L.A. suburb.
In New York, the Westchester Children interacted with another satanic operation in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and a certain occult shop within the city limits functioned as a clearinghouse and rendezvous point for cult members from Westchester and elsewhere, who intermingled. As an example of the cross-connections, at least one New York City female occultist was said to have been on the scene of a Son of Sam shooting, which blended with what Berkowitz told Harry Lipsig.
Westchester and New York City members also convened occasionally in a brownstone, occupied by a woman, in Brooklyn Heights—a trendy neighborhood where still another woman involved with the city faction also lived. The brownstone was said to be located on Henry Street, between Love Lane and Atlantic Avenue, which was a number of blocks south. The other Brooklyn woman resided about a block west of Atlantic and Henry. Additionally, another spot near Love Lane was described as a cult meeting site. (Vinny later provided a map of the area, which was accurate down to the most intricate detail —including the location of trees on a block.)
"They work the colleges," Vinny said. "They recruit for the cult and the prostitution on campuses. One of those Brooklyn women was involved in the college coordination." He provided two names, saying he believed the woman in question was one of them. Both exist.
David Berkowitz, Michael Carr and other Westchester members knew and were known by the New York City group. Michael Carr, whom Vinny and other sources categorized as gay, also associated with cult-connected people who were affiliated with Columbia University, and some of those acquaintances lived in that area of uptown Manhattan. Vinny said that many of Michael Carr's companions were homosexual or bisexual. This proclivity, he said, was a common thread which, even beyond cult links, wove a considerable number of members and associates together.
Vinny (and Danny) said the Children counted women among their members, as Berkowitz also told Harry Lipsig.
The top leader of the Children, not surprisingly, was said to be a lawyer who dealt in real estate, or a real estate man who also held a law degree. He was said to have been middle-aged, perhaps forty-five to fifty-three years old, in 1977. He was described as balding and thin, and was said to wear glasses, at least on occasion.
This leader was said to have maintained an office in the White Plains vicinity during the Son of Sam era, and perhaps still did in 1987. The office, rather than being in a high-rise building, was described as then being in a "residential-type" dwelling in or near White Plains.
The leader's home was said to have been somewhere other than White Plains, in a location unknown to the informants. But he was described as having been active in local politics, "town board or something," either in his hometown or in connection with his business. This leader, who may have been divorced, allegedly had a son or son-in-law who also was an attorney and who was perhaps in his mid-twenties at the time. The leader also may have had a daughter, who would have been of "college age" in the 1977 time frame.
The Children's leader was further said to be a Mason, rank unknown, and to have owned or kept dogs. "Berkowitz occasionally watched the guy's dogs for him," Vinny said. This major cultist also owned a boat during these years. "Not a yacht, but a pretty big boat," Vinny explained.
This man—about whom multiple, intricate details were provided—is allegedly responsible for directing the group which committed the Son of Sam murders and other violent crimes.
Berkowitz offered no information about the other Westchester leaders, the informants said. But he did reveal that one group member was then employed at a large Westchester automotive facility, where he held an administrative, sales liaison or dealer coordination post. He was said to have been married to the daughter of one of the company's executives or managers. The informants were given a first name for this member, which will be withheld here.
Regarding other Westchester members, Vinny said Berkowitz told him: "A couple of Yonkers cops are involved. I don't know if they were present or former cops." Vinny didn't have their names, but prior investigation had unearthed three suspects, including former Yonkers officer Peter Shane.*
Some cult members, in both Westchester and New York City, were said to own or work in "art stores. Small, artsycraftsy places," Vinny said. "Like throwbacks to the hippie days."
In Westchester, the group met at Untermyer Park, which confirmed our own investigation; an old mansion in Greenburgh, central Westchester, which was said to have been "burned out"; and an abandoned church—which was said to be located near Central Avenue in the White Plains vicinity. The church, Vinny wrote, was "near the old mansion."
The cult leader, via his real estate or other dealings, allegedly learned of this church's existence and obtained access to it in some manner. The church, no longer in use by a congregation, was said to be devoid of pews; and the group allegedly stored satanic material in a small shed attached to the building. (Vinny later sent me a drawing of the church.)
Another abandoned church offered yet one more meeting site. This edifice was said to have been an "eastern headquarters" for the group. The informants said it was privately owned (perhaps partially converted) and was located in the vicinity of the northeast corner of Westchester County, somewhere near (and possibly over) the adjoining Putnam County and Connecticut borders. Vinny couldn't pinpoint the exact location but, quoting Berkowitz, he mentioned "Salem" and "Brewster."
North and South Salem, with their historical witchcraft names, were in Westchester, and the village of Brewster lay a few miles north in Putnam County. The area was largely rural, with homes, estates and some farms and stables hidden from the few main roads by thickets of trees. It was a perfect cult site, and a difficult, extensive setting in which to try to locate the old church.
Vinny said the church's interior (in 1976-77) was adorned with a silver pentagram on one wall; and silver-wire inlays, some in the form of the German SS lightning bolts—a symbol of the cult—appeared on the ends of some pews.
Vinny also said that besides the Son of Sam and other murders, the group committed rapes in Westchester and set a number of fires.
One particular fire involved a considerable loss of life, and an investigation into the alleged cult participation in that crime is ongoing. But data supporting the Vinny-Berkowitz allegation have been uncovered. Another cult-ignited fire allegedly occurred in or near Brooklyn Heights.
The Children's murders, while cloaked in satanic "theology," occasionally also served to eliminate weak links or enemies, Vinny stated. And except for major satanic holidays, the group met on Thursdays that coincided with cycles of the moon.
Danny later remarked: "This is a whole subculture the cops don't know about or understand. That's why these idiots can get away with all they do. If somebody gets caught, he shuts up—so they think it's just an isolated thing. And they don't get caught too much in the first place. They got smart people heading it."
Danny and Vinny were very clear as to why they were willing to assist the probe. First, if arrests were made, Santucci could ease their plights with recommendations to the parole board. Second, there is a caste system within every prison population. Robbers, dope dealers, even killers are repelled by the types of crimes the Sam cult engaged in: the murders and rapes of innocent young women. Accordingly, the informants preferred an uneasy alliance with law enforcement and me to sitting back silently with the information they gathered—some of which concerned the cult's drug connections.
The Children and the New York City cults, or their leaders, were said to be involved in the drug business on a medium scale. This brought the Children into an alliance with the simpatico Ronald Sisman, who, while not a cult member, was known to the cult (and the police) as a dope dealer with porno connections aplenty. Sisman, Vinny said, was directly tied to R.R., the wealthy Long Island overlord.
Into this upper stratum of the cult's drug and kinky-sex operations walked other professional and white-collar types: doctors, lawyers and businessmen. Some were satanically bent, most likely in elitist OTO directions; some weren't. But there was a considerable amount of money to be made and sexual savoring to sample even if one's interests were limited to narcotics and porn.
"They keep looking for bigger kicks," Vinny said. "They got everything, but it ain't enough. So they get into weirdness. And it ain't exactly a secret that doctors get hooked on drugs and start dealing, too. And they all think they can get away with anything—that they're above the cops. If not, they try to buy them. There's a lotta money in coke."
Vinny said that R.R. was perched atop this kink-and-cultic social whirl—using middlemen, underlings and other contacts to fill in whatever blanks he couldn't personally inscribe. Enter Sisman and one James Camaro, whose name Vinny also mentioned in the notes he compiled before Sisman's murder. Camaro wasn't the man's actual name, Vinny believed, trying to remember. "But the real name is close to that."
Camaro was an olive-skinned Caucasian or Hispanic, who Vinny said "dressed like an Indian," because "he wore a headband and stuff like that. I saw his picture." Camaro was in his late twenties to mid-thirties, Vinny thought, and had dark hair.
Vinny described Camaro as R.R.'s "insurance, but I don't think he was as close to him as Sisman was." He added that Berkowitz and other Westchester cultists feared Camaro, who acted as a go-between from R.R. and Sisman to the Children. Camaro, Vinny reported, also had some "loose organized crime connections," which wasn't surprising for one involved in pornography and upscale prostitution.
Camaro and Sisman, as R.R.'s operatives, administered a porno enterprise which involved, the informants said, a call girl ring which utilized college girls and produced private sex films, stills and videotapes. Some coeds, first enticed by the New York City cult's innocent come-on, were later fed to the call girl network, Vinny remarked.
While Camaro specialized in this area, Sisman branched out and handled a fair amount of drug dealing. The Children in Westchester used drugs provided by the R.R.-Sisman link and, to some extent, were part of the dope distribution network. (A Yonkers resident has said he occasionally picked up hard drugs from David Berkowitz's apartment.) This narcotics pipeline, Vinny stated, accounted for the presence of Berkowitz and Michael Carr at Sisman's brownstone.
The drug operation, while not large by organized crime standards, managed to accomplish its purpose. Coke was its prime substance and was said to have arrived in New York from South America, via Florida.
Heroin from Southeast Asia was also shipped, Vinny said. "They used hospital and medical connections. [Name withheld] told me they used a hospital and another company in Hawaii as two places that got the shit ready to come to the U.S.—to New York and maybe other places. The heroin was supposed to go into blood or plasma shipments and other hospital accomplices would then handle it here."
Once again, we were looking at medical links.
Vinny, incarcerated in a New York prison, sent me the names and phone numbers of several Hawaiian locations, including a large hospital and a quarrying company. An FBI agent confirmed via the Bureau's Honolulu office that the addresses and phone numbers were in fact accurate. The list did not originate with Berkowitz.
Vinny was uncertain of R.R.'s role in the heroin operation. "But it fits somewhere in the picture," he said. "He's involved with other people besides the cult. Maybe that part was someone else's more than his. You've got to understand that the Children and the city cult were one thing—they had their own links. R.R. and his crowd, at least some of them, were not in the cults. But they used them and formed partnerships. That's how it worked."
Vinny explained that Berkowitz "didn't let on that he knew a lot of the particulars about the dope and porn stuff. But he knew names and some basic stuff. And he'd been to R.R.'s house, and Sisman's, and he knew Camaro. But other people knew more details than he did. Berkowitz said what he knew, and other people confirmed it. . . . If R.R. and them were meat wholesalers, you don't think they're only dealing with you, right? They got other customers, too. A couple of other customers have been in this place [prison]. Berkowitz knew what he knew, and they knew other things."
Regarding the porno and call girl system, blackmail was sometimes employed to keep the girls in line, Vinny said, adding that Camaro sometimes used the Auto Pub restaurant in Manhattan's General Motors Building as one location where well-heeled clients and collegiate call girls met.
Enter the world of television. Vinny wrote that Camaro appeared in a "home porno flick" with a woman who held a responsible production post with a TV network in Manhattan. The woman's title and network were specified.
Vinny didn't know her name, but he did have her description—which was so precise I identified her after just one phone call to a friend in the television industry. Since the woman was not an on-camera personality, Vinny couldn't have picked up her description from a TV screen.
This story, in conjunction with Berkowitz's fascinating list of phone numbers, illustrates how people connected to the cult's upper echelons seemed to fraternize easily in prestigious, though bizarre social circles.
The call girl operation, Vinny said, was responsible for at least two murders in Manhattan—both linked to Columbia University. One victim was a male medical or graduate student (name unknown) who was slain after learning a young woman he was dating was involved with the ring. Vinny said she told the victim about it, and he was killed either because he raised a fuss trying to wean her away from the group's clutches or simply because he'd acquired inside knowledge of the operation.
"Camaro had something to do with that," Vinny wrote. "I think they tried to make it look like a robbery."
Subsequent investigation revealed that at least two unsolved homicides bore similarities to the slaying to which Vinny referred. A Columbia grad student was slain in the immediate area of the school in February 1981. After dropping off his girlfriend, he returned to the street and his killer tossed some money to the pavement and said, "Hey, pal, you dropped this." When the student turned around, he was shot dead. Police said the victim's girlfriend witnessed at least part of the incident.
Another victim was a medical resident at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, which was affiliated with the university. He was shot dead while walking on a street near the hospital in the autumn of 1981.
The other murder Vinny specified was said to have been that of a coed—probably a Columbia or Barnard student—who was slain in Manhattan after trying to extricate herself from the call girl network. Vinny, quoting sources other than Berkowitz, said that Camaro also played a role in this murder, and said he thought the victim was disfigured in some way by her killer or killers.
If Camaro indeed had a hand in those murders, he didn't operate alone, Vinny said. "He had his own guy, a landscaper or gardener. He was a Puerto Rican or some kind of Hispanic. I was told this jerk worked at [a northern Manhattan park] and also did some part-time gardener work at Columbia."
Vinny went on to say: "There's a fag named Fred Reese,* who does secretarial-type shit—he's in this, too. He's the fag boyfriend of Lenora Stein,* who's part of that cult shop crowd. It's all one large circle. They come and go and mix it up with each other."
I asked Vinny if Berkowitz (or another source) ever spoke of the horrible December 1979 murders of Brooklyn residents Howard Green and Carol Marron, who had all the blood drained from their bodies with a veterinarian's syringe. Green and Marron were occult devotees, according to the police.
"Nobody ever spoke of that," Vinny said. "But they lived in Brooklyn? Who would you nominate? Who else is there around New York that would do that to a couple of devil worshippers except some of their own? That wasn't any one man operation that did them in."
I also asked if Vinny later heard who was responsible for the Sisman-Plotzman homicides. He said he hadn't, but "Camaro would be a top choice for either doing it or having it done. Sisman went down over that Moskowitz tape, which was made for R.R. on Long Island. And from what I know, Camaro was one of his goons. So I'd say Camaro was somehow involved."
Vinny then brought the entire scenario into focus. "I was told directly by Berkowitz that Camaro was on the scene of the Moskowitz thing and also acted as a go-between on the Christine Freund murder—which wasn't a random shooting. And neither was Donna Lauria's."
Mix and mingle again. With these explosive charges, we were now back to the .44 shootings.
But before examining those attacks, the following supporting data, in addition to what I have already listed, were uncovered during the investigation of the Vinny and Danny statements:
The abandoned church in central Westchester, which Vinny accurately sketched, was immediately identified by Captain Gerry Buckhout of the Greenburgh Police Department, as was the nearby "burned-out" mansion, which turned out to be the former Warburg-Rothschild estate. Vinny's precise drawing of the church was remarkable in that the building was torn down in the mid-seventies—more than seven years before he sketched it from a description provided by Berkowitz.
The church, abandoned at the time, was dismantled after a suspicious fire destroyed its adjacent parish hall. Before that, it stood empty since the late fifties, when its congregation moved to another edifice—taking the original pews with them. Vinny had said the church contained no pews.
Buckhout interviewed the man who subsequently purchased the old church and its adjoining buildings—the parish hall and a rectory.
"When he came in during the seventies, a woman who claimed to be a witch was on the site. She had a business there, selling paintings and arts and crafts out of the parish hall," Buckhout explained. "There were also strange hippie types living upstairs in the former minister's house. It was something of a crash pad, and was painted purple. The 'witch' was a suspect in the fire that later destroyed the parish hall."
The owner's revelation that the "witch" sold paintings, etc., supported Vinny's allegation that some cult members owned or worked in "art stores." The woman was in her mid-forties and had sons who'd run afoul of the law, Buckhout learned.
"One was arrested in Yonkers for public lewdness and another was picked up in Long Beach, California—near L.A.— for cursing out a cop," he said. "One of them also worked in a lower Manhattan design place; he was in the same field as Michael Carr."
Buckhout also discovered that one of the woman's sons was later killed in an apparent accident. As for the "witch" herself, she had left the area and has not been located. "This church was the place," Buckhout said. "Your prison guys are on the money."
Three years earlier, John Carr's friend Phil Falcon had told us that the Westchester group met in a "witch's church." At the time, the significance of the statement escaped us. Falcon had meant his comment to be taken literally. Berkowitz, too, had underlined a church clue in the book he mailed to North Dakota in 1979.
* * *
There were more than a dozen abandoned or converted houses of worship in the rural northern Westchester-Putnam Connecticut sector, any one of which might have been the "eastern headquarters" Vinny described. By itself, the very existence of numerous abandoned churches was something of a confirmation, since other sections of Westchester didn't have any to speak of. In other words, one would have to know they existed in that area in order to make an accurate claim. But for our purposes, surveilling such a large number of locations around North Salem was impossible because our manpower was limited and no one knew how frequently the church was used by the secretive group.
Interestingly, in 1979 this region was the scene of documented satanic rituals. In one instance, a Ridgefield, Connecticut, police officer heard chanting in a wooded thicket near the Westchester-Connecticut border. While investigating, he was attacked and beaten. The cultists fled.
"They must have had guards there, and they weren't afraid to jump a cop," Sergeant Bernie DePrimo of the Connecticut State Police told me in mid-1986. "Nuns at a nearby convent also heard chanting and saw torches on occasion. There was a group there all right. There was scattered cult activity around the area."
In the wake of the assault, DePrimo said, the State Police developed confidential information which led them to a curious location: the same New York City occult store later targeted by Berkowitz, Vinny and Danny.
DePrimo also offered another startling piece of information. "We heard that whoever headed this around here was a successful guy involved in real estate."
This dovetailed precisely with the prison allegations about the occupation of the leader of the Children. It was a significant development in the case.
Moreover, at the time of the Connecticut border incidents— which happened nearly three years before the Vinny-Danny statements and months before the Son of Sam case was reopened—David Berkowitz wrote to Lee Chase and pointedly mentioned satanic rituals occurring near North Salem.
Another intriguing series of events happened in this same region in 1979. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones was then ensconced in a secluded rented home in the immediate vicinity of the cult activity. In fact, it was reported that scorch marks were found on an isolated section of his property.
Richards, who'd lived in the home since about 1977, was frequently touring with the Stones while his girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, remained at the house. A number of publications, including biographical sketches of the band, described Pallenberg as a student of the black arts. During the 1979 cult era, while Richards was away, a teen aged boy was found shot to death in Pallenberg's bedroom. Authorities determined that the youth committed suicide.
Keith Richards, who had known Pallenberg since the sixties, was a guest at the 1968 London wedding of noted film director Roman Polanski and the beautiful young actress Sharon Tate. Among his many credits, Polanski directed the famous devil epic Rosemary's Baby for Paramount Pictures. Paramount's vice president of production, Robert Evans, who later was caught in a cocaine bust, was deeply involved with the film and became closely acquainted with Polanski. At the time Rosemary's devil-child was born (1967-68), Evans was back in Hollywood from a London assignment as head of Paramount's European production team.
In Beverly Hills, Evans, Polanski and Sharon Tate were friendly with John Phillips, songwriter and lead singer of the Mamas and the Papas rock group. A decade later, Phillips would be an occasional visitor at the home of his friend Keith Richards, hidden away in Satanville. Phillips himself was leasing a house nearby in Connecticut at this time.
Phillips' late-sixties relationship with Polanski and Tate was an intimate one. He was frequently in their company and was entertained in their rented Benedict Canyon home at 10050 Cielo Drive—scene of oncoming slaughter—on several occasions. In fact, both Phillips and Polanski have acknowledged that Polanski, while married to Tate, conducted a brief affair in London with Phillips' wife, Michelle, who also sang with the Mamas and the Papas. This liaison transpired several months before Sharon Tate and four others were butchered by Charles Manson's killers in August 1969.
Because of his affair with Michelle, Polanski at first suspected an angry John Phillips was involved in the murders—to the point of holding a knife to his throat before slinging it into a wall.
Ironically, Phillips has admitted to a passing acquaintance with Manson himself, to whom he was introduced by drummer Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. Manson and some followers even lived at Wilson's Sunset Boulevard estate for a time in 1968, before the friendship soured. Wilson subsequently occupied a slot on Manson's enemies list.
Manson moved easily in show business circles, and developed a close relationship with Terry Melcher, son of singer actress Doris Day and the producer of her TV show and other ventures. Melcher, to Manson's great interest, was also a record producer—and Charlie was determined to make it big as a singer. He was anxious to ingratiate himself with Melcher, from whom Roman Polanski sublet 10050 Cielo Drive.
Melcher, too, was acquainted with John Phillips. And in tune with Phillips' association with Manson, author Ed Sanders reported that he uncovered information indicating Manson attended a 1968 New Year's Eve party at Phillips' Los Angeles home.
Phillips, Sanders also said, apparently referred members of the Process to a Los Angeles real estate operator named Artie Aarons in 1968, when the English occultists were seeking to pitch tent in that city. Sanders obtained this information from Jonathan de Peyer, known as Father Christian to his fellow Processans.
There were also stories about which held that Phillips contributed some cash to the Process, with the reported amounts ranging from the ten dollars Phillips said he gave to "some cult dressed in black" to a figure much higher. In any case, Father Christian said that with Phillips' recommendation Artie Aarons found lodging for a Process contingent at a large home he managed at 1882 South Cochrane in Los Angeles.
Neither Sanders nor I imply that Phillips was directly affiliated with the Process. From all indications, his interests—by his own account—were elsewhere: music and drugs. But, the interweavings and connections among people and events in the Son of Sam and Manson cases are provocative—especially in light of Manson II's alleged involvement in the .44 killings, the further contention that Charlie Manson belonged to the same satanic organization Berkowitz later joined, and the North Salem cult link to the Sam case.
And the Process itself was even located in that area. In the mid-seventies members of the cult occupied a house off Salem Road in Pound Ridge, a rural community several miles south of North Salem. Even more curious, Process leader Robert DeGrimston himself was residing in a private home in East- Chester—a scant few miles from Untermyer Park—in the early and mid-1970s. The "coincidences" were simply too numerous to be written off. Too many people were in the right places at the right times. It was as if the players and environment from the Los Angeles scene of 1968-69 had been magically transported to the specific areas Berkowitz and the prison informants referred to.
The reason for this interest in the California and New York connections case is simple. According to Vinny, Manson II was involved with the original Charles Manson. And more than that, Vinny said: "When Manson had the Tate murders done, he was not just doing it out of some Helter Skelter fantasy. That was part of it, he believed in that shit. But there was a real motive, Berkowitz told me. He said Manson was working for somebody else when those crimes were committed. He said Manson 'volunteered to do the killings' for somebody else."
This was an incredible charge. Vinny said Berkowitz got the information from: "Who else? Manson II."
But to return to the Vinny-Danny information about the Son of Sam operation in New York: the allegation that John and Michael Carr's disdain for their father, Sam, sparked incidents of violence against him and inspired his inclusion as an object of hatred in the Borrelli letter was essentially confirmed by an ex-boyfriend of their sister, Wheat—and by Wheat herself.
The boyfriend told me: "The brothers hated the old man. I knew each of them somewhat when I was dating Micki [Wheat's nickname]. I was told Sam used to severely punish them and even locked them in closets and things like that."
In a recorded interview with Santucci's probers, Wheat simply said: "O.K., there was a lot of bad feeling between both John and Michael and my father."
As I'd noted as early as September 1977, the Borrelli letter read as if it was written from inside the Carr house—not by Berkowitz from his apartment high on the hill above it. The later confirmations put vital pieces of the puzzle in place.
In other categories, the names, locations and people Vinny and Danny described or named turned out to be real. Beyond that, two New York City women they identified were positively tied to OTO cult activity. The investigation also established that one of them, as Vinny said, indeed "worked the colleges"—recruiting for the cult on various campuses. "She also knows R.R.," Vinny said.
At every turn taken by the probe, the credibility of Berkowitz and the informants was bolstered. But in the case of James Camaro, since Vinny said the man's name apparently wasn't Camaro but "close to it," we were stuck. Berkowitz had offered the real name, which Vinny failed to remember when he saw his own coded substitution for it months later. Although he did have an approximate Manhattan address where he said Camaro once lived, we were unable to locate him. We needed the real name.
Once, however, we thought we'd found him. In early 1985 a motor vehicles computer run led Hank Cinotti and me to a freezing, midwinter stake-out of an apartment on the ocean in Long Beach, Long Island. For three days, while we shivered and complained in Cinotti's drafty van, the suspect, smarter than we were, remained indoors. Finally, at eight o'clock one morning, he emerged to lead us on a wild trip at high speeds all the way to Staten Island—to a funeral home.
Since Vinny had seen a photo of Camaro and could identify him, our goal was to obtain his picture. So we followed the line of cars to a cemetery and blended in with the crowd at the gravesite, waiting for the photo opportunity, which didn't come.
After the service, the suspect and two companions drove to a distant section of the graveyard to place flowers at another tomb—which they couldn't find. Cinotti and I watched their search from the van. Suddenly, "Camaro" walked right to us. It was a tense moment. Fortunately, because of the van, he assumed we were cemetery workers.
As he stood near the passenger's door asking me for directions, Cinotti lowered the camera out of the suspect's line of vision and snapped his photo. "Click, click."
"Camaro" heard the camera, looked startled, but probably imagined he was hearing things. After steering him to the section he was seeking, Cinotti and I leisurely drove away.
Two days later, I visited Vinny and showed him the snapshot.
"It's not him," he immediately said.
"Look again," I pleaded. "Hold it upside down, turn it sideways; close your eyes and feel it like it's Braille—shove it up your ass. You don't know what the hell we went through to get this damned thing."
"It's just not him," Vinny said again.
It was not one of my better days.
Camaro would be positively identified and located in mid-1987. But as of this writing, there was still not enough corroborating evidence to formally charge him in any of the cases.
The informants didn't have the name of "Mr. Real Estate" either, since Berkowitz hadn't given it up. But the details they did supply led us to several possible suspects who could have functioned as the leader of the Children. That investigation continues. Similarly, several possible choices were identified as Camaro's alleged accomplice, the Hispanic gardener.
Berkowitz cautiously held back several key cards while dealing to the informants, including the names of most of the Son of Sam shooters. He did offer a first name for the elusive Manson II. The name Vinny gave me was Frank, but we didn't know if Berkowitz revealed an accurate name or if Manson II assumed an alias in New York.
Berkowitz, according to the informants, had further stated that John Carr was a triggerman and that Michael Carr, if not a shooter, was on the scene of some .44 attacks. This complemented what Berkowitz told Harry Lipsig in a portion of the deposition withheld from the public.
Berkowitz also named a New York City female cultist who Vinny said was at one .44 scene, at least—as were Manson II, Sisman, Mickey and someone named Tom. Mickey and Sisman, as noted, allegedly participated in the Moskowitz videotaping, and Camaro also was said to have been at that attack.
Regarding women at crime scenes, Vinny had the names of two—both of whom exist. He said the woman in question was one of them. (Santucci had uncovered the name of a third suspect.) Vinny also said that someone named Rudy was involved with the cult in either Westchester, New York City or Long Island.
His original coded note included the names of a few others, who were also said to be affiliated with the group. He explained that his allusion to New York University in the letter meant that some young women connected to the New York City group had attended school there. "Something like photography and drama courses," he recalled. Out of the blue, we had another photo link, of which there were many in the investigation.
* * *
Sources are as valuable as the verifiable information they
provide. The Vinny and Danny comments, which were thoroughly investigated, helped their stock rise appreciably. Additionally, their relationships with the prime source—Berkowitz
—were proven. The initial stage of the Vinny-Danny investigation, which is still monitored today, lasted more than a year and was coordinated by me, with assistance from Santucci's office and the police officials and others previously listed.
The "big picture" of the cult's operations was valuable for intelligence purposes, but DA John Santucci's attention necessarily remained on the .44 shootings themselves. Other facets of the group's activities weren't in his jurisdiction, although he remained apprised of developments.
In mid-1983, we convened in his office and analyzed an extensive report I'd prepared on the investigation of the informants' charges.
"A considerable amount of support has been found," he said. "And many allegations as to the existence of people, places and the like have been confirmed directly. Of course, from where I stand, the ultimate test would occur in a courtroom, if we can ever carry the damned case to that point. But I agree there's substance to what these people have been saying."
"It's all been checking out," I said. "Talk about 'smoke and fire.'"
"Yes, but we can't lose sight of the earlier work on the .44 incidents. That's what I need to bring somebody to trial. Half the people we're interested in are dead, and we don't know who this Manson II is either. I need a Queens shooter."
Santucci was right. The Son of Sam attacks also remained my prime concern. It would have taken an interstate task force to dent the rest of the operation. But like the informants' statements about the drug and porn activity, information they offered on the Sam shootings was enhanced by buttressing details.
And once again, the charges were sensational.
The sources said that David Berkowitz, while an active conspirator in all the shootings, had pulled the trigger in only two of the eight Son of Sam attacks. Whom did Berkowitz actually shoot?
"Here's a direct quote," Danny said. " The Bronx was my territory—only the Bronx.' "
"And that's directly from him?"
"Yes. He wanted out after the first one but couldn't get free."
Based on this information, which was supported in various Ways, Berkowitz murdered Donna Lauria and wounded Jody Valente on July 29, 1976; and killed both Valentina Suriani and Alex Esau on April 17, 1977.
"That's all he did," Danny insisted. "Not that it isn't a lot, but it's nowhere near being the so-called Son of Sam."
Vinny added: "He was able to handle that lovers' lane thing [Suriani-Esau] because he said he was conceived illegitimately in a car and he was against that shit. But he said he wouldn't have anything to do with shooting nobody on a street or a porch or anything."
This was a reference to the Virginia Voskerichian slaying and the wounding of Joanne Lomino and Donna DeMasi in Queens.
The sources also said, as Berkowitz told Lipsig, that several cult members were at each crime scene. And they added that two Son of Sam shootings were done by women.
Women were also present at scenes because, Danny said, "the cops were looking for one guy. They could breeze through roadblocks with girls in the cars—or even with two guys. And there was always more than one car."
"What kinds of cars?" I asked.
"Well, the VW, for one. He didn't say who drove it. And there was a yellowish or tan compact and a small red car, too."
"Any more?"
"That's all I know about."
"How big was this yellow or tan compact?"
"Like the size of a Chevy Nova."
This was a direct hit. This type of auto had been spotted near the Elephas disco, driven away with its lights off by the man with the mustache. A similar vehicle was also spied across the street from Donna Lauria's home by her father not five minutes before that shooting. It was occupied by a lone white male. A car fitting this description also followed Brooklyn cyclist Michelle Michaels shortly before the Moskowitz/Violante shooting. It, too, was occupied by a lone male, who had a "pinched face," high cheekbones and wore sunglasses— even though it was the middle of the night.
And the same-size yellowish or tan vehicle would soon surface at still another .44 site—bringing the total to four.
"Where was the small red car used?" I asked.
"Manson II used that in the Freund murder," Vinny said. Confidential police reports would soon show that an identical vehicle sped from that scene moments after the shots were fired.
The informants didn't know which victims were shot by women, but their statements considerably strengthened the original suspicion held by Santucci, Herb Leifer and me that the killer of Virginia Voskerichian—who wore a ski or watch cap—was a woman. By process of elimination, I then reasoned that the Queens wounding of Carl Denaro—during which the assailant fired wildly as if unsure of the gun and unable to control its recoil—was most likely the other female-perpetrated attack.
Regarding weapons, Vinny said: "They weren't always carried from Westchester. Sometimes they were able to store them nearby, at 'safe houses' or something." And as previously noted, the informants insisted that different .44s were used, at least in the earlier attacks before the NYPD announced it was searching for one gun and one gunman.
Danny wrote: "Yes, more than one instrument [gun] was gotten in Texas. Yes, all gotten at once. Yes, yes, yes. If no one looked into that possibility it's simply because they are morons."
The statement that Berkowitz shot only the Bronx victims was heavily supported by the composite sketches and other information gleaned from extensive study of the other crimes —all of which has been outlined earlier. His so-called detailed knowledge of various crime scenes was easily explained by his presence at them. And even in the Bronx, the existing evidence demonstrated the conspiracy was active there as well.
And then, in 1986, a witness came forward to say he was on "personal business" in the area when Valentina Suriani and Alex Esau were slain on the Hutchinson River Parkway service road at about 3 A.M. on April, 17, 1977. The witness, Will Levine,* said he remained silent out of fear and to protect his own interests—which doesn't make him eligible for Man of the Year accolades.
Levine said he was on the block when he heard the shots, turned around and saw a stocky man with dark hair peering into the victims' car while holding "something white" in one hand—apparently the Borrelli letter, which was dropped at that scene.
Levine said he then saw the shooter walk east on an intersecting block, St. Theresa Avenue, where he met up with another man at the second corner. The shooter then handed what Levine thought was the gun to the other man, who then entered the passenger's side of a waiting auto—which drove from the scene.
The shooter, meanwhile, climbed into the passenger's side of another car, Levine said. That vehicle then drove off—followed closely by a third car. The third auto, Levine said, appeared to be an unmarked police car.
"All three cars were involved together," Levine said. "One of them was blue. I was trying to get plate numbers, so I didn't pay much attention to the makes. But that last one looked just like an unmarked cop car. I got a good view of that."
And the shooter? "It looked like Berkowitz to me."
Levine, saying he fears reprisals, has refused to speak to authorities, but Queens DA John Santucci was informed of his statement. If Levine's account is accurate, the presence of an unmarked police vehicle wouldn't be surprising: three former or present Yonkers officers were previously suspected to be members of the cult.
An unmarked police car, tuned to official frequencies, could also help explain the group's remarkable success in eluding massive dragnets. In Brooklyn, witnesses said the yellow VW contained a CB radio as well, and Berkowitz may have carried a hand-held scanner at that scene.
But for all the knowledge we'd now assimilated, there were still several important questions to be answered. What actually happened to Donna Lauria and Christine Freund? Who was the wealthy R.R. from Long Island? And who was Manson II, and how did he tie in to Charles Manson—who himself was alleged to have committed the Tate murders by "volunteering" his services to another party?
The answers were now in sight.
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A Call to Copco
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