Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “.22 Caliber Killer” Joseph G. Christopher Pt. 1

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Two years before he embarked on a killing spree in Buffalo and New York City, Joseph G. Christopher’s friends and family noticed a seismic shift in his personality. The 23-year-old was beset by mood swings and paranoia. His hold on reality was unraveling. In the end, it would prove fatal.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode contains discussions of murder, violence, and sexual assault. Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13. On September 23rd, 1980, Charles Stewart stood still in the inky blackness, cautiously eyeing the strange white man walking toward him. It was an unusual sight in this part of Buffalo, particularly at 1130 at night. Charles didn't think the man looked particularly menacing. He was average in every way, clean-shaven, about five-eight, maybe 150 pounds.

Still, Charles glanced uneasily toward his friend Emmanuel on a nearby stoop. When he was close enough to hear, the stranger asked if Charles knew where a Diane or a Dorothy lived. It was hard to make out exactly what he said. Charles shook his head no. He didn't know anyone by either of those names. The man seemed to accept Charles' answer and turned to walk away. With the coast clear, Emmanuel and Charles' answer. Charles started walking along Zenner Street.

They had just left a card game at a neighbor's house, a few minutes walk away. Charles had practically forgotten all about the man until they reached a street corner. That's when he heard the stranger call out to them once again. Charles and Emmanuel turned to see what the guy wanted this time and were met with the sight of a sawn-off 22-caliber rifle pointed straight at them. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is serial killers. Original from Parcast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers.

Today, we're entering the world of Joseph G. Christopher, Buffalo's 22-caliber killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. Today, we'll explore Joseph Christopher's middle-class childhood on the east side of Buffalo, and his anxiety-riddled descent into schizophrenia as a adult. We'll also see his first unpredictable murders that plunged Buffalo into a terrified frenzy. Next time, we'll cover the string of gruesome, unprovoked murders that led to his capture and arrest. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the lonely hearts killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are

infamous criminal duels, but you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally everything, website design, marketing, shipping, and more. So start your business today with the best partner, Shopify, and get that. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash killers. That's Shopify.com slash killers. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter, whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting. When detectives looked and searched to find any kind of evidence to find the person they were looking for, like Jack the Ripper, the Golden State Killer, the Unit Bomber.

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Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activio yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia's one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. There's no defined path for becoming a serial killer. Though if you listen to this show, you know there are some familiar commonalities. Head injuries and harming animals are things you'll

often hear about. But the most prominent of these is perhaps childhood trauma. Physical or sexual abuse is an obvious example of this, but a child doesn't need to experience something quite so extreme to alter their trajectory. In fact, neglectful or absentee parenting, or the loss of a parent, can have a big impact too, even one who was hard on you. Joseph G. Christopher's upbringing bore only this last and seemingly innocuous hallmark. But another invisible and much more insidious trait lurked just below the surface, and when When it emerged, the consequences were deadly.

Joseph Christopher was born in the summer of 1955 in Buffalo, New York. He was the third of four children and the only boy. His mother, Teresa, was a registered nurse who often worked at the nearby Deaconess Hospital. Raised Irish Catholic, Teresa was deeply religious and tried to instill those same values in Joey from a young age by enrolling him in Catholic school. Joey's mother claimed he lived with a learning disability, though it's not clear what this may have been. His IQ was lower than average at 95, but not a figure that would have caused any real concern. A more glaring issue was his eyesight, or lack thereof.

Joey had 2,200 vision, which meant he was legally blind, and he wouldn't get corrective lenses for years. So as author Catherine Pellanero later theorized in her 2017 book, Absolute Madeline, It's entirely possible that his scholastic struggles were based on the fact that he simply couldn't see anything. Whatever it was that slowed Joey down, some of the nuns at St. Lawrence tried to correct it through corporal punishment. They whacked his hands with rulers and forced him to kneel on the hard floor for prolonged periods. Despite a shared faith, Teresa didn't agree with the nun's methods and moved her mild-mannered child to public school. While young Joey loved his kind and attentive mother, he, adored his father, Nicholas.

A first-generation Italian-American, Nick was a World War II veteran. Self-assured and brash, with confidence to spare, the stocky maintenance worker had a natural charisma that people were drawn to. Despite being born and raised in the city, Nick was an avid outdoorsman. He loved to hunt and fish and had an extensive collection of tools and guns. By all accounts, he was a man's man. Not even a chronic heart condition could slow him down. Nick's personality was a far cry from his sons. Joey was an extremely polite and reserved child,

the type of kid who would shovel the heavy buffalo snow from his neighbor's drive without being asked. While Joey didn't inherit his father's manliness, he did inherit his interest in the outdoors. The two even built a cabin together in nearby Ellington, New York, for hunting trips. But the bonding seemed to start and end there. No matter what young Joey did, he never seemed to live up to his father's expectations, whatever those might be. To make matters worse, Nick constantly complained about his son's shortcomings to others. Nick told anyone who would listen about what he thought were Joey's many failings, whether it was missing out on his next Boy Scout badge or poor grades at school. Often Nick badmouthed his son as he stood within earshot. In those cases, Joey stood still

as if he was trying to will himself into the wallpaper. But he never talked back or contradicted his father. In fact, it seemed like he took all his father's criticism in stride, though it's possible he just repressed it. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. As a reminder, she is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. In a 1998 paper examining fatherhood and love, psychologist Ronald P. Roner noted that there's a key distinction between caring for a child and caring about a child, particularly when it comes to fathers. For a healthy child to develop, both mentally and physically, it requires more than just a present parent.

There are noticeable differences between a child that is shown healthy, supportive love from a father and one that isn't. Some studies have suggested that an adolescent that lacks father love, as Roner called it, could be more likely to experience behavioral issues and clinical depression and engage in drug use. And while not all of Joseph Christopher's future mental health problems can be directly linked to his father's tough love, the harsh treatment certainly couldn't have helped. When Joey turned 13, his relationship with his father became even more strained. That's when Nick started getting close with his niece's new husband, a Vietnam vet and recent Police Academy graduate, will call Isaac Rossi.

Isaac was handsome, charismatic, and outgoing. In other words, he was exactly the kind of man that Nick, hoped his son would be. Joey watched on as the man he idolized more than anyone in the world shined his affection on someone else. Not even Joey and Nick's shared love of gongs was sacred. Isaac was also a gun enthusiast, which seemed to make the connection much less special. His father's rejection only drove the reserved Joey deeper into his own somewhat troubled mind. He was terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing, perhaps realizing that he was never going to live up to his father's expectation, he began to act out, though even that behavior

was relatively mild. Since the school bus for Joey's recently integrated high school had become the scene of daily fights, Nick had given his mild-mannered son a car, but he was only allowed to drive to and from school. But the car soon became the source of one of the first legitimate arguments Nick and Joey ever had. One morning, Joey loaded up his car and picked up some friends, but instead of heading to school, he and his buddies went hunting to shoot guns and smoke. It was likely a cathartic moment for Joey. For once, he was able to do things he loved, free from the ridicule and ever-judgmental eye of his father.

It wasn't a one-time deal either, and the trip started getting more and more frequent. Unfortunately, when Nick discovered his son's truancy, he ambushed him after school. He took Joey's prized shotgun and destroyed it in front of him. But even that episode ended with an apology and a hug. For teenage Joey, smoking weed and skipping school was the extent of his rebellion, though he did drop out of high school during his junior year, much to the chagrin of his parents. Joey had developed an interest in cars,

and shortly before he left school, he got a job at Gene Emmer Motor Sales, where he was a model employee. He also helped out around another one of Emzor's businesses as a mechanic, a job that came naturally to him, though it seems neither job was full-time. In his spare time, Joey poured his heart and soul into restoring a 1967 Camaro. It was his pride and joy, at least for the short time he owned it.

Not long after he finished work on the car, it was stolen. The east side of Buffalo had seen a spike in crime in recent years, and Joey's Camero was the latest casualty. With his money sunk into a stolen car and no full-time work, the high school dropout needed steady employment. Feeling an entrepreneurial spark, Joey attempted to start a home repair business with a friend. And while he was skilled and well-liked by his neighbors, there simply wasn't enough work to go around. It was another frustrating setback.

It appeared his father was right. He wasn't going to amount to much. He certainly was never going to be a real man, like Isaac Rossi. As Joey felt the pressure from Nick Mounting, the father and son began to fight more frequently. Finally, with nowhere else to turn, Joey took some advice his dad had given him years earlier. He was going to join the Army. But before Joey could follow through on his father's suggestion, tragedy struck. In 1976, Nick went in for heart surgery, but he never made it home.

He developed pneumonia and died soon after the procedure. The death rocked the entire Christopher family. But no one took the patriarch's death harder than the son who could never live up. up to his father's expectations. Now Joey would never be able to win Nick's approval. He was lost. Coming up, Joseph Christopher's grasp on reality begins to loosen. Hi, I'm Christine Schiefer.

And I'm M. Schultz. We're the hosts of Rituals, the new Spotify original from Parcast. If you've heard our podcast and that's what we drink, you know we are no strangers to true crime and the paranormal. We're also into the occult to chat about not to join but, you know, to learn and educate. Every Monday on rituals, we're journeying through mystifying stories of sorcery, alchemy, Satanism, and more, and trying to determine if the dark arts of the past impact us today.

Like weather witches, who were they? Or the fountain of youth? Address, please. Don't forget about werewolf trials, M. Objection, Christine. Let's not give too much away. And instead, let's tell everyone to follow our new podcast rituals, free and only on Spotify. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey?

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Don't take up allergic to it. Or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause

low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbounds. Now back to the story. In 1976, when Joseph Christopher was just 21 years old, his father's death cast a dark pall over the entire family. While the Christophers remained financially secure thanks to Teresa's nursing career, everything else about the family's home came unmoored. The brash self-assured Nick had been the glue that held everyone together. Teresa was so reliant on her husband that she never even thought about getting her driver's license. Teresa hadn't just relied on Nick to do the driving.

She'd relied on him for everything. She trusted her headstrong husband to make all of the family's decisions. With Nick gone, the Christopher's struggle to rebuild. Teresa rarely left the house for anything other than work or church. The family home became a dark place, both literally and figuratively. The living room was either barely lit or completely. dark. A makeshift shrine was set up over the mantle with a picture of Nick surrounded by prayer candles. Oftentimes the votives were the only light in the room. Nick's possession still cluttered the home.

Teresa was hesitant to get rid of anything. Joey even more so. When Terese suggested giving away one of Nick's guns to cousin-in-law Isaac Rossi, Joey snapped, berating his mother for even considering the idea. While the two had had a strained relationship, Joey still idly. his father. He recognized the void his father had left, so he put pressure on himself to find steady work. He thought he needed to be the man of the house, just like his father. But despite his craftiness and general good nature, he didn't have much luck. Frustrated, the 21-year-old Joey fought back on his father's advice and decided he should join the army after all. Maybe following in the footsteps of the great Nick Christopher would transform him into the man his father always wanted him to be.

Unfortunately, even that was a non-starter. Joey was rejected due to a hernia, but for once he wasn't going to give up so easily. He vowed to get a job and save up enough money to get corrective surgery so he could make another go at enlisting. In 1977, Joey found work at the American Brass Company. The factory was experiencing a strike and needed extra security guards. It was work that came naturally to the outdoorsy, solemn Joey. By working extremely long hours, he made upwards of $300 a week, considerably more than the average salary of the day.

Like his work at the car dealership, Joey received high marks for his performance. But as the strike ended in early 1978, so too did the company's need for extra hands around the factory. Joey was laid off, but landed on his feet thanks to his new girlfriend. He'd met a woman, Will Call Michaela, that same year in 1977. when a mutual friend set them up. Nine years his senior, she worked at nearby Canesius College, and they hit it off pretty quickly. In Michaela, Joey found it almost ideal partner.

She was kind, beautiful, and she loved guns. For her part, Michaela loved that Joey was thoughtful and reserved, which was a far cry from her usual boyfriends. She normally went for bigger personalities, guys' guys, like Joe's dad, Nick Christopher. The relationship escalated quickly. And before long, Joey moved into Michaela's house. He immediately made himself useful, repairing various things around the home, which Michaela loved.

It seemed like a great match. Even Joey's love of weed, a habit he'd been cultivating since high school, wasn't a problem. Michaela didn't use any drugs, but was fine with him doing it on his own. Even without the social lubricant of marijuana, there was rarely a quiet moment between the two of them. Joey and Michaela talked endlessly, like you might have come. expect of any new couple. Michaela soon found Joey a full-time job in the maintenance department at Kinesas College. Like his previous jobs, he was an excellent employee with no performance issues,

except for the time he brought a gun to work. That incident aside, he managed to strike up a friendship with his co-worker Ernie. According to Michaela, the pair liked to get together after work, usually to smoke weed. While he was still distraught over the loss of his father, Joey was finally making a go of it on his own. He was out of his mother's house, he had steady employment, a girlfriend, and he had a small but close-knit group of friends. For a while, things were good.

Unfortunately for Joey, the good times wouldn't last. In the summer of 1978, around the time of Joey's 23rd birthday, those same friends began to notice a dramatic shift in his personality. He stopped hanging out with them and became obsessed with his father's death, grieving the loss as if it that only just happened. In retrospect, Joey's mother, Terese, says that she wished she'd been more attentive to the signs, but the mother in her wouldn't allow her to see what the nurse in her should. The increased paranoia, worry that bordered on delusion, the sudden mood shifts.

As a nurse who'd done training in a psychiatric wing, she knew what this could mean. Schizophrenia. Early symptoms of schizophrenia often manifests in young men between their late teens and early 20s. They can include disorganized thinking and delusions that aren't based in reality. Symptoms of the disorder are often broken down into positive and negative categories. Put simply, positive symptoms are abnormal behaviors, like experiencing auditory or visual hallucinations, added to ordinary ones. Negative symptoms tend to be things that take away from an ordinary personality, a lack of emotion, a diminished drive or incoherent thoughts.

And while no one is quite sure what causes schizophrenia, it's thought that environmental factors and genetics may play a role. Some studies have suggested an association between marijuana and schizophrenia, but that doesn't mean causation. However, paranoia and delusional thoughts can be side effects of marijuana use for some people, as well as early symptoms of schizophrenia. And for Joseph Christopher, he was feeling both constantly. Michaela noticed Joey's gradual mood shift and that he seemed frequently distracted, but he wouldn't talk to her about what was wrong. Not that that was unusual. They were talking less and less, and he started staying out late.

After nearly 19 months of dating, the days of Michaela and Joey chatting deep into the night were long gone. Now, Joey was quiet and withdrawn while they were together, which must have been disconcerting. Even with his psyche spiraling, Joey was cogitling. Joey was cognizant enough to seek help. The details aware and to whom he reached out are unclear, but reports suggest that's what he did. Unfortunately, we don't know what any medical professionals

might have told Joey at this time. However, as his condition seemed to deteriorate at pace, it seems likely that his concerns were dismissed, or perhaps he disregarded any advice he received. The truth is, we just don't know. Things only got worse as summer turned to fall, 1978. Suddenly, and with little explanation, Joey, now 23, moved out of Michaela's place. While the breakup was amicable, Joey was distraught at the end, crying and appearing confused and upset.

The sudden emotion caught Michaela completely off guard. Joey immediately moved back in with his mother, who was just as surprised as Michaela. Ernie, Joey's friend and coworker from Canesias College, also noticed the seismic shift in Joey's attitude. He became increasingly prone to wild mood. swings, the two stopped interacting at work until the friendship dissolved when Joey accused Ernie of stealing a knife. As Joey's mental state deteriorated, so too did his performance on the job. Eventually he was fired after being caught sleeping on three occasions. At home with his mother and sisters, Joey became increasingly distraught. He no longer wanted to be called Joey. Perhaps he felt

it was too childish a name for someone who should be the man of the house. He only wanted to be referred to as Joe or Joseph. Snapping at his family over something as minor as a childhood nickname was only the beginning. Paranoia soon set in, marking an even more dark and dramatic shift in his personality. He constantly worried about intruders breaking in and stealing his father's prized guns and tools. His mother tried to calm him and tell him that wasn't a realistic threat. They'd never had any kind of a break-in or even an attempt. While crime had gone up in their neighborhood, the Christopher's never had an issue, but that didn't matter to Joe.

He slept with a shotgun just in case. Terese soon noticed other peculiar behavior. Joe began stashing forks and spoons in various places around the house. He also grew extremely devout and visited his father's grave daily. In 1979, things seemed to escalate, and 24-year-old Joe began making even more drastic and extreme changes to his routine. He adopted a completely new diet. For reasons he couldn't or wouldn't explain, raw vegetables, uncooked oatmeal, and homemade bread were the only things he'd eat. By 1980, he also took to sitting in his room for long periods of time without moving,

only speaking to ask his mother to sit with him and hold his hand. He was incapable of explaining what exactly was causing him such anxiety, but it was there, and it was constant. Slowly but surely, Joe's grasp on reality slipped away. According to researchers Jessica J. Wary and Douglas Cullinan, in their paper for the journal Beyond Behavior, schizophrenia begins with a prodrome phase. This period is marked by many of the negative symptoms, sudden mood shifts, changes in behavior, and dulled emotions,

all things that appeared in this new, darker version of Christopher. Things came to a head in May of 1979. when Michaela reached out to Joe. The two had stayed in touch on and off since the breakup, so getting a call from her wasn't surprising. On the day in question, she rang to ask him some questions about the new car parts she needed. Joe told her to come over.

He'd be happy to help. Michaela didn't think twice. When she arrived, she thought Joe looked better than she remembered. He'd lost quite a bit of weight, but he seemed like himself, handy and helpful as always. Then things took a sudden and terrifying turn. Joe motioned for her to head into the garage, and without warning, he slammed her against the wall.

At first, she was in shock because he'd never been aggressive with her, or anyone. But now she didn't recognize this sneering, domineering man at all. He pinned her there with his forearm. With all his weight pressed against her, he tried to undo his pants. Michaela realized this wasn't the Joey she once knew, and that thought terrified her. Coming up, Joe's mood swings go from frightening to fatal. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session, and this summer, Prime originals have everything you want.

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In May of 1979, 24-year-old Joseph Christopher attacked his ex-girlfriend, Michaela, pulling her into the garage of his mom's house and pinning her to the wall. He'd never been sexually aggressive when they were together, but that day, he tried. to rape her. Michaela did her best to fight him off, but Joe was simply too strong. She shouted that things were over between them and that she didn't like him that way anymore.

But Joe wasn't taking no for an answer. Michaela decided to change tactics. She yelled that she was about to get married. It wasn't true, but she thought it just might work, and she was right. As quickly as he'd become menacing and aggressive, Joe shifted yet again. The off-putting grin,

disappeared. He pulled his weight off of her body and relaxed. His eyes cleared and he turned away from Michaela, searching his garage for a tool to fix her car. Michaela didn't know what had caused the sudden shift in Joe's demeanor, but she didn't want to stick around to find out. She quickly exited the garage and walked back toward her car. With barely a backward glance, she left as quickly as she could. While Joe's violent behavior was shocking for his ex-girlfriend, it isn't out of the ordinary for someone with schizophrenia, cognitive impairments such as memory loss and the inability to retain new information have long been reported to be symptoms of the disorder. Combined with other common symptoms like

paranoia and delusions, schizophrenia can make even the most intimate of acquaintances feel like strangers. But Michaela knew none of that at the time. Over the next few months as Joe's mental health continued to deteriorate, she stayed in touch with him, mostly because he sounded so distraught whenever they spoke. She still cared about him, even if they weren't together. But there was nothing she could do for him. Joe was getting worse by the day. His strange new diet led him to drop an excessive amount of weight, and the decline just kept going. In March of 1980, Michaela got a call from Joe. He rang her in the middle of the night, begging her to pick him up from outside a lounge. It was late, but she grabbed her keys and

headed out. Michaela pulled up to the lounge and got out of her car. What she saw chilled her more than the icy buffalo air. Joe was incoherent. His words and thoughts jumbled together, but he wasn't high or drunk. He looked at her, terrified, and said, I'm all nutsed up. Michaela never saw Joe again after that night. She couldn't deal with the 3 a.m. phone calls or the wild mood swings.

She cared about him, but from here on, he was on his own. However, he wasn't totally alone. Around this time, Joe confessed to a longtime friend that he felt like he was going crazy. Terese had noticed the unraveling, but hoped that all her son needed was a steady job. She was in complete denial of her son's mental and psychiatric deteriorations. For Joe's part, he did reach out one final time in an attempt to receive professional help. In September of 1980, the 25-year-old visited the Buffalo Psychiatric Center and tried to check. himself in.

Unfortunately, the attending psychiatrist and social worker told Joe that he posed no threat to himself or his family. They suggested that he was a good candidate for outpatient counseling and said they would call him to set up an appointment. Then they sent him home. This is a frustrating moment in Joe's story. In this instance, there was a safety net in place to help prevent what came next. But unfortunately, the net failed to catch him, and the consequences would be disastrous.

Desperate for any kind of support and stability, Joe once again tried to enlist in the Army. With his hernia fixed, he was accepted and was ordered to report to basic training in Georgia that November. It was a bit of good news for the family, and Therese hoped that the shift might snap her son out of whatever he was going through. That, unfortunately, wouldn't be the case.

It's unclear exactly when, but sometime around the fall of 1980, Joe started to receive strange and sinister commands. He didn't know from whom or why. All he knew was that someone somewhere was telling him to kill. Ever the diligent, obedient young man, he felt compelled to comply. According to researchers, Jessica J. Wary and Douglas Cullinan, the pro-drome phase of schizophrenia is followed by the active phase.

That's typically when psychotic symptoms increase. Auditory or visual hallucinations are notable at this stage, and the afflicted person's already tenuous understanding of what's real and what's imaginary becomes even more muddled. That's likely why Joe took the orders from the unseen voice seriously. On September 22nd, 1980, a characteristically chilly Buffalo night. Joe pulled on a blue jacket and staled himself for the cold. He walked out into the darkness with a paper bag tucked into his arm. Inside it was a sawed-off 22-caliber rifle, one of the many guns in his collection.

Whether he always had the spot in mind or just wandered around until something caught his eye, Joe ended up outside a local grocery store. He sat in the parking lot, his vacant stare drifting off into nothingness, waiting. Around 10 p.m., a black teenager named Glenn Dunn pulled a shiny Buick to a stop in the parking lot. The car was hot, stolen on a whim from a nearer. by car dealership. The 14-year-old had stopped at the grocery store so a friend could run an errand. Glenn parked the car while his friend Larry ran inside. Then he stepped out and waited beneath the fluorescent glow of the parking lot street lamp. In the cold night air, he lit a cigarette.

When he was done, Glenn snuffed out his cigarette and climbed back into the car. By that stage, Joe had spotted the young teen and slowly crept across the sparsely populated lot. He calmly strolled up to the driver's side door. Without a word, he raised the gun and fired three shots into Glenn's head. Not nearly as coolly as he arrived, Joe turned and ran away, disappearing into the chilly buffalo night as rain began to fall. There were multiple eyewitnesses who reported seeing Joe lurking outside of the grocery store that night. One even saw him fire into the car and flee, but no one was able to give a positive ID on the killer. After his first kill, Joe presumably went home and right back to his normal life.

But less than 24 hours later, his psychosis reared its ugly head again. Around lunchtime the following day, September 23rd, Harold Green sat in his car in front of the local Burger King. The 32-year-old engineer was having a quick bite before heading back to the office. In just the same calm and unhurried manner as the night before, Joe walked down a grassy hill between two restaurants into the parking lot. Without a word, he strolled up to Green's car and fired twice into the man's head. In a flash, Joe turned and ran back the way he came. A little later, a woman returned to her car and spotted Green leaning out of his open window,

bloody and twitching. Someone spotted Joe nearby around the same time, getting into a car and fleeing the scene. However, witnesses didn't seem to bother him. Nothing was going to slow him down. At 11.30, that same night, Joe calmly approached two men, one who will call Charles Stewart and his friend Emmanuel Thomas on a street in Buffalo's east side.

He asked them for directions, and then, when the two friends had started walking away, he fired his 22-caliber-sought-off rifle at Emmanuel. Charles ran and his... taking cover behind a nearby car. When he thought the coast was clear, he slowly stood up, checking that Joe had gone. Then he ran to his friend's side as neighbors emerged from their houses,

but there was nothing anyone could do. Emmanuel was dead. It was the third murder Joseph Christopher had committed within 24 hours. Not only that, each of his victims were black men, which set a chilling precedent for the remainder of his spree, and that spree was set to transform Western New York into a racial powder keg. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers.

We'll be back next time with part two of Joseph Christopher's story. The method and location of his murders change, and Christopher's mental state continues to unravel. For more information on the 22-caliber killer, amongst many sources we used, we found absolute madness, a true story of a serial killer, race, and a city divided, Catherine Pellanero, extremely helpful to our research. You can find all episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Juan Borda, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Joshua Kern. episode of serial killers was written by Jesse Harris, with writing assistance by Tony Goodman and Joel Callan, fact-checking by Lori Siegel, and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Serial killers stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson.

Werewolves, witches, and Arthur Conan Doyle? Oh my! Sounds like fascinating topics to discuss on our new show, rituals, Christine. You know what, it sure does. Every Monday on rituals, join us as we explore the evolution of spiritualism and the occult, through stories, practices, and the impact on modern culture. If you've heard our podcast and that's why we drink, this is the perfect pairing for you. And if you haven't, go give us a try.

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Hosted by me, your guide. Derek Hayes. Somehow I lost eight whole hours. Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.