Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - "The Brooklyn Strangler" Vincent Johnson

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

By the time he aged out of the foster system, Vincent Johnson had already shown signs of being violent. As an adult, he became increasingly unstable while living on the streets of Brooklyn. Then as his rage grew, he targeted women in his neighborhood, some of whom knew each other.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, sexual assault, and drug use. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. February 21st, 2000 was a brutal evening in New York City, so cold that it hurt to breathe. A firefighter who will call Larry Evans could already feel the chill coming through the window as he parked beneath the on-ramp to the Williamsburg Bridge. Bracing himself, he opened the door and jumped onto the ground alongside his colleagues, squinting through a thick patch of smoke.

It was hard to blame whoever had started the trash fire. On nights like this, unhoused people beneath the bridge needed some way to stave off the dangerous cold. Following the smoke to its source, Larry and his team headed further down into the bowels of the bridge, through a narrow alleyway that led to a deserted area. Finally, they saw it, a flickering orange blaze spreading outwards from a heavy metal door. As the men entered the large storage area and turned their hoses onto the fire,

Larry noticed something strange nearby. Signs of life further down in the utility room, which is supposed to be secured at all times. Once the fire was under control, he headed over to investigate. As he walked away from the fire, his eyes took a second to adjust to the darkness. Once they did, he recoiled in horror. A woman's body was lying on the filthy ground, decomposing.

Even from a distance, Larry could tell she'd been dead for a while. Nearby was a length of electrical cord. She'd been murdered. Hi, I'm Greg Paulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today we're discussing Vincent Johnson, aka the Brooklyn Strangler. 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. Johnson's life is largely a mystery to us. After an unstable upbringing, he spent years on the streets of Brooklyn. Then, in the late 1990s, he carried out a vicious killing spree. Targeting vulnerable women, Johnson brutally murdered five people, earning himself a nickname, the Brooklyn Strangler. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.

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By some measures, it's one of the loneliest places on the planet. For unhoused people like Vincent Johnson, who was just one of thousands, urban loneliness existed on a different level entirely. Johnson spent most of his adult life without a roof over his head, becoming increasingly unstable and full of rage. And the consequences were tragic. Though we know very little about his childhood, it's possible to see how Johnson's downward spiral began. He was born sometime between late 1960s. and late 1969 in Brooklyn, New York, and was placed in foster care by his mother at a young age. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note,

Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Based on what we know about Johnson's later behavior, it's possible that he met the criteria for reactive attachment disorder. Per the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, this condition is caused by severe early childhood neglect, mistreatment, or abrupt separation from caregivers. Children with a disorder have difficulty forming emotional attachments and experiencing positive emotions. They may be unable to accept closeness or comfort even when it's offered.

Mood swings are also common. As far as we know, Johnson was never diagnosed with a reactive attachment disorder or any other mental health condition. But his capacity to relate to it to... others was potentially compromised from a young age and it wasn't helped by his time in foster care. According to a 2021 meta analysis published by the Children and Youth Services Review Journal, children and adolescents in foster care are at a greater risk for mental health problems. One of the best protections against this risk is for the child to be placed with a stable foster

family to experience a feeling of safety and predictability. Disruption or being moved around frequently increases the risk of mental health disorders and behavioral challenges. It's unclear how long Johnson spent with his biological mother or his foster families, but he would later comment on this childhood instability, saying that it troubled him throughout his life. And the environment he grew up in didn't help either. We don't have any information about Johnson's life during the 1970s and 80s, but based on what was happening in New York City then, it was probably no picnic. Beginning of the late 9th, 1960s, the city underwent a dramatic economic decline that affected nearly every aspect of life.

A wave of murders and other violent crimes swept through the five boroughs, leaving residents afraid to take the subway or walk down side streets at night. Street crime was so common that when going out after dark in many areas, some New Yorkers kept an extra $10 worth of mugging money in their wallet just in case. And that wasn't all you had to worry about. Between 1976 and 1977, serial killer David Berkowitz, aka the son of Sam, terrorized the city with a 13-month killing spree. Though he was only a child then, Johnson was almost certainly aware of the terror gripping the area. Several of Berkowitz's murders were in Queens, not far from where Johnson lived.

And in 1980, when Johnson was 11, crime was reaching new heights. More than 250 felonies happened every year. week on the subway system. That rate wouldn't fall for another decade. And if that happened on the trains, you'd have to assume things were worse on the streets. Though we have no idea what level of crime Johnson witnessed or encountered, there's no doubt that he came of age in an unsafe and chaotic environment. And that probably had a profound impact on how he saw the world. Research has consistently shown that exposure to neighborhood violence can shape a developing brain, Children and teenagers who grow up in high crime areas often experience more emotional and cognitive problems.

These include difficulty concentrating, emotional dysregulation, and even symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. We have no idea which of these, if any, Johnson experienced. But by the time he aged out of the foster system, he was a budding criminal in his own right, with a dangerous violent streak. In the early 1990s, when Johnson was around 21, he started dealing crack cocaine in the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. During this time, he met a young woman living in the Bronx named Patricia Carter. Before long, Johnson asked the woman out. The pair were infatuated with each other and quickly became serious. The intensity of their whirlwind romance was possibly heightened by drugs, since Patricia had begun using as well.

crack cocaine is a highly addictive stimulant that in high doses over a long period can cause agitation, erratic behavior, and even paranoia. A relationship fueled by drug use is on rocky ground from day one, and the fault lines quickly began opening in Patricia and Johnson's romance. According to Patricia, she became dependent on crack cocaine with Johnson in her life, and this surely worsened after he moved into her apartment in the Bronx. There, the couple began arguing more. Over time, those disagreements snowballed into vicious, drug-fueled fights.

Patricia told the New York Post, I used to get high and mess around with other people. I'd fight back when he fought with me, so we did a lot of damage to each other. Finally, in 1995, after years of volatility, Patricia kicked Johnson out of her apartment. Losing Patricia might have reminded him of the rejection he'd experienced from his mother, He was now 26 years old, but none of those wounds had ever fully healed. Fueled by pain and anger, he started using drugs more heavily than ever before. That likely only hastened his homelessness, as any cash he scored was funneled into his addiction.

We don't know if Johnson had any friends he could call on, but if he did, he ran dry pretty quickly. Later when he became homeless, he spent years constantly moving. Sometimes he'd sleep in homeless shelters in the Lower East, side of Manhattan, other nights on subway trains. If he got onto the A train at its northernmost station in Manhattan, he could get more than an hour and a half of uninterrupted sleep as it trembled into its final destination, more than 30 miles away near Rockaway Beach. When he could, Johnson scraped together money by panhandling and dealing drugs. He was arrested

several times over the years and spent a handful of days in jail, all for petty offenses, drug charges, trespassing, and fare skipping on the subway. According to people who knew him, nothing stood out about Johnson. He was a regular guy. One fellow unhoused man told the New York Post that he seemed like a very decent human being. He could be quite kind. But that wasn't everyone's experience. By 1999, Johnson was known to have lived both under the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn

and in unoccupied buildings and Manhattan's Lower East Side, where he resided alongside several other people. There, he developed a reputation for explosive anger. He got into screaming fights with his fellow residents, often without warning. As we mentioned before, heavy cocaine use can cause unpredictable and violent behavior. Substance abuse has also been linked to a condition called intermittent explosive disorder, which, per the DSM-5, causes recurrent episodes of aggressive, impulsive behavior towards people, property or both. Johnson also started expressing violent sexual thoughts towards women.

According to a fellow unhoused man, he often fantasized about tying women up and having rough sex with them. Johnson's deep-seated rage was getting noticed by others in his community, and his years on the street were only making it worse. Unhoused people are routinely treated as invisible by the general public. On an average day in a bustling city like New York, hundreds or even thousands of people would have walked past Johnson, averting their eyes, ignoring his pleas for money. The treatment took a toll. A few months into 1999, Johnson's anger at the world reached a deadly boiling point. Coming up, Johnson sets his sights on his first victim. In a world of deep fake technology, fake news, and revisionist history, how do we know the difference between what's official,

and what's just fishy. That's where we come in. Hi, it's Molly and Carter from the Spotify original from Parcast, conspiracy theories. Every Monday and Wednesday, we examine the most controversial events in history because maybe there's so much more to the truth than we've been led to believe. From the mysteries of outer space to the secrets, lies, and possible cover-ups occurring right under our noses. We explore every angle in search of the actual truth.

We're not skeptics or theorists. We're curious, rigorous, and in the end, we let you decide. Catch new episodes of conspiracy theories each week. Follow and listen for free, only on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories,

and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Now back to the story. By 1999, 30-year-old Vincent Johnson was living around Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Having spent most of his 20s in the Bronx and Manhattan, perhaps he'd hoped to find a sense of belonging in Brooklyn. And in a way he did. Johnson had been dealing drugs in the area for a while, so plenty of people knew him already. He quickly became a fixture in the neighborhood, both at the encampment where he lived and at the many housing projects nearby. But going to those apartment buildings, getting a glimpse of the kind of life he'd once had with Patricia may have intensified Johnson's anger at the world. And after a few months, his alienation drew him toward an unthinkable choice. In late August, Johnson crossed paths with 26-year-old Vivian Carabayo. It's unclear how the two knew each other, but Vivian was a drug user, and Johnson was still dealing. We can only speculate about exactly what happened that night.

But based on the few facts we do know, here's a likely scenario. Vivian invited Johnson back to her apartment on South Second Street, about a two-year-old. 10-minute walk from where he lived under the bridge. She may have asked him over for a romantic encounter, or just to buy. Either way, Vivian lived in the apartment with her mother and son, so she possibly didn't want to bring Johnson inside. Instead, they went up to the building's roof. There, the pair entered a small elevator control room.

It was a secluded, if not completely secure, spot that gave them privacy. The two had sex, but at some point Johnson took things too. far. It was the kind of anger his former girlfriend and his unhoused neighbors had witnessed in the past, but this time it was deadly. After having sex, Johnson strangled Vivian to death using a piece of cloth, and then fled, descending down five stories into the humid summer night. When Vivian's body was found on August 26th, word spread fast through the neighborhood.

She'd lived there for most of her life and had a lot of friends nearby. One of them was 35-year-old Joanne Felichano, who lived a couple of blocks away with her mother. When the weather was warm enough, Vivian and Joanne often hung out on a stoop together on South 4th Street, talking for hours. Like Vivian, Joanne was a drug user, and they'd sometimes pull their money together to buy. Vivian's death hit Joanne hard. She had no idea who would want to hurt her friend. Vivian was widely known to be quiet and polite. Joanne could never have imagined that Vivian knew the killer, or that she could be his next victim.

Roughly three weeks after Vivian died, Joanne went up to the rooftop of a building on South 4th Street with Johnson. It was a block away from her apartment, and though we don't know the details of their encounter, it's possible she planned to buy drugs from Johnson, as Vivian might have. Joanne also had sex with Johnson, and once again, he snapped. At some point during or after having sex, Johnson overpowered Joanne and strangled her to death using a shoelace and a length of speaker wire. Then he fled. Her body was found there the next day. Given the overwhelming similarity between her death and Vivians and the fact that they knew each other, the authorities must have drawn a link.

But it's unclear what kind of investigation was launched. Residents were on edge too. Many remembered the son of Sam murders and, and couldn't imagine living through another nightmare like that. But whatever the local reaction was, it doesn't seem like Johnson was overly concerned about getting caught, because he waited less than two weeks before claiming his next victim. About a mile southeast in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, 21-year-old Rhonda Tucker lived with her seven-year-old daughter and her parents.

It seems Rhonda had known Johnson for a while, though the exact nature of their relationship isn't clear. residents at their housing projects said they spotted him around regularly and never had any issues. Unlike some of Johnson's other victims, we have no idea whether he was Ronda's dealer or if she used drugs at all. In any case, when he showed up at Ronda's door in late September, she had no reason not to let him in. We can't know what happened after that door closed behind Johnson. But within hours, he had strangled Ranta to death, using the drawstring from her pants. Strangulation is a particularly common MO among serial murderers.

Over the years, many experts have suggested that this indicates something specific about how a killer sees their victims. In a 1999 book on serial murders, former police officer GM Godwin suggested that strangulation indicates a sense of rage towards the victim. Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz has argued that strangulation is associated with a needy, for intimacy. As we noted earlier, Johnson's early life was bereft of the connections that children need. He was abandoned by his mother and never seemed to be able to heal that primal wound. Given his history, it is possible that, in a twisted way, he craved intimacy with his victims. Ronda's body was found the next day, sending shockwaves through the neighborhood. Two deaths were shocking enough, but three was an unmistakable pattern. And it wasn't long before,

before another murder shook the neighborhood to its core. On October 4th, the body of 34-year-old Katrina Niles was found at a housing project, just a few blocks from the last crime scene. Her throat was slashed and she'd been strangled with an electrical cord. While this MO was similar to the previous killings, Ann Johnson was a regular in the building. He was never formally charged in Niles' death. Still, it was the fourth murder of a young woman in Lerner, less than two months. This added fuel to a panic that was already approaching fever pitch.

Ever since Vivian and Joanne's deaths, there had been rumors in Williamsburg that the same person was responsible for both crimes. Now with four women dead, the authorities had to take notice. In October, the police confirmed that they were investigating the murders, assuming all four deaths were linked. But the announcement did little to quell the panic in the borough, especially after the media dubbed the mysterious killer the Brooklyn Strangler. Women avoided leaving their homes at night and started moving around in groups of two or three whenever possible. The police, meanwhile, moved fast to canvass the area, eventually interviewing as many as 100 suspects. But for the remainder of 1999, investigators believed the killer was letting the dust settle. No major or minor leads arrived

for four months. When the police did come across new evidence, the killer seemed to switch up his methods. Unlike most of Johnson's victims, we know almost nothing about 44-year-old Laura Nusser, but based on what we do know, she had a husband, a daughter, and was known to visit the bridge area where Johnson lived. We're not sure when Johnson lured Laura into a large storage room underneath the on-ramp to the Williamsburg Bridge, but based on forensic evidence, it could have been between the summer of 1999 or early winter of 2000. There, the two had sex. Then he strangled her to death with an electrical cord. On February 21st, firefighters found her body there by chance during an unrelated call in response

to a trash fire. The police now had five victims, but no genuine leads. Though they'd obtained a lot of DNA evidence from most of the crime scenes, none of it had been matched to a suspect. They likely looked into various people close to one or more of the victims, but had no luck finding a common thread between all five. It doesn't seem like Johnson was even close to being on anyone's radar, at least not for murder. But that March, just weeks after Laura's body was found, he got arrested on drug charges and spent two brief stints in jail,

once for five days and another for eight. Nobody, not the arresting officer or the jail staff, had any idea they had the Brooklyn Strangler in custody. And nobody noticed that while Johnson was locked up, the murder stopped. As far as they were concerned, he was a run-of-the-mill petty criminal. And so, by the spring, he was back on the streets. And just as Brooklyn residents had begun to relax, their nightmare began again. Coming up, a friend of Johnson's brings him to justice.

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After all, the police had been looking into his murder spree for months. If they suspected him at all, they would have questioned him when they had him in custody. But they hadn't. So by that June, Johnson returned to his old stomping grounds in Williamsburg. the North Brooklyn neighborhood where he'd spent most of his life. There, he started hunting for his next victim. And he didn't have to search for long. 48-year-old Patricia Sullivan lived in a housing project not far from the Williamsburg Bridge,

a former teaching assistant. She'd once planned on becoming a teacher herself. But a decade earlier, Patricia's life had been derailed by the loss of her two-year-old son, who died of complications from asthma, struggling to cope. With the grief, she turned to drugs and had grappled with addiction ever since. That summer, Patricia started using more heavily in the wake of another loss. Katrina Niles was a longtime friend of hers. The horrific details of Katrina's death haunted Patricia,

as did the fact that nobody had been caught in the eight months since. When she crossed paths with Johnson in June, Patricia could never have imagined that she was face to face with her friend's killer. It was a classic New York summer's evening, the air thick with humidity, and the streets packed with locals playing music and drinking beers. Johnson suggested they go somewhere more private, and Patricia agreed. He led her to an abandoned lot in Williamsburg, tucked away behind an industrial building. He knew it would be deserted. That was the point.

Because once he got her alone, after having sex, Johnson allowed his insatiable eyes. anger to take over. According to his account, as he looked at Patricia, he became consumed by thoughts of his mother and how she'd abandoned him when he was a child. Raged towards his mother had possibly always been at play when Johnson murdered women. But perhaps this was the first time he realized it consciously. Either way, the horrific outcome was the same. Johnson strangled Patricia to death using a shoelace.

When he described this murder later, Johnson claimed, I didn't see strangling her as doing something wrong at the time. It's hard to imagine anybody not knowing that strangling another person to death is wrong. Perhaps Johnson meant that right and wrong no longer had any bearing on him. He didn't see his victims as human beings with rights. Instead, they were objects onto which he projected his rage. A passerby found Patricia's body on June 22nd. reigniting a sense of terror in the community.

It had been more than four months since the Brooklyn Strangler's last kill was found, but here was confirmation that he was still at large. Armed with new DNA evidence from both Patricia's body and the other crime scenes, the police finally formulated a list of suspects. They took DNA samples from 30 persons of interest. We don't have much information about who was on this list,

but it likely included the people, closest to the victims. We know that Vincent Johnson wasn't one of the 30 names, but an acquaintance of his was another unhoused man who will call William. During the questioning, William developed a bond with one of the detectives. Williams liked this man so much that even when the DNA evidence cleared, he didn't simply walk away. He wanted to help the police get their killer. So he told them about Vincent Johnson, a man he'd only known for a few months. William said that Johnson often talked about tying women up and having sex with them. Sometimes he'd pointed a woman he saw on the street and simply say, I want her.

William described one occasion when he and Johnson spoke together on the street. Johnson gestured tore a pair of women nearby and suggested that he and William could take them somewhere quiet, bind them and have sex. with them. As evidence went, it wasn't much to go on, but it was enough for the cops to bring Johnson in for questioning in late July 2000. Johnson denied any involvement and said he didn't know any of the murder victims. He refused to provide a DNA sample, since he was under no obligation to do so, and because the evidence was so scant, the police had to let him go.

As he strolled out of the station that night, Johnson could have felt a wave of pure euphoria, That had been close, way too close, but in the end the cops had nothing on him. They'd let him go. And without a DNA sample, he knew there was no way they could tie him to the crime scenes. But unbeknownst to Johnson, he already had provided a sample. As officers led him into the police station for questioning, one of the detectives saw him spit on the ground of the parking garage at the 90th precinct. Remarkably, the police obtained a viable saliva swab from that.

They knew they were grasping at straws, but at this point in the investigation, every lead was precious. And when the results came back, they were astonished. Either partially or totally, Johnson's DNA matched samples taken from four of the murder scenes. This was a man who hadn't even been on the NYPD's radar a month ago, and now they had hard to deny evidence that he was the Brooklyn strangler. On August 4th, the police released Johnson's picture in a news conference and revealed that he was their lead suspect. They asked the public for help in tracking him down, but as it turned out, they didn't need it. It's unclear if Johnson realized that he was now the most wanted man in New York.

Since he didn't have easy access to a TV or radio, it's entirely possible. that he didn't know. In any case, he seemingly did not attempt to leave the city. Instead, about an hour after the news conference, he walked over the Williamsburg Bridge from Manhattan, heading back to Brooklyn. Homicide detectives intercepted him halfway there. Less than a hundred feet from where he'd killed Laura, he was taken into custody. For years, this bridge had sheltered him from the elements. Now, it would be the last site he ever saw as a free man. Johnson's arrest sparked a lot of mixed emotions in his community. Some people had known him for years as a fixture in the neighborhood,

and now had to try and reconcile their image of him with the monster he'd become. But for others, perhaps everything clicked into place when they heard Johnson's name. After all, we know he had a reputation for explosive anger and a history of domestic abuse long before he started killing. For many Brooklynites, putting a face to the Brooklyn Strangler name, brought closure. In total, the authorities charged Johnson with four counts of first-degree murder. Though he initially maintained his innocence, he eventually admitted to five of the killings.

Vivian Carabayo, Joanne Felichano, Rhonda Tucker, Laura Neuser, and Patricia Sullivan. Johnson maintained his innocence in the case of Katrina Niles and was never tried in her death. Earlier, we discussed that Johnson claimed he pictured his mother's face when he killed Patricia. He also said that he didn't see strangling her as doing anything wrong. In March of 2001, 32-year-old Johnson went before a judge and pleaded guilty to five murders. Under New York State's serial killer statute, any defendant who's convicted of multiple separate murders within a 24-month period is eligible for the maximum sentence. So Johnson got life in prison without the possibility of parole. He remains behind bars at a maximum security prison in upstate New York to this day.

A lot of Johnson's anger towards the world was justified, but he took it out on the least deserving targets, vulnerable women, most of whom were grappling with the same issues as him. He offered no concrete explanation for why he'd ended their lives. Instead, he took the pain inflicted on him and redirected it tenfold back into the community he'd grown up in. Johnson's is a tragic story of systemic failures. If only, he hadn't fallen through so many cracks. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers.

We'll be back soon with another episode. For more information on Vincent Johnson, amongst the many sources we used, we found a 2000 article by Larry Salona in the New York Post, extremely helpful in 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. Stay safe out there. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive produced by Max Cutler, our head of programming is Julian Borrow.

Our supervising sound designer is Russell Nash with Nick Johnson as our head of production, and quality control by Spencer Howard. Stacey Nemick is our supervising editor, and Derek Jennings is our writing lead. This episode of serial killers was written by Emma Dibdin, edited by Robert Tyler Walker and Terrell Wells, fact-checked by Kevin Johnson, researched by Sapphire Williams and Chelsea Wood,

produced by Aaron Larson, and sound design by Michael Motion. Our hosts are Greg Paulson and me, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, it's Carter and Myrits. Molly from conspiracy theories. This February, join us for two standout specials. First, celebrate Super Bowl Sunday with a two-parter on one of the most dominant and dubious teams in history, the New England Patriots. Then a two-part Valentine special on the mysterious murder of Charles Walton. Journey back with us nearly 80 years as we combed through the

details and rumors surrounding his death, pitchfork, witchcraft, and all. all. Catch new episodes of conspiracy theories every Monday and Wednesday. Follow and listen for free only on Spotify. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavat Theater.com. Only a Yama Vah Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter.

A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast. podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.