Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Jersey Shore Thrill Killer” Richard Biegenwald Pt. 2

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

In 1982, while Richard Biegenwald was on a killing spree along the Jersey Shore, he also groomed a young woman he lived with to be his protégé. But when she ultimately wasn't up to the task, it meant Biegenwald's secret was out. And it would lead to his downfall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of trauma, murder, kidnapping, gun violence, and substance use. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. To get help on mental health, visit Spotify.com slash resources. It was a summer evening on the Jersey shore. The sun had said hours before, but the boardwalk still thrummed with activity. 18-year-old Anna Olesowitz soaked in every detail of the scene. taking deep inhales of salty ocean air.

She and her friend Denise Hunter were about to spend their summer days at the beach, sunbathing, partying, and relaxing. Beside her, Denise stood up and announced she was going to the bathroom. She'd be back in a few minutes. Anna nodded absently, absorbed in the music emanating from a nearby bar.

She didn't see Denise walk away, nor did she see Richard Beganwald lurking nearby. And she didn't see the look on his face as he approached her. His expression was so cold, so empty, he barely looked human. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every Monday and Thursday, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, we're continuing our discussion of the Jersey Shore thrill killer Richard Beganwald. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all others.

Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. Last time, we discussed how Beganwald's violent history began when he tried to set his family's home on fire at the age of five, and how his actions escalated further from armed robbery to murder. Today, we'll chronicle Beganwald's killing spree along the Jersey Shore in 1982, how he coerced a vulnerable roommate to act as his confidant, and ultimately how that decision brought him down. We've got all of that. that and more coming up. Stay with us. 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

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He'd always acted first and worried about the consequences later, but maybe the years he'd spent in prison for armed robbery had changed that. He had no intention of getting caught again, especially not now that he had something to lose. He and his much younger wife, Diane, had been married for only a couple of months, and Beaconwald wasn't about to give her up. But police were looking for Maria. The search began in November, within days of her disappearance, and her family had offered a reward for information.

Perhaps because of that, Beaconwald didn't want to risk striking again. So for several months, he resisted his murderous impulses. But while waiting, the urge built up inside him, and it got stronger when he realized the authorities weren't making progress in Maria's case. Finally, after five months, he gave in. The details of what happened on the night of April 5, 1982, aren't clear, but we'll walk you through what we know. In the early evening, 17-year-old Deborah Osborne left her home in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, accompanied by a friend. The girls made their way to a local bar called Idle Hour, about 10 miles up the coast. At the bar, they ordered drinks and chatted.

At some point, Deborah's friend went to the bathroom. When she returned, Deborah was gone. It's possible that Begenwald had been watching Deborah and her friend, waiting for his moment to strike. When Debra was alone, Beganwald approached. He might have struck up a conversation, then convinced her to leave the bar with him. At some point, she ended up in Beganwald's car. and eventually she may have realized something was off.

According to some who knew him, Beganwald had a deeply unsettling demeanor. A New Jersey prosecutor, Ralph E. Stubbs, said, He had an evil expression. He made everyone around him feel cold and lifeless. He seemed to have the ability to mask that when needed. He appeared unthreatening enough that multiple women agreed to take a ride with him. But once he had Deborah in his car with the doors locked, Beganwald might have let the mask drop.

Deborah possibly fought back or tried to flee because Beganwald's subsequent attack indicated he was furious. He stabbed her with a knife more than 20 times. This was a significant escalation from his previous two murders. In those cases, Beganwald had killed using a gun with cool efficiency. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Beganwald's approach to killing Deborah falls into the category of what some criminologists call overkill. This term describes inflicting an excessive amount of injuries during a murder.

There's limited research about this phenomenon, but the authors of a 2019 report in the journal Forensic Science International made an observation about overkill that seems applicable to Beganwald. They wrote, overkill seems to be a violent, long-nursed intent, which becomes reality, in an extreme and explosive manner. But once Debra was dead, the red haze faded. Beganwald's newfound caution returned to him. He drove 50 miles north to his mother's quiet street on the south shore of Staten Island. It was after midnight and no lights were on inside.

Just as he'd done six months earlier, Beganwald dug a makeshift grave in his mother's backyard. It's likely Beganwald felt no guilt for his actions and no empathy for his victims. Nor did he feel bad for dragging his aging mother into his crimes by turning her garden into a graveyard. Psychiatrist Dr. Azariah Ashkenazi, who later examined Beganwald, concluded that he could not feel remorse, calling him a psychopath. Despite not technically diagnosing him at the time,

this would likely translate today to a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, which is characterized by manipulative and exploitative behavior, low empathy, and in some cases, a pattern of repeated law-breaking. It's unclear when anyone reported Deborah missing or how that investigation played out. But without her body being discovered, the police likely had scant evidence to work with and no way to tie the crimes back to any suspect, let alone Beganwald. Despite the thrill of getting away with murder, Beganwald didn't have the immediate urge to kill again, maybe because his predatory instincts turned to focus on a target closer to home.

Now in her early 20s, Beganwald's wife, Diane, had built her entire adult life around her marriage to her much older husband and possibly felt isolated. So she had to have been excited when she made a new friend at her restaurant job in early 1982. She was 22-year-old Teresa Smith, but the two didn't just bond over small talk. They shared a common burden. They were both involved with drugs. Teresa admitted to using amphetamines, while Diane had stolen drugs from her last job as a pharmacist. We don't have a lot of insight into their marriage, but it seemed that Beganwald had considerable influence over Diane, considering their 19-year age gap and that they'd married when she was just 19 years old.

Consequently, nothing in Diane's life was just hers. Her friendships were no exception. At some stage, Diane introduced Teresa to Beganwald, and from that point onwards, they became sort of a thruple. Reports vary as to the exact nature of their relationship, but whatever the arrangement was, it seemed to suit. everybody involved. So much so that in June 1982, Diane invited Teresa to live in their apartment in Asbury Park. She agreed. After Teresa moved in, she spent more time with Beganwald. According to Teresa, they had a sexual relationship, but it went beyond that. Beganwald seemed to view her as a kind of protege. He taught her how to shoot a gun and took her to a nearby stretch of woodland for

target practice. Maybe Beganwald saw something in Teresa, an untapped darkly. that he wanted to foster. He was allowing her to believe that he was teaching her to hunt, but in reality, he was teaching her to kill. In a moment, Beaconwald Titans' hold on Teresa.

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I'm teaming up with the Cold Cases podcast, to examine one of the most high-profile cases in U.S. history, The Boy in the Box. For nearly 70 years, people all over the country wondered, who is America's unknown child, how did he die, and where is his family? A forensic breakthrough would ultimately tell us his name, Joseph Augustus Sorelli. But as you'll come to find out, that was just one piece of the mystery. Catch this incredible episode this Thursday on Disappearances. Listen free only on Spotify. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigue,

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Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. Now back to the story. In the summer of 1982, 21-year-old Teresa Smith noticed a strange pattern in her new roommate, Richard Beganwald. Beganwald had mood swings and sometimes became edgy and agitated. Though he was 42, he had tantrums like a child. Then he'd disappear for hours or days at a time. When he returned, Teresa thought he seemed restored and relaxed, as if some kind of demon had been exercised.

Eventually, she asked him what he did while he was away. Beganwald looked at her for a moment, considering, but he trusted her, and so, taking a deep breath, he told her the truth. The fact that he was so willing to reveal his crimes speaks to just how strong the twisted bond between Beganwald and Teresa was. She wasn't just his protege anymore. Now she was as confidant. Perhaps he saw himself in Teresa, or at least an echo of his own troubled youth. Like Beganwald, she was a high school dropout and seemed to struggle to find her path. Though he was twice her age, he felt like a peer.

We're not sure how Teresa reacted to Beganwald's confession, but we know he didn't stop there. He tried to persuade her to join him. He framed it as a way for Teresa to prove herself to him and show off how tough she was. He asked if there was anybody in her life she'd like to kill, and she brought up a coworker at the restaurant who will call Janet. It's unclear exactly what Janet had done to earn such anger, but by August of 1982, Beganwald and Teresa were plotting to kill her. At this point, the two had only known each other for a few months, so all this was happening incredibly fast, but it's worth remembering Teresa struggled with substance abuse and was specifically using

amphetamines during this time. Research indicates that heavy amphetamine use can make some people more prone to violent and aggressive behavior and can also increase paranoia and feelings of persecution. Though we don't know why Teresa was so angry with Janet, it's possible that a minor argument had snowballed into an unforgivable betrayal in her mind. Towards the end of the month, Beaconwald and Teresa agreed to carry out their vicious plan. They would strike that Friday, August 27th. Teresa would persuade Janet to drive home with her after work. Then, Teresa would strike, killing her coworker. But it's possible Teresa was having doubts.

Talking about murder was one thing. When she was around Beganwald, her ravato could have taken over, making it all seem so easy. When she was alone, the reality of what she was about to do must have felt overwhelming. Still, the next day, she went forward with the first step. She invited Janet to come for a drive with her after work. When their shift was over, Janet climbed into Teresa's car and they set off.

They cruised around various oceanfront towns. As Janet enjoyed the picturesque views of the Atlantic, Teresa tried to follow through with the plan. But in the end, she couldn't do it. Teresa drove Janet home and called Beganwald. Based on what we know about Beaconwald's emotional volatility and his desire to mold Teresa in his image, he probably didn't take the news well.

But Teresa still feels. felt relieved. When she returned to the apartment, she crawled into bed and went to sleep, trying to block out everything that had happened. Beganwald, on the other hand, fumed. He worked himself into a frenzy in anticipation of the kill, the way he always did. And now, that pent-up energy had nowhere to go. Beganwald earned his nickname the Jersey Shore thrill killer from a state prosecutor because he seemed to kill for kicks. Per the influential 1998 classification system proposed by serial killer researchers Homes and Homes, a thrill killer is motivated primarily by the excitement of killing itself.

He wanted to share that feeling with Teresa, but instead he was alone again. Soon enough, his simmering anger faded, leaving room for a new idea. If Teresa couldn't follow through with their scheme on her own, he'd have to give her a little push. Meanwhile, 80 miles west, 18-year-old Anna Alessowitz set out on a beach trip, from her hometown of Camden, New Jersey. She and a friend, Denise Hunter, drove for about an hour and a half

to get to the Jersey shore. When they arrived, they couldn't wait to see the ocean. They headed straight for the Asbury Park Boardwalk, a buzzy oceanfront area with plenty of restaurants. There, the two girls sat on a bench and enjoyed the fresh air after their long drive, listening to music from a bar nearby.

They didn't see Beganwald watching. It was a balmy Friday evening at the height of summer, and people packed the boardwalk. He blended right in. After it got dark, Denise went to the bathroom, leaving Anna alone on the bench. When Denise returned, Anna was gone. She was with Beganwald, driving back to his apartment,

which was just a couple of minutes away. We don't know what he said to convince her to leave the beach. Once they arrived at the complex, he parked in his driveway and went in, while Anna stayed put. As she waited, Beganwald headed inside and went to Teresa's bedroom, He shook her awake and said he had something to show her.

Half asleep in groggy, Teresa refused to get up. She muttered that she was too tired. But perhaps her intuition told her that whatever he had to show her was not something she wanted to see. Eventually, Beganwald gave up. He was fuming when he left the apartment. After all the time and effort he'd invested into his protege, she was falling at the last hurdle.

Instead of turning that anger towards Teresa, he directed it at Anna. In psychological terms, this is known as displacement, one of many defense mechanisms defined by Sigmund Freud and his daughter. In displacement, a person transfers negative feelings towards one individual onto someone or something else, usually because expressing them towards the true target feels impossible. It's unclear why Begenwald would see Teresa as an unsafe target for his anger,

she was half his age, living in his house, and seemed psychologically dependent on him. It may have been because he saw so much of himself in her. Perhaps at this point he thought of Teresa as an extension of himself. And as violent as he was, it doesn't seem like Beganwald considered hurting her. She was off limits. But Anna wasn't. Beganwald headed back to the car with his gun.

We're not sure how long Beganwald stayed with Anna, or if the two went anywhere besides his house. but if she had any inkling that she was in danger, it came far too late. At some point, Begenwald shot her four times in the head, killing her instantly. Later that night, he dragged her into the garage at his house and wrapped a garbage bag around her head to prevent blood from getting on the floor. He knew he'd have to bury her, just like the others, but not yet. He lay an old mattress in the garage over her body and then went to bed. Back at the boardwalk, Denise served.

for her missing friend. At first, she figured Anna must have gone to a bar. She checked every watering hole she could find to no avail. The girls had been planning to stay at Denise's uncle's house in the nearby town of Neptune, so Denise headed there next. But there was no sign of Anna. Confused and exhausted, Denise decided to go to bed. She figured Anna must have met someone on the boardwalk and gotten distracted. She'd show up sometime in the night. But the next morning, Denise She woke with a sense of mounting dread. The house was quiet. Anna hadn't come home.

And now, in the light of day, she knew something was terribly wrong. Panicking, Denise headed straight to the nearest police station and filed a missing person's report. Just a few miles away, Teresa also woke up anxious. And the feeling only grew when she emerged from her bedroom to find Beganwald waiting in the living room. He said he had something to show her. and this time Teresa followed him. He led her to the garage and lifted the mattress to show her Anna's body. He then ordered her to pick up Anna's legs so that she could see how it felt.

Beganwald told Teresa that he'd brought Anna home so that she could kill her. When she'd refused, he did it himself. Then he crouched down and removed a ring from Anna's hand, which he later gave to Teresa. It's hard to know what exactly Beganwald was going for. here. He seemed equally desperate to control and impress her. The ring was a morbid token of his affection, as if he'd killed Anna just for her. The next day, Beganwald enlisted his friend and neighbor, Darren Fitzgerald to help him dispose of Anna's body. As we discussed in the last episode, Fitzgerald was a prison buddy who shared Beganwald's fascination with death and mayhem.

The pair drove out to a vacant lot behind a Burger King in Ocean Township, about 10 minutes from home, and disposed of Anna's body. Meanwhile, local police began interviewing Anna's friends and family trying to pin down any leads in her disappearance. But they came up empty. Anna seemed to have vanished. Within a few weeks, the trail went cold, leaving Beganwald free to continue his crimes.

Up next, Teresa's guilt pushes her over the edge. 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.

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two-year-old Richard Beganwald continued his domineering relationship with his 22-year-old roommate, Teresa Smith. After murdering Anna Alessowitz, Beganwald showed Teresa the body. He seemed determined to indoctrinate her in the ways of murder. We don't have much insight into Teresa's state of mind at this time, and it may be hard to understand why she stayed in an environment that was clearly unsafe. It's possible she was too terrified to leave. Sure, Beganwald had told her about his past crimes, but seeing Anna's dead body could have been a step too far. It was physical proof that Beganwald could kill with ease. If Teresa made him angry, maybe she'd be next. Things were about to get more chaotic. On a September morning in 1982, Beganwald and his friend

Darren Fitzgerald got a visit at the apartment from 34-year-old William Ward. Ward was a drug dealer they'd done some small deals with in the past. Their latest agreement had apparently gone south because that day Fitzgerald and Ward got into an altercation that turned physical. At some point, the pair smashed through a screen door and ended up wrestling on the front porch. With that, Begenwald decided to take matters into his own hands. He pulled out a handgun with a silencer on it and shot Ward several times in the head in broad daylight. But Beganwald didn't seem panicked. He and possibly Fitzgerald dragged Ward's body into the garage and put him in the trunk of Began

Walt's car. That night he drove to a cemetery in Neptune and buried Ward. It's unclear if Teresa witnessed any of this, but she was certainly aware of the sinister friendship between Beganwald and Fitzgerald. Even with trauma and drug use clouding her judgment, she likely knew she couldn't stay. And in October 1982, five months after moving in with the Beacon Walds, Teresa moved out. Before leaving, she removed the ring that Beganwald had taken from Anna's body. She was repulsed by it and gave it to Diane, though it's unclear if she knew the backstory. After moving out, Teresa tried putting everything behind her. She even started dating someone new, a man named George, but the image of Anna's body weighed on her. Meanwhile, the loss of Teresa,

as both protege and sexual partner, surely left Beganwald with a layer of anger to process. Or perhaps he rationalized it, telling himself that he'd misjudged her, that she wasn't working his time anyway. He didn't seem concerned that Teresa was a witness. She'd seen the body of one of his victims and heard him confess to several more. Maybe he trusted her, or he simply didn't see her as a threat. Either way, a month after she left, he returned to his old routine. One night in November, 17-year-old Betsy Bacon left her house in the wealthy

oceanfront town of Seagert, about seven miles south of Asbury Park. She told her parents she was buying cigarettes and wouldn't be long. walked along Route 17 towards the local market. Somewhere along the way, Betsy walked right into Beganwald's crosshairs. We don't know exactly how she ended up in Beganwald's car. Maybe he offered her a ride or forced her in at gunpoint. But we know he eventually shot her in the head in the cold execution style that had now become his trademark. Afterward, he wrapped a trash bag around her to contain the blood.

Then he drove back to his apartment. The next night, Beganwald, accompanied by his accomplice Fitzgerald, drove Betsy's body out to a remote stretch of land about 10 miles away. They dug a shallow grave and buried her there. Beganwald had generally taken pains to make sure all of his victims were buried in places they'd never be found, but there was one exception. In January 1983, a couple of months after Betsy's murder, two boys made a gruesome discovery in a vacant lot behind a Burger King in Ocean Township. They found a partially clothed skeleton. The story made headlines across the state. Shortly after the body was found,

an Asbury Park cop named Mike Dowling happened to see it in a local paper. Reading the description of the clothes that had been found on the body, Dowling made an immediate connection. He'd been one of the officers investigating Anna Olesowitz's disappearance the previous summer and had been deeply troubled by the lack of leads. Now, five months later, he finally. finally had one.

He called the police department an ocean township, filled them in, and asked them to compare the skeleton with Anna's dental records. His hunch was right. The body was Anna. A few days later, Teresa heard about the discovery of Anna's body. She felt nauseated as she learned more. There was no doubt about it. This was the same young woman whose body she'd seen in Beganwald's garage.

For the past few months, she'd tried to compartmentalize her memories of that day and of her time with Diane and Beganwald, it felt like a bad dream. But with the news of Anna's remains being discovered, all of those repressed emotions flooded back. Overwhelmed, she confessed everything to her new boyfriend, George. As luck would have it, George's ex-wife Bonnie was a probation officer. Bonnie was able to calm the panic-stricken Teresa and convince her there was only one way forward. A week after Anna's body was found, Teresa walked into the Ocean Township Police Department and gave a statement. She told them everything, starting from when she'd first met Diane Beganwald. She then described her relationship with Richard Beganwald. How he'd taught her to shoot and tried

molding her into a killer. She explained how Beganwald made her look at Anna's body, even forcing her to touch it. He also gave her the ring. It was a lot for officers to take in, and Teresa had no hard evidence to back up what she was saying. Yet her fear and earnestness were palpable, and her recollections were detailed and specific enough that the cops couldn't dismiss her. On the basis of Teresa's statement, police headed straight to the Asbury Park apartment complex. There, they arrested not only Beganwald, but Fitzgerald, too. And when they searched the two apartments, they found physical evidence that backed up Teresa's claims, including Anna's ring and the murder weapon.

It was just the beginning. Once he was in custody, Fitzgerald quickly turned on Beganwald. He told the police about the other murders he claimed to know of, Maria Chiallella, Deborah Osborne, William Ward, and Betsy Bacon, and directed them to where the bodies were buried. Acting on his instructions, a team of investigators descended on Sally Beganwald's modest Staten Island home. They dug up the backyard as 68-year-old Sally looked on, bewildered. Eventually, authorities uncovered the skeletal remains of Maria and Deborah.

It took a while for their bodies to be identified, but in the meantime, the existing charges against Beganwald moved quickly. In May 1983, Beaconwald was indicted for killing Anna, along with several other counts involving unlawful possession of firearms and controlled substances. He pleaded not guilty to everything. At his trial, which began that November, Fitzgerald was a star witness for the prosecution, having agreed to testify against Beganwald in exchange for avoiding some charges himself.

Teresa also took the stand. and walked the jury through her relationship with Begenwald, how he tried to persuade her to become a killer and showed off Anna's body like some kind of trophy. The prosecution emphasized the senseless and thrill-seeking nature of Beganwald's crimes. They noted that when he killed, he did it purely because he wanted to see someone die. A jury ultimately found Beganwald guilty on five counts, including Anna's murder. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection, which was later changed.

to life in prison. In a second trial, three months later, he was convicted of killing William Ward and sentenced to life. And in the fall of 1984, a year after his initial trial, he pleaded guilty to the murders of Maria Chialella and Deborah Osborne, and was given two consecutive life sentences without parole for 60 years. Almost a decade after that, he pleaded guilty to Betsy Bacon's murder as well. In the end, Begenwald died from natural causes behind bars in March 2018. having never expressed any remorse for his crimes.

Despite his utter lack of empathy, Beganwald could never shake his reliance on others. From when he was a teenager, he preferred to commit crimes with an accomplice at his side. But just like his victims, he saw them as a means to an end. Maybe because of this, he underestimated both Fitzgerald and Teresa. It seemed unimaginable to Beganwald that either would turn on him. Yet in the end, he got the betrayal. he deserved. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers.

We'll be back next time with another episode. For more information on Beganwald, amongst the many sources we used, we found John O'Rourke's book, The Jersey Shore Thrill Killer Richard Beganwald, extremely helpful in our research. You can find all episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from podcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Stay safe out there. Serial Killers is a Spotify original.

from PARCAST. Our head of programming is Julian Borrow. Our supervising sound designer is Russell Nash, with Nick Johnson as our head of production, and Spencer Howard as our post-production supervisor. Stacey Neemek is our supervising editor, and Derek Jennings is our writing lead. This episode of Cereal Killers was written by Emma Dibdin, edited by Robert Tyler Walker and Kate Murdoch, fact-checked by Kevin Johnson, researched by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood, produced by Bruce Kitovich and sound design by Carrie Murphy. Our hosts are Greg Poulson and me, Vanessa Richardson. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination

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