Morbid - Episode 359: The Club Kid/Party Monster Murder

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

Michael Alig, or you may know him better as Party Monster, was crowned king of the Club Kids back in the late 80’s/early 90’s. You may have heard of the club kids, some famous examples today are Bjork, Amanda Lepore, and Ru Paul. They ruled the streets of Manhattan when the streetlights came on and partied the night away. Michael would throw these elaborate parties with crazy performers, wild themes and loads of drugs but it wouldn’t take long for the Club Kid scene to come crashing down to the ground. By the end two club kids would become murderers and one of their own, Angel Melendez would be the one killed.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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So the next time you have a home project, just Angie that and start getting the most out of your home. Download the free Angie mobile app today or visit Angie.com. That's ANGI.com. Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alaina. And this is morbid. It is.

It's morbid. It is, what's up with you, man? I'm eating a bagel pizza. You should cease to do that. I'm not gonna do it anymore, but I was doing it up until like right now. I mean, I know that. I was like here. I was like here for that. I just spilled an entire fucking thing of what are those called?

They're like, they're kids. Like snacks, they're Annie's organic, like Chexmas mix kind of thing. Okay, I don't know. Chexmas. She said it right. Chexmas. Chexmas.

Yeah, she spilled it all over the ground. So Ruma's gonna have to take a little trip around. Yeah. One of my daily affirmations this morning was that I was capable, but I'm not quite sure how capable I am anymore. You're capable of making a mess. That's why you are.

You know what I'm all specified. I'm also capable of renaming my cat later on. Oh yes. For those of you that follow me on Instagram or if you listen to the Listener Tales episode with Drew last week, you know that we got a new cat and I was so excited because I was getting a little girly. I wasn't going to be out numbered in the house anymore. I was so excited because I was getting a little girly. I wasn't gonna be outnumbered in the house anymore. And I named her Claire or Clio.

Clio. And then all of you were like, oh no, or Clio. And I was like, yeah, exactly. Clio's a boy. Yeah. And I knew it because I was holding her when we first, like a couple days after we got her

and I, I seen the balls, I seen them. And I said, I went out to Drew and I was like, she has balls. Like she's not a girl cat. And he was like, oh, I don't know, like maybe. And then he's like, oh, no, I don't think so. Oh, no. And then we brought her to get her final baby shot today

so that she, well, yeah, you know, so that we thought she could meet her brother, but her brothers, but she, she a boy. Yeah, there was a lot of revelations and that appointment. There was a lot. I've been calling her Keeks, so I'm like, cause like Cleo Keeks, I'm trying to think of a name that I can name him to, that like Keeks still works.

That one I can't help you with. Yeah, I'm brain-ducked. Yeah, I don't know about that. We usually record in the morning, but right now it's the afternoon. Yeah, we've been recording all day, so we took a break to lunch and then we're going back at it and it's an experience to do in the morning, but right now it's the afternoon. Yeah, we've been recording all day, so we took a break to eat lunch, and then we're going back at it,

and it's an experience to do in the afternoon. It is, it feels a little funky. We haven't done a wall. Feels a little funky fresh. Usually the afternoons are for listener tails, because we're punchy as fuck, and listener tails deserve a little punch punch. Truth and a half.

Yeah, but right now we're not, so we'll see how this goes. Yeah. All right, so we're gonna be talking about a pretty infamous case today, which you can tell from the title. We're going to be talking about the Club Kid Murder, which is also known as the Party Monster Murder.

Yes, yes. I worked in Hollywood video when that was out on video. Oh, did you really? Yeah. Macaulay Cokin, whatever. I remember seeing it in the video, that was out on video. Oh, did you really? Yeah. Macauley-Coken, I remember seeing it in the video like on the new release thing. So I just like want to start this off by saying that the 80s were fucking insane.

Wow. Wild time. What was Gen X doing? What were you guys doing? And Elder Millennials at that point. Like what are you guys doing? I was just being five. That's allowed.

That's allowed. I was partying or anything. It's like the amount of just talk show clips that I watched while I was looking into this case. My jaw was on the ground, infinitely. Like, it's still there. Still there. No, it was crazy.

But honestly, before we get fully into this, I do just want to give a trigger warning for this episode. Drugs are a very, very prevalent part in this case. So if you don't wanna listen to that or maybe you don't, your child told us into that, like let's not do that. Let's not do that together, guys.

Let's not, and here's your mind. Cause there's gonna be a lot of mention in that department. So for those who don't know all about the club scene, club kid scene, I want you to picture it, not Sicily, but New York City. And we're talking like late 80s, early 90s era. And this is what people referred to as like

an underground culture. A club kid could really be anybody. Because in the beginning, it just seemed to be a lot more about self-expression and art and acceptance. And it had a little less emphasis on the drug side of things. Honestly, it was almost like one big society of its own. There was no need to stay if you were gay or trans or straight. Everybody just accepted each other for who they were,

especially in a sexuality or gender identity regard. Cool. And club kids dressed completely against the norm back then. And really every outfit was more of a costume than an outfit. I love that. Very drag. Yeah. One of the more famous club kids, James St. James, would later say that fashion was, that the fashion back then, like for the club kids was part drag, part clown, part infantilism. Whoa, all right. Oh yeah, because it was kind of like the rave thing with like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the They didn't want to be part of normal society, and that's exactly why they were all about nightlife. Yeah. And they were- I love the nightlife.

Yeah. It's so weird. Oh, yeah. I figured one of these nightclubs that were all around town. Maybe I did. Oh, did you? I know. I was five.

I was rolling. He was rolling the rollin' through. Rolling with the homies. Yeah, there was all kinds of nightclubs. They'd put on different events. People would dress up for them. And because there were a ton of celebrities coming to the New York area, like right at this point in time, or at least not really in the areas where the club

keen clit, the club kings and queens. That's what I meant to say. The celebrities weren't really coming to the area where the club kids were, where the club kids seen was super prevalent. Yeah. So because of that, it was really people within the community who were viewed as celebrities. They were actually called Celebuteons. Celebuteons. And from everything I've read and watched, they kind of were like influencers, like of today. Like before influencers, were influencers. Yeah, but in a way less mean stream way. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. You know what I mean?

So the club kids, they would come out and whatever they wanted to wear, they would meet up with each other and they would dance the night away. Which of course is where a lot of the drug use came in. In the beginning, like the club kids who partook were doing cocaine and then ecstasy became a thing and then ketamine, or you might know it as special K. If you don't know what that is, it's actually an animal tranquilizer that causes humans to have hallucinations often referred to as K-holes. Oh, my.

Yep, that became prevalent, and Rohipna, which is a muscle relaxant, which I actually used to treat insomnia. Yeah. But it has different effects, I think, if you're drinking with it, and if you take it in large amounts. And then eventually heroin really overtook so much of the scene. It's like actually really devastating. Wow.

Now because these kids were so against the grain of mainstream society, they became a staple piece of counterculture at the time. And they were invited on all kinds of talk shows, you know the talk shows of the time. Oh yeah. Dharaldo, the Joan River show, all those ones. Sally Jessie Raphael. Oh, the glasses. And all the biggest publications and tablets of the time were writing stories on them,

because everybody was just like, what the fuck are these kids? Yeah, I'm just fascinated. Yeah. And in the 80s, I feel like, Satanic panic was going on. Oh yeah. And if you were different, it was like, oh my god,

you must more ship the devil. Exactly. It's the human zoo kind of thing where it's like, oh, let's look at this thing and not actually get to know it. That's okay. I was really pretty. Let's look at it. Yeah, I was watching old clips of heraldone.

I was just like, oh wow, these people were like really just, like exactly what you said, just like displayed like zoom in the walls. So let's look at this funny looking thing. Right, interesting. It's like, why don't you learn more about their culture and like who they are as people?

Try to appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't expect her all over the room too, but, you know, nah. Yeah. That's a hard, not a big hit. That's a hard, not a good idea. That's a hard, not. So some people use the scene and what they learned

from the culture of it to go on and gain crazy success in the entertainment industry. Bjork, is that how you say that? Bjork, Bjork, Bjork. Nid. I'm sorry, I'm young, okay. James St. James is one. James St. James is one and the biggest of all I would say is RuPaul.

I was just gonna say a little person we know named RuPaul. RuPaul. So other people like Michael Allig took the culture part for granted and focused a lot more on the drugs and the infinite party of it all. And that is a name that becomes infamous in the club kid scene. But before he became a club kid, a Celebutante, and then eventually a murderer, he was simply just a kid from Indiana. So Michael had been born in South Bend, Indiana, which I'm pretty sure South Bend is like featured in

Mean Girls, isn't it? I was it? At the end, I swear she says like Aaron went to South Bend, or like, is it? it's in a movie somewhere Well, I definitely have heard of South Bend Indiana and some like movies for sure Yeah, definitely and I'm sure this one that I'm missing that I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's where it's from exactly So he was born in South Bend Indiana on April 29th 66 he was the youngest and had an older brother named David. And while David and Michael were growing up, especially when they were younger, things weren't so great between their

parents. And eventually their parents got divorced. And Michael was about four at this time. Now, I'm not sure about his father, but Michael and his mom were always super, super, super close. They had a very strong connection with one another. And Michael by all accounts of when he was growing up was a really good kid throughout his early years and even in high school. And high school was tough for him. He was bullied for being gay,

even though he wasn't actually out yet. And people were always criticizing him and the way he dressed, like they were terrible to him. Because, you know, I didn't understand him. And no one wants to get to know or understand those kind of people. Exactly. And the thing about Michael is, he always loved fashion.

And even his mom said he was actually ahead of most of the trends. And that was the reason he was made fun of so much. Because these people just didn't realize what was cool yet. I was gonna say they just didn't understand it. And then eventually they'd be wearing all the same shit that they made fun of him for in like a couple of years. Usually how it goes.

Yup. So the people, like I was, you just said it perfectly. The people he was around in high school just didn't get him. And honestly, he probably didn't get them, probably not. But either way, Michael is a straight A student. And he did so well that when he graduated in 1984, he was in the top eight percent of his class.

Wow. I didn't move though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now a word from our sponsor, BetterHelp. I feel like when you're kind of stuck in a rut, a lot of times you keep focusing on everything

that's going wrong. And I'm guilty of it. Like, I don't want to get too personal here, but there's plenty of times in my life that I'm like, oh, just down in the dumps and stuck on focusing on everything that's going wrong in the world. And I'm not focusing on the good things,

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And now I kind of know when I get into that self-sabotage mode, what I can do, what tools are in my box to get past that. I've gone through periods of anxiety before and obviously you're going to go through that all the time, but if you have the tools to better manage it, it's just going to be so much easier. So if you're thinking of giving therapy a try, better help is a great option. It's convenient, accessible, affordable, and it's entirely online. Get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey and switch therapists any time. When you want to be a better

problem-solver, therapy can help you get there. Visit betterhelp.com slash morbid today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterheelpe.com slash morbid. What if you were trafficked into a cult over shot nine times or fell in love with a vampire or went into a minor surgery and woke up one week later paralyzed. What would you do? I'm Whit Missaldine, the creator of this is actually happening, a podcast from Wondry that brings you extraordinary true stories of life changing events told by the people who lived them. From a young man that dunes his entire future with one choice, to a woman who survived a notorious serial killer, you'll hear their first person account of how they overcame

remarkable circumstances. Each episode is an exploration of the human spirit and personal discovery. These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you this is actually happening. Follow this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen, add free on the Amazon Music or Wunderly app. After high school, he went straight to New York City to attend Ford University. He ended up transferring to FIT, a.k. the Fashion Institute Technology.

And while he was at FIT, he became friendly with a very famous artist's boyfriend. I will give you a guess. New York City, mid-80s famous artist. Very big in gay culture. I've literally put my brain in that. It was a lot of pressure to put it in. I'm not kidding you.

I can't think of any name in the world right now. Like I can't, Doug, there's a name, but I literally, keep hearing. Oh! I knew as soon as I, I shouldn't have put the pressure on you. God, pressure makes people's mind go blue. Yeah, I'm not kidding you. I didn't know a name.

No, I don't believe it. And it wasn't a name that you needed. I was like, I forgot what a name was. You didn't even know a name. I was like, yeah, I'm not kidding you. I didn't know a name No, I don't play and it wasn't a name like that you needed it was like I forgot what a name was You didn't even have a moment. I was like name. What is that a girl has no name? I thought of Doug. I don't know why Doug funny sure. All right. Why not? Well, he's herring so yeah Michael needs Keith herring's boyfriend Unnamed I'm not sure who it was who was was that man? Who was that man? And the boyfriend at the time was really big into the New York City Nightlife, which he introduced Michael to. And instantly Michael found his home. He loved the club kid scene and it really hadn't even technically became the club kid scene yet. He sort of kind of made it that. Ooh. But he found out that this was his passion, like, party eggs. Pretty much it.

This is my passion. Passion. But it's like, party-ing, and I will, like, it is fashion of it. It's art of it. The expression of it all. Yeah, exactly. I guess that. So he dropped out of school, and he started working

at one of the clubs, Dance Teria, Bussing Tables. OK. It was there that Michael was really able to get the inside scoop on Nightlife. It was almost like he was studying the interactions of every little aspect that went into it all. The people waiting outside, the people inside, what they were wearing, what people came out for, which parties were the best,

what music people responded to the most, all of it. He's like a club anthropologist, kind of. And once people took notice that this was something Michael actually seemed to be pretty good at, it really didn't take long for him to become a promoter. Oh boy, we've all known a promoter. What do you have a personal story or something? I don't want to. You know who you are.

And then of course, because he was kind of hosting these parties in a way, What do you have a personal story or something? No, I don't want to. I don't want to. You know who you are. And then of course, because he was kind of hosting these parties in a way. His friends would come to the clubs that he was working at. They would all get ready in the super-labor costumes. And over time, they came up with their own look or look from all the youths out there. And before long, they became known officially

as the club kids. Amazing. And Michael long, they became known officially as the club kids. Amazing. And Michael had his own specific posse by this time. And especially by the time he started working at Peter Gations Club, the limelight. He and his friends were becoming more and more known among the community. And Michael specifically became pretty much a celebrity

aunt. He became especially more well-known right after Andy Warhol died, actually. You know, Andy Warhol was the only name that I was thinking of. Really? That's the only name that did pop into my head, and I was like, now.

I would have said, it's gonna come back later. Here we are. Here we are. Because when Andy Warhol died, Michael was later credited with revitalizing the downtown scene because Warhol died in 87, and that was kind of right as Michael was stepping his foot in the door Yeah, and many people felt like Warhol's passing was Michael's big break Wow, which is like one stepped out the other stepped in yeah, honestly exactly

So weird way of looking at Andy Warhol's death, but yeah, it's what happened So he and his group of friends were people that others would want to spot while they were out at night and Every single one of these ones had their every single one of these ones had their, every single one of these people had their own persona. There was Jenny Talia, Walt Pepper, Robert Freeze Riggs, Ernie Glam, who's still pretty famous today, Amanda Lapor, who's also very famous, and so many more. Wow. And I didn't intend for that to rhyme. I actually wrote Amanda Lapor and so many more. Wow. And I didn't intend for that to rhyme. I actually wrote, I wrote Amanda LaPore and so many more. But it sounds great and I didn't mean to mention that. You're poet and you don't know it.

So before long, Michael is throwing parties at every single one of Peter Gations clubs. And those were like the hot and happening clubs back then. Hell yeah. And then he started organizing his own separate events that became known as Outlaw Parties. Oh, these sounds fun. Like an Outlaw party?

They were fun. Yeah, that sounds great. I can guarantee you that if I was alive at this point in time, I would have gone to one of these parties because everybody went to one of these parties, even people that weren't club kids, even people that made fun of the scene wanted to be at these parties. Everybody who was anybody was at these parties. Honestly. You know what I've realized?

Just coming off of like, I'm not going on a tangent to where even if you aren't. Coming off of like Gerard Schaefer. Now we were like, oh, like, you would have been hitchhiking in the 70s, Ash, and we're like, you know, you would have been jumping on a bus for a cult in the 70s, Ash. Then we're like, in this situation,

you'd be going to these parties, Ash, I'm like, man, I would have died. I'm glad you were born when you were. That's true, because even so, I did some damage to the fucking brain. Damn. Yeah, I know. I know.

It really is. I was born right in the right time. You were Hannah Ramicks. A bit of a remix. A Panifuckin' Ramicks. I'm like, this is cool. Great time to be alive. So during a panini, during a pee.

I can't get it. See, it's the afternoon. We can't think of words anymore. During a poloosa. There you go. So he would hold these parties. They were called outlaw parties because he'd hold them at completely random locations.

And 10 out of 10 times the cops would show up. Because he would hold these parties at places like McDonald's and Times Square. Burger King. Wow. There's footage of a bunch of these two. And I've actually been to the McDonald's and Times Square so I kind of went.

I kind of went to one of these co-op parties. I know went to one of them. And I'm not saying that because I wanted to hang out with Michael, I didn't. I just want to hang out with the other club kids. Yeah. There was one at Duncan Donuts, and there was a massive one in one of the subway stations.

Ooh, this is my worst nightmare because as the subcars would pass, dozens of party goers would hop on and start partying inside the train. That's a nightmare to me. I actually wrote TBH, that is exactly what commuters nightmares are made of. Leave me alone on the tea, don't cause a ruckus,

those are my train rules. Yeah, see, that's why the tea is different from the subway in New York. So different. Like, it would not fly. Do you remember the first time I took on T.A. me on the tea? Oh my God.

Are you listening? I'm listening. This story is told with love. She had, she had just gotten shoulder surgery. She had this like massive pass. And surgery and she had this massive past. And she was so pissed because nobody would let her sit. And I was like, Amy, welcome to boss.

We're on the tea, like unless you're pregnant or elderly and even then somebody might go, I'm giving up there, see? It's so funny. It's the tea. And that's the tea. But anyways, this is the sum.

So they literally were like going ham in the subway. Ooh, the look of it. As soon as everybody hopped onto the train and started partying, I would have lost my mind. Cardiac arrest. Literally. So once Michael got a good bunch of outlaw parties under his belt, he was actually able to convince Peter Gation to give him one night a week

at the limelight to throw his own party, A la James Kennedy see you next Tuesday events at Sir. Oh my god. Do jojo, James Kennedy. Oh, Tunis! It's not about the pasta. It was about the pasta. And the pasta is not pasta.

It's very much about the pasta. This pasta could be found at this party. Yeah, definitely. Of course. People that don't watch Bravara. I was just going to say, much about the past. The pasta could be found at this party. Yeah, definitely parties. People that don't watch Braver. I was just going to say, I'm fucking weird. Where are vendor pump rules heads at? So yeah, he convinced Peter. He was like, I just want one night a week to throw my own party. Like, can I do it? I'm so good at it. And Peter was like, yeah, you're really fucking good at

throwing parties. He has it, like at this point, Michael has a following of people because he's basically a celebrity in this world. I just hope that it's like, I'm really good at throwing parties. I know. What a skill. All right. I mean, posting. Yeah. So, and Peter obviously knows that he has a following. Well, that he is going to bring revenue into the club. Yeah, of course. So, Peter's like, sure, how about it. Now, the main theme around Michael's parties was really just about pushing boundaries. I just wanna give it trigger warning, like if you didn't heed my first warning, you don't wanna listen to this next part with your kids.

Oh boy. So, or like anybody, really? Listen to it with no one. Yeah, don't even listen to it with your own thoughts. Just leave the room. Leave your own thoughts. Keep this playing, have to talk. Any boundary that you could possibly think of, Michael most certainly pushed it.

There were comfortable already. You should be. I don't even like I was thinking about telling you this. Oh no. There were all kinds of wild themes. Some of the ones that are talked about now especially because of everything that happened are the blood-feast parties. Michael was super super into horror and I only say that because I think it inspired a lot of his

parties. I don't know if it inspired what he does later. I don't think it did. I'm not going to blame horror for that. No, for sure. It definitely inspired his fashion and the parties he threw. Okay. Loved the movie Blood Feast, and his inspiration behind these particular parties was that movie. So the flyer's something weird, not to interpret it. Did you just arch it? No, this is even weirder, Gerard Schaefer,

said one of his favorite movies was Blood Feast, and that he was inspired to write because of Blood Feast. Whoa! That's a wild, wild thing. That is insane, actually. In fact, let me make that these two cases are back to back, and we didn wild, wild thing. That is insane, actually. In fact, the fact that these two cases are back to back and we didn't even realize that.

I know, that's weird. That happens a lot to us. That's really weird. I should have said in the beginning what I watched and what I read for this. So I watched a party monster documentary of Michael Allig. It's on YouTube, I'll link it. I watched an old A&E episode of American Justice, which was a fucking trip.

Season 9 episode 10. Very factual based on my fact checking. Oh nice. And I read a vise article that I'll link with James A. James. Cool. Among like a ton of other stuff. But they kept showing, I the reason I say that is because they kept showing scenes of blood fees. Yeah. And I was like, I could never watch that movie. I could never. I could never ever watch that movie. I just hate when people use it as like, yeah, blood feasts. It inspired me to do. It's like, shut up. It's a fucking movie.

You're just the worst. No, it's not. But the flyers that they would hand out had Michael on the cover basically dismembered wearing a shirt that red legs cut off. And there were hammers and knives all along the bloody backdrop. Very haunting when you find out later what exactly Michael was capable of. But at the time, that was just what this scene was about, all about pushing boundaries, like I said. So nobody

thought too much about it. They were just like, wow, Michael's fucking crazy. Yeah. Now as he lived out his days as king of the club Kids, Michael started testing more and more limits and acting out more and more. It was really, to me, I feel like he was trying to see what he could get away with. Yeah, how far he could push the envelope. He would have all kinds of wild acts on stage. They would come to these parties

and they would put on shows. There were people performing champagne enemas. All right. Somebody who became known as the P drinker, I don't really wanna get further into that. I think you can paint your own picture. I was gonna say, I don't really think you need to get into that. I think we can all, a picture has been painted for all of us.

Yeah, a very interesting picture. Very vivid picture. But it wasn't just the acts that he was booking and the themes of the parties that would become the main concern. Michael himself became the main concern. Because while they couldn't see it at the time, a lot of club kids now look back on their memories with him,

and it's very evident when things started going downhill, and it really was when he reached that kind of pinnacle point in his career where he was like right at the top. Ugh, and the people who came out to his events, fucking worshiped him. And over time, you're being told that everything about you is amazing. Everything you do is incredible.

You're wonderful. You can't do anything wrong. That's gonna go to your head. Of course it is. Especially when you're young. And your sense of reality is gonna be warped. And yeah. And you're like nocturnal at this point.

Yeah. Your circadian rhythm is all off. It is. It's no good. And that's what happened to Michael. He got to the point where he felt like he could do anything and people would still love him. And later we'll find out how true that actually really was. But just a couple examples before we get there.

He once handed somebody a bottle of yellow gatorade and told them to drink it. And when the person did, Michael and all his friends started laughing. And the person who took a swig realized that they just drank Michael's pee. Yeah, I saw that one happening. He did that on multiple occasions. That's really disgusting.

Yeah, and that's so violating, and that's really dangerous, and that's fucked up. It's very dangerous, and you know it's even more dangerous. Having people drink vomit. Ew! There was a, in the documentary that I'll link, this one kid literally shares that he drank vomit. Unknowingly.

What the, how do you, first of all, how do you unknowingly drink vomit? I'm gonna be mixed into something and the clubs are dark. Ew. Yep. And then this is specifically fucked up because this just goes to show me that's Michael was bound to to escalate at some point to the level that he did like I'm sorry that even that kind of shit

That's fucked up That's really fucked up and violating and if you're if you're capable of that then you're capable of something's wrong here Yeah, like something bad is gonna happen here and in my opinion. This is the worst one Oh god of these three examples. There was a time that he was standing on a balcony over one of the bars in the night club, and he literally started peeing onto the bar tender below him. And she was a young girl, like a young woman. Oh my God! Just peed on her.

And this tells you how fucked up this is if this is the truth. One of his friends, at the time who was there, shared that the girl was obviously so upset that she ran to the management to tell them that she'd just been pissed on, and she got fired for going against Michael. Are you kidding me? I don't know how true that is.

I don't know if it's like he was so legendary that she got fired, but either way. And he definitely pissed on people. Like, she was not the only person. Like, go ahead. Now, something that people said a lot. What a fucking animal, that's disgusting. My face is turning red, just talking about it

because it's so disgusting and like embarrassed. It's so foul. That's just so foul. You just don't do that. And it's the ill. It's just like, what is wrong with you? Now, Michael Mousseau, who was a fellow club kid, but also a columnist for the village voice,

said that he felt like the bad behavior that Michael started displaying, started off as performance, and like a shock value kind of thing, but over time he said it definitely moved on to actual bad behavior. And of course, when Michael started using drugs, it only added fuel to the fire.

Yeah. So the parties that Michael and using drugs, it only added fuel to the fire. So the parties that Michael and his close friends were throwing and going to were always loaded with drugs. You could ask around and find whatever it was you were looking for and a whole hell of a lot more. Whole hell of a lot more, yeah. Yeah, you got it. The kidding.

Michael, weirdly enough, not weird that he was against it, but weird when he used to see where his life goes. He was actually very against drugs, and really things like didn't wanna touch them. But I think it was like he wanted to focus on like the creative aspect of things, but something changed one day. I read in a couple sources that he had a fight

with someone he was seeing at the time, and despite them, he tried drugs for the first time that night. Okay. It's unclear what exactly he started with, I'm not sure, but in a very short period of time, he became addicted to almost every drug you could possibly imagine and was taking some of them all at the same time. Oh. There were times that he'd be doing ecstasy, ketamine, heroin, coke, all in the same night. How do your insights not just explode? Or just like leave out of your nose? And I feel like these people, they do have it down to a science because when the coke

starts, or when the heroin starts chilling you out too much, people will do a bump of coke and come like skyrocketing off of that. And you're like, that must be so bad for you. I mean, it is so bad for your body. I was gonna say, and it's just you better have that down to that hairline which you're never where, which there's gonna be a time where you fall over either side and you fuck it up. Something really bad happens.

It's just like that is, I don't get it personally, but no, I mean do you be smart be safe But like I don't for me and just know that it's not worth dying over no for sure Yeah, whatever he could get his hands on he would do and then once he started becoming so addicted to pretty much like everything Wow, he started supplying parties with drugs making sure sure that they were there, just like free reign. People performing, he said, would rather be paid in drugs than money, or then drink free all night. Instead of like a free drink for performing, they wanted drugs. Wow. Instead of an actual check, they wanted drugs. And Michael had literally everything at his fingertips, which meant that so did everybody else, because he did. So in order to support his own addiction and in order to get everything he felt he needed at these parties, there were definitely a lot of drug dealers that he was connected to.

And one of the main ones was a fellow club kid, Andre, better known as Angel Melendez. Unfortunately, there's really limited information about Angel's life, which really makes me sad, but I was able to find a bit. He and his brother, Johnny, immigrated to the US from Columbia. Some sources say that it was just the two of them and make it seem like they were older when they came here. But others say that they were younger and kind of make it seem like they came with their family. But either way, Johnny and Angel, they were brothers and they were really close and they stuck by each other's side and they always kept tabs on one another. Okay.

What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candace DeLong and on my podcast Killer Psychie Daily, which you can find exclusively on Amazon Music, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds you read about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent, and a criminal profiler.

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[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Now, Angel was more involved in the club kid scene, and it was well known that he sold drugs. So Johnny kind of seemed to be a bit of a protector for his brother. Now, Johnny kind of seemed to be a bit of a protector for his brother. Now, Angel was always able to be spotted because he was also known to wear these gigantic, like six foot wings when he went out. I just saw a picture of that when I looked it up. Massive. Yeah. And actually, you can look up clips of like the heraldos show, just like be warned that whoa, it's going to be a lot when you start watching the subject matter

and how he handles things. But you can actually see Angel display his outfit and kinda walk the cat walk a little. It's amazing. So no matter what he was wearing out to the club, there was always a set of wings to go along with every fit hence the name Angel. Oh, okay, that makes sense. Now Angel and Michael became connected

through the club kid scene, and eventually Angel did become one of Michael's dealers. But what makes me sad is that there's a lot of people, like if you start looking into this case, you're gonna run into this. A lot of people said that Angel wasn't part of the scene and that he was a poser. What?

But it's like, this scene is supposed to be for everyone who feels like they're not part of something in every day's society. Yeah. So then it is for everyone. So like how, yeah. Like this is kind of like drag and drag is for everyone. Exactly. Like why you like you can't like kick people out of the scene because they're not what you want them to be. And what do you mean he's a poser? Yeah. They were like he didn't start with us so like he didn't get it. And it's like no he came to like the early parties

and everything. Yeah. They're screwed on it. Oh, that's sad. And just like, how dare you? Like, just be nice. Oh, man, like the whole thing is to not exclude people out of these things. And then it's like, you're immediately excluding people. But every club becomes exclusive at some point, it's true. So, and the thing is, it's like, he's good enough

to come to your parties and supply you with drugs, but you can't carry the title of a club kid. Okay, come on. And I know if it's so important. Yeah. And the other thing that is really sad is that it's said that Angel actually really adored Michael when they first met. And when they were first kind of hanging out together.

James St. James, who I mentioned before, was a huge part of Michael's club scene. And he would go on to write the book, Disco Blood Bath, a fabulous but true tale of murder and clubland. Haven't read it. Haven't read just, Just want to put that out there, but he did write it. And he said in this book that Angel not only adored Michael, but he would quote, let him get away with things that no other drug dealer would have. Hmm. Basically what he was trying to say is that Michael owed angel money. Yeah. All the time. That makes sense. All the time. There were rumors later that Michael

had stolen about $2,000 for Angel while they were staying together. My God. And he would still a lot more later on. Geez. Now, this is the part in the story that gets one incredibly brutal, but two, a little hazy because it's reported on so differently in varying sources. And because everybody's memory is kind of clouded by drugs and lack of sleep at this point, it's a little hard. But we're gonna do our best. So it was March 17th, 1996, and Angel shows up to Michael's apartment,

saying either that Peter Gaysian owed him money, member of Peter from the beginning, Club, yes, or Michael owed him money. To me, it makes more sense that he was talking about Peter. Now, there are also some sources that say Michael and Angel were roommates at this point with some other people from the clubs. I'm not sure if they were like official roommates

or if it was more of a situation where they were kind of like, these people were always crashing with one another. And later, we will hear that Angel had no official address. So it's very possible he was staying with Michael at this time as a roommate. But anyway Somehow Michael convinced angel that they needed to wait to get his money because everybody was still coming down from the night before It was about 9 a.m. at this point and nobody had even been asleep yet. Wow. Yeah, that stresses me out

I heard that I was like whoa and like I thought I was fun and I've never done that. I thought that was fun I I heard that I felt like, whoa. Like, I thought I was fun and I've never done that. I thought that was fun. I never thought I was fun. I think you're fun. I'm just kidding. So Michael apparently said, let's get some sleep and we'll go get your money once we've come down a bit. So the fight may have started here with Angel

not wanting to wait to get his money, which I don't blame him, you know? Or there's another variation of the story where Angel agreed to sleeping off a bit, or sleeping off a bit of the previous night and then heading out, but then Michael's boyfriend had just taken heroin and he started O.D.ing. Like this is a version of the story that Michael recalls at some point when he's in prison. Oh, okay. He gets convicted.

Spoiler alert. So Michael, who knew drugs and all their different possible effects very well, kind of like what I was talking about earlier. He started begging Angel to please give him some cocaine because the rush of the cocaine He felt would basically jump start his boyfriend's heart since the heroin had slowed it so much. My goodness everyone If you've ever watched euphoria, that's what is happening and that scene when Rue is in the laundry room And I actually just I realized it when I watched this or when I was researching this case, so I wanted to tell you. There you go. Um, by the way, I'm by no means saying that this is what you should do in this situation, or if that would even happen in the case of somebody Odeeing,

I don't cocaine is not going to save them every time. If someone is Odeeing, don't do some cocaine about it. I said, I don't do that. Yeah. Or anyone you're with, ever is in this situation. You call 911 immediately. Like, don't do more drugs to try to fix it. You are not like going to, yeah, no. It could get worse. Yeah, it most likely will. It's like, I just love you guys, so I have to do that.

I just love you guys. I don't want you to do something bad to happen. I don't. So Angel refused to give Michael any more drugs, he said, because he was like literally the entire reason why I'm here is because you owe me so much money. Like your boss owes me so much money, and either way, you still owe me so much money, so like, no.

And this is when Robert Riggs, somebody I mentioned in the beginning, also known as Freeze, got involved. Freeze was also staying with Michael, and he was a fellow club kid. He was also a hat designer at one point in time. Look at that. But he gets involved and starts yelling at Angel and he's like, you have to help. So the two of them start fighting Angel and Freeze. Now while they're yelling at each other, Michael says that Angel was distracted enough for him to grab some cocaine out of his stash, which does lead me to believe that Angel was staying there, if his stash was there. And he got his

boyfriend situated. Now when he came back, the argument was still going on, and Michael said that Angel grabbed him at this point and slammed him into a glass cabinet, like holding him by his neck. And later on, people would remember a two-inch deep gash on the back of Michael's neck. So this might be true. I feel like it probably is. A struggle ensued while they were fighting and Michael yelled for frees to come and help him. So frees came out behind Angel with a hammer and he hit him in the head three times and Michael recalls this later and says that he tapped, tapped, tapped him on the head.

Like makes it seem like it was just like beep, boop, boop, boop. And I don't think that's what happened. It's not what happened. Freeze used not the side of the hammer that you would use to like bang a nail into the wall. Use the claw side, the claw side. Yeah. To hit Angel in the head three times. And like I said, Michael said that freeze didn't hit Angel that hard.

A medical examiner would later disagree. Michael said that once angel had been hit in the head, that he, Michael, grabbed either a pillow or a sweatshirt. He and freeze had different memories. And he said he couldn't remember because he was so high at this point. And he started pushing angel's face away with this pillow or this sweatshirt, this, whatever. Yeah. And as he was pushing his face away, Angel fell to the, fell to the ground because he's being smothered.

He's suffocating. Yeah. And he's also just been blunt, forced, trapped in the head. So at that point, he falls to the ground. Michael gets on top of Angel and starts strangling him. Now, Angel is most certainly either dead or dying at this point, but it didn't end there. Once angel became truly unresponsive, Michael grabbed a bottle of drain-o

and poured it down angel's mouth and then duct taped his mouth shut. That is so beyond fucked up. Like, why did you need to do that? That is so overkill and so outrageously. Just fucked up like fuck. What made him think that to do that? I have no idea.

And to duct tape his mouth shut out, like, so like no matter what, he's even if he vomits that out, it's just he's just gonna choke on his own vomit. Like, drain, exactly. My God. And that photo, like promoting those blood feast parties,

he's holding a hammer. Mm-hmm. And he's like hitting someone on the head with it. Yeah. There's more on that later. Oh, just wait. Okay. He would later claim that this was because

he was worried about the body smelling. That's why he poured Dreno down angels throat. Literally not one part of that makes sense. No, like there's nothing about this. Literally not this makes sense. A shred of that that you could even pretend to make sense. No, that's the dumbest shit I have ever heard in my life. No, come up that it, wow, wow.

That's stupidity. It is. This whole, it gets, it, oh yeah. That it wow wow that's stupidity it is this whole It gets it boy Yeah, some sources claim that the Draenow was injected into angels veins But I read more often than not that that was not the case. It was poured into his mouth. He He and Freeze loaded the bathtub with ice they stripped angel down to his underwear and they placed angel's body into their bathtub Close the door behind them and Angel's body into their bathtub, closed the door behind them

and left the body in their bathroom for days. Days. Neither of them was quite sure how many days he was in there. My God. Angel was 25 years old. Oh, 25 years old. So in the days following the murder, Michael and Fris contemplated what they should do to cover up this whole thing.

Michael said there was a point in time where they thought they should call the police and explain that Angel was killed in self-defense. Oh, okay. I'm not exactly sure how you guys thought that was gonna work because you poured drain-o down his throat and nothing about that scream self-defense.

And it duct taped his mouth shut and then stripped his body and put it on ice. Yeah. Well, part of that was involved in self-defense. I just want to know. No. Wow. Got it. No. That makes absolutely zero sense. So when they decided against that,

they decided that there was another option. This would be the best thing to do to get rid of the body and dispose of it. They decided that they were going to dismember the body and dispose of it in the Hudson River. So it sounds like there may have been some back and forth over who was going to be the one to dismember the body. And finally, Michael said that he would, but he would only do it if freeze would give him 10 bags of heroin. I will only dismember our friend's body if you give me 10 bags of heroin. Wow. Oh, and they did not

consider Angel their friend whatsoever. You may not consider them friends and it sounds like he did because he let Michael get away with so much shit but they did not consider Angel a friend. That's really sad. Now the thought behind it, I guess, was that Michael would be so messed up on heroin that it would make it easier to do so. So Frieza Greed, he gave Michael the 10 Bags of Heroin, and Michael went into the bathroom and proceeded to dismember Angel's body.

Wow. Much like in the movie Blood Feast, and on the flyer that was handed out for an earlier birthday bash for Michael, Angels legs were removed. In that picture that you were just talking about on the flyer, his shirt says, Legs cut off. Oh, yeah, it does. And that's... It's a little hairy if you ask me. It's claimed that that happened before Angel's death, but I don't know. I don't think so. Wow.

I feel like it happened after, because that's just way too on the nose. There's like a hammer laying on the ground in front of him. Oh yeah. He's dismembered on it and his shirt says legs cut off. Yeah. There are no cool places in his head that has been like bashed open with a hammer.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I don't even know what to say about that. Once Angel's legs were removed, they were placed into two separate garbage bags that were either thrown in the garbage or later thrown in the Hudson,

depending on your source. And the upper portion of the body was placed in a box that many people claim was left in Michael and freezes living room for days. What is wrong with these people? And I guess the reason why it didn't start smelling was because it was like a cork-clined box. Some people even claimed that Michael would make jokes about Angel while people were sitting next to that box and tell them that he was in the

box next to them. Because people were starting to be like, hey, like where is Angel? Yeah. They've seen him around. And if they were at Michael Because people were starting to be like, hey, like where is Angel? Yeah. I've seen him around. And if they were at Michael's house, he'd be like, oh, he's in that box. Oh my God. Yeah, nobody believed him, but they would later find out that Michael was telling them the entire truth.

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and into the water. Stop it. Like, obviously they didn't tell the driver what was actually in the box, but general rule of thumb, don't ever help a stranger throw unknown things into bodies of water that are well-known dumping grounds for all kinds of nefarious things.

Yeah, that's like something you can really hang your hat on, that piece of advice, I think. I really don't think anybody can go against that. I think it works for all of us. I would think so. I think that's solid and wise wisdom that you've just given us all. So thank you.

I bestowed it. Maybe the same for the Charles. It definitely works in Boston too, don't do that. How many bodies wash up every year from the Hudson River and you thought you were just throwing like China dishes over there? It's like, I don't know, you're not doing that. I knew what you were doing and you did it for $20. Yeah, come on.

No amount of money could make me do that. You laugh and you say, absolutely not and I never saw that box. And you get in here. Car and you're horn and you drive away and you peel out of there. And you get in here. Car, you're horned and you drive away. And you peel out of there. And then you call the feds. Yes. So a lot of drug use went down in the days

that followed, even more than usual, which is really saying something. And then Michael actually called his mother. I think she said it was at like 3 a.m. And he was on the phone crying and in a panic. And she said that he was just rambling. She couldn't put anything together. But he was talking the phone crying and in a panic and she said that he was just rambling. Like she couldn't put anything together but he was talking about somebody named Angel.

She said at one point he talked about a murder. He kept saying tiny pieces. Like he was going absolutely nuts on the phone. And his mom knew that her son was using drugs. So she was like, Michael, are you high? And he's like, yeah, yeah. And she's like, call me in the morning. Like, I can't do this right now.

Yeah. She ended the phone call. She brushed off the entire interaction, because unfortunately, this was not the first time that she'd received a rambling call for Michael. So she just left it at that and assumed she was probably hallucinating and like, somewhere else in his mind.

To be clear, I just want to stress this. It really does seem like she tried her best to help Michael with his addiction. So I'm sure that at this point in time, she was probably just exhausted and depressed over the entire situation. Yeah. And I do not think that she thought a real murder occurred. I don't think anybody would ever think that that's what's going on.

You know, like I just want to just stress that because she heard. Oh, she heard all that that like didn't think anything But it's like this poor woman is going through a lot and she's probably heard him say a lot of chaotic things and fucked up things during his journey there So I'm sure she was like, well, this is just another one of those things if you have anybody in your family who was ever struggled with drugs or even a friend You know, yeah, you know that's from time sure you wouldn't always take what they say seriously when they are in that state. Exactly. So Michael and Freeze, they continued on with their lives in the weeks after Angel's murder. In fact, Michael actually furnished his apartment using about $18,000 worth of Angel's money.

Oh my God. Yeah. And had people over to do the rest of Angel's drugs. Wow. Yeah. So when people asked where all this stuff had come from, Michael would either change the subject altogether or sit there jokingly and say that he'd stolen it

from Angel after he killed him. Like he was talking about killing Angel to other people in like immediately after he killed him. Immediately. Because he knew that no one's gonna take you seriously. Everyone's gonna be like, that's fucked up to say. Like, what's wrong with you? Like, I personally, if someone joked about that

in front of me, I'd be like, that, especially now, like knowing what we know about many people in cases and all these situations. I'd be like, that's fucked up and something's wrong here. Don't say that to me. But a lot of people, they make stupid jokes like that around their friends all the time. And like people don't take it seriously.

So it's like, especially like, you know, when you've been like awake all night and like doing drugs and stuff, it's probably not one of those things that you're gonna be like, I bet that's serious. No, exactly. And he's, I mean, usually talking about this at night in the club while they all run drugs. Exactly.

So they're just like, You're just fucking being crazy. Yeah. So then about two weeks after Angel's murder, Michael actually did go and meet with an attorney. I found this out toward the end of my research and I had to go back and put this in and I was like, what the fuck? Like that attorney. I don't know how, like do you just have to like keep things a secret if you're an attorney? I don't know how, like do you just have to like keep things a secret if you're an attorney?

Attorney, client privilege. Is that what that is? Yeah, but even if he doesn't become your client, I don't think that, maybe we should look that up. Let's look it up. We looked it up. We did. It's still a little confusing. Yeah, it's a little confusing. Attorneys at us. Yeah, is it that? From what we read, it appears that just by like meeting and you know attempting to hire this person as an attorney possibly or entertaining the idea that there's some amount of privilege involved like attorney client privilege confidentiality. And it basically said like you can't say that your client's lying unless they're lying under oath. Yeah so maybe that's what it is is there is some kind of confidentiality just by way of tapping on an attorney. And even for a minute. Yeah. But attorneys. Attorneys.

Add us. I mean, Deb Debs in attorney. So Deb Debs, what's that? We should have just asked Carl to. I mean, she's got like many kids now. So like, we don't need to do that. So yeah, so he met with the lawyer like two weeks after he killed Angel. And photos were taken documenting all of his quote-unquote injuries. One was that gash in his neck which was pretty serious and the rest were really just minor scrapes and bumps.

It made it seem like some kind of struggle had ensued, but self-defense was going to be hard to claim here. Yeah. The lawyer advised Michael that he had two options. He could come clean and turn himself in, or he could keep his mouth shut. Uh, Michael really didn't choose either option. He didn't turn himself into the police,

and he most certainly did not keep his big trap shut. Yeah, it didn't feel like he was going to. Which like, I'm glad he didn't, but at the same time, it's wild when you find out how many people knew about Angel's murder and all the specifics and just did nothing to bring it to authorities at all. That's really upsetting.

He was still planning parties in no time, still going to the clubs and telling his closest friends exactly what had happened to Angel. Wow. And some people just thought that this was another one of Michael Stunz. They thought that this was another one of Michael Stunz. They thought that he was pulling one over on them for one reason or another trying to convince them

that he and Freeze had killed Angel, but people were like, maybe he just paid him to disappear for a little bit and he's gonna come back and it's gonna be like, it'll lead to like this big party or something. Yeah, like it's a this big elaborate point of prank. He's done things like this, like you know, like these's a this big elaborate like a prank. He's done things like this like you know like these big elaborate crazy events like artistic like we don't understand them, but here it is kind of things

Yeah, like maybe he's just a genius. He's not no Others people that were closer to him really did believe him and they just wouldn't turn on him They had him on this like Weird pedestal where even if he did the wrongest thing humanly possible, he could still do no wrong in their eyes. That's so wild. It's insane. The amount of times when working on this case that I saw him referred to as a king was just absolutely mind-boggling. My goodness. While there were people who knew exactly what happened to Angel and others had their ideas, Angel's brother, Johnny, had no idea what had become of his brother.

And he was desperately trying to look for him. This was pre-cell phone days, I mean for the most part. And Angel didn't have a permanent address, so Johnny kept paging and paging his brother, but getting nothing back. So after about a week or so with no reply, Johnny went into the police to file a report. The police were so unhelpful that they actually tried to convince him not to file a report. They said it wasn't gonna really be necessary.

What? Because in their eyes, Angel was a queer drug dealer who could have been anywhere and they really couldn't care less about looking into his disappearance. So Johnny was like, yeah, fuck you guys. I'm not going to let you sit on your asses while nothing is being done for my brother. So he got to work. He starts investigating. He took it upon himself to hand out and tape up missing persons' fires with a $4,000 reward for any info on the whereabouts

of his brother. And at this point his whole whole family is involved. It's like, where is our family? Yeah. And those flyers had Angel pictured in his classic wings. Johnny would walk up and down the streets of Angel's favorite places. Angel really loved Christopher Street, which you might remember. From our Marsha P. Johnson coverage.

Oh, yes. Loved Christopher Street. And just like everywhere. Anywhere, Johnny knew that Michael, or, sorry, it's the afternoon. I was just gonna say there's a lot of names too. There are. Anywhere Johnny knew Angel would have been,

he went and checked that place. And nobody had seen Angel. They were like, I haven't seen him. I haven't heard from him, but I have heard some rumors about what's gone on. Yeah, some strange shit being said. And like, you might wanna talk to Michael Alligor, one of his friends, any of his friends.

So somehow Johnny was actually able to get in touch with James St. James. And James said that was when he realized the reality of what was going on here. Because he had heard, he had heard these rumors. And he said, it really hit him in that moment because Johnny was sobbing on the phone and asking if these rumors were true.

And James then went on to say, we had all began thinking of Michael as a murderer instead of Angel as a victim. Oh, wow. Like, I feel like that just speaks to the bizarre connection that everybody felt with Michael. Yeah, no, he was even thinking about the fact that a man had lost his life

and been brutally attacked and murdered, people were just like, oh, Michael's a murderer. Yeah, like, whoa, shit. Just thinking of him as the star. Right, yeah. So when Johnny finally did get the chance to talk to Michael, he did go and speak to him. I want to say face to face, but I can't.

He knew right then and there that something had happened to Angel. He knew it was bad and he knew that Michael knew exactly what happened and probably caused it. Because he said while they were talking, Michael would look everywhere else in the room except for right at Johnny. That's why I say they didn't talk face to face. And Johnny said, he said, I felt like it's because me and Angel look a lot alike. And they do. They really do. I hope it made him uncomfortable. Oh, I hope it did. I absolutely hope it did. But I also, I don't even know if it did.

I was gonna say. Or if he was just like, is zooted and looking around because he couldn't care less. Yeah, and I think he just didn't care. He didn't care. There's not one part of me that thinks he is a remorseful for what he did. But everything in me hopes that it was because he was so uncomfortable. I hope so.

I hate that Johnny had to adapt. Because that's awful. So other people within the community started talking to and eventually a piece for a very big newspaper in the city I mentioned it earlier. The Village Voice was released. It was written by another famous club kid again, somebody that I mentioned, a columnist, Michael Busto. Oh, a Musto, excuse me. There were no names mentioned. It was a, um, it was one of those, uh, what a blind item. Blind item. A blind item. But it spelled out everything that was going on. It did everything except say Michael and Angel. We love a blind item.

Yes. So it spilled the whole team. And more and more attention was being brought and other press outlets at this point once that piece came out and things started really heating up for Michael. He would actually tell the press that he had nothing to do with angels' disappearance. And once actually referred to himself as an easy target. Wow. He said during the filming of a documentary about him and his club kids, he said the reason he was such an easy target. Wow. He said during the filming of a documentary

about him and his club kids, he said the reason he was such an easy target was because he was with Angel the last time before he was, and then he pauses for like a good, he like takes a good life. Because he's like, well shit. How do I say this? And then he says before he was gone.

Interesting place to pause in a sentence when you're trying to say that you had nothing to do with this. And also, why wouldn't you just say before he went missing? Exactly. Because you were about to say before he was murdered and then you realized that you're not supposed to know he was murdered.

Exactly. Yep, exactly. So even with the press going nuts with the headlines, the police didn't seem to be concerned. In fact, six months had gone by and Michael had not even been questioned in relation to this murder. And as far as he knew, nobody had no body had turned up yet, so he was just going about his life. Party and party and party. What does he care?

So it's because they didn't care about this community as a whole. That's exactly what they didn't care. They didn't care about Michael, but they just didn't, they didn't care about Angel, they didn't care about Amy. No, they didn't care about ours. They're like, kill each other. It's fine. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like, you know, that's what that was. They thought you're a whole bunch of weirdos. Yeah. And I believe we really don't care. He's also like, I think they were racist because he's a Colombian immigrant.

I think they just didn't give a shit. Oh, you can tell there's a lot. There's so much hatred. And just like, neglect, laziness, lack of empathy, just disgusting, hatred people. Yep, like these are human beings, but they don't see it that way at all. So September went on though, and the police actually decided that they did want to chat with Michael.

Oh cool, they did. But it had nothing to do with Angel at all. Wow, and had everything to do with his boss, Peter Gation. The police and the federal agents were working together to try to do a drug bust on Peter and his clubs. They called his clubs Honeypots. They were basically saying they were Honeypots for young people and that these kids were being lard

in by all the drugs. And once they got hooked, they were destined to live a loop of sleeping all day, recovering from the night before, and then heading right back into Peter's trap, starting the cycle all over again. And it really seemed like they were looking the other way in the hopes that they'd be able to use Michael to testify against Peter.

Wow. He would have made a great witness against Peter because he was super close to him. He's essentially his right-hand man. He'd work with Peter for a wicked long time. And I think they thought they were on to something because by this point Peter had actually fired Michael. He was shortly after Angel was killed. And I think he said it was because of his drug use. Peter said actually fired Michael. He was shortly after Angel was killed. And I think he said it was because of his drug use. Peter said he fired Michael because of his drug use, but I don't know if that's the truth.

I think it was because he knew what was going on. You won the, I the guide heard the rumors. He gave Michael two options though. He said you can go to rehab or you're done here. So Michael actually did go to rehab for a brief period of time, super, super brief. And that was actually when Michael Muster released that village voice blind item.

But ultimately, Michael came back and was doing the same old shit, so Peter had no choice but to fire him. So I think the cops were like, maybe he'll turn on this guy because he's pissed off. Yeah. Who knows? Because it never ends up happening. Peter did get busted, but Michael was never able to testify because, well, we'll get there.

Yeah, he had stuff going on. We did. So two months later, in November, it was discovered that Angel's body had been sitting in a morgan, Staten Island, since April. Are you kidding me? The medical examiner had made a mistake

when identifying Angel and believed that he was Asian. He was not Asian, he was Colombian. But dental records were used to positively ID him, and the body was officially IDed actually on November 2nd, 1996, which was one day after what would have been Angel's 26th birthday. So the public was pissed once they found out that he'd been laying in the Staten Island morgue because it kind of just proved that the Manhattan police were not doing everything they could to locate him. No. The police knew the rumors. They knew that there were rumors that his legs had been cut off and how many bodies are just sitting there missing their legs coming into

the morgue every year. Like we're not calling each other. Like knowing for looking at that and being like, huh, I wonder. Yeah. It was also determined that Angel had died from blunt force trauma, meaning that freeze did not tap, tip, tap him. No, he's killed him to his head, killing him. And also from suffocation from being smothered. Oh.

So Michael Moustro, who wrote that blind piece, laying everything out about the murder without naming any names, set of the discovery, every hideous rumor turned out to be a horrible reality. Oh, because you would think none of that would be true. You'd think it was this horrible game of telephone where it gets worse and worse and people are just adding their own nightmares onto it.

Or horror movies things, but it's real. They didn't even have to. They didn't have to. It was all real. It was all horrific. And it's the way he says it. Every hideous rumor turned out to be a horrible reality. Yeah.

So he is a writer. So in the time between the press outlets going crazy and Angel's body being identified, Michael decided that he needed to get out of New York City and free should come with him. So they go on the run. They first wanted to go to Colorado and they started making their way there, but Michael hadn't brought enough drugs along with him to sustain his heroin addiction at this point. He brought five bags of heroin, but at that point

he was taking in way more and he ended up becoming violently ill from withdrawal. So he had to stop in Indiana where he was originally from and he checked into a motel and he called his mom, she came down to see him immediately. He was withdrawing so badly, you'll see this in every source that his mom bent down to give him a hug

and she said he asked her not to hug him because his skin hurt so badly that she couldn't touch him. Wow. Like don't do drugs. Yeah, that's not worth it. That is not worth anything, my dudes. So she was able to check him into a methadone clinic

and he eventually, I think he spent a week there and gained back enough strength to hit the road again. And again, his mom has no idea what's going on at this point. She's just like, I don't know what he's doing. Yeah. I'm doing my best here. Wow. He actually stopped back in New York

for a brief period of time trying to promote a new party of his that he purposefully named Honeytrap to make fun of the case against Peter Dachon. Are you kidding me? Like things kind of like laid low after Angel's body was found. Like again, they still weren't coming in talking to him. So he went back to New York and promoted a party and promoted a party.

Wow. Luckily the parties were not successful at all and the tabloids started writing about how shitty they were and how a fucking potential murderer was trying to make a comeback. Wow. And if you are going crazy again. And if you look at his, he has a Twitter account

because when he was really like came back on Twitter, he was trying to like sell and promote like old invitations to these honey pot parties. Because I guess they're like super, these people, like collectors, try to collect these invitations and stuff because they're so elaborate. I especially like, I understand like collecting those like, you know, invitations. Yeah, like I get that. Yeah. But you know he was using it as some kind of weird, like morbid, he was kind of like killer, yeah, finalea, you know, totally.

I don't think that's the reason people were buying it like you were saying. No, but you know he was doing. He probably thought that was a good angle. Totally. Apparently, they sell for crazy amounts of money. Yeah, I get it because some of those invitations would be really cool to have, like not his, but anything else. So, yes, so he tries to make a comeback.

The tablets are like, wow, that really sucked. And we are pretty sure you killed somebody or the police ever going to do anything about it. The only reason really that anything happened in this case in my opinion is because of the media. Oh yeah. Like I know the media can be painted in a terrible light. So double it and so is the double it.

So it's actually, that's literally what I was trying to say. It really is. But I think if it weren't for the media at this point in time, I don't, I think they pressured the police so much, the police knew they couldn't let him get away with this. Interestingly, that was the same kind of situation in the Gerard-Shay for case. Really?

The police weren't really doing anything in the media with the ones that pushed them. Right, exactly. Weird. Weird, another weird parallel. So again, Michael decides once these tabloids start heating up, he's got to get back out. So he goes on the run this time with his boyfriend, Brian, who he was dating at the time. They made their way to New Jersey and they checked into a hotel room,

but they did not stay long. Because on December 5th, 1996 at 3am, the police surrounded the hotel. They knocked on the door and arrested Michael for the murder of Andre Angel Melendez. Good. And Robert Fries' rigs was arrested the same day and immediately confessed. I was watching one thing where they said like he grabbed the detectives arm and like was ready to spill everything. He's like, let me get this out. I was like, I've been holding this in for so long.

It's like, yeah, you wouldn't have to do that if you didn't use a hammer on people's heads. Yeah, don't do that. Yeah, you wouldn't have to do that if you didn't use a hammer on people's heads. Yeah, don't do that. Yeah, you wouldn't have to hold anything. And if you just simply didn't do that, you... MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM the entire ordeal was such an emotional burden to him, having to keep such a big secret was becoming so much. I don't buy that because you had nine months between the time you murdered a man and the time you were caught. I did the math, I did the actual exact math. Amazing. 262 days where he could have woken up in the morning and made the choice to turn himself in.

Of course. 262 days that Johnny had to wonder what happened to his brother. And 260 two days where Angel was basically just lying there and nobody knew what happened to him, except everybody knew what happened to him. And you and Michael's walking around making jokes about it. And but later claiming that it's an emotional burden. Yeah. It's an emotional burden, but you are making jokes about it and partying through it and doing everything that you wanted to do while Angel couldn't

because he was lying dead in the morgue because of you and your actions. And keeping a box in your home which you like joke about him being in. Yeah, and you used all his money to furnish your apartment. Yeah, okay, yeah, emotional burden. Yeah.

So he said it was such an emotional burden, a burden la da da da da. But then refused to plead guilty to first degree murder. Huh. What? Okay. You are carrying this emotional burden and you're so happy that you're getting caught

and you think you need to be punished, but you're not gonna plead guilty to first degree murder. Makes sense. And actually, some people said, like it should have been first degree murder, because some people said, in the days leading up to the murder, Michael was saying how much he wanted to kill Angel.

Wow. So I don't even know if that whole thing in the beginning, because that whole thing in the beginning where like his boyfriend was ODing and then he needed the coke and then it started to fight. That's coming from Michael. Michael, his mouth.

I don't know if that's true. They might have lured Angel there and killed him for one reason or another. Absolutely, because of. Probably because things started to heat up because Angel was like, I can't keep spotting you. Yeah. So I don't know how much of that story is true.

It could be, I mean, that's the shitty part is that you never get the full story because the one person who we need to hear it from is not here anymore. Exactly, because of these fucks. Yeah. Michael was insistent that he had killed himselfdefense and that he was not going to plead guilty to first degree murder, but his lawyers were like,

with all the evidence to the contrary of self-defense, you're not, that's not gonna work. That's not gonna work. That's not gonna work. Like no. So instead, Michael and Frieze were given what we fucking hate on this podcast, a plea deal. Oh.

And they pleaded guilty to first degree, man slaughter. Oh, come on. He hit this man in the head with a hammer three times, smothered him, strangled him, poured drain out down his throat, laid them in his bathroom for multiple days, and then dismembered him. And you're trying to call that manslaughter?

Wow. In what world? Yeah. Each of them were convicted and they were sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. For that crime? 10 to 20 years. To 20 years. For everything I just said.

Wow. And Michael later joked in an interview in prison where he was clearly high. That the main reason he didn't want to plead guilty to murder was because anybody convicted on a murder charge, Elena, wouldn't have access to a VCR while they were incarcerated. Oh, that's important. Are you kidding me? That's an important priority.

Are you kidding me? Yeah. He spent a ton of time in prison making insensitive comments like this, continuing to fail drug tests every single time he went up for parole, and doing interviews where he felt like a mother fucking star boy. Yeah. And one of the interviews, he told Michael Mousteau, I know why I blabbed.

I must have wanted to stop myself. I was spinning out of control. It's like the old saying, what do you have to do to get attention around here? Kill somebody? Wow. What? What, my guy? Why?

Wow. Yeah. Wow. Now, he was allegedly diagnosed while he was in prison with a historic personality disorder. A person with historic personality disorder might experience things like constantly seeking attention, talking dramatically with strong opinions, they can be easily influenced, they can have

rapidly changing emotions, and particularly think that relationships are a lot closer than they actually are. Okay. Now, Michael thought that his diagnosis was a bit humorous and commented, it's very funny in my diagnosis. If you look it up, you only have five or seven of the symptoms. I have every single one.

The doctor said that I was the most extreme case he had ever seen. Everything has to be completely over the top and exaggerated. It worked well for my job. I was a promoter. Wow. Okay. All righty.

So he said in prison that he realized he'd been working his whole life for somebody to tell him no. Like essentially just putting it on other people to stop his poor decision making skills. People didn't give me boundaries and that's a problem. It's like that works with a toddler. Right. That does not work with you.

You're a grown man. Yeah. And while I understand that like you're under the influence, it is not anybody else's responsibility to make sure that you do not murder another person other than your own responsibility. Exactly. That's the thing. It's like under the influence, like whatever, that still does not make it that you are like

whoops, I killed somebody while under the influence. It's like, okay, there's guilty. And there are plenty of people that use drugs and do not kill people. And kill people. Like that's not an excuse. That's lives. Like that's not an excuse. That's a thing. That's not an excuse. So Robert Fries' rigs had been let out of prison

for good behavior, again, back in 2010. And was on parole until 2016. He seems to have turned his life around, which I guess we can all be thankful for that that he will not murder again. He seems to live a very private and quiet life. He got his bachelor's degree in anthropology and then pursued getting a PhD in sociology from NYU.

And also works as a researcher for a prison initiative at Bard College in New York. I mean, that is what we hope when people go into prison. So I suppose, let's hope that that's, that that is turns out well. I hope so. But it's a real shame that Angel didn't get the chance to live that kind of life and have that kind of growth.

That's all I could think of when I was writing down everything that he accomplished. I'm like, Angel should have gone on to accomplish those things, but you took that from me. And it's like, do you appreciate that fact? I hope so. That you took that from somebody else and that you better appreciate every second you have out here. I don't know much about how Robert Riggs really feels about it, because again, I don't really,

he kind of just like went about his own very privately. Michael, on the other hand. I will go on record right now saying that he is the most insufferable human. Oh yeah, was the most insufferable human. Yeah. He vowed, and this is a good thing, it is a good thing for now. He vowed to stop using drugs he said in 2009 while he was still incarcerated, and eventually he got paroled in May of 2014. But he really didn't seem to change at all through the rest of his life. And like you said, he had a Twitter. He immediately took to Twitter when he was released

and tweeted a photo of himself, licking a Starbucks cup with the caption, who needs Coke when you can get a caffeine jolt from a Starbucks double espresso? Hashtag drug free. You just got out of prison for murdering a man, dude. Get off of dinner. Get off of dinner. Get off of dinner, man.

Don't go on Twitter. Like, do something actually productive. Boy. It is so hard to wrap your brain around what I'm going to say next. Just please know that. It is, your brain is doing mental gymnastics in a moment. So take a deep breath. Michael was welcome back to New York City by pretty much all of his friends who knew exactly what he did and a lot of other people that were even weren't even friends with him when he did what he did with wide open arms.

Wide open arms. They were all trying to help get him acquainted to a new way of life. Somebody that I will leave nameless wrote a piece in honor of Michael getting out of prison and went throughout a letter explaining different aspects of the new world to Michael and how he could handle it. Okay. Yeah. Michael did work on various projects. Once he was released from prison, he really wanted to have a reality show. He wanted a lot of sense. It certainly does.

I'm happy that he didn't get one. Yep. He wanted to sell a memoir that he wrote while he was in prison, a legula. It's like a plan, his last name, or a legula, I think it's probably, I would say it, a collegula. Oh, there you go. There you go. Hello. Look at you. Hello. I'm coming back. I'm coming back. Took a minute. But now I got words again. He actually completed some projects with his friends from back in the day. He and Ernie Glam, who I mentioned at the top, still successful, a long time friend of his.

They started a YouTube channel together. He released a song with DJ Kiyoki called What's In. He had an art show where he displayed his paintings that he had worked on in prison, which do sell now. In February of 2017, though, he was arrested for trespassing and possession of Crystal meth. He'd been found in Joyce Kilmer Park, right outside of the Bronx Supreme Court at 130 in the morning.

That specific park closes at dusk. And even if it is open, you're actually not allowed to smoke Crystal meth in it. Just letting you know. Not allowed, yeah. So he pleaded guilty to trespassing charges and the drug possession charge was dropped. Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah. This man truly had a hold on New York authority. Yeah, truly helpful. He was like it. He went on to host and promote several parties that happened in person before the pandemic and then once the pandemic happened, he actually through, he and in his group of friends there,

were actually the first people to throw virtual parties on Zoom. And the police were actually so concerned, like I guess he didn't have a hold on them at this point. They were so concerned that these were actually happening, that they were, because they were promoting them. Yeah, they thought they were really happening in person, so they were investigated. But it turns out they were not really happening in person.

They were virtual. But on Christmas Eve in 2020, Michael was found unconscious in his home in Washington Heights Manhattan by his boyfriend. And it was later determined that he had accidentally overdosed on heroin. So he was pronounced dead shortly after midnight on Christmas day. And he was 54 years old. Wow. And that is the story of the party monster slash

club kid murder. Wow. That is a wild ride. And honestly, that's like a pretty condensed version. Like there's so many books to read about this. There are so many documentaries to watch and you will just feel filthy watching these documentaries. Because it's just like filthy.

Like his way of looking at everything was so skewed and so I like, I have no words. Like it's just, everyone around him just said Yes, Mike just fell in line. Yes, Michael sure Michael. Oh, you killed someone Michael No problem Michael and you wonder you wonder like what was it about him? Like he had to have some kind of charisma that got people to I was gonna say no matter what, all cult leaders and stuff, they all have something that makes people believe them, but they also know where to find people that are in a place

that they need something to believe in. Oh yeah, definitely. And I think he probably is very adept at that as well. Well, and I think a lot of the kid, I'm not saying this is every club kid, like if you were a club kid, I'm not saying this is true about you, but I think a lot of them were going through something and yeah, if we're had gone through something in their life, and this is where they went as an escape. Yeah. So I think they kind of felt this closeness with each other that was like us against the world,

which is, yeah, always toxic. And because they were on that like, you know, counterculture kind of line, it's like it was the us against the world kind of saying, so when somebody's sitting there being like, I'll take care of you, I'm here for you, I understand you. I can make everything come true for you. What he was doing, he referred to himself as the king of the club kids. He's your king. You look at him and you say, well, he's here for me, he's the one that's going to do things for me. And what's funny is, when he first stepped on the scene one, he was against drugs and two, James St. James,

said that he was actually intolerable. Like people fucking hated him. And then all of a sudden it was his current mom. His current mom just, like he figured it out. Yeah. I don't know what it is, but Michael figured it out. We exactly, that's what it is. Whatever it was that he had to grab on to to become that,

he became that. He did. And that's like a real cult leader thing. It is. And you know what, sad is it's like, if you hold that power, that can be a great thing because you can change it. You can make change in the world.

Wealed it correctly. And he was to a degree. Like he was going on these shows and saying, like we're fucking, yeah, we're not normal, but like we're part of the world. We're people. This is art and like you might not understand it, but it's still art.

Yeah. But then at the same time, he was doing this shit. And there's like, you know, he was peeing on people and like handing people vomit. There's actually rumors that he may have been involved with underage boys. Like, it's like, he had such potential and he just flushed it down the toilet over and over and over. You see that story so often that people get a ton of power and a ton of resources.

And they either, you take it one of two ways. You either try your best and you try to like make good changes in the world and you try to help people and you try to like, you know, just make good things happen or you shit the actual bed and you just let it destroy who you are as a person, destroy any value system you ever hold and just destroy your outlook on like everything around you and just cause chaos. And that's exactly where he went. It's like you hit that tipping point and you go one way or the other and he just dipped to the left.

It's like Ma always says to us, like Ma has said this to all of her children y'all going up. I know exactly what you're about to say. There are two ways you can go in life. You can, she always says like you can go and do great things and like la la la or you can walk down the path and become a victim

and let everything happen to you. And like, make bad choices and Ma always says, let the dark side up. Yep. There's like, there is a dark side and a good side to everybody. Everybody has bad days where they're a bitch or a dick to somebody.

Of course. You have to figure out bringing the light side of you up and pushing the dark side of you down. Exactly. And not like pushing it dark side of you down. Exactly. And not like pushing it down, like pushing your demons down, just like diluting the darkness with light. Yeah, like not treating people like shit. And like everybody's like, again, like he had all this power.

People are going to make mistakes and they're going to like, they're going to trip and stumble and like not do everything the right. It's going to agree with them. Not everyone's going to agree with them or understand them or wanna be around them. But it's like, yeah, have to fucking try. Man, like you have to try to keep that light side up a little more like, yeah, that's just wild. What a wild story.

Such a crazy story, it's such a cautionary tale. Yeah, it really is. It's such a tragic, tragic tale all the way around. Because angel was just, and the sad thing is that Angel gets so lost in this story. I was gonna say, he gets so lost in this story because everybody's so focused on Michael.

And I can see why, like I can see why because it's so crazy that he was just walking around talking about the fact that he had murdered Angel. And those are the people who become larger than life because they're just so, it's a fascinating thing to look at someone

who can do that. Right, so it's like, I need to know about that. Yeah. You know, but it's just so sad like we should know so much more about Angel than we do. Yeah, that's the thing. We should, it's really sad.

Ooh, all right, well thanks for that. You're welcome. And with all of that being said, we hope that you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. I don't have to tell you not to keep it this weird, because if I do, like, I just, it's too far, too far, too far gone. Just be safe out there, okay?

Bring up the light side. Just make good choices, be safe. Don't hurt people. Don't hurt yourself. Be good to you. Yes. Bye. I always call 911 an emergency. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen Addfree with Wondery Plus and Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.