Morbid - Episode 687: The Last Call Killer (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

Between 1991 and 1993, the dismembered bodies of five gay and bisexual men were discovered in garbage bags along the highway in New York and New Jersey. The cause of the death for each was multiple stab wounds, and each victim had been disarticulated into eight pieces and placed in eight garbage bags before being deposited into trash barrels, where they were quickly discovered by a curious member of the public. Despite being discovered in different locations in different states, it didn’t take long for investigators to identify the similarities between the victims. They were all older men, single or separated, and all had been seen last around closing time at various New York gay bars. Moreover, the scant evidence found with each bottom appeared to connect the murders back to Staten Island, but told detectives nothing else about the killer. Then, in late 1993, the murders simply stopped and the case went cold.The case of the man the press dubbed “The Last Call Killer” sat on a shelf for nearly a decade before a team of cold case investigators picked it up again, determined to make progress. In the years that passed, advances in technology had allowed for the collection of previously unseen evidence, and it was thanks to that technology that the case was finally solved.Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesBen-Ali, Russell, and William Rashbaum. 1993. "Grisly slayings linked?" Newsday, August 3: 4.—. 1993. "Hunt is on." Newsday, August 5: 6.Curran, John. 2006. "Ex-UM student given life sentences in slayings." Bangor Daily News, January 28: 25.Frederick, Henry. 1993. "Body parts found in Haverstraw." Journal News (White Plains, NY), August 1: 1.Green, Elon. 2021. Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York. New York, NY: Celadon Books.Hoober, John. 1991. "Turnpike murder victim was ex-banker." Lancaster New Era, May 15: 1.Lueck, Thomas. 2001. "Complicated portrait of a suspect in killings of gay men." New York Times, May 31.New York Times. 1993. "Thomas Mulcahy: Sales executive, devoted husband." New York Times, August 8: 40.Peet, Judy. 2000. "Technology revives search for gays' serial killer." Staten Island Advance, April 24: 15.Rashbaum, William. 1993. "Gay stalker?" Newsday, August 4: 5.Rosenblatt, Lionel. 1973. "Jury finds student not guilty." Bangor Daily News, November 4: 1.State of New Jersey v. Richard W. Rogers. 2008. 03-01-00050 (Superior Court of New Jersey, April 16).Walsh, James. 1993. "Tracking a killer." Journal News (White Plains, NY), October 24:Stay in the know - wondery.fm/morbid-wondery.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey weirdos, it's Ash. Before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about the spooky perks of Wondery+. It's like having a skeleton key that unlocks ad-free listening and early access to new episodes. So don't wait, try Wondery Plus today. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle III, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder.

But beware, something sinister lurks in the Grandview's shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in the supernatural thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. My name is T.J.

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And I'm Elena. And this right here is morbid. This is morbid. And it's morbid in the morning. It truly is morbid in the morning. It is, bitch. Bitch. It's like 8 a.m. right now, which is like pretty morning-ish. But I woke up at 5 because I had to feed them cats that I own. Yeah, you got to feed those animals, you know.

Yeah, and then I had to feed myself. And I decided, I saw this TikTok, I live my life by TikTok. And this woman said, if you, you know, like, it's really good for your circadian rhythm to get some sunlight on your face in the morning. Especially if you have PCOS, which I just got diagnosed with, super fun. Boom, but that's so good for you. So I went outside to eat my breakfast this morning

and I feel, I think it was really good for me. I think, well, like there's something about fresh air in the morning. It's not always for dead people. No, it's true. Like, I me. I think, well, like there's something about fresh air in the morning. It's not always for dead people. No, it's true. Like I know we say that, but you know, if you're getting your own fresh air in the morning, it's okay.

You just don't want to do it at night. No, never. Like when you're sleeping. But I used to, in fact, my, the butcher and the wren was mostly written Outside in the morning. Very early in the morning, like before anyone woke up outside on my porch with a glass of ice coffee or a hot coffee and just getting that fresh air. And I feel like it did something to me because I could plow through stuff out

there in that more in the morning. And it was outside that like really did it. Like I'm going to start, I want to start doing that again because I think it really does trigger something in the morning. But I think it really, like that fresh air is like, it can wake you up and make you start the day better. Yeah, and I think like just being exposed to the daylight that early, like I'm not looking to like get tan or anything. I'm so fucking pale. But just like getting the light on your face in the morning

is so good for you, I think. And I was just reading, was just reading Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix. Alaina recommended it. I love Grady Hendrix. I just want to tear through it. Yeah, it's one of those. I read your recommendation and that was like for book club, wasn't it? Yeah.

Or audio book club. My Best Friend's Exorcism. Yeah. I listened and read at the same time to My Best Friend's exorcism. Yeah, I listened and read at the same time to my best friend's exorcism and it was so good. And this one, Southern Book Club, is in the same universe, like on the same street. So it's interesting.

It is, I love that about his stuff. And that's a great book. And then I just posted this on my Instagram, but I just read Widow's Point by Richard Chizmar. It's coming out in September. I think it's September 30th, I want to say. I think it's on pre-order right now,

though you can pre-order like the audio book and all that stuff. I can't recommend this book enough. Yeah, I want to read it. I mentioned on my Instagram that I want to start recommending books on there. And maybe on my TikTok or something. I'm only going to recommend books that I like. I'm not going to review books I don't like.

I just don't want to. I hate when I see people do that. Yeah, it's like teach their own. Whatever you want to do. I just don't want to do that. I'd rather just share books that I really like so that you can add them to your to read list or not. It's totally...

Just because one person doesn't like a book doesn't mean it's a bad book. Yeah. It's like a tough line to walk. That's the thing. I stay out of reviewer spaces because that's their space. Reader spaces are their spaces. You're in the author space. And then authors, at least when it comes to like my books, I'm like, you do what you got

to do. Yeah, whatever you want to do. But I'm going to stay out of those spaces and which I fully believe that like as an as authors, we should stay out of them. Let them have their own, you can review books how you want to. But I was just thinking on my pages, I just wanted to share what I love to read

because I think I'm trying, protecting peace is like a big, I think a lot of people are really feeling that lately. We're just protecting our peace and keeping things positive. And that's what I would like to do is just share positive stuff. Like if I don't like a book, I won't share it. If I like a book, I will share it.

But people were like, I was really happy to hear that like people listening, that you guys were like, yeah, like share books that you like. So I'll try to do that like once a week. I'll share a book that I like or something. Like just, and again, if you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't, that's fine.

But I'll just share what I'm reading because I'm trying to keep myself reading for like leisure. I am too. Cause it makes me so happy. Like it fills my cup in such a real way. I'm at a point where this book, where every time I have to close it and go back to like my life,

I'm like, I want to go back into that world. That's when you know you're in a good reading slide and that's, I'm in a good reading slide right now where it also is really good. And I, I don't know if this will work for everybody, but I found it works for me in curbing doom scrolling or just like mindless phone shit. If you, if you feel like this will work, this is what I do, is every time I feel like I'm reaching for my phone to open it, just to check Instagram, do something stupid with my email. It's just like that mindless, addictive, I'm grabbing my phone to grab it.

Instead of grabbing your phone, just have your book that you're reading with you at all times and read. Even if it's just a page, just read for the amount of time you would have sat there and scrolled. I was just doing that this morning because you were saying that like a couple weeks ago even. It'll curve it. I was doing it this morning. You went to the bathroom, I opened my book and read like two pages. Instead of sitting there doom scrolling for a second.

We're sitting with the girls for a minute and they were just like having a mama moment. So I was like, I'm going to read. Yeah. And that's it. It'll get you like reading more and it'll get you looking at your screen less. It won't like, I don't know if it'll cure it, but like, I don't think it'll eliminate it. But it absolutely has curbed. When I get into that, I find myself being like, oh yeah, you don't need to look at

your phone. Like look at the book I get into. And I've like gone to therapy about it. I get into like really bad doom scrolling and then I just like look deeply into like the darkest corners of what could end the world. Yeah. And then I spiral. So I'm really trying not to do that.

I'm only going to one person for my news sources right now, Aaron Parnas on TikTok. Same. He gives me my updates. I say thank you so much. Thank you, Aaron. But I also, I'll get to an obsessive place about it. And then I realize that and I'm like, okay, go read your book. Yeah.

Because you got to, I think right now, especially like, you need to be aware of what's going on. For sure. 100%. Absolutely. But you also need to escape every now and again. You can't live in that doom. Find what your happy place is.

Yes. Because you still deserve to have a happy place. And you need to retreat to that every once in a while. Like you need to be aware, we need to be taking action when need to take action, but have a happy place. It's okay to have a happy place. Don't let people feel like you can't have a happy place.

Have your happy place. And if that's reading whatever the fuck you wanna read, whether that be the spiciest of spice, the goriest of gore, or the- Or the beachiest of spice, the goriest of gore, or the beachiest of beach. Read it, enjoy it, like let it take you away for a little while. Take me away. But it really will. I find it really has curbed my like, grab your phone and just look at it for no fucking

reason when you're, when you have like a moment. Because I don't love that like we've reached a point and it's point and things where also we can't be alone with our own thoughts. Oh, I don't want to be alone with those. But like we used to be able to. Oh, yeah. Like that's it. Like it has made you feel like you can't be alone with your own thoughts. People feel that way. You can.

You just are programmed not to now. And it's like that's... We used to be able to just sit there and look at the clouds and like think about stuff, like because there wasn't anything else to now. And it's like, that's, we used to be able to just sit there and look at the clouds and like think about stuff like, cause there wasn't anything else to do. Like, or you read a book. Like that's like, that's your choices is like, stare around at the things around you or read your book. And it's like, I don't, I want to get a little bit back to that with my own things because I need to be more aware of my own like inside of my head.

Yeah, you do. I'm always in my own thoughts and like alone with them when I'm cooking or when I'm baking. Yeah. And I think that's why I find baking and cooking so therapeutic. Like, so see, it's good to be alone. But people have been programmed to think, oh, I can't be alone with my own thoughts. Yeah, you can. You totally can. You're just like, you think you can, you know? And it's like, as long as you're doing something that like comforts you, like you're saying. Yeah, exactly. Baking, cooking, reading, knitting.

Slipping, crocheting. Like crocheting. Oh, I saw this on TikTok and I wanted to say it. Because again, I live my life by TikTok. I think it's great for some things. No, for some things it really is. But I saw a TikTok of this girl and she was like, I need a new hobby. My hobby is just finding new hobbies.

Tell me some. And there is a whole subgroup of hobbies that are called, I think they're called extinct hobbies or something like that. I think it's extinct hobbies. And there was this whole one where it was like this kind of... I forget what it's called. I'm gonna have to look it up and fill you guys in later. But it's a kind of lace that you make. Oh. So these are things like in the pioneer days

when they would like chase that hoop around. Yes. No, exactly. It's like shit that people don't do anymore. No, literally things that are gonna go extinct if more people don't learn them. Because they're gonna die with our grandma's. Like that kind of shit. I was like, I might try that. It looks fun.

And there's all different kinds of lace that you can make. I love that kind of shit. Beautiful. I love like weird off-be. Hobbies. If it makes you happy and it's not hurting you or anyone else, then go look at a fucking list of extinct hobbies. Don't make anyone feel like it's weird or you're like...

Enter a craft fair. Yeah, do whatever the fuck you want. I'm going to... Hell yeah. I just like randomly took up making blankets last year. Hell yeah. The crocheting blankets. Yeah, as you should.

And then I just stopped. I think that's great. Maybe I'll try again. Yeah. Yeah. Got my tension a little better. Hobbies, man. We need to get back to hobbies. Hobbies. You know, yeah, find a hobby. That's the thing. The doom scrolling has taken over and like

arguing online and shit has taken over like fun hobbies that really like fill your cup. Stop arguing online. You don't know those people. Yeah. I think it's just like, I think it feels like it's boiling over that whole subsect of life. I think people are getting a little, little sick of the chronically online. The pendulum swings the other way. Yeah, it just feels like it's like everybody's like, you know what? There's worse shit happening we need to focus on. It's true. Well, speaking of worse shit.

I was going to say, and I think we're going to talk about it right now. Yeah, we are going to talk about some pretty terrible stuff. This case, so this is the last call killer, which shout out to Dave for finding this because this happened like sort of in our backyard almost. Like a little bit further away, but like some of it takes place in mass. Wow.

And I had never really heard about this case. I have not, I don't think I know this one. No, it's deeply upsetting. Like what happened here is deeply upsetting, but I will say this is gonna be a two-parter. Part one, we're gonna focus a lot on the victims, you know, who they were and what happened to them, unfortunately. But then in part two, I will tell you, like, up at the top,

this person does get apprehended. And the way they go about it and the way... This is like a real case of, like, good detective work. And, like, really fascinating detective work. That makes me happy. Because this is like the it starts in like late 80s and then goes into like mid 90s all the way into the early aughts. We're like that like turn of the century kind of like forensics was turning.

Yes. You know, it was really going through a evolution. Yeah. And it's really cool. And we're going to talk about some things that I don't think we have before as far as like fingerprint evidence and that kind of stuff. Yeah. So yeah, it's gonna be two parts. So let's get into part one right now. Yeah. So on the afternoon of May 5, 1991, a turnpike maintenance worker was just emptying the trash barrels at a rest stop. It was along the highway in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and he made a horrific discovery. This man had been in the habit of separating out the aluminum cans from the rest of the trash, so he had to really get in there and dig through everything. Obviously, it's like pretty messy work, but it was just a matter of pulling the entire bag out of the barrel and just sorting through that garbage. But this

time, he was struggling to lift the bag. It seemed like somebody had put something really heavy in the barrel. So he grabbed a large stick and he started poking the garbage bag, just kind of like trying to figure out what could be inside. And every time he managed to get the bag open, though, he would find another layer of garbage bag underneath, like multiple, multiple times. Yeah. So finally, after making his way through eight or nine layers of plastic, this man discovered what was weighing the barrel down. Years later, he said, it looked like a loaf of bread, but then I saw freckles. Oh, yeah.

Shocked and absolutely horrified, he dropped the stick and grabbed his radio to call his supervisors who notified Pennsylvania State Police about what had been found. In Raffo Township, there was actually actually no police department so all cases were handled by the state police no matter what size or significance they were. And in the case of the remains found at this rest stop the criminal investigations unit was called in and they arrived a short time later. After removing all the bags from the barrel it was clear that what the maintenance worker had discovered was the decomposing body of a nude middle-aged white man with visible knife wounds in his chest and back. Holy shit.

Yeah, it only gets worse. So the criminal investigations unit in Lancaster County obviously had seen their fair share of homicides over the years, and you know, some were more gruesome than others. But this was unlike anything any of those officers had ever seen before. This man appeared to be emaciated. They said he weighed maybe around 100 pounds. And unfortunately, Decomp had already set in. This is heinous, so just get ready for this.

Oh, boy. In addition to multiple stab wounds, the victim's penis had also been severed and shoved into his mouth. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. That's so fucking grotesque. It's grotesque.

And it's like, holy shit. Like, whoever killed this man went to the trouble of wrapping him in so many garbage bags, but also did that to probably horrify whoever found this body. 100%. You know? It's such a weird dichotomous way of doing that. Yes, it is. Because it's like, in one sense,

you're hiding what you've done, and in another sense, you did that so people would find it. And like, to shock people, you know? Like, you want like the theater of it, but you also that so people would find it. And like to shock people, you know, like you want like the theater of it. Yeah. But you also are trying to hide it. It's very strange. I'm a little run into that a lot more.

And like those kinds of things, it's just like, what kind of person, when you find out, how are you a human? When you find out who this guy is, it's just like, what? Like what the? It's wild. And when you find out the fact that he was able

to get away with what he did for so long, and he never should have been able to. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] It seems like everything is connected to your gut microbiome. I've scrolled TikTok, I know, you know. Fact is, we are learning so much about how the gut microbiome is key to our mental health, immunity,

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one of the first to is at the scene, the murder seemed deeply personal and very deliberate. Definitely not the kind of thing that just happens in the heat of the moment, obviously. Now, notably absent from the scene were the man's clothing, any personal belongings, and identification. It was clear he had been brutalized and mutilated, but upon an initial evaluation of the body,

it was unclear precisely how he had died. There were obviously those stab marks, but there were also multiple points of levity indicating that the body had been moved more than once. But Rigor Mortis had not set in yet, which suggested that he'd only been dead about a day. Yeah, I was gonna say. Like very newly dead.

Interesting. So the autopsy conducted later that day revealed a lot more than investigators and officers ever would have been able to get from the scene. That man had been stabbed in the back between the right shoulder and the spine, but the stab wounds to the abdomen were far more serious. In his stomach, there was a large oval-shaped wound

created by something very sharp. And just above that was a stab wound about half an inch in length. And the coroner described it as, in an 11 to five o'clock line, as one looks at a watch. Yeah, the wounds to the stomach were deep and had perforated the abdominal cavity. And so the medical examiner listed that as the cause of death.

And he also noted that the severing of the penis had occurred postmortem. Yeah. I mean, thank goodness for that. Yeah. But yeah. Holy shit. So the medical examiner had been able obviously to tell investigators how and when this man had died, approximately.

But what they still had to find out was who he was and how his body had come to be found in the trash. Because of his small stature and weight, initially detectives theorized that maybe he could have been a jockey who raced at nearby Penn National track, but they checked in with Penn National Management and all of their riders were accounted for. Huh. So while the medical examiner's office worked to identify this man, detectives continued working the few tips and very little evidence that they had. A few drivers had reported seeing a man outside of his car by the rest stop that night, but all the descriptions varied so much that they were pretty much useless. And several other callers suggested maybe the man

was a victim of a mob hit because the mob was, quote, known to do something similar to enemies. Oh yeah? I was like, I think. Usually it goes a little different than that. Yeah, but I mean, I don't know. I guess so. Yeah, I don't know the Pennsylvania mob.

But in the end, the tips really went nowhere and the case, unfortunately, was quickly growing cold. But just as investigators were pretty much resigning themselves to the fact that this was probably just going to go unsolved, a truck driver at a rest stop in nearby Chester County discovered two 50-gallon trash barrels with pretty unusual contents. So the driver called authorities and alerted them to what he discovered and when they arrived to view the contents they immediately connected them with the dead man found in Lancaster County. Among the trash in the

barrel crime scene technicians found several pairs of socks, a corduroy hat, two pairs of underwear, a pair of Brooks Brothers pants, a belt, two t-shirts and travelers checks and $50 denominations. Okay. There was also a parking ticket received from the city of Philadelphia, several pieces of Mellon Bank stationery with just various notes scribbled on them, and finally a driver's license for the victim who was found to be 54-year-old Peter Stickney Anderson of Philadelphia. 54. That's so young.

Yeah, and for that to be how it ends? Yeah. Peter Stickney Anderson of Philadelphia. 54. It's like, that's so young. Yeah, and for that to be how it ends? Yeah. So there wasn't a lot of information about Peter Anderson for police to find right away. But they did learn that he had previously been an investment banker. But at the time he was killed, he was unemployed.

He was also divorced once and in the midst of a separation. So he was living alone in an apartment in downtown Philadelphia. To try to get some more information, detectives contacted a woman whose name was actually on those notes that they had found in the trash. And it turned out that she was an associate of Peter's who said she last saw him at the Blue Parrot, which was a Philadelphia piano bar just a few days before he died. It turned out that the Blue Parrot was one of several gay bars that Peter was known to have frequented in a handful of years leading up to his death. According to the staff and patrons there, Peter was one of the regulars who drank pretty heavily and tended to stay pretty late into the night.

Like Peter, the clientele of the bar were typically middle-aged, middle-class white men, which indicated to the detectives that if Peter had been picked up by his killer at the blue parrot, then the killer most likely wasn't a sex worker. Oh, okay. They were thinking like, at first they were thinking possibly that could have been it. Like possibly, that's the... But they were like, maybe not. His pension for piano bars was only the first, but definitely not the most surprising piece of information that detectives would learn

in the days following the identification. It turned out that for a lot of his life, Peter's interest in men and gay bars had been kept hidden from his friends and acquaintances. He belonged to the Church of the Holy Trinity, so he was hiding it from people there. And he was hiding it from his ex-wife and his current wife, who he was separated from. Okay. Which is really sad. That, that like breaks my heart. It does.

It really does. There's going to be a lot of heartbreaking things in this case. Especially since like he was hiding it and like obviously like feeling some kind of like, you know, shame that was put on him for it. Yeah. And then it ends like this. Yeah. And it's like without him, I don't know if he did, he was able to,

but if he was ever able to like come to terms with it or like be out, you know? No, not really. Not really at all. Like what an awful way for that story to end. Yeah, and I, the time where his life ended, it was a really hard time for him. Yeah. And who knows, maybe he would have gotten like past it because, you know, as like time went on or stuff like that but that's sad he never got that opportunity but digging into his past investigators learned that Peter's true sexual identity like we were just saying was

something he very much kept private and it seemed that he really just wanted to blend in with his peers his former classmate from Trinity College said he just wanted to be part of the boys he was more like a mascot most people who knew him in those days were called that he was a hard worker, very studious, very responsible, nothing at all like the other members of his fraternity, which was a Psy Upsilon. Hopefully I said that right. While the other young men were out drinking, partying, casually dating, being frat boys, Peter could just be found in his bedroom studying or writing. Yeah, he sounded adorable. just be found in his bedroom studying or writing. Yeah, he sounded adorable. It never actually really occurred to anybody that he was gay, but there was no reason why it should have. At that time, a lot of gay people were very closeted and went well out of their way to hide that and suppress any, you know, indication of being different, quote unquote. Peter felt

like you were just saying that he wouldn't be accepted if he lived openly. So he chose not to pursue his interest in politics and the priesthood, and instead pursued a career in banking. He very much, I think, wanted to fly under the radar. I was going to say, just fly under the radar. Yeah. And when he finally did muster the courage to tell his mother that he was gay, the confession led to years of a broken relationship between them that essentially just confirmed what he assumed.

To live as an openly gay man would basically lead to a life of heartbreak and rejection. That's so devastating. It is. It's awful. Yeah. And it's like if your own mom doesn't accept you and you're feeling that, how do you come out to anybody else? Yeah, I don't know how anybody gets through that. I don't either. Kind of shit, you know?

So in the years that followed, he lived what passed for an ordinary straight life. He found a job that was really not satisfying, but it paid well enough to support him. A few years later, he got engaged to a woman that he was casually dating, but he was also carrying on a secret affair with a man named Anthony Hoyt, who he had met in New York. Okay. Hoyt later said, if it had been today, in today's society,

we could have been partners. But in those days, you weren't gay. Gay was not good. Oh. Why does anyone give a shit? I will never get to a point where I can even slightly understand that way of viewing it. It doesn't affect you who someone else loves.

If it's a consenting adult, I don't give a fuck. It doesn't affect you in any way. I don't give a fuck and I'm happy for you. Exactly. If you're happy, I'm happy. I don't get it. I don't get caring. And it should just be that simple.

If you're happy, if you're happy, it's a consenting adult, and they're happy, I'm fucking happy. Yeah. Why do we make it so much more complicated? And what do people hate about it? I don't get that. That's what I don't get. Like why do people hate who somebody else loves?

I just let people, let consenting adults be. Yeah. You know, like, I don't get it. Live and let live. I don't get it. Yeah, it's wild. Well, unfortunately, Peter's engagement eventually fell apart. And in 1969, so did his relationship with Anthony Hoyt.

That ended too, because Anthony ended up marrying a woman also to pass, you know, most likely. That same year, Peter went to a party where he met a woman named Edith Sandy Blake. She was from a wealthy family. Her big dream was really just to make it in New York's high society. And after meeting her, literally just a few days later, Peter proposed, and a few months later,

he and Sandy were married. They moved to Dedham, Massachusetts. Oh, shit. Just about a half hour outside of Boston. But it was soon pretty clear to Sandy that Peter was not in love with her. She said, he thought of me as his possession, and that's where it all went wrong. He collected antiques, and I was just one of his antiques. Which is sad. Despite the obvious conflicts in their marriage, Peter and Sandy did stay together for almost a decade until she met somebody else and decided to end things with Peter. Luckily, things actually seemed to end amicably enough, and they did stay close friends. And it wasn't long before Peter got married, again, this time in 1979 to a woman named Cynthia Reed, the woman who he was separated from at the

time of his death. By that time, pretty much everyone who knew Peter well assumed that he was gay, but nobody brought it up ever. A friend said, you don't talk about who's cheating on their wives. Whoa. Yeah, I was like, I do talk about that. I was gonna say it. I feel like we all talk about that.

I actually think everybody talks about that, but okay. You know, you're a better gal than I. This entire show's dedicated to that. I don't know. Yeah. Well, the new marriage was followed by a new job, this time with Mellon Bank, and moved to Philadelphia in the mid-1980s. But by then, the pain and secrecy around so much of his, what was his true identity,

had started to take a serious toll on Peter. And to cope with that, he started drinking more and more, and soon enough, his drinking became excessive. And with the heavy drinking came other vices. One day after she had been away for a few days on a trip to New York, Cynthia came home to find evidence that Peter had a guest for, quote, sexual purposes and that it was not a woman. After that, Cynthia started finding evidence about Peter's sexuality hidden in various places around the house. So by the end of the 1980s, almost everything in Peter's life

seemed to have broken down completely. Oh, man. In 1987, he was charged with drunk driving and ended up losing his license. Then a short time later, he lost his job at the bank. And finally, by 1990, his marriage to Cynthia had completely unraveled, and that's when they were separated. And through all of that, Peter's health was continuing to decline. He was losing a significant amount of weight and to everybody who knew him, he looked gaunt, like he was going through it. By May of 1991, Peter's life was in shambles.

He had squandered all but $75,000 of the $400,000 he'd inherited from an aunt who passed away just a few years earlier. And the rest of his money was running out fast, most of it basically on drinks at various gay bars around Philadelphia. However, investigators did learn that Peter actually spent his final days in New York City. They thought possibly Philadelphia, but they found out that no, he was in New York City. He had attended a fundraiser in the city on May 3rd, and he was last seen leaving the Townhouse Bar, which is a Manhattan piano bar that catered almost exclusively to a gay clientele. In the first week of the investigation, they really did end up learning a great deal about Peter

and had even arrived at a theory as to how he met his end, but none of that information led them closer to their killer. It was clear that the rest stop was not where Peter had been murdered. And because of that, there wasn't a lot of evidence to collect there. So crime scene technicians ended up finding 28 fingerprints and three palm prints on the bags

that Peter had been wrapped in, but they weren't a match to anybody in a local database, and a nationwide search would eventually turn up nothing either. So in mid-May, Lieutenant Charles Stevens told reporters, "'We don't have any suspects and no motive.'" And unfortunately, that's how things would stay for several years to come.

Oh, shit. A year passed, and Peter Anderson's case was shelved as a cold case, when on July 10th in Burlington, New Jersey, the scene appeared to be repeating itself. That morning, New Jersey Department of Transportation workers Wayne Luker and Theodore Doyle were just going about their daily cleaning of the rest areas along Route 70 and Route 72, when at the Butler Place rest area, Luker noticed that some of the bags in the barrel were not New Jersey-dot issued. So he pulled one of the bags out of the trash to inspect it

and noticed that it was unusually heavy and, quote, felt like it had a pumpkin in it. Oh. Underneath, there were several more bags, and some of them appeared to be leaking what looked like blood. At the time the men didn't find this unusual, which like at first I was like what? But it was because it was common for fishermen to dispose of fish parts on their way home from like a fishing trip. So they gathered up the remaining bags and just threw them in

the truck. Okay. Once they were back at the sorting plant, Luker and Doyle started you know removing the garbage in the truck. OK. Once they were back at the sorting plant, Luker and Doyle started, you know, removing the garbage from the truck, throwing it into larger receptacles for processing. But curiosity was at, you know, Poconut Luker. Yeah. So he opened the bag that felt like it had a pumpkin in it

and discovered that it was obviously not a pumpkin, but the decapitated head of a middle-aged white man. Holy shit. I can't imagine just going about my job and finding that. Finding a decapitated head. Yeah. Well, there's nothing that could ever prepare you for something like that.

No, and imagine if his curiosity hadn't been poking at him. Yeah. He would have just thrown, like that, that man could have never been found. And it would have been exactly what the killer was hoping for. That somebody would have just tossed it away. Or maybe not at the same time. He's a strange guy.

Yeah. So as they were emptying the contents of their truck at the plant, another sanitation worker cleaning the Stafford forest rest area about 15 miles away also made a similarly horrifying discovery. When Leon Valentino was unable to lift the entire trash bag out of the full barrel, he started pulling smaller bags out one at a time. And at one point, one of those bags ripped open and revealed the contents to be a human leg. Again, this is 15 miles away.

So New Jersey State Police Detectives, yeah, shit. So New Jersey State Police Detectives... He's scattering it. Yeah, he did. New Jersey State Police Detectives split up between the two sites and started processing the scenes. At the first site, investigators inventoried the contents of the trash bags and discovered three triple-bagged trash bags with handles containing the man's head, two double-bagged white trash bags containing the left and right arms, each individually bagged, two double-bagged white trash bags containing the left and right arms, each individually bagged.

Two double-bagged and double-knotted brown plastic trash bags containing a man's upper torso and a New York Daily newspaper dated July 3, 1992. They also found two double-bagged and double-knotted brown plastic trash bags containing the man's lower torso and another newspaper dated July 3, 1992. A white plastic bag containing the man's intestines and stomach contents. And then they also found two right-handed size 7 surgical gloves, a shower curtain, one fitted sheet, a torn latex glove, a pair of men's tennis shoes, sorry, men's tennis shoes, one master compass saw with a blade,

one master compass saw package with an extra blade, and a Pergamence price sticker, two more latex gloves, and an Abraham and Strauss paper bag with handles. Oh my God, it's the stomach contents and intestines? In a white plastic bag. In one bag? Yeah. Just alone? Like, for some reason that's like so visceral.

It sure is. Like, holy shit. Intestines and stomach contents, that's a lot. Holy shit. And that was just at one site. Remember, there's two sites. God. If you're listening to this show, Morbid, you know that a day can change in an instant. We need nourishment so that we can stay sharp and out of danger, honey.

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Hellofresh.com slash morbid10fm. One per box with an active subscription, free meals are applied as a discount on the first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. Meanwhile, at the Stafford Forest Rest Area, the other site, technicians sorting through the contents of the barrels discovered several of the same brand of garbage bags used at the other site.

And they also found the man's left and right legs in those bags. Also discovered in the trash bags were more latex gloves, a pair of cloth gloves, a disposable razor, another copy of the New York Post dated July 7th, 1992. And the bags also contained a man's briefcase, which is how they found the identification for their victim, 57-year-old Thomas Mulcahy.

Oh. Again, so young. According to the driver's license, Thomas Mulcahy lived in Sudbury, Massachusetts, which is wild. It's so weird to hear all these places. It is. And it's so weird. It's always weird to hear these places,

but it's so weird when you've never heard of the case and it was, like, right there. Which, like, makes me angry that you've never heard of the case, and it was like right there. Which like makes me angry that we've never heard of this case, because I'm like, what the fuck do you mean I didn't know about this? That's exactly how I thought. Like I'm actually like annoyed. No, same. Yeah.

And just for anybody who doesn't know, Sudbury is like another suburb about 30 miles from Boston. And Thomas Mulcahy worked there as a technology consultant. Upon further investigation, detectives learned that he was a married father of four children. Are you kidding me? So the first call placed after the body was discovered was obviously to Mulcahy's wife, Margaret. According to Margaret, Thomas had been in New York City for a business conference, and he was supposed to return home the previous day, July 9th. They had talked two days earlier and he said he was still planning on coming

home. And when he hadn't returned as was planned, she called the hotel and asked the staff the staff to check his room where they found his clothing. And that was it. The next day she called the NYPD, but she was told that she would need to file a missing persons report with the local police in Sudbury, which really doesn't make a lot of sense. She did as she was instructed, but the Sudbury police told her it would be wise to wait a few days before filing the report just in case her husband just returned. But it's like, no, I'm going to file a report, err on the side of caution. Yeah, that would absolutely be me.

But also she's like, okay, I guess I'll just do what the police tell me because it seems like they don't want to file this report. But later in court, she said, I don't, yeah, that would absolutely be me. But also she's like, okay, I guess I'll just do what the police tell me because it seems like they don't want to file this report. But later in court she said, I couldn't understand why I had to wait. Yeah. I wouldn't understand that either. I'd be pissed. She absolutely was and I would be too. Back in Newark, the medical examiner started the autopsy of Thomas Mulcahy

laying out the disarticulated parts on the table to form a whole human. The first thing the examiner noticed was aarticulated parts on the table to form a whole human. The first thing the examiner noticed was a patch of missing skin on the neck, which had been crudely removed. The patch ended up being found in one of the other bags and there was an obvious bite mark in this patch of skin. Holy shit. Brutal. And that they removed the patch of skin because they knew they had.

Yeah. But then left it in the bags. It's weird. Awful. And you said it's so dichotomous. Yeah, that's I can't. Because it's like, did you throw it away because it had a bite mark in it?

Or did you throw it like, I just, like, why did you cut that off and throw it away? It's a very disorganized way of thinking. It is. Like, you can't figure out, this person can't think what they want out of this. It's true. Like, what the point of it all is to them.

I don't know if maybe they thought one set of what they had thrown away was not going to be discovered for some reason because of where they threw it away. And then the other one would be found because of where they put it. Or if they just wanted both to be found. Yeah, because I feel like they wanted both to be found. It does feel that way. And maybe they just thought it would, I mean, I guess they were right because they were, it sounds like it they wanted both to be found. It does feel that way. I... and maybe they just thought it would... I mean, I guess they were right,

because it sounds like it took a while to find them. Maybe they just thought they would have this exciting goose chase, where they would find something over here and they wouldn't be able to connect it here. Yeah. Because it's like, if not, you would have just destroyed that piece. This is very grotesque. But you would have destroyed that piece of flesh.

You wouldn't have left it whole to be able to see a bite mark. That's the thing that would have been pretty easy to destroy. Exactly. Instead of just leaving it. It's just, yeah, this person's mind is wild. Yeah. Well, they ended up determining that the cause of death was a penetrating stab wound about four inches deep, which penetrated the heart, which obviously killed Thomas instantly. There were three additional stab wounds in the abdomen and the chest, and they also found ligature marks around the wrists, which had caused hemorrhaging on one arm, indicating that Thomas had been alive when he was bound. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Most interesting to the medical examiner was not the death itself, but the disarticulation. We've said this a lot during other cases. A lot of times when a body is dismembered, it's not done well. It's usually just because the killer needs to dispose of the remains more easily. But this case showed considerable evidence of skill. The body had been carefully and methodically taken apart at the joints, which takes a long time. So this suggested that not only did the killer have the time and the space methodically taken apart at the joints, which takes a long time. Yeah, I was going to say.

Yeah. So this suggested that not only did the killer have the time and the space to perform such a labor intensive task, but they also had considerable knowledge of human anatomy that allowed them to remove a limb like a surgeon would. Yeah. And it also indicated that the killer was probably a man, since proper disarticulation of that type took a decent amount of upper body strength. Yeah, I could see that. You know, so finally there was something ritualistic

about the disarticulation itself. The body parts had all been carefully removed, washed, and placed in individual bags, then double-bagged and tied tightly. Which definitely shows you a very particular pathology, I would think. Yes. Yeah, this wasn't just like a means to an end, just somebody trying to simply get rid of a body. It was a large part of a long process engaged in by the killer.

And whoever had done this to Thomas Mulcahy had really left nothing behind. Taken together, all of this told the investigators that this killer was confident and most alarmingly he had probably done this before and was definitely going to strike again yeah the kind of person who does this isn't just gonna stop no you know this isn't like wow okay I satisfied that right yeah the obviously the news hit the Mulcahy family and friends very hard Reverend Brian Manning said he died a very tragic, very violent death. It was very unsettling. And the level of violence indicated a personal relationship between Mulcahy and his killer, but neither Margaret or anybody else could imagine someone who would want

Thomas dead and who would go to these lengths. A former co-worker said he had a view of life that everything was great. The classic forward-thinking American. He would always say nice things about people. Oh, that just makes me sad. I know. So detectives poured over Thomas' business cards and credit card just trying to retrace his moments and the days leading up to his death. And that's when they came across something unexpected.

Among the charges that you would find during a business trip was a charge from the townhouse bar. I don't know if that sounds familiar to you. It does. So the news didn't really come to Margaret as much of a shock. They had been married for more than three decades at that point. But in recent years, Thomas had actually been open with her about his bisexuality. He was bisexual.

For him. Yeah, I know. I'm happy that he felt like he could be open. And good for her, I hope, for allowing him to feel that way. Yeah, I think it obviously was tough because you're married. When it changes, yeah, like when it comes out, like it could probably be like, oh, okay. Yeah, they struggled, but... But obviously she made him feel safe enough to bring it up, which is beautiful. So in fact, it was actually in it did become a regular practice that when Thomas went out of town for business trips,

usually he would add on a day or two to his trip to explore the local gay scenes and visit the bars. Okay. His daughter Tracy said he got to live the part of his life that he wasn't able to live publicly. Wow. So like when he went to New York, he said he got to live the part of his life that he wasn't able to live publicly. Wow. So like when he went to New York, he kind of got to be in touch with that part of himself. Yeah. Really be who he was. Yeah.

Like, and it seems like he was just like a multifaceted human being. Yeah, exactly. And I'm glad he had people around him who were supportive of him looking at all those parts. Yeah. So initially, obviously, the revelation that her husband also had a sexual and romantic interest in men did come as a shock to Margaret. Yeah, of course.

But after months of going to therapy together and having very open, honest communication, Margaret did accept Thomas for who he was and they did reach a compromise. Wow, that's like... That's big. And especially what time period is. This is... This is the... It's 1991, I want to say. Yeah, I mean, that's big. And remember, this is like time period is this is this is the it's 1991. I want to say, I mean, I mean, it was probably like the mid to late 80s when this happened.

Yeah. So that I mean, that's, that's like a really like healthy way to approach that kind of like, because, because obviously, you went into this marriage thinking one thing and when things change, no matter what it is hard, it's okay for somebody to be like a little shock you have to like kind of work through it. Absolutely. And the fact that they worked through it together and had like open honest conversations is like and especially at that time period. Yeah. It's like really like impressive. It is. Of them as humans all of them. It is and you know things seemed to go okay for a while. Thomas seemed relieved that he had, you know, shared that part of himself.

Yeah. And he seemed happy. But at a later period, Margaret started to wonder whether he was as happy as she assumed he had been. For the last several years, it seemed that his drinking had been increasing to the point where she actually even confronted him about maybe possibly being an alcoholic. And years later, their children would recall a tension in the house

toward the end of their father's life. But at that time, they obviously didn't know why. Tracy said, it seemed like she made him feel like shit, but you didn't know what was the reasoning behind it. So to them, it seemed like one thing, but obviously it was much more layered than they ever knew. I was gonna say, that sounds like a very complicated situation.

So aside from his mostly closeted sexuality, Thomas Mulcahy's background didn't shed much light onto how he would have ended up killed. Instead, investigators turned to his whereabouts in the days before his death. According to his wife, Thomas had traveled to the offices of, I think it's Deloitte and Touche, on the morning of July 8th, where he gave a presentation to about 25 staff members at their offices in the World Trade Center. Afterward, he went out to a long lunch with some associates where they each drank quote unquote, more than a half a dozen beers each, which would have accounted for his blood alcohol being nearly two and a half times the legal limit when he died.

Wow. Yeah, he had a good time. After lunch, the men went their separate ways and Thomas ended up going on to the townhouse bar, where he stayed and continued drinking for several more hours. At the townhouse bar, detectives interviewed a man named Douglas Gibson. He was one of the patrons who had been in the bar the night that Thomas was there. Gibson said that he had been introduced to Thomas that night by another townhouse regular, and he just sat down beside him at the bar. He was interested in Thomas. But despite his obvious interest,

Thomas seemed distracted and pretty disinterested. Gibson said he kept looking across the bar at a man sitting by the piano on the other side of the room. At a certain point, Gibson got up to go to the restroom. And when he came back, Thomas and the man at the other end of the bar were both gone. Okay. So Gibson described the man to the detectives as best he could, but he was seated on the opposite side of a crowded room. So the description was pretty vague. Yeah. And it sounds like he was more interested in who he was talking to. So he wasn't probably

looking very much. Exactly. So it really didn't come of any use to the detectives. So with no fingerprints, very little evidence and not a single suspect, the case looked like it was going nowhere, just like Peter Anderson's case. The only thing investigators had to work with were the various items found inside the garbage bags and the bags themselves. Inside one of the bags, technicians discovered the saw likely used in the disarticulation, alongside an additional saw blade, which still had that price tag from the Pergaments, which is a

regional home improvement store. Okay. So using the price tag to guide them, detectives traced the saw back to a store located on Staten Island, where they confirmed that the saw had been purchased. Oh, okay. Look at that. So they're doing like straight up detective work here. Similarly, the rubber gloves and bags appeared to have been purchased at a CVS store, which

was also located in Staten Island next to that Pergamon's location. To investigators on the case, the point of purchase for the saw, the gloves, and the garbage bags was significant. It indicated that the killer was at least comfortable with that area of Staten Island, enough so that he could move about casually. So that indicated to them that Staten Island was most likely his home base. But the range of distance from Staten Island out to New Jersey, where Mulcahy's body had been discovered, was massive.

And canvassing every neighborhood just would have been impossible. I do love real old-fashioned detective work when they're able to like, you know, follow these little like trails, right? And even though like things based on very like purchases, yeah, like something you might think is innocuous, but it's not. And even though it took years to finally get there, at least they had those little things along the way that somebody like a new detective could follow back up on. Yeah, and like put all the pieces together. Right. You had they had the puzzle pieces. It wasn't like they were just letting this go. But after about two weeks on the case, the results of a previously completed VICAP,

which is the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, it's a small unit of the FBI. They analyze like serial violent sexual crimes. So the VICAP search came back and it indicated that Thomas Mulcahy's murder definitely bore certain similarities to the murder of Peter Anderson the previous year. When they looked into the Anderson case, the similarities were striking. Both men lived mostly closeted lives.

Both men had been married to women, seemed to have drinking problems, and had both also spent their, at least a few of their last hours at the townhouse bar. Yeah. And of course, they had both been mutilated and left in garbage bags alongside the highway where they were almost certain to be found quickly. Detective Matthew Cullen said, at that point, you're looking at a potential serial killer. Yeah. So by the end of July, 1992, the investigation into Thomas Mulcahy's death had unfortunately

gone cold, and after a few more months of dead ends, the case was shelved and marked inactive. Then, on May 10th, 1993, a man driving along a dirt road in Manchester Township, New Jersey, inadvertently revived the Mulcahy investigation when he spotted something laying in the road and pulled over to investigate. When Donald Giberson pulled off to the side of the road, he couldn't quite tell what he was looking at, but it seemed worth investigating. As he got closer to the object, he was horrified to discover that what he had stumbled upon was a man's arm with a piece of clothesline attached to it. Oh my god. Yeah, and that was sticking out of a white trash bag.

So he looked closer into the bushes just beyond where the arm was, thinking that he might find whoever it belonged to. But instead, he found six heavy-duty, dark green trash bags. Holy shit. So he immediately found the nearest phone and called the police. Good on him. After searching the scene thoroughly, investigators ended up finding a total of seven garbage bags phone and called the police. Good on him. After searching the scene thoroughly, investigators

ended up finding a total of seven garbage bags containing seven different body parts. The legs, upper torso, and lower torso were each triple wrapped in heavy green garbage bags, and the arms were each wrapped in white trash bags and then placed in a heavy green bag. The head, on the other hand, was in a similar shopping bag with the words, President's Choice on one side, and Made with Pride by Bob H. and Jerry H. on the other. These were just commercial shopping bags. [♪ music playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing, chimes playing Today is the worst day of Abby's life. The 17-year-old cradles her newborn son in her arms. They all saw how much I loved him.

They didn't have to take him from me. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families ship their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and force them to secretly place their babies for adoption. In hidden corners across America, it's still happening. My parents had me locked up in the godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me and to steal my son away from me. The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern evangelical right and the founder of Liberty University,

where powerful men emboldened by their faith determine who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Investigators theorize that the bags had all been placed in the same location by the killer, but the arm that had been discovered in the road was probably uncovered by animals. Yeah.

Unfortunately, unlike the previous victims, there wasn't any wallet or belongings found on or near the body to help identify this man. Before the remains were removed, a crime scene technician took fingerprints and examined the body. And from what the technician could tell, the parts had all been washed and there was very little blood in these bags. He also took photographs, including one of a tattoo between the index finger and thumb of the right hand, which said Linda. A few hours later, the fingerprints and the tattoo were entered into the automated fingerprint identification system, but nothing came back on a local search. But luckily, when the prints were sent to Philadelphia and New York for

comparison to their database, they ended up with a hit. Their victim was a known sex worker in New York who went by the name Eddie Ramos. About an hour later, another hit came back, this time from Philadelphia, where the victim was known to police by his real name, Anthony Marrero. Anthony Marrero had been born in Puerto Rico on May 2, 1949, but detectives quickly learned that, even to those who knew him, he hadn't shared a lot of information about his past. And they knew that he lived in Philadelphia from 1969 to 1983, and that he then moved to Manhattan. When it came to any other information though, like friends and family, and,

you know, particularly friends who also performed sex work, weren't very forthcoming or eager to cooperate with the police. Yeah. Even, even now, author, Elon Green notes notes it's pretty hard to find information on Anthony Marrero. He did have an arrest record for solicitation and just other petty crimes, and that contains some biographical information, but otherwise his past was remaining a mystery. At the medical examiner's office, the autopsy strongly indicated what already investigators assumed, that Anthony Marrero was killed by the same man who had killed Peter Anderson and Thomas Mulcahy.

Like the other victims, his body was disarticulated. Rather than crudely dismembered, it had also been done post-mortem. Time of death was estimated to be somewhere between three and five days earlier, so decomp was already well underway. But still, the cause of death was very easily identifiable and listed as multiple stab wounds to the chest and back, just like the other cases. That's so brutal.

When you think about that cause of death. Because you bleed out. Yeah. And it's just a brutal way to kill someone. Yeah, it's a lot. Otherwise, there was no sign of physical trauma and there was no indication that Anthony had been sexually assaulted or drugged at the time of death.

From what detectives were able to learn about Marrero, they knew that he worked a lot at the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan. And one of the terminal agents told them that when he wasn't working at the bus station, Anthony would cruise what he called the basic bars, meaning the area's upper middle class skate bars. Oh, okay. Yeah. Assuming the case was connected to the other murders, the detectives went straight to the townhouse bar, but nobody remembered having seen Anthony there before.

Okay. But somebody did remember seeing him working a lot in an area just down the street. So while they couldn't place him in the townhouse, where Thomas Mulcahy and Peter Anderson had been, they still felt pretty confident that his connection to the area was a good indication they were looking for their same killer. For sure. Within a week, detectives had exhausted

all the New York leads and turned to their peers in Philadelphia, but those leads also dried up quickly and really went nowhere. According to his family, Anthony would sometimes make his way back to Philadelphia, but he never stayed very long and they never knew when he was coming back. By the 80s, they had learned how Anthony was making his living and they had come to accept that his life was pretty dangerous and likely could have ended the

way that it did. But they said there was little they could do to persuade him to stop, which is really sad. Several months later though, a reporter from the New York Times would uncover more about Anthony's life and what he learned only seemed to strengthen his connection to the other victims. According to his brother Lewis, Anthony struggled with addiction since the breakup of his marriage in 1980. Which Lewis did attribute to his wife finding out that Anthony had an interest in men. Ever since then, Lewis said Anthony kind of just bounced around from place to place, casually dating both men and women, and earning money however he could,

or borrowing it from family members. In the interview, he did recount a story though about how his brother always dreamed of becoming a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. And actually one year he was even invited to try out for them. Oh, shit. In the end, he wasn't asked back for a second tryout, but that's... That's like big dreams, too. That's a lot, too, to actually be personally invited by them.

I mean, when you think of, like, the... the stats of how many people could even make it to that point. Right. It's very low. It is. Yeah. And to be asked back for a second tryout is like, Yeah, that's interesting. that would have been major.

So the fact that he was even asked for one is crazy. That means he was really good. It does. And Lewis said, he even showed me the invitation to tryout. He was very proud of that invitation. As he should be. Yeah. In the absence of new leads, though,

investigators turned back to the small amount of evidence that had been collected at the crime scene. Crime scene technicians had discovered two fingerprints and a palm print on the plastic garbage bags, but unfortunately they didn't match anything on file in New Jersey, New York or Pennsylvania. So that only left them to work with the distinctive bag where Anthony's head was found. From the information printed on the bag, they learned that made with pride bags were custom printed for promotional use and distributed pretty locally. But unfortunately,

to Acme Security, the company that produced them, locally meant a very long list of cities and towns across a tri-state area. I was hoping locally would narrow that down a little more. Not so much, no. So the list provided to them wasn't completely useful to investigators, but one location did stand out to them, Staten Island, New York. So we keep coming back to Staten Island. I was going to say we keep touching upon Staten Island. Yep. Unfortunately, though, like the other cases, the trail did quickly go cold. And after a few

days, detectives had moved on to what they consider to be more pressing cases. Then on July 31st, 1993, the case was unexpectedly revived, unfortunately with the discovery of yet another body. Yeah, because I'm sitting here like, more pressing cases. You have a serial killer. Yeah, but they're targeting gay men. The victim profiles. It's a very different time. It's just so frustrating. It's like, this is a literal serial killer. It's a serial killer in the gay community. The victim profiles. Yeah. It's a very different time. It's just so frustrating. It's like, this is a literal serial killer.

It's a serial killer in the gay community. It's at risk. And a brutal serial killer. Yeah, not just like, I mean, any serial killer is brutal, but this is. This is just like, he could really, like, this is very, very dangerous. Yeah, but that was back at a time where they considered being gay an at-risk lifestyle. Less dead. Yeah.

So that's awesome. On the afternoon of July 30th, Ronald Calandria packed up his truck at the Route 9W Overlook in Haverstraw, New York, and he placed all the trash and large barrels to be picked up by the sanitation workers later that day. When he came back the next day, though, he was surprised to find that his barrels hadn't been emptied.

But when he looked closer, he realized it wasn't the trash he had put in the barrels the day before. Somebody else had come along in the middle of the night, it seemed, and dumped more garbage. So he was like, what the fuck? So he's obviously curious about what somebody would have wanted to dispose of in someone else's trash. Yeah, he's like, what the hell? I'd be fucking pissed. Yeah. So he untied the gnaw on the heavy-duty green bag sitting on top of the pile. And that was when he discovered what he believed to be a human head.

Holy shit. Later, he told a reporter he had to be dumped overnight. It was still fresh and there were no flies. Oh my god. And also it's like to know that this person came by and just dumped a severed head in your garbage in the middle of the night. I cannot imagine. How do you ever sleep again? Also, you're I I mean, you have a list of thoughts running through your head when you open garbage of what could possibly be in there. A decapitated head would never be one of them. That would not be the thing that would be forefront of my mind.

No. Like, what the fuck? I can't, I cannot. So by that point, most law enforcement agencies in the area had heard about the murders of Peter Anderson, Thomas Mulcahy, and Anthony Marrero. So this crime scene had an eerie familiarity. The body had been disarticulated, but the barrel contained only the head and arms of the adult man.

Each had been wrapped in heavy duty green garbage bags. Same thing. Just like before. Later that day, at a rest stop a few miles down the road, the rest of the body was discovered in identical garbage bags. That same day, a man collecting bottles and cans along the Hudson River found a briefcase and a bag of men's clothes, which he brought to the local police station. And inside the briefcase were several documents that identified their victim as 56-year-old

Michael Sakura. According to the medical examiner, Michael's cause of death was blunt force trauma to the skull. So that's different this time. I was going to say that's a change up. It is a change up. It caused, quote, multiple commutative fractures. Holy shit. As well as lacerations to the front and back of his head and swelling and trauma in his brain. Oh my god. There were also stab wounds to the chest and back, similar to what had been seen with the

other victims. But what interested detectives in this case was that unlike the arms and the head, which had been expertly disarticulated, for the first time in this series of cases, the legs had been crudely dismembered from the body, which indicated to them that the killer had to have been in some kind of rush for whatever reason. Oh, interesting. Otherwise, there wasn't a lot to go on from the autopsy. If investigators wanted to learn who killed Michael Sakura, it seemed that they were going to be more likely to find that out by learning about his life rather than his death.

Yeah. So they found that Michael Sakura lived in New York's West End in a studio apartment that he'd been in since 1964. From the doorman, detectives learned that until a few months ago, he had actually been in a relationship. But the doorman hadn't seen the partner in a while, so he figured they broke up. OK.

When detectives got into contact with Michael's sister Marilyn, that's when they learned a great deal more about their victim. Michael Sakura was born and had been raised in Ohio as the oldest of two children born to Michael Sr. and Mary Jane Sakura. Sadly, according to Marilyn, their parents weren't really educated, they worked blue collar jobs. And their father, who they called Big Mike, had served a few years in jail after a robbery conviction in his early 20s. Oh, man. And both parents participated in domestic violence, quote unquote, Oh boy. Marilyn said, which was often directed at her and her brother.

Oh, that's awful. Yeah. They had a rough childhood. Marilyn did those seem to remember their mother more, more fondly than their father and indicated that their father was not only viciously homophobic, but racist to boot. Wow. He sounds like a gem. He does.

Marilyn lovingly referred to Michael as a quote-unquote nerd who, quote, wanted to know everything about everything and would read whatever he could get his hands on. She said he loved music and theater, and he had dreams of making a name for himself on Broadway. In high school, she said he casually dated girls. But according to Marilyn, some members of the family did sense that he may have been gay,

even if they didn't know exactly what it meant at that time. But he was obviously not going to even bring that up in front of his racist, homophobic father. Nope. Like the other victims, Michael very much understood that his sexuality would be unacceptable to his family and his friends and his neighbors. So he kept his interests and attractions to himself. And as soon as he graduated from high school, he joined the army and got the hell out of Ohio. After three years in the

army, Michael was discharged in May of 1958 with a quote, undesirable discharge. Oh, now it's unclear exactly what this meant. I didn't actually realize this but in the 1950s the federal government actually considered gay men to be a risk to national security I'm gonna say that again for the people in the back the federal fucking government Considered gay men to be a risk to national security is that shocking now though It's not but I know mean, but it is. That's not shocking at this time, at this point in time, in the year 2025. I'm like, yeah, that makes sense that they would think that.

I'm like, you guys are worried about gay men? Look who's in the fucking White House. Sorry. The dumb just doesn't even get a grip. It's shocking in the most horrific way, but it's not surprising. It's awful. Yeah. And this was either because of their associations or their risk of being blackmailed, they said.

So it is possible that that discharge was related to his sexuality, which is just fucked. That's wild. Yeah. I've never heard of an undesirable. Neither have I. I've only heard of like a dishonorable same, you know, undesirable is almost worse. Yeah, it sounds yeah, it doesn't

sound great. And according to Elon Green, the discharge was humiliating and prompted Michael to come out to his family who were obviously less than supportive. So rather than go back home to Ohio, Michael moved to Arizona for a few years and then finally got settled in New York's West End in 1961. From that point on, he was finally able to grow into really who he wanted to be. Good for Michael. He was comfortable with himself. He found community among New York's gay community,

and he just really didn't go back to Ohio much. He would go back on holidays or, you know, family milestones, but otherwise the city was his true home. Good. I'm glad he found a different home. Probably more true family there. In a lot of ways, the details of his life bore similarities to the lives of the other victims, other than the fact that he was the first victim who was comfortably and openly gay. But unfortunately, while the statements from friends and families told a lot about who Michael was when he was alive, it didn't do much to indicate how he had come to be murdered. There was, however, one piece of information that did prove to be helpful.

According to his sister Marilyn, Michael was a regular at the Five Oaks Tavern, which was a popular piano bar in midtown Manhattan. Ah, that sounds familiar. Yeah, not the same as the townhouse bar, but a piano bar. But a piano bar. Yes. So the news of Michael's death was a shock to everyone at the Five O bar, but a piano bar. But a piano bar. Yes. So the news of Michael's death was a shock to everyone at the Five Oaks, where he spent a lot of his nights

just drinking, chatting with the staff and the patrons until last call. He had started going to the Five Oaks almost 20 years earlier, when he and the other gay staff members at the New York Law Journal started stopping by the bar every day after work, just to kind of like shoot the breeze. Yeah.

Since then, he was kind of a fixture at the bar. According to one of the bartenders at the Five Oaks, he had been at the bar late the night that he was killed. And the piano player remembered seeing him sitting with a man at the bar who Michael introduced as a nurse that worked at St. Vincent Hospital and just introduced him with some generic men's name that unfortunately the pianist couldn't recall. He said that the two of them spent hours, several hours drinking and chatting and then that they left the bar together around 3am and that was the last time anyone saw Michael Sakura alive. And that is where we are going to end for part one.

Oh damn. Yeah. Brutal. It's brutal. It's really sad. And it just breaks my heart that a lot of these men didn't get to live comfortably. Yeah. And like never.

And then in Michael's case, like you're happy that he got to live completely comfortably. But you're like, a lot of your life was spent like in an abusive place. And then you were like, abused in the end. And it's like, that's so sad. Yeah, this is a gut-wrenching case. And again, I can't believe that we had never heard of this. No, it's gross that we have never heard of this. It's really sad. Um, in part two, though, we're going

to get a lot more into the background of who this killer is. Don't worry, he was found and apprehended. Thank goodness. Um, and there's some surprising details in part two that you're going to be like, how was he still on the streets for this to happen? Oh, great. Yeah.

Yeah. So with that being said, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you're a hateful fuck. Yeah. Yeah, not that weird. Don't be that weird. Not so weird that you suck. You guys. Yeah. Yeah, not that weird. Don't be that weird. Not so weird that you suck.

You guys rule though. Yeah, of course. I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a If you like morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondry's podcast American Scandal.

We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, events that have shaped who we are as a country and that continue to define the American experience. American Scandal tells marquee stories about American politics, like the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, an event that led to the downfall of a president and raised questions about the future of American democracy. We go behind the scenes looking at devastating financial crimes, like the fraud committed at Enron and Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. And we tell stories of complicated public figures like Edward Snowden and Monica Lewinsky, people who found themselves thrust into the spotlight and who spurred debates about the future of the country. Follow American Scandal wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.