Morbid - The Exorcism of Roland Doe

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

In the winter of 1973, director William Friedkin released his iconic horror classic The Exorcist, a film that has shocked and terrified audiences for more than fifty years. Based on William Peter Blatty’s novel of the same name, The Exorcist tells the story of a young girl who becomes possessed by a demonic entity, and the two Catholic priests who attempt to exorcise the demon. Even more terrifying than the content of the film, however, was the fact that The Exorcist was supposedly based on a true story.William Peter Blatty had always stated The Exorcist was based on a supposedly true story he’d heard while at Georgetown University. According to Blatty, a Maryland boy, known as “Roland Doe,” had become possessed by a demonic entity and, among other things, underwent a negative personality change and began exhibiting impossible abilities including an ability to speak Latin. It was only through the dedication of one Jesuit priest that the boy was eventually freed of his possession and went on to live a normal life.Since the release of both the novel and the film in the 1970s, a great deal more has been learned about “Roland Doe” and the supposedly true story that inspired The Exorcist, raising many questions about the veracity of the original claims. Who was “Roland Doe,” and was he truly possessed by a demon, or just the intense emotions of an adolescent boy? Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesAllen, Thomas. 1993. Possessed: The True Story of the Most Famous Exorcism of Modern Time. New York, NY: Doubleday.Associated Press. 1949. "'Evil spirit' cast out of 14-yearf-old." The Bee (Danville, Virginia), August 10: 8.McGuire, John M. 2005. "Priest was last of three who did 1949 exorcism." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 3: A1.News and Observer. 1964. "Tar Heel develops space ceramics." News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), September 3: 27.Nickell, Joe. 2001. "Exorcism!: Driving Out the Nonsense." Skeptical Inquirer 20-24.Opsasnick, Mark. 1999. "The haunted boy of Cottage City, the cold hard facts behind the story that Inspired The Exorcist." Strange Magazine.Young, Maya. 2010. Boy whose case inspired The Exorcist is named by US magazine. December 20. Accessed March 17, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/20/the-exorcist-boy-named-magazine.  Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. 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 going to 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. It's like snacks. They're Annie's organic, like, Checksmyss mix kind of thing. I don't know. Neither of us said it right.

Chexmas. Chexmas. Chexmas. Yeah, she spilled it all over the ground, so Roomba's going to 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 is why you are. You know what I'm also?

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 outnumbered in the house anymore. And I named her Cleo, or Cleo. And then all of you were like, Arnor, Claire. And I was like, yeah, exactly.

Cleo is a boy. And I knew it because I was holding her when we first, like a couple days after we got her. And 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 was like, oh, no, I don't think so. Oh, no. And then we brought her to get her final rabies 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 in that appointment. There was a lot. I've been calling her keeks. So I'm like, because, like, Cleo Keeks.

I'm trying to think of a name that I can. name him to that like keek still works. That one I can't help you with. Yeah, I'm brained up right now. 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 eat lunch and then we're going back at it, and it's an experience to do it in the afternoon.

It is. It feels a little funky. We haven't done it in a while. Feels a little funky fresh. Usually the afternoons are for listener tales because we're punchy as fuck, and listener tales 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 going to 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.

Ah, yes. Yes. I worked in Hollywood video when that was out on video. Oh, did you really? Yeah. Macaulay Koken. 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. Wild. 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 fine. That's allowed. Yeah, I wasn't partying or anything. 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 my, 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 want to listen to that or, you know, maybe you don't want your child to listen to that. Like, let's not do that. Let's not do that together, guys. Let's not. And here's your warning, because there's going to 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 like 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 like 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. It's 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 pacifiers and the of the binkies.

But it was meant to make people uncomfortable and it was meant to make a statement. Yeah. The outfits and the clothing. The club kids, they wanted to shock people. They didn't want to be part of normal society. And that's exactly why they were all about nightlife. Yeah. And there were.

I love the nightlife. Yeah. And there were. You should sing at one of these nightclubs that were all around town. Maybe I did. Oh, did you? I don't know. That was five. I was rolling. Rolling through. Rolling with the homies. But yeah, there was all kinds of night clubs. They'd put on different events. People would dress up for them.

And because there weren't 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 kings. The club kings and queens were. That's what you meant to say. The celebrities weren't really coming to the area where the club king. 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 celebutons 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 mainstream way if 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 a 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 rohypnal, which is a muscle relaxant, which actually is 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.

Not recreationally. Recreationally, exactly. 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. Haraldo, the Joan River show, all those ones. Sally Jesse Raphael. Oh, the glasses. And all the biggest publications and tabloids of the time were writing stories on them. Because everybody was just like, what the fuck are these kids doing? Yeah, just fascinated. Yeah.

And in the 80s, like, I feel like, like, Satanic Panic was going on. And if you were different, it was like, oh, my God, you must worship 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 the thing. I was pretty. Let's look at it. Yeah.

I was watching old clips of Geraldo and I was just like, oh, wow. These people are like really just like exactly what you said. Just like displayed like zoo animals. Just like 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 Geraldo Rivera to, but you know. Nah. That's a hard gna. That's a hard gnaw. So some people use the scene and what they're, They learned from the culture of it to go on and gain crazy success in the entertainment industry. Bjorke, is that how you say that?

Bjorke. Bjorke. N. Sorry, I'm young, okay. James St. James is one. James is one. And the biggest of all I would say is Rupal. I was just going to say a little person we know named Rupal.

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 celebrant, 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? Oh, is it? At the end, I swear she says, like, Aaron went to South Bend or, like, it's in a movie somewhere. Well, I definitely have heard of South Bend, Indiana, and some, like, movies for sure. Yeah, right. And I'm sure there's one that I'm missing that I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah. That's where it's from. Exactly. Um, so he was born in South Bend,

Indiana on April 29th, 1966. 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. Michael, by all accounts, 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, they didn't understand him. And no one wants to get to know or understand. and 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 going to 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 years. Usually how it goes. Yep. 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 was a straight A student and he did so well that when he graduated in 1984, he was in the top 8% of his class. Wow. I didn't know that. Yeah. Now a word from our sponsor, Better Help. I feel like when you're kind of like 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, and I'm definitely not thinking about solutions. I think it's all about mindset, but it can be tough to train your brain to stay in problem-solving mode when you're faced with a new challenge in life or just a challenge at all. But when you learn how to find your own solutions, there is no better feeling. A therapist can help you become a better problem-solver, making it easier to accomplish your goals no matter how big or how small. I absolutely love therapy. I've gone through like a lot in my life and I just said, you know what, you've gone through a lot, girlfriend, maybe we should talk that through. And you know, back before I, you know, really started therapy, I wasn't making the best choices. I was kind of self-sabotaging. And then throughout therapy,

I've realized that. 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 like gone through periods of anxiety before and like, 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, BetterHelp 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 betterhelp.com

slash morbid. After high school, he went straight to New York City to attend Fordham University. He ended up transferring to FIT, aka 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'm literally, but my brain is not.

I can't think, 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. Keith Herring. Oh. I knew as soon as I shouldn't have put the pressure on you. Pressure makes people's mind go away.

Yeah, I'm not kidding you. I didn't know a name. No, I don't blame you. And it wasn't a name like that you needed. It was like, I forgot what a name was. You didn't even know your own name. I was like, name. A girl has no name.

I thought of Doug. I don't know why. Doug funny? Sure. All right. Why not? Keith Herring. So, yeah, Michael meets Keith Herring's boyfriend, unnamed.

I'm not sure who it was. Who 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, partying. Pretty much. This is my passion. But it's like partying and I will, like it's, it is art. The fashion of it, the art of it, the expression of it all. Yeah, exactly.

I get that. So he dropped out of school and he started working at one of the clubs, dance teria, busing tables. 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 as? No, I don't want to show. You know who you are. And then, of course, because he was kind of like hosting these parties in a way, his friends would come to the clubs that he was working at.

They would all get ready in these super elaborate costumes. And over time, they came up with their own look or Luke for all the youths out there. And before 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 Gation's club, the limelight. he and his friends were becoming more and more known among the community and Michael specifically became pretty much a celebrity. 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 it in my head and I was like, no. I would have said, it's going to come back later. And here we are. Here we are. Because when Andy Warhol died, Michael was later credited with revitalizing the downtown scene because Warhol died in 80s. 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. It was like one stepped out, the other stepped in. Yeah. Honestly, exactly. It's a weird way of looking at Andy Warhol's death. 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 people had their own persona. there was Jenny Talia, Walt Pepper, Robert Freeze Riggs, Ernie Glam, who's still pretty famous today, Amanda Lepore was also very famous, and so many more. Wow. And I didn't intend for that to rhyme. I actually write, I wrote Amanda Lepore and so many more.

But it sounds great. And I didn't mean to do that. You're a poet and you don't know it. So before long, Michael was throwing parties at every single one of Peter Gation's 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. Ooh.

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 like 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

don't worry even if you are coming up of like Gerard Schaefer and how we were like uh 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 me too because even so I did some damage to my fucking brain yeah a little scary it really is I was born right in the right time of panoramics. A panoramics. A pan of fucking ramics.

I'm like, this is cool. It's a great time to be alive. During a panini. During a... During a... Pee. See, it's the afternoon. We can't think of words anymore.

During a paloosa. 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. parties at places like McDonald's in Times Square, Burger King.

Wow. There's footage of a bunch of these, too. And I've actually been to the McDonald's in Times Square, so, like, I kind of went. I kind of went to one of these hell off parties. I kind of 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 Dunkin' Donuts, and there was a massive one in one of the subway stations. 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, would not fly. Do you remember the first time I took Auntie Amy on the tea? Oh my God. Are you listening? Are you listening?

This story is told with love. She had just gotten shoulder surgery and she had this like massive cast. And she was so pissed because nobody would let her sit. And I was like, Amy. Welcome to Boston. We're on the tea. Like, unless you're pregnant or elderly and even then somebody might not get up. No one's given up there.

See? It's so funny. It's the tea. And that's the tea. But anyways, this is the sub. So they literally were like going ham in the subway. Oof. 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, DJ James Kennedy. It's not about the pasta. It was about the pasta. And the pasta is not pasta. It's very much about the pasta.

The pasta could be found at this party. Yeah, definitely. parties. People are like, people that don't watch braver. I was just going to say, where are vanderpump 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 and that he is good at this. So it's 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 want to give a trigger warning. Like, if you didn't heed my first warning, you don't want to 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 do it with your own thoughts. Just leave the room. Leave your own thoughts. this flying at the door. Any boundary that you could possibly think of, Michael most certainly pushed it. I'm uncomfortable 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. But it definitely inspired his fashion and the parties he threw. Okay. Loved the movie Bloodfeast, and his inspiration behind

these particular parties was that movie. So the flyers... You want to hear something weird? Not to interrupt him. Did you just watch 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, 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 more of 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 vice article that I'll link with James St. James. James, among like a ton of other stuff. But they kept showing, the reason I say that is because they kept showing scenes of blood feasts. 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 feast. It inspired me to do it. It's like, shut up. It's a

fucking movie. You're just the worst. Yeah, you suck. 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, like how far he could push the envelope. Mm-hmm. 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 pea drinker. I don't really want to get further into that. I think you can paint your own picture. I was going to 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, I think. 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. 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 going to go to your head. Of course it is. Especially when you're young. And your sense of reality is going to be warped. Yeah. And you're like nocturnal at this point. 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 just, 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, um, in the documentary that I

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 oh 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 yeah to the level that he did like i'm sorry even that kind of shit that's like that's really fucked up and violating and if you're if you're capable of that that that's You're capable of worse. Something's wrong here. Yeah. Like something bad is going to happen here. And in my opinion, this is the worst one of these three examples. There was a time that he was standing on a balcony over one of the bars in the nightclub. And he literally started peeing onto the bartender 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 like she got fired. Yeah, but either way. And he, I mean, he definitely pissed on people like a, like she was not the only person. Oh my God. That was 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 like so disgusting. I'm like embarrassed. It is. It's just so foul. It is. That's just so. foul. You just don't do that.

And it's, ugh, it's just like, what is wrong with you? Now, Michael Musto, 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 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. In the beginning, Michael weirdly enough, not weird that he was against it, but just weird when he used to see where his life goes. He was actually very against drugs in the beginning of things, like didn't want to 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 does your how do your insides not just explode or just like leak out of your nose and I feel like these people like they do have it down to like a science because when the coke start or when the heroin starts like chilling you out too much people will do

a bump of coke and like like come like skyrocket right off of that and you're like that must be so bad for you I mean it is so bad for your body and it's just you better have that down to that hair line boundary there, which there's going to be a time where you fall over either side and you fuck it up and 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. Not 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 that they were there just like free reign. People performing, he said, would rather be paid in drugs than money or than 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 U.S. 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.

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So 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. They were massive. Yeah. And actually, you can look up clips of, like, the Geraldo show, just to, 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, like, display his outfit and kind of, like, walk the catwalk 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 going to 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 everyday society. So,

than it is for him. 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 he came to all like the early parties and everything. There's footage of it. Oh, that's sad. And just like how dare you like just be nice, 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. I didn't know

it was 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 Bloodbath, a fabulous but true tale of murder and clubland. haven't read it. Haven't read it. I 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. Basically what he was trying to say is that Michael owed Angel money all the time. That makes sense. All the time. There were rumors later that Michael had stolen about $2,000 from Angel while they were staying together. My God. And he would steal a lot more later on.

Jeez. 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 going to do our best. So it was March 17, 1996, an angel shows up to Michael's apartment saying either that Peter Gation owed him money, remember who Peter from the beginning. Club guy. 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 to sleep yet. Wow. Yeah. That stresses me out. That stressed me out. I heard that. I know. I was like, whoa. 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, you know, 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 it 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 Odeeing.

Like this is a version of the story that Michael recalls at some point when he's in prison. Spoiler alert, 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 jumpstart 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 in that scene when Rue is in the laundry room.

And I actually realized it when I watched this or when I was researching this case, so I wanted to tell you. There you go. 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 ODing. I don't, cocaine is not going to save them every time. If someone is O-Ding, don't do some cocaine about it. I said, if you or anyone you're with ever is in this situation, you call 911 immediately. Like don't, 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 say 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. Or 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 Freeze to come and help him.

So Freeze came up behind Angel with a hammer, and he hit him in the head three times. And Michael recalls this later and says that he tap, tap, tap, tapped him on the head. Like makes it seem like it was just like, beep, 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. Claw side. The claw side.

Yeah. To hit Angel in the head three times. And like I said, Michael said that Fries 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 Fries 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 ground because he's being smothered. He's suffocating. Yeah. And he's also just been blunt force trolle 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. Oh my God. But it didn't end there. Oh. Once Angel became truly unresponsive, Michael grabbed a bottle of Drano 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. Just fucked up. Like, 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 going to choke on his own vomit. And Drino, exactly. My God.

And that photo, like, 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 Drino down Angel's throat. Literally not one part of that makes sense. No. Like, there's literally not a shred of that that you could even. pretend make sense. No. That's the dumbest shit I have ever heard in my life.

No. Come, that is. Wow. Wow. That's stupidity. It is. This whole, it gets, oh, yeah. Some sources claim that the drano was injected into Angel's veins, but I read more often than not that that was not the case.

It was poured into his mouth. He, uh, he and Freeze loaded the bathtub with ice. They stripped Angel down to his underwear and they placed Angel's body into their bath tub, 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 Freeze 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. Oh, yeah, I bet. and explain that angel was killed in self-defense. Oh, okay. I'm, like, not exactly sure how you guys thought that was going to work

because you poured Drano down his throat and, like, nothing about that scream self-defense. And then duct taped his mouth shut. And then stripped his body and put it on ice. Yeah. What part of that was involved in self-defense? I just want to know. No. Wow.

Got it. No, 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. Jeez. 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. He may have considered 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, Freeze agreed. 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, Angel's 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 coincidence in life. There's literally a head that has been like bashed open with a hammer. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. So. 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 in Friza's 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 lined 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's angel? I haven't 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. Wow. Oh, my goodness. Summer, summer, summer. It just gets so busy, the parties, the gatherings, the extra time outside. And of course, you know, if you're lucky, a little well-deserved time off. I love all of that. What is not to love about this time of year? With all that fun on my calendar, though, it is kind of hard to find time to grocery shop and commit to delicious fruits and vegetable-packed meals that keep me nourish.

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So after, I guess, a few days of the box being left in the living room, Michael and Fries took it down through their elevator. They caught a cab to the nearest area. where they would have access to the Hudson River. And they paid the cab driver an additional $20 to help them throw the box over the side 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. 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 the side? I don't think so. I don't know you're not doing that. You 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 your car and you toot your horn 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. 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, I am.

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. he was probably hallucinating and like somewhere else in his mind.

To be clear, I just want to like 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. No.

You know, like, I just want to just stress that because you're like, oh, she heard all that and 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 has ever struggled with drugs or even a friend, you know that happens from time to time. I'm 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. He knew that no one's going to take you seriously. Everyone's going to 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 going to 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 are on 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? 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. Still a little confused. 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. Yeah. 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 an attorney in even for a minute. Yeah.

But attorneys. Attorneys. Attorneys. Add us. I mean, Deb, Deb, Deb, Deb's an attorney. So. Deb, Deb, what's up? We should have just ask her.

I mean, she's got, like, many kids now, so, like, we don't need to do that. But, uh, so, yeah. 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. 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, like, 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 stunts. 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 going to come back and it's going to 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 big elaborate crazy events. Like artistic, like we don't understand them, but here it is kind of thing. 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 going to 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. Wow. 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 flyers with a $4,000 reward for any info on the whereabouts of his brother. And at this point, his whole family is involved. And is 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, anywhere Johnny knew that Michael, or sorry, it's the afternoon. I was just going to 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 heard, 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 want to talk to Michael Allig or 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 John. 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, it definitely does. 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, holy 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 going to say. Or if he was just like, 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 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 do that. Yeah, 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 Musto. Oh, or Musto, excuse me. There were no names mentioned. It was a, um, it was one of those, uh, a blind item. Blind item there. 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. and more and more attention was being brought in 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 Angel's 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

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 long pause. Because he's like, well, shit. How do I say this? And then he says before he was gone. Wow. 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 realize that you're not supposed to know he was murdered. Exactly. Yep.

That definitely was that. 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. Yeah. Partying, party and partying. Why does he care?

It's because they didn't care about this community as a whole. That's exactly what it is. They didn't care. They didn't care about Michael, but they just didn't care about Angel. didn't care about any. No, they didn't care at all. Who cares? They, 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 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, yeah, you can tell there's a lot there. There's so much hatred.

Mm-hmm. Hatred. And just like, bias, neglect. Yeah. Lazziness. Lack of empathy. Just disgusting. Poutred people. Yep. Like, these are 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 club's honeypots. They were basically saying they were honeypots for young people and that these kids were being larded 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, by this point, Peter had actually fired Michael. It 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 wonder. I think he'd 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.

It was 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. He had stuff going on. He did. So two months later in November, it was discovered that Angel's body had been sitting in a morgue on 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 2, 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 day? Yeah. Like we're not calling each other. Like no one's 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. Yeah. into his head, killing him. And also from suffocation from being smothered. So Michael Musco, who wrote that blind piece, laying everything out about the murder without naming any names, said 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 movie 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.

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 purposely named Honey Trap to make fun of the case against Peter Gation. Are you kidding me? Like things kind of like laid low after Angel's body was found. Like again, they still weren't coming and 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 honeypot parties. Because I guess they're like super these people like collectors try to collect these invitations and stuff because they're so elaborate. Especially like I understand like collecting those like you know invitations. Yeah. Like I get that. Yeah. But he you know he was using it. as some kind of weird, like morbid, no pun intended, like, kind of like killer finalia, you know. Totally. I don't think that's the reason people were buying it, like you were saying. No, but that's definitely what he was doing.

He probably thought that was like a good angle. Totally. Apparently they sell for like crazy amounts of money these days. 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 tabloids are like, wow, that really sucked.

and we are pretty sure you killed somebody or the police ever going to do anything about it. Yeah. 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 sometimes. It's a double-edged sword.

It is a double-edged sword. Exactly. That was literally what I was just going 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 Gerag Schaefer case. Really? The police weren't really doing anything. Yeah. And the media were the ones that pushed them. Right. Exactly. Weird.

Weird. Another weird parallel. Yeah. 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 3 a.m., the police surrounded the hotel. They knocked on the door.

arrested Michael for the murder of Andre Angel Melendez. Good. And Robert Freeze Riggs was arrested the same day and immediately confessed. I was watching one thing where they said, like, he grabbed the detective's arm and, like, was ready to spill everything. He's like, let me get this out. He 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 hold anything. And if you just simply didn't do that, you. So Michael said, Michael was said, excuse me, to have gone quietly and also confessed pretty much immediately. He made it seem like he was relieved to get caught and he said 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. 262 days that Johnny had to wonder what happened to his brother and 262 days where Angel was basically just lying there and nobody knew what happened to him except everybody knew what happened to him. And Michael's walking around making jokes about it. But later claiming that it's an emotional burden. Yeah. It's an emotional burden but you were making jokes about it.

And partying through it and doing everything that you wanted to do while Angel couldn't because he was dying 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, 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, like, you think you need to be punished, but you're not going to 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 Odeeing and then he needed the Coke and then it started a fight. That's coming from his mouth. I don't know if that's true. Yeah.

They might have lured Angel there and killed him for one reason or another. Absolutely, they could have. 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 in self-defense 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 going to fly in court.

Like, no. So instead, Michael and Freeze were given what we fucking hate on this podcast a plea deal. And they pleaded guilty to first degree manslaughter. Oh, come on. He hit this man in the head with a hammer three times, smothered him, strangled him, poor Drano 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. 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? 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 motherfucking star boy. Ew. In one of the interviews, he told Michael Musto, 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? Wow. Yeah. Wow. Now, he was allegedly diagnosed while he was in prison with histrionic personality disorder.

A person with histrionic 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 close. closer than they actually are. Okay. Now, Michael thought that his diagnosis was a bit humorous and commented, it's very funny 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. All right. So he said in prison that he realized he had 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. 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. But you are like, whoops, I killed somebody while under the influence. It's like, okay, you're guilty.

And there are plenty of people that use drugs and do not kill people about it. Like, that's not an excuse. That's a thing. That's a thing. That's not an excuse. So Robert Freeze Riggs 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. I suppose so.

Hopefully will not murder again. He seems to live 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's, that is what we hope when people go into prison. So I suppose, let's hope that that's, yeah, 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 for me. Yeah. 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 life 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. 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 Twitter. Get off of the internet. Don't go on Twitter. Like, do something actually productive. 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 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 acquaint into 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. That makes 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, uh, a legula. It's like a play on his last name. Uh, or a legal, aligula. I think he's probably he would say it. Caligula. Oh, there you go. There you go. Hello. Look at you. Hello. Look, I'm coming back. I'm coming back. Took me a minute. But now I got words again.

Uh, 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 had been found in Joyce Kilmer Park right outside of the Bronx Supreme Court at 1.30 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 authorities.

Yeah. Truly held. Sounds 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 threw he 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 like 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 to say the least. And honestly, that's like a pretty condensed version. Like there's so many, 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. 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, Michael. Just fell in line. Yes, Michael. Sure, Michael. They just fell in line. 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 going to say he does. Because no matter what, all like cult leaders and stuff, like 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 too. And I think he probably is very adept at that as well.

Well, and I think a lot of. 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 in their life or 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 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 thing. So when somebody's sitting there being like, I'll take care of you, I'm here for you. I understand you. I can. I

can make everything come true for you. Like, what he was doing. Like, he was, he referred to himself as, like, the king of the club kids. Yeah. Like, he's your king. Yeah. It's like, you, you look at him and you, 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, when he first stepped on the scene, one, he was against drugs. And two, James St. James said that he was actually, like, intolerable. Like, people fucking hated him. And then all of a sudden, it was his charisma. Like, he figured it out. Yeah. I don't know what it is. but Michael figured it out.

Exactly. That's what it is. Whatever it was that he had to grab onto 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, like that can be a great thing because you can change.

You can make change in the world. Weald 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. Yeah, 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. Yeah. It's like. He had such potential and he just flushed it down the toilet over and over and over again.

You see that story so often, though, 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 you went. It's like you hit that tipping point and you go one way or the other and he just dipped to the life. It's like Ma always says to us.

Like Ma has said this to all of her children growing 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 is 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 down of like pushing your demons down, but 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. And not everyone is going to agree with them. Not everyone's going to agree with them or understand them or want to be around them. But it's like you have to fucking try, man. Like you have to try to keep that light side up.

a little more. Like, yeah, it's, 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 going to say, yeah. 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. Oh, 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 a But 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. And always call 911 an emergency.