True Crime All The Time - Ernest Ingenito

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

On November 17th, 1950 Ernest Ingenito shot nine of his wife’s family members in a murderous rampage. Five of them died. When Ernest went to trial his defense argued that after years of tensions with his in-laws and a custody battle, he snapped. The prosecution believed he spent weeks planning the murders in a cold and calculated manner. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the murders committed by Ernest Ingenito. He acquired guns in the months leading up to the killings and purchased ammo. He made comments to people that later seemed like harbingers of bad things to come. But, in court, the defense tried to paint Ernest as a man who snapped over the conflicts with his wife and the custody battle for his kids. Did the evidence support that? Ingenito killed members of his wife's family in three different houses. Two were across the street from each other but one he had to get into this car to get to. Would Ernest spend die in prison or would he be let out to commit other crimes?You can support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 285 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime. Mike Gibson, give me what is going on with you. Hey man, I'm doing well. How about yourself? I'm doing very, very well. Yeah. You and I just got done recording a Patreon episode that would have dropped last night.

That's true. On Bell Gibson. No, no, no, no relation. No relation. You don't want to be related to this person. No. She was an influencer from Australia who lied about beating cancer using non-traditional, holistic approaches.

She amassed a pretty big following. She did. And some people believed her so much that they stopped their cancer treatment. Yeah. She also reportedly pocketed a bunch of money she said was going to charity. So some pretty rough stuff. Yeah. Give it a listen.

Yeah. It's a different type of episode for us, but I think it's really good. So if you're on Patreon, give it a listen. If you're not, now's a great time to sign up. Speaking of Patreon, let's go ahead and give our shoutouts. We had Ron Lund. Hey, Ron. Lee Oden.

What's going on, Lee? Karen Himmulheck. What's going on, Karen? Trish. Hey, good old Trish. Becca H. Well, thank you, B.H. Steve James Tucker.

What's going on, Tucker? Evan. Evan. Eric Collins. Hey, thanks, E.C. Vach K. Anthony Wood. Thank you, Wood.

Katie Hooper. What's going on, Katie? Tommy Hogs Saither. Well, appreciate that, Hogs Safer. Andrea. Hey, Andrea. Elizabeth Jasmine. What's going on, Jasmine?

Kaylin Landry. I appreciate that, Kaylin. Megan Arns. Hey, Megan. Eric Coger. Well, there's Coger. And last but not least, Star G. Got to be a star, man.

And then we go back into the Vault Gibbs. This week, we selected Joyce Loveless. Hey, Joyce. So we appreciate all the new Patreon. support, a continued support. We had some great PayPal donations from William O'Nefrak. Hey, William. Catherine Dugan. What's going on, Dugan? And Richard Lawrence. Hey, Richard. So thanks to all of you as well. Gives right now on Unsolved, we have an episode out. We're tackling the case of the alphabet murders. Yeah, we finally did it. We didn't do it.

Oh, I was going to say, are you confessing something that I should know about? This is a fairly well-known an unsolved case. We've had it on our list for quite a while. So jump over there and check that out. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I'm ready. We're talking about Ernest Ingenito. On November 17th, 1950, Ernest Ingenito shot nine of his wife's family members in a murderous

rampage. Five of them died. When he went to trial, his defense argued that after years of tension, with his in-laws and a custody battle, he snapped. But the prosecution had a different picture that they painted. They believed he spent weeks planning the murders in a cold and calculated manner. Ernest Ingenito was born in Wildwood, New Jersey. On May 27, 1924, his parents were Ernest Sr.

And Helen N. Genito. Ernest Jr. was the oldest of three children. He had difficulties in school Gibbs, especially with reading. He later testified about one incident that occurred when he was in the fifth grade. Apparently, his teacher asked him to read out loud to the class, but he couldn't do it. And so he ran out of the building. That would be, you know, embarrassing for a kid to have to go through. Well, if you can't read and the teacher calls on you in that circumstance in front of your fellow

classmates, it's going to be really rough on anyone. The Ingenito family moved between Wildwood and Philadelphia often throughout Ernest childhood. It sounds like they just moved back and forth. His parents argued constantly and eventually separated when Ernest was about 13 years old. His mother passed away at some point after the divorce when he was a young teenager. Ernest was arrested for breaking into a store and stealing candy and cigarettes. He spent the next few years at the Pennsylvania School for Boys in Huntington and the White Hill School, which were both reform schools. Pretty big back in the day, right?

Reform schools. You know, the old movie trope Gibbs was the boy's not doing well. He's not, you know, towing the line. the dad would always threaten to send him to some type of military school. I had a friend that was shipped off to military school because he was not doing what his parents thought he should be doing. Was he a troublemaker? He was. He was fun, though. But how much of that was spurred on by you?

That's the question. Well, that's not my fault. You know, I mean, he didn't have to do what I suggested for him to do. But he got shipped off and you stayed behind. I did. He dropped out of school at the age of 16. which, according to the research, was the legal age at that time for dropping out of school. But it was said that he only had a sixth grade education.

So, I mean, I think you can take it a couple of different ways. It wasn't really explained. Either he had been held back so many times that, you know, at the age of 16, he was still only in the sixth grade or had only completed the sixth grade. Right. Does some of that have to do with the time he spent in reform schools? I don't know. You could also make the argument that he had the equivalency of a sixth grade education,

but it didn't read like that. It just said he had a sixth grade education. Well, makes it rough in life, you know, when you're limited to that. I think people can overcome it. Oh, absolutely. They can. But it still, I mean, it can't. call some difficulties. Yeah, my grandfather came from a holler in Kentucky. I don't think he had more than a

sixth or seventh grade education. He went on to do some great things, but I don't even know if they had high school in the holler. At a certain point, you just went to work on the farm, it seemed like. After leaving school, Ernest worked at a bakery. He also worked at a shoe repair shop. In 1941, 17-year-old Ernest eloped with his 16-year-old girlfriend, Doris Breslin. Now, there are some sources that say he was abusive towards her. He cheated on her. Well, he was kind of known to have a temper. He was.

A lot of people said that about him. According to the Daily Journal, he once got into a fight with an employee at a diner because he said his toast was too brown. Well, darn it, when I say I want my toast medium, I want my, toast medium. Medium brown? Medium. Tan? Tope. Toppe. Yeah. Okay. Just enough, but not too much. I get it if you get served toast that's burnt or scorched or whatever.

But to say it's too brown? Okay, maybe it's too done, but you're going to get into a fight with an employee? Just take your butter knife and scrape off the parts you don't like. Or say, hey, can this is too done? Can I have a, another. Can you redo it? Can you redo it, please? The same paper said that he had some difficulties with his first in-laws, but they didn't go into specifics. But it's important to point out because of, you know, obviously I said in the beginning, he's going to commit a number of murders in a rampage shooting against his wife's family. At the age of 19, Ernest was drafted into the army. this was during World War II.

He was stationed at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. He got into quite a bit of trouble while he was in the military. At one point, he went AWOL, hit two military officers, and was court-martialed for these offenses. When he went AWOL, he left to visit his wife and daughter back home. Then he went to Miami to live with an aunt. He visited his wife again before he surrendered to the military. He was sentenced to four months in a military stockade for this offense, but he was also dishonorably discharged from the army in 1946. Well, I think when he got discharged in 46, he came home to quite a surprise.

Yeah, I think he was shocked. The Daily Journal reported that his wife, Doris, was living with another man when he came back home. Well, I highly doubt that Ernest was the only guy to get drafted, be away from home, and to come back and to come back. find out that his wife had moved on. Yeah, I think there was probably a few cases of that. Well, I think a lot of guys got like Dear John letters while they were serving while they were overseas. I don't think he got one.

I think he just came home to find out that, hey, there's a new man in the house. Surprise. So that relationship was over. Ernest moved around New Jersey until he met Teresa Tessie Mazzoli later that year. they met while he was living with his father in New Jersey. Teresa's cousin introduced them to each other. Now, Ernest was still legally married at the time.

And Teresa's parents, Michael and Pearl Mozzoli, they went to his dad's gas station and basically told his dad to keep Ernest away from Tessie because he was still married. Well, they took that serious, you know,

like, hey, he's married. You shouldn't be seeing our daughter. And by all accounts, he took it serious as well. He didn't try to see her until his marriage was annulled. But after it was, Michael, Pearl, and Teresa came to the store and Ernest drove away with them to go work on their family farm. So it sounds like there was an agreement. Okay. You want to date my daughter. As soon as your marriage is annulled, we'll come back and get you. Yeah. And that's what they did. Teresa's parents owned a farm on Piney Hollow Road in Franklin Township. She basically convinced Ernest to move in with her family and the two eventually gotten married.

Ernest didn't invite his family to the wedding because as he would later say, only Mazzolis were there. Nobody else. Okay. Close to outsiders. And I'm thinking they had a really big extended family. Yeah. Ernest worked on the farm for a few years.

by 1950. Ernest was 25, Teresa was 23. He and Teresa had two children together, Ernest and Michael. It was said that Ernest got along with his father-in-law, Michael Mozzoli, but Pearl did not like Ernest at all.

And apparently he didn't like her either. She thought Teresa had made a very poor choice when she married Ernest. Well, she kind of thought Ernest was lazy and dishonest and just, overall a bad husband. Not things that you really want your mother-in-law to think about you, let alone say about you. I get it.

A lot of guys don't get along all that well with their mother-in-laws. A lot of mother-in-laws don't like their son-in-law, daughter-in-law. A lot of times people just don't think somebody is good enough for their son or daughter. But Gibbs, I do think, you know, what played into this, at least in some part, was that there were a lot of rumors that Ernest was physically abusive to Tessie, and he cheated on her.

And we said the exact same thing about, you know, his first marriage. That would be a reason for someone not to like him, right? Well, you and I talk about our family a lot. We put ourselves in the shoes of people sometimes in the story. If I find out that you're physically abused,

abusive to one of my daughters. If I find out that you're cheating on my daughter, we are going to have big time issues. Yeah. It's just not something that I can let go of. You know me. There are certain things that I just won't let slide. Right. And that obviously would be one of them. Anything that concerns the welfare of my family, I'm not just going to say, oh, it'll work itself out. Yeah. You know what? It won't work itself out. I'll work it out. Someone touches your kids. They're going for a drive with us out on that one country road that we like.

Oh, speaking to that, I saw this ad online for some T-shirts. And I don't remember exactly what it is. I bought it for my girls. It says, I get my attitude from my dad. Don't mess with me because he knows how to bury bodies or something.

I thought it was a pretty cute shirt. I bought one for each of my girls. Couldn't be more true. I don't know exactly where they will wear them, but now it was said that Pearl wore the pants in the Mazzoli family. And that was later used by earnest defense as a negative aspect of her personality. And let's not forget, right? This is a case that is going on or that happened in the 1950s when a woman running a family or a woman who had a really strong personality, I think was seen by a lot of people. as a very negative thing.

Yeah. Why are you in that role? Yeah. That's not your role. Now, I have no problem admitting that my wife wears the pants and the family. She does. Not because you don't ever wear pants, just because she runs the family. She does.

And I'm totally fine with that. She keeps everything, you know, running along. She keeps the machinery working. Yeah. I mean, if you go back to that series, Mad Men, right? I mean, you can see a lot of how. how that was back in the day. Oh, kind of sickening really when you think about how women were treated in a lot of

situations, how they were viewed. According to Ernest's defense attorney, the Mazzolz controlled his life for the next couple of years. According to testimony by Ernest's father, Ernest was paid based on an old Italian tradition, which doesn't pay a wage or a salary, but instead pays only how much money that person needs for expenses. So it was said that he had to ask for money for things like gas and a haircut. Yeah.

We're not going to give you money. You just tell us what you need. What you need. And we'll give you enough money to cover those things. That is a weird. I don't want to say weird. I mean, obviously it was an old tradition,

but it would be weird to be in that situation where you work all day and then you have to ask instead of just. receiving a amount of money. Getting money and you spend it on whatever you want to. And again, he's not a 16 year old kid, right? He's 25 years old. So really what this led to was Ernest wanting to get a job to make extra money. That caused a lot of tension with his in-laws.

They thought he should just work on the farm, contribute there, take what they gave him. Ernest got a job at Di Augustine appliance for Emma and Edward Diogistine, who were Teresa's aunt and uncle. Emma, who was Michael Mazzoli's sister, thought that Ernest was a really good worker. They met Ernest in 1948. When Edward was going to hire Ernest, Michael Mazzoli called him and said that he shouldn't because he was unreliable. I guess Pearl also encouraged Edward at some point to fire earnest.

They just didn't want him to leave the form, it sounded like. No, it sounds like they wanted to control him a little bit. They wanted him there. They wanted him to do it the way that they wanted him to do it. But he worked part time at the appliance store from December, 1949 to March 1950 when he was hired as a full-time employee. He attended distributor school in Philadelphia to learn about the store products. And he was hired as an appliance serviceman on March 25th, 1950 for a dollar an hour plus 10% commission. A dollar an hour, Gibbs. It seems really low.

It does seem low, but bread was probably what a nickel or something like that. So, you know, when you think about it that way. It was said that he earned somewhere between $50 and $100 a week, but it was also reported that he was such an efficient worker that they laid off another employee because he was, he was just working circles around people. It sounded like he proved his in-laws wrong. Edward later testified that Ernest had purchased items from the store and brought them to the Mazzoli family, but there was a big misunderstanding.

when Teresa, his wife, found a woman's green sweater in his car and she thought Ernest was cheating. Well, it turned out that it was Emma Di Augustine's sweater. Emma had borrowed Ernest's car for errands to run around town. Now, there are two different stories about why Ernest and Teresa separated. The first is that Michael Mozzoli learned Ernest was cheating and threw him out of the house, a woman named Patricia Clevenger later testified that Ernest asked her on a date in August 1950, but she refused because he was married. Another version of the story is that Ernest thought that Pearl was preventing them from moving into their own house. In October 1950, he gave Tessie an ultimatum, leave the house with him or he would leave her there. And she

chose to stay with her family. After Ernest left, they began constantly fighting about his right to see the children. Custy's always going to be an issue. Yeah, it's always tough. It's always tough. I mean, two very different stories here. I think if I had to pick one, I would say that the second is maybe a little more plausible, not that either one of them couldn't possibly be true. You know, I think a lot of us right now are feeling overwhelmed. Many people are burned out and they may not even know it. Symptoms can include lack of motivation, feeling helpless or trapped, detachment, fatigue, and more. I get that.

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Grow your business with Shopify today. go to Shopify.com slash T-Cat right now. Shopify.com slash T-Cat. But he's out of the Mazzoli home. So Ernest moved into a boarding house owned by some friends of his father named Alan K. Rulis. Teresa began the process of filing for divorce. Ernest allegedly spoke to a lawyer about his children.

But this is also when he began doing some target practice. He started buying ammo. at local stores. According to Ernest, as he would later say, the family refused to let him see his children and ignored his attempts to settle things peacefully.

Well, people don't like it when you keep their kids away from them. Not saying any of this was right. I'm just saying it's going to be a cause retention. Well, it is in any relationship, right? Divorce just on its own between the spouses is hard enough. But when you throw in custody and when there is a battle for that custody, it becomes much more contentious. According to the Daily Journal, Ernest continued working as an appliance repair man with the De Augustines.

But on November 16th, he told his boss, I don't feel so good. I want to see my kids. If I can't see them, there is no use in my working any longer. What do you make of that? Sounds like he's just kind of giving up on work. Like, hey, why am I even working? I don't need to work. I can't see my kids.

Why am I here? Yeah, I can make that argument. I could also make the argument that it's a harbinger for something bad's going to happen if I can't see my kids. So because this bad thing is going to happen, there won't be any need for me to work here anymore. Now, maybe I'm biased because I know the story and I know how the story ends. Sure. I think without that benefit of knowing what's going to happen, if you're the Diogistines and you hear him make this statement,

I don't think you would take it as dire. I get that. I don't think I'd make too much out of that. Ernest asked Di Augustine to call Teresa, but no one answered the phone. He said that he would go see a man named Henry Coa, who was Michael Mozzoli's brother-in-law. and a friend of Ernest.

The Daily Journal reported that he left with the parting words. This job is getting on my nerves. I think I'll quit. Ernest collected his last paycheck and turned in the key. So it's kind of strange, Gibbs, it went from there may not be a need for me to work here any longer to, I'm done. Just like that. It seems like very quickly.

And even worse, what happens on the next day escalate pretty quickly? Yeah. because it was just the next day, November 17th, 1950 that Ernest and Janito murdered five of Teresa's family members. He injured four others, including a young girl. His rampage terrified the entire county when the news broke. And that I can understand, right? It's 1950, Pleasantville, Mayberry. All that is about ready to go out the window very, very quickly. Now, the evening started off relatively normal. At 5 p.m. Ernest went to the Di Augustine home, and he asked for keys to the store, which is strange, right? We just said he had quit on Thursday,

but apparently he said he changed his mind. When he got the keys, he told Emma that he would come to work in the morning. He next went to the home of Henry Coa. He stayed there until about 8 p.m. then he drove to the Mazzoli house. At 8.45 p.m. Ernest barged in through the front door. Teresa was watching TV. Her parents were in other rooms of the house and their two boys were upstairs. Ernest had a pistol in each pocket. He asked Teresa, do you still love me? She didn't answer him. He demanded to see his children and she told him that he couldn't because of a court order. Teresa's dad, Michael, entered the room at some point to intervene in this conversation, and he grabbed Ernest.

Ernest threatened him. If you don't want me to see the kids, here's what you're going to get. And that's when he started shooting. He fired a shot that missed Teresa, but then shot Michael Mozzoli in the head and abdomen. It was determined Gibbs that Michael Mozoli died before he hit the floor. Teresa got up. She ran into another room. Ernest shot Teresa twice in the shoulder and the right hip, but these were non-fatal injuries. He then began chasing after Pearl, who had started running as soon as she heard gunshots.

Pearl ran to her parents' house across the street and screamed Ernie's got a couple of guns and he's coming over here. So, you know, the first thing that I think about Gibbs is you're in a home. There's multiple people in this home, right? There's at least five people in, in the home, uh, this first location. You're not in the room where the gunshots are, but obviously you hear them, right? If you're anywhere in the house, you're going to hear gunshots. What do you do?

Now, if you're parole, you run out of the house. Sure. You make a mad dash. I think a lot of people. would do that as well, I'm sure there are some people who would think, what's going on? I've got to get to where these shots are being fired. Maybe I can help. But like we say a lot of times, I don't think anyone knows exactly what they would do or how they would react in, you know, any given situation until they're forced to actually, you know, be in that situation and

decide what to do. Yeah, maybe I would think I could Jason Born it or Jack Reacher it, but the flip side of that is I might just end up herishing my shorts and just making a mad dash for it. Yeah, with you, I could see it going either way. I really could. Yeah. And I think with a lot of people, no, I'm sure there are a lot of people out there thinking, no, I'm going to run right away.

And there's probably some people saying, no, I'm going to see what's going on. I'm going to try to protect my loved ones. Yeah. I mean, if your kids are there and you think that he might hurt your kids, obviously you're going to try to probably stay and find a way to protect your kids. If you're not worried about him hurting your kids, maybe you're making a mad dashboard to see if you can get some help before he shoots you. But I wonder how logically you would think in certain types of situations.

Yeah. Well, you haven't been trained in that. Right. I mean, are you even able to process all the different options? Or is it simply, I got to get the heck out of here because something bad is happening. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I know how flat, you know, how I can run, sprint, you know, flat out do, you know, 100 yard dash and X amount of seconds. Sure. I can beat certain people at all times. Yeah. And I can size people up by looking at them and determine how fast they can run as well. Again, it was. And again, it was. I can beat certain people. I can beat certain people up by looking at all times. Yeah. I can. And again, it was. was something that me and Jason learned. So in this other house across the street were Pearl's parents, Teresa and Armando Piopi, Pearl's brother, John, Gino, Gino's pregnant wife, Marion, and Gino and Marion's children, Jeannie, Armando, and Teresa were also inside the house. 82-year-old Armando Piappi was resting upstairs when the second shooting occurred. This is a very full house. There's a lot of people. And the one thing that I noticed is that two of the three children were named after their

grandparents. Yeah. Very traditional. I would say so. But then comes Ernest Ingenito. He forced to open the door and he murdered Teresa Piopi, Marion Piappi, Pearl Mazzoli, and John Piappi. he shot Teresa as she stood in the doorway.

He shot Marion once he entered the home. He shot Pearl what she was trying to hide in a closet. She was shot in the thigh, the knee, arm, chest, and jaw, which severed the nerve in her eye and brain. Clearly, he did not like her. Well, and we said that, right? There was no love lost between them. So when he got to Pearl, did he fire more?

shots than he fired at the others because he didn't like her. Nine-year-old Jeannie was also shot, but she survived her injuries. Gino wasn't shot because he was in a hallway, calling the Malaga State Police, and Ernest didn't see him. Young Armando hit under the couch and baby Teresa hid under a table. Eventually, Gino got his kids to run out the back door. while John Piaopi ran after Ernest with a pocket knife. You use anything you can, right?

Yeah, I mean, that wouldn't be the first knife that I would want if I was trying to, you know, stop somebody. But my assumption is Gibbs, that's what he had in his pocket and that's what he used. I would much rather have the K-bar that you bought me for Christmas. Absolutely. You can deflect a shot with that. Or as you have told me on numerous occasions, cut a bull. it in half in midair, which I still find dubious, but.

No, it could happen. It has happened. I can also bend a bullet around a tree or around a building. Like wanted? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Probably they got the ideal from. Or the idea.

Yeah, I get it. Yeah. I get it. So this guy, John Piaopi, is going after Ernest with a pocket knife. And you got to give it up for him, right? Yeah, he's trying to get Ernest away from everybody. And to stop him. Yeah.

before he shoots and hurts anybody else. But in most fights, someone with a gun and another person with a pocket knife, it's not going to end well for the person with a pocket knife. It's kind of rough to bring a knife to a gunfight. And it didn't end well for John Ernest fatally shot him outside the house. So really gives in the matter of about 15 minutes five people. were either dead or dying. Pearl Mazzoli died just after arriving at the hospital.

Ernest next went to the appliance store in Landisville, which at the time was full of customers. He approached Henry Coah, who was working at the time, and said he had to get his children from his mother-in-law's house. Then he said he had to hit the road, and he rushed out of the store. Ernest drove four miles to Minatola to the home of Frank Mazzoli, his brother-in-law. Frank, his wife Hilda, and their two children were all home. Ernest shot Frank and Hilda, but they both survived. So you think about a lot of family massacres and a lot of times it's a big gathering at one house. Sure.

This guy has shot people within his wife's family at three different houses. Yeah. So when you're talking about whether someone, you know, snapped for the lack of a better word or, you know, whether there was intent or pre-planning, I mentioned it earlier. He had been buying ammo. He had been going target practice shooting. And then to think that, you know, I get it. The first two houses were crossed the street from each other. But this third house, he had to drive to.

I think it really tells you something about his state of mind. And his numbers could have been higher, right? Five people were killed, but it could have been eight easily with Jeannie and Frank and Hilda. Well, and some of the kids, too. It actually could have been a lot higher. So it didn't take police long to figure out who they were looking for. And the effort to arrest Ernest was the greatest police manhunt in New Jersey history. That's saying a lot.

police set up roadblocks they stopped every car that passed through gives it was reported that more than a thousand police officers were involved in the search that is a gigantic number it is but need it you need all eyes on this individual right well you can yeah you can't have too many people right out searching for him troopers leonard cunningham and raymond vorberg made the arrest around 1 30 a.m They were driving down Oak Road when they saw the license plate registered to Ernest's car. They chased him for two miles and then forced him off the road. Ernest stepped out of the car after being pulled over. According to Life magazine, his wrists were bleeding.

He had tried to end his life. He raised his hands and said, I'm the man you want. I done it. And that's all there is to it. So obviously he wasn't putting up. a fight and he wasn't going to stay silent. He just came out and said, yeah, I did it. The state troopers found four guns and 166 bullets hidden in his clothing. Ernest had a 32 caliber carbine, a 32 German luger with an attachment, a 38 caliber handgun, and a 32 caliber pistol. So a lot of guns.

It is a lot of guns. It's also a a lot of bullets to have on you. I was thinking the same thing. That's a lot of weight. Yeah, I don't know if people realize how much that would actually weigh on your person, like in a jacket or stuffed in pockets. 166 bullets would weigh a little bit. I'm kind of visualizing that episode in Seinfeld where Kramer has all those coins in his pocket.

Yeah. Trying to feed him into that washer and dryer. Then he goes paste for the bagels or something with it. Now, I will say some of these are fairly small bullets, the 32s. It's a pretty small caliber, the pistols. That's something, you know, you don't really see that today. Yeah. I don't even think you can go buy a 32 caliber.

I could be wrong about that, but I never see him. So we said that he admitted to the shooting. And he admitted to it again later during questioning. But Ernest refused to sign a statement of guilt at the end. of the interview. So you've got this going on, right? They arrested him. They're questioning him. You have the injured family members who were recovering at the hospital. Gino Piappi spent the night at the hospital with his daughter, Jeannie, who was in critical condition. And you really got to think about what this man was going through. Sure. His daughter's in critical condition. She's fighting for her

life at the same time he's grieving right his wife his mother and his brother and his sister are all dead it'd be very difficult to process you know while you also are sitting there concern about your daughter teresa later said to the daily journal she was surprised when ernest walked into the house because he wasn't allowed in he seemed crazy he said you don't want me to see the kids, here's what you're going to get. Hilda and Frank Mazzoli were in critical condition. At the hospital, they were unable to speak. And while Ernest was still on the run from the police, officers guarded the hospital in case he came back to finish them all. Other Mazzoli and Piopi family members came to the house to hide under police protection.

It had to be a scary event, right? You just heard about five of your family members being killed. I would think anybody connected to the Mazzoli or the Piappi family, you know, any of the family members had to think, okay, there's a good chance he's going to try to come after us. He's gone out of his way. Sure. To hunt down members of these two families. So you feel like he might think that you betrayed him at some point. He might be coming for you. And maybe not even that. Maybe it's just the fact that you're related to Teresa. He's trying to hurt her in the most severe way that he can by taking out as many of her family members as he can. I'm speculating that maybe that was part of his mindset.

Ernest went to trial on January 8, 1951 for the murderer of Pearl Mazzoli. The prosecution asked for the death. penalty. Jury selection took two days. Teresa attended court on January 9th to, as she told the journal, see what he had to say and to see if he told the truth. And she made it known to the paper Gibbs that she wanted earnest to receive the death penalty. Now, she wasn't allowed to testify because of a state law that prevented wives from testifying against their husbands unless they were the complaining witness. So I found that to be very interesting. Yeah. I think most of us are knowledgeable about that, you know, you can't compel a spouse to testify against each other. Right.

But this is not that. This is she was barred from testifying simply because he was her husband, not because she chose not to because she didn't want to have to divulge, you know, marital secrets or whatever it was. Yeah, which is kind of honestly, it's, it's, it's, it's BS in this situation. Yeah, and I, I don't think it is around today. I mean, I think this was a law that was probably changed many, many years ago. The prosecution and defense gave their opening statements on January 10th. The prosecution led by E. Milton Hanoid called for a first-degree murder conviction with the death penalty, while the defense argued the charges should be reduced to manslaughter. Defense attorney Frank Saul said in his opening statement that the absence of deliberation

or willful premeditation made the shooting qualify for a manslaughter charge. And this is something that we've talked about in a number of. number of cases, right? What does premeditation mean? Right. You know, as it relates to first degree, second degree, manslaughter. I do think, you know, in some cases, there is quite a bit of gray area. You know, some of them are very clear cut. All right. You hired a hit man. Right. Well, obviously, you had to sit down and think about that. Sure. And that's, you know, pretty much evidence of premeditation. And then I think, you know, on the other end of the spectrum, you have a spouse who walks in on their wife or husband sleeping with someone else.

And they kill that person in a fit of rage. Okay. Did they know they were going to walk in on their spouse having sex with somebody else? I would say no. I think it would be hard to argue that there was premeditation there. Right. But we just did the case last week. Yeah, we did.

where premeditation was explained in the context of Trayvon Baskerville having time making the decision to grab the gun and walk into the room. Yeah, it doesn't have to be this extensive amount of time, right? Yeah. I mean, you could try to make the case that he was practicing his shooting, buying his ammo and things like that. You can make that case. Right, because he's doing it ahead of time. you could also factor in, you know, some of the comments that he made. You know, if I can't see my kids, there's not going to be any reason for me to work here anymore, right?

You can work some of those into your argument for premeditation. Now, the prosecutor only filed one murder charge, right? We mentioned it. He only went to trial for the murder of Pearl. And the prosecutor explained it by saying, the presentation of one count would be a long drawn-out affair and that presenting five murder counts would only take five times as long. The state chose to charge him with Pearl's murder because they felt that they had the best chance of getting the death penalty. So in my mind,

Gibbs, I was kind of walking through that statement. Now, we have heard prosecutors before, you say that they didn't charge something because they didn't want to muddy the waters right right they wanted to focus on the most clear cut charge or a couple of charges or whatever it is i mean i think definitely when you think about pearl and we already talked about it he shot her many times yeah multiple times and a number of different spots she ultimately died any pursued her right across the street Yes. So at any point, he could have stopped and turned away, but he decided to continue pursuing her and then shot her. Yeah. And so obviously I think all of those factors go into that thinking of, well, this is the most clear-cut case, the most clear-cut charge that is going to allow us to get the death penalty. I do always wonder, though, how family members feel when there are four other victims who died for which someone is not going to be charged.

Yeah, so you hope that the prosecutor gathered everybody together and said, hey, I know you want us to go after him for your family member, this family member, but our best chance to getting him the death penalty would be to just charge him with Pearl. And here's my reasoning behind it and lay it all out. Yeah, you would hope it went that way. Hanold told the jury that the state had a number of witnesses who heard Ernest say, I did it. Give me the electric chair and get it over with. Defense attorney Frank Saul tried to, you know, gain the jury sympathy by talking about Ernest's troubled childhood.

He also brought up the fact that he suffered a head injury. when he fell out of a tree as a kid. According to the defense, most of his problems began when he was 12 years old and fell out of a tree. Apparently Gibbs, he was unconscious for 67 hours. It's a long time. It is a long time.

His father reported that he never seemed normal afterwards, but doctors couldn't find anything seriously wrong with him. Now, we are talking about doctors, and medical technology in what, the 1930s? Right. So does it surprise you that they wouldn't be able to figure out what's going on inside his brain? No, it doesn't surprise me at all.

It also doesn't surprise me that this type of head injury would have a dramatic effect on his life. We've seen it in so many different cases. Now, I can't say that, you know, every head injury is the cause of violent behavior that's later to come. Right. What I will say is that there's too many of them to just be a coincidence for me. There's no doubt that there's some correlation between head injuries, whether it's, you know, damage to the frontal lobe, the frontal cortex, whatever, you know, all that stuff is. it affects people. Yeah, there's definitely something there.

And I remember at CrimeCon, we had that emergency nurse that came up to us that actually had a head injury. They said, man, it really had an impact on her. And it took her a lot of time, a lot of therapy. Years. Years.

Years to battle through that. Yeah. I remember her. She was great. Loved her. The defense tried to shift the blame to Pearl. They said she had an abrasive personality. on January 16th, Ernest told the jury that he just wanted to see his kids.

And he only brought the guns to scare Teresa and her parents. But he snapped when Pearl said, throw him out. Now, there's a reason for him to say that, right? You want to use the word snapped. Sure. You don't want to say that I came there to shoot all these people. Right. You want the jury to believe that,

you had no intentions of shooting anyone, but you snapped in a fit of rage because Pearl said this. Yeah. Even though I had two guns in my pockets. They were just for show. Yeah. Ernest said that he remembered the gun going off after Michael Mazzoli tried to push him out of the house.

The New York Daily News reported that he said in court. After that, I don't remember anything. I don't remember shooting anybody. You know, you hear that from some people too, that they go into this state of mind where they just go through actions, but they don't remember why they're doing it. They don't remember that they did it. So could that be true? Could be. Oh, it could be true.

But I also asked the question, isn't that a very beneficial thing to say if you're the defendant? Yeah. No, I didn't go there to shoot anybody. I don't even remember shooting anybody. Because why? I must have snapped. And then everything was just rage and black or whatever you want to call it. Definitely fits his defense of being manslaughter.

It helps his defense. Oh, it does. But doesn't it contradict what he had already said to a couple of law enforcement people, which was, I'm the man you're looking for. I did it. I killed those people. Yeah.

Well, how were you able to say that? right after you got caught, if you don't remember shooting anybody. And how were you able to then drive to another house and try to shoot people or shoot people, try to kill people? You know, some of that stuff doesn't really add up. Right. Ernest's sister, Mary, testified that he was a loving father. She visited him in jail twice.

And he told her that he didn't mean to shoot his family and didn't remember what happened. His father testified that the family moved from place to place when Ernest was a child. He said when Ernest fell out of the tree, it affected his hearing and his ability to concentrate. So he became a truant and he hung out with bad boys, which led to his arrest. He and Ernest hadn't spoken for two years because they got into an argument over a financial situation. his dad sided with the Mazzolis because as he said, he didn't want to break up the marriage. The prosecution called on witnesses to prove that Ernest was a good employee. Gibbs, I think they were doing this to try to counter the defense's argument that, you know,

he had a low IQ because of his head injury. Henry Coe had testified that he was married to Marie, Michael Mazzoli's sister. He visited the Mazzolies on the. the morning of the 17th to talk about the custody situation and speak in Ernest's favor. He then called Ernest to say that the Mazzolese wanted him to contribute more to the children's support if he wanted to see them. He said Ernest seemed satisfied with this arrangement. Henry testified that Pearl said she didn't want Ernest to pay for child support because it would entitle him to see his children. A lot of bashing of Pearl.

Yeah, making it seem like she was pretty controlling. And I'm not so sure she wasn't. It's just kind of tough, right? That the defense has to go after a victim, a person, you know, who lost their life. Four witnesses testified to prove that Ernest got the guns. A few weeks before the murders is about three weeks before the murders. Bruno Patela traded a German Mouser pistol to Ernest for. something called a mix master.

That almost sounds like a cooking utensil, a machine. Yeah, one of those shake makers at McDonald's first had back on the day. Yeah, I doubt Ernest had a McDonald's shake maker, but... I was thinking the thing that you make like mashed potatoes in. What do you call that? A mixer. Mixer, like a mixing bowl mixer or whatever. I think we're both wrong.

Probably are. But it was this German mouser that was the, determined to be the type of gun used in the murders. Ernest said he only wanted the gun as a souvenir. And he said the Mouser was missing a firing pit at the time. Witness Peter Giglio spoke to Ernest in October 1950 when he came to his gun hobby store with the Mouser and asked that it be put in firing condition. He told Ernest he would need three weeks to ship it to California for the necessary part.

Ernest came back twice before the part arrived on November 10th. During one of his visits, Peter said that he brought a German luger for a price appraisal. So it's a pretty good counter to the it didn't have a firing pin argument. Sure. Well, that may be true. It didn't have a firing pin. But if you went to a store and said, hey, put this in working order, then, you know, that argument kind of goes out the window. Yeah, and I think the prosecution is doing a good job of laying out that, hey, here's why this was premeditated. He bought the guns ahead of time. This is what he did.

I think they're laying it out pretty decent. Yeah, I went through the trouble to trade for one gun, you know, take it to a store, get it in working order. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think they also did a good job of having this witness, Peter, bring in the German luger as well, right? by placing it with Ernest inside his store. Ernest tried to purchase ammo for his carbine at William and Mary Colb's sporting goods store in Hamilton in November 1950. But they told him they didn't have the right type of ammo.

Witness Amelia Lauer testified that she sold Ernest cartridges of ammo just before the murders. So back to your point. Yeah. They're doing a good job of bringing in witnesses. who supplied the guns, the ammo, and putting everything in context, time frame. I mean, if you're a juror sitting at the table, I think it'd be hard not to see that this was premeditated

and not just a man's slaughter. Yeah, and if not, you would have to believe that it's this cornycopia of strange coincidences. But how could it be, Gibbs? when you're going out and you're getting all the guns and you're making sure they work and you're buying up all this ammo for what because you know something bad is potentially going to happen in a few weeks time I mean you have to believe that's what the jury would take away from all of this sure and I think they did the jury found earnest guilty of first degree murder at 924 p.m. on January 19th and 1951 but they recommended lean in sentencing. The judge sentenced earnest to life in prison later that night. So it sounds to me like they had the option. They could have given him the death penalty. They chose not to. They recommended

a life sentence and that's what the judge gave him. The prosecutor was displeased with the sentencing he didn't talk to reporters much afterwards. Frank Saul defense attorney said, I feel the jury members were honest in their deliberations and that it was a fair and just verdict in view that it will be well received in the county by the majority of the people. So they got him on one murder. But Ernest went to court again in 1956. He pleaded no contest to four more first degree murder charges and received four more life sentences on January 9th, 1956. So they waited a while, five years. But, but they were before they went back after him for the four other murders, but they didn't get what they wanted the first time around.

Right? We talked about it. According to the prosecutor, they only wanted to try him first for Pearl because he thought that was the best way to get the death penalty. Sure. It didn't happen. So they went back and they got four more life sentences.

Ernest submitted an appeal on November 6, 1956. He argued that he, he was denied his right to a speedy trial for the 1956 convictions and filed a motion to have the district court reverse the judgments and set aside the sentences. The court made their decision on the 19th. They denied his motion and the state Supreme Court affirmed the district court's decision. But I think it's a good argument to make. You're going to wait five years to try me, right?

You're violating my right to a right. a speedy trial. Now, the courts didn't see it that way. No, but I think, you know, you have to give it a shot because it does make sense to me. Why'd you wait five years? You had all the information that you needed to prosecute me. But at the time, New Jersey did not have life without parole. And all of earnest sentences were concurrent. So Gibbs, he was released from prison in 1974. So he was in there what? He did 23 years or so. Yeah.

24 years counting the time that he was in jail probably. That's got to be a gut punch if you're the family. Yeah, when you get that notification that he's getting out, it can't go over well. And I get it 24 years is a long time, but this is a guy who murdered five people. It was five life sentences and you're out in 20-some years. And I think it illustrates old sentencing guidelines.

versus what we have today and have had over the last, you know, what, 20, 30, 40 years. There's no doubt in this country that we've gotten much, much tougher on crime. You have. Some people would argue too tough for certain offenses. But that's not the end of the story for Ernest. Because on July 14th, 1994, 70 year old Ernest in Janito was found guilty of sexually assaulting a young girl. And it was said that he had been doing it for many years. He was convicted of 29 of 38 counts and sentenced to 223 years in prison.

So I think that right there shows you the changes in sentencing that, you know, occurred over a span of years. Apparently, he's sexually assaulted his girlfriend's daughter, starting when she was only eight years old. And he prevented her from telling her mother by reading to her about the 1950 family massacre in the crime encyclopedia, blood letters and bad men. So he's reading this to her as a bedtime story. Yeah. Basically saying, this is me.

This is what I'm capable of. If you don't do what I tell you. He threatened to kill both her and her mother. if she told anyone. But Ernest didn't serve a whole lot of time in prison. He died just over a year later on October 7th, 1995. So Gibbs, as we wrap up this episode, it was one that I wanted to do because I didn't know anything about this case and those always kind of intrigued me.

One of the things that jumped out at me was this guy did 24, 25 years in prison. most people would argue well that wasn't enough for what he did right committing five murders sure but he's let out and then 20 years later he's put back in i always just think like once you get out and and maybe i always go back to shawshank like i do with a lot of things you know i think of brooks and i think of red right and i think about you know some of those scenes in the movie where they're out they don't know what to do they're contemplating you know getting a gun from a pawn shop they're going to shoot the manager of the the safe way just so they'll send them back because they can't you know make it out there but this guy was out for 20 years and he still couldn't live his

life the right way no he was hurting an innocent child the mazoli and piapi family massacre has never been forgotten. It's been over 70 years since it happened. A lot of the individuals involved have passed away. But the memory of that night of terror lives on in the community in a very short amount of time. He is what we say, about 15 minutes. Yeah.

Ernest Ingenito ended five lives. He seriously wounded four more people. I mean, the way that it boils down to me was that this was a guy that led his, rage build over, you know, a period of time over this child custody argument. And instead of, let's say, you know, duking it out in the courts or through the court system, he decided that the better option was to take matters into his own hands. And he thought that, you know, killing all these people was the solution. I don't get it. I don't either. How is that going to get you

closer to your kids? How does that get you your kids? Yeah. doesn't. Did you think the people you didn't kill would be on your side and say, oh, those people deserved it now let him see his kids. Come on. Or did he honestly think that he was going to kill everyone and there would be no one left? The police would never figure out it was him and he would be awarded the kids because there was nobody else to take care of them? Maybe so. You go through some of these people's minds or you try to figure out what they're thinking was. And it's tough because it just doesn't make any sense. If you really sit down and think about it, think about all the ways that things could have played out.

You're hard pressed to find one that would work out with him getting what he wanted. Right. Exactly right. But I don't think a lot of these people do that. I don't think they sit down and really think things through. I think they get consumed by rage or, you know, whatever emotion it is and they act. But that's it for our episode on Ernest Ingenito. We got some voicemails.

You want to check those out? Let's hear him. Hey, Mike and Gibby. Just wanted to say I was listening to one of the most recent episodes you guys did. And you guys had mentioned that they went off their meds because they felt better and it ended up being more problems. You've heard of that happening and stuff. I wanted to call in because May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Anyone who needs help should definitely don't be afraid.

I just dealt with this myself personally, and I wanted to share it. But I thought I was feeling good. I went off my meds. And last week I ended up in the hospital for psychiatric evaluation. I'm doing okay. not the best, but definitely getting better. I'm getting the help I need. And don't go off your meds without talking to your doctor.

It's not been fun, but it does happen. It happens to the best of us. But listening to you guys, I'm getting back into the swing of things, and you guys have been there and help that way a lot. So I just want to let you guys know it does happen, and it's okay. so get the help you need if you need it. All right.

Keep your own time taking guys. And this is the chicken lady. I talk to you all the time on emails. So do what you need for you. Have it a day. Bye guys. Man, what a tough call to make, but a good call. That's what I was going to say.

I'm very proud of her for making that call. It's not easy. No. But the reason why I wanted to play it is because I thought the information was so valuable. It's one thing for you and I. to talk about things, experiences we've had, but we've never actually dealt with it ourselves. Sure. I've known people who have dealt with it, but to hear from somebody and somebody who specifically

just went through the very same thing, I think is very powerful. It is. And so thank you so much for calling in. And I agree with everything you said. I think we need to remove the stigma of getting help. We do. Because it's such an important thing. Sure is.

You just can't let it go. Nope. My Gibby, hey, this is Willa from Arizona. I'm wondering if you've ever done the case of Winnie Ruth Judd. I think she was born Winnie Ruth McKinnell. She lived in Phoenix and she apparently killed two ladies, dismembered one, put them in trunks in like the 1930s and then took them on a train with her to Los Angeles. They were identified clearly.

Anyway, she was admitted to what they called at the time at the same asylum and escaped six times. So I thought that would be an interesting case for you guys to look at. If you haven't done it already, I didn't want to search through all 200-some T-CAT episodes to see if you've done it already. If you have, let us know and I'll look for it and try and listen to it. Thanks so much for all that you do. Love the podcast. Keep your own time ticking.

Bye. So first off, it does sound like a case that we'd be very interested in. Sure does. We have not done that case. And, you know, it is hard to look through so many episodes to figure out which ones we've done, which ones we haven't. I keep an Excel spreadsheet so I can, you know, search quickly. But even then a lot of times I'll think, well, we've done a case and then I search for it and we haven't. But good suggestion, we'll definitely look into it.

For sure. Hello, Mike and Mike. My name's Joseph Kamau. I was a little curious about I hear all these different cultures and people that were involved in a lot of these serial killings. And I wanted to see if any of our people,

the Native Americans, were involved. And I did find one. Billy Glaze, his tribal name, was Jesse Sitting Crow. I wanted to see if you could possibly. of the view and research something about him to find out a little more information about that. You have a great day and I will talk to you later. Wow, Gibbs, another great suggestion.

Sure. Not one that I'm familiar with. We'll look into it and see if there's enough information. Yeah, it might be a good one. Yeah, to put out a full episode. Hi, Mike. Hi, Giddy. This is, this is Dory.

I'm originally from South Carolina, but I'm here in Las Vegas. I recently came upon your podcast. I have been binging them. I'm a delivery driver for a local delivery here. I deliver anywhere between 12 to 15 hours a day. So I'm currently up to the John Vendable's case. I've been very interested in those. Now, back when you did Susan Smith, that was a really good one.

I appreciated all the justice he did for that. With wondered, I have one for y'all possibly called Larry Jean Bell. he actually kidnapped and killed Miss South Carolina and then also a young girl by the name of Deborah May Helmie. Once again, thanks for all your house's hard work. Keep up to good work and keep your own time ticking. Nope, we have not done Larry Jean Bell that I can think of off top of my head. So we'll definitely put that down on the list. Gibbs, you ever watch East Bound and Down? No, but I heard it was pretty funny. Yeah, it's a funny show.

And she, her voice sounds very, very similar to like the main female character on the show. Oh, really? Yeah, that's why I thought of it. Okay. Cool voice, kind of Carolina accent. Carolina. Yeah, I think that came out wrong. I think they're in North Carolina, I believe.

North Carolina. North Carolina. That's a good one. I messed up. You got me. And I appreciate it. Yeah. Because half the time you don't call me out.

want to mess up and people they want you to there I just did so we had a some mailbag Anna Warner sent in some Harley chips Julia Napp sent us an invitation to her high school graduation really yeah so we've received some wedding invitations over the years but this is our very first high school graduation I believe yeah so appreciate that it's in Iowa I don't think we'll be there but congratulations congratulations and the invitation is very nice All right, buddy, that is it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.