ABSOLUTE MADNESS-Catherine Pelonero

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host journalist and author Dan Zufanski. Good Evening, Absolute Madness tells the disturbing true story of Joseph Christopher, a white serial killer who targeted blackmails struck fear into the residence of Buffalo and New York City in the nineteen eighties. Dubbed both the twenty two Caliber Killer and the Midtown Slasher, Christopher allegedly claimed eighteen victims during a savage four month

spree across the state. The investigation, aided by famed FBI profiler John Douglas, drew national attention, in biting criticism from Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders. The killer, when at last he was unmasked, seemed an unlikely candidate to have held New York in a grip of terror. His capture was neither the end of the story nor the end of the racial strife which flared anew during circuitous prosecutions and judicial rulings that prompted cries of a double

standard in the judicial system. Both a wrenching true crime story and an incisive portrait of dangerously discordant race relations in America, Absolute Madness also chronicles a lonely, vulnerable mins man's tragic descent into madness and the failure of the American mental health system that refused his pleas for help. The book that were featuring this evening is Absolute Madness, a true story of a serial killer, race and a city divided, with my special guest, journalist and author, Catherine

Catherine Pellinaria. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview.

And I actually had no plans for another book. I had spent seven years altogether on the Kitty Geneviez story, and you know, another delving into another book was sort of, in a way, the last thing on my mind. But as I was on my way, i'm I was talking to my sister on the phone, one of my sisters, and she was telling me, you know, you should think about writing the story of the twenty two caliber killer. And I told her, you know, I don't really remember that.

I mean, because it had happened in our hometown. Is the killings that started in Buffalo in nineteen eighty And you know, I was a kid at the time, and I remember, while I really remember it was the headlines, I really didn't know anything about the story. I remember the headlines about the twenty two caliber killer and something about two cab drivers being murdered and having their hearts cut out. But you know, I told her, I just don't remember anything about it. She said, well, you know,

while you're there, look into it. It's a really really heartbreaking and compelling story. It's it's never been told, and you know, I really think you should look into it. So while I was there, I spoke to a friend of mine in the Erie County District Attorney's office, and you know, he did some checking for me, and he said, he came back and he said, well, you know, if you do decide to write about this case, we have

all the original files. We have, you know, twenty two boxes of the original files and they're you know, you're welcome to them. Now. It turned out there was every more than twenty two boxes. But so that, I mean, that's certainly a great offer for crime author. And also my father, Salvator Pelenarrow was a Buffalo police officer for thirty four years, and he passed away in two thousand and five unfortunately. But of course he knew many, if not all, of the Buffalo police officers and some of

the state police who had worked on the case. So my first thought was, well, maybe i'll, you know, I'll look into it because it were, you know, kind of maybe an excuse to spend a little time in the hometown. I thought maybe I'll write an article about it or something. But the more I started looking into the case, I went from a feeling of well, this might be interesting to oh, my god, I've got to tell the story

because it was so different than anything I had heard. Now, even keeping mine, I only remembered the headlines, but I did go back and look up some of the archival news footage, and it was the storyline was always these were racially motivated attacks. It was this white serial killer, and nobody knows why he did this, but he went around and he started killing black men at random. So now when I write, my approach to nonfiction, and particularly to true crime, is I try to be as absolutely

thorough as possible. I started out as a playwright. My background is in the theater, where the focus is completely on character, and I approach even real people the same way. In other words, I try to learn as much as I possibly can about them. So I started looking. I look into the case and the case file, and I start digging into the background of Joseph Christopher, whose name I didn't even know when I started working on this case.

So I really, I really had no horse in the race as far as you know, I thought the story should be one thing or the other. I mean, I really, you know, really had no vested interest in it if if you know what I mean, whatever story was, that's what I was going to write. So as I started looking into it, this is a case where it always been advertised as this racist serial killer who went on

a rampage and nobody seemed to know why. But then it became very obvious that there was something there's there was something that wasn't right about that, because I'm looking at the police reports, you know, the actual interviews that were done at the time when Christopher became a suspect, and every single one, I mean they interviewed former co workers of his and friends and and many friends who were who were black, who were African American, and they

all said the same thing. You know, you know, you've got they told the police you've got the right You're looking at the wrong guy. Joe is my friend. He's never never a racist remark from him. You know, I've had have dinner with him, you know, we socialized together. So I thought, well, this is odd and and just to back up a little bit, Joseph Christopher was twenty five years old and had no criminal record, you know,

was before of course he was. He became the light of the suspect in these crimes, so it was he was completely under the radar of the police. And when you did become a suspect, it became as a shock to everybody who knew him. I mean, there wasn't even anybody who could come forward and say, well, yeah, you know, sometimes he would be violent. You know, there was really nothing like that. So the more I learned about that, you know, the more intrigued I became to find out, well,

wait a minute, what happened. I mean, who wakes up at the age of twenty five and decides to go on a racist killing spree? That just you know, that just didn't sound right. You know, there has to be more to it. And I guess at the beginning I sort of path expected that I'll dig into his background more and I'm going to find out that maybe very few people knew it, but he was in some neo Nazi group there's something like that. But there was nothing like that. And I covered, I mean, I really covered

my bases. I spoke to his third grade teacher. I spoke to guys who were in cub Scouts with him. I spoke to high school friends, to employers, to you know, girl who was a former girlfriend, and eventually to his you know, closer family members. And there was just nothing. And of course the more I find, the more I discovered that, you know, the question will be becomes, well what did happen then? And I'll stop there because I don't want to get ahead of myself. But that's really

what got me into it. It was originally it was sort of that connection to the hometown, you know, the offer of here, you know, our files are open to you if you'd like to write about it, and you know, then just being completely sucked into the story and thinking, oh my god, I've got to tell the world about this.

had a difficult time in school. He was not a good student academically, no behavior problems with him, but academically he didn't seem to be able to catch up with his class and I guess reading, especially with a problem well, and they could never figure out why because he was given an IQ test and he tested you know, at perfectly normal levels.

we're talking about the nineteen sixties. This is an era when teachers taught on the blackboard, and he probably couldn't see and that was probably his you know, the difficulty. But I mentioned that because that did seem to be significant in Joseph's life. His older sisters were very good students. That apparently that did cause conflict and especially eventually with his father, who wanted him to stay in school and

to excel, and Joe struggled with that. And then as he became a teen, Joe eventually dropped out of high school and that caused a big problem with his parents,

his father especially who was very disappointed about that. But that early, you know, early experience in school with being behind the class and should also be mentioned when he was very young, he went to Catholic school, and we're talking about old school Catholic school, where if you weren't if your grades weren't good, the nuns would try maybe try to correct it with a ruler, if you know

what I mean, rather than some extra help. So that does seem to have given him somewhat of an inscuriority complex. But other than that, really nothing out of the ordinary in that in his growing up years, you know, pretty you know, pretty traditional Italian Irish family, growing up on the East Coast, four kids altogether, he had a younger sister eventually, so you know, certainly nothing know, nothing that

would really stand out. And it wasn't until nineteen seventy six, when Joe was twenty years old, his father passed away of heart disease, and that, of course was very difficult for him, as if this would be for pretty much anyone. But other than that, we're talking about what could be described as a fairly ordinary upbringing.

What would he do in public and what would he say about your son in private?

what it should be said. While I'm not defending that behavior by any means, it was not terribly atypical for the time for a father to be very harsh, you know, especially that Joe was just it was the only son. And but as he got older, it made uh unfortunately it's in Joseph's case, it seems to not have inspired him. You know, his father's constant criticism didn't inspire him and

instead made him rather self conscious. So he would try to prove himself to his father, and he was all by pretty much all accounts, he was also afraid of his father. So and then when his father died when Joe was only twenty, as one of Joe's first cousins said to me, you know, perhaps Joe felt it all the more keenly because he felt he had never had a chance to prove himself to his father, because like most sons, he wanted his father's approval and respect and love.

And you know, then his father dies rather suddenly and he never has the chance to you know, to to gain that, to prove himself to his father. So that was certainly, you know, there was something certainly significant, I think in his adolescence, especially because Joseph started to rebel and you know, in little ways, you know, and it's unfortunate, but again it should be said it wasn't a terribly atypical father son relationship for the time.

hard to say. After the fact, their interest did seem to diverge, and perhaps that was part of the problem, because Christopher was a big outdoorsman and enjoyed hunting and whatnot, and so did Joe. But Joe also had an interest in cars, you know, he seemed to be interested in auto mechanics. So he had some interests that were separate from his father's. But anyway, this is a suggestion that his father had made him that he might want to

join the military for a while. So the Nicholas dies and within a couple of years after that, Joe did try to enlist in the Army and he was rejected because he had a hernia. He actually scored very high on the Army entrance exams, but they, you know, couldn't take him because of the hernia. So he actually saved the money and for the surgery and had the hernia repaired. And then when he was twenty five, and this would be nineteen eighty, he went and he enlisted in the

service again, and this time he was accepted. You know, he had the medical problem had been resolved.

it seemed to come on gradually. To skip ahead, when Joe was in his early twenties, he meets a woman who I call Donovan Alden in the book, and they begin, you know, living together, and everything seems to be going fine for months and months, but then all of a sudden, Joe seems very preoccupied and he stops talking to her and heart his behavior starts to become a little odd, like he'll go out at night and just walk all night, walk around the city at night, and as if he

was and I think it was described as if he was trying to walk a walk out walk his problems. So of course Donna asked him, what's wrong? If you know, what's bothering you, and he would tell her Sometimes he would just say nothing, and other times he would say I don't know, but it was obvious that something was bothering him. So he rather abruptly one day breaks off his relationship with her and tells her I'm going to

be moving home. And what was very unusual about this was that he just, you know, he's the one ending the relationship, and he just started sobbing as if this was, you know, very painful for him. So she didn't understand what was really going on. So he moves back in with his mother and his two sister. He had two sisters still living at home, and they begin to notice differences in him too, and they and eventually it becomes very stark. It started out with he was not socializing anymore.

He seemed to be just kind of want to stay around the house and just would be quiet, not talk too much. Then all of a sudden, according to his younger sister, she said, to her, it seemed like it was overnight that one day he seemed like this normal guy in his early twenties, messy room, going out with friends. And then the next day she said, he's wearing you know, white button down shirts and coralraye pants and going to church with us with my mom every day. So and

that was kind of stark. And his sister even said to him, you know, what the hell happened to you? What's going on? You know, and he would just tell to shut up, find your own business. And at the same time, he starts withdrawing from friends from you know, not just his girlfriend, but he had a best friend who I call Pewter Trementina in the book, and they used to spend all all kinds of time together. And

Joe was just pulling back from everyone. And then it got to the point where Joe would he stopped working, and he really wasn't going out of the house much, and he would sort of stare out the windows, you know, as if he was suspicious that someone was trying to break in or something. And again, you know, his mother and his sister's theater are asking him what's going on? Are you are you okay? And you know, he really

wouldn't answer them. He would he start to ask his mother very odd questions, you know, like tell her, you know, you know, ask her, well, what is the difference between right and wrong? And I mean, and this is a guy who's now twenty five years old. Now, his mother Teresa felt that he was depressed. She thought that, you know, as she said later, she thought that he was depressed. He was out of work, and she thought, you know, as soon as he gets back on his feet, things

will be fine. But unfortunately that wasn't the case. And unbeknownst to her, I mean, he started sleeping with a shotgun in his bed because he became paranoid and he had this morbid fear of intruders, and he started doing very strange things, like he would take all the tuppleware from the kitchen and he would hide it around the house, or he would hide plastic forks. You know, they would find him in the couch and he was like hoarding them and hiding them, so really strange and bizarre behavior.

And on the rare occasions when his friends did see him. They would report, you know, strange things like he wouldn't In one case, he didn't seem to recognize the person. In another case, Peter sees him in the summer on a hot summer day, and Joe is all bundled up in a winter coat and a hat. So it was

really odd, odd things like that that came on. So by the early fall of nineteen eighty, Joe seemed like a very different person than most people had known, most people close to him had known, but nobody was quite sure what was going on, how much it was going to last, how long would last, And perhaps you know, just thought maybe that, well, the mother's right, he's depressed, you know, he's going through a bad time. He's depressed.

But yes, there was a over about a year's period of time, there was a gradual but very stark difference in his behavior.

But then again, I mean I spoke to men who were actually who were inducted into the service when he was, and they said right from the get go that his behavior was very strange in a variety of ways. I mean, they were inducted, and they were leaving for boot camp in November, and this is in Buffalo, New York and Western New York. And heney wore sandals, you know, to the ceremony, which I mean completely inappropriate for the weather.

And then one of the guys uh offered him a ride to the airport because somehow he found out that Joe did not have a ride to the airport, and they had a couple hours before they had to catch a plane, so he invites Joe to go home with him, and the family finds him a little strange because he doesn't really talk. I mean, he will answer if he's asked a question, but otherwise he doesn't really engage with them, which seems a little odd and the only thing. And

he really won't answer any questions about himself. But on the way to boot camp, he does tell this this Spellow recruit that he's that he's married and he has a four year old daughter, which was completely untrue. You know. Then he when he asks Joseph about it later, he's just kind of vague and he won't answer questions other men.

Once they get to boot camp, they notice him doing odds things like instead of when they get off the bus, instead of talking to his Spellow recruits or something, they saw him holding he was holding this blue Duffel bag that he would not let go of, and he was walking back and forth in front of the luggage, kind of just sort of smiling and staring off into space, you know, walking back and forth. So it was odd

incidents like that. So they start boot camp and this is just November, and pretty quickly his fellow recruits find him to be an odd guy. This is an infantry division. For instance, he would get up in the barracks and he would wander around at night, which is, you know, not something you're not supposed to do. He wouldn't socialize with any of the guys. He wasn't building any relationships.

And in one instance, he was in a training exercise with someone in his platoon and got completely carried away and started really attacking, and the drill sergeant he said to him, you know, he has called it off and said,

what's wrong with you? So it was you know, odd things, very odd things like that that led that were leading up until Christmas of nineteen eighty and after the Christmas break when they come back in January of nineteen eighty one, I interviewed several of the guys who were in his platoon, and the one the chapter in the book where I really talk about this this time after Christmas. My primary interviewee was a man named Leonard Coles, and who figures

very significantly in the story. Leonard Coles was in Christopher's platoon and one day in January of nineteen eighty one, Christopher the Seven was a Sunday morning and men are standing in the barracks and Joseph Christopher walks up and he stabs Leonard Coles twice in the chest. Leonard cold is standing in front of his locker. There's people all around, and for no reason that anyone could figure out, Christopher just walks up and stabs him. So Cole of course

defends himself. He starts fighting back. Some other guys come and they break it up and Leonard Coles has been stabbed twice. He goes to the infirmary and the men who pulled Christopher off talk about how what a horrible experience it was, not just to see Coles get stabbed, but the way Christopher reacted. They were holding him to the ground and he was he was screaming and crying and didn't and several said he didn't seem to know

where he was or what was going on. He didn't seem to recognize anyone, so it seemed like a complete mental breakdown. So Christopher is put into the into the stockade, which is the equivalent of jail in prison, and he will not speak to anyone, you know. Of course, he's asked, well, what happened? Were you? And Coles in a fight. Why did you stab him? And he will not speak at all. So Christopher, he arrived in November and by January he's in the stockade charged with attempted murder.

to him. He doesn't trust him, but he doesn't tell him that he just so there is just at the same time, Christopher starts writing letters home to tell his mother, you know, what is happened, and you know what that he's in the stockade and what he's done. And his letters to his mother are not only bizarre, but very heartbreaking.

You know, you can really see the mental degeneration of you know, when he talks about he says, this might not make sense, but this play I'm paraphrasing here, but this place is turning and I'm getting beds feedbacks and you know, so he couldn't explain, but it was just the languages was that he's using is really bizarre. So there is one person down as this is it's Fort Benning, Georgia, that Christopher asked to speak to, and that is a priest who is assigned the chaplain who was assigned to

Fort Benning. And Joseph does start speaking to him and you know, confiding in him a bit, really just telling him how distressed he was and how the guys in

his platoon are picking on him. At the same time, Christopher goes back on the starts going back and forth between the psych the Army psych hospital, psychiatric hospital, and the stockade because he's in the stockade for a couple of weeks in January when he suddenly stops eating and he will not eat anything and he will not explain, so eventually they have to send him to the hospital and force feed him, and they put him up for

psychiatric observation because that's I mean, he lost over thirty pounds. This is someone who was just not eating, just refused, so they restore him to health. At the same time, he gets sent back to the stock aide for no apparent reason. He attacks a man twice on two different occasions. This is a fellow recruit who was in the stockade, but a black soldier just on the blue just to attack him physically, you know, with his fists. So he disciplined for that. He will not listen to the guards

and nobody can really communicate with Christopher. As the guys described it, it was very strange. You know, one minute he feels like a little guy, and then the next he just you know, he'll just go off flaff handle and attack someone for no reason, or they would they and he gets put in solitary and they hear him, you know, talking to himself, and or he'll just sit and stare at a white bulb for hours and hours. So once he's sent back to the stockade, he doesn't last there

for terribly long because he injures himself. He somehow gets a hold of a razor blade and cuts his penis and puts a bad cut on the base of his penis. So he sent back to the hospital and back for psychiatric observation, because, of course, injuring one's genitals is considered a you know, very potentially serious sign of serious mental disturbance. And while he's there, he starts talking to a couple of the nurses just out of the blue, uh one he just the He says, you know, I killed some

people in New York. And the nurse, of course, this is not what he's prepared to hear, and he says, well, and who are you? What are you talking about? And you know, Jess says, well, I'm not you know, I don't know their names, but I think I did this because somebody said my picture was in the newspaper. Now this is a psychiatric word. So the nurse isn't quite sure what to do about this, but he reports it

to a supervisor. Well, there's another nurse that he speaks to, and he comes up and he asks to speak to her, and he says something very similar and he said, h He says, you know, I I killed some people in Buffalo and New York and she starts questioning him, but he doesn't really seem to know, you know, he doesn't have too much in the way of specifics. And she tells and she asks him, well, well, why did you do this? Why did you kill people? And he and he says, well, it was well I had to. It

was it was something I had to do. And then the third person who speaks to in the army is a guard, a guard who was, as flyed to, used to watch over him, and he just wakes up one day after weeks of not speaking to this man at all, and says, did you know that I was a mass murderer in Buffalo? And of course the corporal just thinks this is you know this again, it's the psychiatric ward,

you know. He just tells them, you know Eddie's who still they'll talk, and he said, no, no, it's true, I killed some people, you know, in Buffalo, New York City. So of course, these three individuals in the army, they report to their supervisors, who in turn report to CID, the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. Then they start looking into this. Now they're already trying to investigate the incident of why Joseph Christopher stabbed Leonard Coles because they have been able

to come up with no reason. They've asked every person who was in the barracks, everyone in the platoon, was

there any tension between them? And they keep getting the same answer no. So one of the men in the Army CID recalled a teletype that has just been transmitted again and it's an I guess you would call it an All Points bulletin, and it comes from Buffalo, New York and it describes a series of crimes that happened in from September to December, and it's a series of shootings, of shootings and stabbings of black males that seemed to

you know, were unprovoked. They were blitz style attacks. And there is a similar teletype from New York City talking about about the same time period December of nineteen eighty. You know, in one day, six black men are are attacked by a white man with a knife. So the CID starts looking into it and they realize that they that Joseph Christopher is from Buffalo, New York. That's what's

listed as his hometown. And since he's been in the army, the gentleman he's he stabbed was named Leonard Coles, who was a black male. The man that he attacked and the stockade was also black. And they decide that, you know, it's worth alerting the authorities in Buffalo, New York City about this, just in case there's some sort of a connection.

So they get this. They first called the Buffalo, New York Homicide Division, who immediately sends two detectives down to Fort Benning to do some investigating, and from there they are able to after you know, an investigation, Christopher will

not speak to them. He doesn't believe that they're really police officers from Buffalo, but they are eventually able to get a search warrant for his home and for his mother's home actually, and they find some shellcasings which they believe matched the shellcasings that were found at the scene of the shootings in September in Buffalo, and he is That's how he is indicted and eventually extradited back to Buffalo to to stand trial. I charged with these with three murders.

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was coming together in this investigation. While he's in the military stockade, not wanting to talk to anybody, not believing that the police officers are from Buffalo, He's climbing up. You take us In the book I Reversed the Order of Everything, But September twenty second, nineteen eighty and a witness named Barbara Wozniak and tell us about what she

hears and what she sees. This is the first reported crime September twenty second, nineteen eighty tell us about what she sees and hears and does.

doesn't think too much of it. She thinks, I don't know, maybe it's just some kid who set up firecrackers or something in the park. In the grocery store, parking lot, doesn't think too much of it, just goes back to watching Monday night football. Well, what actually happened was this was a shooting in the Tops parking lot. There was a young man, a fourteen year old named Glenn Dunn, who was sitting in a parked car and he had driven there with a friend of his name Larry, and

Larry went into the store for a few minutes. Glad was waiting for him in the park car and as another witness said, a white man walked up to the car and shot him and shot the driver, fourteen year old Glendon, and then ran away. And the police, of course, are called to the scene. They pick up the shell casings, they see that they're from a twenty two caliber weapon, and they're asking well, was there an argument between them and anything like that. No, the just the man just

walked up and shot him and then ran away. What's important to remember is this is nineteen eighty. This is only three years after the son of Sam Case David Berkowitz, who was a man who in the summer of nineteen seventy seven he was going around in New York City doing these blitz attacks on strangers. Just walk up and shoot strangers and then take off. So now, of course serial killer is not what comes to mind. When the

police first go to investigate this. They discovered that the car that Glenn Dunn is in is a stolen car, so they start, you know, checking, thinking maybe this is related to I don't know, some kind of a car

accept ring, something of that nature. But the next day, which is a Tuesday afternoon, they get a report from in a there's a first ring suburb of Buffalo called Cheeks to Waga, and there is a man, a black male, who is sitting in his car eating lunch at a Burger King parking lot and at the noon hour, and witnesses report that a white man walks up to his car, shoots Harold Green through his car window and then runs off.

And now this this suburb, cheek Towoga, this is just a very not a long distance from where Glen Dunn was shot the night before. Police, you know, they're wondering to you know, they don't really think that at that point that it's related. But it's interesting that these two men were just shot in their cars. They're both black men. Other than that they have nothing in common. Harold Read

is thirty two years old, he's an engineer. Well, on Tuesday night, about eleven o'clock, a man named Emmanuel Thomas, black man in his early thirties, married family man, is walking down the street, the street where he lives with a friend of his, and a white man walks up and shoots him, shoots at him and unfortunately hits him in the head and takes off. And Emmanuel Thomas guys

at the scene. So now the police have these three killings, you know, shootings of black men that have all happened with a twenty two caliber weapon by what witness say, just a lone white male. And they're obviously going to

run ballistic tests, ballistics tests to see if these are connected. Well, before the ballistics tests even come back Wednesday, Wednesday morning, there is a black man named Joseph McCoy who's walking down a street in Nagra Falls, New York, which of course close to Buffalo as well, and witnesses report a white man walks up to him on the street, grabs him around the neck and shoots him in the head

and then takes off and also fibber slugs well. Very quickly, it's determined that these the twenty two caliber shell casings from these four shootings are connected. They have come from the same weapon. Now, the descriptions of the shooters very quite a bit except for the ones of the only commonality is they all the witnesses agree that it was a white male, but other than that, the descriptions are kind of all over the map as far as his

age and height and things like that. But the police know that, okay, well, something's going on because they delve into the backgrounds of these victims. The four victims are not related, they don't know each other, there's nothing in common. So this causes a lot of fear and especially panic and particularly in the black community, thinking, you know, what's going on. We have this serial killer who's just killing

black men at random. Definitely an atmosphere of fear, and the police really have no leads because these are blitz attacks. There's the only evidence left is the shellcasing. Well, about two weeks after these crimes, there are two absolutely horrific crimes that happen again in the first string suburbs of Buffalo. There is a man named Parlor Edwards who is a cab driver and he is found bludgeoned and horribly bludgeoned and with his heart cut out in the back of

his taxicab. The following night, a taxicab driver named Ernest Jones is found similarly bludgeoned and with his heart cut out in a by a boat ramp. And again these at first glance, these are the only thing that these victims seem to have in common. Where were They were

both cab drivers, and they were both black males. Now, these crimes are entirely different from the Blitz shooting, but of course, you know when it comes out in the press of what's happened, there's the fear like, oh my god, is the serial killer just upped his game, so to speak, and it's just gotten more brutal in his killing. So it really causes a lot of fear and panic, and unfortunately it causes a lot of racial tension, and there

starts to be utiliation type crimes. There are now not a lot of them, but of course you know they get the negative attention. There are a couple of There was a black motorists who ran down to white men, you know, on the street. You know, that's at random. And then it with incidents like that, and many reports for a couple of nights in a row of black teenagers throwing rocks and bottles and whatnot at any white

people that they saw in cars. You know. So, so a horrible situation has suddenly gotten much, much worse, and there's a lot of pressure on the police and unelected officials. You know, of course, of course catch the killer, which there always is in these situations. It's driven by fear, but in this case there are also the accusations of well, you know, the police aren't trying hard enough because the

victims are all black. Now, of course that wasn't true, and if you look at the records, the police records and the files, they were trying very hard. I mean they were canvassing and recanvassing and you know, very early on involved the FBI, you know, trying to analyze their evidence. But in a case like this where there's just no these kind of random attacks, which fortunately are very are

really very rare. Stranger around stranger violence is really relatively rare in cases like this where there is absolutely no connection between killer and victim and there is no evidence left behind because they only have sleeping contacts that we're not talking about fingerprints, you know, even today, there would have been no DNA because this is just the a brief encounter and there's no there was no direct contact between the victim and the killer, right, so it's a

very very difficult case for the police. But of course, you know, the community's afraid and there's so it was. It was causing a lot of tension, a lot of ill will, and you know, just just spirit. It was really difficult time. And it's also worth mentioning that this was at a very this happened at a very difficult time economically. This is the late nineteen eighty and cities

like Buffalo, New York are really suffering economically. This is the area that became known as the rough Belt because you know, this is you know, the factories had been closing and there's very high unemployment and I think at time like that really just exacerbates you know, when things are bad anyway, and people are filled with uncertainty and fear, and you know that constant economic struggle. I don't have something like this happened. I think it makes it all

the more. It heightens things even more and frightens people all the more. So. Yeah, so that was the fall of nineteen eighty, and then suddenly the killings stopped October. Early October was when the two cab drivers were murdered, and then there were no other killings that were either like the cab drivers or that could be connected to the shootings the twenty two caliber shootings, as they came to be called. All was quiet until December of nineteen eighty.

A couple months later, December twenty second, nineteen eighty, in New York City, which is about less than five hundred miles from Buffalo, single day, there are six black men attacked in Manhattan by a knife wielding white man who attacked them, mostly on the subways, and it has an eerie similarity to the shootings in the sense that these are unprovoked attacks. Two of the men survived. There are

four of the men unfortunately die. Two of the men who were attacked survived and they report, I've never seen this man. It was just this short white guy and he just came up and he stabbed me and he ran away. So authorities in Buffalo hear about this, and they're wondering if this serial killer is back, because that's out even though these were knife attacks and they had been investigating twenty two caliber shootings. They're thinking there's an

eerie similarity there. You know, the the weapon is different, but the emo is the same. It's the blitz style attack on a stranger from a white man who just runs away. Well, you know, they talk about a New York City detectives at the time are very skeptical to think, well, you know, who's going to travel, you know, almost five

hundred miles for this killing screen. Well, they're skeptical for a couple of days, un until they have a similar string of stabbings and black men happen in Fullow and in Rochester and very similar to New York City of a man just standing on the street or mining his own business and a white man comes up and stands him. So now authority, especially the task force in Buffalo, they're convinced that he's back.

returned to Fort Benning, Georgia. He returned to the army after his Christmas break he had been when the investigator started, when they were called the Fort Benning and they started investigating, they discovered that he was in New York City and then in Buffalo over the Christmas holidays, giving him opportunity to commit those crimes.

creating those composites. You talked about a central figure in this, Detective John Reagan, was involved in the very first murder investigation and sort of a relentless reinterviewing technique of getting down to another central character, Kenny Paulson, which was a witness to the very first murder and the Joseph Christopher. But we won't get into that right now. Let's talk about just a little bit about that composite drawing and what was involved in that.

together a set of composite drawings. And then after the series of stabbings that happened in December, the same artists came up with what were supposedly perfected versions of these composite drawings, which really look identical to the first set that have been released in the fall. The composite drawings,

actually there are absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to Joseph Christopher. Basically, the composites, both sets of composites show a man who is blonde, appears to be, you know, very fair skinned. The features are completely different, you know, rather thin lips. Joseph Christopher when he's arrested, he has very dark, curly hair,

he has very prominent notes, he has very thick lips. Really, his photo is night and day to the point where it was actually those compositi venefectually parody in newspapers, you know, for their absolute lack of resemblance to the suspect who was eventually arrested.

behavior is bizarre. And in fact, the Army had advised Buffalo Police when they gave them this tip that you know you might want to look at this guy, say, you know, he will more than likely never be never be court martialed in the army because of because he's psychotic. So then that starts a very very long round of

psychiatric evaluations and examinations. And what was it play here was the defense attorneys almost immediately were able to determine that they have a client who is they're not doctors, they can't diagnose him, but as mental problems, serious mental problems.

They can't communicate with him, and how are they supposed to defend him the state can't communicate At the same time, you know, when there's news finally news of an arrest of the twenty two caliber killer suspect, there is a you know, great pressure on the district attorney to prosecute, you know, and get this get this case prosecuted, and we need this wrapped up, and we need justice, justice, justice.

twenty two caliber shootings. Because they it's diffic to make a case. They really don't have much in the way of evidence except for these shell case things, which you know, might prove that he may have had access to the weapons. But as I said, the witness descriptions are all over the place, and they they don't have anything else really

in the way of direct physical evidence. They have Christopher's confessions, which were made in a psychiatric hospital after he had cut himself and wasn't eating, and so, you know, the confessions, you know, sketchy there, but there was because the Cavvy killings had been so they've been so horribly gruesome, and they had happened so soon after the shootings, there was maybe maybe it was kind of natural for the press to want to connect the dots, and of course they

were asking the question, you know, is this did he also commit these these crimes? Now, of course he was not indicted for those cab driver murders and the task Force continued quietly to continue investigating the cab driver murders. Now it was becoming clear, it was pretty clear early on to the scientific and especially to the scientific investigative team that was on the task force, that these crimes

were not related whatsoever. And in fact, Profiler John Douglas, when he back in October, even with the little information that he had about the cab drivers, said that it's not absolutely impossible that it's not the same offender, but unlikely, you know, he advised them, he said, you are more than likely looking for two separate offenders there.

his psychiatric condition. Christopher was retried on the twenty two caliber shootings in nineteen eighty five, and that's when the psychiatrist named doctor Russell Barton was brought on board. And he was known as a psychiatrist who was very friendly to the prosecution, so much so that the districttorney in

Rochester actually had him on retainer. And what how this all came about was Barton did a videotaped interview with Joseph Christopher in which Christopher and remember we're skipping ahead several you know, several years here after, you know, Christopher had been in prison and he was in and out of psychiatric hospital, you know, for for years in between. He conducts an interview with Christopher where Christopher is admitting

to all kinds of things, now including the cab driver killings. Now, what Christopher tells doctor Barton is wrong, you know, his confession to the caby driver killings is absolutely wrong. But unfortunately this is used in court against him, even though

he's not on trial for these crimes. The prosecutor seizes on that and you know, sort of uses it in his in his argument that because of this time around, they were trying to use a d advance of psychiatric defense for Christopher, and the prosecutor advances that the theory said, well, but look how viciss he is. You know, he killed these cab drivers and cut their hearts out, which was

really great. You know, in retrospect, it's grossly unfair. I mean, it wasn't appropriate at the time because Christopher hadn't even been charged with these but particularly if you look at the evidence, it's abundantly clear that Joseph Christopher had nothing

to do with those cab driver murders. You know, by that time, nineteen eighty five, his mental illness, his mental state had degenerated to the point where he would have confessed to the Lindberg Kip kidnapping essentially, you know, really too bad. And this is actually where where the title

of the book came from, is absolute madness. Because what I discovered when I started really looking into the into the cases I mentioned earlier, you know, it just didn't make sense that Joseph Christopher, you know had committed these crimes. And in fact, when it was there's an article in the newspaper before my book came out, you know, talking about how I was writing the story, I had a couple of Joseph Christopher's black friends seek me out to tell me Joseph, Joe was not a racist. Joe was

a good guy. I don't know what happened to him, but you know, he wasn't And what it was in the nutshell is very unfortunately, Joseph Christopher developed paradise schizophrenia and that was really the cause of his of you know, the crime speed X Free that he went on, the changes in his behavior, and what makes this doubly heartbreaking is that Joe realized at some point that his mind there was something wrong, and he you know, he tried to talk to you know, his former girlfriend and then

his best friend, you know, Peter, but really couldn't even explain to them what was happening. Well, just days before the first shooting, which was the murder of Glen Dunn, Joseph Christopher went to the Buffaloe Chiatric Hospital and asked to be admitted. He actually sought help. He didn't know obviously he had no background in psychiatry. He didn't know what was wrong with him, but he knew something was wrong, and he asked to be admitted to the psychiatric hospital

and he was turned away. It lasted about thirty minutes, and they suggested that he get counseling, and that that was especially jarring for me. I mean, the whole story is heartbreaking. Well, what's really disturbing is that we're still we still hear about incidents like that where someone who who needs mental health help. You know, they realize at some level that you know, it's something wrong and they need help, they seek to help, and they don't get it.

They're turned away and then often with really tragic consequences. So that was something that really that really gripped me when it came to the story, because if you look at his history, if you look at Joe's history up until he became ill when he was about twenty four to twenty five, this was a good guy and his mind betrayed him. I mean, this is someone who became profoundly mentally ill through no fault of his own, and the consequences were beyond tragic.

would have walked away. That means that he would have been sent to a mental institution rather than a state prison. What because and unfortunately it was because of the political

aspects of it. In fact, there was a closed door meeting with the senior prosecutor and some of the the da and the black leaders in the community who you know, when the senior prosecutor, Albert Rainey came out, you know, he told Kamawano, who was the you know, the junior prosecutor on the case, he said, now he says, they

want to they want to hang him. They're not going to give you know, because he was a white man who had killed black men, and there was sort of the political component to it, which is very unfortunate.

touched on the surface. I want to thank you very much, Catherine for coming on and talking about Absolute Madness, a true story of a serial killer, race and a city divided. It's been a pleasure for those that might want to look at other other material or do you have a Facebook page for this, tell us how they might look at other material or your website.