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You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski. Good evening, The true story
of the night, Innocence and evil cross paths. On a summer night in two thousand, Amy Shoot and Jason Bergerson were set upon by five predatory youths outside of Providence, Rhode Island club. It began as a twisted joy ride for the young kidnappers. It ended in cold blooded murder in a town's relentless fight for justice. The book they were featuring this evening is Murder Without Motive, the Amy Shoot and Jason Bergerson story with my special guest, retired
detective and author Raymond Pigatory. Welcome to the program and thank you very much for this interview. Raymond Pingatory. Welcome to the program, Raymond Pigatory.
Good afternoon, Dan, and how are you today? Oh?
Fine, Thank you very much, let's talk about initially, just like in this book, here, this happened and occurred in June eighth, two thousand and this is in Providence, Rhode Island, and you talk about Jason Bergerson and Amy Shoote. Tell us a little bit about you where you were as a detective at that time. You said you were a
junior detective. You as you're writing a book, tell us where you were in your career before we talk about the circumstances when you heard about this crime and got intimately and inextricably involved.
Well as far as being the junior detective, I had been in detectives for approximately eight or ninety eights at that point, but we still had many senior detectives over me who handled a majority of the major clients that
came in on this particular day. It was a summer day pretty much, and many had gone on vacation or took days off, etc. And I happened to be, uh the low man on the pole, So I was working that day along with the two other BCI officer and a narcotics officer, So we were at a skeleton crew for the day right when the call did actually come in. It came in around noontime of that day, and then
prior to that it had been relatively quiet. And when the call came in, I walked into dispatch, and ironically I was just about ready to out of lunch with one of the patrol officers and they called me ping at a at the time, and he turned to me, he said, think you had to get down to the golf course that was under construction in our town. He said, there was a They just found two.
Bodies right.
Now. As you do, as you write in the book on June nathh you talked about several days before Jason Bergerson and Amy. Shoot, now, who are these young people? How old were these people? And tell us about their relationship and what happened? What were they planning to do? What was the relationship about? How long had they known each other? Tell us a little bit about their relationship and what they were planning to do on that June evening in two thousand.
While Jason Burgison and Amy they were relatively new in their relationship, just dating several months.
Both were into music.
Jason had gone to Saint claud University and he was an inspiring DJ, and Amy at the time was taking some time off from going to the University of Rhode Island and she was working and on the night of the incident, they had made plans with several of their other friends to go to a dance club in Providence
and just do what you know, normal kids do. And when I say kids, they were you know, early twenties, late teens, and they just wanted to have a good time, as many teens would want to do, and ultimately they ended up in the city of Providence.
Now you introduce a character that's important to this story, and especially right in the very beginning, as statistically something like this might make police look at this person quite seriously when something happened close to him like this. Amy Shoot talk about Jeffrey Harper and who he was and what happened that night with him.
And Jeffrey Hopper was a former boyfriend of Amy Shoot, but he tried to remain relatively friendly with her and they were on speaking terms. Jeff realized that Amy was moving on in her relationships and she again just started dating Jason. Jeff kind of called Amy and they had Amy expressed that her and a group of friends, along with Jason, we're going to come to a nightclub go to a nightclub in Providence, and that you know, he
was welcome to come. But she also had made the understanding that you know, she is now strictly friends with him. Their relationship has terminated, but their friendship still carried on.
Yeah, and there was plans that you write about too as well, because they were close friends. And despite the relationship with Jason, he still expressed and they made plans to call each other.
When Jeff had gone to the club with the other group of.
People, Amy and Jason and friends, and when Amy was going to be dropped off by Jason and go home for the night she had Jeff had expressed to her that he would like her to call just to check in well, no matter what time she got in, and that call never came. Once she left the club, things went downhill rather quickly.
Now with this book, you introduced these other characters and have this meanwhile moment. While these kids basically are enjoying themselves. They like dancing, and they love music, and they have quite a few friends, and they're just straight good kids with the lives and careers ahead of them. Meanwhile, you introduce Gregory flu and Kenneth Day. Now these guys are roommates, and you described in the book the kind of room
that these guys share and the kind of people. They were going out that evening to play some pool, you say, but they brought a gun. Uh, tell us a little bit about Gregory Floyd and Kenneth's Day and their living conditions and what they were doing that evening.
Well, just to get back to Jason and Amy for one second. When I when you just said that they were, you know, everyday good kids. I can't reiterate enough on just how good these kids were. They were you know, everybody's son, everybody's daughter. You know, you would you would beam with joy if they were your kids. Floyd in in Uh, kenned Day were the total opposite, you know, they were. They were bad from the get go. Kenned Day had allowed Greg Floyd to move into kenned Day's apart.
Greg Floyd had just.
Recently been released from it's called the ACI, which is the Adult Correctional Institution, which is our prison here in Rhode Island. He had served a short time, a couple of months if I recall, and when he got out he moved in with kenned Day. Kenned Day and Floyd. They lived in a place that was like absolute squalor.
It was you know, a place that makes your skin crawl when you walk in and walk out, and it was just like like a nightmaretal too even fathom how anybody would want to live in those conditions.
Right now, you talk about these two guys downtown and one of them has a gun, and they talk about seeing a guy named that they call a custy, which somebody's looking for drugs. So tell us what they encounter, what their plan is that's cooked up seemingly spontaneously or on the fly here, tell us about that.
Well, on the fly is definitely a key term. They did not truly have a plan formulated throughout the entire night.
However, kenned Day was down.
When we call it down city, that's the terminology we use for Providence. Even if you live in the city of Providence, you're going down into the heart of the city.
Kenned Day had.
Been at a local pool wall and he was a we're or dealer type of person. And if he could make a buck in any way, shape or form, he would make a buck. And when I say that, if it was whether it's robbing somebody, whether it was trying to sell drugs to somebody. In this particular incident, when he was at the pool hall, someone had approached about buying drugs or selling drugs and had flashed around some
money and which peaked Kennan Day's interest big time. So he had got a hold of Floyd and said, Floyd, get down to the city. The city's hot rate. Now I got a cussy that I'm looking to rob and he's close by, so bring your gun, which Floyd did.
Right now. What are the circumstances where they hook up with Burdick and Samuel Sanchez and Raymond Anderson tell us about that.
All pretty interesting. Burdick was a person that was known in the city of Providence. He was a heavy as set kid that he would hang up and near the Brown University, which is well renowned elite school, but he would hang around that area. He would purchase drugs around that area.
And he was.
Actually waiting at a bus stop to go home to Patucket, which is adjacent to Providence. Floyd and kenned Day had hooked up with Anderson and Sammy Sanchez, so they were riding around city, uh and they happened to see Burdick at the bus stop. Floyd knew Burdick from hanging down in Providence. They pull over and Floyd says, hey, come on the cities. You know, basically, the city's hot tonight.
There's a lot of students in the city on Thursday nights, most of the college uh the several colleges in the state of Arouel and several in the city area.
The kids go.
Down on a Thursday night and it seems to be a big college night where they're all are dancing, walking around.
So there's a.
Vast amount of people, a vast amount of targets in the guys of kenned Day and company. So once they the five collectively got together, their mindset became one, and their one mindset was to go out and find someone they could rob.
So that's what they did.
After they picked up Burick at the bus stop, was right around the city looking for a target to rob.
You right that Burdick steals some Latex gloves and meanwhile you talk about Jason and Amy. The club ends closes at one o'clock and as we spoke, Amy is expecting a call, maybe a two or two thirty So after the club and with their friends, what happens with Amy and Jason and how do they get separated with their friends and what do they do after that club?
Well, Burdick and Floyd have frequented these pizza establishment. They used to help the owner of the pizza Saki's Pizza. They used to help the owner unload trucks and did meaningless jobs around the pizza place, and in turn, the owner would give them.
Free pizza, etc.
So it wasn't uncommon for them to be inside the pizza up place at all given hours. It was one of these establishers that was open till like four or five o'clock in the morning. So when they happened to walk into this Saki's Pizza, they made a beeline for the kitchen area and they went right to the latex gloves. They grabbed the gloves and they passed them out amongst
the five of them. So right there in my mind, it's telling me that a plan is really starting to kick emotion that if they do something elicit, they're going to do it where they're not going to leave evidence behind such as a fingerprint. Now, what had happened when Jason and Amy went to the nightclub. Prior to going to the nightclub to dance, they went to a like a barroom, pool hall kind of place and their other friends from Massachusetts. It was agreed upon that they would
meet at this place called Tommy's Place. They met there, they played some pool, etc. And then they left their car at the Tommy's Place and went to this other nightclub. Once that nightclub let out for the night, they went back to Tommy's places. Their friends left, so that left Jason and Amy alone in the parking lot, so they didn't want the night to end. They just sat outside of Jason's vehicle and.
They were listening to music for as kids do.
And they were just hanging out bothering nobody at this particular time except Floyd and Day and Sammy Sanchez and Ray Anderson.
And Harry Burdick.
They had their own ideas of having a good time and that was ultimately to rob somebody and their entire night instead of being like normal you know, teenage the early twenty year olds enjoying a nightclub scene. They were riding around the entire down City area looking to rob somebody and they would pick out various targets and for
whatever reason, their their attempts would fail. I mean, they only made one actual attempt to rob somebody when they surrounded somebody at a ATM machine and a security guard happened to intervene, and that that had failed for them. So they ultimate bow that night was to set out to make an easy book.
Now you write that you find out later, much later, that they already spotted Jason's vehicle, a white Ford Explorer, And then you say that this crew of five spotted the Explorer again.
Well, when they were when go ahead, good, oh, go ahead?
When when flighting Company had been riding around down City looking for various targets.
It wasn't really painting out.
So Burdick, Harry Burdick said to Floyd and Sammy Sanchez, who was was Sammy Sanchez's car. He said, hey, look, you know, just just get me back to Patucket.
I want to go home.
And Sammy Sanchez basically told him it's not happening. I'm not driving me to Patucket. You want to get home, you go steal a car. Now, they had spotted Jason and he me hanging outside that car listening to music, but they had seen them earlier, so they circle around back around the city.
They park on a side street.
This is Floyd and Burdick in company, and it was that that time a plan was formulated.
By Floyd and Verdick. Verdick said, I'll go rob that car and I'll drive home.
So was at that time that Berdick and Floyd exited Seamy Sanchez's car, walked through an alleyway and walked up to Jason and Amy and at gunpoint pull Both of them were taking your car, but get in it first. So in essence, they conjacked Jason and Amy at that point.
Horrifyingly enough, well horrifyingly you write that a patrol officer had spotted Jason and Amy at some point tell us about this close brush with that didn't avoid or these people didn't avoid this calamity. But the police were very close in proximity.
But when I say close to proximity, it was so close that you know, Amy could have reached out or yelled out or done whatever and said help me. The patrol officer was probably a couple hundred feet away, or maybe I would have been more than that. He had watched when Floyd and Burdick put Amy and Jason into Jason's vehicle. Floyd was in the driver's seat at this time. Jason and Amy were in the backseat and Harry Burdick was in the passenger in front passenger seat, and Harry
Burdick had the gun faced on Jason and Amy. Floyd drives Jason's car out the wrong way of a one way street. It was a short alley way, but it was still a weird way and it was still you know, indicated it was one way. And when Floyd came driving out the wrong way on a one way street, this was observed by this officer at the time, and he did nothing. The officer never stopped him. He just looked
at him and Floyd continued on his way. Yeah, so horrifying the uh, Danny and Jason, it was just horrifying knowing that you know, they're looking at the police and you know potentially they could have been saved at that point, and you know nothing was done.
Yeah. Now back with Amy and Jason, how aware or not aware of the situation are they? What are the perps Floyd and Verdicts saying to these two people about their future? Basically, what were they saying? What was Amy asking? What were these guys saying to this couple.
Amy was.
Asking basically what you know, what's gonna happen with us? And and Floyd was trying to calm her down, saying, we're just going to go.
For a ride. Uh, you know, We're gonna ride around the city.
And he started getting into a like attempting to get into a normal conversation with Amy, like you know, where.
Do you go to school? What do you do now?
And you're trying to engage her in a conversation, which, you know, how would one person respond to that when being held at gunpoint and here's a person trying to talk to you in a normal sense, and when everything was as abnormal as could be. And they once they drove out that alleyway, they were then Sammy Sanchez in his car which still contains Sammy Sanchez, Ray Anderson, and Kenned Day. They dropped in behind Floyd, who was now driving Jason's vehicle. They just dropped in behind him and
started following him around city. So his Floyd, Burdick, Jason and Amy in one car, the other three individuals in their car, and they were just driving around, following each other until ultimately they they got tired of being got tired of driving around the city, and that's when Sammy Sanchez really kicked it in motion.
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You write about what they initially asked this. Of course, these guys are looking for money. So they did try in their primitive plan to to look at people or target people that might have money. So the question was they asked these people about money. How much money did Amy and Jason and have. What happens with that request.
Well, that that comes a little bit later. Once Sanchez, driving his vehicle, said to Floyd, follow me, I know where to go, and that that place that he took them to was the golf Cost that was under construction. So once they got to that golf Cost, that's when the really started ramping it up, saying, give us your money, give us whatever you've got, whether it be jewelry, whether it be credit cards, whether whatever it was, anything of any type of intrinsic value they were going to take.
And and Amy and Jason at that point were saying, we'll give you everything we have. We only have, you know, so much money, Take the car and take our money and just leave us, please, and we'll never report the cost only never call the police, but just leave us and take whatever we can give you. And that dollar amount that ultimately Floyd in Company succeeded in getting from Amy and Jason was a grand total of eighteen dollars.
Right, Who initiates the conversation about that they could identify them and so they must die. Who does that?
That was Kenned Day.
And Kenneth Day, although he did not pull the trigger, he was, in my estimation, probably one of the most evil people I've ever met, and he was the catalysts behind them when I say them collectively, Floyd Berdick, Anderson, Sanchez and Day killing Jason and Amy and Kenneth Day had indicated to Floyd that we have to kill them.
They saw our faces and he had been trying to shield his face when they were driving around, and when they when Sanchez drove up and was side by side with with Floyd, and when Floyd was driving Jason's car, he put his hand over his face to try to obscure his the view that they would have had of him. And then he said, let's, uh, let's kill him. They saw us.
You're right about Kenneth Day. When they realized again in their twisted logic that these people must die, then there was a statement about, well, what the hell what did they say about regarding Amy and what was what were the plans and what happened with those plans with Amy?
Well, Kenneth Day and Ray and and we're sitting.
They remained inside the Fort Explorer when they told Jason to get to get out of the car. When they pulled down inside this golf course area, they said get out of the car and they left Amy in the car. Kenned Day started telling Amy that he wanted sexual favors from her and if she did fulfill those he would basically help her out in some way up for him. And by helping her out, he was, you know, making overtures that he would have spare her a life.
And she had.
She had told him straight out, she said, listen, please, don't do don't do anything to me.
I'm pregnant. And that kind of stopped the whole process. So she.
She was not pregnant. She just told him that she was. And at that time nothing, nothing occurred, No sexual assault occurred.
You right, that one of these unconscionable killers had something to say about these guys sexually assaulting Amy though.
Well, ironically, and I don't know what I want to call it, ironically, for a fleeting moment, Greg Floyd, who was I don't want to say he was the master mind behind this whole process, but he was the one who he was the one who took the gun through the scene, and he at that time told both tennant Day and ray Anderson leave her alone, don't touch her. And I actually asked Floyd that at once once he was brought the custody. You know, you were there, you had the gun, you
were in charge, you're in control. You stopped the sexual assault upon Amy, but then you follow through with ultimately the murder of them. Yeah, which is it's hard to fathom not and it really truly is. Well, all I envision was hair, two innocent kids pleading for their lives, you know, and at the after pleading for their lives, you know, then they want to introduce a sexual assault to her, and Floyd stops it.
And when I just asked them, is they like just it blew me away?
Like how could you stop one thing and carry through on the most egregious act that you could commit on somebody?
Yeah? Yeah, And with this too, you talk about Harry Burdick at this point says I'm out of here. What happens when this guy tries to get away from these guys who was in his corner and who isn't And well, what are they accusing him of potentially well.
Harry Burdick was friends with Greg Floyd, and what had happened was he suddenly got a case of the guilts and said when they were down inside the golf course and they had Jason and Amy out of the vehicle, leaning up against bales of hay, sitting on the ground, and they were kids were yelling back and forth Floyd and company about murdering this innocent couple. Harry Burdick basically said, you know, I don't want no part of this, and
he started walking away. He said, listen, I'm leaving. At that point, Sammy Sanchez said to Greg Floyd basically and then in this vernacular, he's your boy, go get him or I'm gonna kill him. And that's when Floyd and
put Jason and Amy back inside the Fort Explorer. And now at this time, there's like seven of them in this vehicle attached to the vehicle, and they're riding up the hill trying to get a hold of Harry Burdick, and they said, Harry, get back down here, and they drove back downside the golf course once again had Jason and Amy sitting against bales of.
Hay, and.
That's when things really went bad.
Now what do Amy and Jason think? I know you're right. Jason is reassuring Amy that everything will be okay. She hasn't been sexually assaulted. What happens next with this group of five and Amy and Jason.
Just just to give you a vision of how despairing this moment was. Amy is sitting at clutching Jason and he's trying to reassure her as they're pleading with these five individuals, leave us alone, let us go. We won't report the cost stolen. We gave you our money, everything we've had, and he was trying to put his you know, put his best word forward to these individuals, saying, please leave us alone, Amy, this is gonna be okay. Basically,
I'm your protector, I'm your boyfriend. I'm going to help you. Whether it be in words or in actions at that particular moment, I'll never know. But ultimately, once these five individuals that are standing before them, you know, with the you know, several feet in front of them, and Floyd's got the gun in his hand, and they're yelling back and forth, and Kenneth Day is really ramping things up, saying you got to kill him.
You got to kill him.
And Sammy Sanchez turns and says to Floyd, if you don't kill them, I will, And then Floyd was at that point said listen, stop and wrapped over. And you know, again the kids are looking up, they're fleading for their life and just for that moment prior to the actual and then this was an execution.
That's what it came down to.
You know, they're looking at this individual and he's covering that short distance and span from them, and they're looking at him knowing that at this point their.
Lives are over. So Floyd shoots Jason.
And now, you know, I'm trying to think of the mindset of Amy, who was either she was alive for a fleeting second, for a minut we do not know, but she was alive long enough to see her boyfriend execute it, and just the powers in her mind at that point knowing that she's going to be next, and ultimately she was.
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Well, the five individuals just left Jason and Amy for dead in a golf course, got inside Jason's Fort Explorer, divvied up some change and some cash that they had found in the Fort Explorer. And when I say divvied up, they went to a gas station nearby in the city of Providence and they put nine dollars in gas in each of the vehicles, that being Sanchez's car and Jason's car. So they ultimately they got eighteen dollars, but it was
eighteen dollars spent on gasoline. So you say about was stuffed out for eighteen dollars, You.
Right about that there was a plan for another crime using the vehicle. Tell us what that was, and then who was assigned the vehicle and what were they told to do with it.
Foyd was in charge of the vehicle, and there had been some talk that the following day they were going to use that vehicle, uh to rob something else. But Floyd said, well, I'll keep the vehicle close by to his his house, and he had kept it overnight and the following day drove around with this car that you know he killed somebody for like it was his own vehicle, his own personal pleasure vehicle. He had the keys to it, and he used it at will.
Now you read about that there was a few of these perpetrators had girlfriends and people in their lives, and they made comments and other people made tell us about some of the things that were said initially and to.
Who, well, there are some bragging, uh bragging rights by both Ray Anderson, Kenneth Day, even Floyd, who was talking to his girlfriend about what had transpired the night before, and it was saying how bad they were, and bad in a sense of you know, look at me, I'm a tough guy.
I'm a murderer.
You know, I'm on top of the world in the small, demented kind of world that they lived in. These are people, strictly street people with the value of life. The value of people's property holds nothing to them. So if they bragged about a murder to a friend and a friend listen to that story. The friends that they had were not the normal type friends that the normal type person
would have. You know, they didn't nobody reached out and called the police and said, hey, Jason was killed last night, and and Greg Floyd told me about it, or Kennant Day told me about it. They did they they didn't have that type of conscience.
M hmm.
Now, tell us about your involvement with this investigation. It's right after this discovery of the bodies. What can you determine, you and your team from the crime scene itself, What bit of evidence do you have to go from there? And how do you proceed.
Well.
Originally, this golf course was under construction, as I said earlier, and the one of the maintenance men that was the like the supervisor of the golf course, had observed off in the distance what he perceived to be bags of garbage. Again, this is a kind of a secluded area. Half the golf courses in Providence the other half of the golf courses in Johnston. When ultimately around lunchtime, the groundskeeper drove up to pick up his so called bag of garbage,
he realized that it saw a dead person. He thought it was a mannequin at first, but then he realized it was a dead person. And that's when he had called nine to one one. The dispatch went to Providence, who responded to the scene first, but they also notified Johnston police because it was so close to the dividing line of the two cities and towns. I get down to the scene, and I've been on the force for some time. At this point I knew where the dividing line was U and I walked in and I said, hey,
you know, guys, this is Johnston scene. We took over the investigation, and any investigation you need to number one, determine who these people are.
These two people.
Are someone's son, daughter, aunt, uncle, brother, sister, and we needed to find out who they are. And first and foremost, if we also had what type of crime scene we had, whether the murdered suicide, was it a.
Was it a drug induced overdose?
Because there wasn't a tremendous amount of connage left by the gunshot wounds, it was kind of hard to determine what it was. And again, you try to keep an open mind on an investigation, and if you get tunnel vision it could definitely hamper the investigation. So we leave all options open. And then what we proceeded to do was stot canvas in the area for any type of
evidence that may be left behind. There was no vehicle at the scene, but there were tie tracks leading up to Jason and Amy, so that indicated they had got there somehow, some way, and most likely it was with a vehicle. But again those tracks could have been there prior to them. We have to leave an open mind to all possible things that come our way.
When you're investigating this crime. I know this might be out of chronological order, but while you're investigating this, there's a call comes to the police station. But again, construct this this process for us up to that point where the call comes in and that information is added to what you do know.
So far. Well.
Once at the scene, as we're trying to determine who these individuals were, Jason and Amy, we had stopt canvas in the area and we had started expanding our canvas, our crime scene out and we locate a wallet, a female's wallet, several hundred feet away from the bodies. We started going through the wallet and there is different credit cards, et cetera with Amy's name on it. We now have a tentative identification of who Amy is, but we still
needed a positive identification. That was from the medical Examiner's office at the time. The Emmy, the medical examer, he'd come out to the scene because in Rhode Island, and I don't know how, I can't speak for the States, they have control of the scene when this body is involved. And then they released the scene back to us at to investigate. So we needed to determine who these individuals were.
That was done.
A positive identification of Amy was made by Amy's mom and her boyfriend, which just to make the notification to the families is one of the hottest tasks that has ever put upon a police officer. There's no training for that and it is the worst thing. And to this day, you know, it gives me a not in my stomach knowing that, you know, you have to walk up to people you don't know to know at all, knock on their door and say, you know, are you the parents
of and can you come and identify your child? They've been a victim of a murder and it was just just it's burned him into my brain. It's just horrific. But getting back to the investigation, once we have the kids identified and we have Jason's dad telling us, you know, Jason had a Ford Explorer.
Where is it?
He gives us the license plate on the Ford Explorer. We put out a bolo or be on the lookout for his vehicle. Ultimately it stopped in the city of Providence at the time a patrolman, Jan Carella, and in the inside the vehicle. It was being driven by Greg Floyd. Johnston Roe Alan Police Department, myself and several other detectives respond to the scene in Providence. We take Greg Floyd back into our custody at this time to speak to
him about why he has Jason's vehicle. As we're speaking to Jason, as excuse me, as we're speaking to Greg Floyd, we receive a phone call at the police station from a person identify himself as Harry Burdick. Harry Burdick informs one of the detectives over the phone that while watching the ten o'clock news he learned about that the Justin police were investigating the murders of the two individuals at the golf course.
Harry tells us he knows.
About the scene and is he in trouble, And so we tell Harry, listen, we don't know what story you're gonna tell us, but police come to the police station. So whatever information you may have, we can stop using that as evidence or helping us go forward with our investigations. Not so much evidence. I now had left Greg Floyd in the interview room by himself. After talking to the detectives who spoke to Harry I walked back into the interview room and I had told Greg Floyd. I said, Greg,
we got a problem here. The story that you told me in the beginning.
How you know you.
Had nothing to do with the car you were trying. You were buying that Ford Explorer, which belonged to Jason. You were buying it from some lady that you knew vaguely and couldn't give a description of, and you met her down at Saki's Pizza. I said, that story's not gonna hold anything. As I said to him, as a matter of fact, I have an eyewitness that's coming into the station that's going to tell me that you were at the scene. I never learned that from Verdict, but
I used it. And at that time Floyd looked at me and in all seriousness, he said to me, Detective that there couldn't have been There were no witnesses. So he just implicated himself big time. And you know, I always said, thank God, there are you know, dumb criminals out there, and this was probably one of the most profane of the dumbest, because to make a statement like that, he was just I don't know what he's thinking. So that really started moving our investigations with throw it at
a more rapid speed, Burdick comes in. Ultimately, Burdick's story was, you know, he was just along for the ride. He had nothing to do with this. He actually tried to stop the murder and he started walking away, And I want to know.
Part of that.
That was the only part of the whole story that he told us was the truth that yes, he was trying to walk away, but he was going to be murdered by Sammy Sanchez.
That was truth.
So what is the situation with the death penalty in Rhode Island and the big issue of federal death penalty, possibility of prosecution and how this crime and these criminals would qualify. Tell us about that.
Rhere Island doesn't have a death penalty statue, however, the federal government does. And because this was a kajacking murder with a high powered, high powered weapon involved, that's where the federal government kicked it in because of the kidnapping kajacking and ultimately the government has on their books the death penalty phase and because Rhode Island didn't have it. The people of Rhode Island were so outraged at this murder that they they wanted upon the flesh from these individuals.
So we attempted to use the federal statue so we could actually get the death penalty. But it's a petition process. It's not just like we show up at the federal government and say, you know you, these people are guilty put in the death and it just doesn't happen like that.
Now, with this initiative to try to have these people executed in Rhode Island, you provide a lot of statistics in your book as well about when was the last time somebody was executed in Rhode Island, but also this the murders and compared to executions as well. Can you tell us about a couple of those fascinating statistics that you put in this book to bolster some of your I guess claims and arguments in here.
Well, the last time someone has been put to death and Rhode Island was like decades ago, and it had been tossed back and forth between the legislature about putting it back on the books, as you know, a part of the sentencing for something so egregious as an execution, but it was not on the books that at that time. So therefore that's why we went to the federal government. Statistics they always show a story of why things happened or when things happened and what you could do with them.
But statistics did not save these two individuals. So we were going to use everything at our power to do what we could to get our pound of flesh for this egregious act.
What was the feeling of the families in their entirety, the Bergersons and the Shoot families, in terms of their desire for this, they.
Were totally on board.
Jason's sister Kelly started a petition drive and posted a signature of boards and all the local markets throughout the mass in Rhode Island. Uh and and people really really really got up in arms that you know, just this was like, at the time, one of the most egregious acts.
That Rhode Island had.
Uh.
There has since been others, uh, but at that time to open the Sunday uh Providence Journal, which is the major newspaper in Rhode Island, and on the front coat fold is these five individuals, and Kenneth Day is just staring. And when he's staring, he's staring like as like the devil's looking at you. And that grass that just took hold of people and they really were up in arms about it. Ultimately, the picture that was put in the paper of these five individuals being arraigned.
That led to other cases that were opened against them, and ultimately it was.
Day was convicted on another robbery he had committed prior to this quajacking murder, so it didn't as his close up some.
Cases and it helped.
But just to see that picture in the paper, it was it was hot wrenching to see these evil people.
You write in a book about a individual named iron Nasberg and he had called the police station the day after the bodies were found. Why did he call? What did he have to say regarding this murder?
Weber Ironberg?
He was a unique individual. He was a hanger on. And when I say a hanger on, he liked to be in the mix of like bad people, even though he wasn't a bad person himself. When I say bad, he wasn't a tough guy, he wasn't a murderer. He would basically do whatever these people Floyd and Company would tell him to do. Nasberg had a clean record. He ultimately we sought him out because when we ran the background check on the firearm that was used that we
recovered from Greg Floyd in kenned Day's room. We learned that it was purchased by Iris and Nasberg. Iron Ashberg reported several of his guns stolen throughout his life. We ended up tying Ira of Nashburg back to Greg Floyd as being a friend of Greg Floyd.
And that was when.
Iras said to me, yeah, I need to talk to you. Beyond me talking to him in the presence of his attorney, he said, can I come in and talk to you? He did come to the police station on a Friday night. We sat down. I said, listen, I can't talk to you. You've hired an attorney. And he said, I'm waiving all my rights. I want to tell you a story, but how much time am I going to serve? I said, listen, that's way above my pay grade at this point. I will get a hold of the people at the US
Attorney's office. You come back in on Monday. We let's all sit down and we'll see what we can hammer out, what kind of deal they may or may not be able to get. And ultimately Iran never came back on Monday, and we learned that over the weekend he had passed away. But Ira definitely like to be in the mix of bad people, and he was like an easy target because they could just at will tell him to do certain things and he would do it.
You're right about the again, the process that would get this to the death penalty federal death penalty status. What happens in that pursuit tell us what happens.
It's a petition process to to have the US government put somebody to debt. That petition goes before At the time, it went before John John Ashcroft, who was the US Attorney General, and after review, that was denied. Our request to have the US government put Floyd to debt.
That was denied.
Floyd, Sanchez and Harry Burdick ultimately pled pled guilty to life with our parole with no trial, kenned Day. And it was ironic because Sanchez never said a word to us. He invoked his right to not speak to us, which was you know, his constitutional right. He never said a word to us, but ultimately he fled out to life with all parole. Kenned Day was the only one that said, I want to take this to trial, and we did.
The youth the United States government took kenned Day to trial and the US Federal Court in Providence, and halfway through the trial process, the defense attorney for.
Kenned Day was.
Asked by the judge judge lagueur is an emotion to dismiss? And the judge asked this of the defense attorney several times, which made us raise our eyebrows, like, where's this judge going with this? And finally the lawyer said, yes, you're on, I'm asking for emotion to dismiss, which finned the grudg
said granted. And we learned that from the judge is judge's opinion, which I didn't agree with it and still don't that he said that because they didn't have the intent to murder prior to them actually going out and conjacking Jason and Amy. Then he was dismissing the case against Kenneth Day.
Now, how did Day respond and how does prosecution in Rhode Island respond?
Well, we had a backup plan because he was elated obviously that he got off on a federal charge. But because he got off on the federal charge, we charged him on the state statue of murder and we charged him with multiple counts of murder, multiple charges of kajacking
double jeopardy doesn't apply because it's too distinct in separate jurisdictions. Ultimately, we take kenned Day to court on the state murder charges and he was convicted on all counts and received four consecutive life sentences with our parole.
Tell us about Gregory Floyd testifying against Kenneth.
Day during the federal trial Floyd.
I had gone down to Pennsylvania where Floyd was being detained, and I spoke to him at length about clearing his conscious He did almost do the right thing by well, he stopped the rape of Amy for the sexual assault of Amy, but then ultimately he killed them. I said, we can offer you nothing else. You are doing life with our role. You're going to die in prison. But
kenned Day was equally as guilty. Will you help us against our case in kenned Day and Floyd agreed to come back to Rhode Island and he was going to now testify against kenned Day. Once Floyd got to Rhode Island, that quickly did not happen at trial. So we had to use Raymond Anderson as the person that was going to testify against kenned Day, and for Raymond's consideration of testifying, he received a reduced sentence.
And what was that reduced sentence.
It was I believe in the numbers of like thirty five years to serve. So Anderson will get out of prison when he's in his fifties and the rest are all serving life foot out parole.
You talked about Kenneth Day and some of his behavior at court regarding families.
Well, again, kenned Day was an absolute animal. So when he was brought into court in state court, he faced the family, he was giggling, laughing, blowing kisses to him. Defense table and prosecution table are like side by side, and under his breath he was constantly trying to beat me into an argument with him, and you know, we have to keep.
A cool ahead.
But the judge did notice, and the sheriffs did advise the judge that what Cannant Day's action were once he was being brought into the courtroom, and how much this upset the families.
And then because of that.
He was brought into court on a different manner, so that now he no longer faced the families.
Tell us what you write about the circumstance where they the perpetrators pled guilty received the life without parole. But if they would have got the death penalty, you righte that with that legal precedent or that what that judge decision would have affected it.
Tell us about that, well, that would.
Have kicked it into a whole different level of of.
The case.
Because if they we sought the death penalty and Kenned Day went to trial and was found guilty and the judge had reservations about the calidication be dismissed, I believe that still would be entangled in the court process today, as it was a day's appeal process. Last that lasted for a number of years. He appealed everything under the sun, and ultimately all his appeals were denied, and that last appeal was in two thousand and seven and that was denied.
And anything he could come up with. I mean, his job was to try to stay out of jail. Our job was to keep him in jail, and we prevailed.
You talk about the families of the Burgersons and the shoots. Amy's mother didn't farewell. Amy's sister tell us a little bit about the fallout and a little bit about some of the people that went on and continued with life successfully despite this disaster.
Well again, I try to I try to put the reader's mindset in the shoes of the family having to sit through this process and it just it just beat them up to no end. Uh, And it affected everybody across the board. We had super highs in the case and then horrible low was in the case. And the ultimate low was when Day's case was dismissed in federal court after we think, you know that we had a slam dunk going here that really took its toll on
Jason's mom, h on Jason's sister. It affected everybody, law enforcement family, and to move on, Yes, in law enforcement, you have to go on because there are other families out there you need to help. But still lingers in the back of your head that you know, oh my god, these families just went through such a heinous time and you know they're never going to get their loved one back.
And here are these five individuals. Their life really hasn't been Actually their life is probably for the better because now they're getting the meals, they're getting their their bed, they're getting everything they need in life. Because they're type of people that really didn't need much in life because they didn't have anything in life, and if they get it, they stole it anyway.
Yeah, Yeah, I talked about a couple of these guys in Floyd and another were essentially homeless and like you say, lived in abject poverty as it were. You write about because it seems and you write that some of these guys said they seem to be conflicted, or at least their heinous behavior seemed in conflict with their normal sort
of loving behavior that people described. And what you do is you look at the work of Lonnier Athens, respected criminologists and who had studied the nature of violent crime exclusively, and what did you find through Lonnier Athens to try to explain how this might have happened.
Well, once the five individuals collectively, their mindset became one. Even if that one good person, I don't think he could overrule the other four. And once once that animal pack type mentality he kicked in. Unless you're the dominant person amongst that group and you had the power to persuade you, you were not going to persuade those other four. So let's let's turn this whole process around and not not commit this murder.
Some of them.
I don't want to say they had good qualities because I'll never say that. These these people, in my eyes, they had nothing good about them.
Uh.
Ray Anderson had a small child, and to me, yes, he had a child. He loved his child. Well, if you loved your child, Jason and Emu were somebody's child, and you you were part and apostle to this executioner.
Uh.
He he didn't have You know, he lost no sleep over this because the Friday night when we caught Floyd.
He was out at a high.
School graduation party and uh, you know where where was the effect it had on him? They all went about their life. The next day when we spoke to Kenneth Day, he told me that he was getting ready to call the police to tell them about what happened. And I said straight out to why didn't you? Well, I don't know, because that wasn't in his makeup. He was never going to,
as he's so called, rat out on any of his friends. Yeah, it was a it was a horrible, horrible experience to go through as an investigator.
As a father, I had a daughter.
Of the same age close to Amy, and you know, just looking at her in that golf course, knowing that her last moments in life were determined by five and five people she never knew. And it's just a horrible, horrible thing.
The outpouring of emotions for the wakes and the funerals that followed for Jason and Amy were impressive, even to the families that thought they had a lot of friends that it was almost overwhelming the responses that they had from people, strangers and friends at these events. Weren't they.
It truly was and.
Well deserved the outpaaring. And again, I don't know if people who had no history with the Burgisons or the Shoots attended the wakes and just out of the share compassion that some people, some good people have, but there was a tremendous outpawing.
I mean, the Geames were two very.
Likable kids who had the world in front of them and ultimately was taken by five animals who you know, wanted to play, They wanted to play god.
Hm. Well, you know, luckily, through the hard work of your team and people involved in the judicial system that these for these people anyway, will never see the light of day, and one person will receive a significant sentence like you say he likely will receive some parole, receive
parole someday. But congratulations on the investigation. They move very quickly and responded appropriately, and obviously you didn't get the death penalty, but you got the appropriate sentence for these people that they would be behind bars forever.
Gratulation and thank you very much. I appreciate that.
I want to thank you for coming on and talking about murder without Motive, the Amy shoot and Jason Bergerson's story. I know this is on Amazon. Is there a website or a Facebook page for people that might want to look at more information about this? Is there something like that?
I would look under the author Paul Leonado. It's l O N A R d O.
He's written numerous books. He specializes in a lot of true crying stuff. I would Google or any other search engine.
Paul Nado.
He does have a website and you can link up to anything you want. Any out additional information that may be asked.
Absolutely, and we just want to mention too, Paul Lenardo's co author. Originally he was going to come on and talk about this book, but he felt that it would be much better for you to come on and with your intimacy with this case to come on and talk about that, and he was absolutely right. So I want to thank you very much, retire Detective Raymond Pinatory, for this interview. You have a great evening and it was a pleasure speaking with you.
Good night, Thank you, Danny, and also to you, thank you.
Good night.