THE DENVILLE 13-Peter Zablocki

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web address ZipRecruiter dot com slash murder. Once again, remember to go to this unique place ZipRecruiter dot com slash murder m u r der, ZipRecruiter, The Smartest Way to Hire. Denville in the nineteen fifties was an idyllic place to live, yet a dark chapter in the era's history has remained uncovered. During the summer of nineteen fifty three, a wealthy traveler with a secret rap sheet as a convicted sex offender,

arrived in town to continue his misdeeds. A group of thirteen local boys ranging in age from fourteen to twenty two, took it upon themselves to teach the Mano Lesson and drive him out of the town. What resulted was his brutal death and the largest number of people ever indicted for murder in the nation at the time. The harrowing trial and its aftermath revealed the town forced to grapple with how to protect its youth and come to terms

with the gruesome incident. Local historian Peter z a Blocki covers the crime and a small town's path to redemption. The book that we're featuring this evening is the Denville Thirteen Murder, Redemption and Forgiveness in Small Town, New Jersey, with my special guest, historian and author Peters A. BLOCKI. Welcome to the program, and thank you so much for this interview. Peter's a Blockie, Hi.

no one's ever heard of it. I mean to the extent that it was buried so much that I have people coming out with me since the book's publication. They're like, I've lived through my whole life, how did I not know? However, as I was interviewing these elderly faults, they basically at the end of each interview, a lot of them were like, hey, you know, there was this murder that happened in nineteen fifties,

but no one talks about it. And at first I kind of dismissed it, and I was like, aheah, that's great, but let's talk about, you know, rationing in nineteen forty three. But then it started to come up more and more and more, to the extent that ironically, and like weirdly enough, a few individuals actually asked me as I was recording this interviews, you know it is your camera off? And

I'm like, yeah, it's off. We're done now. Thank you for the interviews, and you know, at that point they were like, well, you know, there's this murder, and I'm like, okay, now I'm curious enough. And that is really how it started. And the name Denvil thirteen was thrown around by by these individuals, you know, by these eighty nine year old ladies and gentlemen. They were like, you know, it was done on thirteen. But when I googled it, there was nothing.

You know, I thought, you know, twenty first century, if.

was I'm like, where does one look for this? And I started with Murdering Denvil nineteen fifty fifty one, fifty two. I went through every year and nothing popped up. And that's kind of when I sort of really dig in into the newspaper. So I know Denvill had a newspaper of its own. It was called a Denvil Herald and it published over twenty years. So the library has a

PDF file of the entire twenty year run. So that was my first starting point, and I went in and a PDFI was scan in such a bad way that, you know, the search function, the control f function, it doesn't really work well. So I'm literally scanning through every possible issue in nineteen fifties, and oddly enough, I realized that the entire decade is full, but it's missing three pages of the first September issue September third of nineteen fifty three. And I found out really odd that we

would have every single issue but missing three pages. You know, the first two pages are gone. So that kind of got me thinking of like, all right, September ish, nineteen fifty three, and that became my starting point. Then I started looking at other newspapers in the area, all the towns around it. Basically it was like four different towns around that had local newspapers in the fifties, and I

was looking for September issues. No mention of this, however, I spoke to a member of the historical study an older member of historical society, and he said, you know, there's this folder that's somewhere upstairs. And one of these historians in the town of Denville nineteen seventies collected this scrapbook of some stuff, and I think there's something in there about this murder. But you know, when no one ever talked about it, it's kind of hidden somewhere in

the attic. So I went in the attic and I sort of looking for that folder. Meanwhile, I also realized that in our historical society in town, we have the microfilm of every Denvil Herald that was photographed in nineteen seventies as well. So I powered up the microfilm machine and I went through it all. And this time around, not only was just the three pages missing of that first September issue, but that entire September issue was never

photographed in nineteen seventies. So I'm like, all right, someone is clearly deliberately trying to hide this event. I mean, while I still don't really know what the events about, I just know it was Denvill thirteen. I assumed there was thirteen people not much past that. Then we went into these crates. We have these crates at the museum that are actually someone meticulously collected every Denvil Herald newspaper and put him in crates based on the year. So

I'm like, you know what this is. It like, I'm going to have the real hard copy. And I started looking through it, right, and I get to it at fifty three crate. You know, I'm like going through this the Kroll space and I pull it all out, and then I'm in August. I'm excited in boom No first

September issue. I'm like, this is crazy. So I started doing research and realized that Denvil published one thousand copies of each of their issue therefore to this day, by the way, I have not found that copy of that issue. It's gone. So someone somewhere hit a thousand copies of this issue. Meanwhile, I did finally find this folder, the scrapbook by this historian in the town in nineteen seventies that kind of did this on his own, and I found a couple clippings, and the clippings I found I

finally figured it out based on eclippings. You know, this deals with teenagers, This deals with a really young population of kids, and this is the largest indictment for a single murder in all of American history. And I'm like, whoa, this is. This is big. But then I still had no idea what newspapers those clippings came from, because the way the historian did it, he kind of just cut him out and you know, Scotch taped them. This is like nineteen seventy, you know. So I went back to

the drawing board. I wound up contacting on the Moors County Historical Society and the Morris County Museum. So Morristown is the bigger city. It's kind of like a quasi I would say, capital of my county where Denvill is located, right, And they had They're like, well, we have the Daily Record, which has been around, you know, for like one hundred years, and we have all the hard copies. It's not digitized, so you would have to come see it. But it's COVID,

and you know, COVID had just started. I'm like, all right, right, So an nice gentleman was like, you know what, I got nothing to do here anyway, it's COVID. No one's coming in. What do you need? I'll scan it for you. So I'm like, well, I just need a couple issues for probably September, and he scanned them over, sent them over to me, and he was just like wow. And

then I found my alluded. You know, I found those articles that kind of uncovered his story when it happened nineteen fifty three, and they were actually published from page US for like two weeks straight in this one particular newspaper in the capital of the county. But even those copies I could not find anywhere but the Historical Society. They're not on the internet, they don't exist. And that kind of Now I saw a story and I was piecing it together here by, you know, little by little.

I was still doing interviews with the elderly people based on World War two book, but I kind of paused the World War Two book, and now I kind of started asking questions about this, and a lot of them were kind of reluctant to talk about it. And they're like, oh, we don't, we don't, we don't talk about it. Someone told me that, you know, I once they did a girl and she was a daughter of one of the thirteen, and my mom said I couldn't date her, so I better not talk about it. I hang out these are

like older folks, and I'm like, okay. So then after I pieced it enough from the newspapers, I said to myself, you know, like there's got to be more to the story. So as one of the town historians, I reached out to the prosecutor's office in the county and I asked if this file exists for this murder through the OPRAH and Open Public Relations Act, and they're like, it does exist, but it's so old. It's in the box, it's offsite,

like we don't know where it is. No one's acced us this since fifty three, but we could try to find it for you. I'm like okay, and I kind of just let it go. I'm back to my World War two research. And then then I received a file. They actually scanned it for me with autopso reports, pictures, names, mug shots, I mean everything. And that's when I'm like, okay, I can't just put this to this side, Like I

have to do something with this. And I started writing and just researching and piecing it together, and I said, it's an accidental book because it's never really meant to be a book. I finished the entire manuscript. I put it in a three ring binder. I brought it to the museum in Denville. I put it amongst the other binders of stories, and I just like walked away from

it and I'm like, all right, well, I'm done. And then members of the Historical Society we had a meeting and they're like, you should probably like look into that, like this story needs to be told. And I was kind of reluctant, mainly because I live in a town. I have two young kids that live in a town, and this is a very touchy topic that was clearly meticulously hidden for you know, seventy years add years, And at that time I was not yet able to locate

all the members of the thirteen. Since then, I have located all of them. But at the time I wasn't sure, like what if, you know, like what if I know they're grand kids or my kids are best friends with their grant grand kids. It was kind of like this, I don't know. But then more I thought about it, and I feel like the way I wrote the book ultimately is like I felt like there really was a story that it was I put it in context, and once I put it in as a story, and I

thought of it why would something like this happen? And also why would something like this be hidden for seventy years? And then I felt like this really was at the end of the day history, and this was you know, like I tell my students in my high school history teacher during the day, and I tell my students all the time that you know, if I teach history right, I'm going to offend somebody at some point this year

because history is offensive. And I kind of stuck with that and decided, oh, you know what, let's let's turn this into a manuscript and send it out. And I did, and I got interest from publishers right away, actually within like days, and you know, I picked a history press, Arcadia Publishing, and uh, we're having this conversation.

thousand population Denville was doing. What was the situation in Denville regarding juvenile juveniles and juvenile delinquency. What did the people of that community in America? What were their concerns?

the workforce. And you know, we've studied this in textbooks and we you know, we see this in documentaries, but just listening from the real perspective, looking at letters from real people and diary entries and speaking to people that were alive during the time, both parents entered the workforce,

and all these parents worked in war related industries. Nearby Denville, there was actually Picatinny Arsenal, which was supplying the military during World War Two, and it hired a lot of local Denvil people, you know, female as well as male. There was also a radio airfield nearby Denvill, like a mile outside of Denville that was making radios and transistors

for World War Two. There was so much war work that ultimately you had parents for the first time, especially following the depression where there was this pinch there's not enough money nineteen thirties or worked kind of tough nineteen forties, a whole a sudden, there's an opportunity to go to work, and people jump on that opportunity, and unfortunately it starts

to happen. Is as I started to go home. Back in newspapers into nineteen forties, I started reading about this juvenile delinquency problem, which was not just in Denville, but it really was a national issue, but very much for the same reasons. And the reason was that both parents went to work and the kids were kind of left unattended.

Now by kids, I actually read accounts of I mean like four or five year olds left home alone, you know, for five hours at a time, and I thought to myself, you know, five year olds, I mean, how do you leave a five year old for six hours, but they did, I guess different times. However, the juvenile delinquency problem that started in the forties, Denville actually held the community meetings.

First time that held these community meetings in a community church was in the forties because there was a juvenile linksy problem that dealt with kids that were under the age of ten. And that's what shocked the community. It's like there was an eight year old that stole someone's gun and basically you just ran around town sort of shooting in windows. He was caught. He was he had just turned eight years old, and think of my eight year old. He can't even tie his shoes, right, you know,

Like there's again discrepancy here, you know. And that was the issues, like why are what's going on? And even then they were able to pinpoint that. They were very quick to attack the parents, you know. And when you listen and you looked at those statements from the forties, they're saying, well, everyone's too busy trying to get a job and make a buck, and everyone's leaving these kids alone to kind of raise themselves. And that same premise

kind of continues from the forties onto the fifties. Now in Denville's case. What's very interesting is that the Denvil juvenile problem with kids that were like eight years old, and when the case of Denvill thirteen, which we're going to talk about a little bit, comes into play, you know, ten years later or eight years later, they're not necessarily different kids. They're the same generation kids. They simply grew up and now they're seventeen and eighteen as opposed to being.

to be there. Their kids range. The youngest when was fourteen. The oldest boy was twenty two. The other two that were present were eighteen and seventeen, so mostly teenagers. One person that was not a teenager. In fact, out of the thirteen from the Denvil thirteen, only one is not a teenager, and that's this twenty two year old, and

they don't stay long. However, what happens is as they leave, they decide to leave after a little bit, and apparently out of one of these voice back pockets, pocket falls out a wallet, and the wallet kind of gets like I would say, gets nudged in between the cushion or your back cushion and your seat cushion and that booth, and that wallet belonged to a particular man. His name was Ross was his first name, and it was an

out of state license. And this is the person who we later find out is was murdered a couple hours before that event happens.

just kind of an interesting story in itself. These boys have noticed this one particular man that drove into town that summer. Apparently he was so this is the end of summer, but he kind of started earlier in the summer, which is why some people had issues with the police that this was not picked up earlier. But this man drives in with a convertible car. It is a Hudson convertible. It is meticulous, very wealthy car. The person is in

his early thirties. He dressed really well. He spends money lavishly, and he's kind of hanging out in all the hangout spots where all these teens hang out, including these soda shops as well as this one particular beach. Denvil as a town, has a few lakes, it's pretty much pretty much a lake community. But for those people that did not belong to the lake communities, there was this one particular beach that was on the river, on the Rockaway River and also a big hangout spot for kids that

kind of felt like they didn't belong anywhere else. So this man also used to hang out there a lota. That particular morning of that day, the men walked into the soda shops and apparently based on witnesses, he started hitting on a young boy. The young boy in question was about eleven years old. After the men leaves, the four boys that witness this basically decide that they're going to drive him out of town. That is their ultimate goal. And they're sitting there over soda.

The man is very, very kind of excited about this, he said, of course, absolutely, And what they decide to do. The plan is they're trying to get him or lure him into one of the town's lover's lane. There was a Morris County canal that ran through Denvil by this

time nineteen fifties. The canal itself is dry. However, the towpath next to the canal kind of snakes through the town and then it goes through these areas that are very wooded, and this is one of the spots where teenagers will kind of go and do their teenage things. So the ultimate goal is to get this man somehow with these two fourteen year old boys or so, to

this particular spot. And the goal is that if they get him to that spot, they could catch him in the act one, two beat him up, and three kind of chase him out of town. That's the ultimate golf And the plan is that they're going to have three cars by this time. There's actually by mid afternoon, there's twelve kids involved in this entire plan. And I'll explain why only twelve in a second. But you have these twelve boys that are ready for this. They're divided into

essentially two cars. Some of the boys load up to one car drive through this lover's lane, which is in this thing imagine like a dirt path and deep woods, and they drive down this till path. They reverse their car in, shut the lights off, and they're gonna wait there until the other boys will bait this man onto

this lover's lane. Now, when this happens, there's another car full of these the rest of the boys, I guess, and their job will be to follow this man and the boys that are baiting him to kind of make sure there's no cellf ones yet, but they kind of want to make sure they don't lose him, and the plant stays the plan is always to get him to

that lover's lane. Well, the man suggests the one idea was to maybe get him to the beach first to see if he does anything on the beach, And the man kind of suggests himself, like, yeah, let's go to the beach. When the plan is set into motion, the one car full of teenagers already goes to the lover's lane.

It waits they're in the dark. The man himself actually winds up getting together with three boys, not just two to we're fourteen, one is seventeen, and he does suggest to go to the beach first, So they go to the beach. He doesn't know or realize that he's actually being followed by this other car, also full of teenagers. Now, after the beach, the plan was to tell him to just kind of getting dark already, and they're like, let's

get him to go to this lover's lane. However, that doesn't happen, so as opposed to making a turn in one direction, the man makes a turn in a different direction with these three boys inside his car, and he takes into a local bar in a town over. While this is happening, you still have the one car full of boys waiting in the dark, kind of getting a little freaked out, like where are they? What's going on? Meanwhile,

the other car follows them to the bar. While at the bar, they stayed at bar for actually a few hours, and this thirty something out of year old man proceeds to get these two fourteen year olds and seventeen year old drunk. He keeps on buying them drink, spending money lavishly. Meanwhile, there's a car waiting the parking lot and these kids are like, what's going on in that bar? We need to know what's going on. Well, lucky for them, one of the three boys runs out to their car and says,

all right, he's buying us drinks. I think everything a plan is still there. He wants to go to Lover's Lane. Will go there, We'll get there. The boys are like, fine, we'll wait here until everything is good to go. Finally, after hours of sitting in this bar, half of the kids sitting in one area in the woods not knowing what's going on, the other half sitting in this car in a parking lot, really waiting for the inevitable, the

man gets out. He actually allows one of these boys to drive his car while he gets in the back of the car with both of his fourteen year old boys. So he's in the back with fourty year old boys and there's a seventeen year old boys driving, and now the plan is set into motion. They drive, they go across town. Now while this is happening, the other car

is following them. The car with the rest of the boys total now is twelve And this is where the thirteenth boy comes into play, which I thought was kind of a very ironic story. It's a very sad story. While this boy at seventeen is driving to Lover's Lane, the car following behind them is driving through the town of Denville and Denville's which is on the cover of my book. It was very known at the time to have this movie theater and a particular boy walks out

of the movie theater. It just happens to walk out. It's really late, it's after midnight, and he sees a car full of teenagers drives by. He knows some of them. He flags them down and basically ask them can I get a ride home? And they're like, short, hop in a car. We got to take care of something first. He's like, what do we gotta do? We got to run this guy out of town. And he's like, yeah, whatever, just take me home. So he becomes the thirteenth boy. Now,

while this is happening, the cars continue. The man with the three boys, the car pulls into Lover's Lane, into this dirt path into the woods. As he pulls in there there's actually another car with a young couple boy and a girl had also tried to go to this Lover's Lane, but there was this unwritten rule that if you see a car there, you just keep on going because it's taken. So this is important because that means that we know the exact time on the scene when

this man got there that ultimately is the victim. So he pulls in. While he pulls in, there's boys hidden in front of him, well ahead of him. He doesn't see them in the car. The other car pulls in behind him, lights off. The man stays in the car with the one fourteen year old boy. The other fourteen year old boy and a seventeen year old boy exit the vehicle. While the exit the vehicle, the boys from

the front walk towards him. The boys in the back of the car that just arrived there, including the thirteenth boy, who quickly realizes what's going on. He does not stay for the beating. He actually runs home. The boy is really young, he's fifteen years old. He's like, what is going on, so he doesn't stay it for the beating. He kind of gets brought in with the thirteen, but he's really not there. These boys approach this car, they essentially knock on the door. The windows are down, and

although it's a convertible, the top was up. They knock on the door and they basically peek in. They tell them and to get out. The man is visibly shaken up by this. He's kind of nervous that this is happening. He refuses to get out. They kind of prompt him to get out a couple more times, continues to refuse. At that point, someone opens the door. They drag him out, and that's pretty much how this murder starts.

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these boys. One of the boys leaves and doesn't witness the actual assault, or doesn't it doesn't witness the extent of it, let's say that, and goes home and tells his parents, Yep, now this was a coca this was a pop bottle, a soda pop bottle.

behind the victims car. So there's imagine just illumination probably to like your you know, you know, your belt area. It's fairly dark, and they're pushing this guy around. Most of these boys are standing on the outskirts. They're kind of standing around and they're like watching this situation. There's yelling, cursing, so on and so forth, until one of the boys says, hey, give me that soda bottle, grabs a soda bottle, and he starts hitting him the victim with a soda bottle.

This continues until another boy jumps in and he starts hitting him as well. It gets to the point that the man falls to the ground, and once there's she's two boys that are hitting him. A third boy runs up and actually grabs the boy that's doing the hitting at this point and pulls him off this man and says enough enough, so they pull him off. Meanwhile, so we'll probably have only three kids that are involved. There's twelve there, so imagine nine standing on the side. And

now this man is unconscious. Someone says, hey, go through his wallet, go through his wallet. So someone another boy picks up, goes through the man's wallet. The man is still unconscious. It is later stated in the police reports that the boys felt that he was still alive at this point, at least when they were going searching through

his wallet and so on and so forth. However, it quickly becomes evident to them that the man is unconscious to the extent that he's dead, and that's kind of when the panic sets in, because they didn't anticipate killing anybody that moment, you know, the point was just scare this man. At least that was the original intent or impetus that night However, at this point you could see that most of these kids are kind of like, oh my god,

like what just happened? What do we do now? And a lot of them, a few of them actually started walking home, never making it home. Some people slept outside, some people slept in cars, park benches, some made it home. Everyone kind of just dispersed, and I left the body laying right next to this car. The initial group of boys who planned this whole thing that morning at the

soda shop. Out of whom out of these boys, these four boys, you have the oldest one that's twenty two, which is the one that starts the hitting with the bottle. He's the one that initiates the hard hitting. You have another boy who does the hitting as well. And then in that group of four is also a fourteen year old who has later proven to be one of the main ringleaders ironically of this group. And he was the

youngest of this group. And they are the ones that kind of freak out and wind up going to a local diner, which is where I kind of started my story when I started telling the story, because they do a couple things that really lead to them being caught. The first one is the fact that they leave the wallet of the victim, as I mentioned, accidentally in that booth, which ties them directly to this murder. The other thing.

While they're at this, you know, it's getting kind of late and like it's getting kind of early rather so this guy's getting a little brighter, and they has this plan like maybe we'll make this look like an accident of some sorts. So they decide that they're going to go back to the scene of the crime. And they drive back to the scene of the crime, and it's really early in the morning. And as they drive in to get there, to this lover's lane, you have to

go into this then end street. So imagine driving it down this den and street. No one it's that end unless you live there, And why would you be there at five am or six am. Well, when they drive down there, they realize that there was already someone there next to the car. They quickly turn around speed away. However, again the car is identified and it places them on the scene. So it's not just the wallet, but it's also the fact that they were seen at the scene

that morning. The person that discovers this body, there's a lady that goes out for a walk, presumably with a dog, and she sees a car parked the lover's lane. Again, this is some This is something that teenagers used to do all the time. So the way that the body is laying down is she actually if you look at the cover of my book, on the back cover of the book is the picture of the car itself, and the door of the car is open, and right underneath that door, if you look on the cover there's it's

through adactive picture. You see like this dark blob, and that's because you would see the body laying right next to that open door. The way that this lady walks towards the car, she walks towards it from the other direction on the right side, so she doesn't really see the body. She kind of gets close enough and she's like, I don't know what's going on there. She runs back home and gets a family member to come out there, and that's when he comes out and he discovers his body.

Police is notified right away, they get in the scene, and more or less the way that I gathered it from the police files but also from newspapers, they had thirteen kids in custody within twenty four hours. This was quick. You know, this wasn't like trying to find them. They got them. Within a week. You have and this would never happen in today's world. Within a week, you have a from page of a newspaper has all of their mugshots, including and most of these kids are fourteen years old.

There's fourteen or fifteen. There's a couple of sixteens. But you know these are young kids. And you have all of their mugshots from page of newspaper with a big headline saying all thirteen face murder charge. Right in the articles that were published. You have their street addresses, their parents' fools and nightful names, you have what do you call it? You also have their parents' addresses of work. I mean, things that would never happen for miners in

today's day and age. This is shocking. Apparently, what I gather is that the town literally just stops. You know, it is to at this point, the largest, to this point, the largest indictment for a single murder in all of American history. And what makes it so much more shocking is that all but one of these perpetrators are teenagers. And that's when the shock factor hits. It's like, wait, what just happened, which I think also contributes to why this is hidden so much for the next seventy years.

You talk about it, you.

statements to the police. So there was a again a kind of cooperation that would never exist today with it.

to your mom and dad. You know. He was the guy that would show up for a doorstep and kind of left it in the parents' hands, be like, all right, listen, this is this is what Jimmy did today, and you kind of you had the respect for Chief Jenkins like he was there. It definitely was this. It almost looked like, you know, like Andy Griffith show kind of thing. You know,

you had that vibe in this small town America. So Chief Jenkins was because of the relationships that he formed with the parents of these kids, you know, this kind of it wasn't like I felt, at least when I was reading into it, that this was a very like sad time when he brought them all in. I actually

got first in accounts when these kids got arrested. I mean he uh a one particular Denville thirteen kid, he showed up a door, rang the doorbell, and basically said to the you know, mom and dad, you know, we got to take this person to the police station. He did something really bad. And the parents were like, all right, that's what you think that has to happen, you know, Chief Jenkins, that's what has to happen. Like that was it.

They just kind of led him, you know, because there's that trust, and he felt very much that the blame was going to go on him because of the fact that this man. It's almost like a story of vigilance and justice. I mean, that's ultately what this is. You have these and I think that's the vibe I got from doing the interviews and reading into it, is that these thirteen kids took it upon themselves to clean they or their town of what they perceived to be a threat. Now,

their intent was not murder. However, that is ultimately the end result, which is why we're talking about this seven years later. But Chief Jenkins had this feeling that this man was in town for a couple months, and he felt that people were going to blame him for the

fact that this was allowed to get this far. But as I mentioned in the book, very similar to many of these small American towns, Chief Jenkins was one of three police officers in a whole town and the police officers at the time, one was part time, the other two, including h Jenkins, were not. But there were so many different responsibilities of checking in on businesses in nineteen fifty thousand, drive down main Street and make sure all businesses were locked.

You would think that an owner would do that, but the police did that. There were so many things that they were responsible for this group of like two and a half men that you know, three and a half men that you know. He kind of felt like he did his best by trying to establish a sense of community where all the parents were also the police. Does that make sense?

this person. Potentially that might have been an accidental killing. However, if they could prove that there was intent to steal something or take something from that person right away, the theft aspect would turn this into essentially a first degree murder. And then there was like different levels of that intent of taking something, you know, like did they set out

to take it or did they take it afterwards? And in this case, the wallet is what comes back to haunt these boys because by taking that wallet, that becomes a key because it's like, well, was it intended? Was not intended? And they kept on being brought up in court. Who took the wallet, who looked into wallet, who looked into this person? You know, it was very specific, like what was taken? Who about this? Was this premeditated in any way, shape or form. And ultimately, once this case

did get to court, all these boys face charges. And as I mentioned before, you know when you look at the prosecutor's office, and I spoke about that in one of the chapters, one of the main boys that kind of orchestrated this whole thing, that said, hey, we're going to get someone to bait this guy. We're going to get in the lover's lane, we'll beat him up, we'll do we have He was fourteen years old and he

was unable to be tried in a regular court. However, he was in regular court to listen to the hearing, and the judge made sure he was very clear to him that what you did is not excused by your age, Like you know, what you did was. It was bad and he needs to live with that for the rest of your life. He tried to really kind of instill this in his boys, that you guys have some form of guilt to live with for the rest of your life. Ultimately, as the case goes on in court, what is determined.

And I kind of got this vibe that I think it dealt a lot with the situation of the age of these kids. The person that winds up going to jail for this is the only non teenager, the one that starts off with the photo bottle and the one that starts the actual hitting. And that's actually George Compo. I didn't use this last name in the book, but since he was an adult, I have a problem using it.

His name is George Compo, and George Compo is the only person that actually receives jail time out of these thirteen kids. Now, if you study and look into the history of George Compo, which is an interesting story in itself. George Compo was born in nineteen thirty one. If you Google, just pipe into Google Compo nineteen thirty one, New Jersey. I was trying to kind of pinpoint and find out what happened to all these guys. What pops up is a different Compo And this isn't a story, This is

story in itself. George Compos's dad was arrested the year that George Compo was His mom was pregnant with him, so before he was born, his mom was pregnant with him. His father's arrested for multiple murders in the city of Newark in New Jersey. He is a gang member, a young twenty year old gang member that is arrested for multiple murders the year that George is born. When he's

an infant. His father is electrocuted by the state of New Jersey for committing those murders, and twenty two years later later, his son goes to jail for committing murder. It is an interesting story in itself. Out of the other the other twelve boys, the other one that did the hitting was actually given a choice to enlist in a military and he takes that to pick that choice. He enlists in the military, so he does not serve

any time. However, we have to mention the Korean War is going on during this time, and the boy that enlists in the military winds up dying in a freak airplane accident while in the military only a few short months later. As for the remainder of the boys, and this is kind of where the story gets interesting, because the reindeer of the boys, the fourteen year old, winds up going to a juvenile kind of delinquency center and he's not around for a couple of years, so he

goes away. Another boy goes away for a year or so. But for the most part, so out of that you're looking at, that leaves us with nine kids. They all go back to school. They go, you know, by Thanksgiving Christmas time, because that's pretty much how long this drags in, So drags from last day of summer to about end of things given time. After that, they all returned to school, and everyone kind of knows what happened, but the town chooses to just let them be, and they do they

very much just let them be. Like I said, it was a thousand newspapers printed that September. I cannot find a single one today, having multiple opportunities to find it, I just can't find it. No one talks about this case. When people, you know, talked about it, even to me, it was very quiet. It was I have people that lived here since then, that moved into town in the late fifties or sixties, and that like, we've never heard

of this. And those that did live during this time, some are still reluctant talk about it, like we don't talk about that. It was a very unfortunate thing, you know. So when I published this book, I was very curious what happened to these guys. And after tracing all of these families and the thirteen boys, none of them actually are still life. So as by the time I published this book a couple of months ago, the last person had passed away three months before that, so they passed

away last year. And therefore none of them were ever aware of the fact that I ever wrote this story, because this story was nonexistent, I mean, it supposedly never existed.

He was a sex offender. Tell us about the record of the victim and what you think of its role in sort of the leniency afforded these youths despite the murder.

that are raging between age of eleven and thirteen. So it wasn't even the fact that he was gay, which in itself in nineteen fifties was something that was extremely frowned upon. And almost out of this maximum security prison, this man gets engaged to a woman, which basically what

I was looking at for nineteen fifties and homosexuality. A lot of people that were homosexual still societies I asciet these expectations definitely took the precedents, and a lot of them did it, settle down, have families and almost lived like two different lives. In this case, it wasn't just the fact that this man was gay. It was the fact that he had been convicted of having sex with boys that were extremely young and underage. He spent a

few years in prison, as I mentioned. When he leave prison, that is when he essentially decides to move to Denville. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he lives in a town next to Denville, but he hangs out in Denville an awful lot. And I think that has a lot to do with the fact that there is so many beaches in Denville. Denville is very much viewed as like a summer fun summer community suburb, and he moves there during summer. He also,

during this time, actually enlists two become a priest. He begins to study to become a priest while this is all happening. So when all that is uncovered, specifically in newspapers, once this case is happening. So these boys are all arrested. They're arrested in September. They are actually kept in a

county jail for approximately two three months. By the time this is all done and over with, their family members could only visit them on Saturdays, and they go and see them, you know, so sisters, brothers, parents, they go and see these boys ultimately through a jail cell for

a couple hours. Meanwhile, the newspapers are kind of very blunt about the fact that this person that these boys potentially accidentally killed or murdered was not a good person, you know, that he was here to ultimately continue his misdeeds. That was the story, the narrative that was presented in the town, which, as you mention then, I think plays a huge role. And ultimately the fact that this judge kind of looks at these boys and says, you know,

it's almost there's this morality question here. I mean, ultimately, this man could have done a lot of harm to some people, but at the same time, it's never okay to murder anybody. So there's this big morality question here. You know, It's like these boys definitely took matters in their own hands. And I think that's the vibe that I got as well from interviewing people with this. Well,

these boys try to protect their town. It just got out of hand, and ultimately the towns in return was going to protect them, which is why Denvil thirteen disappears for seventy years.

else was afraid to say no to. I should also mention that he also had a criminal record. Out of these Tunvil thirteen, he had a criminal record as well. And what he does during this court hearing. Because I don't like reviewing these court documents I'm thinking to myself, like, did they only pick him because he was the oldest. But then I kind of you know, he started, you start reading into it, and he was the first one to initiate hitting himself. He was there to plan it.

And during this hearing, well all these boys for the most part, are crying and they're like, I cannot believe this is happening to me. He sits there with like a smirk on his face. You know, this vibe of almost like well, I did the right thing, and he was not afraid. He was not afraid of It's almost like I got the vibe of he welcomed the fact that he was going to be found as someone that's responsible for killing this person. That's just kind of the vibe I got from it.

his name is there, except he wasn't really there. He didn't plan it, he didn't even stay for the event. He was truly an accidental thirteenth boy, and how much it impacted his life going forward. And when I spoke to his family, they said that they almost wish that, as hard as it was for this book to come out right now, they almost wish that this was talked

about seventy years ago. You know, it's almost as if like people were able to be open about it, and this gu for what it was, and these were kids doing stupid things and it got out of hand, and this idea that, you know, one rotten apple spoils a whole bunch. And when I spoke to a daughter and a sister of this boy, they said he lived his whole life and shame like he was. He had to live a secret. And although I was unable to kind of confirm that from a lot of the other guys

because I haven't talked to their families. But I haven't I have an idea that as a feeling that this is something that is concurrent with a lot of these men, this feeling of just guilt, like they lived with something that was It's almost like they were part of his secret of a town and they couldn't talk about it. And they tell, you know, psychologically and philosophically, and they tell you should talk about your problems, right, these guys didn't.

And from what they got from this family is that I mean it led to alcohol. You know, he was a great man with a really good life going forward, but he truly always when you looked in his face, like he was carrying a big weight. Yes.

the murder started this. But in reality, after, as you mentioned, after this murder takes place, the town responds by holding these community meetings that they held during World War Two, and now it's a decade later and they bring in I think it's really ahead of its time for nineteen fifty suburbs. They bring in psychologists, child psychologists, They bring in teachers, they bring in community leaders, mayors, police, they bring students. You know, they're like, we want to hear

from high school students, Well, what's going on here? They bring they're almost like every possible outlet they could think of to try to come up with a plan of not just explaining how this happened, but to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again, that the boys would never be put in a situation where they would even be capable or think that this is okay to do. And what also to decide is that the town suburbs at a time I was opposed to like elevit town

style suburban town where there's not much to do. It is decided that Denville should become a very family oriented community. Within a year, you have almost ten new playgrounds. You have a whole field directed. You know. Now it's like the rage of every town having a field and soccer fields and baseball fields. Denville has all of that. In the fifties they opened up a whole community basically recreation park, multiple baseball fields, football field, soccer field. This is a

way ahead of its time. They create the Police Athletic League for both boys and girls. Within mere months of this em Little League Baseball, which at the time was only started a year prior and it went only up to seek the age of nine or ten. They extended up for teenagers as well. The idea was to kind of make Devil very inclusive. Do you have parades that are all of a sudden kind of bringing together all

these different community organizations. You have Santa Land, which is actually still around to this day, where if you can't afford to take your son or daughter to go take a picture with Santa in the mall, you go to Santa Land and which is basically like a little area in Denville where Santa lives and you could bring your son or daughter and you don't need to pay anything. You just take a picture of Fanta and you go talk to Fanta. And that's still going on today. And

it started directly after this. It was this idea of let's turn this event and really try and strive to make Denville a very inclusive, family oriented town. And ironically that is what attracted Means to move to this town and start a family here. I mean, I consider Denvill to be my hometown. And it took a great, great town for kids raising kids, and.

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