Please be advised the following episode contains distressing scenes of murder involving children. Parental discretion is advised. You're listening to Unexplained, Season five, episode twelve, Profit and Loss, Part two of two.
With the local neighborhood still reeling from the shock of the brutal evangelist and murders, down at Detroit's Grand River Avenue Police station, Detective Lieutenant John Whitman and detectives Charles Searle and Earl Switzer were joined by Detective Fred from as they trawled through the various correspondents taken from Benny's office, having found a number of letters from the extortionist group the Black Hand, and one in particular, sent six months
prior to the murders, ending with the line this is your last chance. Police were beginning to suspect that they were responsible for the deaths, but there was one other letter that gave them even more pause for thought. It was addressed to A Lewis Evangelista of Coreopolis, Pennsylvania, a name the detectives knew well. Back in nineteen twenty six, a man was found dead outside thirty five thirty two Saint Auban Avenue, not far from Santina and Benny Evangelista's home,
having been shot multiple times. The man was later identified as thirty three year old Felis Argento, a known enforcer of the Black Hand. Argento had been ambushed to just outside the property by Angelo Paperot and his son in law Louis Evangelista. It seemed more than a little coincidental that Lewis was also named Evangelista, leading the police to speculate that perhaps he and Benny were related, or, more tragically, that Benny and his family had been murdered in a
case of mistaken identity. The police interviewed Lewis at his home in Coreopolis two days later, where he gave his version of events. As he explained, he and his stepfather police had shot Argento out of self defense when he came to collect five thousand dollars of so called protection money from his stepfather. The pair had warned police of the impending danger, but were forced to take matters into their own hands when the detectives assigned to protect them
failed to show up. After fleeing to Pontiac, twenty miles north of Detroit, the pair were picked up by local police, but eventually let go After Detroit police informed them of their circumstances, the officers in Pontiac agreed not to book them because they were essentially running for their lives from a criminal organization, and to do so would have put them in mortal danger. In short, Lewis knew only too
well how seriously the black Hands should be taken. But as for Benny had a letter with his name and address on it. He claimed to have no idea. The pair were distant relations, he said, but hadn't spoken in years. Then about the same time, another letter arrived at the Grand River Avenue station, simply written on a folded up piece of paper. It read, my conscience bothers me since I killed that family of six. So we'll confess and
say I am sorry. I live on Lincoln Avenue in the fifty four hundred block, but I won't give the house number because I want thinking time. Searched the houses and you will find the bloody hatchet in a suitcase. I am ready for the worst punishment I can get. Two officers were promptly dispatched to search the location, but were unable to find any suitcase. In the end, investigating officers determined the letter to be nothing but a hoax,
and Detroit's Finest were once again left empty handed. Having reached something of a dead end, investigators turned to Benny's Bible, the Oldest History of the World, for clues. The book was republished online by Jarrett Koebec in two thousand and one, painstakingly typing it up from one of only three original
copies thought to remain in existence. Jarrett describes the book as a prime example of outsider art, but one that was also gut wrenchingly awful, while at the same time offering, as he says, a sidelong glance into all the weirdness that makes up the basic fabric of the American experience. The book, which had in fact been ghost written owing either to Benny's lack of English or typewriting abilities, centered largely around the wanderings of a prophet called Meal, as
presented to Benny through his apparent communications with God. It was effectively a rewriting of the world as laid out in the first section of the Torah, known as Basheet or Genesis as it's known in the Old Testament of the Bible. Though the press and police were quick to hold up the oldest history as evidence that Benny was attempting to establish a cult through his teachings. There's little evidence to suggest he'd amassed any followers by the time
of his death. However, a sign that Benny had hung up in his basement window reading Great Celestial Planet exhibition suggests he'd been intending to entice people in to visit his peculiar religious sanctum, though for what purpose exactly is not entirely clear. For the family's priest father, Beccherini, even if Benny had only concocted it all as an elaborate
money making scheme, it was still tantamount to blasphemy. Having watched from afar, Beccherini had long been concerned that Benny's dabblings in the occult might unwittingly awaken something dark that
he was not able to control. For those unfortunate to have witnessed the horrific crime scene, especially considering the lack of evidence and witnesses, they could certainly be forgiven for thinking Benny had succeeded in summoning something unspeakable from the very darkest depths of Hell, only for it to then vanish silently back into the night, and if indeed a disgruntled or deranged client was ultimately responsible, perhaps in some ways this is exactly what he did. Dealing with stress
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the station Sheriff Irah Wilson. The letter, which being dated July sixth, was written only three days after the murders, read as follows, Sir, just a few lines to introduce to you a name of a good man of which I believe he will lead the road to discover the brutal slaughter of the evangelists if you only give him the power to act the investigation. This man lives at fourteen eighty five East Grand River in lansinc. His name
is George Prico. Later that day, two detectives made their way to Lansing to interview Prico, a tailor who worked at a vocational school for boys. Unfortunately, Prico claimed to have no idea who might have sent the letter, but he did confess to know something about Benny. According to Prico, a friend of his from Detroit at once visited Benny for treatment. During the appointment, Benny confided to the friend that he feared a former patient was going to kill him.
In fact, as some have pointed out, in the preface of his book, Ben, he appeared to have a prophetic sense that he was going to die, writing that only if I live shall I tell of the Third World, a reference to one of the later volumes he planned to write. As for helping the investigation, however, Prico's information was far too vague to be of any use. Police then turned their attention again to the idea that Benny
and his family were murdered for money. The theory was given greater credibility when it was revealed that the night before their death, Benny had made arrangements to have a truckload of scrap timber delivered to his property early the next morning, having offered two hundred dollars for the material about three thousand dollars in today's money. The delivery was arranged for seven am, and yet, despite the family's bodies not being found until ten thirty am, no delivery of
timber was made to their home. Since Benny was thought to have agreed to pay cash on arrival. The fact that no money was found at the property during the police investigation led some to believe that whoever knew about the delivery might also have known the money would be in the house. Neither the driver or the person who Benny arranged the delivery with was traced, although it would by no means have been unheard of. Most simply couldn't believe that a crime of such deliberate brutality would be
perpetrated for such a relatively small sum of money. But what the police ultimately couldn't shake was the suspicion that all of it was somehow linked to Benny's strange and unusual religion, and so they began to dig a little further into his past, in particular to his time spent in York County, Pennsylvania, a place located in the heart
of pow wow country. The practice of pow wow is thought to have arrived in America with Dutch and German mainly Amish as in the eighteenth century, with many heading to Pennsylvania. The states soon became a focal point for what would eventually become the Pennsylvania Dutch pow wow tradition. Though taking many forms, the practice essentially involves the utilizing of spells and charms in an effort to cure illness
and disease. The term pow wow is thought to derive from the Algonquin word for healer or dreaming, for divination and healing purposes. However, it wasn't until the publication of the book pow Wow's or Long Lost Friend by Johann George Hohman that it became synonymous with the growing folk magic movement. Homan and his family emigrated to Pennsylvania from Germany in eighteen o two. Practically penniless when they arrived, Homan and his wife, Anna Catherine were forced to sell
themselves as indentured servants to raise money to live. Though separated at first, the family were eventually reunited once their debt was paid off, with Homan by then making a living writing ballads and hymns to sell at market. Then, in eighteen twenty, he published Long Lost Friend, a peculiar mix of prayers and healing recipes. Though Homan never intended it to be used for magical purposes, it soon gained a glowing reputation among many of the local faith healers
and pow wow practitioners. Even mere ownership of the book was said to bring protective powers to any one who possessed it. It is thought Benny's own attempted religion and self proclamation as a prophet and healer was heavily influenced by the pow Wow movement, all of which led police to wander if his death was linked to an equally
bizarre murder that occurred in Pennsylvania the previous year. It was during Thanksgiving of nineteen twenty eight that thirty two year old John Blymeer arrived at the Marietta use of Nellie Knoll, also known as the River, which in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County. Blymir had been struggling with his mental health over the loss of two children and his wife leaving him. Over time, he came to suspect his misfortune was due to the fact that some one had put a curse
on him. Over the course of six sessions at a home, employing all manner of spells, charms, and herbal remedies, Noel attempted to determine the source of Blymier's misery. At the end of the final session, Noel asked Blymeyer to hold out his palm, into which she placed a single dollar coin, telling him that the moment he removed it, he would
see the cause of all his pain. Blymier promptly removed the coin, whereby he later claimed to see a vision of Nelson Raymier, another local witch doctor and acquaintance of Blymier's, who lived at a place known coincidentally as Heck Hollow roughly twenty miles away with the malignant agent identified Noel informed Blymyer that in order to break the curse, he needed to collect a lock of Raymier's hair and bury
it six feet underground. But more crucially, he must also locate Raymier's copy of The Long Lost Friend and burn it. And so on November twenty seventh, Blymyer and two accomplices arrived at Raymier's home and assaulted him. It isn't clear if the men had only intended to subdue Raymeyer to collect some hair and steal his book, but after a quick struggle that lasted less than a minute, Raymeyer was dead,
unable to even find the book. Afterwards, Blymyer decided to set fire to the entire house to be sure it was destroyed. He and his accomplices were captured soon after, with Blymyer sentenced to life for his crime. Though ultimately he regretted his actions, he remained convinced, nonetheless, that Raymier's death had success fully broken the curse. This year, I'm refocusing on what it means to take care of myself,
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Ramayer murder, it did lead them to something else. Having looked further into Benny's time in New York County, police became interested in a man he met there shortly after he arrived in nineteen o six. Aurelius Angelino, also known as Leon, was twenty years older than Benny and had also emigrated to the US from Napoli, with Benny only twenty two, when he was effectively banished to Pennsylvania by his older brother. Some have speculated that Leon quickly became
something of a father figure to him. But more than any think what drew them together was their mutual fascination of occult philosophies, and in particular, the mystical teachings of theosophy. In May nineteen nineteen, for reasons unknown, Angelino was jailed and committed to a psychiatric unit, only to be released soon after due to the please of his distraught wife, who'd been left alone to look after their four children. The day after he returned home, however, Angelino attacked his
wife with a club while she made dinner. After fighting him off, she somehow managed to escape the house, taking two of their children with her into the garden to get away from him. Back inside the house, however, Angelina quickly located the other two children, who he then battered
to death. After stripping naked, Angelino picked up his blood soaked children and carried them into the yard, where he proceeded to chop one of them up, stuffing their remains into a garbage can before police eventually arrived to subdue him. Leon was consequently committed to what used to be Fairview
State Hospital in Pennsylvania. Believing they might have a lead, detectives working the Evangelista murder went to Fairview to interview Leon, only to discover, much to their alarm, that he'd escaped from the hospital the year after he was committed. In nineteen twenty seven, two years before the Evangelista murders, a body was discovered on a train track in Baltimore that
was later identified as Aurelius Angelino by his wife. Though Detroit police were satisfied this meant he couldn't possibly be their man, some have speculated that, due to the mangled state of his body, it is entirely possible his wife was mistaken in her positive identification. Nonetheless, the evangelistic case remained open, with the investigation beginning to pete are out
once more. Detective Fred Frown, who was now leading the investigation, was surprised to read one morning in the Border City Star that one of his detectives, Michael Larco, had cracked the case. Larco, a member of Detroit's Italian Squad specializing in crimes relating to the Italian American community, was duly brought in for questioning to give his side of the story.
It was a few weeks earlier, he said, when he received a call from US Immigration asking him to take custody of an Italian man who'd been picked up in the town of Windsor, having illegally crossed the Canadian border. Strangely, when the man was asked to empty his pockets on arrival at the station in Detroit, he was found to have a piece of paper with the address thirty five eighty seven Saint Auban Street written on it, the home of the Evangelista family. He also happened to have a
copy of the oldest History on him too. Then, over the next few days, according to Larco, man slowly began to open up. Not only did he know Benny, he'd also once been a client of his. On his first visit to Benny's home, the man, who had gone to treat a minor ailment, was given a copy of his book before being led down into the bizarre basement altar space. There, the man watched a little unnerved as Benny fell into a trance and proceeded to minister a cure for him.
Having felt better, he continued to visit Benny until eventually he was broke. Only when his ailment returned did he realize that he'd been duped. In the evening of July second, the man slipped into Benny's home and found him sitting in a trance at his desk. Taking the meat cleaver he'd brought with him, he chopped Benny's head clean off, then turned to find Benny's daughter staring up at him
in stunned disbelief. Believing he had no other choice, the man proceeded to murder the rest of the family, and when it was fled to Canada, Detective Larco claimed to have traveled to Windsor himself to verify bank withdrawals made by the man to Benny for the sum of ten dollars, the amount he routinely charged his clients. Only none of it was true. Larco had made the whole thing up, attempting to pin the crime on the unknown Italian man in the hope of receiving the states by then four
thousand dollars reward for the killer's capture. The man's prince were taken nonetheless, and after they were found not to match those at the evangelist of property, he was quietly released the following day. In what appears to have been a recurring theme in his career, Detective Larco was eventually reprimanded and convicted of soliciting a bribe. Over the next year, attention in the evangelistic case inevitably began to wane. With no further evidence coming to light. To fill the vacuum,
police began increasingly to turn to more bizarre theories. One detective suggested the killings were part of a series of forty disparate murders or perpetrated by the same serial killer, who he'd given the name the Holiday Ripper, but the theory was never seriously investigated, and so the case went dormant.
Two years later, on Sunday, November twentieth, roughly ten blocks from the former evangelist of property, a man walked into the home of Robert Harris, a member of the Allah Temple of Islam soon to be Nation of Islam that had been established by Wallace Fard two years previously. As the man searched for Harris, he stepped into a crude oldar room at the back of the property and found the body of a man named James Smith spread out limply on top of it, an eight inch knife thrust
into his heart all the way to the hilt. His head had also been bashed in Harris, who was arrested along with his wife Bertha. Later that afternoon, having gone to a friend's house for lunch, immediately confessed to the murder. As he explained to police, he murdered Smith as a sacrifice to Allah, claiming that the man had voluntarily climbed on to the altar after Harris promised him his sacrifice
would make him the savior of the world. Though Harris had no real standing in the Alla Temple of Islam and his history of mental illness was well known to his family and other members, it didn't stop the media proclaiming him as the temple's high priest and describing the movement as nothing but a voodoo cult obsessed with ritual and human sacrifice. As such, investigators looking into the evangelistic case couldn't help but wonder if Robert Harris was the
man that had been looking for all this time. Despite only the most tenuous of links with both Benny's apparent religion and the Alla Temple of Islam being described lazily as colts, Harris was investigated for the crime. However, not only did his prince not match those found at the scene, but he was also in ten A c At the time of the murders. Is there something interfering with your
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wants you to start living a happier life today. Six years had passed since the evangelist of family were brutally butchered in their home at thirty five eighty seven Saint Auban Street, when a woman, Teresa my Couci, walked into Hunt Street police station claiming to have some vital information pertaining to the murders, though the original investigators had long moved on to other cases. Teresa was taken to see Detective Charles Snyder, who duie set about taking her statement.
The information was regarding her ex husband and Berto Ecchio, one of the original suspects in the case, who had been arrested the day the bodies were discovered, alongside his friend Angelo de poli. As. She went on to explain, she and Umberto had actually been to the evangelist at home on a number of occasions because she had once been a client of Benny's, having been taken there by
Aumberto to undergo a series of healing rituals. Something that had always bugged her since the murders, she said, was the fact that Benny, as she recalled, used to have two machetes hanging up on the wall of his office, but nothing was ever mentioned of them in the subsequent investigation. Presumably she thought because they were no longer there when the police inspected the property. Not only would aumberto have known about them from the times they went to visit Benny,
but he had some previous Two. In April nineteen twenty nine, three months before the evangelist and murders, Techio, stabbed his then wife's brother to death in a dispute over money to raise a divorce Techio three weeks later, but despite efforts to rid him from her life, in nineteen thirty two, her second husband, Lewis Peruzzi, was found shot dead on their porch. Only days before his death, Perrutzi had begged police for protection from Techio, who'd threatened to kill him
and blow up the house. The death was oddly ruled as suicide, and then more people began to come out of the woodwork. Frank Costanza, who was a fourteen year old paper boy at the time, revealed that he saw Techio leaving the evangelist of property at five am in the morning, despite Techio's previous claim that he'd returned to his boarding house at eleven pm the night before. Following up this claim, Detective Snyder reinterviewed former aqaintances of Techios
from the boarding house and received some startling information. One former lodger, Camillo Treus, admitted that he had also accompanied Techio along with Tapoli, to the evangelist of property the night before the murders, Though they did return to the boarding house at eleven pm after going out drinking, as Techio had originally stated, by the time Treus woke up the next morning at seven pm, Umberto was nowhere to
be seen. He didn't return to the boarding house until four pm the next day, when he arrived carrying a canvas mason bag about three feet in length. This bag, however, was never found. As for Techio, police were unfortunately unable to interview him again because by then he too was dead, dying of a brain hemorrhage in November nineteen thirty five. As frustrating as all this was, the irony of it is that it was only the event of Techio's death that gave others the confidence to come forward in the
first place. With all the new information regardless, in August nineteen thirty six, Detective Snyder compiled a final report on the crimes, concluding the Umberto, Techio was the murderer. Two weeks later, Techio's Prince were sent to another police department to verify them against the bloody prints found the evangelist at home, and they were stunned by the result. The prints were not a match. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now do so
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