Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
1891 New Orleans Lynchings & Brooklyn's "House of Evil"
31 Plays1 year ago
This week, it’s murderous mobs in town squares in New Orleans & murderous cults in evil buildings in New York!
First up, Lauren takes a trip down south to her favorite city and takes us into a True Crime story she herself was spooked by on a recent ghost tour in New Orleans! In 1891, eleven Italian Americans were murdered by a mob for their rumored role in the killing of a police chief. None of them were actually proven to be guilty of the murder…but that didn’t stop a group of angry townspeople from violently attacking them. Some say if you visit NOLA’s Congo Square today, you may feel the spirits of the victims or even hear their voices crying out for help. Is The Big Easy really The Big Sleazy?!
Next, it’s from New Orleans to New York as Felicia uncovers a very recent fire that ravaged a four-story house in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn just this week. But this was no ordinary Brooklyn hipster home! This was known as the “House of Evil” - an infamous building historic for being the headquarters of Reverend Devernon “Doc” LeGrand’s church in the 1960s/1970s as well as the site of his horrific acts. Devernon was a kind of cult leader, a scam artist, a rapist, and a murderer who peddled teenage "nuns,” put kids in cages, and many more violent crimes. WARNING: Devernon’s disgusting, deplorable acts that are depicted in this episode are pretty brutal are not for the faint of heart, so please listen with caution.
PS: If you have requests for future episodes or just want to hang out, follow us on Instagram @sinistersisterspodcast
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Reunion
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to the Sinister Sisters podcast. I'm Lauren. I'm Felicia. We're best friends. And we like spooky stuff.
00:00:22
Speaker
We're back again. It feels like so long for us. I know it hasn't been that long to all of our listeners, but we haven't seen each other in a long time. Yeah. We just had a nice little friend talk, but yeah, we haven't recorded in like a month probably or something. So I was going to say, I wish I could say like I've seen all the recent horror things, but
John Carpenter Movie Marathon
00:00:45
Speaker
Honestly, my recommendations are old horror movies because James, he's done a couple Q and A's recently with John Carpenter. And so we were like on a John Carpenter kick. So we watched The Fog, which I always love. Have you seen that one?
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's great. Yes. OK, great. And then we saw the thing and we saw Halloween. We rewatched all of those in kind of preparation and they're all just so good is the honest truth. They really are. Yeah. And could you explain just for listeners like James interviews these people at like these events?
Q&A with John Carpenter
00:01:23
Speaker
Yeah, so he on like one night this week
00:01:27
Speaker
Basically, Alamo Drafthouse in Las Collinas is on a freeway that's called John W. Carpenter Freeway. It's actually not named for our John Carpenter. What?
00:01:42
Speaker
I didn't know that. That's hilarious. Yes. So when they, I guess, made the theater or whenever they started construction on the theater, whatever, finished it, opened it, all those things, they were like, oh, well, we have to get John Carpenter here and name this theater after him.
00:02:01
Speaker
And so because of Texas Frightmare, which is the other thing James is involved with, he was already coming for this weekend. So basically like Alamo and Texas Frightmare like kind of partnered together to get John Carpenter here. And so he had a Q&A on Thursday while they had screenings of They Live and the Thing. And so he did like a little Q&A and a ribbon cutting and all this stuff. Ribbon cutting.
00:02:25
Speaker
That's nice. It's very silly. I don't know if you saw my video on social media, but they brought out Michael Myers to use Michael's knife to cut the ribbon. Genius. Genius. So genius. Now, this weekend, and I'm recording live from Texas Frightmare in some ways because I'm still at the hotel.
00:02:48
Speaker
But yes, James is moderating some panels.
Inside Michael Myers: A Panel Discussion
00:02:52
Speaker
I meant to say this to you in our friend chat, but now I'll just say it here. He's actually been more involved with the programming side of panels this year. One of my favorite things that he did was he put
00:03:03
Speaker
Nick Castle and I think his name is James Courtney. I think he has a three name, but who's the new Michael Myers? He did the OG Michael Myers and the new Michael Myers on a panel together. It was so sweet because both of them were like, oh my God, we've literally never talked about the character together. That's so cool.
00:03:27
Speaker
I think Nick Castle, who is the original, and I don't really know a lot, but if you know anything about the original Halloween, he was just John Carpenter's friend and just put on the mask and was like, okay, should I walk like this? Should I walk like this? And John Carpenter was like, walk from point A to point B. That's your direction, go.
00:03:49
Speaker
And so it was really cool to hear him be like, yeah, I mean, I was just thrown into this. I didn't think about the character, really, or anything. And then to have the new Michael, James Courtney, who's a stunt guy, and he's so kind, but he's also so spiritual. He was talking about the second I put on the mask, I'm not myself anymore. I'm just this force. Like a method actor.
00:04:19
Speaker
yeah but but he was like i like locked myself in with you know like sociopaths and i studied and i like did ayahuasca and like i i did all these things like oh lord i know very intense but like i don't know how to describe it because it was not
00:04:38
Speaker
It was not like in a normal kind of actor-y way. It felt like very genuine somehow still. Oh, yeah, yeah. I will say it this way. It wasn't like a pretentious actor being like, this is my process. Exactly. It was like a genuine guy talking through it.
00:04:57
Speaker
That's cool. It was very
Working with Jamie Lee Curtis
00:04:59
Speaker
cool. And they talked about Jamie Lee Curtis a little bit. And for Nick, who knew her so early in her career, and then James who knows her now in that partnership, it was just a really cool conversation. And again, they've never apparently
00:05:13
Speaker
talk to each other in that way about it. So that was really cool.
Horror Actors Panel Highlights
00:05:17
Speaker
And then he did another one that I loved that was like all the like creature kind of actors. So it was like, no, I'm not going to know any of their names. Like the guy who played Sam from Trick or Treat, the woman who was like Linda Blair's stunt double in The Exorcist. And like she also plays Pazuzu, which I did not know. Like the demon face that appears is like the little girl. Yes.
00:05:43
Speaker
Oh my God, I never knew that. That's crazy. Right? And they didn't tell her it was a makeup test that they ended up using. And so she didn't even know.
00:05:54
Speaker
That's crazy. It's crazy. She has like, you know, she has like a tell all book that she was pitching. And now I'm like, should I read that? It feels like it would be some hot tea. But so her and then the little girl from Megan was there, too. And she was like, wow, just so sweet and like honored to be there. Did she dance like that? She did the dance. I didn't. It was so funny.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah, James is like, well, I don't want to like ask her to do it. And then somebody went up and asked a question and said, like, I don't know, would you do the Megan dance? And she was like, absolutely. And like kicked off her boots and like did the aerial and like the whole thing. I love that. That's incredible.
00:06:36
Speaker
That's incredible. And she's like, she's like, she's from New Zealand, but she just seems like so, you know, I feel like all child actors, like she was like a little adult, you know, just like a little. Child actors are wild. Yeah. Yeah. Working adults and children's bodies.
00:06:53
Speaker
Exactly. Our friend Megan was dressed up as Megan and she walked up at the end and was like, I don't know if you would take a picture with me really quick. The girl was beaming ear to ear, so touched that someone dressed up like her. It was just so cute. That's amazing. That's so beautiful.
James's Panel Moderation Skills
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah, so that's my little Texas Frightmare, uh, rehash, but it's been so fun. I mean, I always love like James is really good at moderating and like, he just like, he knows a lot about movies. So it's like, I think, I don't know, just fun to like see him up there and doing his thing. Yeah. He knows the questions to ask and are the things you wouldn't think to ask that kind of thing.
00:07:34
Speaker
Totally. But anyway, do you have any I don't know. I talked for so long. Do you have recommendations or anything?
Felicia's Horror-Themed Play
00:07:41
Speaker
So not really. Over the last like five weeks, I've been rehearsing a play in New York. A horror play? That is open now. Sort of. I mean, I don't think the playwright would say it's a horror play. Felicia Loma would. But I made it one, certainly. It's like an abstract play about war.
00:08:02
Speaker
That's all you need to know. It's like very like dystopian Beckett almost or something. And also like a little like 70s warplay. I don't know. But I got a lot of creative freedom on it. So I got to add a lot of scary elements. So I added like a spooky
00:08:20
Speaker
sheet ghost dance and like a gas mask dance and like weird gore things that I just I decided would be fun. I love it. So that's my recommendation is go see my play in New York. It's called Gas. It's at Theatre Row until like June 10th. But that's really all I've done.
00:08:38
Speaker
That's all I've done for so long now. But everyone should go see it. Go buy your tickets. Go support her. It's all tickets. But oh my gosh, I am tired. I was telling Lauren this morning, I was like, today is the beginning of getting my life together.
00:08:56
Speaker
I shaved my legs, I'm going to get my eyebrows done, and I need to eat a vegetable and come back to life. Yes. I think that's going to be my day tomorrow, I hope, because I feel like, yeah. I had four margaritas last night, and I'm like, why am I making these choices? I love it. I love a four margarita night. That's nice. Can you tell by how exhausted I am?
00:09:21
Speaker
I am wearing, just for our listeners at home, I am wearing a towel in my hair because I just took a shower and also my makeup from yesterday has run down my eye bags. You look fine, Lauren. You look gorgeous. You look gorgeous. This will just be the whole podcast this week.
00:09:44
Speaker
Anyway. Lie to me, Lord. Okay, yeah. All right. Let's go
New Orleans Ghost Story and Italian Lynching
00:09:48
Speaker
for it. What are you- Shall I just been? Yeah. Yes. Oh my gosh. I didn't even tell you. So I was inspired because for anyone who doesn't know, James and I are getting married in New Orleans. So when we took my parents' look at venues, we went on a ghost tour.
00:10:04
Speaker
So I am doing another little New Orleans story and it also hits very close to home because it's about Italians. So I am doing because it's about Italians.
00:10:22
Speaker
OK, so I'm covering one of the largest lynchings in US history. And I know so, you know, this sounds, again, really bad, but probably mostly what what we've heard of. And and sadly, most of the lynchings that have occurred in America are mostly African-American men. Yeah. But this one targeted Italian Americans. So it took place on March 14th.
00:10:52
Speaker
1891. And basically, at that time, there was a lot of – I mean, honestly, I think this is true probably of New York too, based on the little bit I've heard about their history. But there was a lot of unrest with Italians and Irish immigrants. And so it began with the murder of David Hennessey.
00:11:14
Speaker
So he was a popular police chief who was shot down by gunmen while he was walking home from work. Very sad. But when he was dying on the street, a witness, you know, ran up to him and asked who had shot him and he whispered a slur for Italians.
00:11:30
Speaker
And so at that time, as I said, there was unrest, but there was a lot of Italian immigrants. So more than any other Southern state and primarily Sicilians, which is, I think I'm like a quarter Sicilian. So that's again, like part of my little heritage, but also there's like weird, I don't know if there's weird racism between like regular Italians and Sicilians. I don't know if that still exists, but like at the time that my grandmother was there,
00:12:00
Speaker
Sicilians were treated. Is it like colorism? Yes. So Sicilians, I think stereotypically had darker skin, but definitely in New Orleans at that time, that was part of why Italians were mistreated. So they were often treated, not maybe as terribly as black people at the time,
00:12:26
Speaker
but kind of because of them being darker skinned, similar being mistreated or just people being suspicious of them.
00:12:36
Speaker
So at that time, there were around 300,000 immigrants in the French Quarter, which gave it the nickname Little Palermo, which is the capital of Sicily. So I think it's so interesting now from the outside, because I think they're, especially as James and I have talked about our families, I think there's actually a lot of similarities between Italians and Irish people in general, a lot of Catholicism.
00:13:03
Speaker
It's interesting because they were similar religions, similarly hardworking immigrants. But as I said, they were just like most people were suspicious of Italians because they had darker skin. They were also suspected of like there was always like whispers of like them being involved with the mafia and like that side of things. And so they were all like very carefully watched by the New Orleans police.
00:13:29
Speaker
But at that time of the murder, there had been a feud between two Sicilian families. So it was the, I feel like I'm going to butcher this, even though, again, should be my heritage. But it was the Provenzano's and then the Mitrongas. So they were like the two families. And so David Hennessey, the police chief,
00:13:50
Speaker
was keeping close watch over them, but they really like, I guess the metrangas were the ones that he was like more on their side, but he had helped capture and deport a crime boss. And so people were angry, but he had other enemies too. So just like to play devil's advocate.
00:14:10
Speaker
He had consolidated the police force and he was one of the people that collected taxes from gambling houses and brothels and all that side. So not a lot of people liked him at the time. So it's like it could have been Italians, it could have been not Italian people that murdered him. But this really fanned the flame for people for anti-Italian feelings.
00:14:37
Speaker
And so the police rounded up hundreds of Italians, some of them just completely unassociated with the attack. And it honestly kind of reminds me of similar things that I feel like have happened in America recently where it's like the local newspapers were printing about
00:14:56
Speaker
this had to be the Italians and like we have to fight back and they're gonna take our jobs and all the classic things. And so they announced that nine, the local newspaper, excuse me, the local newspapers announced that the nine men who had been arrested were guilty before they were even tried in court. So that was like already out to the papers. So then once they had the trial,
00:15:25
Speaker
It actually resulted in six of them being not guilty and then three mistrials. So basically nobody being, you know, pinned with the murder. And so basically it's like the city like lost their minds. So they were like, you know, the mafia has to be involved. This is crazy.
00:15:44
Speaker
The Daily States newspaper even printed, Rise, people of New Orleans, alien hands of oath-bound assassins have set the blot of a martyr's blood upon your vaunted civilization.
00:15:57
Speaker
Oh, what a headline. That's like so intense. Fighting words. So it kind of, you know, in its own way, like a little bit reminds me of, you know, Trump speech that led to the attack on the Capitol where I'm like, it was like literally like the newspapers and the people just saying, like, get out there and get justice. Like, do what's right. And so, yeah.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, like take this into your own hands. And so this really resulted in just like thousands of angry New Orleans residents just coming towards the jail, basically. So there were speakers that were like riling the mob up even more.
00:16:43
Speaker
basically saying, we have to take care of these criminals. And so this mob actually broke into the city's arsenal, taking guns and ammunition. And at that time, the Italian consul in New Orleans asked for help from the Louisiana governor. And he was like, I'm not going to do anything until the mayor says you need help. And the mayor was out to breakfast and couldn't be reached. So there's a lot of suspicious things like that where I'm like, I don't know. They were probably just like,
00:17:13
Speaker
Well, the people are going to do what they're going to do. But so this smaller group of armed men went into the prison, grabbed not only the men who had been put under arrest, but also people that weren't even associated or accused of the murder, and they just open fired.
00:17:30
Speaker
11 men's bodies were shot and torn apart by the crowd and they hung corpses. Yes, it's really dark. So they hung corpses and others were just like torn apart and plundered for like money and whatever else they had on them.
00:17:48
Speaker
And so the Italian government was obviously not happy with this and like demanded that the lynch mob be punished. But the mob itself was like had a lot of prominent New Orleans residents. And so they like including like people who are future mayors and governors. So like nobody was ever. Nobody was ever like charged for that never heard of this.
00:18:13
Speaker
That's what i was gonna say at like this was in our ghost or the story and i was like i have never heard any of this. But really dark so no one ever figured out who killed david hennessy the police chief.
00:18:28
Speaker
And no one charged anyone in the mob with anything. But of course, there was lasting repercussions for just Italian Americans in general. And so years later, rumored mafia involvement was still used to discriminate against other Italian Americans.
00:18:49
Speaker
After the Hennessey case, at least eight more men of Italian descent were lynched in Louisiana over the next decade. So people were still just attacking Italians. And in each case, it was like nobody was ever prosecuted for any of those lynchings or murders. People were just doing it.
00:19:11
Speaker
I will say in 1892, so I guess the following year, the US government paid $25,000 to the victims' families, which I'm like, that's kind of impressive to me at that time that they stepped in like that, but I guess it was enough of a- How long after was it? Just a year. Just a year. Oh, wow. Okay.
00:19:35
Speaker
They didn't charge anyone. So it's like, you're just like, oh yeah, all your family got murdered and we're not doing anything about it. Like that. Here's some money. Oh my God. It's really intense. It's crazy.
00:19:47
Speaker
So obviously like a horrible, horrible event with a lot of death and just like, I think shows how quickly people can just like turn against immigrants and on each other. And it's really interesting because you really feel like, like partially why we chose New Orleans and why we love it so much is because it really is like the Italian and Irish heritage. And New Orleans definitely like celebrates Italian culture now.
Congo Square's Historical Significance
00:20:12
Speaker
It's really dark, but the lynchings were depicted. So now I have to go watch this. But in the 1999 HBO film called Vendetta that has Christopher Walken in it. So if you want to learn more about it, you can go watch Vendetta. But of course, because this is Sinister Sisters and because I originally heard the Sorana ghost tour, there are, of course, rumors of ghosts still inhabiting the area.
00:20:38
Speaker
So, I found a first-hand account online of a woman who was filming a house in the area that had Christmas lights on it. And when you play the video back, you can hear this voice saying, Ho Fredo in Italian, which means I'm cold. So, I feel like that's a very spooky phrase to hear.
00:21:01
Speaker
Our host mentioned people would frequently take pictures and see orbs of light or feel uneasy in the area. Some people have even claimed to see bodies hanging in the trees. The other thing that I'm just going to mention briefly because it was really part of the whole story that she told us.
00:21:20
Speaker
basically like where they walked the mob walked through to get to the jail is called Congo Square. And honestly, like, I feel like I could do a whole separate episode on Congo Square. It was basically just a place where slaves and other black
00:21:37
Speaker
like free black people in New Orleans would come and just be able to like celebrate and play music and sell, sell things, or trade and sell things, perform rituals. And some people say it was like the birthplace of jazz music. So it's, if you have been to New Orleans, there's like a big, I think it's called Louis Armstrong Park, but there's a part of it that's called Congo Square within that.
00:22:04
Speaker
And so that was also a hotspot for Voodoo and Marie Laveau, which I don't know. Did you cover her or have either of us covered? You did. I don't know. I can't remember. I can't remember either. She is the coolest. I will say that about like the ghost story. She went on a big I learned more about Marie Laveau than I had before. And she has like, again, like I could do a feel like I if we haven't done a podcast episode, maybe I will on her.
00:22:35
Speaker
And also to our friends who watch horror things, like Angela Bassett plays her in the American Horror Story season. But so she would come to Congo Square and do, you know, her voodoo rituals. And so some would like, like, I can't even imagine, like, I'm still just like, it is so crazy to me that just like in this park, like people were like cutting off body parts and like doing animal sacrifices. And
00:23:03
Speaker
I know, and she apparently- I told you about the chickens, right? What? Have I told you about the chickens in Brooklyn? No. This was early when Travis and I started dating, and he showed me that every once in a while there would just be decapitated chickens in this area near their house. That was very ritualistic, and nobody knew who was doing it. It was so scary. That had to be Voodoo or something. I don't know.
00:23:33
Speaker
I'm sorry, go ahead. So it still happens today in Brooklyn.
00:23:38
Speaker
I don't know. But anyway, so there I do think like knowing the culture and like the history of that area with all the animal sacrifices and people cutting off body parts and that this Italian I mean, sorry, not Italian and this like mob went through and, you know, killed all these Italians and hung their bodies from the trees. Like it is just a very unsettling area. And at night it was super spooky.
00:24:04
Speaker
Hearing that story like the way that the woman told the story was just so serious it's kind of it reminds me so much of I think I always go back to that Salem when we went on because it's just like all of this death happened all of this unrest happened like you just feel like there has to be something just off with the energy even if we don't believe in ghosts like it exactly
00:24:24
Speaker
But yeah, that's the New Orleans lynchings. So if you ever, you know, go on a ghost tour, I mean, I do also feel like this is like at least the third or fourth New Orleans ghost tour I've done. And that was the first time I'd ever heard that one, which was why I wanted to cover it because I was like, nobody ever talks about it. Yeah. And it just sounds like something you should have learned in like a history class. Yes. Agreed. Maybe they do in Louisiana. Yeah, they do.
Crown Heights Cult and Dark Legacy
00:25:09
Speaker
So the story I'm doing today is very dark and sad, but it came up to me because a few days ago, I guess on May 25th, a house burned down in Crown Heights that the New York Post reported on because it was known as the House of Evil.
00:25:19
Speaker
Well, good job. Well done. Thank you.
00:25:32
Speaker
Oh my God. I know. And I was like, house of evil. What is this? Why wasn't I invited? Oh no. Oh my God, Lauren, it gets so dark. It's too dark. Okay. It's too dark. I don't want to go. It's not haunted house. No, it's not haunted. It's just where it's a true crime one. It's where just horrible things happen. Oh gosh. So it's a four story house in Crown Heights.
00:25:57
Speaker
It's just like the fire part that just happened. So around 5 a.m., 100 New York firefighters went to put out this fire. Four of them were injured in the process. And before this, it had been, it looked, I mean, it looked to me pretty abandoned.
00:26:18
Speaker
But it was known as the House of Evil because it was the headquarters of a fake pastor named Debronon Dock, in quotes, Legrand. And this was the location where he lived with his many, I guess, wives and bajillion children, and also where he had his church, if you will.
00:26:46
Speaker
Oh, yes. Oh, indeed. And it doesn't say here how the fire started. So I'm not sure, but maybe more investigation will go into that in the coming.
00:27:03
Speaker
weeks. Basically, this dude was just a total psycho. He was born North Carolina, but moved to Manhattan when he was 12, so he lived in Manhattan and then into Crown Heights for most of his life.
00:27:20
Speaker
Before even this preacher stuff, he had had an arrest in 1946 for, this was like a random one, for failing to carry his draft card. But then in 47, he got busted for attempted rape. So that really started actually his
00:27:41
Speaker
real record, the draft card thing. I don't really know what I don't know about that. But so he started basically dressing in flowy black robes and calling himself a preacher. Oh, I know. And then he basically would lure girls into his church with like booze, drugs and probably more importantly, impregnating them.
00:28:09
Speaker
To the point where he eventually had 46 children. No. Which is too many. No, no, no, no. 46? It's all very bad. That makes Nick Cannon look normal. Yeah, totally. So he was married to, I guess his first wife was Helen.
00:28:39
Speaker
And he basically called, what did he call this church? New Day Holy Church of God, I guess. And while he was starting this up, he was like a chauffeur or something for his day job, but he started realizing he could make a lot of money by asking for money for his church. And so he would take all these girls, he would get them to dress up as nuns, like with the habits
00:29:05
Speaker
and holding tambourines. And he would send them around Manhattan, like to Times Square, around like Macy's or like wherever, subway stations. And he would have them collect money for the church. And the church was him.
00:29:25
Speaker
That's insane. I know. So he started doing this and the women were, I mean, I think they were also like allowed to keep some part of the money. And eventually in one year they cleared over $100,000.
00:29:48
Speaker
which in today's money would be like a million dollars by doing this. And he had a lot of girls doing it all over New York. It was so creepy. I know, I know.
00:29:58
Speaker
So in 1953, he was arrested with some of the girls, including his wife, Helen, and for solicitation and for fraud. And the women, I mean, it's just not their fault. It's just so shitty. But the women were convicted and given a few months' prison sentence. And De Vernon was acquitted.
00:30:28
Speaker
Because I guess he wasn't the one actually out there, do we get? Even though he's going to be treating the entire thing. Oh, how effed. I know. It's just ridiculous. So then eventually in the early 1960s, he moves his whole group of women and his now bunch of children to the house that is now burned down, which was 222 Brooklyn Avenue.
00:30:57
Speaker
And he moved there in the early 1960s. So by that time, Legrand was saying that he was not only a preacher, but a doctor and psychologist in metaphysics and theology. Oh, no. Just lie or lie or pants on fire. Literally, his house burned down.
00:31:19
Speaker
But he sat down. Sorry. And he said he would teach. He apparently taught classes every Wednesday about like whatever he preside over like weddings and funerals. He was like, I have the power to find healing. And it's just just a mess. So then things started to basically get out of control. So.
00:31:44
Speaker
They started to get complaints from the house about these big parties with fights and like drunken men and women everywhere and like
00:31:54
Speaker
the neighborhood was like, some things are going on that house that we don't know. And they would also call the police because they would hear like screaming. And yeah. And so and by the way, reminder that throughout this process, the grand is like collecting women collecting young girls like teenagers to like, do his bidding and like be a part of this fake church. And then
00:32:23
Speaker
basically people start to disappear. So then it gets even worse. So there was basically reports of three different women who had gone missing, who had long
00:32:40
Speaker
who had been part of the Legrand Church. And they had last been seen in 1963, and those women's names were Anne Soreyes, Mary Horin, and Lou King. And they had one witness whose name was Bernice Williams, who had been held prisoner at the townhouse for a week with no access to food.
00:33:01
Speaker
And another one, Ernestine Timmons, who said that Legrand had assaulted her, basically beat her up. And then another woman came forward, Betty Jean Davis, saying that he threatened to over the gun. And so basically all these people started coming forward and being like, this man is not only like running a money scheme here, he is like torturing and killing women. Oh my God.
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah. And so police, they went to the townhouse and they dug up the basement. They were trying to find out where these women that were missing were. They couldn't find anything. I mean, they did find, so they found weapons and marijuana. They found stuff there, but they didn't find any bodies. And
00:33:50
Speaker
But it had turned out that he had had, I don't know what year he got this, but he had bought a 58 acre estate in White Sulfur Springs, which is in the Catskills. And he had like a bus and he was like taking women up there to like his country house. And when they finally went there and they started digging around,
00:34:19
Speaker
they found some bodies. And by the way, at this what they called the Grand Acres and the Catskills, the people around there, they also started complaining about
00:34:32
Speaker
weird things going on there. So they said they would hear like random gunfire. They heard screaming, like wailing children, screaming women, all this kind of stuff. And they, yeah, and so they found the connection between these two locations and found out that he was taking the bodies. They would be killed in Brooklyn.
00:34:55
Speaker
taking them to the Catskills, dismembering them, sorry, I told you this was dark, and then burying them up in the Catskills on his property. Oh my God, this is so intense. I know, I'm so sorry, it's very bad.
00:35:10
Speaker
So the things he ended up being charged for were a little confusing to me because he did end up getting charged for rape and then he finally got charged for killing two of his wives. So his first wife from 1963
00:35:30
Speaker
they found her remains, and then he killed his other wife in 1970. And not only him, but also he had one of his sons named Stephen Stromlegrand, who was only 26. He was also brought, like, indicted for the murder of two of the sisters. And I don't know if this means actual sisters, or if they're talking about, like,
00:35:54
Speaker
sisters of the church or if it's like his literal sisters. I'm not super clear, but Gladys Rivera Stewart and Yvonne Rivera, who were only 18 and 16 at the time. So wow, it's this is what he has been had been indicted for and convicted for. But they think that he murdered potentially up to 25 women, but they were only really able to prove for.
00:36:23
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. So and by the way, so if you'll remember that I mentioned Ernestine Timmons as one of the women that testified so or like came forward as a witness. I don't know. She actually testified. But she was his one of his other wives. And after she came forward, she ended up dead too. Oh, my God. So he was a very like evil vindictive man.
00:36:54
Speaker
So the he was indicted for murder on March 12th, 1976. So he had already been murdering women for like, like 13 years, if not proven. And and everyone was very confident he would spend the rest of his life in prison, which he did. But another one of his wives ended up another wife that was not murdered ended up
00:37:23
Speaker
being another witness, her name was Kathleen, and she had been forced to marry him. And she told them, she was like, yes, my husband killed them. There's no doubt. She said that the caretaker at the place upstate named Frank Holman knows much more than she does. She does, but he helped to get rid of the bodies.
00:37:46
Speaker
She said the girls, they were cut up after they were killed. And while you talk to Frankie, Frank, he knows what happened. And that's when they went up there and dug up the bodies. Wow. So it's all so wild. Very, very sad. I don't know, but I just can't believe this was going on like not that long ago. Going on in Crown Heights casually in the 70s.
00:38:17
Speaker
And the fact that I mean, once again, just and this is something that a girl on a YouTube video talking about this case mentioned, which is like also sort of mind blowing. It's like the idea that this man had 46 children that are all probably still in Crown Heights and have children. So it's like all of these descendants of this like psychopath.
00:38:40
Speaker
or out to like, yeah, or out there and have to deal with the fact that like their father or grandfather or whatever was this man. Right. And like, what do they say? Yeah, it's just it's just like horrifying. But yeah, so he was he did end up dying in prison. He died in 2006 in prison at age 82.
00:39:05
Speaker
And yeah, so I'm I mean, I'm glad he's dead. He's a horrible person. But that's that's the story of the the House of Evil that just burned down a couple of days ago in Brooklyn. Wow, that is so crazy. That's like the crazy. Yeah. Again, I feel like we should have heard about this before now, especially because there's just so much imagery to it. It's like.
00:39:27
Speaker
Not to be about the storytelling, but it's like this fake priest that had all these women dressing up as nuns, going around Times Square, collecting money. He made a ton of money. He bought a house upstate and he basically had this cult of all these children and was murdering women just for years and years until somebody finally was like, hey, I hear screams from over there. Can somebody go check that out? Truly. It's just insane.
00:39:55
Speaker
But I feel like, yeah, New York is so like that. Right. It's true. I kind of believe it. Yeah, it is true. And especially when you think about like Crown Heights and low income low income areas where like the cops are not always doing their best work to protect the people that live there. And it's totally the fact that he was able to take so many of those girls without anyone doing anything about it. It's just like a reminder of like how horrible are
00:40:25
Speaker
justice system and cop situation. And this was in the 70s in New York, so you can just imagine how much worse it even was then than now. And it's not great now. So it's just something that should have never been able to get as far as it did. And it just went on and on. And that many women and that many murders, that's so horrifying.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's terrible.
Conclusion and Farewell
00:40:50
Speaker
But that's the story for the house. Yeah. And I'm wondering, my little brain is like maybe one of his grandchildren went and burned down the house or something. No, I think that would make an incredible movie. And I hope that's true. He's like, F you, grandfather.
00:41:09
Speaker
Yeah, burn this place down. And they did, by the way, after they've dug up that house multiple times for bodies and stuff and never found anything. So he was always keeping the bodies upstate. But yeah, anyways, just crazy. So intense. Well, thank you for covering that. Even if it was very dark. Yes, no problem. Anytime. Anytime.
00:41:37
Speaker
Well, thank you all for listening. Yes. We hope you have some sweet, sweet nightmares. Bye.