Murder With My Husband - 135. Ronald Sisman and Elizabeth Platzman - The Halloween Mystery

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

On this episode of MWMH, Payton and Garrett discuss the murder of couple Ronald Sisman and Elizabeth Platzman back in 1981. LIVE ONLINE SHOW TICKETS HERE! https://www.moment.co/murderwithmyhusband https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband  Case Sources: https://www.metv.com/lists/10-extremely-eighties-products-introduced-in-1982 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_in_the_United_States Nytimes.com, “Police Seek Motive in Deaths of Student and a Photographer,” by Les Ledbetter, November 2, 1981 Nytimes.com, “The Region; Actress’s Assailant Given 30 Days in Jail, by UPI, April 29, 1981 Dailynews, “Photog, coed slain in Chelsea,” by Thomas Raftery and Richard Edmonds,” November 2, 1981 Dailynews, “Gentle Life, Violent Death,” by Murray Weiss, November 2, 1981 Imdb.com, “Ron Sisman” Insider.com, “10 terrifying murders committed on Halloween night,” by Frank Olito, October 13, 2020 Findagrave.com, “Elizabeth Lee Platzman” History.com, “This Day in History, 1977, August 10, Son of Sam serial killer is arrested,” by History.com editors True-crime.quora.com, “Murder of Ronald Sisman and Elizabeth Platzman unsolved since 1981,” Karen M. Shelton New York Magazine, “Melonie Haller’s Lost Weekend,” by Anthony Haden-Guest, May 12, 1980 Newspapers.com, “Ron Sisman’s Efforts to Obtain a Gun Permit?” Thecinemaholic.com, “How and Why Was Ron Sisman Killed?” by Viswa Vanapalli, May 5, 2021 Dailystar.co.uk, “Mystery of the Manhattan murders,” by Ariane Oxygen.com, “How Did Murdered Producer Roy Radin Become Connected To The ‘Son of Sam’ Killings?” by Kevin Dolak, May 8, 2021 Sports.yahoo.com, “The Sons of Sam: Who Was Roy Radin? How He Was Potentially Linked to David Berkowitz,” by Stacey Nguyen, May 5, 2021 friendsacademy.org Medium.com, “Son of Sam’s Connection to a Halloween Massacre,” by Lisa Marie Fuqua, October 4, 2019 Thewrap.com, “’Sons of Sam’: 5 Most Shocking Details from the True Crime Docuseries,” by Samson Amore, May 5, 2021 Bookaddicts.org, “Sons of Sam 2021 series” Unsettlingthings.com, “10 Of The Worst Crimes In Halloween History,” October 27, 2020 Ebay.com googlemaps.com Reddit.com, “It is Hallween night 1981,” posted by u/LetsRead_YouTube, 2019 Slappedham.com, “8 Real Unsolved Halloween Mysteries,” November 2, 2017 Wikipedia, “Melonie Haller” Links: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Ads: Betterhelp: www.betterhelp.com/husband Flip: Download the Flip app for free today and order with code ‘husband’ Factor: www.go.factor75.com/husband120 and use code husband 120 Shopify: www.shopify.com/husband Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder with my husband. I'm Peyton Morlin. And I'm Garrett Morlin. And he's the husband. We have another bonus episode coming out this week for Apple subscriptions and Patreon, which we are very excited for. Okay, before we do hop into your 10 seconds, I did want to give a happy birthday shout out to a listener named K. K. Villa. Her mom actually wrote in, she has been ill and they have been listening to the podcast together. And so I did just want to give her a happy birthday and we love you and well wishes from murder with my husband.

With that, I think we can go right to your 10 seconds. Good old 10 seconds. I am kind of at a loss for this week. Peyton and I have just been kind of working a ton, just at home working, staying inside, getting things done, recording, getting ready for a surprise that we have, announcement is better to say it in another week or so.

This is the same announcement that we've been talking about for what seems like forever, but it's getting closer. Give us another week or two, max. Yeah. For my 10 seconds, we went to the grocery store recently and we bought a ton of snacks, like Oreos, cheeses, the essentials. And I just been eating them like crazy.

And it reminds me why I don't keep that stuff from my house. Cause I just eat it all day. Well, we literally were in the car the other day driving and I was like, I'm going to throw up. Yeah. And I said, really? Why you just got car sick? No, I haven't eaten so many cheeses today. Oh, like, I don't know what happened.

I was working on the computer and I was on a bunch of calls at the same time. And so the box of cheeses was right next to me. And I just kept eating them and eating them next thing You know like the whole box is gone with them like two hours. You were just anxious. Yeah, I just ate an entire box of cheeses On that note, let's hop into the episode our K sources are me TV.com Wikipedia New York Times daily news IMDB insider.com find a grave history.com true crime.cora.com The New York magazine the cinema hall like dailystar.co.uk oxygen sports.yahoo.com friends academy.org medium.com the rap book addicts.org unsettling things.com ebay Google maps

reddit slapped ham.com and that's it. So our episode today takes place on Halloween night 1981. We only have one more Halloween episode, but this is our fourth Halloween episode. But what does 1981 look like in America? For me, back to the future. A hundred percent. Ronald Reagan is serving as the president of the United States and everyone is wearing neon. CD players are the new rage and kids everywhere

are obsessed with their new GI Joe dolls. Teenage friends roller skate to the nearest arcade to play Pac-Man, which was on the up and up at this time. And also, sneaker freak culture arguably begins around this time when the Air Force ones that were actually named after President Reagan's plane become a coveted icon in basketball and fashion. And it's so funny that they're still around today.

But at this time, they had the Velcro strap. Like these were the first Air Force ones. On June 5th, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that five homosexual men in Los Angeles, California have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune system. And this is the first recognized cases of AIDS in America. On July 27th, 1981, Adam Walsh, whose six years old, is kidnapped from a seers store in Hollywood, Florida. In August,

MTV or music television is launched on cable television. In October, the metal band Metallica forms and becomes a thing in Los Angeles, California. So needless to say, 1981 was overall a good time. Things were simpler back then. There I say people were happier. But as we know, murder has been with mankind since the beginning. It doesn't take days off. It doesn't pick and choose when to strike. So despite the fact that 1981 seems like a seriously fun time, murder was about to come knocking on its door

on Halloween night. Our episode begins in Manhattan, New York, in the Chelsea neighborhood. Now for those that don't know, Chelsea is a neighborhood on the west side in Manhattan and has over 200 art galleries in the neighborhood. A man named Ronald Schischmann lives in the Chelsea neighborhood within a four-story graystone building. Now Ronald actually lived in a duplex on the third floor of this four-story greystone, and it actually still exists today. It's now located near some modern day tourist destinations, such as the Chelsea Peers Sports and Entertainment Complex and the Highline. The pictures honestly

seem really beautiful and classic. I would say a very fun, comfortable and nice area to live in Manhattan. I would say a very fun, comfortable, and nice area to live in Manhattan. So Ronald, who goes by Ron, is 39 years old at the time of our story, but was originally born in 1942 in Canada. After moving out to New York, Ron became a freelance photographer who operated a couple of photography businesses out of his home in New York City. It seemed like he photographed women models, but he could have also done other work on the side as well. Now, according to sources, and again,

I don't know what exactly this means in the 80s, but friends and people who knew Ron explained that he might have been involved in things and hanging out with people that could have been bad for his life. As written in dailynews.com, quote, the superintendent of Ron's building described him as a secretive person who stayed up late at night and there was a lot of traffic in and out of his apartment all night.

Neighbors said that they had suspected the photographer was dealing cocaine to a steady clientele, which might explain how he was able to afford such nice housing in New York. Ron did have a license to carry a pistol and he was known to have at least one gun inside of his apartment. But our case does not solely revolve around Ron. There is another major person, a 20-year-old girl named Elizabeth Plattman who just a couple weeks earlier had met Ron and fell in love with him.

Now Elizabeth Platsman or Liz, which she went by, was born on August 4th, 1961 in New York. She grew up in Roslyn, New York and lived there when she wasn't away at college. Now Liz's family, the Platsman family, was well to do and lived in a very upscale part of Long Island. The Plattman family home in Roslyn was described in the newspaper as quote, a landmark home. Per the Daily News article quote, the Plattman's pre-civil war home sits within Roslyn Park and is considered one of Nassau County's most beautiful sights. From the windows of the home, Liz, as she was called by her friends, and her 14-year-old

sister looked onto the Roslyn Duck pond. I only added this so you can understand that like, in America, we have these historic homes, and this is one of them. On many weekends, Liz would treat visitors to guided tours of her family's Woodframe home on Main Street, one of the 37 designated landmarks on that street. So they lived there and they also did tours through their correct? Yes.

Liz grew up around other people just like her. She was neighbors with other wealthy families. Liz attended and graduated from the exclusive private school Friends Academy in 1979. As part of this school, Liz spent a lot of time curating a good resume. She spent many hours doing service work and loved being involved in programs involving the elderly or handicapped. She had a younger sister named Patricia, who worked with children who were hard of hearing on Long Island.

Liz's mom was working for Double Day, which was a book publishing company, and also worked as a librarian. Her dad was a salesman who was known to be, quote, very clever, and he was also an inventor. Liz herself was described as gentle and sweet growing up. She was also known as sensitive and kind. She enjoyed studying art and theater. Liz was all around a good girl. She was charming, dependable, responsible, and hard worker. It's safe to say that Liz took the life she was given and became a helpful, good person with it. After graduating from Friends Academy, Liz left home and went off to Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She was a sophomore at Smith at the time of our story in 1981.

She excelled in school and was an honor student studying arts. But as I said earlier, Liz will somehow end up meeting 39-year-old Ron, a man who is 19 years older than her. And although living in a nice area might not be the type of man that Liz's parents expected her to date. Now in no way am I saying that Ron is a bad man or that he somehow hurt Liz, I'm just confirming that he was possibly wrapped up in dangerous people which could be detrimental to a 20 year old girl. Now back before Ron and Liz somehow met in 1981. Ron applies for two more gun permits

besides his pistol. He tells people that he was afraid because someone had broken into his apartment and so he needed more guns. In September 1981, Ron and Liz will now meet as she is a sophomore in college. Her cousin Hilary will introduce the two to each other and despite the age and the

differences in their lives, Ron and Liz hit it off. How did Hilary know him? So Hilary was Liz's cousin and she was married to Ron's photography business partner. Wow. Which is how this all even came to. So the photography business partner or the cocaine business partner. Well, okay, according to sources, it was on paper to photography businesses that Ron ran with Hillary's husband and Hillary is Liz's cousin. He was just making bank being a photographer? Well, he photographed women that were models in New York, and I'm sure you can make a lot of money from that. But according to almost everyone in Ron's life,

except maybe some of his family members and his neighbors, he was hosting parties, he was dealing drugs, and with prominent people, it's not like Ron was just hanging out with his friends. I mean, he was having actors, actresses, models over to his apartment to do this. Okay, got it. So after meeting that night,

Ron and Liz begin dating. Liz begins driving from college to visit Ron at his place in New York City. And this happens several times beginning in September of 1981. And how far is that drive? So the trip from Smith College to Ron's New York City apartment is roughly 160 miles. So it's quite a sacrifice she's making every weekend to come see him.

And I will say, if my parents knew that I was at this college, I was 20 years old, and I met this 39-year-old man who did know a lot of high-up people, but maybe because he was providing cocaine parties for them. And I was driving every week weekend that far to see him. I don't think my parents would have been chill with that. Like I think they would have been freaking out a little bit. But by the time Halloween weekend rolls around, Liz once again has plans to go see her new boyfriend, Ron.

They've only been dating for a couple months at this point. She's actually going to make a whole trip out of it and see her parents as well this time. This obviously makes sense because her parents live way closer to Ron than she does. On Saturday, October 31st, 1981, Liz Plattman is at Ron's New York City home in the Chelsea neighborhood.

It's kind of unclear exactly how this couple spends their Halloween night together, but there's reportedly wine and a photo shoot involved. As Liz and Ron are enjoying their time, parties in the city are ensuing and trick-or-treating is getting started, gunfire erupts in Ronald's Greystone apartment. So neighbors call police to report the gunfire. And they also decide to head over to Ron's door to assess the situation. Oh man, I don't know if you're gunfire, then you're gonna go

check it out. So as they approached, they decide to take a look inside before police have even arrived. And I do want to say this isn't like gunfire 30 seconds later neighbors are at the door. This is gunfire neighbors stop, realize they heard gunshots, call police, get off the phone, reporting it to police, sit around for a second, then decide to go over. So there has been enough time for whoever who has shot these guns, if it's not Ron, to get out of the apartment. As the neighbors approach his door, they decide to take a look inside before police have even arrived. Ron's front door is unlocked and there is no sign of forced entry as neighbors begin

creeping in, but it didn't take long for the neighbors to find the source of the gunshots. Blood is splattered all over Ron's walls and at 7.40 pm, he and his 20 year old girlfriend Liz are found dead in the apart. Both of them. Both of them. Wow. Ron and Liz Plattman had been severely beaten and then shot in the back of the head execution style on Halloween nights. What the heck. And no one heard anything with someone being beaten. Only heard gunshots. I will say it's a nice apartment, it's a duplex. Like, there was probably, you know, it's not like you're just sharing it. I mean, it's a pretty big apartment.

Still, I mean, I can hear like kids screaming outside, you know, and we're in a house. So I feel like you should be able to hear that. Well, it's Halloween too. True. So the apartment appeared to be ransacked. It was a huge mess. Things were torn apart, stuff was knocked over.

It appeared like someone had been searching for something. Even the furniture cushions were ripped open and like dug through. Police confirmed that Ron was shot four times, and Liz was shot three. Oh, why so many? Again, the beatings is what explained all of the blood everywhere.

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or use promo code husband at checkout to get 20% off your first order. That's nativedeo.com slash husband or use promo code husband at checkout. nativedo.com slash husband and use promo code husband. Although neighbors knew who Ron and Liz were, all identification was missing from the crime scene, including both of their driver's licenses.

So whoever had done this had taken anything that could identify the victims. Which doesn't make sense, because... You're in his apartment, his neighbors know. The other thing missing from Ron's home, his 25 caliber pistol that everybody knew he had. Police couldn't help but wonder, had Ron been murdered with his own weapon. Police do find a small amount of cocaine at the crime scene in Ron's apartment.

They also find photographs strewn around the apartment of various models that Ron had photographed. I bring this up because the more police dig into this case, the more secrets they will uncover. It seemed like Ron kept many secrets of his own, which police can't help but possibly correlate to the murder. I do wanna clarify here though, there are rumors online and around this time

that police found pornographic images of models that the photography business he was in was on that side of photography, but that was all rumored. At least police have come out and said there was no pornographic images, just actual shots of models. On November 2, 1981, the New York Times published an article that detectives didn't know the motive for the killings, and they were asking for the public's help in coming forward with any information.

At this point, just two days after the bodies were found, police were focusing on whether it was a robbery. Law enforcement believed that Ron likely knew his killer given that there were no signs of forced entry. Again, though, it's Halloween. So, and I know it was pretty early in the night, but you would maybe open your door if someone knocked thinking someone's trick or treating through the apartment building Yeah, which is interesting though because if he was already paranoid, it just seems weird to me that someone he knew

Killed them right seems like he would be the type of person. It's like okay that person's not gonna kill me that person's not gonna kill me I'm gonna peek through the So I just find it strange there was no forced entry or that one of his friends killed him. It's all possible, right? It's also theorized that the driver's licenses were taken so that the killer could prove to someone else that they'd killed the right person, not so they could identify. Almost like the execution style and this detail made the whole murder kind of seem like a hit Like someone was hired to come kill Ron kill Liz takes the driver's license and brings it back to

The police also turned to the drug angle theory as motive the more they get to know Ron the more they can't help that okay Well, he's kind of in a sketchy business. Is it possible that he was killed over drugs? According to Reddit, which I know is not a credible source, so that's why I'm mentioning it. Quote, at first the NYPD believed that the crimes were revenge for several unpaid drug deaths. After all, Ronald was long rumored to be involved in the drug trade, having a penchant for cocaine and marijuana. If this is true, Liz was truly just at the wrong place

at the wrong time. She would have had nothing to do with this. And that is absolutely devastating. And people can't help but be like, well, how does Liz tie into this? Which is truly just an innocent bystander. Police search for evidence to back up the drug theory based upon what people are saying. And this is what they find.

In May 1980, 17 months before the murders, an actress named Melanie Holler accused Ron of trying to drug her in his apartment, or trying to force her to take drugs, and that he got very angry at her when she refused. Melanie Holler was an actress. She appeared on the popular 1970s TV show Welcome Backcorder where she played a sweat hog named Angela. She also appeared in Playboy magazine around this time. According to DailyNews.com Quote, Ron became the subject of news stories when Holler told doctors at a hospital that he had forced her to take narcotics Ron claimed at the time that he merely had tried to calm Holler with a tranquilizer when she became hysterical during a visit to his duplex Oh, why would you how did he tranquilizer? I don't I mean what do you get that from yeah, he has drugs So he? I don't know. I mean, you have drugs. He has drugs.

So he said, why don't you take this? So that's what he says. Oh, OK. So essentially, a year and a half before the murders, Ron was hanging out with actress Melanie. When, according to her, he forced her to take drugs. According to him, he had tried to give her drugs because she was freaking out over something.

Please ask Ron, OK, well, what was she freaking out about? And the story gets even messier. According to Ron, Haller went to a party at a man named Roy Radden's home. Now this house was a mansion in Southampton on Long Island, which happens to almost kind of be where Liz is from. And when I say Roy Radden's house is a mansion, I mean mansion. This house has a name. It's called Ocean Castle, and it contained 72 rooms inside of it. So Roy Radden was a wealthy

film producer, and all of the top people were at this party, which is how Melanie got there because she's in actress. Ron is actually connected to this party because Ron and Roy were friends. It was actually how Haller met Roy and got invited to the party. Ron knew Haller introduces his actress friend to Roy, a producer, and then boom, she's at his house at a party. And again, this is a year before the murders and a month before she would accuse Ron of drugging her. So the day after Radden's mansion party, actress Haller was found unconscious and bloody on a

commuter train heading into Manhattan. When Haller came to and talked to police, she told them that she had been beaten and raped at Roy Radden's party the night before. She said she was drugged and that the whole ordeal had been videotaped by Ratton and other men at the party. She accused Ratton of attacking her at gunpoint to get her to this point. When police confronted Roy Ratton, he claims that the whole thing, including all of the sex games, the video was consensual, but they never produced the video. Ratton was never charged with Holler's rape, the video was consensual, but they never produced the video. Radden was never charged with Holler's rape, but he was fined $1,000 and received

probation for a fire arm offense. According to an article in New York magazine, an employee who worked at Radden's Hamptons mansion for two years was quoted as saying, he just about owns the South Hampton police. He uses them as a private security force. That's crazy. I was also going to say that I'm sure in the 80s people got to away with rape a lot. I mean, they still do now, but probably even more.

They still do, but I would assume even more because I feel like it's taken more serious now. Right. And this wasn't obviously written in the sources, but if we're going to read between the lines here based off of what eyewitnesses are saying what Haller is saying and what workers at the mansion are saying Roy Radden hung out with the elite in this area and The cops frequented his parties. Hey mariner of like Jeffrey Epstein

Yes, or even like the Gatsby Gatsby. I mean, the cops were at his parties. They were all in on the drugs. They were all doing everything. Haller wakes up bloody. She goes to the hospital. It's confirmed that she's raped and she says, well, I was raped by several men at Roy Ratton's party. And it's all videotaped in the police. They're like, oh, sorry. Well, we had people there. We were there. So what do you want us to do? On January 26, well, we had people there. Yeah, we were there. So what do you want us to do? On January 26, 1981, a businessman named Robert McKegg, who was 43 at the time, pled guilty in Suffolk County to assaulting Haller at this party.

So they do charge one man. He received a sentence in April of 30 days for the assault plus five years of probation. 30 days. For a gang rape. Yep. Now, hearing this backstory, number one, all I can think is poor Melanie Holler.

She woke up bloody and unconscious on a train and still had to fight to be heard. Second, if after this, Ron then tried to give her drugs to calm her down at his home, I can see how her fight or flight would kick in because she was drugged at this party. That's PTSD.

And, you know, so to me, I then can kind of more understand this whole incident with Ron, whether it was consensual or not, even if he was just offering drugs, I can understand how if he was being pushy with these drugs, she would immediately go into fight or flight. Just to keep all of these connections clear, shortly after the double murder, Ron's neighbors told police that he was friendly with Roy Radden and that he had photographed Melanie Holler in his apartment. So this, again, adding Holler and Roy into this case, it all just seems a bit strange, but that's how all of this connects. A criminal case was brought against Ron for Holler's accusations about the drugs, but it was later dropped when Holler declined to cooperate with law enforcement.

This backdrop of accusations against Ron, plus what the neighbors had said about him, initially led police to suspect that drugs were involved in the murder. This is why the drug theory is the number one because Roy Radden is involved, Melanie Holler is involved. This is who he ran with. This is what police are learning. I don't know the whole episode. I don't know the whole case yet, but I am not convinced it's drugs. Okay. Well, wait, because this whole entire part of this story and how it oddly ties to Ron is

not over and it's about to get even crazier. So Ron and Liz get murdered in October of 1981, right? Police are investigating theories are running rampant based on honestly the kind of corrupt crowd that Ron was involved with. And then on May 13, 1983, a year and a half after the murders. Roy Radden, mansion, 72 rooms, you know, gets fine for raping hauler. He's basically owns the police goes missing. Okay. He goes missing. At this point, he had moved to Los Angeles and he just up and disappeared nearly a month later. His

dead body was found in a dry creek north of LA. According to Oxygen.com, quote, a few weeks after he'd gone missing from a limo in LA, Radden's grotesquely mutilated body was found by a forest ranger in California. He'd been shot in the head, and his body was severely decomposed. Years later, four people were charged in his death, including a drug dealer, a fledging movie producer who apparently believed she was being undercut

on a movie deal. A Bible was found near Radden's body, which led some police to believe it was a message from a cult and that some cult members were the killers. So there's just all these theories going on, but this drug dealer does get charged. Kind of a big deal. However, it's a huge deal.

The official explanation was a murder for higher plot involving a financial dispute over the movie The Caught in Club, which was co-written and directed by Francis Ford Capola. Now not to get weird here, but two weeks ago, we covered the murders of the roommates, Leslie and Adrienne. They were killed by their friends, fiancee. Well, remember how I said that Leslie was working as a tour guide at a winery during that home murder? She was working at the Coppela winery, which is now tied to this case because the movie

Roy Radden was supposedly killed over was co-written and directed by Frances Ford Capella. So how, like, what are the chances just to wrap this whole section up? Ron and Liz are murdered, it seems execution style and cocaine is found in the apartment. People know Ron and actress Holler used to be friends, but then she accuses him of drugging her. This was after Holler had been drugged, beaten and sexually assaulted at one of Ron's good friends, Roy Ratton's parties, powerful, high up and wealthy people are all involved. Then Roy Raton himself gets murdered in LA surrounded by more powerful, high up and wealthy

people. So I just explained to you this confusing and unbelievable web of people because I and others, including the police, think all of this could be an explanation for Ron and Liz's Halloween murder. Like, it just all seems... Oh, man, this is a lot. I just still don't understand. There's still no really good explanation

of why Ron and Liz would have been murdered, though, right? Because was he involved in that movie? Not really. He just knew them through connections. Right, and they were, I mean, they were already dead by the time this movie was... And yeah, drugs drugs but it doesn't seem like they have a good like tangible evidence that oh he was one of the biggest drug dealers and now it doesn't seem like that's probable as well so why were they murdered well and you're exactly right here

because police have all of this fluff right they have well he hangs out with shady people. He hangs out with this guy that basically owns the police. He's been involved with all these people who have kind of done weird things. But there's no like one plus one equals two. It's just all this kind of speculation. Sometimes these crimes are three plus three equals 10,000 and everything's all jumbled and mixed up, but yes, it does make more sense. One and one plus one does equal to. It just would make sense if they had, well, he screwed over this person. This group was after him, which led to his execution.

Okay. Liz just happened to be there. That's the theory, but they can't find anything, any actual people. All right. So give me some more information. Okay, you guys, we are getting into an ad. I know you guys have both heard the story about how Garrett and I were both paying separately for Peacock

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In this summer's hottest fluxester, guaranteed to keep you cool. The savings are coming from inside the house! Ultimate Summer Pat, energy And it felt so cool. Yes, you energy energy for everything. Captain Banner now to learn more. So there are more theory, like as police are investigating, they're kind of as time goes on. Because I will I won't lie.

This case doesn't get solved right away. We have time. We have years that go by, obviously, and more theories begin to spring up in what happened to Ron and Liz that day on Halloween in his apartment. The first of these is to everyone listening, this is about to get even weirder not to get it. The first is the son of Sam Angle to this case. So just to be clear and a quick synopsis of the son of Sam because Garrett has no idea who that is. His name is David Berkowitz. He is a serial killer known as the son of Sam. While he was on his serial killing spree in New York City, he would write letters to the police taunting them and using the name son of Sam. Berkowitz ended up being caught and pleading guilty to eight shootings.

The eight attacks began on July 29th, 1976, and continued for almost exactly one year. Now most of the victims were shot in a car and all of the bullets came from a 44 caliber gun. He may have also non-fatally stabbed a woman in 1975. He was one of the most notorious serial killers of all time. He terrorized New York City in the mid 1970s. And after he was caught, he claimed that his neighbor's dog was a demon who talked to him and convinced him to commit his string of shootings in New York City. I won't even ask any questions,

story for another time. Yes, but the dog owner's name was Sam. So his neighbor, Sam, has a dog who's a demon. And he began after his after Birkowitz gets caught. Or actually while he's killing, he's writing police saying, I'm the son of Sam. But his neighbor's name is Sam. And he claims his neighbor's dog isn't one making him kill. So it's this weird thing.

David Berkowitz was finally caught and arrested on August 10, 1977, when a determined and creative New York City detective tracked down all of the parking tickets that were issued in the area and at the time of the last murder. Sure enough, this led to the killer as Berkowitz had parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant during the murder So he literally gets caught because of a parking ticket Now Berkowitz typically went after young women with long brown hair And he was 24 at the time of his arrest According to history.com quote in January

1976 Berkowitz moved into a two-family home in Yonkers, which is a suburb of New York Berkowitz became convinced that the German Shepherd that lived in the house and other neighborhood dogs were possessed by demons and were ordering him to murder attractive young women. One of the neighborhood dogs was shot during this time and it probably was by Berkowitz. He also began to see his neighbors as demons, so it kind of progressively got worse. In April 1976, Berkowitz moved to another apartment in Yonkers, but this new home also had dogs.

His neighbor, retiree Sam Carr, had a black Labrador retriever named Harvey, who Berkowitz believed pleaded with him to kill people. He also saw Sam Carr as a powerful demon and was referring to him when he later called himself the son of Sam. He later admit that the whole dog demon story was phony. So after he gets caught, he says this happened, but then years later he goes never mind like I was making that up. Berkowitz is still alive and is still serving time in prison today.

Oh my gosh, I thought you were going to say and he's still on the loose. Oh no, no, no, he's caught. But to tie, okay, you're probably like why where? Yeah, confused. To tie all like why where you went out. To tie all of this into our current case, it's possible that the son of Sam, Berkowitz, had a connection to Liz and Ron's double murder. Information from an informant, apparently a prison informant, at Rikers, named Vinny, claimed that David Berkowitz told him about Ron and Liz's murder in prison

a few weeks before it happened So this informant comes forward and says a few weeks before Ron and Liz were murdered David Berkowitz told me it was going to happen It's never claimed that the informant gave anyone this information before the murders, only that the informant later told police that David Berkowitz had given him this information. Apparently, this informant told police and also wrote a letter to a reporter at a newspaper. He said that Berkowitz told him weeks before the murders that the son of Sam's former cult members were going to commit this murder

for David Berkowitz in prison. But why? But why? David Berkowitz also gave interviews and he claimed that he had joined a satanic cult in the 1970s, so there's this whole theory that he was part of this cult. Oh yeah, because you did say there was a Bible. Mm-hmm. Well, that was at Royce.

Oh, that's a Royce. In LA, so a completely different thing. David Berk Royce. Oh, that's a Royce. In LA. So completely different thing. David Berkowitz says, oh, the dog did it to me. And then later he says, never mind the dog didn't to me. I was actually part of this cult. And when he confesses to being part of this cult, he tells the press that he actually only pulled the trigger on three of his victims.

And the rest of those murders were committed by a group of co-conspirators in his cult. But he took the fall for it. He would never provide the names of any of the cult members claiming that his own family would be in danger if he did. Now there is a dispute about whether the son of Sam acted alone in carrying out his murders or whether his crimes were part of this whole satanic cult. There's a huge group of people who believe that he didn't act alone, including some police. That's kind of crazy.

Right. According to the prison informant, this is Vinnie, the informant who came forward and said that the son of Sam told him about Ron and Liz's murders before they happened. He said that he talked to Berkowitz in prison and he told him that this satanic cult was going to carry out the murder. Why? The story was that Ron had filmed a snuff film for David Berkowitz of the last murder that David Berkowitz committed. Is this true? The film has never been found. So they couldn't find anything. They couldn't find anything.

But this is the motive. Is that someone went over to Ron's apartment, someone from the coat, looking for the snuff film that Ron supposedly filmed of the son of Sam killing his last victim. So there was apparently these people in a van and they had Ron, according to the informant. Ron was in a van with a camera, the son of Sam, David Berkowitz, drives up, pulls up on this car that is parked, walks up, and kills, it's a couple, and kills the girl through the window, and then also shoots the boy, but he lives. That's the theory. Interesting. It all seems a little too far-fetched for me. Right. And then also, anytime someone says a satanic cult is involved, I get a little like, really

that just seems like a fall off. Like people just want to blame that. But I will say this whole theory that this man has filmed the Sun of Sam's last murder was literally actually brought up in the Sun of Sam Netflix documentary. That's how big of a theory is. Oh wow, interesting. Okay. In this Netflix documentary, it says that this man named RR filmed a snuff film.

So Ron maybe could be RR, that's who Vinnie says they were talking. Like who's Vinnie says? It was Ron. Man, I just have a hard time believing anybody. I know that sounds bad, but like, I don't know, it just seems so far fetched and how do we know this informants like a reliable source. That's like as he didn't say it before the murder is only after the murder. Yeah, they're not all trying to get more attention.

And maybe David, you know, did say something, but maybe it was after the murders. Also, I do want to point out when Netflix brought up the RR thing that there was this RR involved, there's another person in this story with the initials RR, Roy Radden, who then would go on to later be murdered in LA. And he's also involved with Ron around this time. These are the same years that they're all hanging out in New York and the Sun of Sam is active, which is why I think this theory is so large. So back to the murder.

So what theory is correct? It seems like whoever murdered Ron and Liz spent time looking around his apartment for something. Was it drugs? Was it this mysterious snuff film? Or something else entirely? We might not ever know because Ron and Liz's murders remain unsolved to this day.

It's crazy, they couldn't find anything. No. There's just how do you break into a house, beat them tremendously, horribly, and then shoot them multiple times and there's zero evidence. Like there's nothing. Especially for like, I mean, it just,

these people were well known in the community. You know what I mean? There has never been an arrest. No one really knows what happened and although Ron's connections and lifestyle is most likely the motive here The true crime community can't help but go through all of these theories the sort of Sam theory I do want to say here of every theory that has been brought up Liz has absolutely no part in it. She's not apart in any of the motives. She truly, it seems just happened to be an innocent bystander whose life was taken from her. And I'm heartbroken for her and

her family that they had to go through this when literally there's no theory that ever even involves her. Despite the fact that Ron definitely was involved with shady characters who were part of the wealthy elite getting away with shady things, he too did not deserve to be murdered that Halloween night back in 1981. No one really deserves to be murdered. And so this case to me is just infuriating because what happened? How could something like this happen and we will never know?

Yeah, I just have so many questions and not enough time to talk about it, but I think my biggest ones are one, yeah, she doesn't seem to be involved at all. At all. I don't know, I don't understand that. And then two, I mean, he wanted a gun, so he obviously knew people were after him. I don't think it's the son of Sam thing because I don't think he would have tried to get all these guns to protect himself against a satanic cult. That just doesn't seem like I think obviously people were after him at a for what reason drugs. I don't know, but why else would he be trying to get all these guns

and he's trying to protect himself? He obviously knew something was going on. Right. And I also think about the whole son of Sam Engel is that it's apparent that from the beginning, son of Sam loved to be notorious. He loved to mess with the police. He was riding the police like this was his whole thing,

no deride. And so then he gets arrested and he comes up with this crazy story about, well, the dogs or demons and they're telling me to do it. And then he recants that and then he's like, never mind. It was a satanic cult. And I act. So to me, it's just like all this like layered story of it just feels to me that he has just pick me energy.

That's so crazy. Either way, there were still two victims of this story that we are going to remember today. And that was the Halloween murder of Ron and Liz. But you guys, we have one more Halloween story before the best month of the year is up and I am really excited for this one. I just am going to say tune in next week and we will see you with another episode. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye. see you with another episode. I love it. And I hate it.

Goodbye.