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[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:45
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who is still very proud of his Summer Stock here is the
00:01:52
captain well thank you B it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend
00:02:00
[Music] we are still sipping on some heavy boots of lead from the single cut beer Smiths
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this is one of if not the biggest most complex beers from the good folks over at single cut this Imperial style is
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Rich with mega chocolate vanilla and coffee and an astonishingly smooth monster of a brew four out of five
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bottle caps and let's give some praise and thank you to our friends that helped us out with this week's beer fund
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filling up the old garage fridge first up a cheers to Jennifer in Fort Worth Texas a big we like your JY to Taylor in
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High Rolls New Mexico next Captain we have a shout out to Jill in Shephard Montana and a big shout out to Alysa in
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Harrisonville Missouri next we have Jennifer vaugh in Parts Unknown and we also have bre seber in Parts Unknown
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everybody we mentioned they went to our website true Crim garage.com helped us out with with this week's beer fund and
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all right thank you Captain everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:38
[Music] crime Howard unre is often referred to by many authors and reporters as America's first mass murderer he gunned
00:04:04
down 13 individuals killing 13 people September 6th 1949 in the buildings and businesses
00:04:13
that surrounded his home that he shared with his mother during the months leading up to his murder spree Howard
00:04:20
spent less and less time outside the house and became more and more suspicious of his neighbors who thought
00:04:26
he was strange and made fun of him and called him a mama's boy he wrote about them and what he thought they said about
00:04:33
him in his diary marking some names with the word retail r t a l short for retaliation Howard seemed to be in the
00:04:45
mental state that everybody is out against him and how everybody is wronging him and he didn't necessarily
00:04:53
have a hit list but in his diary he kind of had a hit list yeah he's like making
00:05:00
mental note as well as notes in his diary about all these individuals that either wronged him in some way and keep
00:05:08
in mind some of these grievances are so minute that it's almost like I don't know that the person would know that
00:05:15
they did something to offend him or upset him and so he he's keeping tally if you will of all these individuals
00:05:24
that live near he and his mother if they wronged him in any way then he's writing
00:05:29
ret as in retaliate you know I'm going to retaliate against this person this in a
00:05:34
weird way is just a contined behavior of what he was doing when he was in the Army and off at World War II
00:05:43
you know he was documenting a lot of things in his diary during that time as well and it didn't just have to do with
00:05:50
his kills or what his wartime victim looked like as when he went up to look at the face of the man that he had just
00:05:58
killed or take something from the solders uniform this included things like what he was eating where they were
00:06:07
you know it wasn't uncommon for individuals to keep a diary or a journal of their time at War too bad Howard
00:06:13
didn't have Instagram and write letters back to their loved ones but what was odd was this behavior of writing about
00:06:23
his kills and and the the people that he killed during his time in war when he returns from war he's maintaining these
00:06:30
Diaries but he's not killing anybody at this time it almost looks like he's thinking about killing some of these
00:06:37
people and writing it in his journal and keeping track of these individuals that
00:06:42
he believes have wronged him in some form or fashion well we all know somebody that doesn't think life worked
00:06:49
out the way they wanted to but instead of it being in their hands that it's the world is out to get them and those
00:06:57
people you could say something as a joke or in justest and then and they months later bring up how mad at you they are
00:07:08
and you're like I didn't mean it that way I was just joking well and this is a personality trait a character flaw if
00:07:14
you will that we have seen in other types of killers that we've profiled on this show Ted kazinski the unibomber it
00:07:21
was said by everybody that examined him and reviewed all of his Manifesto and his activities in his life after he was
00:07:30
apprehended and they all said the same thing this is a guy that couldn't let things go he would hold grudges this is
00:07:36
a guy that if you wronged him or you did something that he deemed to be wrong he
00:07:41
would hold it against you for years decades if not the rest of both of your lives and it seems like Howard unre
00:07:50
shared this character flaw with somebody like that of Ted kazinski now Captain often times when we review these stories
00:07:59
there are weird situations that you just cannot make up you can't you don't even
00:08:05
often know what to do with them at times but they're so unique that you have to include them in your telling of the True
00:08:13
Crime Story and this is a bit of a bizarre situation that took place shortly after Howard unre guns
00:08:22
down 13 people and then flees back to his apartment remember we left off yesterday talking about the
00:08:30
standoff between he he and the police that surrounded his home now during the course of that standoff we have This
00:08:38
brilliant little news reporter that gets this great idea he had figured out that
00:08:43
it was Howard unre or believed that it was Howard unre who had gone through the streets and into these businesses
00:08:49
shooting and killing people and I'm guessing that he got this from information off of the people on the
00:08:55
streets these eyewitnesses that we talked about so so he has This brilliant idea of you know what I'm going to get
00:09:02
the scoop the inside scoop I'm going to get my name in the paper and I have a story to tell and I'm going to call the
00:09:09
unre household and see if I can get Howard on the phone this is the middle of the police shootout so the reporter
00:09:19
was a one Philip buckton and he was successful and I will read portions of his article not the
00:09:27
entire article but it says how unre wholesale killer was not too busy to answer the telephone today while he was
00:09:35
still shooting it out with police at his home on River Avenue now keep in mind back in the' 40s back in 1949 the news
00:09:44
was everything and there were often papers that were released during the morning and then papers that were
00:09:49
released in the afternoon or evening and a lot of times people would have subscriptions or purchase both the
00:09:56
morning and the evening news and so this is coming from the evening Courier which
00:10:02
was the evening newspaper so because Howard unre went about his Killing Spree at the 9:00 hour that morning it was
00:10:12
able to make it into the evening news and that's why our reporter is saying he was not too busy to answer the telephone
00:10:20
today while he was still shooting it out with police buckton goes on to say I was
00:10:25
about to hang up so he found Howard unr's phone number number in the phone book called The home he's dialing it's
00:10:34
ringing it's ringing and he's waiting for Howard to pick up and he says I was about to hang up thinking my hunch had
00:10:41
been a dud when I heard the receiver go up and the other end of the line hello said a strong clear voice is this Howard
00:10:51
I asked yes said the voice this is Howard what's the last name of the party you want Breathless I strained my ears
00:11:00
to catch the sound of shooting but there was only silence it seemed as though the
00:11:05
man at the other end of the line had clapped his hand over the receiver to shut out the sound then the voice as if
00:11:14
stalling for time repeated what's the last name of the man you want unre I said who are you and what do you want
00:11:23
I'm a friend and I want to know what they're doing to you well they haven't done anything to me yet but I'm doing
00:11:32
plenty to them responded Howard how many have you killed I asked I don't know yet I haven't counted them
00:11:41
but it looks like a pretty good score why are you killing people I asked Howard responds I don't know I can't
00:11:48
answer that yet I'm too busy I'll have to talk to you later a couple of friends are coming to get me and with that last
00:11:56
statement Howard hung up the phone during in the middle of the police shootout he has a conversation with the
00:12:02
reporter in which asked why he's killing people he says I don't know yet I'm basically I'm too busy to have figured
00:12:10
that out at this point got my hands full and just as you would expect from Howard
00:12:14
unre when the reporter says I'm just wanting to know what they're doing to you meaning the police with the shootout
00:12:21
and everything that's going on Howard's response is that of somebody that's in some kind of unknown competition to
00:12:29
everybody else where he says they haven't done much to me yet but it looks like I'm doing plenty to them so Howard
00:12:35
believes he's winning at this point in this bizarre competition that he's having after Howard is
00:12:42
apprehended of course he's going to be interviewed by police and by detectives and they all kind of say the same thing
00:12:50
here captain that he appeared to be in this is based off of his appearance and his words and his statements to police
00:12:57
that he appeared to be be calm and sober and that was bizarre to everybody that had witnessed his situation he had
00:13:06
killed so many people it was very difficult to believe that he would be calm and sober and we already said
00:13:14
yesterday when we talked about some of the statements that Howard unre provided to police shortly after his arrest and
00:13:21
in these interviews one of them was his statement of when I came home last night
00:13:26
and found my gate had been taken I decided to shoot all of them so I would get the right one it seems to me like he
00:13:35
had believed that possibly the Cohen or one of the cohens had taken his gate to get back at him for any number of these
00:13:45
disputes that they have already had but obviously by this statement what we learn is that he might have been pretty
00:13:52
certain that it was one of the cohens that stole his gate but he didn't know for sure and so he was just going to
00:13:58
shoot everybody so he would get the right one the one that had wronged him the person that had in fact stolen his
00:14:05
gate to me it feels like Howard snapped and once it was all over he was questioning what it was all
00:14:13
for and he just seemed to me almost deflated I don't think he was necessarily maybe in the moment he
00:14:24
seemed a little cocky about everything but it seemed like afterwards he's like I know I did something horrible and I'm
00:14:32
going to now suffer the consequences by spending the rest of my life in jail well he would ultimately apologize for
00:14:39
killing the children that morning but of the adults he said that they deserved it
00:14:45
and that was his statement that he kind of stuck with now speaking of interviews
00:14:50
we talked about the reporter who had the bright idea of calling Howard unre while
00:14:55
he's shooting it out with police we had the opportunity earlier here to speak with Ellen green who is the author of a
00:15:03
Murder in the neighborhood which is a book about this massacre and as you will hear it was really this interview along
00:15:13
with her book that was the inspiration for us covering this case as we simply didn't know very much about this case at
00:15:21
the time of the [Music] interview hello Ellen and thank you for joining us here on the show could you introduce
00:15:35
yourself to the audience yes my name is Ellen J green I am the author of a book that just came out on April 28th titled
00:15:44
murder in the neighborhood it is a non-fiction piece about the first mass shooting in the United States what they
00:15:51
call the first mass shooting in the United States that happened on September 6th
00:15:57
1949 uh how are Barton unre was a 28-year-old World War II veteran that woke up one morning and he was quite
00:16:05
angry at his neighbors and proceeded to walk down the block and shot 13 people in 12 minutes but this story is rather
00:16:14
complicated because I'm looking at this Howard unra person and so he it seems like he snapped and then decided that uh
00:16:25
he was going to go into take no prisoners mode and gunning people down but we say neighbors but Howard was
00:16:32
living on the second floor above or connected to a drugstore or Pharmacy could could you kind of
00:16:40
describe that a little bit because it sounds like a unique uh living situation yeah it was a twin building that was on
00:16:46
the corner of 32nd and River Road and there was storefronts facing third facing River Road um one was a pharmacy
00:16:56
the other was empty there had been a number businesses in there but at this time it was empty and above those stores
00:17:03
were families and one family was the Cohen family the mother father uh 12-year-old boy and the grandmother and
00:17:11
on the other side um with a common wall was Howard unre and his mother there was
00:17:17
a lot of conflicts between the unus and the Cohen um and it had you there's a map in the book that kind of shows the
00:17:24
layout of the neighborhood and what the Crux of the problem had to do with the access to the backyard the Cohen had
00:17:32
prohibited Howard and his mother from using the gate to get to 32nd Street um and so they had to cross this lot and it
00:17:40
created a lot of conflict between them what do you know about Howard's days spent serving this great country in
00:17:47
World War II so I did a lot of research and it was hard because a lot of those war records are gone but I did come upon
00:17:53
a memoir by somebody that was in his unit um he served in the Battle of the Bulge you know he described in his
00:18:01
hospital records of having to shoot prisoners of War of having seen uh these these people that were really children
00:18:09
at the time German soldiers that were being killed it affected him greatly and he talked a lot about that later there
00:18:17
is a thought that when he started the rampage that morning he had a kill list of people that had been bothering him
00:18:25
and he started out with the intent of Justice finding those people and killing them
00:18:30
but at some point it's very clear in the whole episode when he started to spiral
00:18:35
that he just went into war mode and he said he felt he was back in the military and he just started shooting random
00:18:42
people including three children yeah I saw that we have victims as young as 6 and two years old is that correct yes he
00:18:51
was walking down the street and he there was an apartment building with a big window facing 32nd Street and he saw
00:18:58
movement in the window and was really agitated at that point and just shot through the window and hit the
00:19:05
2-year-old in the head yeah he shot what 16 17 people killing 12 of them yes there were three that were wounded 13
00:19:14
killed and he's 27 years old at this time yeah 28 28 and uh he's living with his mother I found a newspaper article
00:19:25
that described him as a and maybe I'm confusing him with one of the victims there was a pharmaceutical student
00:19:33
involved in this it it looks like the Cohen were were druggist that they own the River Road
00:19:39
pharmacy could you tell us a little bit more about the the people the casualties yes so uh the pharmacist was
00:19:47
Maurice Cohen that owned and operated the pharmacy and lived upstairs and his wife Rose Cohen the grandmother Minnie
00:19:55
Cohen and then they had a 12-year-old son Charles Cen Howard Andrew was at one time a pharmacy
00:20:02
student at Temple University but he had dropped out at the time of the incident he wasn't really doing much with his
00:20:08
life he was living with his mother he wasn't working he wasn't in school he really did not like the Coen there was
00:20:15
so much conflict between the families about this gate and about other things and you know there Howard later in his
00:20:23
hospital records talked about the fact that he was gay and that he was going into Philadelphia
00:20:28
and he was seeking the company of men his mother was extremely religious didn't know anything about this people
00:20:36
kind of sensed in all the interviews that I did with the with people that still um are alive that they knew he was
00:20:44
gay and they tormented him it was illegal at that time to be gay so they actively call him names Nancy boy queer
00:20:53
throw things at him it made life very difficult he particularly said that the cohens were picking on him that they
00:21:00
were calling him names that was his primary target and he had actually purchased a machete at some time before
00:21:08
this incident and when asked by the detectives what he was going to do he said he had intended to decapitate all
00:21:16
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when you Angie that [Music] so these people and I'm not trying to defend Howard at all here I I want to be
00:23:40
very clear about that to the audience because certainly these actions are not warranted at all so these people are
00:23:48
picking on him and teasing him after he risks his life serving the United States
00:23:54
defending our country and our freedoms in the greatest World conflict in the history of of our you know current uh
00:24:04
time period it's just it's I mean it's and I get it I get it it's 1949 and it was a much different world and Society
00:24:12
back then and as you pointed out just now it's even difficult to believe that at one time it was illegal to be
00:24:20
homosexual and so it's just it's one of these things when you look at it through
00:24:26
the lens of of current day it's just a it's a really bizarre scenario yeah and and in the book it outlines all of the
00:24:37
people in the neighborhood it kind of gives a glimpse of every what was happening with the people on the
00:24:43
neighborhood um he had a very difficult time you know they would tease him about
00:24:49
not being able to use the gate that he and his mother had to walk through this lot they would taunt him they would call
00:24:55
him names they would throw things at at him um they would jump in his way when he was walking they would mock the way
00:25:03
he he had in a very erect posture and stood up very straight and they would imitate him um to the point that even
00:25:13
coming out of his back door to try to get to the street it would start it's a very congested neighborhood the houses
00:25:21
are all kind of connected there isn't a lot of space so I don't think he had any
00:25:26
way to escape any of that yeah I'm looking at pictures of this area and it looks like people just kind of living on
00:25:33
top of one another that's how close they were and yeah a a photo of Howard here you describe the way that he the way
00:25:41
that he stands his posture the way that he walks and the picture I'm seeing here
00:25:46
he he is standing exactly as you described and he he likely is taller than the police officers that are
00:25:54
surrounding him this is after he is apprehended but uh just his posture probably makes him look taller or appear
00:26:01
to be taller than than what he would be height-wise now a couple weird things and and you know this case really well
00:26:08
but before we get to the weird things could you tell us a little bit more about your background we know you are
00:26:14
the author of this this very intriguing book can you give us a little more about
00:26:18
your background Ellen yeah for the past 20 years I have been uh a therapist in a
00:26:24
maximum security Correctional Facility doing assessments for the courts doing um therapy sessions with the inmates
00:26:34
also during that time I was writing I have four books that I written before this one what are those titles the very
00:26:40
first book is a standalone book called The Book of James and then there's a Trilogy Twist of Faith Absolution and
00:26:49
Silent Redemption I want to say none of this has anything to do with religion even though they have religious titles
00:26:54
right here's suspense so this is your first true crime yes how do you think that your
00:27:04
background H how were you able to apply that your expertise on that level to your research and your writing of the of
00:27:14
of this book murder in the neighborhood well you know it was very interesting because I was able to get a hold of all
00:27:19
his hospital records and so I was able to go through and look at his testing and his IQ and and his respon responses
00:27:28
during the sessions now it's different than seeing a person obviously face to face where you can ask them whatever you
00:27:34
want you just have to take whatever was asked and the answers and you're not getting any inflection or you know the
00:27:39
body language with that so that was kind of intriguing and I was working with a psychiatrist Dr Peter banado who's a
00:27:47
forensic psychiatrist who went through the records with me to try to help paint a portrait a three-dimensional picture
00:27:53
of what this man was from what we were seeing on the page and Howard he lived and was you know uh obviously uh
00:28:03
incarcerated but he lived till 2009 so did you did you ever cross paths with him before any of your research have
00:28:13
you've never you've never met him or no and I was kind of upset because I got the idea to write this book and he
00:28:20
passed away and I was like why didn't I do this 10 years ago when I could have gone up to actually interview him no I
00:28:26
never met him interviewed a ton of people that did interview him though now in your days at the uh maximum security
00:28:33
facility do you have any stories you want to share with us from from your time there well I'm actually working on
00:28:39
another book called The many faces of murder about just about the experiences of working with these murderers and
00:28:46
seeing these people and then coming home yeah I'm married I have I had two small
00:28:51
children when I started there they were really infants Toddlers and trying to manage that and I compartmentalized all
00:28:59
of that because it was very difficult I I would see a woman who brutally brutally killed her child and filmed
00:29:06
part of it and then I would leave oh it's time to go clock out I have to go home and pick up my son from daycare I
00:29:13
don't know what I've done with all of that I think you find a way to put it in a separate compartment otherwise it's
00:29:20
going to take over your whole life yeah doing what I do it's true crime 247 and I've had to figure out a way to like you
00:29:27
said put that in its own little box but at the same time it does make me I think
00:29:33
appreciate the smaller moments more than I might have with not having this experience and so it's a it's a unique
00:29:41
uh situation you don't want to dance in the blood or stand in the Doom and Gloom
00:29:46
for too long uh as it will it could it's a it's a quick drive to Crazy Town as they say but um yeah the funny
00:29:55
thing is when I was finished the book and I was looking for photographs and I had the original file from the
00:30:00
Philadelphia Inquirer which had a lot of the crime scene photos and I submitted them all to um book aure saying hey I
00:30:09
think these would be great and I think that I'm a little warped from what I do they were like n we can't put those in
00:30:13
there Ellen they're a little graphic so I I do think it's changed me a little bit my perspective there's a couple
00:30:19
weird things that I noticed and maybe you could clear them up and again we're looking at 1949 so things are completely
00:30:27
different back then but it it appears to me that that after the the shootings that there was some kind of standoff
00:30:35
that he he had maybe barricaded himself inside of I guess it was his home his apartment yeah so after the last stop he
00:30:45
shot the he went into the Harry home and fired nobody got killed there they were
00:30:50
both wounded in the arm he retreated right through his backyard went into his house and and just stayed there you know
00:30:58
whether he went to lay down whether he was uh looking out the windows but the police didn't quite know what was going
00:31:05
on there was a lot of Confusion And so all these police cars showed up he had barricaded himself and they were firing
00:31:12
at the building so if you go and you walk down the street and you look you can still see the pock marks of the
00:31:19
bullets from the police firing it's amazing that he did not get killed and somebody asked me do you think he wanted
00:31:26
them to kill him no he did not he put out a white flag out the window and said I
00:31:32
Surrender and remarkably they let him come down peacefully there's pictures of him being arrested I think in the book
00:31:39
at the back door and um taking him in there was no scuffle there was no nothing A lot of times these types after
00:31:46
a mass shooting will commit suicide turn the gun on themselves you don't think that that was part of his quote unquote
00:31:55
plan no didn't seem to be part of his psyche no I don't even think it occurred to him
00:32:02
he felt like these people had bothered him they stole the gate which is a huge part of this story that he had put in
00:32:10
this gate so that he could have access to the yard without going through this lot somebody had ripped it out the night
00:32:16
before and that was the last straw and he felt to his last interview that these people deserved what they got and and it
00:32:25
he had no remorse no thoughts of hurting himself no suicide attempts in his whole
00:32:30
entire life there's not even any reports of depression and he was quite matter of
00:32:36
fact about it know I'm sorry I killed the children he didn't know that he had killed the children when he started
00:32:42
spiraling I'm sorry I killed the children but the people that deserved it deserved it how long was it after the
00:32:49
shooting that he's apprehended we know that he barricades himself and and then he waves the white flag but H how much
00:32:58
time we talking probably between half an hour and 45 minutes and what's so bizarre here is you know we're expecting
00:33:07
to see you hear this story and then you go and you want to look at a picture of of the the situation and of the
00:33:15
perpetrator and I'm looking at a picture of the perpetrator and you expect to see
00:33:19
this dis shoveled crazed madman right and here we have this very clean cut well-dressed
00:33:28
he's wearing a Blazer and a bow tie yes during the commission of these murders and and and as he's apprehended yes he
00:33:38
got dressed up for the event he put on his best brown suit his white shirt his bow tie but he had his combat boots he
00:33:47
always wore his combat boots what type of gun was it he used a 9mm Luger okay and the funny part about the Luger is
00:33:55
after his arrest one of the police officers took it home never booked it into evidence and apparently nobody at
00:34:02
the prosecutor's office looked for this weapon and it was found by the officer's
00:34:06
children after he died in 1990 they were going through some things and found this Luger and a bunch of
00:34:13
evidence envelopes and these shell casings and they turned it all back in unfortunately I mean obviously this is a
00:34:20
a horrible tragedy and this is probably something that could have been prevented
00:34:26
I don't know that the State of Mind of this individual I can't speak to that but it sounds like he was he was picked
00:34:32
on quite a bit and he really felt that these people had wronged him it looks very much to be a Revenge Type killing
00:34:37
and if anybody that got in the way of or stood in the way of him carrying this out was going to be collateral damage
00:34:44
obviously that officer knew that this unfortunately A Dark Day history that we would like to
00:34:52
to not have in the first place but he knew that this was kind of a moment in history I'm just surprised the
00:34:57
prosecutor's office they had all these murder indictments against him even though he was not incarcerated not one
00:35:03
day they had the murder indictments I'm just surprised they didn't notice the weapon was missing so where do they send
00:35:09
him after he is convicted so he went to well he was never convicted he was never
00:35:15
tried he was never nothing these all the murder indictments were dropped so what
00:35:19
happened was the district attorney at the time Mitchell Cohen made a decision to have him sent to a psychiatric
00:35:27
hospital instead of to jail now they could have had a psychiatrist evaluate him while he was incarcerated which is
00:35:33
the usual process for whatever reason he bypassed the usual system and sent him right to the hospital for further
00:35:40
evaluation I think the reason for that was just the extent of the crime the think people just didn't do that they
00:35:46
thought he must be insane so once he got to the psychiatric hospital they were waiting for the
00:35:52
psychiatrist to say that he was sane and could stand trial so he was just being held at Trenton psychiatric hospital and
00:36:00
he never got out they just they and in 1980 they just dropped the murder indictments against him so they he never
00:36:08
stood trial he was the indictments were dropped um and he was just held on a psychiatric commitment until he died now
00:36:16
you've repeated a couple names there we have some cohens that were victims we have the prosecutor with the last name
00:36:23
Cohen is that just purely a coincidence that was a coincidence there was no relation whatsoever now given your
00:36:30
background and applying it to what you've learned of of this case and about Howard uh in your research and speaking
00:36:37
with other people what would your evaluation be and and and we all know youve you did not speak with him face to
00:36:43
face so we have that hurdle to get over but what would have your evaluation been
00:36:49
of from what you've been able to gather you know I wrestled with that because he had relationships he had
00:36:58
relationships with this Harry Rosell that visited him to the day he died um there are letters between the two of
00:37:05
them he didn't exhibit any real symptoms of schizophrenia though he was diagnosed
00:37:10
as schizophrenic he didn't hear voices he wasn't delusional there was no break with reality the only thing he had was
00:37:18
he was paranoid that he felt um that people were intentionally trying to harm him or thinking bad things about him but
00:37:26
given the snapshot of what was happening on that block when he was living there some of that was reality based um I
00:37:33
don't know whether he was there a psychiatrist that looked at it that said he had a personality disorder um that he
00:37:40
was just antisocial with some paranoid coloring to it um there was a thought on my part maybe he was on the spectrum
00:37:49
that he might have had uh autism that he was on the higher functioning a artistic
00:37:57
scale and that's why people were picking up that there was something off about him that he was the target of all of
00:38:02
this so I'm not quite sure he's certainly a really interesting case for people to look at and I think people
00:38:08
could look at it and everybody could come up with a different opinion I think what's clear is he did not hit all the
00:38:14
marks for classic schizophrenia and you're so right when we look at these cases from yester year especially ones
00:38:21
that are decades and decades old it's very commonplace for Society did just go all right only a crazy person would have
00:38:30
done what he did so there's your evaluation right there that's enough proof for all of us let's put them in
00:38:37
the uh looney bin so to speak and and lock lock them up and throw away the key I think your evaluation is very
00:38:45
interesting and intriguing and certainly in 1949 I don't think that we had a good
00:38:52
understanding if much understanding at all regarding things like P TSD and he very likely could
00:38:59
have not likely it's just it's it's even probably highly probable that he had some form of PTSD from his time in the
00:39:07
war would you agree oh yeah absolutely and you know at the time there were no there was a Veterans
00:39:14
Affair Administration but there were no real treatment for these veterans that were coming back and you say that from
00:39:21
what you found it appears that he always wore his combat boots the people that were poor Ed him talking about him and I
00:39:28
found this film of people that were interviewed in 1979 and that was very helpful all yes
00:39:34
they said he always wore his combat boots that would go very much along the lines of the paranoia that you you spoke
00:39:41
of it's it's like it's like he's waiting for the war or some kind of conflict to
00:39:47
break out and he's making sure that he's ready at all times 247 with these boots
00:39:52
on yeah I don't I don't know why he wore them I don't know if he felt more comfort able in them he was waiting for
00:39:58
combat whether he felt he was at war with everybody in the neighborhood but um it's pretty consistent that he wore
00:40:04
them continuously and it's probably likely that he does himself didn't know why he was wearing them all of the time
00:40:12
it's a it's a crazy story it's a very tragic story um but uh an intriguing one at that and it does look like it this is
00:40:21
one of the first recorded uh American mass shootings yes is there anything else that we should
00:40:28
know about the book or about you or about uh Howard unra or anything else before we wrap up here today Ellen no I
00:40:36
think it's a complicated story and I did the best that I could to put it on the page to try to bring that neighborhood
00:40:42
to life I did consider writing it in a straight nonfiction documentary kind of style and I played around with it and
00:40:50
then I decided that I was going to do this in a more creative non-fiction way that it's all completely I spent two
00:40:56
years doing research on this and it interviewed hundreds of people so it's all fact-based but I wanted it to read
00:41:03
more like a novel than maybe a a different format that true crime people are used to reading where it's more just
00:41:11
um newspaper style fact uh you know non-fiction based well the book is called Murder in the neighborhood the
00:41:18
true story of America's first recorded mass shooting by Ellen J green thank you so much uh Mrs Green for speaking with
00:41:26
us today is there a website or anything that anybody would need to know to uh to
00:41:31
find this good book yeah LJ green.com um it's available on Amazon perfect thank you so much uh for your
00:41:38
time today thank you so much for having [Music] me one of the Privileges of being a part
00:41:49
of True Crime garage is we get to talk to experts on these cases fascinating people who have great insights into
00:41:57
these fascinating cases now as we've already said here Captain unre killed 13 people injured
00:42:05
three those killed their ages range from as young as 2 years old up to 68 years old now we do know that some of the
00:42:16
Cohen family if not all of the Cohen family was a target for Howard and he killed three members of the Cohen family
00:42:25
Dr Maurice Jay Cohen age 39 his mother Minnie Cohen who was age 63 and the doctor's wife roseco in age 38 Howard
00:42:37
Barton unre was and has been labeled as a schizophrenic spree killer and family Annihilator now as explained yesterday
00:42:46
spree killers and serial killers fall into their own categories per the FBI and just general definitions that we've
00:42:55
applied to those titles over the years and decades since Howard unru killed all these
00:43:01
people Howard unre absolutely was a mass murderer and while many have called him
00:43:07
the first in America as you heard there from Ellen green he most certainly was one of the first and labeled this by
00:43:14
many an author and reporter but he was just one of the first he actually wasn't the first in America also as you heard
00:43:23
there from Miss green the schizophrenic portion part is certainly Up For Debate and
00:43:29
probably just wrong we need to keep in mind this is 1949 and things were really looked at
00:43:35
very differently back then than they are today and this is a situation where he kill goes out and kills 13 people
00:43:42
probably intended to kill upwards of 20 or so people and when this is reviewed by Society in that day the person has to
00:43:50
be crazy there's no other explanation for it back then and they have to give some kind kind of term and as you heard
00:43:58
Miss green he certainly didn't hit all the markers for a typical schizophrenic individual and so he is given this label
00:44:08
and kept this label all of these years and in fact that what that is what leads him to not being actually charged in
00:44:17
these cases you know he never has to go to court for all of these people that he
00:44:22
killed and after he's arrested he p basically gives a very meticulous account and detailed account
00:44:29
of his actions it's almost like he's reciting things from his diary from war and so he's able to give a calm and
00:44:37
sober meticulous account of his actions from earlier that day to police to detectives to law enforcement and so
00:44:46
they send him off to Cooper Hospital for treatment and to be evaluated and eventually he's diagnosed to be paranoid
00:44:55
schizophrenic by psychologist and he's deemed to be insane and so therefore he does not ever
00:45:04
really spend any time in an actual prison and he doesn't have to go to court and face these actual charges he
00:45:13
goes off to the Trenton psychiatric hospital where he remained there until his death in
00:45:22
2009 and he lived to be 80 8 years old passing away October 19th 2009 at the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in Trenton
00:45:33
New [Music] Jersey you could pick anywhere to be but you join us each week and that's why we
00:45:46
love you thank you so much for the support we couldn't do it without you Colonel do we have any recommended
00:45:52
reading for the beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful listeners well yes we do captain of course we heard true
00:46:00
crime author Ellen J green here with us today talking about her latest and greatest book murder in the neighborhood
00:46:08
the true story of America's first recorded mass shooting 28-year-old Howard Barton unra shot 13 people in
00:46:16
less than 12 minutes on his Block in East cam in New Jersey Ellen green uncovers the chilling true story of
00:46:24
Howard unra the quiet odd ball who meticulously plotted his revenge on the neighbors who shunned him and became one
00:46:31
of America's first mass Killers check out murder in the neighborhood by Ellen J green you can find that great title
00:46:40
and many more on our recommended page at true Crim garage.com and when you're there make sure you sign up for our
00:46:45
mailing list we'll see you next week until then be good be kind and don't live [Music]
00:47:02
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