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[Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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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
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captain well thank you both it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend
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[Music] we are still sipping on some heavy boots of lead from the single cut beersmiths
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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 Stout is
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Rich with mega chocolate vanilla and coffee in 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 fun filling
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up the old garage fridge first up a cheers to Jennifer and Fort Worth Texas a big we like to dip to Taylor in High
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Rolls New Mexico next Captain we have a shout out to Jill in Shepherd Montana and a big shout out to Alyssa in
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Harrisonville Missouri next we have Jennifer Vaughn in Parts Unknown and we also have Brina sieber and Parts Unknown
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everybody we mentioned they went to our website truecrimegarage.com helped us out with this week's beer fun and for
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that well we thank you yeah b w r u n beer run if you need more True Crime garage for your earballs go to True
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dollars a month so check that out and Colonel that's enough of the business all right thank you Captain everybody
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gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] powered unrew is often referred to by
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many authors and reporters as America's first mass murderer he gunned down 13 individuals killing 13 people September
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6 1949 in the buildings and businesses that surrounded his home that he shared with his mother during the months
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leading up to his murder spree Howard spent less and less time outside the house and became more and more
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suspicious of his neighbors who thought he was strange and made fun of him and called him a mama's boy he wrote about
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them in what he thought they said about him in his diary marking some names with
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with the word retail r-e-t-a-l short for retaliation Howard seemed to be in the mental state that everybody is
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out against him and how everybody is wronging him and he didn't necessarily have a hit list but in his diary he kind
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of had a Hit List yeah he's like making mental note as well as notes in his diary about all these individuals that
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either wronged him in some way and keep in mind some of these grievances are so minute that it's almost like I don't
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know that the person would know that they did something to offend him or upset him
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and so he he's keeping tally if you will of all these individuals that live near
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he and his mother if they wronged him in any way then he's writing retal as in retaliate you know I'm going to
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retaliate against this person this in a weird way is just a continual Behavior of what he was doing when he was in the
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Army and off it World War II you know he was documenting a lot of things in his diary during that time as well
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and it didn't just have to do with his kills or what his wartime victim looked like as when he went up to look at the
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face of the man that he had just killed or take something from the soldier's uniform this included things like what
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he was eating where they were you know it wasn't uncommon for individuals to keep a diary or a journal of their time
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at War too bad Howard didn't have Instagram and write letters back to their loved ones but what was odd was
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this behavior of writing about his kills and and the the people that he killed during his time in war when he returns
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from war he's maintaining these Diaries but he's not killing anybody at this time it almost looks like he's thinking
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about killing some of these people and writing it in his journal and keeping track of these individuals that he
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believes have wronged him in some form or fashion well we all know somebody that doesn't think life worked out the
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way they wanted to but instead of it being and there their hands that it's the world is out to get them and those
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people you could say something as a joke or ingest and they months later bring up
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how mad at you they are and you're like I didn't mean it that way I was just joking well this is a
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personality trait a character flaw if you will that we have seen in other types of killers that we've profiled on
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this show Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber it was said by everybody that examined him
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and reviewed all of his Manifesto and his activities and his life after he was apprehended and they all
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said the same thing this is a guy that couldn't let things go he would hold grudges this is a guy that if you
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wronged him or you did something that he deemed to be wrong he would hold it against you for years decades if not the
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rest of both of your lives and it seems like Howard Unruh shared this character flaw with somebody like that of Ted
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Kaczynski now Captain often times when we review these stories there are weird situations that you just cannot make up
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you can't you don't even often know what to do with them at times but they're so
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unique that you have to include them in your telling of the True Crime Story and
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this is a bit of a bizarre situation that took place shortly after Howard unrew guns down 13
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people and then flees back to his apartment remember we left off yesterday talking about the standoff
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between he and the police that surrounded his home now during the course of that standoff we had this
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brilliant little news reporter that gets this great idea he had figured out that
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it was Howard Unruh or believed that it was Howard Unruh who had gone through the streets and into these businesses
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shooting and killing people and I'm guessing that he got this from information off of the people on the
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streets these eyewitnesses that we talked about so he has This brilliant idea of you
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know what I'm gonna get the scoop the inside scoop I'm going to get my name in the paper and I have a story to tell and
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I'm going to call the Unruh household and see if I can get Howard on the phone this is the middle of the police
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shootout so the reporter was a one Philip Buxton and he was successful and I will read
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portions of his article not the entire article but it says Howard Unruh wholesale killer was not too busy to
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answer the telephone today while he was still shooting it out with police at his
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home on River Avenue now keep in mind back in the 40s back in 1949 the news was everything and there were often
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papers that were released during the morning and then papers that were released in the afternoon or evening and
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a lot of times people would have subscriptions or purchase both the morning and the evening news and so this
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is coming from the evening Courier which was the evening newspaper so because Howard Unruh went about his Killing
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Spree at the nine o'clock hour that morning it was able to make it into the evening news and that's why our reporter
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is saying he was not too busy to answer the telephone today while he was still shooting it out with police Buxton goes
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on to say I was about to hang up so he found Howard unruh's phone number in the phone book called The home he's dialing
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it's ringing it's ringing and he's waiting for Howard to pick up and he says I was about to hang up thinking my
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hunch had been a dud when I heard the receiver go up and the other end of the line hello said a strong clear voice is
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this Howard I asked yes said the voice this is Howard what's the last name of the party you
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want breathless I strained my ears to catch the sound of shooting but there was only silence it seemed as though the
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man at the other end of the line had clapped his hand over the receiver to shut out the sound
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then the voice as if stalling for time repeated what's the last name of the man you want
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unrue I said who are you and what do you want I'm a friend and I want to know what they're doing to you well they
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haven't done anything to me yet but I'm doing plenty to them responded Howard how many have you killed I asked I don't
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know yet I haven't counted them but it looks like a pretty good score why are you killing people I asked
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Howard responds I don't know I can't answer that yet I'm too busy I'll have to talk to you later a couple of friends
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are coming to get me and with that last statement Howard hung up the phone during the middle of the police shootout
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he has a conversation with the reporter in which asked why he's killing people he says I don't know yet basically I'm
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too busy to have figured that out at this point got my hands full and just as you would expect from Howard Unruh when
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the reporter says I'm just wanting to know what they're doing to you meaning the police with the shootout and
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everything that's going on Howard's response is that of somebody that's in some kind of unknown competition to
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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
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believes he's winning at this point in this bizarre competition that he's having after Howard is apprehended of
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course he's going to be interviewed by police and by detectives and they all kind of say the same thing here captain
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that he appeared to be and this is based off of his appearance and his words and
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his statements to police that he appeared to be calm and sober and that was bizarre to everybody that
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had witnessed the situation he had killed so many people it was very difficult to believe that he would be
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calm and sober and we already said yesterday when we talked about some of the statements that Howard Unruh
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provided to police shortly after his arrest and in these interviews one of them was his statement of when I came
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home last night and found my gate had been taken I decided to shoot all of them so I would get the right one it
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seems to me like he had believed that possibly the coins or one of the cohens had taken his gate to get back at him
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for any number of these disputes that they have already had but obviously by this statement what we
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learn is that he might have been pretty certain that it was one of the cohens that stole his gate but he didn't know
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for sure and so he was just going to shoot everybody so he would get the right one the one that had wronged him
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the person that had in fact stolen his gate to me it feels like Howard snapped and once it was all over
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he was questioning what it was all for and he just seemed to me almost deflated I don't think he was necessarily
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maybe in the moment he seemed a little cocky about everything but it seemed like afterwards he's like I know I did
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something horrible and I'm gonna now suffer the consequences by spending the rest of my life in jail well he would
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ultimately apologize for killing the children that morning but of the adults he said that they deserved it and that
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was his statement that he kind of stuck with now speaking of interviews we've talked about the reporter who had the
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bright idea of calling Howard Unruh while he's shooting it out with police we had the opportunity earlier to speak
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with Ellen Greene who is the author of a Murder in the neighborhood which is a book about this massacre and as you will
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hear it was really this interview along with her book that was the inspiration for us covering this case as we simply
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didn't know very much about this case at the time of the interview [Music] hello Ellen and thank you for joining us
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here on the show could you introduce yourself to the audience yes my name is Ellen J
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green I am the author of a book that just came out on April 28th titled murder in the neighborhood it is a
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non-fiction piece about the first mass shooting in the United States what they call the first mass shooting in the
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United States that happened on September 6 1949. uh Howard Barton Unruh was a 28
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year old World War II veteran that woke up one morning and he was quite angry at
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his neighbors and proceeded to walk down the block and shot 13 people in 12 minutes but this story is rather
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complicated because I'm looking at this Howard unreal person and so he it seems like he snapped and then decided that uh
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he was going to go in to take no prisoners mode and gunning people down but we say neighbors but Howard was
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living on the second floor above or connected to a drugstore or Pharmacy could could you kind of describe that a little
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bit because it sounds like a unique uh living situation yeah it was a twin building that was on the corner of 32nd
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and River Road and there was store fronts facing third facing River Road um one was a pharmacy the other was
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empty there had been a number of businesses in there but at this time it was empty and above those stores were
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families and one family was the Cohen family the mother father uh 12 year old boy and the grandmother and on the other
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side um with a common wall was Howard Unruh and his mother there was a lot of conflicts between the unroos and the
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cohens um and it had you there's a map in the book that kind of shows the layout of
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the neighborhood and what the Crux of the problem had to do with the access to the backyard the cohens had prohibited
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Howard and his mother from using the gate to get the 32nd Street um and so they had to cross this lot and
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it created a lot of conflict between them what do you know about Howard's days spent serving this great country in
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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
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a memoir by somebody that was in his unit um he served in the Battle of the Bulge
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you know he described in his hospital records of having to shoot prisoners of War of having seen uh these these people
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that were really children at the time German soldiers that were being killed it affected him greatly and he talked a
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lot about that later there is a thought that when he started the rampage that morning he had a kill
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list of people that had been bothering him and he started out with the intent of just finding those people and killing
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them but at some point as very clear in the whole episode when he started to spiral that he just went into war mode
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and he said he felt he was back in the military and he just started shooting random people
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including three children yeah I saw that we have victims as young as six and two
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years old is that correct yes he was walking down the street and he there was an apartment building with a big window
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facing 32nd Street and he saw movement in the window and was really agitated at that point
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and just shot through the window and hit the two-year-old in the head yeah he shot what a 16-17 people killing
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12 of them yes there were three that were wounded 13 killed and he's 27 years old at this time
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yeah 28 28 and uh he's living with his mother I found a newspaper article that described him as a and maybe I'm
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confusing him with one of the victims there was a pharmaceutical student involved in this it looks like the
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cohens were were druggist that they owned the River Road Pharmacy could you tell us a little bit more
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about the the people the casualties yes so uh the pharmacist was Maurice Cohen that owned and operated the
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pharmacy and lived upstairs and his wife Rose Cohen the grandmother Minnie Cohen
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and then they had a 12 year old son Charles Cohen Howard Unruh was at one time a pharmacy student at Temple
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University but he dropped out at the time of the incident he wasn't really doing much with his life he was living
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with his mother he wasn't working he wasn't in school he really did not like the cohens there was so much conflict
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between the families about this gate and about other things and you know there Howard later in his Hospital records
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talked about the fact that he was gay and that he was going into Philadelphia and he was seeking the company of men
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his mother was extremely religious didn't know anything about this people kind of sensed in all the interviews
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that I did with the with people that are still um are alive that they knew he was
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gay and they tormented him it was illegal at that time to be gay so they actively would call him names Nancy boy
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queer throw things at him it made it life very difficult he particularly said that the cohens were picking on him that
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they were calling him names that was his primary target and he had actually purchased a machete
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at some time before this incident and when asked by the detectives what he was going to do he said he had intended to
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[Music] foreign [Music] so these people and I'm not trying to defend Howard at all here I want to be very
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clear about that to the audience because certainly these actions are not warranted at all so these people are
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picking on him and teasing him after he risks his life serving the United States
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defending our country and our freedoms in the greatest World conflict in the history of of our you know current uh
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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
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back then and as you pointed out just now it's even difficult to believe that at one time it was illegal to be
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homosexual and so it's just it's one of these things when you look at it through the lens of of current day it's
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just uh it's a really bizarre scenario yeah and and in the book it outlines all of the
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people in the neighborhood it kind of gives a glimpse of every uh what was happening with the people in the
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neighborhood um he had a very difficult time you know they would tease him about not being
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able to use the gate that he and his mother had to walk through this a lot they would taunt him they would call him
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names they would throw things at him um they would jump in his way when he was walking they would mock the way he
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he had a very erect posture instead of very straight and they would imitate him um to the point that even coming out of
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his back door to try to get to the street it would start it's a very congested neighborhood the houses are
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all kind of connected there isn't a lot of space so I don't think he had any way
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to escape any of that yeah I'm looking at pictures of this area and it looks like people just kind of living on top
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of one another that's how close they were and yeah a photo of Howard here you described the way that he the way
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that he stands his posture the way that he walks and the picture I'm seeing here
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he he is standing exactly as you described and he he likely is taller than the police officers that are surrounding him
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this is after he is apprehended but uh just his posture probably makes him look taller or appear to be taller than than
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what he would be height wise now a couple weird things and and you know this case really well but before we get
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to the weird things could you tell us a little bit more about your background we
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know you are the author of this this very intriguing book can you give us a little more about your background Ellen
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yeah for the past 20 years I have been a therapist in a maximum security Correctional Facility doing assessments
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for the courts doing therapy sessions with the inmates also during that time I was writing I have four books that I've
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written before this one what are those titles the very first book Is standalone book called The Book of James and then
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there's a Trilogy Twist of faith Absolution and Silent Redemption I want to say none of this has anything to do
00:25:20
with religion even though they have religious titles right there's suspense so this is your first True Crime yes
00:25:28
how do you think that your background how were you able to apply that your expertise on that level to your research
00:25:40
in your writing of the of of this book murder in the neighborhood well you know it was very interesting because I was
00:25:47
able to get a hold of all his Hospital records and so I was able to go through and look at his testing and his IQ and
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and his responses during the sessions now it's different than seeing a person obviously face to face where you can ask
00:26:02
them whatever you want you just have to take whatever was asked and the answers and you're not getting any inflection or
00:26:08
you know the body language with that so that was kind of intriguing and I was working with a psychiatrist Dr Peter
00:26:14
brancato who's a forensic psychiatrist who went through the records with me to try to help paint a portrait a
00:26:21
three-dimensional picture of what this man was from what we were seeing on the page and Howard he lived and was you
00:26:29
know obviously uh incarcerated but he lived till 2009 so did you did you ever cross paths
00:26:39
with him before any of your research have you you've never you've never met him or no and I was kind of upset
00:26:45
because I got the idea to write this book and he passed away and I was like why didn't I do this 10 years ago and I
00:26:52
could have gone up to actually interview him no I never met him I interviewed a ton of people that did interview him
00:26:59
though now in your days at the maximum security facility do you have any stories you want to share with us from
00:27:05
from your time there well I'm actually working on another book called The many faces of murder about just about the
00:27:12
experiences of working with these murderers and seeing these people and then coming home yeah I'm married I have
00:27:19
to I have two small children when I started there they were really infants Toddlers and trying to manage that and
00:27:26
how I compartmentalized all of that because it was very difficult I would see a woman who brutally brutally killed
00:27:34
her child and filmed 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
00:27:41
from daycare I don't know what I've done with all of that I think you find a way
00:27:46
to put it in a separate compartment otherwise it's going to take over your whole life yeah doing what I do it's
00:27:52
true crime 24 7 and I've had to figure out a way to like you said put that in its own little box but at the same time
00:28:00
it does make me I think appreciate the smaller moments more than I might have with not having this experience and so
00:28:09
it's a it's a unique uh situation you don't don't want to dance in the blood or stand in the Doom and Gloom for too
00:28:16
long as it will it could it's a it's a quick drive to Crazy Town as they say but um yeah the funny thing
00:28:24
is when I was finished the book and I was looking for photographs and I had the original file from the Philadelphia
00:28:30
Inquirer which had a lot of the crime scene photos and I submitted them all to book a chore saying hey I think these
00:28:38
would be great and I think that I'm a little warped from what I do they were like nah we can't put those in there
00:28:42
Ellen they're a little graphic so I I do think it's changed me a little bit my perspective there's a couple
00:28:48
weird things that I noticed and maybe you could clear them up and again we're looking at 1949 so things are completely
00:28:56
different back then but it appears to me that that after the the shootings that there was some kind of standoff that he
00:29:04
he had maybe barricaded himself inside of I guess it was his home his apartment yeah so after the last stop he shot the
00:29:15
heck he went into the Harry home and fired nobody got killed there they were both wounded in the arm he retreated
00:29:21
right through his backyard went into his house and and just stayed there you know
00:29:27
whether he went to lay down whether he was uh looking out the windows but the police didn't quite know what was going
00:29:34
on there was a lot of Confusion And so all these police cars showed up he had barricaded himself and they were firing
00:29:41
at the building so if you go and you walk down the street and you look you can still see the pockmarks of the
00:29:48
bullets from the police firing it's amazing that he did not get killed and somebody asked me do you think he wanted
00:29:55
them to kill him no he did not he put out a white flag out the window and said I Surrender
00:30:02
and remarkably they let him come down peacefully there's pictures of him being arrested I think in the book of the back
00:30:09
door and um taking him in there's no scuffle there was no nothing A lot of times these types after a mass shooting
00:30:16
will commit suicide turn the gun on themselves you don't think that that was part of his quote-unquote plan no it
00:30:26
didn't seem to be part of his psyche no it I don't even think it occurred to him
00:30:31
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
00:30:39
this gate so that he could have access to the yard without going through this lot and somebody had ripped it out the
00:30:45
night before and that was the last straw and he felt to his last interview that these people deserved what they got and
00:30:53
and it he had no remorse no thoughts of hurting himself no suicide attempts in his whole entire life there's not even
00:31:01
any reports of depression and he was quite matter of fact about it you know I'm sorry I killed the children he
00:31:09
didn't know that he had killed the children when he started spiraling I'm sorry I killed the children but the
00:31:14
people that deserved it deserved it how long was it after the shooting that he's
00:31:20
apprehended we know that he barricades himself and and then he waves the White Flag but how much time
00:31:29
probably between half an hour and 45 minutes and what's so bizarre here is you know
00:31:35
we're expecting to see you hear this story and then you go and you want to look at a picture of of the the
00:31:42
situation and of the perpetrator and I'm looking at a picture of the perpetrator
00:31:47
and you expect to see this disheveled crazed madman right and here we have this very clean-cut well-dressed he's
00:31:57
wearing a Blazer and a bow tie yes during the commission of these murders and and and as he's apprehended yes
00:32:06
he 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
00:32:15
he always wore his combat boots what type of gun was it he used a nine millimeter Luger
00:32:22
and the funny part about the lugers after his arrest one of the police officers took it home never booked it
00:32:28
into evidence and apparently nobody at the prosecutor's office looked for this weapon and it was found by the officer's
00:32:35
children after he died in 1990. they were going through some things and found this Luger and a bunch of evidence
00:32:42
envelopes and these shell casings and they turned it all back in unfortunately I mean obviously this is a
00:32:49
horrible tragedy and this is probably something that could have been prevented I don't know the the State of
00:32:56
Mind of this individual I can't speak to that but it sounds like he was he was picked on quite a bit and he really felt
00:33:02
that these people had wronged him it looks very much to be a Revenge Type killing and if anybody that got in the
00:33:08
way of or stood in the way of him carrying this out was going to be collateral damage obviously that officer
00:33:15
knew that this unfortunately A Dark Day history that we would like to to not have in the first place but he knew that
00:33:23
this was kind of a moment in history I'm just surprised the prosecutor's office they had all these murder indictments
00:33:29
against him even though he was not incarcerated not one day they had the murder indictments I'm just surprised
00:33:35
they didn't notice the weapon was missing so where do they send him after he is convicted so he went to well he
00:33:42
was never convicted he was never tried he was never nothing these all the murder indictments were dropped so what
00:33:48
happened was the district attorney at the time Mitchell Cohen made a decision to have him sent to a psychiatric
00:33:56
hospital instead of to jail now they could have had a psychiatrist evaluate him while he was incarcerated which is
00:34:02
the usual process for whatever reason he bypassed the usual system and sent him right to the hospital for further
00:34:08
evaluation I think the reason for that was just the extent of the crime the thing people just didn't do that they
00:34:15
thought he must be insane so once he got to the psychiatric hospital they were waiting for the psychiatrist
00:34:22
to say that he was sane and could stay in trial so he was just being held at Trenton psychiatric hospital
00:34:29
and he never got out they just they and in 1980 they just dropped the murder indictments against him
00:34:35
so they he never stood trial he was the indictments were dropped and he was just
00:34:41
held on a psychiatric commitment until he died now you've repeated a couple names there we have some cohens that
00:34:48
were victims we have the prosecutor with the last name Cohen is that just purely a coincidence that
00:34:56
there's no relation whatsoever now given your background and applying it to what
00:35:01
you've learned of of this case and about Howard uh and your research and speaking
00:35:06
with other people what would your evaluation be and and and we all know you've you did not speak
00:35:12
with him face to face so we have that hurdle to get over but what what if your evaluation been of from what you've been
00:35:19
able to gather you know I wrestled with that because he had relationships he had
00:35:27
relationships with his Harry Rosella visited him to the day he died um there are letters between the two of
00:35:34
them he didn't exhibit any real symptoms of schizophrenia though he was diagnosed
00:35:39
as schizophrenic he didn't hear voices he wasn't delusional there was no break with reality the only thing he had was
00:35:47
he was paranoid that he felt um that people were potentially trying to harm him or thinking bad things about
00:35:54
him but given the snapshot of what was happening on that block when he was living there some of that was reality
00:36:00
based um I don't know whether he was their psychiatrist that looked at it that said
00:36:06
he had a personality disorder um they was just anti-social with some paranoid coloring to it
00:36:14
um there was a thought on my part maybe he was on the spectrum that he might have had uh autism that he was on the
00:36:24
higher functioning autistic scale and that's why people were picking up that there was something off about him that
00:36:30
he was the target of all of this so I'm not quite sure he's certainly a really interesting case for people to look at
00:36:37
and I think people could look at it and everybody could come up with a different
00:36:39
opinion I think what's clear is he did not hit all the marks for classic schizophrenia
00:36:45
and you're so right when we look at these cases from yesteryear especially ones that are decades and decades old
00:36:52
it's very commonplace for society to just go all right only a crazy person would have done what he did so there's
00:37:01
your evaluation right there that's enough proof for all of us let's put them in the uh looney bin so to speak
00:37:08
and and lock lock them up and throw away the key I think your evaluation is very
00:37:14
interesting and intriguing and certainly in 1949 I don't think that we had a good understanding if much
00:37:22
understanding at all regarding things like PTSD and he very likely could have not likely it's just it's it's even
00:37:31
probably highly probable that he had some form of PTSD from his time in the war would you agree oh yeah absolutely
00:37:40
and you know at the time there were no there was a Veterans Affair Administration but there were no real
00:37:46
treatment for these veterans that were coming back and you say that from what you found it appears that he always wore
00:37:53
his combat boots the people that reported him talking about him and I found this film of people that were
00:37:59
interviewed in 1979 and that was very helpful all yes they said he always wore his combat boots that would go very much
00:38:07
along the lines of the paranoia that you you spoke of it's it's like it's like he's waiting for the war or some kind of
00:38:15
conflict to break out and he's making sure that he's ready at all times 24 7 with these boots on yeah I don't I don't
00:38:23
know why he wore them I don't know if he felt more comfortable in him he was waiting for combat whether he felt he
00:38:28
was at war with everybody in the neighborhood but it's pretty consistent that he wore them continuously
00:38:34
and it's probably likely that he does himself didn't know why he was wearing them all of the time it's a it's a crazy
00:38:42
story it's a very tragic story um but uh an intriguing one at that and it does look like this is one of the
00:38:50
first recorded uh American mass shootings yes is there anything else that we should
00:38:57
know about the book or about you or about uh Howard unra or anything else before we wrap up here today Ellen no I
00:39:05
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
00:39:11
to life I did consider writing it in a straight non-fiction documentary kind of style and I played around with it and
00:39:19
then I decided that I was going to do this in a more creative non-fiction way though it's all completely I spent two
00:39:25
years doing research on this and it interviewed hundreds of people so it's all fact based but I wanted it to read
00:39:32
more like a novel than maybe a different format the True Crime people are used to
00:39:38
reading where it's more just newspaper style fact uh you know non-fiction based well the book is called Murder in the
00:39:46
neighborhood the true story of America's first recorded mass shooting by Ellen J
00:39:51
green thank you so much uh Mrs Green for speaking with us today is there a website or anything that anybody would
00:39:58
need to know to uh to find this good book yeah ellenjgreen.com um it's available on Amazon perfect
00:40:05
thank you so much uh for your time today thank you so much for [Music] ahead one of the Privileges of being a
00:40:18
part of True Crime garage is we get to talk to experts on these cases fascinating people who have great
00:40:25
insights into these fascinating cases now as we've already said here Captain unru killed 13 people injured three
00:40:35
those killed their ages range from as young as two years old up to 68 years old now we do know that some of the
00:40:45
Cohen family if not all of the Cohen family was a target for Howard and he killed three members of the Cohen family
00:40:53
Dr Maurice J Cohen h-39 his mother Minnie Cohen who was age 63 and the doctor's wife Rose Cohen age 38. Howard
00:41:06
Barton Unruh was and has been labeled as a schizophrenic spree killer and family
00:41:12
Annihilator now as explained yesterday spree killers and serial killers fall into their own categories per the FBI
00:41:21
and just general definitions that we've applied to those titles over the years and decades since Howard Unruh killed
00:41:30
all these people Howard Unruh absolutely was a mass murderer and while many have
00:41:35
caught called him the first in America as you heard there from Ellen Greene he most certainly was one of the first and
00:41:42
labeled this by many an author and reporter but he was just one of the first he actually wasn't the first in
00:41:50
America also as you heard there from Ms Green the schizophrenic portion part is certainly Up For Debate and probably
00:41:58
just wrong we need to keep in mind this is 1949 and things were really looked at
00:42:03
very differently back then than they are today and this is a situation where he kill goes out and kills 13 people
00:42:11
probably intended to kill upwards of 20 or so people and when this is reviewed by Society in that day the person has to
00:42:19
be crazy there's no other explanation for it back then and they have to give some kind of term and as you heard Ms
00:42:27
Greene he certainly didn't hit all the markers for a typical schizophrenic individual and so he is given the this
00:42:36
label and kept this label all of these years and in fact that what that is what leads him to not being actually charged
00:42:45
in these cases you know he never has to go to court for all of these people that
00:42:50
he killed and after he's arrested he basically gives a very meticulous account and detailed account of his
00:42:59
actions it's almost like he's reciting things from his diary from war and so he's able to give a calm and sober
00:43:07
meticulous account of his actions from earlier that day two police two detectives two law enforcement and so
00:43:15
they sent him off to Cooper Hospital for treatment and to be evaluated and eventually he's diagnosed to be paranoid
00:43:24
schizophrenic by psychologists and he's deemed to be insane and so therefore he does not ever really spend any time in
00:43:35
an actual prison and he doesn't have to go to court and face these actual charges he goes off to
00:43:43
the Trenton psychiatric hospital where he remained there until his death in 2009.
00:43:52
and he lived to be 88 years old passing away October 19 2009 at the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in Trenton New
00:44:02
Jersey [Music] you could pick anywhere to be but you join us each week and that's why we love
00:44:15
you thank you so much for the support we couldn't do it without you Colonel do we
00:44:21
have any recommended reading for the beautiful beautiful beautiful listeners why yes we do captain of
00:44:28
course we heard true crime author Ellen J green here with us today talking about
00:44:33
her latest and greatest book murder in the neighborhood the true story of America's first recorded mass shooting
00:44:41
28 year old Howard Barton Unruh shot 13 people in less than 12 minutes on his Block in East Camden New Jersey Ellen
00:44:50
Greene uncovers the chilling true story of Howard Unruh the quiet Oddball who meticulously plotted his revenge on the
00:44:58
neighbors who shunned him and became one of America's first mass Killers check out murder in the neighborhood by Ellen
00:45:06
J green you can find that great title and many more on our recommended page at truecrime garage.com and when you're
00:45:13
there make sure you sign up for our mailing list we'll see you in next week until then be good be kind and don't
00:45:20
blame [Music]