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Murder in the Neighborhood /// Part 1 /// 588

October 22, 2022 / 45:03

This episode covers the case of Howard Unruh, known as the first mass murderer in U.S. history, who killed 13 people in Camden, New Jersey in 1949. The discussion includes details about the crime classification of revenge killings and non-specific motive killings, as well as the psychological profile of Unruh.

The hosts, Nick and the Captain, explain how Unruh meticulously planned his attack, which was triggered by a personal grievance with his neighbors, particularly the Cohen family. They detail the events of September 6, 1949, when Unruh embarked on his "walk of death," shooting victims indiscriminately in his neighborhood.

Patrick Sauer's article from Smithsonian Magazine is referenced, highlighting Unruh's background, including his military service and psychological issues. The hosts discuss the aftermath of the shooting, including police response and Unruh's eventual capture.

Eyewitness accounts from the day of the massacre are shared, illustrating the chaos and horror experienced by the community. The episode concludes with reflections on the impact of Unruh's actions and the broader implications for understanding mass shootings in America.

TLDR

Howard Unruh killed 13 people in Camden, NJ, in 1949, marking the first modern mass murder in U.S. history.

Episode

45:03
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[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you're
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who
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still does not think fondly of his time at we and BC here is the captain I might
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be able to forgive I'll never forget old Pig vomit it's good to be seen and good
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to see you thanks for listening to thanks for tuna friends [Music] this week we are featuring heavy boots
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enough of the business Colonel all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab
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a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] this week's True Crime Story is a unique and intriguing case
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it falls into two homicide case study categories and the FBI's crime classification manual these homicides
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that we are going to talk about are both a Revenge killing and a non-specific motive killing
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per the crime classification manual a Revenge killing involves the murder of another person in retaliation for a
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perceived wrong real or imagined committed against the offender where a significant other
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victimology when revenge is the motive for a homicide the victim may or may not personally know the offender
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but something in the victim's life is related directly to the actions of the offender
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there is a significant event or interaction that links the offender to the victim
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the Revenge motive generated by this event may be unknown to the victim or to the victim's family or friends
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multiple victims may be involved depending on the nature of the event that triggered the act of Revenge
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a non-specific motive killing pertains to a homicide that appears irrational and is committed for a reason known only
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to the offender it subsequently may be defined and categorized after more extensive
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investigation into the offender's background the victims of a non-specific homicide
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are random with no direct relationship between victim and offender victims can be male female adults or
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children and demonstrate a disparity of characteristics and lifestyle the crime scene is usually a public
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place imposes a high risk to the offender there is nothing missing from it and it
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is disorganized with no effort having been made to conceal the victim a firearm is a weapon of choice
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for this type of offender this crime often becomes a massacre because it is the offender's goal to
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kill as many people as possible because nothing is removed from the scene an abundance of evidence is usually
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available this includes shell cases prints discarded weapons and so on high-powered High Caliber and or high
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capacity firearm use will be evident and enables the offender to accomplish his goal of mass killing
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wounds will be concentrated on vital areas head neck and chest this crime is almost exclusively
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committed during daylight in public places because the offender wants the highest
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death toll possible Witnesses often are available to identify the offender as he is unconcerned with being
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identified the offender has no Escape Plan and possibly intends to commit suicide
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or be shot by police through a broad neighborhood investigation pre-offense characteristics become
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evident the offender usually has a disheveled appearance is withdrawn demonstrates an isolated effect
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and possibly exhibits erratic Behavior [Music] as you have gathered by the descriptions
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of these types of homicides motive is not always clear in fact a real true motive may only make
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sense to the Killer such is the case in this week's True Crime Tale a man that one day
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set out on his own personal seek and destroy mission they called him the wholesale Slayer
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Howard Barton Unruh shot 13 people in less than 12 minutes on his Block in East Camden New Jersey
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the quiet Oddball who meticulously plotted his revenge on his neighbors who shunned him became one of America's
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first mass killers at the age of 28. his Rampage has since been named the Walk of death
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this True Crime garage [Music] okay [Music] Patrick Sauer wrote an incredibly Great
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Piece about this week's True Crime Story I recommend that everybody check it out
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he wrote this for the Smithsonian Magazine entitled it the story of the first mass murder in U.S history Howard
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unruh's Walk Of Death Foretold an era in which such tragedies would become all too common now I'm going to pull a few
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things from this article here first to set things up then Captain I want to go through some of the actual news articles
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from that day so we can take a look at this case almost as it played out now from Patrick Sauer on the morning of
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Tuesday September 6 Howard Unruh would embark on his walk of death murdering 13 people and wounding three others in a
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20-minute Rampage a somewhat forgotten man outside of criminology circles and local Old-Timers Unruh was an early
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chapter in The Tragically all too familiar American story of an angry man with a gun inflicting Carnage
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there have been Killers since Kane murdered Abel and Andrew certainly wasn't the first American to take the
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lives of multiple victims the FBI defines a mass murder as four or more victims in a single incident
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usually in one spot serial killers and spree Killers fall into their own category and there's also
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a new crowd-sourced mass shooting tracking system that counts the number of people shot as opposed to those that
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are killed but is not an official set of data what is known is that the United States
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with five percent of the world's population was home to nearly one-third of the world's Mass shooters from 1966
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to 2012. before that mass gun murders like Unruh were too rare to be considered a threat
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unru is generally regarded as the first of the Lone Wolf type of modern mass murders the template for the school and
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workplace Shooters who have dominated the coverage of more than one thousand victims since 2013. Unruh was a
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distinctive personality type one that has also come to define those who have followed in his bloody footsteps unru
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really matches the mass murder profile he had a rigid temperament an inability to accept frustration or people not
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treating him as well as he wanted and feeling isolation all things people accept and move on
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from says Catherine ramsland she's a professor of forensic psychology and the director of the master of arts in
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criminal justice at Desales University we've talked about her several times as she is the author of some 60 non-fiction
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books including Inside the Mind of mass murderers why they kill she goes on to say about Unruh that he had a
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free-floating anger held grudges owned weapons he knew how to use and decided somebody was going to pay it's a typical
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recipe for internal combustion end quote Howard Barton Unruh was born in Camden New Jersey in 1921. his father
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was Samuel Shipley Unruh and his mother Freda Valmer his parents didn't stick together which was not very common back
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then and Howard and his brother James were raised by their mother when the unrews separated for the most part it
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seems that his childhood was normal or is at least reportedly to be somewhat normal
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Howard was listed as quiet and shy in at least one of his yearbooks Howard got average grades didn't quite fit in as
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much as one would like but Howard was a regular churchgoer in fact he read the Bible often and was very fond of Music
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there'd definitely be a part of his childhood that would have been rough because he would have been in New Jersey
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during the Great Depression so that probably was a difficult time for him because it was difficult time for most
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families but in 1942 he's going to enlist and serve in World War II yeah he enlisted in the US Army serves in World
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War II and he saw quite a bit of action as well and he is said to have been a highly skilled Marksman and he also
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worked as a tank driver taking part in the Battle of the Bulge and fighting in Belgium Austria Germany and France my
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nickname in high school was the Battle of the Bulge now one thing that he did that separated him from most soldiers is
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that he kept meticulous notes about every German that he killed during his time in war documenting the time and
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place of where he did it and writing descriptions of the bodies if he happened to see them after being
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honorably discharged in 1945 he returned home and moved in with his mother at this time bringing in a collection of
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firearms medals and photos of German artillery with him so this is kind of like his collection and scrapbook if you
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will of his time during the war I'll post pictures of Howard on our Twitter Instagram and Facebook pages
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you'll see his demeanor is very it's almost like he has no emotion whatsoever yeah he's got this very blank look to
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his face especially right after he is well especially right after the events that we're about to get into now keep in
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mind the war is over in 1945 and when the war is over he returns home and again he's seen a lot of action he was
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in multiple countries we know that he kept diaries about his kills during wartime and he enlists in 1942 so he was
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overseas defending this great country for several years before he returns to Camden New Jersey now Upon returning
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well life is very different for him during this time you know so he finishes school goes into the army goes off to
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war and you got to keep in mind things must have been rather regimented for this guy right during his school years
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and then his time in the Army and then of course off at War now he's at home and he's kind of doing a whole lot of
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nothing he's got some pretty low level jobs that he doesn't seem to care a whole lot about he's living with
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his mother because he needs her to financially support him she's got a full-time job he doesn't do a whole lot
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once he's back he makes an attempt at having some type of career when he goes off to the temple school for
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pharmaceuticals or oh I have it here in my notes Here Captain he went for three months and studied pharmacy at Temple
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University in Philadelphia well he doesn't that doesn't work out for him and so he drops out and now he's hanging
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out at Mom's home for all of these years well he cites the reason for that being
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poor physical condition it's it's also interesting too that his enlistment picture he is smiling
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and full of energy it makes you really wonder how much effect the war had on this individual right it also makes you
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wonder about his General makeup his mental makeup in psychology of this individual as well he almost looks to be
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happier at the time of War rather than when he's back here living the civilian life now his walk of death
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will take place on Tuesday September 6 1949. so he is home for roughly three to four years before
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his actions of this dreaded day in Camden New Jersey I'm guessing one he has PTSD or some level of that now you
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heard in our description that we gave of the typical things that one would expect
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to find from the FBI when we're talking about this type of crime and one thing that was mentioned there during the
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trailer is that the offender likely does not care about being identified he doesn't do anything to conceal his
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identity and often will leave eyewitnesses so is the case in Howard unru's walk of death you'll hear it
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straight from the articles that they wrote in the newspaper about that event this is from the evening Courier which
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was a local newspaper local to the area and the headline is Massacre of 12 is described by eyewitnesses many see slang
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on Street in shops of East Camden and it goes on to say when Howard Unruh ran a muck shooting at everyone in sight near
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32nd Street and River Avenue killing 12 but missing others there were many witnesses to the massacre
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following are a number of eyewitness accounts one of the first eyewitness accounts of the shooting came from
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William McNeely age 48 he's a repairman for the public service I love the general description and
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General job titles that they gave back in the 40s he says quote I first saw the man go up to a child on the northeast
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corner of 32nd Street and River Avenue and Fire Point Blank at the child's head killing him it goes
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on to say when Cohen the druggist and the insurance man came out of the drugstore to see what was happening the
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Slayer fired at the insurance man and killed him Cohen tried to get out of the way by running up 32nd Street but the
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Killer's aim was good and he killed him while he was running then he went into the drugstore and went upstairs and
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killed two women I think they were Cohen's wife and his mother the witness goes on to say that
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he the shooter came out of the place a few minutes later and saw a man parked in a car on the south side of river
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Avenue just east of 32nd Street he fired into the car and killed him and goes on to say that he then saw a
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group of men standing on the north side of the street he pointed the pistol at them and began firing rapidly they
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escaped by dodging into a nearby Saloon but what a vicious scene this would have
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been this points out what we had already concluded with the information from the
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FBI that there would be several eyewitnesses to this massacre this man Howard Unruh is basically walking down
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the street going business to business and going into these businesses and shooting at different individuals inside
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of these businesses and keep in mind he lives right there this is all happening in his neighborhood right on his little
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corner of the world but if I'm following you correctly this all starts at the pharmacy that's exactly right Captain
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unru's Massacre started at the River Road pharmacy this is owned in our operated by Maurice Cohen and it takes
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place about 9 20 a.m in the morning so he has breakfast at home and he goes out on the street gun in hand he's got 33
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bullets in his pockets and he's ready to track down some individuals and he's ready to murder them in their place of
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work or on the streets there in East Camden doesn't seem like a big shocker that he starts at the pharmacy because
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he went to school to try to be a pharmacist and end up dropping out this guy holds grudges he failed at something
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so maybe this is his way at getting back at that thing he failed at I think that
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you're right I think that there's a whole lot of there's a whole lot of things that are leading up to this event
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I think that likely the pharmacy of being the first place that he goes to commit this
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atrocity is that I think it's really just happenstance because really what it appears to me is that his actual Grudge
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is with the pharmacist himself with this Maurice Cohen and the Cohen family because he is actually neighbors with
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the cohens and they had an ongoing beef if you will over several different things they didn't get along he he did
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not get along with the entire Cohen family as you will hear in our interview with the author of Murder in the
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neighborhood you can hear that there's a lot of things that are building up to this and
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when he comes home the night before there was a gate that was missing he had put in a gate to his backyard
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he in the cohens shared a backyard for whatever reason someone took that gate and the gate was a bit of an argument
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between Howard his mother and the cohens and it's believed that once he saw that that
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gate was gone that he decided that he was going to get this rev he was going to get revenge against the cohens and
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several other people in the neighborhood and he was going to do it first thing that morning
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so after he kills Cohen his wife and Cohen's mother unru walked out of the store
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this is when he encounters the insurance agent the insurance agent was walking in
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that same general area so Unruh shoots him through the head killing him instantly then Howard Unruh walked
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across the sidewalk to the curb where Alvin day was in his vehicle his vehicle had stopped at the traffic light
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and so Howard fires through the windshield and killed him with a bullet to the head so when he shoots day day is
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going to try to I guess get out of his vehicle Run for Cover but he ends up collapsing over his steering wheel yeah
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some attempt to get out of the vehicle was made by day before he dies now these gunshots attracted a
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group of men that were in a bar across from the drugstore and so they run out into the street they're trying to see
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what's going on several shots are fired from our killer to at these men that come running out of the bar and they're
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lucky enough that they start to they have enough time to start to flee from Howard honra unra then walked by
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The Barbershop of Clark Hoover where Hoover was cutting the hair of a boy a six-year-old boy and as the paper
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says with the deadly aim he had perfected in a target range later found in his basement of his home Howard Unruh
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sent a bullet crashing into Hoover's brain and then killed the Smith boy with another single shot as he sat on the
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hobby horse seat Hoover used for his child patrons from the barber shop Howard Unruh went
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into the adjoining shoe repair shop inside there he kills the shoe repair shop owner
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who was trying to Shield himself from gunfire by cowering behind the counter from the
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shoe repair shop Howard Unruh walked to the front of a house at River Avenue where another single shot fired through
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the front window killed Thomas Hamilton Age Two well and this is how you can see
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how evil he is because he doesn't care who he's killing Man Child woman doesn't matter continuing up the street to 3214
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River Avenue this is a dry cleaning shop he there shot and killed Helga zagrino she is the attendant in charge
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well obviously Howard has some issues but the pharmacy kind of makes some sense to me
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attacking the neighbors because he has a grudge against them kind of makes sense
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but did he have a list of people he was looking for or was this just believed to
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be random and whoever was there got in the way and and he was going to shoot anybody in
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his path and so he has people that he's seeking revenge against he has a grudge against several people as you have
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stated but it's also a situation where we have both Revenge killings and non-specific motive homicides here
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because some of these individuals just happen to be in the area at the time it's kind of like when you have a school
00:25:22
shooter or a workplace shooter with the workplace and school shooter often they will know some of their victims but but
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they will also not know some of the victims some of the other victims may just happen to be at the location where
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they are going to go and kill people and then what we have here is as stated by the FBI with these type offenders they
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are looking to kill as many people as possible so they're not always sitting there making the decision right then and
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there oh do I kill this person or that person because yes I have a grudge against person a but not against the
00:26:02
person B often they will just kill both this part of the massacre will really kind of answer your question here
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Captain because what we end up having is with the dry cleaners when he goes to the the shop the dry cleaner shop
00:26:18
we later will learn that on his hit list if you will or his list is not just that
00:26:24
simple to call it a Hit List we we can get into that a little bit later but he goes to the dry cleaners with the
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intention of finding Thomas zagrino he's the the tailor and one of the owners he and hilga own the shop
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together now we know later that Thomas zagrino was on his hit list if you will but
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Helga was not and so when he goes to the dry cleaner shop Thomas is not there but hilga is
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and so he kills hilga anyway before going on to his next Target or the next location the next spot he's going to go
00:27:09
to is the local grocery store yes and whoever owns that gets a little lucky here Captain because they find Howard
00:27:18
Unruh finds the front door locked so he simply fires through the front door and then he approaches a car that is waiting
00:27:27
at an intersection and shoots the occupants of that vehicle so if you can kind of picture this in your mind here
00:27:35
he leaves his house gun in hand and he's going through the neighborhood he obviously has certain targets going into
00:27:43
these different businesses and seeking out individuals that he wants to shoot and kill but also think of all the
00:27:49
vehicles that we have mentioned during his walk of death where they're simply pulling up to a stoplight
00:27:58
at an intersection that he happens to be standing by and he's firing into their vehicles do you know if the grocery
00:28:04
store was closed just by happenstance or was it locked because they heard the gun
00:28:10
fire earlier I was just looking at my notes for that information and I don't have that here Captain but my belief is
00:28:19
that they locked the doors because they heard the gunfire and remember we had already mentioned that several of the
00:28:26
businesses people came outside to see what was going on why they are hearing these these gunshots later some people
00:28:33
would say that they thought that some of the noises were simply a car backfiring
00:28:37
where I think with the grocery shop we have the situation where they came outside they saw the panic in the
00:28:43
streets and decided that the best choice that they had in this situation was to go back inside and lock the front
00:28:51
door [Music] [Music] all right we are back cheers mates cheers now we're going through this massacre
00:29:35
that took place back in 1949 again this is before these types of shootings are unfortunately have become commonplace in
00:29:44
today's society this was really a rare occurrence back then what we have is this man who who seemingly is completely
00:29:54
lost it gone off the rails maybe the gate being stolen was the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak he's
00:30:02
out on the streets he's gunning down anybody that he he chooses to at a at a seconds notice he eventually hears
00:30:11
police sirens in the background now I've seen it reported Captain the the response time in this situation was as
00:30:20
short as 18 minutes and maybe as long as 20 minutes it's a little unclear keep in
00:30:25
mind we're going back a long time ago in history to try to piece these events together but part to that lengthy
00:30:33
response time is for several different reasons one it's 1949 not everybody's walking around with a cell phone and as
00:30:41
we pointed out just before we went to the break even though some people were rushing
00:30:45
outside to see what was going on it wasn't clear to everybody what in fact was absolutely happening right we've
00:30:52
already pointed out how rare this occurrence would be so rare in fact that he is often referred to as the first
00:31:01
mass murderer or the first mass murder event in U.S history right so there's not a lot of protocol but just to
00:31:10
reiterate something that you were talking about earlier was he had a firing range or a target practice
00:31:18
in his basement and so a lot of people make a big deal about well he was prepared for this it's
00:31:24
like but he was also in the Army for three years fighting Wars he was he was prepared for this
00:31:32
well before he was training in his in his basement and not only that the scary thing about his wartime is look a lot of
00:31:41
people when they come back from war they don't want to talk about the things that
00:31:45
they were forced to do while over there they try not to reflect on that time period they want to try to forget it
00:31:55
where with Howard it's much more difficult his time at War because he seemed to possibly even have enjoyed
00:32:05
The Act of Killing while he was at War he kept meticulous notes about it in his diary or Journal and when he returned
00:32:14
and I know it's not uncommon for people especially in World War II to have returned with
00:32:20
this collection of things that they took off of Nazi soldiers but he comes back with this collection
00:32:28
of things that he took off of Nazi soldiers and he's hanging them on his walls and yes I wonder if it's a little
00:32:35
bit of folklore about the target practice in his mother's basement right but there seems to be some truth to it
00:32:43
because part of the arguments that the cohens had with Howard was that he was too loud you know he's
00:32:51
creating all this noise he's firing guns in his basement he's playing his music incredibly loud but his side of the
00:32:58
argument was well the cohens are incredibly loud and I've asked them to be quiet several times and so I'm only
00:33:06
loud because they're loud keep in mind they're not just neighbors they're neighbors that are separated by a wall
00:33:12
separated by a wall they share that backyard that yard space where Howard and his mother have the second gate put
00:33:20
in because originally there was only one gate and the families were feuding over
00:33:25
the gate who was using it people were leaving it open uh overnight and things of that nature so
00:33:33
the unroos put in their own gate so you can do what you want with your gate Cohen's will do what we want with
00:33:39
ours after this time frame of Mayhem he is going to head back to his apartment yeah he flees back to his apartment
00:33:48
because he can hear the sirens the police sirens off in the distance so he knows that they're converging in on this
00:33:56
area this really what is simply two corners of East Camden and this is keep in mind how chaotic this all is
00:34:05
this is a residential slash business area of town There's businesses and there's plenty of Housing and apartments
00:34:14
and such so this is kind of a congested area this will be a well trafficked area
00:34:20
both on in vehicles and foot traffic so there's a lot of people potentially a lot of victims right here just just
00:34:29
footsteps outside of Howard unru's front door all in all Unruh kills 13 people and injures three and this all before
00:34:40
fleeing back to his apartment now once he's back at his apartment he's fairly quickly surrounded by police we
00:34:48
mentioned the slow response time but even though it's a slow response time the response itself is pretty powerful
00:34:55
and they're heavily armed there were up to 50 officers that surrounded his apartment Howard Unruh didn't just
00:35:06
barricade himself inside of his home he shoots it out with police the issue becomes when he's on foot he can only
00:35:15
carry so many weapons and so much ammo but when he gets back to his house he has he has a lot more weapons and a lot
00:35:22
more ammo this is true and I'm gonna post some pictures of these events on Twitter because there's one picture that
00:35:33
is I hate to say this because we're talking about so Much Death and destruction and tragedy here but there
00:35:40
is a picture during this gun fight with police that kind of cracks me up it almost in a way
00:35:46
reminds me of the movie The Christmas Story Ralphie is dreaming about getting his BB gun and he has to fight off these
00:35:56
would-be burglars and potential bad guys that are in his backyard right and he's
00:36:02
shooting at them and they're they're all over the place they're coming over the fence they're up on top of the roof and
00:36:09
they're just coming from all angles and he's kind of taking them out it's more it's it's that but it's a reverse when
00:36:15
you look at the shootout that that Howard has with police there are police officers that are some
00:36:23
of them are holding automatic guns some of them are holding rifles some of them are holding handguns they got the place
00:36:29
well surrounded there's even officers that are on the rooftop of Howard's apartment
00:36:37
so that they could fire into the second floor window so they have this guy surrounded he's
00:36:44
got nowhere to go and one thing that's strange and we've seen this time and time again throughout our dark history
00:36:51
of these Mass killers that oftentimes when surrounded or when they have achieved their goal or got the
00:37:02
revenge that they were seeking a lot of times they will end up killing themselves or committing suicide by
00:37:09
having the police shoot them dead and Howard's situation he's returning gunfire with the police and eventually
00:37:19
they start tossing in tear gas and he decides at some point you know what I I'm done I'm done fighting the tear gas
00:37:29
is enough you got me surrounded and he comes out and they apprehend him right then and there and there's that picture
00:37:36
that the captain was referring to earlier uh about some of the stuff that we will be posting of him standing there
00:37:43
arrested and he's wearing a suit and bow tie and he's staring with this blank look at the newspaper and when he's
00:37:53
staring at the camera person who took that picture it doesn't look to me to be the look of oh my God I'm in shock of
00:38:02
what I just did I can't believe my own actions or I'm scared to death any of that
00:38:09
he almost looks like he's standing there with this blank look this stare that says
00:38:15
yeah I did this yeah I did this and it might have been a long time coming now the thing that
00:38:21
we've unfortunately become all too used to in the United States is the frequency
00:38:27
of these public shooters and whenever this happens especially when there is a high kill rate
00:38:36
we want to know who is to blame not just the shooter but what else is to blame in
00:38:42
our society how could we allow this person to have been created and then go out on this Rampage and I don't know
00:38:50
that there's ever going to be a clear answer in my opinion I think part of that is reflected in what we went
00:38:58
through in the trailer from the FBI's crime classification manual that says in some of these types of cases and with
00:39:05
some of these offenders we don't really know the motive they may not fully know the motive for some of their killings
00:39:12
themselves now it looks to me like here in this situation captain that Howard Unruh understood why he killed some of
00:39:20
these people but maybe why he didn't kill others some he was seeking revenge on others just happened to be there in
00:39:28
the wrong place at the wrong time in fact it reminds me of a quote from the old TV show Criminal Minds from the
00:39:37
fictitious detective on there Jason Gideon who's I think the best of the the fake detectives on Criminal Minds but
00:39:45
one of his quotes on that show was when talking about an offender like this or somebody that kills multiple people he
00:39:53
says think of him as a living murder weapon his genetics load the gun his psychology aims it and the environment
00:40:01
pulls the trigger now we do have some quotes from Howard Unruh himself and you mentioned he only had one gun he
00:40:10
only had so much ammunition when he went through the streets that day on his walk
00:40:15
of death but Howard Unruh said I would have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets
00:40:23
and then he goes on to give us a little bit of insight as to a possible motive for his rampage that morning
00:40:29
he says quote when I came home last night and found my gate had been taken I decided to shoot all of them so I
00:40:38
would get the right one [Music] thank you [Music] New Jersey correspondent Nora muschanic
00:41:02
revisits the Walk of death and killer Howard Unruh before there was Columbine or Newtown there was Camden on the
00:41:10
morning of September 6 1949 28 year old Howard Unruh dressed in a suit and bow tie stocked the 2300 block of River Road
00:41:18
in the city's Cramer Hill section shooting and killing 13 people and injuring three among the victims a
00:41:25
six-year-old boy getting a haircut on this hobby horse at the barber shop it became known as the Walk of death that
00:41:31
was America apple pie right after we won the second world war and it was never expected my mom did some getaway kill
00:41:38
come on let's go let's go George Jenkins to a six when his mother shoot him into
00:41:42
the house after hearing gunshots unrew a former Army Sharpshooter who had a target range in his basement kept
00:41:48
meticulous records about neighbors he had run-ins with the top entry reads you dirty bum I wish you were dead 15 years
00:41:55
ago I spoke with one of the survivors of unru's Rampage the late Charles Cohen's
00:42:00
parents and grandmother were murdered that day gunfire happened and when I walked out my grandmother was holding a
00:42:06
phone in bed dead with blood coming out of her nose and face he hid in the closet feeling totally helpless and he
00:42:13
had to come out and see that horrible scene the reaction was pretty strong being his son was one of the first
00:42:19
occasions of a mass murder of that site of that type 80 year old Len Irwin is a volunteer the Camden County Historical
00:42:28
Society where they keep memorabilia from the notorious crime Howard Unruh confessed and was declared criminally
00:42:35
insane he died in 1988 after being confined to a mental hospital for 60 years but the troubled young man from
00:42:42
East Camden will forever be remembered as the country's first mass murderer in modern times I'm Nora musanik Channel 6
00:42:49
Action News [Music] um yeah so much more to get to and join us back here in the garage
00:43:09
and if you're looking for more True Crime garage check out our bonus show called off the Record it's on Stitcher
00:43:17
premium you get every show that's on Stitch or premium just for five dollars a month and you can go to truecrime
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garage.com and sign up for that bonus show that's if you need more True Crime garage and your ear balls also why don't
00:43:32
you come join me in Cleveland a night with the captain yes the colonel couldn't make it but it will be a night
00:43:40
with the captain and we will be at brewdog the date is on July 14th it's a Thursday tickets are available at
00:43:51
captainfatheands.com please come out and let's talk some crime Delphi let's talk
00:43:58
some JonBenet Ramsey let's talk anything True Crime garage I look forward to meeting and drinking with all of you no
00:44:07
better place to do it than Cleveland Ohio and no bear place than Brew dog join us back here in the garage as we
00:44:13
take a deeper dive into this mass murder until tomorrow be good be kind and don't
00:44:20
litter [Music] thank you foreign [Music]

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 85
    Most intense
  • 80
    Most shocking
  • 80
    Most chaotic
  • 75
    Most heartbreaking

Episode Highlights

  • Howard Unruh's Walk of Death
    On September 6, 1949, Howard Unruh embarked on a shooting spree, killing 13 people in 20 minutes.
    “They called him the wholesale Slayer.”
    @ 07m 00s
    October 22, 2022
  • The First Mass Murder in U.S. History
    Unruh's actions marked a tragic chapter in American crime history, becoming a template for future mass shootings.
    “This is how you can see how evil he is.”
    @ 24m 37s
    October 22, 2022
  • The First Mass Murderer
    Howard Unruh, dressed in a suit and bow tie, killed 13 people in Camden in 1949.
    “It became known as the Walk of death.”
    @ 41m 22s
    October 22, 2022
  • A Survivor's Story
    Charles Cohen, a survivor of Unruh's rampage, recounts the horror of finding his grandmother dead.
    “I walked out and saw that horrible scene.”
    @ 42m 06s
    October 22, 2022

Episode Quotes

  • It's good to be seen and good to see you.
    Murder in the Neighborhood /// Part 1 /// 588
  • A real true motive may only make sense to the Killer.
    Murder in the Neighborhood /// Part 1 /// 588
  • Howard Barton Unruh shot 13 people in less than 12 minutes.
    Murder in the Neighborhood /// Part 1 /// 588
  • He had a free-floating anger held grudges owned weapons.
    Murder in the Neighborhood /// Part 1 /// 588
  • I would have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets.
    Murder in the Neighborhood /// Part 1 /// 588

Key Moments

  • Thank You00:11
  • Beer Run02:12
  • True Crime Story03:03
  • Revenge Killing03:20
  • Walk of Death07:18
  • Massacre of 1217:04
  • Chilling Confession40:19
  • Survivor's Horror42:06

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown