Further Reading on the Fall River Cult Murders:
Mortal Remains: A True Story of Ritual Murder
Info:
The Berkley hostage crisis aka Henrys Pub hostage incident, happened in September 1990 in a pub located inside the Hotel Duran in Berkley California. Around 12:30 am 31 year old Iranian born Mehrdad Dashti, entered the bar with 445 rounds of ammunition. He had three guns on him and held 33 college age hostages for 7 hours.
Dashti was schizophrenic and had a history of writing delusional but not threatening letters to public officials, he was also under investigation by San Francisco police for fraud. It appeared that Dashti was having a psychotic episode and was ranting to the hostages about “sexual, racial, and other kinds of weird stuff.”
Throughout the ordeal, gunfire was heard on and off and at various times wounded people were allowed to leave with various other hostages, some hostages were able to escape as well and give police information as to what was happening inside.
In the end, police negotiators were unable to disarm Dashti and stormed the bar. As they did the students scattered to the streets and the gunman was shot and killed by bullets to the head and chest.
The good old days of Satanic Panic.
The Fall River Satanic cult murders was a series of three murders that happened in Fall River Massachusetts in the late 1970s- early 1980s. The first young girls body, that of 17 year old Doreen Levesque was fount on Oct 13, 1979. She was know to have been previously reported as a run away from her foster home and had been a sex worker. The medical examiner determined that the crime was more then likely committed by more then one person and had ritual elements to her torture.
A month later, 22 year old Barbara Raposa went missing, it came to light that she had been part of a Satanic cult lead by Carl Drew. Drew was know by police as being a violent pimp, he was a teenage run away who had grown up on a farm in New Hampshire where he had been put through horrors such as wading through carcasses of butchered livestock in order to separate hides and hooves for rendering.
Barbara’s body was found Jan 26, 1980 frozen in the woods, she had been raped and her scull crushed with a stone. Two month later, a skull was found near Devol Pond, forensics determined it was that of Carol Fletcher, another local sex worker known to be a part of Drews cult.
It was then that members starting coming forward to the police with information, according to member 17 year old Robin Murphy, the cult killed every full moon, they spoke in tongues and conjured daemons offering the human sacrifices to Satan.
Murphy plead guilty to her role in the murders and accepted a life sentence in exchange for testifying against Carl Drew. Drew in turn was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Episode 73
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