it was a rainy day in march of 1972 when eight-year-old douglas owens was running errands he would never make it back from this outing that day his body would be found on a rooftop just two blocks from his home in the neighborhood of harlem in new york city the young boy had been stabbed 38 times his shoes were missing and the wounds were apparent over his neck chest and back most disturbingly his genitals had been slashed so viciously that they were attached to his body by but a single bloody flap of skin when it comes
to killers those who target children are considered the most evil even by fellow criminals however when it comes to the crimes of this particular murderer they are beyond abhorrent they call him charlie chop off a crude pseudonym based on the modus operandi of his killings and it's the name the killer still officially goes by as to this day he has remained unidentified in the case unsolved after so long is there any hope of that changing or perhaps is the killer closer than many might think let's open the serial killer file [Music] this episode of seriously
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going to the link in the description below now when enough of you wicked people use my sponsors they come back for more business and that means more content so thanks in advance and thanks for listening [Music] barely a month after the first victim was found on april 20 1972 another african-american boy only two years older than douglas owens also went missing on a dreary and rainy day in east harlem a man calling himself michael approached the young boy and offered him 50 cents to come with him they left together and went to the rooftop of
a nearby apartment building while there the man brutally assaulted the boy the child had his shoes taken and then was stabbed gutted and had his genitals removed by the attacker the perpetrator took the genitals with him and left his victim for dead in one of the apartment building hallways later police would recover the missing genitals in a nearby park where a group of children had been playing with them unexpectedly and shockingly the child survived the vicious assault and was able to provide the police with some details that allowed them to develop a vague profile officials
believed the suspect to be spanish or italian and he had a mole on his cheek he was thin and walked with a limp as well the individual had poor hygiene and foul breath authorities were able to develop a sketch from the victim's description sadly this would not be enough and the killer would soon strike again [Music] wendell hubbard was just nine years old when he vanished while playing in a yard near his home in east harlem in october of 1972 he failed to come inside when his mother called frightened she promptly alerted authorities of her
missing child it would only be a few hours later that the boy's body would be discovered on the rooftop of his own apartment building by three boys who had been playing on the premises mary hubbard identified her son immediately the autopsy would reveal that wendell had been sodomized and stabbed 17 times in the abdomen neck and chest once again the victim's genitals were mutilated and the killer had taken the amputated part with him when he left regardless of the brutality of the slaying very little evidence had been left behind it was suspected that hubbard ran
into the killer on his way back inside the apartment residents denied having seen or heard anything once again authorities were left with no leads despite the similarities in the cases police failed to connect the death to the previous attack and murder investigators reported that it was unclear that there was any link between the crimes on march 6 1973 louis ortiz was sent to fetch some milk and bread from the store by his mother when he didn't return home the ten-year-old's mother became frantic and contacted the police to report him missing a search was conducted but
it wouldn't be until the next day when a woman taking out the trash would discover lewis's body in a basement stairwell he had been stabbed repeatedly in the back neck and chest as well the victim's genitals were mutilated and missing clearly having been taken once again by the killer in this instance witnesses had seen the boys abductor and were able to provide the police with a description of the perpetrator they described the man as slender with a dark complexion possibly hispanic witnesses believe the man to be between five foot seven and five foot ten inches
in height and likely aged between thirty and forty years old while no one claimed to see a mole on the killer's cheek he was described as having bad skin and acne scarring on his chin with a fourth victim and still no results the community was in an uproar public meetings were held and a local class even made a video warning other children to stay away from strangers local children began referring to the murderer as charlie chop off and the name stuck a task force was developed to track down the suspect they opened a tip line
interviewed over 150 suspects and went door to door distributing flyers while speaking to neighbors police were able to locate someone they believed had been in contact with the killer two days before lewis's murder a man approached the woman's son offering a free bicycle in exchange for help with an errand he told the stranger he would need to ask permission and said he would meet the man again the next day the next day the mother arrived at the arranged meeting place and told the man to stay away from her son or she'd contact the authorities the
next day luis ortiz disappeared [Music] when a woman walking her dog on august 17 1973 discovered a lifeless african-american child investigators were hesitant to link the murder to the previous attacks the victim who was identified as eight-year-old stephen cropper was found posed in a sexually suggestive position his shirt had been pulled up and his pants were pulled down however unlike the other victims he had not been stabbed and steven's genitals were intact steven had been repeatedly slashed with a razor blade and the murder weapon was found below his body as well there was no evidence
of a sexual assault stephen's parents had not even reported him as missing as he had been with them just an hour before the body was discovered the cropper family lived just blocks away and were shown their son's photo by police canvassing among the nearby residents one thing that remained the same is that steven's shoes had been removed and placed near his body as well two days after the grisly murder reporters were interviewing neighbors and some of them claimed that they had seen a man in the area who resembled the composite sketch and had been talking
to local young boys the neighbors would later report to the authorities that the man was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt dark pants and sneakers despite hesitating to link this killing to the other charlie murders the police concluded that he must be the victim of the same killer they reasoned that it would be too coincidental for two killers with similar victim profiles and mo's to be operating in the same area therefore stephen cropper became the last victim associated with the charlie chop off murders residents of east harlem were furious with the lack of results in the
charlie chop off case this man was stalking and killing their children and it appeared that the authorities were nowhere near catching the culprit investigators began pursuing one lead that seemed to be promising on august 21st an employee at nina comprehensive health service center contacted the police and reported that a man in the office resembled the sketch when officers arrived at the facility the man was still there and despite having no reason for suspicion other than his resemblance to the sketch they brought him in for questioning the suspect's name l gonzalez was leaked to the press
and when news broke that he had been apprehended a mob formed around the police station unfortunately when gonzalez had been cleared of any involvement in the case protesters refused to disperse protesters climbed over barricades and police cars it was the wild west and like a posse they demanded gonzales be released to them police decided they would have to sneak gonzales out of the station disguised in a police uniform they dressed up an officer in civilian clothing and had him walk outside escorted by other officers the decoy covered his face and played his role as a
distraction for the mob the crowd wasn't fooled by this deception and continued to demand to see gonzales traffic was blocked off and news cameras began to gather despite it all gonzales managed to make his escape another suspect in the case was that of daniel olivo a few weeks after stephen cropper's murder olivo was charged with molesting a five-year-old boy after luring him into a secluded area in a nearby park the boy managed to get away and ran to his father oliva was discovered hiding in some bushes in the park and was arrested he fit the
suspect's profile he had an olive skin tone and walked with a limp however the police found that his alibis were solid at the time of the murders and he was dismissed as a suspect with the murderer still on the loose the community remained on high alert one man who resembled the composite sketch was even chased out of a neighborhood and into a river despite the collective effort charlie remained uncaught [Music] erno soto had a tumultuous relationship with his wife while separated she had a child with an african-american man and they were both puerto rican this
fact nagged at soto when the couple attempted to reconcile despite not being his own child soto tried to raise the boy as his son and by all accounts things were going well but as the boy's eighth birthday rolled around things began to change soto's behavior grew increasingly erratic and his mental state began to deteriorate he was hospitalized multiple times for uncontrollable violence and had been arrested on several occasions for burglary and narcotics possession he was committed to manhattan state hospital in 1969 and 1970 and would be known as a frequent visitor to other hospitals thereafter
in 1973 soto was apprehended during the attempted abduction of a young puerto rican boy according to a retired nypd homicide detective soto was walking along holding the child over his head all while the boy screamed once in custody police were interested in erno's connection to the charlie chop off murders an anonymous phone tip received by police on march 23rd pointed to soto as a suspect in the murder of douglas owens but it was not pursued the police found a witness who claimed that he had seen soto with stephen cropper on the day of his murder
the surviving victim was also shown a lineup including soto but was not able to identify him he did say that soto looked similar to his attacker but nothing conclusive in addition soto had relatives living in the areas near some of the murders officials at manhattan state hospital initially provided an alibi stating that soto was confined on the date of cropper's slaying still they later admitted he sometimes slipped away from the facility unnoticed additionally the main exit from the mental hospital was near where some of the boys bodies were found during interrogation soto confessed that he
stalked young black boys in the area and admitted to killing stephen cropper but not any of the other boys he reportedly said that god told him to make little boys into girls while circumstantial police were confident they had their man erno soto was charged with the murder of stephen cropper unfortunately due to his impaired mental status he was ruled too unstable to stand trial he was committed to a mental institution for the criminally insane in 1974 and that's where he remains as he was not convicted officially the charlie chop off murders are considered unsolved however
with the incarceration of their main suspect the murders and mutilations seemed to come to an end serial killers are capable of the most horrifying acts from deep within the darkest of humanity's psyche the murders and mutilation perpetrated by charlie chop off are easily some of the most depraved we can wrap ourselves in the safe thought that the police caught the deranged individual but did they without a conviction can we say that it was the work of an unstable man like aaron osoto can we say that he wouldn't have gotten caught earlier due to his erratic
behavior what if soto had followed the case and his warped mind seeking attention wanted to be pinned for the murders it's a known fact that police often receive false confessions to even the most heinous crimes from individuals who are less of sound mind so wouldn't that be even more plausible for soto what of the difference in the death of stephen cropper the only killing that was tentatively linked to soto cropper hadn't been stabbed sexually assaulted and all of his body parts were intact which was a far cry from charlie chopoff's usual mo it's also a
known fact that some serial killers do stop killing on their own for whatever reason it may be they don't kill again is charlie chop off safely tucked away in a mental institution or was east harlem's boogeyman free to rome it's been almost 50 years since the crimes were committed and the answers are as unknown as this case is unsolved [Music] thank you for watching please be sure to check out raid by using the links in the description below because the more of you who do the more they'll come back to sponsor more content and that
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