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Hell and Gone Murder Line: The Double Homicide of Ronald Sisman and Elizabeth Plaztman · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Gone Murder Line actively investigates cold
0:52
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness, invite
0:55
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward, and present evidence that could potentially
0:58
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
1:02
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
1:06
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
1:10
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone is
1:14
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
1:17
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
1:21
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:29
Speaker 2: In the early morning hours of Saturday, October 31st, Halloween, 1981,
1:35
Speaker 2: 39-year-old Ronald Sisman and his new girlfriend, 20-year-old Elizabeth Platzman,
1:40
Speaker 2: were hanging out in Chelsea, a neighborhood in Manhattan. Elizabeth
1:45
Speaker 2: was a junior in college, majoring in art, and she
1:48
Speaker 2: was visiting Ronald in New York City for the weekend.
1:52
Speaker 2: Ronald and Elizabeth had started going out just a few
1:54
Speaker 2: weeks earlier, and Ronald lived and worked in that third-floor
1:58
Speaker 2: apartment at 207 West 22nd Street. Elizabeth was from Roslyn
2:04
Speaker 2: on Long Island. She attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.
2:09
Speaker 2: it was an impromptu visit. According to what her parents
2:13
Speaker 2: told investigators later, they thought that she was coming home
2:16
Speaker 2: to see them. But at the last minute, she decided
2:20
Speaker 2: to go to the city. According to contemporaneous reporting, a
2:24
Speaker 2: group of masked individuals showed up at the door. Ronald
2:28
Speaker 2: first told Elizabeth that they should just ignore these people.
2:32
Speaker 2: But when the knocking turned into banging, he opened the door.
2:36
Speaker 2: Later that day, At around 7.50 p.m., police were called
2:40
Speaker 2: to the building by one of Ronald's neighbors. And when
2:44
Speaker 2: they went in, they found Ronald and Elizabeth's bodies in
2:47
Speaker 2: the middle of the chaos. They had both been fatally shot,
2:52
Speaker 2: execution style, multiple times. The apartment was chaotic. Furniture had
2:58
Speaker 2: been torn apart. The whole place had been ransacked. What
3:02
Speaker 2: were the killer or killers looking for? Police said early
3:06
Speaker 2: on that there was no sign of forced entry. Maybe
3:10
Speaker 2: Ronald opened the door thinking it was early trick-or-treaters, or
3:14
Speaker 2: maybe he recognized the person or people knocking. There were
3:19
Speaker 2: a few things missing, including a handgun Ronald owned, some
3:22
Speaker 2: drugs that he kept in the house, and most bizarrely,
3:26
Speaker 2: Ronald and Elizabeth's IDs. Police first said that this had
3:31
Speaker 2: been some kind of drug-related robbery, But as the years
3:35
Speaker 2: passed and the case remained cold, the web of the
3:38
Speaker 2: story grew to include a famous actress found bleeding on
3:41
Speaker 2: a commuter train, a producer murdered in California with a
3:45
Speaker 2: stick of dynamite left in his mouth, and a prison
3:49
Speaker 2: informant who claimed that one of New York's most notorious
3:52
Speaker 2: serial killers had predicted Ronald's death. I'm Katherine Townsend. Over
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Speaker 2: the past eight years of making my true crime podcast,
4:02
Speaker 2: Hell and Gone, I've learned that there is no such
4:05
Speaker 2: thing as a small town where murder never happens. I've
4:09
Speaker 2: received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
4:12
Speaker 2: asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
4:16
Speaker 2: their families, and their communities. If you have a case
4:20
Speaker 2: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
4:22
Speaker 2: can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone
4:24
Speaker 2: Murder Line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145. Or send us a
4:34
Speaker 2: message on Instagram at hellandgonepod. This is Hell and Gone,
4:39
Speaker 2: Murder Line. ¶ ¶ After finding two bodies, a prominent
5:27
Speaker 2: photographer and a college student, and an apartment ripped to shreds,
5:32
Speaker 2: Officers from the NYPD 20th Precinct tried to figure out
5:36
Speaker 2: what they were looking at in a chaotic crime scene.
5:39
Speaker 2: Ronald operated two photography businesses from his studio in Chelsea,
5:44
Speaker 2: and he was very social, meaning that a lot of
5:47
Speaker 2: people knew where he lived and the layout of his place.
5:50
Speaker 2: Police were looking at a potentially long list of suspects.
5:55
Speaker 2: From the beginning, police stated that they believed that Ronald
5:59
Speaker 2: had been the target, and that Elizabeth was basically collateral damage.
6:04
Speaker 2: They had not been a couple for long. The New
6:07
Speaker 2: York Times reported that Elizabeth and Ronald had actually met
6:10
Speaker 2: through a relative the previous summer, while other accounts say
6:14
Speaker 2: they had met just a few weeks earlier. Either way,
6:18
Speaker 2: their romantic relationship was only a few weeks old. There
6:22
Speaker 2: was an age difference of nearly 20 years, but the
6:25
Speaker 2: much more consequential difference, according to the early police theory,
6:29
Speaker 2: was that Elizabeth, had very likely stepped into a situation
6:33
Speaker 2: she may have known nothing about. Detective Joseph Denicola of
6:38
Speaker 2: the 20th Precinct described Elizabeth as an innocent kid who
6:43
Speaker 2: was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In
6:47
Speaker 2: an article in the News Times from 1981, police were
6:50
Speaker 2: referring to the killings as an apparent drug-related robbery because
6:56
Speaker 2: police said that photography skills weren't the only thing that
7:00
Speaker 2: Ronald was selling. Detective Denicola told the newspaper that a
7:05
Speaker 2: quantity of drugs were taken from the apartment, but didn't
7:09
Speaker 2: specify how much, just said that it was a white powder,
7:12
Speaker 2: which police later confirmed to be cocaine. So there are
7:16
Speaker 2: three basic theories about what happened to Ronald and Elizabeth.
7:21
Speaker 2: One was that it was a random robbery that escalated
7:23
Speaker 2: into fatal violence. The second was that someone knew Ronald
7:27
Speaker 2: had drugs in there, And maybe knew him. Or maybe
7:31
Speaker 2: knew him casually. Maybe they had sat for a photo
7:34
Speaker 2: shoot and knew he dabbled in selling drugs. And hoped
7:37
Speaker 2: to rob his stash. And again, things got out of control.
7:41
Speaker 2: Or three, that Ronald was targeted for another reason. So
7:46
Speaker 2: let's look at these possibilities one by one. First, could
7:50
Speaker 2: this have been just a random robbery? In 1980, Chelsea
7:56
Speaker 2: was a neighborhood in transition. This was after the high
8:00
Speaker 2: crime of the 1970s, and it was still super sketchy.
8:04
Speaker 2: Some people call it gritty. I call it dangerous. Definitely
8:08
Speaker 2: a long way away from the super wealthy hub it
8:11
Speaker 2: is today. Today, it's the epicenter of Manhattan's contemporary art scene. Well,
8:16
Speaker 2: maybe along with Tribeca. But my point is that back then,
8:20
Speaker 2: it wasn't filled with galleries and influencers eating ice cream
8:23
Speaker 2: and filming themselves. It was a heavily working-class Manhattan neighborhood,
8:28
Speaker 2: that served as a major hub for underground LGBTQ culture
8:32
Speaker 2: before gentrification. The High Line was just abandoned tracks back then,
8:38
Speaker 2: and the meatpacking district just south of there was populated
8:41
Speaker 2: with sex workers and flatbed trucks filled with frozen ribs.
8:46
Speaker 2: So a natural question to ask is, were these shootings
8:50
Speaker 2: an anomaly? Were there other fatal shootings in the area?
8:54
Speaker 2: And it turns out that there was an extraordinary organized
8:57
Speaker 2: campaign of criminal intimidation at some buildings a couple of
9:01
Speaker 2: blocks west. At the center of it were two men
9:05
Speaker 2: named Morris Linster and Max Marks. Linsner and Marks owned
9:10
Speaker 2: several buildings in Manhattan, jointly and individually. And this is
9:14
Speaker 2: too long of a story to tell the full thing,
9:17
Speaker 2: but I'm going to give you a quick recap. Essentially,
9:22
Speaker 2: the men decided they wanted to sell some of their buildings. However,
9:25
Speaker 2: in New York, some buildings have a percentage of tenants
9:30
Speaker 2: that are designated as rent control, meaning that they pay
9:33
Speaker 2: a lower rent, and the amount that landlords can raise
9:37
Speaker 2: it by is strictly limited by law. So these guys
9:40
Speaker 2: knew that their asking price would be a lot higher
9:44
Speaker 2: if they could charge market rent. But they couldn't do
9:47
Speaker 2: that unless the rent control tenants got out of their buildings.
9:51
Speaker 2: They needed these lower-priced tenants out, but they couldn't do
9:55
Speaker 2: it legally. As anyone who has ever lived in New
9:58
Speaker 2: York knows, most people give up rent-controlled apartments out of
10:04
Speaker 2: their cold, dead hands, often literally. These deals are very
10:08
Speaker 2: few and far between now. So when legal methods didn't work,
10:13
Speaker 2: the two men decided to purposely start a crime wave.
10:17
Speaker 2: Between December of 1978 and July of 1980, they intentionally
10:22
Speaker 2: moved criminals in, including what was described in court papers
10:26
Speaker 2: as drug addicts, pimps, and sex workers into their vacant
10:30
Speaker 2: units so that the buildings would become unsafe and the
10:33
Speaker 2: tenants would leave. They also hired people to break into
10:37
Speaker 2: occupied apartments and intentionally vandalize them. Some of these buildings
10:43
Speaker 2: were located on West 22nd Street, though not at Ronald's
10:47
Speaker 2: exact address. So what I can say is that there
10:50
Speaker 2: was a documented burglary slash violent crime activity immediately before
10:56
Speaker 2: the murders in Ronald's neighborhood. So it could have been
10:59
Speaker 2: someone connected to the tenant intimidation crime wave ring or
11:04
Speaker 2: just a random robbery gone wrong in general. According to
11:08
Speaker 2: the Department of Justice, there were 1,832 homicides in New
11:13
Speaker 2: York City in 1981, and handguns were used in just
11:17
Speaker 2: under 60% of them. Now, this is compared to 22
11:22
Speaker 2: homicides in the whole city of New York in 2025.
11:26
Speaker 2: One reason that it seems less like a random robbery
11:29
Speaker 2: is because there was no sign of forced entry at
11:32
Speaker 2: the crime scene So let's move on to the second possibility,
11:37
Speaker 2: that the killer was someone Ronald knew, or at least
11:40
Speaker 2: knew well enough for Ronald to open the door, as
11:42
Speaker 2: opposed to there being a break-in, but whose intention was
11:45
Speaker 2: to steal Ronald's drugs. But if stealing drugs and robbery
11:49
Speaker 2: was the sole motive, why steal Ronald and Elizabeth's IDs?
11:54
Speaker 2: And why shoot them in the back of the head?
11:59
Speaker 2: Let's back up a minute, because Ronald is described in
12:03
Speaker 2: a lot of these media reports from the early 1980s
12:07
Speaker 2: as a drug dealer. But for me, one big question
12:10
Speaker 2: that was never answered is, what's the street value of
12:13
Speaker 2: the drugs that were taken? How much cocaine did he
12:16
Speaker 2: actually have in that apartment? Because some of the media
12:20
Speaker 2: reports make it sound like he was this big-time drug dealer.
12:24
Speaker 2: But the Daily News said that he sold cocaine generally
12:27
Speaker 2: to friends. which, let's face it, was not uncommon in 1981.
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Speaker 2: Could Ronald have gotten an unusually big score that someone
12:37
Speaker 2: found out about? Or did someone have the impression that
12:40
Speaker 2: he would have more drugs than he did? Because whoever
12:43
Speaker 2: came in there seemed determined to finish the job. In 2025,
12:49
Speaker 2: the Independent newspaper did a review of the case and
12:54
Speaker 2: spoke to a retired NYPD sergeant, Joseph L. Giacalone. a
12:59
Speaker 2: former commanding officer of the Bronx Cold Case Squad. He
13:03
Speaker 2: told the newspaper that the killings appeared to be a
13:06
Speaker 2: targeted hit and that he believed that the killer or
13:09
Speaker 2: killers had been inside Ronald's apartment prior to the night
13:13
Speaker 2: of the murders. And the sergeant specifically told the independent
13:18
Speaker 2: that it was the execution-style killings, shooting Ronald and Elizabeth
13:22
Speaker 2: in the back of the head, that made him wonder, quote,
13:25
Speaker 2: who kills like that? And say, quote, The shortlist, organized
13:30
Speaker 2: crime or drug dealers, rarely do you see execution style
13:34
Speaker 2: homicides in people who just have disputes, end quote. He
13:39
Speaker 2: also told the newspaper that because Ronald worked from home,
13:43
Speaker 2: a lot of people could have gone in and out
13:45
Speaker 2: of that apartment. And even if they were doing something
13:47
Speaker 2: like using the bathroom during a photo shoot, they could
13:51
Speaker 2: have known exactly what was in there. According to the
13:54
Speaker 2: New York Daily News, police said that the people who
13:58
Speaker 2: came into Ronald's apartment were looking for drugs, and that
14:01
Speaker 2: their theory was that Ronald tried to stop them and
14:04
Speaker 2: the killers turned on him. There was something else that
14:08
Speaker 2: had happened, too. Ronald had told people that he was
14:11
Speaker 2: worried that his apartment had been broken into. And so,
14:16
Speaker 2: two days before the killings, he applied for two gun permits.
14:21
Speaker 2: Because New York pistol license applications required an applicant to
14:25
Speaker 2: explain the need for the weapon, if we could find
14:29
Speaker 2: that documentation, it could potentially tell us more about that
14:33
Speaker 2: burglary if it was reported, exactly what happened, and who
14:38
Speaker 2: Ronald suspected was involved. It was reported that he owned
14:42
Speaker 2: a gun that he kept at home, a. 25 caliber handgun,
14:45
Speaker 2: but it was never found. I have done a FOIA
14:49
Speaker 2: request for that information. But even if I get a response,
14:53
Speaker 2: I'm being realistic here, it can take months or sometimes
14:56
Speaker 2: even years to get a response from the NYPD. Detectives
15:00
Speaker 2: said that Ronald was shot four times and Elizabeth was
15:04
Speaker 2: shot three times. We still don't know what the murder
15:08
Speaker 2: weapon was. Did the killer bring a gun with them?
15:12
Speaker 2: Or could Ronald and Elizabeth have been shot with Ronald's gun?
15:17
Speaker 2: That might tell us a lot about what the killer's
15:20
Speaker 2: original intention was But unfortunately, since it's still technically an
15:24
Speaker 2: open and active investigation, the files aren't public, and police
15:28
Speaker 2: have never released that information. It felt as if the
15:34
Speaker 2: perpetrators just vanished into thin air, and with so little
15:37
Speaker 2: to go on, the Halloween night murders left investigators with
15:42
Speaker 2: more questions than answers. As they continued to search for
15:46
Speaker 2: a motive, it led police to question if Ronald was
15:50
Speaker 2: could have been targeted for another reason. And it turns
15:53
Speaker 2: out there's more to Ronald's history. He had a connection
15:57
Speaker 2: to a high-profile case in Southampton involving serious allegations of
16:03
Speaker 2: rape and assault. And he was also accused of drugging
16:07
Speaker 2: a young actress. Earlier in 1981, Melanie Haller, a 22-year-old
16:17
Speaker 2: actress most famous for her role in the 1970s show
16:21
Speaker 2: Welcome Back, Cotter, was hospitalized for a drug overdose after
16:25
Speaker 2: spending time at Ronald Sisman's apartment. Melanie Howler had grown
16:30
Speaker 2: up in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and playing Angie on Welcome Back,
16:34
Speaker 2: Cotter was her first-ever acting role. The show was hugely popular,
16:40
Speaker 2: so this role got her national attention. But she was
16:44
Speaker 2: only on seven episodes in 1978. By 1980, Melanie was, again,
16:50
Speaker 2: a struggling actress trying to get more roles. In March
16:53
Speaker 2: of 1980, she appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine.
16:58
Speaker 2: Ronald introduced Melanie to Roy Radin, a vaudeville theater producer
17:02
Speaker 2: who was trying to become a film producer. Roy actually
17:06
Speaker 2: started out doing circus shows, including promoting a famous chimp
17:10
Speaker 2: named J. Fred Muggs, and later moved on to promoting comedians.
17:15
Speaker 2: But what he really wanted was to break into the
17:17
Speaker 2: movie industry. And he told a lot of young actresses
17:21
Speaker 2: that he may be able to help with their careers.
17:24
Speaker 2: During this time, there were stories of debaucherous parties that
17:28
Speaker 2: happened at Roy's estate, a massive 72-room mansion on Meadow
17:33
Speaker 2: Lane in Southampton, Long Island, perhaps the most exclusive address
17:37
Speaker 2: in that area. It runs right along the beach, and
17:41
Speaker 2: it's near the Meadows Beach Club. Ronald Sisma knew Melanie Howler.
17:46
Speaker 2: He actually introduced her to Roy Radin. And on April 12, 1980,
17:51
Speaker 2: Melanie Howler went to a dinner party in Southampton at
17:55
Speaker 2: Roy's home. What happened next, only a few people know.
18:00
Speaker 2: But Melanie alleged that she was raped and beaten and
18:03
Speaker 2: viciously attacked that night. There was a huge New York
18:08
Speaker 2: Magazine article about this scandal called Melanie Howler's Lost Weekend.
18:12
Speaker 2: If you're interested in the whole story, I highly recommend
18:15
Speaker 2: that you check it out. It was written by Anthony
18:18
Speaker 2: Hayden Guest. The New York Magazine article pointed out something else,
18:22
Speaker 2: that Roy Radin had a long association with the local police.
18:26
Speaker 2: Around 150 of his shows had been sponsored by local
18:30
Speaker 2: police benevolent associations. Only the people who were in the
18:34
Speaker 2: room really know what happened that night after the dinner party.
18:38
Speaker 2: But we do know a few things for sure. Melanie
18:41
Speaker 2: later told Suffolk County detectives that she traveled to the
18:45
Speaker 2: party with a 43-year-old businessman, Robert McKeague. Melanie brought her
18:50
Speaker 2: portfolio to the party. She hoped to chat with Roy
18:53
Speaker 2: about her career. Much later that evening, someone called Melanie's mother, Myra,
18:58
Speaker 2: who lived on the Upper East Side, and told her
19:01
Speaker 2: that Melody was incoherent. Myra told them to put Melanie
19:05
Speaker 2: in a town car and send her back to the
19:07
Speaker 2: city right then. But instead of using a limousine service,
19:11
Speaker 2: Melanie's date dumped her on a Manhattan-bound Long Island Railroad
19:15
Speaker 2: train at the Southampton stop. The conductor found Melanie passed
19:20
Speaker 2: out and covered with blood and called the police. Melanie
19:24
Speaker 2: told detectives that she was beaten and raped at Roy's
19:27
Speaker 2: house by her date and by Roy and that the
19:31
Speaker 2: alleged assault had been filmed. Roy completely denied the attack.
19:36
Speaker 2: He said Melanie had taken part in consensual sexual games.
19:41
Speaker 2: Melanie told Anthony Hayden Guest that at first she did
19:44
Speaker 2: go along with the sex, but then she said she
19:47
Speaker 2: became enraged when she saw that she was being filmed
19:50
Speaker 2: without her consent. She smashed someone's video camera. And that's
19:56
Speaker 2: when she said things got completely out of control. She
19:59
Speaker 2: claims that she was beaten and raped by, quote, two
20:03
Speaker 2: women and two men. The men, according to police records,
20:07
Speaker 2: were her date, Robert, and Roy Radin. Women who Melanie
20:12
Speaker 2: alleged held her down during the alleged rape were Roy
20:16
Speaker 2: Radin's then-fiancé and another woman. Later, Roy Radin and Robert
20:21
Speaker 2: McKeague were prosecuted. Roy Radin claimed that he had an alibi. Apparently,
20:27
Speaker 2: someone else at the party that night had tried to
20:30
Speaker 2: kill themselves by overdosing on sleeping pills, and Roy accompanied
20:34
Speaker 2: that person to the emergency room at Southampton Hospital. A
20:38
Speaker 2: videotape of Melanie's assault was found at Roy's residence, and
20:43
Speaker 2: detectives were able to establish that only Melanie's date was
20:48
Speaker 2: on the video and that the camera was stationary and
20:51
Speaker 2: had not been held by another person. The Anthony Hayden
20:55
Speaker 2: guest article, and don't get me wrong, I love him
20:58
Speaker 2: as a writer. I think it's just a sign of
21:00
Speaker 2: the times, is gossipy and at times, in my opinion,
21:03
Speaker 2: has kind of a weird tone. It says that there
21:06
Speaker 2: were parties in Southampton where women wore dog collars and
21:10
Speaker 2: partied topless in pools and that the area had become
21:14
Speaker 2: more like pool parties at the Playboy Mansion. And someone
21:17
Speaker 2: says that they hope that the scandal caused from all
21:21
Speaker 2: of this, meaning the alleged rape and assault, didn't mean
21:24
Speaker 2: that these parties would have to go what they called
21:27
Speaker 2: back into the closet. I think that they were conflating
21:30
Speaker 2: two things, which was fairly common in the early 80s
21:33
Speaker 2: and honestly still happens today. Hedonistic parties where people are
21:38
Speaker 2: free to engage in their sexuality and non-consensual beating and
21:44
Speaker 2: sexual assault. Eventually, Robert McKeague was indicted by a grand
21:48
Speaker 2: jury on the felony assault charge. Roy Radin was indicted
21:52
Speaker 2: on misdemeanor gun and drug charges. However, after a plea deal,
21:57
Speaker 2: the Suffolk County Court sentenced Robert to 30 days in
22:00
Speaker 2: jail plus five years probation. Meanwhile, Roy Radin pled guilty
22:05
Speaker 2: to the possession of a gun and was fined $ 1, 000
22:07
Speaker 2: and was also placed on probation. His fiancée, who Melanie
22:13
Speaker 2: had alleged held her down during the sexual assault, was
22:17
Speaker 2: fined $ 50 for harassing Melanie Heller. The Daily News reported
22:22
Speaker 2: that none of the men were convicted of rape. So
22:25
Speaker 2: what does any of this have to do with Ronald
22:27
Speaker 2: and Elizabeth's murder? A few months after the Southampton dinner party,
22:32
Speaker 2: Melanie was hanging out at Ronald Sisman's apartment on a
22:35
Speaker 2: Friday night, the same apartment where he was later murdered.
22:39
Speaker 2: And Melanie claimed that Ronald had injected her with a
22:42
Speaker 2: drug against her will. Melanie locked herself inside Ronald's bathroom, yelling,
22:48
Speaker 2: don't beat me, don't kill me. Melanie was taken to
22:51
Speaker 2: Brookhaven Memorial Hospital, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. And
22:56
Speaker 2: Melanie's account of Ronald injecting her with the drugs was
22:59
Speaker 2: contradicted by her own mother, who told reporters that Melanie
23:04
Speaker 2: had become confused. That actually what happened was that Ronald
23:08
Speaker 2: had given Melanie Valium to calm her down while Melanie
23:11
Speaker 2: was over at his apartment reliving the assault with Roy Radin.
23:16
Speaker 2: What happened to Melanie only got more nightmarish. Her mother, Myra,
23:21
Speaker 2: said that Melanie was totally traumatized and kept locking herself
23:26
Speaker 2: in bathrooms and asking if hospital staff were one of
23:29
Speaker 2: Radin's men. So Ronald Sisman was not in Southampton on
23:34
Speaker 2: the night of Melanie's attack. But could people have believed
23:38
Speaker 2: that he had harmed or was trying to harm her?
23:42
Speaker 2: It seems as though a lot of people back then
23:44
Speaker 2: may have confused the two events. the alleged assault of
23:49
Speaker 2: Melanie Howler at Roy Radin's home, and the later allegations
23:53
Speaker 2: that Melanie made about Ronald injecting her with drugs. I
23:58
Speaker 2: found a translation of the German newspaper Der Spiegel from
24:01
Speaker 2: back in the day that referred to Ronald as, quote,
24:04
Speaker 2: allegedly involved as a cameraman in the rape of Melanie Howler,
24:08
Speaker 2: with cameraman in quotes. The year after that dinner party,
24:12
Speaker 2: Roy Radin sold the Southampton house and moved to Los Angeles.
24:16
Speaker 2: And in 1983, two years after Robert and Elizabeth were killed,
24:22
Speaker 2: Roy Radin was also shot in the back of the head.
24:26
Speaker 2: Roy had partnered with a woman named Karen Delane Jacobs. Later,
24:30
Speaker 2: after she married again, she became Karen Delane Jacobs Greenberg.
24:35
Speaker 2: Karen introduced Roy to the legendary director Robert Evans, who
24:39
Speaker 2: worked on films like Rosemary's Baby and The Godfather. By
24:43
Speaker 2: this time, Robert's career was kind of on the decline.
24:48
Speaker 2: Robert needed funding, and Roy desperately wanted to be a
24:52
Speaker 2: movie producer and get Hollywood fame. Robert Evans at the
24:57
Speaker 2: time was looking for funding for a movie called The
24:59
Speaker 2: Cotton Club. Roy Radin committed to raising $ 35 million to
25:04
Speaker 2: finance this movie. But things went bad between Roy and
25:09
Speaker 2: Karen because, apparently... Roy believed that she should get a
25:13
Speaker 2: finder's fee, and Karen believed she was entitled to a
25:16
Speaker 2: cut of the film's profits. And Karen began to suspect
25:19
Speaker 2: that Roy may have been behind the theft of a
25:22
Speaker 2: large amount of cocaine from her home. Karen was heavily
25:26
Speaker 2: involved in the drug trade, and her seventh husband was
25:29
Speaker 2: the second-in-command of the Medellin cartel. May 13, 1983, Roy
25:36
Speaker 2: got into a limousine to meet Karen for lunch, and
25:39
Speaker 2: after that, he disappeared. His body was found weeks later
25:43
Speaker 2: in June in a remote canyon near Gorman, California by
25:47
Speaker 2: a beekeeper, still wearing the Gucci shoes and evening suit
25:51
Speaker 2: he had been wearing when he got into the limo.
25:53
Speaker 2: Roy had a stick of dynamite that had blown up
25:56
Speaker 2: in his mouth and a bullet in the back of
25:59
Speaker 2: his head. In 1992, Karen Greenberger was convicted of kidnapping
26:04
Speaker 2: and second-degree murder in connection with Roy Radin's death and
26:08
Speaker 2: was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
26:14
Speaker 2: A hitman she hired and two other co-defendants were also
26:17
Speaker 2: convicted of Roy's first-degree murder, which the press called the
26:21
Speaker 2: Cotton Club murder. The film, by the way, eventually was
26:25
Speaker 2: produced by Robert Evans and came out in 1984. Apparently,
26:29
Speaker 2: it was a huge flop. There are some similarities here
26:33
Speaker 2: between Ronald and Elizabeth's murders in 1981 and the later
26:37
Speaker 2: murder of Roy Radin. cocaine, drug deals mixing with potential
26:43
Speaker 2: business deals, and execution-style murders. But to my knowledge, no
26:48
Speaker 2: link has ever been made between Roy Radin's murder and
26:52
Speaker 2: the murders of Robert and Elizabeth on Halloween 1981 in Chelsea.
26:57
Speaker 2: And a few years later, there would be even stranger
27:00
Speaker 2: theories about what happened to Robert and Elizabeth that include
27:04
Speaker 2: a satanic cult that and an alleged connection to the
27:07
Speaker 2: infamous New York City serial killer known as Son of Sam.
27:17
Speaker 2: In 1987, journalist Maury Terry published a book about the
27:21
Speaker 2: serial killer David Berkowitz, a.k.a. the Son of Sam, the
27:25
Speaker 2: postal worker who terrified New York when he went on
27:29
Speaker 2: a killing spree between July of 1976 and August of 1977.
27:35
Speaker 2: targeting couples in parked cars in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx.
27:40
Speaker 2: He shot and killed six victims until August of 1977,
27:44
Speaker 2: when he was arrested. In this book, Maury Terry alleged
27:49
Speaker 2: that the Son of Sam killings were the work of
27:51
Speaker 2: a satanic cult. He also wrote that Ronald Sisman and
27:56
Speaker 2: Roy Radin were also in this cult. And in that book,
28:01
Speaker 2: He stated that David Berkowitz predicted Ronald and Elizabeth's murders
28:06
Speaker 2: weeks before they happened. This book also features letters from
28:11
Speaker 2: a prison informant who claimed that David Berkowitz had predicted
28:15
Speaker 2: Ronald Sisman's murders weeks in advance. David supposedly told this
28:21
Speaker 2: source that the cult would kill Ronald because Ronald supposedly
28:25
Speaker 2: had filmed the killing of Stacey Moskowitz. who David Berkowitz
28:29
Speaker 2: fatally shot on July 31, 1977. The informant claimed that
28:34
Speaker 2: Ronald was killed because he was supposedly planning to give
28:38
Speaker 2: this video murder footage to police in order to cut
28:42
Speaker 2: a deal because Ronald was in trouble over drug charges.
28:46
Speaker 2: The source said that David Berkowitz had actually visited Ronald
28:50
Speaker 2: Sisman's apartment years earlier. By the way, Maury Kelly also
28:54
Speaker 2: believed that Roy Radin was also part of the satanic cult.
28:58
Speaker 2: The problem is that David Berkowitz has a long history
29:01
Speaker 2: of changing his stories. First, when he initially confessed to
29:05
Speaker 2: the murders, he said that he was obeying a demon
29:07
Speaker 2: who spoke to him through his neighbor's dog named Sam,
29:10
Speaker 2: which led to his nickname. But much later, he admitted
29:14
Speaker 2: that he never heard voices from his neighbor's dog. Maury
29:17
Speaker 2: Terry's claims were revisited in the 2021 Netflix documentary, The
29:22
Speaker 2: Sons of Sam, A Descent Into Darkness. But again, none
29:26
Speaker 2: of these allegations were ever proven. There's absolutely no evidence
29:30
Speaker 2: to support the theory that David Berkowitz was part of
29:33
Speaker 2: a satanic cult or that the killings of Ronald and
29:36
Speaker 2: Elizabeth had any kind of satanic motive. And, by the way,
29:41
Speaker 2: David Berkowitz later said he wasn't actually part of a
29:44
Speaker 2: cult at all. So, it probably wasn't Satan, but something
29:49
Speaker 2: had scared Ronald enough that he applied for two gun
29:53
Speaker 2: permits days before he was killed. And we still don't
29:57
Speaker 2: know exactly why. So where does that put us? The
30:01
Speaker 2: drug theory is still plausible. But even though police found
30:06
Speaker 2: a small amount of cocaine and theorized that this was
30:08
Speaker 2: a drug-related robbery, there was no proof of that because
30:12
Speaker 2: no one's ever been arrested or convicted. There is also
30:16
Speaker 2: no evidence that even though there are similarities in how
30:19
Speaker 2: they died, that the murders of Ronald and Elizabeth had
30:23
Speaker 2: anything to do to do with Roy Radin's party and
30:26
Speaker 2: his connection with the alleged assault of Melanie Howler. A
30:30
Speaker 2: lot of articles refer to these killings as having potential
30:34
Speaker 2: son of Sam ties, and I think that's misleading because again,
30:37
Speaker 2: there was zero evidence of that ever happening. All of
30:41
Speaker 2: these claims by the prison informant were made after the murders,
30:45
Speaker 2: not before. But I do think it's slightly different in
30:48
Speaker 2: the case of Roy Radin because even though there's no
30:51
Speaker 2: evidence that Ronald was at Roy's house on the night
30:54
Speaker 2: Melanie was assaulted, Ronald and Roy were both involved in drugs,
30:59
Speaker 2: and they knew a lot of the same people. And
31:02
Speaker 2: Roy was also killed execution style. I do think that
31:06
Speaker 2: these potential connections are worth exploring. The cold case detective
31:11
Speaker 2: who talked to the independent newspaper made what I consider
31:14
Speaker 2: to be a very true statement. When there is not
31:17
Speaker 2: a lot of evidence, wilder theories tend to multiply. He
31:22
Speaker 2: said that in his opinion, it may be possible to
31:25
Speaker 2: do more forensic testing that could solve the case. But
31:28
Speaker 2: he said that he wasn't sure if there was any
31:31
Speaker 2: usable DNA found. He described how his cold case team
31:36
Speaker 2: approached investigations. saying that they would review the whole case
31:40
Speaker 2: file and look for a clue that someone else missed.
31:44
Speaker 2: But he also acknowledged the difficulty of prosecuting the case
31:47
Speaker 2: after this long. The detective said, quote, at this point,
31:51
Speaker 2: unless somebody, you know, makes a deathbed confession, it's a
31:55
Speaker 2: long shot, end quote. 45 years later, Ronald and Elizabeth's
32:04
Speaker 2: murders are still unsolved. Eventually, The third-floor apartment where Ronald
32:08
Speaker 2: lived was bought and combined with another apartment to create
32:12
Speaker 2: a 12-bedroom duplex. In August of 2025, it went up
32:16
Speaker 2: for sale. Asking price? $ 6. 5 million. The NYPD has said
32:23
Speaker 2: they are still looking for someone who might have seen
32:27
Speaker 2: something on Halloween Eve or in the early morning hours
32:31
Speaker 2: of Halloween 1981. They are asking anyone who has information
32:35
Speaker 2: about the case. to contact the NYPD 20th Precinct directly,
32:40
Speaker 2: or they can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS. That's 1-800-577-TIPS.
32:50
Speaker 2: I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Hell and Gone Murder Line.
32:56
Speaker 2: Hell and Gone Murder Line is a production of School
32:58
Speaker 2: of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me,
33:02
Speaker 2: Katherine Townsend, and produced by Edelise Perez. Special thanks to
33:06
Speaker 2: Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and James Wheaton for
33:10
Speaker 2: legal review. Jesse Neiswanger mixed and scored this episode. Our
33:14
Speaker 2: theme song is by Ben Salit. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
33:18
Speaker 2: Brandon Barr, and L.C. Crowley. Listen to Hell and Gone
33:22
Speaker 2: ad-free by subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel
33:25
Speaker 2: on Apple Podcasts. If you are interested in seeing documents
33:28
Speaker 2: and materials from the case, you can follow the show
33:31
Speaker 2: on Instagram at hellandgonepod. If you have a case you'd
33:35
Speaker 2: like me and my team to look into, you can
33:37
Speaker 2: reach out to us at our Hell and Gone murder
33:39
Speaker 2: line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145. School of Humans.