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The True and Terrifying Story Of The Fall River Satanic Cult Case | Massachusetts · Mystery Archives Episodes

0:03
Fall River, MA October of 1979. The first body wasn't buried.
0:10
It was left out in the open like an invitation.
0:15
Her name was Doreen Levisky, and she was 17.
0:20
They found her beneath the football bleachers of a local
0:24
high school, arms twisted behind her back, skull chattered,
0:30
clothes torn. Whoever did it wanted her scene,
0:35
wanted someone, anyone, to understand that this was only
0:42
the beginning. At first, police assumed it was
0:46
just another St. crime. All River was cracking at its
0:50
seams, its once thriving Milltown spirit swallowed by
0:55
decay and addiction. Young girls vanished often.
1:00
Some returned, some didn't. Most were forgotten.
1:06
But this wasn't just violence. It was a message, and would be
1:10
followed by more. Within five months, two more
1:15
women would die. Their bodies would turn up
1:18
burned, broken, scattered throughout the woods of Freetown
1:24
Forest, a place where maps don't help and screams never make it
1:30
out. At the center of it all, an
1:33
alleged satanic colt, a young woman who claimed to witness a
1:37
human sacrifice, and a man some would call the devil himself.
1:45
His name was Carl Drew. And in the shadow of the
1:48
Bridgeport Water Triangle, truth and myth would bleed together
1:54
until no one could tell the difference.
1:57
This is the story of murder, manipulation, ritual and fear.
2:03
A story buried beneath decades of silence and folklore.
2:08
A story where the victims are real, the confessions change
2:13
like shifting shadows, and the devil never needed to show his
2:18
face to leave a stain. Welcome to Fall River.
2:25
Fall River was a city bleeding slowly.
2:29
Once an industrial powerhouse along the Taunton River, the
2:32
textile mills that had built its wealth now stood like silent
2:37
tombstones. As jobs vanished, so did
2:41
opportunity. Entire blocks decayed, windows
2:46
were boarded up and young women disappeared into alleys, some
2:51
into drug addiction, others into sex work, and some simply
2:58
vanished. Among the cracked sidewalks and
3:01
flickering streetlights, an ancient kind of fear took root,
3:06
one that whispered of rituals, blood oaths, and unseen forces
3:11
gathering in the shadows. On the morning of October 13th,
3:16
1979, that fear would take on a physical form.
3:22
It was cold for October. Maintenance worker Raymond
3:26
Gannon was making his usual rounds at Diamond Regional
3:30
Vocational Technical High School, checking the athletic
3:34
fields before sunrise. He never forgot the way the air
3:38
felt heavier than usual, he told police later, like the whole
3:43
world had taken a deep breath and stopped moving.
3:49
At 8:57 AM, he spotted something beneath the metal bleachers of
3:54
the football field. It was a girl, 17 year old
3:59
Doreen Lewiski lay crumpled, her legs splayed unnaturally, her
4:06
arms bent behind her back as though tied.
4:10
Her jeans were torn and blood soaked.
4:13
The gravel beneath her head, her skull had been caved in
4:18
violently and repeatedly. A chunk of concrete was nearby,
4:24
also stained red. She had been taken, beaten and
4:30
left in plain sight. The first officer on the scene,
4:34
Patrolman Alan Silva, radioed it in as a possible homicide within
4:41
30 minutes. Detective Paul Carey, a seasoned
4:45
investigator with Fall River Police Department, was staring
4:48
down at the girl's body. She wasn't hidden, Carey later
4:53
recalled. It wasn't about avoiding
4:56
capture. This was a message.
5:00
But from who into whom remained a mystery.
5:07
Doreen Lewiski had once been a student in New Bedford.
5:11
She drifted into Fall River months before her murder and
5:15
began working the streets near Bedford St. and 3rd.
5:19
Local officers knew her. She was young, troubled and
5:24
likely under the control of a pimp.
5:27
She told friends she'd found protection, but no one knew who
5:31
it was. That night, witnesses claimed to
5:35
have seen her around 10:30 PM near the bus terminal.
5:39
She appeared high, nervous, and was seen speaking with a tall
5:44
man in a dark jacket. Her brutal death shocked the
5:48
police force, but in the public eye, her murder barely made
5:53
headlines. She was a teenage sex worker in
5:57
1979. That meant that her life was
6:00
already halfway ridden off. But for the investigators still
6:05
willing to look deeper, her murder didn't look random.
6:10
Following Doreen's death, St. girls began disappearing from
6:13
their usual spots near Bedford and N Main.
6:17
Some left town, Others started naming names Carl Drew, Robin
6:24
Murphy, Karen Marsden and Barbara Raposa.
6:30
They whispered about cult meetings deep in the Freetown
6:33
Fall River State Forest, about ceremonies, chance and blood.
6:41
Detectives heard stories of women being dragged into the
6:44
woods and told they'd never return.
6:48
There was talk of a man who believed himself to be a vessel
6:51
for Satan, of sacrifices, of blood soaked altars.
6:58
Most of the girls were addicts, homeless and few wanted to talk
7:03
to police. And those who did seem to be too
7:07
terrified to tell the full truth.
7:11
It wasn't just the city that was haunted.
7:13
Locals had long spoken of the Bridgewater Triangle, a stretch
7:18
of southeastern Massachusetts. Infamous or strange occurrences,
7:23
the triangle included Fall River, Freetown and Rehoboth
7:29
within it. UFO sightings, strange lights,
7:34
phantom creatures and ritual sites left behind in the woods.
7:39
At the heart of this triangle was Freetown State Forest, a
7:44
vast dark expanse where hikers had reported mutilated animals,
7:50
roped figures in the remains of burned out fires surrounded by
7:55
bones. As Doreen's murder cooled with
7:59
no suspects, detectives began to wander.
8:03
Was this really just another St. killing or at Fall River become
8:07
home to something darker? By early November 1979, the
8:14
streets were quieter, but not safer.
8:17
Barbara Raposa had been a sex worker too, though few knew the
8:22
extent of her involvement. 19 years old, she had a child, a
8:28
fragile relationship with reality, and a habit of
8:32
disappearing for days at a time. She was known to police and
8:37
social workers, but more than anything she was known to Andy
8:42
Maltas, a much older man with dark beliefs.
8:48
On November 7th, Barbara failed to pick up her baby from the
8:52
babysitter. Friends hadn't seen her.
8:56
Her usual haunts downtown Fall River, the strip near Maine, N
9:01
turned up nothing. She had vanished.
9:05
Maltese was the last to see her. Andrew Maltese was 44, tall,
9:12
unpredictable and described by some as a delusional Satanist.
9:19
A former mental hospital patient, he had a fascination
9:22
with the occult and a controlling obsession with
9:25
Barbara. He'd tell people he could
9:28
conjure spirits, that demons could be made to do your bidding
9:33
if you paid them in blood, that sex was a sacred exchange and
9:39
violence purified the soul. When Barbara went missing, while
9:45
taste didn't help search for her, he said she was where she
9:49
needed to be. Months later, in January of
9:53
1980, Hunter stumbled on her body in a secluded stretch of
9:58
the forest outside of Fall River.
10:01
She had been dead for weeks, possibly months.
10:06
Her remains were decomposed, her skull was fractured and her jaw
10:12
was dislocated. The cause of death was blunt
10:16
force trauma. The location not far from the
10:21
Freetown State Forest border. Maltase was arrested shortly
10:25
after, though it took nearly a decade to convict him.
10:31
But in the meantime, 1/3 girl was already slipping through the
10:35
cracks. Karen Marsden was 20, street
10:39
smart, worn down by years of addiction, abuse and selling her
10:45
body to survive. She moved between shelters,
10:49
motels and back seats. She knew everyone, Barbara,
10:56
Doreen, and most of all, Carl Drew.
11:01
Karen didn't just work for Drew, she feared him.
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In January of 1980, shaken by Barbara's death and certain that
11:11
she would be next, Karen approached Fall River police
11:15
with a story that they didn't know how to handle.
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She claimed that Carl Drew was the head of a satanic cult
11:23
operating in Fall River, that he used violence and ritual to
11:28
control girls like her, that she'd witnessed a human
11:32
sacrifice in the woods. She didn't name Barbara
11:36
specifically, but she said that she saw a girl get beaten, her
11:41
throat slit, and her body left for the devil.
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Detective Paul Carey, already frustrated by the silence
11:51
surrounding Doreen's case, leaned in.
11:54
Karen was terrified. She asked for protection.
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Police offered to move her to a safe house, but she declined.
12:04
She said that it was too late. I'm already dead, she whispered.
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He already told me Carl Drew was unlike Maltese.
12:15
He wasn't delusional, he was purposeful, a self styled
12:20
Satanist and Fall River pimp. He ran his girls with fists,
12:25
threats and mythology. He claimed to be the right hand
12:30
of Lucifer and according to Karen and others, he demanded
12:34
rituals in the woods. Robin Murphy, another girl in
12:39
Drew's circle, would later testify that he used animal
12:43
sacrifices to initiate followers, that he would chant,
12:48
draw symbols and demand blood to prove loyalty.
12:52
In Drew's world, there was no God, there was only power, and
12:57
power was taken through fear. Karen said she tried to leave,
13:04
but Drew warned her what would happen if she did.
13:07
He told me I'd end up like the others, she said.
13:11
On February 9th, 1980, Karen Mazdin was interviewed by police
13:16
again. She was nervous, shifting in her
13:20
seat and chain smoking through the interview.
13:24
She asked to be dropped off at Saint Mary's Church, a quiet
13:28
stone building where she sometimes sat alone at night.
13:32
It was the last time anyone ever saw her alive.
13:36
When she didn't return to the shelter that night, her
13:39
grandmother filed a missing persons report.
13:42
Karen's disappearance didn't make headlines, but for
13:45
detectives like Carrie, it was a breaking point.
13:49
They had three girls, all connected, all involved in
13:54
street work and Drew's circle, and all had been in fear for
13:58
their lives. And now all were dead or gone.
14:04
In March of 1980, under pressure and perhaps her own fear, Robin
14:09
Murphy came forward. She told police she had
14:13
witnessed Karen Marston's murder and chilling ritualistic detail.
14:18
She claimed Drew and another man, Willie Smith, dragged Karen
14:23
into the woods of Westport, not far from the border of the
14:27
Freetown forest. There they beat her, slit her
14:33
throat, mutilated her body and burned parts of her remains in a
14:39
ritual fire. Murphy said Drew invoked Satan
14:45
that he stood over Karen's corpse and proclaimed himself a
14:49
vessel of the devil. In April, fragments of a human
14:54
skull were found in the location that Murphy had described.
14:58
Tess would later confirm it as belonging to Karen Marsden.
15:04
With Murphy's statement and the remains found, Drew and Smith
15:08
were arrested. Murphy herself was also charged.
15:13
She had admitted to participating in the murder.
15:17
She claims she was under Carl Drew's spell as she feared him
15:22
as she had no choice. But over the coming months, her
15:26
story would change and keep changing.
15:30
She was a witness, then a participant.
15:34
Then she claimed that she made it all up.
15:37
By the time the trials began, the line between truth, fear and
15:42
invention had blurred completely.
15:46
Freetown Fall River State Forest is over 5000 acres of dense,
15:52
tangled wilderness past that lead to nowhere, hills that
15:57
muffle sound and a silence so total it crushes thought.
16:04
It's easy to get lost in the forest, easier still to
16:08
disappear. On a cold Gray morning in April
16:13
of 1980, a small search team trudged through the underbrush
16:18
near Reed Rd. in Westport, just a few miles from the edge of the
16:22
forest. The location had been provided
16:25
by Robin Murphy. Under interrogation, she claimed
16:30
it was where Carl Drew had brought them to make a
16:32
sacrifice. There, in the damp soil, beneath
16:37
a pile of brush and dead leaves, they found what appeared to be
16:42
pieces of a human skull. Forensic analysis confirmed it.
16:49
The fragments belong to Karen Marsden.
16:52
There were no teeth, no body, just bone shards singed in
16:59
places and broken in others. Robin had said that they burned
17:04
her hair, mutilated her face, and cut off her fingers.
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The evidence was grotesque, but it matched her story.
17:14
Detectives stared at the skull pieces in silence.
17:18
They had their proof. As news of the third murder
17:23
broke, the press finally took notice.
17:26
Not of the victims, but of the rumors.
17:30
Reporters latched on to the word satanic rituals in the woods,
17:36
blood sacrifices, witchcraft, a cult of prostitutes and pimps,
17:44
and service to the devil. And they had a name for the
17:48
location, the Bridgewater Triangle.
17:53
Coined in the 1970s by cryptozoologist Lauren Coleman,
17:58
the triangle was said to be a paranormal vortex, a place of
18:02
strange lights, phantom creatures, poltergeist activity
18:07
and dark rituals. Freetown State Forest sat near
18:11
its center, and now 3 murder victims did.
18:15
Two people began calling it cursed.
18:20
Hikers stayed away. Locals whispered of shadowy
18:24
figures and symbols carved into the trees.
18:28
Police officers even admitted quietly that they hated
18:32
patrolling the forest at night. It's bad ground, one officer
18:37
reportedly said, and always has been.
18:42
Carl Drew was formally charged with first degree murder in the
18:45
death of Karen Marston. Prosecutors argued that he was a
18:49
satanic cult leader who argued her death to maintain control of
18:54
his circle of sex workers, that Karen wanted out, that she was
18:59
going to talk, and that she had paid with her life.
19:05
Robin Murphy was the star witness.
19:09
She testified that Drew believed himself to be a high priest of
19:12
Satan, that he performed blood rituals, mutilated animals, and
19:18
promised followers power in exchange for loyalty.
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She said that she had watched Drew slice Karen's throat, that
19:28
he kicked her head in chanting satanic phrases, that they
19:32
burned her remains as an offering, and it was one of the
19:37
most shocking testimonies in Massachusetts legal history.
19:42
But Robin wasn't just a witness, she was also a participant.
19:47
She was charged with second degree murder, received a life
19:51
sentence with the possibility of parole in exchange for her
19:55
cooperation. Her statement had sealed Drew's
19:59
fate. But even during the trial,
20:02
doubts crept in. Murphy changed details of her
20:06
testimony multiple times. She admitted to lying in the
20:10
past. Defense attorneys argued that
20:13
she was manipulating the system to reduce her own sentence.
20:18
That the entire Satanic narrative had been fabricated.
20:22
There was no physical evidence linking Karl Drew to the murder,
20:27
only Robin Murphy's word. Still, the jury believed her.
20:33
Drew was convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility
20:38
of parole. With Drew behind bars and Murphy
20:42
in prison, Fall River tried to move on, but the questions only
20:47
multiplied. Who really killed Doreen
20:50
Lewiski? Why did Murphy's story shift so
20:54
dramatically over time? And was Carl Drew truly a cult
20:58
leader or just a violent pimp scapegoated by panic?
21:04
Even decades later, Murphy would recant portions of her
21:07
confession. She claimed she lied under
21:10
pressure, that police coerced her into connecting Drew to the
21:14
murder, That she, not Drew, had been in control.
21:20
In one interview, she said there was no Colt, there was no
21:25
sacrifice, there was just fear and blood.
21:30
Investigators returned to the forest in the years following
21:33
the trials, and they would find stone circle stained with wax,
21:39
inverted crosses carved into trees, dead animals arranged in
21:44
ritualistic patterns, and charred bones of unknown origin.
21:50
As a result of this and the stories surrounding the place,
21:54
paranormal groups began exploring the forest with spirit
21:58
boxes and infrared cameras. Some claim to hear voices
22:03
whispering, others caught orbs on camera or recorded screams
22:09
that weren't audible in person. One investigator left the forest
22:14
after a session and was found catatonic in their car the next
22:18
morning. He never returned to the site,
22:21
and he never would speak about what he saw.
22:26
The Fall River cult murders didn't exist in a vacuum.
22:29
By the early 1980s, America was on fire with a new fear.
22:35
Satanic Colts daytime television exploded with segments warning
22:41
parents of hidden devil worshippers.
22:44
Talk shows featured former cult members claiming to have
22:48
witnessed blood sacrifices and black masses in small town
22:53
America. The Mcmartin preschool case, the
22:57
West Memphis 3, and books like Michelle Remembers became part
23:02
of a nationwide hysteria and at the center of Massachusetts's
23:07
contribution to the moral panic, Karl Drew.
23:12
His name became shorthand for the occult, A Satanic cult
23:17
leader who used prostitutes as human sacrifices.
23:21
Their narrative had it all sex, murder, religion, youth, and
23:28
evil. The truth, however, was murkier.
23:33
Almost immediately after Karl Drew's conviction, critics began
23:36
to question the integrity of the case.
23:39
There was no physical evidence linking him to Karen Marsden's
23:43
death. The entire prosecution rested on
23:46
the testimony of Robin Murphy, a troubled, inconsistent teen who
23:51
admitted to lying and changing her story multiple times.
23:56
Andrew Maltese, convicted of murdering Barbara Raposa, was
24:01
himself obsessed with Satanism and did admit to performing
24:05
rituals. But there were no verified cult
24:08
members, no recovered altars, and no documented rituals beyond
24:14
what Murphy had claimed. In fact, no one was ever charged
24:19
for the murder of Doreen Lewiski, the first victim.
24:24
And yet the image stuck. Drew as Satan soldier, Fall
24:29
River as a town corrupted by hell.
24:33
Robin Murphy was granted parole in 2004 after serving just 24
24:38
years. She gave multiple interviews
24:41
over the years, each time altering her story.
24:45
She once said Carl didn't kill Karen.
24:49
I made that up. I said what they wanted me to
24:52
say. But then in other interviews,
24:55
she hinted that Drew did order the murder as she was scared of
24:59
him, that the rituals were real. Her flip flopping became a
25:04
cornerstone of Carl Drew's appeals, all of which have been
25:09
denied. Then in 2011, Murphy violated
25:14
her parole and returned to prison.
25:17
She was paroled again in 2023, released quietly with no press.
25:24
When asked by a reporter if she believed in Satan, she simply
25:29
said, I believe and consequences.
25:34
While the courtroom battles faded, the folklore of the case
25:37
did not. Freetown State Forest became a
25:41
hotbed of ghost hunters and paranormal investigators.
25:45
The murder sites, especially the wooded areas near Reed Rd., took
25:50
on legendary status. Visitors have reported sudden
25:54
drops in temperature, voices among the trees, equipment
26:00
failure and persistent feelings of being watched.
26:05
Some have claimed to see a woman in white, blood on her mouth and
26:11
eyes wide in terror. Others have claimed that they've
26:15
been followed out of the woods by something that they couldn't
26:19
see. In 2017, a paranormal team
26:23
investigating the forest recorded a strange EVP.
26:27
It came during a session at night, under a full moon and at
26:32
the base of a Moss covered stone circle.
26:35
The voice whispered one word, Karen.
26:40
Today, the city still bears the scars.
26:44
The murder sites remain, some redeveloped, others overgrown.
26:51
Old timers don't talk about the cold.
26:54
The local police call the whole episode a case study and how
26:58
panic feeds perception. But the case still haunts books,
27:04
podcasts, YouTube documentaries such as the one you're watching
27:08
now. Investigators still argue
27:10
whether Drew was a Satanist or a scapegoat, whether Murphy was a
27:15
terrified girl manipulated by law enforcement or the true
27:20
mastermind behind the killings. Most of the original
27:24
investigators have died. Records have been lost,
27:28
witnesses disappeared. But the forest still stands, and
27:33
for those who walk it, the silence speaks.
27:38
Carl Drew's last words from a prison interview in 2008 would
27:43
be I'm not a Satanist. I never worshipped anything but
27:48
survival, but fear, Fear made me a monster to them.
27:53
You can bury the truth. You can even bury the bones.
27:58
But you can't bury the devil because people want him to be
28:02
real. The graves are quiet now.
28:07
Doreen Levinsky, Barbara Raposa and Karen Marsden.
28:12
Three young women lost in the dark corridors of a dying city,
28:16
tangled and a web of abuse, manipulation and possibly
28:22
something more. Something ancient.
28:26
Their stories were used, distorted and sold.
28:31
They became symbols of satanic terror and a decade desperate
28:35
for explanations. But behind every headline,
28:40
behind every whispered colt, was a human being frightened, alone
28:47
and forgotten. We remember the devil, but we
28:52
often times forget the dead. Today, locked away at MCI,
28:58
surely Carl Drew remains one of Massachusetts's most infamous
29:02
inmates. In interview after interview, he
29:06
has maintained his innocence. I was no Angel.
29:10
I hit people, I was violent, but I didn't kill anyone and I
29:16
didn't worship the devil. He's filed over a dozen appeals,
29:21
all of which have been denied. His lawyers argue that his
29:25
conviction was based on flimsy testimony, cultural hysteria and
29:31
a justice system eager to make a satanic example out of someone.
29:36
Each appeal that has been rejected has been rejected, with
29:40
a single sentence insufficient grounds to grant retrial.
29:46
Since her second parole in 2023, Robin Murphy has vanished from
29:51
the public eye, but her legacy remains one of the most complex
29:55
in American legal history. She was a witness, a confessed
30:01
participant, a liar, a victim, A manipulator, and possibly the
30:08
only person who knows the real truth.
30:12
In a 2006 interview, she was asked one final question.
30:17
Did you kill Karen Marsden? She looked directly into the
30:21
camera and said we all did and none of us did.
30:30
The forest hasn't been forgotten.
30:33
To this day, the Freetown Fall River State Forest remains one
30:36
of the most notorious paranormal hotspots in the country.
30:41
Visitors still report lights flickering deep in the trees,
30:45
disembodied screams, apparitions matching Karen Marsden's
30:50
appearance, and ritual sites disturbed as if recently used.
30:57
Cryptic messages appear on trees, and some still believe
31:02
that there are cults that meet there in secret, that whatever
31:06
walked those woods in the 1980s never left.
31:11
Some nights people claim to hear chanting echoing throughout the
31:15
forest, always just out of reach and always just out of sight.
31:22
In 2007, a Boston journalist named Elliott Vance visited the
31:27
forest to write a retrospective on the Fall River cult murders.
31:32
He was skeptical, hardened, not the kind to believe in ghosts or
31:37
curses. But when he returned, his
31:40
demeanor changed. He withdrew from friends,
31:45
refused interviews and quit his job.
31:49
In one of the last public appearances he made, he spoke
31:53
only a few words. Something is still there,
31:58
something that never sleeps. I left the forest, but it didn't
32:04
leave me. He was later hospitalized for
32:08
acute stress disorder, and he would never speak about Fall
32:12
River again. Maybe Carl Drew was a cult
32:17
leader. Maybe Robin Murphy was a
32:20
murderer. Maybe Karen Marsden saw
32:23
something that no one else was supposed to see.
32:27
Or maybe the devil is just a mirror, a reflection of the
32:33
darkest parts of ourselves, of our fear, of our willingness to
32:39
believe, of how quickly we can burn someone at the stake when
32:45
the smoke smells like sulfur. Fall River, 1979, a city of
32:53
ghosts, bones and secrets. And maybe, just maybe, one very
33:01
real devil. Thank you guys so much for
33:05
exploring this very creepy and dark case with me.
33:09
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I truly appreciate you all. Please stay safe, stay healthy,
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and I'll see you very soon with another new episode.
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This has been Cody here at Mystery Archives.
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Take care, I'll see you next time.