Latest / Least of These / 238. "Murder by Parole" - The Case of Ana Laura Sierra - Manhattan, New York - [Part 2]

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238. "Murder by Parole" - The Case of Ana Laura Sierra - Manhattan, New York - [Part 2] · Least of These

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to least of these where I cover the cases that need it most because every life matters and everyone deserves justice.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Leah D., and today I'll be covering the case of Analora Sierra and Manhattan, New York.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: This episode is part two in a many series, so if you haven't heard the case of Jacqueline Bonds, skip back one episode and then meet us right back here.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And with that said, let's get right to it.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: After brutally murdering 21-year-old Jacqueline Bonds in August of 1963, shooting her three times at Point Blanc Range, Harvey Marcelin was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: But as we've discussed so many times before, life doesn't always mean life, and after a failed appeal and multiple attempts at parole, and may of 1984 Marcelin was out, free as a bird, released on lifetime parole.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: At this point, he had served 21 years and was 46 years old.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: According to the Department of Corrections and Community Control, live-time parole means basically what it sounds like, that a parolee usually convicted of a serious felony, you know, like murder, is let out of prison, but remains under the supervision of the state for the rest of their natural life, and is not eligible for automatic early discharge.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: These individuals are reportedly under strict supervision and must follow some really superstrict conditions.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now it varies by state but conditions like curfews, regular meetings with a parole officer, travel restrictions, and mandatory counseling.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And remember, this is lifetime parole, so they're stuck on parole forever.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: or are they?
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, the answer is no.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: The same way a lifetime sentence doesn't mean a lifetime behind bars.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Lifetime Parole doesn't necessarily mean a lifetime of supervision, at least not in New York, or many other states for that matter.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: But today, we're talking about the Empire State.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Due to New York's criminal procedure law article 410, a parole leak can get out of that lifetime parole in just 5 years.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is, if they don't violate their conditions and get their probation revoked for 5 consecutive years, and the court determines that individual is no longer a need of guidance, training or other assistance which would be administered through supervision.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: and the individual has diligently complied with terms and conditions of the termination, and the sentence is not adverse to the protection of the public.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, can you remember the last time releasing a violent criminal was a net plus for society, because I sure can't, but that's the law.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I tell you all this simply because I stumbled across it in my research.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Spoiler alert, none of this matters in Harvey Marshall's case, since he never got the chance to be released from lifetime parole, because he sure has held in, comply with the terms and conditions of his parole for five years.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: He barely made it 365 days.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's get back to the story.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Harvey Marcelin was out free and in the wild.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: However, a lot had changed since those cuffs were first slapped on him in 1963.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: He entered prison in one world and stepped out into a home of her universe.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: The world went from its first bell-pushed button telephone to the early development of ATMs, personal computers, and cell phones.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: All the while, Marcelin had been behind bars, so he had some catching up to do.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: But he'd been given a second chance.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: The possibilities were endless.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: However, from the very start, he struggled.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: The New York Times reported that he had trouble finding work, and it didn't take a whole lot of time before Marcelin ended up in a life on the street.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: It certainly appears there was something about that street life that appealed to him.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Marcelin would later tell parole officials that he wanted to be a pump.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's got to have aspirations, I guess.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, being a Pimp certainly wasn't a job that would have gotten approval from his parole officer, but for some reason, it seems nobody was paying a lick of attention to what Marcelin was doing after his release.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Harvey Marcelin was released on parole in May of 1984, and by October of 1985, police were looking for him again.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: The New York Times reported that on October 30, 1985, Roberto Romano was in the lobby of Cambridge Residence Hotel in Harlem, which is where he lived.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: That might sound like a fancy hotel, but in the 1980s it was described as a gritty, under regulated residence for low-income tenants, the mentally ill, and those in the local drug trade.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anyhow, Roberto Romano was there smoking a joint when he saw the tenet of room 602 roll past him pushing a shopping cart with a plastic garbage bag inside.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Romano told police, the bag ripped on the first step and blood came out.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: A short time later, a man walking on Manhattan's upper west side, mind in his own business, saw a dark plastic bag at the entrance to Central Park at 166th Street.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: The bag was dripping with blood.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: This man ripped open the bag and found a pair of bound legs.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, he called police.
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: ABC7 New York reported that one of the first officers to arrive on scene was officer Robert Boyce, who stated, we see the foot coming out of the bag so we knew he had something bad here.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Investigators certainly had something bad and it didn't take long before it all traced directly back to Paroli Harvey Marcellin.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: After the man and central park discovered the dismembered legs, more bags containing body parts were found.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Investigators trace those bags back to the Cambridge residents in, and there they spoke to Robert Romano, who told them all about what he had witnessed.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Another tenet at the hotel, 47-year-old Harvey Marcelin, pushing a shopping cart with a dark plastic bag dripping in blood through the lobby.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: The hotel wasn't too far from that particular entrance into Central Park, about four tens of a mile and a nine minute walk.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And with Marcelin's past murder conviction, it was all come in together real quick and in a hurry.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Witnesses would also report that they had seen a woman frequent hotel rooms 602, which of course was Harvey Marcelin's room.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: That woman was later identified as Anna Laura Sierra.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anna was 29 years old and throughout her life she had struggled with substance abuse issues.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Police records showed that she had been arrested several times for prostitution.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: While I wish I could tell you anything else about Anna and who she was as a person, there's no public information for me to report.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I searched through all the news archives and could not find a single article about Anna's murder written back at the time of her death.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: A body was found dismembered in New York's most famous park, but there was zero in the way of media coverage, not even a blip on the radar.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe that's because though the city has a diversified economy, tourism is a huge component.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: As you can imagine, a dismembered body in central park is an exactly good for business, and isn't the news a city would once blast on the front pages.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or maybe it's the state of New York was none too happy to report that a convicted murderer Paroli released back on the streets had murdered yet another woman.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's also the fact that in the mid-1980s Harlem was at the epicenter of the crack cocaine epidemic.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Violent crime was rampant, gangs were at war, and homicide rates hit record highs.
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: A study published in 1990 in the New England Journal of Medicine by Colin McCord and Harold Freeman described the relative risk of death for Harlem residents and comparison with other areas of New York City.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: What they found was alarming.
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Harlem had the highest rate of age adjusted mortality from all causes.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: The rate was more than double that of Caucasians in the U.S. and 50% higher than that of African Americans living in other areas.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Homicides cirrhosis and drug-related deaths accounted for 40% of all deaths in Harlem.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: To say the city was in crisis would be the understatement of the year.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It could be that Anna was just seen as another victim and a long line of those lost to the drug trade, and her story wasn't all that important to the press.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was poor, living in a low-income area, struggling with an addiction, and had a criminal record, albeit a nonviolent one.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to tell you that victims with less and perfect backgrounds don't get the media coverage that a suburban soccer mom would.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that is the entire reason this podcast exists.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the fact that there was not one single article is deeply disturbing.
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anna Sierra's life was valuable.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was a person with hopes and dreams.
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Circumstances in her life had led her to a place I'm sure she never imagined she'd be, but that doesn't change the value of her life.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anna's life mattered and she deserved justice just like anybody else.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: However, she wouldn't get it.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: The investigation into Anna's death revealed that she had been stabbed repeatedly, according to court records at least 30 times.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Her body had been tied up with rope, she was dismembered, wrapped in plastic, and discarded in black garbage bags in central part.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: One would think at this point, with Marcil and's record in the brutality of Anna's murder, they lock him up and throw away the key, but you'd be so wrong, my friend.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: A plea deal was struck and it was struck quickly and quietly.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: 47-year-old Harvey Marcilen pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: The New York Daily News reported that Marcelin pled guilty and told the judge that he quote shared rent with Analora Sierra, but sometimes Anna had trouble coming up with her half of the rent, he also accused her of stealing from him.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: In court, Marcelin stated to Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Birdman, while sometimes she wouldn't come up with the rent, and sometimes she would steal stuff out of the house and bring people up there in the house.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: The judge interrupted asking, you kept stabbing her so she would stop screaming?
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Marcel and said, it was just, I was doing it, you know?
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even as he pled guilty to manslaughter, he took zero accountability and instead shifted all the blame onto the victim herself.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was all her fault.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it certainly wasn't his.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: She just wouldn't stop screaming as she was being stabbed, you know?
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just as Bergman accepted that trash ass plea deal, and Sinton's Marsalon 2, wait for it.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: 6-12 years in prison.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anna Sierra was dead, and Harvey Marsalon was Sinton's to less time than it takes to get in MD, where the length of time a good whiskey spins in a barrel before its bottle.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Marcelin was shipped off to the New York State Department of Corrections Kyuga Correctional Facility, a medium security state prison for men and Kyuga County, New York.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: According to New York Department of Corrections Records, Marcelin was eligible for parole in October of 1991.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it was denied, likely due to his refusal to take accountability for Anna's death.
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there was that, and also his record of killing women.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: But Harvey Marcelin didn't give up.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: He took every opportunity to go before the parole board and plead his case.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: According to court documents, Marcellan requested release in 1991, 1993, 1995, and appeared before the state parole board in August of 1997 for a parole release interview.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: During that interview, Marcellan admitted that he had quote problems with women.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: He then went on to describe Anna's murder, stating in part, she was very fiery and provocative.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: She brought Johnson tricks to the apartment.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: He went on to spin a tail, accusing Anna of selling his flute, like the musical instrument flute.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Marcellan accused Anna of selling his flute for drugs.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, with everything I've learned about Harvey Marcellan, I just got to say, he never struck me as a flute player.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: But just like you got to have aspirations, you got to have hobbies too.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: After blaming the victim yet again, Marcelin went on to claim that despite the court record showing that Anna Sierra was stabbed over 30 times, her death hadn't been nearly that violent.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: He hadn't caused all those wounds to her body.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was someone or something else to blame.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Those damn rats and squirrels in central part.
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Marcelin stated, some of those were puncture wounds from rats and squirrels.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And why Harvey?
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why had her body sat in central part for hours?
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's right.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because you dismembered her, put her in a shopping cart and pushed it there.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't with this.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And while we're at it, I'm pretty sure a puncture wound from a knife looks a hell of a lot different than a bite from a rattler squirrel.
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: But this was Harvey's story, as stupid as it was, he was sticking to it.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thankfully, this particular parole board saw right through it, and in 1997, Marcelin's parole was denied for a fourth time.
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: but apparently Old Harvey likes to in paperwork because he appealed that decision and accused the parole board of being biased against him.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: The reason?
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the members of the parole board who were present at this hearing were all women.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was an all-women panel.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And those women were biased against him because the victims of his crimes were also women.
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: That dang sexist parole
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: The New York Times reported that over 35 years Marceline pled his case to the parole board a total of 15 times, and 15 times he was denied parole.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Poor Harvey, he just couldn't catch a break.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: 35 years and 15 hearings later, Harvey Marcelin was back in front of the parole board yet again.
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was June of 2019.
• 15:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Despite a board member saying that Marcelin is, and I quote, a great danger to his community.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: They voted to release him anyway.
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why?
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I literally do not know nor do I think the members of the board do either.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: But maybe they took Marcelin and just as a reminder, a twice-convicted murderer.
• 15:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe they took him at his word when he said, quote, I give you my word.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I will never re-offend.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's another spoiler alert for ya.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was a damn lie.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Harvey Marshallen, who was now by the government's own definition of serial killer, because remember, according to the FBI, a serial killer only has to have two or more victims to qualify.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So Marshallen was by definition of serial killer, and he was released from state prison on August 7th of 2019.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was placed on lifetime parole just like he was the first time since that it all worked out so well.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anyhow, Harvey Marcelin walked out of Cayuga Correctional Facility at the age of 81.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: When he was asked later in an interview with the New York Post, how he had managed to get released a second time.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Marcelin laughed and stated, by sucking ass.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Charming, I know.
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Two and a half years after walking out of a New York State prison, Harvey Marcelin would be walking back through the doors at Rikers Island after being charged a third time with murder.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that's a story for next week.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today's episode is likely a little shorter than most.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I never know for sure until it's all edited just exactly how long it's gonna be.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: But this one sure feels shorter.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I could go on and begin to tell you all about how Marcelin found his next victim and what happened.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it'd be close though, and I'm not going to do that.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's important to me that we don't do that.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anna Sierra deserves to have her story told, and not as an add-on, or a two-sentence blippin' and article about one of Marcelons' other victims.
• 17:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like we talked about, there was not a single article that I could find detailing Anna's life nor her death.
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: All of the information from today's episode comes from articles about the other victims as well as court documents.
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as I'm sure you can tell, there isn't all that much information when it comes to Jacqueline bonds or Anna Sierra, but that will never be a reason I don't cover a case.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jacqueline and Anna both deserve more than that, so these episodes may be a little shorter and we may not know as much about either of these women as we should, but that doesn't make their stories any less important.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that my friends is all I've got for this week.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Be sure to join me next Thursday for the conclusion of this case.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram at least underscore of these, or my Facebook at least of these podcasts.
• 18:34
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• 18:38
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• 18:43
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• 18:50
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• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening.
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for caring.
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you know something, say something.
• 19:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And until next time, be good to each other.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: How in the hell do you get enrolled after not one, but two murders?
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't think I'll ever understand it nor do I really want to.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is something so inherently wrong with a justice system that allows that to happen.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you want to say, well, that was back in 1963, and things were different, we've advanced so much since then, and we have, I mean, in some ways we have, but in others, not so much, because we're not talking about 1963 or 1985, he was released in 2019, that's not history, that's current events.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: A member of a parole board admitting that Marcelin was a great danger to his community, not just a danger, but a great danger.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then voting to release him anyway is crazy work.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is the government's job if it's not to protect the people?
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's like 95% of their role, or it's supposed to be.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: two young women had lost their lives, yet Marcelin was able to gain his freedom, and he'd never should have been out after Jackaline's murder, and possibly even before that.
• 21:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: He had allegedly raped Clementine, and y'all know I have to say allegedly.
• 21:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And starting at Borteen, he had been accused of rape.
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I did find him one article where it said his victim in that case was an eight-year-old.
• 21:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I only found it in one and couldn't cross reference, so I didn't include it in the episode.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like to have more than one source before I report something.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I really can't remember the outlet off the top of my head, but it wasn't a random outlet.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a pretty reputable one, a 14-year-old raping in eight-year-old.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you really don't want to believe that some people are born evil, but sometimes another explanation is hard to come by.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: In my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think it's likely there are other victims that just never came forward.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Marcelin lived a lifestyle that would make it easy to pray on women after his first release.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was in a low-income apartment with heavy drug use, and it's not hard to take advantage of women battling substance abuse.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've seen it with my own two eyes firsthand.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: whether they're too afraid to report or they do report and aren't believed, because let me just tell you, that happens all the time.
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: But whatever the reason, the rate at which women in those circumstances report is drastically lower than other communities.
• 22:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as we already know, rape is vastly under-reported.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's a far stretch at all, so believe that there are other victims out there.
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: He should have been held accountable the first time, and something has got to change.
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's about all I got to say about that.
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: You all know I love you more in my luggage, and I can't wait to talk at you next week.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But until then, bye, buh-bye, buh-bye!