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The Devious World of Richard Biegenwald - Serial Killer Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:06
Speaker 1: In January.
0:07
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty three, the discovery of a young woman's
0:11
Speaker 2: skeletal remains led New Jersey detectives to the door of
0:15
Speaker 2: Richard Beegenwold, a serial killer with a very specific choice
0:19
Speaker 2: of victims.
0:21
Speaker 3: Dark hair, dark eyes, and darker skin. These are the
0:27
Speaker 3: attributes which brought Bigger World to his stroke killings.
0:32
Speaker 2: When investigators scratched the surface, they found Beganwold not only
0:37
Speaker 2: killed for pleasure, he also had a long list of
0:40
Speaker 2: victims he murdered for money.
0:43
Speaker 4: Bigan Wold was a mob enforcer, a killer for hire.
0:47
Speaker 2: Began Wold began his murderous career aged just seventeen years old.
0:52
Speaker 2: He would go on to kill at least six people,
0:55
Speaker 2: though some believe his tally of victims is much higher.
1:00
Speaker 5: It was like, if he said I'll kill you, you
1:03
Speaker 5: had to believe if you got it, yes, he was
1:05
Speaker 5: going to kill you.
1:06
Speaker 6: He was a cold blooded killer. He had no remorse.
1:11
Speaker 2: He was a sociopath, a man happy to kill for
1:15
Speaker 2: any reason or for no reason at all. Richard Beganwold
1:19
Speaker 2: has earned the title of one of the world's most
1:23
Speaker 2: evil killers. In nineteen eighty three, when the full extent
1:54
Speaker 2: of Richard Beganwold's crimes were reported across the United States.
1:59
Speaker 1: The public was horrified.
2:02
Speaker 7: It was like, no matter.
2:03
Speaker 8: What he did, he turned the TV or on, you
2:05
Speaker 8: turned the radio, it was Richard, because we had never
2:09
Speaker 8: had anything like that before.
2:10
Speaker 2: As well as committing a long list of murders, Big
2:13
Speaker 2: and Walled, along with an accomplice, appeared to be planning
2:16
Speaker 2: to carry out even greater atrocities.
2:20
Speaker 3: In a mac semi automatic weapon. But they were engineering
2:23
Speaker 3: cigarette ladders to be twenty two caliber handguns. They had bombs,
2:28
Speaker 3: They had date rape drugs, and some sedatives.
2:33
Speaker 9: What possibly could a you know, happened with the bombs?
2:38
Speaker 9: What was happening the next week that we didn't know about.
2:42
Speaker 10: This wasn't the kind of guy who wanted to get caught.
2:45
Speaker 10: This was the kind of guy who was just going
2:47
Speaker 10: to keep going regardless. You catch me, when you catch me,
2:49
Speaker 10: and if you kill me, you killed me. That that
2:51
Speaker 10: kind of a person what I would describe as a
2:55
Speaker 10: real psychopath.
3:01
Speaker 2: This killer's story begins on Staten Island, New York.
3:05
Speaker 3: Which being was born in August nineteen forty to Albert
3:08
Speaker 3: and Sally big and Wolf, a.
3:10
Speaker 11: Couple that, to say the least was dysfunctional. He didn't
3:15
Speaker 11: have a good childhood. You know, his father had a
3:18
Speaker 11: leg amputated. He was a.
3:20
Speaker 6: Drinker and was an abusive both husband and father.
3:25
Speaker 2: Author John O'Rourke has delved deep into big and Woll's
3:29
Speaker 2: troubled background. His problems started when he was still just
3:33
Speaker 2: a baby.
3:36
Speaker 3: There's a small infant. He was doing unusual body woman,
3:39
Speaker 3: if you will, stopping and just staring momentarily, just odd
3:46
Speaker 3: behavior patterns that as time went on, indicated to them
3:51
Speaker 3: that there was definitely a problem.
3:54
Speaker 10: He was diagnosed with schizophrenia kind of before he was
3:59
Speaker 10: even a teenager, and that's really unusual.
4:03
Speaker 3: Another attribute that he had was a fascination with death.
4:10
Speaker 3: From early on, he just didn't fit in. He was
4:13
Speaker 3: very impulsive. He actually set himself on fire as a kid.
4:16
Speaker 3: I believes he ate when he set himself on fire.
4:19
Speaker 2: The young began, Wold also displayed another worrying trait, abusing animals.
4:26
Speaker 3: His fascination with herding animals and death ultimately increased to
4:34
Speaker 3: the point where they brought Richard to Belleville Hospital in
4:38
Speaker 3: New York, a psychiatric center, trying to seek help.
4:42
Speaker 12: Richard spent his childhood in institutions designed to help him
4:46
Speaker 12: find a way in the world, to keep to the
4:48
Speaker 12: straight and narrow.
4:50
Speaker 4: They did exactly the opposite.
4:52
Speaker 2: Attorney Lou Diamond, who represented began Wold as an adult,
4:56
Speaker 2: believes the treatment of the young child was given made
4:59
Speaker 2: his problems word not better.
5:02
Speaker 8: They gave him electric shock therapy to an eight year
5:06
Speaker 8: old and then threw cold water on him naked and
5:09
Speaker 8: let him sleep on it on an iron table at night.
5:13
Speaker 8: And he'd had to urinate on himself to stay warm,
5:15
Speaker 8: an eight year old. And we asked, where did these
5:18
Speaker 8: people come from?
5:19
Speaker 7: We make them?
5:20
Speaker 8: And in those days it was unknown, all right, what
5:24
Speaker 8: it could lead to, and what it led to, it was, Richard,
5:27
Speaker 8: they took the young boy out of him far too early.
5:32
Speaker 10: This was a person who had problems from the beginning.
5:37
Speaker 10: If we overlay that with the abuse in the home
5:41
Speaker 10: as well, and overlay that again with some of the treatments,
5:44
Speaker 10: the electro convulsive therapy treatments that he had, this guy
5:50
Speaker 10: was never going.
5:52
Speaker 7: To be a functioning adult.
5:58
Speaker 3: As time moved on and he got older, his behavior
6:02
Speaker 3: power and increased. Why he was starting to get involved
6:04
Speaker 3: in some criminal activities, breaking into into cars, stealing things,
6:10
Speaker 3: smoke sort of smoking in an early age, and room
6:12
Speaker 3: has it that he was even drinking it before he
6:14
Speaker 3: was ten. He was consuming alcohol, maybe mimicking his father.
6:19
Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty seven, a sixteen year old began Wold
6:22
Speaker 2: was living back with his mother.
6:24
Speaker 1: On Staten Island.
6:26
Speaker 2: It soon became clear he was far from a reform character.
6:33
Speaker 3: He dropped out of school and started stealing things, stealing cars,
6:37
Speaker 3: committing crimes.
6:38
Speaker 8: He went down to Tennessee and he stole a car,
6:40
Speaker 8: brought into Kentucky or vice versa, and he did almost
6:43
Speaker 8: a year in a reform school.
6:46
Speaker 2: When he was released once again, began Wold's offending drastically escalated.
6:52
Speaker 2: In December nineteen fifty eight, Beigan Wold and a teenage
6:56
Speaker 2: accomplice entered a grocery store in Bayonne, Jersey.
7:01
Speaker 1: By the time they walked out, the owner was dead.
7:05
Speaker 3: The first victim was Stephen Slodowski, a store owner, an
7:10
Speaker 3: entrepreneur who was a lawyer and a prosecutor, an intent
7:15
Speaker 3: well respected individual. I think he walked in to the
7:19
Speaker 3: store with the intent of actually killing him, and that's
7:23
Speaker 3: exactly what he did. He walked into the store. That's
7:25
Speaker 3: a sort of shotgun. What conversation took place, we don't know.
7:30
Speaker 3: But what we do know as he shot him with
7:33
Speaker 3: the shotgun and then fled the store, and he decided
7:36
Speaker 3: to flee, and he fled south. But I don't know
7:40
Speaker 3: necessarily if he had a destination in mind other than
7:44
Speaker 3: getting as far away from Bayonne and Staten Island as
7:49
Speaker 3: he could.
7:50
Speaker 2: Along with his accomplice, who thought he was simply taking
7:54
Speaker 2: part in a grocery store robbery, bigan Wold went on
7:57
Speaker 2: the run from the police.
8:00
Speaker 6: Went through Delaware, had a shootout in Delaware, went to Maryland,
8:07
Speaker 6: had a shoot out there, and eventually he got shot
8:09
Speaker 6: in the face.
8:11
Speaker 8: The story Richard told me was that when they came
8:14
Speaker 8: to arrest him and packed him down, it was like surreal.
8:17
Speaker 7: It was snowing a.
8:18
Speaker 8: Little bit, and they had him surrounded with the shotguns
8:21
Speaker 8: and everything, and he had his gun, and he's telling
8:24
Speaker 8: himself what should I do?
8:26
Speaker 3: And he was considered lying in the.
8:28
Speaker 10: Shoot This is a guy who's not invested in what
8:33
Speaker 10: the world has to offer him at all. He's just
8:38
Speaker 10: going to do what he wants to do. He's got
8:41
Speaker 10: no respect for the world or its rules. I would
8:46
Speaker 10: question whether he even had that much respect for his
8:49
Speaker 10: own mortality, and it was inevitable. Really, I suppose that
8:53
Speaker 10: he was going to start killing people.
8:56
Speaker 2: At just eighteen years old, Richard Beegenwold had admitted his
9:00
Speaker 2: first murder. He pled guilty and was sentenced to life
9:04
Speaker 2: in prison with the possibility of parole.
9:07
Speaker 3: The first few years in prison were problematic. He had
9:11
Speaker 3: to defend himself to let it be known not to
9:14
Speaker 3: mess with him. He not only survived, he thrived there.
9:18
Speaker 3: As time went on, he realized that he does have
9:20
Speaker 3: a possibility for parole. It's time to start complying, start
9:27
Speaker 3: showing that you are capable of being reintroduced into society.
9:33
Speaker 12: Turns himself into the perfect prisoner, a model prisoner. He's
9:40
Speaker 12: everybody's friend, gets on well with his fellow inmates. At
9:44
Speaker 12: in nineteen seventy five, he's released. Well, the world is
9:48
Speaker 12: his oyster.
9:52
Speaker 3: He returned to Staten Island. His mother was living on
9:56
Speaker 3: Sharit's Road in Staten Island, so he was living with
9:59
Speaker 3: his mother and immediately he was able to pick up
10:03
Speaker 3: some labor work, painting some mechanic jobs. Now Staten Island
10:08
Speaker 3: is known for a community that is rich in organized
10:14
Speaker 3: criminal activity, and it is believed that he somehow caught
10:18
Speaker 3: the eye of an organized crime network.
10:22
Speaker 8: He was working odd construction jobs and also doing collection
10:28
Speaker 8: works for people.
10:31
Speaker 7: I believe he would have been a very good collector.
10:33
Speaker 8: When you owe wanted to a bookmaker somebody like that,
10:37
Speaker 8: and you don't pay, you didn't have to look at
10:39
Speaker 8: his body.
10:40
Speaker 7: You looked in his eyes and you knew you should pay.
10:44
Speaker 2: If the rumors were true, Bigan Wold was willing, even happy,
10:48
Speaker 2: to do whatever dirty work his criminal bosses asked of him.
10:53
Speaker 7: One might be said that he was for hire.
10:56
Speaker 8: I would think mostly to make sure the problem disappeared.
11:01
Speaker 2: It was work that suited began Wold's ruthless nature and
11:04
Speaker 2: his taste for extreme violence.
11:08
Speaker 8: He always used twenty twos because with or without silences,
11:13
Speaker 8: because the bull would rattle around in the person's head.
11:16
Speaker 8: He would go and pick up hookers and drug durerists
11:18
Speaker 8: and do it and test out new guns and silences
11:22
Speaker 8: on that and back outs. They have these trash hands
11:25
Speaker 8: in New York City. Heavy brought eye with holes in
11:30
Speaker 8: them and everything, and he loved shopping people well, and
11:35
Speaker 8: he would put the body parts in there and wire
11:37
Speaker 8: the tops and then throw them off a boat in
11:40
Speaker 8: this Jersey sounds and let the crabs eat them.
11:44
Speaker 10: He was so devoid of empathy. I think that made
11:49
Speaker 10: him incredibly dangerous.
11:53
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy eight, Lou Diamond got a call to
11:57
Speaker 2: represent Beganwold, who was in jail accused of rape.
12:03
Speaker 8: So I went down to the courthouse to meet him
12:05
Speaker 8: in the jail cells for the first time, and he
12:09
Speaker 8: was a unique looking person. He had blondish red hat
12:16
Speaker 8: and he had these piercing blue eyes.
12:19
Speaker 7: Oh, it just brights through you right away.
12:22
Speaker 3: His attorney realizes this is a man who is highly intelligent.
12:27
Speaker 3: So he turns to Big and Wall and he says,
12:29
Speaker 3: you have a very interesting hair color. Oh and by
12:33
Speaker 3: the way, we're having a lineup tomorrow. And he walks
12:36
Speaker 3: out of the jail cell and.
12:38
Speaker 8: We got the court the next day and everybody's yelling
12:40
Speaker 8: and screaming. I went downstairs and he was bold, ultimately
12:45
Speaker 8: leading to him not getting picked out of the lineup
12:48
Speaker 8: and he gets released back into society.
12:51
Speaker 2: Big and Wolve's female victim was denied justice and for
12:55
Speaker 2: several years he dropped off the radar of law enforcements.
13:00
Speaker 12: In nineteen eighty, big of old meets a much younger woman, Diane,
13:04
Speaker 12: whom he marries, and they.
13:05
Speaker 4: Moved to Asbury Park in New Jersey.
13:09
Speaker 2: Famous for its music culture and liberal politics, Asbury Park
13:14
Speaker 2: was an unlikely home for a convicted killer. For a
13:19
Speaker 2: couple of years, Bigenwall did not attract the attention of
13:23
Speaker 2: the police, but that did not mean he wasn't committing crimes.
13:27
Speaker 2: In fact, his taste for brutality seemed to know no bounds.
13:33
Speaker 3: In January of nineteen eighty three, two kids are playing
13:37
Speaker 3: in an abandoned lot adjacent to a Burier King parking lot.
13:40
Speaker 3: During their little adventure going into this parcel land, they
13:46
Speaker 3: discover a party. The kid but then with skeletal remains
13:49
Speaker 3: with some clothing interesting, no shoes.
13:53
Speaker 13: I was the detective von duty.
13:56
Speaker 9: My captain sent me out there take charge of the
13:58
Speaker 9: crime scene.
14:00
Speaker 2: Kevin Quinn was the first person to examine the female body.
14:06
Speaker 9: She had a black shirt on and genes and the
14:13
Speaker 9: body was faced down with her arms kind of outstretched,
14:18
Speaker 9: her feet kind of outstretched, and the hair had kind
14:23
Speaker 9: of fallen down around the skull some and then we
14:27
Speaker 9: moved the hair just a little bit, and I remember
14:31
Speaker 9: seeing the first hole and it's you can't mistake it.
14:36
Speaker 9: It was a pullet hole we actually found. When we
14:40
Speaker 9: picked up the skull, we could hear the spent rounds
14:44
Speaker 9: inside the head cavity.
14:47
Speaker 2: The medical examiner concluded the young woman had been dead
14:51
Speaker 2: for several months and confirm what detectives already knew. She
14:56
Speaker 2: had been brutally murdered, shot several times in the back
14:59
Speaker 2: of the head at close range. There was nothing on
15:03
Speaker 2: the body to identify who this murdered woman was, but
15:07
Speaker 2: within a day or so, investigators had their answer.
15:11
Speaker 3: It gets reported in the paper a description of the
15:14
Speaker 3: woman with her clothing. A local police officer by the
15:17
Speaker 3: name of Mike Dowling sipping his cup of coffee reading
15:20
Speaker 3: his newspaper, and he noticed the article and the victim
15:24
Speaker 3: had no shoes, and that drew him back to the
15:27
Speaker 3: summer before August of eighty two, where he had been
15:32
Speaker 3: summoned to a missing person's case, a woman named Anna
15:36
Speaker 3: Osslwitz who went missing on the Asbury Park boardwalk.
15:41
Speaker 5: She had come to the boardwalk with a friend and
15:44
Speaker 5: they were out the boardwalk together.
15:46
Speaker 13: The friend had to go.
15:48
Speaker 5: I guess she had to use a bathroom at which
15:50
Speaker 5: point she left Anna there at the boardwalk and went
15:55
Speaker 5: to this place to use the bathroom.
15:57
Speaker 7: And once she got back and I was missing.
16:00
Speaker 13: She had gone.
16:01
Speaker 9: It was a round labor day, so the beach was
16:05
Speaker 9: still un utilized. It was still warm enough, and they
16:08
Speaker 9: were walking around, and they must have been on the
16:10
Speaker 9: beach and stuff.
16:12
Speaker 13: Maybe that's Washington other shoes on.
16:15
Speaker 6: We got dental records, and sure enough, the dental records
16:19
Speaker 6: matched annimal lessons.
16:21
Speaker 2: The police had identified their eighteen year old victim, but
16:25
Speaker 2: that was all they had at this stage of the investigation.
16:29
Speaker 6: We had no suspects. We had nothing really other than
16:34
Speaker 6: a body with skeleton with three holes and three bullets.
16:39
Speaker 6: We had no motive in this case.
16:42
Speaker 10: There was no sign of sexual assault. Where do you start?
16:46
Speaker 10: What's the motivation for this murder? Most people are murdered
16:50
Speaker 10: by somebody they know, but in a case like this,
16:55
Speaker 10: it's quite possible that it was somebody that they didn't know,
16:58
Speaker 10: So that makes it even more difficult. If there's no
17:02
Speaker 10: relationship between the victim and the killer, the police are
17:06
Speaker 10: at a huge disadvantage.
17:09
Speaker 2: For the next seven days, detective search for clues in
17:13
Speaker 2: the hopes of cracking the case. Then a witness came
17:17
Speaker 2: forward with an incredible story to tell.
17:21
Speaker 5: A young lady came into the police department by the
17:24
Speaker 5: name of Teresa Smith. Teresa Smith said she had something
17:27
Speaker 5: to tell us about the homicide involving Anna Lesslid.
17:33
Speaker 9: Teresa started laying out this story about this guy named
17:37
Speaker 9: Richard Begenwald who liked going hunting on a boardwalk and
17:44
Speaker 9: finding victims.
17:46
Speaker 5: She knew that Richard had killed a girl and that
17:50
Speaker 5: he had actually shown her at the body.
17:53
Speaker 2: Teresa told detectives that about a year earlier, she'd become
17:57
Speaker 2: friends with a coworker, Diane Beganwolf. Diane introduced Teresa to
18:02
Speaker 2: her husband, Richard, and the two had embarked upon an
18:06
Speaker 2: unconventional relationship, with Teresa moving into the couple's apartment.
18:12
Speaker 12: Have this extraordinary manage. There's no doubt that not only
18:17
Speaker 12: was Richard married to Diane, but that Teresa had a
18:20
Speaker 12: relationship with Richard.
18:22
Speaker 4: They were much younger than he was mad in his
18:24
Speaker 4: early forties.
18:24
Speaker 12: There in their twenties, he represented something exciting out of
18:28
Speaker 12: the ordinary, indeed many ways dramatic, So you can sort
18:32
Speaker 12: of see how that might have been quite intoxicating.
18:37
Speaker 3: Being a Ward had been trying to groom Teresa to
18:43
Speaker 3: take quiet in his killings. The night Anna went missing,
18:50
Speaker 3: Vegan Ward lodo off the boardwork with marijuana. He drove Anna,
18:55
Speaker 3: the victim, who still we believe was still alive, to
18:59
Speaker 3: the warman Nsbury Park. He goes into the house and
19:04
Speaker 3: he goes up to the bedroom, to Teresa's bedroom and
19:07
Speaker 3: wakes up. He wants her to help in killing Anna,
19:14
Speaker 3: and Teresa, probably in a sleep induced drug sleep induced calmer,
19:21
Speaker 3: couldn't couldn't get herself up out of bed. She does
19:25
Speaker 3: remember staring out the window and seeing a female figure
19:28
Speaker 3: in the car.
19:31
Speaker 2: The next morning, Theresa discovered that began Wold had done
19:34
Speaker 2: what Teresa refused to.
19:36
Speaker 1: He'd murdered Anna olesso Witz.
19:39
Speaker 12: Began Wold took Teresa to see her body in the
19:43
Speaker 12: shed behind their apartment block and to touch it. He said,
19:47
Speaker 12: you touch the body, see what it feels like. And
19:50
Speaker 12: the body also had a ring, black gold ring, which
19:54
Speaker 12: he subsequently took off the body.
19:56
Speaker 4: And gave to Teresa.
19:59
Speaker 12: Teresa moves out, horrified by the sight of the body.
20:03
Speaker 4: Starts for relationship with somebody else.
20:05
Speaker 12: They go away on holiday and when they come back
20:08
Speaker 12: In January nineteen eighty three, five months after she's moved out,
20:13
Speaker 12: there's the news of the discovery of Anna's body behind
20:15
Speaker 12: the Burger King.
20:17
Speaker 4: She is physically sick.
20:19
Speaker 3: And she knew that that was the victim that she
20:23
Speaker 3: was shown in the shed that big Ward wanted her
20:26
Speaker 3: to touch. Logically concluding that the only witness connecting Richard
20:32
Speaker 3: big Wad dan Uswitz was Teresa Smith. She panicked. She
20:38
Speaker 3: knew that time was on her side. She realizes, Oh, shoot,
20:42
Speaker 3: he's going to kill me.
20:45
Speaker 2: Thereesa's story was compelling, but was any of it true?
20:50
Speaker 2: Officers needed to investigate.
20:53
Speaker 6: We do her background check and find out who this
20:55
Speaker 6: guy is. You know, we find out he had previously
20:59
Speaker 6: done for murder.
21:01
Speaker 2: Teresa had told detectives of seeing Anna Alessowitz sitting in
21:06
Speaker 2: the passenger seat of Beganwold's car just.
21:08
Speaker 1: Before he murdered her.
21:10
Speaker 2: A couple of days later, Beganwold had abruptly sold the car.
21:14
Speaker 2: When Kevin Quinn tracked it down, it told a story
21:18
Speaker 2: of its own.
21:18
Speaker 9: I could see you up in the headliner of the car,
21:22
Speaker 9: blood splatter and actually holds from one of the rounds
21:27
Speaker 9: that probably went up in the headliner at the car.
21:31
Speaker 9: There was blood on the seat that they had cleaned
21:35
Speaker 9: in detail in the car for sale, not.
21:40
Speaker 13: Quite perfect enough.
21:43
Speaker 2: After confirming the details of Teresa's wild story, detectives were
21:48
Speaker 2: sure that Richard Begenwold had murdered Anna Lesswitz. Teresa also
21:54
Speaker 2: told them that Beganwold may not have been working alone.
21:58
Speaker 2: He had an accomplice who lived in the same building.
22:03
Speaker 5: Darren Fitzgerald was a friend of Richie Richie Big and Wolves.
22:07
Speaker 5: They met in prison, but when Darren got out he
22:10
Speaker 5: looked ritchy up. They then moved to Asbury Park and
22:13
Speaker 5: there was four or five apartments in this address, and
22:17
Speaker 5: Darren took another apartment in there, so they were living together.
22:20
Speaker 5: They were friends down.
22:22
Speaker 3: Fitzgerald is a very strong figure, a very masculine man,
22:29
Speaker 3: has violent tendencies. If not for Biing a World, I'd
22:33
Speaker 3: say he was the leader. But biing a World was
22:36
Speaker 3: that strong of an imposing figure.
22:39
Speaker 2: When the Asbury Park police looked into his background, Fitzgerald
22:43
Speaker 2: appeared to be a loyal Foot soldier with a predilection
22:46
Speaker 2: for violence.
22:47
Speaker 3: Fitzgerald a lot of his reputation, although he was involved
22:51
Speaker 3: in some criminal stuff and he did some serious jail
22:54
Speaker 3: time involving weapons and guns and violent crime was a
22:59
Speaker 3: little bit of where bigger world was not the bigger world.
23:03
Speaker 3: Fitzgerald was a reliable coworker, if you will, someone who
23:08
Speaker 3: could be dependent upon, someone that would keep his mouth shut.
23:12
Speaker 2: These were the men detectives suspected of murdering eighteen year
23:16
Speaker 2: old Anna Alessowitz. Their intelligence painted a picture of two
23:20
Speaker 2: ruthless killers who had to be stopped. On the twenty
23:26
Speaker 2: second of January nineteen eighty three, Detective William Lusher and
23:30
Speaker 2: his team prepared for a high stakes raid on began
23:34
Speaker 2: Walls and Fitzgerald's home.
23:39
Speaker 5: We were told that there was a lot of dangerous items
23:43
Speaker 5: in the house by way.
23:45
Speaker 7: Of firearms and bombs.
23:47
Speaker 5: And snakes, and so we knew that it was a
23:50
Speaker 5: risky situation.
23:53
Speaker 12: Once the police notice, they have to have a plan
23:56
Speaker 12: to make sure that they're not walking into literally a trap.
24:00
Speaker 12: Have to find a way of getting being Volt out
24:02
Speaker 12: of the house unarmed so.
24:04
Speaker 4: That they can arrest him.
24:05
Speaker 6: They dressed up one of the detectives and they put
24:08
Speaker 6: him in the backyard of began Wolf's house, and the
24:13
Speaker 6: detective knocked on began Wall's door and said you know,
24:16
Speaker 6: we found this guy.
24:17
Speaker 9: He is a prowler, and myself other detectives we hid
24:24
Speaker 9: by beyond the house next door, and he's like all confused,
24:29
Speaker 9: and that was probably just enough to get him to
24:32
Speaker 9: take one or two steps out the door onto the porch,
24:35
Speaker 9: and we all just pounced on them and we had
24:39
Speaker 9: him up against the wall, handcuffed him and then dragged
24:42
Speaker 9: him down the driveway and put him in a Asbury
24:46
Speaker 9: police guard.
24:47
Speaker 2: With one of the men suspected of murdering teenager Anna
24:51
Speaker 2: Alessowitz in custody, it was time to track down began Walls,
24:55
Speaker 2: alleged to accomplish Darren Fitzgerald and out if Teresa smith
25:01
Speaker 2: claims about this House of Horrors were true.
25:07
Speaker 5: We had been tipped off to the fact that Fitzgerald
25:10
Speaker 5: had built a little room in his apartment or the
25:13
Speaker 5: two way mirror that he could hide in. So we
25:16
Speaker 5: went in the house. Basically, I went through the door
25:19
Speaker 5: and I saw the mirror.
25:22
Speaker 9: And we kept pulling on the mirror from the bottom
25:26
Speaker 9: because it was like you could see it.
25:27
Speaker 13: Was hinged on the top.
25:29
Speaker 9: When they were pulling, you could almost see like somebody
25:33
Speaker 9: was hanging on.
25:33
Speaker 13: To the other end of it.
25:35
Speaker 9: Fitzgerald was inside there and he had I know, one rifle,
25:41
Speaker 9: but maybe more weapons in there. They had actually marijuana
25:45
Speaker 9: plants and stuff and other stuff in there too. There
25:47
Speaker 9: was like twenty five or thirty of these bombs in there,
25:53
Speaker 9: all fused up and ready to go. And then they
25:56
Speaker 9: had obviously tons of guns and a submachine gun, and
26:02
Speaker 9: it had tough long bullets that they had coated themselves,
26:06
Speaker 9: which would defeat a bulletproof vest.
26:09
Speaker 2: Darren Fitzgerald was quickly disarmed and cuffed. When Detective Quinn
26:13
Speaker 2: and his team of crime scene officers moved into scour
26:17
Speaker 2: the property, there were even more grisly surprises awaiting them.
26:24
Speaker 9: And as we went inside the house, went through the
26:27
Speaker 9: kitchen into the living room, there's a big gaping hole
26:31
Speaker 9: in their living room floor and that's where began Wald
26:33
Speaker 9: had his bedroom in a patient.
26:36
Speaker 6: We found a lot of guns, a couple of explosive devices,
26:40
Speaker 6: a poisonous snake. We found a ring which we believed
26:44
Speaker 6: to have been an O. Lessowitz's ring, which we confirmed later.
26:48
Speaker 6: We found a gun that ballistically later on turned out
26:53
Speaker 6: to be the murder whipon on Anno Lessewitz.
26:57
Speaker 9: They had knockout drops chloral hydra, and then of course
27:00
Speaker 9: you turn around and there's a big aquarium with this
27:03
Speaker 9: puff adder looking at her.
27:05
Speaker 5: African puff adder, one of the most poisonous nicks in
27:08
Speaker 5: the world.
27:09
Speaker 2: As they continue to search the bizarre arsenal, detectives began
27:13
Speaker 2: to piece together the deadly plans Vegan Wold and his
27:17
Speaker 2: associate had been making.
27:19
Speaker 12: And they discovered this arsenal of weaponry plus a notebook.
27:24
Speaker 12: And the notebook contains all manner of details about individual targets,
27:28
Speaker 12: about the plan of the shopping male. They intended to
27:31
Speaker 12: attack a pipe bomb and you know how they might
27:34
Speaker 12: use it.
27:35
Speaker 9: They also had something called DMSO and I know DMSO
27:40
Speaker 9: is timothyl sulfoxide and whatever you mix with that will absorb.
27:45
Speaker 13: Through the skin. I see the snake.
27:49
Speaker 9: I see that they're milking the venom, because I recognized
27:53
Speaker 9: bell a jar with a solofan or something over the
27:57
Speaker 9: top and kiss bite marks from the snake. And I said,
28:02
Speaker 9: oh my god, what they were going to mix DMSR
28:06
Speaker 9: the snake venom which would make you die real quick,
28:11
Speaker 9: and paint it on the ear pieces of payphones and
28:17
Speaker 9: then sit on the boardwalk and watch people heel over
28:22
Speaker 9: I guess after they talk.
28:24
Speaker 7: There was an address with some numbers.
28:26
Speaker 8: It was the chief judge in a State of New
28:28
Speaker 8: Jersey's partner spot at his country clubs.
28:33
Speaker 10: Gosh, thinking about the danger that big World poses to society, huge, massive, massive,
28:41
Speaker 10: nobody would want to come in disguise Eyeline and potentially
28:47
Speaker 10: become the next target.
28:50
Speaker 2: Richard began Wold and Darren Fitzgerald had both been arrested
28:54
Speaker 2: on suspicion of murdering eighteen year old tourist and A Lesterwitz.
28:59
Speaker 2: But if Bobs were hoping for a confession from bigan World,
29:03
Speaker 2: they would be waiting a long time.
29:06
Speaker 13: You know.
29:07
Speaker 6: We rested him and that was it. For a while,
29:09
Speaker 6: he would not talk and nobody was you know, nobody
29:13
Speaker 6: was giving us any information. I had suspected that Anna
29:19
Speaker 6: unlesson which wasn't the only person this guy killed. I mean,
29:22
Speaker 6: you just don't know, all of a sudden, just kill
29:24
Speaker 6: somebody that you don't know.
29:27
Speaker 2: Days after his arrest, bigan Wall's accomplished Darren Fitzgerald decided
29:33
Speaker 2: to talk, and what he told James Fagan prove the
29:37
Speaker 2: prosecutor right. Anna was not bigan Wol's only victim. There
29:42
Speaker 2: were many many more.
29:45
Speaker 3: So, Darren Fitzgeral comes forward and says, if I give
29:49
Speaker 3: you the locations of a few bodies that I helped
29:53
Speaker 3: Big World to dispose of, can we talk the charges
29:58
Speaker 3: of murler? Because I had no involvement in her death
30:01
Speaker 3: other than helping dispose of the body.
30:03
Speaker 9: And that started very many days, weeks and months of
30:10
Speaker 9: going to different places and digging up and finding other bodies.
30:14
Speaker 2: One of the victims Fitzgerald told the cops about was
30:17
Speaker 2: thirty four year old William Ward, who had been killed
30:20
Speaker 2: in September nineteen eighty two. The murder weapon had been
30:24
Speaker 2: found during the search of Bigenwall's basement bedroom.
30:29
Speaker 6: Ward was just a drug dealer who really had no
30:33
Speaker 6: dealings with Begenwald.
30:35
Speaker 5: Ward had gone to the house in Asburyport and met
30:38
Speaker 5: up with.
30:39
Speaker 13: Darren Fitzgerald, and Fitzgerald.
30:42
Speaker 5: And him got into an altercation, at which point big
30:46
Speaker 5: and Ward came out of the house with a gun
30:49
Speaker 5: and shot him in the head five times.
30:51
Speaker 3: Fitzgerald helped Big Old dispose of William Ward's party, I
30:55
Speaker 3: believe in the cemetery.
30:57
Speaker 5: Fitzgerald led us to that body and we were able
31:01
Speaker 5: to locate it and actually recovered the body of Ward.
31:05
Speaker 3: As they are preparing their case and still figuring out
31:09
Speaker 3: how many bodies there are, they realize that besides William Ward,
31:14
Speaker 3: a local criminal comes forward and says, I know Richard
31:20
Speaker 3: being well killed another person at an abandoned airport in Flemington,
31:27
Speaker 3: New Jersey, a man by the name of John Patron.
31:33
Speaker 6: Patron was an associate who began wolves, found out he
31:38
Speaker 6: was a state police informant and asked him to go
31:41
Speaker 6: out target shooting one day and shot him in the head.
31:45
Speaker 5: We did dig up part of John Patron in the
31:49
Speaker 5: State game lands.
31:51
Speaker 7: It was missing as lower mandible.
31:54
Speaker 2: Very quickly, I Fitzgerald had helped Asbury Park Police ty
31:58
Speaker 2: Richard beganwool unsolved murders Anna Alessowitz, William Ward, and the
32:05
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight killing of John Patron. And as investigators
32:09
Speaker 2: kept digging, they were sure that they were barely scratching
32:13
Speaker 2: the surface. They were building a picture of a man
32:16
Speaker 2: who killed when business matters demanded it, but also to
32:20
Speaker 2: feed his own twisted needs.
32:24
Speaker 3: Which makes him different than the average serial killer. The
32:31
Speaker 3: profile is different because, in addition to his thrill killings,
32:36
Speaker 3: he had this criminal connection that was almost business like
32:42
Speaker 3: and the thrill killings were his relaxation, if you will.
32:46
Speaker 2: Through the spring of nineteen eighty three, with began Wold
32:49
Speaker 2: in custody, detectives were horrified to discover the full extent
32:53
Speaker 2: of his murderous bree.
32:55
Speaker 6: It asked them to pull missing persons and specifically young
33:01
Speaker 6: girls in either the Ocean County or the Marmouth County area,
33:05
Speaker 6: and sure enough, there were a couple of girls that
33:09
Speaker 6: were just gone from Ocean, and then there was another
33:12
Speaker 6: girl that was gone from Marmouth.
33:15
Speaker 10: Cold cases are really really difficult for police. Don't know
33:19
Speaker 10: who the killer is, don't know what their motivation was,
33:22
Speaker 10: don't even know if they had any relationship at tall
33:25
Speaker 10: with the victim. And you've got to go back, however
33:28
Speaker 10: many months years that victim has been dead and try
33:33
Speaker 10: and recreate their last movements. Incredibly difficult.
33:38
Speaker 2: The first of these missing persons cases linked to Beigenwold
33:42
Speaker 2: was that of seventeen year old Betsy Bacon, who disappeared
33:46
Speaker 2: in November nineteen eighty two.
33:48
Speaker 6: She was from Segur. I suspect she was hitchhiking and
33:52
Speaker 6: he picked her up. Betsy Vacan's body was found in
33:57
Speaker 6: Tinton Falls.
33:58
Speaker 5: Fitzgerald had described Richie big Andwald had killed this girl.
34:03
Speaker 5: Ansden dell him get rid of the body, so he
34:06
Speaker 5: led us to that area, which we went to and
34:10
Speaker 5: believe it or not, we spotted a hand coming out
34:15
Speaker 5: from the dirt.
34:16
Speaker 2: Detectives also linked another homicide cold case to the man
34:21
Speaker 2: they had in custody, seventeen year old Virginia Clayton, who'd
34:25
Speaker 2: vanished in the ultimate of nineteen eighty two. After heading
34:28
Speaker 2: to a beach town just down the coast from Asbury Park.
34:36
Speaker 3: She went missing in September. Her body was found only
34:40
Speaker 3: three days later. However, there was no connection to Richie
34:42
Speaker 3: big One at that time. It wasn't until after he
34:45
Speaker 3: was arrested and the bodies coming in that the authorities
34:49
Speaker 3: were able to piece together the profile of these drow killings,
34:54
Speaker 3: time frame, where Richie big War was and the likely victims.
34:58
Speaker 3: Virginia was one of his victims.
35:01
Speaker 5: They was just terrible, just terrible, you know, and then
35:04
Speaker 5: to deal with the parents, you know, it's just heartbreak,
35:07
Speaker 5: you know, it really is.
35:09
Speaker 2: The roster of began Walls victims was getting longer by
35:13
Speaker 2: the day. Then Darren Fitzgerald asked to meet Prosecutor James
35:17
Speaker 2: Fagan once again and began. Wall's accomplice was armed with
35:22
Speaker 2: another bombshell.
35:23
Speaker 6: So I sat down with Fitzgerald and he says, you know,
35:28
Speaker 6: two bodies are in his mother's backyard in Staten Island.
35:35
Speaker 6: He said, well one. I came home one time and
35:40
Speaker 6: Began Wall had chopped this girl up and put her
35:44
Speaker 6: in plastic bags and wanted my help and burying her
35:48
Speaker 6: in his mother's backyard. I helped him dig a hole.
35:51
Speaker 6: When I'm digging it, there was another body there in
35:57
Speaker 6: plastic bags, also got up.
36:00
Speaker 5: We went out to the house and we executed our
36:03
Speaker 5: search warrant and we dug where he alleged that the
36:07
Speaker 5: bodies were. And yes, we did find those two bodies.
36:13
Speaker 6: I had suspected who they were, but we had to
36:15
Speaker 6: get identification. Took them to the New York Medical Examiner's Office.
36:20
Speaker 2: Detectives went back to the list of missing teenage girls
36:24
Speaker 2: from the early nineteen eighties, after Beaganwald had moved to
36:27
Speaker 2: the Jersey Shore.
36:30
Speaker 5: There was a Deborah Osbourne and a Maria chillla Oh.
36:35
Speaker 5: I won't forget that because I used to have a
36:37
Speaker 5: picture of her on my desk.
36:40
Speaker 3: Marie went missing in November of nineteen eighty one. Deborah
36:44
Speaker 3: went missing in April of eighty two.
36:48
Speaker 12: These women, these young women, were not sexually assaulted. They
36:51
Speaker 12: were simply shot in the head. It is it's horrifying,
36:56
Speaker 12: genuinely that they were entirely innocent victims of a man
37:01
Speaker 12: who wanted to kill.
37:03
Speaker 2: Detectives realized there was a strong physical resemblance between all
37:07
Speaker 2: of Beganwall's teenage victims and his former girlfriend, Teresa Smith,
37:13
Speaker 2: who brought about began Wolf's downfall when she went to
37:16
Speaker 2: the police months earlier to implicate him in the murder
37:20
Speaker 2: of Anna Elizabitz.
37:22
Speaker 3: Eighteen to twenty two, somewhere around at that age range,
37:26
Speaker 3: dark hair, brown eyes, very attractive, petite that he would target,
37:32
Speaker 3: and somehow someway that was probably connected to Teresa because
37:37
Speaker 3: she was a living, breathing girlfriend of his that looked
37:42
Speaker 3: very familiar to his victims.
37:45
Speaker 2: Now linked to seven cold blooded killings. Richard Beegenwolds wasn't
37:49
Speaker 2: talking to the cops. Facing the death penalty if convicted,
37:54
Speaker 2: he asked his mother, Sally, to contact attorney Lou Diamond
37:58
Speaker 2: and beg him to save and Woe's life.
38:01
Speaker 8: She told me, nice lady that Richard had been arrested.
38:05
Speaker 7: Put the news on.
38:07
Speaker 8: And Richard had been arrested for a murder, so I
38:11
Speaker 8: agreed to go to Trenton State Prison to interview on me.
38:15
Speaker 8: They were going through the death penalty, which was an
38:17
Speaker 8: existence set, so there was no plea offer.
38:20
Speaker 3: A conversation takes place between Big World and his attorney.
38:26
Speaker 3: If I give up a number of bodies, will they
38:31
Speaker 3: take the death penalty off the table. The number was
38:35
Speaker 3: suggested that anywhere between twenty five bodies that he would
38:39
Speaker 3: give up to seventy five. Ironically, the man who took
38:43
Speaker 3: all these lives and the man who had this fascination
38:46
Speaker 3: with death now is looking at the death penalty and
38:51
Speaker 3: he doesn't want the death penalty, so he's in fear
38:55
Speaker 3: of death something that he had been fascinated with his
38:59
Speaker 3: whole life.
39:00
Speaker 7: Basically Richard's position.
39:02
Speaker 8: Which he wasn't lying down for anybody. Yeah, he's done
39:06
Speaker 8: enough time in jail to now that nobody respected you.
39:10
Speaker 3: So they come forward with that we're going to give
39:13
Speaker 3: you these bodies, take the death penalty off the table,
39:17
Speaker 3: and that offer was turned down. The prosecutor's office was
39:21
Speaker 3: secure in the fact that they had enough evidence. Hard
39:25
Speaker 3: evidence to secure convictions on him that they would put
39:30
Speaker 3: him away for years without a doubt.
39:34
Speaker 2: With the death penalty still on the table, Richard Beegenwold
39:38
Speaker 2: pleaded not guilty as his trial began at Monmouth County
39:42
Speaker 2: Superior Court.
39:44
Speaker 12: When Bigovol goes on trial on the twenty eighth of
39:47
Speaker 12: November nineteen eighty three. Part of the evidence against him
39:52
Speaker 12: is forensics discovered by the police in his car, and
39:56
Speaker 12: the police also had for the prosecution the evidence of
40:00
Speaker 12: Derren Fitzgerald, who turned against his quote sorcerer, and Teresa
40:05
Speaker 12: Smith who'd done the same thing.
40:07
Speaker 4: A very powerful case.
40:10
Speaker 5: Well, at first he came aware that the Bana unless
40:14
Speaker 5: it's not my name, try actually seeing the bye.
40:19
Speaker 4: Hardly.
40:19
Speaker 12: Surprisingly, Biganwold is found guilty of the killing of Anna.
40:25
Speaker 2: In February nineteen eighty four, Richard Beganwald was sentenced to
40:30
Speaker 2: death by lethal injection for the murder of Anna A.
40:34
Speaker 1: Leisterwitz.
40:35
Speaker 8: Didn't even blink and I point in the back. He said,
40:40
Speaker 8: what are we doing now? Yeah, we both know what
40:44
Speaker 8: was going to happen. He said nothing. I mean, it
40:46
Speaker 8: was just it was blank.
40:48
Speaker 6: You know, It's just I He didn't care began.
40:52
Speaker 2: Wall's next court appearance, also in February nineteen eighty four,
40:56
Speaker 2: was for the murder of petty drug dealer William Ward.
41:00
Speaker 9: The William Ward trial was in Mount Holly. I traveled
41:03
Speaker 9: there to testify pretty much told the same story, talked
41:08
Speaker 9: about the bombs, these the snake.
41:12
Speaker 8: When here is this, okay, this is the basement Federal Area.
41:17
Speaker 7: Mister Begenwald.
41:19
Speaker 9: That trial, he was obviously found guilty too, and then
41:22
Speaker 9: that was it.
41:24
Speaker 13: He pled to the other ones.
41:27
Speaker 2: In September nineteen eighty four, Bigenwald pleaded guilty to the
41:31
Speaker 2: murders of seventeen year old Maria Chillella and Deborah Osborne.
41:36
Speaker 2: After a series of legal wrangles, his death sentence was
41:39
Speaker 2: commuted to life in prison without parole. With prosecutors lacking
41:44
Speaker 2: concrete evidence, Beigenwald was never charged in connection with the
41:48
Speaker 2: deaths of Virginia Clayton and John Patron and Evers. To
41:53
Speaker 2: get him to confess to any further murders came to nothing.
41:57
Speaker 6: Mike Dowling, who was an investigator and prosecutor's office at
42:01
Speaker 6: the time, and myself we took a ride to Trent
42:05
Speaker 6: And State Prison. Michael and I were sitting at a table,
42:08
Speaker 6: and I remember Michael looking at me, oh cold in here,
42:11
Speaker 6: turn around and Richard's coming in. He says, what do
42:14
Speaker 6: you want? And I said, I'll tell you what we want.
42:17
Speaker 6: And I'll be very right out there and say, I
42:20
Speaker 6: want to know where you put these other bodies. You'll
42:23
Speaker 6: never be charged with any of these crimes. I simply
42:27
Speaker 6: want to put the rest these families. I mean, you
42:31
Speaker 6: know there's people out there looking for people. Just laughed
42:35
Speaker 6: and said, you don't think I'm going to.
42:37
Speaker 13: Do that, do you?
42:39
Speaker 2: Big and Wall died in prison in two thousand and eight.
42:43
Speaker 2: He refused to ever explain his actions, meaning those who
42:47
Speaker 2: knew him had been left to speculate about why he
42:50
Speaker 2: murdered his victims.
42:52
Speaker 8: Sometimes it was for self protection. He thought that they
42:55
Speaker 8: may be about to give him up on something one case.
42:58
Speaker 8: Another time it was a release that he needed.
43:03
Speaker 3: It was an impulse that he had to satisfy something
43:07
Speaker 3: deep within him. He showed no remorse. He killed people
43:13
Speaker 3: and whim I would say he was an evil man.
43:21
Speaker 2: Unlike many serial killers, Richard Beegenwold never sought fame or
43:26
Speaker 2: notoriety for his murders. He refused invitations to tell his
43:31
Speaker 2: story to the press or to investigators. His stubborn silence
43:36
Speaker 2: has denied a sense of closure to the families of
43:39
Speaker 2: those victims who've been identified and the many who have not.
43:44
Speaker 1: Richard Biegenwold enjoyed killing.
43:46
Speaker 2: It was a way of life, a pastime, and a
43:49
Speaker 2: solution to his problems. He will be remembered in New
43:53
Speaker 2: Jersey and beyond as one of the world's most evil killers.