4.8 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 14 August 2023
⏱️ 38 minutes
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NEW YORK CITY, 1990s: On May 28, 2001, after an eight year long investigation spanning three states, New York police officers finally closed in on their target: a nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital. Advancements in fingerprinting technology had finally identified a suspect connected to garbage bags containing the remains of four men discarded on the side of the road in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. His name was Richard Westall Rogers Jr. AKA The Last Call Killer.
In this follow-up episode to Frederic Alan Spencer's story, you'll hear the stories of Peter Stickney Anderson, Thomas Mulcahy, Anthony Edward Marrero, and Michael Sakara and how the suspect's past encounters with the law would ultimately play a crucial role in his capture, 28 years later.
Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green
Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York on HBO
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0:00.0 | For the majority of the 8 million residents of New York City, May 28, 2001 was a day like any other. |
0:10.0 | Rain covered the island of Manhattan as the twin towers the highest structures on the horizon looked out over the city. |
0:17.0 | At Mount Sinai Medical Center on the upper east side of Manhattan just steps away from the historic Central Park and Madison Avenue. |
0:25.0 | New York police officers approached one of the long-time nurses in the middle of his shift. |
0:30.0 | At that moment, Richard Westall Rogers Jr. was unaware that a task force from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had been tracking him for three weeks. |
0:40.0 | And Richard did not know that eight years of investigation and advancements in forensic technology had finally identified his fingerprints on green garbage bags found on the side of the road in all three of those states. |
0:54.0 | Garbage bags containing the remains of four different men. |
0:58.0 | Perhaps Richard Rogers believed that enough time had passed. Perhaps his experience with the law thus far had made him believe he would and could get away with anything. |
1:09.0 | After all, Richard Rogers had been on trial before, for murder even, and he got off scot free. |
1:16.0 | But his arrest for that confessed killing would eventually play a big role in finally tracking him down 28 years later. |
1:25.0 | I'm Kylie Lowe and these are the stories of Peter Stickney Anderson, Thomas Mulkehi, Anthony Edward Marrero and Michael Sicarra, on Dark Down East. |
1:39.0 | Richard Westall Rogers knew that Orno Maine was a small town in the middle of a close-knit state. |
1:51.0 | After he confessed but then was acquitted for the murder of his roommate Frederick Allen Spencer, Richard disappeared from Maine to create a new life. |
2:01.0 | Though Rogers had pursued the study of French in both his undergraduate and graduate education, something seemed to change for him. |
2:09.0 | Rather than returning to the occupation or locations that he had previously known like his childhood home in Massachusetts, his parents or college in Florida, or his graduate university in Maine, Richard Rogers moved to New York City. |
2:23.0 | While there, he pursued another different graduate degree. |
2:27.0 | This time, he enrolled in nursing school at PACE University and graduated in 1978. |
2:33.0 | By January of 1979, soon after his graduation, Richard was hired at Mount Sinai Medical Center and began to establish himself in New York. |
2:43.0 | By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Richard Rogers seemed to have found his place. |
2:50.0 | According to Elon Green's book Last Call, Rogers worked the late shifts at Mount Sinai every other day, meticulously saving his paid time off in order to travel each year. |
3:01.0 | Though he was previously labeled quiet through high school and college and not very well known by his classmates, in New York Rogers seemed to find himself. |
3:10.0 | While he didn't freely discuss his personal life at work, Richard Rogers was openly gay and spent a great deal of his free time frequenting the most well-known gay bars in Manhattan. |
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