"Last Call" - new book about serial killer who targeted gay men

Interesting. He mentions Youngstown - that was actually one of my college gay bar hangouts circa this era. (Hello, Joshua's!)

The Townhouse always makes me want to kill myself. But not others.

Did this happen to the Townhouse habitues?

I’ve pre-ordered

I got excited, I thought there was a sale at Neimans

I just went to Amazon and you can download the first two chapters for free to Kindle.

Why is there a homophobic slur on the cover of the book?

Sounds like a must read! I was in the Townhouse a lot in the 1980s and 90s.

R6 Here, just read the chapters, chapter one takes place with the discovery of the body on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Lancaster county as a John Doe, and chapter two traces him back to Philadelphia with a fundraising event in NYC ending the chapter and a visit to the Townhouse bar. Quite gripping a a nicely sketched history of the victim and the times.

"Looking For Mr. Gaybar"

R9 post please.

R7 is triggered.

Is this about the serial killer in The Exorcist and the inspiration for the film Crusing?

Is this the guy from Toronto or another one? Wasn't there a serial killer in the gay scene in Toronto a few years back?

Ew, he wasn't even hot. If we're going to have gay serial killers they need to look like H. H. Holmes.

I barely remember this case. I just ordered the book --sounds fascinating.

I have never heard of this guy. Damn, my serial killer knowledge is slipping.

Does it talk about Stella's and Cats and the Gaiety?

[quote]Is this the guy from Toronto or another one? Wasn't there a serial killer in the gay scene in Toronto a few years back?

Next season on "The Murdoch Mysteries."

Been reading it most of the day. Slipped in about the discussion of the Townhouse is that Andrew Cunnan frequent it for a few days in the midst of his cross country killing spree before murdering the person in NJ and heading to South Beach. I don’t recall did they depict that in the Criss epic?

R14 no the Toronto guy was another. Interesting backstory here. He’s currently in jail for life.

ATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- ­­­­­­An Oxygen TV­­ series about serial killers has revived interest in a Staten Island man who worked as a pediatric nurse in Manhattan while allegedly moonlighting as the brutal "Last Call Killer."

Co-workers and neighbors were stunned when the man known as a gentle healer of children was arrested and later convicted in two horrific deaths.

Richard W. Rogers Jr., a registered nurse from Fort Wadsworth who worked for 22 years at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, was a suspect in the gruesome killings of at least four men who vanished from Manhattan between 1991 and 1994.

Authorities claimed Rogers trolled gay bars for victims, killing them and dissecting their bodies with surgical precision. He allegedly stuffed their remains into bags and dumped them alongside highways in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

I've started reading the book last night. Just finished reading about the second victim. So far the book is very interesting account of the lives and culture of closeted gay men in their 50s during this era. And it's certainly paints a depressing portrait of The Townhouse scene. A great deal of sadness and loneliness and quiet desperation.

Christ, the murderer was a DLer, when detectives were going through his house they were impressed how immaculate and organized it was, down to the alphabetizing and separating out by genre his VHS collection. One detective was awe of the number of Golden Girl tapes he had.

I'm assuming the murders were not sex-oriented since the victims were middle-aged. What was his motive then?

If he were 🔥 the DLers would be giving him a pass.

The Town House gave me the creeps.

NPR review.

One (small) consolation perhaps is that if he did to the ones murdered what he did to the guy he abducted and let go, they were completely drugged and unconscious when he killed them, the drugs found in his house and work locker makes it apparent he had easy access to them and used them in his process. Though, I don’t recall if there were toxicology reports of the victims and what, if any, of these drugs were found in their systems or if there would be residue from them.

I read the book in an ebook format which didn’t have pictures, but I just watched the Oxygen Network Mark of a Killer episode that had pictures and video of some of the individuals in the story. I have Xfinity and it was free and accessible from there. The book covered everything mentioned, except that when the police raided his house there were Polaroids he took in secret of hunky construction workers outside his house and he put red stabby marks on their bodies. This seems like a weird show to be on Oprah’s network.

R25 He was quite hot in an AWG way.

"I'm assuming the murders were not sex-oriented since the victims were middle-aged. What was his motive then?"

I assume a big motivator is that the middle-aged, closeted, fearful gay men of that era were easy prey. They'd go into vulnerable situations with other men and drink anything they were given, and they wouldn't go to the police if they were assaulted and survived. Hell, if they were killed, some of them didn't even have families who'd push for an investigation of their deaths.

The man was probably gay himself, or he wouldn't have been familiar enough with gay culture to realize how easy it was to drug, attack, or kill the poor guys.

This bit was in one section about an investigation, where they go to the Blue Parrot, a gay piano bar in Philly.

Which one of you bitches sang this?

[quote] The big Friday and Saturday draw was Michael Ogborn, a composer and lyricist then in his late twenties, who played the piano and sang American standards in a tenor. To the regulars of the Blue Parrot, the experience of singing with Ogborn was akin to church. A beloved, oft-remembered bit from his set was a snarky tribute to dead divas, including Karen Carpenter. It was preceded by chants from the audience: Dig. Her. Up! Dig. Her. Up!

[Quote] Dig. Her. Up! Dig. Her. Up!

Gays. You kill me.

R32 The irony of course is that at some point Richard did have her dug up and removed to a new family mausoleum he had built in the valley.

When police searched the killer's home....

[quote] Hundreds of VHS recordings, alphabetized and separated by genre. (Fifteen years later, detectives marveled about the number of Golden Girls episodes.)

This sounds fascinating, OP. Thank you. I reserved the e-book at the library.

(One downside to the pandemic is all the people who suddenly discovered how to download e-books from the library. Wait times have ballooned.)

R36 I *was* one of those newbies, dear. But hope your copy comes soon!

Another little bit of snark: the new piano player has his first day at the piano bar.

He's gay, but didn't have a big repertoire from his old job. He figures he can play a few things he knows - some old classics, some songs from shows like Mame.

He nestles in at the piano and a client walks by and says "Whatever you play, please don't play any music from Mame!"

Oopsie!

Just finished reading the book. I wish the author had been able to lend more insight on why Rodgers did what he did, but I understand that 1) Rodgers refused to speak to him or answer any questions; and 2) the author wanted to focus on the lives of the victims and how they got to be where they were when their paths crossed Rodgers. But Rodgers is a bit of a cypher as a result. Perhaps it's just as well. Who can truly understand how a psychopath ends being what they are?

I was not crazy about the author repeatedly using the term "queer" to describe the gay/lesbian community of the time. Especially when I read in acknowledgements section that he's married to a woman. I know he's coming from a good place, trying to be inclusive and as an ally doing his bit to take back the word and use it for empowerment. But still, it didn't set well for me. It would be like a white author using the N word to describe the Black/African American community. I don't care for when LGBT people use "queer" but even less so when straights do, no matter if they are allies, because there are still plenty of anti gay people who use queer as an epithet and still they persist no matter how many times other try to use it as empowerment or trying to take the word back.

He's young, R39. All his lesbian/woke friends told him to use that word.

R39...I had the same reaction.

R39 I thought exactly the same thing. It is actually a little disrespectful as most gay men of that time would not have responded to being called that in a positive manner.

How did the murderer, plain-looking at best, convince these victims to go back to his home in Staten Island?? Now that's a mystery not covered in the book.

[quote]His victims were all middle aged gay men

The victims can't be morbidly obese like most DL middle aged gay men, right? That would be difficult to get rid of the bodies.

"Queer" is not inherently disrespectful. For it to be so, the word has to be used disrespectfully. But then 'doormat' could be used as easily and effectively.

Certainly there is NO SHORTAGE of the word "cunt" being tossed around by many of the same people objecting to the word "queer" and always done so must disrespectfully. Very few people here object to using a term to which fast numbers of women object. Only when it cuts closer to home do the backs arch and the frowns appear.

Things change, girls. Growth happens. New ideas... they exist! Change with the times or be left behind with your Manhattan and your Madame Alexander collection.

I knew the man picked up after last call at Five Oaks. We'd often be among the handful of gays still standing at 4am. All judgement and reason went out the window at that hour. That's when the hustlers would be out along Seventh Avenue South. Likewise the vans, and those damaged enough to lure these men into their vehicles. But there were no street cameras back then. So no one ever saw it happen, and if they did, they (we) were too shitfaced to make sense of what we were seeing.

R7 Millennials embraced the Queer label for some reason. It's no longer considered a slur.

I had an ex-bf who was targeted by a gay serial killer, he passed out at a party and woke up to find the guy riding his dick raw and only found out that he was a killer after he was caught and put on trial - also found out he was HIV+ but fortunately hadn't passed it on.

So lucky really, in several ways.

I just watched a doco on this

R49 Something just out now?

Here,

A good read to relive NYC c. 1990. Odd and unfulfilling as there is never real resolution. But a fun read.