March 12, 2021 • 28 mins
On July 3rd, 1929, a horrific discovery was made at 3587 St Aubin Street, home to Santina and Benny Evangelist and their family. What ensued, was one of the most bizarre murder mysteries in US history...
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Please note the following episode contains graphic and disturbing murder
scenes involving children. Parental discretion as advised. It was July third,
(00:20):
nineteen twenty nine, and shaping up to be another hot
one in the US city of Detroit, Michigan, when Vincent
Elias arrived at thirty five eighty seven Saint Auban Street. Vincent,
a real estate dealer, had arranged to meet Benny evangelist,
who lived at the property with his wife and four children,
for a ten thirty business meeting to discuss a farm
(00:43):
he was looking to buy from Benny. Vincent knocked on
the door and stepped back onto the porch, checking his
watch just to make sure he wasn't too early. Looking
about the street, he couldn't help but notice how quiet
it was for the usually bustling neighborhood, comprised largely of
Italian and Polish immigrants lured to the New World on
(01:04):
the promise of the American dream. Vincent checked his watch
again and knocked for a second time, turning his ear
to the door to listen out for any sign of
movement from inside, but heard nothing. It was certainly a
little odd, he thought, since though the kids would be
at school, the youngest, and Benny's wife, Santina, would be home,
(01:28):
even if Benny had forgotten their appointment. Growing impatient, Vincent
pulled open the front door and stepped inside. Taking his
hat in his hands, he called through apologetically as he
looked about the entrance hall, expecting Benny or Santina to
appear any moment, but the house remained completely still. Moving
(01:52):
further inside, Vincent spied Benny sitting at his desk, albeit strangely. Still.
Didn't you hear me knocking? He asked, but Benny didn't reply. Benny,
he said, stepping closer, the word barely audible as it
caught in his throat. For a moment, it looked as
(02:14):
though he was leaning so far forward his head was
being obscured by his back. But as Vincent drew nearer,
he realized with a thumping horror his head wasn't visible
because it wasn't on his shoulders. Then Vincent looked down
to the floor. There, lying in a thick pool of
(02:34):
blood was Benny's head, his eyes staring lifelessly up to
the ceiling. Seconds later, Vincent was back in the street,
heaving and gasping for air. Having flagged down two police officers,
(02:56):
Patrol and Lawrence, and Costage, Vincent returned with them to
the property, more than happy to be asked to wait
for them outside. As they conducted a search of the house,
they found Benny, just as Vincent had described, dressed in
a dark suit, with his body leant forward against the
desk with his hands pressed together in front of him
(03:17):
as though conducting a silent prayer. The head seemed to
have been taken off in one clean swoop, but there
were some other things that Vincent hadn't noticed. Three photos
that seemed to have been deliberately placed around the head,
each showing the image of a young boy lying dead
in a coffin. Then the officers noticed the set of
(03:39):
bloody footprints leading away from the head and out of
the room. Patrol and Lawrence stepped into the front hall
and asked Vincent again who else lived at the property.
As he eyed the bloody prints that trailed off towards
the back of the house, his wife and four children,
replied Vincent, with a concerned look toward his partner. Lawrence
(04:05):
unclipped his gun and pressed on, cautiously, tracking the prince
through the kitchen to the stairs. They took note of
the pile of dishes, presumably from the night before, that
had been washed but not yet put away. Pulling out
their revolvers, the officers crept slowly up the stairs, the
(04:25):
creak of each step echoing loudly as they made their
way to the second floor and on into the master bedroom.
Dear God, muttered Lawrence under his breath. The blood soaked
body of a woman lay strewn across the bed, cradling
a dead baby in her arms. The woman's head, which
(04:47):
had been all but severed, was hanging limply over the
side by a single sinuous thread. The baby's head, too,
had been almost completely obliterated. The wall and bedsheets were
splattered with blood, with the rest pulling out onto the floor.
A huge gash on the woman's upper arm seemed to
(05:08):
suggest the killer had tried to sever that too, and
still the bloody footsteps continued through the bedroom and beyond
into another smaller bedroom. Officer Lawrence turned away at the
sight of a small child sprawled out on the floor,
their skull cleaved right through the middle and lying one
(05:32):
in each of the two beds. Two more young children,
both killed in the exact same way. One child's arm
had also been severed at the shoulder. It was a
horror beyond comprehension, and it was about to get even stranger.
You're listening to unexplained, and I am Richard mc lane Smith.
(06:03):
Having secured the main house, Lawrence and Costage continued their
search of the property, heading first into the attic. All
about the room bunches of herbs had been left out
to dry in a way that seemed almost ritualistic. Then,
amid the boxes of surplus household items, they found a
large collection of underwear, which they judged to have belonged
(06:26):
to various women, with a different name tag tied to
each item. But even more peculiar was what they found
in the basement. Heading down into the darkness, Patrom and
Lawrence stopped suddenly at the sight of what appeared to
be bodies dangling from the ceiling, scrambling hastily for the lights,
(06:47):
which the officer flicked it on to reveal nine or
ten life sized papier mache figurines strung up to the
ceiling with wire. Each figure, carefully crafted and deck rated,
was different from the next, with strange and in some cases,
grotesque features. One had a pair of wings, another an
(07:10):
unusually long nose, and one was holding a baby covered
in hair. The walls had been draped with green cloth,
and in the middle of it all, a gigantic eye,
lit up from the inside, had been positioned to shine
down on everything. All in all, it was fair to
say the officers had never seen anything like it. In
(07:34):
a side room, they also found a stash of wine
and kegs of beer, a not unusual find during the
era of prohibition. After reporting their strange and horrific find
back to police headquarters, the patrolman was soon joined by
a swathe of colleagues intrigue to see it all for themselves.
In total, more than twenty detectives representing almost every department
(07:58):
arrived to take a look, from representatives of homicide to
the bomb squat while outside. As word began to spread
around the neighborhood, soon as many as two hundred people
had descended on the property, keen to see it all too.
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a doctor's advice should be sought before using this and
any supplemental dietary product. With Detective Lieutenant John Whitman and
detectives Charles Searle and Earl Switzer leading the investigation, the
police set about trying to disentangle just what an earth
was going on. With the help of neighbors and Vincent
(09:53):
Elias who had been detained at the scene, they ascertained
the victims to be thirty six year old Santeen evangelist
and her husband, the forty three year old Benny, along
with their daughters eight year old Angelina and six year
old Jenny, and their sons five year old Matthew and Mario,
who was only eighteen months old. Business cards found on
(10:17):
Benny's desk declared him to be a real estate developer
and building contractor. But more pertinent to the officers were
the other set of business cards they found scattered about
the attic, on which was written mister Benny Evangelist, divine prophet,
author and private history writer. As police continue to search
(10:39):
the evangelist's house, things only got more bizarre. A wig
and fake beard was found alongside what appeared to be
two ceremonial sorts, all of which clashed somewhat with the
various crucifixes dotted about the walls and the large painting
of the Last Supper in Benny's study. There was a
(11:00):
little more to Penny Evangelist than met the eye. As
for clues to who the killer might be, police found
only the bloody footprints, as well as a bloody finger
and a thumb print on the front door latch. Unluckily
for Vincent, since he was the last known person to
enter the house and his feet were a similar size
to the bloody prints, he was promptly taken in for questioning. However,
(11:25):
an alibi was quickly established and he was soon released
from custody. Then, detectives received word of a man seen
brandishing a bloody knife only six blocks from the scene
of the crime in the early hours of the previous morning.
It seemed they might have their killer. Later in the afternoon,
(11:52):
not long after, the victim's bodies were removed from the
house as the crowd of hundreds watched on, detectives arrived
at twenty eight thirty Pierce Street, located roughly five minutes
walk from the evangelist's residence, there police discovered a razor
edged banana knife, a short handle axe, and a freshly
(12:12):
washed pair of shoes, all said to belong to thirty
four year old Angelo Dapoli, who was lodging at the property.
On closer inspection, the axe appeared to be covered in
blood stains, and as detectives soon found out, it just
so happened that Dapoli, along with his fellow lodger, forty
two year old and Berto Pecchio, had visited the evangelists
(12:36):
property the night before the murders, making them the last
known people to see the family alive. With the axe
being sent off for testing, the men were immediately brought
in for questioning, and though Dapoli claimed to struggle to
understand them, he denied all knowledge of the potentially incriminating objects. Tecchio,
(12:57):
on the other hand, was a little more fourth coming.
As it transpired, it was to Poli who had in
fact accompanied him to the evangelist's property, having gone there
to make a final payment on a property he was
buying from Benny. As Techio explained, the pair arrived at
the house around eight pm, then, after swiftly making the payment,
(13:19):
headed on to a speakeasy where they spent the next
few hours drinking together. They both returned to the boarding
house around eleven PM and promptly went to bed, a
fact that was attested to by a number of their
fellow boarders. With the murders said to have occurred some
time after midnight, this put Techio and to Poli away
(13:40):
from the scene of the crime at the crucial time.
After analysis, the marks on the axe were found to
be simply rushed, and since neither Techio or Dapol's prince
matched those found on the door, the pair were released
the following day, Suddenly left without their anticipated suspect, The
(14:07):
police began to dig a little further into Benny's life.
After speaking to Benny's brother Antonio, things began steadily to
become a little clearer. Benjamino of Angelista was born in Napoli, Italy,
in eighteen eighty five, and in nineteen oh three emigrated
to the USA at the age of seventeen to join
(14:29):
his brother, who'd moved there two years earlier, living together
while picking up odd jobs in construction and on the
ever expanding railroads. Though the pair had once been close,
things had become strained between them when one morning Benny
claimed he'd started receiving visions from God at midnight for
(14:50):
three hours every night since February the second, nineteen o six.
He explained he'd been falling into a trance during which
he was given visions of the true history of the
world and how it had been created, dating back fifteen
four hundred years to the time before Adam, all the
way to the birth of Christ. Benny had also begun
(15:12):
recording each and every vision he'd experienced for inclusion in
a book he was planning to write. In response, Antonio,
who like Benny, had been brought up a strict Roman Catholic,
tried at first to ignore his brother's strange and growing obsession,
until eventually he couldn't bear it any longer. By nineteen
(15:32):
oh eight, he'd become so unsettled by it he disowned
Benny and sent him away to the town of York
in Pennsylvania, where he was able to find more work
in railroad construction. Antonio knew little about his brother's time
spent in York, but by nineteen twenty the pair had
been reconciled, with Benny joining Antonio in Detroit, where he'd
(15:55):
since moved with his family. Like thousands of others, Antonio
had been drawn to the city by the extraordinary boom
of the automobile industry, led by the Ford Motor Company
and General Motors. Benny, however, had other ideas. Benny's time
(16:19):
in York had done nothing to dampen his apparent fascination
with mysticism, and by the time he moved to Detroit,
he'd even established himself as something of a prophet and
faith healer, and soon rumors of his unusual talent began
to spread around the neighborhood. Working as a carpenter by day,
at night, Benny moonlighted as a healer and prophet for higher,
(16:44):
offering spells and healing rituals for up to ten dollars
a pop. Though some might come for the novelty of
a fortune read or the purchase of a love potion,
ten dollars or one hundred and forty dollars in today's
money wasn't cheap, and while others derided him as nothing
but a circus fraud, many sincerely believed that what Benny
(17:06):
was offering would cure them of their ills. It was
during one such appointment that Benny met his wife, Santina,
and before long, the pair had moved in together and
were expecting their first child. Over time, Benny made so
much money he was able to do away with the
carpentry altogether and instead turned his attention to real estate
(17:29):
while continuing to moonlight as a faith healer. And as
the real estate business grew, so too did Benny's commitment
to his more unusual profession. After moving into the large,
four bedroom house at thirty five eighty seven Saint Auban Street,
he immediately set about converting the basement into an altar
that would become the center point of his healing rituals.
(17:53):
The strange folk models he'd had constructed and hung up
in their were depictions of various celestial planets, which he
would then use to help read the signs that he
claimed to receive from God. And on February second, nineteen
twenty six, twenty years after he started, he finally finished
his book, which was published that year under the title
(18:15):
The Oldest History of the World Discovered by a Cult Science,
many copies of which were found by police piled up
in his home. In it, Benny laid out the history
of the world as it had apparently been dictated to
him by God, in effect constituting a new Earth, which
he named the Great Union Federation of America. In spite
(18:40):
of this all, however, Benny continued to attend the local
Catholic church, San Francesco's, which had become a haven for
much of the local Italian population. Located on Brewster Street,
only a few blocks from Saint Auban's, it was presided
over by Father Francis Beccarini. Each of Any and Santina's
(19:01):
four children were baptized there, leading Father Beccherini to suspect
as he later told the police that Benny's interest in
the occult was purely for financial gain, as opposed to
any genuine spiritual interest. And yet, even at the time
of his death, every night from midnight to three am,
(19:22):
Benny continued to sit at his desk in his office
and wait for the visions from God. Are you a
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to establish a motive, the police began to wonder if
Benny and his family had been murdered by a disgruntled
(20:51):
customer who he'd been unable to heal, or perhaps the
partner of one of the women whose underwear he'd been
keeping in the attic. Another theory was that, if Benny
had been working to build up a cult following for
his new religion, perhaps one of the followers, in a
fit of religious mania, had been driven mad by the
grotesque figurines during one of his rituals and had later
(21:14):
returned to the house to murder the family. Things weren't
helped by the fact that many in the local neighborhood,
some because of how they'd been treated in the past
and others due to their not entirely legal status, had
grown suspicious of the police, and so they were reluctant
to come forward with any pertinent information. Of the few
(21:35):
neighbors and friends that did speak, however, despite Benny's own
doctor describing him as insane on account of his dealings
in the occult, most had only warm things to say
about him and his family. Though they thought it ought
whenever they saw him in the street, gazing toward the
sky and gesticulating wildly, he appeared to be well respected
(21:56):
among the local community. He'd even been granted a life
since by the state of Michigan to practice his unusual medicine,
and as for his visions of the real Earth history
that he hoped to spread through his own Bible, it
was no more speculative or unquantifiable as the very book
under which much of the nation labored. For the police investigators, however,
(22:19):
it was all a little too peculiar that no money, jewelry,
or anything else of monetary value appeared to have been
taken in the attack only seemed to strengthen their theory
that his dabblings in the occult were to blame. A
brief attempt to connect the crime with a similarly horrific
and brutal murder of a woman and her two children
(22:40):
in nearby River Rouge was quickly dismissed. Despite offering a
thousand dollars or fourteen thousand in today's money for any
substantial information, no one came forward. On Saturday j six,
(23:01):
as a crowd of three thousand gathered to watch six
opal colored caskets were wheeled out of fl Calcatira funeral
home by sixteen girls dressed all in white and pushed
across the road to San Francesco's church. Emotions were high
amongst the close knit community, shocked by the senseless brutality
(23:22):
of it all, as many, including Antonio Evangelista along with
his brother Joseph, who'd made the long and arduous journey
from Italy to be there, wept openly inside. With the
church having been filled up long before the service began.
The mourners stood as the six caskets were wheeled inside
(23:43):
and placed in single file, running all the way down
to the transept. As Father Beccarini led the solemn requiem mass,
many had to be helped from the building, having become
so overwhelmed with grief. Meanwhile, throughout the out a number
of plainclothed police officers kept a watchful eye on the
(24:04):
proceedings for any hint that the murderer might be among them.
One man immediately caught their attention, who was seen arriving
alone at the church by bike, wearing a battered hat
and a well worn suit. After deciding the man, John Ryan,
had been acting strangely, officers took him in for questioning. However,
(24:26):
the man, who was later judged to have been suffering
from psychiatric problems and who weighed barely ninety pounds, was
quickly released. Later that afternoon, the six bodies of the
evangelist family were taken to Mount Olivet Cemetery and laid
to rest. After the funeral, Detroit Police held a press
(24:52):
conference to appeal for witnesses, in particular anyone who might
have been walking by the house at the time of
the murders to and forward. With no further tangible clues
aside from the bloody Prince, the police began the arduous
task of pouring through the family's possessions in search of
a lead, having also at first been looking for an
(25:14):
axe as the murder weapon. Doctor Paul Clever, the Wayne
County coroner, who examined the bodies, concluded it was in
fact a sharp knife and not an axe, that they
should be looking for. Self styled human engineer and astrologer
Clark Robson, having consulted his astrological charts, gave his opinion
(25:34):
to the press, stating that the police needn't worry too much, since,
with mercury and uranus being fifty degrees apart, the killer,
who he judged to be a man of less than
medium height with a dark complexion, was also a show
off and would shortly confess to the crime to gain notoriety.
Robson also suggested that Benny, evangelist, who he claimed on
(25:58):
looking at his horoscope, was large driven by his desire
for money, had known his death was coming, and that
despite what the police had said, it was in fact
a dispute over money that led to his and his
family's murder. It was some point around the time of
(26:19):
the funeral, with investigators trawling through Benny's personal letters, that
they uncovered something unusual, a series of letters sent to
Benny demanding money, and though no threat was explicitly made,
it was more than implicit, not least because the letters
had been signed simply the Black Hand. Though not much
(26:43):
was known about the exact nature of the Black Hand
at the time, the organization is thought to have originated
in Napoli sometime in the eighteenth century. In nineteen oh seven,
a black Hand training camp was discovered in Hillsville, Pennsylvania.
While many proponents of the organization appeared to be active
in most Italian communities of major cities on both sides
(27:06):
of the country, many police departments within the corresponding cities
had even established special Blackhand units to combat them, and
so it seemed finally the police had the lead they've
been looking for. Surely, now solving the murders would only
be a matter of time. You're listening to Unexplained, Season five,
(27:32):
Episode twelve, Profit and Loss, Part one of two. Part
two will be released next Friday, March nineteenth. If you
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(28:15):
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(28:36):
explanation of your own you'd like to share
Please note the following episode contains graphic and disturbing murder
scenes involving children. Parental discretion as advised. It was July third,
(00:20):
nineteen twenty nine, and shaping up to be another hot
one in the US city of Detroit, Michigan, when Vincent
Elias arrived at thirty five eighty seven Saint Auban Street. Vincent,
a real estate dealer, had arranged to meet Benny evangelist,
who lived at the property with his wife and four children,
for a ten thirty business meeting to discuss a farm
(00:43):
he was looking to buy from Benny. Vincent knocked on
the door and stepped back onto the porch, checking his
watch just to make sure he wasn't too early. Looking
about the street, he couldn't help but notice how quiet
it was for the usually bustling neighborhood, comprised largely of
Italian and Polish immigrants lured to the New World on
(01:04):
the promise of the American dream. Vincent checked his watch
again and knocked for a second time, turning his ear
to the door to listen out for any sign of
movement from inside, but heard nothing. It was certainly a
little odd, he thought, since though the kids would be
at school, the youngest, and Benny's wife, Santina, would be home,
(01:28):
even if Benny had forgotten their appointment. Growing impatient, Vincent
pulled open the front door and stepped inside. Taking his
hat in his hands, he called through apologetically as he
looked about the entrance hall, expecting Benny or Santina to
appear any moment, but the house remained completely still. Moving
(01:52):
further inside, Vincent spied Benny sitting at his desk, albeit strangely. Still.
Didn't you hear me knocking? He asked, but Benny didn't reply. Benny,
he said, stepping closer, the word barely audible as it
caught in his throat. For a moment, it looked as
(02:14):
though he was leaning so far forward his head was
being obscured by his back. But as Vincent drew nearer,
he realized with a thumping horror his head wasn't visible
because it wasn't on his shoulders. Then Vincent looked down
to the floor. There, lying in a thick pool of
(02:34):
blood was Benny's head, his eyes staring lifelessly up to
the ceiling. Seconds later, Vincent was back in the street,
heaving and gasping for air. Having flagged down two police officers,
(02:56):
Patrol and Lawrence, and Costage, Vincent returned with them to
the property, more than happy to be asked to wait
for them outside. As they conducted a search of the house,
they found Benny, just as Vincent had described, dressed in
a dark suit, with his body leant forward against the
desk with his hands pressed together in front of him
(03:17):
as though conducting a silent prayer. The head seemed to
have been taken off in one clean swoop, but there
were some other things that Vincent hadn't noticed. Three photos
that seemed to have been deliberately placed around the head,
each showing the image of a young boy lying dead
in a coffin. Then the officers noticed the set of
(03:39):
bloody footprints leading away from the head and out of
the room. Patrol and Lawrence stepped into the front hall
and asked Vincent again who else lived at the property.
As he eyed the bloody prints that trailed off towards
the back of the house, his wife and four children,
replied Vincent, with a concerned look toward his partner. Lawrence
(04:05):
unclipped his gun and pressed on, cautiously, tracking the prince
through the kitchen to the stairs. They took note of
the pile of dishes, presumably from the night before, that
had been washed but not yet put away. Pulling out
their revolvers, the officers crept slowly up the stairs, the
(04:25):
creak of each step echoing loudly as they made their
way to the second floor and on into the master bedroom.
Dear God, muttered Lawrence under his breath. The blood soaked
body of a woman lay strewn across the bed, cradling
a dead baby in her arms. The woman's head, which
(04:47):
had been all but severed, was hanging limply over the
side by a single sinuous thread. The baby's head, too,
had been almost completely obliterated. The wall and bedsheets were
splattered with blood, with the rest pulling out onto the floor.
A huge gash on the woman's upper arm seemed to
(05:08):
suggest the killer had tried to sever that too, and
still the bloody footsteps continued through the bedroom and beyond
into another smaller bedroom. Officer Lawrence turned away at the
sight of a small child sprawled out on the floor,
their skull cleaved right through the middle and lying one
(05:32):
in each of the two beds. Two more young children,
both killed in the exact same way. One child's arm
had also been severed at the shoulder. It was a
horror beyond comprehension, and it was about to get even stranger.
You're listening to unexplained, and I am Richard mc lane Smith.
(06:03):
Having secured the main house, Lawrence and Costage continued their
search of the property, heading first into the attic. All
about the room bunches of herbs had been left out
to dry in a way that seemed almost ritualistic. Then,
amid the boxes of surplus household items, they found a
large collection of underwear, which they judged to have belonged
(06:26):
to various women, with a different name tag tied to
each item. But even more peculiar was what they found
in the basement. Heading down into the darkness, Patrom and
Lawrence stopped suddenly at the sight of what appeared to
be bodies dangling from the ceiling, scrambling hastily for the lights,
(06:47):
which the officer flicked it on to reveal nine or
ten life sized papier mache figurines strung up to the
ceiling with wire. Each figure, carefully crafted and deck rated,
was different from the next, with strange and in some cases,
grotesque features. One had a pair of wings, another an
(07:10):
unusually long nose, and one was holding a baby covered
in hair. The walls had been draped with green cloth,
and in the middle of it all, a gigantic eye,
lit up from the inside, had been positioned to shine
down on everything. All in all, it was fair to
say the officers had never seen anything like it. In
(07:34):
a side room, they also found a stash of wine
and kegs of beer, a not unusual find during the
era of prohibition. After reporting their strange and horrific find
back to police headquarters, the patrolman was soon joined by
a swathe of colleagues intrigue to see it all for themselves.
In total, more than twenty detectives representing almost every department
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arrived to take a look, from representatives of homicide to
the bomb squat while outside. As word began to spread
around the neighborhood, soon as many as two hundred people
had descended on the property, keen to see it all too.
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a doctor's advice should be sought before using this and
any supplemental dietary product. With Detective Lieutenant John Whitman and
detectives Charles Searle and Earl Switzer leading the investigation, the
police set about trying to disentangle just what an earth
was going on. With the help of neighbors and Vincent
(09:53):
Elias who had been detained at the scene, they ascertained
the victims to be thirty six year old Santeen evangelist
and her husband, the forty three year old Benny, along
with their daughters eight year old Angelina and six year
old Jenny, and their sons five year old Matthew and Mario,
who was only eighteen months old. Business cards found on
(10:17):
Benny's desk declared him to be a real estate developer
and building contractor. But more pertinent to the officers were
the other set of business cards they found scattered about
the attic, on which was written mister Benny Evangelist, divine prophet,
author and private history writer. As police continue to search
(10:39):
the evangelist's house, things only got more bizarre. A wig
and fake beard was found alongside what appeared to be
two ceremonial sorts, all of which clashed somewhat with the
various crucifixes dotted about the walls and the large painting
of the Last Supper in Benny's study. There was a
(11:00):
little more to Penny Evangelist than met the eye. As
for clues to who the killer might be, police found
only the bloody footprints, as well as a bloody finger
and a thumb print on the front door latch. Unluckily
for Vincent, since he was the last known person to
enter the house and his feet were a similar size
to the bloody prints, he was promptly taken in for questioning. However,
(11:25):
an alibi was quickly established and he was soon released
from custody. Then, detectives received word of a man seen
brandishing a bloody knife only six blocks from the scene
of the crime in the early hours of the previous morning.
It seemed they might have their killer. Later in the afternoon,
(11:52):
not long after, the victim's bodies were removed from the
house as the crowd of hundreds watched on, detectives arrived
at twenty eight thirty Pierce Street, located roughly five minutes
walk from the evangelist's residence, there police discovered a razor
edged banana knife, a short handle axe, and a freshly
(12:12):
washed pair of shoes, all said to belong to thirty
four year old Angelo Dapoli, who was lodging at the property.
On closer inspection, the axe appeared to be covered in
blood stains, and as detectives soon found out, it just
so happened that Dapoli, along with his fellow lodger, forty
two year old and Berto Pecchio, had visited the evangelists
(12:36):
property the night before the murders, making them the last
known people to see the family alive. With the axe
being sent off for testing, the men were immediately brought
in for questioning, and though Dapoli claimed to struggle to
understand them, he denied all knowledge of the potentially incriminating objects. Tecchio,
(12:57):
on the other hand, was a little more fourth coming.
As it transpired, it was to Poli who had in
fact accompanied him to the evangelist's property, having gone there
to make a final payment on a property he was
buying from Benny. As Techio explained, the pair arrived at
the house around eight pm, then, after swiftly making the payment,
(13:19):
headed on to a speakeasy where they spent the next
few hours drinking together. They both returned to the boarding
house around eleven PM and promptly went to bed, a
fact that was attested to by a number of their
fellow boarders. With the murders said to have occurred some
time after midnight, this put Techio and to Poli away
(13:40):
from the scene of the crime at the crucial time.
After analysis, the marks on the axe were found to
be simply rushed, and since neither Techio or Dapol's prince
matched those found on the door, the pair were released
the following day, Suddenly left without their anticipated suspect, The
(14:07):
police began to dig a little further into Benny's life.
After speaking to Benny's brother Antonio, things began steadily to
become a little clearer. Benjamino of Angelista was born in Napoli, Italy,
in eighteen eighty five, and in nineteen oh three emigrated
to the USA at the age of seventeen to join
(14:29):
his brother, who'd moved there two years earlier, living together
while picking up odd jobs in construction and on the
ever expanding railroads. Though the pair had once been close,
things had become strained between them when one morning Benny
claimed he'd started receiving visions from God at midnight for
(14:50):
three hours every night since February the second, nineteen o six.
He explained he'd been falling into a trance during which
he was given visions of the true history of the
world and how it had been created, dating back fifteen
four hundred years to the time before Adam, all the
way to the birth of Christ. Benny had also begun
(15:12):
recording each and every vision he'd experienced for inclusion in
a book he was planning to write. In response, Antonio,
who like Benny, had been brought up a strict Roman Catholic,
tried at first to ignore his brother's strange and growing obsession,
until eventually he couldn't bear it any longer. By nineteen
(15:32):
oh eight, he'd become so unsettled by it he disowned
Benny and sent him away to the town of York
in Pennsylvania, where he was able to find more work
in railroad construction. Antonio knew little about his brother's time
spent in York, but by nineteen twenty the pair had
been reconciled, with Benny joining Antonio in Detroit, where he'd
(15:55):
since moved with his family. Like thousands of others, Antonio
had been drawn to the city by the extraordinary boom
of the automobile industry, led by the Ford Motor Company
and General Motors. Benny, however, had other ideas. Benny's time
(16:19):
in York had done nothing to dampen his apparent fascination
with mysticism, and by the time he moved to Detroit,
he'd even established himself as something of a prophet and
faith healer, and soon rumors of his unusual talent began
to spread around the neighborhood. Working as a carpenter by day,
at night, Benny moonlighted as a healer and prophet for higher,
(16:44):
offering spells and healing rituals for up to ten dollars
a pop. Though some might come for the novelty of
a fortune read or the purchase of a love potion,
ten dollars or one hundred and forty dollars in today's
money wasn't cheap, and while others derided him as nothing
but a circus fraud, many sincerely believed that what Benny
(17:06):
was offering would cure them of their ills. It was
during one such appointment that Benny met his wife, Santina,
and before long, the pair had moved in together and
were expecting their first child. Over time, Benny made so
much money he was able to do away with the
carpentry altogether and instead turned his attention to real estate
(17:29):
while continuing to moonlight as a faith healer. And as
the real estate business grew, so too did Benny's commitment
to his more unusual profession. After moving into the large,
four bedroom house at thirty five eighty seven Saint Auban Street,
he immediately set about converting the basement into an altar
that would become the center point of his healing rituals.
(17:53):
The strange folk models he'd had constructed and hung up
in their were depictions of various celestial planets, which he
would then use to help read the signs that he
claimed to receive from God. And on February second, nineteen
twenty six, twenty years after he started, he finally finished
his book, which was published that year under the title
(18:15):
The Oldest History of the World Discovered by a Cult Science,
many copies of which were found by police piled up
in his home. In it, Benny laid out the history
of the world as it had apparently been dictated to
him by God, in effect constituting a new Earth, which
he named the Great Union Federation of America. In spite
(18:40):
of this all, however, Benny continued to attend the local
Catholic church, San Francesco's, which had become a haven for
much of the local Italian population. Located on Brewster Street,
only a few blocks from Saint Auban's, it was presided
over by Father Francis Beccarini. Each of Any and Santina's
(19:01):
four children were baptized there, leading Father Beccherini to suspect
as he later told the police that Benny's interest in
the occult was purely for financial gain, as opposed to
any genuine spiritual interest. And yet, even at the time
of his death, every night from midnight to three am,
(19:22):
Benny continued to sit at his desk in his office
and wait for the visions from God. Are you a
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to establish a motive, the police began to wonder if
Benny and his family had been murdered by a disgruntled
(20:51):
customer who he'd been unable to heal, or perhaps the
partner of one of the women whose underwear he'd been
keeping in the attic. Another theory was that, if Benny
had been working to build up a cult following for
his new religion, perhaps one of the followers, in a
fit of religious mania, had been driven mad by the
grotesque figurines during one of his rituals and had later
(21:14):
returned to the house to murder the family. Things weren't
helped by the fact that many in the local neighborhood,
some because of how they'd been treated in the past
and others due to their not entirely legal status, had
grown suspicious of the police, and so they were reluctant
to come forward with any pertinent information. Of the few
(21:35):
neighbors and friends that did speak, however, despite Benny's own
doctor describing him as insane on account of his dealings
in the occult, most had only warm things to say
about him and his family. Though they thought it ought
whenever they saw him in the street, gazing toward the
sky and gesticulating wildly, he appeared to be well respected
(21:56):
among the local community. He'd even been granted a life
since by the state of Michigan to practice his unusual medicine,
and as for his visions of the real Earth history
that he hoped to spread through his own Bible, it
was no more speculative or unquantifiable as the very book
under which much of the nation labored. For the police investigators, however,
(22:19):
it was all a little too peculiar that no money, jewelry,
or anything else of monetary value appeared to have been
taken in the attack only seemed to strengthen their theory
that his dabblings in the occult were to blame. A
brief attempt to connect the crime with a similarly horrific
and brutal murder of a woman and her two children
(22:40):
in nearby River Rouge was quickly dismissed. Despite offering a
thousand dollars or fourteen thousand in today's money for any
substantial information, no one came forward. On Saturday j six,
(23:01):
as a crowd of three thousand gathered to watch six
opal colored caskets were wheeled out of fl Calcatira funeral
home by sixteen girls dressed all in white and pushed
across the road to San Francesco's church. Emotions were high
amongst the close knit community, shocked by the senseless brutality
(23:22):
of it all, as many, including Antonio Evangelista along with
his brother Joseph, who'd made the long and arduous journey
from Italy to be there, wept openly inside. With the
church having been filled up long before the service began.
The mourners stood as the six caskets were wheeled inside
(23:43):
and placed in single file, running all the way down
to the transept. As Father Beccarini led the solemn requiem mass,
many had to be helped from the building, having become
so overwhelmed with grief. Meanwhile, throughout the out a number
of plainclothed police officers kept a watchful eye on the
(24:04):
proceedings for any hint that the murderer might be among them.
One man immediately caught their attention, who was seen arriving
alone at the church by bike, wearing a battered hat
and a well worn suit. After deciding the man, John Ryan,
had been acting strangely, officers took him in for questioning. However,
(24:26):
the man, who was later judged to have been suffering
from psychiatric problems and who weighed barely ninety pounds, was
quickly released. Later that afternoon, the six bodies of the
evangelist family were taken to Mount Olivet Cemetery and laid
to rest. After the funeral, Detroit Police held a press
(24:52):
conference to appeal for witnesses, in particular anyone who might
have been walking by the house at the time of
the murders to and forward. With no further tangible clues
aside from the bloody Prince, the police began the arduous
task of pouring through the family's possessions in search of
a lead, having also at first been looking for an
(25:14):
axe as the murder weapon. Doctor Paul Clever, the Wayne
County coroner, who examined the bodies, concluded it was in
fact a sharp knife and not an axe, that they
should be looking for. Self styled human engineer and astrologer
Clark Robson, having consulted his astrological charts, gave his opinion
(25:34):
to the press, stating that the police needn't worry too much, since,
with mercury and uranus being fifty degrees apart, the killer,
who he judged to be a man of less than
medium height with a dark complexion, was also a show
off and would shortly confess to the crime to gain notoriety.
Robson also suggested that Benny, evangelist, who he claimed on
(25:58):
looking at his horoscope, was large driven by his desire
for money, had known his death was coming, and that
despite what the police had said, it was in fact
a dispute over money that led to his and his
family's murder. It was some point around the time of
(26:19):
the funeral, with investigators trawling through Benny's personal letters, that
they uncovered something unusual, a series of letters sent to
Benny demanding money, and though no threat was explicitly made,
it was more than implicit, not least because the letters
had been signed simply the Black Hand. Though not much
(26:43):
was known about the exact nature of the Black Hand
at the time, the organization is thought to have originated
in Napoli sometime in the eighteenth century. In nineteen oh seven,
a black Hand training camp was discovered in Hillsville, Pennsylvania.
While many proponents of the organization appeared to be active
in most Italian communities of major cities on both sides
(27:06):
of the country, many police departments within the corresponding cities
had even established special Blackhand units to combat them, and
so it seemed finally the police had the lead they've
been looking for. Surely, now solving the murders would only
be a matter of time. You're listening to Unexplained, Season five,
(27:32):
Episode twelve, Profit and Loss, Part one of two. Part
two will be released next Friday, March nineteenth. If you
enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can
now do so via Patreon. To receive access to add
three episodes, just go to patron dot com, forward slash
(27:53):
Unexplained pod to sign up, or if you'd like to
make a one time donation, you can go to Unexplained
Podcast forward Slash Support. All donations, no matter how large
or small, are greatly appreciated. Unexplained, the book and audiobook,
featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on
the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can
(28:15):
purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores.
All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced
by me Richard McClane smith. Please subscribe and rate the
show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to
get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the
stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an
(28:36):
explanation of your own you'd like to share
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