January 31, 2023 • 54 mins
The Warwick Slasher cut class for vicious attacks two years apart.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark (00:00):
The girl's face was that of a kid who had caught the
monster under the bed.
She and vicious had an eternalbreathless moment, recognition,
disbelief.
Then the girl shifted almostimperceptibly, and the spell was
broken.
She drew in a breath Viciouslunged to intercept her scream.
Marcy (00:18):
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
Sergeant Mark Rein, usingpublicly available information,
court records and personalrecollections.
Content may be graphic,disturbing, or violent.
Listener discretion is advised.
(00:40):
Suspects are considered innocentuntil found guilty in a court of
law.
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(01:02):
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That's free access for 30 daysat audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
We'll also put the link in theshow notes.
Mark (01:32):
Vicious stood in the deep dark, under a copse of trees.
He was watching a house, onlyone trimmed lawn away.
It was late, late enough that noone in the neighborhood stirred,
despite it being a Saturdaymorning.
The beginning of a long LaborDay weekend.
The air was thick.
The warmth of summer having onlyjust begun to fade.
(01:53):
As he spied, his gut roiled.
Struggling with raw emotion.
Anticipation.
Excitement, yes, but thoseharshly tempered by fear.
Vicious knew he was standing ona precipice, but he'd been there
before.
Two years earlier.
He thought back to that time.
(02:14):
His emotions had been the same.
It was crazy what he had done,but he had gotten away with it.
And what he had done hadpropelled him even deeper into
the fantasies that had takenover his life.
Those memories had fueledaddiction, and tonight the
promise of new ones broke theimpasse.
Vicious crept forward from theshadows.
(02:35):
The ambient light from a lamp upthe street was dim, but he felt
exposed nonetheless.
He reached the house and huggingthe wall he moved window to
window scanning inside andchecking the doors.
Some windows were clear, otherscovered by blinds or curtains.
What lay inside those, a mysteryhe was about to dissolve.
(02:56):
At the completion of one orbit,vicious had not found an
unlocked door, but had seenenough to be comfortable with
the house's layout.
He was drawn back to a kitchenwindow.
Now was the time to move.
Swift and silent.
Vicious used his knife to cutopen the screen.
He popped the window latch andwasting no time, pulled himself
up and through, kicking hisshoes off before bringing his
(03:18):
feet inside.
He crouched on kitchen linoleum.
It was comfortably dark.
During the pause, he listenedfor movement.
Sounds of alarm, and hearingnone, he stood and slowly moved
past the kitchen and the livingroom and started into the back
hall.
The corridor was almost black.
(03:39):
Vicious had a plan.
Which of them would he visitfirst?
He was trying to orient himselfwhen something bumped into him.
He felt the child's hand on hisbelly just an instant before it
pulled away.
He sensed more than saw a smallfigure's retreating movement
into the abyss.
There was a second of horror andindecision.
(03:59):
Then blinding light shocked hiseyes.
An instant before a darkmystery, now fully illuminated,
vicious stood in the middle ofthe hallway.
One of the little girls leaningagainst the wall, her hands
still in the light switch.
The girl's face was that of akid who had caught the monster
under the bed.
Her eyes wide and locked on hismere feet apart.
(04:20):
She and vicious had an eternalbreathless moment, recognition,
disbelief.
Then the girl shifted almostimperceptibly, and the spell was
broken.
She drew in a breath Viciouslunged to intercept her scream
too late.
The girl's screech echoedthrough the house as vicious
grab for her.
He tried to cover her mouth,desperately trying to put the
(04:40):
genie back in the bottle.
The door to the mother's bedroomripped open.
The woman in her night closedhair wild from sleep.
Paused in the portal, having thesame moment of detachment and
disbelief her daughter hadexperienced just a second
before.
Vicious was past that.
Adrenaline kicking in, hedropped the girl and tackled the
mother hard, driving her to thefloor, pummeling her.
(05:02):
The mother desperately criedout.
To no one.
To everyone.
Call nine one one! Call nine oneone! Vicious' s rage was growing
but not at the cost of acuity.
He was the predator who couldeat, while watching his own
back.
He heard movement down the hallbehind him and saw one of the
girls moving toward the kitchen.
He jumped off the woman tointercept.
(05:23):
There were knives in the sink.
Grabbing one as he flew past,vicious hit the girl with one
meaty palm, forcing her to thefloor.
He began stabbing her on the waydown.
There was no time yet to savor.
The woman was still behind him.
The kitchen knife in Vicious'shand was covered with gore.
Swapping it for another, herushed back to the woman.
(05:44):
He was relieved to find hercrumpled, semi-conscious, trying
to get up, struggling to crawldown the hallway toward the
kitchen, and her daughter.
Vicious landed on her, pinningher.
The air in her lungs explodingout of her in a reverse gasp.
Vicious was seeing everythingthrough the red hue now.
The woman.
The girls, one splayed dying onthe kitchen floor, the other, he
(06:06):
looked around and she was rightnext to them.
Kneeling next to her mother inthe hallway floor.
She was silent in shock, as iflost in prayer.
Vicious looked at the woman.
He had picked her because of theway she had looked at him a few
weeks earlier.
He had been out on the street.
She caught him talking to thelittle girls as they played in
(06:26):
the front yard.
She looked at him like a pieceof shit she wanted to dis scrape
from her shoe.
She didn't have to say anything.
Her expression spoke volumes.
Vicious had been planning,dreaming about this moment for
weeks.
It hadn't gone as planned.
The bitch had almost ruined it,but he was salvaging that now.
(06:47):
Vicious focused intently on thewoman as he pinned her to the
floor.
Then he began stabbing her,aiming for her neck.
He knew from the last time theneck was vulnerable.
He liked the feel of the knifeas skin and tissue resisted,
giving way to being punctured.
The blade, sliding throughflesh.
He did it over and over again.
(07:08):
And when a blade broke on bone,he went back to the kitchen for
another.
When Vicious's rage was spent onthe mother, he turned toward the
10 year old girl.
She was still kneeling besidethem, quietly rocking and
moaning.
Her eyes closed, sending a riverof tears down her blood
spattered face.
Through The Red Haze, viciouswas pleased.
(07:29):
This was better than what he haddreamed of.
He pulled the girl toward himwith one hand as he brought the
blade across with the other.
Her startled scream broke as theblade entered the side of her
throat.
Marcy (07:55):
In August, 1987, police were called to a home on Inez
Avenue in the Buttonwoodneighborhood of warwick, Rhode
Island for the report of a deadwoman.
The call was an unusual one forthe quiet middle class
neighborhood, which was mostlysingle family homes on small
lots.
Patrol officers were the firstto arrive.
(08:16):
They quickly ascertained thatthe woman inside hadn't just
died.
She had been viciously murdered.
The police call quickly evolvedinto a crime scene processing,
and a homicide investigation.
What the detectives learned wasthat the location was the home
of Rebecca Spencer, a 27 yearold mother of two, an eight year
(08:36):
old boy and a four year oldgirl.
Rebecca's body had beendiscovered by her brother Carl,
who'd also lived there.
He had returned in the morningfrom an overnight shift as a
security guard.
Rebecca was divorced from thechildren's father and mercifully
they'd been with him the nightbefore.
The scene was unusual.
(08:56):
The house was a rental, and thefamily was in the process of
moving out.
Most of the furniture wasalready gone.
What remained was strewn aboutsome items in boxes, some sorted
in preparation.
Detectives thought they couldrule out theft as a motive
because there were valuableslying around.
A woman's pocketbook was foundnear the body, seemingly
(09:18):
undisturbed.
The killing had been brutal.
Rebecca was lying on her side onthe living room floor.
Her blue nightgown was drenchedwith blood.
Stab wounds to her body were sonumerous, at autopsy they were
difficult to count.
The official number was 58.
Her head, face, neck, torso, andarms had all been targeted with
(09:41):
no place on her upper bodyspared.
She had clear defensiveinjuries.
Several of the wounds would'vebeen fatal by themselves.
She suffered damage to herlungs, heart, liver, and major
blood vessels.
The attack had been done withsuch ferocity that pieces of the
knife had broken off andremained in the body.
(10:05):
One surprising result from theautopsy, there was no sign of
sexual assault.
Aside from the bloody mess inthe living room, the rest of the
house was fairly clear ofevidence.
There were a couple of bloodsmears that indicated the killer
had come and gone through anunlocked back door.
A search of the surroundingyards turned up a kitchen knife
(10:26):
in the grass.
It was later determined to bethe murder weapon.
A frying pan was found in somenearby bushes.
Both items had been taken fromRebecca's kitchen.
Investigators looked at thevictim's life.
They found that she was anambitious woman on the rise.
Rebecca worked at a job at ajewelry store and studied at
(10:46):
night, having recently receiveda G E D and had plans to start
college courses the followingsemester.
Rebecca spent the day before hermurder, packing and running
errands.
She had her ex take the kidsovernight because the move was
in a chaotic stage.
According to Becky's brother,Carl, the prior evening had been
normal.
(11:07):
Becky cooked dinner for Carl anda couple of her friends who were
helping with the move.
When police spoke to them, theyrepeated Carl's description of
the evening.
Nothing unusual had happened.
The friends left her alive andwell around midnight.
As word of the murder spread,the usually quiet neighborhood
streets became clogged fromresidents, media and onlookers
(11:29):
as they flowed past.
Even the mayor of the city madean appearance.
Investigators were initiallyconfident that they could close
the case, but as each successivelead was processed without an
arrest, they were eventuallyleft with no viable suspect.
The arc of the investigationmirrored the scene.
(11:49):
Furious initial activity and acrowd of investigators slowly
dwindled to nothing.
The sad case of Becky Spencer'sdeath languished as it became an
increasingly distant memory.
Fast forward two years toSeptember 1st, 1989.
It had been three days sinceanyone had heard from Joan
(12:10):
Heaton, a 39 year old singlemother, living with her two
daughters in a house, just acouple hundred yards from where
Becky Spencer had been killed.
Joan's mother, Marie Bouchard,was worried as the long Labor
Day weekend came to a close withno word from the family.
On September 4th, she dropped bytheir house to check on them.
(12:31):
She was puzzled to find Jones'Car was in the driveway, but no
one answered the door.
She used her key.
Police then received a franticcall from the Heaton residence.
Marie Bouchard was reporting amurder.
Once again, patrol officers werethe first to arrive.
The unfolding call was eerilysimilar to the one two years
(12:52):
before, except for the number ofvictims Unfortunately, the kids
had been home for this one.
Investigators determined thatsometime probably on September
1st, someone had broken into thehouse and brutally murdered Joan
and her daughters.
The bodies had been left todecompose Over the weekend.
(13:14):
Joan Heaton was found in thehallway just off the kitchen.
She had suffered numerous stabwounds, 11 just to the face
where she had also been bitten.
It wasn't just a stabbing.
The beating had been brutal.
Her skull and ribs fracturedwith corresponding blunt force
trauma to her head and torso.
(13:35):
10 year old Jennifer lay in thehallway beside her mother.
She suffered 62 stab woundsduring the attack, which seemed
focused on her neck.
One of the knives lost a threeand a half inch piece of the
blade that was left embedded inher body.
Like her mother, Jennifer Skullhad been crushed.
Joan's youngest, seven year old,Melissa was found on the kitchen
(13:58):
linoleum, ringed by an enormouspool of dried blood.
Like her mother and sister, thelittle girl had been stabbed
repeatedly and mercilesslybeaten.
During processing, the crimescene yielded several clues.
Joan Heaton bought a set ofkitchen knives on September 1st.
Some of those knives weremissing from the house.
(14:21):
the killer had left a bloodysock print on the floor.
The print was big, somewherearound a men's size 13.
Another interesting feature atthe scene was a blood trail that
led away from the bodies.
The trail ended at a pile ofbandage wrappers.
Apparently the suspect had cuthimself.
Like the attack up the street,there was no evidence of sexual
(14:44):
assault, but there were signs ofactive resistance.
Items were disturbed.
Some broken.
The kitchen table was on itsside.
One of the legs splintered off.
A large palm print on thetabletop seemed to indicate that
the bad guy had fallen backwardonto the table, leaving the
print as it collapsed under hisweight.
(15:04):
Detectives noticed other signsat the scene that pointed the to
the killers state of mind andmotive.
The bodies had been haphazardlycovered with blankets and area
rugs.
This wasn't done in an effort tohide the crime as the bodies
would've been immediatelyobvious to anyone entering the
house.
Also, as with other murdervaluables in the home had been
(15:26):
left undisturbed.
The discovery of the bodies hada profound effect on the police
department and the community.
Openly acknowledging links withthe Rebecca Spencer murder
police command assigned 26officers to a task force.
They were joined by three F B Iagents.
Those investigators begancombing through the crime scene,
(15:47):
the neighborhood, and theheaton's background.
The victimology would leadnowhere.
Joan Heaton's husband committedsuicide in 1983 She was
described as a shy, quiet,religious woman who worked as a
research assistant in thebiology department at the
university, and she enjoyedquilting.
No one in the family circlecould think of anyone who would
(16:09):
want to hurt them.
Nothing in the house indicated athreat that had preceded the
attack.
A search warrant for Joan safedeposit yielded no clues.
Investigators recognize that theblood trail leading from the
bodies might be their route toidentify the perpetrator.
Roadblocks were set up in thearea.
(16:29):
Police talked to people aboutthe crime while closely
examining men for injuries.
Subpoenas were served on areaclinics and hospitals in search
of suspicious wounds.
Several men were immediatelymade persons of interest by the
drag net, but most were easilyeliminated With cursory follow
up.
The community was horrified asthe details of the crime leaked
(16:51):
out.
Gun sales went through the roof.
One gun merchant credited thespike to the vicious nature of
the murders, saying of theresidents"They're scared.
Scared to hell." Other securityrelated sales went up as
residents upgraded their doors,window locks, and purchased
alarm systems.
(17:11):
One of the people policecontacted the day after the
murders were discovered wasCraig Price.
A 15 year old African Americanboy who lived in the
neighborhood.
One of the task force officers,stopped out on a group of
neighborhood kids on September5th, and price was among them.
The officer knew price through ayouth sports program.
the boy was large for his age,just under six feet and around
(17:34):
260 pounds.
He didn't have major history,just some petty thefts and was
rumored to have done somebreak-ins with friends from the
hood.
On that day what drew particularattention to price was that one
of his hands was wrapped ingauze.
When asked about it, price saidthat he had cut his hand on
glass.
He showed the officer the wound,which was a significant injury
(17:56):
to the left index finger.
Price gave specific details asto where and how the cut
happened.
But looking at the wound, theofficer was suspicious.
He made notes and submitted arequest for a follow-up
investigation.
Price was not immediately aprime suspect, but developed
over time.
The hangup was his age.
(18:18):
He would have been 13 when BeckySpencer was killed.
No one believed that waspossible.
No one wanted to believe it.
Still.
He had the cut.
He had big size 13 ish feet.
He had been living there formore than two years.
The investigators went out andtried to backstop his injury
(18:40):
story.
They found no glass on theground and other details didn't
match.
The inquiry intensified.
Casual conversations withprice's friends didn't
corroborate any of his details.
The investigators invited priceand his parents to the Warwick
Police Station on September 9th.
When they interviewed him, theypointed out the discrepancies in
(19:01):
his account and price expandedhis story.
He admitted a crime.
He said he did it breaking intoa car and gave a more detailed
explanation of how his hand wascut.
The investigators thought thatthe kid was smart.
He made an admission againstself-interest, but they still
didn't believe him.
The discussion was fruitfulbecause it allowed investigators
(19:23):
to more closely inspect thewound.
The September 9th interviewbumped price up the list of
active suspects.
He went even higher as theylooked at specifics of his new
story.
He was clearly still lying.
They brought him back in onSeptember 16th for a more
pointed conversation.
(19:43):
When price arrived at the policestation, they took additional
photographs.
They took finger, palm andfootprints.
They hooked him up to apolygraph.
The interview transitioned intoan interrogation.
Price denied knowing theHeatons.
Denied ever going to their houseand denied killing them.
Price left thinking he hadbeaten the cops.
(20:04):
What he didn't know was that oneof his friends told the
detectives that price was askingpeople to lie about how he got
his cut.
The following morning, policeentered the price home at 7:30
AM with a search warrant.
Eventually, they made it theshed in the backyard.
In an interview with a reporter,years later, price said he
watched from a window as adetective came out of the shed,
(20:28):
holding up a bag that containedthe still bloody knives used to
kill the heatons.
At that moment, he fantasizedabout attacking one of the cops,
disarming him, and shooting hisway out.
In reality, detectives rushedback into the house and slapped
handcuffs on the 15 year oldkiller.
By the time he made it to thepolice station, price had calmed
(20:51):
down.
He knew they had him and decidedto tell them everything.
He wanted to put his own spin onthe killings, justifying them in
a way that he thought wouldgarner sympathy from some.
He had one ace up his sleeve.
He knew that a 15 year old couldnot be charged as an adult, and
he was guaranteed freedom by thetime he was 21.
(21:14):
With a little luck, he mighteven be out earlier.
In a recorded confession pricetold the whole story with his
mother sitting beside himcrying.
He talked about how he had briefcontact with Joan Heaton and the
two girls the day before themurders.
He described how on the night ithappened, he took a knife over
(21:35):
to the Heaton house, cut awindow screen, and slipped
inside.
Price claimed that his intentwas only to kill the mother,
Joan.
He didn't want to hurt thelittle girls.
To keep everything quiet, pricesaid he had slipped off his
shoes as he went inside.
From there, he moved toward theback bedrooms.
In the dark hallway, pricebumped into one of the little
(21:57):
girls.
To keep the situation fromspinning out of control, he
tried to grab Melissa before shecould scream, but was
unsuccessful in silencing her.
Joan Heaton came out of thebedroom and confronted price who
in turn attacked her.
Price was afraid Melissa wasgoing for the phone, so he ran
back, intercepting her in thekitchen.
(22:19):
He grabbed a knife from the sinkand stabbed her.
Without pausing, he returned toJoan and stabbed her too.
Price turned and stabbedJennifer.With all three Heatons
and silent, dead or dying on thefloor, price said he bolted.
He ran back to his house tohide, but the gravity of what he
had done had started to weigh onhim.
(22:41):
He worried about evidence he'dleft behind.
What had he touched?
What had he forgotten?
as his mind continued to spin,price said he crept his way back
into the house.
The bodies had started to giveoff an odor confirming that they
were really all dead.
He didn't like looking at them,so he covered the bodies with
blankets and rugs and thencollected the knives.
(23:03):
He retreated to his house, hidthe knives in the shed and his
bloody clothes in the attic.
In response to detectivesquestions, price said he didn't
remember exactly when he cuthimself, just that it was during
the stabbings.
He only noticed it later.
When asked why he did it.
Price described an incidentrecently.
(23:24):
He was talking to the littlegirls from the street.
When Joan Heaton approached, hesaid she looked at him with
disgust.
He was sure she was a racist.
In essence, Jones Gaze hadenraged him and made him wanna
kill her.
From the Heaton murderconfession, the detectives
pivoted to Becky Spencer.
(23:45):
Price, in the same emotionlesstone he described killing the
Heatons, confirmed that he hadmurdered Rebecca Spencer and
proceeded to describe how ithappened.
Price said that he was motivatedby another act of racism.
On the night prior to themurder, he and some friends were
playing in the street.
A man drove up in a car andbefore he went inside Becky's
(24:08):
place, he directed a racial slurtowards price.
The incident, enraged price, andmade him wanna kill Rebecca.
He went on to give details ofthat crime that were
corroborated by evidence,talking about details that only
the killer should know.
Price said he went in through anopen back door.
(24:29):
The place was in disarraybecause of the move.
He Found Becky sleeping on thefloor of the living room in
front of the television, whichwas turned to one of the music
video channels.
Price left his weapon back athis house, so he searched the
kitchen.
He thought about beating herwith a frying pan, but it seemed
unwieldy.
(24:49):
He chose a knife instead.
After killing Rebecca SpencerPrice said he threw the knife in
the high grass in the backyard,just as he would in the second
murder price stew about theevidence.
So he returned to clean up whathe could.
He touched the frying pan, so hethrew it in the neighbor's
bushes.
One of the details that pricebrought up repeatedly was that
(25:10):
he had been high on marijuanaand l s D for both murders.
He indicated that the drug usewasn't just prior to his crimes,
but a regular, even constantfeature of his daily life, going
back years.
After the confession, several ofthe detectives reflected
publicly on price's demeanor.
They were stunned that a suspecthis age could talk about the
(25:33):
barbaric crimes with whichseemed like the complete
detachment.
He spoke in horrific detail howhe bit Joan Heaton's face as he
stabbed her.
The sounds his dying victimsmade.
The lack of a defense fromJennifer as he turned his rage
against the little girl.
During the whole horribleaccount, he never faltered.
(25:54):
never expressed regret orremorse.
His only complaint the injury tohis hand.
One of the local papers quotedpolice Captain Collins saying I
think if he was concerned aboutanything, it was cutting his
finger" and summing it up said"this is not your garden variety
of juvenile delinquent.
(26:15):
This is a bright sociopath who,in my opinion, has enough
sophistication to control hisbehavior because he knows
exactly what the consequenceswould be.
He's a monster." Theinvestigators wanted to know
what kind of environment couldspawn a boy killer.
John and Shirley Price met in1967 at the Concord Baptist
(26:37):
Church in Boston.
They were married the followingyear.
Their first child, kimberly wasborn August, 1968, followed by
John Junior in 1972, and Craigin October, 1973.
In the family, both parentsworked.
Shirley was a clerical worker inan office while her husband was
(26:59):
a manager at the Pepsi plant.
Their combined income put themcomfortably in the middle class,
which allowed them to buy thehouse in Buttonwood in 1978.
Price was considered the familyjokester.
They said he liked to tellstories and do impressions.
He played baseball and footballseriously, and the rock and roll
electric guitar.
(27:20):
Not seriously.
His teachers thought of him as avery intelligent, habitual
underachiever.
Price had what police wouldconsider more normal brushes
with law enforcement, gettinginto trouble for low level
criminal violations.
He smoke, drank, used drugs,went to parties, and had been
(27:40):
charged for petty theft.
One family incident caught theinvestigator's attention.
In July, 1989, an enraged priceattacked his sister.
Their father tried to intervene,but price wouldn't back down.
Police were called and he foughtwith them too.
When they were finally able toforce price into handcuffs, he
(28:02):
was taken to juvenile detentionon domestic violence assault
charges.
Overall, the investigatorslooking at price's backstory
were amazed at how normal itseemed.
He was the baby in a traditionalnuclear family of five.
They lived in a middle classhome in the suburbs.
His father and mother wereresponsible and respectable.
(28:23):
There were no signs of the kindof chaos and upheaval so
commonly found in thebiographies of other young
killers.
The relief and celebrationfollowing the capture of who the
media called the Warwick Slasherwas short-lived.
The facts of Price's crimes,shocked the citizens of Rhode
Island.
Then came the realization thatunder current law price would be
(28:47):
released on or before his 21stbirthday.
Just five years away.
Shock and fear turned tooutrage.
Citizens demanded action frompublic leaders.
Price didn't help himself duringthis tense time.
In one public appearance, he wasbeing led from the courthouse
and called out to the nearbynewsy, smiling and taunting.
(29:10):
When I get out, I'm gonna smokea bomber.Price was initially
sentenced to be held at thestate juvenile training facility
until his 21st birthday onOctober 11th, 1994.
efforts began almost immediatelyto keep price locked up for
longer.
There was an action on alegislative fix.
(29:31):
In 1990, state law was changedto allow juveniles under 16 who
commit the most violent crimesto be moved to adult court.
Because of the constitutionalprohibition on ex post facto
laws, the change would notaffect price's case.
Another strategy was to have themurderer evaluated for possible
(29:53):
commitment to a mentalinstitution.
So psychiatric evaluationstarted.
The first psychologist notedthat price was articulate and
superficially affable, butshowed a lack of empathy for
others, and clearly had innerconflict that he kept hidden.
He wrote,"he appears to be ayoung man limited in the
(30:15):
available resources for copingwith stress and vulnerable to
being overwhelmed by stimulusdemands, both from his own
emotional pressures and from theenvironment.
Predicted as a result would bedisorganization and a loss of
control." Other documentationread"this teenager believes that
(30:37):
past degradations may be undoneby provoking fear and
intimidation in others.
He is rarely able to submergethe memories of past
humiliations and this resentmentmay break through his controls
in impulsive and irrationalanger." A second psychologist
(30:59):
wrote that prices, instances ofracism were vivid, but seemed
exaggerated and possiblyfabrications.
And"the possibility exists thatprice possessed a preexisting
paranoid trait, which thencaused him to perceive
maltreatment that wasnon-existent." when price's
(31:19):
public defender caught wind ofthe state's plan to keep him
locked up using thepsychological evaluation
results, the lawyer advisedprice to stop cooperating.
The state's response to this wasto obtain a court order
requiring his cooperation.
The legal fight over the orderand price's lack of cooperation
(31:39):
would go on for years.
The outrage overprices shortsentence grew.
Volunteers gathered signaturesfor petitions demanding that
price be locked up or exiledfrom the state.
At a public rally, maryBouchard, Joan Heaton's mother,
presented Governor Bruce Sunlandwith petitions bearing tens of
(32:02):
thousands of signaturesdemanding changes in laws to
allow for indefinite psychiatrichold for violent offenders.
The Rhode Island State AttorneyGeneral consulted a
Massachusetts psychologist andspecialist on serial killers to
look at case facts.
He found that price was a serialkiller, that he was in a
(32:23):
psychotic rage during themurders, and he was in"dire need
of extensive treatment," adding,"and even then may not be in a
position to be safely placed inthe community." In many ways,
price turned out to be his ownworst enemy.
(32:43):
His refusal to cooperate withongoing psychological evaluation
and treatment brought him a 1994contempt of court charge.
Price was enraged and threatenedto kill a corrections officer.
The verbal exchange broughtextortion and assault charges.
This had never happened before.
Charges based on words alone.
(33:04):
Price's case was clearly beingtreated as special.
At trial in 1994, the StateAttorney General said,"we are
dealing with a quadruplemurderer who has threatened to
kill again, and we are going toprosecute him to the fullest
extent of the law." When foundguilty by a jury price railed
about racist prosecution and"themedia has once again done a good
(33:29):
job of creating a monster." Hesaid his voice thundering
through the stunned courtroom,"not just a boogeyman, but a
black boogieman." When the judgeheard prices, angry,
unrepentant, ranting, ithardened his resolve.
He gave price a 15 year sentencewith eight suspended.
(33:50):
Price would not be released onhis 21st birthday.
Instead, he was transferred toan adult prison.
The state came up with creativeways to extend the prison term.
The contempt of court for notcooperating on psychological
evaluations added a year to thesentence.
All of price's appeals wentbefore the state's Supreme
(34:12):
Court, and he lost every singleone in succession.
At each hearing, the defenseasked the court,"can the state
hold this man forever for crimescommitted when he was 13 and
15?" the retort given each timeby the state, in effect, was
always, can we afford not to?
(34:32):
At some point, price wastransferred to the custody of
the Florida Department ofCorrections due to overcrowding
in his home state.
Price was involved in morealtercations while in prison,
and they were always prosecuted.
In 1996, he fought withofficers.
In 1998, he assaulted anofficer.
In 2001, he assaulted an inmate.
(34:55):
In each instance, price claims,self-defense, and lost.
From those, he receivedsentences that put his release
date as February 17th, 2022 and48 years old.
Then on April 4th, 2017, priceadded more time in an attack
that was captured by securitycameras.
(35:15):
Price entered another inmate'scell and stabbed him repeatedly
with a homemade knife.
The victim tried to escape byrunning out of the cell, but
price caught him and continuedthe attack.
Price later plead guilty to theassault and took a 25 year
sentence to be servedconsecutively.
He agreed to a 10 year probationterm and classification as a
(35:38):
habitual violent felonyoffender.
The Rhode Island AttorneyGeneral thanked Florida in a
public statement saying,"we aregrateful for the excellent work
by the third judicial circuit ofthe Florida State Attorney's
Office on this case.
It has been clear from thebeginning that our Florida
colleagues knew how significantthis case was to Rhode Island.
(36:00):
We are also grateful that forthe purposes of public safety,
Mr.
Price has been sentenced to along sentence based on his
latest acts of violent criminalmisconduct." Bringing Mark in
(36:29):
for the discussion,let's talkabout the narrative, which you
fleshed out a little bit morethan you did in previous cases.
Mark (36:37):
Yeah, there was a lot of information here, some that I
mentioned from the psychologist.
But the most importantinformation was that a couple
years after he went to adultprison price corresponded with a
local news reporter and writingto him and spoke with him in
person.
The reporter's name is MarkArsenal who now writes for the
Boston Globe and Arsenal gotprice talking and writing to
(37:00):
him, and Price gave verydetailed accounts.
Having read those a couplethings stand out price clearly
believes that his excuses, theracism of the drug use give him
moral cover that he used todescribe his killings in detail.
Marcy (37:17):
You think he had a personal motive for
communicating with that writer?
Mark (37:21):
Yeah.
I think he wanted to talk abouthis experience.
He wanted to relive theexperience with somebody who was
interested in hearing thedetails.
With the report, he had acaptive audience and he got to
see the writing of articles thatdetailed what he had lived and I
think it, it validated hisexperience for him.
Marcy (37:40):
What do you think about the investigations?
Mark (37:44):
Yeah, I think the Rebecca Spencer case, the first murder
was a tough one.
You have a woman who'svictimized, as an investigator
you have certain avenues thatare automatic.
You look at husbands,boyfriends, coworkers, any kind
of admirers, people in contactwith their neighbors.
In that case, it would've beendifficult to focus on a 13 year
old boy, even though he was justa few doors down.
(38:05):
That kid would be hiding inplain sight.
Even if they were to getfingerprints in blood at the
scene his prints wouldn't havebeen in file anywhere.
And that case must have had a,they must have had a desperate
feeling as it came to nothing.
They would've been thinking, weknow this guy's around here
somewhere.
We hope we don't hear from'emagain.
Marcy (38:25):
There is more written about and more media attention
that was given to the triplehomicide though, happened later.
Mark (38:32):
I'm sure, and from what's written, they recognized that
this was the same guy rightaway.
A lot of obvious people thatmight have been included were
excluded.
The victim Jones' husband wasalready dead.
She didn't have a boyfriend.
And there, there would've beenintense focus right in the
neighborhood area.
And you see this kind of feelingin, in case after case that
people wanna believe that thesuspect's a drifter.
(38:54):
It can't be anywhere, one fromaround here that's capable of
that.
I think about that when thecase, the recent case in Idaho
the four kids that were killedat College of Idaho.
First people say, oh, this hasto be somebody from another
state.
It has to be somebody fromWashington or something.
It couldn't be from somewherearound here.
And other cases it, there's thisdenial that anybody who's known
and it, and over and over again,it turns out there are people
(39:16):
that are pretty close.
In this case, that denial afterthe second murder that denial's
impossible, they knew that theguy was right there somewhere.
And the second homicideinvestigation, I think went very
well.
What I see is they assignedenough manpower that, one day
after the discovery one of thestreet canvassing guys noted
price's, injury.
And even more importantly, thatthe first officer's
(39:39):
documentation was followed byinvestigators and they pulled
the string that eventually ledto the capture.
Marcy (39:48):
The cut to his hand must have been bad if he wasn't able
to conceal it.
Mark (39:53):
They were looking for that specific kind of injury, but
you're right, it must have beenbad.
I've seen there's notes that hestill doesn't have the full use
of it.
It won't bend.
It was a level that would betermed debilitating.
The focus on that detail, theblood at the scene and directing
officers to look for thatspecific thing was really good
investigative work.
Marcy (40:14):
So talk a little bit about some of the injuries that
give suspects away.
Is that a common thing?
Mark (40:19):
Yeah.
In some crimes, when you askthat, I think about, sex assault
victims or DV victims who havescratched or have been scratched
by their attacker.
Some of those are very telling.
But, injuries are onlymeaningful in context if you
know the story behind him.
I remember one of my buddies at,who was at the, at one of the
ERs calling about a buildingfire.
(40:40):
There was a patient in the ERwho came in wreaking of gasoline
who had burns on him.
And we had a building fire goingat the time.
It's common for arsonists to toget burned because, gas when you
use it doesn't behave like itdoes on tv.
If you pour gas all over theplace, it starts to vaporize
immediately.
And then when you light a match,the air literally explodes.
(41:00):
And so a lot of arsonists getburned.
And that's what happened in thecase I just mentioned.
We had not only a guy in the ERwho got burned and the fire he
lit, also, you find a buildingin the middle of the night or
somewhere business broken intoand their blood drops all over.
Sometimes the suspect isadrenaline going, cuts himself,
doesn't even, may not evenrealize he, he's bleeding or
maybe he's drunk and doesn'trealize he's bleeding.
(41:22):
And you can contact that guysometimes later in the shift
and, hey, you're bleeding allover the place.
Where'd you get that?
And you can match those twothings.
When I was a burglary detective,I got several matches from DNA N
on burglary blood.
But specific to stabbings, whenthe hilt of a knife becomes
slippery with sweat or blood andyou stab, sometimes the hand
(41:43):
slides down onto the bladecausing the type of inner finger
injury lacerations you mightexpect if you envision that
happening in an assault.
When that happens, you can havetwo types of dna, what's called
a mixed blood sample with if youhave sophisticated enough
detection, you get the victim'sblood and the suspect's blood in
the same sample, and you can,and those can actually be
(42:04):
separated and detected.
The hand slipping problem is whyhunting or combat knives usually
have a substantial guard betweenthe Hilton blade to keep that
from happening.
But a kitchen knife wasn't meantto do a lot of stabbing and hip
bone.
That possibility is whatprobably happened here.
Price is using a kitchen knifeand in his frenzy, stabbed.
But what I think happened basedon where he was injured, I think
(42:25):
he had his his left hand waspinning the victim down or
stabilizing on the victim withhis, with the knife in his right
hand is he jabbed?
And just happened to hit his hisindex finger
Marcy (42:37):
price blames his crimes on racially based anger and
heavy drug use.
So let's start with the racismpiece.
Do you think that was really hismotive for these murders?
Mark (42:46):
I can't see, say if there was if he's really angry about
racism I'm certain heexperienced some in his life but
his crimes really don't makemuch sense in that context.
Neither the victims of the adultvictims did anything overly
racist to him.
Price's, rage seems ludicrous inthat light, so I think he had
other motivations.
Marcy (43:04):
You were a narcotics investigator.
What do you think about the roleof drugs in price's murders?
Mark (43:11):
I have no reason to disbelieve that price used
narcotics but he specificallyblamed marijuana and L s d
neither drug has a reputationfor fueling violence.
I had some experience on thestreet with cocaine psychosis.
Some with angry meth headsviolent reactions to whatever
the hell was in bath salts whenthose were in vogue.
(43:31):
But I can't remember anythingviolent from someone I contacted
that was high on lsd.
LSD has a, an overblownreputation.
People have heard the guy cutoff his own face and ate at
story.
I think bad LSD trips aresomewhat debilitating, not the
kind of thing that is likely tofuel repeated homicidal rages.
(43:51):
I just looked at a study thatindicated that use of LSD is.
Linked to a reduction inintimate partner violence and
about marijuana use.
Marijuana isn't commonly thoughtof as a cause of a violent
reaction.
If anything, the reverse.
I don't want these comments tobe misconstrued that I think THC
and LSD are wonderful to use.
(44:12):
I don't but here we have aserial killer using the two
substances as an excuse.
The drugs made him do it, and Ithink it's bullshit.
My grandfather was a an AirForce pilot who flew in Vietnam.
He said something that stuckwith me.
He believed that people who areunder the influence behave like
their true selves.
In essence, when people drinkand lose their inhibitions and
(44:34):
act like total assholes, you'reseeing who they really are on
the inside.
I found this to be true.
In price's case it isn't thedrugs controlling him, it's the
drugs unmasking him.
Marcy (44:49):
One of the motives put forward by price's, family, is
that the killings wereincidental to cover up for
burglary or theft.
So it wasn't about the murders,it was about stealing.
Mark (45:00):
Yeah.
Members of his family said thatthe price couldn't have possibly
have done this himself.
And that, he's covering forfriends.
He doesn't wanna give them up.
But price himself has never saidthis or never.
Even in his initial comconfession saying next to his
mother, he never mentionedanybody else helping him or
being involved.
And I think this is, thefamily's just, they're in
(45:21):
denial.
His crime speaks for itself.
There's no evidence that anybodyelse was involved.
He did have a history of thekids he was hanging with out on
the street did some break-insand some thefts, but nothing
like this.
There's no indication themurders started out as a theft
or burglary or robbery.
And there wasn't anything takenin the murders.
But the victim's lives and Iguess the weapons.
Marcy (45:44):
if the motive wasn't anger about racism, drug rages,
or covering up for burglary,where does that leave us?
Mark (45:52):
When I first started looking at this, I took the
stated motives at face value.
The reporters, judges,psychologists, even the cops
seemed to buy what price wasselling.
He's just an angry guy wholashed out at people.
He associated with racismbecause, he was under the
influence of drugs.
And if any of these people,reporters, judges,
psychologists, cops feltotherwise.
(46:14):
I haven't read anything toreflect that.
It might be because pricestopped cooperating with the
psychologist.
And they, they just never got tothe real point of what he was
doing.
Marcy (46:24):
Do you disagree with the conclusions that they did reach?
Mark (46:27):
I don't disagree that he's a rage filled killer.
Marcy (46:32):
So is it what a sexual motivation?
Mark (46:34):
Yes.
As I went through each crime, Ikept thinking, don't look at
what he's saying.
Look at what he's doing.
I've already pointed out wherehis explanations and his words
don't make sense.
Okay?
So what price did was to targettwo women adults in their homes
when he knew he would be thereand there would be no male adult
present.
He struck when he knew orthought he knew there would be
(46:55):
children present with sexualsadists, the act of penetration
with a knife stabbing sometimesreplaces other sex acts in their
fantasies, in their actions.
This is what I believe happenedhere.
The other thing is price bitJoan heating on the face.
He stabbed her.
That's a sexual act.
Marcy (47:15):
In the interviews.
Price claimed to not have knownthat there was no Mr.
Heaton in the picture.
Mark (47:20):
That's what he said.
He also said he had no intentionof killing any of the kids.
Both I think are lies.
Price scouted his crime scenesthat may have been how he had
contact with the Heaton kids tobegin with We've all seen and I
have talked about on some ofthese episodes how people commit
crimes where they're comfortablewith a certain level of safety
(47:42):
and surety.
And I'm certain based on thecrimes that he knew what was
going on in those houses.
Marcy (47:49):
So you think price intended to kill becky Spencer's
kids as well.
Mark (47:54):
Yes.
I think it was just chance thatprice hit on the one night that
the kids were outta the house.
I think the fact of the move hadsped up his timeline on hitting
her house.
I think she was just a few doorsdown.
He's familiar with her.
She's a target he wanted to hit.
he knows that the brother goesto work every night as a
(48:15):
security guard.
He knows she's gonna be thereand the kids are gonna be there
vulnerable without him.
Marcy (48:22):
Do you have any other views about motive?
Mark (48:27):
Yeah.
When, one of the things aboutprice's thing price excuses, all
of them are self-serving.
He justifies the adults asdeserving their fate because
they were racist.
But he knows the kids areinexcusable.
He'll never be able to justifythat with people that are
listening to him, maybesympathetic with him, including
his family, by the way.
So he says their deaths areunintentional.
(48:48):
To buy that.
You'd have to forget that hestabbed each little girl 30 and
62 times, respectively.
His excuses are bullshit.
Price fantasized and plannedspecifically about what he
wanted to do with each person inhis all female victim pool.
In his statements, he relivestheir deaths in detail.
What he wrote to the writerarsenal was great detail about
(49:12):
what, what had happened, andwhat was going on.
He gave the detectives also alot of detail.
The details are important tohim, and it's funny, those
details don't seem like theycame from someone who can barely
remember because he was stonedout of his mind.
I want to add this, and this maynot be a significant piece of
the puzzle.
Let me ask you if you remember,what member of his family did he
(49:34):
attack and that family memberhad to be rescued by dad and the
cops.
Marcy (49:38):
It was his sister.
Mark (49:39):
Yes.
His female sibling.
Marcy (49:44):
What did the psychologist say about price?
Mark (49:48):
So they only got access to him in the beginning.
I think that's part of theproblem with them.
Maybe they didn't feelcomfortable.
Maybe they sensed that this wasa sex crime, but they didn't
feel comfortable because theyweren't able to delve deep
enough.
They only got a few sessionsbefore the attorney cut it off.
But they said in general he wasa charismatic, smart.
He told jokes.
(50:09):
Here's a quote.
Interviews conducted with CPindicated that his victims were
not chosen at random or as amatter of convenience, but
rather due to their beingassociated with some perceived
racial slight directed towardshim"
Marcy (50:24):
You're disagreeing with that.
Mark (50:26):
Yeah.
I agree that he chose hisvictim's for a specific reason,
but not why price is saying thenthe psychologist is accepting.
Marcy (50:34):
One of the psychologists basically said the claims of
racism were over the top.
Mark (50:39):
Yeah.
That psychologist basicallytypified the racist stories he
was telling his Vivid.
And that.
His stories seemed exaggerated.
Keep in mind his family calledhim a jokester and a
storyteller.
And I think that the reasonprice picked racism is because
there were people that wouldlook at that with sympathy for a
a young African American kid.
Marcy (51:03):
What does it mean for his state of mind, the covering the
ha bodies haphazardly with arearugs?
Mark (51:10):
He said in the statement that he did that because he
didn't like looking at the heatand bodies.
What I think happened is herealized that the girls' murders
were maybe a bridge too far tojustify, even to himself.
I think he wanted to cover themup literally as well as
symbolically.
In some homicides where thekiller has feelings for the
deceased, sometimes they carefor the victim's body.
(51:31):
They clean him up, theyrespectfully position them.
That wasn't the case here.
Price just wanted to conceal theproduct of his crime like a cat
burries his mess and litter.
Marcy (51:44):
You wanna talk about denial price's.
Mother refuses to believe thather son committed the murders.
Mark (51:52):
Yeah, They had to leave Rhode Island after price's
arrest.
She still believes that thefriends did it and he just
covered for them.
And the fact that he was kept inprison after he was 21 she
typifies him as a racial orpolitical prison.
The reporter I mentioned when hetalked to price's mother and
confronted her about she wasthere for the confession.
(52:14):
She heard it.
Her reply was"the police onlywanted to hear what they wanted
to hear." Which is ironicbecause apparently she didn't
hear any of his confession.
Marcy (52:26):
What do you think about price's assertion that he should
have been let out when he turned21 because that's what the law
said.
And I think the law existsbecause of an acknowledgement of
brain development in peoplegenerally.
It's accepted that your braindoesn't fully develop until
you're 25 years old.
He claims perpetual prosecutionand said the system was looking
(52:48):
for any reason to lock him up.
The goal of the correctionsystem is rehabilitation.
Punishment and maintainingpublic safety.
I think at this point he'sprobably in prison to keep
people safe.
I don't think there's any helpto rehabilitate him.
And punishment is justsecondary.
What do you think?
Mark (53:06):
Yeah, I think they flex to the limit of the law to keep
price in prison.
That public safety piece, thatseparation from society.
And I don't think this can orshould be acceptable in every
case.
The state shouldn't do this inall cases to try and keep it
just everybody in.
But price is a very unusualperpetrator.
And if you're gonna go right upthe line of violating a person's
(53:28):
due process, rights, price isthe one to do it with.
I don't think people are gonnashed many tears for the guy who,
for his own gratificationbutchered four innocent women
and girls in their pajamas.
Marcy (53:44):
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(54:08):
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(54:31):
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The girl's face was that of a kid who had caught the
monster under the bed.
She and vicious had an eternalbreathless moment, recognition,
disbelief.
Then the girl shifted almostimperceptibly, and the spell was
broken.
She drew in a breath Viciouslunged to intercept her scream.
Marcy (00:18):
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
Sergeant Mark Rein, usingpublicly available information,
court records and personalrecollections.
Content may be graphic,disturbing, or violent.
Listener discretion is advised.
(00:40):
Suspects are considered innocentuntil found guilty in a court of
law.
One of the places that you canlisten to Crime Raven is on
Audible.
With an Audible membership, youcan access podcasts, audiobooks,
and original content.
To support Crime Raven, Audibleis allowing our listeners to try
it for free for 30 days if youvisit
(01:02):
audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
That's free access for 30 daysat audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
We'll also put the link in theshow notes.
Mark (01:32):
Vicious stood in the deep dark, under a copse of trees.
He was watching a house, onlyone trimmed lawn away.
It was late, late enough that noone in the neighborhood stirred,
despite it being a Saturdaymorning.
The beginning of a long LaborDay weekend.
The air was thick.
The warmth of summer having onlyjust begun to fade.
(01:53):
As he spied, his gut roiled.
Struggling with raw emotion.
Anticipation.
Excitement, yes, but thoseharshly tempered by fear.
Vicious knew he was standing ona precipice, but he'd been there
before.
Two years earlier.
He thought back to that time.
(02:14):
His emotions had been the same.
It was crazy what he had done,but he had gotten away with it.
And what he had done hadpropelled him even deeper into
the fantasies that had takenover his life.
Those memories had fueledaddiction, and tonight the
promise of new ones broke theimpasse.
Vicious crept forward from theshadows.
(02:35):
The ambient light from a lamp upthe street was dim, but he felt
exposed nonetheless.
He reached the house and huggingthe wall he moved window to
window scanning inside andchecking the doors.
Some windows were clear, otherscovered by blinds or curtains.
What lay inside those, a mysteryhe was about to dissolve.
(02:56):
At the completion of one orbit,vicious had not found an
unlocked door, but had seenenough to be comfortable with
the house's layout.
He was drawn back to a kitchenwindow.
Now was the time to move.
Swift and silent.
Vicious used his knife to cutopen the screen.
He popped the window latch andwasting no time, pulled himself
up and through, kicking hisshoes off before bringing his
(03:18):
feet inside.
He crouched on kitchen linoleum.
It was comfortably dark.
During the pause, he listenedfor movement.
Sounds of alarm, and hearingnone, he stood and slowly moved
past the kitchen and the livingroom and started into the back
hall.
The corridor was almost black.
(03:39):
Vicious had a plan.
Which of them would he visitfirst?
He was trying to orient himselfwhen something bumped into him.
He felt the child's hand on hisbelly just an instant before it
pulled away.
He sensed more than saw a smallfigure's retreating movement
into the abyss.
There was a second of horror andindecision.
(03:59):
Then blinding light shocked hiseyes.
An instant before a darkmystery, now fully illuminated,
vicious stood in the middle ofthe hallway.
One of the little girls leaningagainst the wall, her hands
still in the light switch.
The girl's face was that of akid who had caught the monster
under the bed.
Her eyes wide and locked on hismere feet apart.
(04:20):
She and vicious had an eternalbreathless moment, recognition,
disbelief.
Then the girl shifted almostimperceptibly, and the spell was
broken.
She drew in a breath Viciouslunged to intercept her scream
too late.
The girl's screech echoedthrough the house as vicious
grab for her.
He tried to cover her mouth,desperately trying to put the
(04:40):
genie back in the bottle.
The door to the mother's bedroomripped open.
The woman in her night closedhair wild from sleep.
Paused in the portal, having thesame moment of detachment and
disbelief her daughter hadexperienced just a second
before.
Vicious was past that.
Adrenaline kicking in, hedropped the girl and tackled the
mother hard, driving her to thefloor, pummeling her.
(05:02):
The mother desperately criedout.
To no one.
To everyone.
Call nine one one! Call nine oneone! Vicious' s rage was growing
but not at the cost of acuity.
He was the predator who couldeat, while watching his own
back.
He heard movement down the hallbehind him and saw one of the
girls moving toward the kitchen.
He jumped off the woman tointercept.
(05:23):
There were knives in the sink.
Grabbing one as he flew past,vicious hit the girl with one
meaty palm, forcing her to thefloor.
He began stabbing her on the waydown.
There was no time yet to savor.
The woman was still behind him.
The kitchen knife in Vicious'shand was covered with gore.
Swapping it for another, herushed back to the woman.
(05:44):
He was relieved to find hercrumpled, semi-conscious, trying
to get up, struggling to crawldown the hallway toward the
kitchen, and her daughter.
Vicious landed on her, pinningher.
The air in her lungs explodingout of her in a reverse gasp.
Vicious was seeing everythingthrough the red hue now.
The woman.
The girls, one splayed dying onthe kitchen floor, the other, he
(06:06):
looked around and she was rightnext to them.
Kneeling next to her mother inthe hallway floor.
She was silent in shock, as iflost in prayer.
Vicious looked at the woman.
He had picked her because of theway she had looked at him a few
weeks earlier.
He had been out on the street.
She caught him talking to thelittle girls as they played in
(06:26):
the front yard.
She looked at him like a pieceof shit she wanted to dis scrape
from her shoe.
She didn't have to say anything.
Her expression spoke volumes.
Vicious had been planning,dreaming about this moment for
weeks.
It hadn't gone as planned.
The bitch had almost ruined it,but he was salvaging that now.
(06:47):
Vicious focused intently on thewoman as he pinned her to the
floor.
Then he began stabbing her,aiming for her neck.
He knew from the last time theneck was vulnerable.
He liked the feel of the knifeas skin and tissue resisted,
giving way to being punctured.
The blade, sliding throughflesh.
He did it over and over again.
(07:08):
And when a blade broke on bone,he went back to the kitchen for
another.
When Vicious's rage was spent onthe mother, he turned toward the
10 year old girl.
She was still kneeling besidethem, quietly rocking and
moaning.
Her eyes closed, sending a riverof tears down her blood
spattered face.
Through The Red Haze, viciouswas pleased.
(07:29):
This was better than what he haddreamed of.
He pulled the girl toward himwith one hand as he brought the
blade across with the other.
Her startled scream broke as theblade entered the side of her
throat.
Marcy (07:55):
In August, 1987, police were called to a home on Inez
Avenue in the Buttonwoodneighborhood of warwick, Rhode
Island for the report of a deadwoman.
The call was an unusual one forthe quiet middle class
neighborhood, which was mostlysingle family homes on small
lots.
Patrol officers were the firstto arrive.
(08:16):
They quickly ascertained thatthe woman inside hadn't just
died.
She had been viciously murdered.
The police call quickly evolvedinto a crime scene processing,
and a homicide investigation.
What the detectives learned wasthat the location was the home
of Rebecca Spencer, a 27 yearold mother of two, an eight year
(08:36):
old boy and a four year oldgirl.
Rebecca's body had beendiscovered by her brother Carl,
who'd also lived there.
He had returned in the morningfrom an overnight shift as a
security guard.
Rebecca was divorced from thechildren's father and mercifully
they'd been with him the nightbefore.
The scene was unusual.
(08:56):
The house was a rental, and thefamily was in the process of
moving out.
Most of the furniture wasalready gone.
What remained was strewn aboutsome items in boxes, some sorted
in preparation.
Detectives thought they couldrule out theft as a motive
because there were valuableslying around.
A woman's pocketbook was foundnear the body, seemingly
(09:18):
undisturbed.
The killing had been brutal.
Rebecca was lying on her side onthe living room floor.
Her blue nightgown was drenchedwith blood.
Stab wounds to her body were sonumerous, at autopsy they were
difficult to count.
The official number was 58.
Her head, face, neck, torso, andarms had all been targeted with
(09:41):
no place on her upper bodyspared.
She had clear defensiveinjuries.
Several of the wounds would'vebeen fatal by themselves.
She suffered damage to herlungs, heart, liver, and major
blood vessels.
The attack had been done withsuch ferocity that pieces of the
knife had broken off andremained in the body.
(10:05):
One surprising result from theautopsy, there was no sign of
sexual assault.
Aside from the bloody mess inthe living room, the rest of the
house was fairly clear ofevidence.
There were a couple of bloodsmears that indicated the killer
had come and gone through anunlocked back door.
A search of the surroundingyards turned up a kitchen knife
(10:26):
in the grass.
It was later determined to bethe murder weapon.
A frying pan was found in somenearby bushes.
Both items had been taken fromRebecca's kitchen.
Investigators looked at thevictim's life.
They found that she was anambitious woman on the rise.
Rebecca worked at a job at ajewelry store and studied at
(10:46):
night, having recently receiveda G E D and had plans to start
college courses the followingsemester.
Rebecca spent the day before hermurder, packing and running
errands.
She had her ex take the kidsovernight because the move was
in a chaotic stage.
According to Becky's brother,Carl, the prior evening had been
normal.
(11:07):
Becky cooked dinner for Carl anda couple of her friends who were
helping with the move.
When police spoke to them, theyrepeated Carl's description of
the evening.
Nothing unusual had happened.
The friends left her alive andwell around midnight.
As word of the murder spread,the usually quiet neighborhood
streets became clogged fromresidents, media and onlookers
(11:29):
as they flowed past.
Even the mayor of the city madean appearance.
Investigators were initiallyconfident that they could close
the case, but as each successivelead was processed without an
arrest, they were eventuallyleft with no viable suspect.
The arc of the investigationmirrored the scene.
(11:49):
Furious initial activity and acrowd of investigators slowly
dwindled to nothing.
The sad case of Becky Spencer'sdeath languished as it became an
increasingly distant memory.
Fast forward two years toSeptember 1st, 1989.
It had been three days sinceanyone had heard from Joan
(12:10):
Heaton, a 39 year old singlemother, living with her two
daughters in a house, just acouple hundred yards from where
Becky Spencer had been killed.
Joan's mother, Marie Bouchard,was worried as the long Labor
Day weekend came to a close withno word from the family.
On September 4th, she dropped bytheir house to check on them.
(12:31):
She was puzzled to find Jones'Car was in the driveway, but no
one answered the door.
She used her key.
Police then received a franticcall from the Heaton residence.
Marie Bouchard was reporting amurder.
Once again, patrol officers werethe first to arrive.
The unfolding call was eerilysimilar to the one two years
(12:52):
before, except for the number ofvictims Unfortunately, the kids
had been home for this one.
Investigators determined thatsometime probably on September
1st, someone had broken into thehouse and brutally murdered Joan
and her daughters.
The bodies had been left todecompose Over the weekend.
(13:14):
Joan Heaton was found in thehallway just off the kitchen.
She had suffered numerous stabwounds, 11 just to the face
where she had also been bitten.
It wasn't just a stabbing.
The beating had been brutal.
Her skull and ribs fracturedwith corresponding blunt force
trauma to her head and torso.
(13:35):
10 year old Jennifer lay in thehallway beside her mother.
She suffered 62 stab woundsduring the attack, which seemed
focused on her neck.
One of the knives lost a threeand a half inch piece of the
blade that was left embedded inher body.
Like her mother, Jennifer Skullhad been crushed.
Joan's youngest, seven year old,Melissa was found on the kitchen
(13:58):
linoleum, ringed by an enormouspool of dried blood.
Like her mother and sister, thelittle girl had been stabbed
repeatedly and mercilesslybeaten.
During processing, the crimescene yielded several clues.
Joan Heaton bought a set ofkitchen knives on September 1st.
Some of those knives weremissing from the house.
(14:21):
the killer had left a bloodysock print on the floor.
The print was big, somewherearound a men's size 13.
Another interesting feature atthe scene was a blood trail that
led away from the bodies.
The trail ended at a pile ofbandage wrappers.
Apparently the suspect had cuthimself.
Like the attack up the street,there was no evidence of sexual
(14:44):
assault, but there were signs ofactive resistance.
Items were disturbed.
Some broken.
The kitchen table was on itsside.
One of the legs splintered off.
A large palm print on thetabletop seemed to indicate that
the bad guy had fallen backwardonto the table, leaving the
print as it collapsed under hisweight.
(15:04):
Detectives noticed other signsat the scene that pointed the to
the killers state of mind andmotive.
The bodies had been haphazardlycovered with blankets and area
rugs.
This wasn't done in an effort tohide the crime as the bodies
would've been immediatelyobvious to anyone entering the
house.
Also, as with other murdervaluables in the home had been
(15:26):
left undisturbed.
The discovery of the bodies hada profound effect on the police
department and the community.
Openly acknowledging links withthe Rebecca Spencer murder
police command assigned 26officers to a task force.
They were joined by three F B Iagents.
Those investigators begancombing through the crime scene,
(15:47):
the neighborhood, and theheaton's background.
The victimology would leadnowhere.
Joan Heaton's husband committedsuicide in 1983 She was
described as a shy, quiet,religious woman who worked as a
research assistant in thebiology department at the
university, and she enjoyedquilting.
No one in the family circlecould think of anyone who would
(16:09):
want to hurt them.
Nothing in the house indicated athreat that had preceded the
attack.
A search warrant for Joan safedeposit yielded no clues.
Investigators recognize that theblood trail leading from the
bodies might be their route toidentify the perpetrator.
Roadblocks were set up in thearea.
(16:29):
Police talked to people aboutthe crime while closely
examining men for injuries.
Subpoenas were served on areaclinics and hospitals in search
of suspicious wounds.
Several men were immediatelymade persons of interest by the
drag net, but most were easilyeliminated With cursory follow
up.
The community was horrified asthe details of the crime leaked
(16:51):
out.
Gun sales went through the roof.
One gun merchant credited thespike to the vicious nature of
the murders, saying of theresidents"They're scared.
Scared to hell." Other securityrelated sales went up as
residents upgraded their doors,window locks, and purchased
alarm systems.
(17:11):
One of the people policecontacted the day after the
murders were discovered wasCraig Price.
A 15 year old African Americanboy who lived in the
neighborhood.
One of the task force officers,stopped out on a group of
neighborhood kids on September5th, and price was among them.
The officer knew price through ayouth sports program.
the boy was large for his age,just under six feet and around
(17:34):
260 pounds.
He didn't have major history,just some petty thefts and was
rumored to have done somebreak-ins with friends from the
hood.
On that day what drew particularattention to price was that one
of his hands was wrapped ingauze.
When asked about it, price saidthat he had cut his hand on
glass.
He showed the officer the wound,which was a significant injury
(17:56):
to the left index finger.
Price gave specific details asto where and how the cut
happened.
But looking at the wound, theofficer was suspicious.
He made notes and submitted arequest for a follow-up
investigation.
Price was not immediately aprime suspect, but developed
over time.
The hangup was his age.
(18:18):
He would have been 13 when BeckySpencer was killed.
No one believed that waspossible.
No one wanted to believe it.
Still.
He had the cut.
He had big size 13 ish feet.
He had been living there formore than two years.
The investigators went out andtried to backstop his injury
(18:40):
story.
They found no glass on theground and other details didn't
match.
The inquiry intensified.
Casual conversations withprice's friends didn't
corroborate any of his details.
The investigators invited priceand his parents to the Warwick
Police Station on September 9th.
When they interviewed him, theypointed out the discrepancies in
(19:01):
his account and price expandedhis story.
He admitted a crime.
He said he did it breaking intoa car and gave a more detailed
explanation of how his hand wascut.
The investigators thought thatthe kid was smart.
He made an admission againstself-interest, but they still
didn't believe him.
The discussion was fruitfulbecause it allowed investigators
(19:23):
to more closely inspect thewound.
The September 9th interviewbumped price up the list of
active suspects.
He went even higher as theylooked at specifics of his new
story.
He was clearly still lying.
They brought him back in onSeptember 16th for a more
pointed conversation.
(19:43):
When price arrived at the policestation, they took additional
photographs.
They took finger, palm andfootprints.
They hooked him up to apolygraph.
The interview transitioned intoan interrogation.
Price denied knowing theHeatons.
Denied ever going to their houseand denied killing them.
Price left thinking he hadbeaten the cops.
(20:04):
What he didn't know was that oneof his friends told the
detectives that price was askingpeople to lie about how he got
his cut.
The following morning, policeentered the price home at 7:30
AM with a search warrant.
Eventually, they made it theshed in the backyard.
In an interview with a reporter,years later, price said he
watched from a window as adetective came out of the shed,
(20:28):
holding up a bag that containedthe still bloody knives used to
kill the heatons.
At that moment, he fantasizedabout attacking one of the cops,
disarming him, and shooting hisway out.
In reality, detectives rushedback into the house and slapped
handcuffs on the 15 year oldkiller.
By the time he made it to thepolice station, price had calmed
(20:51):
down.
He knew they had him and decidedto tell them everything.
He wanted to put his own spin onthe killings, justifying them in
a way that he thought wouldgarner sympathy from some.
He had one ace up his sleeve.
He knew that a 15 year old couldnot be charged as an adult, and
he was guaranteed freedom by thetime he was 21.
(21:14):
With a little luck, he mighteven be out earlier.
In a recorded confession pricetold the whole story with his
mother sitting beside himcrying.
He talked about how he had briefcontact with Joan Heaton and the
two girls the day before themurders.
He described how on the night ithappened, he took a knife over
(21:35):
to the Heaton house, cut awindow screen, and slipped
inside.
Price claimed that his intentwas only to kill the mother,
Joan.
He didn't want to hurt thelittle girls.
To keep everything quiet, pricesaid he had slipped off his
shoes as he went inside.
From there, he moved toward theback bedrooms.
In the dark hallway, pricebumped into one of the little
(21:57):
girls.
To keep the situation fromspinning out of control, he
tried to grab Melissa before shecould scream, but was
unsuccessful in silencing her.
Joan Heaton came out of thebedroom and confronted price who
in turn attacked her.
Price was afraid Melissa wasgoing for the phone, so he ran
back, intercepting her in thekitchen.
(22:19):
He grabbed a knife from the sinkand stabbed her.
Without pausing, he returned toJoan and stabbed her too.
Price turned and stabbedJennifer.With all three Heatons
and silent, dead or dying on thefloor, price said he bolted.
He ran back to his house tohide, but the gravity of what he
had done had started to weigh onhim.
(22:41):
He worried about evidence he'dleft behind.
What had he touched?
What had he forgotten?
as his mind continued to spin,price said he crept his way back
into the house.
The bodies had started to giveoff an odor confirming that they
were really all dead.
He didn't like looking at them,so he covered the bodies with
blankets and rugs and thencollected the knives.
(23:03):
He retreated to his house, hidthe knives in the shed and his
bloody clothes in the attic.
In response to detectivesquestions, price said he didn't
remember exactly when he cuthimself, just that it was during
the stabbings.
He only noticed it later.
When asked why he did it.
Price described an incidentrecently.
(23:24):
He was talking to the littlegirls from the street.
When Joan Heaton approached, hesaid she looked at him with
disgust.
He was sure she was a racist.
In essence, Jones Gaze hadenraged him and made him wanna
kill her.
From the Heaton murderconfession, the detectives
pivoted to Becky Spencer.
(23:45):
Price, in the same emotionlesstone he described killing the
Heatons, confirmed that he hadmurdered Rebecca Spencer and
proceeded to describe how ithappened.
Price said that he was motivatedby another act of racism.
On the night prior to themurder, he and some friends were
playing in the street.
A man drove up in a car andbefore he went inside Becky's
(24:08):
place, he directed a racial slurtowards price.
The incident, enraged price, andmade him wanna kill Rebecca.
He went on to give details ofthat crime that were
corroborated by evidence,talking about details that only
the killer should know.
Price said he went in through anopen back door.
(24:29):
The place was in disarraybecause of the move.
He Found Becky sleeping on thefloor of the living room in
front of the television, whichwas turned to one of the music
video channels.
Price left his weapon back athis house, so he searched the
kitchen.
He thought about beating herwith a frying pan, but it seemed
unwieldy.
(24:49):
He chose a knife instead.
After killing Rebecca SpencerPrice said he threw the knife in
the high grass in the backyard,just as he would in the second
murder price stew about theevidence.
So he returned to clean up whathe could.
He touched the frying pan, so hethrew it in the neighbor's
bushes.
One of the details that pricebrought up repeatedly was that
(25:10):
he had been high on marijuanaand l s D for both murders.
He indicated that the drug usewasn't just prior to his crimes,
but a regular, even constantfeature of his daily life, going
back years.
After the confession, several ofthe detectives reflected
publicly on price's demeanor.
They were stunned that a suspecthis age could talk about the
(25:33):
barbaric crimes with whichseemed like the complete
detachment.
He spoke in horrific detail howhe bit Joan Heaton's face as he
stabbed her.
The sounds his dying victimsmade.
The lack of a defense fromJennifer as he turned his rage
against the little girl.
During the whole horribleaccount, he never faltered.
(25:54):
never expressed regret orremorse.
His only complaint the injury tohis hand.
One of the local papers quotedpolice Captain Collins saying I
think if he was concerned aboutanything, it was cutting his
finger" and summing it up said"this is not your garden variety
of juvenile delinquent.
(26:15):
This is a bright sociopath who,in my opinion, has enough
sophistication to control hisbehavior because he knows
exactly what the consequenceswould be.
He's a monster." Theinvestigators wanted to know
what kind of environment couldspawn a boy killer.
John and Shirley Price met in1967 at the Concord Baptist
(26:37):
Church in Boston.
They were married the followingyear.
Their first child, kimberly wasborn August, 1968, followed by
John Junior in 1972, and Craigin October, 1973.
In the family, both parentsworked.
Shirley was a clerical worker inan office while her husband was
(26:59):
a manager at the Pepsi plant.
Their combined income put themcomfortably in the middle class,
which allowed them to buy thehouse in Buttonwood in 1978.
Price was considered the familyjokester.
They said he liked to tellstories and do impressions.
He played baseball and footballseriously, and the rock and roll
electric guitar.
(27:20):
Not seriously.
His teachers thought of him as avery intelligent, habitual
underachiever.
Price had what police wouldconsider more normal brushes
with law enforcement, gettinginto trouble for low level
criminal violations.
He smoke, drank, used drugs,went to parties, and had been
(27:40):
charged for petty theft.
One family incident caught theinvestigator's attention.
In July, 1989, an enraged priceattacked his sister.
Their father tried to intervene,but price wouldn't back down.
Police were called and he foughtwith them too.
When they were finally able toforce price into handcuffs, he
(28:02):
was taken to juvenile detentionon domestic violence assault
charges.
Overall, the investigatorslooking at price's backstory
were amazed at how normal itseemed.
He was the baby in a traditionalnuclear family of five.
They lived in a middle classhome in the suburbs.
His father and mother wereresponsible and respectable.
(28:23):
There were no signs of the kindof chaos and upheaval so
commonly found in thebiographies of other young
killers.
The relief and celebrationfollowing the capture of who the
media called the Warwick Slasherwas short-lived.
The facts of Price's crimes,shocked the citizens of Rhode
Island.
Then came the realization thatunder current law price would be
(28:47):
released on or before his 21stbirthday.
Just five years away.
Shock and fear turned tooutrage.
Citizens demanded action frompublic leaders.
Price didn't help himself duringthis tense time.
In one public appearance, he wasbeing led from the courthouse
and called out to the nearbynewsy, smiling and taunting.
(29:10):
When I get out, I'm gonna smokea bomber.Price was initially
sentenced to be held at thestate juvenile training facility
until his 21st birthday onOctober 11th, 1994.
efforts began almost immediatelyto keep price locked up for
longer.
There was an action on alegislative fix.
(29:31):
In 1990, state law was changedto allow juveniles under 16 who
commit the most violent crimesto be moved to adult court.
Because of the constitutionalprohibition on ex post facto
laws, the change would notaffect price's case.
Another strategy was to have themurderer evaluated for possible
(29:53):
commitment to a mentalinstitution.
So psychiatric evaluationstarted.
The first psychologist notedthat price was articulate and
superficially affable, butshowed a lack of empathy for
others, and clearly had innerconflict that he kept hidden.
He wrote,"he appears to be ayoung man limited in the
(30:15):
available resources for copingwith stress and vulnerable to
being overwhelmed by stimulusdemands, both from his own
emotional pressures and from theenvironment.
Predicted as a result would bedisorganization and a loss of
control." Other documentationread"this teenager believes that
(30:37):
past degradations may be undoneby provoking fear and
intimidation in others.
He is rarely able to submergethe memories of past
humiliations and this resentmentmay break through his controls
in impulsive and irrationalanger." A second psychologist
(30:59):
wrote that prices, instances ofracism were vivid, but seemed
exaggerated and possiblyfabrications.
And"the possibility exists thatprice possessed a preexisting
paranoid trait, which thencaused him to perceive
maltreatment that wasnon-existent." when price's
(31:19):
public defender caught wind ofthe state's plan to keep him
locked up using thepsychological evaluation
results, the lawyer advisedprice to stop cooperating.
The state's response to this wasto obtain a court order
requiring his cooperation.
The legal fight over the orderand price's lack of cooperation
(31:39):
would go on for years.
The outrage overprices shortsentence grew.
Volunteers gathered signaturesfor petitions demanding that
price be locked up or exiledfrom the state.
At a public rally, maryBouchard, Joan Heaton's mother,
presented Governor Bruce Sunlandwith petitions bearing tens of
(32:02):
thousands of signaturesdemanding changes in laws to
allow for indefinite psychiatrichold for violent offenders.
The Rhode Island State AttorneyGeneral consulted a
Massachusetts psychologist andspecialist on serial killers to
look at case facts.
He found that price was a serialkiller, that he was in a
(32:23):
psychotic rage during themurders, and he was in"dire need
of extensive treatment," adding,"and even then may not be in a
position to be safely placed inthe community." In many ways,
price turned out to be his ownworst enemy.
(32:43):
His refusal to cooperate withongoing psychological evaluation
and treatment brought him a 1994contempt of court charge.
Price was enraged and threatenedto kill a corrections officer.
The verbal exchange broughtextortion and assault charges.
This had never happened before.
Charges based on words alone.
(33:04):
Price's case was clearly beingtreated as special.
At trial in 1994, the StateAttorney General said,"we are
dealing with a quadruplemurderer who has threatened to
kill again, and we are going toprosecute him to the fullest
extent of the law." When foundguilty by a jury price railed
about racist prosecution and"themedia has once again done a good
(33:29):
job of creating a monster." Hesaid his voice thundering
through the stunned courtroom,"not just a boogeyman, but a
black boogieman." When the judgeheard prices, angry,
unrepentant, ranting, ithardened his resolve.
He gave price a 15 year sentencewith eight suspended.
(33:50):
Price would not be released onhis 21st birthday.
Instead, he was transferred toan adult prison.
The state came up with creativeways to extend the prison term.
The contempt of court for notcooperating on psychological
evaluations added a year to thesentence.
All of price's appeals wentbefore the state's Supreme
(34:12):
Court, and he lost every singleone in succession.
At each hearing, the defenseasked the court,"can the state
hold this man forever for crimescommitted when he was 13 and
15?" the retort given each timeby the state, in effect, was
always, can we afford not to?
(34:32):
At some point, price wastransferred to the custody of
the Florida Department ofCorrections due to overcrowding
in his home state.
Price was involved in morealtercations while in prison,
and they were always prosecuted.
In 1996, he fought withofficers.
In 1998, he assaulted anofficer.
In 2001, he assaulted an inmate.
(34:55):
In each instance, price claims,self-defense, and lost.
From those, he receivedsentences that put his release
date as February 17th, 2022 and48 years old.
Then on April 4th, 2017, priceadded more time in an attack
that was captured by securitycameras.
(35:15):
Price entered another inmate'scell and stabbed him repeatedly
with a homemade knife.
The victim tried to escape byrunning out of the cell, but
price caught him and continuedthe attack.
Price later plead guilty to theassault and took a 25 year
sentence to be servedconsecutively.
He agreed to a 10 year probationterm and classification as a
(35:38):
habitual violent felonyoffender.
The Rhode Island AttorneyGeneral thanked Florida in a
public statement saying,"we aregrateful for the excellent work
by the third judicial circuit ofthe Florida State Attorney's
Office on this case.
It has been clear from thebeginning that our Florida
colleagues knew how significantthis case was to Rhode Island.
(36:00):
We are also grateful that forthe purposes of public safety,
Mr.
Price has been sentenced to along sentence based on his
latest acts of violent criminalmisconduct." Bringing Mark in
(36:29):
for the discussion,let's talkabout the narrative, which you
fleshed out a little bit morethan you did in previous cases.
Mark (36:37):
Yeah, there was a lot of information here, some that I
mentioned from the psychologist.
But the most importantinformation was that a couple
years after he went to adultprison price corresponded with a
local news reporter and writingto him and spoke with him in
person.
The reporter's name is MarkArsenal who now writes for the
Boston Globe and Arsenal gotprice talking and writing to
(37:00):
him, and Price gave verydetailed accounts.
Having read those a couplethings stand out price clearly
believes that his excuses, theracism of the drug use give him
moral cover that he used todescribe his killings in detail.
Marcy (37:17):
You think he had a personal motive for
communicating with that writer?
Mark (37:21):
Yeah.
I think he wanted to talk abouthis experience.
He wanted to relive theexperience with somebody who was
interested in hearing thedetails.
With the report, he had acaptive audience and he got to
see the writing of articles thatdetailed what he had lived and I
think it, it validated hisexperience for him.
Marcy (37:40):
What do you think about the investigations?
Mark (37:44):
Yeah, I think the Rebecca Spencer case, the first murder
was a tough one.
You have a woman who'svictimized, as an investigator
you have certain avenues thatare automatic.
You look at husbands,boyfriends, coworkers, any kind
of admirers, people in contactwith their neighbors.
In that case, it would've beendifficult to focus on a 13 year
old boy, even though he was justa few doors down.
(38:05):
That kid would be hiding inplain sight.
Even if they were to getfingerprints in blood at the
scene his prints wouldn't havebeen in file anywhere.
And that case must have had a,they must have had a desperate
feeling as it came to nothing.
They would've been thinking, weknow this guy's around here
somewhere.
We hope we don't hear from'emagain.
Marcy (38:25):
There is more written about and more media attention
that was given to the triplehomicide though, happened later.
Mark (38:32):
I'm sure, and from what's written, they recognized that
this was the same guy rightaway.
A lot of obvious people thatmight have been included were
excluded.
The victim Jones' husband wasalready dead.
She didn't have a boyfriend.
And there, there would've beenintense focus right in the
neighborhood area.
And you see this kind of feelingin, in case after case that
people wanna believe that thesuspect's a drifter.
(38:54):
It can't be anywhere, one fromaround here that's capable of
that.
I think about that when thecase, the recent case in Idaho
the four kids that were killedat College of Idaho.
First people say, oh, this hasto be somebody from another
state.
It has to be somebody fromWashington or something.
It couldn't be from somewherearound here.
And other cases it, there's thisdenial that anybody who's known
and it, and over and over again,it turns out there are people
(39:16):
that are pretty close.
In this case, that denial afterthe second murder that denial's
impossible, they knew that theguy was right there somewhere.
And the second homicideinvestigation, I think went very
well.
What I see is they assignedenough manpower that, one day
after the discovery one of thestreet canvassing guys noted
price's, injury.
And even more importantly, thatthe first officer's
(39:39):
documentation was followed byinvestigators and they pulled
the string that eventually ledto the capture.
Marcy (39:48):
The cut to his hand must have been bad if he wasn't able
to conceal it.
Mark (39:53):
They were looking for that specific kind of injury, but
you're right, it must have beenbad.
I've seen there's notes that hestill doesn't have the full use
of it.
It won't bend.
It was a level that would betermed debilitating.
The focus on that detail, theblood at the scene and directing
officers to look for thatspecific thing was really good
investigative work.
Marcy (40:14):
So talk a little bit about some of the injuries that
give suspects away.
Is that a common thing?
Mark (40:19):
Yeah.
In some crimes, when you askthat, I think about, sex assault
victims or DV victims who havescratched or have been scratched
by their attacker.
Some of those are very telling.
But, injuries are onlymeaningful in context if you
know the story behind him.
I remember one of my buddies at,who was at the, at one of the
ERs calling about a buildingfire.
(40:40):
There was a patient in the ERwho came in wreaking of gasoline
who had burns on him.
And we had a building fire goingat the time.
It's common for arsonists to toget burned because, gas when you
use it doesn't behave like itdoes on tv.
If you pour gas all over theplace, it starts to vaporize
immediately.
And then when you light a match,the air literally explodes.
(41:00):
And so a lot of arsonists getburned.
And that's what happened in thecase I just mentioned.
We had not only a guy in the ERwho got burned and the fire he
lit, also, you find a buildingin the middle of the night or
somewhere business broken intoand their blood drops all over.
Sometimes the suspect isadrenaline going, cuts himself,
doesn't even, may not evenrealize he, he's bleeding or
maybe he's drunk and doesn'trealize he's bleeding.
(41:22):
And you can contact that guysometimes later in the shift
and, hey, you're bleeding allover the place.
Where'd you get that?
And you can match those twothings.
When I was a burglary detective,I got several matches from DNA N
on burglary blood.
But specific to stabbings, whenthe hilt of a knife becomes
slippery with sweat or blood andyou stab, sometimes the hand
(41:43):
slides down onto the bladecausing the type of inner finger
injury lacerations you mightexpect if you envision that
happening in an assault.
When that happens, you can havetwo types of dna, what's called
a mixed blood sample with if youhave sophisticated enough
detection, you get the victim'sblood and the suspect's blood in
the same sample, and you can,and those can actually be
(42:04):
separated and detected.
The hand slipping problem is whyhunting or combat knives usually
have a substantial guard betweenthe Hilton blade to keep that
from happening.
But a kitchen knife wasn't meantto do a lot of stabbing and hip
bone.
That possibility is whatprobably happened here.
Price is using a kitchen knifeand in his frenzy, stabbed.
But what I think happened basedon where he was injured, I think
(42:25):
he had his his left hand waspinning the victim down or
stabilizing on the victim withhis, with the knife in his right
hand is he jabbed?
And just happened to hit his hisindex finger
Marcy (42:37):
price blames his crimes on racially based anger and
heavy drug use.
So let's start with the racismpiece.
Do you think that was really hismotive for these murders?
Mark (42:46):
I can't see, say if there was if he's really angry about
racism I'm certain heexperienced some in his life but
his crimes really don't makemuch sense in that context.
Neither the victims of the adultvictims did anything overly
racist to him.
Price's, rage seems ludicrous inthat light, so I think he had
other motivations.
Marcy (43:04):
You were a narcotics investigator.
What do you think about the roleof drugs in price's murders?
Mark (43:11):
I have no reason to disbelieve that price used
narcotics but he specificallyblamed marijuana and L s d
neither drug has a reputationfor fueling violence.
I had some experience on thestreet with cocaine psychosis.
Some with angry meth headsviolent reactions to whatever
the hell was in bath salts whenthose were in vogue.
(43:31):
But I can't remember anythingviolent from someone I contacted
that was high on lsd.
LSD has a, an overblownreputation.
People have heard the guy cutoff his own face and ate at
story.
I think bad LSD trips aresomewhat debilitating, not the
kind of thing that is likely tofuel repeated homicidal rages.
(43:51):
I just looked at a study thatindicated that use of LSD is.
Linked to a reduction inintimate partner violence and
about marijuana use.
Marijuana isn't commonly thoughtof as a cause of a violent
reaction.
If anything, the reverse.
I don't want these comments tobe misconstrued that I think THC
and LSD are wonderful to use.
(44:12):
I don't but here we have aserial killer using the two
substances as an excuse.
The drugs made him do it, and Ithink it's bullshit.
My grandfather was a an AirForce pilot who flew in Vietnam.
He said something that stuckwith me.
He believed that people who areunder the influence behave like
their true selves.
In essence, when people drinkand lose their inhibitions and
(44:34):
act like total assholes, you'reseeing who they really are on
the inside.
I found this to be true.
In price's case it isn't thedrugs controlling him, it's the
drugs unmasking him.
Marcy (44:49):
One of the motives put forward by price's, family, is
that the killings wereincidental to cover up for
burglary or theft.
So it wasn't about the murders,it was about stealing.
Mark (45:00):
Yeah.
Members of his family said thatthe price couldn't have possibly
have done this himself.
And that, he's covering forfriends.
He doesn't wanna give them up.
But price himself has never saidthis or never.
Even in his initial comconfession saying next to his
mother, he never mentionedanybody else helping him or
being involved.
And I think this is, thefamily's just, they're in
(45:21):
denial.
His crime speaks for itself.
There's no evidence that anybodyelse was involved.
He did have a history of thekids he was hanging with out on
the street did some break-insand some thefts, but nothing
like this.
There's no indication themurders started out as a theft
or burglary or robbery.
And there wasn't anything takenin the murders.
But the victim's lives and Iguess the weapons.
Marcy (45:44):
if the motive wasn't anger about racism, drug rages,
or covering up for burglary,where does that leave us?
Mark (45:52):
When I first started looking at this, I took the
stated motives at face value.
The reporters, judges,psychologists, even the cops
seemed to buy what price wasselling.
He's just an angry guy wholashed out at people.
He associated with racismbecause, he was under the
influence of drugs.
And if any of these people,reporters, judges,
psychologists, cops feltotherwise.
(46:14):
I haven't read anything toreflect that.
It might be because pricestopped cooperating with the
psychologist.
And they, they just never got tothe real point of what he was
doing.
Marcy (46:24):
Do you disagree with the conclusions that they did reach?
Mark (46:27):
I don't disagree that he's a rage filled killer.
Marcy (46:32):
So is it what a sexual motivation?
Mark (46:34):
Yes.
As I went through each crime, Ikept thinking, don't look at
what he's saying.
Look at what he's doing.
I've already pointed out wherehis explanations and his words
don't make sense.
Okay?
So what price did was to targettwo women adults in their homes
when he knew he would be thereand there would be no male adult
present.
He struck when he knew orthought he knew there would be
(46:55):
children present with sexualsadists, the act of penetration
with a knife stabbing sometimesreplaces other sex acts in their
fantasies, in their actions.
This is what I believe happenedhere.
The other thing is price bitJoan heating on the face.
He stabbed her.
That's a sexual act.
Marcy (47:15):
In the interviews.
Price claimed to not have knownthat there was no Mr.
Heaton in the picture.
Mark (47:20):
That's what he said.
He also said he had no intentionof killing any of the kids.
Both I think are lies.
Price scouted his crime scenesthat may have been how he had
contact with the Heaton kids tobegin with We've all seen and I
have talked about on some ofthese episodes how people commit
crimes where they're comfortablewith a certain level of safety
(47:42):
and surety.
And I'm certain based on thecrimes that he knew what was
going on in those houses.
Marcy (47:49):
So you think price intended to kill becky Spencer's
kids as well.
Mark (47:54):
Yes.
I think it was just chance thatprice hit on the one night that
the kids were outta the house.
I think the fact of the move hadsped up his timeline on hitting
her house.
I think she was just a few doorsdown.
He's familiar with her.
She's a target he wanted to hit.
he knows that the brother goesto work every night as a
(48:15):
security guard.
He knows she's gonna be thereand the kids are gonna be there
vulnerable without him.
Marcy (48:22):
Do you have any other views about motive?
Mark (48:27):
Yeah.
When, one of the things aboutprice's thing price excuses, all
of them are self-serving.
He justifies the adults asdeserving their fate because
they were racist.
But he knows the kids areinexcusable.
He'll never be able to justifythat with people that are
listening to him, maybesympathetic with him, including
his family, by the way.
So he says their deaths areunintentional.
(48:48):
To buy that.
You'd have to forget that hestabbed each little girl 30 and
62 times, respectively.
His excuses are bullshit.
Price fantasized and plannedspecifically about what he
wanted to do with each person inhis all female victim pool.
In his statements, he relivestheir deaths in detail.
What he wrote to the writerarsenal was great detail about
(49:12):
what, what had happened, andwhat was going on.
He gave the detectives also alot of detail.
The details are important tohim, and it's funny, those
details don't seem like theycame from someone who can barely
remember because he was stonedout of his mind.
I want to add this, and this maynot be a significant piece of
the puzzle.
Let me ask you if you remember,what member of his family did he
(49:34):
attack and that family memberhad to be rescued by dad and the
cops.
Marcy (49:38):
It was his sister.
Mark (49:39):
Yes.
His female sibling.
Marcy (49:44):
What did the psychologist say about price?
Mark (49:48):
So they only got access to him in the beginning.
I think that's part of theproblem with them.
Maybe they didn't feelcomfortable.
Maybe they sensed that this wasa sex crime, but they didn't
feel comfortable because theyweren't able to delve deep
enough.
They only got a few sessionsbefore the attorney cut it off.
But they said in general he wasa charismatic, smart.
He told jokes.
(50:09):
Here's a quote.
Interviews conducted with CPindicated that his victims were
not chosen at random or as amatter of convenience, but
rather due to their beingassociated with some perceived
racial slight directed towardshim"
Marcy (50:24):
You're disagreeing with that.
Mark (50:26):
Yeah.
I agree that he chose hisvictim's for a specific reason,
but not why price is saying thenthe psychologist is accepting.
Marcy (50:34):
One of the psychologists basically said the claims of
racism were over the top.
Mark (50:39):
Yeah.
That psychologist basicallytypified the racist stories he
was telling his Vivid.
And that.
His stories seemed exaggerated.
Keep in mind his family calledhim a jokester and a
storyteller.
And I think that the reasonprice picked racism is because
there were people that wouldlook at that with sympathy for a
a young African American kid.
Marcy (51:03):
What does it mean for his state of mind, the covering the
ha bodies haphazardly with arearugs?
Mark (51:10):
He said in the statement that he did that because he
didn't like looking at the heatand bodies.
What I think happened is herealized that the girls' murders
were maybe a bridge too far tojustify, even to himself.
I think he wanted to cover themup literally as well as
symbolically.
In some homicides where thekiller has feelings for the
deceased, sometimes they carefor the victim's body.
(51:31):
They clean him up, theyrespectfully position them.
That wasn't the case here.
Price just wanted to conceal theproduct of his crime like a cat
burries his mess and litter.
Marcy (51:44):
You wanna talk about denial price's.
Mother refuses to believe thather son committed the murders.
Mark (51:52):
Yeah, They had to leave Rhode Island after price's
arrest.
She still believes that thefriends did it and he just
covered for them.
And the fact that he was kept inprison after he was 21 she
typifies him as a racial orpolitical prison.
The reporter I mentioned when hetalked to price's mother and
confronted her about she wasthere for the confession.
(52:14):
She heard it.
Her reply was"the police onlywanted to hear what they wanted
to hear." Which is ironicbecause apparently she didn't
hear any of his confession.
Marcy (52:26):
What do you think about price's assertion that he should
have been let out when he turned21 because that's what the law
said.
And I think the law existsbecause of an acknowledgement of
brain development in peoplegenerally.
It's accepted that your braindoesn't fully develop until
you're 25 years old.
He claims perpetual prosecutionand said the system was looking
(52:48):
for any reason to lock him up.
The goal of the correctionsystem is rehabilitation.
Punishment and maintainingpublic safety.
I think at this point he'sprobably in prison to keep
people safe.
I don't think there's any helpto rehabilitate him.
And punishment is justsecondary.
What do you think?
Mark (53:06):
Yeah, I think they flex to the limit of the law to keep
price in prison.
That public safety piece, thatseparation from society.
And I don't think this can orshould be acceptable in every
case.
The state shouldn't do this inall cases to try and keep it
just everybody in.
But price is a very unusualperpetrator.
And if you're gonna go right upthe line of violating a person's
(53:28):
due process, rights, price isthe one to do it with.
I don't think people are gonnashed many tears for the guy who,
for his own gratificationbutchered four innocent women
and girls in their pajamas.
Marcy (53:44):
Please rate and review Crime Raven wherever you listen.
It helps us get better and ithelps other listeners find us.
Also, if you email us ascreenshot of your review or
send us a question or a case,we'll send you a promo code for
$10 off our very coolmerchandise.
Send them tocrimeravenpodcast@gmail.com.
(54:08):
And if we use your question oryour case in an episode, we'll
send you a free Crime Ravent-shirt.
Remember, email us atcrimeravenpodcast@gmail.com.
Thank you for listening.
If you haven't already, pleasesubscribe to Crime Raven, so you
don't miss an episode Pleaserecommend us to your friends
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Check our website atcrimeraven.com crime Raven
(54:31):
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