The Unsolved Murders of the Evangelista Family

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On the evening of July 3rd, 1929 the Evangelista family was brutally murdered, but by who? This week we delve into the strange beliefs of Benny Evangelista, the baffling details of the crime, and the lasting fear and legend that the St. Aubin Street Massacre left behind. This story is more widely known as the Detroit Occult Murders. Was this the work of a rival religious fanatic, a swindled follower in Benny's work, or something even more sinister?

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Recourses used in todays episode:
https://www.newspapers.com/article/detroit-free-press-st-aubin-street-massa/116854832/
https://www.americanhauntingsink.com/evangelista
https://husheduphistory.com/post/728229027017588736/mystic-murder-and-mystery-the-detroit-tragedy
Haunted Road Atlas by Em Schultz and Christine Schiefer

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Fire Eyes Media. Today, I'm taking you back to July
nineteen twenty nine, to a house on Saint Aubin's Street
and to a mystery that's haunted generations. The Evangelista's family
murders remains unsolved nearly a century later. What motive could
lie behind such brutality? Was it something a cult, something personal,

(00:26):
or something more ordinary twisted into horror? Hello, and welcome
to another episode of Truly Twisted. As always, I'm your host,

(00:51):
Alicia Watson, and every Thursday, I will be bringing you
a story that is always victim focused and fact based.
One thing that you all listening might not know about
me is that I love fall, Halloween, and pretty much
anything spooky. If you've come from Twisted and Uncorked, that's
not new news. But to anyone else, I just wanted

(01:12):
to announce that I'm doing something a little bit different
for the remainder of season one. I am bringing you
stories that have a spooky twist in some way, but
it'll always remain about the victims here. I just wanted
to be able to combine it with a season that
I love, and you may also be wondering, why not
just do the Five Thursdays in October. Well that's because

(01:36):
in my house, spooky season starts September first, So this
is a little happy medium. If you have any story
suggestions that you think would be perfect for this, please
send them to me at Alicia at fireeyesmedia dot com
and friendly reminder that if you're enjoying the show, to
please leave me five stars wherever you get your podcasts.

(01:58):
It really is the best way to spread word and
help me grow the show. It also makes me super
happy to know that people enjoy what I put out there.
Now on to the story today, I am telling you
about what is known as the Detroit Occult murders. On
July third, nineteen twenty nine, a summer day in Detroit,

(02:18):
Michigan that should have held warmth would soon be a
day of unspeakable tragedy. The house stood at three, five
eight seven Saint Aubin's Street, an address now long gone
from maps, but forever etched into the city's darker history.
The Evangelista family lived there, Benny Evangelista, his wife Santina,

(02:42):
and their four children, Angelina seven, Margaret five, and gn four.
Mario was just eighteen months old, Benjamino Benji evangelista immigrated
from Naples, Italy in nineteen oh four, and eventually made
his way to Detroit. For many immigrants, moving to the

(03:04):
United States was not the dream that they envisioned. Instead,
they were met by terrible working conditions, a great deal
of racism, poverty, and in some cases, even death. But
Benny managed to beat all these odds. But he also
wasn't your average immigrant laborer. He was a mystic, a healer,

(03:26):
a spiritualist. Some people believed that he could communicate with
divine forces, offer cures, blessings, and even curses. Others dismissed
him as a complete fraud. But still Benny managed to
make a living offering spiritual services from the front room
of his home. Clients came by appointment. Some left feeling

(03:50):
very hopeful, while others left kind of angry. He was
also working on a manuscript, a sprawling egocentric religious texts
that he he claimed had been dictated to him by
an other worldly force. He called it the Divine Evangelist Revelation.
Benny wasn't just a mystic. He saw himself as a prophet,

(04:13):
but not everyone respected him for it. Around nine am
on the morning of July third, nineteen twenty nine, real
estate agent Charles Wolfe, I also saw on a few
of my sources that his name was Vincent Elias arrived
at the Evangelista home to finalize some paperwork on a
property that Benny was going to be purchasing. Benny had

(04:36):
invested in different properties and either sold them or rented
them to different tenants. We all need a side hustle, right,
But when the agent knocked, there was no answer. The
house was far too quiet for a family of five,
let alone with three young kids living there, and something
was definitely wrong. The agent forced his way into the home,

(05:00):
but nothing could prepare him for what he would discover.
What he discovered was beyond all expectations. Inside Benny's study,
Benny himself was seated behind his desk, his hands folded
in his lap, almost in a prayer like position, and
his head was laying at his feet, having been cleanly

(05:21):
cut from his body and posed in a virtualistic and
grotesque manner. There was no blood on the walls or
the floor, which indicated to police that he had been
posed there purposely. What the agent would discover upstairs was
somehow much worse. Santina was found in her bed holding

(05:42):
little Mario. She too had been decapitated, and her infant child,
lying in her arms, had had his skull crushed by
what was likely the blunt end of an axe. Across
the hall, the other children, Angelina, Margaret and Jeanne, were
found laying in their beds. They had died in the

(06:04):
same way, seemingly as they slept. The scene was unthinkable.
The Detroit Police noted that there was no signs of
forced entry, no obvious external break in points. Doors seemed
to be locked and undisturbed. Neighbors reported seeing nothing out
of the ordinary in the days leading up to the

(06:26):
massacre and hearing nothing strange the night of it. There
were no strange visitors, no loud arguments, and a murder
weapon was never found. There was also no fingerprints to
go off of, except for one bloody fingerprint on the
front door handle. Benji Evangelista's work and the occult definitely

(06:47):
added a new layer and an extremely wide suspect pull
to go through. The brutality of these murders seemed to
be carried out in a rage. It had to be
personal who would do this to anybody, let alone four
young children. Forensics in nineteen twenty nine was still in
its infancy, and despite their best efforts, police hit a

(07:09):
standstill before the trail went cold altogether. Over the decades,
several theories had been floated, some more plausible than others,
some more sensational. Benny's line of work definitely added a
new layer and became the likely only motive for the
murders in Philadelphia. Before moving to Detroit, Benny had claimed

(07:34):
to have received a divine vision that changed his life.
He became consumed by mysticism and began developing his own cosmology,
his own spiritual system. By the time he had arrived
in Detroit, he had widely been known as a divine healer,
and people frequently paid him for protection, charms, love spells,

(07:57):
dream interpretations, and even curses for their enemies. Some say
he had a following, others believed that he was as
feared as much as he was revered. His Divine Book,
the manuscript found at the crime scene, read more like
a prophecy than a scripture. It was full of biblical

(08:17):
sounding passages, cosmic war, and visions of divine justice. The
book portrayed Benny as a kind of chosen messenger, so
it was a little grandiose, to say the least. In
a deeply Catholic and superstitious community, such boldness might have
been seen as blasphemous or even dangerous, so that became

(08:41):
the motive for the murders. The funerals for the family
members took place on July sixth, nineteen twenty nine, and
over three thousand people attended. Some were clients of Benny's,
others believed he was a fraud, but overall everyone was
shocked and horrified by the end that came to him,

(09:03):
his wife, and their four children. Police were on site
for the funerals all day to ensure that the scenes
stayed peaceful, but also to see if anyone suspicious showed up.
No one in attendance caught their attention, and the funeral
went on uninterrupted. A thousand dollars reward was collected for

(09:23):
any information that may lead to the identity of a
person responsible, but no new leads were ever generated, and
this would be about sixteen thousand dollars today. As time
went on, the home sat empty, left to decay before
eventually being torn down altogether. When you search that address

(09:44):
as of twenty twenty three, the lot is still fenced
in and completely empty. So what do we think happened here?
What are our theories? Dary one a jealous client or
former follower, someone close, perhaps a client who felt cheated,
or a follower who believed that Benny had misled them

(10:06):
or worse, betrayed their faith. In such a mindset, rage
could become lethal. And if someone believed that their spiritual
or economic well being depended on Benny, then anger, humiliation,
or betrayal could provoke unthinkable violence, as we see in
this case Theory two personal or family conflict. It's possible

(10:32):
that this was not about the occult at all, but
something personal, either a love affair, a betrayal, some sort
of personal debt. Some sources mentioned that Benny was selling
love charms or love potions, and this was a transaction
of cost, expectation, and sometimes deception. Could somebody have believed

(10:53):
that they were simply swindled. Could there have been a
secret scandal involving this family. Way one really knows for sure.
Another possibility is that it was simply somebody that was
unwell and in the wrong place at the wrong time
and took opportunity to cause harm on this family. But
the acts are so brutal and so intimate that they

(11:17):
to me suggest something more than robbery or just a
happened opportunity. The next theory could be a tenant or
a real estate customer. The night before the murders, a
man named Umberto Tequino visited the Evangelista home to make

(11:38):
a final payment on the house that Bennie had sold him. He,
along with a friend named Angelo d'poli, had a couple
of drinks with Benny before leaving the home. They remain
adamant that they knew nothing about the murders. However, when
police visited his home for questioning, they found an axe,

(11:59):
a banana knife, and a pair of suspiciously cleaned work
boots in the barn. Accounts mentioned that just three months
prior to the massacre, Umberto had knifed his brother in
law to death during an argument, and how he escaped
any prosecution for that is unclear, but it certainly gave

(12:20):
investigators a reason to make him a prime suspect. However,
there was no physical evidence and no confession, so Umberto
was eventually let go, and he died a few years
later in nineteen thirty four. Other reports indicate that Benny
was suspecting a lumber shipment to be coming. In strangely enough, though,

(12:44):
the delivery man never arrived and there was no cash
ever found in the home for Benny to have made
said purchase. Was the person involved and did they know
that there was going to be no need to make
this delivery because the family was brutally murdered? Who knows.
I also saw in some sources that Umberto and this

(13:06):
lumber delivery person were possibly the same person. So again,
do with these theories what you will. It is the
nineteen twenties of it all, and unfortunately some records do
get lost. Or theory six. An old friend, Benny's old friend,

(13:26):
Aurelius Angelino, murdered two of his children in nineteen twenty three,
and prior to the murders of the Evangelista family, he
had been housed in a Pennsylvania prison for the criminally insane,
but somehow he managed to escape and he was never
seen again or apprehended by police. Had Angelino somehow made

(13:49):
his way to Detroit, But then again, what's the motive here?
What did Benny do to this man that would have
provoked such violence, even if that violence was just within him.
How would he get from Pennsylvania to Detroit and commit
these crimes with no one knowing anything. I will also
say that I couldn't find any historical evidence of this

(14:12):
said friend or the murders that he allegedly committed, So
do with that theory what you will. But again, like
I said, some records can get lost. If you have
any tips or old family stories, archives, newspaper clippings, if
you lived in Detroit or your family talked about the

(14:33):
Saint Aubun's Street massacre, I would encourage that you reach out.
You may have the peace that's needed to solve this
horrific murder. Nearly a century later. And at the end
of the day, no matter what Benny did for a living,
his family deserved to sleep safely in their home. They
didn't deserve to be murdered in such a horrific way.

(14:56):
And in the cases of these children taken way too soon,
it's heartbreaking to picture these kids sleeping in their beds
and having been found that way. Of Santina holding her
baby infant in her arms, it makes you wonder what
the feelings and thoughts were of this family in their
last moments. And I do wonder who did this personally,

(15:20):
My theory is that, yes, it could be somebody involved
in Benny's side hustle, so to speak, where maybe it
was a property deal gone wrong, or maybe somebody wanted
to take advantage of him and you know, purchase this
property without actually having to give him the money, and

(15:41):
by taking out his entire family, they could take the
money back and still have the property document signed over
to them. Or maybe it was somebody on his main
hustle where they did feel wronged or cheated, or like
the work that Benny was doing was somehow evil or wrong,
or maybe he had made them believe that something was

(16:03):
gonna work and it didn't and they did feel cheated.
I can't ever imagine feeling so angry towards one person
that I would take it out on four others on
top of it, or five others on top of it.
But that's just me. We're the people telling the stories, thankfully,
and I do hope that you enjoyed this occulty spooky

(16:26):
kind of twist in an old timey murder, But at
the end of the day, people still lost their lives,
and that's important to highlight. If you look at the
oldnewspapers dot com articles for these murders. It's interesting to
see the language that's chosen in headlines and how distasteful

(16:50):
they can be at times. I have a few of
them linked in my show notes below if you choose
to look at it. But for example, divine prophet wife,
four children hacked to death. That's really really disturbing language.
So I hope that I told the story well and tastefully.

(17:10):
And again, if you like the show, please leave me
five stars wherever you are listening now. I will see
you next week for another episode with a spooky twist.
And in the meantime, remember you are wanted, you are loved,
and you deserve to be here, and I will see
you next week. Truly Twisted is a proud production of

(17:33):
Fireeyes Media, a woman owned and operated network. This show
is hosted, researched, and edited by me Alicia Watson, and
I would love if you would email me any case,
suggestions or comments you may have at Alicia Atfireeyesmedia dot com.

(17:58):
Fireeyes Media