EP 57: Charlie Chopoff - The Elusive American Serial Killer

Today's Story: Steph tells the story of NYC serial killer Charlie Chopoff, who targeted young minority males.


Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chop-off

https://www.crimelibrary.org/serial_killers/notorious/killers_wh_surrender/8.html

https://allthatsinteresting.com/charlie-chop-off

https://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/soto-erno.htm

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Welcome to Taste Your Mother. Nevercome on. It's Dark Cast Network Indie

(00:27):
pods with a dark side. Helloeverybody, welcome to Sinister Story Hour.
My name is Steph and I'm yourfriendly little librarian and I'm back with a
not so friendly little story. BeforeI get into the story today, please
go follow me on social media.I'm on Twitter at Sinister Our, Instagram

(00:51):
TikTok, and Facebook at Sinister storyHour. And as always, if you
have a suggestion for a future episode, feedback of any kind, please feel
free to send me a message sendUster Story Hour at gmail dot com.
Also, please leave a five starreview wherever you're listening to this and it
really helps me out. And Idid want to give a quick special shout

(01:14):
out to my favorite cousin, Chris. I don't know if she knows that
she's my favorite cousin, but shedefinitely is. And I just barely learned
that she is a listener. Sothank you so much, Chris, and
thank you to all of you.I feel like I say this pretty often,
but this story is bizarre and wildand hideous. I had never heard

(01:37):
of this story before. I'm reallysurprised that I hadn't and It always amazes
me how much stranger truth can beand how much crazier it can be than
fiction. So if you do havea problem hearing about murder with children,
I will meet you on the nextepisode. This might not be the episode
for you. So with that beingsaid, what if I told you there

(02:01):
was a serial killer that once hauntedthe streets of New York, targeting young
boys, torturing them and mutilating them, and at times even taking their body
parts as a sort of a macabretrophy. Well, that's actually the story.
It's true, and today I'm goingto be telling you about it.

(02:23):
And to top it off, thisis a serial killer that may have gone
free. Now that we know moreabout serial killers, it's common that they
would have a pattern, kind ofa routine in the dastardly deeds that they're
doing, and today's killer was reallyno different. If you're still with me,
sit down and get comfortable, becauseit's story time. The first victim

(02:47):
of this serial killer was only eightyears old. It was March ninth,
nineteen seventy two, when police foundthe body of Douglas Owens on a rooftop
in Harlem. He'd been stabbed allover his body thirty eight times. In
fact, as if that wasn't badenough, his genitals had also been mutilated

(03:07):
and his penis was sliced open.It was only one month later, on
April twentieth, when the killer struckagain. This time it was a ten
year old boy that was found havingbeen stabbed in the neck and back.
The same was true about the mutilation. His genitals were severed and also taken

(03:29):
from the scene. He had beenleft for dead, but the boy miraculously
survived this attack. I can't imaginehow traumatizing that was for him. Although
he was able to offer somewhat ofa description, it was limited because he
was so traumatized during the attack thatit was hard for him to remember parts

(03:51):
of it. The next attack wasOctober twenty third, when nine year old
Windell Hovered was stabbed on the roofof a building in East Harlem. It
was only six blocks away from whereOwens had been murdered. Wendell was stabbed
seventeen times in his neck, chest, and abdomen. His penis had been

(04:13):
completely removed and taken from the scene. By that time, there were a
few eyewitness accounts saying that people hadseen a man, possibly in his thirties,
and had described him as being slim. That's really all they had to
go on. They conducted hundreds ofinterviews, but really nothing was coming out
of those interviews. March sixth,nineteen seventy three, the killer struck again

(04:39):
and in the same grouse of manner, this time killing and mutilating the body
of a nine year old Louise Ortiz. The nine year old Puerto Rican boy
had simply disappeared on his way tothe corner store, and police later found
his body in the basement of anearby apartment. Louise had also been tortured,

(05:00):
suffering also thirty eight stab wounds,with his genital severed. It makes
me wonder the significance, if thereis any, to the number thirty eight.
The police really had nothing to goon still, even with this trail
of destruction that the killer is leavingbehind the area's residence. As you can

(05:23):
imagine, were enraged, They werepanicked due to the killings, and they
were demanding more police protection. Therewere also quite a few civil rights struggles
during that time, and being drivenby social issues political tensions during that time.
If you think back, there wasalready civil unrest, and this man

(05:46):
is targeting either black or Latino children. There was a fourth murder on August
seventeenth, nineteen seventy three, butpolice were not sure if this was the
same killer or a possible poppycat see. The fourth murder victim was eight year
old Stephen Cropper. Since Stephen wasblack, police did believe it to be

(06:08):
related since, like I said,all of the prior of victims were also
black or Hispanic. The boy wasfound completely different this time. It was
slashed by razors instead of stab wounds, and his genitals had not been mutilated.
He also had a slashed artery inhis arm and his chest had been

(06:30):
completely shredded, described as looking likemincemeat. Again, police were working really
hard to try to figure out suspects, to try to figure out who was
doing this, and even after interviewingover a hundred suspects, they were no
closer to the perpetrator. They did, again have more eyewitness accounts that Cropper

(06:54):
had been with a slim Hispanic mansomewhere between five six and five ten,
between the ages of thirty and forty, and he had kind of walked with
a sort of a limp. Now, remember I said that we aren't sure
that this killer was ever captured.There's long been a controversy surrounding this case

(07:14):
on whether the killer could be aman named Ernol Soto. There are some
definite reasons why people would believe himto be, and in fact, after
the abduction and the near murder ofa Puerto Rican boy in nineteen seventy four,
Ernol was arrested. Arnold had beena patient off and on of a
Manhattan State hospital since nineteen sixty nine. Ernol also confessed to the murder of

(07:40):
Stephen Cropper. They had also receivedanonymous tips pointing to Ernod Soto being the
suspect. In fact, he didgo on trial for the murder of Stephen
Cropper in nineteen seventy six, whena psychiatrist testified that he believed Soto to
be dangerous and needing constant surveillance.The story behind what people believed to be

(08:03):
the motive for Erno Soto to killthese young men was really something that shocked
me. Erno Soto was a PuertoRican man that had been married, but
had separated from his wife for atime. They had reconciled and during their
split, his wife had gotten pregnantby a black gentleman. Although they reconciled,
he never got over that fact andhis behavior after a while became severely

(08:28):
erratic. Beginning in nineteen sixty nine, he was in and out of the
psychiatric institution and had some visits thatwere up to a year at a time.
This situation is what some speculate fedhis compulsion to stock and torture young
boys with darker skin. It doesseem plausible right The surviving victim was not

(08:50):
able to identify Soto as the attacker, and at the time of Stephen Cropper's
death, which he confessed to ErnoSodo was in the psychiatric institution. Could
he have possibly left without permission?They did admit that was a possibility,
but they're not sure of that.However, there was not enough evidence to

(09:13):
link him to the killings, andfollowing the trial, Erno Soto was committed
to a forensic psychiatric hospital, andonce that happened, all of the attacks
seemed to halt. The media gavethe potential suspect the pseudonym Miguel Rivera,
and it seemed to really annoy Ernowhen they used that alternate name instead of

(09:35):
his real name. Was that becausehe was searching for some sort of fame
that it made him mad he wasn'tgetting the attention he felt he deserved.
The jury found Soto guilty by reasonof insanity, which landed him in a
maximum security mental institution. The juryfound Soto guilty by reason of insanity,

(09:58):
which landed him in a maximum securitymental institution. This case was never officially
solved. As you can imagine,there are people on both sides of the
controversy, and I would love tohear your feedback on this one. What
do you guys think was it ErnoldSoto? Was he actually Charlie chop Off,
or did the killer go completely unidentified? Although the theory seems fascinating and

(10:24):
possible, I don't know that Ibelieve it, but it's pretty convincing that
the killings did end after Soto wastaken into custody, So that does make
me wonder. I'm just not sureif we're dealing with the police. I'm
just not even convinced that the policewere sure that they were dealing with the
same killer in all of the murders, So I feel like it would be

(10:46):
really difficult to know if the perpetratorwas actually captured or if there was more
than one perpetrator. All of thevictims believed to be connected to Charlie chop
Off were between the ages of eightand ten, and all of them were
either black or Hispanic. Most ofthose boys were sexually assaulted and mutilated,

(11:07):
which for me would add another elementto the motive because it seems like it
could be a sexually motivated crime.Douglas Owens, age eight, Wendell Hobbard
H. Nine, Louis Ortiz h. Nine, and Stephen Cropper h.
Ten. This investigation was one ofthe largest in the history of New York

(11:30):
City up until that point. Despitethose efforts, the case went unsolved and
was officially closed in nineteen seventy four. It was reopened in twenty twelve by
the NYPD Cold Case Squad, butthere have been no new leads. And
that's the end of tonight's story.Another tale that your mother never told you.

(11:52):
Please join me on the next storytimeas I discussed missing persons cases from
Georgia and I will see you allagain very soon. Bye. Hi,
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