Can't believe no one has posted on this as it happened a couple weeks ago, but a suspect in the Arlis Perry murder, specifically the church caretaker who had locked down the church for the night just prior to the murder, killed himself as police came to his home to execute a search warrant. Apparently his DNA was found in a semen-stained pillow found at the crime scene; why the determination took this long I have no idea; I guess the technology is forever improving to allow for definitive tests on severely degraded/aged samples?
I found the story on crimefeed.com, a companion website to the Investigation Discovery channel. Scroll down and click 'older posts' if it doesnt show up in the initial screen.
Not surprisingly, the local police consider this a complete resolution to the case, a clear example of the Occam's Razor principle. An all-too familiar outcome, isn't it?
Assuming the deeper conspiracy angle, I've come up with two possible theories:
1) Cult developed intel that Arlis visited the church regularly, and were either in the fortunate position of having one of their own working as caretaker and capable of isolating Arlis to facilitate the murder, or somehow temporarily replacing the acting caretaker with one of their own.
2) Caretaker had no connection to cult but was persuaded to cooperate, with an offer to participate in an orgy as an incentive. In a case-related story published in the NY Post in 2016 (there is a link to this story in the crimefeed.com article), a man came forward to report being a possible witness to an unfolding ritual in the church, though not the violence that followed. The woman he saw, lying on the altar unclothed, appeared calm and not distressed at all. Receiving a glare from the man or men conducting the ritual, he decided to walk on, feeling no indication that the woman was in danger. He did not associate the crime he later read about with what he had seen until many years later, hence the 2016 news article. Given this non-threatening scenario, it would seem plausible that the caretaker might have engaged sexually in a relatively innocuous situation, thereby not having to be a murderous psycho cult member yet still leave evidence which would eventually implicate himself. How or why Arlis would have gone along with this I have no idea; maybe she was willing to go as far as stripping to "play along" while still trying the counsel the cult members on taking another path (I.e., Christianity), but had to be taken by force sexually.
Just thinking out loud here. In any case, hard to imagine this being a simple lust crime of opportunity (caretaker acting alone, with no satanic affiliation) given the eventual details of the discovered crime scene. Like Berkowitz, they may have confirmed one guilty party but given up pursuit of other, more dangerous ones. At least Bill Mentzer is behind bars for Roy Radin.....
Wonder what Maury Terry would be thinking if he was still around.
Case declared solved/closed
Re: Case declared solved/closed
Hi Tomb
Yes, this was a BIG story recently and should have had a lot of reaction and feedback on a board like this.
Unfortunately, the boards are not getting any momentum, lack participation and have few members (15).
It is quite puzzling, given the subject matter, as compared to other similar topic sites out there (like the Zodiac sites)
As far as the recent witness (Brian McCracken) that surfaced in 2016 via the NY Post article, he has been interviewed recently after the Crawford incident happened (check YouTube for a recent interview). He seems credible, articulate and non-conspiratorial.
He still is sticking to his original story that a somewhat famous musician/Stanford alumni is responsible. This was the man he saw in the church that night with an afro wig on. He believes the security guard Crawford's DNA is all over the church because, well, he was the security guard. He speculates, in the recent interview, how the specific DNA the police found may have happened. But, he is still sticking to his original suspect - the musician. He believes that the police could prove this by checking a hand print found on one of the altar candles from that time. Who knows?
How McCracken came to light on this story, after all these years, was he tried to contact Berkowitz directly with a series of photographs to see if Berkowitz could confirm the musician suspect. He mixed in a photo of the musician with a bunch of general photos of random people. This communication never made it to Berkowitz. It was intercepted at the prison by someone and the info was passed along to the NY Post (probably for a payment) who then tracked him down. I still have problems with the time lapse of his story (40+ years to say something, knowing a murder happened right after he supposedly saw this strange ritual. Also, the calm demeanor and "smile" from "Arlis?" when she saw McCracken in the church aisle that night)
Anyhow, the police have declared "case closed". They have/had their lone "guilty" suspect (Crawford). No reason to look further. Done deal. Sound familiar?
Yes, this was a BIG story recently and should have had a lot of reaction and feedback on a board like this.
Unfortunately, the boards are not getting any momentum, lack participation and have few members (15).
It is quite puzzling, given the subject matter, as compared to other similar topic sites out there (like the Zodiac sites)
As far as the recent witness (Brian McCracken) that surfaced in 2016 via the NY Post article, he has been interviewed recently after the Crawford incident happened (check YouTube for a recent interview). He seems credible, articulate and non-conspiratorial.
He still is sticking to his original story that a somewhat famous musician/Stanford alumni is responsible. This was the man he saw in the church that night with an afro wig on. He believes the security guard Crawford's DNA is all over the church because, well, he was the security guard. He speculates, in the recent interview, how the specific DNA the police found may have happened. But, he is still sticking to his original suspect - the musician. He believes that the police could prove this by checking a hand print found on one of the altar candles from that time. Who knows?
How McCracken came to light on this story, after all these years, was he tried to contact Berkowitz directly with a series of photographs to see if Berkowitz could confirm the musician suspect. He mixed in a photo of the musician with a bunch of general photos of random people. This communication never made it to Berkowitz. It was intercepted at the prison by someone and the info was passed along to the NY Post (probably for a payment) who then tracked him down. I still have problems with the time lapse of his story (40+ years to say something, knowing a murder happened right after he supposedly saw this strange ritual. Also, the calm demeanor and "smile" from "Arlis?" when she saw McCracken in the church aisle that night)
Anyhow, the police have declared "case closed". They have/had their lone "guilty" suspect (Crawford). No reason to look further. Done deal. Sound familiar?
Re: Case declared solved/closed
Hi Omega - thanks for your insights. On the subject of interest / participation on the forum, I'm not sure what to make of it. I watched the Opperman Report on YouTube with the Carl DeNaro interview that you recommended in another post - in some respects it seems interest in the SOS case is still alive and well, but when I hear DeNaro say his goal is the same as Terry's was, to see eventual arrests and convictions of other suspects, and then consider his claim of knowing the name, address and age of the female suspect who fired the shots on him and Rosemary Keenan, yet no arrest is pending anytime soon, it would seem that everyone should have thrown in the towel on this case years ago. What magical evidence could possibly remain undiscovered, and, more importantly, what could ever crack the refusal of authorities to get on board? The baton of stonewalling seems to have been passed from generation to generation of police brass and politicians alike, the noble John Santucci being the lone exception. It all seems so futile at this point. So I think that may be the reason for the general sense of apathy on the forum, addicts like us notwithstanding. Any surviving suspects are senior citizens. What should be happening is we should be seeing news stories on parole hearings, like those for the Manson killers that happen from time to time. But that ship has sailed. I've recently been paying a lot of attention to the Gilgo Beach / Oak Beach murders on Long Island, the so-called Long Island Serial Killer case. Like SOS, on the one hand I get really amped up by the possibility of the victims having been killed and discarded by an organized sex trafficking ring counting high-placed authorities as well as wealthy and "prominent citizens" as its constituents, but that enthusiasm is tempered by my growing belief that the case will never be cracked because Suffolk police don't want it cracked. Too many people to protect. Refusing to release the 22-minute 911 call recording Shannon Gilbert made before running out of the house, citing the "sensitivity of the investigation" as the reason? Cmon, give me a break. I'm just surprised there hasn't been an aggressive prosecution of that handyman suspect Bittroff, because getting a conviction against him would go a long way toward reducing the lingering speculation, whether authorities truly believed he was responsible or not. That case is frustrating as hell.
But I digress; getting back to the Arlis Perry news, admittedly I was rusty on the McCracken details and spoke only from what I remembered from reading it a couple years ago, but your reasons for skepticism are worth considering. I can't imagine Berkowitz being able to ID anyone by facial recognition as he was an "east coast guy" still a year or so away from joining ranks and likely only knew what he knew from word of mouth. Who knows if Manson II played a part or not. And even if McCracken did see what he claims, any number of additional people could have been let into the church to participate after McCracken left. One interesting angle to consider is that perhaps the suicidal caretaker ended it all not because of direct culpability, but because of being threatened and pressured by the cult members who were involved, like the Yonkers mail carrier who was coerced into hanging himself after seeing something he shouldn't have seen shortly after the SOS murder spree ended.
In any case, hopefully this will stimulate some other members to get back into the mix and weigh in with opinions.
But I digress; getting back to the Arlis Perry news, admittedly I was rusty on the McCracken details and spoke only from what I remembered from reading it a couple years ago, but your reasons for skepticism are worth considering. I can't imagine Berkowitz being able to ID anyone by facial recognition as he was an "east coast guy" still a year or so away from joining ranks and likely only knew what he knew from word of mouth. Who knows if Manson II played a part or not. And even if McCracken did see what he claims, any number of additional people could have been let into the church to participate after McCracken left. One interesting angle to consider is that perhaps the suicidal caretaker ended it all not because of direct culpability, but because of being threatened and pressured by the cult members who were involved, like the Yonkers mail carrier who was coerced into hanging himself after seeing something he shouldn't have seen shortly after the SOS murder spree ended.
In any case, hopefully this will stimulate some other members to get back into the mix and weigh in with opinions.