Homicide Case File Review – Vernon Geberth

This is things police see first and accounts with your host Steve Gold. Welcome to the podcast that interviews act and retired police officers about their most intense, bizarre, and sometimes humorous moments on the job. It is I, Old Gingerface here with you always. Thank you for being here everybody. Glad to have you. If you’re new to the show, thank you for finding it. You can uh look back in the back catalog. There’s over over 200 hours of podcast interviews with the men and women of law enforcement. Story true stories, unedited, how they live them. Um just uh just a lot of listening you can do. And it’s evergreen. There’s no uh there’s not much um really topical stuff in there. It’s just evergreen stories from uh from Coppers. And yeah, uh it’s uh it’s been quite a wild ride. I appreciate you guys who are finding the show and and binge listening. I still do see the I don’t harp on it as much as I used to, but I do see the five star reviews coming in and I I do still really appreciate that and I I do appreciate all the um notes you guys dropped me about um how the guests inspired you to become a copper or you’re retiring from academy and uh I would share those too. I never ask um because I know probably you especially a new cop probably doesn’t want his face out there maybe. I don’t know. But um if you when you do send them, let me know if I can share them because I would definitely throw them up there and give you a shout out if uh if you didn’t mind doing that. Uh today’s episode, guys, uh really excited. It’s kind of a special episode. This gentleman’s been on before. He is um got a story long and storied career in in law enforcement. He’s uh retired lieutenant commander of the New York City Police Department with over 40 years of law enforcement experience. retired as commanding officer of the Bronx Homicide Task Force, which handled over 400 murder investigations a year. He’s authored a bunch of books that are not only entertaining, but also have been used as kind of a manuals for doing uh complex and in homicide investigations. Um, one of them being practical homicide investigations. He’s known as the godfather of homicide. Uh, friend of the show and my friend, the great Vernon Gabirth. Vernon, thank you, Steve. Nice introduction. Oh, my pleasure, man. I’m so happy to have you on. It even feels weird when I have you guys who were like command staff on using your first and last name, you know, not calling you lieutenant commander, you know, not snapping too. Well, it’s kind of a neat title. Um, but before you get to be a lieutenant commander, you got to you got to pay your dues in the street. I mean, some of these people in law enforcement, they get promoted too early and they don’t understand the job. And that’s the problem. Yeah. you especially right now when we’re having um I went to a class recently and they said we’re kind of having a middle a sergeant middlemiddle management crisis where uh everybody’s getting younger and younger but then a lot of guys who would be sergeant or lieutenant are leaving so there’s kind of a crisis of like we got a bunch of kids we kind of need like the salt and pepper guys to step up but they’re being harder and harder to find and then the the the new the new recruits coming in are just too young. So there are people making sergeant, you know, with two or three years on the job. Some some work out fine, some absolutely are not ready for it. So it creates kind of an issue. Folks, your leadership has always been an issue with law enforcement. Um, thank God I was in a major major department with it was an army 30,000 people. That’s the size of the Coast Guard. Yeah. Well, the the the truth of the matter is when you’re in an unit operation that big, um you get to see a lot of different personalities, different characters. And the bottom line is I was always, you know, one of these gunhole take, you know, take these guys off the street, dude. We got to protect the neighborhood. So, a tactical patrol force, we would we were the elite. And every 30 days, they would move us into a different area. And these were high crime areas. Uh the people would love to have us come in. Uh the people who didn’t like to have us come in were the cops that were on the take and were kind of doing things they weren’t supposed to do. And it was kind of funny because we did we didn’t care. We came in we had to do and that’s how I got promoted so quickly. Within three years I was a white shield detective. That’s that’s pretty fast. Um and then of course I got and later on I got promoted. But I I love the time I spent in TPF and uh looking at what’s going on today with these riots. Let me tell you something. Those riots would have been over in one day back in the day. Yeah. Speaking of that, u so that was Vernon was kind enough to send me uh his book and I’ve been reading through it and that’s kind of the point of this. I I the guy’s just got so much experience and has um had has so many great stories that uh just had to have you back on just to go over this stuff. and I picked out uh a few investigations and and stories that I thought were just um really fun and and like you said about the riots going on today. So, the great Can you take us through the great blackout of 1977 and what what did they what did you and your team do to uh solve these issues back then? What was going on? Well, that was a complete uh disaster. Uh, by that time I was a detective sergeant in Manhattan North, which is Compasses Harlem and Washington Heights. The blackout, we didn’t know it was going to be a total blackout, but we were in the pos we’re in the position of processing prisoners on a narcotics arrest when the light started flickering. I made a call downtown. They said, “Look like there’s going to be a major blackout.” Now, I had been in the original blackout back in in when I first came into the police department in 1965 and uh I tell you that was that was pretty bad. But the one in 1977 just it was almost you could feel you could feel the tension. You could feel you could feel the explosion coming. I had my guys hurry up and process them. Let’s get back to the command. By the time we got back to the command, all the lights were out. Uh we had auxiliary officers there with flashlights to bring us upstairs to our lockers to get our helmets and materials so that we could identify as police, right? And we had an unmarked car and I designated my car tactical response. Okay. On the radio. So when there was something we would tactically respond, four of us. And you did that so you guys could stay together, right? Absolutely. I wanted my men with me because they knew who I was and I knew who they were and I could trust them. uh to take action and protect their backs and my back. So our first response was to I mean these stores were being looted like crazy. I never saw anything like it in my life and it’s like piranhas. They came and stuff was going out. So the first couple we would pull up and we’d grab people and we turn them over to the uniforms. But then we realized we didn’t have enough people. We were outnumbered. There was more of them than us. So now we go into a real what are we going to do? Well, we’re going to try to stop it, but we’re going to like issue summary justice for anybody we can catch. So we pulled up at these different stores and it was one was a a food market and they were taking stuff out back and forth and came in and I had my my team with me and we knew we couldn’t arrest them. I mean there was too many. So we gave the option, do you want to be arrested or you want to be sentenced? They opted to be sentenced. So I hit him on the head with a frozen turkey. I mean, this was this was outrageous, but it was it was listen, it was summary justice. It was a it was basically an insurrection. It was out of control. There was no civil order. There was no courts. There were no laws. So I made my own laws. You’re sentenced. So we ran out of turkeys. We got frozen chickens. So as the next group came in, we were bombarded with frozen chickens. So the word went out there’s crazy cops and they’re hitting us with chickens so they stay away. Well, we were doing very good and we were, you know, taking care of business, but then we went to this other store and we pulled up and oh my god, what a tactical error we made. We thought there were like 20 or 30. There were 100 people in the store. They came out. They overwhelmed us. We had to pull back. Next thing I know, I’m back to back with a uniform sergeant, a black sergeant from the 300 precinct. And we’re basically protecting each other from stuff coming off the se off the roofs, bottles, bricks, and we’re firing shots to stop it. And as he reloads, I reload. This was all of us. All of a sudden, I boom, I get hit in the helmet with a brick. I thought I was shot. That’s how much it hurt. And it shocked me, right? And so, you know, the adrenaline’s flying flowing now at this at this point. I’m not stopping. When we were able to pull back from that, I said, “Wow, I got a hell of a headache and I wasn’t shot. So, thank God I’m all going to be okay.” But as a son began to come up, I says, “I better go.” Knowing how the police department is, I better go and have myself checked because they’ll never believe that I stayed on duty cuz if anybody else got hit, they would have went sick. Not Vernon. I’m not stopping till the sun comes up. Well, sure enough, I went to the hospital. They patched me up and they told me they gave me some cervical strain or some crap. Oh, slight concussion. So the next day I wake up, I can’t move my neck. Now I’m in trouble. Thank God I reported because there’s a line of dy injury. And so uh I had to go went to a real doctor, okay, who examined me and he sent me to an orthopedic surgeon and they diagnosed me and told me you can’t do anything. You had a concussion, you got a cervical strain. And so I was wearing a neck neck brace. The problem was at that time I had a jackass lieutenant, a real dildo, a piece of crap that never should have been in charge of anybody. And he was my boss. And he starts giving me a hard time about being out sick and this and that. And he’s trying to Well, the bottom line is I saw it coming. I was able to defend myself. I’m pretty pretty astute with operational protocols and what you have to do. So, I always protected my men and myself. This was the culmination of a number of things that took place prior to the blackout. We had a major case that he screwed up. We had another narcotics case that he lost the money. Uh I mean, it was it was non-stop with him. If you read this, there’s three chapters in the book, Steve. 13, 14, and 15. Doc, Operation Octopus. You want to see a crazy case? Anyway, make a long story short, I’m going to be exiting after this blackout and I’m going to go back to the detective division. And it was kind of interesting. Yeah, it you’re you’re very it’s very smart and you’re very right about um getting hurt on duty. And when I was a young cop, we had a big storm and uh I went out to uh we were keeping all the cruisers that were running cleared off and I slipped and one of those slips where you go And before you know it, you’re looking at your feet and I went right on my back in the back parking lot and it hurt. Just about knocked the wind out of me. And I was working with a sergeant and uh he was like he’s like, “Are you all right?” I’m like, “Yeah, I think I’m all right. My back hurts.” And he’s like, “You need to make a decision right now.” He said, “Walk it off for five minutes. figure out if you’re hurt or you’re injured because if you don’t if you’re injured and you just work through this and come in the next day, it’s going to be a lot more difficult for you. He said, “But if Absolutely.” But he said, “If you’re injured,” Yeah. He said, “If you are actually hurt and you think your back might be jacked up, you’re coming right off the line, you got to go to the hospital and you know, XY.” And I was only like my mid20s, so I was pretty sure I was okay. And I was I was sore for a couple days, but u that stuck with me where he was like, you know, cuz he’d been through it before where you could have a nagging injury you got wrestling somebody and you let it go a couple weeks, month, the first thing they’re going to do is not own it. They’re not going to want you to cash in on that at all. They don’t want to support that. AB: Absolutely. He was gave you good advice and I knew that I had to do that because I have been injured before. I mean, listen, when you’re an active cop, you’re going to get injuries. Now that I’m older, they’ve all come back. two two shoulder replacements or knee replacement. You got all kinds of issues. But when you’re young and you’re full of piss and vinegar, you’re not thinking like that, right? Keep going. I’ll shake it off. I’ll shake it off. Yeah. But then later on, and if you didn’t report it, you’re so Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I I just thought it was interesting with that with that case you’re talking about with the blackout that um just from what we see how they handle things now. You you essentially were like, “All right, this is mayhem. Um, this is civil unrest. We’re just going to do some street justice and and keep moving, get people stop doing this.” And nowadays, it’s like they just they will force the cops to sit there and watch until it’s so big it’s almost too late. But you guys were just kicking ass like right away. You were what did you say in the book about um something about stick time? They were they were earning the stick time or something. Um well back I could have referred there’s a number of different ways to explain that. It’s Coca-Cola shampoo. Okay. Uh sentence on the spot. You have to understand something that what happened in the 1977 blackout. I’m bringing the experience of 1965 and 66. So, you know how bad it could be because we we were the riot cops. Now, it used to be wild. It every summer there’d be a riot for for whatever reason. We used to call it the summer Olympics because there was always something going. We were so well organized for this. We were in constant training. We were getting sniper training, uh, building repelling, uh, crowd control, and the tactical patrol force would respond to the riot and we would take it out. So, let me give an example. When we weren’t at the riot, we’d be in the inner cities, Harlem, South Bronx, Brooklyn, Byverson, we all had certain radios, tactical patrol force radios. When a riot was declared, we would get a signal. We would report to a street corner and we would be picked up by a big black, green and white bus and they would take our light sticks and give us axe handles. We would go on the bus and then we would respond to the riot. There’d be two cars in the front, two cars in the back with those oldfashioned percussion sirens that go off the buildings. And as they come into the area, the sirens would stop just the lights and we would have the axe handles on the floor of the bus. Boom. Boom. Boom. Like a Roman legion. It would psych these folks out. And when we pulled off the bus, we went into special V formations and we targeted who the instigators were. We’d go into the crowd, pull them out, pull back. It was so effective. And when I watch what’s going on today, I get pissed off because there’s no need for this [ _ ] I’m watching Los Angeles. I’m watching Chicago. They won’t let the cops do the job. And I don’t think the bosses know how to do the job because everybody’s so politically correct. They become operationally ineffective. Yeah, they’re scared. We went to we went to more riots and and stopped it. Now, my pleasure was when I first got promoted to sergeant, I got stuck in a precinct. I had never worked at a precinct. I lasted there three weeks. I drove the inspector crazy. He called me in his office. You one of those TPF Nazis, right? I says, “Yes, sir. You want to go back to TPF?” I says, “Yes, sir.” I was back as a sergeant. Now I’m in the tactical patrol force as a sergeant and I know exactly what I got to do because I was a cop before, but now I got squads and it was it was fantastic. I remember one night there was a a riot in Brooklyn and they activated us citywide. We had to go to Brooklyn. So we arrive in Brooklyn and we got a shaky inspector there. He’s he’s typical ranking officer that’s that’s scared of his own shadow. Vernon, just for the listeners, what is inspector in the rank structure? Because it sounds very English. Sure. Well, you you know what a captain is. Yeah. This would this would be one rank above captain, deputy inspector. Okay. Then above that is deputy chief and assistant chief. This guy is a deputy inspector, which means he’s looking to go up the ladder. He wants to get promoted to a higher position. He doesn’t want any problems. And we got this riot. So, it’s too late because he’s activated the tactical patrol force. Now, I arrive and I see he’s shaky. So, I go up to the roof and I watch the riot for about 10 minutes. I have it all figured out. There’s six people that are doing all all the action. The rest of the people in front of the crowd, they’re throwing stuff from the back. So, I tell the inspector, “Listen, inspector.” I says, “We’re going to stop this riot.” I said, “I’m taking a squad. Give us a couple minutes. I’m going to we’re going to jog around.” We come around the back. I says, “And when I give you the signal, move forward and we’ll move in.” Sure enough, we grabbed six bastards and we laid them out, right? Took them out of the crowd. No riot. It’s all over. Everybody else goes home. Cut the head off. That’s what we did. Listen, I was operational, you know, always thinking outside the box. No, very cool. The um the the next story I wanted to talk to you about or story but uh call investigation you did was was pretty fascinating and I and I can imagine even back then super politically charged because it had to do with the school system had to do with a gay man but you a school teacher was found murdered in his home and correct can you uh can you tell us that uh that investigation kind of laid out? Sure. It was an early Sunday morning. Um, and he was the organist at his local Baptist church, but he didn’t show up. So, somebody from the church went to his apartment and the door was unlocked and he found the body of the the school teacher. I got called at home and that was my standard operating procedure. Any homicide that comes in, no matter vacation, if I’m off duty, I come in. So, I come in, they’re at the scene, my guys, and the first thing we do, we identify the victim. It’s his apartment. Now, one thing about homicide investigation, one of the most important things we do is victimology. Who is the victim? What was going on in the victim’s life at the time of the homicide? His associations, his background, his lifestyle. Well, early on, we could see he’s homosexual. All right. The only thing missing, the only thing out of out of sink in that apartment with all the artsy, crafty stuff was a baseball bat. is that baseball bat’s not his. All right. But there’s no there’s no forced entry, which means he let this person in. Soon as we did the background check, up pops a sodomy charge from Bronx Sex Crimes. He had been charged with having oral sex with a student in the school where he’s the guidance counselor. Now, this is going to be pretty um it’s going to be pretty bad because first of all, the school denies any knowledge of it. Second of all, the principal of the school is a real arrogant racist. Uh just by the way he operates, he can, you know, you’ll you’ll refer to me as doctor. I said, good. You’ll refer to me as detective sergeant and this is Mr. Cruz is detective Cruz. So, he denied knowing anything about it. It turned out that because the school interfered, the original charge was dismissed and then had to be re reinstated. So now we know what the possibilities is. This kid must have been back there and he must have tried something with him. We contact the parent of the child. He’s only 15 years of age. And he’s the victim from the first charge. Yes. He’s the victim from the sodomy. And I speak to the family and says, “Listen, we got to locate your son. I don’t know where he is, but he’s in trouble. And so she tells me the whole story. She went to the precinct in Harlem, tried to report it. They wouldn’t take the the case because it was a sex crime. Had to go back to the where the sex crime occurred. It was in the Bronx. The Bronx sex crime gets involved. Very convoluted because of jurisdictions. Okay. This is one of them. Sorry to interrupt you. I need to ask you a question because it was really confusing me. I’ve never seen oral sodomy in used before, but that’s kind of how it was described as a the previous charge, oral sodomy. So that’s oral sex, nothing to do with anal sex. He was he was performing oral sex on the student. And in turn, he was buying the students sneakers, clothing, and he was basically he was preparing this student for a sexual encounter. And that’s what that’s what happened. Uh, I just never I always thought sodomy was straight up anal sex. I didn’t know sodomy could be applied to oral as well. Yes. Absolutely. Interesting. Absolutely. And that and that was the charge. Now, in the kid’s mind, I got a it’s a ghetto kid, right? He’s he’s getting [ _ ] and he’s getting sneakers. He don’t think of himself as a homosexual. He thinks the teacher is homosexual. But now the teacher is not satisfied with that. And later on, we’re going to find out when we get the kid that he tried to bend him over and have anal sex with him. And that’s when the kid went batshit. So, in the in the crime scene, if you looked at the crime scene, the presentation, it might appear as a pushin robbery and a burglary, but there’s no forced entry, so it’s not a pushin. Number two, it wasn’t a burglary. The kid is looking for the pictures he took of him in a compromising position. He’s trying to get the pictures back. Right. So now we know, we know who we’re looking for. We’re looking for the kid with the help of the parents and the grandparents. We’re going to get him. He’s at his grandma’s house in Harlem. It’s two days later. We bring everybody in. We mirandize them, but know the rights. The family knows the rights. And the kid reluctantly tells us exactly what happened. And that’s what it was. He was okay with the [ _ ] but not the anal sex. And when he tried to force himself, he defended himself. Now, here’s the problem. He’s a school teacher. This is a sexual encounter. And we have a black issue with the principal. So, the first thing the school does is they deny they were ever notified because he’s a guidance counselor. You know how dangerous that is? He’s a guidance counsel and he’s involved with the student. That’s insane. Yeah. So, police department, typical police department, they they start backing away when the board of education makes noise. I said to them, “No, we’re doing the right we’re doing the right thing here.” When I make the announcement, and I will never forget this. I said, “This young person who’s being charged with this homicide was perfectly fine and a normal young teenager until he became involved with a deceased who who initiated homosexual sex.” Well, let me tell you something. I I opened up a beehive. I didn’t I never realized there were so many activists in the world. Now I’m being threatened by Colonel Moran of the Gay National Guard. I said, “What the hell is the Gay National Guard?” Yeah, I really don’t give a [ _ ] Now he’s sending stuff to the precinct and and threats and all kinds of stuff. The bottom line is the kid was found guilty. He he was a youthful offender and u listen the guy died. But the police department got a wakeup call because the police department didn’t want to own up to the fact that they notified the board of education. So I notified the media. Yes, the board of education and the principal was notified. So kind of controversial. Yeah. But I landed on my I landed on my feet because it’s the I did the right thing. When they sentenced a kid, did they did they take into account that he was being groomed in a way? Oh, absolutely. That was the defense. Yeah. So he didn’t get like a a huge sentence. No, not not at all. Not at all. Oh, thank goodness. Geez. Yeah. That is when you said that the principle is racist. Was he a black guy that’s racist against white people or a white guy racist against blacks? He was a black guy racist against white, especially white police. I mean, he was like he was out of control. And I laugh because this this silly son of a [ _ ] You know, you might be a PhD, but I’m a homicide detective sergeant. All right? So, don’t try to outf fox me cuz you’re going to get outf foxed. And I did him at the end because I had the notification when he was notified, who notified him, and it was in the newspaper. So, let I I can’t help if the high command was playing backpedal because I’m not playing backpedal because my name’s out there. So, I’m going to make sure the right thing’s done. Yeah. Abs. I mean, and that is a very um disturbing kind of trend in the school systems, the under reporting. It’s gotten better, but that I’ve seen that quite a bit where the school like they they just want like school resources, I know, officers I know that deal with this stuff is they want everything squashed. They don’t want any students arrested. They don’t want any investigations. They want everything copathetic. I had another case where the woman of the the mother of the child came to us to report that the teacher was having these special sessions after class with some of the students. He was grooming them, right? So, she didn’t go to the school. She went to us. I says, “No problem. We’re going to be on top of this.” So, I get the sex crimes involved. And we find out that every Tuesday this teacher is having this special after class thing for his special students. And what it involved was the students having sex with each other and him watching giving them marijuana uh beer and all these magazines all over the place that it’s perfectly normal to do this. So we know when the when it’s coming. So as the kids are coming to the apartment, we’re picking them off one by one and bringing them downtown to our sex crimes unit where they’ll be interviewed. The last kid comes to the door. He knocks on the door, right? The guy opens up the the peepphole to look. He starts undoing all the locks, pull the kid out of the way, we come charging. You have no right to say, “I got a search warrant, you asshole.” Right? And the apartment was a disgusting situation. All these magazines laid out, all these Polaroid pictures of the boys having sex, right? And you have no right to I says, “Yeah, I have a right and you’re under arrest and blah blah blah.” So, just to make I was going to make a point because I had no use for the board of education. I notified all the the main media stations, you know, all the legac media, all the all the fake news, ABC, CBS, NBC, they’re all outside with cameras when we walk this guy out. Well, holy [ _ ] You think I made You think I farted in church? Next thing I know, this calls from downtown. What’s going on in the Bronx? What are you doing? I said, we’re locking up somebody’s bad guy. You can’t you you should have notified the board of education. I said, I would have, but then they would have told them we wouldn’t have got him. The bottom line, we got him. embarrassed the [ _ ] out of them. You know what they did to the police department? They came up with a new rule that if you have a suspect that’s a member of the board of education, you have to notify the police commission officer. They can notify the board of education. Of course, not on my watch. Yeah, that’s unbelievable. Man, I can’t believe that, Burton. That I you always wonder about guys like this and he’s like an educator. Um, like you’re you have this master plan to groom and molest all these like teenage kids. Like no one talks more than a teenage kid. Like how how would he ever think in what world he would get away with that? Like that would be fine. Like no one would ever find out. Like is is his perversion so strong that it overpowers his common sense? It must be it. Well, sure. And guess and guess what the board of education did? They transferred him to another school. That’s how they solved it. That’s I know. Yeah. Why don’t you trust these guys, Vernon? You know what’s wrong with you? Oh my gosh, that’s unbelievable. Proforce Law Enforcement, the best damn cop shop in the nation. Whether you’re purchasing for an entire agency or you’re an individual officer looking to buy firearms or duty gear, these guys are the best in the biz. Proforce has law enforcement exclusive pricing and is the place to be buying your guns and duty gear. They carry all the top industry brands and the guys and gals that work there understand exactly what law enforcement officers need. Special discount link tps.proforceonline.com. Um it’s u deeply discounted items just for listeners of this show or you can go to proforceline.com and shop the whole place. Place is unbelievable. You can also visit Prescott Arizona in person or Brea California in person to get hands-on with the gear. All the context up is in the show notes. Thank you, Proforce. Um, Vernon, another uh another one. This one’s kind of a kind of a big chapter. Chapter 28. It’s called drug dealer and dog, senseless killing, the nun case. Uh, if you don’t mind, I’d love to go through um go through each one starting with the drug dealer dog case because there this is I mean this is as as disturbing as crime scenes get in just in my opinion. It it was a sad case. Um it it came in um on a Monday, Monday morning, but actually started Friday night. Uh we get a call of, you know, uh suspicious circumstances, possible DOA at an apartment because of the smell. It’s June, okay? There’s a rotting rotting corpses in the apartment. When we respond, the door is locked. It’s got all kinds of super locks on it. Guys are drug dealers or cocaine dealers. So, we go up the fire escape and oh my god, I see the biggest freaking dog I ever saw. My at the window. I’m going emergency service. That’s who we call when we’re in trouble. We call emergency service. Bring the dog. That’s the ESU, right? Yeah. ESU. Are they like Are they like the catchall? They do like people jumping off bridges, out of control dogs. Those are are for lack when people have SWAT teams and special special forces teams. That’s our ESU. They’re terrific. They’re all specially trained, cross trained in all kinds of uh maneuvers and not only taking people off of roofs and and bridges, but also uh assisting on search warrants where people have guns. Okay. We have better guns. Well, they have better guns than us. So, they come up. It took six darts to bring that dog down. Let me tell you something. That was a big Yeah. Well, we chained the dog to a radiator. A radiator is a heating unit. the oldfashioned apartments that they had in in the city. You can’t move a radiator. I hope the dog doesn’t move. We get into the apartment. I crawl through the window and of course the first thing I see is a little baby in a crib. The little baby is very lethargic. She’s been there over the weekend in a hot steaming apartment with the stink of death. No food, no water, no nothing. And then no, I get into the living room and there’s the husband. Okay. and the wife and the wife is laid across the husband’s lap and her entire face is gone. The dog was eating the face because that’s what the dog’s going to do. It’s going to eat. Now, he was such a bad bastard that the dog wouldn’t screw with him. So, he’s has a face. Interesting dynamic in that case is I’m looking at what went down. Obviously, he shot his wife, then he shot himself. There’s something called cataric spasm. When a suicide shoots someone and shoots himself, their hand seizes the gun. You have to literally pry that gun from their hands. It’s a it’s a dynamic that you find. It’s a rarity, but it’s a very important observation because you can unequivocally state that that person fired the gun and I can I can designate this case a homicide suicide. In any event, people have gathered they calls are being made by people who know the woman, right? and her mom shows up. So I have the baby and we open the the door for the the ambulance group. I get the baby out of the apartment and we bring her to another location where the man ambulance people can take care of the child. She identifies herself as the grandmother. I have make a decision. You know this kid has been subject to the most horrific circumstances imaginable. Let the grandmother hold that baby. Yeah. let that grandmother, let that baby have some sort of nurturing dynamic after what she’s been through. And of course, I authorized the woman to go with the baby to the hospital. All right. Now, meanwhile, back at the scene, we’re putting everything together, the cocaine, blah, blah, blah. It turns out on Friday night as they were coming into the building, he had told his wife, “Do not talk to anybody. They’re all DEA.” So, he’s seeing agents where there are no agents. He’s using his own product. He’s getting He’s getting psychosis. A psychosis. Exactly. So, what happens is she sees a girlfriend. She goes, “Hi, Maria. You’re dead.” He says, “Nobody heard the shot. I don’t know when it took place. If it took place Friday night or Saturday, all I know, we didn’t get there till Sunday.” Now, all of a sudden, here I am, and I’m really pissed off about this. I I as a father of children, you just can’t stand to see a baby subjected to that. I get a call from this officious ass at the hospital social worker. By whose authority did you release the baby to the grandmother? I said, “By the authority vested me in common sense, you silly son of a [ _ ] I’m the commanding officer. I designate a homicide suit. If he cared about it, he wouldn’t have shot his wife and left the baby and be eaten. The baby was the next meal.” How do you like that? Right? And if you don’t like it, report me, you stupid [ _ ] I was I was I I unloaded on her, Steve, because I just was pent up with with emotion. Yeah, that is unreal. I mean, um it’s always in a police case like that, too, where uh it’s always amazing when someone will will come in with an off off-the-wall comment and not taking in the totality of the what you’ve been through dealing with this case, just kind of comes right at you. That’s pretty ballsy, especially to do that to the, you know, the supervising detective. Well, yeah, I don’t think that’ll happen again. That’s unreal, man. That poor woman. I mean, I’ve seen like um cocaine psychosis or drug induced psychosis. And it usually like it’s usually a lot more fun than that. Like I’ve seen people completely naked running down Main Street like you know, oh jumping and saying stuff and um well that cocaine cocaine will do that. Same same with crack. They feel they get overheated. They’re taking their clothes off. Yeah. Yeah. It’s uh that’s crazy, man. Damn. You’ve seen um you’ve seen so much disturbing stuff, Vernon. It’s uh Does it bother you at all? Like when I you got it locked away somewhere. You cannot unsee what I’ve seen. And if you saw my book, Practical Homicide Investigation, and my textbook, Sexreated Homicide Investigate, you’re going to see the most outrageous cases in the world of what people will do to other people, especially psychopaths, sexual psychopaths. And the havoc and the damage that they unleash on their fellow human beings is indescribable. And I’m going to tell you how I deal with it. I clothe myself in the armor of God. Yeah, I’m a very religious person. I go to church every Sunday, every religious holiday. Do a lot of praying. Yep. I do a lot of praying. And I Yeah. My Michael Michael the Archangel out. But you have to have the ability to clinicize this stuff and at the same time analyze it. And you can’t analyze it without looking at it. And you can’t clinicize it without having the background to be able to put this into its proper perspective. Right? And that’s, you know, my claim to fame is I have some of the most horrific cases in the country, all documented in my textbooks, but I’ve seen these things. And you can’t unsee them. So, what you do is you pray for the strength to deal with it. And eventually, you’d be surprised. I mean, I’m able to look at things much differently. I don’t see the human person anymore. I see the forensic evidence. It’s not my mother, my sister, my brother. Okay? You got to pull that emotional stuff back. You can still be emotional, but this is this is the reality of evil. And you know, there’s a there’s a lot to be said about dealing with evil. You know, if you if you watch and you deal with too much evil, you could become evil. So, yeah. Um I’m very careful. Very careful. Yeah, absolutely. And definitely faith in Jesus Christ can can definitely help you in that. I’ve I’ve felt it myself and there’s nothing uh I I’ve had lots of cops on that are Christian, too. And um a lot of us think like it’s uh you know how do you how can you do it without without God you know like it’s it would be so hard. We work for God. Yeah. Okay. You have you should have yours there too. It came with the book. I love it. Oh, is it in here? It’s got to be in here somewhere. Should have been in there. It might be. It might be upstairs because you sent me a nice card. Might be in the envelope. Might be in the envelope because I Okay, I’ll have to check. That’s very cool. I’ll put that up. Um Vernon, uh next one I thought was really interesting was um especially because me being a kid that grew up in the 80s and 90s, hearing adults talk about New York City saying like, you know, even the kids are killing people. Like it’s it’s so unsafe. Like nobody wanted to go there. So, when I was reading this one about a Yonker’s youth gang uh killing, I kind of brought back all those memories listening to my parents talk about like, you know, if you don’t go to New York, if you have to go, don’t go here, don’t go there, don’t go in the subway, don’t go in the parks. It seemed like a a war zone like you’ve described it as. Um can you talk to us about the Yoners gang killing and and what happened there? Well, I don’t know which one you’re talking about because I I had a lot of cases from Yoners. Are you talking about the offduty young cop being killed or you talking about Oh, sorry. No. Are you talking about the Skolan case, the young kid 18 years of age? Oh, yeah. I I remember that case very well. Very, very emotional case. Uh once again, the um the police 50 squad. I mean, one thing I did uh as a squad commander, I always addressed the outgoing platoon and told them what I wanted at the death scene, what I wanted them to do. I gave them crime scene signin sheets. I gave them instructions. I said it uh because let’s face it, if the patrol force is not working with you, they’re working against you. We don’t need curiosity seekers at the crime scene. We need to have that scene shut down. So, I had a code word that I gave him. I want you to adapt. A D A P T apprehend, detain, assess, protect, take notes. Most important thing, not the notes, cuz things are changing before you get there. And I had those cops pretty pretty sharp. So what happened is uh one of the kids, they were three together, and they saw a fire in in Van Cland Park. So they thought maybe their friends might be in there. They’re on school break. So they walk in with a radio. Next thing you know, it’s the wrong crew. It’s the South Yonas. Badass crew that’s in there. Soon as I got there, they knew they were in trouble. They get surrounded. The one guy comes up to him and says, “Give me that radio.” He throws a radio into the bonfire. He That’s my brother’s radio. Next thing you know, plunges a knife into his chest. The kid goes up about 10, 15 feet. He collapses his heart. Stab right through the heart. The other kid gets beat up and he runs away. runs into the street and sees a police car from the 50 precinct, flags him down. Well, cops immediately respond, but there’s nobody there. When that happened, everybody’s scattered. So, I get a call at home and I come in and there’s this boy, Christopher Skolan. I’ll remember his name lying there. Sad. Sad. And I’m saying, “Okay, listen. This is not a this is not a Bronx case. These these idiots came from came from Yonas. We got to notify the Yonas. Get the patrol get the patrol force. Notify them. Have them round up their local [ _ ] cuz that’s what it’s going to be. So that’s what we did. The Yonas cops responded. We told them what we had. They knew exactly who it was because it’s the same characters all the time. We we had a lot of stuff on the borderline of the Bronx and Yonas. and I made it my the sergeant there push back, right? Westchester County. Westchester County. Yep. That would be the first that would be the first city north of the Bronx. So, I thought that was part of New York City, but it’s not. It’s its own it’s it Westchester County. So, what happened is the sergeant there gave you some sergeant gave you some [ _ ] though, didn’t he? I’m going to get to that. Okay. First, we had them all rounded up and we’re getting the word what went down, who’s responsible, etc. So, we picked up the stabber. All of a sudden, this Yona’s patrol sergeant arrives. This is [ _ ] You’re not taking anybody. These are Yonka’s arrest. I says, “Excuse me, Sergeant. The bodies in the Bronx.” Okay. I’m the commanding officer of the Bronx unit. I said, “What seems what seems to be the issue? You guys screwed me with the Son of Sam case. We had the Son of Sam case. You guys stole it from the city.” I said, “Well, slow down. I wasn’t part of the Son of Sam case.” Okay, that’s from downtown. I says, I’m just a local precinct commander. So, detective commander. I says, I’m going to make sure that all your people get recognized for helping us round up these characters. All right. Nobody taking nobody back. I says, “Okay, I tell you what. What are you going to arrest him for? What do you got him for?” “I don’t know.” I says, “I know you don’t know. It’s all homicide. The body’s here. Okay. The body belongs to us.” He reluctantly goes along with it. And of course I write everybody up from Yonas. You want to know something? Guess who became my best friend? Every time we had an incident in Yonas in the Bronx, he saw the light. He was apparently pissed off about something that happened to him as it has law enforcement. He’s probably New York City’s the big brother comes in, takes your thing away. He was probably Exactly. Exactly. and and once I explained and where we were and in the future in the future don’t we have we had other cases because the Yonas jackasses would come to the Bronx and the Bronx Jackes would go to Yonas. So it was like it may have been a different jurisdiction but we worked as one group and we were very effective. In fact was I a lot of cases I had that that on the borderline that that went well but I had to be taken care of but you you got to know how to talk to people. Okay. I had to neutralize that. Yeah. Anyway, the sad part about that story, I was I was present uh to make the death notification to the father. The father and mother were devastated. This was their old boy have going to Catholic school. They were stripping and saving to send him to Catholic school so he wouldn’t go to the local public school to keep him away from the shipirds. The bottom line is he’s dead. We went to the funeral parlor. I I I expressed our, you know, condolences from the police department and we were able to make the arrest. We got the second guy later on. He he surrendered with an attorney. Okay, it’s all under control. So now, let’s go a few years forward. I’m now the commanding officer of Bronx homicide. And I get a call of a body at one of the universities on the borderline. This is on the borderline of Yonas in the Bronx. I respond as I get out of my car. This gentleman kind of walks up to me, goes, “Mr. Gabith, I just want to let you know that we pray for you all the time.” And I go, “Look,” and I oversee his name, Skolan. He aged about 20 years, the father, and he’s praying for me. Oh, that’s awesome. I never forgot that. Never forgot that. Yeah, I love that. That’s a beautiful ending. I love that part of the uh part of that write up that I read. That’s so cool. You know what? It’s such a shame, Vernon, that even when I was growing up in the um in the 80s and 90s, it was like everybody everybody at least went to church on Sundays. They might not have been super religious, but they went like it was the thing to do. There was a little social pressure to be religious. And now it’s like it’s um my family and I are like, you know, we of course we hang out with um uh Christian families and stuff from all different denominations. At this point, it’s like whoever you believe in Christ, let’s let’s hang, you know, cuz it’s it’s just uh we’re like the oddballs, you know. Mhm. It’s uh I don’t know. I think it’s part of the it’s part of the the the the degradation of America, the moral degradation. Yes. There’s a breakdown, a very serious breakdown in in civility. And it it it’s kind of insidious. It starts with misbehavior and then then you find it comes into the government and then you have politicians that are so inappropriate, no decorum. The [ _ ] that comes out of their mouths is so out of sync that you would never hear that back when I was young, when you were young, right? And the things that are being said, right? We’re witnessing we’re witnessing we’re witnessing the breakdown of America because this divide and conquer mentality that is being perpetrated by whatever special interest group they want to call themselves. They’re all the same. The Communist Party is supporting that. George Soros is supporting it. And this no King’s Day, what a croc of [ _ ] That is nothing but that is nothing but the divide and conquer attitude. And believe me, the enemy is gaining. However, at the same time, we’re seeing a resurgence in our youth that are pulling back from that. They don’t want that. They I’m thrilled with the increase in the people signing up for the military. Why? Because the military is so important in the formation of future characters in our in our country, in our society. And I got to say this, I I s I sincerely believe that Trump was elected by the grace of God. I really do because if we didn’t have Trump, if we had four more years of this incompetent clown Biden and this socialist government that they’re trying to push down our throats, we’d all be speaking Chinese in a few years. This is craziness. I want to see us come back. I want to see us come back as a proud nation. I want to see respect for law enforcement. I want to see our cops respected. And we got to get rid of some of the commanders and some of the chiefs of police that came in under the woke generation. Because I’ll tell you right now, who started this [ _ ] Barack Obama. He came in here to divide and conquer. He started his [ _ ] in Cambridge, Massachusetts with the with the cops with the with that crazy teacher, that radical character, right? Tried to ID the guy and they ended up at the White House having beers because of it. It’s been going on since. and the demoralization of the police, putting people in charge of the police that are anti- police. I mean, let’s get let’s get real here. They’re not they’re not qualified. And that’s the problem. You have to be qualified to be in the position you’re in. And I always was a strict uh constructionist. If you if you can’t do the assignment, you don’t belong in the assignment. It’s not fair to the department. It’s not fair to you. It’s not fair to your partners. Absolutely. Yeah. You’re right about Obama, too. Like if you there’s a there’s a Pew Research um study on it and of of all places and it shows racism in America, all the different um metrics they measured and 08 it goes boop the divide begins. It it just it just got radicalized at that moment which is you know well the institutions the colleges right the the legacy media you can’t believe a word they say. Okay. And and listen, I got two master’s degrees, Steve. Let me tell you something. The second master’s degree is in clinical psychology. If you don’t think I had to do a lot of liberal [ _ ] to get that degree, but I never let higher education change my morals or my values. Okay? And that’s and that’s so important because what happens, they have these kids under the rule of these radical teachers and the kids want to pass and they’re going to mouth back whatever they’re supposed to supposed to say and they’re being it’s it’s very insidious. It takes a long time to undo a country. Yeah. But I’m telling you, we were we were at the brink. It’s bad. My I got a buddy of mine I go to church with whose son was wasn’t sure he wanted to what he wanted to do. His dad’s a programmer. Um he was teaching him some coding stuff and he decided um you know, I’ll go to college. So he went to college and he made it about a year and then the the the straw that broke the camel’s back uh let’s say was one of his college professors one of their assignments was writing a paper on how lawn care and mowing your lawn could be seen as racist and he you know the kid the kid works for a tree company now he’s like see you later he he left I don’t blame him it’s craziness it really is and I I I’m glad that I was in police uh poling when I was because I was there. I was a pioneer in a lot of a lot of aspects of policing. A lot of the procedures being used today in homicide, I pioneered. Okay. I got the first DNA case in in New York State, third one in the country. Okay. I was always striving to find something new, something better. I was trying to be the best homicide person in the world, and there’s no such thing. Okay? It’s a teamwork effort. We need all kinds of people involved. But I was lucky to be in there when I was in there because I didn’t have to tolerate a lot of [ _ ] Okay, when there was police corruption, not me. I was the TPF guy. And it worked um right through my career. When I became the panty officer, I was involved in some heavy duty cases. I mean, you talk about the mafia. I got a degree in in in in mafiology. Two years, right? wiretaps, bugs, listen to these guys talk and being involved in these cases and when you’re doing electronic easedropping and you’re easedropping on conversations, you know, there’s a lot of people who think they’re cute. They’re bad guys. I’m talking about cops. They’re in conversation with these people. Yeah. And the investigation I was involved with, nobody was going to be touched because they wanted to get the five major crime families in New York. So none of the corruption was pursued. When the case was over, they were supposed to pursue the corruption. But you know what happens? Politics. This guy’s a chief. This guy’s this. Right. I kept notes. I kept notes. Later on when they tried to screw with my people, I said, “Don’t [ _ ] with my men cuz I know what you did.” What are you talking about, Kevin? I says, “Operation uncovered.” He says, “You know, some of the biggest thieves became integrity officers. Don’t [ _ ] me and don’t [ _ ] with my people.” That’s unbelievable. Yeah, that’s smart. Vernon, I’ve had you almost an hour. I got one more to go through if you don’t mind um taking us through it. If I remember. Ah, you will. I mean, there’s a ton in here and you are remembering these um almost to the tea because I read them. So, you’re you’re you’re doing probably better than I would. Um, this one’s about uh uh you mentioned Trump earlier and this kind is kind of apppropo because um this was a a nun that was put into a coma by a street thug and it involves the Trumps and some other stuff. A horrible case came in Christmas Eve. Um I forget her name. Sister I can’t remember. Sister Margaret Sis Sister Margaret. Thank you very much. Uh she was mugged um and went whatever they hit her with. She she had a concussion. She was almost dead. By the grace of God, she lived. Uh we had nothing to work with. Uh we no description. Nobody saw anything. It was like, you know, robbery patterns. Nothing matched. So, I did something that probably was really unique. I employed a psychic. Now, you can’t tell anybody you’re doing that because they’ll think you’re a psycho. But I had gotten access to this psychic through the FBI academy when I was there and I heard about her and she could give a reading of a crime scene based on things that she touched. It was all called psychometry. Did this conflict at all with your with your Catholic beliefs? Did it conf were you conflicted because of her dabblings in the dark arts? No, not at all. I was I’d try anything, Steve, to solve this case. I’d try anything. sent her a set of keys and she gave me a reading and described a male black gave a description of what he was wearing and she described a body of water. Now, there was no way that she could know there was a reservoir next to this convict because nobody thinks of a reservoir in New York City or buildings and subways and stuff. She actually gave us a reading and this is that was as close as we got. But what happened? There was so much uh publicity on this case at Christmas time. Nun’s in a coma. She’s going to die. I get a call from my chief, Chief Treya. He says, “Uh, Vernon, I want you to go to this Mr. Trump’s house, and he wants to offer reward, but I he doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s doing this, so you’re going to handle it.” I says, “Who’s Mr. Trump? Don’t worry about it. Here’s the address.” I didn’t know who Trump was. The father. So I go out to Queens, Fred Trump and yeah, Fred Trump. I go out to Queens and I I meet him. He invites me in. Would you like to have a drink? So I said, “No, sir. I’m on duty.” How are we going to handle this? I says, “Well, you you’re going to you made an offer.” I says, “I have a one piece uh paper here that you agree that upon the conviction, upon identification and apprehension of this person, you’re going to provide this amount of money.” I think it was 5,000. I forget how much for the amount of money it was. And he said, “Oh, no problem.” He signs it. We go back. I notified the press. Uh, now the press wants to know who it is. Now Vernon is not giving it up and my chief, you know, he’s he said, Vernon, so they tried everything to try to get us. Nope. Nope. I can’t tell you the man’s anonymous. He doesn’t want any publicity. He wants to do this for the family. Anyway, make long story long story short, we didn’t didn’t have to pay the reward because we couldn’t find him. But what’s interesting is that after I retire, Donald Trump tries to do the same thing and offer a reward. He’s referred to the legal division. By the time he finished with the legal division, he was so freaking frustrated. He calls him, “Send that detective sergeant that dealt with my old man. He knows what the [ _ ] he’s doing.” So the the the unic in the legal division, right? He’s gets my name and number. I’m already retired. Bernie G. By whose authority do you make a legal agreement? I said, “Do you ever take business law, you stupid bastard?” I says, “It’s a business agreement. He agrees to this. We sign it. We the police department.” You can’t do that. I said, “I did it.” Yeah. So anyway, that’s a whole story. That’s awesome, man. I can’t believe that. I mean, because especially back then, uh, and still now largely, nuns wear the habit. And I mean, that’s the person you’re going to bash in the in the front of the head, a nun. Now listen, he’s savages. He’s savage. You could care less. Yet he talk about my chief. I just saw something. This is what that my chief said later on cuz he reviewed my book. He says, “I’ve known Vernon GT for 35 years. He was my number one homicide commander in Bronx County. He always showed dedication, competency, and commitment to excellence guided by his principle. Remember, we work for God.” He broke the toughest cases with passion and fervor along with his comprehensive knowledge and expertise. Vernon never followed the crowd. He was a leader who made his mission to know every state-of-the-art technique, never hesitated to develop or apply new strategies when necessary. His enthusiasm and skill has reached his highest potential. That’s that’s pretty nice. That’s awesome. So, this is a chief you liked working for? Yes. Yeah, that was Chief Dreer. That’s awesome. Yep. We’re we’re here on practical homicide.com. Um, is this a resource where people can get all your stuff? They can order it right from here or do they go to like Amazon or something? Yeah, just you you see right below right below that large blue box, they see podcast, training calendar. I don’t have one anymore. Research material, current events, and I have a number of research uh documents on there that they’re welcome to download. Uh, whenever I did a a research project, I made it available for my fellow law enforcement officers. And so, that’s it. It’s it’s it’s a source. Awesome. practicalhomicide.com. I myself, of course, have the book. It’s uh it’s it’s amazing. It’s a really it’s a really not only um educational, but it’s a fun read. It really is. And like you were saying before we started, I like that you can uh you can have this in your patrol bag and just kind of pop in and out of it. It’s not a it’s not chronological necessarily. It is kind of, but you can pop into a chapter and read beginning and end of that investigation. You don’t have to read it in order. Yeah. Every chapter is independent and it just it leads up to where I was. But the bottom line is individual stories and some of those cases are really amazing. Um, I’m glad I was able to solve it. The ones I can’t solve. Yeah, it’s like that’s life, you know. Yep. That’s life. Can’t get them all. But, uh, Vernon, thank you so much for coming on again. It was an absolute honor to have you. Oh, thank you, Steve. I appreciate it. You take care. My pleasure, sir. I’m going to do the outro to the show. Can you hang on for like two or three minutes? Sure. Right. The great Vernon Gabirth. Um, super fun to have him back on. Uh, just just incredible career and and the book is uh I highly recommend it. Practical homicide investigation from none other than the godfather of homicide himself. Go check it out. Go to his website. link will be in the show notes for you to check that out. And this is a time in the show when I thank the Patreon sponsors. If you really love the show, you listen to all the free content and you want to uh show show me some love uh monetarily, you can do that through the links. If not, don’t worry about it. The show will remain free. So, you can hear the men and women of law enforcement tell their stories, their real life stories, unedited, how they live them. But who I’m talking about, these are the lieutenants, the great and powerful Andy Biggs. Lieutenant Kyle Roberts. Thank you. Michael Roach from Roach Machines. Check them out. AI Solutions. Thank you, sir. The great Thomas Connell. Everybody. Now to the sergeants. Adam Alexander, Adam McMahon, Adam Mihal, Ben Peters, Brad Thompson, Brett Lee, Dan Carlson from Bley Boards, Amazing Woodworker. Check him out on Instagram. Sher Finch. Thank you, Madame Clark Luff. Everybody, Dave, Elman, Dennis, Caris, Skio, Ha, thank you. Doug and Kelly Newman. Love you guys. See you at church. Dylan Mosher, Elliot Sykes, Gabriel Decknob, thank you Gary Steiner. Everybody, the great George Kerotus, Greg Gadboy, everybody. Jackson Dalton, blackbox safety. Check them out. Thank you, Jackson. James Rose, ladies and gentlemen, the great Jason Lee. Jason Laauo, everybody. Jessica King, thank you. Madam, the great John Jordan. John Shoemaker, everybody. John and Aaron Kate, love you guys here at church. Lauren Stimson, everybody, thank you, madame. The handsome Lane Campbell, Lisa Canno, holding it down to dispatch. Thank you, Lisa. The great Marcus Joe Hansen, thank you. Iceman from Motorccomp Chronicles. Check out his podcast. The great Nancy Hammond, Paul Maloney, past guest. Excellent episode. Check that one out. Thank you, sir. The great Raymond Arsenal. Richard Tols, keep on trucking, my brother. Sasha McNav, everybody. Sam Conway. Thank you, Sam. Scott Young, Sean Clifford, Seth Wright, Sheriff Ronald Long. Thank you. The great Tammy Walsh holding it down at dispatch. Thank you, Tammy. The great Tony Fehee, Zachary Pleet, everybody. And the handsome George Tessier. Thank you, sir. Love you to see you at church, guys. The list is getting long and I do appreciate it. Thank you so much. Um, gonna keep them coming and I love you guys and I’ll see you next week.