NYPD Homicide – Lt. Commander Vernon Geberth

this is Things Police See firsthand accounts with your host Steve Gold welcome to the podcast that interviews active and retired police officers about the most intense bizarre and sometimes humorous moments on the Jorb it is I Old Gingerface here with you thank you for being here guys thank you for listening thank you for all the rating and reviewing that’s going on and of course thank you for listening to the uh the back catalog i appreciate that at whatever platform you’re on give it a like a fivestar comment um do what do all those things to get uh get some interaction on the podcast i uh truly truly appreciate that um really excited for today’s show uh have a guy with just an enormous career and reputation um his cases he’s u he he retired uh lieutenant commander of the Bronx Homicide Task Force his cases have been featured on many crime TV shows Netflix True TV Discovery Fox News 60 Minutes Frontline 48 hours and A&E the author of the famous textbook practical homicide investigation which is now in its fifth edition he is also the author of Sex Related Homicide and Death Investigations he’s a worldrenowned homicide expert and many active and retired detectives and investigators have used his textbook also called the godfather of homicide who I’m talking about is the great Vernon Gabirth Gabirth there I got it gverth vernon Gabbirth yes sir sir honor to have you on the show um I’m so happy we connected and um you know I got your links and everything else i started looking into him and I was like “Oh my goodness.” I I saw the Ford your your book originally the the the Ford was written by uh Janine Piro that who’s now Judge Janine Piro who was then district attorney i said “Man this is this is crazy this this guy’s got it seemed like everybody was reaching out to you for major high-profile homicide cases.” Yes uh well I I immersed myself in the subject and uh as a result of my interaction with so many different agencies across the country I was invited in to participate um and you know how police are they’re very protective of their information but they knew that I wouldn’t share it inappropriately i wouldn’t use it for my own benefit and by the way that’s why I was able to revise the book constantly because I became aware of some fantastic tactics across the country which is interesting because when I first started teaching the first thing I had to do was get over the fact I was from the NYPD and from New York the guy kept saying “This is not how the New York City Police Department does it i promise you this is practical homicide investigation.” So I I one of my toughest groups in Chicago they loaded the class with some of the real oldtime tough detectives and they had a whole bunch of new rookies in there and I had a laugh on day one one of the oldtimes challenged me they came back at him i said “Okay you want to play games here’s a here’s a list of questions.” He go “No no you win.” I said “It was I wasn’t here to do a contest we’re here to share information.” So it worked out well yeah i’m sure even being an expert in the field like you are um you got the opportunity to rub shoulders with so many different homicide divisions that I mean that only strengthened your your abilities because you’re learning you’re picking little things up that everybody else does we learn from each other it’s no one is independently the smartest person in this business okay i know when I first started I was studying and and trying to be the the ultimate homicide detective and then I found out there’s no such thing it’s a teamwork effort uh it requires many many people and many people with different disciplines and um I’m just feel blessed with what I have accomplished i really do and uh you know at at one one point when I was still teaching I could focus my classes on any place in the country down south I had southern cases on the west coast I had west cases northeast I had northeast cases midwest I had Midwest cases because I had been invited in and was applying the tactics to their cases so it worked out well yeah that’s great so when you’re when you’re becoming a MYPD copper did you have any anywhere in your mind did you think I want to go into homicide or this is what I want to do or did you kind of get interested on the job i became a New York City cop because it was my vocation interestingly enough I was in college at the time when my name finally came up on the list i never told my family the only person who knew it was my girlfriend me and my girlfriend and I was in my junior year in a Catholic college called Nyona College in Nurell and I was taking business because in back in the 60s they didn’t have something called criminal justice i took business why not and my third year the brother who was the guidance counselor is uh Mr gretch you haven’t uh chosen your practicum the company that you’re going to be with for the summer i have it all covered brother i got it he goes what’s the name of the company i says NYPD he goes what you become a what you went to college to become a cop yeah i say “Hold on slow down you see that colleague around the neck is that your vocation?” Well that’s my vocation the NYPD and and that’s that’s the truth and I had the way it was set up it looked like uh I was going to be appointed to the NYPD in December uh of uh 1964 and just like everything else in New York City there was a fiscal crisis and that didn’t happen but we planned a life around it we had planned for our marriage in October for me and my girlfriend got married uh went on a honeymoon and came back and uh in the interim I was in the World’s Fair Police Department because they were taking people off the list the World’s Fair Police Department the World’s Fair Police Department it was that kind of microcosm of Oh yeah the New York World’s Fair well I’ve heard the World’s Fair but I didn’t know they had their own police force yes it was the Pinkertons but they were designated a police force under the state of New York and all of the bosses and administrators were NYPD personnel so basically it was like being in a microcosm of the NYPD everything was the same the procedures were the same directions were the same even the forms were the same but instead of saying UF uniform force it said WF world and it it was really funny because the old times listen kid if you don’t screw this up you might get the real job i said okay yeah so yeah it’s like a glorified security force police force the Pinkertons I mean they go they go back to the railroad days i mean they were known for they were like the um hired guns they would they would rough up labor groups and they would they would go after um people that are robbing the railroads i mean they they’re very historic in this country well that’s why they got the contract okay because basically they had the expertise and they hired people from New York to uh to basically train people and and here I am in the World’s Fair Police Department we’re going to get married and come back come back from my honeymoon and oh my god I’m laid off for this season i was “Oh holy [ _ ] i’ve had a job since I was 12 years of age i always work what am I going to do?” My wife says “Don’t worry there’ll be another class coming you’ll be okay take it easy.” So I I ran no I didn’t take it easy i listen I was a newspaper boy i was working at a drugstore i was a working supermarket i was in the uh retail store so I just I was driving a cab driving trucks and as luck would have it it was the holiday season and UPS was looking for workers so you had to show up at what they call a barn and you had to be there 6:00 in the morning and hope that somebody would pick you so three days in a row I’m up there at 6:00 nobody picks me i’m going “Geez this isn’t working out too well.” Finally on the fourth day guy goes “I see you hanging around kid you’re going to work on my truck today.” Well by the time I finished I had my own truck i was had my own route i was UPS man that’s funny yeah so you’re you’re the type of person when you take something take a hold of something you you give it your all if you’re going to if you’re going to be a janitor at at a at a school you’re going to be the best damn janitor they ever had yeah and if I have to shovel poop I’ll shovel a lot of poop i don’t care i had never had an ego when it came to work but you know it’s interesting because in my life experience I was a lifeguard okay uh I was a volunteer fireman i was a security guard i drove an ambulance in each one of those occupations there’s certain skill sets that you pick up and the trick in life is to carry those skill sets into the next career so that you can fall back on something but also have an awareness of what’s going on around you yeah smart it’s kind of Yeah it worked out for me absolutely so Vernon when you if can you take us way back to when you when you got the call you got out of academy and you’re on you’re on the road um can you remember the first call you went to where you had like an adrenaline dump or that would be considered like a hot call in New York City well first you have to get through to your police academy i was I aced the police academy because I was a college person also my uh proficiency in firearms I was like number three so I got selected for a really neat unit called the tactical patrol force nice the tactical patrol force was like the Green Berets of the NYPD and what’s important to point out today is back in those days they had police corruption it was kind of systemic the tactical patrol force never had a scandal of corruption we were the crime fighters 24/7 we didn’t handle lady cases we didn’t do traffic investigation all we did was crime work and I was an arrest machine i was locking people up left and right 6:00 p p.m to 2 am in the morning and when there was a riot we would be we would respond to the riot so as soon as we graduated from the police academy we went for further training okay so we went for training with sniper rifles crowd control so basically uh we were a specialized unit and the beauty of it and it hasn’t happened since in any career in any other job the harder you worked the better you were and the more apt you were to be promoted oh merit-based i think imagine that a brand new idea merit-based promotions hope can you imagine in three years in three years I managed to get into the detective division as a white shield detective i didn’t have a gold shield yet i still had to perform for a year and or six months and getting the gold shield is a big deal in the NYPD it’s the I hear that gold shield detective and we have different ranks we have the third grade second grade first grade um and I spent some time there so now getting back to the question my first my first hot call we had nothing but hot calls but I think probably the the one that really was a baptism of fire was we responded to what we thought was a dispute at a building and it turned out to be a racial incident between the Puerto Ricans and the blacks and it turned out the guy had a gun and we arrived on the scene and he pulled the gun on us we couldn’t shoot because of the crowd we struggled we took him down physically we finally have him under control we have the gun in our possession when suddenly we’re surrounded by a hostile crowd that want to take him back now that’s an experience okay yeah so we we put out a signal 10:13 assist you know assist the police officers and all of a sudden the cavalry arrives and and basically extracts us from the crowd and we bring him in so that was the first hot call that I had man yeah that’s got to be an adrenaline dump you’re just trying to just trying to get your job done then you got to worry about everything else around you well we worked in high crime areas we were we were like the I call myself a ghetto cop all right everything was nonstop and the experience in those areas was eye opening because for somebody like me I came from the suburbs but I had came from a you know lower economic neighborhood but I never saw anything like that and the abandoned buildings and the uh the drugs and the violence and is and the abandoned buildings weren’t abandoned there were people in there whether they were crazy people who had been prematurely released or whether they were criminals there were people occupying those buildings so what would happen is the owners would abandon the building and the uh electricity and water wouldn’t be there so they would get their electricity by hooking up to the building next door and get their water from the fire hydrants and that next building would go down now within the buildings there were drug dealers and the drug dealers had pitbulls so the scary part of things never change the Yeah I know and the trouble was you just didn’t run into one of those buildings because you could get hurt because the buildings were booby trapped for instance the you’d run into the building and when you get to the third floor the third floor landing had been removed the bad guys knew to grab onto the bolster and swing swing over to the other liar you come running up you go right down into the basement of the spikes and crap that was down there so it was kind of like it was like in guerrilla warfare really unbelievable unbelievable that must have been such a weird um just a weird thing to um like so polarizing going to work and then like going home to a nice wife or girlfriend to a nice little apartment or house you know what I mean like you’re working in like the jungle and you go home and you’re like it’s like a different world it is a different world plus we were TPF cops so we didn’t have our own locker in the precinct what does that TPF mean tpf we We were We didn’t have lockers uh we The stuff was in the trunk of our car we would pull up to a precinct and it’d be like a recon unit they’d establish a communication okay we had our own radio system and we would go out into the street twoman patrols and the first thing we would do is we would take the to the roofs because to make sure all the rick the bricks the bottles and things that would throw at us were off the roof then we begin patrol so it was uh it was pretty interesting jeez got a few medals in that i got a few medals in that detail yeah man it sounds it sounds action-packed Vernon when you um homicide question for you for for the listeners and for me because I’m I’m not much of a homicide investigator myself um you get a brand new case what are the critical first steps you take to secure to make sure that the case is going to go go well you’re going to get the right evidence well you’re jumping ahead of me um before you get the homicide you got to go into other areas and and I I’ll answer that question but what I want to point out is you just don’t end up going to homicide the the career path is usually narcotics everybody’s got to go through narcotics now the interesting thing about narcotics if you can survive in narcotics dealing with the people you’re dealing with and the informants everybody’s lying the trick is to find the truth okay once you deal with that that’s another skill set okay now you now you’re learning how to deal with different kind of people after you get to narcotics possibly a robbery now another skill set so by the fine you by the time you come to homicide you’re pretty wellrounded as an investigator all right now I came into homicide as a boss now as a detective sergeant I’m smart enough to realize you don’t tell people with 20 and 30 years how to do their job they already know how to do their job right never goes away your trick is Yeah your trick is to supervise that like in order to supervise that you have to learn a job and that’s what I did i basically began to shadow who I believed to be the best detectives and because I couldn’t possibly make up for 20 years experience I started taking notes had my own protocol on my days off I would go to the library you didn’t have Google in those days okay yeah had index cards and I pulled every everything I could find on homicide so on my days off I was reading and digesting when I went back to the command to look at the closed cases and so basically I was schooling myself now at the same time because I’m a detective sergeant I’m not catching the case i had the ability to go down and watch the autopsies so now I’m getting like a forensic class in autopsies which I’m going to bring back to the field because I’m learning to make observations that I can make in the field when you’re dealing with dead bodies all right so it it was it was really it was very strenuous but I had gotten my first master’s degree when I was in the police department i was still in narcotics what I did is I did a sociological study on this young black male and female entrepreneurs who were not drug dealers they were kind of like young superflies and they were learning the trade because the old-time black dealers were going to jail under the Rockefeller laws they were replacing them and it was really it was like a subculture of a subculture so those skills that I had doing that research I brought to homicide now I’m researching homicide but I’m actually doing the cases right and because I’m a supervisor I have supervision over over multiple teams so as I watched different teams do different things I saw some was good some was bad now get getting back to your question you arrive at the homicide scene the first thing you have to do is freeze that event in time by photograph by video because you want everything intact you don’t touch anything you don’t pick anything up because everything has potential especially in this day and age would touch DNA right all right we didn’t have that back then back then when I was a detective sergeant in homicide we had the [ _ ] system three blood types okay that doesn’t give you much one in three in the population in the early 1980s they came up with PGM subtypes which gave you one in 10 in the population one in 10 is better than one in three right right along comes DNA it’s one in 80 million it’s like comparing a kid on a tricycle to somebody in a rocket ship and don’t forget I’m forensically oriented so I’m always looking for new tools and I went when I was doing formulating the book I was visiting all the all theologists the corologists the anthropologists the odontologists the entomops you name theologists and I would ask for their papers and I would rewrite what they did then I’d bring the papers back to them and says “Is this what you do?” Well you know Sergeant you made it look very easy i says “Well we’re not trying to do what you do we’re trying to find out how we can use it for what we do.” I even brought an entomologist to one of my crime scenes and had him collect the maggots because the body had been there and we couldn’t tell how long it was the summer the body was bloated everything is like you know it’s disgusting the flies are buzzing around and I say and of course nobody’s talking to us this is an you know up upscale neighborhood nobody wants to talk to the police i say well let’s see what we can find out from the maggots and sure enough he took the maggots he brought it back he grew him in the laboratory he tells us the homicide took place 5 days ago so I go back and I recanvas the building with my detectives sure enough the people on the floor below heard a gunshot heard screams but didn’t get didn’t call the police cuz they were going to Europe the next day no such getting involved with the police yeah that’s a whole bother I can’t deal with right now yeah but the entomologist had the time at death right so that’s another skill yeah that’s great that’s very cool yeah that’s um seems like that it’s kind of wide open you can kind of you’re the kind of guy that was just trying things out like let me give it a let me give this a try throw it against the wall see what yeah no problem well you know you got you you think out of the box you know it’s another perfect perfect example i told you I had delivered papers as a kid right so it’s nightw watch one night i used to hate Nightw Watch 12 to 8 the only good thing about Nightw Watch is there was people in the Bronx were getting killed it kept me busy but it was one of those nights it was kind of slow it’s 10 minutes to 8 it’s time to go home i can’t wait to go home cuz we get a call we got a school girl raped on a rooftop in the 43rd precinct area what a shame here’s a beautiful young kid going to Catholic school gets up at 6:00 in the morning to deliver newspapers and she gets attacked and the story was that the guy followed her into the building mhm and so when I get there the crime scene the crime scene is being protected and I’m listening to the story and the girl’s in the hospital she it looks like she’s she might even go out of the picture so what I did is I call for all detectives in the burrow to respond i want a total canvas and everything else and look at this where the crime scene supposedly is and I’m saying you know this doesn’t make any sense because when I delivered newspapers I would go into one side of the building and work my way up and I would go over the roof and work my way down i wonder if she did the same thing went to the other roof landing and son of a gun i found the primary crime scene and the physical evidence that we needed no kidding so that’s an example of bringing your skills from before back to you know into your present wow we got them that’s really cool yeah you weren’t you weren’t joking when you said these other jobs were building skills that would apply to homicide later oh yeah well I was a UPS driver during the one major organized crime case i was a UPS driver but I wasn’t i was a detective making observations but you could do it in a realistic way I’m sure yeah i I looked like the real deal had the brown suit and everything yep that’s awesome that’s really cool um Vernon when you um what do I how can I how can I word this so when you do a homicide because we all watch people watch um a lot of TV and a lot of a lot of TV is about cops because it’s so interesting to people how much of homicide work for you when you when you have a case or when you’re supervising a case how much of it is actually intuition or like a gut feeling does that come into play a lot well absolutely um I was one of the first people to document the uh dynamic of stage crime scenes stage crime scenes are a problem for law enforcement because the event is presented as one thing and as something else so I’ll give you an example um suicides suicides are what they call non-amable offenses so they don’t get the the DVOP doesn’t get credit for the time and effort in in suicide investigation so if if someone’s response to a death scene and it’s purported to be a suicide the easy way out is like it’s a suicide no problem now that is a problem because it may not be a suicide it may be a homicide stage is a suicide so it’s training the people not to react to the presentation but to do the entire homicide protocol follow the checklist and field guides that I put together because that’ll give you the ammunition you need to find out whether or not this is really a suicide or it’s a stage crime scene and you know I had I go back a bit so you know before these programs were out there I think the only thing that was really out there in my early time was the uh like Dragnet things like that you know Joe Friday just the facts man yeah m but here I am teaching all over the country and I have a good reputation my books are there i’m in Las Vegas and I’m teaching a class i did two year two classes a year in Las Vegas every year unbeknownst to me Vegas Metro invited producers in to see the program they didn’t tell me this so I’m talking [ _ ] and I’m talking about cases that night I get a call in my hotel room from Jerry Brookheimimer CSI oh Commander Gbert there’s a very interesting presentation we’d like to talk to you about being a technical advisor on this new program we’re forming called CSI so I’m going “Yeah CSI.” He says “You know Mr brookheimimer,” I says “That sounds very good but you know our job is hard enough without telling people how to do it.” So Mr mr integrity is backing away right he says “Oh that’s I think you’re making a mistake you can make a lot of money.” I said “Money was never my problem.” I said “I’m not interested.” still interested in protecting the the the value of what we do he said “Well can you recommend anybody?” I said “Yeah you know I I have a a friend who’s a lieutenant commander in in California he’s a homicide guy he was a handle serial murder cases.” So I call him up ray uh his name was Ray Beyond ray you interested he goes “Hey Vernon our job is hard enough i don’t want to put this information out.” He’s the same as me so some female detective took the job and she did fantastic that’s funny i said that is funny but no I kept my integrity i just you know I I’m I’m a purist what can I tell you yeah and were you afraid that if you if you gave them too much technical data that it would would would kind of expose um to criminals how how these things are solved or what absolutely it’s happening every day yeah yeah it’s Yeah it’s kind of like when the news starts talking about a conflict and they’re they’re showing showing footage and the bad guys are all watching it exactly they watch it and they and it’s you know loose lips and sink ships what can I tell you but I you know I have no nothing against you know those shows they’re very entertaining they’re good the only problem is they they get to solve the murder in an hour right it takes us more than an hour it just days weeks and months yeah it’s more entertaining if you can just wrap it go ahead and wrap that up in an hour for me well you know you talk about stage crime scenes they while I was a detective sergeant I had a very interesting case because what happened and they broke up specialization some some uh mucky mucking headquarters thought it’d be nice to put detectors back in local precincts big mistake because when you have specialization people specialize and they do the same thing all the time and they get good at it so they got rid of the homicide squad the robbery squad the burglary squad but they didn’t get rid of the female sexual assault squad because they didn’t want to have an issue with the with the females so within one year we had a we had a 100,000 robberies with a 3% clearance we didn’t investigate burglaries and homicides were down to 20% clearance somebody goes “Oops.” So they formed a task force the Bronx homicide task force the robbery enhancement unit the major case squad so we’re back to square one in the interim I got assigned to a precinct uh precinct level detector squad i was a commander because I was a homicide sergeant i got a command usually a lieutenant takes that job so first thing I did I came into command and says “Listen I don’t know how you’re doing things here before but it’s going to change.” I inherited 10 people i was allowed to bring five of my raceh horses so now my raceh horses are all bent out of shape what they doing what they calling [ _ ] cases and the 10 people who haven’t done anything for 10 years are bitching because they have not to work yes i got to So on paper I got 15 people in reality got a dysfunctional family all right so break everything up i said “Okay here’s how it’s going to happen i want one i want a homicide detective in every team and when the phone rings I don’t want to hear about oh they’re coming on at 4:00 it’s not my case it’s your case we’re one unit we all do the same work i don’t care if somebody’s off you pick up their case because when people call up the police department they don’t know about teens and it’s not my case and somebody else i don’t want to hear that [ _ ] all right we’re all one and I want a detective at every unattended death scene because I don’t want to find out later you didn’t go and the and the medical examiner notifies us by the way you have a homicide and now we have no crime scene what do we do perfect example i’m working one day my two raceh horses are in court with an old homicide case the guy on duty is a recalcitrant lazy 25 year veteran who’s lasering [ _ ] his friend the patrol sergeant is 27 years on the job he’s even lazier so a call comes in that a woman’s drown or committed suicide all right so I hear the conversation i’m in my office and I hate part of the conversation no no no we got this new pain in the ass i’m going to have to go he’s talking about me i’m the pain of the ass and he doesn’t know me i’m like a Roman candle takes a while to light us but watch out we got to get all the balls out after the thing get lit so so I says “What’s going on Bill?” Ah some freaking broad drowned herself in the tub i said “What that doesn’t sound I’m going to go with you.” “No don’t bother it’s all bullshit.” I said “Now I’m definitely going with you.” When I arrive at the scene there is no scene Steve you got a family of hysterical emotional Puerto Rican people who are really upset with the death of this young woman i got a patrol sergeant standing with his thumb up his ass i got an ambulance crew they want to take the body there ain’t no crime scene so I said to the detective get a statement from the husband the husband gives a stupid long complicated statement with a lot of times in different places i said to the patrol sergeant “Listen,” I says “I get a gut feeling there’s something wrong here i don’t like this.” He had his brother call the police he doesn’t call the police let me take a look at this woman’s body i bend down i fold her eyelids back i see the evidence of hemorrhage now particular hemorrhage is presumptive evidence of a throttling or strangulation i I get those if I sneeze too hard I get little red dots in my eyes well it No it’s it’s a it’s not proof it’s presumptive evidence right right right i I take one look and I say to this patrol sergeant “Sergeant we have a homicide here.” His response “Who the hell are you Quincy?” I says “No I’m a detective sergeant now I’m telling you clear this area i want a crime scene.” Blah blah blah blah detective comes back i says “Bring him in.” I can’t do that he just lost his wife i said “Listen stupid he’s a suspect bring him in he’s he’s he’s he’s going to be a witness all right bring him in as a witness get him out of here.” So now I’m trying to figure out what’s going on who lived in the apartment i find out it’s the woman the newborn the four-year-old and an eight-year-old so where is everybody well the four-year-old and the baby the newborn will whisked away into another apartment in the building the 8-year-old’s in school i said I got to get all of the 8-year-old now you can’t go into a school and conduct a homicide investigation so I get a female relative from her side of the family i says I want you to go with me to the school i want to speak to the 8-year-old so when I arrive at the school the principal what’s going on i says “Mr principal terrible tragedy is ensued.” They like words like ensued we have to speak to the 8-year-old because she may have been traumatized there’s a suicide her mom committed suicide oh my goodness we could use my office so the little girl comes in very articulate intelligent and I start talking to her can you tell me what happened from the time you got up to the time you went to school well I got up my my sister was watching Roadrunner cartoons and uh mommy and I had breakfast oh what what did mommy eat i want to find out what’s in mommy’s body what did mommy eat and what what did you have okay so what time did you have to go to school 8:25 and what time did school start 8:30 so when you went to school who was in your house oh my mommy my sister oh yeah and my daddy he was fighting with mommy now his story was he wasn’t in the apartment m so the woman with me starts I knew that son of a [ _ ] had something to do with this i said “Lady sh be quiet.” Right i said “Do you believe in God?” She goes “Yeah.” I said “I’m working for him we got to get the kid out of here.” Yeah anyway principal comes in all bent out of shape don’t worry she signing as we walk out the building now I got a problem i have a civilian witness who knows that the husband did it i got an 8-year-old girl doesn’t know what’s going on thank god two of my real detectives showed up across the street one of whom’s Hispanic i said “We got to move quick.” We go to the apartment and we interview the four-year-old who only speaks Spanish in Spanish the little girl says “Poppy grab mommy by the neck mommy Poppy squeeze mommy’s neck poppy put mommy in the bathtub.” The four-year-old saw the murder proforce law enforcement the best damn cop shop in the nation whether you are purchasing for an entire agency or an individual officer looking to buy firearms or duty gear these guys are the best in the biz with law enforcement exclusive pricing ProForce Law Enforcement is a place you want 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 as a listener of this show you get access to exclusive pricing on the gear you depend on every day visit tps.proforceline.com proforceline.com for special deals on optics duty gear and tactical accessories that aren’t available anywhere else um really really good deals on this the link for that will be in the show notes you can also visit their showroom in Prescott Arizona or store in Brea California to get hands-on with the gear or shop nationwide at proforceline.com their dedicated law enforcement support team is always ready at 1 800 36758-55 thank you Proforce okay that’s why you got to move fast that’s tactics okay i come back to the apartment and who’s there but Benny the perp detective let him go he’s getting everybody charged up you know how people are emotional i know this and I know that and I said “Excuse me Benny you’re going to have to go back and sign some papers i don’t have to do [ _ ] i know my rights.” I said “Well I don’t know what you’re talking about your rights you’re a witness and I’m sure the family has to make funeral uh accommodations so it would be better if you went back.” And so now the family that he surrounded himself with is now pushing him out the door go with the nice detective come on you jerk what’s your problem yeah so we get him to the station now I’m really pissed about what happened i’m really disgust i hate domestic violence homicides it’s so unnecessary and I’m really aggravated so I come into he been given his rights and come in i says “Listen Vinnie.” I said “I’m going to tell you something.” I says “At 1:00 this afternoon your four-year-old daughter is going to testify in a grand jury she saw you she saw what you did you dirty bastard now the four-year-olds testify in a grand jury no no can I say that they do yes a ruse cuz I work fil cuz I work for God okay these are all over the country plus Frasier versus Cup United States Supreme Court decision trickery and deceit are allowed in the interrogation and I got him and he went to jail for homicide but there’s an example of a stage crime scene moving quest tactics procedures and getting n suppose I didn’t do that and suppose the body was removed the next day the medical exam would have told you you have a homicide would we have gotten access to the kids would we have getting access to the crime scene no he would have got away with murder and that guy was just going to stuff it sweep it yep yep yep sounds like a nightmare being the uh the boss over there when you first came Yeah right man geez so how long did you stay in that situation before they made specialty units again oh they never did what they did is they formed the task force forces yeah yeah that’s the Bronx homicide task force now I’m still a detective sergeant i have a lot of cases in my book in the Godfather book I go through all these different cases there’s some crazy crazy cases that took place um and I finally oh that’s the other thing when I wrote the book I got in trouble see one thing about police work don’t ever do anything that is out of sync with what everybody else is doing you think you’re special what are you doing yeah you Well it was worse than that because I I thought I was going to be congratulated excuse me right yeah you’re like man they’re they’re going to be proud of me well it’s the first book written in 20 years and by a New York City detective son it’s a big deal right because the only books out there were 30 20 years old you know so here I am getting pictures from other agencies even the FBI because they’re in the book with the profiling so everybody’s you know is cooperating i’m saying well I’m going to I I know what I’m dealing with here so I put a request in for official crime scene photographs but the way I worded the request was I’m requesting official crime scene photographs to be used in my textbook that I’m writing on homicide sure [ _ ] goes down denied you’re looking to benefit financially from a product of the city of New York you stupid bastards i have my own pictures i was giving you I was giving you an opportunity all right right so the book the book comes out and they have a headline in the local newspaper New York Daily News the cop who wrote the book on murder hey that’s pretty neat yeah 15 minutes later I got this scumbag captain from internal affairs congratulations Sergeant i see you wrote a book i says “Yes sir you’re under investigation.” I says “For what you violated department protocol.” I said “I don’t know what you’re talking about Captain.” He says “By what authority did you write that book?” I said “How about the First Amendment?” “You’re a wise guy.” I said “How about the Second Amendment i think I’ll shoot you.” He put me under investigation later on I found out that this turd ordered crime scene pictures from every homicide scene that I responded to in my career we’re talking about between 6 and 800 homicides okay the zone that I worked in had 225 homicides a year in a 6 and a half square mile area wow this this is a murder capital so he’s ordering all these pictures and he’s trying to match the picture to the pictures in the book it’s not going to happen cuz I have my own pictures at different you know different format so now I’m getting the blessings all of a sudden the police commissioners congratulate me and this and that so what happens is he calls me yell “Sergeant what’s the difference between official and unofficial photographs?” Read chapter six you freaking [ _ ] chapters on photographs i beat him that’s awesome that must have felt so good it did feel good until I got promoted to lieutenant and the chief of detectives another piece of work says he’s going to teach me humility nice he thought I should bring the manuscript he He thought I should bring the manuscript down and get let him put his name on it right so when I got promoted to lieutenant he I should have been retained i was the top homicide commander in the in the Bronx okay instead I get and while I’m in lieutenant school it’s funny because all the boogeyman outfits are trying to hire me internal affairs field control they all want me as a lieutenant i said “No my uniform’s fine don’t worry about it.” I went to this precinct called the Alamo 46 precinct busy P i was a desk officer i became the ultimate desk officer i shaped that place up one two three had him acting like a marine by the time I finished and and the guy who did that to me retired and three months later I was back into the bureau as a lieutenant so I went to one squad first as a probationary lieutenant detective lieutenant then I got my permanent command in the South Parks in the 40 squad great great great group of people and then I got promoted to lieutenant commander at the Bronx homicide so all my procedures were now in the city of New York Police Department they had a little rank behind me yeah that’s I mean isn’t the politics terrible i mean Oh the I mean it’s still going on i hear NYPD guys on on social media on podcasts soon as they retire they start open their mouths about it and it is nuts well you know what it is you know at least I know what what direction the bad guys are coming from because cuz they’re the bad guys it’s those assassins that work in the building you got to watch out for they get you in the back okay i always like to One police plaza i call it the tower tower of babel you know we lit we literally have people that have spent 20 years in that goddamn building okay and they know all about the rules they’re like the Pharisees at the time of Jesus right they had all the rules down but they didn’t have they hadn’t figured out the big story yet whitewash dudes yeah these [ __ ] come after you but I beat him every time because listen I was aware of institutional protocols what had to be done i always covered my ass uh but as a boss as a boss and I first thing when I first became a sergeant I knew my responsibility was to the people that worked under me to protect them that was my job as a boss and when I became a commander I was even more adamant about that they would send missiles in from headquarters i would intercept the missiles so my cops could do their job that’s what a good boss is supposed to do that’s great you know those those inside cops we just talked about in the podcast last month the the one the the female deputy chief that was making like $490,000 a year because of paper overtime for paperwork it was like really then they’re busting the chops of the troops that are have legitimate overtime they’re like “Oh you’re working arrest.” Yeah yeah well you know don’t don’t do as I do do as I say yeah right vernon can you can you take us through one of your most memorable homicides you know uh I don’t want to sound arrogant but I got like 8,000 cases of my life i You know what makes cases memorable either the circumstances under which it occurred the victimology the family interaction that I had or some tactic because I can’t just say there’s one case every case is is unique uh to me is there a particularly bizarre or strange one oh yeah there’s one there’s one really bizarre case u did you see the movie Hannibal yes okay do you know Mason Verger the man who fed his face to the dogs i I don’t know you remember that character Mason yeah that’s that’s my case from the Bronx you’re kidding the popper stolen out of my textbook no kidding well let me tell you how that went down wow we got two calls early morning one from the hospital one from the crime scene at the hospital they’re asking for detectives because of a possible uh assault victim and he’s in very bad condition at the crime scene the sergeant’s asking for a detective’s possible homicide so I stop at the hospital first to take a look at this mess and it is a mess i got a gor covered man moaning and carrying on and I go to the crime scene and I go to the crime scene and the sergeant had coraled some dogs into the bathroom to round them up it was in the basement of a building i look in the look in the bathroom I see a couple drops of blood i said “That doesn’t make any sense this guy’s this guy’s a mess right so going through the uh the basement I come to a recliner and I see a smashed mirror this individual was under the influence of PCP and he got nuts with the PCP and he smashed the mirror and he began to literally peel his face from his skull his entire face was taken off and he gouged out one eye oh my gosh and the PCP in his system that kind of anesticized him and he’s peeling his face and what I’m sorry I hit the microphone uh he’s he’s peeling his face and he’s feeding the dogs now how do I know this because I’m in the crime scene i can’t find any face i have to save face right there’s no there’s no explanation they say “Take those dogs down to ASPC have their stomachs pumped.” Sure enough they pumped the dog stomachs i get a bag full of face now you can’t do nothing with it because of the enzymes you can never Now I go back to the hospital and now I got about 25 doctors and everybody’s all around this guy so I says “Excuse me excuse me.” I says “I need a witness i’m going to ask him a question.” That’s always good to clear the crowd yeah no one wants to be that guy especially doctors yeah they all ran away i says “Get the gauze off his mouth.” Said “Take the gauze over his mouth.” And they get close to what used to be his ear and I go “What happened to you?” And all of a sudden he go like a mechanical mouth i says “Oh my god I finally lost it i’m talking to a cadaavver and the cadaavver is talking back i got to go for surgery.” Anyway uh I followed that case because it was so weird and I documented everything up to and including the reconstruction where they take what they do was called a pectoral flap they cut from the chest and they fold the skin to the face it eventually grafts on forms its own blood vessels etc and then they cut and they graft and they cut and eventually make him a face but the guy had fried his brains with PCP he became a ward of the state i put that money well spent I guess oh was a waste of money as far as far as I was concerned what but they listen it’s a life the bottom line is that Thomas Harris who’s going around going to the FBI because they’re the smartest people in the world right they have my book so he’s going through my book and he sees the case next thing you know he takes that case and puts it in his movie in his textbook what i don’t know nothing about it i start getting calls from UPI Associated Press uh Commander Gabbert do you realize that your case is in your is is in the movies and I said no I haven’t gone to the movies in a long time so I find out I get the book i go “Son of a bitch.” So I I send a note off to this Thomas Har i said ‘Hey by the way I says ‘You know I got two M’s degrees i says I was always trained to site my sources what school did you go to 6 months later I get a Xerox copy of his note because he thinks his signature is worth money i apologize for the oversight in all future copies I’ll recognize your fine work Commander G this should be good enough yeah right uh I don’t sue anybody but that’s an example of of a very very bizarre case oh that I mean I remember watching that and it it was I watched that 20 years ago but I remember the part where I think Hannibal gives him like he takes a popper or something and then talks him into cutting his own face that’s exactly it that’s exactly it it that scene was so disturbing i mean that whole movie those whole series was disturbing to me but it was especially eating the brain and things i mean it’s just like nonstop oh yeah he’s talking to the guys like “How’s your brain?” Good thanks yeah with the brain with the Ray Leota oh my god but yeah but you know something the that that case was probably my most bizarre case and what I did is you know what happened then because people are crazy they go online they start saying things and Snopes I know people out in the West Coast they’re goofy i became a fellow in the American Academy of Forensic Science again another another credential after my name makes me look like I’m smart uh well you know I got all these credentials but I never lost my common sense you’re fairly smart i can tell no but I I didn’t let higher education corrupt my morals or my you know that’s the challenge that’s the challenge yeah it is a challenge but I I presented that case at the American Academy for no other reason than to document it clinically so that there would be no doubt where this case came from what it was about so I did but I had other you know I had so many cases Steve it’s you know I don’t want to sound like I’m some sort of Superman i just that that unique for different reasons i read all about it Vernon i know i know it’s true um so you were getting called a lot for like notable cases like um did you get called I thought I said you thought I saw you got called for the BTK killer is that true yes i work behind the scenes with Witcher Police Department and the KBI Kansas Bureau of Investigation uh BTK as BTK before he was named btk was responsible for a series of horrific killings in city of Witchaw bound torture killed right bound torture kill well he he he named himself but what happened it was the Uterero family and it was the mother the father the little brother and he took little Josephine down to the basement he hung her and masturbated on her as he as she was dying now there was quite a bit of bali biological fluid that case went cold now I came into Witchau around 1988 uh to instruct a class and what had happened ironically at the same time BTK reemerged by taking credit for a sex related homicide that stimulated him psychologically and sexually and he claimed to have done it he didn’t do it but by him reemerging it forced the authorities to reopen the case now interestingly enough the detective who reopened the case Detective Ken Landwear ultimately became the commander of Witchah homicide but it’s 1988 so I said to him “Listen I might be able to help you with this case i’m working with a DNA firm because I had the first DNA case in New York State the third one in the country give me some of that biological fluid from the Otto homicide brought it back to New York and as a result we could biologically and neur and neurologically molecularly uh identify the BTK killer with that evidence but nobody knew about it because there was no suspect so but that was the first DNA print on on BTK then he went dormant again and then 30 years later okay in 2004 he reemerges with a series of communications now during that time I was in the back field i was in touch with Lichour with Ken Landler and Larry Thomas from the uh KBI and I was giving ideas about you know what you might want to say when you talk to him because the more they talk the better it is because every time they say something a little piece of information leaks out and as a result and that was another problem the damn and their media began to get packages and would beat the police to the crime scene to take pictures before the police processed the information it was really disturbing anyway what happens is in 19 excuse me in 2004 he sends a communication with a driver’s license of one of the victims and information on a 19 um 86 case okay well that was very important because that case had been written off the husband became the suspect but there was no evidence now he’s claiming he did it now everything is coming together and saying “Wow this is interesting another piece of evidence another Eventually it comes up with a surveillance.” They see his truck at a Home Depot dropping another package in someone else’s vehicle so now they have a possible suspect this is great but they have no evidence except that 1988 DNA print but they need something fresher in one of the most ballsiest moves of a director of KBI orders his detectives to seize a papsmith of the daughter of BTK from the college because they go for routine examinations the pap smear is taken to Topeka and overnight they cannot rule out that this specimen did not come from the biological father BTK so now they have enough to go it was big was a big deal yeah now the now the game plan was and and I helped sit down with this is that each homicide had their own team of detectives very very very very smart because they were all extremely knowledgeable about each segment of the case and each piece of evidence the game plan was to take him on a Friday afternoon in the street because one of the communications indicated he had a bomb with a remote he was taken down in the street and brought to a federal building where nobody would know he was under arrest the game plan was to question him throughout the weekend with each team okay and on Monday do a formal arraignment that’s that was a very good strategy so what happens it’s a federal building the FBI decides to announce to the world the FBI has arrested the BTK killer gosh couldn’t help themselves had to do it that’s why FBI to means means to me famous but incompetent they just screwed up the whole thing now what happens is as soon as they make that announcer the news media goes crazy i get a call from director Larry Welch KBI Vernon we have them but we have a gag order you’re going to be getting a call from the news media you need to take our position because we can’t speak that’s no problem so phone calls start coming and they always come CNN screw CNN i go to Fox News so I go to Fox News that night and who’s the uh the host but Greta Van Sustern you know looks like she got hit by a truck a couple of times and anyway I don’t remember her no she she’s she’s a nasty person anyway I have I have to get the the information out but I can’t volunteer it they have to ask me a specific question and so I tell the producer get Greta on the phone cuz I got to tell her something so she’s all bent out of shape commander what’s so important i’m preparing to prepare a show i going to give you an exclusive but you got to ask me this question cuz I can’t volunteer it oh oh oh oh so the first panel is this mucky muk from the FBI from the Houston office a real jackass the bureau the bureau the FBI the FBI now they switched to Vernon Gabbert now the FBI had nothing to do with this this is a Witchaw homicide and cancel bureau investigation blah blah blah and I laid the whole thing out and the next day all the news media is jumping all over so that was my contribution to protect the They must have loved you in FBI wasn’t very happy but I could care less that’s awesome wow that is cra I mean DNA really has changed the game now too and uh Oh you know the the first case I had it was called RFLP technology it was really was the Model T Ford of DNA and it wasn’t really that specific and because it was in New York State and everything gets litigated in New York State you know that right the two Weisenheimers from the defense attorney’s office are trying to poo poo the DNA and what came down is the bottom line is it was a 50/50 it was 50/50 for the state 50 for the state 50 for the defense but the bottom line is our guy was identified and to show you the power of DNA we had a murder the previous year in another building he was assigned to clean and the DNA matched that murder case we had a serial killer didn’t even know it wow and then when the OJ Simpson case came in those those two characters that were fighting with me they were representing OJ Simpson but by 1994 DNA had increased with PCR polymerase change reaction and the advances are exciting from a scientific perspective so and where we are today is is unbelievable i know i remember the um when I was I was a cop on Cape Cod for um a while and we used to live there and Christa Worthington got murdered in Truro and they were it was a big I mean Turo has 1,200 year round residents and maybe in the summer there’s four or 5,000 but she got murdered and the only person that went to the house was like the trash guy and somebody else so there it was between these two people and they were trying to figure it out but in the early stages they had um at the Truro post office in their little store there was law enforcement stationed with with um swabs and swabs they were asking the public for volunteer DNA samples for this case and like no I mean especially at that point it’s 20 years ago nobody had an general public didn’t they knew it existed but they they didn’t know the accuracy or anything and like nobody was giving them they’re like what’s what’s going on no one’s giving us samples like well yeah no one’s going to give their DNA to the government just well that was taken from the blooding from from England the first case in the licorice where the two little girls in 1983 and 1986 were killed raped and and murdered three years apart scotland Yard realized they had a serial killer so they asked Dr alec Jeff to examine the biological evidence and they had a guy under arrest who confessed and Alec Jeff using our FLP DNA technology said I can I have good news and bad news the good news is I can molecularly and biologically link one donor offender to both cases the bad news is the guy you have under arrest didn’t do it that’s the power of DNA yeah rick this this clown that wrote confessed he’s the first person in the world to be exonerated with DNA technology and the perp the perp who’s named Colin Pitchfork that’s a good name for a perp he becomes the first person who is charged and convicted based on DNA it’s a remarkable story but what you talk about in there’s a book called The Blooding by Joseph Womba in which they had lined up all males between 17 and 34 were required to give a blood sample this was overseas colin Pitchfork yes in England can’t do that in America colin Pitch no you can’t and Colin Pitchfork paid somebody to give blood in his name and first thing he did he went to a pub and he started toasting oh yeah this is on Colin the barmaid rings him up scotland Yard comes up and snap them up can’t keep their mouth shut you know have these people that just keep their mouth shut man yeah I know vernon I have to ask because it’s New York City of the homicide you did did you have a lot of um mob related murders mob hits stuff like that yeah we had we had mob related hits uh and they’re they’re much different than than other hits because usually what the mob does they try to render the uh the remains unidentifiable or or you can’t find them one or the other and one thing with the mob hits is you don’t get that solved that case right away what usually happens is we pick them up on wires i worked on the mafia for two years straight with u wires and bugs and it’s it’s one of the most amazing things to listen to these mob guys talk it’s like listening to the Sopranos okay they’re telling war stories about what they did and it’s interesting what they do is they they end up giving up homicides that we couldn’t solve and we hear about it and then we then somebody turns and the next thing you know they given us bodies so it’s like with the the Good Fellers case that was a perfect example those bodies were given up by uh informants yeah yeah that’s we had we had a lot of drugrelated homicides in the Bronx crack the crack cocaine uh phenomena that was unbelievable i mean they just get they were dropping left and right yeah yeah i know i I remember when I was a kid it was like the 80s and 90s and like New York City was like if you heard someone was going to New York City you were like “Don’t get murdered.” Because like the subway everything else was just a blood bath everywhere it was just known as a city that was um I think it was like you know the the most violent city in America it was it was terrifying to go to New York City well until Giuliani cleaned it up it was okay and now we’re back to square one with these jackasses we go we got a jackass as a governor jackass is a mayor and we got a city council they’re all communists and the state legislature they’re all uh this this black idea that you can’t be arrested if you’re black no no it has nothing to do with black and white has something to do with right and wrong okay and they’re making it impossible now they come up with something new they don’t want police to pull cars over i saw 14 motor vehicle stops out the window well you remember that movie Escape from New York well that’s what’s h that’s what’s going to happen unbelievable um Vernon the books they’re still I’m I’m sure they’re still being sold i mean it sounds like you’ve sold a a ton of them already but they’ve been revised when was the last time you re revised um the practical homicide investigation practical homicide is the most recent one the sexual related homicide I can’t revise because I can’t publish it again the information in the sex related homicide is so horrific and so pointedly uh it could be called prejuditial because we talk about behavior um the clinicians are using my book psychiatrist etc i can’t revise that book partly because of the stories because of the pictures because of the cases but also because some of the uh determinations that that are made we’re talking about psychopathy and and and narcissism and the types of personalities you do things so it’s uh it’s a shame that well they haven’t burned my books yet that’ll be the next I’ll have a book burning well so far they still are but the the one thing is like the Godfather of Homicide book is my life story and in that the Godfather book were a number of cases that uh that I uh was involved with and u kind of interesting and uh kind it kind of explains how I got to be who I am i mean this godfather of homicide i don’t know that’s pretty that’s a pretty neat phrase i didn’t call myself that to me no I mean if you could pick a nickname that’s pretty good that’s pretty good yeah well it’s pretty nice i’m on I have your website on the screen right now looks like you can um you can get it on the website or does the website just link you to Amazon yeah go to Amazon yeah you go to Amazon the website just advertise what’s up there yeah okay there’s the man himself right there look at all those hash we work for God signs those we work for God signs i made I’ve distributed about 90,000 of those across the world and what’s kind of neat is every once in a while if you see the first 48 and they go into the cubicle in the cubicle is one of my we work for God so he’s I know he’s one of my students oh my gosh that’s so cool it’s It’s a neat feeling yeah yeah absolutely vernon um I feel like we could we’re at an hour here and you’ve been generous with your time i feel like we could we could keep going maybe you’ll come back for a second episode uh down the road if you have the time we could talk about some cases outside the city of New York you know there’s some really interesting ones absolutely i mean it was an absolute honor to have you on and I will um link I’ll put a link in the show notes to your website and to your books of course and um just thank you very much do you have any social media you want people to follow you on no I don’t know how to do that stuff you talk about Instagram and X no I have a Facebook page you know that’s that’s it hey you got a website that’s pretty good well I have a website because I was teaching and the website in in addition what should people should know that on the website there’s papers and things you can download so if you’re in this business and you want information go to the research uh materials and there’s there’s papers and clinical papers that I’ve written that uh that you can avail yourself from because I believed in sharing this information um that’s how that’s how we learn yeah we learn from each other absolutely and um after giving my entire life to practical homicide investigation I’m going to be retired retired now so that’s good for you well Vernon it was an absolute honor to have you on thank you sir well thank you i appreciate it and God bless yes sir and I’m going to I’m going to go do the outro can you hang on for like two minutes so we can chat afterwards sure awesome the great Lieutenant Commander Vernon Girth um wow great stories the guy’s got so much knowledge absolutely got to talk him into coming back because I want to hear more about this stuff um very cool thank you thank you again for coming on sir this is the time in the show where we thank the Patreon sponsors what I’m talking about is these are Lieutenant Level the great and powerful Andy Bigs congratulations on your promotion sir lieutenant Kyle Roberts thank you michael Roach from Roach Machines AI solutions thank you sir the great 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