Episode 359: The Club Kid/Party Monster Murder | Morbid

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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.

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What's up with you, man? I am eating a bagel pizza.

You should cease to do that. I'm not going to do it anymore, but I was doing it up until like right now.

I mean, I know that. I was like here. I was like here for that.

I just spilled an entire fucking thing of, what are those called?

They're like, they're kids snacks. They're Annie's organic Chex Mix kind of thing.

I don't know. Neither of us said it right.

Chex Mix. Chexmas. Yeah, she spilled it all over the ground.

So Roomba is going to have to take a little trip around the pod lab.

One of my daily affirmations this morning was that I was capable, but I'm not quite sure how capable I am anymore.

You're capable of making a mess is what you are you know what i'm also i'm also capable of renaming my cat later on oh yes uh for those of you that follow me on instagram or if you listen to the listener tales episode with drew last week uh you know that we got a new cat and i was so excited because i was getting a little girly i wasn't going to be outnumbered in the house anymore and i named her clear or cleo cleo And then all of you were like, oh, no, they are.

And I was like, yeah, exactly. Cleo's a boy.

Yeah. And I knew it because I was holding her when we first like a couple of days after we got her and I seen the balls, I seen them.

And I said I went out to Drew and I was like, she has balls like. she's she's not a girl cat and he was like oh i don't know like maybe and then he's like oh no i don't think so oh no and then we brought her to get her final rabies shot today so that she well yeah you know so that we thought she could meet her brother but her brothers but she she a boy yeah there was a lot of revelations in that appointment there was a lot i've been calling her keeks so i'm like because like cleo keeks i'm trying to think of a name that i can name him to that like keeks still works That one I can't help you with.

Yeah, I'm brain dead right now. Yeah, I don't know about that.

We usually record in the morning, but right now it's the afternoon.

Yeah, we've been recording all day. So we took a break to eat lunch and then we're going back at it.

And it's an experience to do it in the afternoon.

It is. It feels a little funky. We haven't done it in a while.

Feels a little funky fresh. Usually the afternoons are for listener tales because we're punchy as fuck.

And listener tales deserve a little punch punch.

Truth and a half. Yeah, but right now we're not.

So we'll see how this goes. Yeah. All right.

So we're going to be talking about a pretty infamous case today, which you can tell from the title.

We're going to be talking about the Club Kid murder, which is also known as the Party Monster murder.

Yes. Yes. I worked in Hollywood Video when that was out on video.

Oh, did you really? Yeah. Macaulay Culkin.

I remember seeing it in the video, like on the new release thing.

So I just like want to start this off by saying that the 80s were fucking insane.

Wild. Wild time. What was Gen X doing? What were you guys doing?

And elder millennials at that point. Like, what are you guys doing?

I was just being five. That's fine. That's allowed.

I wasn't partying or anything. So like the amount of just talk show clips that I watched while I was looking into this case, my jaw was on the ground infinitely.

Like my it's still there. Still there. No, it was crazy.

But honestly, before we get fully into this, I do just want to give a trigger warning for this episode.

Drugs are a very, very prevalent part in this case.

So if you don't want to listen to that, or you know, maybe you don't want your child to listen to that, like, let's not do that.

Let's not do that together, guys. Let's not.

And here's your warning, because there's going to be a lot of mention in that department.

So for those who don't know all about the club scene, club kid scene, I want you to picture it.

Not Sicily, but New York City. And we're talking like late 80s, early 90s era.

And this is what people referred to as like an underground culture.

A club kid could really be anybody because in the beginning, it just seemed to be a lot more about self-expression and art and acceptance.

And it had a little less emphasis on the drug side of things.

Honestly, it was like almost like one big society of its own.

There was no need to state if you were gay or trans or straight.

Everybody just accepted each other for who they were, especially in a sexuality or like gender identity regard.

Cool. And club kids dressed completely against the norm back then.

And really, every outfit was more of a costume than an outfit.

I love that. It's very drag. Yeah. One of the more famous club kids, James St.

James, would later say that fashion was, that the fashion back then, like, for the club kids was part drag, part clown, part infantilism.

No. Whoa. All right. Oh, yeah. Because it was kind of like the rave thing with like the pacifiers of the binkies.

But it was meant to make people uncomfortable.

And it was meant to make a statement. Yeah.

The outfits and the clothing. The club kids, they wanted to shock people.

They didn't want to be part of normal society.

And that's exactly why they were all about nightlife.

Yeah. I love the nightlife. Yeah. You should sing at one of these nightclubs that were all around town.

Maybe I did. Oh, did you? I don't know. I was five.

I was rolling. Rolling through. Rolling with the homies.

But yeah. Yeah, there was all kinds of nightclubs.

They'd put on different events. People would dress up for them.

And because there weren't a ton of celebrities coming to the New York area, like right at this point in time, or at least not really in the areas where the club king... The club kings and queens.

That's what you meant to say. The celebrities weren't really coming to the area where the club kids were, where the club kids scene was super prevalent.

Yeah. So because of that, it was really people within the community who were viewed as celebrities.

They were actually called Celebutants. Celebutants.

And from everything I've read and watched, they kind of were like influencers of today.

Like before influencers were influencers.

Yeah, but in a way less mainstream way, if that makes sense.

Yeah. You know what I mean? So the club kids, they would come out in whatever they wanted to wear.

They would meet up with each other and they would dance the night away, which of course is where a lot of the drug use came in.

In the beginning, like the club kids who partook were doing cocaine and then ecstasy became a thing and then ketamine, or you might know it as special K. If you don't know what that is, it's actually an animal tranquilizer that causes humans to have hallucinations often referred to as K-holes.

Oh, my. Yep. That became prevalent. And Rohypnol, which is a muscle relaxant, which actually is used to treat insomnia.

Yeah. But it has different effects, I think, if you're drinking with it and if you take it in large amounts.

Recreationally. Recreationally. Exactly.

And then eventually heroin really overtook drugs. so much of the scene.

It's like actually really devastating. Wow.

Now, because these kids were so against the grain of mainstream society, they became a staple piece of counterculture at the time.

And they were invited on all kinds of talk shows.

You know, the talk shows of the time. Oh, yeah.

Geraldo, the Joan Rivers show, all those ones.

Sally Jesse Raphael. Oh, the glasses. And all the biggest publications and tabloids of the time were writing stories on them because everybody was just like, what the fuck are these kids doing?

Yeah, just fascinated. Yeah. And in the 80s, like I feel like like satanic panic was going on.

And if you were different, it was like, oh, my God, you must worship the devil.

Exactly. It's the human zoo kind of thing where it's like, oh, let's look at this thing and not actually get to know it.

That's the thing. I was like, ooh, it's pretty.

Let's look at it. Yeah. I was watching old clips of Geraldo and I was just like, oh, wow.

These people are like really just like exactly what you said.

Just like displayed like zoo animals. Just like, let's look at this funny looking thing.

Right. Interesting. It's like, why don't you learn more about their culture and like actually who they are as people.

Try to appreciate it. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't expect Geraldo Rivera to, but you know.

Nah. Nah. That's a hard no. That's a hard no.

So some people use the scene and what they learned from the culture of it to go on and gain crazy success in the entertainment industry.

Bjork. Is that how you say that? Bjork. Bjork.

Bjork. Nin. Nin. Sorry, I'm young, okay?

James St. James is one. James St. James is one.

And the biggest of all, I would say, is RuPaul.

I was just going to say, a little person we know named RuPaul.

So other people, like Michael Allig, took the culture part for granted and focused a lot more on the drugs and the infinite party of it all.

And that is a name that becomes infamous in the club kid scene.

But before he became a club kid, a celebutant, and then eventually a murderer, he was simply just a kid from Indiana.

So Michael had been born in South Bend, Indiana, which I'm pretty sure South Bend is like featured in Mean Girls, isn't it?

Oh, is it? At the end, I swear she says, like, Aaron went to South Bend.

Or, like, it's in a movie somewhere. Well, I definitely have heard of South Bend, Indiana in some, like, movies for sure.

Yeah, right? It's definitely, and I'm sure there's one that I'm missing that I'm like, oh, yeah.

Yeah. That's where it's from. Exactly. So he was born in South Bend, Indiana.

Indiana on April 29th, 1966. He was the youngest and had an older brother named David.

And while David and Michael were growing up, especially when they were younger, things weren't so great between their parents.

And eventually their parents got divorced.

And Michael was about four at this time.

Now, I'm not sure about his father, but Michael and his mom were always super, super, super close.

They had a very strong connection with one another.

Michael, by all accounts, when he was growing up, was a really good kid throughout his early years and even in high school.

And high school was tough for him. He was bullied for being gay, even though he wasn't actually out yet.

And people were always criticizing him and the way he dressed.

Like, they were terrible to him. Because, you know, they didn't understand him.

And no one wants to get to know or understand those kind of people.

Exactly. And the thing about Michael is he always loved fashion.

And even his mom said he was actually ahead of most of the trends.

And that was the reason he was made fun of so much because these people just didn't realize what was cool yet.

I was going to say they just didn't understand it.

And then eventually they'd be wearing all the same shit that they made fun of him for in like a couple years.

Usually how it goes. Yep. The people like I was, you just said it perfectly.

The people he was around in high school just didn't get him.

Yep. And honestly, he probably didn't get them.

Probably not. But either way, Michael was a straight A student and he did so well that when he graduated in 1984, he was in the top 8% of his class.

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Rules and restrictions apply. After high school, he went straight to New York City to attend Fordham University.

He ended up transferring to FIT, aka the Fashion Institute Technology.

And while he was at FIT, he became friendly with a very famous artist's boyfriend.

I will give you a guess. New York City, mid-80s, famous artist.

Very big in gay culture. I'm literally, but my brain is not.

It was a lot of pressure to put on you. I'm not kidding you.

I can't think of any name in the world right now.

Like I can't, Doug, there's a name, but I literally.

Keith Haring. Oh. I knew as soon as I said, I shouldn't have put the pressure on you.

Pressure makes people's mind go blank. Yeah.

I'm not kidding you. I didn't know a name.

No, I don't blame you. And it wasn't a name like that you needed.

It was like, I forgot what a name was. You didn't even know your own name.

I was like, name? What is that? A girl has no name.

I thought of Doug. I don't know why. Doug funny?

Sure. All right. Why not? With Keith Haring.

So yeah, Michael meets Keith Haring's boyfriend, unnamed.

I'm not sure who it was. Who was that man?

Who was that man? And the boyfriend at the time was really big into the New York City nightlife, which he introduced Michael to.

And instantly, Michael found his home. He loved the club kid scene.

And it really hadn't even technically became the club kid scene yet.

He sort of kind of made it that. But he found out that this was his passion, like partying.

I was going to say, this is my passion. But it's like partying and I will, like it's, it is art.

The fashion of it, the art of it, the expression of it all.

Yeah, exactly. I get that. So he dropped out of school and he started working at one of the clubs, Dansteria, bussing tables.

It was there that Michael was really able to get the inside scoop on nightlife.

It was almost like he was studying the interactions of every little aspect that went into it all.

The people waiting outside, the people inside, what they were wearing, what people came out for, which parties were the best, what music people responded to the most, all of it.

He's like a club anthropologist. Kind of.

Yeah. And once people took notice that this was something Michael actually seemed to be pretty good at, it really didn't take long for him to become a promoter.

Oh, boy. We've all known a promoter. What, do you have a personal story or something-ish?

No, I don't want to share. You know who you are.

And then, of course, because he was kind of like hosting these parties in a way, his friends would come to the clubs that he was working at.

They would all get ready in these super elaborate costumes.

And over time, they came up with their own look or look for all the youths out there.

And before long, they became known officially as the Club Kids.

Amazing. And Michael had his own specific posse by this time, and especially by the time he started working at Peter Gation's club, the Limelight.

He and his friends were becoming more and more known among the community, and Michael specifically became pretty much a celebutant.

He became especially more well-known right after Andy Warhol died, actually.

You know, Andy Warhol was the only name that I was thinking of. really that's the only name that did pop into my head and i was like nah i would have said it's gonna come back later and here we are here we are because when andy warhol died michael was later credited with revitalizing the downtown scene because warhol died in 87 and that was kind of right as michael was stepping his foot in the door yeah and many people felt like warhol's passing was michael's big break Wow.

It was like one stepped out, the other stepped in.

Yeah, honestly, exactly. It's a weird way of looking at Andy Warhol's death, but it's what happened.

So he and his group of friends were people that others would want to spot while they were out at night.

And every single one of these people had their own persona.

There was Jenny Talia. Walt Pepper, Robert Freeze Riggs, Ernie Glam, who's still pretty famous today.

Amanda Lepore was also very famous and so many more.

Wow. And I didn't intend for that to rhyme.

I actually write, I wrote Amanda Lepore and so many more.

But it sounds great. And I didn't mean to.

You're a poet and you don't know it. So before long, Michael was throwing parties at every single one of Peter Gation's clubs.

And those were like the hot and happening clubs back then.

Hell yeah. And then he started organizing his own separate events that became known as outlaw parties.

Oh, that sounds fun. like an outlaw party they were fun yeah that sounds great i can guarantee you that if i was alive at this point in time i would have gone to one of these parties because everybody went to one of these parties even people that weren't club kids even people that like made fun of the scene wanted to be at these parties everybody who was anybody was at these parties honestly you know what i've realized just coming off of like i'm not going on a tangent don't worry even if you are coming off of like gerard shaffer and how we were like oh like you would have been hitchhiking in the 70s ash and we're like you know you would have been jumping on a bus for a cult in the 70s ash then we're like in this situation you'd be going to these parties ash i'm like man i would have died i'm glad you were born when you were Me too, because even so I did some damage to my fucking brain.

Yeah, I know. It really is. I was born right in the right time.

You were. Panoramics. Panoramics. A pan of fucking ramics.

I'm like, this is cool. What a great time to be alive.

During a panini. During a... see it's the afternoon we can't think of words anymore during a palooza there you go so he would hold these parties they were called outlaw parties because he'd hold them at completely random locations and 10 out of 10 times the cops would show up because he would hold these parties at places like um mcdonald's in times square burger king wow there's footage of a bunch of these too and i've actually been to the mcdonald's in times square so like i kind of went I kind of went to one of these hello parties.

I kind of went to one of them. And I'm not saying that because I wanted to hang out with Michael.

I didn't. I just want to hang out with the other club kids.

Yeah. There was one at Dunkin Donuts and there was a massive one in one of the subway stations.

This is my worst nightmare because as the subcars would pass, dozens of party goers would hop on and start partying inside the train.

That's a nightmare to me. I actually wrote TBH.

That is exactly what commuters nightmares are made of.

Leave me alone on the T. Don't cause a ruckus.

Those are my train rules. Yeah. See, that's why the T is different from the subway in New York.

So different. Like I would not fly. Do you remember the first time I took Auntie Amy on the T?

Oh my God. Are you listening? This story is told with love.

She had, she had just gotten shoulder surgery and she had this like massive cast and she was so pissed because nobody would let her sit.

And I was like, Amy, welcome to Boston. We're on the T, like unless you're pregnant or elderly and even then somebody might not get up.

No one's giving up their seat. It's so funny.

It's the T. And that's the T. But anyways, this is the sub.

So they literally were like going ham in the subway.

Oof. The look of it, as soon as everybody hopped onto the train and started partying, I would have lost my mind.

Cardiac arrest. Literally. So once Michael got a good bunch of outlaw parties under his belt, he was actually able to convince Peter Gation to give him one night a week at the limelight to throw his own party, a la James Kennedy's See You Next Tuesday events at CERN.

Oh my god, DJ James Kennedy! Pumpkinies!

It's not about the pasta. It was about the pasta.

And the pasta is not pasta. It's very much about the pasta in this.

The pasta could be found at this party. Yeah, definitely.

People are like, people that don't watch Bravo are like, what the fuck are you talking about?

I was just going to say, where are Vanderpump Rules heads at?

So, yeah, he convinced Peter. He was like, I just want one night a week to throw my own party.

Like, can I do it? I'm so good at it. And Peter was like, yeah, you're really fucking good at throwing parties.

Yeah. He has it like at this point, Michael has a following of people because he's basically a celebrity in this world.

I just hope that it's like I'm really good at throwing parties.

I know. What a skill. All right. I mean, posting.

Yeah. So and Peter obviously knows that he has a following.

Well, that's exactly it. It's going to bring revenue into the club.

Yeah, of course. So Peter's like, sure, how about it?

Now, the main theme around Michael's parties was really just about pushing boundaries.

I just want to give a trigger warning. Like, if you didn't heed my first warning, you don't want to listen to this next part with your kids.

Oh, boy. So, or like anybody, really. Listen to it with no one.

Yeah. Don't even listen to it with your own thoughts.

Just leave the room. Leave your own thoughts.

And keep this playing. At the door. Any boundary that you could possibly think of, Michael most certainly pushed it.

I'm uncomfortable already. You should be.

I don't even, like, I was thinking about telling you this.

Oh, no. There were all kinds of wild themes.

Some of the ones that are talked about now, especially because of everything that happened, are the blood feast parties.

Michael was super, super into horror, and I only say that because I think it inspired a lot of his parties.

I don't know if it inspired what he does later.

I don't think it did. I'm not going to blame horror for that.

No, for sure. But it definitely inspired his fashion and the parties he threw.

Okay. Loved the movie Blood Feast, and his inspiration behind these particular parties was that movie.

So the flyers- You want to hear something weird?

Not to interrupt you, I'm sorry. Did you just watch it?

No, this is even weirder. Gerard Schaefer said one of his favorite movies was Blood Feast and that he was inspired to write because of Blood Feast.

Whoa. That's a wild, wild thing. That is insane, actually.

In fact, let me- The fact that these two cases are back to back and we didn't even realize that.

I know, that's weird. That happens a Yeah, that's really weird.

I should have said in the beginning what I watched and what I read for this.

So I watched a Party Monster documentary of Michael Allig.

It's on YouTube. I'll link it. I watched an old A&E episode of American Justice, which was a fucking trip.

Season 9, episode 10. Very factual based on my fact checking.

Oh, nice. And I read a Vice article that I'll link with James St.

James. Cool. Among like a ton of other stuff.

But they kept showing, the reason I say that is because they kept showing scenes of Blood Feast.

Yeah. And I was like, I could never watch that movie.

I could never. I could never ever watch that movie.

I just hate when people use it as like, yeah, Blood Feast.

It inspired me to do it. It's like, shut up.

It's a fucking movie. You're just the worst.

Yeah, you suck. But the flyers that they would hand out had Michael on the cover, basically dismembered, wearing a shirt that read, Legs Cut Off.

And there were hammers and knives all along the bloody backdrop.

Very haunting when you find out later what exactly Michael was capable of.

But at the time, that was just what this scene was about.

All about pushing boundaries, like I said.

So nobody thought too much about it. They were just like, wow, Michael's fucking crazy.

Yeah. Now, as he lived out his days as king of the club kids, Michael started testing more and more limits and acting out more and more.

It was really, to me, I feel like he was trying to see what he could get away with.

Yeah. Like how far he could push the envelope.

He would have all kinds of wild acts on stage.

They would come to these parties and they would put on shows.

There were people performing champagne enemas.

All right. Somebody who became known as the pee drinker.

I don't really want to get further into that.

I think you can paint your own picture. I was going to say, I don't really think you need to get into that.

I think we can all, a picture has been painted for all of us.

Yeah, a very interesting picture. Very vivid picture.

But it wasn't just the acts that he was booking and the themes of the parties that would become the main concern.

Michael himself became the main concern because while they couldn't see it at the time, a lot of club kids now look back on their memories with him.

And it's very evident when things started going downhill.

And it really was when he reached that kind of pinnacle point in his career where he was like right at the top.

And the people who came out to his events fucking worshiped him.

And over time, you're being told that everything about you is amazing.

Everything you do is incredible. You're wonderful.

You can't do anything wrong. that's going to go to your head.

Of course it is. Especially when you're young.

And your sense of reality is going to be warped.

Yeah, and you're like nocturnal at this point.

Your circadian rhythm is all off. It is.

It's no good. And that's what happened to Michael.

He got to the point where he felt like he could do anything and people would still love him.

And later we'll find out how true that actually really was.

But just a couple examples before we get there.

He once handed somebody a bottle of yellow Gatorade and told them to drink it.

And when the person did, Michael and all his friends started laughing.

And the person who took a swig realized that they just drank Michael's pee.

Yeah, I saw that one happening. He did that on multiple occasions.

That's really disgusting. Yeah. And that's so violating and that's really dangerous and that's fucked up.

It's very dangerous. And you know what's even more dangerous?

Having people drink vomit. Ew! There was a, in the documentary that I'll link, this one kid literally shares that he drank vomit.

Unknowingly. What the... How do you... First of all, how do you unknowingly drink vomit?

I must have been mixed into something and the clubs are dark.

Ew. Yep. Oh. And then this is specifically fucked up because this just goes to show me that's...

Michael was bound to escalate at some point to the level that he did.

Even that kind of shit, that's really fucked up and violating.

And if you're capable of that, then something's wrong here.

Something bad is going to happen here. And in my opinion, this is the worst one of these three examples.

There was a time that he was standing on a balcony over one of the bars in the nightclub, and he literally started peeing onto the bartender below him.

And she was a young girl, like a young woman.

Oh, my God. Just peed on her. And this tells you how fucked up this is, if this is the truth.

One of his friends at the time who was there shared that the girl was obviously so upset that she ran to the management to tell them that she'd just been pissed on and she got fired for going against Michael. are you kidding me I don't know how true that is I don't know if it's like he was so legendary that like she got fired yeah but either way and he I mean he definitely pissed on people like a like she was not the only person oh my god that was something that people said what a animal that's disgusting my face is turning red just talking about it because it's like so disgusting I'm like embarrassed that's just so foul you just don't do that and it's oh It's just like, what is wrong with you?

Now, Michael Musto, who was a fellow club kid, but also a columnist for the Village Voice, said that he felt like the bad behavior that Michael started displaying started off as performance and like a shock value kind of thing.

But over time, he said it definitely moved on to actual bad behavior.

And of course, when Michael started using drugs, it only added fuel to the fire.

Yeah. So the parties that Michael and his close friends were throwing and going to were always loaded with drugs.

You could ask around and find whatever it was you were looking for and a whole hell of a lot more.

Whole hell of a lot more, yeah. Yeah, you got it.

I'm kidding. Michael, weirdly enough, or not weird that he was against it, but just weird when you see where his life goes, he was actually very against drugs in the beginning of things.

Like, didn't want to touch them. Hmm. But I think it was like he wanted to focus on like the creative aspect of things.

But something changed one day. I read in a couple sources that he had a fight with someone he was seeing at the time.

And despite them, he tried drugs for the first time that night.

Okay. It's unclear what exactly he started with.

I'm not sure. But in a very short period of time, he became addicted to almost every drug you could possibly imagine and was taking some of them all at the same time.

Oh. There were times that he'd be doing ecstasy, ketamine, heroin, coke, all in the same night.

How do your insides not just explode? Or just leak out of your nose?

I feel like these people, they do have it down to a science.

Because when the heroin starts chilling you out too much, people will do a bump of coke and skyrocket right off of that.

And you're like... that must be so bad for you.

I mean, it is so bad for your body. I was going to say, and it's just, you better have that down to that hairline boundary there, which there's going to be a time where you fall over either side and you fuck it up and something really bad happens.

It's just like, that is, I don't get it personally, but no, I mean, do you be smart, be safe, but like, just be safe.

Not for me. And just know that it's not worth dying over.

No, for sure. Yeah. Whatever he could get his hands on, he would do.

And then once he started becoming so addicted to pretty much like everything.

Wow. He started supplying parties with drugs, making sure that they were there just like free reign.

People performing, he said, would rather be paid in drugs than money or than drink free all night.

Instead of like a free drink for performing, they wanted drugs.

Wow. Instead of an actual check, they wanted drugs.

And Michael had literally everything at his fingertips, which meant that so did everybody else because he did.

Yeah. So in order to support his own addiction and in order to get everything he felt he needed at these parties, there were definitely a lot of drug dealers that he was connected to.

And one of the main ones was a fellow club kid, Andre, better known as Angel Melendez.

Unfortunately, there's really limited information about Angel's life, which really makes me sad, but I was able to find a bit.

He and his brother Johnny immigrated to the US from Columbia.

Some sources say that it was just the two of them and make it seem like they were older when they came here.

But others say that they were younger and kind of make it seem like they came with their family.

But either way, Johnny and Angel, they were brothers and they were really close and they stuck by each other's side and they always kept tabs on one another.

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Now Angel was more involved in the club kid scene and it was well known that he sold drugs.

So Johnny kind of seemed to be a bit of a protector for his brother.

Now Angel was always able to be spotted because he was also known to wear these gigantic like six foot wings when he went out.

I just saw a picture of that when I looked it up.

Massive. Yeah. And actually, you can look up clips of like the Geraldo show, just like be warned that, whoa, it's going to be a lot when you start watching the subject matter and how he handles things.

But you can actually see Angel like display his outfit and kind of like walk the catwalk a little.

It's amazing. So no matter what he was wearing out to the club, there was always a set of wings to go along with every fit.

Hence the name Angel. Oh, OK. That makes sense.

Now, Angel and Michael became connected through the club kid scene and eventually Angel did become one of Michael's dealers.

But what makes me sad is that there's a lot of people like if you start looking into this case, you're going to run into this.

A lot of people said that Angel wasn't part of the scene and that he was a poser.

What? But it's like, this scene is supposed to be for everyone who feels like they're not part of something in everyday society.

So then it is for him. So like how? Yeah.

Like this is kind of like drag and drag is for everyone.

Exactly. Like why are you like, you can't like kick people out of the scene because they're not what you want them to be.

And what do you mean? He's a poser. Yeah.

They were like, he didn't start with us.

So like he didn't get it. And it's like, No, he came to all like the early parties and everything.

There's footage of it. Oh, that's sad. And just like, how dare you?

Just be nice, man. Like the whole thing is to not exclude people out of these things.

And then it's like you're immediately excluding people.

But every club becomes exclusive at some point.

It's true. So and the thing is, it's like he's good enough to come to your parties and supply you with drugs, but you can't carry the title of a club kid.

OK, come on. I didn't know it was so important.

Yeah. And the other thing that is really sad is that it's said that Angel actually really adored Michael when they first met and when they were first kind of hanging out together.

James St. James, who I mentioned before, was a huge part of Michael's club scene.

And he would go on to write the book Disco Bloodbath, a fabulous but true tale of murder and clubland.

Haven't read it. I haven't read it. I just want to put that out there, but he did write it.

And he said in this book that Angel not only adored Michael, but he would, quote, let him get away with things that no other drug dealer would have.

Basically, what he was trying to say is that Michael owed Angel money all the time.

That makes sense. All the time. There were rumors later that Michael had stolen about $2,000 from Angel while they were staying together.

My God. And he would steal a lot more later on.

Jeez. Now, this is the part in the story that gets one, incredibly brutal, but two, a little hazy because it's reported on so differently in varying sources.

And because everybody's memory is kind of clouded by drugs and lack of sleep at this point.

It's a little hard. But we're going to do our best.

So it was March 17th, 1996. An angel shows up to Michael's apartment saying either that Peter Gation owed him money.

Remember Peter from the beginning? Club guy.

Yes. Or Michael owed him money. To me, it makes more sense that he was talking about Peter.

Now, there are also some sources that say Michael and Angel were roommates at this point with some other people from the clubs.

I'm not sure if they were like official roommates or if it was more of a situation where they were kind of like these people were always crashing with one another.

And later we will hear that Angel had no official address.

So it's very possible he was staying with Michael at this time as a roommate.

But anyway. Okay. Somehow, Michael convinced Angel that they needed to wait to get his money because everybody was still coming down from the night before.

It was about 9 a.m. at this point, and nobody had even been to sleep yet.

Wow. Yeah. That stresses me out. That was like, whoa.

Like, I thought I was fun, and I've never done that.

I thought I was fun. I never thought I was fun. i'm just kidding so michael apparently said let's get some sleep and we'll go get your money once you know we've come down a bit so the fight may have started here with angel not wanting to wait to get his money which i don't blame him you know or there's another variation of the story where angel agreed to sleeping it off a bit or sleeping off a bit of the previous night and then heading out but then michael's boyfriend had just taken heroin and he started ODing.

Like, this is a version of the story that Michael recalls at some point when he's in prison.

Spoiler alert, he gets convicted. Spoiler alert!

So Michael, who knew drugs and all their different possible effects very well, kind of like what I was talking about earlier, he started begging Angel to please give him some cocaine because the rush of the cocaine he felt would basically jumpstart his boyfriend's heart since the heroin had slowed it so much.

My goodness, everyone. If you've ever watched Euphoria, that's what is happening in that scene when Rue is in the laundry room.

And I actually, I realized it when I watched this, or when I was researching this case, so I wanted to tell you.

There you go. By the way, I'm by no means saying that this is what you should do in this situation, or if that would even happen in the case of somebody ODing.

I don't, cocaine is not going to save them every time.

If someone is ODing, don't do some cocaine about it.

Don't do that. I said if you or anyone you're with ever is in this situation, you call 911 immediately.

Like, don't do more drugs to try to fix it.

You are not, like, going to, yeah, no. It could get worse.

It most likely will. It's like, I just love you guys, so I have to say that.

I just love you guys. I don't want something bad to happen.

I don't. So Angel refused to give Michael any more drugs, he said, because he was like, literally the entire reason why I'm here is because you owe me so much money.

Or like your boss owes me so much money.

And either way, you still owe me so much money.

So like, no. And this is when Robert Riggs, somebody I mentioned in the beginning, also known as Freeze, got involved.

Okay. Freeze was also staying with Michael, and he was a fellow club kid.

He was also a hat designer at one point in time.

Look at that. But he gets involved and starts yelling at Angel, and he's like, you have to help.

So the two of them start fighting, Angel and Freeze.

Now, while they're yelling at each other, Michael says that Angel was distracted enough for him to grab some cocaine out of his stash, which does lead me to believe that Angel was staying there if his stash was there.

And he got his boyfriend situated. Now, when he came back, the argument was still going on.

And Michael said that Angel grabbed him at this point and slammed him into a glass cabinet, like holding him by his neck.

And later on, people would remember a two inch deep gash on the back of Michael's neck.

So this might be true. I feel like it probably is.

A struggle ensued while they were fighting and Michael yelled for Freeze to come and help him.

So Freeze came up behind Angel with a hammer and he hit him in the head three times.

And Michael recalls this later and says that he tap, tap, tapped him on the head.

Like makes it seem like it was just like beep, boop, bop.

I don't think that's what happened. It's not what happened.

Freeze used not the side of the hammer that you would use to like bang a nail into the wall.

The claw side. The claw side. Yeah. To hit Angel in the head three times.

And like I said, Michael said that Freeze didn't hit Angel that hard.

A medical examiner would later disagree.

Michael said that once Angel had been hit in the head, that he, Michael, grabbed either a pillow or a sweatshirt.

He and Freeze had different memories, and he said he couldn't remember because he was so high at this point.

And he started pushing Angel's face away with this pillow or this sweatshirt, this whatever.

And as he was pushing his face away, Angel fell to the ground because he's being smothered.

He's suffocating. And he's also just been blunt force trotted in the head.

Yeah. So at that point, he falls to the ground.

Michael gets on top of Angel and starts strangling him.

Now, Angel is most certainly either dead or dying at this point.

Oh, my God. But it didn't end there. Oh.

Once Angel became truly unresponsive, Michael grabbed a bottle of Drano and poured it down Angel's mouth and then duct taped his mouth shut.

That is so beyond fucked up. Like, why did you need to do that?

That is so overkill and so outrageously just fucked.

Just fucked up. Like, what made him think to do that?

I have no idea. And to duct tape his mouth shut up?

Like... So, like, no matter what, even if he vomits that out, he's just going to choke on his own vomit.

In an adrenal, exactly. My God. And that, like, that photo, like, promoting those blood feast parties, he's holding a hammer.

And he's, like, hitting someone on the head with it.

Yeah. There's more on that later. Oh. Just wait.

Okay. He would later claim that this was because he was worried about the body smelling.

That's why he poured Drino down Angel's throat.

Literally not one part of that makes sense.

No. Like, there is literally not a shred of that that you could even pretend makes sense.

No. That's the dumbest shit I have ever heard in my life.

No. Come on. Wow. Wow. That's stupidity.

It is. This whole... It gets... Oy. Oy. Yeah.

Some sources claim that the Drano was injected into Angel's veins, but I read more often than not that that was not the case.

It was poured into his mouth. He and Freeze loaded the bathtub with ice.

They stripped Angel down to his underwear and they placed Angel's body into their bathtub, closed the door behind them, and left the body in their bathroom for days.

Days. Neither of them was quite sure how many days he was in there.

My God. Angel was 25 years old. Ugh. 25 years old.

So in the days following the murder, Michael and Freeze contemplated what they should do to cover up this whole thing.

Michael said there was a point in time where they thought they should call the police.

Oh, yeah, I bet. And explain that Angel was killed in self-defense.

Oh, okay. I'm, like, not exactly sure how you guys thought that was going to work because you poured Drano down his throat and, like, nothing about that screamed self-defense.

And then duct taped his mouth shut. And then stripped his body and put it on ice.

Yeah. Well, part of that was involved in self-defense.

I just want to know. No. Wow. Got it. Wow.

That makes absolutely zero sense. So when they decided against that, they decided that there was another option.

This would be the best thing to do to get rid of the body and dispose of it.

They decided that they were going to dismember the body and dispose of it in the Hudson River.

So it sounds like there may have been some back and forth over who was going to be the one to dismember the body.

And finally, Michael said that he would, but he would only do it if Freeze would give him 10 bags of heroin.

I will only dismember our friend's body if you give me 10 bags of heroin.

Wow. Oh, and they did not consider Angel their friend whatsoever.

Apparently not. He may have considered them friends, and it sounds like he did because he let Michael get away with so much shit, but they did not consider Angel a friend.

That's really sad. Now, the thought behind it, I guess, was that Michael would be so messed up on heroin that it would make it easier to do so. so freeze agreed he gave michael the 10 bags of heroin and michael went into the bathroom and proceeded to dismember angel's body wow much like in the movie blood feast and on the flyer that was handed out for an earlier birthday bash for michael Angel's legs were removed.

In that picture that you were just talking about on the flyer, his shirt says legs cut off.

Oh yeah, it does. And that's, it's a little hairy if you ask me.

It's claimed that that happened before Angel's death, but I don't know.

I don't think so. Wow. I feel like it happened after because that's just way too on the nose.

There's like a hammer laying on the ground in front of him.

Oh yeah. He's dismembered on it and his shirt says legs cut off.

Yeah. There are no coincidences in life.

There's literally a head that has been, like, bashed open with a hammer.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So... I don't even know what to say about that.

Once Angel's legs were removed, they were placed into two separate garbage bags that were either thrown in the garbage or later thrown in the Hudson, depending on your source.

And the upper portion of the body was placed in a box that many people claim was left in Michael and Frieza's living room... for days what is wrong with these people and i guess the reason why it didn't start smelling was because it was like a cork lined box some people even claimed that michael would make jokes about angel while people were sitting next to that box and tell them that he was in the box next to them because people were starting to be like hey like where's angel like i haven't seen him around and if they were at michael's house he'd be like oh he's in that box Oh my god.

Yeah, nobody believed him, but they would later find out that Michael was telling them the entire truth.

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So after, I guess, a few days of the box being left in the living room, Michael and Freeze took it down through their elevator.

They caught a cab to the nearest area where they would have access to the Hudson River.

And they paid the cab driver an additional $20 to help them throw the box over the side and into the water.

Stop it. Like... Obviously, they didn't tell the driver what was actually in the box, but general rule of thumb, don't ever help a stranger throw unknown things into bodies of water that are well-known dumping grounds for all kinds of nefarious things.

Yeah, that's like something you can really hang your hat on, that piece of advice, I think.

I really don't think anybody can go against that.

I think it works for all of us. I would think so.

I think that's solid and wise wisdom that you've just given us all.

So thank you. I bestowed it. Maybe the same for the Charles.

Definitely. Works in Boston, too. Don't do that.

How many bodies wash up every year from the Hudson River?

And you thought you were just throwing like China dishes over the side?

Yeah, it's like, come on, you know you're not doing that.

You knew what you were doing and you did it for $20?

Yeah, come on, man. No amount of money could make me do that.

You laugh and you say, absolutely not. And I never saw that box.

And you get in your car and you toot toot your horn and you drive away.

And you peel out of there. And then you call the feds.

Yes. So a lot of drug use went down in the days that followed, even more than usual, which is really saying something.

And then Michael actually called his mother.

I think she said it was at like 3 a.m. And he was on the phone crying and in a panic.

And she said that he was just rambling, like she couldn't put anything together.

But he was talking about drugs. Somebody named Angel.

She said at one point he talked about a murder.

He kept saying tiny pieces like he was going absolutely nuts on the phone, man.

And his mom knew that her son was using drugs.

So she was like, Michael, are you high? And he's like, yeah, I am.

And she's like, call me in the morning. Like, I can't do this right now.

Yeah. She ended the phone call. She brushed off the entire interaction because unfortunately this was not the first time that she'd received a rambling call from Michael.

So she just left it at that and assumed he was probably hallucinating and like somewhere else in his mind.

To be clear, I just want to like stress this.

It really does seem like she tried her best to help Michael with his addiction.

So I'm sure that at this point in time, she was probably just exhausted and depressed over the entire situation.

And I do not think that she thought a real murder occurred.

I don't think anybody would ever think that that's what's going on.

You know, like. I just wanted to stress that because.

Yeah. Oh, she heard all that and like didn't think anything.

But it's like. This poor woman is going through a lot.

And she's probably heard him say a lot of chaotic things and fucked up things during his journey there.

So I'm sure she was like, well, this is just another one of those things.

If you have anybody in your family who has ever struggled with drugs, or even a friend, you know that that happens from time to time.

Yeah, you know that I'm sure you wouldn't always take what they say seriously when they are in that state.

Exactly. So Michael and Freeze, they continued on with their lives in the weeks after Angel's murder.

In fact, Michael actually furnished his apartment using about $18,000 worth of Angel's money.

Oh my god. Yeah, and had people over to do the rest of Angel's drugs.

Wow. Yeah. So when people asked where all this stuff had come from, Michael would either change the subject altogether or sit there jokingly and say that he'd stolen it from Angel after he killed him.

Like he was talking about killing Angel to other people.

In, like, immediately after he killed him.

Immediately. Because he knew. He knew that no one's going to take you seriously.

Everyone's going to be like, that's fucked up to say.

Like, what's wrong with you? Exactly. Personally, if someone joked about that in front of me, I'd be like, especially now, knowing what we know about many people in cases and all these situations, I'd be like, that's fucked up and something's wrong here.

Don't say that to me. But a lot of people... they make stupid jokes like that around their friends all the time and like people don't take it seriously so it's like especially like you know when you've been like awake all night and like doing drugs and stuff it's probably not one of those things that you're gonna be like i bet that's serious no exactly and he's i mean usually talking about this at night in the club while they are on drugs exactly they're just like you're just fucking being crazy yeah so then about two weeks after angel's murder michael actually did go and meet with an attorney I found this out toward the end of my research and I had to go back and put this in and I was like, what the fuck?

Like that attorney, I don't know how, like, do you just have to like keep things a secret if you're an attorney?

Attorney client privilege. Is that what that is?

Yeah. But even if he doesn't become your client?

I don't think that, maybe we should look that up.

Let's look it up. We looked it up. We did.

Still a little confused. It's a little confusing.

Attorneys at us. Is it that from what we read, it appears that just by like meeting and, you know, attempting to hire this person as an attorney, possibly or entertaining the idea that there's some amount of privilege involved, like attorney client privilege, confidentiality.

And it basically said, like, you can't say that your client's lying unless they're lying under oath.

Yeah. So maybe that's what it is, is there is some kind of confidentiality just by way of tapping an attorney in even for a minute.

Yeah. But attorneys. Attorneys. Add us. I mean, Deb Deb's an attorney, so.

Deb Deb, what's up? We should probably just ask her.

I mean, she's got like many kids now, so like we don't need to do that.

But, uh. So yeah, so he met with the lawyer like two weeks after he killed Angel and photos were taken documenting all of his quote unquote injuries.

One was that gash in his neck, which was pretty serious.

And the rest were really just minor scrapes and bumps.

It made it seem like some kind of struggle had ensued, but self-defense was going to be hard to claim here.

Yeah. The lawyer advised Michael that he had two options.

He could come clean and turn himself in or he could keep his mouth shut. uh michael really didn't choose either option he didn't turn himself into the police and he most certainly did not keep his big trap shut yeah it didn't feel like he was going to which like i'm glad he didn't but at the same time it's wild when you find out how many people knew about angel's murder and all the specifics and just did nothing to like to bring it to authorities at all that's really upsetting He was still planning parties in no time, still going to the clubs and telling his closest friends exactly what had happened to Angel.

Wow. And some people just thought that this was another one of Michael's stunts.

They thought that he was pulling one over on them for one reason or another, trying to convince them that he and Freeze had killed Angel.

But people were like, maybe he just paid him to disappear for a little bit and he's going to come back and it's going to be like, it'll lead to like this big party or something.

Yeah. Like, it's this big, elaborate point of prank.

He's done things like this. Like, you know, like these big, elaborate, crazy... Events.

Like, artistic, like, we don't understand them, but here it is kind of thing.

Yeah, like, maybe he's just a genius. He's not.

No. Others, people that were closer to him, really did believe him, and they just wouldn't turn on him.

They had him on this, like... weird pedestal where even if he did the wrongest thing humanly possible, he could still do no wrong in their eyes.

That's so wild. It's insane. The amount of times when working on this case that I saw him referred to as a king was just absolutely mind-boggling.

My goodness. While there were people who knew exactly what happened to Angel and others had their ideas, Angel's brother, Johnny, had no idea what had become of his brother.

And he was desperately trying to look for him.

This was pre-cell phone days. I mean, for the most part.

And Angel didn't have a permanent address.

So Johnny kept paging and paging his brother, but getting nothing back.

So after about a week or so with no reply, Johnny went into the police to file a report.

The police were so unhelpful that they actually tried to convince him not to file a report.

They said it wasn't going to really be necessary.

What? Because in their eyes, Angel was a queer drug dealer who could have been anywhere, and they really couldn't care less about looking into his disappearance.

Wow. So Johnny was like, yeah, fuck you guys.

I'm not going to let you sit on your asses while nothing is being done for my brother.

So he got to work. He starts investigating.

He took it upon himself to hand out and tape up missing persons flyers with a four thousand dollar reward for any info on the whereabouts of his brother and at this point his whole family is involved and is like where is our where is our family yeah and those flyers had angel pictured in his classic wings johnny would walk up and down the streets of angel's favorite places angel really loved christopher street which you might remember from our marcia p johnson coverage oh yes loved christopher street um and just like Everywhere.

Anywhere Johnny knew that Michael or sorry, it's the afternoon.

I was just gonna say there's a lot of names too.

There are. Anywhere Johnny knew Angel would have been, he went and checked that place.

And nobody had seen Angel. They were like, I haven't heard.

I haven't seen him. I haven't heard from him.

But I have heard some rumors about what's gone on.

Yeah, some strange shit being said. And, like, you might want to talk to Michael Allig or one of his friends, any of his friends.

So somehow Johnny was actually able to get in touch with James St.

James. And James said that was when he realized the reality of what was going on here.

Because he had heard. He had heard these rumors.

And he said it really hit him in that moment because Johnny was sobbing on the phone and asking if these rumors were true.

Yeah. And James then went on to say, we had all began thinking of Michael as a murderer instead of Angel as a victim.

Oh, wow. Like, I feel like that just speaks to the bizarre connection that everybody felt with Michael.

Yeah, it definitely does. Nobody was even thinking about the fact that a man had lost his life and been brutally attacked and murdered.

People were just like, oh, Michael's a murderer.

Yeah, like, holy shit. Just thinking of him as the star.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So when Johnny finally did get the chance to talk to Michael, he did go and speak to him.

I want to say face to face, but I can't.

He knew right then and there that something had happened to Angel.

He knew it was bad and he knew that Michael knew exactly what happened and probably caused it.

Because he said while they were talking, Michael would look everywhere else in the room except for right at Johnny.

That's why I say they didn't talk face to face.

Yep. And Johnny said, he said, I felt like it's because me and Angel look a lot alike.

And they do. They really do. I hope it made him uncomfortable.

Oh, I hope it did. I absolutely hope it did.

But I also I don't even know if I was going to say or if he was just like zooted and looking around because he couldn't care less.

Yeah. And I think he just didn't care. He didn't care.

Yeah. There's not one part of me that thinks he is remorseful for what he did.

But I everything in me hopes that it was because he was so uncomfortable.

I hope so. I hate that Johnny had to do that.

Yeah, because that's awful. So other people within the community started talking, too, and eventually a piece for a very big newspaper in the city, I mentioned it earlier, The Village Voice, was released.

It was written by another famous club kid, again, somebody that I mentioned, a columnist, Michael Musto.

Oh. Or Musto, excuse me. There were no names mentioned.

It was a... It was one of those... Oh, a blind item.

Blind item, there it is. A blind item. But it spelled out everything that was going on.

It... did everything except say Michael and Angel.

We love a blind item. Yes. So it spilled the whole tea and more and more attention was being brought in other press outlets at this point once that piece came out and things started really, really heating up for Michael.

He would actually tell the press that he had nothing to do with Angel's disappearance and once actually referred to himself as an easy target.

Wow. He said during the filming of a documentary about him and his club kids, he said the reason he was such an easy target was because he was with Angel the last time before he was... And then he pauses for like a good... He like takes a good long pause.

Because he's like, well, shit. How do I say this?

And then he says, before he was gone. Interesting place to pause in a sentence when you're trying to say that you had nothing to do with this.

And also, why wouldn't you just say before he went missing?

Exactly. Because you were about to say before he was murdered.

And then you realize that you're not supposed to know he was murdered.

Exactly. Yep. Definitely was that. So even with the press going nuts with the headlines, the police didn't seem to be concerned.

No. In fact, six months had gone by and Michael had not even been questioned in relation to this murder.

And as far as he knew, nobody had no body had turned up yet.

So he was just going about his life, partying, partying, partying.

Why does he care? so it's because this they didn't care about this community as a whole that's exactly they didn't care they didn't care about michael but they just didn't they didn't care about angel they didn't care about anything no they didn't care who cares they're like kill each other it's fine yeah like you know that's what that was they thought you're a whole bunch of weirdos yeah and i really don't care he's also like i think they were racist because he's a colombian immigrant i think they just didn't give a oh you can yeah you can tell there's a lot There's so much hatred.

Hatred. And just like bias. Neglect. Laziness.

Lack of empathy. Just disgusting. Putrid people.

Yep. Like these are human beings. But they don't see it that way at all.

So September went on, though, and the police actually decided that they did want to chat with Michael.

Oh, cool. They did. But it had nothing to do with Angel at all.

Wow. And had everything to do with his boss, Peter Gation.

Yeah. the police and the federal agents were working together to try to do a drug bust on Peter and his clubs.

They called his clubs honeypots. They were basically saying they were honeypots for young people, and that these kids were being lardened by all the drugs, and once they got hooked, they were destined to live a loop of sleeping all day, recovering from the night before, and then heading right back into Peter's trap, starting the cycle all over again.

And it really seemed like they were looking the other way in the hopes that they'd be able to use Michael to testify against Peter.

Wow. He would have made a great witness against Peter because he was super close to him.

He's essentially his right-hand man. He'd worked with Peter for a wicked long time.

And I think they thought they were onto something because by this point, Peter had actually fired Michael.

It was shortly after Angel was killed. And I think he said it was because of his drug use.

Peter said he fired Michael because of his drug use, but...

I don't know if that's the truth. I think it was because he knew what was going on.

You wonder. I think he'd heard the rumors.

He gave Michael two options, though. He said, you can go to rehab or you're done here.

So Michael actually did go to rehab for a brief period of time.

Super, super brief. And that was actually when Michael Musto released that village voice blind item.

But ultimately, Michael came back and was doing the same old shit.

So Peter had no choice but to fire him. So I think the cops were like, maybe he'll turn on this guy because he's pissed off.

Yeah. Who knows, because it never ends up happening.

Peter did get busted, but Michael was never able to testify because, well, we'll get there.

He had stuff going on. He did. So two months later, in November, it was discovered that Angel's body had been sitting in a morgue on Staten Island since April.

Are you kidding me? The medical examiner had made a mistake when identifying Angel and believed that he was Asian.

He was not Asian. He was Colombian. But dental records were used to positively ID him.

And the body was officially ID'd actually on November 2nd, 1996, which was one day after what would have been Angel's 26th birthday.

Oh, wow. So the public was pissed once they found out that he'd been laying in the Staten Island morgue, because it kind of just proved that the Manhattan police were not doing everything they could to locate him.

The police knew the rumors. They knew that there were rumors that his legs had been cut off.

And... How many bodies are just sitting there missing their legs coming into the morgue every day?

Yeah. Like, we're not calling each other?

Like, no one's looking at that and being like, huh, I wonder.

Yeah. It was also determined that Angel had died from blunt force trauma, meaning that Freeze did not tap, tip, tap him.

No, he killed him. He slammed that hammer into his head, killing him.

And also from suffocation from being smothered.

Ugh. So Michael Musto, who wrote that blind piece laying everything out about the murder without naming any names, said of the discovery, every hideous rumor turned out to be a horrible reality.

Oh, because you would think none of that would be true.

You'd think it was this horrible game of telephone where it gets worse and worse and people are just adding their own nightmares onto it.

But this was so bad. Or horror movie things, but it's real.

They didn't even have to. They didn't have to.

It was all real. It was all horrific. Ugh.

And I just, it's the way he says it. Every hideous rumor turned out to be a horrible reality.

Yeah. So he is a writer. So in the time between the press outlets going crazy and Angel's body being identified, Michael decided that he needed to get out of New York City and Free should come with him.

So they go on the run. They first wanted to go to Colorado, and they started making their way there, but Michael hadn't brought enough drugs along with him to sustain his heroin addiction at this point.

He brought five bags of heroin, but at that point he was taking in way more, and he ended up becoming violently ill from withdrawal.

So he had to stop in Indiana where he was originally from and he checked into a motel and he called his mom.

She came down to see him immediately. He was withdrawing so badly, you'll see this in every source, that his mom bent down to give him a hug and she said he asked her not to hug him because his skin hurt so badly that she couldn't touch him.

Wow. Like, don't. do drugs yeah that's not worth it that is not worth anything my dudes so she was able to check him into a methadone clinic and he eventually i think he spent a week there and gained back enough strength to hit the road again and again his mom has no idea what's going on at this point she's just like i don't know what he's doing yeah i'm doing my best here wow He actually stopped back in New York for a brief period of time trying to promote a new party of his that he purposefully named Honey Trap to make fun of the case against Peter Gation.

Are you kidding me? Like things kind of like laid low after Angel's body was found.

Like again, they still weren't coming and talking to him.

So he went back to New York. And promoted a party.

And promoted a party. What? Wow. Luckily, the parties were not successful at all.

And the tabloids started writing about how shitty they were and how a fucking potential murderer was trying to make a comeback.

Wow. And tabloids are going crazy again.

And if you look at his, he has a Twitter account.

Because when he was really, like, came back on Twitter, he was trying to, like, sell and promote, like, old invitations to these honeypot parties.

Because I guess they're, like, super, these people, like, collectors try to collect these invitations and stuff because they're so elaborate.

Especially, like, I understand, like, collecting those, like, you know, invitations.

Yeah, like, I get that. Yeah. But he, you know, he was using it as some kind of weird, like, morbid.

He was. No pun intended. Like. I know. Yeah.

Kind of like killer. Yeah. Finalia, you know, totally.

I don't think that's the reason people were buying it.

Like you were saying, no, but you know, he, he probably thought that was like a good angle.

Totally. Apparently they sell for like crazy amounts of money.

Yeah. I get it. Cause some of those invitations would be really cool to have, like not his, but, but anything else.

So, yes. So he tries to make a comeback.

The tabloids are like, wow, that really sucked.

And we are pretty sure you killed somebody.

Is that, are the police ever going to do anything about it?

Yeah. The only reason really that anything happened in this case, in my opinion, is because of the media.

Oh, yeah. Like I know the media could get like can be painted in a terrible light.

It's a double edged sword. It is a double edged sword.

Exactly. That was literally what I was just going to say.

It really is. But I think if it weren't for the media at this point in time, I don't I think they pressured the police so much the police knew they couldn't let him get away with this.

Interestingly, that was the same kind of situation in the Gerard Schaefer case.

Really? The police weren't really doing anything.

Yeah. And the media were the ones that pushed them.

Right. Exactly. Weird. Weird. Another weird parallel.

Yeah. So again, Michael decides once these tabloids start heating up, he's got to get back out.

So he goes on the run, this time with his boyfriend, Brian, who he was dating at the time.

They made their way to New Jersey and they checked into a hotel room, but they did not stay long.

Okay. Because on December 5th, 1996, at 3 a.m., the police surrounded the hotel.

They knocked on the door and arrested Michael for the murder of Andre Angel Melendez.

Good. And Robert Freeze Riggs was arrested the same day and immediately confessed.

Wow. I was watching one thing where they said he grabbed the detective's arm and was ready to spill everything.

He's like, let me get this out. He's like, I've been holding this in for so long.

It's like, yeah, you wouldn't have to do that if you didn't use a hammer on people's heads.

Yeah, don't do that. Yeah, you wouldn't have to hold anything.

And if you just simply didn't do that, you... So Michael said, Michael was said, excuse me, to have gone quietly and also confessed pretty much immediately.

He made it seem like he was relieved to get caught.

And he said the entire ordeal was such an emotional burden to him.

Having to keep such a big secret was becoming so much...

I don't buy that because you had nine months between the time you murdered a man and the time you were caught.

I did the math. I did the actual exact math.

Amazing. 262 days where he could have woken up in the morning and made the choice to turn himself in.

Of course. 262 days that Johnny had to wonder what happened to his brother and 262 days where Angel was basically just lying there and nobody knew what happened to him except everybody knew what happened to him.

And Michael's walking around making jokes about it.

But later claiming that it's an emotional burden.

Yeah. It's an emotional burden, but you were making jokes about it.

And partying through it and doing everything that you wanted to do while Angel couldn't because he was lying dead in the morgue because of you and your actions.

And keeping a box in your home, which you like joke about him being in.

Yeah. And you used all his money to furnish your apartment.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Emotional burden. Yeah.

Yeah. So he said it was such an emotional burden, but then refused to plead guilty to first degree murder.

Huh. What? Okay. You are carrying this emotional burden and you're so happy that you're getting caught and like you think you need to be punished, but you're not going to plead guilty to first degree murder.

Makes sense. And actually some people said like it should have been first degree murder because some people said in the days leading up to the murder, Michael was saying how much he wanted to kill Angel.

Wow. So I don't even know if that whole thing in the beginning, because that whole thing in the beginning where like His boyfriend was ODing and then he needed the coke and then it started a fight.

That's coming from Michael. That's from his mouth.

I don't know if that's true. Yeah. They might have lured Angel there and killed him for one reason or another.

Absolutely they could have. Probably because things started to heat up because Angel was like, I can't keep spotting you.

Yeah. So I don't know how much of that story is true.

It could be. I mean, that's that's the shitty part is that you never get the full story because the one person who we need to hear it from is not here anymore.

Exactly. Because of these fucks. Yeah. Michael was insistent that he had killed in self-defense and that he was not going to plead guilty to first-degree murder.

But his lawyers were like, with all the evidence to the contrary of self-defense, you're not, that's not going to fly in court.

Like, no. So instead, Michael and Freeze were given what we fucking hate on this podcast, a plea deal.

And they pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.

Oh, come on. He hit this man in the head with a hammer three times, smothered him, strangled him, poured Drano down his throat, laid them in his bathroom for multiple days, and then dismembered him.

And you're trying to call that manslaughter?

Wow. In what world? Yeah. Each of them were convicted and they were sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. for that crime 10 to 20 years to 20 years for everything i just said wow and michael later joked in an interview in prison where he was clearly high that the main reason he didn't want to plead guilty to murder was because anybody convicted on a murder charge alaina wouldn't have access to a vcr while they were incarcerated oh that's important Are you kidding me?

That's an important priority. Are you kidding me?

Yeah. He spent a ton of time in prison making insensitive comments like this, continuing to fail drug tests every single time he went up for parole, and doing interviews where he felt like a motherfucking star boy.

Ew. In one of the interviews, he told Michael Musto, I know why I blabbed.

I must have wanted to stop myself. I was spinning out of control.

It's like the old saying, what do you have to do to get attention around here?

Kill somebody? Wow. What? What, my guy?

Wow. Yeah. Wow. Now, he was allegedly diagnosed while he was in prison with histrionic personality disorder.

A person with histrionic personality disorder might experience things like constantly seeking attention, talking dramatically with strong opinions, they can be easily influenced, they can have rapidly changing emotions, and particularly think that relationships are a lot closer than they actually are. okay now michael thought that his diagnosis was a bit humorous and commented it's very funny my diagnosis if you look it up you only have five or seven of the symptoms i have every single one the doctor said that i was the most extreme case he had ever seen everything has to be completely over the top and exaggerated it worked well for my job i was a promoter Wow.

Okay. Alrighty. So he said in prison that he realized he'd been working his whole life for somebody to tell him no, like essentially just putting it on other people to stop his poor decision making.

People didn't give me boundaries. And that's a problem.

It's like that works with a toddler. Right.

That does not work with you. You're a grown man.

And while I understand that like you're under the influence, it is not anybody else's responsibility to make sure that you do not murder another person other than your own responsibility.

Exactly. That's the thing. It's like under the influence, like whatever.

That still does not make it that you are like, whoops, I killed somebody while under the influence.

It's like, okay, you're guilty. And there are plenty of people that use drugs and do not kill people about it.

And don't kill people. Like, that's... That's not an excuse.

That's a thing. That's not an excuse. So Robert Freeze Riggs had been let out of prison for good behavior, again, back in 2010, and was on parole until 2016.

He seems to have turned his life around, which...

I guess we can all be thankful for that, that he hopefully will not murder again.

He seems to live a very private and quiet life.

He got his bachelor's degree in anthropology and then pursued getting a PhD in sociology from NYU and also works as a researcher for a prison initiative at Bard College in New York.

I mean, that is what we hope when people go into prison.

I suppose. So let's hope that that turns out well.

I hope so. But it's a real shame that Angel didn't get the chance to live that kind of life.

Exactly. And have that kind of growth. That's all I could think of when I was writing down everything that he said. accomplished.

I'm like, Angel should have gone on to accomplish those things, but you took that from me.

Yeah. And it's like, do you appreciate that fact?

I hope so. That you took that from somebody else and that you better appreciate every second you have out here?

I don't know much about how Robert Riggs really feels about it, because again, I don't really, he kind of just like went about his own life very privately.

Michael, on the other hand... I will go on record right now saying that he is the most insufferable human.

Oh, yeah. Was the most insufferable human.

Yeah. He vowed, and this is a good thing.

It is a good thing for now. He vowed to stop using drugs, he said, in 2009 while he was still incarcerated.

And eventually he got paroled in May of 2014.

But he really didn't seem to change at all through the rest of his life.

Like you said, he had a Twitter. He immediately took to Twitter when he was released and tweeted a photo of himself licking a Starbucks cup with the caption, who needs Coke when you can get a caffeine jolt from a Starbucks double espresso?

Hashtag drug free. You just got out of prison for murdering a man, dude.

Get off of Twitter. Get off of the internet.

Don't go on Twitter. Like, do something actually productive.

It is so hard to wrap your brain around what I'm going to say next.

Just please know that. Your brain is doing mental gymnastics in a moment, so take a deep breath.

Michael was welcomed back to New York City by pretty much all of his friends who knew exactly what he did and a lot of other people that weren't even friends with him when he did what he did with wide open arms.

Wide open arms. They were all trying to help get him acquainted to a new way of life.

Somebody that I will leave nameless wrote a piece in honor of Michael getting out of prison and went throughout a letter explaining different aspects of the new world to Michael and how he could handle it.

Okay. Yeah. Michael did work on various projects once he was released from prison.

He really wanted to have a reality show.

That makes a lot of sense. It certainly does.

I'm happy that he didn't get one. Yep. He wanted to sell a memoir that he wrote while he was in prison, Illegula.

It's like a play on his last name. Illegula, I think is the way you would say it.

Probably. Caligula. Caligula. Oh, there you go.

There you go. Hello. Look at you. Hello.

I'm coming back. I'm coming back. Took me a minute, but now I got words again.

He actually completed some projects with his friends from back in the day.

He and Ernie Glam, who I mentioned at the top, still successful, a longtime friend of his.

They started a YouTube channel together.

He released a song with DJ Kiyoki called What's In.

He had an art show where he displayed his paintings that he had worked on in prison. which do sell now.

In February of 2017, though, he was arrested for trespassing and possession of crystal meth.

He had been found in Joyce Kilmer Park right outside of the Bronx Supreme Court at 1.30 in the morning.

That specific park closes at dusk, and even if it is open, you're actually not allowed to smoke crystal meth in it.

Just letting you know. Not allowed. Yeah.

So he pleaded guilty to trespassing charges, and the drug possession charge was dropped.

Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. This man truly had a hold on New York authorities.

Yeah. Truly had a hold. Sounds like it. He went on to host and promote several parties that happened in person before the pandemic.

And then once the pandemic happened, he actually threw he and his group of friends there were actually the first people to throw virtual parties on Zoom.

And the police were actually so concerned.

Like, I guess he didn't have a hold on them at this point.

They were so concerned that these were actually like happening that they were because they were promoting them.

Yeah. They thought they were really happening in person, so they were investigated, but it turns out they were not really happening in person.

They were virtual. But on Christmas Eve in 2020, Michael was found unconscious in his home in Washington Heights, Manhattan by his boyfriend, and it was later determined that he had accidentally overdosed on heroin.

So he was pronounced dead shortly after midnight on Christmas Day, and he was 54 years old.

Wow. And that is the story of the party monster slash club kid murder.

Wow. That is a wild ride. And honestly, that's like a pretty condensed version.

Like there's so many, there's so many books to read about this.

There are so many documentaries to watch and you will just feel filthy watching these documentaries.

Filthy. Like, his way of looking at everything was so skewed and so...

I, like, I have no words. Like, it's just... Everyone around him just said, yes, Michael.

Just fell in line. Yes, Michael. Sure, Michael.

They just fell in line. Oh, you killed someone, Michael?

No problem, Michael. And you wonder, you wonder, like, what was it about him?

Like, he had to have some kind of charisma that got people to... I was going to say he does.

Because no matter what, all, like, cult leaders and stuff, like, they all have something that makes people believe them.

But they also... know where to find people that are in a place that they need something to believe in.

Oh, yeah. And I think he probably is very adept at that as well.

Well, and I think a lot of the kids, I'm not saying this is every club kid.

Like if you were a club kid, I'm not saying this is true about you.

But I think a lot of them were going through something in their life or had gone through something in their life.

And this is where they went as an escape.

Yeah. So I think they kind of felt this closeness with each other that was like us against the world, which is always toxic.

And because they were on that like, you know, counterculture kind of line, it's like it was the us against the world kind of thing.

So when somebody's sitting there being like, I'll take care of you.

I'm here for you. I understand you. I can make everything come true for you.

Like what he was doing, like he was he referred to himself as like the king of the club kids.

Yeah. He's your king. It's like you you look at him and you say, well, he's here for me.

He's the one that's going to do things for me.

And what's funny is when he, when he first stepped on the scene, one, he was against drugs and two, James said that he was actually like intolerable.

Like people fucking hated him. And then all of a sudden it was his charisma.

Like he, he figured it out. Yeah. I don't, I don't know what it is, but Michael figured it out.

Exactly. That's what it is. Whatever it was that he had to grab onto to become that, he became that.

He did. And that's, that's like a real cult leader thing.

It is. And you know what's sad is it's like, if you hold that power, like that can be a great thing because you can change, you can make change in the world.

Wield it correctly. And he was to a degree, like he was going on these shows and saying like, we're fucking, we're, yeah, we're not normal, but like we're part of the world.

Yeah, we're people. This is art and like you might not understand it, but it's still art.

Yeah. But then at the same time, he was doing this shit and there's like, you know, he was peeing on people and like handing people vomit.

There's actually rumors that he may have been involved with underage boys.

Yeah, it's like... He had such potential and he just... flushed it down the toilet over and over and over again.

You see that story so often, though. So often.

That people get a ton of power and a ton of resources, and they either... You take it one of two ways.

You either try your best, and you try to, like, make good changes in the world, and you try to help people, and you try to, like...

You know, just make good things happen or you shit the actual bed and you just let it destroy who you are as a person, destroy any value system you ever hold and just destroy your outlook on like everything around you and just cause chaos.

And that's exactly where you went. It's like you hit that tipping point.

And you go one way or the other and he just dipped to the left.

It's like Ma always says to us, like Ma has said this to all of her children growing up.

I know exactly what you're about to say.

There are two ways you can go in life. You can, she always says like you can go and do great things and like la la la.

Or you can walk down the path and become a victim and let everything happen to you and like make bad choices.

And Ma always says, let the dark side up. yep there's like there is a dark side and a good side to everybody everybody has bad days where they're a bitch or a dick to somebody of course you have to figure out bringing the light side of you up and pushing the dark side of you down exactly and not like pushing it down of like pushing your demons down but just like diluting the darkness with light Yeah, like, not treating people like shit.

And, like, everybody's, like, again, like, he had all this power.

People are going to make mistakes. Of course.

And they're going to, like, they're going to trip and stumble and, like, not do everything the right.

And not everyone is going to agree with them all the time.

Not everyone's going to agree with them or understand them or want to be around them.

But it's, like, you have to fucking try, man.

Like, you have to try to keep that light side up a little more.

Like, that's just wild. What a wild story.

Such a crazy story. It's such a cautionary tale.

Yeah. It really is. It's such a tragic story. tragic tale all the way around because angel was just and and the sad thing is that angel gets so lost i was gonna say yeah he gets so lost in this story because everybody's so focused on michael and i can see why like there i can see why because it's so crazy that he was just walking around talking about the fact that he had murdered angel And those are the people who become larger than life because they're just so, it's a fascinating thing to look at someone who can do that.

Right. So it's like, I need to know about that.

Yeah. You know, but it's just so sad. Like we should know so much more about Angel than we do.

Yeah, that's the thing. We should. It's really sad. oh all right well thanks for that you're welcome and uh with all of that being said we hope that you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird i don't have to tell you not to keep it this weird because if i do like it's too far too far too far gone just be safe out there okay bring up the light side just make good choices be safe don't hurt people don't hurt yourself be good to you yes bye and always call 911 in emergency If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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[The Dark Descent of the Club Kids: The Murder of Angel Melendez]-[Episode 359: The Club Kid/Party Monster Murder]

📋 Summary

The Rise of the Club Kids: A Counterculture Phenomenon

The Escalation of Violence

A Gruesome Cover-Up and delayed Justice

The Aftermath and Legacy

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript