Murder in the Neighborhood /// Part 1 /// Episode: 588 | Forensic Files

[music] [music] [music] Heat. Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks
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to the garage store. And that is enough of the business, Colonel. All right, everybody. Gather around, grab a chair,
grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. >> [music] >> This week's true crime story is a unique
and intriguing case that falls into two homicide case study categories in the FBI's crime classification manual.
These homicides that we are going to talk about are both a revenge killing and a non-specific motive killing. Per
the crime classification manual, a revenge killing involves the murder of another person and retaliation for a
perceived wrong, real or imagined, committed against the offender or a significant other. Victimology. When
revenge is the motive for a homicide, the victim may or may not personally know the offender, but something in the
victim's life is related directly to the actions of the offender. There is a significant event or
interaction that links the offender to the victim. The revenge motive generated by this
event may be unknown to the victim or to the victim's family or friends. Multiple victims may be involved
depending on the nature of the event that triggered the act of revenge. A non-specific motive killing pertains to
a homicide that appears irrational and is committed for a reason known only to the offender.
It subsequently may be defined and categorized after more extensive investigation into the offender's
background. The victims of a non-specific homicide are random with no direct relationship between victim and
offender. Victims can be male, female, adults, or children and demonstrate a disparity of characteristics and
lifestyle. The crime scene is usually a public place and poses a high risk to the
offender. There is nothing missing from it and it is disorganized with no effort
having been made to conceal the victim. A firearm is the weapon of choice for this type of offender. This crime often
becomes a massacre because it is the offender's goal to kill as many people as possible.
Because nothing is removed from the scene, an abundance of evidence is usually available.
This includes shell cases, prints, discarded weapons, and so on. High-powered, high-caliber, and/or
highcapacity firearm use will be evident and enables the offender to accomplish his goal of mass killing. Wounds will be
concentrated on vital areas: head, neck, and chest. [music] This crime is almost exclusively
committed during daylight in public places because the offender wants the highest death toll possible.
Witnesses often are available to identify the offender as he is unconcerned with being identified.
The offender has no escape plan and possibly intends to commit suicide or be shot by police
through a broad neighborhood investigation. pre-offense characteristics become evident. The offender usually has a
disheveled appearance, is withdrawn, demonstrates an isolated effect, and possibly exhibits erratic behavior.
As you have gathered by the descriptions of these types of homicides, motive is not always clear. In fact, a real true
motive may only make sense to the killer. And such is the case in this week's true crime tale.
A man that one day set out on his own personal seek and destroy mission. They called him the wholesale slayer.
Howard Barton Unrew shot 13 people in less than 12 minutes on his block in East Camden, New Jersey.
The quiet oddball who meticulously plotted his revenge on his neighbors who shunned him became one of America's
first mass killers at the age of 28. His rampage has since been named the walk of death.
This is True Crime Garage. [music] Patrick Sauer wrote an incredibly great piece about this week's true crime
story. I recommend that everybody check it out. He wrote this for the Smithsonian magazine and titled it the
story of the first mass murder in US history. Howard Unrew's walk of death foretold an era in which such tragedies
would become all too common. Now, I'm going to pull a few things from this article here first to set things up.
Then, Captain, I want to go through some of the actual news articles from that day so we can take a look at this case
almost as it played out. Now from Patrick Sauer. On the morning of Tuesday, September 6, Howard Unrew would
embark on his walk of death, murdering 13 people and wounding three others in a 20minute rampage. A somewhat forgotten
man outside of criminology circles and local old-timers, Unrew was an early chapter in the tragically all too
familiar American story of an angry man with a gun inflicting carnage. There have been killers since Cain murdered
Abel, and Unrew certainly wasn't the first American to take the lives of multiple victims. The FBI defines a mass
murder as four or more victims in a single incident, usually in one spot. Serial killers and spree killers fall
into their own category. And there's also a new crowdsourced mass shooting tracking system that counts the number
of people shot as opposed to those that are killed, but it is not an official set of data.
What is known is that the United States with 5% of the world's population was home to nearly onethird of the world's
mass shooters from 1966 to 2012. Before that, mass gun murders like Unrew were too rare to be considered a threat.
Unrew is generally regarded as the first of the lone wolf type of modern mass murderers. The template for the school
and workplace shooters who have dominated the coverage of more than 1,000 victims since 2013.
Unrew was a distinctive personality type, one that has also come to define those who have followed in his bloody
footsteps. Unrew really matches the mass murder profile. He had a rigid temperament, an inability to accept
frustration or people not treating him as well as he wanted and feeling isolation.
All things people accept and move on from, says Katherine Rams. She's a professor of forensic psychology and the
director of the master of arts and criminal justice at D Sales University. We've talked about her several times as
she is the author of some 60 non-fiction books, including Inside the Mind of Mass
Murderers: Why They Kill. She goes on to say about Unrew that he had a free floating anger, held grudges, owned
weapons he knew how to use, and decided somebody was going to pay. It's a typical recipe for internal combustion."
End quote. Howard Barton Unrew was born in Camden, New Jersey in 1921. His father was Samuel Shipley Unrew and his
mother Freda Wulmer. His parents didn't stick together, which was not very common back then, and Howard and his
brother James were raised by their mother when the Unruse separated. For the most part, it seems that his
childhood was normal or is at least reportedly to be somewhat normal. Howard was listed as quiet and shy in at least
one of his yearbooks. Howard got average grades, didn't quite fit in as much as one would like, but Howard was a regular
churchgoer. In fact, he read the Bible often and was very fond of music. There >> would definitely be a part of his
childhood that would have been rough because he would have been in New Jersey during the Great Depression. So that
probably was a difficult time for him because it was difficult time for most families. But in 1942, he's going to
enlist and serve in World War II. >> Yeah, he enlists in the US Army, serves in World War II, and he saw quite a bit
of action as well. And he is said to have been a highly skilled marksman. and he also worked as a tank driver taking
part in the Battle of the Bulge and fighting in Belgium, Austria, Germany, and France.
>> My nickname in high school was the Battle of the Bulge. Now, one thing that he did that separated him from most
soldiers is that he kept meticulous notes about every German that he killed during his time in war, documenting the
time and place of where he did it and writing descriptions of the bodies if he happened to see them. After being
honorably discharged in 1945, he returned home and moved in with his mother. at this time bringing in a
collection of firearms, medals, and photos of German artillery with him. So, this is kind of like his collection and
scrapbook, if you will, of his time during the war. >> I'll post pictures of Howard on our
Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages. You'll see his demeanor is very, it's almost like he has no emotion
whatsoever. >> Yeah. He's got this very blank look to his face, especially right after he is
well, especially right after the events that we're about to get into. Now, keep in mind, the war is over in 1945.
And when the war is over, he returns home. And again, he's seen a lot of action. He was in multiple countries. We
know that he kept diaries about his kills during wartime. And he enlisted in 1942. So he was overseas defending this
great country for several years before he returns to Camden, New Jersey. Now upon returning, well, life is very
different for him during this time, you know. So he finishes school, goes into the army, goes off to war, and you got
to keep in mind, things must have been rather regimented for this guy, >> right during his school years and then
his time in the army and then of course off at war. Now he's at home and he's kind of doing a whole lot of nothing.
He's got some pretty low-level jobs that he doesn't seem to care a whole lot about. He's living with his mother
because he needs her to financially support him. She's got a full-time job. He doesn't do a whole lot once he's
back. He makes an attempt at having some type of career when he goes off to the Temple School for pharmaceuticals or it
Oh, I have it here in my notes here. Captain, he went for three months and studied pharmacy at Temple University in
Philadelphia. Well, he doesn't that doesn't work out for him. And so he drops out and now he's hanging out at
mom's home for all of these years. >> Well, he cites the reason for that being poor physical condition. It's it's also
interesting, too, that his enlistment picture, he is smiling and full of energy. It makes you really
wonder how much effect the war had on this individual, >> right? It also makes you wonder about
his general makeup, his mental makeup and psychology of this individual as well. He almost looks to be happier at
the time of war rather than when he's back here living the civilian life. Now, his walk of death will take place on
Tuesday, September 6th, 1949. So he is home for roughly 3 to four years before his actions of this dreaded
day in Camden, New Jersey. >> I'm guessing one, he has PTSD or some level of that.
>> Now, you heard in our description that we gave of the typical things that one
would expect to find from the FBI when we're talking about this type of crime. And one thing that was mentioned there
during the trailer is that the offender likely does not care about being identified. He doesn't do anything to
conceal his identity and often will leave eyewitnesses. So is the case in Howard Unrew's Walk of
Death. You'll hear it straight from the articles that they wrote in the newspaper about that event. This is from
the evening courier which was a local newspaper local to the area and the headline is massacre of 12 is described
by eyewitnesses. Many sea slangs on street in shops of East Camden. And it goes on to say,
"When Howard Unrew ran a muck, shooting at everyone in sight near 32nd Street and River Avenue, killing 12 but missing
others, there were many witnesses to the massacre. Following are a number of eyewitness accounts. One of the first
eyewitness accounts of the shooting came from William McNeely, age 48. He's a repair man for the public service. I
love the general description and general job titles that they gave back in the '
40s. He says, quote, "I first saw the man go up to a child on the northeast corner of 32nd Street and River Avenue
and fire point blank at the child's head, killing him." It goes on to say, "When Cohen, the drugist, and the
insurance man came out of the drugstore to see what was happening, the slayer fired at the insurance man and killed
him." Cohen tried to get out of the way by running up 32nd Street, but the killer's aim was good and he killed him
while he was running. Then he went into the drugstore and went upstairs and killed two women. I think they were
Cohen's wife and his mother. The witness goes on to say that he, the shooter, came out of the place a few minutes
later and saw a man parked in a car on the south side of River Avenue just east of 32nd Street. He fired into the car
and killed him and goes on to say that he then saw a group of men standing on the north side of the street. He pointed
the pistol at them and began firing rapidly. They escaped by dodging into a nearby saloon.
>> But what a vicious scene this would have been. >> This points out what we had already
concluded with the information from the FBI that there would be several eyewitnesses to this massacre. This man,
Howard Unrew, is basically walking down the street going business to business and going into these businesses and
shooting at different individuals inside of these businesses. And keep in mind, he lives right there. This is all
happening in his neighborhood, right on his little corner of the world. >> But if I'm following you correctly, this
all starts at the pharmacy. That's exactly right, Captain Unrew's massacre started at the River Road Pharmacy. This
is owned and operated by Maurice Cohen, and it takes place about 9:20 a.m. in the morning. So, he has breakfast at
home and he goes out on the street, gun in hand. He's got 33 bullets in his pockets and he's ready to track down
some individuals and he's ready to murder them in their place of work or on the streets there in East Camden.
>> Doesn't seem like a big shocker that he starts at the pharmacy because he went
to school to try to be a pharmacist and ended up dropping out. This guy holds grudges. He failed at something. So
maybe this is his way at getting back at that thing he failed at. I think that you're right. I think that there's a
whole lot of there's a whole lot of things that are are leading up to this event. I think that likely the pharmacy
of being the first place that he goes to commit this atrocity is that I think it's really
just happen stance because really what it appears to me is that his actual grudge is with the pharmacist himself
with this Maurice Cohen and the Cohen family because he is actually neighbors with the Cohens and they had an ongoing
beef if if you will, over several different things. They didn't get along. He he did not get along with the entire
Cohen family. As you will hear in our interview with the author of Murder in the Neighborhood,
you can hear that there's a lot of things that are building up to this. And when he comes home the night before,
there was a gate that was missing. He had put in a gate to his backyard. He and the Cohens shared a backyard. For
whatever reason, someone took that gate. And the gate was a bit of an argument between
Howard, his mother, and the Cohens. And it's believed that once he saw that that
gate was gone, that he decided that he was going to get this re he was going to get revenge against the Cohens and
several other people in the neighborhood. and he was going to do it first thing that morning. So after he
kills Cohen, his wife, and Cohen's mother, Unrew walked out of the store. This is when he encounters the insurance
agent. The insurance agent was walking in that same general area. So Unrew shoots him through the head, killing him
instantly. Then Howard Unrew walked across the sidewalk to the curb where Alvin Day was in his vehicle. his
vehicle had stopped at the traffic light and so Howard fires through the windshield and killed him with a bullet
to the head. >> So when he shoots Day, Day is going to try to I guess get out of his vehicle,
run for cover, but he ends up collapsing over his steering wheel. >> Yeah. Some attempt to get out of the
vehicle was made by day before he dies. Now, these gunshots attracted a group of
men that were in a bar across from the drugstore. And so, they run out into the street. They're trying to see what's
going on. Several shots are fired from our killer to at these men that come running out of the bar. And they're
lucky enough that they start to they have enough time to start to flee from Howard Enra. Enra then walked by the
barber shop of Clark Hoover where Hoover was cutting the hair of a boy, a six-year-old boy. And as the
paper says, with the deadly aim he had perfected in a target range later found in his basement of his home, Howard
Unrew sent a bullet crashing into Hoover's brain and then killed the Smith boy with another single shot as he sat
on the hobby horse seat Hoover used for his child patrons. From the barber shop,
Howard Unrew went into the adjoining shoe repair shop. inside there. He kills the shoe repair shop owner who was
trying to shield himself from gunfire by cowering behind the counter. From the shoe repair shop, Howard Unrew walked to
the front of a house at River Avenue where another single shot fired through the front window killed Thomas Hamilton,
age two. Well, and this is how you can see how evil he is cuz he doesn't care who he's killing. Man, child, woman,
doesn't matter. >> Continuing up the street to 3214 River Avenue. This is a dry cleaning shop. He
there shot and killed Helga Zagrino. She is the attendant in charge. Well, obviously Howard has some issues, but
the pharmacy kind of makes some sense to me. Attacking the neighbors because he has a grudge against them kind of makes
sense. But did he have a list of people he was looking for or was this just believed to be random and whoever was
there got in the way and and he was going to shoot anybody in his path? >> And so he has people that he's seeking
revenge against. He has a grudge against several people as you have stated, but it's also a situation where we have both
revenge killings and non-specific motive homicides here because some of these individuals just happen to be in
the area at the time. It's kind of like when you have a school shooter or a workplace shooter. with the workplace
and school shooter. Often they will know some of their victims, but but they will
also not know some of the victims. Some of the other victims may just happen to be at the location where they are going
to go and kill people. And then what we have here is as stated by the FBI with these typeenders,
they are looking to kill as many people as possible. So they're not always sitting there making the decision,
right? then and there, oh, do I kill this person or that person? Because yes, I have a grudge against person A, but
not against person B. Often they will just kill both. This part of the massacre will really kind of answer your
question here, Captain, because what we end up having is with the dry cleaners when he goes to the the shop, the dry
cleaner shop, we later will learn that on his hit list, if you will, or his list is not
just that simple to call it a hit list. We we can get into that a little bit later, but he goes to the dry cleaners
with the intention of finding Thomas Zagro. He's the the tailor and one of the owners. He and Helga own the shop
together. Now, we know later that Thomas Zagrino was on his hit list, if you will, but Hilga was not. And so when he
goes to the dry cleaner shop, Thomas is not there, but Hilga is. And so he kills
Hila anyway before going on to his next target or the next location. >> The next spot he's going to go to is the
local grocery store. >> Yes. And whoever owns that gets a little lucky here, Captain, because they find
Howard Unrew finds the front door locked. So he simply fires through the front door and then he approaches a car
that is waiting at an intersection and shoots the occupants of that vehicle. So if you can kind of picture this in your
mind here, he leaves his house, gun in hand, and he's going through the neighborhood. He obviously has certain
targets going into these different businesses and seeking out individuals that he wants to shoot and kill. But
also think of all the vehicles that we have mentioned during his walk of death where they're simply pulling up to a
stoplight at an intersection that he happens to be standing by and he's firing into their vehicles.
>> Do you know if the grocery store was closed just by happen stance or was it locked because they heard the gun fire
earlier? >> I was just looking at my notes for that information and I don't have that here.
Captain, but my belief is that they locked the doors because they heard the gunfire. And remember, we had already
mentioned that several of the businesses, people came outside to see what was going on, why they are hearing
these these gunshots. Later, some people would say that they thought that some of
the noises were simply a car backfiring where I think with the grocery shop, we have the situation where they came
outside, they saw the panic in the streets and decided that the best choice that they had in this situation was to
go back inside and lock the front door. Heat. [music] All right, [music] we are back. Cheers,
mates. Cheers. Now, we're going through this massacre that took place back in 1949. Again,
this is before these types of shootings are unfortunately have become commonplace in today's society. This was
really a rare occurrence back then. What we have is this man who who [clears throat] who seemingly has
completely lost it, gone off the rails. Maybe the gate being stolen was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to
speak. He's out on the streets. He's gunning down anybody that he he chooses to at a at a second's notice. He
eventually hears police sirens in the background. Now, I've seen it reported, Captain, that the response time in this
situation was as short as 18 minutes and maybe as long as 20 minutes. It's a little unclear. Keep in mind, we're
going back a long time ago in history to try to piece these events together, but
part of that lengthy response time is for several different reasons. One, it's 1949. Not everybody's walking around
with a cell phone. And as we pointed out just before we went to the break, even though some people were rushing outside
to see what was going on, it wasn't clear to everybody what in fact was absolutely happening. Right? We've
already pointed out how rare this occurrence would be. So rare, in fact, that he is often referred to as the
first mass murderer or the first mass murder event in US history. >> Right? So there's not a lot of protocol,
but just to reiterate something that you were talking about earlier was he had a
firing range or a target practice in his basement. >> Mhm. >> And so a lot of people make a big deal
about, well, he was prepared for this. It's like, but he was also in the army for 3 years fighting wars. He was he was
prepared for this well before he was training in his in his basement. >> And not only that, the scary thing about
his wartime is look, a lot of people when they come back from war, they don't want to talk about the things that they
were forced to do while over there. They try not to reflect on that time period.
They want to try to forget it. where with Howard, it's much more difficult his time at war
because he seemed to possibly even have enjoyed the act of killing while he was at war.
He kept meticulous notes about it in his diary or journal. And when he returned,
and I know it's not uncommon for people, especially in World War II, to have returned with this collection of things
that they took off of Nazi soldiers, but he comes back with this collection of things that he took off of Nazi
soldiers and he's hanging them on his walls. And yes, I wonder if it's a little bit of folklore about the target
practice in his mother's basement, right? But there seems to be some truth to it because part of the arguments that
the Cohens had with Howard was that he was too loud. You know, he's creating all this noise. He's firing guns in his
basement. He's playing his music incredibly loud. But his side of the argument was, "Well, the Cohens are
incredibly loud, and I've asked them to be quiet several times, and so I'm only loud because they're loud." Keep in
mind, they're not just neighbors. They're neighbors that are separated by a wall. Separated by a wall. They share
that backyard, that yard space where Howard and his mother have the second gate put in because originally there was
only one gate and the families were feuding over the gate. Who was using it? People were leaving it open uh overnight
and things of that nature. So the Enres put in their own gate. So you can do what you want with your gate, Coins.
We'll do what we want with ours. >> After this time frame of mayhem, he is going to head back to his apartment.
>> Yeah. He flees back to his apartment because he can hear the sirens, the police sirens off in the distance. So,
he knows that they're converging in on this area, this really what is simply two corners of East Camden. And this is,
keep in mind how chaotic this all is. This is a residential/b businessiness area of town. There's
businesses and there's plenty of housing and apartments and such. So, this is kind of a congested area. This will be a
well trafficked area both on in vehicles and foot traffic. So, there's a lot of people potentially a lot of victims
right here just just footsteps outside of Howard Unrew's front door. All in all, Unrew kills 13 people and injures
three. And this all before fleeing back to his apartment. Now, once he's back at
his apartment, he's fairly quickly surrounded by police. We mentioned the slow response time, but even though it's
a slow response time, the response itself is pretty powerful and they're heavily armed. There were up to 50
officers that surrounded his apartment. Howard Unrew didn't just barricade himself inside of his home.
He shoots it out with police. The [snorts] issue becomes when he's on foot, he can only carry so many weapons
and so much ammo. But when he gets back to his house, he has a he has a lot more
weapons and a lot more ammo. >> This is true. And I'm going to post some pictures of these events on Twitter
because there's one picture that is I hate to say this because we're talking about so much death and destruction and
tragedy here, but there is a picture during this gunfight with police that kind of cracks me up. It almost in a way
reminds me of the movie The Christmas Story. Ralphie is dreaming about getting his BB gun and he has to fight off these
wouldbe burglars and and potential bad guys that are in his backyard, right? And he's shooting at them and they're
they're all over the place. They're coming over the fence. They're up on top of the roof and they're just coming from
all angles and he's kind of taking them out. It's more it's it's that but it's a
reverse when you look at the shootout that that Howard has with police. There are police officers that are some of
them are holding automatic guns, some of them are holding rifles, some of them are holding handguns. They got the place
well surrounded. There's even officers that are on the rooftop of Howard's apartment so that they could fire into
the second floor window. So, they have this guy surrounded. He's got nowhere to go. And one thing that's
strange, and we've seen this time and time again throughout our dark history of these mass killers, that often times
when surrounded or when they have achieved their goal or got the revenge that they were seeking,
a lot of times they will end up killing themselves or committing suicide by having the police shoot them dead. in
Howard's situation. He's returning gunfire with the police and eventually they start tossing in tear gas and he
decides at some point, you know what? I I'm done. I'm done fighting. The tear gas is enough. You got me surrounded.
And he comes out and they apprehend him right then and there. And there's that picture that the captain was referring
to earlier uh about some of the stuff that we will be posting of him standing there arrested and he's wearing a suit
and bow tie and he's staring with this blank look at the newspaper. And when he's staring at the camera person who
took that picture, it doesn't look to me to be the look of, "Oh my god, I'm in shock of what I just did. I can't
believe my own actions or I'm scared to death. Any of that. He almost looks like
he's standing there with this blank look, this stare that says, "Yeah, I did this. Yeah, I did this and it might have
been a long time coming." Now, the thing that we've unfortunately become all too
used to in the United States is the frequency of these public shooters. And whenever this happens, especially when
there is a high kill rate, we want to know who is to blame. Not just the shooter, but what else is to blame in
our society? How could we allow this person to have been created and then go out on this rampage? And I don't know
that there's ever going to be a clear answer in my opinion. I think part of that is reflected in what we went
through in the trailer from the FBI's crime classification manual that says in some of these types of cases and with
some of these offenders, we don't really know the motive. They may not fully know
the motive for some of their killings themselves. Now, it looks to me like here in this situation, Captain, that
Howard Unrew understood why he killed some of these people, but maybe why he didn't kill others. Some he was seeking
revenge on. Others just happened to be there in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, it reminds me of a quote
from the old TV show Criminal Minds from the fictitious detective on there, Jason
Gideon, who's I think the best of the the fake detectives on Criminal Minds. But one of his quotes on that show was
when talking about an offender like this or somebody that kills multiple people,
he says, "Think of him as a living murder weapon. His genetics load the gun. his psychology aims it and the
environment pulls the trigger. Now, we do have some quotes from Howard Unrew himself.
And you mentioned he only had one gun. He only had so much ammunition when he went through the streets that day on his
walk of death. But Howard Unrew said, "I would have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets." And then he goes on to
give us a little bit of insight as to a possible motive for his rampage that morning. He says, quote, "When I came
home last night and found my gate had been taken, I decided to shoot all of them so I would get the right one.
[music] New Jersey correspondent Nora Musanic revisits the walk of death and killer
Howard Unrew. >> Before there was Coline or New Town, there was Camden. On the morning of
September 6th, 1949, 28-year-old Howard Unrew, dressed in a suit and bow tie, stalked the 2300 block of River Road in
the city's Kramer Hill section, shooting and killing 13 people and injuring three. Among the victims, a six-year-old
boy getting a haircut on this hobby horse at the barber shop. It became known as the walk of death.
>> That was America apple pie right after we won the Second World War. And it was
never expected. >> My mom told him, "Get away. Get Come on. Let's go. Let's go." George Jenkins was
six when his mother shooted him into the house after hearing gunshots. Unrew, a former Army sharpshooter who had a
target range in his basement, kept meticulous records about neighbors he had runins with. The top entry reads,
"You dirty bum, I wish you were dead. 15 years ago, I spoke with one of the survivors of Enru's rampage. The late
Charles Cohen's parents and grandmother were murdered that day. Gunfire happened
and when I walked out, my grandmother was holding a phone in bed, dead with blood coming out of her nose and face.
>> He hid in the closet feeling totally helpless and he had to come out and see that horrible scene.
>> The reaction was pretty strong being as it was one of the first occasions of a mass murder of that site of that
type. >> 80-year-old Len Irwin is a volunteer at the Camden County Historical Society
where they keep memorabilia from the notorious crime. Howard Unrew confessed and was declared criminally insane. He
died in 1988 after being confined to a mental hospital for 60 years. But the troubled young man from East Camden will
forever be remembered as the country's first mass murderer in modern times. I'm Nora Mosanic, Channel 6 Action News.
[music] >> [music] >> Yeah, so much more to get to. Join us back here in the garage. And if you're
looking for more True Crime Garage, check out our bonus show called Off thereord. It's on Stitcher Premium. You
get every show that's on Stitcher Premium just for $5 a month. And you can go to true crimegar.com
and sign up for that bonus show. That's if you need more true crimegar and your earballs. Also, why don't you come join
me in Cleveland, a night with the captain. Yes, the colonel couldn't make it, but it will be a night with the
captain, and we will be at Brew Dog. The date is July 14th. It's a Thursday. Tickets are available at
captainfatands.com. Please come out and let's talk some crime deli. Let's talk some John Benet
Ramsay. Let's talk anything true crime garage. I look forward to meeting and drinking with all of you. No better
place to do it than Cleveland, Ohio. And no better place than Brew Dog. Join us back here in the garage as we take a
deeper dive into this mass murder. Until tomorrow, be good. Be kind >> and don't litter.
[music] [music] >> [music]

Murder in the Neighborhood /// Part 1 /// Episode: 588

Original Release: 6-14-2022

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

With school and workplace shooters such a hot topic these days, this week we thought we would look back on a mass shooting that took place in the good old days. As you know, we here in the Garage would never claimed to be able to solve some of our nations most devastating problems but we will try to understand them. Better understanding of very important issues can help and lead to creating solutions. Now, we have to remember that the good old days weren’t always good and it certainly was not a good day when Howard Unruh decided to “get even” with some people in the neighborhood. This week in the Garage we try to beat the heat by cracking a few cold ones and talking about murderer so cold that you will have a hard time believing that you had not heard of this guy before.

Beer of the Week - Heavy Boots of Lead by SingleCut Beersmiths

Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 bottle caps

This week’s recommended reading is Murder in the Neighborhood: The True Story of America’s first recorded mass shooting by Ellen J. Green. A special thank you to author Ellen J. Green for joining us in the Garage to discuss her fascinating book and for inspiring this week’s episodes.

Brief Summary

Howard Unrew's 1949 mass shooting in Camden, New Jersey, marked a significant moment in American crime history.

Key points

The Walk of Death. Howard Barton Unrew shot 13 people in less than 12 minutes in Camden, New Jersey.
First Mass Murder in US History. Unrew's rampage foretold an era of mass shootings in America.
First Mass Murderer. Howard Unrew is often referred to as the first mass murderer in US history.
The Walk of Death. On September 6, 1949, Howard Unrew killed 13 people in a shocking rampage.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I'll never forget old pig vomit.

A humorous reflection on past experiences.

0:51WatchJul 31, 2026

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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