Category: Bazaar News

In gritty 1970s New York, an unidentified serial killer known as “Charlie Chop-Off” targeted young Black and Puerto Rican boys and viciously mutilated their genitals — and he was never caught.

It sounds like an urban legend — a serial killer that targets young boys and severs their genitals. But the nightmarish case of “Charlie Chop-off” was very real and remains chillingly unsolved.

Between 1972 and 1973, a serial killer targeted young Black and Puerto Rican boys living in Manhattan, brutally cutting them, mutilating their genitals, and sometimes even taking the severed penis with him as a macabre trophy.

Eyewitnesses described the killer as a slim man in his 30s. But in spite of interviewing hundreds of people, the police could not find the killer — until a botched kidnapping led them to a mental patient with a criminal record.

Was the disturbed Erno Soto actually Charlie Chop-off — or did the real killer get away with his crimes?

The Innocent Victims Of Charlie Chop-off

Every serial killer has a pattern — and Charlie Chop-off was no exception. Every one of his victims was between the ages of 8 and 10. They were all Black or dark-skinned Puerto Rican boys. And they all suffered cuts across their bodies.

The first victim was 8-year-old Douglas Owens. Police found his body on March 9, 1972, on a Harlem roofto, dead by 38 stab wounds all across his body. Disturbingly, the killer had also mutilated his genitals.

At first, it seemed like an isolated crime — until a month later, when the killer struck again.

This time, the victim was a 10-year-old boy. Then, on April 20, Charlie Chop-off attacked the boy, stabbing him in the neck and back. This time, the killer severed his genitals and took them with him.

Miraculously, the second victim survived his attack and was able to give police a description of Charlie Chop-off. But the killings didn’t stop there.

In October 1972, a 9-year-old boy named Wendell Hubbard died in East Harlem. Hubbard lived only six blocks away from Douglas Owens. Charlie Chop Off had also stabbed Hubbard 17 times and gruesomely removed his genitals.

Public DomainWendell Hubbard was only nine years old when he was murdered in East Harlem.

Then, in March 1973, the unidentified murderer claimed another victim. Nine-year-old Luis Ortiz disappeared on his way to the corner store, with police later finding his body in the basement of a nearby apartment.

Like the previous victims, Ortiz had suffered a brutal 38 stab wounds, and the killer had severed his genitals. But police were no closer to catching the killer.

Panic In NYC Over Charlie Chop-Off

New York TimesNew Yorkers of all ages protested, demanding police protection to prevent more murders.

In the summer of 1973, the NYPD knew they had a serial killer on their hands. But finding Charlie Chop Off wouldn’t be easy.

The one surviving victim described the killer as Spanish or Italian, and possibly walking with a limp. The vague description left police without a clear suspect.

Police distributed a sketch of Charlie Chop Off in Harlem, asking neighbors to stay alert for suspicious behavior.

Jack Garofalo/Paris Match via Getty ImagesBoys on the streets of Harlem in the 1970s.

After a fourth murder on Aug. 17, 1973, police wondered if their killer had changed his pattern – or if they had a copycat on their hands.

Steven Cropper looked much like the earlier victims. An 8-year-old Black boy, Cropper’s body was found on a rooftop. But instead of stab wounds, police found razor slashes on the boy’s body. And the killer had not mutilated the boy’s genitals.

The police interviewed around 100 suspects, according to the New York Times — but were no closer to finding Charlie Chop-off.

Witness statements convinced the police that Cropper’s killer had also killed Hubbard and Owens. Witnesses saw Cropper with a slim Hispanic man in his 30s, somewhere between 5’6″ and 5’10” and “with a strange gait, almost like limp.”

The description was almost identical to that of Charlie Chop-off, described as a Hispanic man, around five feet, nine inches tall, with a slim build, and between 30 and 40 years old. And the one victim who escaped said the killer had a limp.

Was Erno Soto The Infamous Charlie Chop-Off

A botched kidnapping finally led police to their best suspect in the gruesome genital-mutilation murders: a disturbed man named Erno Soto.

On May 25, 1974, Soto tried to abduct a 9-year-old Puerto Rican boy, but neighbors intervened, holding Soto until police arrived to arrest him.

During interrogation, Soto confessed to killing Steven Cropper. But he refused to confess to any other crimes. And the one surviving victim could not pick Soto out of a lineup.

Police were certain they had caught the killer. Soto had a criminal history: He’d been in jail on burglary and narcotics charges. He was unstable: Soto was committed to a state mental institution years before the first murder.

Soto’s personal history also seemed to fit the profile. After separating from his wife, Soto discovered she had a child with a Black man. And soon after that, the attacks targeting Black boys began.

And then police discovered an anonymous tip after the very first murder that accused Erno Soto of the crime.

But was he the killer?

Erno Soto went on trial for the murder of Steven Cropper in 1976. During the trial, a psychiatrist testified that Soto was a “dangerous person” who was “in need of constant surveillance,” per the Times.

“When he is out in society on his own, he is literally a walking time bomb,” Dr. John Baer Train stated.

There was one major hole in the case against Soto, though. The Manhattan State Hospital said Soto was in their institution the day Cropper died. Hospital officials claimed that Soto could have snuck out of the facility — but doubt had already crept into the case.

Instead of finding Soto guilty of murder, the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity. The ruling landed Soto in a maximum-security mental institution.

Officially, the Charlie Chop-off case remaines unsolved. Over 40 years after the first killing, police still classify the horrific crimes as open cases.

But several signs still point to Soto as the killer. He fit the eyewitness description and his alibi was not airtight, given he was allowed to leave the mental institution for the weekend and reportedly checked himself out when Douglas Owens and Wendell Hubbard were killed.

And the Charlie Chop-off killings ended after police arrested Soto. Either they caught the murderer – or a horrific serial killer remains at large.

Charlie Chop Off was one of many serial killers who escaped justice. Next, read about the most prolific serial killers, and then learn about the unsolved murders that still plague detectives.

The woman, Martha Louis Menefield, said police told her “not to cry” as they were arresting her.

An 82-year-old woman in Valley, Alabama was arrested on Nov. 27 after she reportedly failed to pay her trash bill amounting to $77.80.

According to a Facebook statement from Valley Police Chief Mike Reynolds, Martha Louis Menefield was arrested “on the charge of Failure to Pay-Trash.”

Menefield reportedly received a citation in August for failing to pay for her trash services in June, July, and August. The statement also declares that Valley Code Enforcement attempted multiple times to call Menefield, and later tried to get in contact with her in person at her home.

When their attempts apparently failed, they left a door hanger with information including the reason for the visit and a number to call.

The citation also informed Menefield that she was due to appear in court on Sept. 7, 2022. When she did not appear in court, a warrant for Failure to Pay-Trash was issued.

As CBS42 reports, Menefield was so surprised by the arrival of police she initially thought the situation was some sort of joke.

When it became clear to her that she really was being arrested over the unpaid trash bill, she asked one of the officers, “You’re not kidding?” They were not. Menefield, however, said she thought the bill had been paid, “but they said it hadn’t.”

The officers informed Menefield that they needed to handcuff her; she put her hands behind her back. They then told her that she could hold her hands out in front of her, and she did as she was asked. “And the cuffs,” she said, “They’re so heavy.”

Menefield said that one of the officers then told her not to cry, prompting her to ask him, “How would you feel if they came and arrested your grandmama?”

The officer didn’t respond.

Lee Hedgepeth/FacebookMartha Menefield’s home in Valley, Alabama, where she has lived for 30 years.

“I’m just happy my grandkids weren’t here to see that,” she told CBS42. “That would have upset them. I was so ashamed. And it’s been bothering me.”

According to Valley Police, Menefield has had her trash services suspended three times in the past two years for non-payment, and additional records dating back to 2006 show at least 22 other incidents of suspensions and revocation of services.

“While our officers can use their discretionary judgment on certain matters,” the police statement reads, “the enforcement of an arrest warrant issued by the court and signed by a magistrate, is not one of them. Ms. Menefield was treated respectfully by our officers in the performance of their duties and was released on a bond as prescribed by the violation.”

Menefield claimed that she never received a notice to appear in court, and argued that if her bills hadn’t been paid, her trash bins should have simply been taken away and her service suspended. She said she felt the arrest was unjust and unnecessary.

“I was upset because I didn’t know why they would come and arrest me,” Menefield said.

After her arrest, Menefield was taken to the Valley Jail, and though she didn’t remain there long, she told CBS42, “I was in a little cage-like thing at the police station. And I said, ‘Y’all put me in this cage? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Her daughter, Neketti Tucker, meanwhile said that the unpaid bills should have never been considered a crime in the first place.

“This isn’t a criminal act,” Tucker said. “This is civil, if anything.”

Tucker also said that several family members have since tried to pay Menefield’s bills — and the Valley Code Enforcement has told them they can’t.

The entire incident has also had a lasting impact on Menefield, a religious Southerner who has lived in the same house for 30 years and spent most of her life as a caretaker, either for the elderly or children.

“I’ve been questioning God a little bit,” she said. “I guess cause I’ve been so upset. I had a daycare here for eight years, and I’ve been asking the Lord. I say ‘Why did this happen to me as much as I’ve done for people, Lord? I’ve paid my tithes every Sunday. I ushered at church. I was just questioning. Something’s just not right.”

After this strange bit of news from Alabama, learn about the bill passed by Alabama lawmakers allowing them to chemically castrate sex offenders as part of their parole. Also, read about the police raid on an illegal Alabama winery — that was operating out of a sewage facility.

WISCONSIN – A dog was discovered inside a bag after accidentally going through an X-ray machine.

The Great Lakes TSA Department tweeted the incident Tuesday. A photo of the X-ray and bag was provided, as well as some guidelines when traveling with a pet.

The agency reminded travelers to notify the airline and follow the rules when boarding a plane with a hairy friend.

“At the checkpoint, remove your pet from the bag and send all items, including the empty carrier, to be screened in the machine,” twitted Great Lakes TSA.

They later shared a video on the proper way tp travel with a pet.

A recent incident occurred at JFK airport back in November when X-rays showed a trapped cat.

For centuries, the only evidence historians had of the Roman Emperor Sponsian was this hoard of coins bearing his visage that were found in 1713, and many believed them to be fakes.

Three centuries ago, a hoard of Roman coins was discovered in Transylvania. They were eventually dismissed as fakes — forgeries were frequent at the time, and the coins bore the likeness of an obscure figure named Sponsian. But new research suggests that the coins may be authentic.

And what’s more, that would also prove that the much-debated “emperor” Sponsian really existed.

According to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, the coins appear to be real. The researchers suggest that Sponsian may have ruled the isolated outpost of Roman Dacia when it was cut off from the empire.

“We’re very confident that they’re authentic,” Paul Pearson, an earth sciences professor at the University College London and the study’s lead author, told The Guardian. “Our evidence suggests Sponsian ruled Roman Dacia, an isolated gold-mining outpost, at a time when the empire was beset by civil wars and the borderlands were overrun by plundering invaders.”

As the BBC explains, the coins were initially believed to be authentic when they were discovered in 1713. But later research suggested that they were forgeries. Pearson learned about the coins while doing research for a book about the Roman Empire, and decided to find out for himself.

According to The Guardian, he and his team examined the coins and discovered numerous factors which suggested that they were the real deal.

Paul Pearson/TwitterPaul Pearson and his team with one of the coins in question.

For starters, the coins were made of real gold — and were worth $20,000 in today’s money. “If they’re a forgery, that’s a big outlay to start with,” Pearson noted to The Guardian.

What’s more, the coins bore distinctive marks that suggest that they’d been in circulation. The New York Times reports that Pearson and his team examined the coins with modern imaging technology which revealed “deep micro-abrasion patterns.” These patterns were “typically associated with coins that were in circulation for an extensive period of time.”

“I believe we have established with a very high degree of confidence that they are genuine,” Pearson told The Guardian.

But if the coins are genuine, then who was Sponsian? As The New York Times notes, he appears to wear a crown like a Roman emperor. Yet there’s nothing about a Roman emperor named Sponsian in the historic record.

“He was a figure thought to have been a fake and written off by the experts,” Pearson explained to the BBC. “But we think he was real and that he had a role in history.”

Paul Pearson/TwitterThe Sponsian coin, pictured here, might depict an obscure emperor forgotten by history.

That history had to do with Roman Dacia, an isolated outpost in present-day Transylvania. Cut off from the main empire during civil wars in 260 C.E., the territory may have been ruled by Sponsian, a military leader who styled himself as an emperor during a chaotic period in Roman history.

“Our interpretation is that he was in charge to maintain control of the military and of the civilian population because they were surrounded and completely cut off,” Pearson told the BBC. “In order to create a functioning economy in the province they decided to mint their own coins.”

Pearson added: “They may not have known who the actual emperor was because there was civil war.”

To The Guardian, Pearson suggested that Sponsian took on the title “imperator” or “supreme military commander” that was normally reserved for the Roman emperor.

“There are other precedents of regional emperors,” Pearson noted. “If we allow Roman emperors to self-identify, he was a Roman emperor.”

But while some have lauded Pearson’s research, other historians expressed doubts that the coins are authentic.

Mary Beard, a professor of classics at the University of Cambridge and the author of SPQR: A History Of Ancient Rome, wrote that she believed the composition of the coins suggested that they were forgeries.

“There is still very powerful evidence that they are fakes,” she said, according to The New York Times.

And Richard Abdy, the curator of Roman and Iron Age coins at the British Museum, was even more skeptical of Pearson’s theory.

“They’ve gone full fantasy,” he told The Guardian. “It’s circular evidence. They’re saying because of the coin there’s the person, and the person therefore must have made the coin.”

But Pearson and his team have stated that — whether the coins are fake or not — they still represent an important historical discovery.

“If the coins proved to be fakes, they would make a particularly interesting case study in antiquarian forgery,” researchers noted in their study. “If authentic, they would be of clear historical interest.”

After reading about the “fake” Roman coins that might actually be real, see how a badger led archaeologists to an “exceptional” trove of Roman coins in Spain. Or, see how hundreds of Roman coins possibly worth millions were unearthed in Italy.