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mcroftA number of you (possibly a large number of you) have heard my story about the 1988 Fordham Prep crime spree. I ended up telling it to some new people last night (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
toigo's RPI friends), and finally managed to have the google-fu to find an article about it. It was a lot easier once I remembered that it happened in 1988, not 1987.
The story, in a nutshell: One of my friend's parents rented her a beachhouse in Ocean City, NJ as a graduation present and she invited about 8 of her friends to come to the shore with her. I was back in NJ between college semesters and so I was able to go. Hijinks ensued, as expected. Towards the end of the week, news reports began talking about a "Preppy Crime Spree" in New York City that involved students from Fordham Prep.
Fordham Prep was where one of the boys who was with us had just graduated from. Worse, the robbers were his close friends. Had he not been in Ocean City that Friday with his girlfriend, he very well could have been the sixth Beatle. I'd met most of the other five the previous Christmas at a party in Tarrytown. They didn't seem like they'd go on a crime spree. Now, one of them was dead.
It wasn't just a simple crime spree, either. It was born of stupidity and desperation--a damaged borrowed car and dad was returning Monday. They could fix the scratch in time if they had $900. It didn't end as well for them as it did for Tom Cruise.
The lads gathered their friends, a rifle, ski-masks, and borrowed yet another car. Off they headed for New York City, where money could be taken. They robbed a bodega in a spanish neighborhood and fled with about $140 dollars. Only 6 more just like that and they'd be done!
Flush with success, they drove through the early morning hours, looking for moredonors victims. They pulled up beside a parked car with two people sitting in it and demanded money at gunpoint. The driver, an off-duty NYPD officer, did not pull out his wallet as ordered but rather pulled out his off-duty revolver and began firing at the armed men with the ski-masks on.
The car sped off into the night, and the boy with the rifle fell dead into the backseat. Now our four protagonists are driving around New York City in the wee hours in a car with the back window shot out, the back seat covered in blood, and the dead body of their friend.
That was when panic really set in.
They drove to nearby Battery Park on the southern tip of Manhattan, and found a large pile of leaves and weeds to dump the body under. This was before NYC had revitalized downtown (and just before Times Square got Disney-fied), so it wasn't as good as a shallow grave in Westchester, but it wasn't like dumping him somewhere really populated.
They returned to Westchester County and swore each other to secrecy. No one was to say anything and no one knew where James was, and that would be that. They even managed, with their $140, to replace the back window of the borrowed car. They cleaned the blood and burned their clothes and tried to go about their business.
After a few days, the pressure was too great for one of the lads, who swore his girlfriend to secrecy and brought her in on the tale (potentially making her accessory after the fact to murder, an act of true love). She listened and agreed and, when Barry had left, she called her father at his office. Her father was Chief of Police of Ossining, New York.
He didn't know if it was true, but it was certainly enough for him to get NYPD to go look. They did, found the body, and then the cover-up unraveled. The boys were caught and arrested. Under New York's felony murder law, they could be charged with murder, since someone died while they were committing a felony.
I can't find any articles about the trials or sentencing of these guys. I see that some of them pled guilty, but those articles are behind paywalls and it's not clear they'll have a full accounting of what happened anyway.
Anyway, here's the article from Time Magazine's July 11th issue. I had forgotten the boys' names and the amount they stole, but basically the story is the way I've been telling it since 1988.
toigo's RPI friends), and finally managed to have the google-fu to find an article about it. It was a lot easier once I remembered that it happened in 1988, not 1987.The story, in a nutshell: One of my friend's parents rented her a beachhouse in Ocean City, NJ as a graduation present and she invited about 8 of her friends to come to the shore with her. I was back in NJ between college semesters and so I was able to go. Hijinks ensued, as expected. Towards the end of the week, news reports began talking about a "Preppy Crime Spree" in New York City that involved students from Fordham Prep.
Fordham Prep was where one of the boys who was with us had just graduated from. Worse, the robbers were his close friends. Had he not been in Ocean City that Friday with his girlfriend, he very well could have been the sixth Beatle. I'd met most of the other five the previous Christmas at a party in Tarrytown. They didn't seem like they'd go on a crime spree. Now, one of them was dead.
It wasn't just a simple crime spree, either. It was born of stupidity and desperation--a damaged borrowed car and dad was returning Monday. They could fix the scratch in time if they had $900. It didn't end as well for them as it did for Tom Cruise.
The lads gathered their friends, a rifle, ski-masks, and borrowed yet another car. Off they headed for New York City, where money could be taken. They robbed a bodega in a spanish neighborhood and fled with about $140 dollars. Only 6 more just like that and they'd be done!
Flush with success, they drove through the early morning hours, looking for more
The car sped off into the night, and the boy with the rifle fell dead into the backseat. Now our four protagonists are driving around New York City in the wee hours in a car with the back window shot out, the back seat covered in blood, and the dead body of their friend.
That was when panic really set in.
They drove to nearby Battery Park on the southern tip of Manhattan, and found a large pile of leaves and weeds to dump the body under. This was before NYC had revitalized downtown (and just before Times Square got Disney-fied), so it wasn't as good as a shallow grave in Westchester, but it wasn't like dumping him somewhere really populated.
They returned to Westchester County and swore each other to secrecy. No one was to say anything and no one knew where James was, and that would be that. They even managed, with their $140, to replace the back window of the borrowed car. They cleaned the blood and burned their clothes and tried to go about their business.
After a few days, the pressure was too great for one of the lads, who swore his girlfriend to secrecy and brought her in on the tale (potentially making her accessory after the fact to murder, an act of true love). She listened and agreed and, when Barry had left, she called her father at his office. Her father was Chief of Police of Ossining, New York.
He didn't know if it was true, but it was certainly enough for him to get NYPD to go look. They did, found the body, and then the cover-up unraveled. The boys were caught and arrested. Under New York's felony murder law, they could be charged with murder, since someone died while they were committing a felony.
I can't find any articles about the trials or sentencing of these guys. I see that some of them pled guilty, but those articles are behind paywalls and it's not clear they'll have a full accounting of what happened anyway.
Anyway, here's the article from Time Magazine's July 11th issue. I had forgotten the boys' names and the amount they stole, but basically the story is the way I've been telling it since 1988.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-01 05:48 pm (UTC)Battery Park used to be a rough place to linger after dark.
It is gratifying your recollection and POV are basically the same, though, eh?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-01 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-02 04:28 am (UTC)High School buddy Scott McCain was at RPI from 1986-1990, from there he went into the Navy, where he still is.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-03 04:05 am (UTC)And yep, once the beer started flowing....
1988 Fordham Prep
Date: 2007-04-10 02:36 am (UTC)Re: 1988 Fordham Prep
Date: 2007-04-10 03:10 am (UTC)The article at the end gives a bunch of details. My friend's boyfriend, Seamus, was pretty shocked by it all, and we didn't know that the two boys in the back weren't going to be charged (I didn't know that at all until I read the Time article).
Thanks for commenting, that must have been very disturbing to you and your classmates.