Richard Westall Rogers Jr. (born June 16, 1950), known as The Last Call Killer, is an American serial killer. After being acquitted for the murder of a college student in Maine, he moved to New Jersey, where he murdered and dismembered two gay men in 1992 and 1993. His modus operandi consisted of luring the men from piano bars in Manhattan, murdering and dismembering them at an unknown location, and dumping their bodies in garbage bags along highways in New Jersey.
Rogers was not arrested until 2001, when a new forensic technique was used to uncover his fingerprints from the bags he wrapped his victims' body parts in. Rogers was later convicted of two counts of first degree murder and two counts of hindering apprehension. He is now serving two consecutive life sentences in New Jersey State Prison and has never spoken about the murders. Along with the murders of which he was convicted, Rogers is suspected of murdering several other men in several other states from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Early life Rogers was born on June 16, 1950, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He was the eldest of five children, raised by his father, a lobsterman, and his mother, a telephone worker. In the late 1950s, Rogers and his family relocated to Florida so his father could work a higher-paying job in sheet metal manufacturing. His father taught him how to hunt deer and ducks, and catch fish.
As an adolescent, Rogers was skinny and timid. This, along with his effeminate personality and high-pitched voice, made him a target of bullying at Palmetto High School. Much to the dismay of his father, Rogers did not show an interest in sports, instead preferring to go to girl scout meetings with his mother. Rogers was also a straight-A student, and a member of the French club at his school.
In the late 1960s, Rogers allegedly grabbed a knife from his home and used it to stab his neighbor, an older woman. Because of the attack, Rogers was briefly institutionalized, but was soon released, and graduated from Palmetto High School in 1968.
Adulthood
College Richard Rogers attended Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida. While in college, Rogers was described as a quiet loner, who largely kept to himself. However, he did have a few friends—most notably his second roommate. He and his roommate were described as being "joined at the hip" during the majority of their time at university. Although Rogers was not a part of any clubs, he and some of his friends joined Circle K, a Kiwanis service organization. Rogers graduated from Florida Southern College in 1972, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in French.
Killing of Frederic Spencer In 1973, when Rogers was 23, he attended the University of Maine as a graduate student. Rogers lived in a two-story house with three housemates in Orono, Maine. One of Rogers' housemates was 22 year old Frederic Alan Spencer. Rogers and Spencer were not fond of each other, but there were no instances of violence between the two prior to Spencer's death. On the afternoon of April 28, 1973, Rogers hit Spencer eight times in the back of the head with a roofing hammer. Spencer was still alive after the bludgeoning, so Rogers asphyxiated him by placing a plastic bag over his head until he died. Rogers then waited until the evening to dispose of Spencer's body. He wrapped Spencer in his nylon boy scout tent, dragged the body out of his home, past the parking lot, and into his car. He then drove down route 116 in Old Town for about a minute until he reached the Bird Stream forest, where he dumped Spencer's body.
Spencer's body was found by two cyclists on the afternoon of May 1, 1973. Police were able to identify Spencer's body after tracing a key found in his pants to a post office box he rented. Three officers then investigated the home Spencer shared with his three housemates. In Rogers's room, they discovered bloody fingerprints on the door, a bloody footprint on the floor, blood droplets across the walls, and the hammer used to kill Spencer. Rogers was subsequently taken to the Orono police barracks and interrogated. During the interrogation, he admitted to killing Spencer, but claimed it was in self-defense.
After his confession, Rogers was charged with the murder of Spencer, and pleaded not guilty. Rogers's fingerprints, height, and weight were taken. He was held in the Bangor County jail without bail for the next six months, until his trial began.
The trial for the murder of Spencer began in the Bangor Superior Court on October 29, 1973. The state was represented by Foahd Saliem, the assistant attorney general. Rogers was represented by Errol K. Paine, a local attorney. Testimony began on October 31. The first testimony was from a medical examiner, who stated that Spencer died from injuries to the head. The examiner also implied that Spencer's pinkie finger was broken during the struggle. On November 1, the trial continued, and several other witnesses testified. The last person to testify was Rogers himself.
Rogers claimed that Spencer attempted to attack him with a roofing hammer, but he got a hold of the hammer during the struggle, and hit Spencer in the head with it eight times in self-defense. Rogers then said that Spencer was still struggling, so he put a plastic bag over his head until he stopped. Rogers attempted to clean the room by throwing out a bloodstained rug. He then waited until it was dark out, put Spencer's remains in his car, and dumped his body off of Route 166. He did this because, as he claimed, "I just didn't know what to do. I wanted very much to go to the police, but by then I felt it would look very suspicious." According to observers, Rogers did an exceptional job testifying. He was calm, clear, and convincing. At the end of the day, Errol K. Paine made a request to reduce Rogers charges to manslaughter. The judge agreed, and reduced the charge. Rogers also employed the "gay panic defense", claiming that Spencer made unwanted sexual advances toward him prior to allegedly attacking him.
The trial ended the next day, on November 2, 1973. The jury, after deliberating for under three hours, reached a verdict of not guilty.
Nursing career After his acquittal, Richard Rogers moved to New York in 1973, where he attended Pace University's school of nursing. After graduating in 1978 and earning a master's degree in science, he was hired as a nurse by Mount Sinai Hospital. He eventually became a surgical nurse and worked in the pediatric ward until his 2001 arrest.
1988 assault On July 11, 1988, Rogers allegedly invited a man he met from a bar in Manhattan to his Staten Island apartment. After driving the man to his apartment, Rogers asked him if he wanted something to drink. The man asked for a diet soda, but Rogers brought him orange juice. After drinking it, the man said he fell unconscious. Hours later, the man woke up, his hands and ankles bound to Rogers's bed with hospital ID bracelets. As he lay naked on his back, Rogers injected a needle into the man, causing him to lose consciousness again. A few hours later, Rogers dressed the still unconscious man and carried him out of the apartment building.
When the man woke up again, he called his friend, who drove him to the local police precinct. After reporting the assault, he went to Roosevelt hospital, where doctors ran several tests on him. They noted the bruises on a vein of his hand. He also took a rape kit, which came back as negative. Rogers was arrested for the crime in August of that year, but acquitted in a nonjury trial in December 1988.
Last call killings Between 1991 and 1993, four gay and bisexual men were lured from piano bars in Manhattan and later found dismembered and murdered in trash bins along highways in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. The perpetrator of these crimes was dubbed the "Last Call Killer" by the media, after the traditional "last call" for drinks that bartenders announce to patrons shortly before closing time of such establishments. Although Rogers was only convicted of two of these killings—those of Thomas Mulcahy and Anthony Marrero—he is suspected of committing all four of the murders.
The first known victim of the last call murders was 54-year-old Peter Stickney Anderson. On the night of May 5, 1991, Anderson was last seen alive on Lexington Avenue after drinking at the Townhouse Bar in Midtown. The following morning, Anderson's remains were discovered in a trash barrel by a maintenance worker along the westbound side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The worker could not lift a garbage bag in the trash barrel, so he opened it and saw Anderson's head. The worker then notified his supervisor, who called the Pennsylvania State Police. An autopsy was conducted of Anderson, which revealed that he died from multiple stab wounds to the chest and back. He was also castrated postmortem, and his penis had been placed in his mouth. Due to rigor mortis, the medical examiner determined that Anderson had died less than 37 hours prior to the discovery of his body. Anderson's identity was initially unknown, but he was later identified after his belongings were found along another stretch of the turnpike.
The next victim was Thomas Richard Mulcahy, a 57-year-old married father of four. Mulcahy, who lived in Massachusetts, visited New York in July 1992 for a business meeting. His credit card transactions traced his last known whereabouts to the Townhouse bar on July 8. On July 10, 1992, maintenance workers found five trash bags containing the partial remains of Mulcahy along Route 72 in Woodland Township, New Jersey. One bag contained intestines, a stomach, a latex glove, and a plastic cup. Mulcahy's stomach was cut in half, and placed in two bags. The fourth bag held a portion of Mulcahy's skin with a bite mark on it, and last bag had a blood-stained compass saw, a pair of latex gloves, a shower curtain, and a bedsheet in it. Two hours later, a sixth bag containing his legs was found at a picnic area of Garden State Parkway in Stafford Township, New Jersey. Mulcahy's death was caused by multiple stab wounds to the chest, and his body parts had been washed clean of blood.
The third victim was Anthony Edward Marrero, a 44-year-old gay sex worker of Manhattan. On May 10, 1993, six plastic bags containing Marrero's remains were found off Crow Hill Road in Manchester township, New Jersey. His body had been cut into seven pieces: His arms, legs, torso (which had been cut in half), and his head. Marrero's cause of death was multiple stab wounds to the back and torso, and like Mulcahy, his body parts had been cleaned. He was last seen alive around the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.
The last known victim was Michael J. Sakara, an openly gay 56-year-old man. He was last seen alive on July 30, 1993, at the Five Oaks bar in Greenwich Village. That night, he was witnessed drinking with and talking to a man who called himself "Mark" or "John" and claimed to work as a nurse at St. Vincent's hospital. On the morning of July 31, 1993, a man found a suitcase and a bag containing Sakara's shoes, pants, shirt, and wallet at a Haverstraw Bay overlook. The man felt uneasy about the discovery, so he dropped the items off at the Haverstraw police station. A few hours later, a hot dog vendor found Sakara's head and arms wrapped in two garbage bags inside of a trash barrel. Nine days later, on August 8, the rest of his remains were found ten miles north in Stony Point, New York. Like the previous victims, Sakara's body was cut into seven pieces, and his body parts had been washed. However, although he had been stabbed five times, Sakara died from a bludgeoning.
Other suspected murders