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Post by Sam on Oct 17, 2014 3:20:04 GMT -5
If somebody was watching her, they would have been noticed if they had been hanging around outside all the time. Maybe there was more than one person. Maybe there was someone living in the same building who was watching her and called another man when she went out that night, but where could he have been that he would have seen her leaving? It does sound like there might have been more than one person involved, but it's kind of hard to believe that people way back in ND would have contacts on a college campus that far away.
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Post by madeline on Oct 17, 2014 12:38:49 GMT -5
There has to be a connection between the man that came to her work that day and the man who killed her. It's even possible that she might have agreed to meet him to discuss whatever the problem was between them. If he had been a student or a man who worked at the college, I think that someone would have been able to identify him. The man at her work was obviously someone that she knew or they wouldn't have been having a heated discussion. But like Sam says, someone going all the way from Bismark to California is a little unbelievable. Even if she had known something embarrassing about someone in North Dakota, it would be her word against theirs, so I can't see them killing her, or having her killed.
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Post by jason on Oct 18, 2014 16:24:49 GMT -5
Excellent point, Jane.
There's also the possibility that she arranged to meet the guy who came to the law firm where she worked at the church that night. The description of the man at the law firm and the one seen in the church tally, so it's likely that they were the same person.
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Post by Kate on Nov 30, 2014 21:40:46 GMT -5
There has to be a connection between the man that came to her work that day and the man who killed her. It's even possible that she might have agreed to meet him to discuss whatever the problem was between them. If he had been a student or a man who worked at the college, I think that someone would have been able to identify him. The man at her work was obviously someone that she knew or they wouldn't have been having a heated discussion. But like Sam says, someone going all the way from Bismark to California is a little unbelievable. Even if she had known something embarrassing about someone in North Dakota, it would be her word against theirs, so I can't see them killing her, or having her killed. If she had made plans to meet the man she saw that afternoon, why didn't she tell her husband? If they hadn't gotten into a fight about the tires, would he have gone with her inside the church? Her husband passed a lie detector test, but lie detectors aren't a hundred percent right. Her husband later became a child psychiatrist. I wonder if he had taken any psychology courses before the murder?
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Post by madeline on Dec 2, 2014 15:07:45 GMT -5
Kate, I wondered why air in the tires would escalate to such an argument that he, obviously, walked away from his wife at midnight on a college campus. I don't think he killed her, but they had only been married a few weeks and they were already fighting about silly things. Since she was working and helping put him through college, you'd think that as a man, he would have still been responsible for filling the car with gas and checking the tires. He obviously wasn't much of a man.
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Post by jason on Dec 2, 2014 20:14:15 GMT -5
I agree, Maddie, a real man wouldn't expect his wife to check the air in the tires. Of course, a real man wouldn't become a child shrink either.
She may have agreed to meet the man from that afternoon, but who sets up a meeting for midnight in a church?
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Post by Graveyardbride on Jan 27, 2015 17:12:10 GMT -5
The Murder of Arlis Perry - 40 Years LaterIn the late afternoon sun of October, Memorial Church is a quiet place. The sun percolates through the bright stained glass windows, engulfing the building from the tiles to the rafters in serenity and silence. It seems almost impossible that one of the worst crimes in Stanford history took place within its stone walls 40 years ago. On the morning of Sunday, Oct. 13, 1974, security guard Steve Crawford opened the door to the church at approximately 5:45 a.m. and discovered the body of Arlis Perry at the rear of Memorial Church’s east transept, near the altar (“Stanford student’s wife found slain in church,” Oct. 14, 1974). Investigators determined that Arlis, 19, the wife of then-sophomore Bruce Perry, died by a blow from an ice pick to the back of the head. Found nude from the waist down, she had been molested with a three-foot candlestick. Another candlestick had been pushed up her blouse. She had also been beaten.
Behind locked doors. Arlis Perry was originally from Bismarck, North Dakota, and had moved to Stanford two months earlier to live with her husband. They lived together in Quillen Hall in Escondido Village, and Arlis was working at the law firm of Spaeth, Blase, Valentine and Klein. Around 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 12, Bruce and Arlis were walking on the Stanford campus when they got into an argument about their car’s tire pressure, according to a book, The Ultimate Evil, by journalist Maury Terry, a former New York Post reporter. Shortly thereafter, Arlis told Bruce that she wanted to pray alone in Memorial Church. They parted ways, and Arlis entered the church shortly before midnight, as described in the sheriff’s report. According to the security guard Crawford, he closed the church at a little after midnight. Crawford told investigators that he found all the doors locked when he later checked the church around 2 a.m. At approximately 3 a.m., Perry, concerned that Arlis hadn’t returned, called the Stanford police and reported his wife missing. Stanford police went to the church and once again reportedly found all the outer doors locked, according to Terry’s book. When Crawford arrived to open the church Sunday morning, he saw that the door on the west side of the church was open: it had been forced from the inside.
The investigation. According to Terry’s book, officers arrived at the crime scene after Crawford raised the alarm. They quickly went to see Bruce Perry, who later agreed to a polygraph test.
Two pieces of identifying evidence were recovered from the scene. The first was a semen sample found near the body. The second was a palm print on one of the candles. This evidence did not match either Crawford or Bruce Perry and no match was found to the palm print in the immediate aftermath of the crime. The authorities also saw no connection between the murder of Arlis Perry and that of three other people killed on the Stanford campus.
Forty years later, the case remains unsolved. According to Sergeant Kurtis Stenderup of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department, the case remains an “open, active investigation.” Stenderup said new technology can be used to analyze older evidence and that evidence from the Perry case has recently been, is being, or will be, analyzed by the crime lab. Anyone with information about the case should call (408) 808-4431 to contact the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s anonymous tip line.
Conspiracy theorists suspect Satanic involvement. Terry, among others, has proposed the death of Arlis Perry was perhaps not the work of a lone killer, but that of a Satanic cult. Terry articulates this theory in his book The Ultimate Evil, which suggests a Satanic cult killed Perry on the instructions of Satanists in Bismarck, North Dakota. Various conspiracy theorists believe Perry’s body was arranged in such a way that it suggested a Satanic ritual. Terry also speculates that David Berkowitz, the convicted serial killer in the “Son of Sam” cases, has knowledge of the conspiracy. In 1979, Berkowitz sent a book to authorities in North Dakota and in the margin, he had written: “Arlis Perry, hunted, stalked and slain, followed to California, Stanford Univ.” Subsequent to his conviction, Berkowitz announced in 1993 that he was not the only person involved in the string of New York murders he was accused of committing. Berkowitz was interviewed by law enforcement, but no arrests were made as a result of the interview.
According to Terry’s book, a young man entered Memorial Church shortly before it closed for the night on Oct. 12, 1974. He may have seen the man responsible for the crime enter the church. A valuable witness could still be out there today, unless he was the murderer, in which case the killer might still be on the loose after all these years.Source: Caleb Smith, The Stanford Daily, October 10, 2014.Comment by Renvellyn (posted December 2014):Everyone is speculating and under the impression that everything Santa Clara Sheriff's dept could do was done. I AM HERE TO TELL YOU IT WASN'T! 40 years ago I was 22 years old. I encountered a self proclaimed priest in Berkeley, Ca one hour away from Stanford Campus only two short weeks after Arlis was murdered. If I had been alone I know this priest would have harmed me or worse. He owned a church, and he had told me to come there two hours after meeting him. I realized later that was so he and his blonde headed lover could get the church ready for the ritual of harming me. There were 7 statues of Mary and none of Jesus. There was a huge room with a bed in it and 7 chairs in a semi-circle around the bed and over the chairs each had a different coat and each coat was folded exactly alike. There were what seemed like dozen's of 3 foot long candles burning all over the building. There was a bust of the devil over the bed. This priest was mid to late 20's with brown hair just past the ears. The lover was early 20's with hair the same length but blonde.
There is a lot more to this story, and the similarities are shocking. My ex-husband and I went to Stanford Police and filed a report with then Lieutenant Walt Konar. This lieutenant gave that report over to Santa Clara's Sheriff's department. Lieutenant Konar died less than 10 years later from Multiple Sclerosis. They never looked at what happened to us. They did not do it for one reason only what happened to us happened in Berkeley and Alameda County. Had they looked at this at all it would have meant turning the entire case over to Alameda/Berkeley jurisdiction. Instead they have never let go of ownership of this case. They would not look at two people that fit the exact description, of who people had said were possibly involved in the Arlis Perry murder. This self proclaimed priest had tried to lock me inside the church without allowing my husband inside. They had 3 foot long burning candles all over the place and you still can not just go in any store and buy such candles. In 1974 no one I knew other then these guys had candles of that length. To this day I do not know where you would purchase that unless now you can find them on line. They had a sign on the bathroom door "The Rectory" Definition ... The Priest Home.
I am a mother, I would be sick if no one solved my daughters murder, and this landed at their feet two short weeks after the murder and they never once looked into it. But that is the truth. This self proclaimed priest did go to prison for 9 years, his blonde headed lover supposedly committed suicide with a gun the fake priest owned. The fake priest (the brown headed one) is still alive. He is almost 70 now.
The Santa Clara Sheriff's department owed Arlis and her parents to look at every lead. They did not look at this lead, not at all and Detective Kahn told me they didn't. He claimed Lieutenant Konar did not give him this info. I don't believe him. I think Kahn made the decision not to look at it, because he want the case to remain with him. He accused me of writing fiction. I asked Kahn, "But what if these are the two guys?" He told me it was fiction and slammed the phone down on me. It makes you wonder how many other leads they poo pooed to keep total control of the case, yet this goes unsolved and they refuse to look at an event that happened two weeks after the murder of Arlis. Who decides that?? This was an innocent young woman newly married, and parents and siblings. This is deplorable, ARLIS deserved better then this. The public deserved better then this. The public deserves to know this is why this case is not solved. They do not want to look at this now because they had this story fall in their lap over 40 years ago. Shame on the shabby way this case was handled!
I have done everything I can to have someone give a damn! No one does and I am doing the only thing I can. I am telling the truth. So how many leads on this case went into the dumpster? I know the lead I gave them 40 years ago should have been taken seriously. If for no other reason the blonde guys death is questionable, and the reason the fake priest went to prison is incredibly sad because he is a sadistic bastard. Maybe that alone would have been prevented had they just looked into their form of CHURCH!
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Post by madeline on Jan 27, 2015 19:11:55 GMT -5
The comment is what's interesting and typical of one police department not wanting to share with another. I would really like to know more about this. Could someone figure out how to contact the person who calls herself Renvellyn to see if she would agree to join our site and discuss what happened?
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Post by Sam on Jan 27, 2015 23:33:12 GMT -5
Maybe somebody could post a reply to the person and ask her if she would share what she knows. She said one of the men is still living. I wonder if she knows where he is.
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Post by Sam on Oct 6, 2016 0:08:23 GMT -5
If anyone finds any updates on this case, please post them. I've been interested in the Arliss Perry murder since I first heard about it.
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Post by Graveyardbride on Oct 6, 2016 22:36:54 GMT -5
Stanford Memorial Church
Did Wig-Wearing Flautist Take Part in Satanic Murder of Arlis Perry?
A new witness has emerged in a cold-case murder with a connection to “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz and told police that a prominent entertainer now living in New York City may be responsible for the crime, The Post has learned. Brian McCracken, a 64-year-old technical writer, gave authorities a bizarre account of what happened the night of the unsolved slaying inside Stanford Memorial Church in Stanford, Calif., more than 40 years ago, including fresh details about a wig-wearing flutist, a candlelit Satanic ritual and a naked female victim. And McCracken says the flutist could be the man at the center of the vicious killing. “No one has totally been ruled out,” Sgt. James Jensen, a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department, admitted.
McCracken told The Post he left a coffee shop and was walking past the church around midnight on Oct. 13, 1974, when he heard “strange flute music” coming from inside. He said he was stunned by what he saw when he went into the church. “This guy is up at the lectern, a young skinny white guy and he has an Afro wig on, a light-colored large Afro wig, looked very striking, and he’s playing a flute, a large silver flute,” McCracken said. “To the right of him on the altar was this nude girl lying on the altar. She has candlesticks burning, one on either side of her. As I walked down the aisle, he looked at me – he doesn’t seem happy to see me, and then she is lying flat on the altar, and she is looking straight up to the top of church,” he continued. “She turns her head to the left and smiles. By this time, I am within 20 feet of the flutist and her on the altar.”
McCracken said he thought the pair were playing a “Black Mass”-type game, which wasn’t unusual for the 1970s, a decade known for its Aleister Crowley occultists. “I had the feeling there was no danger to the girl. It didn’t look serious. The girl looked comfortable,” he said, adding that the man’s “menacing” look made him feel as if “I was intruding.” So McCracken left and forgot all about it due to his hectic traveling schedule for his business.
Several hours later, 19-year-old Arlis Perry’s body was discovered by a security guard in the church with her panties around her right foot and her Levi jeans folded in a strange diamond-like formation in front of her. Her killer had sexually assaulted her with a candle and rammed an ice pick into the back of her skull. A prayer pillow stained with semen was found next to her corpse.
McCracken didn’t talk to police at the time – he said he remembered seeing only one story in a local newspaper at some point about a murder in a church and didn’t put two and two together.
Berkowitz was eventually questioned by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department at Attica Prison in 1979 after it came to light that he may have met Arlis Perry’s alleged killer. The police report obtained by The Post revealed that an agitated Berkowitz was grilled by two Santa Clara County sergeants for a half-hour. “Berkowitz became very nervous during the interview when we asked him whether or not he talked to the individual who allegedly killed Arlis Perry,” the report states.
Then, around 2011, McCracken said, the case came rushing back to him as he was chatting one day with a retiring local police officer. “He’s telling me about his peculiar stories as a cop and that made me think of this strange scene at the church,” he revealed. “He said that case has not been closed.”
McCracken then realized what he saw all those years ago may have been tied to the murder. He said he remembered previously seeing the strange musician at the altar in the Stanford marching band. “I went to the computer and did a lot of searching online of the Stanford marching band,” McCracken said. “I finally saw his face and his eyes, those intense eyes. As soon as I saw the picture, yes, I knew it was him.”
McCracken claimed he gave police the account of what he saw during a recorded interview with Santa Clara County Sgt. Herman Leon and retired detective-turned-private investigator Randy Bynum at a Chili’s restaurant in Morgan Hill, Calif., on Dec. 15, 2011.
The following February, McCracken and Bynum – who was once in charge of the Perry case – decided to pose as reporters and question the musician about his career in an attempt to obtain information about the case. A female psychologist went with them to interview the man after he held a concert in Thousand Oaks. During the interview, the musician allegedly admitted that he tossed away the Afro wig he had worn at the time while he was in the Stanford marching band – the same hairpiece that McCracken said he saw on the church flutist. “So that was confirmation to me that he was the guy that I saw at the church with the girl lying naked on the altar,” McCracken, explained, adding that the nude woman looked “very similar” to Arlis.
By the end of the interview, McCracken said, the musician became suspicious and decided to high-tail it out of his home state of California. “He said specifically that he would never come back to California to perform again,” McCracken continued, noting that the interview took place in a green room after the musician had played a concert in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
The Santa Clara sheriff’s spokesman, James Jensen, told The Post that while “at this point, we are leaning toward [the entertainer] not being a suspect,” he acknowledged that the case is still wide open. He insisted that “investigators followed up on all leads and fully investigated [McCracken’s] claims,” although Jensen refused to confirm that they interviewed the musician. “If DNA evidence comes along, [we’ll reevaluate the case],” the spokesman said.
Berkowitz’s attorney, Mark Heller, told The Post he plans on visiting Berkowitz and “if he indicates that he has any information that would be helpful to the police investigation, I will immediately facilitate an interview between the police investigators and David in my presence – and encourage David to cooperate.”
When confronted by The Post at his home Thursday, the musician in question vehemently denied McCracken’s allegations, saying, “I’ve never been involved in anything criminal in my entire life. I’ve been very lucky that way.”
Source: Jamie Schram and Georgett Roberts, The New York Post, June 23, 2016.
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Post by jason on Oct 8, 2016 20:18:03 GMT -5
If this isn't true, then you have to give the guy A+ for imagination. A skinny white guy in an afro-wig playing the flute during a Satanic mass is damned imaginative. Of course, musicians were all experimenting with LSD back then.
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Post by Sam on Oct 9, 2016 3:01:30 GMT -5
If this isn't true, then you have to give the guy A+ for imagination. A skinny white guy in an afro-wig playing the flute during a Satanic mass is damned imaginative. Of course, musicians were all experimenting with LSD back then.
Even if the man who saw it was on drugs, I think that he would be able to tell the difference between something that really happened and drug fantasy.
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Post by madeline on Oct 9, 2016 19:47:27 GMT -5
I said before that I didn't think that anyone would go all the way from North Dakota to California to confront Arlis Perry, but now that I've thought about it, they had just gotten to California, so she didn't know anyone there.
If McCracken saw what he said he saw, the man and woman in the ritual were taking a big chance to start it before the doors were locked. Arlis was a devout Christian and I can't see her taking part in a Satanic ritual or taking her clothes off in a church.
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Post by Kate on Oct 11, 2016 12:19:30 GMT -5
Tomorrow will be the 42nd anniversary. I don't guess we'll ever know if the murder was to celebrate Crowley's birthday, or if it just happened to be his birthday.
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