Episode 495: The Horrific Murder of Jack Tupper- Part 2

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery. Plus. Hey weirdos, I'm ash.

And I'm Alayna, and this is morbid.

It's morbid, it's morbid. How are you? I'm doing great, I'm feeling better, actually.

I love that I'm feeling better, too, except I do miss my sultry voice. We all miss our sultry voices. I wish I could just recreate it when I wasn't sick, like, but there's no way, you see.

Like, it doesn't work. I was gonna try, but oh, I figured, but it was a little scary. It doesn't hit the same. Yeah, it doesn't.

I think I have quinoa in my teeth. Can I have a second? Do you have quinoa in your teeth? No, I'm done, look at that.

Cute a little after snack We love a little after snack, just saving that for later a little quinoa.

A little quinoa, a little quinoa. Um, not any business. You got any recommendations for us today? Oh man, put me on the spot.

Well, you, I mean, you're a recommendation, ghorly. I know I really am a recommendation. ghorly. None. I don't know if I have any right now. Wow.

That's upsetting. Um, oh, there's somebody on TikTok, I have a TikTok. See. I knew if I said it, it would start. I was just thinking, Okay, there's someone I follow on TikTok.

She talks about paranormal shit, some true crime shit, She talks about all kinds of spooky shit. She's very smart, she's very well-spoken, she's fun to listen to.

She's beautiful, she's just cool. Her name is Cam, She sounds like she's everything, and I think her name on TikTok is, Um. And let me double check it.

I think it's swamp witch. I'm pretty sure I'll give you a vamp moment. yep, swamp underscore, witch underscore.

Hell yeah, and she's great and I just need to give her a shout out. Because I think I like, like almost all of her videos that come through my feed, I'm just automatically like, like, cause I know I will.

Like, a bunch of spooky shit. Yeah, she's just really, and she's really smart. And she lives in a haunted house, so you get to see lots of that stuff. And does she like tell stories from her haunted house?

She does, she gives stories, she gives like, and she tells other, like folklore and shit. She's just really, like, fun to listen to. So, Cam Swamp Witch.

Hell yeah, go get it, I know what I'm doing tonight. Go flood swamp. Witch's TikTok maker, Get the numbers.

No pun intended, cause, you know what she puts in the work. Flood the swamp, so fuck yeah, Swamp, witch cam, swamp, witch forever.

I knew I could pull whatever. That's actually one that's been sitting in my back pocket for a while and I keep forgetting. To plug her, just start a list. I'm actually glad you brought that up because I really wanted to plug her. See here. You said you were like, you're putting me on the spot, and I was like, it's for a reason.

That's what it's for. Every season has a reason. Turn, turn, turn. I think I said that the wrong way around, but it doesn't matter. It sounded great.

Thanks, all right. Well, we're in a part two right now. So in part one we were talking about the very, very tragic murder of Jack Tupper. Um, it was like, real brutal. And we're going to get a little more into it in this part.

It's so sad. this is a really sad case so far. It is because Buddy is just like, was born an asshole. Yeah, and I just felt really bad for Melanie, and I feel really bad for Jack and his family.

Jack had a lot of promise that just got completely robbed from him. So when we left off in part one, buddy had been harassing Melanie like crazy, and then she came home one day after. And the saddest thing about this, too, was that they were just about to get the fuck out of there. Yeah, they were making moves to get away from him.

She had signed a new lease that morning, Melanie for her and Jack to move out, and while she was gone signing the new lease. Buddy went and did whatever he did. Yeah, but at the end of part one, uh, the universe caught up to him because he was sitting directly in front of a cop. And, um, a bolo alert basically had gone out. Being like, Yeah, I'll check out this license plate, and the guy was like, Oh, you mean, the one right in front of me?

You mean this asshole right here? you mean this yellow cadillac asshole guy? So he got arrested, and when Buddy was arrested, he was in the company of a man named Salvatore Giamo. Ooh.

Which checks. He told the officer that he was just a hitchhiker and he had nothing to do with the crime. But it was later learned that Salvatore was on Buddy's payroll and he worked as a general contractor on one of his buildings. So they spotted the lie there. Ah, there it is.

There it is. The prosecutor would later determine that there was a third man involved as well, another Salvatore. This one Premito, I believe, is how you say the last name. And he had already been dropped off when buddy got pulled over, Ah.

So had he been pulled over a little earlier, they would have caught all three of them, all three at once, right there. That would have been the jackpot that would have been.

But still, still good, it was a jackpot, I'd say, yeah. So at the precinct, Buddy told detectives that his employee, referring to Giamo, he said he had come to his apartment earlier that day and suggested that buddy buy his car from him.

So they took the car out for a test drive, and, according to Buddy, the car drove so nicely that he just kept on driving. Yeah, and that's how they caught him on the bridge that afternoon. Absolutely.

Yeah, it was just out driving, just a joy ride, you know, It just felt so good that I kept on driving. That's my alibi.

I was just driving, just driving things. He was not willing to say more than that, and he immediately demanded a lawyer. So he was placed in a holding cell while the police started looking into this story. Now, while he sat in a cell at the 43rd Precinct. Detectives went out to the apartment building in Queens to inform Melanie that Jack had died and had been murdered.

That's awful. She was still actually with Jack's friend that she had called over earlier that day and she explained to the officer that got there. What they had discovered in Buddy's apartment earlier that day. And she actually pointed out a spot of what they believed was blood in the hallway outside of the apartment. Because, if you remember in part one, he had cleaned everything up, including the hallway.

But you missed a spot, Yeah, you never cleaned it all up. No, never.

It's just like, so sad to think that while she was off doing this, that's what was going on. So the following week, Buddy and Salvatore were charged with second degree murder and both were denied bail. And this is Salvatore Pernito, actually, so. Jack's autopsy was conducted the next afternoon. But because his body had been so damaged in the fire and through everything that had occurred beforehand. The assistant medical examiner had a really difficult time actually coming up with what the cause of death was.

So officially, his cause of death was attributed to, and this is a quote. Two circumcised, round, markedly depressed fractures of the skull, the largest diameter of which is one and a half, and the greatest depth of this depression is half an inch. I'm assuming now those two wounds, which the medical examiner believed to have been from hammer blows, I was just going to say, that sounds like a hammer.

They caused obviously massive brain damage, so they believed those were most likely the primary cause of death. Yeah, it's to think what they did to him, like, I can't imagine.

And you probably just assume that these three guys just banged on his apartment door and dragged him out. Because, remember, his shoes were still in the apartment? Yeah, everything was still in the apartment, all of his stuff. In addition to the brain trauma, there was a myriad of other wounds, several of which would have also been fatal.

According to the examiner's report quote, there are multiple lacerations and stab wounds. Oh my God. Mainly over the left side of the face and the left side of the head. There are approximately 15 such wounds. Holy shit.

And then there were additional stab wounds on the torso as well, one of which pierced Jack's liver. And then, in addition to that, there were multiple gunshot wounds to his upper body and his lower torso. And finally, there was the damage caused by the fire, which occurred after Jack had died. But this was complete overkill.

So they bludgeoned, stabbed, shot and burned him. Yep, my God. And like, sliced at his face, like his face was found with a bunch of slice marks all over it. They just they demolished his body.

Wow, it's horrible, that's terrifying. So, in the press conference held just a few days later, investigators identified the victim and the killer, while adding that other people were being sought in connection with the murder. A spokesperson told reporters Quote We don't know exactly where he was killed, but it appears he was dragged from his own apartment and brought to Jacobson's penthouse.

Now they couldn't confirm that Jack had been killed in Buddy's apartment, but investigators did say that they pulled a slug from a wall in Buddy's apartment. That was a match for those taken out of Jack Tupper's body. So I don't really know why they couldn't for sure say that he had been killed there. Because maybe they think that, because my thoughts were there was blood on the outside of the apartment, maybe they think that. They hammered him in his apartment and then dragged him into that apartment.

He could have already been dead at that point and kept going, Yeah, so when they shot him, he could have already been dead. It's so scary to think about.

Now, as far as anybody could tell, the case against Buddy seemed airtight. He had means, he had motive, he had the opportunity to kill Jack. He was known to have been obsessed with Melanie in the weeks leading up to the murder. His apartment was literally riddled with bullet holes. Jeez.

And witnesses, again, as we know, had identified him and his car as having been at the dump site in the Bronx. Yeah, so. A little over a week after Buddy's arrest, a grand jury convened to hear the evidence in the case, as well as testimony from multiple witnesses. And everybody was most interested to hear what Melanie had to say, of course, because she's the closest link here, yeah.

And she testified for over two hours, she gave all the details of her relationship with Buddy. His possessive nature, the desperate threats that he'd been making in the weeks just before Jack's murder. And based on the evidence and testimony presented to the grand jury, Buddy was indicted for the murder of Tupper and he continued to be held without bail. So by September, Buddy had actually gotten himself a new lawyer, Otto Fusco, who assured his client that he was going to get him out of jail. He wanted to get Buddy out on bail.

Awesome, even though requests for bail had already been denied six times since Buddy's arrest. Oh my God now. Later that month, Fusco took Buddy's case to the state Supreme Court. And he told Justice Louis Sialfi, I believe is how you say it. He had a number of alternative suspects, all of whom had reason to kill Jack Tupper and Frame Buddy.

Huh, like, what?

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Exhibit C Live presents Dr. Death A Closer look. Tickets go on sale August 9th, so get your truest true crime fans together and get tickets before they sell out. I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.

Oh, it's hysteria, it's all in your head, it's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?

Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here, something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical.

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. you can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.

What?

But for one reason or another, the justice believed Fusco's defense and noted that if there were indeed other suspects, he said I cannot deny this man bail. So he set Buddy's bail at $200,000, and remember, Buddy has a lot of money. But I guess he wasn't pulling in that much at this time. Because he claimed that he was unable to pay that amount, so he remained in jail.

So in the weeks that followed, Fusco repeatedly argued with the district attorney and appellate court and was eventually able to successfully convince them to reduce the bail to $100,000.

That's insane. So they cut it in half, and Buddy easily paid that with a cashier's check and ended up being freed on October 18th, 1978. Yeah, that must feel great, like when they're almost certain that he killed this man, like, 10 times over.

Like, there's literally bullet holes in his apartment and they're like, Yeah, yeah, that's fine, let's get you out on bail, walk around. So now that he was free on bail, he wasted literally no time trying to go and see Melanie.

And when she made it very clear through the district attorney that she did not want to see him or speak to him. Buddy allegedly paid Terry McCart, one of the models for My Fair Lady, $1,000 to convince Melanie to see him. What? But this made its way back to the courts, and it was enough to convince the prosecutor to bring Buddy back in front of the state Supreme Court. And they argued that Melanie still felt like she was in danger, obviously, and Buddy's bail should be revoked.

Now, Otto Fusco vehemently denied any risk to Melanie's safety. He told the court Buddy only wanted to meet with her to quote straighten out the time element of the case. Oh yeah. And it's also like, and he said he meant her no harm, but it's like, so he wants to go over timelines with her.

Like, I feel like, that's a problem. Yeah, it's like, Okay, so we're all stupid, that's what, that's what we're going with.

That everybody around him is stupid, like, I don't understand why, that, why that would even argue in your favor? Yeah, I think you're just arguing against yourself at this point.

Yeah, pretty much so. After hearing from both sides, Justice Howard Goldfuss ordered Jacobson Quote not to contact Ms Kane or have others do so. And if he did again, his bail would be revoked.

Oh, okay. So they slapped him on his wrist and they said, Don't do that again, don't do that little buddy, stop doing that, do it.

Now, even though the court was abundantly clear that his bail would be revoked if he reached out to Melanie again. Buddy just couldn't help himself. Oh my god. But this time he was more strategic, of course, because he didn't want to get caught. So he started sending her anonymous letters instead of implicating himself directly. Which is so much more chilling.

So much more chilling. And these letters are weird. In a letter dated November 20th, 1978, he wrote No longer can you use the excuse me, No longer can you use the excuse. The criminal justice system will work. That's what he wrote to her. What?

The letter basically implied that the district attorney had been trying to keep Melanie away from Buddy. Quote, and he wrote, Because a combination of your facts and Jacobson's would destroy his case. And he said it would be wise to stop letting yourself be controlled by others. Wow, so it was very clear that it was from Buddy. But he's writing it in like a in another to try to be ominous.

In another tone, in another tone, exactly now. Another later, dated December 6th, simply said Jacobson has harmed no one in his whole life. Which, uh, excuse me, please. Watch out for the giant lightning strike that is about to come from the sky and smite you.

Truly, he said, even if his love and affection for you may have dwindled this past year, excuse me, she left you, I'm sorry. What? let the record state?

Yeah, he always took care of you and looked out for you. I know he only wants the truth. And the trial, which will be many months from now, may be too late. What, like, why would it be too late to have a trial?

What the fuck does that mean? If you're having a trial, isn't the truth going to come out one way or the other? Buddy Jesus, he's so creepy, I hate him.

And just that, even if his love and affection may have dwindled, dwindled for you. Like, shut the fuck up. Like, weren't you just screaming in a hallway that you were going to get her pregnant so fast? She would have six children?

Yeah, but your affection said dwindled. Yeah, I don't. I don't know if we have the same definition of dwindled there, but you sure about that?

Yeah, you sure about that, you sure about that. So free on bail until the start of the trial, buddy reveled in the notoriety. He made sure to keep up appearances.

He was not letting anybody know about the financial toll that the charges were taking on him. Of course not, and he never relented in his campaign to contact Melanie. But he did start dating a new young model and made sure that he was seen out with her in all the same places that he used to take. Melanie, that's gross.

Which he's clearly thinking that this is going to make her jealous, which I don't know in what world you would be jealous that a girl is dating a man who murdered the man that you loved? Yeah, and it's like, Who's this girl? Uh, yeah.

Get it together, that's another story, get it together. She just wanted a modeling job, yeah.

Wild, So Buddy carried on as the playboy that he was, and he hoped everybody still believed he was. But all the while, Melanie and the Tupper family were starting to wonder whether their faith in the justice system was misplaced. They were getting worried that this wasn't going to go anywhere, yeah.

It doesn't seem like it is, especially because he's out on bail. Yeah, he's just walking around. They probably never expected that.

No, I mean, it's literally cut and dry here. You look at that crime scene, the witnesses, you look at everything involved, it's like, How are you this stupid?

How, how, it's insane. So when Buddy was first arrested the case, to them it appeared like we were just saying so straightforward. And the evidence seemed so irrefutable that a conviction seemed inevitable. Yeah.

But just a few months later, his ability to kind of talk his way out of apparently anything. And now, the endless stream of rumors surrounding the case had them worried that they might not get their conviction for him. Oh man, Kevin Tupper told reporters.

Before he could finish his thought, he was worried, obviously, and I don't blame him, I would be, too.

And the trial was still almost a year away. And that's the crazy thing that they gave him bail. Knowing that he had a year to just walk around, yeah, and just do whatever he wanted. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense to me. No, it really doesn't.

But Melanie and the Tuppers reasonably believed there was still a chance that Buddy could talk his way out of these charges. But little did they know the case would take a turn. But no one really saw it coming. So in the 14 months that passed between Buddy's arrest and the scheduled start of the trial, the New York City press could not resist. Following every lead and every rumor related to the deadly love triangle, there was talk of, among so many different things, a drug deal gone wrong, mafia involvement. And they also were starting to say that My Fair Lady was being used as what they referred to as a prostitution ring. Now, which also like, you're not supposed to say it like that.

That's rude, that's rude, that's rude now. By the time the trial began, in October 1979, State Supreme Court Justice William Kaepelman imposed a gag order on everybody involved. Noting that the extensive and often sensational media coverage might preclude a fair trial. For Howard Jacobson, Remember, buddy's real name is Howard?

So the order covered only those who were directly involved in the trial, so the media was still free to continue reporting on the case. But they would have to do it without any commentary from the participants in the trial now. Buddy's lawyers, Jack Ebseroff and Ben Epstein, immediately objected, and they cited their client's First Amendment rights, and they questioned the timing of the order. But Kaepelman overruled them, and the order was to stand now. He spoke in generic terms. Regarding his motive for the gag order, he said it was the extent of the media coverage. But it's also very possible that one of the driving factors for the order was the number of interviews and impromptu press conferences that Buddy and his attorneys were holding in the months leading up to trial. Because they were starting to try to spin a different yarn. Just a week or so before the order was put in place, Buddy's two attorneys there reported that Jack Tupper was part of a major cocaine conspiracy and said, quote, he was killed by someone other than the defendant.

So now they're starting to put so now we're trying to smear Jack exactly and put doubt in potential jury members minds. So by late October, the trial had already been delayed several times because of different pre-trial hearings. All this bullshit that was going on, and then it again ground to a halt. When Buddy's attorneys claimed that the DA's office was withholding evidence that would have cleared Buddy of any wrongdoing.

Oh. According to Ben Epstein, the DA's office had evidence that showed two known drug dealers were likely responsible for Tupper's death. But the two men, he suspected Quote, had gone missing since the murder. Huh? So he's like, I have these two guys, the only problem is, um, I don't have them.

That's not shady or fishy at all. No, not at all. No, that seems very legit. It's like, are you just looking for two random drug dealers to implicate in this right now? And you just don't have them quite yet, perhaps?

So Justice Kaepelman reviewed the material and he overruled the motion and he said, or that his attorney, that buddy's attorney said, would clear him. He found that the evidence was insufficient to warrant any kind of acquittal. Yeah, of course. Obviously he was like, why would you even waste my time with this?

Exactly so. Justice Kaepelman reviewed the material and overruled the motion that Buddy's lawyer said would clear him because, um, that evidence was. I wish there was a better word than insufficient, because I feel like it was even so much more than that. Yeah, that's a that's a vast understatement, I would say, yeah. But it was insufficient to warrant an acquittal.

So additional delays followed, and that was mostly because the defense was challenging literally every piece of evidence involved that they tried to enter. Ever. I love that. Yeah, it's fantastic, that's not annoying at all, no?

And there were other hiccups, too. There were two potential witnesses that received anonymous death threats in the mail. Jesus, I wonder who those came from, huh?

Who do you think they're? No, they're anonymous. Ash, they're anonymous. much like, uh, the letters that buddy wrote to Melanie. Yeah, totally anonymous.

Yeah, and then also, one of the prosecutor's sisters actually was found murdered behind a Brooklyn bar. Oh my god. However, the murder was determined to be unrelated to the Jacobson case. New York was wildin'.

Wow. But when I read that, I was like, he murdered the prosecutor's sister, but he didn't. Oh, I was like, Okay, that's, that's a lot, yeah, it was unrelated now. After an unusual number of delays and pretrial hearings, Buddy Jacobson's trial finally got underway on January 30th, 1980, with Bill Hrabski prosecuting on behalf of the state.

And from his position at the podium, he presented the jury with a simple story of jealousy and, of course, a love trial triangle. Excuse me. With a very tragic ending in which Buddy Jacobson and Salvatore Preneto murdered Jack Tupper and disposed of his body in that vacant lot. Ugh. Now. Most importantly, this wasn't just the same old, or this wasn't just some story. The prosecution had more than enough evidence collected from Buddy's apartment that directly connected him to the case. This evidence included Buddy's clothes, his eyeglasses and pieces of his carpet, all of which had Jack's blood on them.

Oh my god, his glasses like that, for me, is terrifying. I was just gonna say, that is just something about that, that's on another level.

Because that that indicates a very close proximity. Oh, that's really terrible. And all just because Melanie didn't love him anymore, just because Jack was a good guy, that was treating her nicely, exactly.

And giving her the life that she wanted. I just wish that they had been able to move out of that apartment before any of this happened. It's so it's gut-wrenching. So, when the time came for the defense to present their argument, Jack Eversoff took the podium with a story that no one expected. He told the jury Howard Jacobson is the product of a frame compounded by the inefficiency and incompetence by the authorities.

So he was trying to say that buddy was framed for this no. Which, like, I don't quite understand. It's like, please explain why they got his eyeglasses, his clothes and his pieces of his carpet?

Yeah, that's a very intense frame job. Like somebody went into his home, cut out pieces of his carpet, got Jack Tupper's blood on them and then put them back. Yeah, I guess, so I don't see that happening.

Yeah, you don't, what? No, that doesn't seem legit to you, no?

I don't know, yeah, seems legit to me. The attorney claimed that they would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was Melanie Cain, the girl of a thousand faces, who had masterminded the entire operation. Wow.

Like, Listen, I love Mel. I don't think she masterminded this entire operation and got that much blood evidence on all of Buddy's things. That's also like wild when they just turn around and are like, let's try to ruin that girl's life, like, it's just like, Whoa, all right?

And they used her like title against her. They called her the girl of a thousand faces because she's a model, and she'd been called that before. So stupid now. According to Jack Ebseroff, I can never say his last name. The murder wasn't, he said, the result of a love triangle, but a quadrangle. This man is going geometry on us.

No, I was just going to say, do not bring geometry into this, it's too late, he did, he said. It included cocaine dealer Joseph Marguerite, and the defense alleged that Jack Tupper was murdered over a bad cocaine deal with Marguerite. And Melanie had attempted to frame Buddy for it.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia or a corrupt police cover-up?

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Why would Melanie turn around and try to fuck over, buddy? If this other guy killed the man that she loved? Yeah, why would she do that? That? Nope.

Nope, because they're essentially trying to make it seem like her love for Jack was not not real what we think it was not real at all.

And it's like, No, I don't believe that, and it's like, if that was the case, Buddy's a well-connected guy, clearly. Why wouldn't she just turn to him and have him fuck over Joseph Marguerite? And why would she get rid of Jack? I mean, that's the crux of the issue.

Wouldn't she just be with buddy? if she wanted to be with buddy? Yes, that seems to be. The real question here is, wouldn't she just be with you if she wanted to be with you and she didn't?

She made it very clear. I think the men in this case didn't quite understand that they just can't handle it because their whole thing was that he left Melanie. That's how it sounds.

No, my friends. But they said when the murder was committed in Marguerite's apartment. Which apparently had buddy's carpet in it, I guess, and his eyeglasses and his clothing, absolutely, of course. They said Buddy wasn't even there.

And the defense alleged he was just a 48-year-old fool who was in love with the woman of a thousand faces. They really went for that. Oh, they loved that. They were like, it's really good that somebody named her that, because we can use that now. Yeah, he may very well be in whatever you're calling, love with her. But again, how did his shit get covered in Jack's blood?

No, it's really not making sense. Nope, make it make sense, my friends. make it make sense. It's literally that guy, just like you.

Sure about that, sure about that. So, despite their best efforts to convince the jury that Buddy was not connected to the murder, the evidence, circumstantial and physical, just wasn't on their side. The math ain't mathin, the math is not mathing.

Throughout her testimony, and the testimony of others, Melanie never came across as bitter, she never came across as the vindictive lover that they claimed was framing buddy. In fact, when they attempted to sway the jury by showing several what they called exotic photos of Melanie, she had to interject. To point out that at least one of the photos wasn't even of her, it was of an entirely different woman. Are you kidding me?

She had to stand up in court and say, Yeah, I don't know what this has to do with anything. But also, that's not me, like, Wow, that gal's real pretty, that's not me, thank you. And also, why are we showing those photos in the first place?

What does that have to do with anything but just the fact that she had to say, Yeah, that's not me? That, how stupid can you look like truly, you know, in jury duty? When the guy is just when you're like, how is anybody believing that this guy's a real lawyer?

Here you go, here, we go, here. It is now. The prosecution, on the other hand, very different story over there.

They had a mountain of evidence to support their claim that Buddy was exceedingly jealous and possessive from the moment that he began dating Melanie. And all throughout, and up to the start of the trial. And then, of course, like I've said, about 55 million times, there was the considerable blood evidence that placed Buddy at the scene of the murder. Oh, that. And again, the eyewitness testimony from people who saw him at the dump site. Where was Joseph Marguerite at the dump site?

Yeah, exactly. And they also wrote down his fucking license plate, that's the thing they had the forethought to write down that license plate number. Which yesterday. When you said that, I was like, Hell, yeah, those people. Because, honestly, a lot of us wouldn't be able to remember it or write it down. Which you should, if you can.

But it's hard, yeah, and sometimes you can't see it, things happen quickly, it's like you don't think about it.

So thank goodness, those people did, and it's like, now you're like, this is just wild, it's so ridiculous, guys. Now you should start thinking about minimizing damage instead of trying to pretend that he didn't do it, like, go for an insanity defense.

Yeah, like you should be really looking at just trying to mitigate everything. Because there's no way that you can say he didn't do it. No, you look foolish, so you have to figure out why he like some reason why.

You're looking foolish, here you are, and that's the thing. If this were intended as a framed job, it was a very complicated one, orchestrated by some kind of criminal mastermind. Not a very, very depressed and sad fashion model.

Exactly, that's just the truth, No? So, after 10 weeks of evidence and testimony, the jury retired for deliberation on April 9th, 1980. And after eight hours, they returned a guiltic, a guiltic, a guiltic. They returned a verdict of not guilty in the case against Salvatore Preneto.

And as for Buddy Jacobson, the jury foreman told the judge that they believed they were unable to reach a verdict. What, I don't really understand that myself, I'm sorry, jury. Can we talk real quick?

That's basically what the judge said, Okay, good, he was like, Can you guys try again? Yeah, he's like, you know what, give that one another shot.

Give it the old college try. There was one person that was like, I have a reasonable doubt, you know what? one person. I just want to talk.

What's going on, what's happening? But they tried again, and on April 12th, the jury found buddy Jacobson guilty. Thank you.

Of the second degree murder of Jack Tupper. So, after he was convicted, he was returned to his cell at the Brooklyn House of Corrections to await his sentencing, which was scheduled for early June. On the afternoon of May 31st, he had a visitor. There's somebody coming to say, Hey buddy, what's up? Yeah, they checked in under the name Michael Schwartz, and they said they were an attorney.

And these two men sat and talked for a short time, and when the guards came back to collect Buddy, he was nowhere to be found. Oh, oops, we lost that inmate, they lost that inmate who had just been convicted of second degree murder.

Wow, why is everyone really bad at their jobs right now? I don't know it was the 80s, what was happening here.

It was the 80s, it was the 80s. Was it even the 80s? Yet I don't even think it was.

No, it was, was it, even it was the height of the 80s. Guys, get it together.

Could not find him get it together. As far as they could tell the officials at the jail, the two of those men sat together. Buddy being one of them, Buddy excused himself to go to the bathroom around 4.30 and simply never returned, man.

Imagine if that's how you can get out of jail? You just ask to go to the bathroom, excuse me, I just have to go to the bathroom real quick, and then you just never return, you just walk out.

Bye, you're like, bye, everybody. In his statement to the press, assistant commissioner for the Department of Corrections, Edward Hershey, told the press. Jacobson walked out of the visitor's area using subterfuge and stealth, and he did not leave the room wearing the same clothing he walked in with. Okay.

But you're still saying to me that he walked out of the visitor's room at a prison using stealth, it's like, No. You began that sentence by saying. He walked out of the visitor's room, which in and of itself, kind of takes away all the stealth of it. He just walked out of the visitor's room. But it wasn't just stealth.

It was also subterfuge, subterfuge as well. He just walked out, he just, you admitted that.

He said, Eh? He said, No, you know what? Not for me. Prison is not my bag, so I'm out.

The way he murdered Jack Tupper and he just walks out of that, he's a vicious killer. Yeah, vicious killer.

Vicious and a stalker and a stalker, and like, he's a terrible person, truly.

And they're just like, Yeah, we lost him. Walk out of the visitor's center. And then later you're like, there was a lot of subterfuge and stealth involved. And it's like, I don't know about that, you sure about that?

I don't know about that, you sure about that? I am not sure, a spokesperson said of the man claiming to be Michael Schwartz. The attorney. He's not giving us any information at this point, we don't even know if that's his real name or whether he's an attorney.

Wow, if I was at this fucking press conference, I'd be like, Am I safe to live in this place? Literally? Should I move several towns over? I would be like, What the fuck is going on?

They're like, we don't know anything, They're like, shit, we didn't, you know the guy? He said, Hey, and we said, you seem legit, and we just let him in, like y'all.

They're like, you know what they're saying? They're like, the vibes were right. Yeah, so we just foregone, we just forewent any kind of standard procedure, that's fine.

Or safety protocol, because the vibes were vibing. When he came in, they did a JaDa essence, they didn't even do a Jada essence. Haul and say, look over there, yeah.

They were just like, Yeah, we don't even know what his deal is. Yeah, no, we don't even know.

Luckily, they eventually found out what his deal was. Oh good. The man claiming to be Michael Schwartz's attorney was in fact Anthony Derosa, a sometime resident of Westover, Vermont. And he was also the man who several years earlier had bought Buddy steak in the ski lodge. Oh shit.

The ski lodge comes back. Yeah, isn't that funny? The ski lodge makes a cameo. I bet you thought that the ski lodge was gone forever.

I did, I was ready for her to come back, here she is, I said. We didn't see the last of her. Vermont.

Vermont I'm coming, Oh, Vermont, Loca where you been? So, Derosa had been one of the potential witnesses interviewed by the defense before Buddy's trial, actually. But both attorneys found that he seriously lacked credibility and they decided not to call him.

Wow, the defense who sucked ass was like, this guy sucks more ass, this guy sucks the most ass. We cannot have him. It's like when Oz says, Well, he lacks credibility.

He lacks credibility. We should put that little clip there, we should. So it turned out that after initially buying into the ski lodge, Derosa quickly ran out of funds and found himself. I really love this expression. Quote Deeply in hawk, deeply in hawk.

A.

K.

A debt to buddy? But it's a much better way to say I'm in the hawk. Oh man, I'm in hawk.

I'm in hawk to buddy, I'm deep in hawk. Oh, I am going to be ever in your hawk. Wow, I like that.

I like it, it's h-o-c-k, not like Caw hawk, not caw, yeah.

Okay, I don't know if Hawks say caw, but I don't either, okay. But so that's why he was willing to lie for Buddy on the witness stand to help him escape. Because he never really paid back his debts for the ski lodge.

Because he was in deep hawk. So, you know, let me just let you escape from fucking prison on your murder charge, that's fine, he's like. And then we're square after that.

Yeah, I mean, if one thing will get you square, that's definitely it, I'll do it. So Derosa no longer in Hawk?

It will also get you into a lot of fucking trouble. Sure, will. Because Derosa was charged with escape hindering, prosecution, burglary, criminal facilitation, criminal impersonation, and possession of a forged instrument. Which was the fake ID that he used to check in at prison. Oops, oops.

Like, you might want to be in hawk now, now you're in hawk to the police, like, that's honestly, that's no good. So he was ordered to be held on $500,000 bail.

Oh, damn, he was not getting out of the army. I was going to say, I don't think you're leaving, No. In February 1981, he was convicted of the charges and he was sentenced to one to four years in prison for his role in Buddy's Escape.

Was it worth it? Let me work it. No, no, no.

Even Missy was like, Nah, it wasn't. She was like, No, I won't put my thing down, flip it and reverse it. She's like, I don't have time for that in this bullshit of a case.

So the DA's office placed several people in protective custody because, remember, at this point he's convicted. But they have no fucking idea where buddy went. Oh yeah, you've just let a shark out of the cage. It's like, here you go, and they have no idea what he's trying to do. They were worried.

He was going to kill people he believed to be involved in his conviction. Excuse me, yikes. So people were put into protective custody, and those people included, obviously Melanie, Justice William Kaepelman and one of the witnesses who ended up testifying against Buddy Damn.

But luckily, their fears were misplaced. Buddy hadn't just fled Brooklyn, he had left New York State entirely and fled to California. Oh yeah, where the skies are always sunny, there you go.

He's looking to, you know, surf some waves. Hang ten, catch ten, I said. he can also catch ten. Such a California girl, he hangs it.

He can catch it. Yeah, you know, yeah, that's how it works. We're definitely not from New England at all.

No, what are you talking about? It's autumn, we're like oceans, vibes. So, according to his attorney, Buddy escaped Quote in an effort to find new evidence to vindicate himself for the murder of John Tupper.

Absolutely, sir. He went to California to find that. Why would that be in California? Because you? why are you asking questions? Okay, don't worry about it.

It's ridiculous, like you don't need to know the method of his madness. Okay, they're like, we know Jack Tupper was murdered in New York City. Absolutely.

About 3,000 miles away from California, but the evidence to vindicate Buddy was 3,000 miles away in California. Absolutely, I don't understand what the question is here. I'm confused. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me.

Yeah, you know, you know, the math is mapping for you. Yeah, for sure, absolutely now. As far as investigators could tell, after escaping from prison, Buddy was met by his girlfriend. He literally had a girlfriend at this point, Audrey Barrett, and his son, his son David, who drove him out of the area.

Damn. Later that day, Buddy stole a car from one of the My Fair Lady models, his own like fam. There. He is wild, he's the definition of wild.

And he and his girlfriend made their way to California, camping out and checking into motels under aliases along the way. And once he arrived in California, Buddy Quote got into negotiations with a real estate agent in northern California to buy property. Oh, this motherfucker thought he was just going to go to property and be selling sunset. Yeah, absolutely, sir. What?

So ultimately, though, it was Buddy's son David that led to his recapture. Oh, I kind of, absolutely love that. I absolutely, positively love that, love it. It led to his recapture six weeks after fleeing New York.

Good for him, because from the moment Buddy escaped, detectives started following all of his friends, all of his relatives, all of his associates, nearly around the clock. In fact, at one point, David Jacobson, the son there, was being followed so closely by the police that he pulled over to the side of the road. Walked back to the police car and said, All right, let's use the same car and save gas. Oh my God, I love it. He was like, You know what?

He's like, You know what, I'm on this? Why are we killing the planet here? Let's save some gas. He was 25 at this point.

And good for him, he had actually run into some legal troubles himself, probably because his father abandoned him. So he was offered immunity in exchange for information leading to the capture of his father, which he accepted on July 9th. David arranged for his dad to call him that afternoon, and the Brooklyn District Attorney's office had placed a tap on David's line, obviously.

And they were like, Listen, you need to keep your dad on the phone as long as you possibly can. Yeah, the trace took nearly 20 minutes, which is kind of crazy to think about because I feel like they must happen a little faster. Now. You know, I would think so, but I honestly have no idea, yeah.

I don't know really how that works. I'd be interested. My instinct is to say yes, but I would think some things are still so slow.

They are. But eventually, the phone company was able to identify the incoming line as being a pay phone. Outside a diner in Manhattan Beach, so the D.A. relayed the information to Manhattan Beach police. And Buddy was arrested that same afternoon. Hell yeah, they said, got him.

Wow. So when he was arrested, he confirmed his identity, but he wouldn't say anything else to them. Of course, not now. The next day, he was temporarily transferred to a jail in L.A. before being returned to Brooklyn the next day.

And days later, in an interview with reporters, he claimed he had been betrayed by quote. Someone I had confided in, someone I trusted emphatically, and that, he said, was the only reason he was recaptured. Like someone you trusted emphatically, try someone you abandoned as a child, yeah.

You forgot about that part? Yeah, sorry, you should add that in. There's that small part, buddy. That's the important part of the equation.

Exactly so, by the following spring, Buddy was tried alongside Anthony Derosa for the escape. And given a sentence of one to seven years to be served concurrently with the life sentence that he was given for the murder of Jack Tupper, Wow, so life plus one to seven years.

Not getting out? No, definitely not now. In the years that followed his recapture buddy, he kept asserting his innocence. He never would admit that he did anything to Jack. Of course not.

Which he did. He insisted that he had been framed forever, No. In an interview with the L.A. Times, he repeated his earlier claim that Melanie had manipulated her cocaine dealer boyfriend into killing Jack, who was also her boyfriend. And then the two framed him for the murder. I don't see it.

No one else did so. You're not alone. I don't see it as evidence. He cited the one holdout on the jury, who after the trial told reporters They wore me down. There's a reasonable doubt that he did it.

No, where is that? Where is that? Can you show it to me? yeah.

Just can you produce that reasonable doubt? What is the reasonable doubt? I just don't see it now. When the reporter suggested that his escape from prison might have only made him look more guilty, Buddy replied But the only reason I ran was to be free, I hadn't done anything.

I was the same as those hostages in Iran.

Sir, um, sir, you know what I do know about that?

That's a no, we all know about that. You are a drama fucking queen. Are you kidding me? That's that's a lot.

That's not helping your case, friend. No, that's hurting your case. Yeah, you're an asshole.

You look like an asshole. you've never looked like anything else but an asshole. As for his feelings toward Melanie, Buddy claimed he had no ill will for her. He said I don't think Melanie lied in court. she was too dumb to lie.

She was sick, she had hyperglycemia.

What does hyperglycemia have to do with lying? He's like, you know what, she had to eat a cracker, she's dumb, she's stupid, and she didn't eat a cracker.

It's like, what the fuck guy, that precludes you from lying? That's like such an old man thing to say, though, like, Ah, she's stupid, and she was hungry, like, that's what the fuck buddy like, damn.

Correct what the fuck buddy? Yeah, and also shut up, stop talking about her.

Everybody stop asking him questions about her, don't put her fucking name in your mouth, exactly. Buddy believed that Melanie was manipulated by the district attorney and the police, who, he said wanted to pin it on him in order to close the case.

So now he's away from the fact that Melanie framed him. He's saying it was the police who wanted to pin the case on him for evidently no reason at all. Okay, cool and like, did the witnesses? That's how you're, the car that you were in. They also were they part of this grand conspiracy?

They too had hyperglycemia, they too needed a fucking cracker liars. They were stupid, correct?

So there's that wow. So in 1988, Buddy Jacobson was diagnosed with bone cancer. Oh, yeah.

And prison officials at Attica suggested moving him to a secure medical facility for treatment, but Buddy refused. Okay, he was not for that. He told his sister during a phone call. They want to send me to a county hospital, They want me to go there and die.

Well, you might not be wrong. On May 16th, 1989, Buddy Jacobson did die at the Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo at 58 years old. Damn, yeah. Following the trial, Melanie Cain. She tried to continue modeling, but she found that the notoriety surrounding the case made it way too difficult for her to find work.

But a short time later, she did marry and she started a family and just hoped to put the murder and her relationship with buddy behind her. Damn. And then Jack's poor family was just left to clean up the pieces of his absence. Yeah, oh.

All because Buddy Jacobson is a giant fucking twat, because he couldn't just fucking move on. He could have, like that woman said. In the beginning, he could have had nine girls, 13 girls. Yeah, apparently he had no shortage.

And then he just became obsessed with this one girl and ruined her life and the man she loved, and this girl was very upfront with him. Melanie was like, I don't like you, so let it go, move the fuck on.

And the thing was he could have had her, but he treated her like shit when he had her. So she was like, let me go find someone way fucking better than you, in every way humanly possible, precisely. But yeah, it's just such a senseless case in the way that they just over the overkill in this case. Oh, that's horrific.

It's so sad, it really does feel like a mafia style murder because it's so brutal and gruesome. Yeah, I think Buddy had some connections, it's just like that.

There's just so much overkill that it just feels like a different kind of situation a little bit. Yeah, I definitely think that there were some connections to that. Yeah, there's something going on there, especially how how powerful Buddy was in New York.

You know what I mean? There's some kind of like, something going on there, something there. Oh, it's awful, it's really sad.

Um, maybe we can cover something like Haunted next or creepy. I think, uh, up next we're going to be talking about, um, a witch trial. Oh, hell yeah, yeah, that's haunted and creepy.

And not the one, you know, so, ooh, well, we know a couple at this point, yeah.

I'm excited about that. Yeah, let's fucking go girls. It's a crazy one we'll see you on. I think it's like Thursday or something.

Yeah, Thursday, hell yeah, look at me, knowing when we record hell.

Yeah, well, we hope you keep listening, and we hope you keep it. Weird, but not so weird that you, um, lie a lot and kill people because they don't like that. Don't be this guy.

Just go eat a cracker. Yeah, don't be dumb and hungry. I guess, I guess.

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