Leslie Torres | |
---|---|
Born | New York City, New York, U.S. | March 5, 1970
Details | |
Date | January 1–8, 1988 |
Killed | 5 |
Injured | 6 |
Weapons | .22 revolver |
Imprisoned at | Clinton Correctional Facility, Dannemora, New York |
Leslie Torres (born March 5, 1970) is an American spree killer who, in the period from January 1 to 8, 1988, attacked 11 people in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan. Five people died from the attacks and six were left severely injured. He later turned himself in and confessed to the crimes, of which he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
At the time of the crimes, Torres was 17 years old, making him one of the youngest recorded spree killers in American history.
Leslie Torres was born on April 12, 1970, in New York City to Puerto Rican parents. Until 1977, he lived with his parents in East Harlem, where the largest Hispanic diaspora lived in the city, but after they divorced, Torres moved with his mother to Puerto Rico. They lived in an area plagued by poverty and crime, which affected the Torreses.
In the mid-1980s, Torres lost interest in studying and began to spend most of his time on the streets, where he began to drink alcohol and use drugs. He was eventually kicked out of school and left Puerto Rico in the summer of 1987, returning to New York City, where his father lived. He continued to abuse drugs and developed an addiction to crack cocaine that eventually resulted in him leaving his father's house and living on the streets. By that time, the cost of crack cocaine had reached from $300 to $500, due to which Torres decided to start robbing people to fund his habits.
On January 1, 1988, Torres entered a store in East Harlem and robbed two men at gunpoint. After they gave him their money, Torres fired several shots from his .22 caliber revolver at them - the first received a severe gunshot wound to the chest, while the second injured his wrist, but both survived. [1] Half an hour later, Torres attacked a 38-year-old woman in another district, wounding her in the arm and buttocks, but she also survived. Another half hour later, Torres confronted 62-year-old Horatio Rivera and shot him twice in the head, killing him. Later that same evening, he committed another robbery, but nobody was harmed on this occasion. In total, he managed to steal only 28 dollars.
On the afternoon of January 2, Torres committed three robberies in the East Harlem area. In the first case, he robbed a furniture store, but caused no serious harm to anyone. He then went to another store, where he shot and killed the store owner, 40-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant Milton Ronquillo. [1] Half an hour later, Torres went to another grocery store and shot at three people: a teenager, Shawn Foster, was wounded, but the store owner, Alberto Paypumps, died on the scene. [1]
On the late evening of January 7, Torres robbed another store and shot two men - one of the victims, 28-year-old Pablo Rojas, died in hospital from his injuries two hours after his admission, while the other, 34-year-old Juan Corona, was left permanently blinded. [2] On the late evening on the following day, Torres robbed another grocery store in East Harlem, where he shot and killed the clerk, Jesus Rivera, by shooting him once in the head. He then stole a small amount of cash and a portable radio. [1]
From the eight-day robbery spree, he had stolen less than $2,000. [1]
In the midst of the attacks, the New York City Police Department organized a task force of about 100 men to investigate the robberies and murders. On January 8, just a few minutes after Rivera's murder, Torres was noticed by three police officers patrolling the area. Since he matched the suspect's description, they approached to question him, but Torres fled. Officers chased him for 20 minutes, eventually cornering him on a rooftop of an apartment building, whereupon he surrendered without further incident. [1] At the time of his arrest, he did not have his gun at hand, having apparently dropped it during the chase. The weapon was later found inside a snow-filled trash can.
After his arrest, Torres confessed to all the crimes he had committed, blaming them on his addiction to crack cocaine. The incident once again sparked a wave of debates about tougher penalties for juveniles and a change of nature regarding the handling of War on Drugs. At a press conference held after Torres' arrest, Chief Detective Robert Colangelo said that the situation in East Harlem was due to the widespread use and availability of crack cocaine in the area. He also noted that Torres was the first known example of a drug addict committing violent crimes, rather than a drug dealer. [1]
Torres was charged with five counts of first-degree murder, six counts of attempted murder and nine counts of first-degree robbery. In addition to his own confession, investigators presented ballistics and forensic evidence that linked Torres and his gun to the murders. [3] Not only that, but eleven witnesses also positively identified him as the shooter when presented with photographs of potential suspects. [3]
The trial began in early 1989. Torres' attorneys pleaded that their client be ruled insane, since he had no control over his actions due to his addiction, but evidence presented by the prosecutors suggested that he had not been using drugs at the time of the murders. [2] Ultimately, Torres was found guilty on all charges on February 27, after the jury deliberated for 19 minutes. He remained calm throughout the proceedings and showed no emotion when the guilty verdict was read out. [3]
On April 14 of that year, Torres was sentenced to life imprisonment with a chance of parole after serving 60 years and 10 months. [4] He is currently incarcerated at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora.
The Supreme Team was an organized crime syndicate that operated throughout the 1980s in New York City. Their headquarters was the Baisley Park Projects, in South Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York. The leaders were Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff and his nephew, Gerald "Prince" Miller. In 1989, McGriff spent 10 years in a federal prison for a narcotics conviction.
The Black Mafia, also known as the Philadelphia Black Mafia (PBM), Black Muslim Mafia and Muslim Mob, was a Philadelphia-based African-American organized crime syndicate. The organization began in the 1960s as a relatively small criminal collective in South Philadelphia, known for holding up neighborhood crap games and dealing in the illegal drug business, but at its height of operation in the early 1970s until about the early 1980s, it managed to consolidate power and control a large portion of criminal activity in various African-American neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, including South Jersey, Chester, and Wilmington. In addition to drug trafficking, burglary, and armed robbery, the Black Mafia was also engaged in traditional organized crime activities such as political corruption, extortion, racketeering, prostitution, loansharking, number running, and other illegal gambling rackets.
The NETA Association is the name of a gang that began in the Puerto Rico prison system and spread to the United States mainland. Although Puerto Rico has many small street gangs claiming its poorer neighborhoods, NETAS is by far the largest and most dominant, controlling the illegal drug trade in the island's prison system.
Harold I. McQueen Jr. was an American man who was the first criminal executed by the state of Kentucky after the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States in 1976. McQueen was sentenced to death on April 8, 1981, for shooting and killing an unarmed store clerk, Rebecca O'Hearn, while robbing the store in which she worked in Richmond, committed on January 17, 1980.
Trevell Gerald Coleman, better known by his stage name G. Dep, is an American rapper from Harlem, New York City. He joined Bad Boy Records in 1998 and released his debut album Child of the Ghetto in 2001. He released his second album Ghetto Legend on September 7, 2010 with Famous Records.
Mark Goudeau is an American serial killer, kidnapper, thief and rapist. Goudeau terrorized victims in the Phoenix metro area between August 2005 and June 2006; coincidentally, Goudeau was active at the same time as two other Phoenix serial killers, jointly known as the "Serial Shooters.”
Ernest Martin was executed by the State of Ohio for the murder of a Cleveland store owner. He was convicted of the crime on July 8, 1983, and spent 19 years, 11 months, and 10 days on death row while his case was appealed.
The Wonderland Gang was a group of drug dealers involved in the Los Angeles cocaine trade during the late 1970s and early 1980s; their home base was located on Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. On July 1, 1981, three members and one associate of the gang died in the Wonderland murders.
Michael "Mickey" DeBatt was a Gambino crime family mob associate who was involved in the gangland slaying of drug trafficker Frank Fiala.
Andrew Simon Aston is a convicted British murderer who has the distinction of having received the longest prison sentence ever handed down in England and Wales – 26 concurrent terms of life imprisonment.
Christopher Chubasco Wilkins was a Texas spree killer who was sentenced to death and executed for a 2005 double murder.
Gary James Lewingdon and Thaddeus Charles Lewingdon were American siblings and serial killers, who committed a series of ten murders in different Ohio counties from December 1977 to December 1978 for the motive of robbery. As a murder weapon, the criminals used .22 caliber pistols, due to which they received the nickname The .22 Caliber Killers. In 1979, both brothers were sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment.
Alfred J. Gaynor is an American serial killer and rapist who committed a series of nine murders in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts from 1995 to 1998. For these crimes, Gaynor was subsequently given four sentences of life imprisonment without parole.
Eugene Alvin Broxton is an American murderer and suspected serial killer. Convicted and sentenced to death for the May 1991 murder of a woman in Channelview, Texas, Broxton is also the sole suspect in four other murders for which he has never been convicted but remains the sole suspect.
Mwanza Atiba Kamau, better known as Darnell Collins, was an American recidivist and spree killer who shot and killed seven people and wounded three others in New Jersey and New York over four days in June 1995. The spree came to an end once Collins was surrounded by law enforcement in Nutley, New Jersey, who promptly killed him.
Todd Steven Hodne was an American football linebacker and convicted rapist and murderer from Wantagh, Long Island, New York.
Richard Bernard Moore is an American man on death row in South Carolina. He was convicted of the September 1999 murder of James Mahoney, a convenience store clerk, in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In 2022, Moore's case received international attention when he was scheduled for execution and opted to be executed by firing squad under the state's new controversial capital punishment laws. Moore was set to become the first person to be executed in South Carolina in over a decade, as well as the first person in the state to be executed via firing squad. However, his execution was stayed by the South Carolina Supreme Court on April 20, 2022.
Franklin DeWayne Alix was an American rapist, robber, kidnapper, and serial killer who committed at least three murders, two attempted murders, nine robberies, two rapes, and four kidnappings during a crime spree in the late 1990s. Most of his crimes occurred at apartment complexes in Houston, Texas. Alix was sentenced to death for one of the murders and executed in 2010.
Kevin Bernard Haley is an American murderer, rapist, burglar and suspected serial killer who, together with his older brother Reginald, committed a series of violent crimes in the Los Angeles area from 1982 to 1984, resulting in at least two murders. Suspected in a total of eight murders, Kevin Haley was convicted of two counts of murder in separate trials, receiving death sentences on each count.
On March 5, 2024, 44-year-old Collin Small was shot and killed in his sixth-floor Highbridge apartment in the Bronx, New York City. NYPD officers discovered Small's dismembered torso and feet stashed in a freezer and blue bin hours during a wellness check later the same day; his cause of death was a single gunshot to the head. Sheldon Johnson Jr., 48, who was found inside the apartment at the time and was recorded by surveillance cameras going in and out of the building, was charged with Small's murder, as well as manslaughter, weapon possession and concealment of a corpse. Johnson, a former Bloods gang member and criminal justice activist, had been released early from Sing Sing on May 4, 2023, after serving 25 years of a 50-year sentence he received for an act of attempted murder during a robbery. Small's head, legs and one of his arms were later recovered at Johnson's apartment in Harlem.