Delaware, 1988: A 23-year-old murders his mother and father in his bedroom.
For months, Charlie Cohen had fantasized about killing. On Halloween 1988, he traveled from his suburban Delaware home to New York City in the hopes of fulfilling his dream. He skulked across the city for hours but was unable to decide on a victim, so he returned home. Less than two weeks later, however, Charlie would find his victims: his own parents.
In the years prior to the murders, Charlie’s life had been troubled and unstable. Following graduation, he began experimenting heavily with marijuana and LSD. He joined the Marines, but was kicked out. He started a punk band, writing lyrics about killing. He began making art with graphic depictions of violence and death. What could bring such torment to a regular suburban kid? How could it drive him to commit such heinous murders?
For eighteen months, Charlie eluded capture, crisscrossing the country and paying his way by robbing those he befriended. In San Francisco, Charlie murdered an additional victim, a fifty-one-year-old banking executive who had unsuspectingly brought the fugitive into his home. It wasn’t until a chance arrest in New Orleans that Charlie was finally brought to justice.
Journalist and filmmaker David Cassan brings us into the dark, desperate mind of an impulsive killer, from his ordinary suburban childhood to his spectacular crime spree and arrest.
50 States of Crime: Leading true crime journalists investigate America’s most notorious cases, one for every state in the Union, offering up fresh perspectives on famously storied crimes and reflecting, in the process, a dark national legacy that leads from coast to coast.
