Sword and Scale Nightmares: The Final House

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Upstairs in the bedroom, 39-year-old Mary Rudolph has already been ordered to remove

all of her clothing. The man holding her hostage flipped the mattress off the bed

and used electrical cords to secure her hands and feet to four spring coils. Then he forced her to

perform oral sex. After he was finished, he looked down at her and said, let the boy do whatever he

wants. He opened the bedroom door, shouted for the boy, and left helpless Mary tied to her bed

springs. A few chilling moments passed as carpeted footsteps got closer and closer until a young

teenager stood in the doorway. Mary's eyes had been covered in tape, but all her other senses were

on fire as the effeminate young man removed his clothing, approaching her with thoughts of lust

and no one there to stop him.

Welcome to sword and scale nightmares. True crime for bedtime where nightmare begins now.

The first house. It's a wintery November

afternoon in Lindenwald, New Jersey, 1974. A 21-year-old mother has just finished putting

her two kids to sleep when she hears a knock at the door. When she answers, there's a young boy

standing there, saying that he's selling cufflinks and tie clasps. The woman politely declines,

but 15 minutes later, the boy is back, asking if she can break a $10 bill. Again, she turns the boy

down. 20 minutes later, there's a third round of knocking, only this time it's a man standing there.

She opens the door correctly assuming it's the boy's father, but not fully understanding either

of their intentions. In a flash, the man has thrown all of his body weight into her,

knocking the young woman down and then removing a large knife from a brown bag. She begs for her

children's lives, and the man assures her they'll be fine as long as she cooperates and doesn't make

a sound. The man instructs his young son to search the home for valuables. Then leads the woman

into her bedroom, where he strips her naked, ties her up and forces her to perform

what is described in the police report as a perverted sex act. And just as quickly as they arrive,

the man and his son are out the front door, several hundreds of dollars richer.

The second house. It's now December 3rd in an upper middle-class neighborhood near Harrisburg,

Pennsylvania. A middle-aged woman has just returned home from a half hour of running errands when

she's pulled inside by the two intruders who broke in while she was gone. She struggles to get free

while the man ties her arms behind her back and barely notices when the man reaches over

and cuts her chest with his knife. Just as they did before, the young boy searches the house while

his father ties the naked woman up to the bed. The doorbell rings. The lady of the house is

expecting guests. Three guests to be exact. Neighborhood friends coming over for lunch

and a friendly game of cards. And one by one, the guests begin arriving. Each one surprised by the

set of house keys still jingling in the front door when they are suddenly greeted by a boy

in a ski cap and a man pointing a gun at their face. Each guest hands their purse to the boy

and the man leads each of them upstairs into separate rooms, removing their jewelry and

threatening them as he ties them up and places pillowcases over their heads.

$20,000 richer. The man and the boy are out the front door. Back before the crime spree started,

the man seemed to be completely at odds with all six of his children. The year was 1972 and

the man had been arrested after branding his daughter's thigh with a hot iron after she

tried to run away. She told police of regular beatings, threats with a knife, and on one occasion

getting stripped below the waist and whipped in front of her family. Two of her other siblings

recalled being tied to a radiator and beaten with leather strips and hammer handles. In the

lead up to the child abuse trial, the man was being held at a maximum security hospital to be

evaluated for potential mental illness. Doctors concluded that he suffered from a form of paranoid

schizophrenia, recommending that he be committed to a hospital. At court, he was found guilty on all

charges, but ultimately sentenced to just 11 months, only serving seven of them before he

raised enough money to pay his bail. Strangely, all three siblings later recanted their statements,

saying their stories of abuse were made up. Police figured the kids were being coerced

somehow, but it was never proven. All of the charges were dropped, as if the horrifying

incidents had never happened. The third house is located in a truly lush and beautiful neighborhood

outside of Baltimore. It's only been a week since the father-son duo busted up a game of bridge,

and now one stayed over, an attractive 28-year-old woman spots a man and a boy

as she walks to the local post office holding her four-month-old daughter.

They're gone by the time she returns, and with the baby dozing off in her arms, she doesn't even

think about locking the front door on her way inside. It's a mistake that she regrets when

she hears a loud knock, followed by the front door creaking open and footsteps bounding up the

stairs. The man from earlier is now holding a revolver, and the boy is there too brandishing

a knife. Despite threats to the baby and another perverted sex act forced upon the young mother,

it seems the man and his boy are only interested in the thousands of dollars they'll steal

as they go sprinting out the front door. The fourth house invasion begins the way the others have,

and also the way today's story began. Another young mother is defiled as a lanky teenage boy

rifles through drawers and cabinets, filling his pockets with cash and other expensive goods.

But this time, the young boy is called into the bedroom, given permission by his father

to do whatever he wants to their hostage. The helpless woman has all four limbs bound tight

as the teenager prepares to mount his prey. But after a few awkward seconds of trying to rape her,

the young boy gives up. Frustrated, he can't maintain an erection. He returns downstairs

to his father, who has him load up several suitcases with expensive home appliances before

hitting the road once more. How they continue to get away with these crimes while staying

completely anonymous is anybody's guess. And by some miracle, every one of these victims managed

to endure their terrifying encounters and escape with their lives. But all of that is about to change,

because the fifth house will also be the diabolical duo's final house. And by the time

the dust has settled, multiple murders will be revealed.

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The Final House, Leonia, New Jersey, January 8, 1975.

Just over a week into the new year and it's time for another father-son bonding experience.

They notice a woman cleaning up around the house and she spots them outside through the window.

The man knocks on her door and when she answers, he says he's a salesman with John Hancock.

The woman declines, but he's already through the door. The woman's four-year-old son clings to

his mother's leg and the man points his gun directly at the small child and forming them both

that this is a robbery. He leads them to the bedroom, makes both mother and child strip naked,

and then ties them up. The man asks the mother if anyone else is home and she informs him that her

ailing 90-year-old grandmother is upstairs. He sends his son upstairs to check and make sure

she is as immobile as the woman is claiming. When they're satisfied, she's not getting up

from her chair. The two begin overturning the house, taking jewelry, cash, and whatever else

they can find. That's when the doorbell rings. The two have experienced interruptions before, so

they don't hesitate to grab the new arrival at the door and force her into the house at gunpoint.

It's their initial hostage's sister. She tells him there's a box of cash nearby and

he sends his son to go get it. Pulling out his knife, the man asks the new arrival

if any more people are coming. Yes, she informs him. Lots of people.

To pull back for a moment, the house at 124 Glenwood belonged to Edwina Romain. It was Edwina's

90-year-old mother that was upstairs, and it was two of her daughters and a grandson

now being held hostage. Edwina was visiting a relative at the hospital earlier that day,

joined by her third daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. When the three returned home, they

were understandably shocked as they were forced into the house by a large man and young teenager

wearing a ski parka and a pom-pom ski cap. Inside the house, it's starting to get crowded.

There are now nine people here, including the two burglars. The teenager is holding the gun,

pointing it at the newly arrived boyfriend's head while his dad ties his hands behind his back

with his own belt. Because he is the only male hostage, the boyfriend is led downstairs to the

basement, and his pants and underwear are forced to the floor. The man then shows the boyfriend

his knife, lowering it to his penis, saying, if you move, this goes. That's the end. That's it.

That's the end of the story. That's your nightmare right there. Just kidding. The doorbell rings again,

but this time it's a 21-year-old nurse named Maria Fashing. She lives a couple blocks away and

was just checking in on Edwina and her family on her way to the hospital.

But unlike the other captives, Maria Fashing will not do as she's told when the man puts a gun

in her face. She fights hard, not to be tied up, and when she's brought down to the basement in

order to strip and perform fallacious, she refuses that too. Aggravated, the man reveals the only

male hostage who passed out after having his manhood threatened with a knife. The man tells Maria

that he wants her to bite off the hostage's penis. But of course, she won't do that either.

This seems to be the final straw. The man slashes with his knife and makes three deep cuts across

Maria's throat. She screams out, help me. He's hurting me. I'm drowning. The man then brings

the blade down hard, plunging it into the young nurse's back. Gurgling and shouts of no are heard

upstairs as the man stabs the nurse multiple times in the chest, piercing her heart and sending her

crumbling to the ground. What happens next happens quickly, fearing that her daughter will be next,

Aduina's maternal instinct kick in and she manages to get to her feet and go running

out the front door, hysterically shouting for anyone to call police and help. Inside the boy

cries out to his father, somebody's loose, at which point the man comes bounding up from the

basement. Seeing the front door is wide open, the two duck out the back door, leaving most of their

bounty behind along with the bloody corpse of Maria fashion. It wasn't long until another neighbor

unaware of the crimes that had just transpired called police. She was walking her dog when she

saw the father and son running through the park holding hands, stopping at a nearby basketball

court where the father removed his shirt and tie and appeared to be washing his hands in a nearby

puddle. She watched as they ran away and approached the area curious about what she'd just witnessed.

Sure enough, the man had left behind a tie and white button-up shirt. They were clearly

stained with blood. As news of the fatal home invasion began circulating through the city,

police received an important tip from a local bus driver who perfectly recalled a young boy

and a shirtless father boarding the bus in a hurry. Along with other witnesses and counters,

detectives were able to piece together the approximate route of their escape. A close

calming of the streets revealed, the pair had ditched evidence in various shrubs and bushes,

including distinct jewelry taken from Edwina Romain's home and a fully loaded 32 caliber revolver and

the knife used to murder Maria Fasching. But the most important break in the case

came after following up on the bloodstained dress shirt that was abandoned in the park.

The inside of the shirt collar contained a small tag with what appeared to be a last name printed

on it. The name spelled out was Kalinger, K-A-L-I-N-G-E-R. An odd name for sure, but after it was shared

with intelligence units all throughout the northeastern United States, no matches came up.

In the meantime, investigators determined that the dress shirt had been made for a specific store

in Philadelphia. Two extremely persistent detectives then spent a week talking to laundromats and dry

cleaning stores all throughout the neighborhood, eventually ending up at a place called the Bright

Sun Cleaners. The owner at Bright Sun immediately recognized the small tag stitched to the dress

shirt. He explained that he marked all of his customer's clothing with the tags, but that the

machine he used could only fit a maximum of eight letters on each tag. That particular customer

had a nine letter name, Kalinger, with two Ls. The owner dropped the second L when he printed the

tag. That's Joe Kalinger, the owner told him, adding that Joe runs the shoe repair place right

down the block. Police entered the cramped and filthy unit above the Kalinger shoe shop. Both

of Joe's sons were there. Both had sandy blonde hair and were of similar build and age. By now,

authorities had a match with fingerprints lifted from when Joe and one of his sons robbed four

people at a bridge game in Philadelphia months earlier. But which son was it? Joe and both of

the kids in question were arrested on charges of burglary, robbery, and kidnapping. But within 48

hours, the younger son was released. In the end, only one of the boys had been missing from school

on the day of the crime, Joe's son, Michael. At the police station, Joe was officially charged

with the murder of nurse Maria Fashing. And as 13 year old Michael passed him on the way to

the interrogation room, Joe said, if you tell them anything, I'll kill you. Michael was as loyal

as ever and never said anything to incriminate himself or his father. Joe, on the other hand, was

descending further into madness. Now incarcerated, he began babbling on about his divine mission

from God, which included a command to destroy the human race beginning with nurse Maria Fashing.

But unbeknownst to everyone except his own son, Michael, God had also ordered Joe to do something

even more perverted and disgusting, something involving small boys. And daddy's little helper

was happy to assist.

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Joseph Lee Brennan III was born in December of 1935. He spent a few years in foster care and was

eventually adopted by Austrian immigrants Steven and Anna Kellinger in 1939. They were severely

abusive, forcing Joseph to rest his bare knees on sandpaper for hours, burning him and beating him

with hammers so viciously it caused a hernia before his 10th birthday. When he was brought home from

the hospital, his adopted parents lied and told him the doctors performed the surgery that would keep

his bird, or penis, from growing and prevent it from working properly. After his father died years

later, Joseph took over the family shoemaking business as well as the family tradition of

terrorizing his own young children. Following his 1972 child abuse trial,

you'll recall that Joseph only had to serve seven months in prison before his kids recanted their

claims and the matter just went away, which also meant Joseph stopped seeing his court

recommended psychologist. In the months following his prison sentence, Joseph was having regular

hallucinations, mostly of a disembodied head named Charlie that antagonized him

and forced his actions. He was also in daily communication with God, whose divine orders

included the command to murder young boys and sever their genitals. He confided this very

important mission to his teenage son, Michael, asking for his help. Michael, known to his friends

as Little Wolf, allegedly replied with an enthusiastic, glad to do it, dad.

The first two kills. It's early summer, 1974. Little Wolf should be out causing mischief with

his friends, light vandalism among his favorite pastimes, but instead Michael is out helping his

dad with his sacred plan, hunting the streets of Philadelphia under orders from the Lord himself.

The neighborhood of Kensington is a low income area, now that many of the industries from the

past decade have moved out. Many homes are abandoned in favor of the suburbs as immigrant families

looking for the American dream begin to move in. Joseph and Michael cross paths with seven-year-old

Jose Coyazo, a Puerto Rican boy from the neighborhood who they just happened to meet on the corner.

Perhaps not knowing any better, Jose makes the terrible mistake of talking to strangers,

and he's lured into an abandoned rug factory. Once trapped inside, the young boy is stripped naked,

tortured, and suffocated to death. His penis is also cut off, and his nude mutilated body is

discovered shortly thereafter. Around this time, July 1974, Joseph takes out a $74,000 life insurance

policy for one of his less agreeable children. 14-year-old Joseph Jr., referred to as Joey,

has just been released from the reform school he was sent to for having homosexual relationships

with older men. Spending time with his father and brother proves to be incredibly dangerous.

Joey is almost forced off a cliff during a family photo, and later almost trapped into a fiery

inferno after his dad takes him on an intentionally bungled arson run. Joseph takes a more direct

approach on July 28th, leading Joey to the basement of an abandoned building not far from their home.

Michael is there too, allegedly egging his father on to tie his older brother Joey to a ladder.

As he undoubtedly struggles for his life, Joey and the ladder are placed face down

in a puddle of water until he drowns to death. Joseph contacts police to report his son missing,

and two weeks later, when the boy's body is found, Joseph reaches out to collect on his insurance.

Unfortunately though, there's a catch. Sometime during the last couple of weeks,

the abandoned building that had recently become a crime scene has been demolished.

Grusomely, Joey's corpse is found partially crushed by machinery, making it impossible

for authorities to determine the official cause of his death. Though the medical examiner does

note the circumstances are suspicious, the insurance company denies Joseph the money he

thinks he's owed. But luckily for Joseph, no actual evidence ties him to his son Joey's murder,

and the investigation seems to cool down as fall approaches. Just four months later, November 1974,

Joseph and his son Michael go on a demented five-house crime spree,

stealing tens of thousands of dollars in cash and goods, culminating in the murder of nurse Maria

Fashing. In 1976, Joseph Callinger was found guilty of Maria's murder and sentenced to life

in prison. This time, it would run consecutively with the 30 to 80 years he was sentenced to

in a separate trial involving armed robbery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

The judge referred to Joseph as, quote, an evil man, utterly vile and depraved. But

incredibly, at this point in the story, nobody knew about the first two murders we just described.

These shocking revelations didn't come to light until nearly a decade later, when an author

became interested in Joseph and Michael's terrifying string of crimes. Over the course

of six years, Joseph met with the author and told her about his visions of blood,

his warped relationship with his son, and ultimately, the absolutely brutal details

of two never revealed murders. Seven-year-old Jose Collazo and Joseph's own flesh and blood,

14-year-old Joey Jr., titled The Shoemaker, the Anatomy of a Psychotic, the book was released

in 1983, and with its publication, a whole new round of legal proceedings followed.

Regarding the two newly revealed murders, Joseph underwent another week-long trial

and was found guilty of both counts of first-degree murder. Additionally, both Joseph

and the book's author were successfully sued by a victim's family member under a son of Sam law

that prevents killers from profiting off their crimes. This family was ultimately awarded all

of Joseph's royalties, plus the earnings from the author and publisher.

Finally, in March of 1996, Joseph was observed having seizure-like symptoms in his cell

and began choking on his own vomit. He was transferred to the infirmary where he suffered

a heart attack and died. Twenty years earlier, back in 1976, it was determined that Joseph's

son Michael Callinger was under his father's control during their deadly five-home crime spree.

Though his father had encouraged his son's participation throughout, a judge ruled that

Michael was salvageable and accepted a guilty plea of two counts of robbery. Michael was then

placed on probation until his 25th birthday. For a time, he lived with foster parents and eventually,

he changed his name and moved out of state. All of this happened before Joseph confessed

to the slayings of Jose Coyazo and Joseph Callinger Jr. While being interviewed for the

controversial true crime book The Shoemaker, Joseph once again implicated his son Michael

as an enthusiastic accomplice, even going as far as to say that if Michael hadn't encouraged him,

he'd have never gone through with his depraved impulses. In 2023, Michael would be in his early

60s, wherever he is. Hopefully, he has gone on to lead a productive life and has raised a family

with love and affection. It's entirely possible he has contributed greatly to his community,

but we don't know that for sure. We don't know where he is or what he's done since.

The one thing we know for sure that the fables told us when we were children was that little wolves

have a way of hiding in sheep's clothing.

If you enjoyed the show, please consider joining plus at swordandscale.com

slash plus. But if you can't, consider leaving us a positive review on your preferred listening

platform. Sweet dreams and good night.

Customers are rushing to your store. Do you have a point of sale system you can trust or is it

a real POS, if you know what I mean? You need Shopify for retail. Did you know

Shopify powers selling in person too? Shopify POS is your command center for your retail store.

From accepting payments to managing inventory, Shopify has everything you need to sell in person.

With Shopify, you get a powerhouse selling partner that effortlessly unites your in-person and online

sales into one source of truth. Track every sale across your business in one place and know exactly

what's in stock. Connect with customers inline and online. Shopify helps you drive store traffic

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Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way.

Do retail right with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 a month trial period at Shopify.com

slash sword and scale. All lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash sword and scale to take your retail

business to the next level today. Shopify.com slash sword and scale. All lowercase and no spaces.

Shopify.com slash sword and scale.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.