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Due to the nature of this story, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, violence, and harm to animals. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. To get help on mental health and suicidal ideation, visit Spotify.com slash resources.
They say that when a man is backed into a corner, he reveals who he truly is. And history is filled with people who, back to the wall with everything to lose, committed acts of great bravery or nobility. People who sacrificed themselves to save others, who looked death in the face and refused to blink.
That was not the case for Morris Bulber. This self-proclaimed doctor seemed like a boon for the people of Philadelphia, peddling magical cures. But his ability to mystify and swindle was on the level of cult leaders. In truth, he used his skills to make money and take lives. And when he was backed into a corner, Morris Bulber sold out everyone who ever believed in him.
I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. You can find us here every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast. And we'd love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Stay with us.
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Morris Bulber opened the door to Millie Jacobe's basement, bracing himself against the darkness below. It was the spring of 1933, and Morris' partner in serial killing, Paul Petrillo, had called him to Millie's house. Paul had started an affair with Millie some months prior, and convinced her that her husband Antonio's only remaining value was in his life insurance benefit.
After a few doses of Bulber's prescribed magical healing powder, aka poison, the Bulber-Petrillo murder ring netted around $1,000 in insurance payouts. And nothing was standing between Millie and Petrillo, except...
In the weeks since Antonio Jacobi's death, Millie reported hearing a voice groaning below her floorboards. It sounded just like Antonio had as he lay dying from the arsenic she fed him. Millie was in on the murder and now feeling some guilt. Like most of the murder ring's victims, Millie was highly superstitious, so she believed the ghost of her murdered husband was now haunting her basement.
Terrified, she hadn't slept in days. So once again, she hired the faith healer, Morris Bulber. He arrived at her house around midnight, armed with a candle, and led the way to the basement. Millie cowered behind Bulber as they descended the stairs. The candlelight was weak, but there was one thing he couldn't deny: there was something down there.
Bulbur followed the hollow, croaking noise deeper into the basement. Millie gripped his shoulder tighter and tighter until she couldn't take it anymore. Screaming, she fled back up the stairs. Now alone, Bulbur knelt on the dirt floor and held out his candle. The glow outlined a small, lumpy silhouette. The flame reflected in two black, beady eyes.
It was a frog, exactly what Bulber expected, since he himself had placed the croaking frog in the basement. Bulber squashed the poor animal with his shoe. Then he reported to Millie that the ghost had been vanquished.
Bulber was but a showman, after all. With Antonio Jacobi's apparent death and subsequent spirit cleansing, word of Bulber and Petrillo's otherworldly services spread like wildfire. Across Philadelphia, housewives gossiped about the love potions. Some were more than aware that the powder Bulber prescribed was poison. Others were told it was a strong love potion that was potentially fatal.
the risk of reigniting a dead marriage. Over the next four years, the Bulber-Petrillo murder ring claimed the lives and insurance checks of at least 10 victims. They left a trail of widows in their path, many crying crocodile tears.
There was Agnes Mandiak. Her husband Romain died of heart disease in 1935. Then Josephine Romualdo, the father of her two children, died under suspicious circumstances in 1936, though she claimed she only gave him a potion to make him love her again.
Then there was Rose Shankman, whose first husband, David Smigel, died just in time for her to marry Mr. Shankman. And of course, Rose Davis, whose poisoned husband netted a $1,600 policy payout. And we can't forget Rose Carina, who tragically lost not one, not two, but three husbands. She married twice more, but those men opted out of life insurance.
Of course, not every woman intended to kill her husband. The involvement of the wives, known as the "arsenic widows," varied from job to job. For example, Dora Sherman approached Bulber to cure her sick grandson and ended up losing her husband, Abraham. And not every victim of the murder ring was someone's husband.
Joseph Schwartz found his mother-in-law annoying, so he substituted her diabetes medication with arsenic. Petrillo admitted to killing a woman named Mary Gresso in Jersey City. Aunt Dominic Cassetti was the rare case of a husband going after his wife. Apparently, he was tired of her complaints about him seeing other women, so he asked Bulber for help calming her down.
Bulber doled out monthly advice until Cassetti missed a few payments. According to the New York Times, the ring threatened Cassetti. They'd place the evil eye upon him if he didn't, quote, sprinkle witch powder in his wife's spaghetti. Mrs. Cassetti died in 1938. It sounds like all those monthly payments went toward her life insurance policy.
At another point, Petrillo took charge of a crippled, elderly, homeless man. Petrillo kept the man in his care just long enough to get a life insurance policy. Then he and an associate knocked the man out and drowned him in the river. And if you thought Herman Petrillo was the most innocent of the killer trio, think again.
When it became difficult to poison Marie Wollison's husband, Petrillo took matters into his own hands. He ran the man over with his shiny green Plymouth.
As their clientele expanded, the Bulber-Patrillo murder ring gained new members, including Karina Favato, another self-proclaimed witch. Favato used the same method as Bulber, poisoning with arsenic or antimony. She took care of Susie DiMartino's husband, Giuseppe, who passed away from an alleged cold.
Then she went after her own family. Karina's stepson, Philip, was a young, healthy 17. So Karina filed for a whopping 18 life insurance policies and soon found herself entitled to over $13,000 if Philip died. Poor Philip never stood a chance. Neither did his father.
In addition to Karina Favato, Paul Petrillo also developed a loose network of doctors, insurance agents, and undertakers ready to fudge the reports on any given victim and to make sure none of the widows went to the police after their husbands died.
By 1938, the murder ring had netted an estimated $100,000 in insurance payouts. Bulber, nearly 50 now, began to dress as extravagantly as the Petrillo cousins, sauntering around the Pashyunk neighborhood in a blue chinchilla coat and white scarf.
As the behind-the-scenes potions man, Bulber was in a fortuitous position. He rarely put himself at risk the way Paul and Herman did. In fact, Bulber was rarely present during the poisonings. He simply prescribed the deadly potions and collected the money. The ring was living large, but like many criminals on a lucky streak, they got sloppy.
As the most enthusiastic criminal in the ring, Herman had a number of henchmen in his orbit. One of them was named Ferdinando Alfonsi.
In the late 1920s, Alfonsi owned a prosperous cement business, but it fell apart during the Depression. By the fall of 1938, Alfonsi mostly worked as Hermann's lackey in counterfeiting operations. Hermann visited Alfonsi's house regularly, and that's how he first met Alfonsi's wife, Stella.
Stella Alfonsi was 29 years old, beautiful but deeply unhappy. She resented her marriage to Ferdinando, which was arranged when she was only 17, and she neglected her children. All in all, she was exactly the kind of unscrupulous woman who made the Petrillo men weak in the knees. Herman fell for her immediately.
They began a secret affair, but eventually the question arose: what to do about her husband? Normally, Herman had no problems killing a man to take what he wanted, but this was complicated. He and Ferdinando were friends. According to the FBI, most serial killers choose their victims based on three qualities: availability, vulnerability, and desirability.
Up to this point, the murder ring's victims were mostly chosen based on vulnerability and availability. Any man with an income and an unhappy wife could become a target. But now, for the first time, desirability was a factor. Herman didn't want to personally kill his friend, and Stella didn't want to kill her husband. It was almost enough to save Alfonsi's life. Almost.
Herman compromised by taking out a $2,000 insurance policy on Alfonsi, then searching for someone else to kill him. This led him to George Meyer. In 1938, George Meyer had fallen on hard times. He was an ex-felon and looking to start a new life. Meyer needed a loan to start a business, so a mutual friend introduced him to Herman.
Meyer hopped into Herman's car to talk business. He was hoping to sell Herman a stolen Hoover vacuum, but Herman had something else in mind. He offered Meyer $500 to kill Alfonsi. Herman led Meyer to the trunk of his car and produced a lead pipe. Herman explained that it needed to look like an accident, so Meyer should club Alfonsi with the pipe, then throw him down a flight of stairs.
Meyer was nervous. The pipe could leave a telltale dent in Alfonsi's head. He couldn't agree to the job. He raised a good point, and when Herman brought the concern to his associates, they concocted an alternative.
They suggested sewing a bag and filling it with sand. They claimed bludgeoning with the sandbag wouldn't leave a mark, and that the wound would look like a cerebral hemorrhage during an autopsy. Once again, they could pass off the death as "natural causes."
Herman brought this new plan to Meyer, who still wasn't thrilled at the idea of killing a man. He strung Herman along for weeks. Eventually, Herman offered Meyer an additional $2,500 in counterfeit bills to finish the job.
The prospect excited Meyer, but not because he was eager to commit crimes again. His fresh start wasn't really with the Bulber Petrillo murder ring. It was with the U.S. government, as an informant. And now he was armed with the dirt to turn in Herman Petrillo.
Throughout the summer of 1938, Herman Petrillo had been pestering George Meyer to kill his friend Ferdinando Alfonsi. He wanted Alfonsi out of the picture so he could steal his wife, Stella. Meyer, an ex-con looking to stay on the right side of the law, took that information straight to the authorities.
Meyer told officers about Herman's offer to pay him $2,500 in counterfeit cash to kill a man. And the police laughed him out of the building. But Meyer did not give up. He took his intel to the director of the Secret Service branch in Philadelphia. He was skeptical, but when he discovered Herman Petrillo was already wanted for counterfeiting, the director took a chance and assigned an agent to the case.
The Secret Service agent began working undercover with Meyer in early August 1938. Meyer told Herman that his new friend was a professional assassin interested in fulfilling the contract on Alfonsi. Herman was thrilled to have a professional on the job, and the three men started meeting multiple times a week. Their conversations were blunt. They debated different ways to kill Alfonsi. Should they drown him?
run him over, or bludgeon him with a sandbag. Despite all the murder plotting, the agent's primary duty was to solicit counterfeit money. And that was one area where Herman continually fell short. By the end of August, all Meyer and the agent had seen of the counterfeit cash was a single bill.
They pressured Herman to get more, but before he delivered, the undercover duo learned something troubling: Alfonsi had fallen deathly ill. Apparently, the Bulber-Petrillo murder ring had restocked their poison. And at the end of the day, Herman would always get his hands dirty for the right price.
Meyer and the agent tracked him down. Herman told them their services were no longer needed. He even bragged that Alfonsi "must have nine lives because we gave him enough arsenic to kill six men." A damning confession. Meyer and the agent reported everything to the Philadelphia police, who arrested Herman and Stella for attempted murder.
After the arrest, fear rippled through the ring. Bulber went on the run. He moved back to Brooklyn, where he remained in hiding, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Back in Philadelphia, police didn't have enough evidence to hold Herman and Stella. That was until October 27th, when Ferdinando Alfonsi died at the National Stomach Hospital in Philadelphia.
Unlike prior victims, Alfonsi died surrounded by specialists. To them, the signs of poisoning were obvious: bloody diarrhea, gastrointestinal edema, swollen intestines. An autopsy was ordered. That autopsy revealed a large amount of arsenic in Alfonsi's system. Herman and Stella were arrested again. This time, their charge increased to first-degree murder.
The investigation might have stopped here, if not for one extreme coincidence. When a local newspaper published a story on the Alfonsi murder, an insurance investigator noticed Herman's photo. He recognized him. They'd met previously at the home of self-styled witch Carina Favado, after her stepson, Philip Ingrao, died.
The investigator already thought the Ngrau case was strange. Philip was young and healthy before he suddenly fell ill with pneumonia. Not to mention the 17-year-old was heavily insured. His death earned Favado around $13,000. Suspecting Herman might be involved in two mysterious deaths, the insurance investigator called a friend on the Philadelphia homicide squad.
This detective badgered the DA's office to exhume in Grau's body to test it for arsenic. They initially refused, but as Herman's name continued to show up on suspicious insurance policies, the district attorney finally agreed. They unearthed in Grau's corpse and, sure enough, discovered arsenic.
The murder ring favored arsenic because of its ability to kill with a relatively small dose and be passed off as something else. But what they didn't consider is that traces of arsenic can remain in a person's body for months, if not years. The killers may not have believed in ghosts, but the past was coming back to haunt them.
With the insurance investigator's statement and the arsenic found in Ngrau's system, police arrested his stepmother, Karina Favado, on suspicion of murder. After more digging, law enforcement uncovered two similar deaths tied to Favado: Philip's father and Giuseppe Di Martino. Once exhumed, both bodies tested for arsenic.
What began as a counterfeiting investigation was rapidly expanding into a vast conspiracy. Self-proclaimed healers and witches could be hiding dozens more murders. Philadelphia's district attorney assigned his direct subordinate, Assistant DA Vincent McDevitt, to oversee the case.
In the fall of 1938, McDevitt was looking to establish his career. Bringing down a murder-for-hire ring felt like his big break, if he could crack it. He knew he needed to find the ring's center, someone to pin the whole thing on. Luckily, a lead was rocketing straight towards him. In early 1939, McDevitt's team received an intriguing phone call from Sing Sing Prison in New York.
The caller was 28-year-old Johnny Cacopardo. He was serving a 30-year sentence for fatally shooting his girlfriend. But Johnny insisted he was innocent. The detectives rolled their eyes. Nearly every convict in Sing Sing claimed innocence. But they changed their tune when Johnny told them who he believed committed the crime.
According to Johnny, his own uncle framed him for murder after Johnny refused to join the ranks of the man's secret Philadelphia witchcraft murder ring. His uncle's name? Paul Petrillo.
McDevitt arrested Paul based on his nephew's tip. By this time, McDevitt's team had compiled a long list of suspects, mostly widows, along with insurance agents, physicians, pharmacists, undertakers, and a few common crooks. McDevitt had identified three potential masterminds, the two Petrillo cousins and the infamous witch, Karina Favato.
But something told McDevitt that he still didn't have his man. Herman Petrillo seemed like too much of a thug to mastermind anything, and Favato joined late in the scheme. Even Paul Petrillo didn't seem to have the skills or confidence to organize a scheme like this.
But there was that mysterious, magical healer, Morris Bulber, whom McDevitt had seen mentioned a few times. No one could find him, and most of McDevitt's suspects still weren't talking. Faced with intense media scrutiny, McDevitt turned his focus toward building airtight legal cases against the suspects he did have.
He researched every poison case tried and lost in the state over the last three decades, and learned that the main reason the prosecution failed was contaminated evidence.
So the assistant DA took extraordinary measures to avoid repeating those mistakes. He established rigorous custody for each exhumed body, enforced strict sterilization protocols for autopsies, and tested everything for arsenic, including gravesite soil, casket linings, victims' clothing, and even in one case, the wallpaper from the room where the victim died.
McDevitt's protocols allowed them to establish in court that any arsenic in the body had to be the result of poisoning. This was an impressive effort for the time. Though modern-day forensic investigators take meticulous steps to ensure their evidence is not cross-contaminated, this was not the norm in the 1930s. For the Bulber-Petrillo murder ring, the fact that McDevitt's team was on the case was sheer bad luck.
McDevitt's team dug up body after body. Their rigorous testing provided a forensic backbone to his case, but the lab work took time. A month passed before McDevitt was ready to take suspects to trial. First up was spaghetti salesman turned conman Herman Petrillo. On March 13th, 1939, he was formally accused of murdering Ferdinando Alfonsi.
As the trial began, the city buzzed with gossip about the murder ring. City Hall was packed with reporters and curious onlookers. Inside the courtroom, Herman sat in the defendant's chair, appearing cool and confident. He'd weaseled his way out of a conviction in an arson trial a few years prior, and he was certain he could do it again. So he kicked his feet up and waited for the jury to declare him innocent.
But Assistant DA McDevitt quickly served Herman a reality check. In addition to the hard evidence of arsenic in Alfonsi's system, there was a laundry list of witnesses. First, the insurance agent who testified that Herman strong-armed the reluctant Alfonsi to take out the biggest life insurance policy he could get without a medical exam.
Then, George Meyer and the undercover agent, who told the court that Herman brainstormed ways to kill Alfonsi all summer until he admitted to poisoning the man. Finally, two pharmacists claimed that Herman tried to buy live typhoid germs off them, a request they refused.
And rightfully so, typhoid bacteria is pretty contagious. It would be hard to poison someone with it without getting sick themselves. Herman was probably lucky this particular murder plot didn't work out. However, he was much less lucky in court.
McDevitt painted him as a cold-blooded killer. He called more witnesses to the stand. The health care workers who treated Alfonsi at the National Stomach Hospital. They went into great detail about Alfonsi's final days. Their description was so gruesome that a member of the jury fainted and had to be replaced mid-trial.
After nine days of increasingly incriminating evidence and testimony, the jury forewoman stood up. She was a 42-year-old housewife who could have easily been one of the ring's customers. She pronounced Herman Petrillo guilty of first-degree murder with a recommendation of death by electric chair.
Outraged at what he believed was an unfair trial, Herman lunged at the forewoman, yelling and cursing at her. Two officers dragged him away, and Herman's own lawyer apologized to the judge. The lawyer said, quote, "...I wouldn't have defended this man if I had known he was such scum."
Herman's death sentence hit the Bulber Petrillo murder ring like a tidal wave. McDevitt was out for blood, and anyone else who anticipated an easy acquittal might find themselves facing the electric chair. The ring's resolve began to crumble.
Four days into her own trial, Karina Favado broke down, confessing to all three of the murders she was on trial for. She promised to cooperate with authorities and soon turned over enough evidence to arrest nearly a dozen accomplices.
which put a target on her back. Though Favato was in custody, her son received mysterious death threats. The police helped him go into hiding, but someone tracked him down and the threats kept coming.
In the spring of 1939, the tide turned on Morris Bulber. One member of his murder ring, Herman Petrillo, had been caught and sentenced to death. Another, Carina Favado, had turned on him, betraying the ring's secrets in exchange for her own life.
Death threats to Favato's own son hadn't stalled the investigation. In fact, they seemed to kick it into hyperdrive. On April 26th, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that police were searching for a middle-aged healer.
Backed into a corner, Bulber decided, once again, to rely on his superpower, convincing people to believe him. After all, he didn't really have a way to harm Favato's son from so far away. Bulber packed his bags, left his Brooklyn hideout, and hopped a train to Philadelphia.
On May 1st, 1939, Bulber walked into the DA's office unannounced, wearing a Chesterfield coat and a gray bowler hat. He asked to speak to Vincent McDevitt, claiming he had valuable information about the Bulber-Petrillo murder ring. McDevitt quickly surmised that Bulber was a showman, and he'd get the most valuable information by flattering his ego.
So, McDevitt rented a suite of fancy rooms at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel. He'd question Bulber there. At the hotel, they treated Bulber to expensive dinners, cigars and champagne. And, as predicted, Bulber spoke to detectives non-stop for two days.
He laid out all the dirty details of the ring's operation. It took two stenographers to record all of it, amassing dozens of pages. According to Bulber, he was an unwitting accomplice who turned himself over to the police out of a sense of duty to his community. In two days, he only confessed to one murder out of dozens.
But it was enough for McDevitt to take Bulber into custody. Still, the plush treatment didn't end. Bulber got his own personal cell with conjugal visits from his wife. And they cut a deal: he would testify against the other members of the ring in court.
The assistant DA's plans hit a snag when a psychologist who evaluated Bulber warned him not to put Bulber on the stand, claiming the man would thrive in the spotlight and topple over the dignity of the court. But McDevitt would take his chances anyway. Over the next few months, McDevitt led Bulber on a press tour to rehabilitate his image.
He took care to distinguish himself as a faith healer, claiming that he used the power of belief to treat more than 20,000 people in Philadelphia alone.
He did a six-part series with the Philadelphia Inquirer detailing his personal history as well as his encounters with the unscrupulous Petrillo cousins. Bolber was especially brutal toward Paul Petrillo, painting him as a fool and conman who didn't share his skill for healing. By the time Petrillo's trial began in September 1939, Bolber had set the stage for drama.
Paul's trial started just as poorly as Herman's. He didn't even make it to his chair before a victim's daughter jumped at him across the aisle, screaming, "You killed my father!" And she wasn't the only person who had it out for him. McDevitt had packed the jury with death penalty enthusiasts and called over a hundred witnesses. Each spoke poison about Paul Petrillo, but none with more gusto than Morris Bulber.
The psychologist was right. He thrived in the spotlight. He showboated at every chance and was condescending to the defense, treating Petrillo's lawyer like a fool who couldn't understand the basic facts of the case. Jury members who had begun to lose interest found themselves invigorated by Bulber's fiery testimony.
Bulber, in turn, played them like a fiddle, eliciting sympathy, anger, and even laughter from his captive audience. At one point, Bulber threw the room into pandemonium as he attempted to put the evil eye on Petrillo. He stared at him, unflinching from behind his drooping eyelid.
And though not everyone believed in this evil eye, by the end of his testimony, Bulber had succeeded in linking Petrillo with the murders. Clearly, he had no qualms about throwing any of his former conspirators under the bus. Two weeks into his trial, the reality began to weigh on Paul Petrillo. On September 28th, 1939, he returned from his lunch break and changed his plea to guilty.
In the end, he received the same fate as his cousin: the death sentence. For the next two years, Philadelphia was enraptured with a never-ending series of trials, plea bargains, and appeals. Dozens of widows were tried for plotting their husbands' deaths, or even poisoning them.
There were so many supposed black widows, the New York Daily News broke them into archetypes: Eldest, Youngest, Fattest, Slowest, Richest, Saddest, Nearest, Ringleader, and Rose of Death. Not flattering, but neither was the accusation that they helped murder their husbands.
Conviction after conviction rained down, even for women who may have had no idea that Bulber's potions were fatal. When the dust finally settled, Assistant DA McDevitt had accomplished his goal of making a name for himself and bringing law and order back to Philadelphia.
Both Milly Jacobe, the woman who thought her murdered husband was haunting her, and Karina Favado, the self-proclaimed "Witch of Philadelphia," were sentenced to life in prison. Meanwhile, Stella Alfonsi, Ferdinando's beautiful, unhappy wife, attended her trial in an alluring black dress and had her lawyer stack the jury with impressionable men who couldn't look past her beauty.
It worked like a charm, and Stella was acquitted of all charges. By the end, it seemed that the only members who didn't manage to reduce their sentences were Paul and Herman Petrillo. On March 31, 1941, Paul was executed by electric chair. He died pleading for mercy to the sound of a clergyman praying nearby.
Herman followed his cousin on October 20th of the same year. Herman died insisting that Morris Bulber was the real mastermind of the murder ring. Meanwhile, Bulber watched the dominoes fall from his jail cell. As he awaited his own sentencing hearing, Bulber boasted to anyone who would listen that he would never die in the electric chair.
But he didn't know this for sure until January 7th, 1942. On that chilly day, Bulber stood in Philadelphia's Quarter Sessions Court as the judge announced his verdict: life in prison. Bulber smiled. His final manifestation worked: he'd escaped the electric chair.
In prison, Bulber filed for parole three times, pledging that if he was released, he'd start teaching again. He even began writing a book about himself titled "The Book of Moses." But Bulber's hopes of parole were in vain. After 15 years behind bars, he died in prison on February 15, 1954. His third parole petition was still pending.
We'll never know what more he could have gotten his followers to believe. And perhaps that's for the best.
Thanks for listening to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. We're here with a new episode every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram @SerialKillersPodcast and we'd love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Amongst the many sources we used, we found the book Poison Widows: A True Story of Witchcraft, Arsenic, and Murder by George Cooper, extremely helpful to our research.
Stay safe out there. Serial Killers is a Spotify podcast. This episode was written by Danny Messerschmitt, edited by Sarah Batchelor and Maggie Admire, researched by Chelsea Wood, fact-checked by Bennett Logan, and sound designed by Kelly Gary. Our head of programming is Julian Boirot. Our head of production is Nick Johnson, and Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor. I'm your host, Vanessa Richardson.