FILE 573 / 20 February 2025 / 178 MIN / full

Serial Killing Schizophrenic Cannibal

Bethesda, MarylandListen

The town

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We are in Bethesda, Maryland. This is in Montgomery County, Area Code 301. about 0:04:50

History, in brief

Town note

Most of the settlers here were tenant farmers who paid their rent in tobacco.

about 0:06:35
All 1 history facts

Town note

Most of the settlers here were tenant farmers who paid their rent in tobacco.

about 0:06:35

The figures, as told

Religious

40%

about 0:10:50

Who lives here

White 74.8% · Black 3.6% · Asian 11% · Hispanic 7.2%

Ethnicity can overlap race.

Crime / national average

Property crime
▼ about a third under

about 0:18:58

Violent crime
▼ about half

about 0:19:04

Money

Median home value$1,072,100
Two-bedroom rent$2,340
Median household income$178,370
Cost of living$138,500

For sale

$3,190,000

Six-bedroom, six-bath house, 5,890 square feet on 0.35 acres, built in 2003

about 0:13:39

For sale

$23,500,000

Six-bedroom, 11-bath house on the river, 11,522 square feet on 1.93 acres

about 0:14:35
All figures and comparisons, as told in 2025

Population

"66,294"

No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:09:57

Female residents

"52%"

Comparison: "way more females than males". No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:10:07

Median age

"43"

Comparison: "a few years higher than the national average". Direction: above.

As told in 2025 about 0:10:10

Married residents

"61%"

Comparison: "well above the national average". Direction: above.

As told in 2025 about 0:10:19

Single people with children

"6.5%"

Comparison: "very low". Direction: below.

As told in 2025 about 0:10:22

White residents

"74.8%"

No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:10:40

Black residents

"3.6%"

No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:10:40

Asian residents

"11%"

No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:10:40

Hispanic residents

"7.2%"

No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:10:40

Religious residents

"40%"

Comparison: "lower than our normal". Direction: below.

As told in 2025 about 0:10:50

Catholic

"the largest religious group"

Comparison: "not by a big margin". No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:10:55

Unemployment rate

"about average"

Direction: about the same.

As told in 2025 about 0:11:12

Median household income

"$178,370"

Comparison: "national average $69,000". No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:11:19

Cost of living

"$138,500"

Comparison: "$100,000 is average". Direction: above.

As told in 2025 about 0:11:33

Median home cost

"$1,072,100"

No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:11:43

Average two-bedroom rent

"$2,340"

Comparison: "almost double the national average". Direction: above.

As told in 2025 about 0:12:18

Four-bedroom, three-bath bungalow, 2,228 square feet, built in 1928

"$950,000"

No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:12:48

Six-bedroom, six-bath house, 5,890 square feet on 0.35 acres, built in 2003

"$3,190,000"

No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:13:39

Six-bedroom, 11-bath house on the river, 11,522 square feet on 1.93 acres

"$23,500,000"

No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:14:35

Average household income within three miles of the Bethesda Row Arts Festival

"$196,910"

No direction stated.

As told in 2025 about 0:15:48

Property crime

"about a third under"

Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.

As told in 2025 about 0:18:58

Violent crime

"about half"

Comparison: "national average". Direction: below.

As told in 2025 about 0:19:04

The reviews

3.0 / 5 · average of 2

5 stars

“The safest place the reviewer has lived, very international, clean and green in summer, but very residential and not very walkable, and sometimes a bit too calm.”
about 0:07:01

1 star

“They cannot wait for their lease to expire: the car was broken into a month after moving to the nice neighbourhood, construction causes mayhem downtown, drivers are chaotic, it is hot and humid, the J2 bus drivers are aggressive, there are few proper primary care doctors, rent is absurd for dated low quality housing and there are no good mechanics, only expensive dealerships.”
about 0:07:44

In Maryland

Closest episodes

  1. A Tale Of Two SistersMcLean, Virginia · 25 November 20238 km / 5 miShow on map
  2. Mother Daughter MurdersLargo, Maryland · 14 August 202528 km / 17 miShow on map
  3. The Mannequin MurdersElkridge, Maryland · 15 March 201840 km / 25 miShow on map
  4. The Sugar Daddy Death CaperWoodbridge, Virginia · 7 July 202240 km / 25 miShow on map
  5. Lust, Blood, Cruelty & SnakesLothian, Maryland · 4 May 202347 km / 29 miShow on map

The story

His mother, Flavia, was a homemaker who claimed descent from the Mayflower. He was late to walk and talk, attended a special school from the age of six to fifteen and was taken to Yale's child study centre at four, where he was wrongly diagnosed with cerebral palsy. He trapped and tortured animals in the backyard, dissected them, decapitated the pets of children who picked on him, and was in and out of psychiatric care. Allison ran away as a teenager and said later that she never had a family.

He graduated from high school in 1972 at the age of 21 and, in the spring of 1974, from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. He was a good cook and an exceptional ice sculptor but could not hold a job, working fourteen jobs between 1974 and 1981, including a year as a cook on the SS Norway and a three-week stint at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. He spent summers in Provincetown, where he later claimed to have killed women in the dunes.

He joined the Navy and cooked aboard the USS Carl Vinson, the USS Theodore Roosevelt and briefly the USS Iwo Jima. Other sailors stuffed him in a meat locker for three hours and, on another ship, smashed his head against the deck. He was sent to a psychiatric hospital, found unfit for duty and discharged in June 1985 with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and a 30 per cent disability pension. He refused to take his medication and moved into his brother Jeff's basement on Sudley Spring Road in Silver Spring, Maryland.

In October 1985, nine-year-old Sarah Pryor vanished in Wayland, Massachusetts. She had eaten a dish of Jell-O, watched television and gone out for a walk at about four in the afternoon, telling her father she would go further than she had ever gone before. She walked north on Concord Road for about a mile and a half and was seen by several people, then disappeared. There was no crime scene and no physical evidence. In 1997 a fragment of her skull was found in a field in Wayland, the only remains ever recovered.

After a divorce and a promising job at a computer firm, he met a married colleague named Patricia Mack and began an affair with her. One night, while her husband was away, she came to his house for dinner. By the pool they began kissing; he bit her nipple, she slapped him, and he bit the tip of it off. He beat her unconscious, then dragged her to the bathroom, cut off her breast, cooked it on the grill and ate it. He doused her crotch in rubbing alcohol and set it on fire, then dismembered her with a butcher knife, put the remains in plastic bags and dumped them.

On 31 May 1986 six-year-old Michelle Dorr, a friend of Jeff's daughter Eliza, was playing in a plastic pool at her father Carl's house two doors away. She came to Jeff's house asking for Eliza. He bagged the body, cleaned the room, drove to his job at a country club and clocked in at 2.46 p.m. Carl had been watching the Indianapolis 500 and reported Michelle missing about 5.30. Under hypnosis and sodium pentothal he said he had not done it, but he also told a psychiatrist that he had killed her, and he came to believe he was Jesus, the white Messiah, who could bring her back.

On 8 June a detective found him in Jeff's driveway; the next day he was questioned, rocked, cried, vomited at a photograph of Michelle and said he might have blacked out and done something. The case went cold.

By 1990 he had saved more than $40,000. He joined the First Baptist Church of Bethesda.

In 1992 a psychotherapist named Penny Houghteling hired him as a gardener. He became attached to her, stole from the house and was jealous when her daughter Laura, a Harvard graduate, came home in June. On 14 October 1992, after Penny told him she would be away, he bought duct tape, braided rope and nylon cord and wrote "Laura" in the memo of the cheque. Just after midnight on 19 October he let himself into the house dressed in Penny's lingerie, blouse, slacks, wig and trench coat, carrying her purse and a .22 rifle. He woke Laura, asked why she was in his bed, demanded that she tell him he was Laura and made her swear it on a Bible. He made her bathe, bound her wrists and ankles with duct tape, then wrapped the tape around her head until she suffocated. Cutting the tape away, he stabbed her in the neck, cut off her earlobe to take an earring, sat and watched her body for an hour, wrapped her in a sheet and put her in his truck. He slept in her bed, left at eight in the morning and was mistaken by a housekeeper for Laura. He buried her near Interstate 270 across from his campsite. Her brother Warren saw him driving away and he fled.

He told the bear that he was not getting out of this one. A bucket holding 230 pieces of jewellery, including Penny's daughter's ring and a brooch called the angel of death, was dug up at Wellfleet Cemetery in Massachusetts. He is serving two consecutive terms at the Eastern State Correctional Facility in Maryland. Only a fragment of Sarah Pryor's skull has ever been found.

The case

Murders of Sarah Pryor, Michelle Dorr and Laura Houghteling

Victims

Sarah Pryor (9). abducted while walking on Concord Road in Wayland, Massachusetts, in October 1985; only a fragment of her skull was ever found
Michelle Dorr (6). a friend of niece Eliza, killed inside Jeff house in May 1986
Laura Houghteling. Penny Houghteling's daughter, a Harvard graduate, killed in her bedroom in October 1992
Unidentified woman known as the lady in the dunes. found in Race Point Dunes in July 1974; claimed he killed her
Debbie. a girl whose car broke down in Pennsylvania in the 1970s; claimed he killed her and took her brooch
Unnamed woman met in Vermont. claimed he killed her in 1975 or 1976 and buried her on his grandfather's property

Accused and outcomes

As told in the episode, on 20 February 2025.

Accused

Outcome

Other people

Penny Houghteling. Laura's mother, a psychotherapist who hired as a gardener
Warren Houghteling. Laura's brother, who saw driving away from the house
Detective Ed Tarney. Montgomery County detective who pursued for years
Detective Mike Garvey. first detective to speak with Carl Dorr
Wayne Farrell. detective who found in Jeff driveway in June 1986
Gerald Galvin. Wayland police chief who led the Sarah Pryor investigation
Sue Snyder. head of a local homeless group who accompanied from the police station
Desiree Smith. FBI special agent whom called Kristen

The timeline

  1. 1951 is born in Troy, New York (Troy, New York)about 0:19:47
  2. 1962 The family moves to Rhode Islandabout 0:33:30
  3. 1964 At fourteen he claims to have murdered his first victim, a boy, and says his father helped cover it upabout 0:45:24
  4. 1972 He graduates from high school at 21about 0:47:44
  5. spring of 1974 He graduates from the Culinary Institute of America (Culinary Institute of America)about 0:51:45
  6. 1974 He claims to have killed a woman in the dunes at Provincetown and left her body there (Race Point Dunes)about 2:42:11

Murder of Patricia Mack

Victims

Patricia Mack. a married colleague with whom had an affair

Accused and outcomes

As told in the episode, on 20 February 2025.

Accused

Outcome

Other people

Carolyn Calavera. a woman he met on a work trip to Chicago; she broke off their affair in the summer of 1984
Patricia's husband. reported her missing after coming home

The timeline

  1. 1950 is bornabout 0:24:32
  2. 1977 He marries, and the marriage ends in divorce by 1979about 1:04:45
  3. early 1980s He moves to California and takes a job at a computer firmabout 1:05:11
  4. summer of 1984 Carolyn Calavera breaks off their affairabout 1:05:28
  5. after the summer of 1984 He meets Patricia Mack at work and they begin an affairabout 1:05:57
  6. one night while Patricia's husband is away Patricia comes to his house for dinner and he bites off the tip of her nipple ( 's house)about 1:07:10
  7. the same night He beats her unconscious, cuts off her breast, cooks and eats it, burns her crotch and dismembers her ( 's house)about 1:09:10
  8. the same night He puts her remains in plastic bags and dumps them in a remote locationabout 1:11:49

Last meals

  • Sarah Pryor. a dish of Jell-O she made it herself and ate it while watching television before going out for a walk, October 1985about 1:15:28

Places and phrases

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Places in the story

Public places are marked on the map.

Heard in this episode