Some crimes are so awful they never leave the collective conscience even of jaded New Yorkers.
Two of those crimes — the club kid murder and the Gypsy murder case of the ‘90s — continue to haunt this city.
Tomorrow, Investigation Discovery’s “Deadly Devotion” begins the first of two nights focused on those horrific New York murders.
The first, “Gypsy Seduction,” reexamines the murder of 85-year old Andrew Vlasto, who’d been a confirmed bachelor his entire life — until he met and married a woman 58 years his junior.
The gorgeous woman, 27-year-old Sylvia Mitchell, met Vlasto at his favorite diner, got under his skin, became his housekeeper and then his wife. A few months after the nuptials, Vlasto was in the hospital, near death, and doctors couldn’t figure out why. His nephews, banned from seeing him, thought they had the answer when they learned their uncle had married Mitchell.
Turned out Mitchell is a member of the Tene Bimbo Gypsy crime family and, along with her husband (yes, her other husband), had slowly poisoned the old man.
Proving that, however, was nearly impossible for NYC cops and docs — but not for his nephews, who wouldn’t quit until Mitchell was sort of brought to justice. She pled to manslaughter, and she’s now out of jail and probably on the prowl again.
Next Tuesday, it’s the horrific 1996 slaughter of Andre “Angel” Melendez by club kid/media phenom Michael Alig and club drug king Robert “Freeze” Riggs.
Angel, who wore giant wings, had become a drug dealer to win Alig’s approval, but was replaced in his affections by Freeze.
One day, Angel came to Alig’s apartment and got into a fight with the two men, who beat him to death with a hammer, put his body into a filled tub, poured Drano down his throat, used drugs and went shopping. The monsters kept the body for over a week before chopping it up and throwing it into the Hudson.
Shockingly, Alig himself is interviewed here, as is Angel’s brother, Johnny Melendez and reporter Michael Musto, who broke the story.
Don’t miss these episodes.