A new witness has emerged in a cold-case murder with a connection to “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz — and he has told police that a prominent entertainer now living in New York City may be responsible for the crime, The Post has learned.
Brian McCracken, a 64-year-old technical writer, gave authorities a bizarre account of what happened the night of the unsolved slaying inside Stanford Memorial Church in Stanford, Calif., more than 40 years ago, including fresh details about a wig-wearing flutist, a candlelit Satanic ritual and a naked female victim.
And McCracken says that the flutist could be the man at the center of the vicious killing.
“No one has totally been ruled out,” Sgt. James Jensen, a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department, admitted to The Post.
McCracken told The Post that he left a coffee shop and was walking past the church around midnight on Oct. 13, 1974, when he heard “strange flute music” coming from inside. He said he was stunned by what he saw when he went into the church.
“This guy is up at the lectern, a young skinny white guy and he has an afro wig on, a light-colored large afro wig, looked very striking, and he’s playing a flute, a large silver flute,” McCracken said.
“To the right of him on the altar was this nude girl lying on the altar. She has candlesticks burning, one on either side of her.”
“As I walked down the aisle, he looked at me — he doesn’t seem happy to see me, and then she is lying flat on the altar, and she is looking straight up to the top of church,” McCracken said.
“She turns her head to the left and smiles. By this time, I am within 20 feet of the flutist and her on the altar.”
McCracken said he thought the pair were playing a “Black Mass”-type game, which wasn’t unusual for the 1970s, a decade known for its Aleister Crowley occultists.
“I had the feeling there was no danger to the girl. It didn’t look serious. The girl looked comfortable,” he said, adding that the man’s “menacing” look made him feel as if “I was intruding.”
So McCracken said he left and forgot all about it due to his hectic traveling schedule for his business.
Several hours later, 19-year-old Artis Perry’s body was discovered by a security guard in the church with her panties around her right foot and her Levi jeans folded in a strange diamond-like formation in front of her. Her killer had sexually assaulted her with a candle and rammed an ice pick into the back of her skull. A prayer pillow stained with semen was found next to her corpse.
‘To the right of him on the altar was this nude girl lying on the altar. She has candlesticks burning, one on either side of her.’
- Brian McCracken, recounting the night of the unsolved murder
McCracken never talked to cops at the time — he said he only remembered seeing one story in a local newspaper at some point about a murder in a church and didn’t put two and two together.
Berkowitz was eventually questioned by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department at Attica Prison in 1979 after it came to light that he may have met Arlis’s alleged killer.
The police report obtained by The Post revealed that an agitated Berkowitz was grilled by two Santa Clara County sergeants for a half-hour.
“Berkowitz became very nervous during the interview when we asked him whether or not he talked to the individual who allegedly killed Arlis Perry,” the report states.
“Berkowitz evaded answering this question and would not confirm nor deny having this information,” the report said.
Then, around 2011, McCracken said, the case came rushing back to him as he was chatting one day with a retiring local police officer.
“He’s telling me about his peculiar stories as a cop, and that made me think of this strange scene at the church,” he said. “He said that case has not been closed.”
McCracken said he realized that what he saw all those years ago may have been tied to the murder. He said he remembered previously seeing the strange musician at the altar in the Stanford marching band.
“I went to the computer and did a lot of searching online of the Stanford marching band,” McCracken said. “I finally saw his face and his eyes, those intense eyes. As soon as I saw the picture, yes, I knew it was him.”
McCracken said he gave police the account of what he saw during a recorded interview with Santa Clara County Sgt. Herman Leon and retired detective-turned-private investigator Randy Bynum at a Chilis restaurant in Morgan Hill, Calif., on Dec. 15, 2011.
The next February, McCracken and Bynum — who was once in charge of the Perry case — decided to pose as reporters and question the musician about his career to try to get information about the case. A female psychologist went with them to interview the man after he held a concert in Thousand Oaks.
During the interview, the musician allegedly admitted that he tossed away the afro wig he had worn at the time while he was in the Stanford marching band — the same hairpiece that McCracken said he saw on the church flutist.
“So that was confirmation to me that he was the guy that I saw at the church with the girl lying naked on the altar,” said McCracken, who added that the nude woman looked “very similar” to Arlis.
By the end of the interview, McCracken said, the musician became suspicious and decided to high-tail it out of his home state of California.
“He said specifically that he would never come back to California to perform again,” McCracken said, noting that the interview took place in a green room after the musician had played a concert in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
The Santa Clara sheriff’s spokesman, James Jensen, told The Post that while “at this point, we are leaning toward [the entertainer] not being a suspect,” he acknowledged that the case is still wide open.
He insisted that “investigators followed up on all leads and fully investigated [McCracken’s] claims,” although Jensen refused to confirm that they interviewed the musician.
“If DNA evidence comes along, [we’ll re-evaluate the case],” the spokesman said.
Berkowitz’s attorney, Mark Heller, told The Post that he plans on visiting Berkowitz and “if he indicates that he has any information that would be helpful to the police investigation, I will immediately facilitate an interview between the police investigators and David in my presence – and encourage David to cooperate.”
When confronted by the Post at his home Thursday, the musician vehemently denied McCracken’s allegations, saying, “I’ve never been involved on anything criminal in my entire life. I’ve been very lucky that way.”
Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts