Death on the Devil’s Teeth

by Pollack, Jesse P.

  “He was full of shit!” Curt Knoth says. “Nilson was living in Union with his mother at the time.” Dr. Sari Kramer also recalls being told that her sister’s alleged murderer had been residing in Union in August 1972.

  If the recollections of Curt Knoth and Dr. Sari Kramer are accurate, that would mean that Otto Neil Nilson was much closer to Jeannette DePalma at the time of her murder, as the township of Union borders Springfield. This piece of information also sheds significant light on a statement made to us by Jeannette’s best friend, Gail Donohue.

  “Where Jeannette’s body was found is on the opposite side of the way you would take to get to my house in Berkeley Heights,” she says. However, if the driver who picked up Jeannette was planning to take the hitchhiker to Union, this person very well could have taken the route past the Houdaille Quarry on Mountview Road on the way to State Highway 82. By this point, Jeannette would have been more than aware that she was being taken somewhere other than her intended destination and could have bailed out of the driver’s car in order to flee into the woods—much like Joan Kramer would do one week later near Union’s Salem Road.

  Gail Donohue definitely believes this to be possible. “That would account for the distribution of her pocketbook items,” she says through tears. “The fact that her possessions were found strewn near her body gave me nightmares because I knew she was running. She was running for her life, and she knew. It wasn’t just an immediate…like, she didn’t know what happened or what came over her; her last minutes had to be straight and total terror, and that kills me. Jeannette always had lipstick and a compact, and they were found in a row leading to her body because she was running. That’s what always gnawed at me; she knew what was coming. That feeling ate at me for years. She was running for her life. I’m firmly convinced of it. Jeannette was a tough cookie. I mean, I was a priss compared to Jeannette. She would put her hands on her hips and say, ‘Don’t mess with me or I’ll mess you up.’ I was the complete opposite. So for her to be scared, she had to have been scared out of her bloody wits and 150 percent certain, otherwise she would have done something to that person…”

  A common road sign takes on an ominous meaning here on Mountview Road. Photo by Jesse P. Pollack.

  Despite Nilson’s verdict of not guilty, Essex County prosecutor Joseph P. Lordi felt that the right man had been put on trial and considered the Kramer case unofficially closed. “Whether or not I reopen the case depends on any additional evidence that comes to my attention,” Lordi told reporters. Despite Lordi’s opinion that Nilson was, in fact, guilty of murdering Joan Kramer, the freed former accountant would never again face prosecution for the young woman’s murder. Double jeopardy laws would see to that.

  “When Nilson got off, I remember my father or my uncle telling us that the witness, Mary Colato, moved to California because she was so scared that he was back on the streets,” Billy Gregg recalls.

  After being acquitted of a high-profile murder, Otto Neil Nilson seemingly had a new lease on life as a free man. However, the Joan Kramer trial would not be the last time the forty-year-old former accountant would find himself in a courtroom.

  12

  AFTERMATH

  Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.

  —Lord Byron

  Early on the morning of Monday, September 13, 1976, Otto Neil Nilson walked through the doors of the East Orange Veterans Administration Hospital. In his hands, he held a high-powered rifle. The forty-one-year-old Nilson paced through the hospital’s lobby until he came upon Dr. Florence Rock and Dr. Jean Louis. Raising his weapon, Nilson ordered the two physicians into a security office. Barricading himself and his two hostages inside the room, the manic rifleman began to rant and rave about a “conspiracy” that was preventing him from seeing his five children, all of whom were still living with their mother. Eventually, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was called in to handle the hostage situation, and after four tense hours of negotiation, Nilson surrendered and was immediately apprehended. He had been a free man for less than fourteen months.

  Faced with an eight-count federal indictment, Nilson went to trial in July of the following year. Dr. Steven Simring, along with Dr. Seymour Kuvin, testified that the defendant was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. In fact, this diagnosis had already been discussed with Nilson during his stay at Overbrook Asylum three years prior. In two letters addressed to the judge who had ordered him to undergo the psychiatric evaluation, Nilson discussed this proposed diagnosis. We were able to obtain copies of these letters through the South Orange Police Department.

  The first letter, handwritten on ruled paper, was dated August 12, 1974—three days after Mary Ann Pryor and Lorraine Kelly disappeared—and read:

  OTTO NEIL NILSON, C.P.A.

  173 Maplewood Avenue

  Maplewood, N.J. 07040

  Dear Judge Pfifer,

  I write this letter only because I feel you probably are the only person at this time who can do justice to this situation.

  My name is Otto Neil Nilson, a person who appeared before you some weeks ago. At that time you ordered me to see a psychiatrist and to stay out of South Orange. Awaiting a judgment from the psychiatrist as to my mental stability I have decided to do some self-education and if I may, please refer to my following self-analysis:

  Cause of breaking, entering & assault: The day before I broke into the house I had been experimenting in my capacity to drink; I consumed over 2/3 of a fifth of Seagram’s gin, over a half a fifth of dry vermouth, over half a fifth sweet vermouth, and about a ½ pint of scotch within five minutes—this was done to see what my capacity was to be able to work while intoxicated, immediately I remember I started to write, then vomited and went to sleep. The effect really did not come until the next day and you know the result—the main thought is that the action was delayed about 24 hours. When I was first brought into the hospital I had forgotten this incident because of the effects of the liquor.

  In addition to this I have been hospitalized under the label “schizophrenia,” which I realize is a term for delayed effects of alcohol consumption.

  Reason for the above statement—Since I was about 17, I was hyper active, during the summer, the time was spent swimming & working (throwing 100 lb. ice blocks to a grinder 5’ above ground)—during the period of school I attended school on a full time basis and still worked two jobs and ended with a “B” average. All during this period I worked and drank beer on seldom occasions, once in a while I would become intoxicated and laugh and sing—During my marriage I concentrated on mental work with little physical exercise, but drank occasionally, usually with food, however during 1969 I had started my own practice had very little activity physically—as a result,—this now is assumptive—I think that the (1) alcohol was stored and broke down the protein needed for my brain to function (2) or else the alcohol stored as much energy in the cells that hallucinations occurred, after which followed a series of depressions—I first caught a bad cold which lasted during the winter—however I still drank—but never to excess—I always enjoyed dancing and drinking which was a release to the brain But still I think alcohol must still lie dormant for awhile [sic]—this alcohol still was still active without my knowing. As of today I feel fine and don’t expect this to occur again.

  (3) Psychiatrist—I am presently attending Mt. Carmel Guild in a group session—the session brings about nine people together to discuss problems, mostly it appears to me now—these problems relate to alcohol—I never studied about except for the past few days when I read a few chapters in Micro Biology. It appears that the following occurs in alcohol:

  (Here, Nilson hand drew a diagram of a protein cell being destroyed by alcohol.)

  My impression here is that more jelly cells replace the destroyed jelly cells and affect the alcohol (which may extinguish itself because of rotting itself away) and as a result the jelly cells cause hallucinations because they multiply too fast.

  Now t
he point of the above is to come to a second point—they expect me to take Thorazine (I researched this and am submitting this from the Encyclopedia Britannica—I would have exhausted this more at Seton Hall Library but I’m not permitted in South Orange. I use the Thorazine as a sleeping pill now—but in the hospital the Thorazine felt like acid when I drank it in orange juice—I had to have at least four glasses of water to wash down the pain.

  Thank you for reading this letter, while I was in Overbrook, I talked with a few people whose troubles were really never listened to, and these people are really in a dilemma. One person was being given medication because he had amnesia (about 33 years of age). If it was Thorazine—I never asked—this may be contributing to his problem.

  I am enclosing the prints from the encyclopedia—I marked the important ones here in red.

  Respectfully

  Otto Nilson

  The second letter, dated November 16, 1974, went on to say:

  Dear Judge Pfifer:

  This is in addition to my first letter—the reason again is that there seems no one to present these findings to whom has any authority. In my first letter I mentioned Thorazine—Yesterday I went to my weekly meeting and found that most of the people suffered from the same problem as I—alcohol. One woman was institutionalized for over six years and is in an awful way, she twitched when the psychiatrist asked her questions and her answers were stuttered—I talked to her awhile and talked approvingly and she stopped stuttering after awhile [sic] and talked evenly, however, she reverted back to the twitch when the psychiatrist spoke to her; she had been on Thorazine for years. A man (large) was kept under Thorazine for 1½ years. He appeared alright (now stuttering or twitching).

  This morning, one of my students at college asked me for extra help—it seems he has trouble with examinations—I gave him an I.Q. test and when questions of memory or judgment came about he would yawn and become relaxed, when perceptive questions were asked he answered quickly and correctly. This led me to ask if he was taking drugs (illegible side insert here) and he told me he was taking Stelazine. This drug only affects certain parts of the mental process—but it appears to me if people in these conditions were put into a gymnasium or given some manual labor and only given water and basic foods, a lot of these problems would be eliminated, instead the psychiatrists prescribe drugs which cause the person to become almost vegetable. One man said he had been drinking and started to walk around the block about ten times but was picked up and put into the hospital and given drugs. Possibly if there was a gymnasium where these people would have to work out each day to drain the alcohol and give them only water, the basic problem would be brought to light because the person would be alert and his memory would not be impaired and no damage would be done to him.

  These are a few ideas I have had, next week the caffeine problem people will be the subject of the discussion.

  Respectfully

  Otto Nilson

  In each of these bizarre letters, Nilson blamed his experimentations with the consumption of alcohol for his violent behavior, all while shunning the medication prescribed by the doctors at Overlook. The former accountant’s second letter mentions “one of my students at college” asking for “extra help,” leading the reader to believe that Nilson somehow acquired a teaching job at an unnamed college. However, we could not verify this implied claim.

  On Thursday, July 21, 1977, Essex County judge Felix Martino ruled that Otto Neil Nilson was suffering from a “disease of the mind” and therefore had the potential to do serious harm to himself and others. Psychiatrists testifying on behalf of both the prosecution and the defense all agreed that the forty-two-year-old former accountant was legally insane. Judge Martino sentenced Nilson to be committed to Trenton Psychiatric Hospital until future order of the court. For many, Otto Neil Nilson’s reign of terror seemed to finally be over.

  “I remember the Kramer murder later being the cover story for one of those cheesy police magazines like True Detective, True Crime or something like that,” Daniel Gregg recalls. “The cover had the typical graphic of a terrified sexy female on the ground, complete with torn dress, looking up toward a huge man’s shadow that was looming over her. The headline was something like ‘Joan’s Hair Was Blonde Bait for the Strangler.’ Someone gave my dad a copy years ago, but I have no idea if it’s still lying around somewhere. The Kramer murder was also an early story in Geraldo Rivera’s career. I remember him in the alley in the village, reporting, ‘[A]nd this was the payphone Joan used before getting into the car…’”

  In the early 1980s, only a few years after Otto Neil Nilson’s committal, Jeannette DePalma’s older sister, Carole, began to seek counseling for emotional issues. She found a psychiatrist by the name of Mary in Phillipsburg and began seeing her for regular sessions. Around three weeks into seeing this doctor, Carole began to mention that her younger sister, Jeannette, had been murdered several years earlier. Her psychiatrist immediately ended the session, telling Carole that she was “treating someone involved” with her sister’s case and that she would have to seek treatment elsewhere. Carole was never given any further explanation regarding who this “involved” patient might have been.

  Spurred on by this incident, and by years of being stonewalled by the Springfield Police Department, Florence DePalma hired a private investigator to look into her daughter’s death. “He came up with nothing, a complete dead end,” an anonymous member of the DePalma family wrote in a 2004 letter to Weird NJ magazine. “His conclusion was a cover up.” Florence hired a second private investigator, but this man died of a heart attack before his work could be concluded. Feeling defeated, the DePalma family began to slowly accept the idea that they might never find answers regarding who had killed Jeannette.

  While Florence was dealing with the frustration brought on by the lack of new leads, her daughter Gwendolyn was living on her own in Hillsborough with her three children. Neither Gwendolyn nor her young children could have been prepared for the shocking visit that a man with a gun was about to pay them.

  “This was around 1984,” says Gwendolyn’s daughter, Racheal Sajeski. “We lived on a second-floor apartment at that time. It had steps inside of the apartment that went downstairs to a door, and that door led to a hallway. I was around nine years old at the time. I went downstairs to grab the mail, and there was this man standing in our doorway.” According to Racheal, the man wore a solid green military field coat and jeans. He had dark, thinning hair and wore glasses. Racheal shuddered as she noticed the man before her clutching a rifle equipped with a silencer. “He started asking me all these questions like, ‘Who lives here?’ ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Are you sure that’s who lives here?’ and stuff like that. He just kept repeating himself. I stood there for what seemed like fifteen minutes, but it was probably less than that.”

  After a few minutes had gone by, Gwendolyn DePalma noticed that her daughter still had not returned from their downstairs mailbox. Sticking her head into the hallway, she heard Racheal conversing with the mysterious man.

  “Who are you talking to?” she yelled.

  “Mom, it’s a man with a gun…” Racheal replied.

  Terrified, Gwendolyn shouted for her daughter to run back up the steps. Racheal slammed the door shut but almost immediately felt the gunman try to force his way through. Struggling, she attempted to lock the deadbolt on the door. After a few seconds, she gave up and raced back up to her apartment. Panicking, Gwendolyn collected her other two children, and the shaken family made their way toward the apartment’s balcony. Once outside, Gwendolyn and her children watched as the gunman fled down the street. Satisfied that he was not going to immediately return, Gwendolyn called the Hillsborough Police Department.

  “They showed up and took our statements,” Racheal recalls. “I sat down with a police artist, and they made a sketch, but that was the last we ever heard of it. They never caught the guy.”

  In June 2013, we presented Racheal Sajeski with two sets of mug sho
ts taken of Otto Neil Nilson—one from his August 1974 arrest for assaulting the Gregg family and one from his 1975 arrest for the murder of Joan Kramer.

  “That definitely looks like the guy with the gun,” Racheal told us. “He was a little older, and his hair was thinner, but that definitely looks like him. I wish I could see a photo of him from the ’80s.” When we asked her how sure she was on a scale of one to ten, Racheal replied, “Eight.”

  At the time she was shown these photographs, Racheal was unaware that Nilson had used a high-powered rifle to instigate a hostage situation in September 1976.

  If Racheal Sajeski is correct in her identification of Otto Neil Nilson being the man who showed up at her home with a rifle, that means the accused killer stalked both the Kramer and DePalma families in the years after the murders of Joan and Jeannette. For Nilson to have been the man at Racheal’s doorstep, however, he would have had to break out of Trenton Psychiatric Hospital. Still, this remains entirely possible. Deep in the records room of the South Orange Police Department is a file folder containing the remnants of Otto Neil Nilson’s criminal record. Inside of this folder is an undated index arrest card. The charge? “Escape.” The complainant? “Trenton Psy Hosp.”

  For many years after, talk of the DePalma case calmed to a lull. The residents of Springfield and Mountainside were more than happy to forget the supposed Satanic murder that had occurred in the Houdaille Quarry, and once Jeannette’s family moved out of the area, this task became even more achievable. However, when Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman printed the basic details of the case as related to them by the spooked shop owner in the May 2003 issue of Weird NJ, former Springfield residents with memories to share of the township’s darkest hour began to creep out of the woodwork.