In the Old Days

The Close Proximity of Key Figures in the Yonkers Cult

Tucked away on the eleventh page of Maury Terry’s 1997 flipper list of potential grand jury witnesses in the Son of Sam case is an individual named Jack Minihan. He is described as “one of those who frequented the Untermyer cult scene with Sue Conway and Ralph ‘Brother Ed’ Marcel in the old days, and DB [David Berkowitz] terms Minihan’s name ‘very familiar’ from the SOS era.”

It’s difficult to find Minihan in newspaper records. I located just a single item, in fact, but it’s an interesting and extremely relevant one. In an early November 1977 edition of the Yonkers Herald Statesman (the exact date does not appear on the scanned page, but an adjacent advertisement mentions “Thursday thru Saturday, November 5”), Mary Ann Giordano notes that charges against Jack Minihan were dropped by Judge Robert Cacace after a motion by the district attorney. Minihan—whose age, puzzlingly, is given as “about 30”—had been charged with criminal mischief and assault after an incident that occurred on May 23.

The fact that Cacace (who has been implicated as a member or associate of the cult) dismissed the charges is intriguing. Also worth noting, in light of Jack Minihan’s close association with Suzanne/Susan Conway and Ralph Marcel, is Minihan’s address at the time: 35 Wellesley Avenue in South Yonkers. This was Rockledge Manor, once a luxury hotel that had become a welfare flophouse and crime den by the late 1960s. (The notorious murder of Fordham mathematics professor Frank Crippen had occurred there in 1967.) The Rockledge stood across the street from 133 Bruce Avenue, where Conway and Marcel had lived for a number of years.

Rockledge Manor, 1980 (photo by Vince Antolini)

Elsewhere in his case files, Maury Terry wrote that Robert “Tocco” Grady—another prominent cult member or associate—resided at 111 Bruce Avenue, a neighboring apartment building, during the Son of Sam era. Grady was the co-owner of the Unicorn Bar on Lawrence Street, where Conway, Marcel and other members of their circle regularly congregated. Like Conway, Grady was alleged to have known that the cult was responsible for the Son of Sam attacks as they were happening. Terry said that Conway lived in the same building as Grady (i.e., 111 Bruce) at the time of the SoS shootings.

I can’t place Conway at 111 Bruce on the basis of newspaper records, but she and Marcel lived at 133 Bruce through late 1974, at least. (On November 16, 1974, Conway was returning to that address in the early morning hours when a man attempted to mug her. She fought off her assailant but was stabbed in the arm. See Herald Statesman story reproduced below, in which Conway is identified as “Susan Marcel”; Ralph was her common-law husband.)

Strange trip upstate: an appropriately witchy-looking Suzanne Conway performs (opposite Stan Cornish) in the barren surroundings of the Oneida (NY) Municipal Building, late February or early March 1975

Time and again, a simple perusal of the public record confirms that people identified as key figures in the case actually knew and fraternized with one another—and often lived within shouting distance. The treacherous, crime-ridden neighborhood which stood in the shadow of Rockledge Manor was another refuge for members of the Yonkers cult.