JOSEPH KALLINGER: AKA THE SHOEMAKER

Was an American serial killer, born Joseph Lee Brenner III on December 11, 1935. In December 1937, he was placed in foster care after his mother was abandoned by his father. While in foster care, he was visited by his mother once a week. It was in foster care that he developed separation anxiety. On October 15, 1939, he was adopted by Stephen and Anna Kallinger. He suffered severe abuse by his adoptive parents including floggings, beatings with hammers, and being burned with hot irons. In September 1943, Kallinger had surgery to repair a hernia that was a result of the abuse. After being released from St. Mary's hospital, his parents told him the doctors gave him surgery to keep his "bird" small and make it not work. Bird was the word the Kallinger's used for penis. Early 1944, Kallinger was hit on the head four times with a hammer by his mother because he wanted to go on a field trip to the zoo. He ran into the house beating his head against walls and tables as his mother chased him with a broom. During the summer of the same year, he was sexually abused at knife point by a gang of older boys. A few years later, at 13 years old, he cut holes in the wall for masturbation; he used photos of both men and women. He also needed a knife nearby to achieve orgasm. Soon he cut and stabbed the photos to become aroused.

In 1951, he started having sexual intercourse with Hilda Berman. His parents didn't approve of him seeing her and wanted him to stop. He continued their relationship. That same year, Kallinger was told by "God" that it was his mission to heal and save people through their feet. Over the next eleven years he would conduct over 40,000 experiments on peoples feet due to his vision. He would move out of his parents’ home and into his own, but he continued to work as a cobbler at his father’s shop. This is the first time he ever really had friends. He started drinking, playing pool, and poker. At 17 years old, Kallinger dropped out of school to marry his first wife Hilda and had two children. Hilda later left him for another man due to the domestic abuse she suffered during their marriage. In 1958, he would remarry after being released from a mental hospital. Later that year, he set his own home on fire for his own amusement. He collected $1,600 from fire insurance. In the next couple of years, he would set his house on fire two more times. July 1959, he was committed to a state hospital for attempted suicide.

Kallinger would have five children with his second wife. He would be extremely abusive. By 1972, he had six children living in his home, two of them from his first marriage. On January 23, of that year, he branded his oldest daughter’s thigh with a hot iron for running away. He was arrested for child abuse a week later, but was found incompetent to stand trial. He was held for 60 days for psychological examination and ultimately ruled fit to stand trial in June. He was convicted on child abuse charges which earned him four years probation, with a provision of mandatory psychiatric treatment.

By mid-1974, Kallinger was reported to be hallucinating constantly. He was holding discussions with a disembodied head, called Charlie, and receiving divine orders from "God.” The orders included demands to murder young boys and sever their genitals. These orders he confided in his 13-year-old son, Michael. Kallinger requested Michael's help with his divine orders. Michael responded with enthusiasm "glad to do it, dad.” Eleven days later they murdered their first victim, Jose Collazo, a Puerto Rican youth, from Philadelphia. They tortured him, then cut off his penis.

Kallinger took out a $45,000 insurance policy on Joe Jr. and a younger son in July 1974. Kallinger and Michael’s second victim was his own son, Joe Jr. Kallinger’s first attempt was to try to get him to back off a cliff while trying to take his photo. His second attempt, he took Michael and Joe with him when he was going to commit arson. He attempted to trap Joe in a burning trailer. Three days later, Kallinger and Michael succeeded in murdering Joe. They drowned him at a demolition site. His body was recovered by authorities on August 9, 1974. Kallinger was questioned as a murder suspect, but there wasn't enough evidence to charge him. The cause of death couldn't be determined, so the insurance company refused to honor the policy. Kallinger later admitted to drowning Joe Jr.

Kallinger and Michael continued their crime spree on November 24,1974. They broke into a home in Lindenwood, New Jersey, but no one was home. They broke into a second home, where Kallinger sexually abused a woman. On December 03, 1974, they kidnapped four women during their bridge game in Susquehanna Township, Pennsylvania, and stole $20,000 worth of valuables and cash. The father and son team also held Pamela J. captive in her home in Homestead, Maryland. She was forced to perform sexual acts on Kallinger at gunpoint.

On January 8, 1975, Didi Romaine was at her mother’s house caring for her ailing grandmother with her young son, Robert, while the rest of the family was out for the day. Around midday, she noticed a man and boy approaching the house. Kallinger identified himself as "John Handcock" a salesman. When he asked Didi if anyone else was in the house she had an uneasy feeling, she told him to go away. Killinger then produced a chrome revolver forcing himself into the house. The noise from the struggle caused Robert to enter the room, seeing his mother struggling with a strange man, he started screaming. Kallinger pointed the gun at Robert’s head and said, "This is a robbery, do as I say and no one will get hurt." He placed the gun in his pocket and removed a large knife. Kallinger again asked Didi if anyone else was in the house. She told him just her invalid grandmother. Kallinger sent Michael to confirm she was actually an invalid. Michael confirmed that she was. Kallinger pushed Didi into a vacant bedroom where he asked for scissors. She stated she didn't know where they were. He gagged her and covered her eyes and mouth with tape, then ordered her to remove her clothes. When she refused, he removed her clothing and jewelry. He asked her if anyone was coming home, she nodded her head. He asked her what time, she indicated 5 with her fingers. He bound her elbows and ankles with an electrical cord. Kallinger then asked Michael to check and make sure the front door was locked. Kallinger then stripped Robert naked and laid him on the bed next to his mother. Kallinger rolled Didi on to her back before forcing her legs apart. He was alarmed to discover she was menstruating. Disgusted, he removed her tampon, throwing it on the floor. Shortly after, Didi's sister Randi returned home. She was surprised to find the door locked, so she rang the doorbell. Randi was trying to unlock the door when Kallinger opened the door, he dragged her inside. He put a gun to her head and told her it was a robbery. When he demanded money, she gave him five dollars. He pushed her into the room he had kept Didi and Robert. Randi started to panic when she thought they were dead. To calm her, she was allowed to check on them. Kallinger again asked for money, Randi told him there was some in the box on the dresser. He ordered Michael to check the box while he made Randi strip. She complied while he took out his knife and wanted to know if anyone else was coming home. She replied, “Lots of people.” He bound her like Didi, rolled her over, and discovered she was menstruating as well. In frustration, he cried out “what is this!”

A while later, Edwina returned home to find her front door locked. She was accompanied by Rhetta and Rhetta's boyfriend, Frank Welby. She reached forward to ring her doorbell when Kallinger opened the door with a gun. He instructed them to do as he said and no one would be hurt. He ordered them into the living room. Edwina and Rhetta on one side of the room with Frank on the other. Kallinger removed the jewelry from the women and bound their feet with a Venetian blind cord while Michael held a gun to Frank's head. Kallinger bound Frank’s hands with his own belt. He then ordered Michael to use the vacuum cord to bind the women's hands. He had no problem with Rhetta's hands, but with Edwina he had trouble. Kallinger told him not to worry about her, she was too old to be a problem. They both left the room to search the house for valuables. The phone rang, but it was ignored. A short while later there was a knock at the door. Again, Kallinger went to answer it. There were raised voices before he ushered Maria Fasching, their twenty-one year old neighbor, into the living room. Maria was forced to lay down. Kallinger may have seen Frank, the only adult male hostage, as a threat to his plans. Kallinger produced a handkerchief and gagged Frank before binding tape around his face and hog tying him. Frank was barely able to move when Kallinger ordered him to the basement where his pants and underwear were pulled down. Kallinger took his knife and held it to the base of his penis, telling him, “if you move, this goes.”

A short while later, Frank heard Maria protesting as she was lead down to the basement. Frank couldn't see what was happening, but could hear what he assumed was Maria being raped. During Kallinger's assault on Maria, he wanted her to bite off Frank's penis. She refused, which might have been what drove Kallinger to slit her throat ear to ear. Michael was upstairs watching the women during the attack. Edwina feared her daughters would be next. She jumped to her feet and hobbled out of the front door. Michael screamed, "somebody's loose!" Kallinger and Michael made their getaway. When Sergeant Robert R. MacDougall and his partner Sergeant Henry Alston arrived at 124 Greenwood Ave. they prepared for the horrors they would find inside.

Kallinger got careless during their getaway. He discarded a bloody shirt close to the scene. Officers were able to trace the shirt back to him. On January 17, the Kallinger's were arrested during a joint raid by federal and state authorities. Two months later, the courts decided that Michael was delinquent, but salvageable. The murder charges were dismissed in return for him pleading guilty to two counts of robbery. He was placed on probation until his twenty-fifth birthday.

Kallinger's first trial, in Pennsylvania, ended with a hung jury in June 1975. Three months later, at his retrial, he was convicted on nine felony counts and sentenced to 30 to 80 years in prison. The judge was quoted as saying Kallinger was "an evil man... utterly vile and depraved." Kallinger was convicted in October 1976, in New Jersey for the murder of Maria Fasching. He received a mandatory life in prison sentence, to run consecutively with his time in Pennsylvania.

In prison, Kallinger was prone to violent outbursts. In March 1977, Kallinger set himself on fire. A month later he assaulted a fellow inmate, then set his block on fire. In March 1978, he slashed a fellow inmate’s throat in an unprovoked attack; his victim managed to survive. In an interview 10 years later, Kallinger expressed his continued desire to slaughter every person on earth, afterwards he wished to commit suicide and "become a God." By this time Kallinger was tried and convicted of murdering Jose Collaz and his son, Joseph Jr., which added two more consecutive life sentences to his conviction. In 1990, he was briefly transferred to Pennsylvania's Fairview State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, after a spree of suicide attempts and "religious" hunger strikes. Kallinger was transferred back to the State Correctional Institute at Cresson, where on March 26, 1996 he suffered a seizure where he choked to death on his own vomit, in the prison infirmary.