Sea View: Embolishment of The White Plague

Sea View Hospital was not always a hospital, it started out as a poor house in 1829 called The Farm Colony. In its day it was extravagant and prestigious, very well known. When the hospital opened as Sea View Tuberculosis Hospital on October 28, 1912 it was considered to be the finest in the country for the treatment of TB, also known as 'the white plague'. In all there was 8 patient buildings that formed a semi circle, a children's hospital, and a rehab center that had 6 units. In all the total amount of beds the hospital had was 1.402, but with added beds it could accommodate 1,682 beds. The largest amount it ever held was 2,000 in a census that was taken in 1940-41. The final cost of the hospital was four million dollars, which was twice the amount that was originally estimated.

 

The buildings where decorated with beautiful, and expensive Terracotta murals. I have in fact seen them on the old broken down buildings and wondered why no one has taken them down to preserve. A lot of fancy and expensive things in Staten Island where decorated with Terracotta because of the factory on the island at the time. But the story is different for these because they were made by a company in Holland called Joost Thooft & Labouchere. They made the murals using a technique called Sectile. The difference was that each piece of the terracotta was shaped to the lines of the design, instead of the design being divided over a number of tiles. This company was the first and only at the time to do this between the years of 1900 - 1910. This makes these murals very rare and actually, the best sectile work in America. The architect that designed the hospital, Raymond F. Almirall sketched out these murals to add something a little light to the atmosphere. They where extracted from the decaying buildings sometime after 2005 and now hang in the main building.

There is so much to be said about this place that we now see as ruins and haunted by its mental patients, but was it even a mental ward? 

 I can find absolutely no evidence to support the claim that Seaview was ever a mental hospital. I think what gets people confused, is that the Willowbrook State School was very nearby. The school wasn't built for years after Sea View was, but that school was knocked down and Seaview still remains. We pass by it all the time on Brielle Ave. It does look scary so I guess we just assume that it has a violent history, but in fact Sea View was a historical place where many discoveries where made. By the 1960's the medical staff at Sea view was discovering new medicine, they invented something called isoniazids, this was a treatment for TB. With the new medicine the demand for TB beds went down drastically and therefore Sea View in a way put itself out of business. This medicine, along with fresh air cured TB. The hospital was advance, they even had special houses that had ceilings that opened up to let in the fresh air. In whole the campus had 37 buildings. According to Wikipedia this is the list of houses:  Administration Building (1913), Surgical Pavilion (1913), Nurses Residence (1913, addition 1932), Staff House (1913), Power House / Laundry and Ambulance Complex (1912, addition 1935), Kitchen and Dining Hall Group (1912), and Women's Pavilions (1909-1911). Sanatorium additions include the Auditorium or "New Dining Hall" (1917, now known as Colony Hall), Group Building (1917), and Men's and Women's Open Air Pavilions (1917). Later buildings include the Catholic Chapel and Rectory (1928), City Mission Chapel or Chapel of St. Luke the Physician (1934), Pathology Lab (1927-1928), Children's Hospital (1935-1937), Sputum House (1911 / 1932), and Richmond County Isolation Hospital (1928)

 

Because the hospital was going to go out of business with the cure of TB, the Farm Colony was turned into a 1,400 bed hospital for older patients with aging problems such as Alzheimers. Since then Sea View has stuck with its purpose of being a home and hospital as well as a rehab center for older patients as well as younger ones with brain injuries or other server injuries. If you ever find yourself visiting Sea View, make sure you stop by the museum that is housed right on the site, it takes you on a visual walk though on the history of the place. 

This is only the 1st post I am doing on Sea View, this post is to simply cover the past of the hospital, such as what it really was and what good it actually did for history and TB. The next post I do will be more about the Sea View we see today, the abandoned and presumed haunted Sea view. As well as my own stories, since after all I spent two years going to school there.

 

Happy Holiday's !

 Richmond Ave. 1930

 

Forget the Cookie Cutter Houses

These days when I look around SI i see what feels like the same houses over and over again. The semis and even the detached houses look exactly the same as the last. Builders are  trying to cram as many house on a single piece of land. This is going on right now by my house off ClayPitt. What was once a stop in the underground railroad is now the home to about 12 new semis. 

But SI wasn't always like this. Staten Island was once KNOWN for their beautiful homes with exquisite architecture. Were gong to take a look at some houses, old and new. 

This was listed as an actors home. The location is West Brighton.

Not really sure what the caption says other then West Brighton. It was too listed as an actors home.

Obviosly the Gustav House is beautiful, it was a great example of Italian Villa style home with its square cupola.

  This is the New Brighton Village Hall. The 1st one is what it once looked like while the 2nd is a now picture.  It has been abandoned since 1968.

Woodland Cottage became a landmark in 1982 and was built in 1845. One of the few left of the Gothic Revival look that was very popular in Clifton before suburbanization.

Tompkinsville looks nothing like this anymore. It was once a wealthy part as well as a desirable part of Staten Island to live in.

This Vanderbilt Home was one of 3 on SI. This one sat one New Drop Lane, but was moved back a few hundred feet. 

Couldn't really find much on this house, but it is beautiful.

Knowing what Stapleton looks like now, can you believe it once looked so nice?

Colonel William E. Ross built this as a replica of Windsor. First it was named Ross castle. It sat on a bluff over looking The Blazing Star Ferry.

Now lets compare:

Need I say more?

Pictures Of The Castle

Staten Island's Bigfoot.

On December 7, 1974, Frank Piztolato and Phillip Vivolo were in the woods near Historic Richmond Town when they "saw a black, upright ‘bear’ which roared at them." A few weeks later, on the morning of January 21, 1975, a young couple "saw Bigfoot in a church car park in the early morning" and later that night, Mrs. D. Daly was "driving late at night [and] had to brake to avoid a Bigfoot under six feet tall crossing the road from a church car park and heading for the rubbish dump and the swamp behind the church."

If I told you that these three Bigfoot sightings were actually documented and published into the Bigfoot Casebook by Janet and Colin Bord, first published in 1982 that contained Bigfoot sightings from the 1800s to 1980, what would your first reaction be? 

You would laugh. As did I. I'll show you the so called evidence, and you can be the judge.

 "My first thought was some stupid kid was in a Halloween costume," she said. "I yelled, but this thing didn't hear me — or didn't seem to." Then, as if shrugging off a pesky child, "it just kind of loped off in the direction of the [St. Andrew's] church cemetery," Accounted Mrs. Daly. 

"I looked down from the hill and I saw this bear. ... I looked at him for about 10 seconds. I saw his snoot and the rest of his body. ... He was standing on two legs." Accounted Philip Vivolo, who at the time was 12, but is now in his 40s. This sighting caused a stir. 6 cop cars, emergency services, as well as a police helicopter searched for two hours. They turned up nothing. 

Two of these sightings happened on the same day. And the other only a few weeks before. At the time you could only imagine how underdeveloped this land was. The Green Belt is thick with trees and all kinds of plants now, so then it could have only been thicker.

A man named Tom Modern is convinced that this creature exists. He has been doing research for years here on the Island and says he has found evidence and is learning how to track them down. He says he has found things even in Great Kills Park. He says that the creature walks close to banks of water so that the water will wash away his prints or any other thing he may leave behind. But is he giving this thing to much credit? He also took the Staten Island Advance to one of the sites that hes camped at, and it was the exact location that Mrs. Daly said she saw what she believed had to have been Bigfoot. Tom said after an April snow fall that he went looking for some more evidence and he found a set of foot prints on both sides on Richmond Hill Rd in the woods, they measured 15 1/2 in long and 6 1/4 in wide on the top.

Mrs. Daly did not come forward right away, she didnt think people would take her seriously. However after seeing that the young couple saw a creature matching the same description as what she had seen on the same day as she, she did. She was driving to work and she took the same route she always did, when this thing walked in front of her car and stopped in her head lights. 

Heres a few links if your interested to learn more..

http://home.clara.net/rfthomas/news/could.html 

http://www.nypress.com/print-article-7469-print.html 

http://open.salon.com/blog/cloud_9/2009/09/18/bigfoot_sighted_on_staten_island_should_new_yorkers_worry




 enjoy! ... and be careful! ..lol

A mob hit in New Springville

It was September 11th 1989, a nice morning in New Springville. Fred Weiss was leaving his girlfriends apartment and getting into his car at 8:30 am when two men ran up on him and shot and killed him. He was shot a number of times in his head and once in his right arm, his Jeep, that he was found next to, also had bullet holes in it. Not a trace of bullet shells or a weapon were found at the site.

Fred Weiss was a partner of a real estate company called W. & W. Properties, and also owned a recycling company, along with that he was a former journalist to the Staten Island Advance.  He was out on $250,000 bail at the time. Weiss was facing 6 counts of mail fraud as well as conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Mr. Weiss's co-defendants - Angelo Paccione of Brooklyn, Anthony Vulpis of Queens and John B. McDonald of Demarest, N.J. - each faced prison terms of up to 70 years and $2 million in fines if convicted.

The problem was, and why Weiss had a hit on him, was due to illegal dumping of medical waste that he was apart of. Weiss had been paid to get rid of whatever waste was being brought to him. He was dumping it in a landfill on the Northwest corner of Staten Island that he and a few others leased. It is said they all made close to 7 million dollars off of the illegal activity. The waste that was being dumped there ranged between garbage, asbestos and infectious medical waste.

Well after Weiss became front and center of the investigation, Mob boss John Gotti became nervous. Weiss was doing this for two major crime families: the New York Gambino crime family and the Decavalcante family. So needles to say it was felt that he had to be eliminated because of the paranoia of both families that he may cooperate with the Feds. So the hit was ordered by Gotti and was carried out by Anthony Capo, James "Jimmy" Gallo, and Giovanni "John the Eagle" Riggi. Riggi, who was in jail at the time he plead guilty to the crime in 2009 said  " I and others met and we agreed that Fred Weiss should be murdered" " Pursuant to that agreement, Fred Weiss was murdered, thats it." 

UPDATED 1/21/2011

Yesterday in court, Joseph Watts age 69, a one time friend and hit man of John Gotti, plead guilty to setting up the hit on Fred Weiss. The case was going to go through some of the earlier and gory crimes of the so called Gotti Era and re cap the evidence they had against Watts that implicated him in another 11 killings. Watts chose to plead guilty instead and is now facing 13 years in prison. "I conspired and agreed with others to murder Fred Weiss to prevent him from cooperating with the government," Watts told Federal District Judge Colleen McMahon. The day before Weiss was murdered a team put together by Watts went to kill him but he managed to get away. The next day they caught up with him and he was killed outside a home in New Springville.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/the_mob/2011/01/21/2011-01-21_gotti_pal_yeah_i_did_it.html?r=news#ixzz1BhCvFvYU

Mob Boss Riggi during the trial of the 1989 slaying of Weiss

On behalf of the NFL's opening day- The Staten Island Stapletons.

The Staten Island Stapletons also known as The "Stapes", was a football team in the NFL that was founded in 1915. They played for the National Foot Ball league between 1929 to 1930, and then two more seasons in 1931 and 1932. The  team was ran by  Dan Blaine, who also served as the team's halfback. Blain later became rich by building up a chain of restaurants. The Stapletons played similar semi-pro neighborhood teams from the New York City area. 


In the earlier years the team played for fun and only got paid about $10 per game. The team went inactive in 1918 due to WWI. Blain was in the army an had been deployed over seas. He came back a year later in 1919 and became the sole owner of The Stapes and retired himself as a player. He also became successful with a string of restaurants in Staten Island that sold alcohol during the prohibition. 


The team won the New York Metropolitan championship in 1924 by beating out the best Semi-Pro teams in the area. But in 1925 Tim Mara formed the New York Giants who moved into the Polo Grounds. The Giants stole the spotlight for the Statepltons because of a bigger stadium and the ability to support larger crowds and fans. The rivalry between The Giants and The Stapes began on Thanksgiving Day in 1925 when the Giants beat them out 7-0. On Nov 14th 1926, the Newark Bears beat the Stapes 33-0. Blain recruited most of the Bears players including their star rookie  Doug Wycoff who was more then willing to leave the Bears due to nonpayments. The Stapes greatly benefited from this and the Bears went out of business in 1928. Blain then hired a few NYU players as well. 


In 1927, the Stapes fielded their ex-Newark Bears squad, although Wycoff signed to the Giants. The Giants would go on to win the 1927 NFL championship and defeated the Stapes twice in non-league games, 19-0 and 18-0. The Stapes though did manage to beat the NFL's Duluth Eskimos, featuring Ernie Nevers 7-6 on November 27, 1927. By 1928, Blaine wanted the Stapes to become an NFL franchise. He bolstered his squad by resigning Doug Wycoff back as a player-coach and by signing six graduates from the nationally-ranked New York University team. The Stapes had their best season on record, going 10-1-1, including a 3-1 record against NFL teams. They even pulled out a 7-0 victory over the Giants on Thanksgiving Day.

After their record was set Blain applied for an NFL franchise. He had to obtain permission from Tim Mara, the owner of the Giants, because Staten Island was in his territory. But he actually had an extra franchise that originally belonged to the Brooklyn Lions but was handed over Mara when the team folded in 1927, because they owed him money. Mara had then allowed the New York Yankees, owned by Grange's manager C. C. Pyle, to use the franchise when they moved from the AFL to NFL. The Yankees went out of business after the 1928 season, so the franchise again went back to Mara and he passed those franchise's rights on to Staten Island.Blain hired Ken Strong who later became a Stapletons Hall of Famer, to play with the newly franchised team.

The Stapletons would never have a winning season in the NFL. During their first NFL season in 1929, the team went 3-4-3, defeating the Dayton Triangles, Brooklyn Dodgers and theMinneapolis Red Jackets. They also managed to tie the Frankford Yellow Jackets once and Orange Tornadoes twice. The team improved to a 5-5-2 record in 1930. That season the Stapes managed to defeat the rival New York Giants 7-6, after a four yard touchdown run from Doug Wycoff and an extra point kick from Strong.

In July 1931, the team's official name on the league records was changed from the Stapleton Football Club, Inc., to Staten Island Stapes. At this time, Doug Wycoff left the team to rejoin the Giants. In need of a coach, Blaine hired Hinkey Haines, who had played briefly for the Stapes in 1929. The Stapes opened at home by beating the Dodgers 9-7 before 7,000 fans. However a week later at Ebbets Field, the Dodgers forced 3 interceptions to defeat the Stapes 18-6. The team would post a 4-6-1 record in 1931, defeating the Giants (once), Dodgers (twice) and the Cleveland Indians. (Resources *)

In 1932 the Stapes finished last. They managed only to defeat the Giants and the Cardinals, and in 1933 the only team they beat was the new Philadelphia Eagles. Their star player Ken Strong went on to sign with the Giants and won the NFL Championship that year. In 1935 Blain's franchise was declared forfeit and the team folded. 

Giants beat Staten Island - November 13, 1932
Old Newspaper Clipping - footballhistorian.com - Archives

Staten Island fumbles away game Football History November 13, 1932 - Old Newspaper Clipping The New York Giants' home-field advantage and its far superior line was too much for the Staten Island Stapletons to overcome Sunday. The 15,000 in attendance at the Polo Grounds watched as quarterback Jack McBride guided the Giants to a 27-7 rousing win. McBride, the former Brooklyn Dodgers' quarterback, teamed up with his favorite pass catchers, Ray Flaherty and Red Badgro, and the New York city-team linemen played rough football much to the glee of their fans. The Stapletons, who have one of the best players in fullback Ken Strong, were no match for the Giants' aggressive style of play. The gate receipts should come in handy for the visiting Staten Islanders, whose owners reported last week that the financial loses suffered throughout the last four years (1929-1932) are causing them to think about folding after this season ends. Note: Staten Island folded after the 1932 season ended. footballhistorian.com - Football History - The Great Depression

Football Historian 

South Beach's Glory Days.

                 Everyone's heard of Coney Island and all the fires that brought the amusement part to ashes, but have you ever heard of Happy Land Park? Maybe you did if your family is native to Staten Island, but i never knew anything about it. Happy Land Park was an amusement park that was located in South Beach, Staten Island. It was at its time in rival with Coney Island. The park cost roughly 200,000 dollars to open, and on its grand opening on June 30th 1906, it brought about 30,000 people, but admissions were free the 1st day of opening.

Aug 1908

               The Park was well known for its attractions and even had its own transit line right to the gates, as Coney Island did to its own park. It was lit up by over 50,000 lights and also featured a vaudeville theater, an attraction called the Carnival of Venice, complete with Gondola rides, hotels and resorts that lined the streets, as well as a Japanese tea garden and a shooting range.The park had got very good reviews by the New York Times and was a major attraction of the island. With the roof top restaurants and sprawling boardwalk its no wonder Staten Islanders had no desire to travel to Coney Island. Sadly despite good earnings and reviews, the park had to claim bankruptcy in 1910, though it still operated. Only up till 1917, when a devastating fire broke out. The fire wasnt the only thing that effected the island, pollution in the water also played a big part in the decline of admissions. After closing, the train stopped stopping in South Beach in 1953, and the tracks where ripped out in the 1980's.

The ball room at Happy Land park

People lining the boardwalk

South Beach 1980's

South Beach in the present day

What we see now of South Beach is not much more then sand and water. Aside from the baseball fields and boardwalk that lines the coast, there isn't even so much as a clue as to what South Beach once was. It is however home to the Franklin D. Roosevelt boardwalk. The FDR was built by Work in Progress in 1939, and it is one of the longest boardwalks in the world. New York has two others in the top ten: the Coney Island Riegelmann Boardwalk and Ocean Promenade on the Rockaway peninsula. And so the story always ends the same, by the 1970's most of all the arcades had closed down along with the restaurants and little shops, though the last arcade from Happy Land Park closed in 2006. A building complex went up along with a few mini malls and it looks no more special the an old abandoned beach when you walk down the boardwalk.

Greenridge & The abandoned Highway.

                      As a teen living on Annadale Rd. i often walked to Greenridge to meet up with my friends. There werent many places for kids our age to go hang out and not get chased away by cops all night. I would walk to Greenridge and meet up with the rest of my friends knowing that they would be there ( this was before everyone had a cell phone). I would walk down Dorval till it hit the Korean War Vets and like everyone else cross through the abandoned highway. We would all hang out on that highway, away from people that could yell at us and of course cops. I remember always thinking about how that highway got there and where was it supposed to be going anyway? I've walked all the way up it literally leads to no where. I'm sure I am not the only one who thought about this, because we've all talked about it. Well I found out the answer as to how it got there and why it never got finished, along with a couple more interesting facts.

                  In 1921, on the corner of Aurthur Kill rd and Richmond ave were safari golf now sits, sat a amusement park and restaurant call Al Deppe's. It was an indoor play ground with small rides and pin ball machines, a beautiful carousel that was imported from Germany, as well as shooting booths for target practice. . The owner who opened this place also bought a mansion built in the 1850's across the street, known to me and you as the Elks Club. 

              

After buying the house, Al built a 200 ft tunnel that ran from his house to the restaurant across the street so that he could go back and forth with money and other such valuables unnoticed and unharmed. Some people say Al was so paranoid he actually hid some of his money in the tunnel for safe keeping and that its still there today. Along with this tunnel there are a few other tunnels that lead to various locations in the area, some dating back to the civil war era as legend has it. Before the construction of the Korean War Vets and the West shore Richmond Ave was the only way to travel from Eltingville, so of course this place did very well and was a well known establishment. They were best known for the hot dogs and their fresh clams.

          And so the story always ends the same, in the late 1960's or early 1970's the city wanted to build a better way to travel the Island, and proposed the building of The Richmond Parkway, currently the Korean War Vets, and Al Deppe's stood right in the way. So the place was condemned and knocked down to make way for the exit off the Parkway. As we know this never came about though there are 4 over passes ( 2 on each side) that were built, along with a street sign, and paved roads with guard rails and all. The plan was to make a quick exit from the Richmond Parkway to the Staten Island Expressway, it was to cut though CSI as well, however it was never even fished due to a change of plans.It must have been a heartbreak for the Deppe family and other people who frequented the spot.

1947

*Any pictures and info about any topic would be great.

Cropsey: the Staten Island booggie man...

                             I am only 23 years old, so i wasn't aware of this story growing up on Staten Island. I have heard about just about every other story this island has to offer, I mean this is said to be the most haunted borough. We have Richmond Town, Sea View, The Farm Colony... I could keep going.. and I will get to these stories sooner or later, but what got me was the story of cropsey. I was flicking through the channels and came across a commercial about a documentary that's to be aired on channel 23 (if you have timeWarner cable) on Friday at 9 pm. I figured if they were making a whole documentary about this then it may be worth exploring. So i googled it, of course. And so here is what i came across.

Alice Pereira

It was the 1980's, at the time, the island was much less populated then it currently is. It was a very family oriented place with more wooded areas then the other 4 boroughs. There was an urban legend called cropsey about an escaped mental patient ( no surprise there) that lived in the woods and would pray on little kids. This was mostly passed along by kids trying to scare each other or parents trying to keep their children close by and keep them from wandering out of the neighborhood. But in the 80's an urban legend took on its own real life antics when children around the island started going missing. Enter Andre Rand, who worked as an orderly in the Willowbrook State School in the 1960's. As it turns out he actually lived on the grounds after the closing of  the Willowbrook school at various make shift camp sites he set up in abandoned buildings and also in the under ground tunnels that ran under the institution. 

Holly Ann

        The 1st girl to grab attention but no the 1st to go missing, and the only one who's body was recovered  was 12 year old Westerleigh girl Jennifer Schweiger, who had down syndrome. She disappeared on July 9th 1987 and was found later in August of that same year. She was found in a shallow grave near the abandoned building. Andre Rand was the last person to be seen with her alive for whatever reason a 42 year old homeless guy is the only one with a 12 year old not to mention a young girl with down syndrome is beyond me. It took over 30 days of searching and combing the island to find this girl. He was arrested but only convicted of kidnapping, not for murder and is currently serving 25 years to life. But if you thought it ended there it doesn't. In 2004 Andre took the stand again facing charges on kidnapping and murder charges in the case of  7 year old Holly Ann Hughes who went missing in 1981, before Jennifer was taken. She was playing with her friends near a local Port Richmond deli. A witness saw a green Volkswagen shadowing her. Witness Elsie Caban, says she saw this car about 6 times over a 2 hour span moving closer to Holly and her friends. "The Volkswagen moved next to the tracks on Park Ave.," Caban said, recalling how she had previously seen the car up the street. 

Jennifer

"Now, the car was on the other side of the street with the children around down by the trestle." Caban said she first saw the car parked outside her Park Ave. home in Port Richmond and across the street from where her children were playing with Holly Ann outside the child's home. A short while later, as Caban walked to a deli to buy soap, she saw the car parked near the railroad tracks. Caban testified that the last time she saw Holly Ann was between 9:30 and 9:45 p.m. as the child strolled alone on Ann St. toward Port Richmond Ave. Caban, who was on her porch, said she noticed several minutes later the Volkswagen was gone. Perhaps the strangest twist in this story is that the sales clerk that was working that night at the deli remembered Holly come in and bought a bar of ivory soap. He said she came in at about 9:30 pm to buy a bar of soap and she was a nickle short. Why is this strange? Well because Elsie Caban stated that she too went into that same deli and bought a bar of soap, and according to the clerk she too was a nickle short. Andre has admitted to being there and states that he actually gave the girl money and told her to go buy a bar of soap because she was dirty. Oh no it doesnt end there, Rand is also likely connected to the kidnappings of additional girls: Tiahease Jackson, 10, who disappeared Aug. 13, 1983, out of The Mariner's Harbor Hotel where she was staying with her family. Her mother was asleep around 1:30 pm and a neighboor asked her to run to the store for her. She was never seen again after buying chicken wings at Crown Supermarket, 900 Richmond Ave.; and Alice Pereira, 5, who disappeared on July 10, 1972, near her apartment in the Tysens Ln area of the New Dorp section, several miles southeast of Willowbrook. She vanished after her brother left her alone for all of 5 minutes. Audrey Lyn Nerenberg is another girl about the age of 18 although she had the mentality of a 14 year old when she was taken. She lived in  Flatbush, Brooklyn but was at a theater on Staten Island the day before her disappearance on July 5th 1977.  The theater is the former Jerry Lewis Theater that was on Forest Ave., not far from Rand's makeshift campsites. Audrey was last seen at her house in Brooklyn where she told her mother she was going two blocks away for a pack of cigarettes. Though her father received a call claiming to be the abductor, and demanding ransom, she was never seen or heard from again. He has also been linked to the disappearance of Ethel Atwell and the rape and murder of Shin Lee, both Willowbrook aides. 

Tiahease Jackson

                     Andre Rand has not given cops any extra information to help solve any of the cases, and to this day no body knows exactly what happened in the events leading up to the death of little Jennifer and the others. Few speculate that he passed some of the girls around among his friends, who knows if this is true. What really gets me is that this could have all been stopped before it all started. His first encounter with the law was May 25, 1969, when he some how got a 9-year-old Bronx girl into his car and drove to a vacant lot. He took off his clothes and hers, but a passing police car interrupted the crime. Charged with attempted rape, Rand pleaded guilty to sexual abuse and was sentenced to four years. He served 16 months. In 1979, he was accused of raping a young woman and a 15-year-old girl, but neither pressed charges. In 1981, he offered a 9-year-old girl a lollipop and tried to lure her to ride in his Volkswagen. When she refused, Rand followed her to her home and searched for her while she hid under a rug. No charges were filed. And in January 1983, he drove to a Staten Island YMCA, lured 11 children into his van and drove to Elizabeth, N.J., where he bought them White Castle. He then took them to Newark Airport, where they watched planes arrive and depart. When he brought them back to the YMCA five hours later, Rand was charged with unlawful imprisonment and served 10 months in jail. Of course he and his lawyer maintain his innocence saying  that Rand was "thoroughly investigated at the time. . . . His photograph was shown to persons who had seen Holly Ann Hughes shortly before her disappearance and none of them have identified [him] as having been near or with the child on July 15, 1981."

Audrey

            In a letter Rand wrote he said that that he has been the victim of "a slanderous/scapegoat article resurrecting [so-called] 'notoriety,' thus encouraging hostility against plaintiff. Focusing and arousing public attention toward plaintiff from so-called 'missing persons' old cases - such persons plaintiff has never met!" In a jailhouse interview with The News in 1987, Rand repeatedly lied to a reporter, saying he had never met Jennifer Schweiger. Though he changed his story real quick at trial, after his defense lawyer learned there were several witnesses who saw him with his bicycle leading the trusting little girl with Down syndrome by the hand away from her house toward the woods at Willowbrook. And inmates have said that Rand in his own words  referred to him self as similar to Ted Bundy notorious women killer. "You know me and [Ted] Bundy are alike in many ways. We both used Volkswagens. Bundy's thing was women. My thing is kids. . . . Do you think the police could figure that out?" Andre also boasted to inmates that no one will ever find Holly's remains. He also asked a prison mate where he could find a porn magazine similar to his but with children instead. 

The search for Jennifer

Even 20 years later Friends of Jennifer, a group of people that dedicated much efforts to the recovery of Jennifer, still search the Willowbrook area once a year in hopes to recover anything that would help any of the cases against Rand.