← UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast
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- [00:00]
James Buddy Day
This Monday.com ad was created by a team of people and AI agents. The agents wrote the copy and managed the timelines, while our human creative director made sure it all made sense.
- [00:11]
Kristin Thorne
Easy.
- [00:12]
James Buddy Day
Create your own AI agent. Today on Monday dot com.
- [00:15]
Nick Greystone
Hey, guys.
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James Buddy Day
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- [00:28]
Kristin Thorne
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- [00:29]
Nick Greystone
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- [00:29]
James Buddy Day
See terms and conditions 21.
- [00:33]
Kristin Thorne
Does Long island allow people to live a double life? I can't think of another area of the country that has so many serial killers.
- [00:44]
James Buddy Day
Long Island, N.Y. home to the Gilgo beach serial killer, Rex Heuerman. Home to Joel Rifkin, Richard Cottingham, John Bitroff, and during the very same years, a another serial killer, Robert Schulman.
- [01:01]
Kristin Thorne
What was it about these men that grew up on Long Island?
- [01:06]
James Buddy Day
You might not recognize the name Robert Schulman, but his story sits at the center of the Long island serial killer phenomenon. Schulman confessed to murdering at least five women. He preyed on vulnerable victims, disposed of their bodies around Long Island's roadways, and committed his crimes during a period when at least six other serial offenders were active in the same small region. That fact alone raises uncomfortable questions.
- [01:41]
Kristin Thorne
Rifkin confessed to murdering 17. We have Heuerman admitted to killing eight. We have Shulman admitted to killing five.
- [01:50]
James Buddy Day
Was it chance? Was it access to vulnerable victims, shared childhood experiences? Or are we looking at something bigger, a social phenomenon rather than a series of isolated offenders? As part of our ongoing investigation into the Long island serial killers, I've tracked down something that has never been examined publicly. A trove of letters written by Robert Schwarman. Now we're talking about years of correspondence. And they reveal how Shulman wanted to be remembered and perhaps what he was trying to hide.
- [02:30]
Nick Greystone
One woman that I spoke with, she had put me in contact with his friend that had the letters.
- [02:36]
James Buddy Day
This is the first time the contents of these letters have been presented publicly. By the end of this episode, you'll know who Robert Schulman really was and whether his life helps explain why Long island produces so many monsters.
- [02:53]
Kristin Thorne
They just have no regard for human life. They never saw these women as human, so there's nothing to be ashamed of in their minds. If anything, they're proud of it.
- [03:03]
James Buddy Day
I'm James Buddy Day. This is unmarked. Over the years, the Long island serial Killer has gone by a number of names. The Ocean Parkway Killer, the Gilgo Beach Killer, the Craigslist Ripper. And that's because we now know that the Long Island Serial killer isn't one investigation, it's many. A series of overlapping cases involving multiple offenders who hunted the same vulnerable populations over the course of four decades. By conservative estimates, well over 100 women were murdered by serial offenders operating in and around New York during this period. And 200 victims is no longer outside the realm of possibility. So we're unpacking these crimes over a series of episodes. We've already examined Richard Cottingham and Joel Rifkin. We've begun following the Rex Heuermann case and as prosecutors continue to reveal new evidence. And if you've seen any of those episodes, you'll recognize some of the patterns here. But if you haven't, this episode is a perfect place to start.
- [04:20]
Kristin Thorne
I can't think of another area of the country that has so many serial killers. So it is interesting, right? Like what is going on that has contributed to these men engaging in this sick activity, right?
- [04:38]
James Buddy Day
That's Kristin Thorne, a five time Emmy award winning investigative journalist who spent years covering crime on Long Island. She's reported extensively on the Gilgo beach investigation and has been following the Rex Heuermann case from the moment of his arrest.
- [04:55]
Kristin Thorne
Does Long island allow people to live a double life? Because we see that with a lot of these guys, right? They had their normal life where they worked at the post office or they were an architect in midtown Manhattan. And then at night they were these crazy people.
- [05:11]
James Buddy Day
Now, if you've never heard of Robert Shulman, you're not alone. Unlike Rex Heuermann or Joel Rifkin, his name has largely faded from public memory. But it shouldn't have. Shulman's life may be one of the clearest windows in into why Long island produced so many serial killers during the 1980s and 1990s. But before we get into all of that, let me catch you up. In 1996, Robert Schulman was a 42 year old postal worker from Hicksville, Long Island. After his arrest, he confessed to murdering and dismembering three women. Years later, he admitted to killing at least two more. That's five victims that we know of. For years, the details of his crimes remained fragmented, but that's begun to change. Advances in DNA have helped identify his victims, clarify timelines, and fill in important gaps in the investigation. But if you've listened to unmarked, you know that's not enough for us. Police reports will tell us how investigators saw solve the case. But what they rarely tell us is what was happening inside the offender's mind. What fantasy was he chasing? How did he explain himself? What story did he tell about his own life? That's where this new evidence becomes so valuable.
- [06:39]
Nick Greystone
So I work in the post office that Robert Sherman actually worked in and was apprehended from back in the 90s when all this stuff was happening.
- [06:53]
James Buddy Day
That's Nick Greystone. He's not a detective or psychologist. Nick lives in the same community. And working with investigative journalist Kristen Thorne, Nick helped uncover something extraordinary. A former co worker had kept decades of correspondence with Schulman after he was sent to prison.
- [07:14]
Nick Greystone
A lot of people alienated him after the fact, but, you know, he referred to him as Bob. He was like, Bob was my friend, you know, and I kept in contact with him, and I wrote to him while he was in prison. The next day, like, he brought in this manila folder, and it was full of these letters, about maybe 50 or 60 of them that he wrote to him up until about six months before he passed.
- [07:41]
James Buddy Day
I've spent days reading these letters. They're fascinating and reveal not only how Schulman saw himself, but how he saw others within the Long island serial killer investigation.
- [07:54]
Kristin Thorne
The most interesting thing that I thought when I was reading is he talks about his interactions with these other killers because he's in with Joel Rifkin. And it's so interesting. There's like, this level of the way they view each other. Like he doesn't see his own depravity. He sees it in other people.
- [08:15]
James Buddy Day
That's the part I want to understand what was driving Robert Schulman? Do we see the same psychological patterns that we found in Rex Heuerman, Joel Rifkin, Richard Cottingham? Or does Shulman tell us something different?
- [08:28]
Kristin Thorne
He says about Joel Ripken, he always has a stupid smile on his face and brags about his crimes. He gets angry at people who aren't taking responsibility for what they've done. Show some remorse. Why are you bragging? Yet he never took responsibility for what he did.
- [08:50]
James Buddy Day
What Kristen is describing is one of the central contradictions in these letters. Despite giving multiple detailed confessions after his arrest, Shulman spent years proclaiming his innocence. It's one of the many paradoxes that we'll unpack throughout this episode. But to understand Robert Shulman, we first have to understand the place that shaped him. The same Long island that produced other serial offenders. The same Long island where Shulman's childhood laid the foundation for the man he would eventually become. And for that we have to go all the way back to the beginning. Imagine Long island during the post war boom. You have to picture endless rows of Cape Cod homes, new Levittown subdivisions spreading to the east. Young families chasing the American dream. It's a place built on optimism, clean streets, good schools, and the promise of a better life. This is where Robert Shulman is born, March 28, 1954. For the rest of his life, almost everyone calls him Bob. He spends his childhood in East Meadow, moving to Texas for a brief period before eventually settling on Hicksville, Long Island.
- [10:17]
Nick Greystone
Joel Rifkin in East Meadow the Amityville Horror. Robert Shulman Being in Hicksville like this was all just stones throw away. It's everyday suburbia. I live in Belmore, so it's like a couple of towns over, but it's really just middle class, all houses in a row, quiet neighborhood.
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James Buddy Day
There's nothing outwardly remarkable about these neighborhoods that they're not isolated, they're not impoverished. They're the kind of places where children ride bicycles, where families mow their lawns on Saturdays and everyone assumes they know their neighbors. Back in the late 1950s. Bob is one of four boys. Sheldon, known as Shelly, is the oldest. Then there's Steve, Bob, and finally the youngest, Barry. They're raised by Jules and Mildred Schulman.
- [11:11]
Kristin Thorne
I mean, I think that it was a very tumultuous household. I think that there was a lot of seemed like there was some abuse in the household, you know, whether emotional, physical.
- [11:21]
James Buddy Day
Kristen Thorne is absolutely right. But tumultuous almost feels too gentle. Years later, during Robert Schulman's sentencing, a member of the family would describe the house as, quote, unquote, a horrific combination of filth, grime and inept parenting, end quote. Those words stayed with me because they capture something police reports rarely do. Neglect isn't just the absence of care. It's the whole environment. It's the place where a child learns who they are.
- [11:54]
Kristin Thorne
So there's three brothers, right? There's the older brother who I have spoken with. I'm going to keep what he said private because he asked me to. But it's look, he was nothing like his younger brother and, you know, really, look, loves his brother. It was his brother, but he. It sort of also raises the question of you can have all these different people in a family and some end up completely normal.
- [12:22]
James Buddy Day
According to Thorne's reporting, Shelley is the one brother who appears to emerge with the fewest lasting scars. That observation points to something very important. When we ask why a sibling becomes a serial killer while another doesn't. There usually isn't a single answer. There's just probabilities. The takeaway here is that for Bob Shulman and his brothers, they grow up in a home of instability. And much of that instability appears to center on their mother, Mildred.
- [12:53]
Nick Greystone
He had a mother that was a very flirtatious woman. She was like an alcoholic. There was some signs of abuse.
- [13:08]
James Buddy Day
There's little question that Mildred struggled with significant mental illness. Although the records never establish a formal diagnosis, what I found instead were contemporary descriptions. Neighbors remember a woman who seemed consumed by her own life, more interested in parties and dancing than raising four boys. Those accounts are subjective, but they're remarkably consistent. They describe a home defined by emotional neglect and a mother who often seemed psychologically unavailable. This is where Bob Shulman grows up. In a house where affection is scarce. Dinner is sometimes little more than undercooked spaghetti covered in ketchup. His siblings later remember their mother sleeping through much of the day, groggy and detached. Things like birthdays are easily forgotten to a child. Experiences like these become something much deeper than disappointment. Children rarely conclude that their parent is incapable. Instead, they come to believe that they are somehow unworthy of love. And as we'll see, this pattern becomes much darker as Bob comes into adulthood. But at this point, it's locked away. Part of Bob's internal story. Neighbors remember a quiet, withdrawn boy. They report poor eye contact, dirty clothes, little attention to hygiene. Looking back, it's impossible to know whether we're seeing the early traits of psychopathy, the effects of chronic neglect, or some interaction between the two. But school records offer some insight. Bob struggles academically. Reading is difficult for him. His emotional development appears delayed. There are repeated signs of truancy, behavioral problems, and difficulty regulating emotions. And by the time Bob Shulman is 13 years old, another tragedy strikes. In 1967, Bob's father, Jules, dies from complications of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Bob is devastated, and so is the rest of the family. Years later, while reading through Shulman's prison letters, I came across this passage. I'll read it to you. Never was I disrespectful to my father. Even though he died when I was just 13, I knew this would have never changed because I still miss him. End quote. Now, whether or not we believe everything that Robert Shulman wrote, this letter reveals something important. He was capable of attachment. And that's significant because psychopaths are often described as incapable of meaningful emotional bonds. Yet Shulman's history is more complicated. After his father's death, the surviving brothers appear to become even closer in the face of their mother's neglect. That's consistent with what psychologists call scaffolding. When children experience chronic trauma or the loss of a caregiver, older siblings often begin providing the emotional support that parents cannot. These siblings become protectors, role models, sources of stability that help the younger siblings regulate emotions and navigate the unpredictable world. And researchers have found that these sibling relationships can become unusually strong. And the Schulman brothers, they appear to fit this pattern. Back in 1967, Bob's mother, Mildred, meets a man through a support group called parents without partners, and within five days, they're married. By now, this family has already endured years of neglect, and that has a real world cost. In 1978, Bob's elder brother Steve dies due to self harm after years of depression and substance abuse. And just two years later, in 1980, Bob attempts the same thing. He tries to take his own life by locking himself inside his eldest brother's family garage with the engine of a running car. He survives this, but the attempt offers an important snapshot into who Robert Shulman is. At this point, he's drifting, working odd jobs, still carrying the emotional weight of a childhood defined by neglect and instability. When I compare that history with what Robert Shulman later says after his arrest and what he writes in these letters, I don't see someone simply hiding from reality. I see someone retreating, falling back into an increasingly elaborate internal world, A world of fantasy. I found a fascinating study published in 2020, and it's called A Behavior Sequence Analysis of ser Serial Killers Lives from Childhood Abuse to methods of murder. What caught my attention wasn't simply the conclusion, but the methodology. Rather than looking at isolated risk factors, the researchers use behavioral sequence analysis to identify statistically significant pathways between specific forms of child abuse and the behaviors that serial killers later exhibit towards their victims. Among individuals who are already neurologically vulnerable. And I'm talking about people whose brains may already be predisposed to linking things like sexual arousal and violence. Certain forms of childhood trauma appear to influence how those fantasies developed and in some cases, how they're ultimately expressed. And using this research and Robert Schulman's letters, we have something incredibly valuable, because when we compare what he writes about himself to what we. We know about his childhood, we can begin testing whether his life follows the same developmental patterns described in the research.
- [19:30]
Kristin Thorne
What we can see in the letters is, you know, it's almost like he wants to love somebody, but he. He either doesn't know how to or there's always a reason that these love stories that he thought he was going to have with these women didn't work out. But you can also tell that he definitely feels in the letters that he is not worthy.
- [20:02]
James Buddy Day
What Kristin is describing is what psychologists often call a shame schema. It's more than low self esteem. It's a deeply held belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with you, that you're somehow defective, unlovable or undeserving of affection. And when we look at Robert Shulman's childhood and combine it with the research, that's exactly the pattern that I see. A mother who appears emotionally unavailable throughout his upbringing. A father he loses at 13 years of instability, neglect and isolation. And over time, these experiences leave Bob with something deeper than sadness. They leave him with shame. This Monday.com ad was created by a team of people and AI agents. The agents wrote the copy and managed the timelines, while our human creative director made sure it all made sense.
- [20:56]
Kristin Thorne
Easy.
- [20:56]
James Buddy Day
Create your own AI agent today on Monday.com looking for a little Hollywood style fun? Check out Ryan Seacrest 10k ways exclusively at Chumba Casino. There's 10,000 ways to play get spinning for free at chumbacasino.com no purchase necessary vgw group void where prohibited by law cts and c's 21 plus sponsored by Chumba Casino While reading through Bob's letters, I came across this passage. Quote, my worst nightmare has come true. Being penniless, homeless and helpless. You could never even imagine what it feels like to have absolutely no control over your life. It's gone way past bitter feelings towards those few gutless cowards that took my life away. Reading that, the fantasy jumps off the page. Control Again and again. His writing returns to the same emotional state. Humiliation, helplessness, resentment, and the longing to regain control. Back in 1979, Bob's mother passes away when he's 22 years old. Decades later, he writes, quote, my appeal hearing took place on Tuesday, September 6, 2005. That date happens to be on the eve of my mother's death, 29 years earlier. That's psychologically significant. People who grow up with inconsistent or emotionally unavailable caregivers often develop what psychologists call ambivalent attachment. The relationship is painful, sometimes abusive, yet emotionally unfinished. Even after the parent is gone, the child continues searching for meaning, resolution or connection that never really existed. And often these individuals seek out a sense of family with their peers. And for Bob, we can see that in the late 1980s, when he's a young man and finds work as a mail sorter at the Hicksville post office.
- [23:03]
Kristin Thorne
He loved everybody at the post office. That seemed to be like his safe place that he really enjoyed working at and the camaraderie. And so he's probably putting that in the letters because he doesn't want to disappoint them. They're like his only friends. He doesn't really have any family, so these were like his peer group.
- [23:22]
James Buddy Day
Kristen's observation is important because it challenges a common misconception about serial that they're mindless sharks, incapable of relationships. Robert Schulman wasn't incapable of forming relationships. He appears to have desperately wanted them. The post office gives him something he's rarely experienced growing up, a place where he belongs. For someone whose childhood was defined by instability, this kind of environment can become profoundly important.
- [23:52]
Nick Greystone
They were saying that he was a quiet guy. You know, he led like a very private life, very work driven, like he was obsessed with making the most amount of money in the time that he was here.
- [24:08]
James Buddy Day
The more I read Shulman's letters, the more I realize he wasn't simply reminiscing about his job job, he was attempting to preserve it. The names of co workers, overtime shifts, seniority, the politics of the workplace. The post office becomes a reoccurring theme throughout hundreds of these pages. And as Nick Greystone explained to me, it remained one of Robert Shulman's defining preoccupations long after he was sent to prison.
- [24:37]
Nick Greystone
About a year before he died, he asked if the seniority list was the same and did it look something like this. He proceeds to write down about 50 people's names, their start dates, in order of them getting hired, him being towards the top. And he was like, yo, is this the way that the seniority list is? Still, this man hadn't stepped into the post office building for about nine years at this growing 10 years, but he still had this memory of, you know, he was obsessed with, like, his retirement and this overtime and everything.
- [25:20]
James Buddy Day
That detail fascinates me. Nearly a decade after his arrest, Robert Schulman could still recite the seniority list from the Hicksville post office by memory. Dozens of names, hire dates, the order in which people started. This isn't nostalgia, it's fixation. By this point, it's 1989. Bob is living alone in a small rented bedroom in Hicksville. An elderly landlord occupies the house while his younger brother Barry rents another room upstairs. His life settles into a routine that will largely remain unchanged for nearly 20 years. He sleeps through the day. He reports to the Hicksville post office for the overnight shift, working from 10:30pm until 7am Sundays and Mondays are his days off. Co workers describe him as filthy and hostile. Neighbors remember him shuffling in and out of the house wearing the same worn army jacket and flannel shirt every day, climbing into a battered blue Cadillac that he shares with his brother. And almost always, he's accompanied by women that witnesses describe as, quote, sleazy.
- [26:39]
Kristin Thorne
Now, he also did a ton of drugs, right? He was addicted. He crack cocaine, one, something along those lines, which he would lure the women with, and they would engage in drugs together. And so he was also a drug addict.
- [26:54]
James Buddy Day
There's one letter that caught my attention because it says far more than I think Robert Shulman intended. Quote, I was not willing to work hard and bring up a son. And then at 15 or 16 or so, he decides to be a drug addict for something I had no control over. Throughout these letters, Schulman repeatedly condemns people. In this way, he's able to see other people's struggles, but not able to acknowledge them in himself. Psychologists call this projection. It's not necessarily conscious dishonesty. It's a defense mechanism that allows someone to preserve a version of themselves that feels more acceptable than reality. Which brings up something else Shulman is never willing to discuss. The true barrier to his ability to establish meaningful relationships. Just as we saw with Joel Rifkin, Robert Shulman becomes increasingly obsessed with a population of sex workers in Queens. But before we go any further, we need to understand New York in the early 90s, because Robert Shulman is not operating in isolation. Neither is Joel Rifkin, who's active during the same time period, nor John Bitroff, nor, decades later, Rex Heuermann. So how is it that multiple serial killers operate in the same region without anyone realizing it? Part of the answer lies in the city itself. During the 1980s, New York launches an aggressive campaign to reclaim neighborhoods overwhelmed by drugs and street crime. One initiative alone is called Operation pressure point. In 1984, it results in the arrest of more than 11,000 people. Officers issue tens of thousands of summonses in response, most related to drug offenses. And over the next several years, that number continues to climb. Now, on paper, it looks like remarkable success, but in reality, it produces an unintended consequence.
- [29:03]
Kristin Thorne
They started cleaning up, and so all of this started to filter out.
- [29:08]
James Buddy Day
This is a key finding as we continue to investigate the Long island serial killers, because the crackdown addresses where crime is happening.
- [29:16]
Nick Greystone
But.
- [29:16]
James Buddy Day
But it doesn't address why drug addiction doesn't simply Disappear. Poverty doesn't disappear. Sex work doesn't disappear. The vulnerable people move.
- [29:26]
Kristin Thorne
We see that a lot of these sex workers came from the Bronx and from Queens. So they were pushed out of Manhattan, right? The Times Square area and lower Manhattan.
- [29:35]
James Buddy Day
By the early 1990s, hundreds of women have been pushed out of Manhattan and are now working along Roosevelt Avenue and Jamaica Avenue in, in Queens, depending on traffic, about a 40 minute drive from Times Square. So whether intentionally or not, New York City has concentrated exactly the kind of vulnerable population that serial predators look for. According to investigative notes, when detectives begin canvassing Jamaica Avenue after the murders, sex workers repeatedly describe the same customer, a man named Bob, who drives a battered blue Cadillac and lives in a filthy one bedroom apartment in Hicksville on Long Island. And I came across another excerpt in the letters that sheds light on Bob Shulman's inner thoughts. During this time. There are many nice guys who remain single, never wanting to be tied down with marriage and children. I was one of those guys. Too much responsibility. End quote. What strikes me about that passage isn't the excuse that Bob gives, it's how ordinary he believes his life would have been. He doesn't describe himself as someone fundamentally different from everyone else, even though we've established that he clearly is. He casts himself as simply an average man who simply chose another path. But his goal was never companionship. Bob Shulman spends an excessive amount of time seeking out sex workers, while in the letters he writes longingly about his desire for marriage. How can both of these things be true? The answer may lie in the fact that there are two completely different fantasies at play here.
- [31:24]
Kristin Thorne
What's interesting, you see in the letters is that he was in love with two women at this post office branch, one of which he says he proposed to. You can tell in the letters that he really wanted to be married. He wanted to have that stable life. But they're just. There must have been something dark in him.
- [31:47]
James Buddy Day
Now, this isn't necessarily reality. In the letters, Bob Shulman writes about these two co workers extensively, though it appears that he was only casually acquainted with either. But it gives us a window into Schulman's fantasy world. The women he imagines building a life with are not the women he seeks out. One represents the attachment that he longs for, the other represents the control he exerts. Years later, Shulman will describe a deep seated hatred towards sex workers despite seeking them out compulsively. We don't know exactly when Robert Shulman crosses the line. His first known homicide occurs in August of 1991. But remarkably, Shulman doesn't confess to this murder until nearly 20 years later, Long after he's already been sentenced and convicted. That delay is significant. It reminds us that even years after his arrest, we still don't know the full extent of his crimes. Case in point, I found this newspaper clipping from 1995. This is a year before Robert Shulman's arrest. It lists seven unsolved homicides from the same period, including Schulman's first known victim, Lori Vasquez. Now, looking back today, the list reads very differently. Of the seven, we now know that two of these women were murdered by serial killer Francisco Acevedo. Another victim was linked to suspected serial killer Lucius Crawford. Two of the women remain unsolved. And the final two victims, they belong to Robert Schulman. Think about that for a moment. A single newspaper clipping. Seven victims, at least three different serial offenders, all operating in the same region during roughly the same.
- [33:49]
Kristin Thorne
When I think about the amount of bodies that are buried in New York City, it just, like, blows my mind, right? So I do think that there potentially are more victims of these killers that have just never been found. They're buried somewhere deep, or they're now completely decomposed.
- [34:06]
James Buddy Day
What we know is that Lori Vasquez was 24 years old. She was living in Brooklyn and surviving through sex, work, work. According to the autopsy, she dies from blunt force trauma to the head. And as we'll see, that becomes one of the recurring features of Shulman's murders. The investigative file also establishes something else. Lori Vasquez is killed inside Robert Schulman's bedroom. That detail is significant. Schulman isn't living in some abandoned farmhouse or isolated cabin. He's renting a room in the suburbs. He has neighbors. He has a landlord that lives in the same residence. His younger brother lives right above him. How does someone repeatedly bring vulnerable women into a suburban home, commit murder, transport bodies, and attract so little attention? Now, that question doesn't just apply to Robert Shulman. It's one of the defining questions running through nearly every Long island serial killer case.
- [35:09]
Kristin Thorne
I remember when I first moved to Long island from the D.C. area, and I remember going to meet my neighbors, and I would introduce myself, and they were like. They thought it was very strange, you know, that I wanted to know who my neighbors are. And so Long island is very. It can be very insular.
- [35:32]
James Buddy Day
Whether that insularity contributed to these crimes is impossible to measure. But it does help explain how someone like Robert Shulman could remain almost invisible. Lori Vazquez's body is discovered on August 31, 1991, inside a dumpster in Yonkers. Then, for nearly a year, the trail appears to go cold. Schulman's next known homicide doesn't occur her until June 27, 1992. At least that's what we know today. The victim I'm referring to is the same unidentified woman from the newspaper clipping we already discussed. Her name is Marisa Hammonds, 31 years old. Like Lori Vasquez, she is supporting herself through sex work. And according to the investigative record, Shulman picks her up, brings her back to his rented room on Long island, murders her there, and later transports her body to a dumpster behind a pizza restaurant in Yonkers. Already, a pattern is beginning to emerge. The victims are drawn from the same vulnerable population. They're brought back to the same room. They're killed in the same private space, and then they're discarded miles away, separated from the place where the murders actually occurred. And that brings us to. To something unusual. Robert Schulman is not known to commit another homicide for almost two years. At least that's what the record tells us. The gap raises an obvious question. Why nothing else in Shulman's life appears to have changed. He's still working the overnight shift at the Hicksville post office. He's still driving around the same battered blue Cadillac. He's still cruising the street streets of Queens, picking up sex workers and bringing them back to the same rented bedroom on Long Island. And when detectives finally search that room two years later in 1996, they document more than 2,000 blood stains belonging to multiple victims in that single room.
- [37:42]
Kristin Thorne
Parts of Long island are very desolate, where you can't see your hand in front of your face at night. That's how dark it is. Dark. Gilgo, for example, is extremely dark. Manorville. All of these areas that some of these bodies were found in there are not. You cannot see a car go by for five or 10 minutes, right? Which gives you enough time.
- [38:01]
James Buddy Day
Are there other victims during this gap in Schulman's timeline? The honest answer is that we don't know. But given what we now understand about serial offending, I would say it's highly possible. What we know is that the next victim we can place in Robert Shulman's timeline is still known only as Medford Jane doe. More than 30 years later, no one has been able to give her back her name.
- [38:29]
Kristin Thorne
Medford Jane Doe is a victim that Robert Shulman has taken responsibility for but was never able to identify. So no One knows who this woman is, but he said that he killed her.
- [38:47]
James Buddy Day
According to his later confession, Schulman meets this victim in December of 1994. She is a sex worker. He brings her back to his room in Hicksville. There, he later tells investigators, he kills her with blunt force trauma using a baseball bat. That method, as we know, is significant. By now, we're seeing the same pattern, repeat. The victims are brought to the same locations and killings are carried out in broadly the same manner. And according to the autopsy and investigative record, the violence does not stop when the victim dies. Schulman spends a considerable amount of time with the body, not just attempting to conceal the victim's identity before disposing of the remains, but inflicting unnecessary violence. The behavior tells investigators something important. The murder itself is only one part of the ritual.
- [39:41]
Kristin Thorne
Look, she was found brutally murdered. Her family is clearly. She still has family members out there somewhere who want to know whatever happened to her. She deserves to have her identity, her identity known.
- [39:57]
James Buddy Day
According to witness statements, another sex worker later tells detectives about a scrap screened in porch that is attached to Bob Schulman's room. She describes a workbench, a hacksaw, a hammer, and other tools. Investigators will later conclude that it's this area that is used during the multiple homicides.
- [40:18]
Nick Greystone
Jane Doe Medford has not been been identified for 30 years recently. Up until like the last year, like, it was case closed. They didn't, you know, they didn't really care to look into it anymore. They don't really have that much evidence on her. They have a description that you could find on Namus and everything, but, like, for her now, they opened up the case to the public to see because I feel the. The Gilgo case really brought this to the forefront, where these women now are getting treated like human beings.
- [40:53]
Kristin Thorne
Beings.
- [40:54]
James Buddy Day
Just a few years ago, Suffolk county investigators released a new facial reconstruction, hoping advances in forensic genealogy and renewed public attention might finally restore this victim's identity. It's a reminder that these cases are not historical. They're still unfolding back in 1994. The body is discovered on December 7 by an employee with the Suffolk County Department of Public Works. The victim had been placed inside a brand new Rubbermaid garbage container lying on its side amongst roadside debris. At the time, the investigation is minimal. But after Robert Shulman's arrest, we learn something even more astonishing. Robert Shulman's younger brother Barry is later confesses that on three separate occasions, including this murder, he helped Robert Schulman dispose of human remains.
- [41:54]
Kristin Thorne
Barry, the younger brother, was convicted of helping his. Robert Shulman, his older brother, dispose of these bodies.
- [42:03]
James Buddy Day
When I spoke with Kristin Thorne, I wanted to understand how this could happen. Was your impression that Barry is helping hide the bodies, dispose of the bodies, however you want to put it? Is it because he shares that disregard, that callousness for other people, or is it out of this, you know, intense bond he would have had with his brother, Having both grown up in a very traumatic situation?
- [42:31]
Kristin Thorne
I think it's probably a combination of the both. I think Barry also, you know, to be able to do this, you have to show an incredible lack of regard for human life. And he seemed to have been involved in at least a few of these.
- [42:49]
James Buddy Day
In April of 1995, Robert Schulman picks up 18 year old Lisa Ann warner, Bringing her back to his room in hicksville. According to his later confession, he kills her with a hammer. Her body is discovered on April 6 by employees at a Brooklyn recycling facility. And even today, investigators continue to debate Barry Shulman's role.
- [43:14]
Kristin Thorne
You know, there's been a lot of back and forth about how much was Barry involved? You know, was he really just disposing of them? There's, if you talk to people who worked on the case many years ago, there, they felt that Barry was more involved than he let on, but there was never enough to prosecute him for that.
- [43:40]
James Buddy Day
Remember, Barry and Bob shulman both work at the hicksville post office. They live at the same address. They share the same blue Cadillac. So the obvious question is, are we dealing with killer brothers? The honest answer is that we don't know. Barry is later convicted of helping dispose of human remains. Barry. But no evidence has ever been presented that conclusively places him at the murders themselves. Investigators have long suspected he knew more than he admitted. But suspicion is not evidence. What we know is this. On December 8, 1995, Robert Schulman is cruising Jamaica avenue Near the intersection of 198th Street street and Francis lewis boulevard, when he picks up a woman he knows only as Melanie. Now, her real name is Kelly Sue Bunting, 28 years old. Several witnesses later identify Schulman as a familiar face in the area and report seeing him with bunting on that night. According to his later confession, Schulman brings Kelly sue bunting back to his room in hicksville, where he kills her using a dumbbell. He then wraps her body in plastic garbage bags and sleeping bags before placing her in the trunk of the blue cadillac he shares with his brother. He later tells investigators that he disposes of her clothing separately and throws a Small paper bag containing her severed hands into a garbage container outside a fast food restaurant.
- [45:18]
Kristin Thorne
1.
- [45:19]
Nick Greystone
One story that I heard is he did come to work one time, and he was all disheveled, and he said, you know, he was, like, frantic about something. He was, like, sweating. And he had said that this is what one of his co workers said, that he got in trouble and he was scared that it was going to come back to him and haunt him and. And get him in trouble to get fired. And they're like, nah, dude. Like, no one heard about this. Like, he was really paranoid. They're thinking now that possibly he had killed one of these sex workers. And then this came to work straight from it, and then, you know, went on the clock.
- [46:02]
James Buddy Day
What makes the account noteworthy is that it fits the pattern we've already seen. Robert Schulman appears capable of compartment. Compartmentalizing his life to an extraordinary degree. One moment, he's transporting a body through Long Island. A short time later, he's reporting to work at the post office, sorting mail alongside people who have no idea what has just happened. This is exactly what Kristin Thorne meant at the beginning of this episode when she asked whether Long island somehow allowed these men to live double lives.
- [46:35]
Nick Greystone
Within six months of that is when he got arrested.
- [46:39]
James Buddy Day
Within a month, Robert Schulman is in custody. Not because of a serial killer task force, not because of sophisticated forensic technology, and not because investigators have been tracking him for years. He's caught because detectives begin to talk to the sex workers along Jamaica Avenue about the disappearance of Kelly Sue Bunting. And these women, they know exactly who they're looking for. In fact, they offer to take detectives to Bob's house.
- [47:10]
Nick Greystone
One of the detectives, I believe his name was Detective White, who's since retired and everything, but he went there, and he spoke to one of the call girls there, and they said that the last time she was seen, she was picked up by a guy named Bob, who would frequent there in a blue Cadillac. And that's the Cadillac that he shared with his brother.
- [47:33]
James Buddy Day
Think about that for a moment. For years, Robert Schulman moves almost unnoticed through Long Island. Yet among the women that he's targeting, he's anything but anonymous. They know his first name. They know his car. They know exactly where he lives. Robert Schulman is arrested inside the post office, and when the interrogation begins, investigators describe him suffering a nervous breakdown. Schulman ultimately provides four written statements detailing the murders of Kelly Sue Bunting, Medford, Jane Doe, and Lisa Ann Warner. Detectives also collect hair, blood, and saliva samples that further Connect him to the victims. On April 16, 1996, Robert Schulman pleads guilty to multiple counts of murder. Later that year, he's sentenced to death for three of the killings, returning to court afterwards for the final two. After New York's death penalty statute is struck down in 2004, those sentences are automatically converted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. But it's his brother Barry Schulman's sentence that remains controversial. Barry pleads guilty to helping dispose of two bodies, despite admitting involvement in at least three. He receives just six months in prison, followed by five years probation. According to Kristin Thorne, Barry has lived a quiet, reclusive life ever since and has never publicly spoken in detail about what happened with his brother. For Robert Schulman, prison quickly settles into routine, and the letters he writes begin to change.
- [49:18]
Kristin Thorne
You can tell by 2002, he's actually saying he wishes he would die, that they would put him to death. So the death penalty was outlawed in New York. He was first sentenced to death, and then it was outlawed. In 2004, it was ruled unconstitutional. So in 2002, he still would have had an option to have been put to death. And you can see in the letters, by that point, he was saying he wishes that they would just do it.
- [49:44]
James Buddy Day
Reading those letters, what struck me wasn't remorse. It was resignation. The fantasies that had sustained him for decades were gone. The routines that once gave his life structure had all but disappeared. All that remained was time. Robert Schulman dies in prison in April of 2006. At the time, he's only 52 years old.
- [50:08]
Kristin Thorne
Robert Shulman was a disturbed individual. It's too bad he only got nine years in prison before he died. I finally did the math, and I was like, oh, that's it. That's disappointing, because he really should have suffered more for what he did to these women, right?
- [50:21]
James Buddy Day
When I began researching Robert Shulman, I thought I was telling the story of another forgotten serial killer. Instead. Instead, I found something much larger. Shulman's life follows many of the same patterns we've already seen in the Long island serial killers. A childhood marked by neglect, A neurological vulnerability that we can never fully measure. Years of isolation, fantasy, and resentment. And finally, access to a population of vulnerable women who had been pushed to the margin and largely ignored. Long Island's tragedy is that during the 1980s and 90s, society supplied the missing pieces almost by accident. As New York cleaned up Manhattan, thousands of vulnerable women were pushed into new neighborhoods along the city's edge. And at that very moment, men like Robert Schulman and Joel Rifkin were descending deeper into violence, violent fantasy, an increasingly isolated population of men and a vulnerable population of women. The perfect storm. Not because anyone intended it, because no one even recognized what was happening.
- [51:34]
Kristin Thorne
What was it about these men that grew up on Long island, right. They, they were from here, what? And you know, they moved around a little bit. So we should specify, you know, from here. They, some went to New Jersey and then kind of their families took them to different parts of the country, but they ended up back here. So it still begs the question, like what? What is in the water?
- [52:04]
James Buddy Day
Before we wrap, a few show notes, my thanks again to investigative journalist Kristin Thorne for joining me on this episode. You can follow her work on Instagram. She's easy to find. Hristenthorne if you'd like to support the show, you'll find ad free and early access to our audio episodes, including extended interviews, source documents and supporting research inside unmarked case files on Patreon. We've also just launched YouTube memberships where you'll find many of the same benefits along with exclusive content as we continue to expand this channel. Outside the podcast. If you've been thinking of picking up my book, Charles the Last Words, now's a great time. It's available on Kindle, Amazon and through Kindle Unlimited exclusively. And if true crime isn't enough, my dark fantasy novel A Plague of Steel is available now on Kindle, Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. It is a grim, dark war story about what what war leaves behind. If you do decide to read it, I'd really, really appreciate you leaving a review. For independent authors like me, reviews make an enormous difference. And finally, if you want to see what I'm researching, what I'm reading, what I'm thinking about for future episodes, you can follow me on Instagram. I'm also easy to find. AmesBuddyDay. This episode of Unmarked was produced by John Nadeau, edited by Dave Alderson and our additional producer is Jesse Demaray. Until next week, this is Unmarked. Hey, it is Ryan Seacrest here. Want to bring a little Hollywood excitement to your day? Take a few spins with Chumba Casino's brand new game, Ryan Seacrest 10K Ways. It's free and features 10,000 ways to play giving you non stop action including thrilling bonus re spins and cascading. Every spin brings something new so step into the spotlight, enjoy the excitement and play today@chumbacasino.com no purchase necessary VGW Group Void where prohibited by law. CTS and C21 sponsored by Chumba Casino.
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