Date(s) of crime(s):<\/strong>\u00a0Sunday, October 8, 1967
Location of crime(s):<\/strong>\u00a0East Village, New York
Perpetrator(s)s:\u00a0<\/strong>Donald Ramsey, 26; Thomas Dennis, 26; and Fred Wright, 31
Relationship to victim(s)s:<\/strong>\u00a0customers of James, who was a drug-dealer
Crime(s) in sum:\u00a0<\/strong>Linda Baker, a shy, 18-year-old young woman from ritzy Greenwich, Connecticut, ditched her plans for school to move to New York\u2019s East Village and paint\u2014that\u2019s what she told her family, at least. It was 1967 and Linda immersed herself in a hippie lifestyle and drug culture that brought her to panhandling on the streets of New York, and eventually led to her early demise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Everyone thought of Linda Fitzpatrick as “the good girl.” Raised in a wealthy family in upscale Greenwich, Connecticut, 18-year-old Linda had enjoyed a privileged upbringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was shy and reserved but excelled as a student and showed creative promise as an artist. Linda was also a skilled athlete, known to prefer talking about sports over socializing and dancing, like most of her peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Linda was born and raised in Greenwich, some 30 miles outside of New York City and known as one of the\u00a0wealthiest cities in the U.S.<\/a>\u00a0Located in Fairfield County, growing up in Greenwich in the \u201960s was picturesque for Linda. The time was one of the Vietnam War and Beatlemania, transformation and liberation\u2014and gas cost just\u00a0$0.25 a gallon<\/a>.\u00a0(Imagine that?)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n To her friends and family, Linda, who they adoringly called \u201cFitzpoo,\u201d was creative, spirited and talented. She wasn\u2019t known to make impulsive, rash choices, and stayed in the parameters of the rules at school. You can only imagine the shock that followed when on Sunday, October 8, 1967, Linda was found dead in a boiler room in New York\u2019s East Village. She laid naked next to the body of 24-year-old James L. Hutchinson, a local drug-dealer nicknamed \u201cGroovy,\u201d also naked, both of them on an old cot. Their heads had been bashed in with bricks and they suffered brutal deaths.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda\u2019s parents and friends Greenwich were clueless. Linda was living in New York\u2019s East Village for 10 weeks. She told her friends and family that she moved there to pursue work as a painter, and she was living with a female roommate at a \u201cnice hotel.\u201d But it turns out, this picturesque version Linda created to put her family and friends at ease wasn\u2019t accurate at all. Linda was living a life of the exact opposite, and a wild one at that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Young, finally legal (the drinking age was 18 then) and without adult supervision, Linda moved to New York and specifically to the East Village at a time when it was seedy and gritty. Crime was at an all-time high and many New Yorkers feared the city was out of control. (Just to avoid confusion here, East Village is an area located within Greenwich Village on the\u00a0west<\/em>\u00a0side of Lower Manhattan.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n To paint a picture for you as to how different Linda\u2019s \u201clives\u201d were, I\u2019ll have to describe the scene of New York\u2019s East Village in the 1960s. The East Village was something of a go-to destination for people creating, wandering or soul-searching, or those who simply wanted to experiment with drugs and live a nomadic lifestyle. Area drug culture flourished and hallucinogens, like LSD and acid, as well as marijuana, were especially popular. Mostly everyone who lived in or visited this area was using substances at this time. Most, if not all, of the local bars, nightclubs and shops there were owned by organized crime families.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The migration of this niche group of people into the East Village was inspired by the Beatniks, or the Beat Generation; a stereotype created by the media and used from the late \u201940s to the mid-1960s to reference the anti-conformist literary movement taking place among writers born between 1928 and 1945. Popular beatnik writers included Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, who were all known to visit and occasionally live in the East Village. Themes in beatnik writing included pseudo-intellectualism, drug use and the depiction of people in a cartoonish way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At this time, TV, internet and social media obviously weren\u2019t relevant, so those setting the \u201ctrends\u201d and adding the \u201cshock factor,\u201d media-wise, were often writers. <\/p>\n\n\n Plus, it was much cheaper to afford rent there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, like anything else in the U.S. and in New York City, especially, the East Village is a costly place to live. According to\u00a0Zumper<\/a>, an online rental marketplace, the average cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $3,800, up 34% from 2021. (Yikes.) In the 1960s, rent here was about\u00a0$200 a month<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, the United States as a whole embraced a hippie culture. Tie-dye, lava lamps, flower power, smiley faces, psychedelic art and peace signs were all popular. In 1967, Americans celebrated the Summer of Love and hippies flocked to urban communities and cities to dance, experiment with drugs, sleep in parks and do whatever they wanted to feel liberated. (In attendance was the infamous cult leader Charles Manson.) Antiwar protests and political mayhem were the norm. People wore bright colors and women donned unbelievably short skirts and mini dresses with go-go boots. Everyone wore bell bottoms.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda absorbed into the underbelly of the East Village (which probably wasn\u2019t hard considering her age and the times). She partied with hippies and essentially became one. She spent nights on end tripping on acid and was known to give LSD to people she didn\u2019t know. When she felt inspired, she created psychedelic art. When she felt tired, she passed out wherever she was. Life was a party for 18-year-old Linda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being exposed to so much temptation that she was totally shielded from in Greenwich, Linda embraced it, and perhaps too much. But I\u2019m sure we can all agree that she had no idea it would lead to such a devasting and early end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda\u2019s upbringing was stable, structured and designed to lead to a promising future. She was raised in a 30-room mansion on Doubling Road in Greenwich, a mile from Greenwich Country Day School, a private school she attended as a child.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n She stood out as an athlete at a young age. In field hockey, Linda earned the position of center-forward on the Stuyvesant Team, which consisted of female field hockey\u00a0players all from Fairfield County, Connecticut, and she received awards for horse-riding and swimming. Around age 14, she went on to attend Oldfields School, an all-girls private school in Glencoe, Maryland.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda kept to herself. She was more interested in talking about painting and sports than she was in socializing and dancing. Her favorite colors were red and white, a pattern reminiscent of candy canes, and her room at home was decorated as such. She was blonde and pretty, though an article by\u00a0The New York Times<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>describes Linda as the less-attractive out of her older sister, Cindy, and her mother, Dorothy Ann Rush, who was a model and covergirl in her thirties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Linda left for New York, she spent the last few months at home as she normally would. In the middle of June she returned home for the summer from Oldfields School, where she was elected art editor of the yearbook. After a few weeks in Greenwich, Linda and her family vacationed in Bermuda for a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda\u2019s family was blended and included her mother, Dorothy Ann Fitzpatrick, and her father, Irving Fitzpatrick, a spice importer, and their seven children. There was Linda and her sister, 9-year-old Melissa, or \u201cMissy,\u201d from Dorothy Anny and Irving. Then, there was Perry, 32; Robert, 30; Carol, 27; and David, 25, all Linda\u2019s half-siblings from her father’s first marriage, which ended in divorce. There was also Linda\u2019s older, half-sister Cindy, from Dorothy Ann\u2019s first marriage, which also ended in divorce. On the Bermuda trip were Linda\u2019s parents and sisters Missy and Cindy, and Cindy’s husband. The family returned to Greenwich on July 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Dorothy Ann told\u00a0The New York Times<\/a><\/em>\u00a0about a Bermuda trip of family-fun in the island\u2019s crystal sands and clean beaches, Linda told her friends in the East Village something. According to Susan Robinson, who is described by\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>as a \u201csmall, shy hippie\u201d who ran away from her home in Cape Code, Massachusetts, a year prior, Linda told her that she took LSD and smoked marijuana several times in Bermuda.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda met Susan and her husband, David Robinson, sometime in early August 1967, when Linda was in the East Village. At the time, Susan and David\u2019s two-bedroom apartment served as a flophouse of sorts for homeless, wandering hippies. Susan said one day, Linda came to the apartment with a man named \u201cPigeon,\u201d who she bought acid for. They stayed for a few hours and then left. A few nights later, she returned with a man from Boston, who she also gave LSD to. Susan said that on weekends, Linda carried an extra $30-$40 in her pocket so she could buy acid for anyone who wanted some.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eleven days were left until Linda would return to Oldfields School. Her mother took her shopping and bought her a brand-new wardrobe. She also took Linda to get a haircut; something she didn\u2019t want but agreed to. With her hair now short, Linda went to New York on Friday, September 1, 1967, and stayed overnight. When she returned to Greenwich the next day, she told her family that she no longer wanted to attend Oldfields School. She wanted to move to the East Village and paint instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The proclamation came at a time when Linda was at a standstill. The school already set up special courses for her to take because she\u2019d taken everything. Linda protested that she couldn\u2019t bear the idea of returning to school if her favorite teachers weren\u2019t there, and her favorite teachers were, indeed, away in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That Sunday night, Linda\u2019s parents reluctantly gave her permission to move to the East Village. That was the last time any of them saw her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAfter all, Linda\u2019s whole life was art,\u201d Dorothy Ann Fitzpatrick told\u00a0The New York Times<\/em><\/a>. \u201cShe had a burning desire to be something in the art world. I knew how she felt. I wanted to be a dancer or an artist when I was young, too.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Linda told them not to worry, because that she already arranged her living situation. She said she was going to live at the Village Plaza Hotel, a historical, eight-story building built in 1915. Linda mentioned a doorman and a TV in her room, and that she\u2019d be living with a female roommate, 22-year-old Paula Bush, who came from a good family and worked as a receptionist. They believed her.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda said she moved in with Paula Bush, but Paula Bush didn\u2019t exist. There also wasn\u2019t a doorman or a TV, unless you were willing to rent one, and the place was dull, dingy and run-down. The hallways reeked of marijuana and the elevator was out of order more often than it worked.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n Realistically, Linda moved in with a man named Paul Bush and another male roommate Bob Brumberger; two hippies she met a month before and barely knew. Paul, 19, was from Holly, Michigan, and he was the son of a TV repairman.\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0wrote that his friends described him as \u201ca real drifter, a way-out hippie<\/a>.\u201d Around his neck, he wore some sort of a lizard fixture that he called Lyndon. Bob was from New Jersey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul met Linda at the Robinson\u2019s apartment between August 18-19, 1967, and agreed to be her roommate, and that he would let Bob know. Linda told Paul about her plan to tell her parents she was living with \u201cPaula.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda paid the whole month\u2019s rent, $120, upfront. The front clerk said Linda always had grungy, hippie men coming into the room, No. 504, at all hours of the day and night.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda reassured her parents by telling them she was hired to create posters for \u201cPoster Bazaar\u201d and earned $80 a week doing so; the equivalent of $690 a week today. This was hardly true. The store wasn\u2019t called Poster Bazaar, but Fred Leighton\u2019s Mexican Imports, Ltd.. Linda worked there for three days, earning $2 an hour selling dresses. She was there from Sept. 11-13, 1967, after which she was fired for coming in late. When she was let go, she asked the manager not to tell her parents if they called.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this point, Linda, a young girl from a wealthy Greenwich family, started panhandling in Washington Square Park to support herself. Her mother also gave her money from time to time to help her out.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n A week or so after moving in with Linda, Paul and Bob moved out and another roommate moved in, this time a tall, thin, hippie with a long beard identified as \u201cEd,\u201d and who was also known to frequent the Robinson\u2019s. After Ed moved out, James Leroy Hutchinson, aka \u201cGroovy,\u201d moved in, and that\u2019s where Linda\u2019s story soon ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Susan Robinson recalled Linda feared she was been pregnant and worried about the effects of LSD on pregnancy, since she took the drug so often. She said they spoke about the topic a lot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, while living a very hippie-like lifestyle, Linda kept up appearances with her family. She spoke on the phone with her father, who expressed his disdain for San Francisco hippies, and she even agreed with him.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, things start to get a bit sporadic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the first week of October, Linda\u2019s parents received a postcard sent from Knightstown, Indiana, a small town 30 miles east of Indianapolis. The card, from Linda, read, \u201cI\u2019m on my way to see Bob. Offered a good job painting posters in Berkeley. I love you. I will send you a poster. Love, Linda.\u201d (Bob is Linda\u2019s stepbrother, who was a Los Angeles-based lawyer.) This same week, a woman who identified herself as Linda called Bob\u2019s office in LA, but was informed he was in San Francisco. She never called again.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Susan also saw Linda on October 1, 1967, and that day Linda told Susan she had two warlocks, or male witches, waiting for her in California and she had to bring them back to New York. A comment like this seems bizarre, but Susan said Linda often referred to herself as a witch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLinda told me several times she was a witch,\u201d Susan Robinson told The New York Times<\/a><\/em>. \u201cShe said she had discovered this one day when she was sitting on a bench and wished she had some money. Three dollar bills floated down from heaven.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cLinda told me she met these two warlocks out there and that they could snap their fingers and make light bulbs pop,\u201d Susan said. \u201cShe said one of the warlocks took her mind apart and scattered it all over the room and then put it together again. Ever since, she said, she felt the warlock owned her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another encounter was recounted by a man who referred to himself as \u201cPepsi,\u201d and who met Linda that summer. He said he was one of the people who drove Linda from Indianapolis to the East Village. A self-proclaimed warlock, Pepsi was in his 20s and had long, sandy hair, a scruffy beard and tattooed arms, and wore wire-rimmed glasses and long, suede, Indian boots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pepsi said that him and his friend met Linda in a club in Indianapolis called the Glory Hole. \u201cYou could see right away she was a real meth monster\u2014that\u2019s my name for a speed freak, somebody hooked on speed,\u201d he told\u00a0The New York Times<\/a><\/em>. The last time Pepsi saw Linda was at 10 pm on the night of October 8, a few hours before they were found dead. Pepsi told investigators that Groovy and Linda were high and that Linda told him she took a grain-and-a-half of speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n James L. Hutchinson, 24, was from Pawtucket, Rhode Island. His mother Esther Hutchison and her family was Portuguese, and he was greatly influenced by them in his life, though he grew up without his father. James\u2019s mother was one of 14 children and he had many aunts, uncles and cousins. James was one of five children by Esther; he had an older brother, George Carbary, who was adopted as an infant, and three siblings from a subsequent marriage. He had a relationship with all of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n James received less media coverage in regards to the case than Linda did, and we can unfortunately assume why. Linda came from a privileged background and James was regarded as a drifter who was tattooed, unkempt and without direction\u2014but he was more than that. He had a story, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1951, James\u2019s family was living in Central Falls, Rhode Island, when James started first grade at Kendall Street School, now Captain G. Harold Hunt Elementary School, also in Central Falls. It was the following year, when he was in first grade, that James started having problems with learning. He repeated first grade and then moved again to Pawtucket, Rhode Island and again changed schools. He continued to underachieve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving back to Central Falls in 1956, James was placed into a special \u201cungraded class\u201d that taught students at their pace and didn\u2019t place them in regular classrooms until they caught up. James remained in that class for five years.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJimmy, poor Jimmy, was emotionally disturbed, a badly upset boy\u2014and that came out in a severe reading problem as well as some behavioral problems,\u201d Sara Kerr, principal and school psychologist at the Hadley Avenue School, where James attended school, told Esquire<\/a>. \u201cHe had no motivation, no desire to learn and he was always disturbing the classes. I never found any meanness in him. We had some kids who killed flies and tortured them. Jimmy never did anything like that. He was just clowning. But the teachers couldn\u2019t put up with his capers so they\u2019d send him to me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Nonetheless, James was always impeccably dressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The teachers at the Hadley Avenue School tried to provide James with whatever supports he needed, but as he grew bigger than the other students and more aggressive, his behavior continued to escalate and a new solution was needed. The solution was to send James to Central Falls Trade School, but first he was to complete outpatient psychiatric treatment at Butler Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. He bounced in and out of treatment for the next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During James\u2019s second year at Hadley Avenue School, he met a few close friends, which became something of a small gang. James picked up nicknames left and right, like Groovy, which was given to him by a casual friend in New Orleans,. Other nicknames for James included \u201cJungle Jim,\u201d given to him after he cut another kid with a machete; \u201cGander,\u201d \u201cbecause he used to goose guys<\/a>\u201d; and Steve Ribs, borne from a funny moment when he laid overtop something, exposing his ribs, and let out a Tarzan-esque yell. One night he gave himself the nickname Rock Hutchinson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To his friends, James was funny. Better yet, he was hilarious. He was the type of person who went under the radar for a few days only to appear somewhere suddenly, ready to do something outrageous. He was impulsive and rowdy, and he loved drinking Ruppert\u2019s beer, the most-popular beer at the time.\u00a0He also had a childlike innocence and happiness about life, which may or may not have been influenced by his drugs use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ernie St. Angelo, one of James\u2019 closest friends, told\u00a0Es<\/a>quire<\/a><\/em>, \u201cSure, he was a clown. He was half-clown, half-nut and all hot. Why did he act that way? I don\u2019t know. Maybe down deep he might have thought he was really a fool. He probably was hiding something, a bad feeling inside, a feeling that no one really liked him cause he was a fool. So he was going to be a bigger fool than even they thought.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n James\u2019s mother, Esther, tried her best. She stopped working in jewelry factories, which she did to support her family for many years, and was now collecting Aid to Dependent Children. Together with James and his other siblings, they lived in a cramped, five-room apartment on the third floor of a building in Central Falls, Rhode Island. James had his own room, which he decorated with posters of Elvis Presley and James Brown, and adorned with model cars, music records, handmade model airplanes and comic books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n James often babysat his younger sister Brenda and Esther said he never spoke about the hippie lifestyle at home. In fact, he was always so clean cut and well dressed, that she couldn\u2019t imagine him living that way and with that mentality.. She also told\u00a0Esquire\u00a0<\/em>that James was happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fast forward a few years and after working for a short time for Tappet Screw Company in Central Falls, now Eastern Screw Co., a screw and fastener supplier in Cranston, James was now with the New England Paper Tube Co., a paper distributor in Pawtucket. He had a reputation for being a hard-worker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1966, at the age of 20, James became a baler, working days and into the nights. He invested all his earnings, which amounted to $87 a week, equivalent to $772 a week today, into a credit union. His first goal was to purchase a car and then a motorcycle. Both vehicles were totaled shortly after he purchased them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n James did his best to stay out of trouble but he ran into trouble nonetheless. As a result, he expressed a desire to leave Central Falls for a good while. In April 1966, he told his older brother George that he was leaving. James withdrew all his money from the credit union and purchased a car with Dave Quebec, one of his closest friends. He packed a small suitcase with a few outfits and gave his record player and record collection to his Brenda. He set April 22, 1966, as his last day at the New England Paper Tube Co. and then drove to New York with Dave. He sent a postcard to his mother to let her know they arrived safely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not long after James and Dave arrived in New York, they found work for a traveling carnival, known as Amusements of America, a Manalapan Township, New Jersey, company that tours throughout the Eastern Seaboard with rides like merry-go-rounds and Ferris wheels. On different occasions, James told his brother that he helped disassemble tents and sold tickets to a freak show. It\u2019s unknown as to what his position was, but he may have been an on-hand helper or maintenance worker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the next few months, James sent postcards to his mother from random places. One came from Hagerstown, Maryland, and another from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and then back and forth between New Jersey and New York, and then one from Ottawa, Canada. When he returned to the U.S., James stopped working for that company and started with a smaller carnival that ran out of Miami, Florida. He later sent his mother a postcard from Enfield, North Carolina.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n His last stop with the carnival was in Hollywood, Florida, after which he left to experience the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, on his own. He continued sending his mother postcards. James stayed in New Orleans for a bit, working odd jobs and hoping to pick up work for another carnival. During that time, he let loose and had fun, meeting friends, getting at least four new tattoos and acquiring a newfound methamphetamine addiction. He was known for being a \u201cwino\u201d back home in Central Falls, a friend, identified as Galahad, told\u00a0Esquire<\/a><\/em>, and was known to occasionally sniff glue. By then, James was taking LSD regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n Not too long after, the pair hitchhiked back to New York, which took them about a week. They arrived in the Big Apple on April 1, 1967, and ran to into other young people who were high on LSD. James and Galahad asked the young people where they should go, and they directed James and Dave to The Peace Eye, a hippie-esque bookstore in the East Village. James and Galahad headed there and remained in the East Village where they wandered about for a few weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n James told Galahad that he wanted to open a \u201ccrash pad,\u201d or a place where homeless people could squat, or spend the night. The pair met a young woman who was living in an apartment with her boyfriend, and allowed them to use the space so long as they paid the $35-per-month rent. For the next three months,\u00a0Esquire<\/a><\/em>\u00a0said it was \u201cas the most renowned of the East Village\u2019s crash pads, where the homeless and the friendless could stay as long as they\u2019d liked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It all worked out at first. James and Galahad even returned runaway children who escaped to the crash pad from time to time. They received money or valuables, like a TV, from the children\u2019s parents. More often, however, there were 20 to 30 hippies staying there at any given time. Curiously, there was always a policeman or two in the group. Officers were appointed to remain watchful of the crash pad because of the amount of problems it caused in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of chaos came with the crash pad, as police raids happened often and vagrants were sought there. Nonetheless, Groovy stayed positive. He was always happy and upbeat, still in a childlike way. He gave away items on the street to those who needed them, including drugs, especially LSD, speed or marijuana. In the the summer of 1967 he left for Woodstock, where he stayed for about a month, sleeping in fields and barns with his friends. Unsurprisingly, James did a short a jail stint for trespassing. James returned home, having hitchhiked back to New York again, and spoke of starting a secluded commune up north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n James was still doin a lot methamphetamine. He was skinny as ever and his face was sunken in, and he became increasingly more frantic. He was always coming and going, but could never stay put.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was at this vulnerable point for them both that James Hutchinson and Linda Baker crossed paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda and James were both addicted to substances when they met. Both of them lived a vagrant lifestyle that lacked stability, and were acting in ways they normally wouldn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Media sources refer to James and Linda as \u201cboyfriend\u201d and \u201cgirlfriend.” She met him a month before when she moved into the city. Others said James took Linda under his wing. Acquaintances in the East Village described her as \u201cdifferent\u201d and \u201cmore paranoid<\/a>.\u201d She was new and not everyone knew her yet, but everyone knew Groovy. I imagine Groovy made Linda laugh so hard that she cried..<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Sunday, October 8, 1967, in the early-morning hours, the bodies of Linda Fitzpatrick and James L. Hutchinson were found in a boiler room at 169 Avenue B in the East Village. Both their bodies were naked and their heads had been beaten with bricks. The intensity of their murders was startling, but they weren\u2019t in that boiler room randomly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The boiler room where their bodies were found was a popular meeting point for drug sales. It\u2019s suspected that James and Linda were either high on methamphetamine, or had it in their possession to take later with the intent to have sex. Perhaps they planned to do so in that boiler room, but so much will remain unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were three or four other men in the boiler room with them, according to\u00a0Time<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>magazine.\u00a0Time\u00a0<\/a><\/em>magazine also writes that because James was a drug-dealer, the other men were most likely clients. All of them were high on methedrine, or methamphetamine, which James sold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Subsequently, it\u2019s possible that, under the influence of methamphetamine, which produces an intense rush with heightened, sometimes uncontrollable sexual desire as a side effect, the men also wanted to have sex with Linda and demanded to do so. If this were the case, James probably tried defending Linda and was then hit in the face with a brick taken from a wall in the boiler room. His face was crushed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Linda was raped four times and then killed in the same way as James. Their bodies were found on the floor, but their clothing was neatly placed in a small pile in a corner of the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In late October 1967, three men were arrested for the murders of Linda Fitzpatrick and James Hutchinson. These men, all African American, were Donald Ramsey, 26; Thomas Dennis, 26; and Fred Wright, 31. Now, the fact that these men are African American wouldn\u2019t matter in the grand scheme of things, but in this case it\u2019s important; these men were part of a Black nationalist cult.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donald wore a fez, a soft, hand-woven cloth worn by the Yoruba people of West Africa. The Yoruba religion is called\u00a0\u00cc\u1e63\u1eb9\u0300\u1e63\u1eb9, which also pertains to the traditions associated with Yor\u00f9b\u00e1 culture. (Note: Donald Ramsey\u2019s actions do not reflect that of the Yoruba sect or religion.<\/strong>) Donald lived in an apartment on the fifth floor of the apartment building where James and Linda\u2019s bodies were found, and the walls of his home were decorated with \u201cBlack power\u201d posters. Donald told police that he was \u201cflying\u201d at the time of the murders and seeing \u201clights and colors<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fred worked as an assistant janitor in the building and lived in a small room adjacent to the basement. He possessed the keys to the cellar. Just hours before the murders, Fred was incarcerated for the rape and robbery of a woman, another hippie. Thomas, on the other hand, is described by\u00a0Time\u00a0<\/em>magazine as a \u201cpot-smoking wino<\/a>\u201d who was vocal about racial violence.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Brooklyn, New York, in 1967, an American new religious movement was founded by Dwight York, known as Malachi Z. York, and unsurprisingly its teachings revolved around its founder. Followers comprised of Black Muslim groups, which grew larger and more widespread over time. The cult was called Nuwaubian Nation. (In doing my research, this is the only associated cult I could find with this story.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Malachi’s teachings focused on tidbits of everything, from ancient Egypt to cryptozoology, UFO religions, conspiracy theories and Black nationalism. Dwight was ultimately arrested in May 2002 and pled guilty in 2003 to child sex abuse charges after being indicted on 197 counts of child molestation, which included sex-trafficking minors across state lines, and some of them as young as eight.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n An excerpt from a letter that Dwight wrote, which dated November 10, 2004, read:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Caucasian has not been chosen to lead the world. They lack true emotions in their creation. We never intended them to be peaceful. They were bred to be killers, with low reproduction levels and a short lifespan.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n A lot went on with Nuwaubian Nation, but most of it happened after 1967, when this case took place. This attack appeared to have been a very early case of an attack from members of this cult, and one that was obviously drug-induced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A funeral was held for James \u201cGroovy\u201d Hutchinson in Pawtucket, Rhose Island, where he spent his childhood. During the services, his friend, Galahad, played a song on his harmonica in James\u2019 honor. In Greenwich, Connecticut, a funeral service was held for Linda Fitzpatrick on a chilly, fall day. She is buried in a cemetery close by where she used to horseback-ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An extra tidbit: <\/strong>In 2013, American alternative rock band Chelsea Light Moving, released a song inspired by the Groovy murders, aptly called, \u201cGroovy & Linda<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you for reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Linda Baker, a shy, 18-year-old young woman from ritzy Greenwich, Connecticut, ditched her plans for school to move to New York\u2019s East Village and paint\u2014that\u2019s what she told her family, at least. It was 1967 and Linda immersed herself in a hippie lifestyle and drug culture that brought her to panhandling on the streets of New York, and eventually led to her early demise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,19,20,15,12,1,21],"tags":[64,74,58,59,61,63,60,62,37],"class_list":{"0":"post-390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cults","8":"category-drug-crimes","9":"category-murder","10":"category-ny-true-crime","11":"category-true-crime","12":"category-uncategorized","13":"category-violent-crimes","14":"tag-beatniks","15":"tag-case-no-5","16":"tag-groovy-murders","17":"tag-james-hutchinson","18":"tag-linda-fitzpatrick","19":"tag-new-york-in-the-1960s","20":"tag-new-yorks-east-village","21":"tag-nuwaubian-nation","22":"tag-true-crime"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/W3UKDMFMIENOKWYQS7VRDHQIVQ.jpg?resize=415%2C518&ssl=1\")
\n\n\n\nPainting A Picture Of New York In The \u201960s<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/merlin_178467672_5421934d-ae9e-4a4d-bdce-341e3952534e-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?resize=770%2C537&ssl=1\")
New York\u2019s East Village in the \u201960s. Photo credit: The New York Times<\/a><\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Things-to-do-in-the-east-village-180927123616018.jpg?resize=539%2C359&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/New-york-hippies-e1497450034924.jpg?resize=770%2C506&ssl=1\")
\n\n\n\nLinda Fitzpatrick, Pre-New York<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Location.jpg?resize=770%2C428&ssl=1\")
\n\n\n\nA Change Of Plans<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/15kimmelman-eastvillage-jacob-riis-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?resize=512%2C339&ssl=1\")
\n\n\n\nAll Lies And No Truth<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/villageplaza.jpg?resize=494%2C385&ssl=1\")
\n\n\n\nSurfacing Concerns<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nEnter James L. Hutchinson, aka \u2018Groovy\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Groovy.jpg?resize=404%2C399&ssl=1\")
\n\n\n\nLooking Deeper Into Groovy’s Recent Past<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nWhile In New York\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/main.jpg?resize=770%2C253&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/peace-eye.jpg?resize=525%2C521&ssl=1\")
A Crash Pad ‘Business’ <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nWhen Linda Met James<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Streetview.jpg?resize=770%2C372&ssl=1\")
\n\n\n\nHere Come The Cults\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nWhat Cult Was This?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/truecrimebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/TamaRe.jpg?resize=444%2C415&ssl=1\")
Closing Remarks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nResources:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
# # #<\/h1>\n\n\n\n