My Unintentional Connections to Murderers and Serial Killers - Part 5 - Robert Berdella
My wife and I were married in August of 2011. It was a small courthouse wedding with maybe 15 people. The attendees were basically her family and mutual friends. The actual courthouse was undergoing renovation, so they moved weddings a couple blocks away to the Truman Memorial Building in a room that had a lot of World War II memorabilia. Which was fitting as we were both in the military. So we stood up in front of everybody, exchanged vows, etc and in a few minutes it was all over with. The kindly older gentleman that did the the wedding called the wife and I over, as well as our witnesses so some paperwork could be signed and make us all legal. Plenty of pictures were taken of the whole event. Marital bliss ensues.
The wife and I are into the true crime thing and quite knowledgeable of the Who's Who in that realm. She really didn't know much about Bob Berdella, so I found a documentary called, Bazaar Bizarre - The Strange Case of Bob Berdella. Bob Berdella was a Kansas City serial killer back in the 1980's. He was known as the Kansas City Butcher. During the day he ran a booth called Bob's Bazaar Bizarre at the Westport Flea Market. At night he would engage with young men in a part of town known for being a place where you pick up male prostitutes, and take them back to his house. He would then proceed to torture, abuse, rape, murder, dismember, and put the remains outside in garbage bags to picked up by local trash company. He would keep very detailed records on what he would do to them and take Polaroids of these acts of torture. Bob Berdella was eventually caught after one of his victims escaped the house by jumping out a window, and found wearing only a dog collar. The police were called and Berdella was apprehended, tried for multiple murders and given two life sentences without parole in 1988.
It was just a few minutes into this documentary there was an interview with Rev. Roger Coleman. I went back a few seconds and paused on this guy. I think this is the same guy that married us a couple years earlier. I found our marriage license and sure enough, he is the minister that married us. I went through the pictures that were taken and it was the same guy. I think I yelled, "Holy Shit! This guy married us." Now I knew about Bob Berdella because it was a big news story locally my junior year of high school. I also read the book, "Rites of Burial", so I knew all the disgusting and horrendous details of what Berdella did to his victims. Also, it was only a few months after Berdella was in custody that there was a Geraldo Rivera special that came out around Halloween 1988 called, Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground. Aside from typical "Satanic Panic" nonsense associating heavy metal to Satanism, and a whole cavalcade of degenerates who say they mutilated themself in the name of Satan to drink the blood, or women called "breeders" who said they gave birth to babies so they could be sacrificed, there was a segment on Bob Berdella and trying to associate his murders with devil worship.
So I knew all about Bob, but the wife did not. We finished up the documentary and I gave her a quick Berdella 101 course. Then she had the same "Holy Shit!" reaction I did. The guy that married us in 2011 would meet up weekly with Berdella in jail and be some sort of spiritual advisor. He had to be sneaked (snuck??) in the back of the jail so nobody would know he was going to be visiting with Bob Berdella. So 20 years later, I guess Rev. Roger Coleman is doing courthouse weddings for Jackson County, Missouri.
In the Fall of 1993, the house at 4315 Charlotte Street was torn down. It was bought by local millionaire Del Dunmire years earlier and he sold some of the unique items that Bob Berdella had in auctions. The house sat vacant for years and was just boarded up. The neighborhood was hoping it would be torn down and it eventually was. Now on Google Maps there is a driveway between the two houses that were on either side of the now barren plot of land, so I'm guessing the owners split the property.
Just a few years ago, some items that were taken as police evidence ended up on murderabilia website Supernaught.com. Not sure how that happened, but I may or may not have purchased one of these items. Oh of course I purchased an item. A clown music box that as you turn the crank it would play, "Send in the Clowns". According to the website, the items listed were obtained by the estate of Del Dunmire who died in 2016. It is definitely an interesting piece. One because after all...it is a creepy clown music box. Two, this was in Berdella's house and who knows, while blinding his victims with chemicals and before injecting caulk into their ears, maybe he would play this for them.
Normally in this little series I have done about my connections to serial killers, I would post pictures of the victims of these savages. Unfortunately in this case, with the exception of a couple, the only pictures I have found online are from the Polaroids that Bob Berdella took and I would rather not post them here. They are readily available if you want to search them out.
So if you are in the Kansas City area and do a courthouse wedding, it may be officiated by a serial killer's spiritual advisor.
Robert Berdella, Jr died in the Missouri State Penitentiary, October 8, 1992
