For nearly two years, a man named Calvin Jackson terrorized the residents of the Park Plaza Hotel on Manhattan’s West Side, preying on single, older women living alone. His string of nine confirmed murders, marked by theft and brutal violence, had gone unconnected by police, with many deaths initially attributed to accidents or natural causes. But his final act of violence, against a 69-year-old woman named Pauline Spanierman, would break his established pattern and bring his reign of terror
to an end.
Pauline, a female victim of Jackson's spree, did not live in the Park Plaza Hotel. Her apartment was in a nearby building on West 77th Street. In the early morning hours of September 12, 1974, Jackson broke into her home. He smothered her with a pillow, strangled her, and, as was his horrific signature, sexually assaulted her after she was dead. He then stole a number of her valuable possessions, including her television set. Later that morning, a maid discovered Pauline's body and immediately called the police.
The investigation into Pauline’s murder began as detectives canvassed her building and the surrounding neighborhood, including the adjacent Park Plaza Hotel. They soon encountered a critical witness. A neighbor reported seeing a young, dark-skinned man climbing down the fire escape from Pauline's building around three o'clock in the morning, struggling to carry a television. This piece of information was the first major break in the case.
The police began a door-to-door search for the stolen television. Their search led them to a nearby apartment where they found the missing set. The occupants told police that the television belonged to a man named Calvin Jackson, who was staying with them temporarily. Investigators quickly learned that Jackson also worked as a porter at the Park Plaza Hotel, the scene of numerous other recent, unsolved deaths of elderly women. The pieces began to fall into place.
Within six hours of the discovery of Pauline’s body, police located and arrested Calvin Jackson near the hotel. Once in custody, he quickly confessed not only to the murder of Pauline Spanierman but to a shocking total of ten other murders. His detailed, 182-page confession revealed a gruesome pattern of robbing and killing vulnerable women. He admitted to lingering in his victims' apartments after they were dead, sometimes for an hour or more, eating their food and watching them to ensure they had passed. The stolen items, like Pauline's television, were sold to support his drug habit.
Until Jackson’s confession, the New York City Police Department had not realized a serial killer was at work. Many of the previous deaths at the hotel had been misattributed, with one victim's death even being blamed on alcoholism. Jackson's decision to murder Pauline Spanierman in a different building, and the subsequent witness sighting of him with her television, directly linked him to a crime scene and unraveled his entire series of horrific acts.
In 1976, after psychiatric examinations deemed him sane for trial, Calvin Jackson, also known as "The Central Park Slasher," was found guilty of nine counts of murder, including Pauline's, and approximately 40 other charges of rape, burglary, and theft. The jury delivered its verdict after hearing his lengthy confession read aloud in court. Jackson was sentenced to four concurrent life sentences with the possibility of parole. His capture, brought about by the investigation into the tragic death of his final victim, brought an end to the fear that had gripped the vulnerable residents of the West Side.
