Angel tried to kill his father

What Was That Like - True Stories. Real People.

Angel shares his harrowing childhood in Brooklyn with three brothers, raised by an alcoholic father who once served time for murder. Despite extreme poverty,

Key takeaways

• Angel and his three brothers survived extreme poverty by making "Conan Soup" from scraps like Spam and ketchup when welfare checks ran out.
• The family experienced homelessness for three years before living in a 13th-floor welfare hotel where elevator buttons were broken and floor numbers were unofficially altered due to superstition.

Main topics

• Childhood poverty & survival
• Domestic violence & alcoholism

Notable quotes

"I didn't realize that we were being evicted. I didn't realize what had actually really happened. To me it felt like we were going somewhere, which felt exciting because we never did anything."

Conclusion

Angel's story offers a raw, unflinching look at how trauma and poverty shape childhood,

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) When you're a kid, you have your own unique sense of what's normal. Speaker 5 (0:08) I grew up in Ohio, so I knew that sometime after Thanksgiving, it was going to start getting cold outside. And we would have snow. Sometimes lots of snow. And I loved it. Of course, as a little boy, big piles of snow just meant having fun sledding and making snow forts. I didn't have to drive on it or shovel it. At least not until I got a little older. Speaker 5 (0:36) But as far as I knew, that's how it was in the winter for everyone. What I experienced must be the same for other people. But then sometimes we would go and visit my grandfather, who lived in Miami. And there we were, in the middle of winter, and not even wearing a coat outside. I couldn't believe it. Speaker 5 (1:02) My guest today is Angel. Speaker 5 (1:05) He grew up with his three brothers in Brooklyn, and to him, his childhood was normal. The hunger, the abuse, the homelessness, that's all he knew. Speaker 5 (1:21) And I have to give you a little content warning here. This episode is going to include something I've never had in a previous episode, but you'll have some warning if you want to fast forward. There's a brief bit of audio where Angel talks about what his father did to the family cat. Speaker 5 (1:41) I contemplated not including this because I hate to hear about animal abuse, and I know you do too. But that incident is important to the story and what happened afterward. And I always say, this podcast doesn't shy away from real life. Speaker 5 (2:00) But when you hear me ask Angel about the story of their cat named Bonkers, that's when you can fast forward about two and a half minutes if you want to. It's not a graphic description, just sad. Speaker 5 (2:15) That's the incident that finally triggered something inside Angel. Speaker 5 (2:21) He and one of his brothers decided they were going to kill their father. Speaker 5 (2:27) An angel was just 10 years old. Speaker 5 (2:34) Real people in unreal situations. Speaker 3 (2:39) The eerie silence when I walked in and he's just staring at me. I was like, hello, like, are you okay? And then I had to tell him it was me. Speaker 6 (2:50) There was just blood everywhere. They're Speaker 1 (2:53) shouting, they're screaming, they're being hit by bullets, they're hitting the ground. And in that moment, I literally thought, this is how I die. Everything changed then. And I just thought to myself, this isn't happening. Speaker 6 (3:06) Every single story deserves to be heard. Speaker 5 (3:10) I'm Scott Johnson, and this is What Was That Like? Speaker 5 (3:20) As a podcaster, there's nothing more gratifying than being able to make a difference in the lives of real people. If you like seeing that happen and you enjoy true crime podcasts, I have a show you're going to love. It's called Proof. If you heard the first season of Proof, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This show is co-hosted by Susan Simpson of Undisclosed. She's also an attorney. And Jacinda Davis of Evil Lives Here. They created Season 1 by investigating the story of two young men in Georgia who were serving life sentences for supposedly murdering their friend. These men had spent 25 years in prison, and on December 8, 2022, based on evidence that was unearthed by Susan and Jacinda for the podcast, they were released. Can you imagine being in prison for 25 years? and then getting released because of a podcast? And now the second season of Proof, called Murder at the Warehouse, is being released. Susan and Jacinda are digging into this new case about Renee Ramos in Manteca, California. Her body was found under a pile of debris, and her boyfriend and another man were arrested and convicted. But things don't seem to add up. Did investigators actually ignore tips that pointed to other suspects? Could this be another case where an innocent person has spent years locked up in prison? It's all going to come out on this new season. Fans of true crime and investigative series won't want to miss this riveting new season. Follow the case as Susan and Jacinda uncover long overlooked evidence about what really happened to Renee by listening to Proof Murder at the Warehouse. wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (5:12) I'm Carter Roy, the host of Murder True Crime Stories. If you listen to true crime because you want more than just what happened, this show is for you. Each episode takes a deep dive into history's most notorious murders, looking beyond the crime scene to focus on the people and communities impacted the most. Whether a case is solved or unsolved, the goal is simple, to understand why these stories still matter. New episodes drop every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Follow Murder True Crime Stories on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen. Speaker 5 (5:54) This whole story centers around your family, your mom and dad and four boys. So you and your three brothers, Mello, Rooley, and Mikey, can you just give us a little synopsis of what you boys were like? Mello was the oldest, right? Speaker 2 (6:14) Yeah, Mello was the oldest, really good at sports, really smart. He would bring textbooks home just for fun and he would read them. He was really into science and math. The teachers really liked him. Yeah, that was Mello. And then Arooli was the second oldest, animal lover, always bringing things home, dogs, cats, birds, like just any stray animal he could find, he would bring it home. Speaker 5 (6:42) Yeah, you said he wanted to own a farm someday, right? That was his goal? Speaker 2 (6:46) Yeah, that was his dream. He would sit on the floor and he would draw farms on the floor. They were basically just boxes. And then in the boxes, he would put animals like chickens and horses. And that's how he would spread them out on the farm. But yeah, he would draw farms on the floor. That was his dream. He wanted to have a farm one day, which is interesting because we grew up in Brooklyn. But that's what he wanted. He wanted a farm. Speaker 5 (7:10) And Speaker 2 (7:11) the next... Was you. And then it was me. And I was mostly the quiet one. I was the one in the corner observing everything. The wheels were always turning. I was always thinking. But I was just more of an observer. That's just, you know, I was more of an observer. That's just the way I was. And then there was Mikey. Mikey was the youngest. He would draw too, but he would just draw, you know, like cartoon characters and stuff. But that was Mikey. He was the youngest and he would just draw mostly. Speaker 5 (7:42) Your dad had some bad history from back when he was 19. What happened? Speaker 2 (7:49) When my father was 19, he got into a fight over a girl and he got his ass kicked. Him and another guy got into a fight over some girl. My father got his ass kicked. And the next day, my father found the guy and he shot him dead. My father killed him. Speaker 5 (8:05) Wow. Okay. Yeah. And obviously, did he get caught? Or what happened? How did that play out? Yeah, Speaker 2 (8:14) he went to prison. He went to prison. This was before I was even born, obviously. But yeah, he went to prison. And he served some time in prison. He never told us exactly how much time he was in prison, but he did wind up getting probation. I know that he said once he was out of prison, I don't know if he was paroled or exactly how it worked, but he did tell us that he was on probation for five years when he got out of prison, when he met my mother. Speaker 5 (8:43) And it seems like his biggest problem was alcohol. Yeah. What did that look like in your home? Speaker 2 (8:51) Well, for us, it was, you know, my father would start drinking sometimes seven in the morning. He was a bad drunk. He would start drinking. And when he would start drinking, he was kind of loose, kind of funny, kind of friendly. Once he got really drunk in the evening, by the evening, he was beating my mom. You know, it was chaos. He was either beating my mom or he would, you know, my mother would get a monthly welfare check. He would take the cash and he would just disappear sometimes for days. And he would just leave my mom with us, the four boys, just in the house, in the apartment with just the food stamps. And that was it. Did he beat your mom in front of you and your brothers? All the time. All the time. When he hit our mom, we would try to step in and save her. And, you know, we would end up on the floor. That's, you know, we were little. We couldn't stop him. There were a couple times where my brother tried Mello. He was the oldest. He called the police. He called 911 and the cops showed up. And when the cops showed up, my mother would defend him. We would be standing there pointing at my father, telling the cops, you know, he hits our mom. And my mother would say, no, they're lying. You know, they're lying. I fell. He didn't hit me. And as soon as the cops left, Mello, he would beat Mello because Mello was the oldest. We didn't know how to use the phone. Mello picked up the phone. Mello was the one who called for help. And Mello was the one who got the beating when the cops left. Speaker 5 (10:26) It seems like a scenario like that now, that's when child protective services would be brought in. But did that just not exist back Speaker 2 (10:37) then? Or why didn't that? I don't know. I don't know why no one ever called Child Protective Services. I know, for my part, if I went to school with a black eye and I told somebody, I was going to get another black eye when I got home. So I learned to keep my mouth shut. I learned that in a house with two alcoholics, it's always about... Don't tell anybody what happens in this house. Don't go out there and tell people what my mother and father used to call family business. This is the family business. Between us, you don't go out there and you tell people what's happening in this house because they didn't want people to know we didn't have any food. They didn't want people to know how violent my father was. So we learned to not say anything. Speaker 5 (11:29) How old were your parents when they got married? Speaker 2 (11:32) When my parents got married, my mother was 16 and pregnant with Mello, and my father was 27. So he must have been fresh out of prison. I mean, he must have been. Speaker 5 (11:45) Right. Yeah. Yeah. For murder. Yeah. That's that still seems like a very he did that when he happened when he was 19. When Speaker 2 (11:53) he was 19. Yeah. And I had asked him about that. And he said something about the way the days were added up in prison were different back then. So so, you know, if you got 10 years, you did five because he told us originally that he was sentenced to 10 years. It's what he told us. But I don't really know how much time he was really in prison. We don't really know. Speaker 5 (12:18) She was pregnant with Mello at that time. Things got bad pretty quickly. And she was stuck, right? She had no education, no options. And why couldn't she Speaker 2 (12:32) go back to her family? Well, she tried to. She tried to. She called her mother. Originally, before she married my father, her mother told her, don't do it. Don't leave home. and marry that guy, he's trouble. He's a convicted murderer. And my mother was in love with him. She was pregnant and she left anyway. And when things got bad and she realized her mistake, she tried to go back home. And her mother told her, basically, you know, you made your bed, you lay in it. Her mother told her, you can't come back home. You made, you know, you made this choice, you made this decision, and now you have to live with it. And so she felt stuck. Her father had passed away in his 40s from cirrhosis of the liver. So he was already dead when I was born. So she didn't have a father to go to. She didn't have a mother to go to. And so she felt stuck. Speaker 5 (13:30) Fast forward from then, there were six of you, four boys, two parents, living in a one-bedroom apartment, and your dad only worked sporadically. Speaker 2 (13:43) I remember him working once at a factory. Speaker 2 (13:49) very briefly, but I don't know if he got fired or the drinking was obviously a problem with him showing up. I don't know exactly what happened, but I mean, other than that, I don't remember him ever working. He was always drinking and partying, but other than that, he didn't work. It was my mother who would get a welfare check and that's how they supported us. That's how my mother supported us. And Speaker 5 (14:15) I would think it would be, even if you wanted to work, when you've got a convicted felon, who's going to hire somebody like that, you know? Yeah. Speaker 2 (14:22) And that, well, that, yeah, that was a big problem for him too. Yeah. Obviously the, the charge that he had was going to make it difficult for him, but it wasn't, it was that it was the charge. My father also dropped out of school in the fourth grade and we still don't know if he can even read or write, to be honest with you. I think he can read in Spanish. I don't know if he can read in English at all. Speaker 5 (14:44) A few things I want to ask you about. Conan Soup. What was that? Speaker 2 (14:50) Yeah. Conan Soup. So Conan Soup was basically we were at the end of the welfare check. Let's say it was the second or third week and, you know, we barely had anything. Okay. So we were going to the kitchen and look for any scraps we could find. There was spam, ketchup. can of beans, anything we could find. And my brother Mello would stand on the chair. He would take a pot. He would put it on the stove. And he would stand on the chair and he would put everything in the pot and he would warm it up. And we would all split it four ways. And he called it Conan Soup. We named it after Conan the Barbarian because that was somebody we looked up to being four boys. You know, we looked up to Conan the Barbarian. And so we called it Conan Soup because it was kind of scrappy. Speaker 5 (15:39) Why didn't... I mean, typically in a family, especially back in that era, the mother would cook the meals. Did she see you guys making your own food and not feel responsibility? Speaker 2 (15:53) I don't know if she was drunk. I don't know. But the truth is that when I say we barely had anything, I mean, there was nothing. That's what we had. If we had a can of Spam, some ketchup, I mean, there was nothing to cook. I mean, that was it. That's all we had. So we just made do. We just had to make do with what we had. Speaker 5 (16:16) This was in Brooklyn. How cold was it in the winter in that apartment? Speaker 2