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Joseph Kallinger

Also known as: The Shoemaker

Active
1974–1975
Region
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and northern New Jersey, USA
States
NJ, PA
Kind
Serial
Status
Convicted
Victims
2

Joseph Kallinger, a Philadelphia shoemaker, killed his own son Joseph Jr. and a 9-year-old neighborhood boy in 1974, and then, with his 13-year-old younger son, posed as a salesman to force his way into homes in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland, robbing and terrorizing families. On January 8, 1975, in Leonia, New Jersey, he killed Maria Fasching, a 21-year-old nurse who had stopped by one of those homes. A bloody shirt left at the scene led to his arrest nine days later. He was convicted of robbery charges in Pennsylvania and of Fasching's murder in New Jersey in 1976. According to later news accounts he was also convicted of the two Philadelphia murders. He died in prison in 1996.

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Victims

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Timeline of locations

  1. 1974
    Abandoned building, Philadelphia (Recovery site, approximate area)

    Joseph Jr. was found dead in an abandoned construction building in Philadelphia, about two weeks after his father took out a large life insurance policy on his sons.

  2. January 8, 1975
    Home in Leonia, New Jersey (Crime scene, approximate area)

    Kallinger and his son held several people captive in a Leonia home. Maria Fasching, who came to the house, was killed there. A bloody shirt left behind was traced to Kallinger.

  3. March 26, 1996
    SCI Cresson (Prison)

    Kallinger died of heart failure at the prison after years on suicide watch.

Watch, listen, read

Read

  • The Shoemaker: The Anatomy of a Psychotic (1983, Flora Rheta Schreiber)

Sources

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.