TV & Movies
The Last Call Killer Richard W. Rogers Jr. Is Still In Prison
His LGBTQ+ victims are the focus of a new HBO docuseries.
HBO’s Last Call docuseries explores a series of murders of gay and bisexual men in 1990s New York — and how their killer was brought to justice. Based on Elon Green’s recent, award-winning true crime book, the series (which premiered July 9) echoes its source material’s focus on the victims of the so-called Last Call Killer, rather than centering the murderer himself. “It’s just a big story. Once you’re sitting with these family members, they have so much that they want to tell about their loved one,” director Anthony Caronna recently told Vulture, adding that the project “was the most complicated storytelling [he] could ever imagine doing.”
In addition to talking to people in the victims’ lives, Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York “dives into the deep-rooted biases of the criminal justice system and illuminates how the LGBTQ+ community fought to solve the murders and demand fair treatment of queer crime victims,” per HBO’s official synopsis.
While Last Call doesn’t prioritize murderer Richard W. Rogers Jr. in its storytelling, it’s natural to wonder what happened to him after the investigation, arrest, and trial. So, where is the Last Call Killer today?
As The New York Times explained in 2006 (when Rogers was sentenced), there were four men considered victims of the Last Call Killer between 1991 and 1993: Thomas Mulcahy, Anthony Marrero, Peter S. Anderson, and Michael Sakara. Rogers was convicted of killing Mulcahy and Marrero because his fingerprints matched those found on the bags that held their bodies, leading to his 2001 arrest.
During Rogers’ trial, prosecutors were allowed to show evidence from Anderson and Sakara’s murders “to show what they considered a pattern,” per The New York Times — but despite the similarities in those deaths, Rogers was not charged with them. For the murders he was convicted of, “Rogers refused to tell the court why he murdered the men,” per a truTV breakdown of the trial. He didn’t testify in the case.
According to the New Jersey Department of Corrections, Rogers is still carrying out his prison sentence and will be eligible for parole in 2066; he is currently 73 years old. Additional context about Rogers’ life behind bars can be found in a 2021 A&E interview with Green, the author of Last Call. “He seems to enjoy watching the news,” Green said. “He’s a frequent letter writer. He doesn’t seem at all unhappy. And he maintains his innocence.”
