Ricky Kasso was born in March 1967 and despite - or perhaps because of - his secure affluent background, he soon went to the bad, and before he had entered teenage was experimenting with drugs. By the time he reached high school, Kasso (which he delighted in telling people rhymed with 'asshole') was described as 'socially handicapped'. At age seventeen Ricky, known on the streets around Northport, Long Island, as the 'Acid King', had become obsessed with black magic and Satanism (after reading LaVey's Satanic Bible) to the point where fantasy and reality overlapped dangerously.

Although he never became a full member, Ricky hovered around on the periphery of the Knights of the Black Circle, a drug 'n' orgy cult based at Northport High School, and he was fond of initiating his own circle of druggy hangers-on into his brand of immature Satanism. Ricky's closest friend at this time was James Troiano (called 'Dracula'), less dominant, but Kasso's equal in almost every other brand of unpleasantness. One of Ricky's biggest fans was seventeen-year-old Gary Lauwers, who followed the Acid King rather as a dog follows its master.

In 1984, Ricky Kasso led his merry men on a pilgrimage to the notorious house at Amityville where Ronald 'Butch' DeFeo had massacred his family ten years earlier. It was 30 April, the witches' feast of Walpurgisnacht, so Ricky knocked together an altar and they all shouted a few praises to Satan.

A month or so later, at the start of June, Kasso found he was missing several twists of 'angel dust', and repeatedly accused Gary Lauwers of having stolen the drugs. On 16 June Kasso, Troiano, Lauwers and a youth named Albert Quinones hid themselves away in Newport's Aztakea Woods to partake of some mescaline. During the course of subsequent reveries they renewed the dispute over the allegedly pilfered drugs. The result was a vicious attack by the dope-crazed Kasso on the disciple who in trying to escape was felled by Troiano and held down while Ricky repeatedly drove a hunting knife into his body; Lauwers' disinclination at the time to embrace the church of Satan in his hour of need resulted in Kasso gouging out his eyes. Ricky and 'Drac' covered the body with leaves, though poor terrified Albert had long since taken to his heels.

Despite the fact that Ricky Kasso was openly boasting of his human sacrifice, it was not until 5 July that anybody had the courage to tell the police. That day Kasso and Troiano were arrested and held in a cell. Two days later the Acid King hanged himself with a bed sheet. Albert Quinones turned state's evidence, but having been out of his head on drugs at the time of the 'sacrifice, proved a very unreliable witness against James Troiano at his trial in April 1985. This, combined with some irregularity in Dracula's confession, led to his eventual acquittal.

This tale comes from The Encyclopedia of Occult and Supernatural Murder by Brian Lane (Headline, London, 1995)

If you want to chat with the freaks that worship Ricky you can join a group @ Yahoo. Here's the address: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/rickykasso