Murder and Mimosas Podcast
A true crime podcast with a focus on lesser known crimes and the background of those who commit these heinous acts. Each case is told with a bit of southern sass, but with tons of in depth research and respect for those lost. Join this mom and daughter duo as they sip their mimosas while diving into tragic cases. New episodes every Saturday, just in time for brunch (and a mimosa of your own)!
Murder and Mimosas Podcast
Dark Secrets in the Opera House: The Tragic Case of Helen Minkus
What if the bustling corridors of a prestigious opera house concealed a dark secret? This episode unravels the haunting mystery of Helen Minkus, a brilliant violinist whose life was tragically cut short at the Metropolitan Opera House. We chronicle Helen's extraordinary rise from a humble farm in British Columbia to her celebrated performances at Juilliard and the Met. The story takes a harrowing turn on July 23rd, 1980, during a Berlin Ballet intermission, when Helen inexplicably vanished, only to be discovered dead and nude in a ventilation shaft the next day. Amidst thousands of unsuspecting spectators, her absence went unnoticed, painting a chilling picture of her untimely and enigmatic demise.
Join us as we dissect the relentless investigation that ensued, focusing on the meticulous police work that led to over 800 interviews and zeroed in on 21-year-old stagehand Craig Crimmins. We explore how his intimate knowledge of the opera house and missed performance cue raised alarms, ultimately linking him to the crime through specific knots and a telltale handprint. The narrative reaches a spine-tingling climax when Crimmins, drunk and spurned, confesses to the horrific act, offering a disturbing glimpse into his disturbed psyche. Don't miss our closing segment, where we invite you to connect with us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook for more updates and behind-the-scenes content. Cheers to another captivating episode of Murder and Mimosas!
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Dark Cast Network. Welcome to the dark side of podcasting. Welcome to Murder and Mimosas a true crime podcast brought to you by a mother and daughter duo.
Speaker 2:Bringing you murder stories with a mimosa in hand. Murder Mimosas is a true crime podcast, meaning we talk about adult matters such as murder, sexual assaults and other horrendous crimes. Listener discretion is advised. We do tell our stories with the victims and the victims' families in mind. However, some information is more verifiable than others. However, you can find all of our information linked in the show notes. Welcome to Murder and Mimosas. I'm Danica and I'm Shannon, Right, so this is our first bonus episode on Patreon. Shannon, I've got a whole episode that I know you have no idea what's coming.
Speaker 2:I don't know anything about it. It's called murder at the opera house and it, honestly, is really kind of just crazy. So buckle up. Today we're going to talk about Sorry, go ahead. Are you buckled up? Are you ready to go? I'm ready.
Speaker 2:So today we're going to talk about Ellen Minkus. So she was born in British Columbia. She grew up on a farm there with her parents, who were both Finland immigrants, and she had her two older siblings Now from a young age. She loved music siblings now from a young age. She loved music and she started her musical passion by learning to play piano and later violin and I am not musically inclined no, you are not one point.
Speaker 1:You learned how to play the piano right. I played a song in college for a class, that's's all. I learned One song.
Speaker 2:I think I learned how to play Hot Cross Buns on the recorder, and that's about as far as it goes for me. So as she finished school she moved to New York, which is where the dreamers go, and she attended Juilliard and she graduated from there. She was able to travel the world while following her dreams of playing music and studying music all over Europe. She was an extremely accomplished violinist at the Metropolitan Opera House. Her friends adored her. She was so sweet and so did her husband. So for once I can say the husband didn't do it. Oh, wow, I know.
Speaker 2:So on july 23rd of 1980, helen was playing the berlin ballet as they performed davatsky's the idiot. Okay, now, after the first act, there's a short intermission, and that happens around 9 30 and helen turns over to a fellow musician and she tells him I'm gonna go speak to a performer, I'm gonna stretch my legs, but like I'll be back. So she leaves her violin in her chair, intending to return pretty shortly. The intermissions aren't long, but from that moment she's never seen alive again so do you know how long the intermission is?
Speaker 1:I know they're usually like around 15 minutes, 15 minutes yeah, it was 15, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So within 15 minutes she's vanished. In this giant opera house with all of these people there, these musicians, the people in attendance. It's crazy. But no one really seems to notice. No alarm bells start going off until her husband, janice, who is waiting patiently in the car to pick her up right outside of the venue after her performance, like he always does. She's not come out and he's very confused and you know things aren't adding up like this, isn't their routine. She hasn't told him like things were gonna go differently after her performance tonight. But he decides that he's just gonna go back back to their apartment and he's just hoping that somewhere along the way there was a miscommunication. Maybe she did say and he forgot, or she had actually planned another way home, something.
Speaker 1:Well what about when she doesn't come back to her chair to get her violin for like after the intermission and she's not there to continue playing? Nobody thought that was odd, or?
Speaker 2:nobody says anything and he's not in the venue I get he's not, but like she, she's got her other.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what they're called co-workers maybe, but like nobody seems no one seems alarmed and that actually comes back because we'll get there in just a minute.
Speaker 2:Okay, no one seems alarmed. Okay, but he gets back to the apartment, right? Obviously she's not there and they live in the Upper West Side. Not long after he gets there looking for her, one of the performers shows up and knocks on the door and was like hey, I'm just dropping off helen's violin because she just left it behind in her chair. Like it doesn't seem worried. He's like oh hey, here's her violin. Thought you might want to have that okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, doesn't seem odd at all, I guess yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it doesn't seem odd, maybe to the performer, but Janice instantly is very, very concerned Because none of this is like his wife. She doesn't just go missing or not show up or not communicate with him. So he picks up the phone and he's calling 911 to report that Helen is missing. Now the police pretty quickly start an investigation. And he's calling 911 to report that Helen is missing. Now the police pretty quickly start an investigation and within 12 hours a maintenance employee has located Helen dead and nude in a ventilation shaft on the third floor of the opera house. Oh ma yeah, in addition to being nude, she was also bound and gagged. However, her death was due to the fall from the roof to the ventilation shaft. Now, the fact that this occurred in a building during a show with literally thousands of people in attendance is shocking. A show with literally thousands of people in attendance is shocking. I mean, how do you get away with killing someone in a building that has so many people and no one saw anything?
Speaker 1:I could get not seen. I mean, well, I guess not hearing, because you know it's probably loud in there once the music starts.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the not seen is a little, yeah, perplexing, I guess it's odd now nobody was talking about the show that happened on stage that night. When news breaks, everyone is consumed with the drama that was happening behind the scenes. As the police began their investigation, they feel like the killer has to be familiar with the layout of the backstage area and the building. As word traveled about Helen's murder, one ballerina has this vague recollection and she decides she's going to police with it. She thinks that she recalled seeing Helen in the backstage elevator with this average white guy with dark hair, which is like the most vague description that's like most basic description ever.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I have a question again. So I know you were like the husband didn't do it, um, but how was their marriage Like? Was she having an affair or is that coming? She wasn't having an affair.
Speaker 2:She had a loving marriage.
Speaker 1:Okay, I was thinking maybe this dude was some guy she was cheating on him with and he didn't know at the time, and that would be how. Nobody saw him take her or her be taken, Okay.
Speaker 2:No, so they just hopped on this elevator. Of course they make a sketch off of her description, but it describes a lot of men so it doesn't really narrow down a lot of things. But this doesn't stop the investigation. They're continuing to conduct interview after interview after interview. In the five-week period of this investigation they conducted 800 interviews.
Speaker 1:That is a lot, but I'm sure there were a lot of people there. I mean, I guess we probably have no idea how many people were in attendance, not counting.
Speaker 2:Right, we know that there were thousands of people in the building, but not the exact number.
Speaker 1:Okay so. Thousands, Okay so thousands.
Speaker 2:800 is a decent number, yeah, now, many of these people worked at the Met, because they're fairly confident that the person did this had to have knowledge of the layout they set. That makes sense. So just regular people in attendance. They're not really looking like suspects at the moment. Now, during these interviews, the police began to narrow further and further in on one particular suspect, 21-year-old Craig Crimmins. Now, craig worked as a stagehand at the Met for four years. This would mean that he's extremely familiar with the layout of the building. However, the question remained what's his motive? Why would he do it? And, the bigger thing, what evidence do they have to prove this theory that police are putting together? They can say he did it all day, but that's not going to get him, you know, put away in trial.
Speaker 1:Well, it could.
Speaker 2:We've seen that, but more than likely they need something. Now, as they began to look further into Craig, more and more evidence starts to come out that really did not help his case to come out. That really did not help his case. One thing that really piqued the police's interest were that the knots tied in the ropes that bound Helen. They noticed that the knots were ones commonly used by stagehands, which he is.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know that was a thing that they had. Certain you don't always see that on crime shows.
Speaker 2:I've never really seen it in real life. These are the knots of a fisherman Well this is odd because I don't know what.
Speaker 1:Your dad and I were watching the other day and they were tying a certain knot and he's like, do you know how to tie that knot? And I'm like how would I know how to tie anything except just a knot? He's like, well, it's a boy scout knot. And I'm like, oh, I had no idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I use, I just had a knot like, yeah, that's all. I know too, I don't. So anyway, this one was stagehand specific, um. So of course you know this is only circumstantial, but and it doesn't make craig a killer. There's more than one stagehand, but this does continue to make him look more like a person of interest, as the police interviewed others on or around the stage that night, ellen was killed, especially in regards to Craig. Someone mentioned to police that Craig missed one of his cues during the second act. Now remember she went missing between the intermission between the first and the second act and he misses a cue Again. Doesn't make him a killer. Maybe he was in the bathroom, but it's not looking great, I don't know.
Speaker 1:So did you ever say how old she was, or do you know? Yes, so she, oh. Maybe I didn't say how old she was, or do you know? Yes, so she, oh, maybe I didn't. Say. I was gonna say, if you did, I may have missed it, which wouldn't surprise me, but I know you said he was 21, which kind of surprised me for his age especially because he's been working as a stagehand for four years. You said which has gotten like oh, that's pretty young.
Speaker 2:So she was born in 1980. No, that's pretty young. So she was born in 1980. No, that's not right. She died in 1980.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I thought this was in 1980. She died in 1980.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure she was 30 years old, Okay 30.
Speaker 1:And he's 21. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's like a 10-year age difference there. So again we don't know where he was when he missed his cue. And so again we don't know where he was when he missed his cue. And it doesn't make him a murderer, but it's starting to add up more and more that things are not looking good. However, another stagehand told police that he'd seen Craig napping backstage just before his missed cue.
Speaker 1:So maybe he wasn't killing someone.
Speaker 2:Maybe he was napping, maybe. Now this is extremely frustrating for police, as they begin to feel as if maybe they're looking at the wrong man, maybe the miscue was just a coincidence and he had nothing to do with it. However, a match was found from a handprint on a pipe that was near Helen's body when she was located. The handprint or fingerprints I've heard both, so I'm not sure if it was the handprint or the fingerprints were a match to Craig, and when he was confronted with this, he breaks instantly. The night of the Berlin Ballet, craig was pretty intoxicated, and when they ended up in an elevator together, he decides he's going to make a pass at Helen. Now Helen we've talked about is very happily married to Janice, so she rebuffs Craig's advances. This sends him into a rage with a hammer in hand. Not a good combo, no.
Speaker 1:And awfully strange too. I mean, is this the first time he's ever been rejected?
Speaker 2:Well, great question, depending on the source. Some say that her rebuff comes with a slap across the face and some never mention the slap. So that's up for debate. But it's very possible that whatever he says is extremely inappropriate and she smacks him and that enrages him. Either way. Craig seemed more frustrated by being rejected than anything. Even if she didn't slap him across the face, he took a punch to the ego as the second act began.
Speaker 2:On stage, a much more menacing scene was happening. In the cavernous backstage area of the opera house, down into the sub-basement of the building, craig fought Helen to get her clothes off and bound her. Helen is a fighter and at one point is able to free her legs and as she attempted to make a break for it, sadly for Helen, craig was able to snag her during her attempt to run. He reties her and he gags her and he attempts to rape her but was unable to, if you know what I mean. Okay, and that just seems to frustrate him further. If he hadn't already taken a blow to the ego, this is blow number two. While everyone is in their seats, enthralled in a show on stage, craig was moving nude helen to the roof, tossing her possessions down the ac shaft and then followed that by kicking Helen down behind her belongings. She fell six stories to her death.
Speaker 1:That is crazy. And can you imagine her husband just like dropping her off at work and never thinking a thing about it, and you come to pick her back up and not finding her? I mean, how many times have we done things like that? Just drop somebody off and expecting them to be all?
Speaker 2:good. Yeah, yeah, it's, especially because it seems like it was very much their routine. Yeah, so Craig confessed to all of this on videotape with the police, which seems like this is an open and shut case in court. However, craig's defense attorney does what many of them do. His name is Lawrence Hokaiser and he made some claims to try to blow apart the confession, mainly claiming that Craig did not tell a narrative on his own, but instead just responded yes or no to the detective's questions. The defense argued that Craig had knowledge that only the killer would, and ultimately, the jury decided with the defense I'm sorry, with the prosecution, with only 11 hours of deliberation, finding Craig guilty of felony murder. In late 1981, craig was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. Now, craig was denied parole from the Auburn Corrections Facility seven times since 2000. Oh, wow. But in August of 2021 2021 he was granted parole. Wasn't able to find much after his release from prison, but from what reports say, he apparently still resides in new york, but he's out there that that's creepy and crazy.
Speaker 1:So I'm assuming you probably don't know what his prison life was like either. Did he continue those bits of rage? I'm sure he probably got slammed down if he tried that in prison with people.
Speaker 2:One I don't know is because they said he was very intoxicated that night. I don't know if his intoxication was a big reason for the rage and it's not impossible to get intoxicated in prison.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's much harder he's just an angry drunk right, okay, but there hasn't been anything in the last three years since his release. So he seems to have stayed out of trouble, because I guarantee it would have been big news if he yeah got in trouble again. So he seems to have laid low, that's true, but new york's a big place and this happened a long time ago well, 1980s, not that long ago but long enough ago.
Speaker 1:That's a long time ago people don't talk about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, have you ever heard of this?
Speaker 1:no, in your town.
Speaker 2:No, I've never heard of this, yeah but it's a crazy thing like to imagine and you know you talked about his, her husband dropping her off, thinking she's fine, and you would with that many people. Yeah, you would think that she's like safe, nothing's gonna happen. Somebody would see something.
Speaker 1:Nobody did. Yeah, that's the even crazier part. I mean all these people here that didn't see anything, I mean or even hear anything, which I do get the not hearing it part. That had to be loud.
Speaker 2:But that's just so crazy. The thing is, and I couldn't ever find it. The thing is, and I couldn't ever find it, I went back. Is that second stage hand who told police they'd seen Craig napping backstage during that, like right before his miscue, right? I don't know if that's true. Maybe he did after all of that? That's a lot of work, that is true. That's a lot of physical labor. Yeah, he may did you know, and plus he's drunk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he may have slept that off?
Speaker 2:If that was true, or if he had missed his cue because he was killing and disclosing of Helen's body.
Speaker 1:Busy with other things.
Speaker 2:Right. So that part I could never find. I could never find that guy like was honest if there was any connection. He was real close with Craig and was just kind of trying to cover him.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or if he really had done all of that and then came back backstage and took a nap. Not the first time we hear of someone killing someone and then taking a nap. Yeah, just crazy stuff. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, just crazy stuff. Yeah, I don't know. I've never killed anyone Me either. Maybe it's a whole lot of work. That just makes you exhausted but wild.
Speaker 1:Especially if you're drunk. You just don't even know, that's true.
Speaker 2:But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this bonus episode. I thought it was a really interesting case. There wasn't a whole ton of information, but what I could find was interesting and it was just mind-blowing to me how it could happen in a building with so many people and no one really saw a whole lot of anything.
Speaker 1:We always recommend more bubbly and less OJ Cheers.
Speaker 2:If you'd like to see pictures from today's episode, you can find us at murdermimosas on Instagram. You can also find us at murdermimosas on TikTok, twitter, and if you have a case you would like us to do, you can send that to murdermimosas at gmailcom. And lastly, we are on Facebook at Murder and Mimosas Podcast, where you can interact with us there. We love any type of feedback you can give us, so please write and review us on Spotify, itunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts.