Killer's misogyny started in third grade when he tried to forcibly kiss girls in his class
[Previously posted on February 19]
Attorney Marc Angelucci came to the door of his California home in July 2020 to sign for a package. The man holding that package opened fire, killing Angelucci at the scene. Eight days later, in New Jersey, a man with a package came to the home of federal Judge Esther Salas. He pulled out a gun and shot at her family. Judge Salas' husband, Mark Anderl, was critically wounded. Their 20-year-old son, Daniel, was fatally wounded. The two crimes were connected by one killer: Roy Den Hollander.
Roy Den Hollander was a 72-year-old attorney with a prestigious academic background and impressive resume. Despite his seemingly esteemed background, he embarked on a cross country killing spree in July 2020. How did it come to this?
"48 Hours" and correspondent Tracy Smith investigate in an encore of "The Deliveryman Murders."
Den Hollander claimed to be a torchbearer for men's rights. His beliefs are meticulously spelled out in a 2,000-plus page manifesto posted on his website. It is misogynist and antagonistic. The language is coarse and crude.
He was pushing the idea that men are an oppressed segment of society. Thanks to relentless feminism, he said, that oppression is now institutionalized in courts, workplaces, and society at large. He vowed to right those wrongs.
Den Hollander had many perceived grievances. He abhorred his mother, dedicating a memoir "To Mother: May she burn in Hell." He boasted about forcibly kissing girls in his third-grade class. He denigrated his ex-wife and posted her diary and naked photos online. He berated a former boss as a "feminazi." He lashed out against female judges, lawyers, teachers, neighbors, acquaintances, and colleagues. He declared that his "real enemies" were "the ones who plotted my destruction from birth, the ones who smiled so sweetly through their ruby red lips — dames." He evaluated "babes" decades after adolescence. He used "girls" instead of "women."
A self-proclaimed anti-feminist attorney, Den Hollander filed a flurry of lawsuits, going after the all-male military draft, a women's studies program at a university, and ladies nights at bars.
He became a reliably combative but entertaining guest on talk shows. On the surface, he was easy to poke fun at: a litigious lawyer seriously defending silly suits. When a female host objects to his dated stereotypes, protesting that she has paid for a fair share of tabs at restaurants, he asks her "well, what are you doing tonight?"
A careful reading of Roy Den Hollander's manifesto reveals a darker side. Under a subheading "Problem," that begins on page 1851, he stated that "Manhood is in serious jeopardy in America." Under "Revolution," he contended, "violence is admirable if waged in the name of democratic revolution. Vigilante justice is necessary when the law itself becomes a mockery." He also wrote that "A man has a perfect right to kill those who would destroy him."
When police hunted for an unidentified cold-blooded killer they probably did not have a well-dressed, seemingly respectable, aging attorney in mind. In the end, there were two ambush shootings. The victims did not know the killer personally. Investigators would learn they were among the many people Den Hollander derided in his manifesto. Daniel Anderl and Marc Angelucci were generous, kind, and beloved by their communities. Within eight days, grief-stricken family and friends on opposite sides of the country had their lives upended by a stranger. This was a killer who had been hiding in plain sight.
