Ryder Smith: The New York City Vigilante
Incident on the Staten Island Ferry
Disclaimer: this is a self-initiated, independent, investigative journalism project by me—Marshall G. Harris. As a “citizen-journalist” I will be examining a series of criminal cases: cold, closed, unsolved—or otherwise unreported to the so-called authorities. The eye-witness accounts may or may not be related to each other. Nonetheless; the intention of this project is to locate the truth.
Witnesses and/or victims were willing to go on record with the condition of anonymity. It is my duty as a journalist to protect the identity of my sources and the information they share.
The individual described by eye-witnesses seems to have been involved in the deaths of many individuals. This person—or persons—of interest has been doling out their own form of justice. This individual may or may not be the same person described in other testimonies, but information provided thus far seems to indicate a pattern. “Ryder Smith” is the name given by some witnesses—perhaps a pseudonym.
Those who wish to contact me with leads, information, or wish to be interviewed: please email me marshallgharris@proton.me
The following content contains violence images, language, and behavior some readers may find disturbing. It is intended for mature audiences. Reader discretion is advised.
This interviewee is “Janet.” Her statements—for me—are somewhat alarming. Similar in some ways to previous interviewee accounts. But—as readers will see—significant differences exist. What follows is a transcription of the recorded interview.
That man, if he’s alive and you find him—please—don’t bring him to justice.
Bring.
Him.
To me.
He needs to feel my pain. He needs to feel what I feel. Waking-up to this hell every single day.
*Editorial note: “Janet” begins sobbing here. I interrupt the interview and turn off the recorder. She asked for a bottle of water and some tissues.
Thank you Mister Harris. May I call you Marshall? Well…Marshall. My two kids. My babies—they wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. As a single mother there wasn’t much money. I told them we couldn’t afford to go. Broke my heart to their faces. We went to the kiddie-park instead as usual. That’s when I heard younger mothers gossiping. They were living-large on alimony and welfare. They give you a nice amount per kid.
He wasn’t a bad guy—my husband. Just realized after marrying him and having kids—he wasn’t the make and model I wanted. The one I deserved. He was a Chevy and I really needed at least a Caddy: a Caddy-daddy. A sweet ride in black. Tinted windows if we had to get nasty.
After the divorce it took a while for the alimony payments—but food and rent kicked-in pretty fast from the city. Things got better. Not great. But still better than before. My dating life started to improve, too. Needed to find a man with a job. Someone to take me out and give me that bachelor lovin.’ Started my sampling from that smorgasbord.
Finally, me and my two little ones could afford to take the subway downtown and go for that ferry ride to see The Statue of Liberty. Went up the escalators to the terminal. Cops with drug-sniffing dogs looked us over and let us pass. Small stores and vendor stalls with people selling stuff. The waiting room is big. Almost like a church or a cathedral with pigeons. Clean looking architectural lines and panels and surfaces, but a greasy-dusty feeling. A bunch of people were crowding over by tall glass panels that are actually sliding doors. That’s where you get on the boat. Pizza, hot dogs, popcorn, soda—always the scent of fried food in places like that. Mixed with the smell of public restroom disinfectant they use to cover the stench.
The kids picked-up the food aromas right away, started bugging me. Tugging at my bag. Always wanting something. Never satisfied. Money grows on trees for them. My kids had so much more than I did at their age—so that’s the yardstick I use. How do you know if you’re spoiling your kids or not? You need some way to measure when things get out of control. That’s when they get it with the yard stick. Not the whole stick. That’s at home. I have a one foot ruler. Wood with a thin metal-edge that fits in my bag. They know the ruler is in there, so they think twice. Stopped tugging at my shoulder bag…finally.
But honestly—if I knew things were going to be so hard—that being a mother is the hardest job on earth—that probably would have sent me to the clinic to get rid of them. But after the first one, Jonny, was born it was really something special. Me and their father tried for another. Sara arrived. Do you know how expensive and exhausting it is to have kids? We struggled to get by. That’s when people in my building started whispering—telling me to lose my man. Get on welfare. “He’s a no good loser,” they’d say. “The City’s a better provider than that piece of crap girl.”
That ferry ride—takes about a half hour each way. The kids liked the space, and they could run around. Then the ferry staff makes everyone get off the boat when it makes it to the other side, but you have to go all the way around to get back on. Back to the terminal waiting room on the Staten Island side. If you’re not the first one off the boat when the boat docks, they might close the doors on you. The same boat you left is the next boat out. Then you’re stuck waiting for the next boat. We started doing this trip on a regular basis. The kids liked to get away. It was our little adventure. On one of the rides that mom known as “the mother of invention” raised her head and said to me “on the next trip go get one of those rolling coolers, some bottled water at the discount store and put those children to work.” Call me crazy, but after a few days of that—of me dragging that filled cooler—that mother of invention told me that my children needed to learn how to be responsible. Need to learn to carry their own weight. She was right. So each of them got their own bucket of ice filled with bottles of water to sell to ferry customers. Total strangers. Sales were brisk. It was starting to look like my ship had come in. Jonny complained. Sara, not so much since Jonny was doing all the whining for the two of them.
“But I don’t wanna,” he says to me. “The handle hurts my hands. Look at Sara’s hands,” he said grabbing one of her wrists to show me. “They’re all red and there’s a deep line on her palms that’s always there now,” he says.
“If you keep whining, I’ll really give you something to whine about,” I said, reaching for shoulder bag and sliding the zipper open. Silence was heard throughout the land—and the sea.
It was pretty easy to keep-an-eye on them given the layout of the boat space. But something happened that’s hard to discuss here—to discuss anywhere. There was one-time Jonny was out of my sight. A man convinced my son to go into the bathroom with him. Gave him a twenty dollar bill. Jonny wanted to make me proud. Wanted me to be happy, so he went with the man. Later, Jonny was acting all weird. Finally, he told me what happened. The man told Jonny that if he ever said anything about what they did in that bathroom stall he’d kill me and Sara, my little one. Since then it was clear that the kids had to be watched. Close. Looking back, Jonny really didn’t like carrying the bucket all-day. He saw that twenty bucks as an easy way-out. It was clear that the pedophile scumbag was preferable to what he considered to be humiliating work. He got a beating for that. Yeah, it was rough what happened to him, but these kids—the only way to teach them is by teaching them a lesson. It worked for me. I turned out okay.
A few months later we were heading back to the Manhattan side terminal, we got off the boat. Jonny doesn’t like using the ferry bathroom’s after what happened. I needed to go too, so I left Sara sitting on a bench with the cooler and the buckets, and went into the women’s room. Jonny—into the terminal’s men’s room. It was a holiday weekend. The place was jam packed with tourists and other sightseers looking for a free ride.
Walking out of the women’s room, Sara was gone from the bench. The terminal doors are tall, so it was easy to see them starting to open from the where I was on the other side of the terminal. The crowd started surging through the bottleneck of the slow-sliding doors. Figured Jonny came out of the bathroom before me. He’s a good kid, so it made sense that he probably took Sara and the cooler over by the doors so we wouldn’t miss the return boat. Running to the doors the kids were nowhere. Ran to the guy running the ferry’s pedestrian draw-bridge platform. He knew us. We were regulars by this point.
“Nope. Sorry. Didn’t see ‘em,” he said.
My throat clogged like one of the restroom toilets. Ran back to the terminal. Ran to the top of the escalators. Not there either. The canine cop said they didn’t see them, but said it’s impossible to see every single person going in-and-out of the place. This was the main terminal entrance and exit.. Nearly broke my neck running down the stairs. Knocked over at least two people on their way up to catch the next boat.
On the north side of the terminal, there’s a side exit staircase—totally forgot about it. Ran around the side and saw a thin dark figure shoving two kids into the back of a black car. Might have been a Cadillac. Not sure. It was getting dark by then.
Filing the police report, the cops interviewed the ferry and terminal staff. Several testified that they’d seen us leave the boat. No one saw us or the kids leaving with anyone. They checked the security cameras. With all the people huddled together, moving and shifting—the cameras don’t really capture detail that well. They managed to grab a few still-frames of some kids that might have been mine, but they were buried among the wave of adult bodies leaving the terminal in droves.
It was weeks later when I got a call from the Red Hook Police in Brooklyn. They needed me to come-in…to identify a deceased child. A body washed up on the rocks at one of the old piers. It wasn’t Jonny. It wasn’t Sara.
Mister Marshall—I need to make sure my story gets out. If you ever find out who’s doing these awful things, please publish my real name. Publish my story. I miss my kids.