The Assassination of April Kauffmann

apropos of nothing

It's a rare day when a radio DJ gets assassinated. Sure AM talk radio gets heated sometimes but the AM radio audience is aging. 80 year olds just are typically not able to engage in much more than tough talk. Even the median age of an AM listener by TSL is over 50. [SOURCE]  (Not to belabor the point but studies that show the majority of radio listening is at home or Gen Z are radio fans are not really plausible when the opposite is shown to be true in studies about boomers.) [SOURCE] But in researching this I found a shocking number of murdered DJs. I would not have rated it a dangerous vocation but apparently that is the case.

Anyway back to DJ assassinations. The most famous one was Alan Berg, people seem to know that name. He was killed by Neo-Nazis in 1984. [LINK] But maybe we need to define our terms a bit. It's all too easy to find DJs who are bumped off by their domestic partners, even in a premeditated fashion. In 1989 Alberto Martino a DJ at WIBF was killed by his girlfriend Lydia Alvarez. So was Mike Webb in 2007 by his partner Scott White. The murder of Stephon “Juan Gatti” Edgerton of WGOV remains unsolved. John O'Leary of WWWW and WCSX in 2021 also by his partner. More recently in 2022 Tasheka 'TySheeks' Young at WJGL was allegedly killed by the father of 2 of her kids Bursey Armstrong. In 2023 Gaby Ramos of 1550 KMRI-AM was killed by her ex-boyfriend...the list goes on. So lets limit this to premeditated murders which display at intent to achieve political or financial gain. We are excluding so-called crimes of passion, crimes of opportunity and by extension this also excludes murders with no motive at all, as in the bizarre case of the murder of WEAA's Tyra Womack in 2020.   

Not this WIBG.

Motive is difficult to parse. In other words "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" Despite all that complexity I have found one more case in the U.S. of a radio DJ who was clearly assassinated in that very sense of the word. The story is so riveting it's made it to the murder podcasts. [LINK]

Radio talk show host April Kauffmann of WIBG was murdered in 2012 insider her home in Linwood, NJ. The circumstances are strange to say the least. First let's establish that we're talking about 94.3 WIBG-FM in Avalon, NJ. They acquired those calls in 2009, having spent the prior decade as WILW and WWZK respectively. They've not held a single brand or call sign for even a 10 years stretch to it doesn't really merit digging into. However, they have been using the "Wibbage" branding and a vaguely echoic classic hits format since 2009 in an homage to the original "Wibbage."  Let's get back to that murder story.

 

In the original story, April's husband Jim, a 68-year-olddoctor, left for work at 5:30 AM, before the murder. But pathologist Dr. Michael Baden put the timing earlier, around 2:00 AM which would implicate the husband. Strangely the Prosecutor’s Office never acknowledged that Baden’s opinion was sought, nor that the pathologist put Kauffman’s time of death in conflict with her husbands version of events. Instead of a simple, the-husband-did-it tale, the prosecutor Damon Tyner, put forth the states version of events with assistance from the FBI for which they indicted 7 people. More here.

• Ferdinand Augello, 61, Petersburg, NJ - Charged with 1st degree Leader of a Drug Trafficking Network, 1st degree Racketeering, Murder (April Kauffman), Attempted Murder (James Kauffman), Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Joseph Mulholland, 52, Villas, NJ - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Beverly Augello, 47, Summerland Keys, FL - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Glenn Seeler, 37, Sanford, NC - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Paul Pagano, 61, Egg Harbor Township, NJ - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Tabitha Chapman, 35, Absecon, NJ - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance
• Cheryl Pizza, 36, Murrells Inlet, SC - Charged with 1st degree Racketeering, Distribution of a Controlled Dangerous Substance, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Dangerous Substance

According to Tyner, Kauffman planned his wife's demise after she threatened to divorce him and expose his illegal drug operation which involved the Pagan Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. We are short on first person information as the supposed trigger-man, Ferdinand Augello, died of a somewhat suspicious drug overdose a year after the killing. Then Dr. James Kauffman committed suicide while in jail in 2018. But according to their version of events James paid the Pagan's over $20,000 to do the job.  A grand jury indicted the seven and after the The remaining six defendants face racketeering, conspiracy and drug distribution charges. [SOURCE]

But years later, without those two key figures, the judicial process ground to a halt. Anecdotally, we learn that Kauffman was a volatile character, lied about his military service, in that he had none; that he made hundreds of calls to a "burner phone" in the months preceding the murder; that he tried to collect on April's $600,000 life insurance policy while in jail,  It is also theorized that what may have driven Kauffman's suicide was a brewing civil case he was even more likely to lose. [SOURCE] It has been reported that when his office was raided he brandished a Ruger 9mm handgun and engaged in a 45-minute standoff with authorities threatened to shoot himself and police.  Inexplicably Tyner described the the raids as unrelated to the slaying of April Kauffman. Even his own step-daughter thought he was guilty.

As for her radio career it's hard to find much. April Kauffman hosted "The King Arthur Show" on radio station WIBG for "several months" according to news sources. She took over the Saturday Morning program from Frank Pileggi who was the Manager of a local Pub. Even a book about the murder, Doctor Dealer by George Anastasia failed to add any color to April's professional career. At 47 years old I presume she had worked in broadcasting elsewhere. 

The Fraser Radio Gospel Hour (Part 2)

Courtesy of Bill Johnson

I got some new information on a post [LINK] from way back in March of 2012 and I am now able to post a Part 2 segment. My original research indicated that the program started "around" 1925 and ran until possibly as late as 1973 and was hosted by Rev. Robert Fraser, a Blind Radio Evangelist in Philadelphia. It even operated a gift shop at 36 North 8th Street, an area that's now prime center city real estate. a calendar I saw at the time listed the stations carrying the program in 1947, those were on Sunday from 4:00 - 5:00 PM: 1310 WCAM-AM, 1240 WSNJ-AM, 1110 WNAR-AM and 1360 WWBZ-AM. Then Sundays 9:00 - 9:30 PM: 990 WIBG-AM, WNAR-AM, 1360 WWBZ-AM and 1360 WPPA-AM. 

WCAM is particularly interesting as Camden New Jersey's oldest radio station. It dates back to September 1925, predating the program under the callsign WFBI-AM then on 1270. WPPA-AM was a share time with WCAM so it's all the more odd that both stations were listed. [More here] WSNJ-AM was in Bridgeton, NJ and had been since 1937. WNAR-AM only signed on in 1947 in Norristown so it would have been a brand new affiliate that year. WWBZ-AM was in Vineland, NJ, and WIBG was in Philly of course.

I had assumed originally that the program ended when host Rev. Robert Fraser died but that date was unknown, and  conjecture anyway. It took 8 years, but all of those questions have been answered.

Courtesy of Bill Johnson

Edward W. Fraser Jr. himself tell us that the program actually began in 1927 just after Robert Fraser and Ella Stark were married. Robert Fraser's prior radio experience was limited. He appeared with Christopher Graham "Uncle WIP" who read children's stories on WIP-AM. [More here] Later he was booked as the "Sunshine boy" at WCAU. He sang with Dumont and Emmett Welsch's  Minstrels on WFI-AM and WDAR-AM.

The Gospel Hour program ran until 1995. This end date is much later than I expected, as Bill Johnson confirmed that Rev. Fraser died April 11th 1957.  Mrs. Fraser (née Stark) continued to host the program. The speaker for the last 10 years of the show was the late Rev. Nelson H. Hill, Jr., of Aldan, PA. The equipment was run by James J. "Joe" Tolbert. His wife, Dianne, played the organ. Dianne's sister, Darlene, and mother Adele Marsh were on the program years before Mr. Hill was the speaker.  When the Gospel Hour program was finally discontinued, it was being produced at WVCH, Chester.

Courtesy of Bill Johnson

Prior to the studios of WVCH, The Fraser Radio Gospel Hour was produced at the Fraser Home for Elderly Ladies. Though at least some the equipment was still on site in 1972. He also operated a home for girls on 529 Tabor Rd in Olney, PA.  Chaplain Steve Phillips passed this information to us directly from Mr. Hill's wife, Lucille Mosher Hill. (Lucille, and Joe and Dianne are residents at Quarryville, Pennsylvania Presbyterian Retirement Community.)

Also interesting is that the program was also carried on channel 12.  While that is WHYY-TV today, that was WVUE-TV on the VHF band out of Wilmington back in 1957, as in the calendar below:

Courtesy of Bill Johnson

All of the above images came from Bill Johnson. He purchased a Bible at an Estate Sale in Southern California. Inside were several artifacts from the Fraser Radio Hour, including a card announcing the passing of Rev. Robert J. Fraser on April 11, 1957.

Rev H.B. Rittenhouse on the Radio

Rittenhouse is a name that resonates in Philadelphia. Rittenhouse Square is one of five Philadelphia parks originally planned by William Penn and his surveyor Thomas Holme. Originally called Southwest Square, Rittenhouse Square was renamed in 1825 after David Rittenhouse. Rev. H.B. Rittenhouse may or may not be related to the above. But I suspect he is. Regardless, his surname certainly wouldn't have hurt his prospects in radio. No surprise then he broadcast on at least nine different radio stations.

His book of gospel songs above mentions no call letters. H.B. had no home station of his own. He leased time where he could find it and advertised in local newspapers. One article describes him as preaching at the Church Of The Nazarene in Hagerstown, MD.  A movie-radio program guide from July of 1942, lists him on 930 WFMD-AM on Saturday the 11th at 3:15 PM and again at 8:00 PM. He did a Monday through Friday slot on WFMD at 7:3- AM. The same document lists him at 8:00 AM simultaneously on WFMD-AM, 1090 WBAL-AM and 850 WEEU-AM. He also was working at 1300 WFBR-AM on Wednesdays. The January issue of the same magazine also has him on 550 WSVA-AM.


A 1942 program listing [here] lists him on 1450 WWDC-AM on Saturday October 10th at 11:15 PM. I also discovered a single clipping that he broadcast on WIBG-AM in 1945. Today WIBG lives in South Jersey on 1020. But back in the 1940s, it was on 990 in Philadelphia. Today WNTP occupies that slot on the dial. A 1943 issue of the Frederick News Post wrote "Rev. H. B. Rittenhouse Everyday 1:00 - 2:00 P. M. 1240 On Your Dial." The calls aren't listed but then or now it'd be WJEJ-AM.

In 1960 he married Andy and Betty DeWitt, he was her uncle. He appears to have settled in Friendsville, PA in the 1970s. His name appears in numerous obituaries alive and officiating. I'm certain it was him as he officiated the funeral of Theodore Coddington in the same town in 1974, and Claudine M. McCullough in 1977, in 1985 at the funeral of Ritchey J. Kahl, and Cleda Blanche Coddington in 1989. His wife, Betty Rittenhouse died in 2007 at the age of 81.

New Jersey Shore Trip

Sitting out a rain storm I flipped on the radio in Ocean City, NJ.I did a band scan and was reminded of the fly-over status that New Jersey is stuck with. With radio powerhouse markets on each side of the state they are left with a lot of spill-over.

At the bottom of the dial 88.1 WJPG and 89.9 WJGH simulcast religious talk 24/7. Right now WJGH has a construction permit to bump up the juice form 550 watts to 1500 which would leave the two stations coverage overlapping along the shore line. When I tuned in I could hear both airing some tepid country music. 92.7 WLOM-LP appears to be airing the same program as well but that could have been bleed. A little further up the dial 90.5 WXGN is airing christian rock. They've been on and off air since first constructed in 1996 at Eagle Academy School. The station was off air for most of 2012 due to funding problems. I never caught a station ID or a live DJ, but I did hear a very tasteful Hurricane Sandy ad.

But a chunk of the local radio dial isn't local. Since the sad sell-off of the New Jersey Public Radio chain 89.7 WNJN has simulcast Philadelphia's WHYY and of course 91.3 WRTQ is just a simulcast of WRTI from the same metro as it has since 1993. Up the dial I caught 94.3 WIBG airing oldies and 95.1 WAYV spinning CHR. Nothing new there in a long time. Those are some stable book ends there. 100.7 WZXL was playing the Offspring's "Self Esteem" which warranted a short stop. As a result of that I discovered today that band is still together and has released six albums since the last time I cared what they were up to. The last thing I caught on the FM dial was 103.7 WMGM giving away Alice in Chains tickets at an Electric Factory show in Philly.

Tuning into the MA band I was thrown at first catching the station tag line "Cool 98-3" on 1490 WBSS That's the ID for WTKU on the FM band. The Geator himself still has a gig there. This makes a little more sense when you know that both stations are owned by Longport media. It's a branding faux pas but who listens to AM anymore anyway?  WMIB-AM 1260 was rocking oldies as was 1400 WOND-AM. the rest of the week WOND airs New Talk so it was serendipity. 1020 WIBG-AM was running a strange Spanish tropical program. I am no expert in salsa but I know that Eminem isn't salsa. 

The following morning I caught Champ and Company on 1450 WPGG-AM. The crew was doing a Trivia bit. Very confident and very wrong callers kept calling in and trying to answer questions from half an hour earlier.. guessing wrong. But not just wrong hilariously wrong. Someone actually guessed the bailiff on Night Court was played by Al Martino! This has to be heard to be believed. And to think they only dropped their ESPN simulcast of 97.3 WENJ back in October 2012.

The Fraser Radio Gospel Hour

There is scant information out there regarding the Fraser Radio Gospel Hour. It started in 1925 and ran possibly as late as 1973 and was hosted by Rev. Robert Fraser a Blind Radio Evangelist in Philadelphia. He headed several related charities including the Fraser Home for Elderly Ladies, the Fraser Mission and the Fraser Home for Girls.

He was born on March 14th 1906, and attended Overbrook school for the blind also in Philly. The book Undaunted by Blindness by Clifford E. Olstrom claims that he was singing on the radio by the age of 16. That seems dubious as that'd be in 1922, but there were at least a few stations in Philadelphia at that time: WFI-AM, WOO-AM, WGL-AM, WCAU-AM, and WDAR-AM, so it is possible. The Olstrom reference I found for this seemed weak. The book does got the man's age wrong a sentence later claiming he was 19 in 1923... oops.  Fraser  wrote his autobiography in 1936 titled Overcoming Obstacles, chapter 4 is "Growing up with radio." It ironed out the specifics.

It details his early radio appearances. He worked with Christopher W. Graham (Uncle WIP) on WIP-AM, and on WCAU-AM he played the character "Sunshine Boy." He sang with Dumont and Emmett Welsch's  Minstrels on WFI-AM and WDAR-AM.  But in 1924 he was converted and gave up jazz and vaudeville for gospel and preaching. It's unclear where he might have preached on the radio in the early years but he and his wife Ella Stark were married in the studio of WCAU, so it's probably that station.

Another book, 30 Years With Radio looks back at the program over it's history. It was published in 1955 to commemorate 30 years of his radio program. It lists WLBR, WIBG, WNAR, WVCH and WKAP among others but often lacking dates. But the autobiography  noted that they broadcast 532 shows on WIP-AM. If the Fraser Radio Gospel Hour was always weekly program, that means spent the better part of a decade on WIP before appearing on any of those other stations.

******

Updates in PART TWO HERE

Transcription Mystery Disc #89

I don't recall setting out to have a string of "Transcription Tuesdays" but the trend continues this week. This one is actually from a set of three 7-inch cardboard-core Recordisc transcription discs. The sides are mostly labeled and dated. All are recorded at 78 RPM except the track labeled only as "Organ" which is 33.3 RPM. The inventory is as follows

04/04/1947
A. Eric Wilkinson - (Organ)
B. Morton Gould - Tea For Two

04/11/1947
A. Eric Wilkinson - If You Were The Only Girl
B. Horace Heidt - Dark Eyes

04/18/1947
A. Unknown - Drink to Me Only
B. Blank

You can see the engineers interest in proper labeling diminished over time. That track isn't by unknown.. there's just no performer listed. It is also interesting that two of the three discs have inner rings cut with grooves but no audio. Also notable that only one track has a snipped of narration. At the end of "Organ" a narrator comes in and is quickly cut off. He utters perhaps 4 words adding no identification just proving that these are live radio transcriptions.

Horace Heidt and Morton Gould are known names in radio land. They were composers and orchestra leaders. The problem is bringing them together with the totally unknown character Eric Wilkinson. In 1947 Heidt had come out of retirement to lead an orchestra on the Phillip Morris sponsored show "The Youth Opportunity Program." But that show debuted in December, he'd been off air since 1945. If this is anything but a dub from LP it's a one-off appearance I'll never find.

The same goes for Gould. In the 1940s he did the Cresta Blanca Program and the Chrysler Hour both on CBS. In the late 1940s he focused primarily on composing patriotic music. Books that mention this period of his career lament the lack of chronology. but it's for certain he was no longer on WOR, and no longer musical director of any radio program. This too is likely a dub from an LP.


But Eric Wilkinson is unlike the others. I include his audio above. In the December 1943 issue of Billboard I find an Eric Wilkinson playing organ on 990 WIBG-AM. It notes he formerly was the staff organist at KYW, and now leads an 8-piece band for WIBG. The Music year Book of 1943 also lists him as musical director for WIBG. the answer may lie in another issue of Billboard form July 1943 that also mentions him:

"Pacting with the music union also gives WIBG the privileged to go in for remote broadcasts. Station did not lose any time, running a wire backstage to the Earle Theatre for weekly interviews with the band celebs coming in each week."

a mysterious 1 khz tone

Interference is a constant in the universe. It varies in quality and quantity but there is always some. It's ever-present, and is just part of the deal in radio. Noise happens. Most interference when it appears has a pretty clear source, or is at least only audible over a small area. The source may be novel , or mundane but the list of interference sources is fairly manageable.

In November of last year we had a mystery on our hands in radioland. There was a 1Khz tone reported on the frequency of 590 kHz on November 27. Then a day later it moved to 1610 AM. Apparently unhappy messing up WIBG-AM in the expanded band, the tone moved 1020 kHz. While the tone interfered with little other than CHHA-AM on 1610 in Toronto, and was a minor offender on 590. On 1020 it was a problem. While initially reported in New England, it was also reported as far away as Florida, Oregon, Arkansas, and Scandanavia!.

Engineers and DXers began to examing the tone, and take signal bearings to locate it's source. Guesses ranged from New Jersey to North Carolina. As the geeks moved in, it moved out. The tone jumped from 1610 to the far more problematic 1020. It now interfered with the 50,000 watt powerhours KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh.

There have been reports that it's an experiment by the goverment on co-channel interference, it's a psyops project, it's a propaganda transmission to Cuba, it's an alien message! The oogily Boogily stuff is amusing, but I can say that this is unusual in it's total lack of any kind of ID. the FCC does approve experimental broadcasts on the AM band. But these are limited to the 0100-0600 hours, and the ID is mandatory.

I've seen no paper work on it but it's been reported that BAE Systems had applied for an experimental license for testing mobile broadcasting systems. The original application had requested 590, 1020 and 1600 kHz using 10 kw of power from Fort A.P. Hill, near Bowling Green VA. Thsi is as yet unconfirmed...