Ricky Kasso - Biographical Background

Biographical Background

Kasso was the son of a local high school history teacher and football coach at affluent Cold Spring Harbor High School. Several years prior to the murder, his father, Gregory Pitch Kasso, had been named Nassau County Football Coach of the Year by Newsday. Kasso ran away from home as a young teen and lived on the streets of suburban Northport, Long Island, New York, usually sleeping in the local woods, or in the cars, garages, backyards and houses of friends. He often took drugs, mainly marijuana, hashish, LSD (hence the nickname "Acid King"), PCP, and purple-microdots which were thought to be mescaline. He tended to consume all of his drugs, but had on occasion dealt drugs in Northport as well. Kasso dabbled in the occult and Satanism and was friends with the members of a loosely-organized group who referred to themselves as the "Knights of the Black Circle". There are reports that he participated in Satanic ceremonies, mostly in Northport, and is said to have celebrated Walpurgisnacht at the infamous Amityville Horror house in 1984. Kasso also expressed to friends his great interest in Anton LaVey's book The Satanic Bible. On at least one occasion, Ricky's parents admitted him to the South Oaks Psychiatric Hospital (formerly known as the Amityville Asylum) in Amityville, New York for drug rehabilitation and psychiatric care.

In the year prior to the murder, Kasso and others had been arrested for grave robbing, taking a human skull, a skeleton hand and other objects from a local cemetery. About a month after his arrest for this crime, Ricky contracted pneumonia and was treated at Long Island Jewish Hospital. During his hospital stay, his parents tried to convince the doctors to commit him for involuntary psychiatric care. However, the conclusion of the psychiatrists was that Kasso exhibited antisocial behavior but was neither psychotic nor a violent danger, and Kasso was released upon recovering from his bout with pneumonia.