0:00

You're

0:00

listening to Radio Diaries. This is Joe,

0:02

and we have some exciting news from a fellow Radiotopia

0:05

show. Everything is Alive has

0:07

a new series called The Animals. It's

0:09

an interview show where all the subjects are

0:12

animals. Here's a sneak peek.

0:14

My name is Deirdre. You

0:16

can see me okay? Mm-hmm. Okay, good.

0:20

I'm a jellyfish, so that's why I always

0:22

check with people. We're celebrities in the natural

0:24

world. You know, that's the thing about being a butterfly

0:26

that I don't think people understand is the pressure.

0:28

This is my son Joseph, and we

0:31

are kangaroos. Joseph, we should

0:33

say you are currently still

0:35

in the pouch. Yeah, I live in a pouch

0:38

still. Okay.

0:40

The show is funny and full of heart and

0:42

surprises. You can listen to The Animals

0:44

right now in the Everything is Alive podcast

0:46

feed.

0:48

Radiotopia from

0:52

PRX. In 2017,

0:55

a man was buried on a narrow, mile-long island

0:58

off the coast of the Bronx in New York

1:00

City. He'd been dead for months, but the city hadn't

1:02

figured out his name. So

1:05

he was placed in a simple pine coffin

1:08

that was stacked in a mass grave. The

1:10

only marker was a white post that read, plot 383. Since 1869,

1:15

more than half of the population has been buried

1:17

in the Bronx.

1:21

Since 1869, more than a

1:23

million people have been buried on Heart Island.

1:26

It doesn't look like a typical cemetery. There

1:28

are no headstones or plaques, just

1:31

white posts with numbers on them.

1:33

Each one marks a trench with about 150 coffins inside.

1:38

There's a broad range of people buried here. People

1:41

whose families couldn't afford a private burial, people

1:44

who couldn't be identified, and people who died

1:46

in various waves of epidemics that swept

1:48

the city. In the 1980s, it was AIDS,

1:51

and most recently, COVID-19.

1:53

But for more than a century, Heart

1:55

Island has been mostly off-limits.

2:01

This is the Unmarred Graveyard, a

2:04

new series from Radio Diaries where we're untangling

2:06

mysteries from Heart Island, America's

2:09

largest public cemetery.

2:11

I'm Joe Richmond.

2:12

Over the next several weeks, we'll be bringing you stories

2:14

about people who ended up on Heart Island, the

2:17

lives they lived, and the people they left behind.

2:21

There were thousands of questions. Where's

2:23

his family? Where's

2:26

his people? The playwright, novelist,

2:28

and author of Happy Island, Miss Dawn

2:31

Powell. Uncle Caesar was estranged

2:33

from our family 40 to 50 years. You

2:36

can't help but wonder what her life has

2:39

been. I never went back and

2:41

I never looked around again. Today,

2:45

episode one, it's about the unidentified

2:48

man buried in plot 383.

2:50

At the time he was buried, he actually

2:53

had several people looking for him. He

2:55

had lived two lives in different places

2:57

and under different names. We

2:59

begin in Inwood, Long Island with his mom

3:02

who named him Neil.

3:04

My name is Susan Hrobert and

3:07

I'm Neil Harris' mom. I

3:11

kept all of Neil's pictures

3:14

and memorabilia. This

3:17

is the Neil box. This

3:20

is his father. I always saved the picture

3:22

for Neil. Neil's

3:24

father and I unfortunately were just a one night

3:26

stand. But

3:29

things happened

3:30

and Neil happened.

3:35

This was

3:36

something that Neil

3:37

wrote to me when he was little

3:40

in school. My

3:42

hero is my mom because she has always

3:45

been there for me. She always brings

3:47

me and my friends to Taco Bell

3:49

and Pizza Hut.

3:51

I remember when we didn't have a home

3:54

or any money and we were living with my aunt.

3:57

After a while, she got a job

3:59

and we got a job. a home and that's why

4:01

my mom is my hero. Life

4:05

was good then. I would come

4:07

home and make a little dinner

4:10

or whatever and read and eat and play

4:12

a little video games. He

4:15

was fun. He

4:16

was cuddly.

4:20

This was him sleeping with all

4:22

the dogs and the dogs

4:25

adored him. We wound

4:27

up calling him Dr. Doolittle because this

4:30

kid loved the animals.

4:33

And then as he got older something

4:36

switched like somebody flipped a switch

4:38

on him. One night I heard him talking

4:40

in his room and I thought oh he's got somebody over.

4:43

So I knocked on the door and I said

4:45

who are you talking to? The

4:48

ghost and I'm like what ghost?

4:52

And then he started fighting and he's

4:54

like they were all over me. They're all over me.

4:58

And I was in my office one day and

5:00

he came in and he's like ma and

5:03

he pushed me

5:04

and I went flying across the room and

5:07

he said you don't think that I don't know you're trying to

5:09

poison me?

5:11

He had a glare

5:13

like he wanted to kill me.

5:15

I was actually afraid of my son

5:17

the first time in my life.

5:22

And I said I want to have him put

5:25

in a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

5:29

He went and I spoke to the

5:31

doctor and she said he is schizophrenic.

5:35

I'm medication he's fine. She

5:38

said but he has asked to stop the

5:40

medication which is his right and

5:43

he has asked to be released and

5:46

they sent him. He was 29 years

5:48

old. I

5:52

felt helpless.

5:53

I felt like there was nobody there to help

5:56

nobody.

5:58

And then one day He's

6:00

like, I want you to drop me off at the Imwe train station.

6:03

And he would sleep on the platform. When

6:06

we pulled into the parking lot of the

6:09

Imwe train station, he just got out, took

6:11

his little backpack, threw it over

6:14

his shoulder, walked

6:16

away, never looked behind. And

6:19

there was a cop sitting in the parking

6:22

field there, and I got out. And I said,

6:24

that's my son, and he wants to be here. He wants

6:26

to be homeless. And the

6:28

cop said to me, and it's his right. He

6:31

said, but we'll check

6:31

up on him. So

6:34

I figured, OK, so I'll go every

6:36

week. And the first time we

6:38

went down, we looked. And

6:40

we did see him. But he

6:42

walked away from me. And I was like, Neil, wait. I just

6:44

want to give you money. And he stopped, took

6:47

the money, and walked away.

6:49

And that was the last time I saw him.

6:55

My name is Joy Bergman, and I live on the Upper

6:58

West Side of Manhattan. And this

7:00

is my dog, JJ. JJ,

7:02

let's go. Every day,

7:05

JJ and I are in Riverside Park. This

7:08

is a bench where we would see Stephen

7:10

in

7:10

all weather, all times of day. He'd

7:13

always be sitting bolt upright on the

7:15

bench, big canvas rucksack

7:18

at his feet,

7:19

same clothes, same facial

7:21

expression. Yeah, JJ, you

7:23

remember Stephen.

7:27

I'm Billy. Billy Healy.

7:30

I used to sit up at the corner there, feed

7:33

my little birds. And

7:35

that's when I talked to him. And he told me

7:37

that he was from Long Island, and his name

7:40

was Stephen. It

7:42

was like pulling teeth to get him to say anything.

7:45

He was not a talker. He didn't

7:47

seem to trust people much. At

7:50

the time, I still wasn't sure if he was sleeping

7:52

in the park, because I see

7:55

him sitting on the bench every day with his knapsack,

7:57

but I never saw him sleep.

8:00

I called the outreach for

8:02

the homeless. They went to talk

8:04

to him and they told

8:06

me, Steven doesn't want any help.

8:10

It was always

8:11

kind of reassuring to see him because

8:14

he was such a big guy and so

8:17

gentle in his presence. He

8:19

was a constant presence in the park, but a

8:22

mysterious one. Couldn't quite

8:24

figure out where he was from, what

8:26

he was doing here and why he never

8:29

left.

8:32

Neil Harris was last seen in Inwood,

8:34

New York on December 12th, 2014. He

8:38

was last seen wearing a tan Carhartt jacket,

8:40

black hoodie, blue jeans, tan work boots

8:43

and a backpack. If you have seen

8:46

or know Neil's whereabouts, this

8:47

was a missing persons flyer

8:49

that we made.

8:51

And that went out every week. Every

8:54

week like clockwork on Mondays,

8:57

Monday morning on every social media

8:59

platform that I could get my hands on, it

9:02

went out. And

9:04

then a year went by,

9:06

nothing.

9:09

And then another year, still nothing.

9:17

After about maybe a year

9:19

of seeing him in the park, I

9:22

was gonna recycle some magazines or something and

9:24

I said, oh, maybe I'll bring them to the car in the park,

9:27

maybe he'd like something to look at. So

9:29

I would bring him periodically bags of magazines

9:31

and I would see him as I walked away, start

9:33

looking through them with interest. He

9:36

never said thank you, he just kind of gave me a

9:38

half nod as I would approach.

9:42

After seeing him for

9:44

so long and seeing there

9:46

were some needy things, I told him,

9:49

oh, do you like pork ribs? Or do

9:51

you like potato salad? I

9:53

would ask him and he would say yes. So

9:55

my wife would put something in the microwave

9:58

of leftovers and I would. bring him a

10:01

plastic container with a

10:03

fork. And when

10:05

it got real cold, I brought him a winter

10:07

coat. And he said, oh no,

10:09

I don't want one. I have one in my pack. I

10:12

said, do you like this? And I was wearing a burgundy

10:15

hoodie and it had like fake fur

10:17

inside or something. It was warm. And

10:20

he said, yeah, I like that. So he

10:22

wore it for two years that I know of. I

10:25

know he died in it.

10:30

My name is Jim Littlefield. I

10:33

was formerly a director of security

10:35

for the Trump organization and ran security for

10:38

four condominiums on Riverside

10:40

Boulevard, luxury condominiums

10:43

with Broadway actresses, baseball

10:45

players of note.

10:47

I believe it was around Easter time, early

10:50

spring. I pulled up that morning

10:53

and parked my car. And

10:55

then I looked over and I noticed the

10:57

backpack sitting on top of like

10:59

a milk crate. And then I looked and I

11:01

saw a person sitting down,

11:04

knees bent and his head

11:07

was hunched down, almost as if

11:09

in contemplative prayer. I

11:11

thought, maybe he's asleep, a

11:13

poor guy and let him stay there. And I walk away and

11:15

went to work. Next morning I came back

11:18

to work and I saw he basically

11:20

in the same position. So

11:22

I kind of yelled loud. Hey,

11:25

fella, you all right? He

11:27

didn't touch. And at that point

11:30

I touched him and was 70

11:32

year old retired New York City police sergeant. I

11:34

know what rigor mortis feels like and

11:37

he was in it. This guy had reached

11:39

at the end of the road. I

11:41

called 911. The police

11:43

arrived.

11:44

I was happy that I was able to do what I could

11:46

do and then went to work.

11:51

I think I spoke to the police officer

11:53

again, a week or two later.

11:56

And I said, did you ever identify that young

11:58

man? And he says...

11:59

He didn't think anybody did

12:02

at that point.

12:12

It was the next day I was told they

12:14

found him dead. Right

12:17

away I said, was it trauma? Was

12:19

he murdered? You know, was something bad done

12:21

to him? And they said,

12:23

absolutely no trauma. It

12:26

looked like he just had a heart attack or something.

12:29

After he died, people put flowers

12:32

on the bench where Stephen would sit. They

12:35

put signs up and

12:35

cards. You

12:38

know, when you live in a big city, there's

12:40

the anonymity of the big city that I think

12:42

we all sort of treasure. But then there

12:44

are the constant presences

12:46

of

12:47

people whose names you don't know, but

12:49

you see them every day. The

12:52

guy who sells the fruit on the corner, the guy

12:54

you see sweeping the sidewalk. These

12:57

are people that become woven into your fabric

12:59

of your experience in a neighborhood. And when one

13:02

of them goes away, there is a

13:03

loss.

13:05

There is a loss. He

13:08

was a sweet young man and many

13:10

people thought that about him. Rest

13:14

in peace, Stephen.

13:19

Our story continues in a minute. This

13:24

episode of Radio Diaries has support from

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14:10

My name is Jessica Brockington and

14:12

I'm a journalist.

14:14

I was living on 70th street. I

14:16

have two little dogs and we would

14:18

walk in Riverside Park. I

14:21

felt sad that he had died. I felt sad

14:23

that the bench was empty. You know,

14:26

maybe it's a year later, year

14:28

and a half. I'm looking in

14:30

a database of missing persons and

14:32

as I'm scrolling through the photos, I

14:35

recognize a photo of Stephen.

14:38

And I

14:40

thought, holy shit, I know that person. And

14:43

it's got a name attached to it. Neil

14:46

Harris Jr. So

14:49

I take the name and I turn

14:52

around and start googling it and

14:54

I find a Facebook profile. I

14:58

was going through every single

15:00

post on that Facebook page, trying

15:03

to figure out who set it up. Who is

15:05

Susan Hurlburt?

15:07

Monday, July 2nd, 2018. Still missing, still praying. I'll never give up

15:09

on you.

15:10

Noticing

15:13

pretty quickly that Susan

15:16

Hurlburt is posting a plea.

15:19

Every Monday.

15:20

Monday, July 16th, still

15:23

missing, still praying. If seen, please

15:25

tell him. Monday, July 23rd, 2018, still missing, still

15:30

praying. Monday, August 6th, still missing,

15:32

still praying. And I'm completely obsessed

15:34

with it at that point.

15:35

Help me locate my son. I will never

15:37

give up on you, Neil. I know that the person is

15:39

dead and I know that somewhere the

15:42

New York City Police Department have

15:44

information on him that would help her. But

15:48

when I talked to the detective who had

15:50

the case, he says that he's reviewed

15:53

what he has in his files and the photos

15:55

that I've sent him and he

15:57

has decided that this is not the same person.

16:01

So I called the organization

16:03

that is helping Susan Hurlbert

16:06

put out missing person's

16:07

posters.

16:09

And I tell the guy, I don't want to upset

16:11

her if it's not as sure as it should

16:13

be, but he

16:15

turns around and calls her immediately. And

16:18

he's like, I have some information for

16:20

you. Do you know a Jessica?

16:23

And I'm like, Jessica, no. And

16:25

he's like, well, I think she knows where your son

16:28

is. And I was really overjoyed.

16:30

And he's like, well,

16:33

if it is Neil, then

16:36

he's deceased. And I'm

16:38

like, oh. And

16:41

she called me and she said, OK,

16:43

so there's this guy that's been sitting in

16:45

Riverside Park. And I'm like,

16:48

Riverside Park? Where is that? She said,

16:50

in Manhattan. So on

16:52

the West side, I'm like, are you kidding me? So

16:55

we'd never, he was petrified

16:58

of the city. So she said,

17:01

who's Neil? Then

17:03

she's like, oh, that's right. I keep forgetting. She said,

17:05

I know this guy is Steven. That's

17:07

what he called himself, right? And I'm like, Steven?

17:10

She said, yeah, I'm just going to

17:12

tell you what I got from him. She

17:14

said, I would walk through the park. I have two dogs.

17:17

And they would immediately run

17:19

to him. And he just reached down

17:22

and started petting them and kind of smiled

17:24

and wasn't necessarily smiling at me, but was

17:27

focused on the dogs. And I'm like,

17:29

that's got to be Neil.

17:32

And then I'm like, arguing within my own

17:34

head, my head, you know, saying no, no,

17:36

no. And then saying maybe,

17:38

maybe no, no, no, no, no.

17:41

And then I sent her the

17:43

medical examiner's photo of

17:46

her son after his autopsy.

17:49

And the picture came up.

17:52

He was more like disheveled.

17:55

I could tell like he hadn't shaven in a while. But

17:59

I know.

17:59

my son

18:01

and I knew as soon as I saw that picture

18:03

that was my son. I

18:05

felt like I couldn't catch my breath.

18:09

He died from an ulcer.

18:12

That's what they have down on the death certificate.

18:28

There's

18:30

a church on

18:33

74th Street, a community

18:35

church. The pastors there and

18:38

the

18:44

congregation there also knew Stephen

18:48

and they decided that they would

18:50

have a service for him. Susan

18:54

and her family came, a bunch

18:57

of his friends and

18:59

then all these people from the neighborhood came.

19:01

I

19:03

walked in and looking

19:06

at all these people. I'm

19:09

like I

19:10

don't know these people.

19:13

Neil didn't know these people and

19:16

I said it to my sister. I said you know

19:19

Neil didn't know them and she looked at

19:21

me and she said well obviously he did. Listen

19:25

to what they're saying.

19:27

I talked to him at least two times

19:30

a week. When I didn't see him

19:32

I

19:32

stopped and asked him where's Stephen? He

19:36

said he was home. Children

19:39

came after me and said oh we knew him, we

19:41

said hello to him. It was after

19:43

Neil no longer occupied his fate

19:46

that we realized in the neighborhood how much

19:49

he had become a part of the fabric

19:51

of our light.

19:55

My husband nudged me and he said get up there

19:57

and say something.

19:59

I don't know what to say.

20:22

There are people that really,

20:24

really care. Even if it's

20:26

a stranger,

20:27

they care.

20:30

It's an ambulance.

21:00

I don't understand what people think when

21:02

they say, well at least now you know.

21:06

I'd rather not know. I'd

21:08

rather keep on looking.

21:13

This is through the company, yes? Yeah,

21:16

this is, um, the marker right here for

21:19

your loved one in Sparrowview.

21:22

You saw this as Neil? Yeah,

21:24

that's Neil.

21:26

Here I am at Neil's graveside,

21:28

finally. I

21:31

still have your Playstation, Neil.

21:34

I love you. I miss you.

21:40

When they first told me that he was

21:42

here in Hard Island, I was

21:44

pretty upset. I was like,

21:46

oh, disgusting.

21:49

How could, oh my God. There

21:52

are other bodies also

21:55

in there with him. A bunch

21:57

of

21:57

them stuck together. And that's the only thing that's a

21:59

little bit different. little unsettling because

22:01

I worry about is his neighbor

22:03

a friendly neighbor. I

22:05

know these things sound crazy

22:06

but these are the things that

22:09

go through my mind.

22:11

So yeah, thought about no I gotta get him out of

22:14

there. But then I remembered his

22:16

father is also buried on Hard Island.

22:19

Buried down the block a little bit I guess.

22:21

He

22:23

died and the family couldn't

22:25

afford to have a proper funeral

22:28

or anything. Neil was only

22:30

nine and he did always

22:32

say he wanted to come here. Neil

22:36

always wanted a relationship

22:37

with his father and

22:39

my hope is that they're together now

22:42

and they're developing a relationship and

22:44

they're hanging out

22:47

somewhere together.

22:52

The trees are beautiful. There

22:54

was water all around. It's

22:57

a very quiet serene spot

23:00

and that was Neil. He was very quiet in

23:02

life. So

23:04

yeah this is where he

23:06

will remain.

23:21

That was Susan Hurlbert remembering

23:23

her son Neil Harris Jr.

23:27

It's only been a few years that family members have

23:29

been allowed to visit Hard Island and

23:32

after decades of being largely inaccessible the

23:34

island is expected to open to the general public

23:37

later this year. Our

23:42

story about Neil Harris Jr. was produced

23:44

by Elisa Scarce. It was also

23:47

an official selection at the 2023 Tribeca

23:49

Festival. Our team includes

23:51

Nellie Gillis, Micah Hazel, Lina Ingelstein

23:54

and myself. Our editors are Ben Shapiro and

23:56

Deborah George, sound mixing by Ben Shapiro.

23:59

Special thanks to Jessica. Brockington, who

24:01

shared research and audio from her search

24:03

for Neil Harris's family. This story

24:05

would not have been possible without her work. We

24:07

also couldn't make this series without the help of Melinda

24:10

Hunt and the Heart Island Project. Visit

24:12

heartisland.net to learn more. And

24:15

thanks to filmmaker Eric Spink of Vacant

24:17

Light for his recording of Neil's memorial service.

24:20

Also, Matthias Bossi and Stellwagen's

24:22

Symphonette for the song Plaintiff, and

24:24

to our broadcast partner NPR's All Things

24:26

Considered. Radio Diaries has

24:29

support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the

24:31

Lillie Auchincloss Foundation, New York City's

24:33

Department of Cultural Affairs, and from listeners

24:35

like you. We are proud members of

24:38

Radiotopia from PRX, a network

24:40

of independent, creator-owned, listener-supported

24:42

podcasts at radiotopia.fm. Over

24:47

the coming weeks, we'll be bringing you more stories

24:49

from Heart Island. Coming up next, a

24:51

story about a man who chose to be buried

24:53

there.

24:54

No one knew he was going to die, but

24:57

we didn't know at that time whether he would

24:59

live

25:00

three more weeks,

25:02

three more months, three more days, three

25:04

more hours. We didn't know.

25:05

I'm Joe Richman of Radio Diaries. See

25:07

you next week.

25:10

Radiotopia from

25:13

PRX.