'The Charles Manson of Clemmons': The satanist who became one of North Carolina's most notorious killers
For decades after his capture, self-professed messiah and cult leader Charles Manson continued to fascinate and terrify psychologists and lay people equally. Try as they might, they couldn't pigeonhole him into a category that could explain how he had managed to convince seemingly normal people from well-to-do backgrounds into committing horrific acts of violence in the name of kickstarting a holy race-war, 'Helter Skelter.' A symbol of insanity, violence, and the macabre, Manson's notoriety ensured that a pop culture rose around him and he maintained a following even decades after he had been incarcerated and cut off from the outside world.
One of those who were influenced by Manson's unique breed of lunacy would go on to cast a net of terror in Clemmons, a village of just 18,000-odd people in Forsyth County, North Carolina, and go down as one of the most violent individuals in the state's history.
Viceland's 'The Devil You Know' will be covering the story of self-proclaimed Satanist Pazuzu Algarad, who was responsible for the gruesome murders of Tommy Dean Welch and Joshua Frederick Wetzler, and who was, in every sense of the word, a Manson-esque personality.
Pazuzu, who earned the moniker of 'The Charles Manson of Clemmons,' had all the traits of a deranged sociopath.
For one, he had officially changed his birth name, John Alexander Lawson, to the mythological name of Pazuzu Illah Algarad because it means "King of Demons" and also happened to be the name of the devil that possesses the main character in 'The Exorcist.'
He had also filed his teeth into pointy fangs when he was on meth, assaulted his mother on multiple occasions, and had regular delusions of grandeur.
Outside appearances and preconceived notions were deceiving, however. When it was required, he knew how to turn on the charm. Like most sociopaths, he had been blessed with an innate ability to manipulate and influence those around him.
It's this trait that earned him his very own legion of followers, not unlike Manson's, who would gather at his 2749 Knob Hill Drive near Winston-Salem which reeked of the stench of urine and ammonia, was littered with garbage and had a multitude of cats and dogs running around inside in the filth.
But unlike Manson, Pazuzu's followers were those that society had disregarded as dross. The lowest of the low. And because his house reflected that, in a sense, no one cared about its derelict state. To them, the house symbolized a bastion of freedom. A haunt where they could do anything they wanted without fearing consequences.
And that's exactly what they did. They blasted black metal music, drank themselves to oblivion, did all kinds of drugs, and performed satanic rituals where they sacrificed small animals and birds and then drank their blood. It was a free-for-all.
The freedom and sense of direction Pazuzu provided them with ensured he had earned a sort of reverence and unwavering loyalty that he used to escalate the depravity to a level that none of them had previously thought possible: murder.
On a whim, Pazuzu abducted Wetzler in 2009, locked him in the basement of his house for days and starved him, and then killed him by shooting him up to six times with a shotgun.
Then, with the help of his "fiancées" -- the name he had given to his female followers, just like Manson did -- cut off his extremities and buried him in his backyard.
A few months later, Welch met the same fate.
Pazuzu reportedly liked to brag about the murders all the time and would take off anyone's ear if they enquired about it. He also liked to claim that he would never get caught because he felt Satan would protect him.
And for the longest time, that did indeed appear to be the case, especially after the local authorities raided his house and surprisingly came up empty-handed. For the next five years after that, police in the town routinely ignored or did not act upon tips that insisted there were bodies buried on Pazuzu's property.
That all changed when, on October 5, 2014, the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office conducted a second search of the residence, and uncovered the bodies in the back yard.
Algarad was arrested, but Winston-Salem Journal reported that he died by suicide in his cell in Raleigh’s Central Prison in 2015.
There is a lot more to the story as well, with 'The Devil You Know' set to explore the case with the help of the work of Camel City Dispatch writer and editor Chad Nance as well as interviews with Pazuzu's former followers and the loved ones of victims.
The series will air on Tuesday, August 27, at 10 pm on Viceland.