Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York Creators on the Rage and Compassion That Fuels the Series

As they locked the final cut of their new HBO docuseries Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York back in April, creators Howard Gertler and Anthony Caronna had to face a hard truth.

The four-part series (all episodes now streaming on Max) tracks the lives of Peter Anderson, Thomas Mulcahy, Anthony "Tony" Marrero, and Michael Sakara, all of whom were gay or bisexual men killed in and around New York between 1991-1993 –– a time when violence against the LGBT community was extremely high. Through interviews with their loved ones and those on the frontlines of the anti-queer violence movement that tried to bring awareness to their cases, the series gives a voice to the men often reduced to sensationalized headlines.

"When these guys were killed, 'gay slay' was always the headline in the media," executive producer Gertler told TV Guide. "Their lives were quite reduced, and we wanted to sculpt an understanding of them through the people who knew them and loved them."

But Last Call's final episode ends in the present day with a stark reminder the queer community is battling yet another onslaught of hate through the hundreds of anti-LGBT bills being introduced nationwide, the epidemic of trans women of color being murdered, and the recent violence against New York City gay establishments. Representing that present-day fight forced Gertler and Caronna to reckon with how their series might be outpaced by reality.

"I remember Howard saying a few months ago that the hate toward queer people is moving so fast in the country, this show might be dated by the time it airs," says Caronna, who directed the series. "I can't even predict what's going to happen three weeks from now." 

But the creators always knew the story wasn't complete without acknowledging the perpetual efforts to restrict the rights of queer people and the violence committed to inflict fear on the queer community. How could they omit it when their mission statement is how anti-queer violence –– whether on the streets or in state legislative houses –– has happened before and it will happen again?

"It was always on the table to show the present day," Caronna says. "But Ithink because this is a time-capsule documentary, where we are showing what the queer community was going through in the 90s, we had to explore that through all four episodes and then show how the nature of anti-queer violence is so cyclical."

The final episode arrives at the arrest of Richard Rogers, a former surgical nurse at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital alleged to have committed all four murders (and maybe more) but was only tried and convicted for two –– Mulcahy and Marrero. Even as it introduces the man responsible for the killings, Last Call never loses sight of his victims, after whom the episodes are named. The finale is titled "Fred" for Frederic Spencer, a man Rogers killed in 1973. Despite confessing, Rogers was found not guilty of manslaughter, leaving him capable of committing the "Last Call" murders nearly 20 decades later.

His eventual trial and life-imprisonment sentence offered some resolution but, for many, it was not justice. He wasn't arrested until a decade after the killings and didn't face trial until 2005. For that reason, Caronna and Gertler don't put a period on this story with Rogers' fate. They end with the legacy of the victims, whose stories have become part of the movement against hate even three decades later.

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It all got at the heart of why both Caronna and Gertler initially hesitated or outright passed on adapting Elon Green's 2021 book Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York out of a concern for re-victimizing those who lived through it.

It wasn't until Gertler reframed the saga as an activist story, which places the killings in the context of anti-queer violence organizations like the Anti-Violence Project, that Caronna and he found a gateway into the material. But that still meant relying heavily on the participation of the loved ones left behind. Among those included are Mulcahy's daughter Tracey; Anderson's friend and former lover Tony; Sakara's sister Marilyn; and Marrero's brother Jose Luis and great-nephew Antonio, who Gertler says have never really been given the chance to talk about Tony.

From behind the camera, Caronna says he never pushed those interviewed one direction or another. He let them guide the conversation, made sure to take breaks after hours of conversation and then reconvene to mine as deep as they were willing to go.

It was a balancing act he and Gertler discussed extensively with their producers –– Liz Garbus and Kate Barry –– who led HBO's 2020 docuseries I'll Be Gone In The Dark that chronicled Michelle McNamara's investigation of the Golden State Killer. 

"That series was a real touchstone for us in doing this," Gertler says. "Our whole approach was based on the advice we got from them on what it was like to sit down with people who are survivors, directly or indirectly, of some really traumatic events."

But it was only after filming was done that they holed up in the editing bay to comb through the hundreds of hours of footage and find the narrative arc of the story, one that follows the crime but never loses sight of those in its path. Whether it was through filming or in the final cut of the series, Caronna and Gertler also took time to process how their personal perspectives are felt in the work.

"I don't talk about it often but I think Howard and I living this shared experience, both of us being part of the queer community, did add something profound to the storytelling," Caronna says. "I think having lived some aspects of all of these men's lives at some point in my own life added to it. There was my anger and rage as I dove deeper and deeper into not only the Last Call killings, but also our archivist Nikita Shepherd would bring us dozens and dozens of other anti-queer crimes spanning decades. As we worked on this, my own rage and anger became part of this too, for sure. I think our lived experiences made this show even deeper."

Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York is now available to stream on Max.