Word: jo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...first necessary to get the cast of characters straight. There are five principal actors in the bizarre Rosoff saga: 1) Jo Oppenheimer, 39, tousled, troubled and wealthy; 2) Adolph ("Dolph") Rosoff, 52, a familiar Greenwich Village character, who is now languishing in jail; 3) Thelma ("Teddy") Sucker Feldman, 51, his longtime companion and a self-styled therapist, who is also in jail; 4) Micah, 25, Teddy's son by a 1945 marriage, who spirited David away on Dolph and Teddy's instructions; and 5) the missing David, who is now twelve, the offspring of Jo and Dolph...
...began in a Village coffeehouse in 1961 where Jo, then a 25-year-old receptionist from Chicago, met Dolph and Teddy. The three hit it off, and the group, including Micah, agreed to live together as a free-style "family," sharing everything, including sex, in Jo's Washington Square Village apartment. Some shared more than others: Jo paid most of the family's communal expenses out of her $60,000 yearly income from stock dividends and a trust fund set up by her father, who owned a sausage-casing company. "We had somewhat of an open family," says...
...they decided to open a coffeehouse and formed a corporation called the Big Ffor (after the initials of each member's last name), and Jo bought them a four-story house and storefront on West 4th Street. From all accounts, including her own, Jo was "in emotional trouble." According to Teddy, she was once found on the roof of a house tossing away checks, had attempted suicide several times, and often spent days cocooned in bed weeping...
...five months after David was born, Jo took care of him. Then, Teddy charges, she began to put ground glass and soap in the child's formula, stepped on his fingers and fed him overdoses of medicine. "They asked me about all of those things, and I finally admitted to having done them," says Jo. "Somebody had to be the crazy one in a group like that. The role was chosen for me, and I accepted it. The family attracts emotionally sick people...
Kallinger's daughter Mary Jo, then 13, testified that he had tied her hands over her head and burned her thigh with a hot kitchen spatula, while holding a knife at her throat to keep her from screaming. The jury convicted Kallinger of aggravated cruelty to minors as well as assault and battery. He was sentenced to four years probation, and returned home to a tearful reconciliation with his family. That was well reported and photographed in the local press. An assistant district attorney in the case called Kallinger "a walking time bomb" and pleaded with the court...