Cop Killer and Thrill Killer

Ralph "Bucky" Phillips and Willie James Bosket, Jr.

This is the true story of how I became the advocate for the two most dangerous killers in recent New York State History. Years before these two now-convicted murderers ever entered my life, I was a small town country girl, daughter of a farmer, and for four years a junior high school English teacher in a rural central school district near my home in Upstate New York.

At the age of 32, after deciding that a teaching career was not my life's ambition, hoping instead to become a journalist or fiction writer...which never happened...I took a job as a counselor with convicted delinquents locked up in New York State- run treatment centers...or, more accurately...junior prisons. As part of the job contract, New York State paid my tuition and all expenses to a graduate school of social work, and upon completing the two years masters degree, I was obligated to work in the juvenile prisons for at least two more years. Eventually, I worked with these kids for 13 years.

My last three years with the state New York State Division for Youth took place at the Brookwood Center for Boys, a maximum security facility for some of the state's most incorrigible and even dangerous kids, many from the crime-ridden streets of Harlem, Buffalo, Albany and Rochester. In the mix were other "bad" kids from very rural areas in upstate and the western counties of the state. Many of the "rural" kids were auto thieves or burglars.. The city kids, in contrast, were far more assaultive and difficult to deal with.

On September 24, 1976, shortly after Brookwood became one of the state's maximum security boys' center, a 14 year old from a small town called Stockton near Jamestown, was transferred to Brookwood under my direct supervision; his names was Ralph James Phillips.

Six months later, on February 18, 1977, another 14 year old boy from Harlem was transferred to Brookwood in a unit (called a wing) across from the unit I supervised; his name was Willie James Bosket, Jr.

For eleven months after the arrival of Ralph Phillips, and six months after Willie Bosket arrived, both were released on parole to their homes. End of the story? Actually, it was just the beginning.

Except for their delinquent histories and their birth year 1962,, Bosket and Phillips were direct opposites in many ways. Bosket was a city kid from Harlem, Phillips a country boy who was practically raised in the woods. Bosket was black, Phillips a white kid who was half Seneca Indian, although at Brookwood, he was classified as white, his Indian blood not particularly apparent in his appearance, nor did he ever mention it.

Willie Bosket was the most aggressive, disobedient kid in Brookwood at the time. Ralph Phillips was probably the most obedient, the least aggressive, the easiest to work with. Quiet, polite and somewhat shy, Ralph never caused any problems except one: he repeatedly absconded from Brookwood, usually with other passive white kids like himself, each time after they were beaten by the assaultive black kids. Each time they ran away, they stole cars. Ralph often got as far as Buffalo, once to an Indian reservation.

Willie never ran away from Brookwood. He was "top-dog" so to speak, calling all the shots, intimidating all his peers and most of the staffers. He had a long, terrifying history of violent behavior from the age of ten, assaulting secretaries, teachers, even psychiatrists.

By the time he was placed at Brookwood, he had already worn out his welcome at three other detention facilities, two of them state-run, one a private voluntary agency. At the age of ten he had even stolen a state van and driven it back to Harlem. His "reign of terror" at Brookwood was much to his liking. He never even attempted to run away. He was having too much fun, doing as he pleased, threatening kids and staffers, and rarely being punished.

Ralph was punished harshly each time he was captured after absconding. Usually the punishment was room or wing confinement and loss of privileges for weeks at a time, sometimes as long as a month. Willie rarely lost his privileges for longer than a day or two, even after beating up kids, destroying state property, and threatening to kill people.

Willie was released in six months. Ralph had to spend eleven months at Brookwood before he was sent home. Both of them were back in trouble within months of their release. In March, 1978, Willie was arrested for shooting three men, killing two of them, "just for the fun of it." He soon made headlines and was sentenced to the max at the time, five years, first in a juvenile prison, Goshen, and then to the state prisons after he turned 16 in December, 1978. After serving the five years, Willie went home to Harlem, and soon was re-arrested for a crime of menacing. Eventually, he committed more crimes in state prison, and in April, 1988, after stabbing a prison guard, nearly killing the man, he was sentenced to life without parole.

Ralph was arrested several times and eventually served three separate sentences in state prisons for non-violent crimes, mostly theft, burglary, and larceny. He never committed any violent crimes against people...until he was 44 years old, and then he escaped from a minimum security prison just four days before he was to be released
stole cars and then gunned down three state troopers, killing one of them.

Both Willie and Ralph are now spending the rest of their lives in New York State Prisons, both in maximum security Special Housing Units, monitored day and night, with hardly any privileges. Both live what I consider death-in-life scenarios. Neither one has any hope or chance of ever being free.. Both expect to die in state prison.
I have hundreds of letters from Willie James Bosket, Jr. and dozens of letters from Ralph "Bucky" Phillips. I was Willie Bosket's advocate and close friend for 15 years after he killed the two men in the Harlem subways.

I am currently the advocate for Ralph "Bucky" Phillips, who has been corresponding with me ever since he surrendered to the Pennsylvania state police eight days after shooting the two state troopers, killing one of them.

Their stories, and my connection to them describes the failed New York State juvenile justice system as well as the waste of two young lives. Presently, I'm too close to these tragedies to write about them. I keep all their letters. Both Ralph and Willie are brilliant young men; both write beautifully; both have unusually charismatic, appealing personalities; both of them have stunned their families and their friends by the violent, tragic crimes they committed, destroying the lives of their victims, their own families, and most of all, their own wasted lives.

The tragedy goes on. The endings are inevitable; the endings will be sad. These stories suggest that there is justice, but for those of us who are close to the victims, the criminals, or their families, there are no victories.