Say You Love Satan

by David St. Clair

Ricky Kasso, Jimmy Trolano, and Gary Lauwers were three kids from good homes. But by the time they hit high school they were bad boys....Cutting class, smoking marijuana, taking LSD and angel dust. Everyone knew they were headed for trouble, but no guessed that they were also "getting into Satan"...Until one dark night in the chic town of Northport, Satan said to kill...

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Horror, Crime

416 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1987

Reviews

[Dan Still · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this in my late teens, solely because The Dead Milkmen reference in their song "Bad Party."

"shut your mouth, get in the car 'cause Ricky Kasso wants to drive...
when we get there, we'll say we love Satan 'cause Ricky always thinks that's funny."

Probably the worst reason for reading a book, ever.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an exploitation paperback written about a teenage metalhead who killed another teenage metalhead in my hometown on Long Island in 1984, when I was 5 years old. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anybody *not* from Northport, NY, but I really, really enjoyed reading it. Though terribly researched (St. Clair claims Kerouac was from Northport; he wasn't, just lived there later) and hopelessly square (drugs are referred to unilaterally as "dope," all equally addictive), it was enthralling for me to read the story of Ricky Kasso, the Acid King. A drugged-out metalhead wastoid with a passing interest in Satanism, his killing of Gary Lauwers, during which Kasso allegedly screamed "Say you love Satan!," was a national tabloid sensation. My parents did everything they could to shield me from it, so I remember nothing. Even if wildly inaccurate, it was amazing to read this plot--not badly written, per se--taking place literally blocks from my house. In the end, it wasn't about Satanism, just a drug deal gone bad and some fucked-up kids.

[Gr8grendel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being a dark rebellious youth, I read this book because Satan was in the title. Surprisingly enough, I remember it being a pretty good read.

Based on a true story about a kid named Ricky Kasso(sp?) this guy persuades a group of youth to worship Satan and listen to Ozzy (Even in my impressionable years I could tell this guy was full of shit. Sure they may have listened to Bark at the Moon, But he wrote as if Ricky swallowed acid and saw Ozzy pop out of the speakers and hand him a knife). One night things go awry and some fat kid gets stabbed and cries for his mom... the book title ensues.

I would only recommend this book if you like litigious crap like Law and Order, paralegal studies or are flying to New Zealand.

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main thing you need to know about this book is that it was written by a self-proclaimed "occult expert" who is... not quite forcing conclusions on Gary Lauwers' murder, but he's making a lot of assumptions about Satanism ties.

Truth is it was 100% accessory to a drug debt murder between two kids who were high as hell. Ricky Kasso did not sacrifice Gary Lauwers to Satan. He killed Gary Lauwers and then, tripping balls, decided it was a sacrifice to the dark lord. Anyway, this book has a lot of valuable information on the case, like that Ricky had clearly been suicidal for a long time before even committing the murder.

I wouldn't have read it if I was not researching the case for a podcast, but I'm glad that I did.

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written during the height of the Satanic Panic craze, and it shows. In a sick way though I find the trashiness endearing. I did however, enjoy the read and learning more about the case and the notorious “Acid King”. Regardless of being ridiculously written at times (imagine Reefer Madness meets Satanic Panic), the facts still come through.

For me, the most horrifying thing about it all is that Gary Lauwers was well into an LSD trip when he was brutally murdered. JFC no one should have to go that way.

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shakespeare has nothing to worry about from this author, but the book makes its point: teens on Satan, on drugs, and especially teens on Satan AND drugs can be extremely bad news.

[Caul G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book ive ever read ha ha ha giuliaba

[JamesBluntBetty · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5


UGHHH THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD
Honestly this case feels very familiar to me in a weird way, I can’t say I grew up exactly the same as these kids but I heavily relate to most of them, the idea of kids growing up in wealthy suburbs sneaking around smoking and drinking, the specific places they used to hang out and get high, it just all feels so… real, and obviously that’s because it is, but it’s still very interesting to me.

I’ve hung around people like this my whole life, I’ve know the teenage addicts, I’ve seen my friends go to rehab centres, I’ve hung around runaways, and grown adult drug users hanging out with stoned teens. Even the ideas of religion and satanism, though not relating to my peers, I went through a lot of religious turmoil about god and religion itself, and it just made me understand Ricky that little bit more.

This is honestly a tragic story of the reality of teen addiction and drug-related violence that often still gets swept under the rug to this day, the hate for a child who obviously was struggling with severe mental illness, and the need to portray him as a villain. The Satanic panic and the truth that this was nothing more than a drug related murder.

I understand why the actual trial in the book took up so much time in the story because it is the part we know most about in regards to the case, but I feel it did a lot of backtracking and re-explaining of itself, which wasn’t fully necessary in my mind.

The only other complaint I have is they don’t go in depth enough into Ricky’s family I feel and why he turned out the way he was, his parents are almost most definitely the cause of a large majority of his problems in early adolescence that lead to his downward spiral up to his death.

The rest of the story itself, especially the beginning, does an incredibly good job laying out the events of Ricky’s and Jimmy’s life as they really happened, the truth of the matter behind such a tragic story, I just wish we could know what actually happened the night of the murder in greater detail, unfortunately we know that will never be possible.

In conclusion, I loved this book so much and it is definitely going in my re-read pile. I highly recommend this story because it is just such an interesting case, all the details feel straight out of a movie, (watch the movie Ricky 6 from 2000, it’s not fully accurate but it is very good and the soundtrack is incredible) it actually being the first ever non-fiction true crime story I’ve ever read, it definitely makes me want to check out more.

[Snakes · Rating 1 out of 5]

There’s a reason this book is out of print. There’s a reason it has an innocuous blurb on the back from The New York Post. There’s a reason this book is titled “Say You Love Satan” but there are tons more reasons why that should not be the title. There’s a reason this book is genre-listed as nonfiction, but nearly the whole exercise is fiction. This book deals with a true crime story from the early 80s, this book tries to correlate that with the “Satanic Panic” of the 80s, and ultimately it’s just a story about a drug-related murder. Poorly written and filled with unreal dialogue, as an aside and after the fact, I found that the author was nearly prosecuted for plagiarism by The Rolling Stone, and steeped heavily in the “Just Say No” drug campaign (and the “Your Neighbor Might Be A Satanist” Scare) of the 80s, that’s basically where the story ended. Small town thugs and burnouts abusing drugs and getting mixed up in a senseless murder. That’s the crux of it, no need to read it.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

I revisited this several decades after it first came out. I remembered almost none of it other than Gary's death scene and the fact that there was not a single photo of the victim in the book. A sorry, depressing situation followed by a gobsmacker of a trial that kept this story from being just a reiteration of the movie RIVER'S EDGE. Well-written, albeit slightly odd in some ways. Did everyone in Long Island in the 1980s really call their weed "marijuana cigarettes"? The final analysis delivered by a welfare mom at the end of the book nailed the psychology of the situation perfectly. If you can find a copy it's well worth your time.

[Tim Hickey · Rating 4 out of 5]

You except for the stabbing his friend to death this book reminded me alot of my teen years with Ozzy, and worshipping the devil stuff.
When we were younger we'd draw pentagrams not that we worshipped the devil but it would get the locals all stirred up.
Reminded me of a lot of the pettiness that goes on when your younger and the stupidity and hate some of my friends would show to the weaker ones who we grew up with but didn't protect.

[Mickey Tompkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this back in High School (in the 80's) at the time was dating a girl from NY, and she had heard about Ricky Kasso and the murders, but she didn't really know anything about them.....not that there is any relevance to this review.

I really enjoyed this when I read it, because it involved Heavy Metal \,,/ , Satan & drugs....everything I was interested at the time.

It was a well written book, and sucked me in immediately if I recall. Sad story really about a kid fucked up on drugs.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent months searching for a copy of this book, only to find it for 40 cents at the bottom of an book-bin in an alleyway bookstore. And it's hard to imagine why.

David St Clair does an outstanding job of reporting the true story of Ricky Kasso's life. Essentially, it can be summed up as "fucking sad". But great.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was the first true crime book i have ever read. my best friend and u used to take turns reading it to each other until wee hours of the morning! this was before audio books. i wish i stlll had my copy! since it happened in my neighborhood it was also part of the history of my town .... not far from where the amittyville horror took place!

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't mind my high rating of this book. Like a previous reviewer, this book was well liked by me as a young teen. As an adult I read this and quickly discovered it was a load of shite. It's an interesting story nonetheless but poorly poorly written and obviously fabricated in many bits.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Acid, Devil worship, wooded areas, stabbings. It's the American dream, yo.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

teenage devil worship..and murder, back when it still ment something.

[Edwina Book Anaconda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book very fast paced and well written.
I remember seeing this on the news and reading about it when it happened in 1984.
So sad to see so many lives destroyed by drugs.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read a few books by David St. Clair now and this one was quite a departure, whilst the others focused on possession or ghostly goings on, this is very much a true crime tale and is probably (most definitely) the most popular of cases that I have read by St Clair.

so long story short, you have some stereotypical heavy metal 80's kids, they come from dysfunctional families and they dabble in drugs, they don't see as though their lives can head anywhere whilst living in the town they currently reside in, this leads to boredom which in turn leads to more drug use which in turn leads to dependency and a pretty fast downward spiral.

Ricky and Jimmy were forever getting into trouble with the law over minor occurrences, breaking and entering, petty theft etc, they were pretty popular guys mainly down to the fact that they used to hand out free drugs to the other downtrodden kids in the town who felt as though their families didn't care or pay enough attention to them.

As Ricky becomes more unhinged he winds up living on the streets, staying at friends houses and basically borrowing clothes off them when his become too soiled to wear, he becomes the self proclaimed 'Acid King' and when a friend (or acquaintance which is what most people were to Ricky in reality) steals a relatively small amount of drugs whilst Ricky is in s stupor things end badly for him, Ricky takes him to the woods and kills him in order to maintain his reputation as the Acid King.

Sprinkled within the book is also Ricky's obsessions with Satan, now I don't know if it is just me but Ricky comes across as one of the worst Satanists I've heard of, it seems that reading a book and proclaiming that 'Satan is my main man' every 5 minutes is enough to get you a badass reputation for being in league with Lucifer.

I think that this is where St Clair really lost me, the dialogue and conversations regarding Ricky's main man Satan were clunky, embarrassing and cringe worthy, I wasn't alive at the time when the incidents in the book happened but my god I struggle to believe that anyone would ever talk like that.

It really is things like: Jimmy asked Ricky if he wanted another beer and Ricky replied 'hell yeah, me and my main man Satan are going to get wasted because Satan has got my back, he won't let me get hungover because he's my main man, Satan really looks out for me, hey Jimmy dude, you should totally become a Satanist, Satan is the coolest, he will always have your back, Satan is the main man'

The story was fantastic, the execution extremely poor and the final section of the book which revolved around the trial was repetitive and tedious.

an easy read but god it was infuriating at times.

[Grump · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ricky Kasso was a kid from ‘lawn guyland’ who decided in high school to get super into smokin’ weed, droppin’ acid and then also doing lots of PCP and mescaline. So he became a total fuckup pretty fast. He had a buddy named Jimmy who was sort of a turd and a petty criminal. Together they acted like idiots and pretty much threw their lives away. Ricky also got into satanism in what seemed to be a fairly superficial, scare-the-squares way. It comes across that Ricky was tripping balls at all times for over a year (Ricky is like 17) and eventually some kid named Gary steals some PCP from his pocket while he’s asleep. Ricky never gets paid back and after threatening Gary for a while decides to invite him to a bonfire in the woods. Ricky and Jimmy and Gary and another dude named Albert are all tripping and Ricky stabs the shit out of Gary and they leave his body in the woods. It takes a couple weeks for him and Jimmy to get busted (and they were just about to road trip to California, man!) and tossed in the clink. Albert rats them out but was too tripped out to give accurate testimony. Ricky immediately hangs himself in jail leaving Jimmy to take the heat. The media has drummed up a panic about satanist cults in small town America so it seems like he’s fucked. In the end the cops bungled everything about the investigation and Jimmy goes free. Lesson learned and what not.

The book is portrayed like it’s this crazy story of satanic ritual murder but it’s actually just a bloated sensationalist grocery store true crime about a fucked up kid who fucks up big time and that’s the end of it.

Sort of fun for a look into 80s ‘Satanic Panic’ but not even a great example thereof. Could have been a medium length article or a well-edited wiki entry. Devil-meh.

[Graham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Things I learned from reading David St. Clair's Say You Love Satan:

1) Weed and acid are habit forming substances that require a physically arduous detoxification process

2) Weed is only grown in three places: Mexico, Colombia, and Jamaica. Before you smoke your weed or offer it to a friend, you must comment on which of these three nations it came from, adding that its "real primo stuff". After you finish, you must comment on its country of origin again and then say something like "yeah, smooth! Reeeeal smooth!"

3) If you want to be a drug dealer, you must first get a large quantity of drugs from your "main man". You can then choose to sell these drugs for profit or just give them away to friends. Don't worry—your main man will never require you to actually pay him for the drugs. That's just how cool he is!

4) If a teenager is experiencing addiction or mental health issues, its never due to a bad home life, lack of resources, or unsupportive teachers—it's because they're a fundamentally evil person who doesn't love Jesus enough.

5) Ozzy Osbourne is the best metal screamer to do drugs to, but Judas Priest is ok, too.

6) If you're trying to write a true crime book but hate having to do annoying things like research and fact checking, just lift entire passages from other people's writing. And when that doesn't work, you can always just make stuff up!

This book is a heavily fictionalized cash grab written by an opportunistic hack, but it can be pretty funny if you can temporarily forget it's based on a real life tragedy. Tons of opinions about drugs and Satanism from a guy that clearly knows nothing about either. Cool book title, though.

Bonus drinking game: do a shot every time a joint is referred to as a "marijuana cigarette"

[Fern Ainsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a fictionalised true crime story of a young metalhead who has an obsession with drugs and satan, and subsequently kills one of his “friends”. Due to the nature of this very niche genre, there’s not much left to the imagination. The narrative is extremely “say it as it is” (or allegedly is, in this case). Nevertheless, I found this book incredibly interesting and I would love to read more books like it. Many times whilst reading, I forgot it was a true story. This book confirmed for me that I’d much rather read about true crime than watch documentaries.

[Evan Pacewicz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Written in a completely fictitious manner similar to Jay Anson's, The Amityville Horror. This book is the answer to anyone who ever wondered what R.L. Stine would sound like writing true crime. Was it fun? Sure. Was it a good read? No. I find the claims that the author is an occult expert highly suspect. The whole piece is written in the voice of a true outsider. Basic Satanic Panic nonsense in the vein of Linda Blood's, The New Satanists.

[Koren · Rating 4 out of 5]

October seemed like the perfect time to read this book about teenagers who got into Satanism, drugs, alcohol and sex. This book is not for the faint of heart. The murder is quite gristly. The crazy thing about this murder is that the kids didn't come from poor backgrounds. In fact, some of them were very privileged. I thought it was sad to think about how young these kids were and how drugs basically ruined a lot of lives.

[Rich Moran]

The author basically tells a sensationalist story version of the torcher and murder of a young teen by a drug using metal head, named Ricky Kasso. Mescaline use, hard rock music, and satanism are emphasized throughout the book as negative forces that combine in Ricky and turn him into an evil servant of the Devil who murders one of his lesser liked friends. Based on an actual murder case. It's christian fear porn.

[Liam Strong · Rating 1 out of 5]

Goddamn this book is shit.

And yet the writing so cringe-inducing that my amusement with how poorly written it is compelled me to continue. I will literally only keep this book on my shelf because it's pure crust, and Satanic Panic true crime of this sort is a weird niche subgenre I find laughably enjoyable.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does read somewhat like a bad TV movie script of the case, and the language the kids uses feels awkward, like the author has made up conversations they way he imagined drugged out teens talked. Does also give the basic facts of the case, but feels like he filled in the gaps with fiction and speculation.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very strangely written. There’s so much unknown about this case but the author basically filled in all the gaps with his own fictionalized story. The dialogue between the teenagers is cringey and makes it obvious it’s just completely made up. I wanted to learn more about this case but now I’m just left with even more questions about what is real and what is fake.

[Frankie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The classic book about the Kasso/Lauwers crime. Still the best one, and one of the two good ones in existence. The other one is, of course, the recent memoir by eyewitness Albert Quinones (titled, aptly, "Eyewitness").

Somewhat sensationalized in nature, but that only adds to its quirkiness - it's the taste of the 1980s, when the book was written and the crime happened!

[Victoria Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was very crazy ... but idk I enjoyed reading it .. is that crazy lol