Louis Katz - Murderer on Midway
Louis Katz was the owner of Uncle Charlie’s, a chain of gay bars popular in the 80s. In 1986, Katz gained infamy for murdering his ex-lovers’s new boyfriend in a love-triangle knife fight. He owned 197 Midway Walk in the Pines. Police questioned neighbors, but Katz had already disappeared…
Louis Katz was a prominent figure in the Pines in the 1980s as the owner of Uncle Charlie’s, a chain of gay bars in New York and Miami. He gained infamy in 1986 for fatally stabbing his ex-lover’s new boyfriend in a love-triangle killing in a Brooklyn apartment.
While awaiting trial in 1989, Katz skipped a $400,000 bail and mysteriously disappeared. He became a fugitive for 13 years before investigators apprehended him living the high life in Panama under an assumed identity.
Uncle Charlie’s was known as an “S&M" bar” or “Stand & Model” where the patrons would watch the latest music video on screens around the bar
“Lou” Katz was a multi-millionaire with homes at 530 Park Avenue in Manhattan and 197 Midway Walk in the Pines. The NY Post described him as “a bon vivant known for his decadent Fire Island pool parties, where even the plastic drink cups were monogrammed.”
Vintage ads for Uncle Charlie’s
Pines neighbors recall his reputation for hosting handsome young men, some of whom were rumored to be hustlers. Later there was suspicion that some of his associates had ties to the mafia.
On the night of April 30, 1986 Katz fatally stabbed UPS driver Michael Moriarty, 37, and slashed his roommate Kenneth Kung, 24, during an argument in their Cobble Hill, Brooklyn apartment. Prosecutors alleged Katz was consumed by jealousy after his 20-year-old lover, identified only as David, ditched him for Moriarty. When police arrived, they found Kung and Katz were fighting in the building’s lobby with bloodied knives.
While awaiting trial in 1989, the Daily News reported that “Katz, then 58 and a millionaire who had sold his bars, his swanky Park Ave. apartment, his Mercedes-Benz and his palatial Fire Island home, then disappeared." Locals recall investigators coming out to the Pines to question neighbors as it was suspected he might be hiding out in Fire Island.
Katz’s 1991 Wanted Poster states that “subject is known to wear wigs” and “is known to frequent homosexual communities”
Katz’s disappearance dogged cops for 13 years before his taste for flashy cars led to his arrest. A distant relative with a grudge against the Katz family told authorities the killer was somewhere in Panama. Other witnesses reported seeing the one-eyed businessman driving a white Porsche in Panama City.
Investigators found 36 white Porsches registered in Panama and a man matching Katz’s description owned not one, but two of them. He had been using the alias Frank Novitsky to live in Panama and run a thriving export business.
Lou Katz’s pair of white Porche’s led investigators to his address in Panama City in 2002
In 2002, the 72-year old Katz was extradited to Miami where he was sentenced to 13 to 40 years in prison for killing Moriarity. He was released on parole in 2015.
Years after Lou Katz sold his house at 197 Midway, residents hosted the “Miss 197 Midway pageant.” In the footage, you can see the poolside where Katz would host “decadent Fire Island pool parties, where even the plastic drink cups were monogrammed.”
197 Midway Walk from more recent times. The cabana can be seen at the back of the house.
The aftermath has an unusual Pines twist. Roy Cohn, who had been associated with the McCarthy Hearings in the 1950s and became Donald Trump’s personal lawyer in the 1970s, was also one of Katz’s attorneys, and a frequent guest at 197 Midway. A highly controversial figure, Cohn featured in Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s Tony Award Winning play, the book, Fellow Travelers, that was made into a mini-series starring Matt Boemer and Jonathan Bailey, and in the Academy Award Winning Movie, The Apprentice, where he was played by Jeremy Strong. Deeply in the closet, he died from AIDS in 1986.
Lou Katz and Roy Cohn.
When Cohn stayed at 197 Midway he lived in the cabana at the back of the house. When the house was sold, the new owner, William Hayden, had new phones installed. During the installation, the AT&T representative discovered an unusual phone in the cabana. It was a secure line with a direct connection — to The White House.