Latest / FBI Files / Brother Against Brother in the Thomas Capano Case
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: When a young woman vanished, family and friends discovered her
- 0:04Speaker 1: secret life. The political appointee carried on an illicit affair
- 0:09Speaker 1: with a wealthy married man. Investigators suspected that her ex-lover
- 0:15Speaker 1: was responsible. But they had little physical evidence to support
- 0:19Speaker 1: their theory. In order to bring him to justice, the
- 0:23Speaker 1: FBI would have to go undercover and turn brother against brother.
- 1:01Speaker 2: Power is a responsibility as well as a privilege. But
- 1:05Speaker 2: in the wrong hands, power can corrupt. This is especially
- 1:09Speaker 2: true in the legal community. For former Deputy Attorney General
- 1:12Speaker 2: for the state of Delaware, losing sight of his sworn
- 1:15Speaker 2: oath to uphold justice would prove lethal. I'm Jim Kallstrom,
- 1:19Speaker 2: former head of the FBI's New York office. When a
- 1:22Speaker 2: prominent attorney tried to put himself above the law, it
- 1:25Speaker 2: was up to the FBI to prove that justice is blind.
- 1:32Speaker 1: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Thursday, June 27th, 1996. At the upscale Panorama restaurant,
- 1:43Speaker 1: prominent Delaware attorney Thomas Capano, separated from his wife, dined
- 1:48Speaker 1: with his mistress Anne Marie Fahey, the appointment secretary to
- 1:51Speaker 1: the Delaware governor. Despite the candlelight and wine, her mood
- 1:58Speaker 1: was grim. Anne Marie told Capano she wanted to end
- 2:02Speaker 1: their relationship. Capano was furious with her decision. After dinner,
- 2:24Speaker 1: Capano drove Anne Marie to the Wilmington, Delaware house he
- 2:27Speaker 1: rented since leaving his wife. He insisted she come inside
- 2:33Speaker 1: to continue the conversation. He didn't want their affair to end.
- 2:51Speaker 1: Two nights later, Anne-Marie failed to show up for a
- 2:53Speaker 1: dinner party with her sister Kathleen. Concerned, Kathleen arranged to
- 2:59Speaker 1: meet the Delaware State Police at Anne Marie's flat. She
- 3:05Speaker 1: explained that no one had heard from the governor's secretary
- 3:07Speaker 1: since Thursday. They found unpacked, perishable groceries on the kitchen counter.
- 3:17Speaker 1: Kathleen called Michael Scanlon, a successful banker and Anne Marie's
- 3:21Speaker 1: close friend, to see if he had seen her. He
- 3:23Speaker 1: was supposed to pick her up for the dinner party,
- 3:26Speaker 1: but Anne-Marie never returned his calls.
- 3:28Speaker 3: Is that a character for her? He has everything always
- 3:31Speaker 3: put in its place. I just don't understand.
- 3:34Speaker 1: Anne-Marie's family knew her to be neat and orderly, yet
- 3:36Speaker 1: her apartment was in disarray. Shoes littered the bedroom floor
- 3:42Speaker 1: alongside her purse. An expensive pantsuit remained in its gift box.
- 3:50Speaker 1: A detective searched the purse. He found her wallet and ID,
- 3:54Speaker 1: though her keys were missing. Detective Robert Donovan of the
- 4:00Speaker 1: Wilmington police was called to the scene and believed that
- 4:03Speaker 1: Anne Marie hadn't left the apartment on her own.
- 4:08Speaker 4: From the information that they're providing, they said she's not
- 4:10Speaker 4: the type of person to, to, to leave, go walking
- 4:13Speaker 4: around the neighborhood or to go somewhere without letting somebody
- 4:17Speaker 4: know where she's at. Number one, Typical with a female,
- 4:21Speaker 4: when she goes somewhere, she takes her pocketbook, wallet, identification, something.
- 4:27Speaker 1: In the bedroom, Kathleen found a packet of letters from
- 4:30Speaker 1: a man named Thomas Capano. They professed his love for her.
- 4:37Speaker 1: Kathleen and Scanlon were perplexed. Anne-Marie had never even mentioned Capano.
- 4:44Speaker 1: Though Anne-Marie's sister had never heard of the man, Detective
- 4:47Speaker 1: Donovan certainly had. Thomas Capano was a powerful man in
- 4:52Speaker 1: the state of Delaware.
- 4:55Speaker 4: Tom Capano was extremely connected. He was, at one point,
- 4:59Speaker 4: he was number two man for the city of Wilmington.
- 5:02Speaker 4: He was head legal counsel for the governor for the state.
- 5:07Speaker 4: He was very close with a number of state representatives,
- 5:10Speaker 4: state senators, extremely close with some retired police chiefs for
- 5:14Speaker 4: the city of Wilmington.
- 5:17Speaker 3: Very influential.
- 5:19Speaker 1: The detective found Anne-Marie's journal in the bedroom and flipped
- 5:22Speaker 1: to the last page. The diary entry evidenced her relief
- 5:27Speaker 1: at ending her love affair with Capano. It read, I
- 5:31Speaker 1: have finally brought closure to Tom Capano. What a controlling,
- 5:35Speaker 1: insecure maniac.
- 5:37Speaker 3: Doesn't look like a happy relationship, though.
- 5:39Speaker 5: Not at all.
- 5:43Speaker 1: The officers paid a visit to Thomas Capano at 3.39 a.m.
- 5:49Speaker 1: Separated from his wife and the father of four daughters,
- 5:53Speaker 1: 47-year-old Capano was living in a rented house located only
- 5:56Speaker 1: minutes from Anne Marie's apartment. Capano confirmed that he had
- 6:05Speaker 1: a relationship with Anne Marie, but claimed that it was
- 6:08Speaker 1: long over. According to him, the couple had parted as friends.
- 6:15Speaker 1: He told the detectives that he had dinner with her
- 6:17Speaker 1: on Thursday night in Philadelphia. Afterwards, he brought her back
- 6:22Speaker 1: to his house briefly to give her a gift and
- 6:25Speaker 1: some groceries she needed. Then he took her home. When asked,
- 6:30Speaker 1: Capano claimed he had not seen Anne Marie since, nor
- 6:33Speaker 1: was he surprised that she was missing. Capano explained that
- 6:43Speaker 1: Anne Marie had Friday off. Perhaps she had decided to
- 6:46Speaker 1: go away for the weekend. He described her as moody
- 6:52Speaker 1: and at times suicidal. He suggested the police wait until
- 6:57Speaker 1: Monday morning when she would probably show up at work.
- 7:02Speaker 4: We then asked him if she, in fact, was at
- 7:04Speaker 4: his house, you know, and if he would have a
- 7:06Speaker 4: problem with us looking through his house. He stated that
- 7:12Speaker 4: he would have a problem because his children were with
- 7:14Speaker 4: him for the weekend and they were upstairs asleep.
- 7:17Speaker 1: On Monday, however, Anne-Marie failed to show up for work.
- 7:22Speaker 1: Investigators returned to her apartment building and talked to her
- 7:25Speaker 1: downstairs neighbor. Can you tell me something about what happened
- 7:29Speaker 1: last night? The neighbor had been away over the weekend,
- 7:31Speaker 1: but remembered hearing a single set of footsteps in Anne
- 7:34Speaker 1: Marie's apartment on Thursday evening at around 9.45. They seemed
- 7:41Speaker 1: heavier than usual, possibly a man's. She heard nothing more
- 7:45Speaker 1: after that night. State and local investigators checked Ann Marie's
- 7:58Speaker 1: bank and credit card accounts and found no activity after
- 8:02Speaker 1: June 28th. Friends and relatives reported they had not seen
- 8:06Speaker 1: or heard from her since that day. Apparently, Thomas Capano
- 8:13Speaker 1: was the last person to have seen Ann Marie Fahey.
- 8:21Speaker 1: Investigators traveled across the Delaware border to Pennsylvania to corroborate
- 8:25Speaker 1: Capano's story. They spoke to the waitress who served the
- 8:35Speaker 1: couple on June 27th at about 7 p.m. She remembered
- 8:39Speaker 1: the evening and recognized Thomas Capano and Anne-Marie Fahey from
- 8:43Speaker 1: the photos.
- 8:46Speaker 3: Yeah, that's her. She wasn't really happy.
- 8:50Speaker 1: The waitress recalled that the pair seemed tense. Anne-Marie said
- 8:54Speaker 1: little and hardly touched her food. After she handed the
- 8:58Speaker 1: bill to Capano, he passed it to Anne-Marie who signed
- 9:01Speaker 1: his name on the charge slip. The waitress never overheard
- 9:06Speaker 1: any of their conversations since the couple stopped talking each
- 9:09Speaker 1: time she approached the table. Investigators met with several of
- 9:18Speaker 1: Anne Marie's close friends who described an illicit affair that
- 9:22Speaker 1: had begun almost three years earlier. In 1993, 27-year-old Anne
- 9:29Speaker 1: Marie Fahey met Thomas Capano in the governor's office. No,
- 9:33Speaker 1: Tom Capano. Despite her high-profile job, she was impressed by
- 9:39Speaker 1: the powerful lawyer and flattered when she caught his eye.
- 9:51Speaker 1: Investigators learned that while Capano showered Anne-Marie with expensive gifts,
- 9:55Speaker 1: he only romanced her in out-of-the-way places to avoid being seen.
- 10:02Speaker 1: She felt a strong attraction to the charismatic older man,
- 10:05Speaker 1: but feared her family's disapproval and kept the affair secret.
- 10:11Speaker 1: As months passed, Anne-Marie confided to her friends that Capano's
- 10:15Speaker 1: charming exterior belied an angry and manipulative man. He understood
- 10:20Speaker 1: love only in terms of control. She told her friends
- 10:25Speaker 1: that she couldn't trust him. By the spring of 1996,
- 10:28Speaker 1: his manipulation and anger had damaged their relationship beyond repair.
- 10:34Speaker 1: Capano told Ann Marie that he had separated from his
- 10:37Speaker 1: wife so they could stop hiding.
- 10:39Speaker 3: I don't even want to talk to you about this.
- 10:41Speaker 3: I don't even want to talk to you about this.
- 10:44Speaker 1: Ann Marie wanted out. Capano refused to let go. Detectives
- 10:54Speaker 1: learned that shortly before Anne-Marie disappeared, she began seeing Michael Scantlin,
- 10:59Speaker 1: who she found caring and stable. It was the relationship
- 11:07Speaker 1: that she had always hoped for. The prospect of a
- 11:15Speaker 1: marriage proposal seemed promising. Thomas Capanu continued to pursue her.
- 11:26Speaker 1: Anne Marie told friends that Capano was stalking her. She
- 11:30Speaker 1: was scared and wanted him out of her life. Capano
- 11:38Speaker 1: refused to accept the rejection.
- 11:41Speaker 4: Tom Capano had never been told no before. He thought
- 11:45Speaker 4: that he could control everything in his life and everything
- 11:48Speaker 4: in everybody else's life. Finally, somebody, Anne Marie Fay, stood
- 11:53Speaker 4: up to him and told him, no, I've had enough
- 11:56Speaker 4: and Tom couldn't handle it.
- 11:59Speaker 1: The Fahey family posted a $ 10, 000 reward for information relating
- 12:03Speaker 1: to Ann Marie's disappearance. Over the Fourth of July weekend,
- 12:08Speaker 1: hundreds of concerned citizens helped police conduct a massive search
- 12:12Speaker 1: of the local park where Ann Marie often jogged. The
- 12:15Speaker 1: governor himself joined.
- 12:16Speaker 5: In the hunt.
- 12:17Speaker 1: Thank you for everybody who knows.
- 12:18Speaker 4: And loves Ann Marie.
- 12:20Speaker 1: They found no trace of the missing secretary. The case
- 12:23Speaker 1: became a federal investigation since Anne Marie, a resident of Delaware,
- 12:27Speaker 1: was last seen in Pennsylvania. Special Agent Eric Alpert of
- 12:34Speaker 1: the FBI's Wilmington field office offered his help.
- 12:38Speaker 6: I contacted Robert Donovan, asked him if we could be
- 12:40Speaker 6: of any assistance. He said we could. At that point,
- 12:44Speaker 6: we pulled telephone records and credit card records.
- 12:49Speaker 1: With the help of the U.S. attorney, Alpert secured credit
- 12:52Speaker 1: card statements and phone records belonging to Thomas Capano and
- 12:55Speaker 1: Anne Marie Fahey. Assistant U.S. Attorney Colm Connolly noticed that
- 13:01Speaker 1: Capano made a $ 308 purchase at Wallpaper Warehouse just two
- 13:06Speaker 1: days after Fahey disappeared.
- 13:07Speaker 5: I thought that was odd because Tom Capano was living
- 13:12Speaker 5: in a rental house, so I called the number for
- 13:14Speaker 5: Wallpaper Warehouse.
- 13:15Speaker 3: The person answered the phone and said, Air Base Carpets.
- 13:19Speaker 5: I turned to Bob Donovan right away, and we both
- 13:21Speaker 5: had the same reaction, which was, my God, he must
- 13:24Speaker 5: have rolled her up in a carpet.
- 13:27Speaker 1: Investigators now believe that Thomas Capano killed Ann Marie Fahey,
- 13:31Speaker 1: but they needed more than a hunch to convince a
- 13:33Speaker 1: judge there was probable cause for a warrant to search
- 13:36Speaker 1: Capano's house. In July of 1996, agents and local detectives
- 13:46Speaker 1: focused on attorney Thomas Capano who they suspected was responsible
- 13:50Speaker 1: for the murder of his former mistress, Anne-Marie Fahey. Two
- 13:54Speaker 1: days after she vanished, Capano had purchased a new carpet.
- 13:59Speaker 1: For Assistant U.S. Attorney Colm Connolly, it raised suspicions that
- 14:02Speaker 1: Capano had concealed Anne-Marie's body in a rug and removed
- 14:06Speaker 1: it from his house.
- 14:09Speaker 5: Up until that point, we had probable cause to believe
- 14:12Speaker 5: that Tom Capano had played a role in the disappearance
- 14:15Speaker 5: of Anne-Marie Fahey. But what we didn't have was probable
- 14:18Speaker 5: cause that we'd find evidence in his house.
- 14:24Speaker 1: Hoping to establish probable cause in order to obtain a
- 14:27Speaker 1: search warrant, investigators learned that Capano's housekeeper had cleaned his
- 14:31Speaker 1: home four days before Anne Marie's disappearance. She added that
- 14:36Speaker 1: Capano canceled her service the following week, claiming that the
- 14:40Speaker 1: house didn't need cleaning since his children hadn't stayed over.
- 14:45Speaker 1: The detective quickly noted the inconsistency in Campano's story. On
- 14:49Speaker 1: the night he was questioned in his home, the attorney
- 14:52Speaker 1: claimed his children were upstairs asleep. Three weeks later, the
- 14:56Speaker 1: housekeeper returned to the residence and noticed something that struck
- 15:00Speaker 1: her as odd. The love seat and carpet from the
- 15:03Speaker 1: living room were gone. In their place sat two chairs
- 15:07Speaker 1: and a brand new carpet. This simple observation gave Assistant U.S.
- 15:13Speaker 1: Attorney Colm Connolly all he needed to move forward.
- 15:19Speaker 5: So when you combine the rug and the couch with
- 15:22Speaker 5: Tom Capano's statement that he had brought Anne Marie to
- 15:26Speaker 5: his home on the evening of June 27th, and you
- 15:29Speaker 5: combine that with all the other evidence we knew about
- 15:31Speaker 5: their tumultuous relationship, we now were armed with probable cause
- 15:36Speaker 5: to get a search warrant for his house.
- 15:40Speaker 1: Connolly and FBI agent Eric Alpert prepared an airtight 37-page
- 15:45Speaker 1: search warrant for Thomas Capano's Wilmington home, serving it on
- 15:49Speaker 1: July 31st, 1996. Detective Robert Donovan didn't know what they'd find,
- 15:56Speaker 1: but they knew where to look.
- 15:59Speaker 4: We searched the entire residence, but we took special attention
- 16:03Speaker 4: to this room, the great room area, because we believed
- 16:06Speaker 4: that Emery Fahey was murdered in that room.
- 16:12Speaker 1: The team found the two chairs and new carpet described
- 16:15Speaker 1: by the housekeeper. They moved them to see what might
- 16:19Speaker 1: be hidden underneath.
- 16:20Speaker 3: Hey, careful with the furniture.
- 16:24Speaker 7: You don't have to destroy.
- 16:27Speaker 5: The place.
- 16:30Speaker 1: The floor was clean. On the baseboard nearby, agents found
- 16:35Speaker 1: something promising. Barely visible to the untrained eye, they saw
- 16:40Speaker 1: two brown spots that appeared to be dried blood. Agents
- 16:44Speaker 1: retrieved samples by swabbing the area with a mild saline solution.
- 16:51Speaker 1: Investigators hoped the FBI lab in Washington, D.C. could provide
- 16:56Speaker 1: stronger forensic evidence from the samples. For DNA lab examiner
- 17:03Speaker 1: Alan Giusti, testing the recovered material presented a challenge.
- 17:08Speaker 8: The items themselves are not very large. The stains were
- 17:11Speaker 8: actually fairly small. And because of that, we have to
- 17:14Speaker 8: be careful because our test will consume part of the
- 17:17Speaker 8: stain to test to determine if it's blood.
- 17:21Speaker 1: Justy performed a Castle-Meyer test. This test requires only a
- 17:26Speaker 1: pinhead-sized specimen. He applied the chemical phenolphthalein, which turns pink
- 17:31Speaker 1: when mixed with blood. The test worked. For Agent Eric
- 17:43Speaker 1: Alpert and the team, the discovery was important.
- 17:47Speaker 6: This is very significant because at this point we had
- 17:51Speaker 6: no murder weapon and had no other physical evidence in
- 17:54Speaker 6: the case, so finding blood was very important to us.
- 17:58Speaker 6: We needed to find whose blood that was and whether
- 18:00Speaker 6: it matched Anne-Marie Fahey's blood.
- 18:04Speaker 1: It was impossible to determine whether the blood belonged to Anne-Marie.
- 18:07Speaker 1: without DNA samples from her or her parents. Samples from
- 18:12Speaker 1: her siblings would be too disparate to provide solid results. Unfortunately,
- 18:18Speaker 1: Anne Marie's parents were deceased. Anne Marie's brothers and sisters
- 18:25Speaker 1: provided investigators with a possible lead. A check of the
- 18:30Speaker 1: missing woman's calendar book revealed that she had given blood
- 18:32Speaker 1: a month before she disappeared. Agents went to the blood
- 18:37Speaker 1: bank to subpoena the sample. It was too late. Her
- 18:44Speaker 1: blood had been reduced to plasma and shipped overseas. There
- 18:48Speaker 1: was only a slim chance it could be retrieved. Worse yet,
- 18:53Speaker 1: DNA rich red and white blood cells had been removed
- 18:56Speaker 1: and extracting DNA from plasma alone is next to impossible.
- 19:04Speaker 1: As the investigation slowly moved forward, Thomas Kapanu continued to
- 19:09Speaker 1: live a life of ease. As the eldest of four brothers,
- 19:20Speaker 1: he had always been his parents' favorite and the son
- 19:23Speaker 1: who had achieved success in all he sought. Thomas's brothers
- 19:28Speaker 1: had always looked up to him. Jerry, the youngest, had
- 19:32Speaker 1: been rescued many times by his older brother's legal expertise.
- 19:38Speaker 1: Joseph ran the family construction company, while Lewis managed the
- 19:42Speaker 1: family's considerable real estate holdings. The Capanos were multi-millionaires. and
- 19:50Speaker 1: seemed impenetrable. Investigators learned early on that Thomas Capano's family
- 19:55Speaker 1: and friends were unlikely to cooperate.
- 19:57Speaker 4: We spoke with an awful lot of people, an awful
- 20:02Speaker 4: lot of people that are very influential that just would
- 20:06Speaker 4: not believe that Tom Capano was capable of murder. and
- 20:11Speaker 4: were mad at us for investigating. Were mad that we
- 20:15Speaker 4: believed he was, in fact, a murderer. That was frustrating
- 20:21Speaker 4: because it was tough to get anybody that was cooperative.
- 20:29Speaker 1: The team believed that if Capano killed Anne Marie, someone
- 20:32Speaker 1: close to him probably helped dispose of the body. But
- 20:37Speaker 1: no one was talking. With no body, no DNA sample,
- 20:46Speaker 1: no murder weapon, and no cooperation from his cohorts, the
- 20:50Speaker 1: federal case against Thomas Capano was weak. On August 6th,
- 20:56Speaker 1: Agent Alpert received a call from Sean Taylor, a project
- 21:00Speaker 1: manager in Lewis Capano's development company. Taylor knew something he
- 21:05Speaker 1: believed might interest investigators. He agreed to meet agents and
- 21:11Speaker 1: detectives in a secure location, fearing what would happen to
- 21:14Speaker 1: him if the Capano brothers found out he was talking
- 21:16Speaker 1: to authorities. He described an unusual event that occurred the
- 21:21Speaker 1: day after Ann Marie was reported missing.
- 21:29Speaker 6: He advised us he was a project manager at one
- 21:31Speaker 6: of the Louis Capano and Associates construction sites. He stated
- 21:34Speaker 6: that he was ordered on July 1st, the Monday after
- 21:37Speaker 6: Ann Marie Fahey's disappearance, to have four dumpsters on the
- 21:40Speaker 6: property pulled and dumped. And he felt that was strange
- 21:43Speaker 6: because none of them were full and it would be
- 21:47Speaker 6: very out of character to do that because of the
- 21:50Speaker 6: cost of dumping something like that.
- 21:53Speaker 1: This reinforced the investigator's suspicion that Thomas Capano had help
- 21:57Speaker 1: disposing of Anne Marie's body. Lewis Capano's development company was
- 22:07Speaker 1: served with a subpoena for the dumpster records. as investigators
- 22:11Speaker 1: began to turn up the heat on the powerful Capano family.
- 22:17Speaker 7: They hoped one of the brothers would turn against Thomas
- 22:22Speaker 7: and tell authorities about Anne Marie's disappearance.
- 22:28Speaker 1: The solid bonds between brothers began.
- 22:30Speaker 3: To strain, but.
- 22:32Speaker 1: Thomas managed to keep.
- 22:34Speaker 3: Everyone in line.
- 22:36Speaker 1: Under oath, Louis denied that he had ordered the dumpsters emptied. Undaunted,
- 22:45Speaker 1: investigators continued to pursue their best lead.
- 22:51Speaker 5: So we traced that dumpster. We went to the hauling company.
- 22:55Speaker 5: And we found out exactly when the dumpster had been removed.
- 22:58Speaker 5: We found out the dump that it had been brought to.
- 23:00Speaker 5: And we went to that dump site.
- 23:04Speaker 1: In the middle of August, an evidence recovery team arrived
- 23:07Speaker 1: at the Delaware landfill. Workers pointed out the area where
- 23:12Speaker 1: the dumpsters had been emptied. The recovery team searched for
- 23:19Speaker 1: anything that could be traced back to Thomas Capano's home.
- 23:24Speaker 6: We were looking for the carpeting, the love seat, possibly
- 23:28Speaker 6: a murder weapon, and also possibly Anne-Marie Fahey's body.
- 23:33Speaker 1: For four hot, grueling days, FBI agents scoured the landfills.
- 23:41Speaker 1: They found nothing. The investigators finally walked away, tired and frustrated.
- 23:49Speaker 1: Despite their strong suspicions, they didn't have enough evidence to
- 23:52Speaker 1: bring charges. To agents, detectives, and prosecutors, it looked as
- 23:59Speaker 1: if Thomas Capano had gotten away with the perfect murder.
- 24:07Speaker 1: In August 1996, FBI agents and Delaware authorities continued to
- 24:12Speaker 1: pursue evidence against Thomas Capano for the murder of his
- 24:15Speaker 1: former mistress, Anne Marie Fahey. She had been missing for
- 24:21Speaker 1: eight weeks and was presumed murdered by her wealthy ex-lover.
- 24:27Speaker 1: As FBI agent Eric Alpert explains, investigators had no physical
- 24:31Speaker 1: evidence to support their theory.
- 24:34Speaker 6: There were several challenges in this investigation. We had no
- 24:38Speaker 6: murder weapon, no true crime scene, no body, and no
- 24:43Speaker 6: witnesses who would come forward and give us information.
- 24:46Speaker 1: As to what had happened. On September 6th, investigators received
- 24:52Speaker 1: the call they were hoping for. The blood plasma Anne
- 24:56Speaker 1: Marie had donated a month before her disappearance had been
- 24:59Speaker 1: recovered just before it reached its European destination. Agents needed
- 25:06Speaker 1: a known sample of Anne Marie's DNA to compare to
- 25:09Speaker 1: the unknown sample from the blood spots found in Capano's house.
- 25:15Speaker 1: But DNA lab examiner Alan Giusti didn't know if the
- 25:19Speaker 1: plasma would be sufficient.
- 25:21Speaker 8: The problem with extracting DNA from plasma is that plasma
- 25:25Speaker 8: is the portion of blood that is separated from the
- 25:27Speaker 8: blood cells, and the blood cells are what contain the DNA.
- 25:30Speaker 8: So when you're working with plasma, you're actually working with
- 25:33Speaker 8: a very poor source of DNA.
- 25:37Speaker 1: To his surprise, he found residual red blood cells in
- 25:40Speaker 1: the plasma. This enabled Giusti to retrieve a small amount
- 25:45Speaker 1: of Anne Marie's DNA. He compared her DNA sequence to
- 25:51Speaker 1: the sequence from the unknown source. They matched. There was
- 26:04Speaker 1: only a minute chance that the blood spots from Capano's
- 26:06Speaker 1: house did not belong to Anne Marie Fahey. Investigators now
- 26:17Speaker 1: had the first piece of physical evidence they needed to
- 26:20Speaker 1: support their suspicion that Thomas Gepano had committed murder. They
- 26:25Speaker 1: knew they needed more. Gepano's cell phone records revealed that
- 26:31Speaker 1: he had called a woman named Debbie McIntyre from Stone Harbor,
- 26:34Speaker 1: New Jersey on June 28th, the morning after Anne Marie disappeared.
- 26:42Speaker 1: Investigators learned that Debbie McIntyre was yet another one of
- 26:45Speaker 1: Capano's mistresses.
- 26:48Speaker 6: We saw that they called each other frequently, but we
- 26:50Speaker 6: weren't sure about their relationship. From doing further interviews, we
- 26:54Speaker 6: found that Thomas Capano and Debbie McIntyre had been having
- 26:57Speaker 6: an affair for approximately 12 years. So at the same
- 27:01Speaker 6: time when he was having an affair with Anne-Marie Fay,
- 27:02Speaker 6: he was also having an affair with Debbie McIntyre.
- 27:07Speaker 1: Agents also learned that Jerry Capano, the youngest brother, had
- 27:10Speaker 1: owned a boat anchored in Stone Harbor. Detective Robert Donovan investigated.
- 27:21Speaker 4: We found out that Jerry Capano had sold this boat locally.
- 27:24Speaker 4: Somebody locally purchased it. We were able to track that
- 27:28Speaker 4: down and spoke with a gentleman and looked at his boat.
- 27:33Speaker 1: They scoured the boat for traces of Anne Marie, but
- 27:36Speaker 1: found nothing. The new boat owner told investigators that Jerry
- 27:41Speaker 1: Capano had sold the boat without anchors. They suspected that
- 27:45Speaker 1: the anchors were now at the bottom of the ocean,
- 27:47Speaker 1: wrapped around Anne Marie's body. Assistant U.S. Attorney Colm Connolly
- 27:53Speaker 1: and his team turned their attention to Jerry Capano.
- 27:58Speaker 5: And so beginning back in November of 96, we put
- 28:00Speaker 5: in place this undercover operation with the idea that we
- 28:04Speaker 5: would gather incriminating evidence of Jerry's activities and any other
- 28:09Speaker 5: information we could gain about his role on June 28th
- 28:13Speaker 5: in disposing of the body.
- 28:23Speaker 1: If agents gathered enough evidence to bring federal charges against Jerry,
- 28:27Speaker 1: they could pressure him to talk about his brother's role
- 28:29Speaker 1: in the murder. For 11 months, undercover agents tracked Jerry's
- 28:35Speaker 1: every move. They learned that he frequented bars and nightclubs
- 28:39Speaker 1: and used illegal drugs. They also learned that he collected firearms,
- 28:46Speaker 1: a federal crime for a known drug user. On the
- 28:51Speaker 1: evening of October 9th, 1997, 15 months after the disappearance
- 28:55Speaker 1: of Anne Marie Fahey, the FBI assisted by the ATF,
- 29:08Speaker 1: raided Jerry Capano's house. He was caught completely by surprise.
- 29:17Speaker 1: A friend with a criminal record stood with him in
- 29:19Speaker 1: the garage. If agents found illegal narcotics stored in the
- 29:27Speaker 1: same house as Jerry's weapons, they'd have the physical evidence
- 29:30Speaker 1: needed to leverage his cooperation. They found a small arsenal
- 29:35Speaker 1: of guns stored in the bedroom closet of Jerry's three-year-old son.
- 29:41Speaker 1: Agent Alpert searched the laundry room near the kitchen. He
- 29:46Speaker 1: dug through the pockets of Jerry's clothes. Jerry's collection of
- 29:53Speaker 1: rifles and handguns wasn't illegal per se, unless they found
- 29:57Speaker 1: illicit drugs on the premises. Agent Alpert found them. He
- 30:05Speaker 1: recovered cocaine and marijuana. Now investigators had what they needed
- 30:11Speaker 1: to charge Jerry Capano with felony firearms violations. They could
- 30:16Speaker 1: also levy child endangerment charges. They did neither. Prosecutors would
- 30:25Speaker 1: offer immunity if Jerry would testify against his brother Thomas.
- 30:33Speaker 5: We did not believe Jerry had any role in the
- 30:35Speaker 5: murder of Ann Marie Fahey. We only believed he had
- 30:37Speaker 5: a role in the cover-up, the disposal of evidence. And
- 30:42Speaker 5: we also knew he was very loyal to his brother.
- 30:45Speaker 5: He almost viewed his brother as a father figure. But
- 30:48Speaker 5: at the same time, he had a wife, he had children,
- 30:51Speaker 5: he had a pretty good life, a life that he
- 30:55Speaker 5: probably wouldn't want to give up to go to jail.
- 30:58Speaker 3: And that was the card that we had to play.
- 31:00Speaker 3: I mean, they've come through the entire house.
- 31:02Speaker 1: After the raid, the FBI allowed Jerry Capano to consider
- 31:05Speaker 1: all that was at stake. He was forced to choose
- 31:15Speaker 1: between his brother and his wife and children. The pressure
- 31:22Speaker 1: upon Jerry Capano was enormous. Not only was he one
- 31:27Speaker 1: of Thomas Capano's closest allies, he was his brother. Investigators
- 31:32Speaker 1: weren't certain if Jerry would crack. Even if he did,
- 31:36Speaker 1: they had no way of knowing if he could help
- 31:39Speaker 1: them bring the powerful Thomas Capano to justice. A year
- 31:48Speaker 1: and a half after the disappearance of Anne Marie Fahey,
- 31:51Speaker 1: Jerry Capano asked to see the FBI and U.S. Attorney
- 31:54Speaker 1: Colm Conway on November 8, 1997. Federal authorities had threatened
- 32:03Speaker 1: Jerry Capano with federal firearm charges if he did not
- 32:06Speaker 1: cooperate with their investigation. They suspected Jerry had helped his
- 32:13Speaker 1: brother Thomas Capano dispose of Anne Marie's body in the
- 32:16Speaker 1: Atlantic Ocean. With legal counsel by his side, Jerry related
- 32:23Speaker 1: his involvement in the incident. It began months before Anne
- 32:27Speaker 1: Marie's June 28th disappearance. Early in 1996, his brother Thomas
- 32:34Speaker 1: came to him with a problem. Jerry told Agent Eric
- 32:39Speaker 1: Alpert that he didn't realize Thomas had lied to him.
- 32:43Speaker 6: In February 1996, Thomas Capano went to his brother Jerry
- 32:47Speaker 6: and told him that he was being extorted, that somebody
- 32:49Speaker 6: was threatening his children. He asked Jerry to get him
- 32:52Speaker 6: some cash to help pay the extortionists. He also asked
- 32:55Speaker 6: Jerry for a gun. and said that he might need
- 32:59Speaker 6: Jerry's help someday with the boat to dispose of the
- 33:03Speaker 6: extortionist's body.
- 33:05Speaker 1: Jerry provided Thomas with $ 8, 000 and the gun he asked for.
- 33:11Speaker 1: Thomas returned the weapon a month later, telling Jerry the
- 33:14Speaker 1: money was enough. He didn't need the gun after all.
- 33:16Speaker 1: He heard little else about Thomas' problem until Friday, June 29, 1996.
- 33:21Speaker 1: I got a call from Tom. Early in the morning,
- 33:28Speaker 1: Jerry stepped out of his house to find his older
- 33:31Speaker 1: brother parked at the end of the driveway. Thomas looked upset.
- 33:34Speaker 3: 6 o'clock in the morning, Tom.
- 33:36Speaker 1: What are you doing here?
- 33:37Speaker 3: Jerry, I need your help. Jerry, I need you to
- 33:39Speaker 3: get the book. I don't want to be part of it.
- 33:42Speaker 5: Jerry knew as soon as Tom asked to use the
- 33:44Speaker 5: boat that Tom had been involved in the killing of somebody.
- 33:50Speaker 5: And Jerry said to Tom, did you do it? And
- 33:53Speaker 5: his brother said yes. And Jerry said he didn't want
- 33:58Speaker 5: to have any part in getting rid.
- 34:00Speaker 3: Of the body.
- 34:01Speaker 5: And he refused to give up the boat. He said
- 34:04Speaker 5: he had a wife, he had kids, he had a
- 34:06Speaker 5: beautiful home. And Tom played the brother card. Tom said,
- 34:11Speaker 5: I have nobody else to turn to. You're my kid brother.
- 34:15Speaker 3: Please help me. And finally Jerry relented.
- 34:25Speaker 5: And Jerry agreed to meet Tom and to go to
- 34:28Speaker 5: Stone Harbor and to take the boat out and dispose
- 34:31Speaker 5: of the body.
- 34:39Speaker 1: Behind closed doors, they met inside Thomas's garage, where he
- 34:43Speaker 1: asked Jerry to help him load a heavy cooler into
- 34:46Speaker 1: his truck. He never opened the cooler, but Jerry believed
- 34:51Speaker 1: the body of Thomas's extortionist was stuffed inside.
- 34:55Speaker 3: All right, let's get the rug.
- 34:57Speaker 1: Only the carpet remained. Jerry told his brother not to
- 35:03Speaker 1: take it on the boat because it probably wouldn't sink.
- 35:12Speaker 1: When they arrived at Stone Harbor, New Jersey, they carried
- 35:15Speaker 1: the cooler down the dock in plain sight. It was
- 35:22Speaker 1: a common cooler used by fishermen at the marina. large
- 35:25Speaker 1: enough to carry an ample supply of bait. No one
- 35:30Speaker 1: would think twice about two men loading the heavy container
- 35:33Speaker 1: onto a boat. The brothers fueled up and headed for
- 35:43Speaker 1: the open waters of the Atlantic. Thomas Capano ordered his
- 35:52Speaker 1: brother to motor 60 miles offshore where the water was
- 35:55Speaker 1: deep enough to hide the body permanently. No one else
- 36:00Speaker 1: would be close enough to see what the brothers were
- 36:02Speaker 1: about to do. They heaved the cooler into the sea,
- 36:09Speaker 1: but Thomas Capano miscalculated. The makeshift coffin floated. Thomas then
- 36:21Speaker 1: ordered Jerry to sink the cooler by firing slugs into
- 36:24Speaker 1: it The cooler still floated. The millionaire lawyer retrieved it
- 36:43Speaker 1: and decided to sink the corpse without the cooler. His
- 36:48Speaker 1: younger brother wanted no part of it. He moved to
- 36:51Speaker 1: the front of the boat while Thomas wrapped the boat's
- 36:54Speaker 1: anchors around the body. What Jerry Capano saw next was
- 37:01Speaker 1: critical for Detective Robert Donovan.
- 37:06Speaker 4: Jerry turns around when he asks Tom, are you done,
- 37:09Speaker 4: are you done? Tom tells him, yeah, I'm done. As
- 37:12Speaker 4: Jerry turns around to look at Tom, he sees a
- 37:14Speaker 4: calf and a foot sinking down.
- 37:26Speaker 1: On their way back to Stone Harbor, Thomas Capano disassembled
- 37:29Speaker 1: the cooler and scattered its parts into the ocean.
- 37:36Speaker 3: And Tom said he needed me to come back to
- 37:38Speaker 3: the house, that he had.
- 37:39Speaker 1: Something else that I needed to do with him. The
- 37:42Speaker 1: work wasn't finished. His brother needed to dispose of more evidence.
- 37:50Speaker 4: Tom says, I need your help getting rid of this couch.
- 37:54Speaker 4: Jerry sees a stain on the couch, which would be
- 37:58Speaker 4: right about shoulder height, which is as large, he described,
- 38:01Speaker 4: as a basketball size blood stain.
- 38:07Speaker 1: Investigators believed the stain was caused by a fatal gunshot
- 38:10Speaker 1: to Anne Marie's head. They dumped the couch and the
- 38:18Speaker 1: carpet into a trash bin at a construction site managed
- 38:21Speaker 1: by their brother Lewis. Jerry had nothing more to add.
- 38:32Speaker 1: When word got out that Jerry had cooperated with investigators,
- 38:36Speaker 1: His brother Louis appeared with his lawyer two days later.
- 38:42Speaker 1: Louis Capano recanted his earlier statement and admitted that he
- 38:45Speaker 1: had obeyed Thomas' orders to empty the dumpsters earlier than scheduled.
- 38:54Speaker 1: The FBI began 24-hour surveillance on Thomas Capano. They believed
- 39:01Speaker 1: the suspected murderer might try to kill his brothers to
- 39:04Speaker 1: keep him from testifying. Less than a week later, on
- 39:16Speaker 1: November 12th, 1997, the surveillance team watched Capano and his
- 39:21Speaker 1: brother Joseph loading suitcases into their truck. They were heading
- 39:34Speaker 1: towards the airport. Agent Alpert feared Thomas was fleeing jurisdiction.
- 39:40Speaker 6: At that point, I paged Colm Connolly, the Assistant United
- 39:44Speaker 6: States Attorney who was inside the grand jury room, with
- 39:47Speaker 6: a 911 page to come out. I told him of
- 39:49Speaker 6: the details and said we need to make a decision
- 39:51Speaker 6: on what we're gonna do.
- 39:54Speaker 1: Investigators felt they still didn't have enough to charge Thomas
- 39:57Speaker 1: Capano with kidnapping and murder, but agreed they had to
- 40:00Speaker 1: stop him from fleeing. Alpert ordered his arrest on grounds
- 40:05Speaker 1: that Capano had obstructed justice by coercing his brothers to
- 40:08Speaker 1: give false testimony. 17 months after her disappearance, the suspected
- 40:16Speaker 1: killer of Anne-Marie Fahey was finally in custody. Two brothers
- 40:21Speaker 1: now stood against one. But investigators still had no body
- 40:27Speaker 1: and no murder weapon. On November 12, 1997, the FBI
- 40:36Speaker 1: arrested prominent Delaware lawyer Thomas Capano. He was the prime
- 40:41Speaker 1: suspect for the murder of Anne-Marie Fahey, His younger brother
- 40:46Speaker 1: Jerry claimed Thomas had dumped a corpse into the Atlantic Ocean.
- 40:55Speaker 1: Jerry pointed investigators to the area off the New Jersey shore,
- 40:58Speaker 1: but they never found Anne Marie's body. Assistant U.S. Attorney
- 41:05Speaker 1: Colm Connolly had a daunting task ahead of him.
- 41:08Speaker 3: We didn't have a body, and that's always a problem.
- 41:11Speaker 5: There have only been a handful of prosecutions in the
- 41:14Speaker 5: country that had been successfully done without a body. And
- 41:19Speaker 5: in Delaware, prior to this case, there had only been
- 41:21Speaker 5: one case prosecuted without a body, and it had resulted
- 41:25Speaker 5: in an acquittal.
- 41:28Speaker 1: The only physical evidence they had against Thomas Capano were
- 41:31Speaker 1: two specks of Fahey's blood found in his living room.
- 41:36Speaker 1: While investigators prepared the difficult prosecution, Special Agent Eric Alpert
- 41:40Speaker 1: learned something that could strengthen their case.
- 41:44Speaker 6: We received a phone call from an individual who said
- 41:46Speaker 6: that he had found the cooler floating in the ocean
- 41:49Speaker 6: around the weekend of July 4th, 1996. And I asked
- 41:54Speaker 6: him to further describe the cooler and he said that
- 41:56Speaker 6: the cooler was missing a lid and had a bullet
- 41:58Speaker 6: hole in it.
- 42:00Speaker 1: The lead sounded promising. The caller read an article about
- 42:04Speaker 1: Capano's arrest that reported a cooler was used in the crime.
- 42:12Speaker 1: But the story never mentioned that the lid was missing
- 42:14Speaker 1: or that a slug had pierced it. Alpert immediately drove
- 42:19Speaker 1: the two hours to Bay City, New Jersey to check
- 42:21Speaker 1: the lead. On the weekend of July 4th, 1996, Ken
- 42:31Speaker 1: Chubb was fishing six miles off Indian River when he
- 42:34Speaker 1: came across a cooler bobbing in the ocean.
- 42:38Speaker 3: Had two bullet holes.
- 42:40Speaker 9: And blood stain, but we were amazed that this was
- 42:43Speaker 9: a brand new cooler, but we weren't amazed that the
- 42:47Speaker 9: bullet holes were the blood because they shoot shark a
- 42:49Speaker 9: lot and there might have been a shark flopping around
- 42:52Speaker 9: in there and they shot it and that's where the
- 42:54Speaker 9: blood came from.
- 42:59Speaker 1: Chubb patched the holes, replaced the lid, and used it
- 43:02Speaker 1: as his own until the Capano arrest story broke. Agents
- 43:07Speaker 1: discovered the barcode on the cooler matched the one Capano
- 43:10Speaker 1: purchased with his credit card on April 22nd, two months
- 43:14Speaker 1: before Anne Marie disappeared.
- 43:17Speaker 6: The cooler was important in this case because it prevented
- 43:20Speaker 6: Tom Capano's defense team pretty much from saying that Jerry
- 43:23Speaker 6: Capano was lying. It corroborated exactly what Jerry Capano had
- 43:28Speaker 6: told us well before he knew we would ever find
- 43:30Speaker 6: this cooler.
- 43:34Speaker 1: The cooler was their second piece of physical evidence, and
- 43:37Speaker 1: its purchase demonstrated Capano's premeditation. Investigators still had no murder weapon.
- 43:47Speaker 1: They searched records at local gun stores for purchases by
- 43:49Speaker 1: Capano or by others close to him. They hit pay dirt.
- 43:54Speaker 1: Investigators discovered that Capano's mistress, Debbie McIntyre, had purchased a.
- 43:59Speaker 1: 22 caliber Beretta on May 13th, 1996, six weeks before
- 44:04Speaker 1: Fahey disappeared. They brought McIntyre in for questioning. She pretended
- 44:14Speaker 1: that her relationship with Thomas Capano was more casual than
- 44:17Speaker 1: it actually was. Connolly asked if Capano owned a gun.
- 44:23Speaker 1: McIntyre denied it.
- 44:24Speaker 5: I asked her, do you own a gun? And immediately
- 44:30Speaker 5: her demeanor changed. She started blushing. She got very nervous.
- 44:35Speaker 5: It was clear that she was lying. And she told
- 44:38Speaker 5: us this just fantastical story about buying a gun and
- 44:43Speaker 5: then throwing it in the garbage can. And we asked her,
- 44:46Speaker 5: did anybody know that she had bought that gun?
- 44:49Speaker 3: And she said, one person.
- 44:52Speaker 5: And it was Tom Capelma.
- 44:56Speaker 1: Connolly pointed out that if McIntyre supplied the gun to Capano,
- 45:00Speaker 1: she had committed a felony. Under the advice of her attorney,
- 45:10Speaker 1: McIntyre admitted that Capano had asked her to buy the
- 45:13Speaker 1: gun in the first place. The trial began on October 26th, 1998.
- 45:26Speaker 1: Early on in the proceedings, Capano surprised the prosecution by
- 45:33Speaker 1: admitting that he had disposed of Fahey's body as Jerry
- 45:35Speaker 1: had testified. He also admitted to asking his brother Lewis
- 45:41Speaker 1: to empty the dumpsters early. On the witness stand, Capano
- 45:46Speaker 1: painted his own version of events on the evening of
- 45:48Speaker 1: June 27th, 1996. After dinner, he and Anne-Marie came back
- 45:54Speaker 1: to his place. According to Capano, they had resolved their differences.
- 46:01Speaker 1: They were enjoying each other's company when Debbie McIntyre burst
- 46:04Speaker 1: into his house.
- 46:05Speaker 3: What are you doing?
- 46:07Speaker 5: Who is this?
- 46:08Speaker 3: What are you doing in my house?
- 46:09Speaker 5: You? I am going.
- 46:12Speaker 9: To.
- 46:14Speaker 1: Angry and despondent, McIntyre threatened suicide. What are you doing?
- 46:22Speaker 1: Anne Marie was killed instantly. Despite his legal training, Capano
- 46:29Speaker 1: claimed he didn't call police because he was trying to
- 46:32Speaker 1: protect McIntyre and himself. Instead, he retrieved the cooler that
- 46:36Speaker 1: he said was to be a gift to his brother.
- 46:38Speaker 1: He decided to use it as a coffin. During cross-examination,
- 46:47Speaker 1: Connolly pointed out that Capano had prosecuted a similar case
- 46:51Speaker 1: in 1976 when he served as assistant attorney general for Delaware.
- 46:57Speaker 1: In that case, the killer dumped his victim into a
- 47:00Speaker 1: creek near Delaware City. At the time, Capano was quoted
- 47:06Speaker 1: as saying the killer would have gotten away with his
- 47:08Speaker 1: crime if he would have dumped the body into the Atlantic.
- 47:13Speaker 1: Capano denied this.
- 47:17Speaker 3: Well, it's all here. Can I submit this to your honor?
- 47:20Speaker 1: In the state's version of events, Capano forced Anne Marie
- 47:24Speaker 1: Fahey to return to his house. She was determined to
- 47:28Speaker 1: end their affair. Capano would not be jilted. He took
- 47:36Speaker 1: out the Beretta that McIntyre bought for him and shot
- 47:39Speaker 1: Fahey in cold blood. Then he stuffed her into the cooler.
- 47:53Speaker 1: At about 9.45 that same evening, he entered Anne Marie's
- 47:57Speaker 1: apartment with fresh groceries and the new pantsuit she would
- 48:00Speaker 1: never wear. He carefully tried to cover his tracks as
- 48:05Speaker 1: he had planned for months. On January 17th, 1999, the
- 48:14Speaker 1: jury returned with a verdict. Mr.
- 48:16Speaker 3: Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict? Yes, Your Honor,
- 48:18Speaker 3: we have.
- 48:18Speaker 1: Please rise. Based on his brother's testimony, the blood evidence,
- 48:23Speaker 1: and the recovered cooler, the once prominent lawyer and millionaire,
- 48:27Speaker 1: Thomas Capano, was found guilty of first-degree murder.
- 48:34Speaker 5: We were able to reaffirm a lot of people's faith
- 48:37Speaker 5: in the judicial system here.
- 48:39Speaker 3: The system works. I think we accomplished justice here.
- 48:44Speaker 5: I have a very good relationship with the Fahey family,
- 48:48Speaker 5: and so I think we've not only been able to
- 48:51Speaker 5: bring about justice, but we've brought as much comfort as
- 48:54Speaker 5: they can have given the tragedy they had to suffer.
- 49:09Speaker 1: The jury went further, sentencing Capano to the gas chamber.
- 49:17Speaker 1: It was the first time in Delaware history that a
- 49:20Speaker 1: defendant had been found guilty in a capital crime without
- 49:23Speaker 1: a body or a murder weapon. Capano now waits on
- 49:28Speaker 1: death row pending appeals. Thank you.