And Never Let Her Go (77 page)

“From direct insults to prosecutors to withering stares at witnesses, continuous claims of privilege from correction officers, constant violation of the rules of the Department of Correction and the limitations established by the Court, and suborning perjury, to the constant undermining of the efforts of the excellent team of lawyers he assembled to represent him, Thomas Capano needed to show everyone that he was in charge and that he held all those who he viewed as adversaries with contempt.

“In spite of imposing his will on his attorneys in matters where, by law, the decision was rightfully theirs, the possibility remained that he would be acquitted, until he insisted they adopt his unsupported theory of the case in the defense opening statement, which all but required his testimony once a promised credible witness failed to materialize.

“Again
against the unanimous advice of his counsel, the defendant insisted on testifying and solidifying the remaining area of weakness in the state's case by presenting a story of Anne Marie Fahey's death which the jury found incredible.

“Having sealed his fate on the question of guilt or innocence, he displayed the malevolence of his nature, which became crucial in determining sentence.”

Judge Lee continued to read, each sentence blasting the man who had made a mockery of his courtroom for well over three months. “The defendant,” he said forcefully, “insisted on a ‘chain-saw' approach, attacking, maiming, and destroying the character and lives of lovers, friends, and family who had, in his eyes, been disloyal to him in his time of need. . . .

“The defendant fully expected to get away with murder and, were it not for his own arrogance and controlling nature, he might well have succeeded. . . .

“If the virtuous Tom Capano ever existed, he no longer did at
that time. He chose to use his family as a shield, make his brothers and his mistress accomplices, use his friends and attorneys for disinformation, attack the character of the prosecutor, make his mother and daughters part of a spectacle in an effort to gain sympathy, chide his brother [Gerry] to ‘be a man' when the weight of the investigation fell upon him, rely on character assassination when that brother is compelled to testify, and insist that the family ostracize him for telling the truth. . . .

“He even bullied, berated, and undermined the efforts of his own lawyers, who believed they could gain his acquittal. The defendant has no one to blame for the circumstances he finds himself in today except himself. . . .

“The selfishness, arrogance, and manipulativeness of Thomas Capano,” Judge Lee continued, “destroyed his own family as well as the Fahey family. He did not hesitate to use his family to commit or suborn perjury or to ask for the mercy he specifically refused to ask for himself. His only remorse is for himself. . . .

“Tom Capano does not face judgment today because his friends and family failed him. He faces judgment because he is a ruthless murderer who feels compassion for no one, and remorse only for the circumstances he finds himself in.

“He is a malignant force from whom no one he deems disloyal or adversarial can be secure, even if he is incarcerated for the rest of his life.

“No one except the defendant will ever know exactly how or why Anne Marie Fahey died. What
is
certain is that it was not a crime of passion but, rather, a crime of control. By all accounts, she had ceased to be the defendant's lover but had never escaped his sphere of influence, control, and manipulation. Anne Marie Fahey could not be permitted to end the relationship unless he said so. She could not be allowed to reject him.

“The defendant's premeditation and planning was a contingency that perhaps he hoped would never happen—but did—on the evening of June 27, 1996. He chose to destroy a possession rather than lose it;
to execute an escaping human chattel.

“Considering and weighing all the evidence, the verdict and the recommendation of the jury was just. Mr. Capano, would you rise for sentencing, please.”

And there, in that hushed courtroom, Judge William Swain Lee sentenced Tom Capano to die by lethal injection in the presence of ten witnesses. His execution date was to be June 28, 1999, three
years to the day from the time he threw Anne Marie's body into the Atlantic Ocean.

T
HERE
was an automatic appeal, and Tom Capano did not die on June 28. He is in “max max,” in prison in Smyrna, Delaware. Tom was in every sense of the phrase a man who had everything. But he wanted more than that. He wanted everything
his
way. And when he took a young woman's life because she would not submit to his will, he destroyed them both.

W
HEN
I
RETURNED
to Wilmington it was full summer, 1999, the kind of weather that always colors my memories of living in the Philadelphia-Wilmington area when I was a teenager. All the wind, snow, and rain that seemed part of Tom Capano's trial had evaporated in the drought of 1999. Only the heartiest plants kept their heads up when the city forbade watering lawns and gardens, but the honeysuckle perfumed the night as it probably has since the first settlers arrived in New Castle.

After three years of an investigation and trial that seem to have touched almost everyone in the city with sorrow for a promising life lost too soon and for families blighted with dissension and shame, I somehow expected to find that at least some of the people involved had moved away from Wilmington to start over. But no one has. The years ahead may change their decisions; more likely, they may only soften the edges of raw pain and bright memory. It is not a city one leaves; family structures reach too deeply into the earth there, and for everything that is ugly, three or four beautiful new things appear. More and more of the old row houses are being renovated, and there are traditions all around Wilmington that newer cities cannot duplicate. Joe Oteri might have figuratively waved the American flag a bit too much in his arguments to defend Tom Capano, but if he
did, he picked the right city, a city integral to all our histories no matter where we live in this country.

T
OM
C
APANO
went out of his way to refer to the Faheys as “white trash” and to suggest that Anne Marie had told him deep, dark secrets about them. But that characterization was only one of the many cruelties he practiced. Because the Faheys committed themselves to using the media to find out what happened to Anne Marie, their tough, early years—unlike those of most families—were exposed for the world to see. And that still hurts. In actual fact, the Faheys are a family of professionals now, with very comfortable lives. Kathleen believes—as they all do—that the loss of Anne Marie strengthened the bonds of their family—and they remain strong.

Kathleen and Patrick Fahey-Hosey had two sons before Anne Marie died, and they have since had a little girl. “My daughter fills an empty place in my heart,” Kathleen said. “She's even got curly hair.” But she sighs as she reflects on the fact that her sister never got to be a mother herself. “Anne Marie was pure sweetness,” she said. “She would have been married by now. But I was lucky to have had my sister for as long as I did.” Kathleen, who got her B.A. from Newman College, is now working toward her master's degree in education there.

Robert and Susan Fahey, Kevin and Linda Fahey, Brian and Rebeca Fahey all have growing families. They have worked hard to protect their children from any further publicity and they have been fairly successful. What is harder to explain, when their children ask, is what happened to their aunt.

On July 7, 1999, the Faheys at last had a memorial service for Anne Marie. “It took us,” Robert said, “as long to get over the weeks of trial as it lasted—and then we had Anne Marie's funeral service.”

“The service was more for the other people who loved Anne Marie,” Kathleen said, “people who hadn't been through the whole process of the trial. For me, at least, the trial did bring some closure.”

The Fahey family
is
suing the Capano family in a civil case. The amount of the suit—a minimum of $100,000—doesn't matter to them. “No one in the Capano family ever apologized or said they were sorry to us,” Robert said. “Tom's lawyers never apologized to us or acknowledged us.” The Faheys are very resentful of those Capanos who knew where Anne Marie was and “sat there for a year and a half and said not one word.”

The suit against Capano Management Company, Louis Capano and Associates, Inc., Brandywine Plaza III Associates L.P., and Landmark Motels charges the four Capano brothers individually with myriad offenses ranging from conspiracy to murder. It was delayed pending the outcome of Tom's criminal trial.

Kathleen and Brian have become active in supporting the rights of crime victims. The two spoke at the twelfth annual Crime Victims' Rights Week seminar in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in April.

Kim Horstman is married and gave birth to a daughter in the summer of 1998. The baby girl's name is Anne Marie.

Ferris Wharton spent his summer vacation riding his bike across Iowa, which was just as hot as Wilmington. He awaits the inevitable, another murder case to prosecute.

Colm Connolly surprised those who expected him to stay with the U.S. Attorney's office by resigning in late March. He has since joined the Wilmington law firm of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell as partner. The firm's clients include U.S. Steel, J. P. Morgan, and Coca-Cola. He admitted that it was a pragmatic decision. He and his wife, Anne, had their first daughter, “Maggie,” on September 3, 1999. A man with four children under five has finally had to leave public service for the better salary available in the private sector. At least for now.

Bob Donovan is still with the Wilmington Police Department.

Eric Alpert is assigned currently to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Colm, Ferris, Eric, Bob, and Ron Poplos traveled to New York to see the Yankees play in July; it was the closest thing to a celebration they had after Tom Capano's conviction.

Tom's “dream team” of lawyers, whose advice he ignored, will not represent him as he appeals his death sentence from the maximum security unit at the Delaware Correctional Center in Smyrna. Oteri and O'Donnell have gone back to their practices in Boston and Florida, and Maurer and Oberly have other work to handle. Lee Ramunno—Tom's sister, Marian's, husband—will handle the appeal. The appeal process can be tortuous and lengthy, and it is unlikely that Tom will actually face death for several years. However, since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to bring back the death penalty, Delaware's Board of Pardons has never recommended that any death penalty sentence be reversed.

But even at this late date, Tom Capano could conceivably avoid the death penalty. It would mean letting go of his arrogance and his
pride. If he were to admit to killing Anne Marie and disposing of her body to avoid the detection of his crime, and if he signed an agreement that he would not appeal a reduced sentence, some attorneys close to the case think he might live to spend his life in prison.

For his daughters, whom he professes to love above all else, would he surrender his pride?

In what could one day become a convoluted legal question, Judge William Swain Lee is seriously considering running for the governorship of Delaware. If he should win the election and be the sitting governor when Tom Capano reaches the end of the appeal process to avoid execution—save for a pardon by the top executive in Delaware—what would “Governor William Swain Lee” do? Could he step aside? And if he did, would the decision be made by another elected official who wasn't somehow connected to Tom in his earlier incarnation as a politician popular with both Democrats and Republicans in Delaware?

Keith Brady still works for the Delaware State Attorney General's office, but he has been transferred to the civil division.

Gerry and Louie Capano were sentenced on the charges they agreed to when they finally told the federal investigators what they knew about Anne Marie's death.

Gerry had to spend an hour in a jail cell in the federal courthouse before he came to the courtroom, handcuffed, for sentencing. A U.S. district judge, Sue L. Robinson, accepted his guilty plea to illegal possession of firearms by a drug user, and sentenced him to time served and three years of supervised release. He was prohibited from leaving Delaware for sixty days, and to own or possess weapons. Earlier, Gerry had forfeited his gun collection—most of it to the government—and his brand-new $35,000 truck.

Gerry and his wife, Michelle, were arrested in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, at 1:30
A.M.
Sunday, August 15, 1999, and charged with disorderly conduct for shouting obscenities at each other on a local street. Stone Harbor police chief Steven O'Connor said that they also pelted the arresting officers with obscenities. They were charged and released, but, for Gerry, it might be more serious; he was still on probation.

For pleading guilty to interfering with a witness (Kristi Pepper), Louie was sentenced to one year's probation. He was also ordered to undergo urinalysis within fifteen days and take two follow-up tests. He was forbidden to own or possess guns. And fined $25.

Louie was also required to remain in Delaware for sixty days,
but he begged for relief from that restriction, citing his need to travel on a moment's notice for business and to caddy for his wife at golf tournaments. A few days later, the judge lifted Louie's captivity in Delaware.

Debby MacIntyre never again felt safe in her house on Delaware Avenue—not after Tom drew diagrams of every room and described the things most precious to her to a man he believed was a burglar. Frightened, she sold the little white house and bought a semidetached home. It reminded her of better days in her childhood, and she showed me the spot where her father had taught her to roller-skate.

It was obvious that the one thing Debby always wanted and never really had was a happy family. She is a talented photographer, and the walls of her home are filled with pictures she has taken of her relatives. The best of all is a poster-sized picture of her father whirling his three-year-old granddaughter Victoria.