Under the Knife: A Beautiful Woman, a Phony Doctor, and a Shocking Homicide (21 page)

Reporters cajoled her for interviews. They said: “You’re the good guy,” “You’re the poster child for public protection,” “You’re the one who fought so hard to get him off the street.” No amount of flattery swayed Dr. Polis. She would not agree to an interview. She did not want to win publicity out of Maria’s victimization and Dean Faiello’s handiwork.

GREG BACH WAS WORKING OUT AT THE GYM WHEN HIS CELL
phone chirped. It was one of his old neighbors from Newark. Loretta called him, he told Greg. The police were tearing up the concrete in the carriage house and Loretta heard an officer mention Greg’s name. “Could you call her and let her know what’s going on?”

Greg could hardly believe it. At long last, the police acted on his information—state troopers and other officials filled that corner of the neighborhood to everyone’s amazement. Soon Greg learned that not only had they
acted, they also confirmed his worst suspicions. There was a body buried in the concrete he had watched Dean pour that ugly day in May.

Greg’s thoughts went to the elderly housekeeper Elizabeth. While Dean’s real estate broker was trying to sell his house, she met Elizabeth. Both spoke Hungarian and the two hit it off right away. They chattered in Elizabeth’s native tongue every time the agent came to the house.

After negotiating a sale for Dean, the broker got a good price for Elizabeth’s own home, enabling her to move from Newark to Ohio to be near her son. Elizabeth—now pushing 80—was scheduled to move early that morning. Greg hoped she left before the word about Dean spread to her door. He hoped she would never learn about what Dean had done. Greg knew it would break her heart.

By the time Greg returned to his apartment, messages from the media saturated his voicemail. He stopped answering the phone.

He was astonished that the police had leaked his name, that his involvement in the discovery of the body was revealed to the news outlets. Greg willingly told his story to authorities, but did not want Dean to know of his actions. From his viewpoint, the revelation of his name demonstrated a total disregard for his privacy and personal safety. Would Dean—could Dean—retaliate?

Watching the news the day that Maria was found, he heard that the body was hidden inside a suitcase. When Della Rocca and Marony visited him at his apartment that night, he asked, “Was she found in a suitcase?” but Della Rocca denied it.

When Greg later heard a full description of the black carry-on with wheels, he wondered why the cops would lie. He could recall that suitcase very well: It had been in the garage. Then, he’d noticed, it was gone. At one point, it returned. The suitcase was an odd presence, but with all
the moving around of household items at the time, he did not give it much thought. After all, it sure did not seem big enough to hold a human body. But still, he thought, if the officers had told him the truth, his recollections might have been useful in their investigation. Greg simply did not understand their motivation.

He also did not comprehend their process of investigation. “You need to locate Dean’s Jeep Cherokee,” he told them. “Someone I know received an email from Dean. He’d inadvertently attached a document to it that provided instructions about locating and retrieving the vehicle. I think you’ll find a New Jersey State Trooper with the car in her driveway.” Greg said, alluding to Debra. “I think Dean used it to transport the body. It could contain forensic evidence.”

“Ah, well,” Della Rocca said in his heavy New York accent. “It’s probably been all cleaned up by now.”

Greg recoiled at that cavalier attitude. “While you’re turning over every stone, why don’tcha just take a look at that one?”

The detective only shrugged in response. Nothing was making any sense to Greg at all.

AT FIRST, AUTHORITIES ANNOUNCED A TENTATIVE, PRELIMI
nary identification. From the serial number on the breast implants, it appeared as if the body was indeed Maria Cruz, who had been missing since April of the previous year. During autopsy, a forensic odontologist compared Maria’s dental records with the mouth of the victim uncovered in Newark. There was a match. Maria Cruz had been found.

THE POLICE DISAPPEARED FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD AFTER A
couple of days; but for weeks afterward, bedlam reigned in Forest Hill—what had been the last quiet neighborhood in Newark. Local television vans, newspaper reporters
and stringers for national news services formed an occupation force in the vicinity of Elwood and Ridge.

Maria Cruz’s family made pilgrimages to the spot. They parked their car across the street and stared at the old white carriage house where their daughter had lain encased in cold concrete for month after month. Neighbors watched them, but left them in peace—their hearts broken in vicarious grief.

Maria’s sister Tes told reporters, “You can’t just allow somebody to die, and then throw her out like a piece of garbage. She must have had a family. Did he not think of that family?”

In their unquenchable thirst for a new angle, the media horde spread out from the immediate area. They formed outposts at every location with any connection—no matter how tenuous—to the crime. One spot was the emergency room at NYU’s Downtown Hospital. Their presence interfered with the timely administration of critical care treatment. Officials told Dr. Goldschmitt to stay away from the facility until the furor died down.

When the media got word that Dean fled the area and was now in Central America, the satellite uplink trucks, microphones and questions diminished, but did not fade away for weeks. Some of the reporters grabbed at the opportunity to leave the New York winter behind and take up the hunt for a story on the sunny shores of Costa Rica.

DEBRA FAIELLO WAS NOT TO BLAME FOR MARIA CRUZ’S DEATH
, but guilt dogged her steps just the same. She did have some knowledge of Dean’s actions. Did she know about the murder when she assumed control of the vehicle used to transport Maria’s body? Did she realize what Dean had done when she’d laid claim to Dean’s patient files? Had she learned the identity of his victim when she gained
possession of Maria’s purse and identification? Was she part of the cover-up?

Only Debra knew the answers to those questions. It was clear however that she knew her brother had broken the law by providing treatments that he wasn’t qualified to give. She knew he forged prescriptions to feed his drug habit.

Debra, a member of law enforcement, knew her brother was on the lam. She knew his whereabouts when she badgered Tom Shanahan to send him that money. She duped an upstanding and respected member of the legal community by withholding information. By doing so, had she implicated herself in a conspiracy to aid and abet a fugitive from justice?

The moment Tom Shanahan heard about the body found at Dean’s home, he called the district attorney’s office and informed them that he had unwittingly wired funds to the account of a wanted fugitive in Costa Rica. He said nothing more about Dean. No matter what Dean had done, he was still Tom’s client, and attorney-client privilege prevailed.

Shanahan felt he could ethically reveal Debra’s involvement in Dean’s flight if he received a criminal subpoena from the New Jersey State Police. Brad Hamilton, a
New York Post
reporter, agreed to attempt to broker that deal.

He called the Internal Affairs division and explained the situation. “This person wants to speak with you,” he said, “but can’t do so unless you issue a subpoena.”

“We don’t work that way. We don’t issue subpoenas to get information,” the sergeant said.

“But he wants to talk to you,” Brad said.

“Then, let him talk.”

Brad wondered what lay behind the answers.
Were the New Jersey State police willing to ignore the possibility of wrongdoing by one of their own?

ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY
22,
FRIENDS, RELATIVES—INCLUDING
Maria’s parents and siblings from the Philippines—and co-workers from Barclays gathered at the Greenwich Village Funeral Home on Bleecker Street for a two-hour prayer service in memory of Maria Cruz. The Bukas Palad Choir from Irvington, New Jersey, sang
“Hindi Kita Malilimutan.”
This sorrowful melody in Maria’s native Tagalog dialect meant “We Will Never Forget You.”

The funeral mass began at 9:30 on the morning of February 23 at Our Lady of Pompeii Church on the corner of Carmine and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village. A dominant landmark in this area of Manhattan, the Italian Renaissance-style church, with its asymmetrically placed tower, was built in 1928 on property that once was the site of a vaudeville hall and also of St. Benedict Moor, the first black Catholic church in New York City.

Constructed to serve the Italian-Americans who established the surrounding neighborhood, the church continued to offer one mass in Italian every Sunday. The congregation, however, was now far more diverse. In response to an influx of immigrants from the Philippines, the church established their Filipino Pastoral Ministry in the 1980s. Many Vietnamese worshiped regularly at Our
Lady of Pompeii and a mass in Portuguese often brought a full house of Brazilians through its doors.

On the day of Maria’s funeral, more than seventy people filled the pews of the sanctuary, surrounded by marble columns, frescoes and murals. Rudolfo Cruz clutched the back of the pew before him—the pressure of his grief-strengthened grip turning his fingertips white.

Reverend Erno Diaz officiated over the service. He spoke of Maria’s becoming, in her short life, the embodiment of the American dream. “She came from the Philippines to make it in New York. And, of course, with her brains, with her determination, and also with her courage—she made it.”

Maria’s older sister, Tes, delivered the eulogy, first addressing her words to her sister: “You were a very big dreamer. You were not afraid to move out of your comfort zone—away from your family, away from the life you had always known—to face challenges, hurdle obstacles, do whatever it takes to make your dreams come true.

“I guess, because honesty was second nature to you, you expected the same from others. But, my dear sister, I think you expected too much, because not everybody you trusted were trustworthy after all.”

To the gathered mourners, Tes said, “Pipay was a very special person. She left a legacy that nothing in this world is more important than to treasure one’s family.”

As the casket was carried out of the church, Rudolfo wailed, and his son, Jun, rested his hands on his father’s shoulders—in shared grief and in the hope of granting comfort. Rebecca de los Angeles, Maria’s aunt, embraced her sister Irenea, as she sobbed out her sorrow over the loss of her daughter.

Maria’s body slid into the hearse. Family members patted the wood of her coffin, shouting, “I love you. I love you.”

“It’s the saddest moment of my life,” Rudolfo said.

After the service, Maria’s body was cremated—her remains hermetically sealed in a heavy bronze urn. Her family flew her ashes back to the Philippines on Saturday, February 28.

Days of continuous wake followed her arrival in her native land. Hundreds of Maria’s relatives and friends attended, offering words of consolation and hugs of empathy. Then, Maria was laid to rest in a serene mausoleum with white granite floors at the Manila Memorial Park in Paranaque City on the outskirts of Manila.

Her parents visited her every day.

AS WITH OTHER TRAGIC DEATHS IN THE INTERNET AGE, CHAT
rooms exploded with messages from anyone with even marginal awareness of Dean Faiello or Maria Cruz. A resident of Forest Hill wrote:

My partner who is a glutton for gossip is following this story avidly. We live about two blocks from the compound where Maria Jeritza lived. The lady that cleaned house for us up until August of last year also cleaned the guest house that Dean Faiello, the fake plastic surgeon lived in. She has since moved to Ohio but I wonder if she knows anything. She was always telling stories.

Another voice chimed in,

Hey, that guy goes to my gym. His locker was a few over from mine. Haven’t seen him for several months. Now I know why. Black boxer briefs, by the way.

Some Internet users came to Dean’s defense:

Dean was not a scheming plotting murderer; however the path that he took was very much crooked. If anyone
saw the movie
Sunset Boulevard
, Dean could have played the part of Gloria Swanson to a tee. His crumbling Elwood Avenue home was a reflection of his personal/social aspirations. Unfortunately, Dean’s use of drugs, alcohol and his greed have extinguished the wonderful life of Maria Cruz and the energy invested by her loving family

Another made this comment:

Dean’s life went out of control, but he is no sadistic murderer. The fact that he called people to try to save her indicates that he panicked when things started to go awry. The man would not kill a bug, let alone a human, on purpose. He told someone the only time he was happy was when he was taking drugs. What a sad commentary on what could have been a beautiful life. Where will it go from here? I and many others hope his punishment leaves him enough time to make something of his life.

In response to these compassionate opinions, another writer expressed outrage.