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