And Never Let Her Go: Thomas Capano: The Deadly Seducer

by Ann Rule

  Despite her feelings of inadequacy on the job, Tom Carper was very happy with Anne Marie’s work. Her sister and brothers were proud of her, and she was always there to baby-sit when they needed her. The only real thing she could not control about her life was that Tom Capano had made himself indispensable. It was almost as if he had some radar that picked up the places where he could insinuate himself into her psyche. He ferreted out every vulnerability in her careful armor and seemed to play on that, drawing her a little closer with each move. She had come to need him, but she knew that it was a mortal sin to want him, and an impossibility to have him. The more she cared about Tom, the less she was able to eat. And since he was so very good to her, she could not pull away from him; he reminded her often that she hurt his feelings when she rejected him. Causing anyone else pain was anathema to Anne Marie.

  DURING December of 1994, Anne Marie accepted intellectually that she could not have Tom, but emotionally she feared she could not leave him, either. She visited her sister’s and brothers’ homes with their Christmas decorations, their rosy babies, and she wanted that for herself; and then, of course, she felt guilty for her envy.

  But Anne Marie knew she could sand off the hurtful edges of her Christmas feelings—and the old memories that came rushing back—when she saw Bob Conner during their January sessions. Finally, she had come to understand that most people had their areas of anxiety and were frightened sometimes; she wasn’t a freak and she wasn’t a hopeless case. She believed she could find a way to be free and healthy and deserving of happiness.

  Bob Conner used role-playing and cognitive therapy with Anne Marie. They could not change the past; there was no gain in harping on old hurts, and she understood that. But she could learn to shut off the thoughts that led back inevitably to her childhood and her feelings of helplessness. Going into 1995, Anne Marie was fighting as hard as she could.

  UNFORTUNATELY Anne Marie and Bob Conner would have only two more sessions. On January 5, 1995, they talked about Christmas dinner and the rage (over her father’s alcoholism) and sadness (about Nan and her mother) that Anne Marie felt. Twelve days later, on January 17, 1995, Conner’s last scribbled entry in Anne Marie’s case file read: “‘Road Less Traveled’ issues with self love.” Only he knew exactly what that meant to him—and to her—and he would not be able to explain it.

  They planned to meet again at 5 P.M. on January 24, but Conner called Anne Marie earlier that afternoon and asked if he could reschedule for the next day. He had a patient who was in crisis and he wanted to give him Anne Marie’s time slot. Of course, she said yes. There had been times when she was panicked and needed to talk.

  At 6 A.M. on January 25, Brian Fahey’s phone rang and he fumbled sleepily to grab it. He recognized Anne Marie’s voice, but she was crying so hard that he could barely make out what she was saying. And then he understood. Bob Conner was dead. His office had called Anne Marie to cancel her appointment. He had been coming home from his appointment the night before when a drunk driver crossed the center line and hit his car head-on.

  A very real force for good in Anne Marie’s life—and many others’ lives—was gone. She had counted on Conner since 1992 to help her work her way out of her anxiety and depression. She loved him like a father or a big brother, and had trusted him completely. She was grieving for him, and because she was Anne Marie, she blamed herself for his death. “If I hadn’t said it was OK to postpone my session,” she sobbed, “he wouldn’t have been out on that road so late. He would have been in his office at five with me, as always, and he would have just gone home like always.”

  Of course, that was her own circuitous reasoning, her leap to feel guilt over someone else’s pain. And she knew it, too, but it was so hard to accept that Bob Conner was gone. So hard for her to accept that nothing she had done had killed him and nothing she might have done could have saved him.

  As she often did, Anne Marie postponed writing about Conner’s death until she was able to deal with it. She had noted her appointment with him, the session that was never to be, on her calendar for January 25—“5:00 Bob C.”—and then gone back and filled in the last space on January 24: “Bob killed 6:50 p.m.”

  It would be a full month before she could truly put her feelings down:

  I loved Bob, and he has helped me grow so much, but we had a lot more work to do until I got to where I need to be at this point in my life. He was the only person who knew everything (even a little bit about Tommy [not much]) about me, and it felt great to get all this shit inside of me OUT. Bob was funny, intelligent, had a great smile, voice and sense of humor. He believed in me, and actually liked me for me. Not many people know the real Annie.

  And that was true. Few people did.

  ONCE more, Anne Marie struggled to cope with the death of someone she had loved and depended upon. She was two days away from her twenty-ninth birthday, and it was supposed to have been such a happy day. Jill Morrison, Ginny Columbus, and Jackie Binnersley were going to take her out to dinner at Toscana to celebrate. When Jill asked her if she still wanted to go, Annie said she did. She needed to be with her friends. She agreed to meet them all at Ginny’s house.

  Jackie, Ginny, and Jill waited for Anne Marie to get there for half an hour, worried. When she finally showed up, she explained that she was delayed because she’d had a surprise visitor. Tom Capano had dropped by her apartment to give her a birthday present—a twenty-seven-inch color television set. He had totally floored her with his gift.

  Tom liked television and had told her that he had a set in his home in almost every room. Anne Marie was a little shamefaced when she told her friends that Tom said he’d brought her the big set because he thought the small TV Kathleen and Patrick Hosey had given her for Christmas was “cheap and chintzy.”

  None of them knew what to say. A twenty-seven-inch TV was a pretty big present for a married man to give a single girl on her birthday. But Anne Marie’s friends knew she already felt bereft over Bob Conner’s death, and they weren’t about to make her feel worse by lecturing her on the evils of accepting lavish presents from a married man. Anyway, she knew; she berated herself more than they ever could.

  It was all too obvious that Tom was back in Anne Marie’s life, stronger than he had ever been. At first he had gone out of his way to charm her girlfriends, but in the early spring of 1995, he seemed intent on driving a wedge between her and her friends. Either he didn’t realize how much they all meant to one another or he didn’t care. Her friends knew how rough things had been for Annie. Jackie had seen firsthand the poverty and deprivation she had struggled with in school. Ginny knew how hard she had worked to get through college. They understood that if anyone was impressed with nice clothes and beautiful homes, it was Annie. They all knew that Tom Capano had the money and the sophistication to play into that. But they hoped that Anne Marie was savvy enough to know that some presents came with pretty ribbons that could entangle her.

  Chapter Twelve

  AFTER BOB CONNER DIED, Anne Marie was left floating without a net. She tried to find another counselor, but it wasn’t like changing mechanics or even dentists. It had taken her so long to feel absolutely safe with a therapist, and she could not simply switch her allegiance and her secrets to someone else. But while she was trying to find another therapist, she needed someone to confide in, and she had someone: Tom Capano.

  Tom had told her so often about how miserable he was, and she worried about him. The sacrifices that he made so that his family would be happy and the lonely life he told her he led touched her heart. As Anne Marie often told her diary, he deserved to have some happiness in his life. Now, he was listening to her sorrows and fears and seemed so concerned about her.

  Over the past year, Anne Marie had managed to distance herself from Tom for short periods, but when she was alone, he always seemed to be there, waiting. It would have been difficult for any man her own age to compete with the mystique of Tom Capano; he was a huge fish in a small pond, wealthy, cha
rming, and well liked. And he had about him a kind of secret sorrow that drew Anne Marie to him. Despite her intelligence, she was far younger than her years in terms of sophistication, a truly hopeless romantic in an era when the term was a cliché. When Tom looked sad and hopeless, her heart wept for him.

  Anne Marie knew no more about Debby MacIntyre than Debby knew about her—and that was nothing at all. And she didn’t know what Kay Capano was really like; she knew only about Tom’s life as it was channeled through his brain, spun, and pronounced.

  Four days after St. Valentine’s Day, Anne Marie received a phone call from Tom. It was a Saturday, and he mentioned that he was having a party for Buddy Freel at a friend’s house and they were going to Buddy’s Bar afterward. He didn’t invite her, but he didn’t tell her to stay away, either.

  Anne Marie went to Buddy’s Bar that night at midnight, taking Jill and Jackie along. Tom was there, but he was with Kay, something she hadn’t expected. Anne Marie was shocked when Tom shot her a look full of anger; he had never been angry with her, but then she had never surprised him when he was sitting with his wife. Tom had always orchestrated their meetings, and he had not suggested that she go to Buddy’s party or his bar.

  Feeling his rage, Anne Marie left with her friends. Naively, she had thought she could sit across the room from Tom without making him uncomfortable. But obviously, she had. Worse, she had seen him with Kay and been forced to recognize that this was a man who was definitely not free. He had a very pretty wife who didn’t look at all like the cold woman he had described. There was a familiarity between Kay and Tom that made them seem married. Tom had appeared to be having a good time with the people he was with, and the memory of the expression of absolute disgust on his face when he looked at her haunted Anne Marie.

  All unaware, she had broken one of his rules—a rule that had never been explained to her. Anne Marie was experiencing what Debby MacIntyre had lived with for years. Tom was in charge of his affairs, and he would not abide women who interfered with his carefully orchestrated schedule.

  Now that he had Anne Marie emotionally tethered to him, Tom had the power to hurt her. And he did. After her faux pas at Buddy’s Bar, he didn’t call her on either Sunday or Monday. When she called him late Monday afternoon, he was cold, and eager to get off the phone. “I have a very busy week,” he said abruptly, “and everything in my life is wrong and my life sucks.”

  Anne Marie had told Tom everything about her life, and he had instantly perceived her insecurities, her fear of rejection, her sure knowledge that she would be abandoned. Her openness had been akin to giving an enemy a map of your gun deployment. He was clearly demonstrating to her what would happen if she ever again encroached on his real life. He may even have enjoyed the panic he created in Anne Marie when he suddenly stopped calling her and as he spoke to her in a cold, annoyed voice when she called him.

  And of course, she did. She kept calling. She left a message for him on Tuesday and he didn’t return the call. He had told Anne Marie over and over again how much he loved her and needed her to fill all the dark places in his wretched life. She had come to love him and, more important, to depend upon his approval and kindness—and now he was suddenly gone.

  Tom allowed Anne Marie to twist in the wind for a week, ignoring her calls. She berated herself for all manner of inconsiderate things she must have done. “Why did I allow myself to fall in love with a married man?” she asked her diary.

  I know exactly why: Tomas is kind, caring, responsive, loving, has a beautiful heart, is extremely handsome and was kind and gentle with me. If he loves me like he used to say (which I still believe he does) then why is he treating me like this?

  The most difficult part of this relationship is the fact that I cannot talk to anyone about us . . . the only person that knows is T. And he is not talking to me. . . . Hopefully, soon the phone will ring.

  When Tom finally did call Anne Marie, he spoke to her in a voice so heavy with depression that she was stricken. He hinted that something was wrong, and she was terrified that he might be sick with some terminal disease. He would neither confirm nor deny that. She was so convinced that he was either suicidal or fatally ill that she went to St. Anthony’s to pray “to help and provide T. with the strength that he needs.”

  The game went on. Tom was unreachable, inscrutable, and spoke in such a bleak way that Anne Marie was sure she was going to lose him, just as she had lost Bob Conner only a month before. After ten days that were agonizing for Anne Marie, Tom finally called her and told her that he needed to speak with her. His message gave her hope.

  Tom grudgingly agreed to meet with Anne Marie to talk about why he felt they had no future. It was a scene that would have qualified him to write soap opera scripts, but he knew that Anne Marie was easy prey. He told her that the problem was that his feelings for her were so strong that he was jealous whenever other men said anything about her. He kissed her, held her, and shed a tear or two before he said that he needed to let her go for her own sake, for her future.

  When he made a show of forcing himself to walk away, he must have known that his scenario had worked. It always had.

  “My life doesn’t exist without Tomas,” Anne Marie wrote in her diary. “He deserves happiness—he does not deserve to be miserable! I’ll wait forever. He’s a wonderful, kind, caring, generous, sensitive man who deserves to be showered with the same kind of generosity he gives. I want to be that person!”

  She had no glimmer of what that would mean.

  ANNE MARIE’S friends saw a change in their get-togethers that spring of 1995. It was subtle at first, but they could not help but notice how nearly impossible it was to make plans with Annie.

  Jill Morrison and Anne Marie had decided to spend the evening of St. Patrick’s Day together. It was one of the major holidays in Wilmington and they were both looking forward to it. Jill was supposed to pick Annie up and then they were going to O’Friel’s.

  “I was inside the apartment, and she was finishing getting ready when the phone rang,” Jill recalled. “So I was sitting on the couch reading a magazine, and she got off the phone and said, ‘I’m really sorry I have to ask you to do this—but I need to ask you to leave.’ And I couldn’t believe I was being asked to leave, and I said, ‘Why?’ and she said Mr. Capano had called and he was very upset and needed someone to talk to, and that she would give me a call in thirty to forty minutes and we would head on over [to O’Friel’s] at that point.”

  Jill reached for her purse and stood up to leave. There was nothing else to do. Tom’s problems evidently came first.

  Jill had been back home for about forty-five minutes when Anne Marie called and said she was ready to go. When Jill asked what Tom’s pressing problem had been, Anne Marie said, “He was very upset. He was having difficulties in his marriage, and he needed to talk to someone.”

  They went to O’Friel’s and had a good time, but from that point on, it seemed that Tom was always getting in the way of any plans Anne Marie made with her girlfriends. It was almost as if he didn’t want them to have a good time together.

  When the Tour DuPont bicycle races came round again in 1995, Jill and Anne Marie planned to go to several of the functions. The first night, Jill and a friend that Anne Marie had met at the Y were to meet at her apartment. “I was really excited,” Jill said, “telling Annie how much fun we were going to have, when she said, ‘I can’t go.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean you can’t go?’ and she said she had a job interview.”

  Jill just stared at Anne Marie in confusion; she had no idea that Annie was even looking for a job, and she was curious about how it happened that she would suddenly have a job interview on the very night they had been looking forward to for months. Anne Marie was hesitant about giving details about her job search.

  “She told me that it was for a personal assistant for someone in north Wilmington,” Jill said, “where she would make the same salary [as at the governor’s office] and there also would be a
n apartment provided to her—which would have been a good thing financially.”

  But Jill smelled a rat and kept asking questions. Finally, Anne Marie said that she was supposed to have an interview with Louie Capano—an interview set up by Tom. She was adamant that she really had to go because Tom had gone to so much trouble to set up the interview with his brother.

  Jill shrugged her shoulders, and Anne Marie told them to go ahead to the races and the party afterward without her. She promised to meet them after her interview with Louie Capano. But she didn’t show up for five hours, and when she did she was wearing old jeans and Jill could see she had been crying. By that time, the bicycle races were long over and her friends were at a party at the Holiday Inn. Anne Marie didn’t want to talk about her interview with Louie. And she went into an elaborate explanation about her puffy eyes, explaining that she had been crying about Bob Conner’s death. “Things keep reminding me that he’s gone.”

  Jill looked closely at Anne Marie. Something wasn’t right, but she didn’t want to pressure her. That was the worst thing to do to Anne Marie. They didn’t work in the same office anymore; Jill had been moved to the campaign office, and that meant she saw Tom Capano fairly often, because he was on the Democratic fund-raising committee. He still struck her as a very inappropriate person for Anne Marie to be seeing—and she worried about it.

  The next night Jill and Anne Marie met for a drink at the Holiday Inn, and Jill asked again how the interview had gone. Anne Marie didn’t seem at all excited about it. Rather, she sipped at her drink with a bleak look on her face. Jill tried to phrase her questions tactfully, but Anne Marie was so discouraged that she barely knew where to start. Finally, she looked up at Jill and said quietly, “I think he wants to control me.”