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

by Ann Rule

  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.

  Things that Debby used to weep over no longer concern her. When the Wilmington Country Club told her that they were revoking her membership permanently, she laughed. After what she had been through, it didn’t matter. And at almost fifty, Debby is starting out on a new career and a new life. It seems impossible to her now that she spent almost two decades trying to please Tom Capano. With counseling, she now sees her choices in life more clearly and she is certain that she will never again allow herself to be manipulated by any man. Her daughter and son have stood solidly beside her and she is very proud of them.

  Debby’s daughter, Victoria, and Tom’s daughter Christy were longtime friends, and they bumped into each other over the 1998 Christmas holidays. They have done something that their mothers have not been able to do—and may never be able to do. They are friends again.

  Debby thought she had seen and heard the last of Tom Capano, but she got a note from Father Balducelli in July of 1999. He asked that she come to his office at the rectory. “The first thing I thought,” she said, “was that he was going to tell me they didn’t want me on the church trip to Europe. I told him I would come right over.”

  The eighty-six-year-old priest, who had been Debby’s priest for more than twenty years, told her that he had something for her—something he had held on to since mid-June. At the time Father Balducelli was very busy with St. Anthony’s of the Hills, the camp he started for children. But now he was going away for a while and felt he had to give Debby the envelope someone had given to him.

  “It was a letter from Tom,” Debby said. “I had always wondered how I would feel if Tom ever wrote to me again. And the truth is that I felt nothing. I had forgiven him, I guess, a long time ago. I don’t hate him—but we had nothing in common any longer. Our lives aren’t connected in any way.” She could see that Father Roberto wanted her to read the letter from Tom, if only so he could report back that he had delivered it. He hadn’t read it, of course; he’d read only the cover letter Tom had given to him.

  Tom’s letter began as if nothing had ever happened, as if the past three years had only been a nightmare. “He said, ‘Please sit down and write to me, Debby, privately and sincerely,’ ” Debby quoted. “And he said I had hurt his feelings when I testified that he meant nothing to me any longer.

  “I’d hurt his feelings!” Debby laughed despite herself. “The problem was that there were three very important items missing from his letter. He didn’t apologize for setting me up to be robbed. He didn’t apologize for hiring somebody to kill me. And most of all,” she said, serious again, “he never apologized for saying I killed Anne Marie.”

  Looking at his letter, which was not unlike dozens of letters he had sent her, she could, at last, see the emptiness and the narcissism of the man she had once loved. She thought, she said, of Anne Marie Fahey, who had seen through Tom a lot sooner than she herself had. “He didn’t even admit he had killed Anne Marie. He just breezed forward as he always had. He thought the past didn’t matter, and all he had to do was write another letter.”

  Debby told me that she knew she was OK. She had no reason, ever, to write to Tom Cap
ano again. But she worried about Father Roberto and she leaned across the table to be sure that he could hear her words despite his profound deafness.

  “Father, be careful,” Debby said. “Tom’s hurt everyone who’s ever tried to help him. I don’t want him to hurt you.”

  And looking into the old priest’s eyes, Debby saw that his years had brought wisdom. He had pleaded for Tom’s life, but he knew who and what Tom Capano was.

  WHEN I GO BACK to Wilmington, I see all the places where Anne Marie Fahey lived and worked. And even though I never knew her, her essence seems to linger in the city where she belonged. At O’Friel’s, where her banner still hangs, it seems almost possible that, if I only turn around fast enough, I can catch a glimpse of the young woman so many people loved.

  Acknowledgments

  WRITING THE STORY of Anne Marie Fahey’s disappearance was, in many ways, the most difficult task of my career. Not only was it a tragic story; it was also complicated and convoluted, and it involved dozens of people with widely divergent opinions. While the actual writing is my task, I have been blessed with more help than I could have ever hoped for as I researched the facts. Since I am not “Jessica Fletcher” of the television series Murder, She Wrote, I don’t solve murders; I look for the best detectives and prosecutors in America and chronicle the way they solved them and brought justice to the victims. Even though they were probably tired of talking about it, Colm Connolly, Bob Donovan, Eric Alpert, Ron Poplos, and Ferris Wharton shared their memories of this remarkable marathon investigation with me. And I could see that it had meant far more to them than merely doing their jobs.

  To tell Anne Marie’s story, it was necessary to write about her family, too. My admiration for the Faheys knows no bounds and I want to thank Robert Fahey and Kathleen Fahey-Hosey particularly for their contributions to my book. I will never forget your sister.

  The personnel in the Daniel J. Herrmann Courthouse went out of their way to be nice to me. Thanks to Kathi Carlozzi, Dolores Bledsoe, Kathleen Feldman, Julie Chapin, Christine Mason, John White, Jeanne Cahill, Maureen McCaffery, Jean Preston, Frances White, Alexis Finlan, and Patrick O’Hare.

  Thanks to Kevin Freel and the gang at O’Friel’s Irish Pub, where everyone in Wilmington shows up sooner or later.

  Ever since I began to gather information on this case in 1996 I have counted on my East Coast correspondents. Of them all, Eleanor Repole was the most insistent that there would one day be an answer to the continuing mystery of what happened to Anne Marie Fahey and that I would write a book. You were right, Eleanor! The rest of the Delaware-Maryland-Pennsylvania–New Jersey contributors are: Mary Kemp, Valarie Metzelaar, Suzi Douglass, Dov O’Nuanain, Emily Hensel, Kurt Zaller, Laurene Eckbold, Kim Sawchuk, Terri Carpe, Loretta Lawrence, Jo Ellen Brackin, Michele Hamilton, Jane Sylvester Cox, Loretta Walsh, Peggy Carter, and Jo Ann Kirk. Some of you took photographs and some helped me understand the ambiance of the area while others helped me find my way around Wilmington, Newark, New Castle, Stone Harbor, and Cape May.

  When I wrote to Debby MacIntyre, I really didn’t expect her to agree to talk with me. But she did, and I do thank her for sharing her thoughts and memories about a very painful time in her life. Debby, I wish you happier days ahead.

  Thanks to Tom and Dee Bergstrom, Pete Letang, Doug Most, David Weiss, Jack and Gemma Buckley, and Maria Avon.

  Special thank yous go to Maureen and Phil Milford, who may know more about Wilmington than anyone and who shared that knowledge and read my manuscript to be sure I had done my research accurately. And to Donna Renae, an outstanding reporter—late of Wilmington, now of Seattle—who was able to answer every question I threw at her about the long, long trial of Tom Capano. (And to her husband, Joe de Groot, for his ribs and iced tea!) To my daughter, Leslie Rule-Wagner, for her skill at photography. Even though she spent much of her time in Delaware taking “pictures” of regional ghosts for her new book, she captured every image I needed for my book.

  All books are team efforts; this book was more than that. Working with editors is a little like learning to dance with a new partner, and I am lucky that this is the fifth book I have written with Fred Hills and Burton Beals. We have long since learned to get along and understand each other almost intuitively. The rest of the team, all of whom worked overtime, are Leslie Ellen, Jennifer Love, Priscilla Holmes, Tracey Guest, Felice Javit, Chuck Antony, Andy Goldwasser, Edith Fowler, and the folks at Dix Type. Thanks to David Rosenthal, Annik LaFarge, and Carolyn Reidy for believing in this project.

  As always, I thank my first reader, Gerry Brittingham Hay, and my lifetime literary agents, Joan and Joe Foley of the Foley Agency, and my theatrical agent, Ron Bernstein of the Gersh Agency.

  This book reminded me that the bonds of family mean more than anything. I thank the family that stands behind me: Laura, Rebecca, and Matt Harris; Leslie and Kevin Wagner; Andy Rule; Mike Rule; Marni Campbell; Bruce, Machell, and O-Jazz Sherles; and Luke, Nancy, and Lucas Fiorante. To Freda and Bernie Grunwald, Donna and Stuart Basom, and cousins Chris McKenney, Sara Plushnik, Jim Sampson, Karen Hudson, Bruce Basom, Jan Schubert, Christa Hansen, Terry Hansen, Sherman Stackhouse, David Stackhouse, Lucetta May Bartley, and Glenna Jean Longwell and all their progeny.

  Most of all, I thank you, my readers, for your loyalty, your letters, and your input. I can be reached through my Web page at www.annrules.com. If you wish to contribute to the friends of Anne Marie Fahey, please go to http://links4you.com/AMF/

  Photo Credits

  Author’s collection: 2, 3, 4, 27

  Eric Crossan: 1, 5, 6, 12

  Evidence photo: 18, 24

  Fahey family collection: 8, 9, 10, 11

  Emily Hensel: 23, 28, 29

  Bob Herbert, News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware: 19

  Mary Kemp: 7, 15, 17, 30, 31, 34

  Official court photo entered into evidence by the state: 13

  Official police document entered into evidence by the state: 16

  Philadelphia Daily News: 36

  Police photo: 20, 22, 25

  Leslie Rule: 14, 21, 26, 32, 33, 35

  The four Capano brothers posed in the offices of Louis Capano & Sons, Inc., in the late 1980s. The sons of an Italian immigrant carpenter, they turned real estate in Wilmington, Delaware, into a gold mine. Left to right: Tom, Joey, Louie, and Gerry.

  Tom Capano, his wife, Kay, and their first baby girl. Tom chose the law over his family’s construction business. Rich, ambitious, and politically well connected, he was on his way to the pinnacle of respect and power in Delaware.

  Even though she was beautiful and the daughter of a socially prominent Wilmington family, Debby MacIntyre, even as a teenager, was lonely and looking for love.

  Debby, her husband, David Williams, and their baby son. David and Tom Capano worked at the same law firm, and unhappy in her marriage, Debby was attracted by Tom’s charm and self-confidence.

  Posing in Marguerite Capano’s kitchen in the summer of 1980, the wives of the young lawyers at Morris, James, Hitchens & Williams were the best of friends. Third from left: Kay Capano; third from right: Debby MacIntyre Williams, who would soon begin an affair with Kay’s husband.

  The Capano family at a wedding in 1994. Standing, from left: Tom, Louie, Lauri Merton (Louie’s wife), Gerry, his wife, Michelle, and Joey. Seated, left to right: Kay, Marguerite and Joey’s wife, Joanne. Only Lee and Marian Capano Ramunno were missing. For the Capanos, family loyalty was everything.

  The spacious house in Wilmington once occupied by Catholic bishops became the home where Tom and Kay Capano raised their four daughters.

  Beautiful, high spirited, and extremely intelligent, Anne Marie Fahey also had moments of deep sadness and self-doubt that left her vulnerable to Tom Capano’s kindness and generosity.

  Anne Marie and her brother Brian, both survivors of a tormented childhood, always looked after each other as adults. All of the Fahey family were extremely close.

  Anne Marie on a trip to Ireland wi
th Brian in 1994. Very self-conscious about her weight, she thought her legs were too fat and rarely posed in shorts.

  Kim Horstman and Anne Marie were so close that they had virtually no secrets. Kim knew that Anne Marie was having an affair with Tom Capano, whom Kim disliked and distrusted.

  Anne Marie worked for Tom Carper from 1989 to 1996, first when he was a congressman, then as his scheduling secretary when he was elected governor of Delaware. Carper played Cupid when he introduced her to Michael Scanlan.

  Anne Marie and Mike started dating frequently and got to know each other’s families. With Mike, Anne Marie believed she had found the right man at last, but she was terrified that he would discover her relationship with Tom Capano.

  Anne Marie was living in an apartment on the third floor, right, of the house at 1718 Washington Street in Wilmington when her family and friends discovered that she had completely and mysteriously disappeared.

  Investigators could find no trace of Anne Marie at the house on North Grant Avenue that Tom Capano had rented after he separated from his wife. Tom told them that he and Anne Marie had had a dinner date the night of June 27, 1996, and he had seen her safely home.

  This flyer was distributed by the Fahey family, the Wilmington Police Department, and Delaware state police in an attempt to discover Anne Marie’s whereabouts. Her family hoped for the best; the police feared the worst.