“What’s your relationship with”—Graham, at this point, stopped for a moment and looked at a pad he had in front of him—“Beth Ann…Carpenter?”
“She works with me at my law firm. And I’m not about to bring my personal life into this conversation.”
“Again, you have no knowledge of Buzz Clinton’s murder either before or after it took place?”
“I’m really insulted now,” Clein said. “I’m really uncomfortable with talking about the case.”
“Why?”
“Well, anything I say can come back to bite either Mark or myself.”
“Tell us about your connection to Despres and the murder, Mr. Clein. We can talk about this here, right?”
“I’ll be damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” Clein said. “I’m done talking.”
Two days later, November 1, detectives set out to interview, as they now saw it, three key players: Bonnie Clein, Dick Carpenter and Beth Ann Carpenter.
At 7:50 A.M., Reggie Wardell and Paul Killoran, also an ED-MCS detective, drove to Indiantown Road in Ledyard to see if they could find Beth Ann.
Cynthia Carpenter, getting ready for work, answered the door.
“About three weeks ago,” Cynthia said when Wardell asked if she knew where Beth Ann was, “Beth Ann went to work for a friend in London.” She gave them the address. “She’ll be back on December twentieth and return to England in January 1996 and stay there until March.”
Wardell and Killoran began asking Cynthia about Buzz. They wanted to know what she had heard about the murder.
“Only what I’ve read in the papers,” Cynthia said. “I read you arrested two men.”
“Have you ever heard of them?”
“No. Neither has Richard, my husband, or my son, Richard.”
“Have you spoken to your daughter Beth Ann recently?”
“I called her and told her about the arrests.”
Cynthia went on to say that she did send Beth Ann a few newspaper clippings, but she never told her the names of those arrested, nor had she asked. Instead, Beth Ann just wanted the newspaper clippings. Wardell then got a little bit more detectivelike with his questioning. He asked whom Beth Ann was working for at the time of Buzz’s murder. “Haiman Clein,” Cynthia said.
Then he asked if it was possible that Beth Ann and Clein were lovers.
“I don’t know that for sure,” Cynthia said.
“Could these men [Despres and Fremut] have been clients of your daughter’s?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did Buzz ever take any money from you?”
“I don’t think so,” Cynthia said. “I think Beth did her banking with First Fidelity…. By the way, do you think that Beth and Haiman had anything to do with hiring those people who killed Buzz?”
“I’m surprised you would ask that question,” Wardell said. He was shocked by her candor. “We’ve never implied anytime during this interview that Beth, Haiman or any one in the Carpenter family could also be involved in the death of Buzz. Is it true,” Wardell continued, “that the Carpenter family wished Buzz’s death because of the pain he caused the family over the grandchildren?”
“Yes. But I did call Dee Clinton and offer our condolences when I heard Buzz was killed.”
The interview was obviously wearing Cynthia down some. It was running long. They were an hour into it already. As Wardell pressed, though, Cynthia kept hammering her points home. No, there wasn’t a person in her family involved in Buzz’s murder. No, she had no knowledge that Haiman Clein took it upon himself to carry out some wish of the Carpenter family. In fact, concerning Clein, Cynthia said, he wasn’t capable of doing such a thing. He had offered the Carpenters his condolences. He had been to the house at least three times since Buzz’s death and never once mentioned it. He had even brought his children over to the house to play Scrabble.
“Has Beth Ann spoken to Mr. Clein recently?”
“Before she left, she called him,” Cynthia said. Then, “I told Beth that I hoped it was over between her and Haiman when she left for England.”
Wardell and Killoran knew right then that Cynthia wasn’t being totally truthful, because earlier she had said she didn’t know for sure Haiman and Beth Ann were an item.
“Then there was a social relationship between Beth and Haiman, even though he is married?”
“I suspected it, but Beth never talked about it.”
The phone rang at about 9:00 A.M. It was Dick. He told Cynthia he was being interviewed down the road at Colonial Tire, a local hangout he went to each morning for coffee.
After Cynthia hung up, she said she would take a polygraph to convince them that she had no knowledge of the people who planned Buzz’s murder.
Before they left, Wardell gave her his business card, wrote “Kevin Kane,” the New London state’s attorney, across it and told her to call the state’s attorney’s office if she had anything more to offer.
Shortly after nine, Wardell and Killoran left. As they drove away, though, Wardell looked over at Killoran and said, “Let’s wait a bit and go back and hit her with one more question.”
“It was my Columbo move,” Wardell, laughing, said later.
At 9:45 A.M., Wardell and Killoran returned. “I have one more question,” Wardell said while standing at the doorstep.
“Come in,” Cynthia said. “I just got off the phone with Beth and Kim. I told them that you guys thought we’re involved and that Haiman has been arrested—”
“We never said Haiman Clein had been arrested.”
“You said he was in custody.”
“We said that other detectives were interviewing him.”
“What was your other question?” Cynthia asked.
“Are you sure that Mr. Clein never mentioned anything about how or why Buzz was murdered?”
“No. The whole family thinks it was over drugs.”
“Thanks.”
Detective John Szamocki and a colleague had sneaked up on Dick Carpenter while he was having his morning coffee at Colonial Tire, and Dick agreed to an interview in Szamocki’s vehicle in the parking lot.
They talked first about Despres and Fremut. Dick said he’d heard of the arrests—but he didn’t know either man.
“How are things going?” Szamocki wondered.
“Pretty good,” Dick said. “Kim is now living in Niantic with her three children. She had a ‘falling-out’ with Dee. I don’t know what it was all about. I think Kim is going with Rob Ferguson now.”
Dick then explained that Beth Ann had gone to London to work with a “friend.” He said she’d be returning in December. When Szamocki asked if she’d called since she left, Dick said no. He then talked about Clein and said he didn’t know if Beth Ann and Clein were intimately involved.
“Tell us about Buzz. You guys were having problems with him, true?”
“Yeah, there were problems,” Dick said. He then explained that a couple of years back, Kim had been dating a sailor from Virginia who was stationed at the sub base in Groton. They were planning on getting married, but she met Buzz around the same time and called the wedding off. Dick said when he, Rebecca and Cynthia went to Hampton Beach, in New Hampshire, one weekend, Buzz, Kim and the sailor broke into his house and stole “several items,” but he never reported the burglary to the cops.
Over the next hour, Dick told detectives about the custody fight that had erupted as Buzz became more of a presence in Kim’s life. He went into great detail explaining just about every problem the Carpenters had had with Buzz regarding Rebecca. He made a point to say that Dee Clinton had once accused his son, Richard, and Joseph Jebran of sexually abusing Rebecca, yet DCYS concluded that it was unsubstantiated.
Dick, however, never mentioned that the Carpenters were routinely accusing Buzz of the same thing. Instead, he said he suspected Buzz of abusing Kim, having seen bruises on her “the size of a half-dollar.” He thought Buzz was abusing drugs, too, but never saw it firsthand.
Then John Gaul’s name came up. Before Dick spoke of Gaul, though, he talked about how Rebecca would call Buzz “Daddy,” but he wasn’t her biological father. According to Dick, Rebecca would say on occasion, “Daddy hit me.” After explaining the entire John Gaul situation, Dick said Gaul dropped the idea of gaining custody of Rebecca only after Buzz threatened Tricia.
“Have you ever made a remark,” Szamocki then asked, “about contracting the murder of Buzz?”
“I jokingly may have said that.”
“When did you say it? Where were you?”
“I don’t know…maybe around Christmastime, 1993, maybe January 1994. It was right here. I said it to some of my buddies at the coffee shop. I told Cynthia I’d like to ‘do away’ with Buzz. But no one ever took it literally. I didn’t have a thing to do with this, and I know that Dee Clinton has been telling people I have.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Drugs. Drug deal. Buzz used to take money from a gas station where he worked.”
Szamocki got Dick to give him bank account numbers for all of their finances and signed a disclosure so they could later check to see if a large withdrawal had been made near the time of Buzz’s murder.
“Tell us, Dick,” Szamocki asked next, “who is it that you think most likely wanted your son-in-law dead?”
“Well, me or Cynthia would be highly probable. But it wasn’t us.”
“Who else, then?”
“Buck Clinton. He had an insurance policy on Buzz.”
“Why did you refuse a polygraph test…around the time of the murder?”
“I talked it over with Beth. She told me you guys could make the outcome anything you wanted.”
“That’s not true, Dick.”
“If you don’t have anything else to go on, then I guess I’ll take a polygraph.”
“We’ll be in touch,” Szamocki said as Dick got out of the car and went back into the coffee shop.
When Reggie Wardell and Paul Killoran showed up at Haiman Clein’s Pond Edge Drive home in Waterford to talk to Bonnie, she wouldn’t let them in.
Wardell identified who they were and showed Bonnie his ID. “You get one shot at a witness like Bonnie,” Wardell later said. “You have to be ready to ask one or two key questions. You may not get another shot after that. The witness might throw you out.”
“What do you want?” Bonnie said after opening the door.
“Can we talk to you, Mrs. Clein?”
“What about?”
“It’s personal—”
“What is it about?”
Wardell pulled two Polaroid photographs—Despres and Fremut—out of his pocket and showed them to Bonnie, without mentioning their names.
“Do you know these people?”
Bonnie pointed to Despres. “I know him.” Then at Fremut. “I saw his picture in the newspaper.”
Wardell asked her how she knew Despres, and Bonnie said he’d been a client of Haiman’s for many, many years.
“Listen,” Bonnie then said, “I shouldn’t be answering any more questions. My husband’s an attorney, and I’d like him present during any more questioning.”
Wardell handed Bonnie his business card.
“Call us if any questions arise that you might want answers to.”
Chapter 38
Within the few first weeks of being in London, working for Ali Bagherzadeh, Beth Ann began complaining about how financially strapped she was. Ali was paying her in U.S. currency and not withholding taxes, but she continued to complain about not having enough money to rent her own apartment.
Feeling a bit sorry for her, Ali allowed Beth Ann to live in the back of his office in what amounted to nothing more than a bed in an old, musty room. It was an abrupt change for someone who had come from living in luxury for so long now.
As Beth Ann began her new life, Ali immediately became impatient with her. Later, he said their relationship was “strictly platonic.” Furthermore, he didn’t involve himself too much in—“or care about”—her personal problems, which seemed to dominate everything she did.
But as the days passed, Beth Ann’s problems became almost impossible to ignore. She ran up enormous phone bills, which she never paid, talking to Clein, and continually complained about how her life had turned out. Whenever Ali, a self-proclaimed “sap,” told Beth Ann that she had to carry her weight in the office or leave, she would begin “crying and carrying on about how she had no place to live and that she had no money.”
When Mark Despres found himself confined to jail for his role in Buzz’s murder, having worked for Detective Chet Harris in the past as a paid informant, he decided to begin using Harris as his “go-to” person in law enforcement whenever he wanted to talk. On November 4, Despres reached out to Harris and got word to him that he wanted to open up about everything.
Harris contacted John Turner, who, along with Marty Graham, visited Despres at his new home: Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, Connecticut.
Without any hesitation, Despres waived his rights.
The first thing Turner wanted to know was why Despres had changed his mind so suddenly.
“I’ve heard that Joey is talking shit, spreading rumors about me,” Despres said.
“Well, let’s hear what you have to say, then?”
Despres, masking his actual role, pointed the finger at Fremut and four other people, whom he refused to name. “Me and Joey killed Buzz,” Despres admitted, “but Joey did the shooting.”
A few days after Turner and Graham spoke to Despres, they convinced Fremut to open up even more. Whether he was going to be truthful, well, that was still to be proven. F. Mac Buckley, Fremut’s attorney, had worked diligently to post bond for Fremut within the past few weeks. At $500,000, Fremut’s parents had put Fremut Texaco, their house and the land they owned up as collateral, eventually getting Fremut out of jail.
At about 9:30 A.M., on November 10, Fremut and F. Mac Buckley showed up at the ED-MCS office in Norwich. Fremut agreed to waive his rights.
For four hours, Fremut talked about Despres and how they had planned to kill Buzz months before the actual murder took place. Yet as Turner listened, he knew Fremut was trying to misrepresent certain facts. When Turner pointed it out, Fremut changed his story to fit whatever scenario Turner put in front of him. At one point, Buckley warned Fremut about telling any more lies. When it came down to it, Buckley was there to cut a deal, get a reduced sentence. He told Fremut he couldn’t do that if he continued to lie.
Finally, after Turner caught Fremut in a few more lies, Fremut ended up providing a detailed nine-page statement that provided Turner and Graham with a little more information. Fremut ended up implicating Despres even further, painting a more sinister, evil portrait of him.
“Mark told me he joined a Devil worship cult in Meriden,” Fremut said. “As long as I have known Mark, he has always been a Christian. [But]…he [later] denounced God and worshiped Satan. Mark told me that these people in the cult had connections to do hits (kill people). I told my girlfriend, Cathy White, about Mark and his Devil worship.”
Then he talked about how Despres planned the murder and how Dick Carpenter was responsible for setting it up through Haiman Clein.
By the time Fremut finished, and Turner and Graham had a chance to sit down and weigh his information against Cathy White’s, they realized that as much as Joe Fremut wanted to downplay his role, the truth was all there: times, dates, details about guns, stalking Buzz, on and on. Joe Fremut knew things that Cathy White knew that Mark Despres knew. There was no way the three of them could have all gotten together and made their stories dovetail so perfectly.
Armed with Fremut’s statement, Turner and Graham went back to Despres and told him they weren’t going to tolerate his lies any longer. But if he wanted to work with them, they just might be able to do something for him down the road.
Between December 8 and December 11, Despres finally rolled over. He told them everything he could remem
ber about the entire murder plan. Despres had even told Reggie Wardell, who had taken his statement, he was sorry for killing Buzz.
“I didn’t even know Anson Clinton. I never met Anson Clinton before the night I shot him…. I [thought] I was getting rid of a child molester. I believed Haiman Clein when he told me that Anson Clinton was a bad guy and a child molester.”
He was like a scorned child at that point, Wardell later remembered. “I wasn’t so sure, though, that he was actually sorry about what he had done. But it did tell that he did it. Saying sorry was the same as a confession.”
Indeed, why would someone say they were sorry for something they hadn’t done?
Over a two-day period, Despres wrote a twenty-nine-page statement of fact that included just about every detail he could recall—most important, the meetings he’d had with Clein and Beth Ann. Whereas for the past few weeks Mark Despres had been protecting his son, he now admitted that Chris was there, too. To bolster his truth telling even further, Despres insisted on drawing a map of the murder scene, which matched up perfectly with the facts and photographs the ED-MCS already had.
When Wardell looked at the map Despres drew of the murder scene and put it up against all the known facts, he was overwhelmed at Despres’s attention to detail.
“When I saw that,” Wardell later said, “it was clear to me that Mark Despres was at that murder scene on the night Buzz Clinton was murdered.”
But there was more. Besides the wealth of information they now had, the ED-MCS also had statements implicating both Beth Ann Carpenter and Haiman Clein, and it was now clear that Clein and Beth Ann had been the brains behind the entire operation from the get-go.
Once John Turner got Mark Despres to admit that his son had been present on the night of the murder, he and John Szamocki hauled Chris into the state’s attorney’s office for questioning.
“I’m not speaking or signing anything unless I can call my mother so she can contact my attorney,” Chris said right away.
Then he demanded they order him a pizza.
“He played hardball better than the rest of them,” Turner later said. “He absolutely shut up.”
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