Lethal Guardian

by M. William Phelps

  Shocking nearly everyone in the courtroom, Chris told the judge—and the public for the first time—how his dad had offered him the opportunity to shoot Buzz, but he declined, shrugging it off as a joke.

  Probable cause hearings generally last no more than a day. The state presents evidence and the court makes its decision: they either go to trial or not. In many ways, it is the same as a grand jury; the only difference being there are no jurors—only a judge.

  Mark Despres had made it known that he was going to refuse to testify. In a sense, he was using his testimony as bait to save himself. But Kevin Kane, Paul Murray and Peter McShane weren’t about to be bribed by a felon, so they explained to the court that they most likely weren’t going to call Mark Despres.

  Despres, however, was brought in to testify.

  Still, under the guise of the constitutional right not to self-implicate, he refused to speak.

  Between March 29 and April 2, the state brought in twelve witnesses, each putting in place his or her piece of a complicated murder-for-hire puzzle that included a bitter child custody battle between Beth Ann and her family, and Buzz and his family. By the end of the probable cause hearing, there was no doubt that Clein had played a major role in Buzz’s death.

  The only question that remained: who else did?

  Ultimately the judge agreed. On April 3, 1996, Judge John Walsh concluded that “prosecutors presented convincing evidence” that Clein was involved in the murder.

  Clein was going to trial. He would face the death penalty if convicted.

  In Walsh’s ruling, he believed a conspiracy existed, which was a major score for Kevin Kane, Paul Murray and Peter McShane. Because now they could bring evidence into Clein’s trial that there were other people involved—mainly, Beth Ann, who was still in England.

  As the judge explained his ruling, Clein and Axelrod began conversing. When Walsh finished, Axelrod indicated that his client wanted to plead out and forgo the rest of the hearing.

  So Clein pleaded not guilty to capital felony murder and conspiracy to commit murder. His case would go to trial.

  With Clein, Despres and Fremut in jail, all awaiting court dates, the ED-MCS began to focus on Beth Ann Carpenter and, because his name had been brought up both during the probable cause hearing and in Tricia Gaul’s statement, Dick Carpenter.

  Chapter 41

  Beth Ann was buying time on a six-month tourist visa clock that had started ticking upon her arrival in England in October 1995. It was now well into the spring of 1996, and she still hadn’t secured her stay in the country. If British immigration officials tracked her down, she would be thrown out of the country like any other illegal refugee.

  When Ali Bagherzadeh had demanded his money back after Beth Ann admitted she hadn’t gone back home but instead gone on holiday to the Canary Islands, he never expected her to pay up—and she never did. So with her unpaid phone charges piling up and her visa expired, Ali went to her and told her she had to leave. She had disrupted his business, his sanity, his life.

  “I told immigration,” Beth Ann said, “that you were my boyfriend. You need to call immigration and explain to them that you’re my boyfriend.”

  “I will not call immigration, Beth,” Ali said. “Nor will I send them a letter.” Ali got louder, more forceful. “You need to call them and tell them you lied! I don’t want any problems with immigration.”

  A day later, after realizing she probably wouldn’t phone immigration, Ali phoned his lawyer and briefed him about the situation.

  For the past few weeks, Ali had stopped paying Beth Ann for the little bit of work she had been doing around the office. He was hoping it would entice her to leave.

  To his surprise, though, she didn’t go anywhere.

  In August, Ali went to France to attend his sister’s wedding. He told Beth Ann before he left that she needed to be gone when he got back.

  “I should be happy about my sister’s wedding,” he said before leaving. “But you’ve got me all stressed out because you won’t leave.”

  When he returned and saw that she was still there, “push came to shove,” Ali later told police. It was time to put his foot down. “I dragged her down the stairs and out of the office with all her goods.”

  “How can you do this to me?” Beth Ann asked. She was crying. Begging. Pleading with him to stop. “I have no money and problems in the States—and you’re doing this?”

  “Leave!” Ali said again. He was angry, and he had every right to be. He had put Beth Ann up for nearly the past year. He couldn’t do it anymore.

  “I’ll go to the police and file a complaint against you that you raped and assaulted me,” Beth Ann threatened as she left.

  Ali had no idea what “problems” Beth Ann was referring to back home. All he wanted was for her to be out of his life. Later, when investigators interviewed Ali and asked him what kinds of “problems” she might have been talking about, referring to Clein, Ali said the name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t remember why.

  “Something bizarre was going on [between them], though,” he said.

  One time, Beth Ann mentioned that Clein was nothing to her but an “old” and “fat” man who was “obsessed” with her. That’s why I left the States!” Ali then added that Clein’s secretary was obsessed with Clein, and that this same secretary was working against Beth Ann on Clein’s behalf.

  When John Turner subpoenaed Kim Clinton back in March to appear as a witness in Clein’s probable cause hearing, he found out a few things that struck him as odd. Kim had been keeping a low profile since moving out of Dee’s home. She had been dating Rob Ferguson now for a while, and it caused quite a strain between her and the Clintons. The Clintons hadn’t seen their grandchildren in some time, and Kim was shacking up with one of her dead husband’s best friends. To say the least, it was strange, many later said.

  Kim told Turner that she had not spoken to Beth Ann since December 1995, but she was on good terms with her parents.

  “Have you been reading the newspaper accounts of what’s happening?” Turner then asked.

  Kim said when she asked her mother to give her copies of the articles, Cynthia refused. So she was forced, she claimed, to go to the library and look them up herself.

  “After reading some of the articles,” Turner wanted to know next, “do you think your sister could have been involved?”

  “Beth Ann does get mad.”

  Jose Argarim, who had been talking to Beth Ann monthly since she’d been overseas, made plans to visit her over the 1996 Christmas holiday season. By this time, Jose said later, Beth Ann had been living with “two other women,” one of whom owned the house where Beth Ann was staying. Apparently, after getting thrown out of Ali’s office, she hooked up with someone she had met and talked her way into a place to stay.

  It was no secret that Beth Ann was either fixated with or attracted to Middle Eastern and Far Eastern men. She had dated Joseph Jebran and Jose Argarim, and, according to Ali, an Arab himself, she didn’t have any friends in England besides a few “dotty” and “shady” Arabs. The women Beth Ann ended up living with after she left Ali’s office were Indians.

  “She also said something about a Saudi Arabian man who was obsessed with her,” Ali recalled later to police.

  It’s highly likely Beth Ann would have stayed with anyone who would have taken her in. And to those whom she kept as close friends, it seemed each person played some role in her agenda, whatever it was—because she lied just about to everyone she befriended in Europe.

  “Beth seemed to be doing fine working in real estate,” Jose recalled. “I asked [her] several times to come back to the States, and she refused, telling me that she had better opportunities in England than in the U.S.”

  She had been thrown out of her home, had no job and was living illegally in a country that would deport her if it had known where she was. These were hardly, one could speculate, “opportunities.” On the surface of it, it appeared to be a life on the
run. Otherwise, why wouldn’t she return to the United States, where she had family and friends who could support her?

  Money was also a concern. Where was Beth Ann getting her money? Many later said her mother had been sending her money on which to live, and allowing her to use her American Express card. Jose had also admitted to financing part of Beth Ann’s life in England.

  When Jose arrived during Christmas, Beth Ann asked him if he wanted to go to Saint Martin. She was going to meet her mother, she said, and grandmother. They had planned on taking a cruise.

  Jose eventually went back to the States after spending a few weeks in England, but he ended up meeting her a month later, in January 1997, in Saint Martin, along with her mother and grandmother.

  During the week, Beth Ann confided in Jose about a dilemma she was facing. “I can’t go back to England,” she admitted. “My visa ran out.”

  She had brought all of her personal belongings to Saint Martin. She seemed to be on the move. A gypsy. No home. No place to stay. Nowhere to go. So Argarim asked the obvious next question: “Why don’t you just come back to the U.S.?”

  “I might,” Beth Ann said. “I really don’t know where I’m going.”

  Two days before the Saint Martin trip ended, Beth Ann told Jose she had made up her mind. “I’m going to Ireland! They speak English there. It will be easier for me to do real estate deals.”

  When Jose left for home, Beth Ann, as promised, went to Ireland, as she had said, to begin looking for work as a real estate lawyer. As a perk, Ireland, if one was facing charges in the States that could lead to a death sentence, had laws restricting extradition. It was not only a great place to look for work in the real estate market—but a great place for Beth Ann to make certain her life wasn’t in jeopardy. It was no secret that she was in constant contact with Hugh Keefe, her lawyer, while overseas. Both being experienced attorneys, one would have to be pretty naive not to believe they didn’t discuss the fact that Ireland wouldn’t extradite someone facing the death penalty.

  In April 1997, Mark Despres’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, Jocelyn Johnson, had her attorney send the state’s attorney’s office a package of documents that included self-incriminating statements written by Despres, who was seemingly digging a deeper hole for himself every time he opened his mouth.

  By May, Despres, facing a possible death sentence, cut a deal with the state’s attorney’s office. With the opportunity to argue for less later on, Despres would get forty-five years in prison in turn for his full cooperation.

  Then, with Despres on board, the state’s attorney’s office began to work on Clein.

  Sitting in jail with a bad heart, on scores of medications, waiting for the start of his trial, Haiman Clein began to think differently about things now that Despres had agreed to cooperate. Clein was, in many ways, a weak man, growing weaker as the days in prison wore on him. Some said he was a broken man by this point, ready to throw in the towel and help himself. With Despres talking, Clein was well aware that ultimately Despres’s testimony could send the proverbial last spike into his casket. He had to make a choice: either plead guilty and accept a similar sentence, or go to trial and hope like hell to reach at least one juror.

  On June 12, 1997, Clein took the same deal the state’s attorney’s office had already given to Despres.

  The ED-MCS next set its sights on Beth Ann.

  John Turner had been writing Beth Ann Carpenter’s arrest warrant for a few years by this point. With it signed and sealed, now all they had to do was find Beth Ann and get her back to the United States to face charges.

  Ironically, the one person who would lead the ED-MCS to Beth Ann was none other than the little girl this entire ordeal had centered around for so long: Rebecca Ann Carpenter.

  Chapter 42

  After securing its arrest warrant for Beth Ann, the ED-MCS contacted Scotland Yard and explained how the case against her had progressed recently. In the coming months, the ED-MCS would need Scotland Yard’s help in arresting, or at least finding, Beth Ann Carpenter.

  Spike-haired detective David LeBlanc, an ED-MCS cop with a list of credentials to add to his comrades’, had been brought into the investigation at various times for different reasons. When LeBlanc spoke to Tim Yates and David Cannon from Scotland Yard on October 21, they told LeBlanc that, according to just about everyone they had spoken to, Beth Ann had disappeared from England in late August.

  “They also stated that Carpenter was psychotic, possibly suicidal, and has stolen from many of her friends,” LeBlanc later wrote in this report.

  Back in May 1996, Beth Ann had tried to enter England through Stansted Airport in London, but she was turned down by immigration because of “the extended amount of time she had requested to stay.” British authorities felt she didn’t have the “financial means” necessary to sustain a life in England for the period of time she had requested. A week later, however, she was granted entry after she returned and provided the “necessary documentation.”

  By October 29, 1997, the ED-MCS, after comparing this new information with what they already knew, realized they had to find Beth Ann soon, or she just might disappear forever. So LeBlanc and Marty Graham went over to Dick Carpenter’s and asked him if he’d heard from his daughter or knew where she was.

  “I have not seen or spoken to [her] in two years,” Dick said rather stoically, as if he were fed up with answering questions. “Talk to Cynthia. She may know….”

  Cynthia was at work, so LeBlanc and Graham decided to go see Kim Clinton to see if she knew anything.

  “Any idea where Beth might be?” Graham asked Kim as they sat down in Kim’s kitchen.

  “Ireland, I think,” Kim said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Rebecca came home after a visit with my parents and stated that she wanted to ‘visit Aunt Beth in Ireland.’”

  Graham and LeBlanc knew that kids don’t normally make things up when not confronted. Rebecca had literally blurted out this information to her mother without being asked for it.

  “Thanks,” LeBlanc said, handing Kim his business card. “We’ll be in touch. If you think of anything else, give me a call.”

  Later that night, Kim phoned. She had something else.

  “My father just told me that my mother just left for five days. When I asked him where, he said, ‘To your grandmother’s house.’ My grandmother’s house is in South Windsor [in Connecticut]. This is highly unusual. My mother never misses work.”

  “Thanks, Kim.”

  “Wherever my mother is, David, I’m sure you’ll find Beth.”

  When Hugh Keefe was notified later that day of the pending arrest warrant for his client, he informed the state’s attorney’s office he would make arrangements to have Beth Ann turn herself in.

  LeBlanc and Graham weren’t waiting for Hugh Keefe to make a move. Who knew how long it would take or what he was up to?

  A few days before Cynthia left for Ireland, Cathy Taber, a coworker of Cynthia’s, walked in on Cynthia as she was sobbing quite animatedly in an office Taber and Cynthia shared at Roncalli Health Care. It was October 28, 1997.

  “What’s wrong?” Taber asked, consoling her friend.

  “My daughter is in trouble with some men,” Cynthia said.

  It was later that same night when Cynthia told coworkers she had to leave work right away to go see Beth Ann in Ireland. She didn’t know how long she would be gone.

  When authorities were alerted to the fact that Cynthia was somewhere in Ireland, possibly helping her daughter allude capture, it didn’t take them long to get a bead on where she was.

  On November 2, it was learned that Cynthia had checked into a Dublin hotel on October 30. She had paid in full for one night, the clerk said. When authorities checked her room, however, it was obvious she was using the room as some sort of front—because her bed hadn’t been slept in, and her things were just lying around as if she had abandoned the place and left abruptly. Going through h
er things, authorities found a letter from an “attorney in Connecticut” that led them to believe that Beth Ann was wanted for murder.

  It confirmed the connection.

  Later, when Cynthia was asked about the trip, she claimed she went to Ireland on a “sight-seeing” trip.

  It was only a matter of where and when Beth Ann was going to be captured by the Garda, Dublin’s foremost law enforcement authority. Sergeants Michael Heffernan and Martin O’Neil, two of the Garda’s most experienced detectives, were onto her. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, Heffernan told the ED-MCS, they would grab her. After that, it was up to the courts to decide where she went.

  Contrary to what Beth Ann had told Jose Argarim, she didn’t go to Ireland to look for work as a real estate attorney—at least not at first. She went to Ireland and immediately began working at the Marion Inn, a pub in Dublin. Her first job at Marion was as a waitress, but she soon requested a job that would take her out of public view: dishwasher. This abrupt request, Beth Ann’s former boss Eamonn McCormack later recalled, struck him as being a bit peculiar.

  “It was an unusual change,” McCormack said, “because working in the kitchen was a lot harder work than that of a waitress, and a waitress makes more money….”

  Quite the change of careers, indeed—from a lawyer to a waitress to a dishwasher.

  Beth Ann, however, couldn’t practice law in Ireland without first being licensed, and she had just started taking law classes twice a week, according to McCormack, at the University of Dublin while she worked at Marion. She also told a coworker at Marion that she was just working at Marion to make ends meet. Her parents had been sending her checks from back home, but it wasn’t enough money. When this same coworker asked why she had moved to Ireland from England, Beth Ann said, “Because I was involved in an accident in the UK and am now fighting a civil suit for damages.” Beth Ann later would tell authorities her mother was in Ireland to help her with that civil suit.

  While at school in Ireland, Beth Ann began living with a local woman who had placed an ad at the school looking for boarders. Within no time, Beth Ann was bragging to the woman about the lavish lifestyle she had left behind in America.