And Never Let Her Go
Page 60
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 with 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.
O’Friel’s Irish Pub in Wilmington became the unofficial headquarters for the search for Anne Marie. The banner stayed up for almost three years, reminding people that she was still missing.
One of Wilmington’s most important and respected men, Tom Capano seemed above suspicion in Anne Marie’s disappearance. Even so, investigators wondered why he had removed a couch and replaced a brand new carpet with this cheap area rug in one room of his house.
FBI agents and Wilmington police searched the backyard of Capano’s house on North Grant Avenue on July 31, 1996. He was now the chief suspect in Anne Marie’s disappearance and probable murder. But the federal grand jury investigation was kept under wraps for a year and a half.
An FBI search warrant served on Kay Capano on July 31, 1996, included processing the SUV she had recently lent to her estranged husband. Had it been used to transport Anne Marie’s body?
Another piece of potential evidence against Capano was a large Igloo cooler that was found floating in the Atlantic off the Delaware shore.
A final piece of the puzzle was the boat that Gerry Capano often used for shark-fishing competitions in the Atlantic Ocean.
The back of Gerry Capano’s house on the Jersey shore, which led to the dock where his boat was moored.
A security camera took a picture of Tom Capano at 8:41 A.M. on June 28, 1996, as he waited for his cash at an ATM in Wilmington’s Trolley Square neighborhood. He needed the money for a chilling mission.
Miller’s Gun Center outside Wilmington, where investigators learned that someone close to Tom Capano had purchased a gun for him in May 1996.
The three members of the team that demonstrated they could make a solid case against a man who considered himself above the law. Left to right: Assistant U.S. Attorney Colm Connolly, Detective Robert Donovan of the Wilmington Police, and Delaware’s Assistant Attorney General Ferris Wharton.
Special Agent Eric Alpert of the FBI, the fourth member of the team, was the Bureau’s chief investigator in solving the mystery of Anne Marie’s fate and bringing her killer to trial.
Attorney Tom Bergstrom from Malvern, Pennsylvania, stepped in to represent Debby MacIntyre after she began to doubt Tom Capano.
Attorney David Weiss (with Robert Fahey and Kathleen Fahey-Hosey behind him) represented the Fahey family during Anne Marie’s disappearance and in a civil suit against the Capano family. He was elated in January 1999 when Tom Capano was found guilty of Anne Marie’s murder.
Judge William Swain Lee presided over Capano’s stormy and widely publicized trial. Sandwiched between his husky bailiffs, the judge left the Daniel Herrmann Courthouse in March 1999 after delivering a withering denunciation of the defendant and passing the stiffest possible sentence.
Defense attorneys Joseph Oteri (center), Eugene Maurer, Charlie Oberly, and Jack O’Donnell (latter two partially hidden) had been unsuccessful in preventing their arrogant client from taking the stand in his own defense.
Marguerite Capano was devastated by the verdict against her golden son, Tommy, and a sentence that would shatter her once proud and prosperous family. She grasped the hand of the family’s longtime priest, Father Roberto Balducelli, while her son Joey pushed her wheelchair away from the courthouse.
After hearing their father’s sentence, Tom Capano’s three younger daughters (the first two in short skirts and the girl just emerging from the doorway) were rushed to a waiting car by relatives and friends.
Kathleen Fahey-Hosey and Brian Fahey spoke to the press after sentence was passed on Tom Capano. Still in mourning, they found justice in the verdict, although little consolation for their great loss.
Debby MacIntyre escaped Tom Capano’s jealous rage, perhaps only because she had never tried to leave him. After eighteen years in a relationship that ended with another woman’s murder, she at last found the confidence to face the future on her own.
A haggard and humbled Tom Capano was led in chains from the Daniel Herrmann Courthouse in Wilmington on March 16, 1999, almost three years after Anne Marie Fahey’s disappearance and murder. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
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
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