Another Case of Murder Sans Body
Virginia E Hench
: There was a case around Radford, VA back in the 1980's where there was no
: body ever found. The guy was convicted, too, and I don't believe DNA was in
: use at that time. The victim (a female) was a student at VPI, I believe,
: and roommated with her sister. She left a club one night with a guy and was
: never seen again. A police dog followed a scent to the suspect's house and
: that's about all I recall.
Aloha - yes, that case was Commonwealth v.
Epperly. Steven Epperly was convicted of
murdering Gina Hall. To this day, Gina Hall's
body has not been found. (Her blood stained
clothes were found, however) . Epperly
filed numerous appeals challenging the dog-
tracking evidence, but his conviction still
stands.
An interesting case.
Charles Manson was also convicted of the murder
of "Shorty" Shea without a body (though Shea's body
was found many years later.
It is not necessary to have a body to prove murder.
It is necessary to prove that the missing person
is dead, and by a criminal act, before a murder
trial can go forward. A body is persuasive proof of
death, but not the only acceptable proof.
Aloha, corpus delicti fans --
Ginny Hench (law prof)
Virginia E Hench
in Virginia. Not in the US, however.
It was also the first in which dog-
tracking evidence was used as proof of
identity of the killer, as opposed to
(for example) locating a fleeing suspect.
Aloha, Ginny Hench (law prof) he...@hawaii.edu
YaKnow (YaK...@ImHere.Net) wrote:
: Babyface wrote in message <01be35e0$b34f07c0$941564d1@juno>...
: >Hey! That was me talking about that same case a few weeks ago, and asking
: >about killers being convicted without a body being found. The killer's
: >name was Steven I think, and the girl's name was Gina Hall???? Was it the
: >*first* case of that nature, or did it just get a lot of press in this
: >area?
: Those names do sound familiar and I seem to recall that you are correct on
: it being a first. I'll search a bit and see if I can track anything else
: down.
Babyface
about killers being convicted without a body being found. The killer's
name was Steven I think, and the girl's name was Gina Hall???? Was it the
*first* case of that nature, or did it just get a lot of press in this
area?
Babyface
The probability of someone watching you is proportional to
the stupidity of your action.
YaKnow <YaK...@ImHere.Net> wrote in article
<0Ucj2.41$eX....@news-west.eli.net>...
>
> Maggie8097 wrote in message
<19990101170906...@ng109.aol.com>...
> >Interesting story, here. Someone asked, several weeks ago about how
many
> >defendants had been convicted of murder when no body was found. This
> article
> >doesn't answer that question, but does say that 60 murder trials have
been
> held
> >in the US without bodies, but with DNA evidence.
YaKnow
Maggie8097
defendants had been convicted of murder when no body was found. This article
doesn't answer that question, but does say that 60 murder trials have been held
in the US without bodies, but with DNA evidence.
Traces of body on saw led to arrest
High bail set in Quincy murder case
By Cindy Rodríguez, Globe Staff, 01/01/98
QUINCY - Traces of blood, bone, and skin tissue found on an electric saw
gave investigators the evidence they needed to charge Joseph Romano with
the murder of his wife, ending a three-month investigation.
DNA tests confirmed the tissue was Katherine Leonard Romano's,
investigators said, buttressing a police theory that her husband sliced
her body into pieces and helped unsuspecting garbage collectors load the
bagged remains on their truck.
At his arraignment yesterday, , Joseph Romano, 41, kept his Ironworkers
jacket over his head, covering all but his eyes.
He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, even as investigators
chronicled his wife's slaying. According to Norfolk District Attorney
Jeffrey Locke, Romano killed his wife in the bedroom where she slept
alone, then sliced up her body using a Sawzall, an electric construction
saw that can cut metal.
Investigators said Romano borrowed the saw from a friend and then
returned it after the crime. They said the friend's wife at some point
became suspicious and called police. The original blade had been
replaced, authorities said, but tissue traces were found on the handle
and other parts of the tool.
Police never found her body, but investigators theorize that Romano
placed her dismembered remains in the trash.
On Sept. 28, the morning after Eugene Leonard reported his daughter
missing, Joseph Romano helped trash collectors load 15 bags from his
Houghs Neck home in Quincy onto their truck, investigators said.
If her body was in those bags, it was incinerated long ago. But even
without a body, Locke is confident Romano can be convicted. Science, he
said, is infallible.
''What this latest testing has shown us is that we can explain the
absence of the body,'' Locke said. He said 60 murder cases in the United
States have gone to trial in which DNA evidence was introduced although
no bodies were found.
Romano's arrest brought some relief to Katherine's mother, but she said
there will never be closure.
''There's no revenge because vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord. There's
no justice,'' Katherine Godfrey said. ''I look at Joseph Romano being
locked up as preventative medicine, as damage control. There, he won't
be able to destroy anyone else.''
In court, Assistant District Attorney Daniel Flaherty asked Judge Joseph
Macy to hold Romano on no bail. Macy, however, set bail at $500,000 cash
- an amount Locke said he doubts Romano will be able to post.
Macy told Romano that if he makes bail, he will have to report to
probation officials every day.
''Do you understand that, Mr. Romano?'' Macy asked.
''Yeah,'' Romano said, his gravelly voice muffled by his jacket.
As officers led Romano away, a voice echoed in the courtroom: ''You
goddamn coward, Joe!''
It was the voice of Susan Gazzolo, a friend of Katherine Romano's, who
sat three rows back, her eye makeup smudged by tears.
For outgoing district attorney Locke, the investigation was a victory.
''I'm proud of the fact we can end 1998 by bringing justice to the
disappearance and death of Katherine Romano. She deserves justice.''
Katherine Romano, a 39-year-old ironworker, was last seen Sept. 27 at a
gas station not far from her home in Houghs Neck.
Her father reported her missing two days later, when she failed to
return phone messages to him and his ex-wife, Katherine Godfrey, who now
lives in Florida.
All the while, Joseph Romano told his in-laws and friends that Katherine
probably just ''took off,'' leaving him to care for their 2-year-old
son, Bruno.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Romano told an officer who
arrived at his home Sept. 29, ''Who the hell knows where she went?''
Officer Richard Gilmore asked Romano if he could look around the home,
and when he did, he noticed a bed missing from one of the bedrooms.
Within a day, investigators returned with a search warrant. Using
special chemical agents, investigators found splatters of blood on the
walls and floor of the bedroom.
In the bedroom, and the child's bedroom, investigators found evidence of
''medium velocity impact'' blood splatter - signaling blunt force trauma
may have been used.
It's unclear exactly what caused Katherine's death, but Godfrey believes
Romano bludgeoned her daughter in front of their son.
The son, Bruno, is in the custody of another of Godfrey's daughters.
Godfrey said pediatric trauma specialists at Boston Medical Center used
dolls to piece together what Bruno saw, and after he had the daddy doll
fighting with the mommy doll, he curled into a ball and sobbed,
''Mommy's hurt! Mommy's hurt!''
''The baby saw it,'' Godfrey said. ''He saw everything.''
This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 01/01/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.
Maggie
"It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few
by deceit." --Noel Coward
John R. Woodward
Maggie8097 wrote in message >Traces of body on saw led to arrest
>High bail set in Quincy murder case
>
>By Cindy Rodríguez, Globe Staff, 01/01/98
>
This case reminds me of two tc books: THE WOODCHIPPER MURDER (woman named
Helle Kraft (Craft?) murdered by her airline-pilot husband who fed her
frozen body into a woodchipper and dumped the chips in a river. The case was
made on the basis of a few teeth and bone chips, partly with the help of Dr.
Henry Lee, later to become an evidence whore for Team Simpson. It also
reminds me of IN A CHILD'S NAME by Peter Maas; the detectives in that case
knew they had a homicide as soon as they sprayed the house with Luminol,
simply because there couldn't have been such a volume of blood spilled
without the victim dying. (However, Ms. Taylor's body was soon found where
her husband had dumped it.) The Helle Craft (Kraft?) case pre-dated DNA
testing, but Dr. Lee did use blood typing.
John R. Woodward
Ernest Volkman and John Cummings. It tells the story of NYPD Officer Robert
Fioretti, who murdered his wife, Rita, and hid her body so carefully that he
was never charged with the murder. Instead, Federal authorities charged him
with looting her bank account after she was dead. It was a tricky case to
make: the prosecutor wanted the jury to understand that she had died at
Fioretti's hands, but he could not come out and says so. There was also a
decomposed "Jane Doe" body, found washed up on a beach, which was given DNA
tests that turned out to be ambiguous. The body could not be identified as
Rita, but it couldn't be ruled out, either. DNA testing was still new and
uncertain at this time, and the scientists doing the test had to use a
sample from her son for comparison purposes, as they lacked a sample from
Rita herself. The case eventually grew from the murder of Rita and the theft
of her savings to include horrific child abuse (physical and sexual) and
official corruption in the NYPD. It belongs on every tc reader's shelf.
KAINE SIS2
>There was a case where two people were murdered. They had sailed
>to Hawaii, if I recall, and then to another island, and a fellow was
>convicted
>of it - maybe his girlfriend, too. The bodies hadn't been found at
>the time of his trial.
>
>Sorry, I can't remember the name of the case, but I read the tc book.
>
>kathleen
>
"And the Sea Will Tell" was the name of the
book and the tv movie, I think.
Kathy
Babyface
> Babyface wrote
> >Hey! That was me talking about that same case a few weeks ago, and
asking
> >about killers being convicted without a body being found. The killer's
> >name was Steven I think, and the girl's name was Gina Hall???? Was it
the
> >*first* case of that nature, or did it just get a lot of press in this
> >area?
>
>
she
> never would've just gone home with a bar pick-up due to being shy about
the
> disfigurement. And I remember the police dragging a lake for her body
> (probably Claytor Lake) but not finding it.
>
> I know bloodhounds were important in catching the suspect. I could
easily
> be wrong but it almost seems that they found her car and then used dogs
who
> went straight from the car to the suspect's house. Anyway, a nice page
> about the use of bloodhounds is at:
>
> http://www.civil.mtu.edu/~hssantef/sar/others/Hardy/Bloodhounds.html
>
That sounds right about the bloodhounds. I thought they found blood in the
car, and she was seen with him some time that night (at the bar)?
Didn't they dig up the new foundation to the Dedman center that had just
been poured because they thought he may have buried her there and added
some more concrete on top.....or was it just a rumor?
I tried to find something on this case the last time this was brought up,
but I couldn't remember the guy's name. I keep wanting to say Chapman, but
I know that's not it. Does that jar a name loose for ya (-: ?
Babyface
YaKnow
Babyface wrote in message <01be35e0$b34f07c0$941564d1@juno>...
DOG3
In article <19990101170906...@ng109.aol.com>,
maggi...@aol.comSPAMBLOC (Maggie8097) writes:
>
>Police never found her body, but investigators theorize that Romano
>placed her dismembered remains in the trash.
>
Hmmm.... this is really interesting Maggie. Police *theorized* and then
charged the man. Very weird. Granted the DNA evidence is strong but how do
they know that she was actually murdered without the body, or at least a body
part or two ?
Michael
"The sole root of mans' unhappiness is that man does not know how
to sit and stay quietly in his room"
- Found on the bathroom wall in a Buffalo, NY bar
YaKnow
Babyface wrote in message <01be35e0$b34f07c0$941564d1@juno>...
>Hey! That was me talking about that same case a few weeks ago, and asking
>about killers being convicted without a body being found. The killer's
>name was Steven I think, and the girl's name was Gina Hall???? Was it the
>*first* case of that nature, or did it just get a lot of press in this
>area?
John R. Woodward
kathleen wrote in message <368D39F0...@netscape.net>...Re murder convictions without bodies:There was a case where two people were murdered. They had sailed to Hawaii, if I recall, and then to another island, and a fellow was convicted of it - maybe his girlfriend, too. The bodies hadn't been found at the time of his trial.
Sorry, I can't remember the name of the case, but I read the tc book.
kathleen
(server acting up tonight - can't quote posts)
AND THE SEA WILL TELL, by Vincent Bugliosi (prosecutor of the Manson Family and author of HELTER SKELTER). In this case, Bugliosi undertook to defend the wife on murder charges because he became convinced that she did not know her husband had planned to murder their friends, and believed him when he denied doing so for years. It's a good book, and goes thoroughly into the issue of her husband's guilt and his trial and conviction. I'd have to say that I did feel that the wife's testimony that she really didn't believe her husband had done the deed, when confronted with a great deal of evidence against him, was at least disingenous. She didn't WANT to believe, because then her danger and her responsibility would be too great.
John R. Woodward
Haya...@webtv.net wrote in message
<17191-36...@newsd-123.bryant.webtv.net>...
Hope I'm not being redundant by mentioning a case that somebody already
mentioned: There was a case in Penn. (probably in the 70's or perhaps
early 80's). Joseph Waumbaugh wrote a book about it, and it was made
into a movie with Peter Coyote. They never found the victim's body, but
the defendant was convicted anyway.
ECHOS IN THE DARKNESS -- the strangest tc case I ever read.
The victim was a high school English teacher murdered by her principal, a
part-time robber and drug dealer and the US Army Reserve Chief of Staff to
Dwight Eisenhower's son! The other conspirator in the case was her
department head. Their motive was a really weird financial scheme and it
took seven years to clear the so-called "Main Line Murder Case."
But I had to rain on yer parade -- the DID find the main victim's body. For
the scheme to work, it had to be known that she was dead. It was the bodies
of her children that were never found, and as far as I know they remain
missing.
If you haven't read, it by all means get a copy. The weirdness only starts
with the bits I mentioned above. And this wasn't some kind of Manson Family
thing; the players were respected middle-class educated folks who worked at
an elite public high school in a suburb of Philly.
Martha Sprowles
>
> You are right about finding the woman's body but not the kids' (it's
> been awhile since I read it). The one thing that really stuck in my
> mind was that the killer was a huge fan of the poet Ezra Pound.
This is the Susan Reinert murder case. William Bradfield, the English
department head who was convicted of her murder and the murders of her
two young children and sentenced to life in prison, died last year from
a heart attack. In his cell were found many pages of text written in
code and a photograph of some kind of upright stone in a wooded setting.
The photo of the stone has been published widely in the hope that
someone will recognize it; cops feel it *might* be a grave marker for
the children's bodies.
Reinert's body was found in the back of a hatchback car in a motel
parking lot just outside Harrisburg PA.
The other suspect, her principal, was Jay C. Smith, who had a record of
armed robbery. His trial had many flaws and his conviction has been
overturned, with no new trial to be permitted. He is still suspected of
involvement in the disappearance of his daughter and her husband a few
years before the Reinert murder; their bodies have never been found, and
they are presumed to be dead.
Martha
Martha Sprowles
>
> Hope I'm not being redundant by mentioning a case that somebody already
> mentioned: There was a case in Penn. (probably in the 70's or perhaps
> early 80's). Joseph Waumbaugh wrote a book about it, and it was made
> into a movie with Peter Coyote. They never found the victim's body, but
> the defendant was convicted anyway.
Wasn't there are really famous case in the (?) 1920's where a janitor
killed a little girl and burned her body completely in the school
furnace? Didn't that case establish first, that it *is* possible to
burn a body without leaving a trace, and second, that a murder
conviction is possible sans corpse? Wish I could remember the names.
Martha
Rosecyrus
>in Virginia. Not in the US, however.
Another book about a "no body" case, Corpus Delicti by Diane Wagner. Published
1986. Involved a wealthy woman, Evelyn Thorsby Mumper who married a man named
L. Ewing Scott. She disappeared in 1955 and he was subsequently convicted of
first degree murder. There's some implication in the book that this was the
first no body case where the person convicted had not confessed or acknowledged
that the person was dead. He was released from San Quentin March 26, 1978 and
in 1984 did confess to the author of the book that he had killed his wife.
There's no indication that any effort was made to check out his confession.
Rose
glas
|
|ECHOS IN THE DARKNESS -- the strangest tc case I ever read.
|
|The victim was a high school English teacher murdered by her principal, a
|part-time robber and drug dealer and the US Army Reserve Chief of Staff to
|Dwight Eisenhower's son! The other conspirator in the case was her
|department head. Their motive was a really weird financial scheme and it
|took seven years to clear the so-called "Main Line Murder Case."
|
|But I had to rain on yer parade -- the DID find the main victim's body. For
|the scheme to work, it had to be known that she was dead. It was the bodies
|of her children that were never found, and as far as I know they remain
|missing.
|
|If you haven't read, it by all means get a copy. The weirdness only starts
|with the bits I mentioned above. And this wasn't some kind of Manson Family
|thing; the players were respected middle-class educated folks who worked at
|an elite public high school in a suburb of Philly.
Thanks for the heads-up John. I've seen this book many times in the
bookstores and passed it up, next time I'll give it a go.
glas
Haya...@webtv.net
Babyface
now instead of over here in VA drowning in ice and snow!!!
Aloha to you, too!
--
Babyface
The probability of someone watching you is proportional to
the stupidity of your action.
Virginia E Hench <he...@Hawaii.Edu> wrote in article
<76n7it$n...@news.Hawaii.Edu>...
> Hi - It was the first no-body conviction
> in Virginia. Not in the US, however.
> It was also the first in which dog-
> tracking evidence was used as proof of
> identity of the killer, as opposed to
> (for example) locating a fleeing suspect.
>
> Aloha, Ginny Hench (law prof) he...@hawaii.edu
>
> YaKnow (YaK...@ImHere.Net) wrote:
>
> : Babyface wrote in message <01be35e0$b34f07c0$941564d1@juno>...
> : >Hey! That was me talking about that same case a few weeks ago, and
asking
> : >about killers being convicted without a body being found. The
killer's
> : >name was Steven I think, and the girl's name was Gina Hall???? Was it
the
> : >*first* case of that nature, or did it just get a lot of press in this
John R. Woodward
Martha Sprowles wrote in message <369019...@erols.com>...
<snip a good summary of the Reinert case>
>The other suspect, her principal, was Jay C. Smith, who had a record of
>armed robbery. His trial had many flaws and his conviction has been
>overturned, with no new trial to be permitted. He is still suspected of
>involvement in the disappearance of his daughter and her husband a few
>years before the Reinert murder; their bodies have never been found, and
>they are presumed to be dead.
>
>Martha
I didn't know this. ECHOS IN THE DARKNESS made him sound like a very
dangerous man. Is he out of prison? If so, where is he? Was his conviction
in the armed robbery cases overturned? In ECHOS, the police theory was that
William Bradfield concocted the scheme and that Jay Smith was actually the
killer. Smith's motivation was a share of the loot and Bradfield's promise
to offer him an alibi in one of the armed robbery cases. On what grounds was
Smith's conviction overturned? I'm not arguing with your facts, Martha, I'm
just upset. I'd like to read more about how he got out of prison. Do you
remember the part in ECHOS where he had ordered some porno magazine to be
delivered to him in prison, and the cops thought it was because one of the
pictures resembled Susan Reinert in the position in which she was found
inside her car? I'd hate to think Jay Smith was loose . . . even at 65+
(which he must be, by now) he could be dangerous.
The Creep from Calfornia that chopped off the girl's arms and left her to
die (I forget his name -- bad with names, alas) served his time, and
eventually settled in the Tampa area (it's always Florida that these guys
come to). Just two years ago, he killed a prostitute, and he was past 70.
Lawrence somebody.
AAAAAAACK! It just occured to me! Like David Hendricks, Jay Smith is
probably here in Florida!
Haya...@webtv.net
Virginia E Hench
and Stephanie Stearns (she was called
Jennifer Jenkins in the book and movie)
Both were convicted of stealing the
Grahams' boat from Palmyra. Then Mrs.
Graham's bones were found, and both
Buck and Stephanie were tried for her
murder. Buck was convicted, Stephanie
was acqquitted.
No one has ever been tried for Mack
Graham's murder.
Aloha, Ginny Hench (law prof)
he...@hawaii.edu
KAINE SIS2 (kain...@aol.com) wrote:
: >
: >There was a case where two people were murdered. They had sailed
: >to Hawaii, if I recall, and then to another island, and a fellow was
: >convicted
: >of it - maybe his girlfriend, too. The bodies hadn't been found at
: >the time of his trial.
: >
: >Sorry, I can't remember the name of the case, but I read the tc book.
: >
: >kathleen
: >
: "And the Sea Will Tell" was the name of the
taco
Michelle Dorr this year. Michelle Dorr's body has never been found. She
disappeared several years ago out of her father's back yard.
Hadden Clark is serving a life sentence for the murder of a young woman
in her 20's.
taco
-Kat-
much snipping of john's excellent info
>
> The Creep from Calfornia that chopped off the girl's arms and left her to
> die (I forget his name -- bad with names, alas) served his time, and
> eventually settled in the Tampa area (it's always Florida that these guys
> come to). Just two years ago, he killed a prostitute, and he was past 70.
> Lawrence somebody.
It's Lawrence Bittiker(sp.).
-Kat-, alone and bored again-kids went to Vegas w/o me!
Martha Sprowles
>
> Martha Sprowles wrote in message <369019...@erols.com>...
>
> <snip a good summary of the Reinert case>
>
> >The other suspect, her principal, was Jay C. Smith, who had a record of
> >armed robbery. His trial had many flaws and his conviction has been
> >overturned, with no new trial to be permitted. He is still suspected of
> >involvement in the disappearance of his daughter and her husband a few
> >years before the Reinert murder; their bodies have never been found, and
> >they are presumed to be dead.
> >
> >Martha
>
> I didn't know this. ECHOS IN THE DARKNESS made him sound like a very
> dangerous man. Is he out of prison?
Yes.
> If so, where is he?
I can't recall; seems like PA, though.
> Was his conviction
> in the armed robbery cases overturned?
No. I think he probably had served whatever term he got for them.
> In ECHOS, the police theory was that
> William Bradfield concocted the scheme and that Jay Smith was actually the
> killer. Smith's motivation was a share of the loot and Bradfield's promise
> to offer him an alibi in one of the armed robbery cases. On what grounds was
> Smith's conviction overturned?
Interestingly enough, Wambaugh figures in it. The court of appeals
found a boatload of judicial misconduct, probably the most important of
which was the state cops' loss of some grains of sand that allegedly
were near the body when it was found, which would presumably support
Smith's alibi--that is, that Reinert did indeed go to the shore, where
Smith could prove he *wasn't*. The chief prosecutor (I want to say
Constantinopolous?) admitted that he had been paid by Wambaugh and given
heavy hints by Wambaugh in conjunction with the payments (which I
believe in and of themselves were legal) that the more interesting the
story was, and the more "tied-up" all the strands were, the better his
book would sell and the more grateful Wambaugh would be to
Constantinopolous or whoever it was. Const. probably truly believed
Smith was at least involved (don't we all?) but the evidence that Smith
had not received a fair trial must have been overwhelming because I've
never heard of a case where the appeals court specifically orders that
the case against a person was not to be reopened, and that's what
happened in this case.
> I'm not arguing with your facts, Martha, I'm
> just upset. I'd like to read more about how he got out of prison.
If the Philadelphia Inquirer Online has an archive, you might be able to
find stories there. He was released I think over a year ago.
> Do you
> remember the part in ECHOS where he had ordered some porno magazine to be
> delivered to him in prison, and the cops thought it was because one of the
> pictures resembled Susan Reinert in the position in which she was found
> inside her car?
Yes, I do.
I'd hate to think Jay Smith was loose . . . even at 65+
> (which he must be, by now) he could be dangerous.
>
> The Creep from Calfornia that chopped off the girl's arms and left her to
> die (I forget his name -- bad with names, alas) served his time, and
> eventually settled in the Tampa area (it's always Florida that these guys
> come to). Just two years ago, he killed a prostitute, and he was past 70.
> Lawrence somebody.
>
> AAAAAAACK! It just occured to me! Like David Hendricks, Jay Smith is
> probably here in Florida!
I'm pretty sure he's up here with me, actually--unless he goes south for
his orthotics needs.
Martha
Babyface
-Kat- <ka...@theoffice.net.WorkingAllNight> wrote in article
<36907E76...@theoffice.net.WorkingAllNight>...
> "John R. Woodward" wrote:
>
> much snipping of john's excellent info
> >
> > The Creep from Calfornia that chopped off the girl's arms and left her
to
> > die (I forget his name -- bad with names, alas) served his time, and
> > eventually settled in the Tampa area (it's always Florida that these
guys
> > come to). Just two years ago, he killed a prostitute, and he was past
70.
> > Lawrence somebody.
>
>
> It's Lawrence Bittiker(sp.).
>
> -Kat-, alone and bored again-kids went to Vegas w/o me!
>
>
I think Lawrence Bittaker was the pliers guy. (-: I think the guy that
chopped off the arms was Singleton. ( I think, I think)
Babyface
John R. Woodward
Babyface wrote in message <01be37e4$bf947000$df1564d1@juno>...
Babyface is correct! I found a mention of Singleton in a list I wrote up
once of murderers who moved to Florida.
And Bittaker is in John Douglas's books -- he was the pliers guy, one half
of murdering team.
But thanks to Kat, too, for at least trying.
John R. Woodward
The other suspect, her principal, was Jay C. Smith, who had a record
of
armed robbery. His trial had many flaws and his conviction has been
overturned, with no new trial to be permitted. He is still suspected
of
involvement in the disappearance of his daughter and her husband a
few
years before the Reinert murder; their bodies have never been found,
and
they are presumed to be dead.
In ECHOS, the police theory was that
Do you
remember the part in ECHOS where he had ordered some porno magazine to be
delivered to him in prison, and the cops thought it was because one of the
pictures resembled Susan Reinert in the position in which she was found
inside her car?
Yes, I do.
AAAAAAACK! It just occured to me! Like David Hendricks, Jay Smith is
probably here in Florida!
I'm pretty sure he's up here with me, [ in Pennsylvannia -- JRW]
actually--unless he goes south for
his orthotics needs.
Martha
Oh, Martha, you are wicked . . . I sincerely hope he doesn't start hankering
for a "golden retirement." I guess they never nailed him for the murder of
his daughter and her boyfriend, huh?
The only thing I could find was this listing on alt.politics.liberalism from
a while ago (via Dejanews). It was part of a massive listing of persons
sentenced to death who were letter set free, or at least retroactively
deemed innocent of the capital charge(s).
> 50 . Jay C. Smith (Pennsylvania, Convicted 1986, Released 1992) A former
> high school principal who was convicted of the 1979 murder of 3 people,
> though his death sentence was later reduce to life. He was freed after
> the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the prosecution
> had withheld crucial evidence, calling the state's action "egregious"
> misconduct.
Could they reopen the case if they find the bodies of the children? I
suppose not.
At least William Bradfield never got Susan's money, so Smith never got his
share, plus he didn't get to skate on the robbery charges thanks to an alibi
from Bradfield. Wonder what he's doing now? If I were Sue Meyers
(Bradfield's ex who testified), I would now be living in South Gobi or some
suitable place.
Did Smith sue or threaten to sue Wambaugh?
One thing puzzles me: I saw a copy in the bookstore recently (new), which I
leafed through to see if any kind of update had been added (as Ann Rule so
often does). There was no mention of an appeal setting Smith free. Evidently
this is not something that affects the sale and distribution of a book that
describes him as a vile, psychotic, substance-abusing "goat-man" -- and
theif and murderer. I would think most publishers would pull the book off
the shelves in a situation like this.
Martha Sprowles
...
>
> Did Smith sue or threaten to sue Wambaugh?
Again, operating on memory, I think Smith is suing *somebody*--the
state, the prosecutors, Wambaugh--and maybe that's where we'll see more
news stories about the case. His being released and then the stuff
found in Bradfield's cell after B's death have allegedly re-interested
the cops in finding out what exactly happened to Smith's daughter and
her husband (druggies, btw).
Martha
-Kat-
> >I think Lawrence Bittaker was the pliers guy. (-: I think the guy that
> >chopped off the arms was Singleton. ( I think, I think)
> >
> >Babyface
>
> Babyface is correct! I found a mention of Singleton in a list I wrote up
> once of murderers who moved to Florida.
>
> And Bittaker is in John Douglas's books -- he was the pliers guy, one half
> of murdering team.
>
> But thanks to Kat, too, for at least trying.
Mea culpa. Alzheimer's is a sad thing, or perhaps I just can't keep all
these tool-oriented men straight!
-Embarrassed Kat-
el...@net-link.net
> department head who was convicted of her murder and the murders of her
> two young children and sentenced to life in prison, died last year from
> a heart attack. In his cell were found many pages of text written in
> code and a photograph of some kind of upright stone in a wooded setting.
> The photo of the stone has been published widely in the hope that
> someone will recognize it; cops feel it *might* be a grave marker for
> the children's bodies.
Hi, I'm a little late reading this ng and hope I'm not repeating this,
but I found a picture and story about the marker here:
http://www.phillynews.com/daily_news/98/Nov/18/local/MERI18.htm
and this:
52. Jay C. Smith Pennsylvania Conviction 1986 Released 1992
Smith, a former high school principal, was convicted of the 1979 murder
of 3 people, though his death sentence was later
reduced to life. He was freed on Sept. 18, 1992 after the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the prosecution
had withheld crucial evidence, calling the state's action "egregious"
misconduct.
Ellie
J Brown
> Interesting story, here. Someone asked, several weeks ago about how many
> defendants had been convicted of murder when no body was found. This article
> doesn't answer that question, but does say that 60 murder trials have been held
> in the US without bodies, but with DNA evidence.
>
> Traces of body on saw led to arrest
> High bail set in Quincy murder case
> By Cindy Rodríguez, Globe Staff, 01/01/98
> QUINCY - Traces of blood, bone, and skin tissue found on an electric saw
> gave investigators the evidence they needed to charge Joseph Romano with
> the murder of his wife, ending a three-month investigation.
>
> DNA tests confirmed the tissue was Katherine Leonard Romano's,
> investigators said, buttressing a police theory that her husband sliced
> her body into pieces and helped unsuspecting garbage collectors load the
> bagged remains on their truck.
> At his arraignment yesterday, , Joseph Romano, 41, kept his Ironworkers
> jacket over his head, covering all but his eyes.
> He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, even as investigators
> chronicled his wife's slaying. According to Norfolk District Attorney
> Jeffrey Locke, Romano killed his wife in the bedroom where she slept
> alone, then sliced up her body using a Sawzall, an electric construction
> saw that can cut metal.
> Investigators said Romano borrowed the saw from a friend and then
> returned it after the crime. They said the friend's wife at some point
> became suspicious and called police. The original blade had been
> replaced, authorities said, but tissue traces were found on the handle
> and other parts of the tool.
> placed her dismembered remains in the trash.
> missing, Joseph Romano helped trash collectors load 15 bags from his
> Houghs Neck home in Quincy onto their truck, investigators said.
> If her body was in those bags, it was incinerated long ago. But even
> without a body, Locke is confident Romano can be convicted. Science, he
> said, is infallible.
> ''What this latest testing has shown us is that we can explain the
> absence of the body,'' Locke said. He said 60 murder cases in the United
> States have gone to trial in which DNA evidence was introduced although
> no bodies were found.
> Romano's arrest brought some relief to Katherine's mother, but she said
> there will never be closure.
> ''There's no revenge because vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord. There's
> no justice,'' Katherine Godfrey said. ''I look at Joseph Romano being
> locked up as preventative medicine, as damage control. There, he won't
> be able to destroy anyone else.''
> In court, Assistant District Attorney Daniel Flaherty asked Judge Joseph
> Macy to hold Romano on no bail. Macy, however, set bail at $500,000 cash
> - an amount Locke said he doubts Romano will be able to post.
> Macy told Romano that if he makes bail, he will have to report to
> probation officials every day.
> ''Do you understand that, Mr. Romano?'' Macy asked.
> ''Yeah,'' Romano said, his gravelly voice muffled by his jacket.
> As officers led Romano away, a voice echoed in the courtroom: ''You
> goddamn coward, Joe!''
> It was the voice of Susan Gazzolo, a friend of Katherine Romano's, who
> sat three rows back, her eye makeup smudged by tears.
> For outgoing district attorney Locke, the investigation was a victory.
> ''I'm proud of the fact we can end 1998 by bringing justice to the
> disappearance and death of Katherine Romano. She deserves justice.''
> Katherine Romano, a 39-year-old ironworker, was last seen Sept. 27 at a
> gas station not far from her home in Houghs Neck.
> Her father reported her missing two days later, when she failed to
> return phone messages to him and his ex-wife, Katherine Godfrey, who now
> lives in Florida.
> All the while, Joseph Romano told his in-laws and friends that Katherine
> probably just ''took off,'' leaving him to care for their 2-year-old
> son, Bruno.
> According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Romano told an officer who
> arrived at his home Sept. 29, ''Who the hell knows where she went?''
> Officer Richard Gilmore asked Romano if he could look around the home,
> and when he did, he noticed a bed missing from one of the bedrooms.
> Within a day, investigators returned with a search warrant. Using
> special chemical agents, investigators found splatters of blood on the
> walls and floor of the bedroom.
> In the bedroom, and the child's bedroom, investigators found evidence of
> ''medium velocity impact'' blood splatter - signaling blunt force trauma
> may have been used.
> It's unclear exactly what caused Katherine's death, but Godfrey believes
> Romano bludgeoned her daughter in front of their son.
> The son, Bruno, is in the custody of another of Godfrey's daughters.
> Godfrey said pediatric trauma specialists at Boston Medical Center used
> dolls to piece together what Bruno saw, and after he had the daddy doll
> fighting with the mommy doll, he curled into a ball and sobbed,
> ''Mommy's hurt! Mommy's hurt!''
> ''The baby saw it,'' Godfrey said. ''He saw everything.''
> This story ran on page B01 of the Boston Globe on 01/01/98.
> © Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.
> Maggie
> "It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few
> by deceit." --Noel Coward
I doubt I will get a response, seeing as this thread is from 1999, but if anyone has anymore information or where I can get more information about this case i would really appreciate it
Greg Carr
Jessica Heslam / Boston Herald
DEDHAM - After allegedly killing his wife, Quincy neighbors saw Joseph D. Romano Jr. haul away a mattress, wash Oriental rugs and return a borrowed power saw as he tried to conceal the crime, witnesses testified yesterday.
Former Quincy neighbor John O'Keefe said he saw a mattress in Joseph Romano's pickup truck at a nearby gas station two days after his 39-year-old wife, Katherine Leonard Romano, disappeared.
When Foley asked Romano about the mattress a few days later, Romano said "it wasn't him with the mattress," Foley testified in Norfolk Superior Court, where the 44-year-old ironworker is on trial for murder.
Foley said he pressed Romano, who then said the mattress belonged to his mother and he was moving it out of storage.
Investigators say Katherine Romano was beaten to death between Sept. 26 and 27, 1998 in her bedroom and her son's adjacent room. Investigators probing her disappearance discovered her mattress was missing.
Joseph Romano has told different stories of what happened to the mattress.
In early September 1998, Romano borrowed a Milwaukee brand "Sawzall" from neighbor and pal David Perry, saying he needed to do some work around the house. Romano allegedly used that saw to dismember his wife, whose body has never been found. Bits of flesh and bone on the saw match Katherine Romano's DNA. Romano's defense suggests Katherine Romano ran away.
Perry said Romano left the power saw on his front porch about noon Sept. 27 while Perry was in the shower.
"I heard him call out, 'Dave, I left your saw here,' " Perry said. Perry said the tool looked "regular" when he later opened the case.
Sometime after Romano returned the saw, he told Perry "he had left a couple blades in there for me." Romano also said he hoped authorities would find his wife "popped up" in a river in Arizona, so the cops would leave him alone, Perry said.
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Robert Greenough, Joseph Romano's former boss at the Scituate Waste Water Treatment Plant, said Romano told him he once kicked his wife and it "felt good."
Romano, a punctual ironworker who never missed work, called Greenough Sept. 27, 1998, and said he needed the next two days off so he could get a restraining order against his wife to protect him and their son, Bruno, now 5.
"He'd told me he'd had a wild weekend," said Greenough.
https://www.milforddailynews.com/story/news/2002/05/10/witness-details-defendant-concealing-evidence/41169809007/
https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/state/2002/06/01/quincy-man-guilty-in-death/50349147007/ He was convicted he told his boss once he kicked his wife and liked it. The dead woman's Mom lit into the defendant and upset his lawyer.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/brian-walshe-searched-can-charged-murder-body-history-says-yes-rcna66356 He got life he appealed and lost.
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