Thomas Capano

Once again I have come across a story that I am surprised I have not discussed here. As of January 2019 this story has generated at least four books and a television movie. This story had it all... a wealthy suspect, a young attractive girl, and a mystery to solve. From a legal standpoint it is also very interesting. The body of Anne Marie Fahey was never found, nor was the weapon that caused her death.

Anne Marie Fahey, a scheduling secretary for the Governor of Delaware, was last seen on June 27, 1996. She had apparently gone to dinner that night with prominent attorney Thomas Capano. Anne Marie was twenty-eight when she began dating the much older, and married Tom in 1994. The following year Tom and his wife, the mother of his four daughters would separate. My recent research did not specify the reason for the separation but as I recall through all my previous knowledge that while Anne Marie herself would not be the reason, Tom's affairs played a role. Anne Marie was not only not his first affair, she was not even the only one he was having at that time. Even after his separation the affair was kept underwraps. Anne Marie would only refer to him as TC in her own diary. Several things likely came into play as to why this was still kept such a secret. Part of it would be Anne Marie's Irish Catholic background, another part would be the prominence that the Capano family, but especially Tom, known as Tommy to the family, held in the community. Wealthy and powerful people have images to maintain but I also suspect another large reason for the continued secrecy was the fact that still Tom Capano was dating several women at the same time. In fact one, Debby MacIntyre, had been having an affair with Tom for more than a decade.

But, with all of that being said by June of 1996 Anne Marie had made several attempts to end the affair and she had even began dating another man. That being said, she had agreed to meet Capano for dinner on the night of June 27^th. Investigators would later say that after the dinner the couple went to the Wilmington Delaware home that Tom was now renting since his separation. That fact however would not come out for quite some time.

Anne Marie was the youngest of six children. Her mother had died when she was very young and the other children, many much older, made sure to look after Anne Marie. The family was very close so when they could not reach her for a few days a few of her siblings went to her apartment and went inside. Things just did not seem right although nothing seemed out of place. On June 30^th her family reported her missing. The fact that she worked for the Governor's office gave them a little more leverage than some cases in getting things moving forward faster.

It did not take long before investigators were hearing from friends and family about her relationship with Thomas Capano or to find out that the two had gone to dinner on June 27^th. He would claim that the dinner ended and that was the last he saw of her as they went their separate ways. Investigators had to be extremely careful. Their prime suspect in Anne Marie's disappearance was a very powerful person who not only had relationships with key people in the state, he was also an attorney. Interviews would be more difficult than normal and they really had to make sure everything was done completely by the book. Thomas Capano was not going to make this as easy as they had seen in many cases nor was it likely they would get him to roll over and confess. Anne Marie had described him in her diary as “a controlling, manipulative, insecure, jealous maniac.” Anne Marie's friends told investigators that they had been told that by her that Capano was known to fly into “rages” and even stalk her. They would claim that she had stated she came home once and found him on the fire escape outside her kitchen window.

It would be discovered that soon after Anne Marie had disappeared that Capano had purchased a new couch, getting rid of his old one, and had some carpet replaced at the house he was renting. To be fair I must say I am unsure when in the investigation this was discovered. Regardless Capano remained the prime suspect in her disappearance and yet it would be nearly two and a half years before they felt they had enough to arrest him. This only occurred however after investigators knew they had to do something to get someone, somewhere to talk because Thomas Capano was not going to do it.

Investigators got a break through when they cornered Thomas' younger brother, Gerald aka Gerry. Louis Capano, the father of four sons, Thomas, Louis Jr., Joseph and Gerry, had beena well known real estate developer and building contractor who had established his own businesses. Louis Sr died in 1980 and his sons took over his businesses. While they were not all attorney's like Thomas, they still had connections in the state. But, as we often know, while money may make you appear and even feel powerful, it does not make you law abiding. It was fairly well known that Gerry had a drug problem and it seems investigators used that knowledge to get Gerry to talk about what he may or may not have known. There was an ATF raid on Gerry's home sometime around October of 1997 where a small amount of drugs were found. This was the leverage investigators needed to get Gerry to talk. As they say, it appears that Gerry began to sing like a canary. He told investigators everything he knew about his brother in attempts to safe himself. There are those who would later claim that not only was Gerry's statements self serving, they were false. But, I have to say that it appears that the investigators remained diligent in checking out his story and were able to independently corroborate his story.

According to Gerry, Thomas had told him that he had someone, or someones, extorting him. Now, whether he had told Gerry who that was, or if Gerry told the police who Thomas had claimed the person was is unclear. Gerry would claim that they had discussed the fact that Gerry owned a boat so in late June of 1996 when Thomas later mentioned the boat Gerry knew what he was talking about and why. Gerry said he would get to Thomas' rental home and in the garage was a large cooler that had been locked and secure with chains. The two brothers would load this cooler into the boat and drove out to Stone Harbor in New Jersey. Gerry said they had driven about sixty miles into the Atlantic Ocean when they stopped the boat and Thomas threw the cooler overboard. While Gerry says Thomas had admitted to murdering those responsible for extorting him that he initially did not know for certain what was in the cooler.

Once the cooler was in the water Gerry claimed that Thomas shot into it in attempts to make it sink in the water. When that failed the two men retrieved the cooler, unlocked it and Thomas had thrown the contents overboard after he had secured it with at least one (if not both) anchor from the boat. It was then that Gerry claims he saw a leg. The cooler, with the bullet hole was then also thrown overboard and the two men headed back to Thomas' home. Once at Thomas' home, Gerry claims that he was also asked to help get rid of a couch and some carpet that had been stained with blood. These items were placed in a dumpster at a construction site owned by their brother Louis Jr. Louis Jr. would later state that not only was the couch and carpet placed in the dumpster but that Thomas had asked him, and he obliged, to have the dumpster emptied ahead of schedule. It was unclear how much Louis Jr. knew about what had happened.

Investigators were not surprised to know that a murder had allegedly taken place inside Thomas Capano's rental home. They had long suspected that this was where Anne Marie had been taken and likely murdered. The one thing they did seem surprised to hear was that this did not appear to be a crime of passion as they had believed but as Gerry told it he had been asked about his boat and told of the alleged extortion some weeks to a few months prior. But now their job was to check all the leads that Gerry had given them to make their case stronger. They talked to Louis Jr., who as I said corroborated what Gerry said about the couch and carpet. They issued a search warrant on the home where they found a few specks of blood still remaining on the walls and had those analyzed. A search of records showed that on April 20, 1996 Thomas Capano had purchased a cooler just as Gerry had described and placed the purchase on a credit card. They put the information out about the cooler to see if anyone had found it and to their surprise someone had. A local fisherman contacted authorities and stated that he had found the cooler on July 4, 1996, just a few days after the murder. Despite the fact that there was a hole in the cooler he had kept it. Investigators seized the cooler and determine the hole was made by a bullet. By this time Gerry had sold his boat and the new owners were contacted. They informed investigators that when they bought the boat one or both of the anchors were missing.

Thomas Capano would be arrested in November 1997. It is unclear whether they had already gotten information from Debby MacIntyre at this point or if her crucial information would only come later. Capano would be charged with capital murder and the prosecutors would eventually seek the death penalty. Ultimately Capano's trial would begin in October of 1998. There would be no body, no weapon and really no clear absolute forensics tying him to the murder. The blood that had been found in his home was found to be consistent with Anne Marie but the DNA results would say there was a 1 in 11,000 chance that it was hers. When it comes to DNA those results are less than I tend to like to see myself.

By the time the trial started prosecutors had spoken to and gotten information from Debby MacIntyre. As I mentioned earlier she had an affair with Capano that lasted decades. It appears that when the grand jury had been convened for this case that MacIntyre had testified but it was later determined that her testimony to them had been false and she apparently had been confronted with this fact. Once again while my resent research did not reveal this, as I recall this was all determined based on phone calls she had with Capano while he was in jail and possibly later through recorded calls. She would be promised immunity from perjury charges if she told her new story, that she claimed was the truth at the trial. This was a gamble for the prosecution but obviously one they felt was well worth it.

The defense was quick to jump on the fact that MacIntyre was admitting that she had lied to the grand jury, was granted immunity and was now preparing to tell a story to the court that was severely damaging to their client. According to Debby MacIntyre, on May 13, 1996, a month after the cooler had been purchased and more than a month before Anne Marie would be murdered she had purchased a .22 pistol for Thomas Capano. She claimed she had given him the weapon and she had not seen it since that time and had no idea what happened to it.

Apparently from the time of his arrest (or presumably before) and up until about six months before his trial Capano had been represented by another prominent attorney, Joseph Hurley. Hurley suddenly and unexpectedly quit defending him. He would claim at the time that he would go to his grave before he would reveal his reasons. That would not be true though because apparently in November of 2017 he gave an interview where he stated he had a “moment of reflection and moral clarity” and had decided he could no longer represent Capano. He claims that Capano never confessed to him that he had murdered Anne Marie but that he, himself, felt that he was likely guilty and his own conscious would not allow him to continue representing him. I question if this revelation did not come about because of the information Debby MacIntyre would reveal at trial and if the admissions made by the defense at the trial also played a role.

It seems that when the trial did begin the defense made some admissions that surprised everyone. Despite Capano never pleading guilty and his attorney's arguing this to be true when the trial began they were changing their story just a bit. At this point they were still denying that Capano had murdered Anne Marie, let alone that it was premeditated, but they were admitting that he had been involved in the disposal of her body. They would claim that on the evening of June 27, 1996 Debby MacIntyre had entered Capano's home unexpectedly and had found Anne Marie and Capano in an embrace. At this point they alleged that MacIntyre had a gun and had threatened to kill herself. They stated Capano and MacIntyre had wrestled with the gun when it accidentally went off and a bullet struck Anne Marie. They in fact confronted MacIntyre on the stand with this scenario and while she had admitted to obtaining a gun for Capano she flatly denied the events the defense was attempting to say happened. It seems that the defense was taking full advantage of the fact that MacIntyre had already admitted to the jury that she had lied to the grand jury several months prior. They were attempting to plant a seed of doubt by saying she had lied before, why believe her now?

So now Capano, at least through his attorney was alleging that he was present when Anne Marie was murdered. They were also all but admitting to everything his brothers, Gerry and Louis Jr. had stated to the police about the disposal of her body and the evidence clean up. Both brothers had also testified against him in court. The one thing he was disputing was the argument that the murder was premeditated. The problem with this lies with the fact that one has to wonder if his new story was true why it had taken so long for him to admit to it. There is also the question of if Gerry Capano had apparently told the truth about the trip on the boat, the disposal of the cooler, the couch and the carpet, why would he lie about it being discussed several weeks in advance? One could argue that all of his statements could hurt him almost as much as his brother, depending on what prosecutors would decide in possibly charging him, but at least without adding the information that indicated premeditation he could attempt to say he was surprised at the actions and simply did so to help his brother. By adding information that technically involved him in premeditation he put himself at more legal risk and so in my opinion it seems unlikely that he would have added this part unless it were true.

Many years later one of the jurors from the case did an interview. According to her when the jury started deliberations they took an initial first vote to see where everyone stood. At that first vote the decisions seemed to be six for guilty and six for not guilty. As they continued their deliberations they decided to concentrate on the Igloo cooler. The defense had argued that while Anne Marie's body had been placed in the cooler she had been so small that she fit inside and that no bones had been broken or mutilation had occurred. Seeing as her body was never recovered, despite efforts, there seemed to be no way of knowing if this was true. One of the jurors was about Anne Marie's size and so an experiment was made to see if she too could fit in the cooler, with the lid closed as had been described. The jurors came out of that experiment believing there was absolutely no way this could have been done without either breaking bones or dismembering the body and even then that did not mean that the entire body had been placed in the cooler. Remember, Gerry Capano only testified that he had seen a leg. This apparently seemed to be the key to their verdict.

On January 17, 1999 Thomas Capano was convicted of first degree murder. The jury would then decide his fate. It appears that they did not have a unanimous decision on whether to recommend to the judge life or death. The judge however felt he had full discretion and sentenced Thomas Capano to death. Over the years Thomas Capano made several appeal attempts. He was successful in January of 2006 when the courts affirmed the conviction but remanded the sentencing portion back to the courts saying that without the unanimous decision the judge should have sentenced him to life. Instead of reconvening a jury and having a sentencing hearing, one that by now would be difficult to do considering the massive publicity the case had garnered the state conceded and he was re-sentenced to life in prison. His last appeal was in April of 2008 where the courts once again affirmed the conviction. He could have appealed to the Supreme Court but he abandoned his efforts and ended his appeals.

On the morning of September 19, 2011 Thomas Capano was found dead in his prison cell at the age of sixty-one. His official cause of death was said to be “sudden cardiac arrest” with many underlying factors such as hypertension.

Many things have occurred within the Capano family since Thomas' conviction and even his death. In July of 2001 his ex-wife sued Joseph and Louis Jr. saying that they had “froze” her four daughters out of the family businesses. I did not see find out how this case ended, or if it even has.

Louis Jr. would apparently plead guilty to one count of harassing a witness when it came to Thomas' trial. Information was not specific on who this was or what he had allegedly done. It was also not specific on what kind of punishment he received. However, this was not his first run in with authorities. In 1988, long before the issues with his brother, Louis Jr. had been granted immunity in a case involving campaign finances and agreed to help prosecutors in their efforts against a state transportation official. The following year he again cooperated with officials when he agreed to wear a wire while giving a pay off to a county councilman.

Another brother, Joseph had a bit of a shady past too. In 1991 he had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge that he had sexually assaulted a woman he was in a relationship with. He received no jail time. In 2016 Joseph pleaded guilty to charges he and his company had illegally built a road to a housing development they were involved in through protected wetlands. He was charged with one count of bank fraud and one count of knowingly violating the Clean Water Act. The results of this are unknown.

As far as Gerry goes it appears that he did not receive any prison time for the drugs that were found in his home in 1997 when his home was raided by the ATF. However, in 2007 he received two years probation and fined $5,000 when he pleaded guilty to felony weapon possession “by a prohibited person.” This indicates that at least at some point he had been convicted for something but it is unclear whether it revolved around the 1997 raid.

In 2013 Joseph Capano sued his brother Louis Jr. for defrauding him in relationship to the family company. A year later Gerry filed his own lawsuit against Louis. Once again, information on what may or may not have been concluded in this case was not found. But, what I do think it shows is massive dysfunction in the family.

That being said, not everything or everyone in the Capano family has brought shame to the family. In 2017 one of Thomas' daughters is said to have been the “first person ever” (so this indicates at least the U.S, if not world) to receive a PhD. in “cannabinoid studies.” She had been a nurse practitioner for many years but now works with using Cannabis for the effects it has on pain, anxiety and a multitude of other things. I will add a disclaimer that nothing in her information specifically spoke of her father but reasonable deduction based on name, age and other things indicate this is who she in fact is. And, again in fairness, she has a professional career and apparently an upstanding individual and is in no way responsible for her father's actions. I was just excited to see that someone in the family has made a positive impact.