Anatomy of Murder - At the Mall

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

An object found at the bottom of a lake may be investigators best chance of solving a brutal homicide.For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatomyofmurder.com/. Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

We thought at the time and still do that whoever did this was a psychotic monster. It shook me in that I was there when this homicide was happening. I thought over and over that there was any way that I could have avoided going on that other call, that I would have. In one manner or another, I probably still think about it every day. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anasika Nikolazi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder.

Today, we'd like to introduce you to Randy Chukko, who was a detective who climbed the ranks all the way up to chief of police in Washington Township, New Jersey. But the case we're talking about today didn't happen when he was a detective or even when he was chief. It was from when he was a patrol officer. And it's that one case that he'll never forget. Police officers want to make it seem like nothing is going to affect them, that they just go to work and do their job and nothing is brought home. It really isn't the case, not with most police officers anyway. I think many of us who work in the justice system have that one homicide case that impacts you so deeply that it actually haunts you.

It could be because of the way that the family was destroyed in the murderous wake. It could be because of who the victim was. And sometimes it's because you have a regret that you didn't do even more. And for Randy, that case takes us back 45 years ago to New Milford, New Jersey, not too far from New York City. It is a bedroom community. Many of our residents commuted there and very, very little business, no industrial areas, very, very safe place to live. Our story begins with a few boys exploring in the woods near Pine Lake Swim Club in Washington Township.

While they were in the woods looking for bottles, and they came upon what they thought was an injured woman lying on her back in the woods. She was naked, her clothes were near her feet, and when they ran for help, we eventually got there and determined that she had been murdered. The woman was 20-year-old Kim Montalero. She had gone to school at Immaculate Heart Academy. At the time, she was home on break attending college at the University of Rhode Island, where she was studying law. She was a good student. Principals spoke very highly of her. She had a great relationship

with her parents. She had a great relationship with her brother, Paul. She came from a family of two. Her parents were raising both her and her younger brother, Paul, and by all accounts, she and her family were very close. She sounded like the perfect daughter, the perfect sister. She was aiming to graduate early from college. Just no one had a bad word to say about Kim. Kim was reported missing the day earlier when she didn't show up to pick up her brother from football practice. I had been on the job about four years when this happened, and there was one prior homicide, and it was a very, very rare occurrence.

Kim Montalero's body was located down an embankment, and Randy Chukko says from the moment they approached the body, it was clear this was not only a homicide, but one of the most violent this town had ever seen. This was very brutal. She was on her back. The injuries were apparent. Every stab mark was obvious, her throat being split, clothes being around her ankle. She was on the ground, naked. From the way that her body was positioned, and I don't need to say more, it appeared that she had been a victim of sexual assault. We thought at the time, and still do, that whoever did this was a psychotic monster. And while you already know that she was stabbed when the medical examiner examined her, what he or she found was much worse than anyone had imagined.

The medical examiner had a theory that she drowned in her own blood. That's how long it took her to die. As detectives established the crime scene, they began to look for other clues. Found near Tim's body was her wallet and a sheath for a hunting knife. There was no murder weapon found at the scene. So the first obvious clue here was since it was a stabbing and a sheath was found, detectives were convinced they were connected. That was a very important part of the case, but we were hoping that the knife itself would be found.

So in looking at this crime scene, detectives really need to look at the where. The area was remote where her body was discovered. It was a very short distance from a parking lot. Anybody driving by could see the parking lot. At the end of this dirt parking lot was just this path or an embankment that went down. And unless you went to that area of the parking lot and looked down, you wouldn't have known anything was going on. You couldn't see anything that was going on. This was a swim club, but no one stated they saw anything or heard anyone screaming for help. So let's go back to the day that Kim disappeared.

It was August 31st of 1976. It was a Tuesday, and she had taken her younger brother, Paul, and dropped him off at football practice, and she was heading to the mall. The plan was for her to go to the Paramus Park Mall, and she was going to pick up Paul at football practice in New Milford, and she was going to get there early so that she could watch him practice. You know, while I wasn't quite at the stage of going to the mall with my friends at that point,

I know it because I was part of those times, because at the time, I can tell you that malls were a very big deal. You know, this was 1976, but the Paramus Park Mall only opened in 1974. So this was a brand new shopping complex. I don't know if you could actually say that it was state of the art back then, because Paramus has a couple of other malls, but that was the place to go when it opened up. For everyone within the Washington Township area, it was a really big deal and I'm sure an opportunity for girls to get together and guys to get together, to shop, to hang out. It's a pretty big deal. I'm going to date myself here, Scott, and while it was a couple years later, I definitely remember going there in like the cutoff t-shirt and the dolphin shorts. I don't

know about you, but it was definitely part of my life for quite a while. No dolphin shorts for me, Anna Seager. It was all indoors, more modern, great food court, great parking. I guess, unfortunately, most people thought very safe. You know, as in all homicide investigations, you've all heard me talk about the importance of establishing a timeline. And in this case, the timeline really begins is when she was supposed to pick up her brother at practice. I know that it was very unlike Kim to not be punctual, certainly just to not pick up her brother

when she said she was going to. So I'm sure that the family knew pretty early on that there might be a problem. When they realized she hadn't gone back to pick up her brother, the first thing her dad did was go to the mall and look for her car, a green Oldsmobile Cutlass. And he did find it in the parking lot at Paramus Park. When her car was located at the mall, the windows were down and the keys were still in the ignition. Mr. Montalero knew right away that this is not something that Kim would have done.

She never would have left her car like that. And he let the New Milford Police Department know that the car had been found in Paramus Park. So when Randy Chukko learns of the exact make and model of Kim's car, alarm bells go off. He had seen it before, before Kim had even been reported missing. I went to work that day. We were all given our assignments. Those of us on patrol went on the road, and in my normal duties, less than a half an hour later, I saw a green Oldsmobile Cutlass parked in the parking lot of what was then Pine Lake Swim Club. And I thought it was in a spot that wasn't necessarily safe if another car was going

to be calling into the parking lot. And as I turned my car around to check out this green Cutlass, I was sent on another call. And when I was done with that call, the first thing I did was I went back to the parking lot at the Pine Lake Swim Club to see if the car was still there. And it was not. In that moment when Randy did spot the car, there was not much Randy could do. Because you have to keep in mind, this was 1976. Where I worked, if you didn't get to where the walkie-talkies were held fast enough, you went on the road without a walkie-talkie. That's how archaic things were in 1976. Now everybody gets

their own portable. You run license plates through your car where back then you had to call the state and give a code so that you could run a license plate. That's how different things are. And so let's look at this investigatively for a moment. So if this young patrolman was right that he'd actually seen the car there the very same day that Kim's body was ultimately found at the bottom, then the question comes is how to get from that location back to the mall. That is a crime scene, and processing that crime scene would be critical. And with a closer inspection of the vehicle, they determined that no fingerprints and no other evidence, including blood, was found inside their vehicle. Looking back, it does sound very, very strange. I think we may be looking at things more along the lines of how things are now as to how

they were in 1976. By today's standards, I'm sure that there would have been forensic evidence found. So you have no murder weapon, no forensic leads in the car, no witnesses, but it's still pretty early in the investigation. In the very beginning, we didn't know what direction to go in. Homicides that happen without people in the inner circle are so hard to put together. So investigators turned their attention to the mall. And so as soon as the detective learned that that's where Kim had last been before she went missing,

of course, within hours, they were there canvassing, looking for anyone that might give them any information about what led her to leave that mall. And, you know, while unlike today, these shopping areas and parking lots are highly covered by surveillance cameras, police set out looking for witnesses. Knowing that Kim had been at Paramus Park, detectives were sent to do a canvas of the mall. And when police begin to canvas the area, they find a couple of girls who say the day prior,

which is the day she went missing, they noticed something very odd in the parking lot. Two or three women saw a young man hiding in between cars. One woman said that a man came up to her and asked for directions for a street in a town two or three miles away. And the person that approached her said something like, you're cute, would you like to get together? And she declined the offer and she took off. But what caught their attention the most about him was the way he was acting in that parking lot on that day. A second woman saw a person hiding in between cars.

She, like, popped his head up to see if anybody was coming or anybody was watching him. And so while multiple young women were able to add something, the descriptions were all pretty basic and vague. A young man that was short, muscular. And while that's definitely a lead, it is really pretty general to likely not get them too far in their work. It jumped out at a couple of people how suspicious it really was. And not only for these young women, but the community, this was a big deal. They had a young woman, one of their own, brutally murdered, found at the bottom of a ravine, and she had last been at the mall, and there was now a killer out amongst them. Between how brutal it was, how rare it was for a violent crime to happen,

really in any section of northern Bergen County, made it a real big deal in that area. While I have lived in New York City for most of my adult life, I grew up in a small town, something similar to Washington Township. Murder was not common. In fact, it rarely, rarely occurred. And the one time that it happened in my community, I remember the community was up in arms and couldn't wrap their head around it, and things changed dramatically for a while.

People were very, very nervous. I think a lot of people were almost afraid to see their kids, their daughters, go back to school. People were locking their doors more, calling in more suspicious incidents, encouraging their kids not to stray far from home. I think for a while back then, there was even a push for their kids not to go to the malls that much. It was really, really unusual at the time, and people in northern Bergen County knew it. You know, crime statistics in densely populated cities almost always outnumber rural areas, and often staffing or ratio of police officers reflect

that number. And when you live in a city which has a high murder rate, people who live there tend to get numb to these splashy headlines until the next one comes along. So there's a definite mentality between small-town crime and big-city crime. The Times really factor into the investigation here quite a bit, because if it was today, obviously they're looking for security footage, they're looking at forensics, DNA, none of which was really available back then. So after they've done their canvases, where left to go? I mean, we're talking about good old-fashioned gumshoe work. So the thing that they know they still have out there

is the knife associated with that sheath. We continue to look for the knife, and the first couple of searches for the knife near where Kim's body was found was unsuccessful. Now, one technique often used by detectives, especially in remote settings, is to try to determine the ROE or route of egress from the crime. What path did they take to leave? So you walk it yourself again and again, and you do it in daylight, or if the timeline suggests the crime occurred at night, you do it then. And for Randy Chaco and others to solve this case, that's exactly what they did.

If the killer didn't leave with the knife, where would they discard it? There was a pond not connected to the actual swim club that was filled with water at the time of the crime. And detectives and search teams went out several times after that to look to see if the knife could be found. And a metal detector was used, and nothing was found. In this case, the biggest break comes when detectives decided to go back to the most likely location, one they had checked thoroughly before. You know, often it's called the circle of evidence, and it's when you believe that you've done everything that you have to search a specific area. You cross out every

section of the map, and then nothing else makes sense. Officers decided that it's worth another check of the area where Kim's body was found, and particularly this pond, which was fairly close to where Kim's body was. But this time, things were different. For some reason, the water level was remarkably lower than it had been during the prior searches. One of the officers saw right away there's a knife sticking out of the mud. It was stunning. We almost couldn't believe it. If you go to the website anatomieremurder.com, you can actually look at a photograph of the knife as the police found it.

The handle must have been heavier than the blade, and that's what landed in the muck of this pond. And when the water lowered for some reason, this curved hunting knife was very, very obvious. Scott, you and I have both seen this before. And I think from the outside, people start to turn their head when they hear that an area has been searched more than once and that it's later that something of significance is found. And, you know, I have found so many times that it really is just you see things differently. There's a case that I remember trying, and I don't even remember what the specific piece was, but I was staring at photographs of the crime scene

right before we went into court, and there was a little something up on a shelf which proved pivotal in the end. And even though investigators had been there multiple times, it just had escaped their attention. And I see this as nothing different than, you know, try, try and try again. And they were fortunate on that third try. And just imagine within a few days of the prior search, you're walking up and you see the point of a knife sticking up out of the water.

I mean, if that's not a sign to solve this case, I don't know what is. It was bagged, saved for evidence, checked for fingerprints. Lying at the bottom of a pond likely would degrade most chances to get any fingerprints. And here's why. Natural fingerprint residue is normally lifted or collected, and it's composed of a mixture of several different substances. But here's the important one. 99% of a fingerprint is made of water, and the remaining parts consist of a small amount of organic and inorganic materials. So while the item in this case is immersed in water, the fingerprint begins to essentially just break apart. The patterns or arches and loops really become unidentified at that point.

With no forensic leads, detectives really had to rely on good old-fashioned police work. When the knife is found, a decision was made to find out how many stores would sell a knife like this. And this is not easy. If the killer had purchased the knife from out of town, then that store could be anywhere. What if the killer was given the knife or had been purchased a long time before? And even if you could track down the store, it's not like there are computerized receipts like you have today. The likelihood of trying to find the exact store and find a record of the purchase is like a needle in a haystack. I agree, it's a long shot. But at this point, detectives really have no other options.

This long shot is their best shot, and frankly, only shot. Detectives at the time had the right idea to go to all of them in the area. One in particular was in Westwood, one pound over from where Washington Township is. They showed this knife to the owner of a sporting goods store in Westwood, and he described it as a knife he believed he sold to a young boy several days before, and he thought that the young boy was from Rivervale, a town that's adjacent to Westwood. And how did they describe this young man, this purchaser of the knife? That he was unique looking.

Pretty distinctive. Short. Very muscular. Fairly long hair. And homemade tattoos. You know, Anastasia, that's a fairly good amount of information, especially the tattoo part. Because, you know, to disguise themselves, people can cut their hair, they can color it different. But for the most part, getting rid of tattoos is pretty difficult. And it's certainly not a quick process if someone wants to try. But, you know,

now they're getting specific. They really only had this guy in the parking lot described as short and muscular, but now you have a hair length, you have tattoos. I mean, now they're getting somewhere that hopefully this can lead to an identification. One of the detectives in Rivervale thought right away that it sounded like Christopher Rigetti. So the question is, who is Christopher Rigetti? And police would learn he was 16 years old. He was a hulking 200 pounds. He went to a local high school and he really matched the description. And police were already familiar with him because he had a record. He had been charged at least one other time with an assault on a young woman who had been charged previously as a juvenile. While I don't want to talk about any conviction or that case itself,

because juvenile records, as far as the criminal justice system is concerned, are sealed and with good reason, we can talk about the underlying crime, which has already been published in public reports. And that was Christopher Rigetti had served 13 months for rape and that he had attempted to rape someone else shortly after his release.

I mean, at this point, they've built a fairly good circumstantial case. Yes, we don't have a lot of forensics here, but, you know, things are looking like Christopher Rigetti. The ID is becoming pretty solid. Is this something, as I always ask you, anesthetist, you'd walk into court with? If they're able to go and have him identified for the crime, in this case, whether it's by people at the mall or other ways, yes, he's sounding like it, but I need to have him positively identified as the culprit here. And I mean, clearly the next step would be to see if Rigetti's willing to talk to them, to see if he's willing to say if he was there or deny all of the allegations. When they get Rigetti back to the precinct, he has quite a story to tell.

He admitted that he had been in Paramus Park. He admitted that he was there on his moped. That's how he got back and forth from the Paramus Park Mall. Did I have any knowledge of any assault, any crime that happened in Washington Township? He said that he had been with a couple of friends nowhere near where the crime scene was. So he's talking, but he's saying he wasn't there. But even more importantly, that he has an alibi. So if he has an alibi, it means that there should be ways for law enforcement to check out his story. And, you know, anyone that's been in this field for a long time, you know, you hear that. And whether it's that thinking, huh, maybe we got it wrong.

Or maybe we've got it wrong or maybe we've got it right. And he's just trying to get out from under. You know, it's so important to go into these interviews with an open mind as several things are always possible. Now, first, the person you believe committed the crime is willing to take responsibility right there and then, or you have evidence they don't know you have, which ends up painting them in a corner, which is a good position as an investigator to be in, then they're faced with having to change their story. Or you're able to determine that they are not involved,

and you can cross them off the suspect list and move on. Now, he's saying he wasn't there and he had an alibi. So the first thing they're going to have to do is to go check out that alibi and see if he's telling the truth or if they try a different tact. His friends were spoken to and they did the right thing. They admitted that Rigetti made up the whole thing. They were not with him. So his alibi did not work out. But remember, you have these young women from the mall who describe this guy acting very strangely out in the parking lot. So what do investigators do?

They bring them into the precinct to see if they can make an identification. It was a lineup done in the Bergen County Sheriff's Department. The witnesses were asked to come forward. And each one of the witnesses was able to pick Rigetti out. By the time we knew that the alibis weren't worth anything, that the knife was determined to be purchased from that sporting goods store in Westwood, people seeing him, Rigetti, at the Paramus Park Mall, it was determined then that there was enough probable cause to make an arrest.

It was a school day, and they went there to pick him up from Pasquack Valley High School. Let's just break down what it is that they have at this point. Because while you already have in the back of your head Rigetti's past, we can't use that as far as evidence against him because someone did something similar in the past

doesn't mean they committed the crime here. But what they have in this case, there is enough probable cause for arrest, but you still have a lot of digging to do. You know, Rigetti's tact, if you will, knowing he had already been picked out of a lineup by several of the eyewitnesses, he chooses to admit the attack. But he wants detectives to know that he was only defending himself, claiming Kim was the one with the knife and Kim was the one who initiated the attack. Initially, he denied having anything to do with it. You know that line I love, admit what you have to, deny what you can. So first he starts with an outright denial.

Well, that didn't work. At one point, he said that maybe my fingerprints would be on her car because I may have touched it while I was riding by on my moped and complete denial. You know, we've both seen this happen actually in an interview is where somebody realizes that the story is not working or their theory is not plausible. And they begin to shift their body. They begin to move their eyes and they start to think. And you could actually see it happening live.

And after being interviewed another time, again, he told detectives that he did pick her up at the mall. There was a consensual ride to Washington Township. And then he says, well, wait a second. I know that she's found at the bottom of this ravine and they might be able to place me as the owner of that knife. So now he comes up with this ridiculous story. Regarding the attack on Kim, towards the end of the interview,

we actually made his comment that he did it in self-defense, that Kim used the knife against him. Wait, what? This young woman who goes to the mall while she's waiting to pick her young brother up from football practice now has this random guy with her and she's using a

knife on him? I mean, in and of itself, based on everything else we know, sounds ridiculous. In this case, we all know that self-defense situations absolutely happen. There are a lot of cases where there are valid self-defense claims. But to me, this is clearly not one of them. Right, and to Patrolman Chukko, he certainly thought the same thing. There's something extremely wrong with Christopher Rigetti.

The fact that he would even come up with such a ridiculous story that Kim attacked him was just absolutely absurd. It remains absurd to this day. And so the shifting of his story and the way that he is weaving in what he's saying, I look as great evidence against him in the courtroom. One of the seasoned detectives from the Bergen County prosecutor's office said that he worked every homicide in Bergen County for years and he never saw somebody as cold-blooded as Chris Rigetti. And there's still an additional piece of evidence that suggests this wasn't a self-defense situation. With Rigetti claiming self-defense, detectives already had a solid statement from

the store owner who sold Rigetti a knife, now believed to be the murder weapon. But could they place it in his hands, independent of his statement? Rigetti had a friend who worked at the mall. He met this young lady where she worked and they spoke for a couple of minutes. And for some reason, she needed help cutting a piece of yarn

in the place that she was working. And she told us at the time that she asked Chris Rigetti, could you cut this yarn for me? Because I knew he always carried a knife. And he reached behind himself and he pulled out what looked like a hunting knife to this girl and cut the piece of yarn and then put it back. You know, and if you're saying, well, wait a second, he already is claiming self-defense.

So what's the big deal if we can put him with the knife? But here's why. You know, when you have one piece of evidence against someone, the more pieces you have corroborating that, it really goes to hopefully the truth of the matter. So you have the owner of the store that can place Rigetti by his identification as having purchased the knife. But now that is further corroborated by the young woman in the mall who says he actually had the knife with him that day, that he was using it. So now you take those two things, and while maybe you say is one mistaken or one unreliable,

but not the two when neither of them have anything to gain. So when you take that to his ridiculous story about self-defense, I mean, did Kim Montalero take the knife from him for some unknown reason and randomly decide to stab him? Well, that makes no sense. And again, remember, these type of crimes are very, very rare. Usually when you have these stabbings, people know one another. So when you have something like this, unfortunately, it's usually pre-planned with a ulterior motivation. And remember, Kim Montalero was sexually assaulted. In continuing to build a case against Rigetti, detectives uncover a statement he had made to another inmate while he was serving a 13-month stretch in a juvenile detention facility.

And that statement could point to a motive in the murder of Kim Montalero. He told another boy that he was incarcerated with that the only mistake he made was leaving a witness. And he told this other boy that he'll never leave another witness. And that one line makes the crime all the more chilling because the sexual assault is horrific enough. But then hearing the statement made that he would never leave another witness, that means that the murder itself was also preplanned. And that's how prosecutors walked into the courtroom. And they tried him for the murder and sexual assault of Kim Montalero.

And while the defense doesn't have to put on a defense, they claimed self-defense using the statements Rigetti had already made to the police. And when it was time for the jury to weigh it all and make their decision, their decision was very clear. And the jury did render their verdict guilty, the sentence life with the possibility of parole. I do remember being extremely relieved when we got the news that he was convicted. And during my conversation with Randy Chukko, I had asked him, what was his theory behind this homicide? My theory is, and I believe it would be the theory of most of the seasoned officers at the time,

was that Rigetti approached her, probably brandished the knife, forced her into her own car. She was forced to drive to the Pine Lake Swim Club, parked the car. She was forced into the woods, probably with him still showing the knife. What happened after that was the sexual assault and this horrible attack with knife. And so while the trial was done, he was convicted and sentenced, the story here was very far from over. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Since that time, there's been some changes in the way parole is handled in New Jersey. And it's every three years people have to be reconsidered for parole based on what they were charged with and the amount of time they've been in jail. And what this has meant for the family is that every three years they have to go through this torture of trying to keep him behind bars. You know, Anaciga, parole is always really a hot topic and a difficult subject for families who finally see justice for their loved ones, especially in homicide, only to learn that every year, the ones who are eligible for parole, they have to fight to keep them in. And that's exactly the battle the Montaleros are going through right now.

And while the Montalero family is forced to face this case every three years, just as far as parole for Christopher Rigetti is concerned, Randy Chukko, too, thinks about this case over and over since the day it occurred. When I first realized that it was Kim's car that I saw, it shook me in that I was there when this homicide was happening. And it was distressing, to say the least. And I thought over and over that

if there was any way that I could have avoided going on that other call that I would have. Of course, I wish that I had not gone on the other call, but that's not the way things were done 45 years ago. When you were told to do something, you did it. And it was very difficult for me. In one manner or another, I probably still think about it every day, about what could have happened if circumstances were a little different. But no, I think about

it all the time. In 2016, Randy Chukar retired from the Washington Township Police Department as its chief of police, a decorated career to say the least. I always wanted to impress upon the younger people, even new supervisors, take something as far as you can. Don't just take it at face value. If you knock on a door twice and nobody comes to the door, maybe go to the back door, you know, for a quick example. If there's a suspicious car, take a little bit of a further look. You know, is the car warm? Is the trunk loose? Is there anything in disarray inside it? Take it as far as you can. And it's something I think I took to the end of my career. Before Kim's father passed away in 2015, he made his wife and Kim's brother Paul promise

that they would not let Kim's death and the fight to keep Rigetti in jail to consume their lives as well. And if they did, Rigetti would have taken four lives instead of the one he had already taken. I spoke to Paul just a few days ago. His mom passed away shortly after his dad, and he is determined to keep up the fight for them and for Kim. And that is the thing that I am going to end with here. You know, every three years, Kim Montalero's family, wherever they are, needs to stop and relive this because they need to present to the parole board why it is they want to make sure Christopher Rigetti is never released.

And it's the type of thing that I have seen so often, too often over the years doing this type of work. You know, there are lots of mechanisms in place to make sure that defendants' rights are upheld, and for very, very good reason. But here, what about the victim and their family? And I sometimes wonder who is thinking about what some of these rules and regulations do to them. And for the Montalero family have to relive this every three years? To me, that's wrong. Tune in next Wednesday when we'll dissect

another new case on Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original, a Weinberger Media and Forseti Media Production Sumit David is Executive Producer