Anatomy of Murder - Room 708 (George Kehoe)

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

A motel room shows signs of violence - but there’s no victim inside to prove that any crime had actually occurred. A body is soon discovered and linked back to the room. Police now need the final piece: who committed the crime.View source material and photos for this episode at anatomyofmurder.com/room-708 Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

I have bloodied sheets, bloodied pillowcases. I got everything making of a great case, except I'm missing the most important fact. I don't have a body. And without a body, all I got is a lot of suspicion. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murder.

Today's case, the 1988 murder of George Kehoe, comes to us from Scotts Old Stomping Grounds in South Florida. As I've mentioned, my law enforcement career began in South Florida, and I'm still in close touch with a lot of people that I served with, including our guest on today's episode, who recently told me about a fascinating case that he handled back in the day. His name is Phil Amabile. He was the lead investigator in a case you won't soon forget. What always fascinates me about cases in that part of the country is that they're studies in contrast. Because you think about places like Fort Lauderdale, where this crime took place, you think about sunshine, the beach, the palm trees, but there is a dark side to South Florida, just like everywhere else. Absolutely. I mean, there's crime everywhere, of course, but South Florida also seems to attract its fair share of schemers and hustlers and, of course, violence. And this was especially true in the 1980s when this crime took place. And there might be no better person to talk about it

than Sergeant Phil Amabile, who was, as you'll hear, quite the character himself. Growing up in Long Island, I played Little League baseball, and you always have dreams of grandeur, and I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to play for the New York Yankees. And I was also a James Bond fan, so I figured I was going to be a secret agent in the offseason and play baseball during the season. So how far did I reach my goal? Well, I was a homicide detective and I pitched for the Broward Sheriff's Office softball team. Of course, I like it that Phil, like me, grew up on Long Island. He was also the leadoff hitter on a unique investigation that still sticks with him today, one that brought

him from the sunny shores of Florida back to his old home turf of New York. It's a tale of guns, gangsters, and murder, and it all started on a hot August morning in 1988 in an industrial section of Fort Lauderdale. On State Road 84, next to a very famous diner named Lester's Diner, there was a trucking warehouse. And one of the workers went out to the dumpster to throw some trash out. And as he's tossing the morning trash into the dumpster, he just happens to spot something inside that definitely doesn't belong there. A gun. Yeah, and thankfully that employee doesn't handle or stick it in his pocket and just walk away. He does make the smart decision to call police. Fort Lauderdale police takes the property, contacts Chief Fitzgerald, and he answers

a ringing phone. And the next thing you know, we're embroilediled in this to done it. A uniformed officer responded to the scene and retrieved the discarded weapon, a.22 caliber handgun. And since a gun is something that people just wouldn't typically throw away, she also carefully removed the trash bag from the dumpster looking for anything else that might be there out of the ordinary. Inside that bag is bloodied sheets, towels, and motel postcards with the name Sandy Shoes Motel. And also tossed into the dumpster, a scrub brush and an empty bottle of cleaning solution. That's when she had a pretty good feeling that this wasn't just someone's trash. This was evidence of a crime. There was one other item that felt especially ominous.

I think what really sparked everyone's interest was the shower curtain. Okay, what are you using a plastic shower curtain for? A shower curtain covered in blood. And of course, my thought was, this was used to wrap up a body and transport it somewhere else. And the police were convinced that they had stumbled on proof of a murder. The only problem was, where was the victim? It would prove a unique problem because investigators would have to solve this case backwards, using the physical evidence to locate the crime scene, any potential suspects,

and of course, if this did turn out to be a murder, hopefully the body. The first clue was right there with the bloody towels. A postcard from the Sandy Shoes Motel on nearby Elmar Drive in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, which is exactly what you might picture when you think of a quaint, classic Florida vacation spot. Very nice seafront community off of A1A. It has the Fort Lauderdale Pier, mom and pop motels, very 1960s Americana. The Sandy Shoes, as the name suggests, was once a family motel for everyday Americans to enjoy a little sun and fun at the beach. But by the mid 1980s, well, let's say it wasn't at its best. And now it was a potential crime scene. The responding officer and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea police chief, Joe Fitzgerald,

went together to the motel and their first stop, the eyes and the ears of any motel, it's housekeeping. Investigators asked the person working that floor if she had noticed anything unusual, and she informed them that, in fact, she had just finished cleaning rooms and there was something strange about room 708. They reported that the maid said the shower curtain was missing, towels, and all the sheets. As police entered the room, it appeared to be in pretty good order except for the missing sheets. But then they moved to the bed. And inside the room, they lift up the mattress and they find the mattress and the box spring covered with blood.

There was also a wet stain on the carpet as if someone had spilled something and then attempted to clean it up. Experience tells you something happened in this room. Putting two and two together with the shower curtain and all that, they obviously wrapped something up, most likely a person. That theory was supported further by what they observed on the ground just outside the motel room door. You could see the outline of two drag marks from the room 708 to the stairs. But interestingly, after a few feet, the drag marks stopped.

Almost as if whatever or whoever was being dragged was then picked up and carried. And right away, I would be thinking it's likely, based on those drag marks, that more than one person was involved in getting rid of that body. So police believe that they had a murder weapon, that they had a crime scene. They just didn't have a victim or that person's body. But there certainly was enough evidence that some type of violent crime had likely been committed. And that's when the local police chief reached out to Phil Amabile, who was a homicide detective at the Broward County Sheriff's Office. You know, you never know what happens when you answer a ringing phone.

Phone rings, I answer the phone, homicide, Detective Amabile, and the voice on the other end is a gentleman by the name of Chief Joe Fitzgerald. Joe tells me he's the police chief of a hamlet in Fort Lauderdale called Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. Bill headed over to the Sandy Shoes Motel, and as soon as he saw the bloody mattress, he was convinced that this was the scene of a murder. It was obviously someone was stabbed, shot. Something happened to a person. With the amount of blood that I saw visually, it was soaked through the mattress and the box spring. But being the philosopher detective that he is,

Phil also realized how lucky they were to have found the crime scene when they did. Thankfully, we got notified of this. Otherwise, you know, shower curtain would have been replaced, bed sheets would have been put on the bed, and nobody would have been the wiser. So the next step was obviously to find out who was the last person to stay in room 708. Was it the victim, or was it a supposed killer? They still didn't know.

We got the name of the person who registered in the room, which was a guy by the name of the person who registered in the room, which was a guy by the name of Michael Sniton. Was he a vacationing tourist, a businessman in town for work? There was really no way to tell, but motel records did show that whoever this guy was, he had taken off sometime in the middle of the night without even paying his bill. According to motel employees, a second man had also stayed in room 708, but there was no record of his name. Were they friends? Was it business? Was it a romantic tryst? Or was the blood found at the scene the result of a deadly confrontation between these two men?

We then spoke to a couple of witnesses at the rooms next door. You know, you ask the obvious questions. Did you hear anything? Did you see anything? And while no one had witnessed the crime, there were two unsuspecting tourists staying at the motel that were able to offer investigators some critical information. Well, there was a very nice young couple from Canada, and they had described walking back to the motel on the sidewalk from the beach, and a white Cadillac comes screeching into the parking lot, almost hitting them, which is why they noticed it. The occupants get out, and they describe them as shady looking.

And they had a lot of tattoos. They were big guys, and they had a lot of tattoos. They were big guys and they had a lot of tattoos. Back in the 80s, having a lot of tattoos was not as mainstream as it is in 2024. So it stood out. Just picturing the scene, the white Cadillac, the screeching wheels, the guys with tattoos, it sounds like it has the makings of one of those 80s gangster movies. But the reality was, without a plate number or names, police really had no way of knowing who those men were and if they had anything to do with what happened in room 708. At that point, the investigation kind of stalls until you figure out,

okay, what is it that we're dealing with? I got a bloody room, I got bloody towels. I find a gun. I got people who see four people going into the room and I got drag marked. Something did happen. Okay, what do we have other than something really, really suspicious? You may believe you know what it is, but you can't prove what it is. In other words, suspicion only gets you so far, and that's when it's nice to have some solid physical evidence to lean on. And in this case, investigators had the most important piece of all, the gun. Fortunately, it still has a serial number. So we figure, okay, let's run it through ATF and find out what it comes back to.

And three weeks after finding that gun, ATF had the results. We, lo and behold, get a hit on that handgun. And the handgun came back as being registered to a person by the name of George Kehoe. What remains to be seen is whether Kehoe is a potential suspect or the victim. In late summer of 1988, investigators in Florida had identified the owner of a gun suspected to be the murder weapon in a homicide at a local motel. The owner's name? George Kehoe. I grab my partner and we drive over and I go up to the door and, you know, naturally you knock on the door, but there's a business card and it says, please call when you get this.

And it was left by a service aide or a police officer from the Pompano Beach Police Department. It seems that Sergeant Amabile wasn't the only person looking for George Kehoe. It turns out that George Kehoe had been reported as a missing person by his father, who ironically was a retired police lieutenant from New Jersey. According to George's father, they were very close and talked on the phone all the time. So when he couldn't get a hold of his son, he had a bad feeling that something was wrong. And Phil had that same feeling, which is why he didn't just get back in the car and turn around. He did what good detectives do.

He started knocking on doors. While I'm at the Kehoe apartment at the front door, I knock on a door next door and I says, hey, you know, I'm Detective Amabile. This is Detective Shep. We're looking for George. Guy says, this about drugs? So now we have another layer to this story. It turned out that George's neighbor was not just some nosy know-it-all. He happened to be a former FBI agent. So obviously when he tells me he's a retired FBI agent, I got to believe he knows what he's talking about. He says, last I saw him, I saw him with another neighbor named Dominic

Chitali, who lived three or four doors down from George Kehoe. Not only that, but George and Dominic left together in a white Cadillac. So of course, Anastasia, we're thinking this is the same description of the car that the two people at the we're thinking this is the same description of the car that the two people at the motel told Phil in the initial part of the investigation. So that definitely checks a pretty big box. But George Kehoe, at this point, is just missing. If they're together, Dominic Gicali, George Kehoe, if someone's the victim of the crime, is it one of them?

Are they involved? You know, you're putting the pieces together. But again, without knowing the who, you really don't know what part any one of them played in this story. At least not yet. And you have to also ask the question, if George lived in nearby Pompano Beach, which is really just a few miles from Lauderdale by thea, why was he staying in a motel? Phil Amabile hoped a deeper dive into George's background would reveal more about his possible motives and his whereabouts. So he tracks down George's girlfriend, and a picture of him starts to come into focus.

As it turns out, George was a pretty regular guy, but also someone who had a tendency to fall in with the wrong element. George Keolis also had a brother, and I was able to speak with the brother as well. And here you have a tale of two cities. The brother who I spoke with was very successful, college grad, doing well for himself, every father's son. And then you have the troubled George, and George is the one that gets all the attention. In fact, according to George's dad, his son's move from New Jersey to Florida was supposed to be a fresh start and a chance to get his life back on the right path. But that would not be the case. According to George's girlfriend, back in March,

he had been the victim of a robbery, which he was relieved of a small amount of cocaine. The man suspected of robbing him, his neighbor, Dominic Cicali, the same man leaving with George in the white Cadillac. So now I have names. I have a possible motive, you know, with the drugs. I have bloodied sheets, bloodied pillowcases. I got everything making of a great case, except I'm missing the most important fact. I don't have a body. And without a body, all I got is a lot of suspicion. But that was all about to change.

I come home from work one afternoon, five, six o'clock, whatever the time is. I turn on the TV in my house. A local news broadcast out of Palm Beach opens with a report of a breaking story. And it says, today, police in Boca Raton, Florida, recover the body of a white male that was found in a creek off of Clintmore Road in Boca Raton, Florida. Naturally, I go, Jesus Christ, I know who that is. That's going to be George.

The victim was still unidentified, and no other details about his conditions were made available to the public. So I jump on the phone, and I call the Boca Raton Police Department, and I speak to a detective there and I tell him, I'm going to do you a big favor. I know you don't know who that is. I know who that's going to be. Where's he at now?

I know he's going to be at the ME's office. He tells me, we're going to do the autopsy tomorrow. I said, I'll be down there. I'm going to bring my crime scene guy with me. I'll help identify him. The next morning, Phil and a crime tech from Broward meet at the Palm Beach Medical Examiner's office to investigate further. I had a photograph of George, and I had all his descriptors from his father and mother

who gave them to the Palm Beach Police Department. But would that be enough? It was apparent that the body had been exposed to the elements and the Florida heat for quite some time. And because of that, the body was in an advanced state of decomposition. George had tattoos, and I had a photograph of one of his tattoos. Sure enough, he had the tattoo. I'm looking at the photograph of the tattoo. I say, this is George. A short time after that, we were able to determine, once we got the dental records, that it was, in fact, George Kehoe, and the cause of death was a gunshot wound. So, clearly, we're dealing with a murder. And the hunt for George's killer would take him from Florida to New York and even into the underworld of organized crime.

New Jersey native George Kehoe was a 25-year-old resident of Pompano Beach, Florida, and the son of a retired lieutenant. In the spring of 1989, his body was discovered dumped into a shallow creek. As you can imagine, the news was devastating for his family. But having witnessed his son's struggles over the years, George's father had prepared himself for the worst. Nothing I was telling him shocked him. over the years, George's father had prepared himself for the worst. Nothing I was telling him shocked him. And regardless of whether George was having problems of his own, his father still loved his son. Because he wasn't proud of it, but he loved his son.

And you could tell he loved his son to death. And just like every parent that struggles with that one child, that gets all your attention. In fact, George's move from New Jersey to Florida had been the result of his father's attempts to get his son back on his feet. I think he came to Florida for a fresh start, and that start never happened. According to the autopsy, George had been shot twice in the back, clear evidence that he was murdered. It also meant that investigators were keen to talk to the last man that had been seen with him,

his neighbor, Dominic Ciccali. He was last seen with the victim, George Kehoe, so he becomes a, I hate to use the term, person of interest, because I don't know if I used it at the time, but he was that guy. He was like, okay, he knows something. But surprisingly, he was not the first person Phil wanted to bring in for questioning, but the last. If I believe George Kehoe was killed by Dominic Cicali, he's going to be one of the last people I interview. I want to get all the other information first,

so I have something to talk to him about. So who else was on that interview list? Well, for starters, anyone who had been in the room where George was killed, because remember those drag marks, the way they started and then just disappeared? That was a pretty good indication that whoever killed George had help. So now I get to go to New York to interview a Michael Sniffin because Michael Sniffin was in the room because the room was registered to him. So if you can't tell already, Phil grew up in New York. He may be a detective from Florida, but New York is really his home turf. I go up to New York and naturally contact the Homicide Division and ask for assistance. And as a courtesy, say, hey, look, we're in here going to be doing an investigation.

So everybody knows who everyone is. So they paved the way for us. Treat it like 18-terra gold by the detectives and the squad and everyone in there. Whatever we needed, they assigned two detectives to us to assist us with whatever we needed to get done. Phil informed the NYPD that he was in town to interview a possible suspect in a homicide. So we tell him, look, we need to interview this guy, Michael Sniffin, who lives in the Bronx. He says, no problem. Get in the car. We drive over to the house. Get out. Myself and my partner go up to the door, knock on the door.

So, Anastasia, knocking on doors in a high-rise in the Bronx, opposed to Fort Lauderdale, may seem a lot different. Of course, location-wise, it absolutely is. But strategy-wise, when you're looking for a potential homicide suspect, it's the same approach, but a different jurisdiction. It's always interesting to imagine when you're face-to-face with a person you're attempting to talk to and you're in New York and you say to them, hey, I'm a detective from Florida. And that may, just that line may elicit your first clue. What's their reaction? And could there be great surprise that a Florida detective is there talking to you about a potential homicide. Their physical reactions may give a lot away. But as any seasoned investigator will know,

you don't really want to speak to that person on their turf, right? You want to take them somewhere else. But again, if you show too many of your cards right there, then you also run the risk of here his suspect may be taking off. Yeah, and those are some tricks of the trade. And in this case, Phil pulled them off to a tee. Detective 101, you don't interview people you want to get something out of in their own location. You bring them to your house. My house happened to be the 17th precinct at this time. Easier said than done.

But Phil is one of those veteran detectives that had it down pat, and he was not going to lose this chance to get Sniffen into an interview room. I said, look, we're from Florida. I know you left the motel, the Sandy Shoes, without paying. We take this very serious. We want to discuss this with you. We can come to a resolution. A little hemming and hawing, but he says, okay, okay. So he jumps in the car with us and we drive back to the 17th precinct. Phil walks Sniffin into the interview room just as he planned it. We get upstairs. We do the niceties.

Can I get you a cup of coffee? Would you like a Coke? Whatever. No, no, no. Let's get to it. You know, everyone's a tough guy until they're no longer a tough guy. So I tell him, well, look, Mike, you're a smart guy. This has nothing to do with the motel. You know that. I says, I know what happened in that motel room. At this point, Phil puts it out on the table and lays out the evidence that he has to put Sniffin at the scene of George Kehoe's murder. I tell him, look, we're homicide detectives. You know what that word means? Homicide,

murder. We're not talking to somebody about skipping out on a bill. We're talking about a murder. Sniffin had a criminal record, so he was not new to dealing with law enforcement. But Phil sensed he was ready to cooperate. You're reading body language. You know, he comes across as a tough guy. What's this all about? After you start talking to him a little bit, you could see the uncomfortableness about it. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to start putting this together.

You know, they're all involved in something. Sniffin was given his Miranda warning so that his statement could be used and admissible if there was ever a future trial. And after giving his rights, Sniffin laid out his version of the story. After a little bit more prodding, after rights are given and so forth, he tells us, okay, let me tell you what this was about. He's supposed to come to Florida with a guy by the name of Ernie Carluzzo. And he was supposedly coming down to Florida where they were buying some guns

and transporting them back to New York in a rental car and selling them on the streets of New York. According to Michael Sniffen, that's how we ended up in a room at the Sandy Shoes Motel. He tells me he's sitting there on the bed with Ernie. This guy Dominic comes in and he comes in with this other guy George is sitting on the bed.

They get in an argument. Sniffin went on to claim that from there the argument escalated and that George then pulled out a gun and aimed it at Ciccali. A struggle ensued as the men wrestled the gun from George who then made a run for the door. All of a sudden, Dominic takes out a gun and shoots him. Michael Sniffin admitted to witnessing George Kehoe's murder, placing the blame squarely on Trigger Man Dominic Ciccali. He says, I swear to God, I was scared. I didn't know what to do. He says, I just wanted to get out of there.

Sniffin also claims it was Ernie Carluso's idea not to flee the scene, but to dispose of the body, clean the room, and attempt to hide the incriminating evidence. We got the guy. We got him out of the room. Ernie was telling me what to do. We got in the car. We dumped him in a canal. They wound up driving to the airport. They dropped the car off, and they came back to New York. He says, I swear that's the story. That's the whole story. That's the truth. I was not involved in it. So at this junction, he's involved in a murder, whether he likes it or not, whether his intention was or wasn't. An arrest warrant was prepared and signed by a judge in Florida, and Sniffen was charged with being part of the crime.

I told him, look, we're going to get these charges dropped on you as long as you continue to cooperate. He agreed. He said, look, whatever you want, whatever you need, I'm here to help you. And what they wanted was the shooter, Dominic Cicali. But first things first, they decided to pick up the other accomplice, Ernie Carluso. Because according to Sniffin, Dominic Cicali is the shooter. Sniffin tells me him and Ernie Carluso are in the room when this occurs. Hence, I have two witnesses to the murder. Carluso's cooperation would not only corroborate Sniffin's story, but could also give them additional leverage against Cicali. We find Ernie Carluso is on probation or parole. He has a history,

and he has mob connections out of New York, and he's living in northern Bronx. After a stakeout at his Bronx apartment, Carluso was placed into custody. In the interview room, he entertains the detective with the same story provided by Michael Sniffin, starting with the reason why the two were in Florida to begin with. He tells us, yes, it was to pick up guns. We're going to take guns back up New York. We had no idea. We didn't know who this guy was, Kehoe. Dominic is a son of a friend of mine. He showed up. He wasn't even supposed to be involved in this thing. Such a goddamn hothead. They get into a fight. He pulls out a gun. So while on the one hand, he corroborates Sniffin's

story, what he also really kind of makes clear here, Scott, is that this is more the result of an argument than anything else. Yeah, you and I have been talking about this offline, really looking for the premeditation in a first degree murder charge. That is an interesting way to decipher the plans they had to move ahead with prosecution. And when I was thinking about that, right, because we have the neighbor, the former FBI agent, saying that he either had seen or knew something about an apparent robbery or a stealing of property. He said it was narcotics by Kehoe from Chicali. So, again, it could be revenge, retribution, something thought out before. Or was it more that, you know, going to the premeditation that here this other guy is saying that Carl Lusso,

that he's just a hothead and this is an argument, but then there was a gun involved, so it got used and someone got killed, so now we have murder. But then it's really a question of whether if intentional, well, that's not always first degree, or if premeditated under most statutes, it would be. And so Phil was clear in his assessment that he believed that no matter who instigated the confrontation, Cicali had every intention of killing George. The story is Dominic wanted to, in mob lingo, make his bones

and show what a tough guy he was. And that's why he shot and killed George Kehoe for what was described to us as no good reason. Guns may be gangsters, but a very real murder. So now our quest is to find Chicali. As a matter of routine, Phil ran his name through the system to see if Chicali had ever been locked up or has any outstanding warrants that could give him any reason to take him into custody. And sure enough, he found a police report about a recent incident in New York. I find a police report.

He was triple parked. New York City cop comes out and says, hey, move your car. Probably a phrase that's heard millions of times a day in New York City. Hey, move your car. Unfortunately, an up-and- coming tough guy does not just say, yes, officer, no problem. He gives the cop some lip and they go back and forth, back and forth to where the cop finally says, you're under arrest. And he locks him up. He then tows his car. The car is a rental car out of Florida. It is a white Cadillac Seville with Florida plates

on it. A white Cadillac Seville. The same car spotted by those Canadian tourists outside the Sandy Shoes Motel on the night of the murder. The car was actually returned to Florida and Phil knew that it could hold crucial evidence. He also knew that tracking down a white Cadillac in 1980s Florida was a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. The officer, thank you, whoever you are, wrote in the police report, gave a description of the car, and included the tag number. And with that stroke of good luck, the Cadillac was located in a Fort Lauderdale rental lot, which just happened to be just a short drive to where the murder weapon was dumped.

We get the records of when he rented it, and we do a forensic examination of the car. And in the trunk of the car, we lift up the liner and spray it with luminol, and it lights up like the 4th of July. So six months after the fact, we find blood trace evidence in the trunk of the car. Evidence that this was indeed the car Cicali and his accomplices had used to transport George's body to the creek. It was the biggest break in the case so far, and it all came courtesy of a parking ticket. And if Dominic Cicali would have just moved his car, we would have never found that car. So now it was finally Dominic Cicali's turn in the interview room.

He's back in Florida, and he's at the Broward County Sheriff's Office Homicide Division. So I get him in the room. I hate to sound, you know, cliche about this, but, you know, this is your moment. You know, and even for veteran homicide detectives, there still is often that inner drama with a sit-down, you know, basically this face-off with your prime suspect. Absolutely.

I mean, even knowing everything that Phil had, Chicali was not going to give anything up. He had really nothing left to bargain with. He's the only one out of everyone I spoke to who gave me the least amount of information. He was the one that was going to be the tough guy and not talk about everything. But apparently, Cicali had met his match in Phil Amabile.

But I knew his personality. He was a wannabe gangster. I told you I wanted to be a secret agent and play for the Yankees. He grew up with the same thing. He wanted to be a gangster, though. He acted that part. And the two of us met. And we met in a room.

And the interview room is a 10 by 10 room with fluorescent lighting in it, a table and a couple of chairs. And we tried going through the story and he just kept telling me I was wrong. I didn't know what went on. That wasn't it. And so forth and so on. But the circumstantial evidence against him was overwhelming. The car that we discovered that was registered to him during the time frame that George Kehoe was murdered, finding the blood evidence in the trunk of the car, his photograph was sent to Canada and the Canadian Police Department were able to do a photo lineup on

everyone that was in the room and he was identified as the person driving the car. So I was armed with that information as well. I could put him at the scene. Of course, he also had the statements of two other suspects naming him as the trigger man. The icing on the cake would have been for him to tell me that he shot him. But, you know, he didn't tell me that. But I had enough to charge him with the murder. But getting a conviction, as we know, is a whole other ball of wax. There's many facets to a homicide investigation. Solving the case, that's number one. And being able to prove it in court of law, which is more important. What's the sense of working a case and

solving it if there's no outcome? I mean, you're just spinning your wheels. The first item on the prosecutor's agenda was to negotiate a plea deal with a cooperation agreement attached with one of the men involved post-murder, Michael Sniffin. Sniffin was not a tough guy. Sniffin was just a knock-around guy, you know, a gopher. based on his role in this which was helping cleaning up the room and disposing of the body he became a state's witness in this investigation in this murder his testimony was going to buy his freedom of a suspended sentence and with his cooperation the whole truth began to emerge specifically about why they they were in Florida in the first place. This was nothing to do with guns. I was convinced this was drugs that they were going to pick up.

Guns were just more sanitized than, say, drugs because, obviously, they feel like if they're transporting drugs across state lines, that that could be more serious than just guns that they were going to sell on the street. According to Sniffin, Cicali had arranged to sell Sniffin and Carluso a large amount, about $200 worth of marijuana that they were then supposed to transport back to New York. He went on to say that the trouble really started when George Kehoe, over too many beers, started accusing Cicali of setting him up for the earlier robbery in his condo. And this provocation was all Cicali needed to escalate their argument from accusations to violence. It was said that George was actually the first one to pull out

the gun, but then Carluso and Cicali had wrestled it away. Well, if true, well, even then legal self-defense is gone because he no longer has the weapon to use. But then according to them, George then made for the door, but not before Ticali pulled out his own gun and put two bullets into George's back. Carl Lusso then organized the cleanup and together the three men dragged and then carried George's body to the Cadillac and drove it to the shallow creek in Palm Beach County, leaving a trail of evidence all along the way. That evidence eventually proved too much to overcome. But perhaps the real reason they didn't get away with murder?

Mistakes all their own. I mean, when you think about this case and the screw-ups, there wasn't one part of this that went well. There's canals and lakes and bodies of water all over Florida. So you pull over to the side of the road and you throw him in a creek. You rent your car 500 yards from where you dump the guns. You check into a hotel and you use your real driver's license. Were these the mistakes of young criminals or the careless first steps of career cold-blooded killers? Thanks to Phil and his fellow investigators, we would never have to find out.

Cicali eventually pled guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to seven years in prison, although a separate drug charge earned him an additional 17. According to Phil, he showed little emotion or remorse for his crimes. I've dealt with this in the past where they will do everything in their power. They'll bite their inner cheek. They'll do whatever they have to do to try to hide any emotion, whether it's not wanting to give me the satisfaction or whether or not to show their cards. He remained very stoic throughout. I think the only time I really found any emotion is when I went in there after I had finished telling them he was being charged.

I walked in from behind, put my hand on his shoulders, says, all right, get up. We're going to transport you to jail. You're charged with the murder. I felt an exhale. As for the victim, George Kehoe's family, they were filled with both grief and gratitude to the investigators dedicated to achieving justice for George. The father, him and his wife, had come to Florida at least once that I can recall. He was a bear of a man. He was a big Irish cop, very stereotypical. I remember the bear hug he gave me almost broke my back.

You know, they were just genuinely, genuinely sweet, sweet people. The pain that they endured was great. No two ways about it. Just a sweetheart of a man. This was really hard to watch them endure because he was not a man that was used to crying or emotion, but he surely had a lot of it. As a member of law enforcement, Phil is used to forging close, intimate bonds with a family of victims. But as he explains, those relationships can be bittersweet and often do not last forever.

With a lot of survivors of homicides, I kind of fall off the face of the earth because I'm a reminder of the worst days of their lives. I'm their friend. I'm their confidant. They cry to me. They confide in me. And then once it's all over, you know, they got to move on with their life if they're lucky. During my conversation with Phil, we also talked about the importance a case detective needs to bring to the table. Emotional support and trust building. Investigating murder cases involves navigating the complex and often raw emotions of grieving families. By establishing a compassionate and understanding relationship, detectives can help families feel respected and valued during a difficult time.

This emotional support is vital in building trust. When families trust the detectives, they are more likely to be cooperative, patient, and supportive of the investigative process, even when it is lengthy or invasive. People often comment that television and most media only feature crimes committed against the most innocent, or at least the stereotypical girl or guy next door. And there is truth to that, unfortunately. But every homicide matters. No one should die at the hands of murder. George Kehoe moved to Florida with the intent of making a fresh start from a troubled youth. He still may have been struggling

or not yet found his way out of a problematic lifestyle or from being around the people he associated with. But regardless, George Kehoe mattered. His parents and family grieved for him like any parent of any child lost to murder would. George wasn't given the amount of time he deserved to find his way. And that should have been his natural lifetime. We hope that his family are doing well and have been supported as they grieve over the loss of their son.

Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media. Ashley Flowers is the executive producer. This episode was written and produced by Walker Lamond, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa, Megan Hayward, and Philjean Grande. So, what do you think, Chuck?

Do you approve?