Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore - Anne Marie Fahey: The Governor’s Secretary Who Vanished Without a Trace

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

On June 27, 1996, Delaware Governor’s secretary Anne Marie Fahey had dinner with prominent attorney Thomas Capano and was never seen again. Her body was never recovered, and investigators had no murder weapon, but Anne Marie’s diary, Capano’s own family and a crucial piece of evidence recovered from the ocean slowly revealed what happened.Head over to our Clues YouTube channel to WATCH this episode: https://www.youtube.com/@CluesPodIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Clues to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free and released a day early, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals including Crime House 24/7, Crimes Of Reddit, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow us on SocialYouTube: @CluesPod | @crimehousestudiosInstagram: @cluespodcast | @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaClues is hosted by Morgan Absher & Kaelyn Moore Instagram: @morgsyabsher | @itskaelynmooreTikTok: @twohottakes | @heartstartspoundingEpisode Sponsors:Apply to Year Up United today, and take the first step toward achieving the career you want. Visit https://www.YearUp.org to learn more.Get started now at ⁠⁠https://www.HelloAlma.com/CLUESSave up to 52% off with code CLUES at https://www.gruns.coUpgrade your sleep with Boll & Branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at https://www.BollAndBranch.com/clues with code clues.Let’s eat real. Head to https://www.FactorMeals.com/clues50off and use code clues50off to get 50 percent off and 1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year, while supplies last until 10/31/2026.

The moment a body is found, the clock starts ticking. 48 hours before the trail goes cold. From A&E and Crime House, this is the official podcast from the famous true crime series, The First 48. I'm Carter Roy. Every Thursday, I revisit a landmark homicide investigation in depth, with long-form storytelling built for your ears. Listen to and follow The First 48 on Apple Podcast.

Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. A governor's secretary disappears. Rumors fly. And the president of the United States personally offers the FBI help in trying to find her. When Anne-Marie Fahey vanished without a trace, it seemed like no one would ever be able to find her. That is, until the most unlikely witness came forward with a story that no one could believe. Hi guys, welcome back to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.

I'm Keel Moore, and I'm going to be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories, and the court files released on these cases. And I'm your internet sleuth, Morgan Apshur. I'm the one who's diving into the Reddit forums and anything else I can find online to talk about the lesser known details and pull the threads that just don't add up. Don't forget to share your thoughts on social, want ad-free and early access to clues, and the rest of the crimehouse lineup. Subscribe to Crimehouse Plus and get at least two. bonus episodes from across crimehouse every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com, or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap, try free at the top of the clues page. The case of Anne-Marie Fahey starts right now. When I was first getting into this case, it really felt like Chandra Levy all over again, like a lot of similarities between, you know, government and maybe

a secret relationship. Yes. Yeah. And this just really, it threw me. Quists and turns and yeah, I totally agree with you. It's, though, I feel like the longer we go, the more threads we see in these cases that kind of run similar to each other. Oh, I was going to say last week, too, we put out the episode on Chloe Aling, the mom who disappeared. And so you really struck a chord with people. Me? Yeah, because at the end of the episode, you talked about how you also got like a late stage autism diagnosis. We had so many women in the comments who were also saying that they were diagnosed with autism later in life.

Doctors just didn't know what it was for a long time. It's so under-recognized in girls because of the way we are trained socially and how it's easier for us to mask. Yeah. It's just, it's really hard. So I think, like, finding out an answer for a lot of people out there, it's just like, okay, great, I can move forward. And now I know why my brain operates in this quirky way that it does. It just really helps. No, I was so, so, like, thankful for every listener that we have that reached out and told their stories to.

Oh, I need to go back. Yeah, you should go back and you should look through some of the stories. I'm a little scared to share that because I don't, I don't really talk about it much even on two out takes. I imagine it's scary. It is, well, and I got diagnosed because of people bullying me in the comments. What? Yeah, like I just constantly got told I acted like so different with every guest and I'm like, I brought it to my provider that like I went through all of this like talk interview and like questionnaires with to get diagnosed. and I like pulled up like video clips I had prepared for her and she's like you're literally masking.

And I was like, okay, thank you. That's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like after getting a diagnosis, do you feel better? Like, do you feel like there's now things you can do to help yourself? I definitely try to mask less. And like it's been interesting.

It's like it's muscle memory though. It's like I've been acting like this for the past 30 some odd years. Yeah. It's also interesting having an on camera job too when that's your thing is like masking. Yep. You learn a lot of things about yourself. Yeah. Yeah, being able to like go back and watch yourself too. Yeah.

Wild. Yeah. No, but thanks everyone who reached out. Thank you for chiming in. We love you guys so much. All right. And with that, should we dive into this week's case? Let's get into this one.

So a quick reminder, if you're watching this, you're going to see some of those pictures and videos we're talking about. It's going to help you visualize the case. And if not, you should check us out at Clues Podcast on Instagram. We're going to have the same visuals, basically, for you over there. They also post a lot of other stuff. So just go follow us on Instagram. And just a warning.

before we begin, this episode contains a lot of discussion surrounding disordered eating, assault, intimate partner violence, murder, organized crime, and suicide. So please listen with care. So this case today begins on Thursday, June 27, 1996 in Wilmington, Delaware. There, a 30-year-old woman named Anne-Marie Fahey is struggling, to put it lightly. She's been battling this eating disorder she's had for years. And lately, she's been feeling like she's on the verge of losing the fight with it. She's not able to take any time off to go to residential treatment. She feels pressure from her job. She feels like it's too important to risk. And that's because Anne-Marie works for Delaware Governor Thomas Carper as his scheduling secretary. She decides if and when people can

meet with the most powerful man in the state. She has a pretty important job. It's the kind of position that could someday lead to a job at the White House. She earns just over $31,000 a year. That's $66,000 in today's dollars. It's not really enough to cover her current bills, and it's definitely not enough to cover new medical bills that she has. So she's really weighing that as she's deciding if she's going to go get treatment. After this tough session that she has with her psychologist the day before,

Anne-Marie decides the best thing for her is take a long weekend and rest. At around 4.30 p.m. that day, she finishes the governor's schedule for the next day. She emails her coworkers and reminds them that she's not going to be on Friday. She'll be back on Monday. And then she heads to an appointment with her psychiatrist. He describes her as being this vivacious and family-oriented woman. She has a heart of gold, he says. But, you know, recently he can see that she's really been struggling.

At this session, they talk about her struggles, but they also talk about Anne-Marie's new boyfriend. For the past nine months, she's been seeing this 31-year-old guy. He's a banker named Michael Scanlan. and she thinks that he might be, in her words, quote, the one. But she's been keeping a couple really big secrets from him. And the longer she waits to tell him, the more afraid she becomes of his reaction to these things. And the more anxious that she gets over this, the more disordered her eating becomes. It's this really vicious cycle that she's in.

Anne-Marie leaves her psychiatry appointment at around 6 p.m. And after that, she heads to a well-known Italian restaurant in Philadelphia called Panorama. It's about 45 minutes from her home in Wilming. She arrives there at around 7 p.m. with an older man. The waitress can't figure out exactly what's going on here if it's maybe like a business meeting or a date. They don't look like a couple. He's very clearly not her 31-year-old boyfriend, Michael. He dresses like he's in his 50s or 60s. The two of them barely speak the whole time that they're in this restaurant too. Most of the time they're just sitting there in silence. They order some cocktails, wine, two entrees, two appetites. but Anne-Marie barely touches any of the food that comes, and neither does he. The bill comes out to $154, Anne-Marie pays it using the guy she's with credit card, and together they leave at around 9 p.m. Nobody sees Anne-Marie the next day on Friday, June 28th. That's her day off. And on Saturday night, June 29th, she's a no-show for a double date with her boyfriend Michael and her brother and his wife.

Michael and her siblings start calling her repeatedly just to check in on her, but there's no answer on the phone. Anne-Marie's older sister Kathleen worries that maybe she's passed out in her apartment. Like maybe she lives alone. Maybe she fell and hit her head. So she drives over with Michael. She gets a key from the landlady and she goes inside her sister's apartment. But there is no sign of Anne-Marie anywhere. There's just a messy apartment reeking of garbage that should have been taken out days ago.

And that's really when Kathleen knows that something is wrong. because Anne-Marie never leaves her apartment a mess. Friends literally call her anal Annie because she's so, like, strict about cleaning. I wish I was like that. And that's when Kathleen calls the police and reports Anne-Marie as a missing person. Afraid that they're not going to take the report seriously enough, though. She calls the Delaware Secretary of State, which she knows through Anne-Marie's work. And after hearing about her disappearance, the governor sends his own security detail.

In fact, they actually arrive on scene before the police. And it turns out everyone is taking this disappearance very seriously. But no matter how hard they look, no one will ever see Anne-Marie again. Let's stop there and take a second just to learn a little bit more about Anne-Marie and who she was. So Anne-Marie Chenade Fahey was born in Wilmington, Delaware on January 27, 1966. Everyone in Wilmington knew the Fahey's. They were this big, boisterous Irish Catholic family. Her mom, who was also named Kathleen, was a former secretary turned full-time mother, and her dad, Robert, was an insurance salesman.

Anne-Marie was the baby of the family. She was born into a family with four older brothers, Kevin, Mark, Brian, and Robert Jr. And also, she had an older sister named Kathleen. In 1975, their mother actually died of lung cancer. Anne-Marie was just nine at the time. Her mother passed away at her home on Sunday morning in March, while most of the family was at church. church. Anne-Marie and her brother, Kevin, were the only kids home at the time. And to keep her from seeing the body, Robert Sr. shut her in the basement with no explanation and no light. Grief-stricken,

he forgot all about Anne-Marie for the next hour while he arranged to have her mother Kathleen's body carried away. And by the time that he remembered that she was down there and let her out, Anne-Marie was traumatized by the whole experience. And it seems like things in her life started going down hill from that moment. Robert Sr. had always been a heavy drinker and losing his wife really, really pushed him over the edge. He would buy liquor before he'd buy groceries for the family. Sometimes he wouldn't pay the mortgage. And there were stretches where the family had no food in the house and no heat. Anne-Marie would sleep at friends' houses sometimes just to be able to take a shower and just to have a meal. So the Fahey kids really banded together. They got really close and they

raised themselves. The older ones got part-time jobs. They all worked at the same. Wilmington Bar called O'Friel's Irish Pub, but they would just work different shifts. The Bar was owned by three brothers, the Freels, who were all very involved in Democratic politics. And because of that, the pub was a hot spot for Delaware Democrats. One Attorney General spent so much time there. It got the name the Attorney General's Annex office. And Anne-Marie grew up visiting her siblings there during their shifts. And Ed Freel, a chief of staff for a congressman, took a liking to her, and he really encouraged her to get into politics

because she was so interested in it. And a lot of people thought that she could go really far. She had the personality for it. Her brother Brian described her effect on people saying, quote, Annie would walk into a room, and it was like someone threw the light switch and all the lights came on. By her mid-teens, Anne-Marie stood six feet tall in heels, with curly Auburn hair adding a couple more inches,

and with her big blue eyes and freckles, she always stood out, even though she maybe would have preferred to be invisible. In her sophomore year of high school, Robert Sr. lost the family home to foreclosure and relocated the family to Newark, Delaware. Anne-Marie stayed behind, though. She wanted to finish school, and she moved in with two of her brothers who were renting a house together. After graduation, she chose Wesley College in Dover. It was about 50 minutes from Wilmington. She was inspired by all those political movers and shakers that she saw growing up, and she chose to major in political science. She played basketball, she played field hockey, she got really good grades. She spent a semester studying abroad in Spain. I did too. I love that about her. And that time overseas really helped her decide that she wanted to work in international affairs. But as her ambitions grew, Anne-Marie began to struggle personally. And it was during college that she started restricting her eating. And then life had another horrible surprise for her. And that's in March of 1986 when she was 20 years old and halfway through college, her father died from leukemia. She was devastated. Now she's lost both of her parents.

but she couldn't really share her grief with her siblings. Many of them said that he was actually dead to them years earlier when he abandoned the family. You know, he had struggled with drinking for a long time and a lot of her siblings just wanted nothing to do with him. Anne-Marie, it seemed, was the only one that still talked to her father. And after he passed away, her eating disorder got a lot worse. It seemed like it gave her the sense of control that she desperately needed after losing both parents so young. But, you know, she was still this really ambitious, really smart girl,

and she kept moving forward in her life. So after she graduated from Wesley in 1991, she landed an internship in Washington, D.C., with the Organization of American States. It's an international group that promotes a cooperation between countries in North-South and Central America. But Anne-Marine didn't have enough money to solely focus on just an internship. So she started waiting tables, and she returned to Wilmington every weekend so that she could work in a restaurant. But later that year, 25, year old Anne-Marie walked into the D.C. office of her hometown congressman, Thomas Carper, and she asked for a job as a junior staffer. Ed Freel, who was still Carper's chief of staff,

gave her a glowing recommendation, and she got the job. And the very next year, Carper ran for Governor of Delaware. He hired Anne-Marie for his campaign, and he won. She followed him to the governor's office and became a trusted scheduling secretary. And what the job lacked in salary, it definitely made up for in power and connections. She planned to work for Carper as long as he was in office, just to see where her career took off after that. But in the months leading up to her disappearance, her health took a turn for the worse. Despite seeing both a psychologist and a psychiatrist, her eating disorder had become very serious. The month before she disappeared, she was so weak she considered going to the hospital.

At 5 foot 10, she weighed just 125 pounds. She was also taking nightly laxatives. She had been diagnosed with bulimia in addition to anorexia. but Anne-Marie really, really wanted to recover. About a month before her disappearance, she wrote in an email, I'm scared to death that I'm killing myself. And that's a positive thing because I'm forced to do something to make myself better. Except she never got the chance because on June 27, 1996,

30-year-old Anne-Marie Fahey had her last day of work, and after that, she vanished. This episode is brought to you by Bowling Branch. Have you noticed that your sheets might be slipping off the corners of your bed lately? or maybe you have pillows that don't really feel as supportive as they once were. A lot of people actually keep their bedding for far longer than they should. I mean, I don't blame those people. It's usually the last thing on my mind.

It's me. A lot of people don't think about that. I think my mother-in-law, and should be the first one to tell you this, has sheets literally from the 60s. I have sheets from my twin bed still. Oh, my gosh. But that is where Bowling Branch comes in. I'm at the stage in my life where sleep is no longer optional. I have spent a lot of time in the last year,

like making sure that everything in my room is perfect so that I can sleep as well and as much as possible. Having a six-month-old has made that nearly impossible. But I really love my Bowlen Branch sheets. I find them so comfortable. I just slip straight into bed and get like all nice and cozy and can actually fall asleep. Bowling and Branch also makes the perfect gift.

I have never gotten a nicer prepared package and you open it up and they are really luxurious. So if you know that someone's not going to spoil themselves, with nice sheets, it could be the perfect gift. Upgrade your sleep with Bowlin Branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at bowl and branch.com slash clues and use code Clues. That's Bowen Branch, B-O-L-L-L-A-N-D Branch.com slash clues, code clues to unlock 15% off.

Exclusions apply. I'm Josh Maykowitz, and I hope you'll join us for Season 5 of Dateline Missing in America. In each episode of Dateline's award-winning series, we will find. focus on one missing person's case and hear from the families, the friends, and the investigators all desperate to find them. Maybe you could help solve a mystery. Search Dateline missing in America to listen completely free or subscribe to Dateline premium to unlock new episodes early. Two days later, on the night of June 29, 1996, the governor's security detail arrived at Anne Rie's apartment, followed by the Wilmington Police. Her sister Kathleen pointed them to the first clue.

right away, which was the apartment itself. It was a mess, and that was extremely unusual for Anne-Marie. Kathleen said the rotting garbage had basically told her that Anne-Marie hadn't been home for at least a couple of days. Anne-Marie would never let the trash sit until it started to smell like that. Plus, the bed was unmade, the comforter was pulled down, and Anne-Marie always made her bad. Her shoes and clothes were left out, that usually would have been put away. And Kathleen explained, that Anne-Marie might leave things briefly before tidying up for an errand or, you know, if she had to run to work, but she would never go away overnight without having her place kind of spotless. So she was absolutely convinced that her sister hadn't disappeared voluntarily. But police needed

more than a messy apartment before considering foul play, and they quickly found it. Anne-Marie's wallet was still there, all of her cash, credit cards, driver's license, her passport, was still there. Her car was home, but not her car or house keys. And there was no sign of a struggle or robbery. Next, Kathleen help detectives go through Anne-Marie's clothes. The only missing items were a t-shirt, jogging shorts, running shoes, and her favorite Topaz ring. It didn't seem like Anne-Marie had been planned to be gone long, more like she went for a jog and just never came home. That was enough to take the possibility of foul play seriously. But early, in the investigation, they still really needed to stay open-minded. They didn't have any strong

leads. So they needed to speak with everyone close to her to pinpoint when she disappeared and who exactly saw her last. One of the first people they wanted to interview was Anne-Marie's boyfriend, 31-year-old Michael Scanlon. And Michael was happy to share the story of his relationship with Anne-Marie. He told them that they had met nine months earlier on September 15, 1995, on a blind date at Ophreel's. The matchmaker was actually Anne-Marie. boss, the governor. He knew that the two of them shared a passion for community service. Anne-Marie was mentoring underserved youth while Michael was the vice president in charge of community relations for a Wilmington-based bank and made large corporate donations to nonprofits.

Anne-Marie was pretty reluctant to let her boss set her up, and she walked away thinking that Michael was kind of awkward and that they didn't have any chemistry. But Michael talked her into a second chance, and that was when they found out exactly how. how much they had in common. Both of them were from these really big Irish Catholic families. Michael had six siblings. Anne-Marie had five. Both had excelled in sports in college, and they wanted to use their connections to serve their community. They were, at their core, good people. The relationship became pretty serious after that, but it also moved slowly in some ways. Michael actually did confess to the police that they still hadn't had sex after nine months, and it was actually a mutual decision

for both of them that they were going to wait until they got married. Overall, the relationship seemed healthy to the police. You know, the more they talk to him, they realize there's no history of violence. There's not really any obvious motive for Michael to have harmed Anne-Marie. The detectives weren't necessarily ready to rule him out completely, but it was time to check out some other persons of interests as well. But before they could check anyone's alibi, they still needed to establish exactly when Anne-Marie vanished.

and find out who the last person to see her was. Kathleen, her sister, had already found something to help with that, Anne-Marie's diary. That discovery and what it hinted at is our second clue, a mysterious man. Kathleen felt really guilty reading this diary, much less even sharing it, but it was clear she needed to because the last entry, written April 7, 1996, less than three months before Anne-Marie disappeared, was just way too concerning to ignore. It read, quote,

I have finally brought closure to Tom Capano. Kathleen had never heard Anne-Marie mention this person before, but the entry went on to describe Tom as, quote, a controlling, manipulative, insecure, jealous maniac, end quote, who had been allowed to take control of basically every decision in Anne-Marie's life. Kathleen looked around the bedroom for more clues

and actually was able to find three handwritten notes, all signed by Tom, all referring to monetary gifts or loans from him to Anne-Marie. One ended with him saying, quote, all I want is to make you happy and be with you. I love you, end quote.

So Kathleen's really confused. You know, if she's dating Michael for the past nine months, why is this other man writing love notes and gifting all these gifts and money to Anne Marie? And then she's calling him controlling and jealous. It was really clear that the police needed to know more about this Tom guy. So detectives went to see Tom Capano that night. It turns out, Tom Capano lived just five minutes away from Anne Marie's apartment.

Detectives just banged on his door at 3.30 a.m. on June 30th, they were not not waiting until the morning, which I love, and he did actually answer in his bathrobe and let them inside. His story is clue number three for us. Tom admitted to a relationship with Anne-Marie, but said that they had actually ended the sexual part about six months earlier, and that they agreed to just be friends after that. He described himself as her confidant and benefactor. He would listened to her talk about her mental health struggles. He would buy her groceries, gifted her an air conditioner, gave her loans, that he never expected back, that sort of thing. When asked why, he said that he was constantly worried for her physical and mental health

and sometimes feared that she might die by suicide. Tom said he also knew about her eating disorder. To investigators, it appears that he didn't pretend to be entirely noble, he did admit that the whole relationship with Anne-Marie by his own timeline had been during his marriage. He said he separated from his wife, the mother of his four daughters, in September of 1995, which is about nine months before Anne-Marie vanished. On the night in question, he did also confirm that they went to dinner at Panorama on June 27th. He was the one that the waitress had seen her with, and he paid for the meal. He said after they left around 9 p.m., he drove them to his house. so he could pick up a surprise gift.

It was an expensive pants suit from Talbot that Anne-Marie had talked about wanting. He also gave her some groceries. And after giving her these gifts, he said he dropped Anne-Marie off at her apartment around 10 p.m. Briefly went inside to put the groceries away and make sure her bedroom AC was on, and then he left. As far as he knew, she was planning to spend the weekend at the Jersey Shore with her friend, Kim Horstman. Tom said Kim had called him. about two hours before the police had arrived, actually,

to tell him that Anne-Marie was missing. But he also said he figured Anne-Marie had just left town for some alone time and would be back to work on Monday. Now, this struck investigators as really odd because he was just talking about how worried he usually was about her, how intensely he knew about her mental health struggles, her physical struggles. Yeah, he was saying he was, like, constantly worried about her, and then someone calls you and says she's missing,

and that's the time you decide that you're not worried about her anymore. You literally just told investigators you were worried about her committing suicide. But, oh, not worried this time. So, yeah, it makes sense that the cops immediately were like, that's weird. That's weird. Yeah. Are you worried or are you planting a story? Yeah.

And that's when police asked him if they could look around. But Tom said no. His daughters were asleep and without a warrant, police just had to accept that. But they did leave pretty suspicious of Tom. Again, all possibilities have to stay open at this point. They don't really have a lot to go on. But that did include the possibility that maybe Anne-Marie would show up back to work Monday morning. Now, Tom had given detectives a tip, one that they quickly followed up on.

And that was Kim Horstman. Anne-Marie's best friend since 1988 who knew everything about this relationship that she had with Tom. Kim explained to the police that Anne-Marie had first met Tom about three and a half years earlier in the spring of 1993. She was 27 at the time. Tom was 43. They attended the same political fundraiser and just hit it off from there. Tom was a prominent local attorney and formal legal counsel to Delaware's previous governor. And like Anne-Marie, he was Catholic.

He attended the same church as her. Tom's father, Louis Capano Sr., was a well-liked local homebuilder known for being an honest guy. And when he passed away, he left his four sons a fortune, a business, and some very big shoes to fill. Tom was also the oldest in the family. By the time he met Anne-Marie, he was the only one still upholding his father's good name. Lewis Jr., who was two years younger, had been in some legal trouble. He was accused of assault in 1982, and he got caught up in a corruption scandal in 1989. Joseph, who was three years younger, was accused in 1991 of kidnapping and sexually assaulting his longtime mistress, who was, and I'm not making this up, you guys are going to scream, his kid's former babysitter.

Disgusting. He took a plea deal for lesser charges and served. This is even worse. No prison time. The baby of the family was Gerard, 14 years younger than Tom. He wasn't in trouble like the other brothers were, but he wasn't accomplishing much either. He had spent his inheritance on moose hunting, drag racing, and tipping big at local strip clubs, which like if you're going to go, you better tip big. So like, I don't know how mad I can be at him about that. He had an ownership share in the family's real estate business, but he just, he did not have any interest in working on it. If this family was succession, this is Roman, I guess you could say. Yeah. But Tom was happy to let Lewis Jr. and Joseph just run the company. He was busy with his legal work, a lot of multimillion dollar bond deals with the government.

So at first, he saw Anne-Marie as a useful contact since she worked for the governor. Allegedly, this is according to him, it was actually Anne-Marie who turned things. flirtatious. She kept suggesting that Tom should take her to lunch, and a few months later, after their first meeting, he did. And soon this became a regular thing. Now, at first, this seemed like it was a harmless work crush. I mean, the Delaware political world was small. Everyone knew that Tom was married and had children. Tom was very well known. I mean, he was so connected and kind of joking. And kind of, you know, looking back to why his brother did something so serious and horrible and served no time. Like, a big part of that was Tom and his connections. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. And

their dad was a big deal. Like, everyone knew this guy. Everyone knew he was married. It is giving succession vibes. Yeah, 100%. The like being able to get off scot-free when you mess up big time. So flirting on the phone and dressing up for lunch was really fun for Anne-Marie, though. And the first few times that he came over, it was actually to play trivial pursuit. It wasn't anything romantic. but Tom, it seems like he was playing this long game. He flaunted his wealth to her. He showered her with all of these gifts. And Anne Marie, who spent her whole life living on less than she needed,

having jobs that didn't even really cover all of her bills, she was pretty charmed by the gifts, which makes sense. And then in January of 1994, several months after they first met, Tom took Anne Marie out to celebrate her 20th birthday at a fancy Philadelphia restaurant. He swept her off her feet, kept her wine glass full. and then took her back to her place. And from that point on, it was just an affair that they were having.

That's when it started. Anne-Marie had actually told her friend Kim that the two of them were in love. But Kim said that Anne-Marie was also conflicted about this because Anne-Marie is a good person and she didn't want to break up a family. She dumped Tom repeatedly, but he kept just doing things to get her back. He was the only person that she fully confided in about her eating disorder, aside from the doctors that she was seeing. And Kim said that it was actually a relief for Anne-Marie to talk openly,

and she didn't want to lose that connection in her life. Meanwhile, Tom was doing whatever he could to just keep her under his thumb. And eventually, Kim said that the relationship got a lot more controlling. And according to Kim, that is when things took a very dark turn. Kim actually tells police about how Tom reacted when Anne-Marie first turned him down. That story is actually our fourth clue. Tom's history of abusive, harassing behavior. In the summer of 1995, Anne-Marie and Kim rented a Jersey Shorehouse where they planned to spend their weekends.

But when Tom heard about it, he got jealous and tried to stop her from ever going. Now, this is a tactic that I think is going to ring a lot of alarm bells for people when they hear this, but Tom would essentially start arguments on Friday night that would drag on for hours, and it would leave Anne-Marie too tired to make the drive to Jersey short. Like, very purposeful. We hear about this a lot of times in abusive relationships. Yeah. Big moments, like birthdays, graduations, life events, or just to control you, people with these tendencies will start fighting.

Yes. I think that's, I think it even comes up on that quiz you tell people to take to. Yeah, loveisrespect.org quiz. Yeah, it's like, I mean, are you thinking about like when fight, are fights being used manipulative? and no, like, as a manipulative tactic. Yeah. And they were for Tom so much so that Anne-Marie only ended up spending three days at the beach house all summer.

And when you look at pictures from Anne-Marie's life, the Jersey Shore was such a big part of her life. It was so important. And so for her to only get three days there. And he's just fighting with her the whole summer. She can't even enjoy her summer at all. He's fighting with her the whole time. Exactly.

So she can't go. And that really soured her. on Tom. And then in September, she met Michael. So by the end of 1995, three months into her new relationship, she told Tom that she wanted to just be friends. Tom, however, refused to accept the breakup. He called Anne-Marie relentlessly. If that didn't work, he would drive over and sit in his Jeep outside of her apartment. When she still wouldn't take him back, he forced his way into the apartment and started carrying out all the gifts he had ever given her, saying, quote, no other man is going to see you in the dress I bought you. He left voicemail after voicemail,

begging her to reconsider. He even separated from his wife and moved into a rental house in the same neighborhood, again, five minutes away, which actually only put Anne-Marie off more, since she didn't want to break up a family. Then Tom actually threatened suicide if she wouldn't take him back. Another tactic. Anne-Marie held firm. When he mailed her an airplane ticket to Spain, she sent it right back.

Tom actually got so desperate that he reached out to Kim, her friend, directly. And he kind of knew Kim didn't like him. It was apparent at this point. But he told her, quote, look where she comes from, and I can offer her the entire world.

I could buy her anything she wanted. I have more money than I can spend in a lifetime. Am I going crazy after her? Am I crazy to be in love with this girl? End quote. Kim told him to give Anne-Marie some space. Let her come to him if she's going to come around. And by early 1996, it seemed like he had taken that advice.

Anne-Marie told friends that they were friendly again, and he had accepted that it was purely platonic at this point. but that conflicted with her last diary entry on April 7, 1996, the one saying that she had just brought closure to Tom, the one that, again, was calling him controlling, manipulative, a jealous maniac. And although Anne-Marie hadn't told Michael about Tom, Tom found out about Michael and was wildly jealous.

He told Kim that Michael was a geek and suggested that Anne-Marie and Michael were using each other just for appearances's sake. And according to some, Anne-Marie was afraid that Michael would leave if he found out about Tom and this previous relationship they had. But that made investigators wonder, what if Tom was threatened by the possibility of Anne-Marie moving on? I mean, it sounded like a motive to them. However, they still had no proof that Anne-Marie had even been harmed at this point. So as the investigation began to heat up, Anne-Marie's five siblings took turns staying at her place around the clock, you know, just in case she showed up.

Meanwhile, police spent the rest of Sunday, June 30th, trying to get inside of Tom's house. When they came back to search his house during the day, still without a warrant, Tom agreed to walk them through his place. But he wouldn't let them open drawers. He said they couldn't open closets. And he also wouldn't let them be unsupervised at any moment. Remember, he's a lawyer. He knew that he did not have to cooperate if they didn't have a warrant. But this is looking good for him, right?

Like, I'm letting you come in. There's nothing to see here. Again, him being a lawyer, he probably knows exactly how much he has to give to be like, oh, but I was cooperative. Give a mouse a cookie. Literally. They had to take whatever they could get from him. And under his watchful eye, they didn't find anything in his house. But the house did look like it had just been cleaned from top to bottom.

The team left at 3 p.m. empty handed. And then on Monday, July 1st, it was clear by mid-morning that Anne-Marie wasn't making the appearance that everyone had hoped for. The next day, the story broke in the local papers. Her prestigious job made it big front-page news. And Tibbs started pouring in. Anne-Marie's hairstylist and another friend both called to say that they had heard about the affair with Tom and they believed that Amory was afraid of him. And at the same time, Anne-Marie siblings formed their own theory about why she was keeping him. secrets. They believed that she was trying to protect everyone else. A sex scandal involving the

governor's secretary could affect his reelection. They thought that she put her boss first even while Tom was stalking her. As for Tom on July 2nd, as soon as the local paper started mentioning Anne-Marie, he packed up and he left for his mother's beach house in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, which was 80 miles away. He skipped the big search party police organized for July 4th a week after Anne-Marie was last seen. He was barbecuing with his family while 300 people combed through Brandywine Park, the 178-acre refuge where Anne-Marie often went to clear her head. And after this search party came up empty, the story finally reached the New York Times. By the end of the first week, President Bill Clinton called Governor Carper personally

to offer the FBI's assistance, and Carper took him up on it. On July 8th, nine days after Anne-Marie was reported missing, police met the FBI for the first time. And that was the same day that Tom returned from his little beach vacation he decided to take in the middle of all this. And he told police that his lawyers had advised him to stop speaking with them. But the team of federal agents was helping local police make some progress. Investigators knew that they didn't have enough for a wiretap. But the FBI helped secure a dial number recorder or a DNR. This tracks incoming and outgoing landline calls without recording them.

And it's much easier to get an approval for, which a judge did authorize. for Tom's Landline. This episode is brought to you by Grooons. Now that it's summer, it's so hard to keep a habit. Think about how long the days are, how much you're running around, school is out, your weekends are packed, you're traveling, all that stuff. It's so hard to keep a wellness routine going. But Grooons is a convenient, comprehensive formula in one delicious daily pack of gummy bears.

It isn't a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic. It's actually all those things, and then some, but at a fraction of the price. I love Greens. I've been taking them for over a year at this point. I love that they taste just like delicious little gummy bears, but they have a lot of good stuff in there for you. I also don't feel like I'm actually taking a multivitamin. I just keep a pack on me, eat one during the day while I'm on the go, and I love it. They also have six grams of prebiotic fiber and ingredients that are backed by over 35,000 research publications, which you know I love. Save up to 52% off with code Clues at Grooens. That's Clues, C-L-U-E-E-E.

at g-r-un-s-dot-CO. So investigators quickly learned that one of the numbers Tom called frequently belonged to a beautiful, wealthy woman named Deborah McIntyre, and she is our fifth clue. Deborah was an administrator at a prestigious college prep school, though she didn't really need the income. You see, Deborah was actually an heiress, the eldest daughter of a millionaire who made his fortune running a mill. Deborah had two children with her ex-husband, a lawyer, who she divorced in 1983.

This ex of hers actually used to work with Tom before they separated. So detectives track her down at work on July 23, 1996. Eventually, she does admit to an affair with Tom, which actually overlapped his entanglement with Anne-Marie. But their connection was apparently mostly sexual. There were no gifts or loans, no jealous tantrums. no stocking, no offers to leave his wife. Indications were that Deborah would have liked to be an official couple, but did accept that it just wasn't going to happen.

She sounded like she was describing a different person from the tom that Anne-Marie had described in her diary. But detectives were pretty sure that she wasn't really telling them the whole story. To get the truth, they need to confront her with hard evidence, which they still didn't really have at this, point, so the FBI actually helped get some warrants for Tom's financial records, and that's when investigators began looking for suspicious purchases or other ways to catch Tom in a lie. Now, Tom's credit card records mostly confirmed his timeline for June 27th. The panorama

charge was there at 9.12 p.m., but there was an odd transaction on the morning of June 29th. A few hours before Anne-Marie was reported missing, Tom had shopped at a store called wallpaper warehouse, the mysterious purchase he made is clue number six for us. Now, Tom didn't buy wallpaper there. The store actually mostly sold carpets, which was what his receipt said he bought on June 29th. Investigators were able to track down Tom's house cleaner and asked what she had noticed between her two visits, June 24th, three days before Anne Marie's disappearance, and July 22nd, almost a month after. She said that a rug in the great room had disappeared and been replaced by a cheaper one.

The sofa that was in that room on June 24th was also gone by July 22nd. On a hunch, police canvassed nearby stores for more evidence, and they found a drugstore cashier who actually remembered Tom coming in on June 30th asking for a product that would remove blood stains. Yep. So to investigators, this is really starting to look like a crime scene cleanup. That's just so, I can't imagine working at a store and having someone come in and specifically ask for something that removed blood stains. It would be so eerie.

Just such an immediate alarm bells going off. I'm like, clearly they sell it in stores. I'm like, I don't know, you accidentally cut yourself, but like, it feels weird. Reeks of someone who has never, like, has been able to get out of everything in his entire life. Like, isn't even concerned about walking and being like, yeah, I have a ton of blood in my house. I have to clean up. Like, do you have anything for that? Like, he just knows he's not going to get in trouble.

Well, and that's the thing, too, right? Because he did invite investigators over. Just come through my house. Come see everything. Yeah, I got nothing to hide because they already cleaned it up. Exactly. And so investigators are like, okay, he bought a new rug. The couch is gone.

Now we purchased bloodstain remover. Oh, yeah. And when we went through, the place was spotless. It had been clean top to bottom. Yeah. And you can tell. Like, I think you can tell when you walk into a house and it just smells. like bleach or pine saw or cleaning products, and it's just clean.

He has four kids. You know what that house is going to look like when you go in and when it's like, four daughters. Four daughters. Oh my gosh, there's going to be like hair everywhere. Like when you go in and it's spotless, that you immediately notice that. Yeah, but unfortunately by this point, it is now close to the end of July, which meant that Tom has had plenty of time to make this rug and sofa disappear.

Well, that reminded detectives about a tip. that had come in. A project manager working for the Copano family's real estate empire said that he got an odd request all the way back on July 1st. Tom's brother, Louis Capano Jr., the head of the company, had asked him to empty the project's dumpsters right away. And this was weird to this guy because those dumpsters were not full. There was no reason to empty them hastily, as was being asked of him. It was a waste of time. It was a waste of fuel, but he was told, you know, do it anyways. After hearing about Amory's disappearance, it did not sit right with him.

With that statement and the one from the cleaning lady, police felt like they finally had enough to get a search warrant. But first, federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office wanted to meet with the local team overseeing the investigation. The feds, which was led by a 31-year-old prosecutor named Column Connolly, offered local authorities a choice. He could turn this into a federal kidnapping investigation and bring in more resources. mainly because Anne-Marie was last seen alive in Pennsylvania.

But if Tom drove her back to Delaware and killed her there, that meant that he had transported her across state lines. But if they chose to do that, upgrade it to a federal kidnapping investigation, the federal government would take over it completely. It would be a grand jury investigation with strict federal secrecy rules. Federal agents would handle everything, including the search, and Wilmington detectives would not even get updates on the case after that.

And still, knowing all of this, the Delaware prosecutors agreed. As much as they wanted to see this case all the way through, they knew that a federal investigation meant more help, a bigger budget, and the latest forensic science. And handing it off was the right thing to do for Anne-Marie. And I'm actually going to, because this isn't a botched, it's not really a Sherlock because they didn't just like figure anything out. Are you going to talk about the project manager? Well, you talk about the project manager, but I'm just going to put a heart because I love that they let go of their egos and they pass it off to another agency. Because oftentimes we see investigations get really hurt by not doing this.

Absolutely. So they get a heart from me for that. I love that. I also want to add a category. I feel like this is going to come up again in Anne-Marie's case. But I don't know if, like, vigilante is the right way to put it, but just like a normal hero who comes in and gives this big tip. What do we? Maybe tipsters, like little tipsters.

I'm going to write, I like when you said normal hero. I think that's cute. I'm going to write normal hero. I mean, this project manager coming forward and being like, oh, I have. Actually, he did tell me to empty the dumpster. Like this really gets investigators going of like, oh, no, no, no. Like, Tom, yes, exactly. No, I did.

The cleaning lady coming in. That's so great. So the cleaning lady gets a normal hero and the project manager. The project manager too. Because just to also really, really pay attention on the job, I feel like a lot of times I'm not paying attention. Like, if you ever asked me, like, do you empty the dumpster that day? I'd be like, I don't know. I don't know what day I'd do anything.

Exactly. So I thought that was great. Yes. I think they're making a big difference in this case already. So on July 31st, federal agents led by Connolly executed the search warrant on Tom's rental house while TV cameras and reporters waited outside. And it was there that they actually found our seventh clue. Tiny specks of blood on a baseboard in the great room and on a metal radiator cover.

This is the same room where Tom had replaced the rug where he had gotten rid of the sofa after Anne-Marie disappeared. However, without finding Anne-Marie's body to take DNA from, confirming this blood was actually from Anne-Marie, might have been really difficult. But detectives get quite a big Sherlock moment. They do some research and find out that Anne-Marie was actually a blood donor. And they go to the local bank that she donated at, and they were able to locate a small sample that was still on. on file from a few weeks ago. Okay, so I'm going to give a Sherlock for that, but I'm also going to give Anne-Marie a normal hero mark because if you donate blood, you're a hero to me. Yeah. I just found out how important it is to have blood on standby for like moms giving birth, like people giving birth.

You lose, you can lose a lot of blood. Yeah. That's why you double the amount of blood that's in your body while you're pregnant so that you have a bunch on tap in case. I just keep getting like promoted stuff on Instagram for like blood donations and how needs. it is right now and I'm like, okay, like, time to go sign up. We should go. Yeah, I was actually thinking about that the other day. We should go together. I think I'm type O too. Which like, that's good. That's what they need. Yeah. I'm B plus. So Sherlock, normal hero for Anne-Marie. So the agents get a warrant to go get the blood from the bank and they have it tested against the specs and it's a match. Connolly and his team were now almost certain that Tom had killed

Anne Marie on the sofa in his great room after that dinner they had on June 27th. They believed that he had then rolled her body into the old carpet to move it. But without the sofa, without the carpet, without her body, they still didn't have enough for an arrest. Any defense attorney could point to those tiny specks of her blood,

saying that they were from a nosebleed, paper cut, whatever else. But to them, it was the first bit of evidence that at least suggested that Anne Marie might have been harmed in Tom's house. And they believed that this was just the beginning. This is all going to unravel really soon. Yeah. And then on August 15, 1996, that's now a month and a half after Anne-Marie disappeared. They began searching the two landfills where the construction dumpsters had been emptied on July 1st. They hoped that they could find the couch, the rug, maybe a murder weapon, and, you know, hopefully even a body. The search involved heavy equipment, dozens of FBI agents

in hazmat suits and an army of local officers. And five days later on August 21st, they left empty-handed. Now, it is nearly impossible to find anything in a dumpster ever. Like, any investigator will tell you that. So I don't know that they were necessarily expecting to be able to find anything. No. But they did leave empty-handed. And that's, I think, why I was so blown away in Anna Walsh's case,

how they were able to go to that massive landfill and even find stuff. Like, the chances of them finding anything is so slim. It's so slim. So it's not surprising they weren't able to locate items here. Yes. But even still, that didn't stop Conley from moving forward with the grand jury that August. A federal grand jury reviews of federal investigation and determines whether there's probable cause to believe the accused committed a federal crime. And this is federal because Tom potentially crossed state lines and it was handed over. Yes. Not just up to the state anymore. It's federal.

Which is why it's going to the federal grand jury. So a prosecution presents evidence and testimony periodically for approval, and jurors can ask questions and request specific evidence or witnesses. And when the prosecutors present a completed case, the jury votes on whether or not to indict. And if they decline, the prosecution can start over with a new grand jury. It's a whole process. If we've ever gotten called to be on a grand jury, it could be like four months that you're... We actually did have some listeners on a past episode comment that they were a part of a grand jury. Yeah, because I think I mentioned how my friend was on one and he was literally on it for four months.

He got called for jury duty and was gone for four months. And I think some people in the comments were like, that happened to me too. Can you imagine four months? No. Was he sequestered? Yeah, the whole time. And it was really petty stuff too that he was on. I think there was maybe one murder, but most of it was like just small stuff that they were just reviewing.

Four months is a lot. I would crash out. Me too. I can't do it. Connolly had a specific idea for how to use the grand jury to get people talking. His eye was on 45-year-old Lewis Jr., the oldest of Tom's three younger brothers, the heir to the family business, and the person who allegedly told the project manager to empty those half-full dumpsters.

Connolly didn't think that Lewis had participated in the kidnapping or murder, but he did have a feeling that he maybe was involved in some sort of cover-up. So he offered Lewis full immunity in exchange for his testimony. And with that, Lewis took the stand on August 29, 1996. He admitted that he, yes, did order for the dumpsters to, be emptied early, but he said it was because Tom used them to dispose of Anne-Marie's personal items to hide the affair from his wife. Lewis even gave Tom an alibi for the morning of June 28th. At the time, detectives believed that Tom was likely disposing of her body.

He said that the two of them were in a business meeting about a possible new investment. By the end, Lewis had not given up anything that would have incriminated Tom. But Conley had something up his sleeve. The immunity grant required truthful testimony. If Lewis lied, he could be charged with perjury and he could actually lose that deal. And Lewis must have figured out that he was in some sort of trouble because about five weeks after his first appearance on October 8, 1996, he asked to go back in front of the grand jury because he wanted to clarify a couple, quote, misstatements that he had made. But even when he did that, he still didn't say anything that necessarily incriminated Tom. He just admitted to his own affair. Oh, my God. He called everyone,

he calls everyone back. He's like, guys, guys go there. Everyone's got to come back. I had a few statements. I actually want to say that I slept at my girlfriend's house the night of June 27th, not at my house. So he fully admits to everyone that he was also having an affair. This family, man. So Connolly hears this and is like, I'm so sick of these brothers. They're, they're lying. They're clearly lying. He's clearly lying. But he took this. all is a sign that like something was working, something about this plan was working. Because clearly this one is now nervous enough to get back on the stand and admit more things in front of everyone. So maybe it's just a matter of time.

So that fall, they decided that they're going to call Tom's other girlfriend, Deborah, to also testify. Connolly suspected perjury again when she appeared to lie about the timeline of their relationship. Remember, like, even earlier they had a feeling she was maybe lying about some stuff. And then she gets on the stand again and like the stuff, the timeline is just not lining up with anything. So he decides he's going to make the same play that he did with Lewis. He's going to let her lie. But then he's going to remind her that if she lied on the stand, like the whole deal is done. And you're going to get charged with perjury.

Then Tom's youngest brother, 33-year-old Gerard didn't testify. But that's because Connolly suspected that he was more directly involved. Remember, that's the one that just goes to the strip club and like has nothing to do with the family. Big tipper. Yeah. The big tipper. Gerard had recently sold a boat. And that boat was missing an anchor.

So maybe that had something to do with why Anne Marie's body hadn't been found. Connolly wasn't really willing to risk giving Gerard immunity as well. So instead he called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the ATF. It was widely alleged in Wilmington that Gerard had an expensive cocaine habit. So Conley got the ATF to investigate his drug use, hoping that they could bring charges against him, that they could drop in exchange for testimony against Tom. this whole plan like hey we know you've been doing coke it's getting sherlocky i know that like it's it is like he's playing chess they're going to get them on coke they're going to say hey you actually don't have to do any of the coke charges if you talk to us about your brother tom

connelly knew that if he just kept slowly dialing up the pressure someone was finally going to crack whether it's deborah or the brothers like someone was going to finally say something yeah and unfortunately this whole plan was going to take a lot of time So it wasn't until October 8, 1997. That's about a year later after all of that went down, but the ATF investigation into 34-year-old Gerard came to a head. Two undercover agents who had worked their way into a social circle over the last several months, knew what drugs he was using, they knew where he kept them,

they also now knew what guns he owned. In Delaware at the time, drug users couldn't legally own firearms. So the ATF executed a search warrant at Gerard's house that evening. They seized 21, 2-1, 21 guns alone. They also seized a bunch of cocaine and marijuana. And, you know, after finding all of that, there was potentially a lot of prison time on the line for Girard. Yeah.

But they weren't even done. The undercover agents had a list of everyone they had seen partying with Gerard, including multiple affair partners. I can't with these brothers. They're garbage. And these were all affair partners, too. that his wife didn't know anything about. So the ATF started peppering them with subpoenas to show Gerard that a trial would drag up all of this dirty laundry.

They're basically like in the periphery of his life being like, we know everything. And we're going to get all these people on the stand if you don't start talking. Well, that and like look at his lifestyle. He gets to have the family company's success, the money, and just frolic. Do whatever he wants with it. Frolic, exactly. He's not going to go to prison. So none of them have this idea that they're capable of going to prison, and really until this moment, because once Gerard sees that, oh, all of my girlfriends are now getting served, he tells his lawyer that he's ready to make a deal.

All of my girlfriends. All of my girlfriends. Not my girlfriends. He said that he was going to tell prosecutors everything he knew about Amory Fahey if it meant that he could stay out of prison. On November 8, 1997, Gerard arrived at the U.S. Attorney's Office. promising information that would lead to his brother Tom's arrest. In exchange, he would only serve three years of probation for failing to report a felony. His drug and gun charges would disappear. So our eighth clue is Gerard's recorded statement.

The short version is this. Several months before Anne-Marie's disappearance, Tom told Gerard that he was being extorted by a couple that were threatening his daughters. Tom said if they ever actually came after the girls, he planned to kill them. And he asked if he could use Gerard's boat to dump the bodies. Gerard agreed, if his nieces were in danger, he felt he also had a responsibility to help his brother protect them. He also lent Tom a handgun at his request, though Tom returned it later, allegedly unused. But at 6 a.m. on June 28, 1996, the morning after Anne-Marie was last

seen alive, Tom knocked on Gerard's door and asked to borrow the boat. Gerard asked, quote, did you do it? And Tom nodded. Gerard went back to Tom's house with him. They picked up a heavy cooler with a chain and a padlock already locked around it and then drove to the marina at Stone Harbor, New Jersey. They transferred the cooler to the boat and sailed out into the Atlantic. And about 60 miles from shore, Tom signaled Gerard to stop. He shoved the cooler overboard, but it wouldn't sink. Gerard had his gun, so he actually shot a hole in the cooler, hoping that, I don't know, maybe it would like take on water and go down. Yeah.

It still wasn't enough. So Tom hauled the cooler back on board the boat, removed the chain, removed the padlock, and opened it. And that is when Gerard got a clear look at Anne-Marie's body. And he noticed a bullet hole in the last. left side of her head. Seeing her, Gerard suspected that this whole, oh, a couple is trying to extort me story is a lie. Yeah, I imagine, he probably was expecting to see that couple and not Anne-Marie. Oh, who knows. I mean, they're all liars who lie, but. It's a big cooler, but like, not big enough for two people. Like, again, it's just like, come on,

Gerard. Yeah. But kind of at this moment, as he watched Tom attach the boat's anchor to Anne-Marie and dump her body out of the cooler, he's realizing, like, oh, like, no, this is bigger than what Tom was letting on. He then watched as the anchor dragged Anne-Marie head first to the bottom of the ocean, and then Tom threw up over the side of the boat. But after that, he got busy cleaning out the cooler. Tom removed the lid, removed one of the handles where he had touched, and then dropped everything overboard.

At a different spot on the way back, he threw the rest of the car. the cooler in, and then they just sailed back to shore without really talking about what had happened and what they'd done. After that day, Girard never really trusted Tom again, but he didn't turn him in either. After hearing the story, Connolly decides that he believes every word. Gerard's specific details matched what investigators already knew, including that missing anchor from the boat. This was finally enough to arrest Tom. But they still needed physical evidence and it was not looking

like they would ever find Anne Marie's body. No, and things are getting dire at this time too because there's talk that Tom is going to try to flee and escape the country. Yeah, I mean, the time is ticking. Like he has resources to get out. So, yeah,

time is not on their side. Yes. And that's when one of the financial investigators who had poured over Tom's financial records remembered something. There was a charge from Sports Authority from April of 1996. That's That was two months before Anne-Marie disappeared. Turns out, Sports Authority sold coolers.

So the next day, November 9th, investigators drove to the Sports Authority and pulled the transaction records. Tom's receipt confirmed it. A white igloo brand fisherman's cooler. They bought the last matching model off the shelf and brought it back to their office. Conley had an idea. They might not have the real cooler, the actual cooler that was involved in the crime. But maybe they could make Tom. think that they did. So they got a gun of the same caliber as the one that Gerard carried on his

boat, and they shot a hole in this duplicate cooler in the same spot that Gerard described, and they removed one handle and the lid. Then Connolly set it up in a conference room. They couldn't lie. They weren't going to lie. They were still going to play by the rules. But if they didn't say anything, maybe Tom would assume it was real and maybe he would tell on himself. But before Conley could try that gambit on Tom, there was a... another brother that they had to deal with first? Because on Monday, November 10th, Lewis came in, and he starts asking if he can get a plea deal also.

Oh, my God. I did give the detectives here, Sherlock, moment for this cooler. Yes. Ploy. It is smart. Doing a great job. So Lewis does get a plea deal. After pleading guilty to witness tampering, he got one year of probation.

In exchange, he admitted that he saw a sofa in one of his dumpsters before he ordered them to be emptied early. And he confirmed that Gerard had told him he helped Tom dispose of a body back when the grand jury was first convened. Yeah, yeah, but you didn't say that. You just came back in after you lied the first time to tell everyone you were having an affair. But yeah, you had everyone's attention. You could have said any of this, but chose not to. Okay. But now he's got this plea deal. So with both of the brothers now secured, Connolly started making moves. On November 12th, police intercepted Tom's vehicle on I-95 as he drove his brother Joseph to the Philadelphia airport.

They pulled Tom out. They handcuffed him, and they brought him to the conference room where they had that duplicate cooler. Connolly let Tom take a good look at it. And then he offered him a deal. Without saying anything about the cooler, he offers him a deal. He said, plead guilty to kidnapping resulting in death. And the death penalty is off the table.

And Tom rejected it. Even after hearing his brother's recorded conversations, they just play the tape. They're like, we got you. This is what your brother said. Yeah, like it's done. And he still says, no, I'm not taking that deal. And that means now that this case is heading to trial. But the very next day, news of Tom's arrest actually led to another tip.

There was a call from a fisherman who knew where they could find the real cooler with the bullet hole in it. And that is our ninth clue. The caller's friend had found the cooler floating in the ocean the previous summer, July 1996, a month after Anne-Marie disappeared. He had no idea that it was actually evidence. So he patched the hole and had been using it for the past 16 months. I can appreciate the thriftiness, but that's, it's horrible. Like, and he has no idea what this is. He's just like, oh, a free cooler.

Cool. Cool. No idea, like the crime that it was just involved in. But thank God he kept it. Think, normal hero. Normal hero, this thrifty man, this thrifty fisherman. Yeah, I mean, how many people would just see it bobbing in the ocean and leave it there? I mean, one way or another, he was a good civilian pulling litter out of the ocean.

I love this man. Yeah. So investigators run to this guy's friend's house with a warrant. The cooler was right there in his storage trailer. And it looked exactly as Gerard had described it. Now, this was a very large cooler. When I thought cooler, I'm like, oh, cooler, like, I don't know. The one you take to the beach.

The one you take to the beach. A bunch of drinks in. No, no, no. this is a 40.5 gallon cooler. And you're going to see some pictures if you're watching. And again, they'll be on our Instagram. But it even still had the original store barcode sticker on the bottom, proving that it was from Sports Authority where Tom had shopped in April.

The odds of them finding this had to be a million to one. I mean, to this day, Connolly still calls it a divine intervention. but it just again is like this Sherlock normal hero moment of this is like bringing this whole case together. And now they have some substantial evidence. Now they still don't have a body. They still don't have a murder weapon. But this cooler is a massive boost and it supported Gerard's testimony. On December 22nd, 1997, the grand jury voted to indict Tom on first degree murder.

By now, Anne Marie had been missing for 18 months. At the first hearing on January 8, 1998, Tom pleaded not guilty and asked for bail. Leading up to the bail hearing, Conley's team was worried about not having the murder weapon. So the ATF started searching firearms purchase records for names associated with the case. And they found one that they didn't expect Deborah McIntyre. Knew she was lying. Tom's other affair partner had actually bought a Beretta 22 on May 15, 1996. which is six weeks before Anne-Marie disappeared.

This is our 10th and final clue. On January 28th, 1998, a team of agents confront her. She admitted to bind the gun and later says she just threw it in the trash can, but insisted Tom never borrowed it. I mean, as frustrating as it is to hear, and obviously she has been lying the whole time, like this man is a monster and everyone's terrified of him. So, like, I do have a lot of sympathy for her, I think.

in all of this because think of how scary he was. I mean, he's stalking these women. I also looked it up too because I was like, could anyone have gotten a restraining order against him? And the answer at the time was no. So there's the Delaware protection from abuse order. But the people that qualified in 1996 were only these like defined set of relationships. It was only spouses, former spouses, people living together as a couple and people with children in common. Delaware didn't add persons in a current or former substantiative dating relationship until June 20th, 2007. That was 11 years later. Wow.

So if your boyfriend or girlfriend is stalking you, like you're out of block. There's nothing you could have done. Nothing you could have done. So they just had to try to stay alive. Yeah. Oh, it's a messy, difficult situation. And so after that interview, Deborah does get a lawyer and shows her lawyer letters that Tom had sent her from prison.

One mentioned her buying a gun. The lawyer then advised her to cooperate, and by early February, Deborah had signed a plea deal, and that's when she finally told the real story. Deborah says that her and Tom had been together on and off since 1981 two years before her divorce. She admitted she bought the barretta for Tom at his request because he said he needed protection from an extortionist.

Same story he's telling his brothers. Again. She gave it to him, and they just never discussed it again. So with Deborah's testimony now secured, Conley felt confident about the trial, which was now set for October 6th. Meanwhile, Tom, thank God, was denied bail. Before trial could begin, two men incarcerated with Tom came forward with similar disturbing stories. One said that Tom had tried to hire him to kill both Deborah and his brother Gerard before the trial. the other said that Tom asked him about having Deborah's house burglarized.

In August, prosecutors added three counts of criminal solicitation to Tom's charges. This is also, like, just to talk about how divorce from reality this man is, like, he is the exact type of guy that goes into prison and is like, these guys are criminals. They'll just kill someone for me. I was going to say, can you do a normal hero, Tally? A normal hero for these guys in jail that are like, prison informants. We are not just going to kill someone for you. You absolute lunatic. Well, and again, it could go back to why Deborah was potentially so scared and wasn't telling the real story, too.

Because, like, look at the first thing Tom does. Let me put a hit on this person I've been with since 1981. The second she starts talking, he's like, well, I'll just have her killed. Bye. Just absolutely. And from Deborah's perspective, too, he's clearly capable. Like, Anne-Marie is gone and he's on trial for it. So, of course, she's terrified.

It, no, it all makes sense. In August, prosecutors added three counts of criminal solicitation to Tom's charges. It wasn't reported at the time, but Conley says that Tom also tried to put a hit on him. On the lead investigator. He's just asking, will you kill someone for me? Like, just walking around the jailhouse. I hate this guy. This is just such loser behavior.

He's just so privileged that he doesn't understand how the real world works. Detached from reality completely. Instead of charging him for it, Conley decides to keep it under his hat. Tom clearly hates this guy, and he could use that to show the jury just how explosive Tom was. Like literally, if anyone tries to mess with his plan, he's willing to kill them. Conley made his opening statement on October 26, 1998, and he called witnesses through November. In addition to Tom's brothers and mistress, both Anne-Marie's psychologist and psychiatrist waived doctor-patient confidentiality to testify for the prosecution. Her psychiatrist spoke about her potential, about how much she cared about her community.

about how determined she was to recover from her illness. But he also talked about how afraid she was of Tom and how she was planning to break things off with him for good on the night of June 27. Yeah, because she had an appointment earlier that evening. Yeah. And the final mic drop moment came on December 2nd when prosecutors brought the real cooler into the courtroom for the first time. They carried it in like pallbearers the way that they were holding it.

And when they set it down, the whole courtroom just fell completely. silent. This episode is brought to you by Alma. Alma is on a mission to simplify access to high quality, affordable mental health care. When you want to talk to a therapist, the last thing you want to do is fight with insurance, figure out if someone's available. Like the process can be so long that it actually turns you off from doing it. But Alma has built a community of over 26,000 diverse therapists. Also, clients with insurance pay $20 on average. Which is so important. 98% of their therapists actually accept insurance, which makes it easy to get affordable mental health care. And you can know exactly how much you'll pay up front with their free insurance cost estimator calculator.

We've had listeners comment about Alma and how beneficial it's been for them. I've loved online therapy in the past taking my sessions from the comfort of my car, my bed, wherever. And with Alma making it more affordable, it could be a great time to try. Yes, over 1 million people have found care with Alma. Get started now at helloalma.com slash clues. That's helloalma.com slash c l-U-E-S. When it came time for the defense, they opened with a shocking pivot. Tom was actually going to take the stand,

and he was now admitting to disposing of Anne-Marie's body, but he was blaming Deborah for the murder. He claimed that Deborah walked in on him, sitting with Anne-Marie at his home on June 27th, a fight broke out, and Deborah's gun accidentally went off and killed Anne-Marie. He painted Deborah as this jealous older woman who had lost her mind, seeing him with a beautiful young, 30-year-old.

He said after the accidental shooting, he panicked, put Anne-Marie in the cooler and buried her at sea, to protect himself, yes, but also to protect Deborah who he still loved. He was doing it to be a good guy. He insisted he also loved Anne-Marie and never would have harmed her. He said he put Anne-Marie into the cooler as gently as he could, arranged her in the fetal position, and wrapped her in a blanket. Totally different from Gerard's testimony about Tom's cold, efficient manner

as he sank her body with an anchor. On January 4, 1999, Connolly pressed Tom on why he never told anyone what he did and how he could let Anne-Marie's five siblings believe she might come home when he knew the whole time she was dead. I mean, remember, he's telling people, oh, she'll come to work on Monday. Yeah. She's just out. Just lying to everyone. And at this point, this is when Tom finally snaps.

He called Connolly, quote, a heartless, gutless, soulless disgrace for a human being. End quote. The judge actually ejected Tom from. from the courtroom, which meant a journey for the day, which, again, I just look at all this. And I'm like, this is the craziest plot to share. And at this point, they have all of Deborah's letters that she's writing back and forth to Tom in prison. Like, there's no mention of, oh, my God, I'm scared. But if they find out what really happened? No, no, no. Deborah is still saying, I wish you were lying next to me. I miss how you taste. Please come back. Yeah. Like,

clearly, like, that was the main contents of her letter. There was no like, oh, thank you for helping me with this plot. No. She does thank him at one point, though, for preparing her for the grand jury. So again, there's a little maybe potentially collusion. But those letters will put some of them on our Instagram because those are a read. So the defense didn't rest until January 13th, nine days later. but that outburst was really the turning point. Conley had gotten exactly what he wanted.

The jury now knew about Tom's temper. They saw it in real time. The jury deliberated for three days, and on the evening of January 16th, the judge called a special session for the next morning. On Sunday, July 17th, the jury announced their verdict. Tom Capano was guilty as charged.

Two months later, on March 16, 1999, nearly three years after Anne-Marie went missing, the judge sentenced Tom to death. Now again, I just want to chime in here and point back to the normal hero and why it was so important to get that cooler. So there's an article that came out last year, August of last year, so it's about a year ago now. And one of the jurors has kind of spoken out now 20 years later and talks about this Capano trial and getting justice for Anne-Marie. And she details this experience of like when all the jurors first got together and heard all this, were actually split 50-50. Half thought he did it. Half thought, no way. And she was one of the ones

that thought, no way. Wow. And so when the jurors were deliberating, they brought the cooler back into the room with them. And they were all kind of wondering, could someone actually fit in this thing? Like, yeah, it's 40 and a half gallons, but like, could someone fit in here? And she describes it as like, well, everyone started looking at me. Like, I'm close in height. I was close in wait to what Anne-Marie would have been. So I put heels on to make myself exactly her height. And then I got into the cooler. And she describes this experience of like scrunching up and like having everyone shut the lid on her.

And this quote is so eerie. Quote, my eyes were closed for sure. I'm not sure why. Probably because I didn't want to see. End quote. As jurors attempted to shut the cooler's lid, Lee recalls being surrounded. by a darkness she had never known. And as they're shutting the lid, all of these jurors realize it doesn't shut easily. So Tom must have had to really slam this shut or potentially break

bones to get Anne-Marie in here. And at this point, they're like, no, he's lying. Like, this wasn't an easy thing. There's no way it was an accident and you gently placed her in here and wrapped her head. And it's that moment, that juror getting in there. Wow. I really just sold them and was like, yeah, no, this guy's a monster. Wow. Even after this, too, Lee, the woman who got in this cooler, she was so traumatized that the bailiff had to bring her back to her hotel room, where she just broke down and cried. And like, the other juries, as the other juries are like shutting this lid, they're, they got to the point where they're like, okay, okay, that's enough. Get her out of there. Get her out of there.

Yeah. Even that was just so traumatic. Because it puts you in the mindset of the person having to do that to someone. Exactly. You know, I've covered on how. hard size pounding a couple cases in other countries. And it's actually not that uncommon. Like, they do this in Korea, I think even still, where they go reenact the crime scene. Oh, my God. So, yeah, the, like, investigators will go there. I covered this one story where, like, a car was maybe pushed off the side of a cliff. And, like, the investigators go and they're like, okay, it would have been this hard to push the car off the cliff. It would have had to go at this angle. Like, is that even possible? And then they, they'll, like, pretend to hack people up and stuff. And so just, and it is.

That's traumatic. That's traumatic. Really, really upsetting and traumatic to the investigators I have to do it. But I think it also just, it's maybe one of those exercises where it just really puts things in perspective. Like you were saying, like now they see, like, how depraved you would have had to be to put someone in that cooler. Yeah. I mean, we saw it on our episode about Lacey Peterson, too. And, like, the reenactment with the boat.

And how his team did the reenactment, but, like, sabotaged it so the boat would sink and, like, all this stuff. And it's just like, these reenactment. can be very important. But again, it just, it goes back to a really good investigation and all of these normal heroes that came together to get this evidence to then get this conviction. After several rounds of appeals, the death sentence was overturned in 2006 and it was converted to life in prison. And then on September 19th, 2011, Tom Coppano was found dead in his prison cell more than 15 years after his crime. He had gained a significant amount of weight by binge eating during his time in prison.

This is coming from the trial judge. Quote, he ate himself to death. There's no question about it. His father died of a heart attack. He knew that he had a heart condition. Once his appeals ran out, I think it was suicide by food. You know, who's really to say, but that's apparently, like, they've agreed upon.

Yeah, how he died. That's where Tom's story ends. There's still a few, like, unanswered questions in this. And it really, a lot of it has to do with his brothers. So Joseph Copano died in 2012. 2015, he also had a heart attack. He was not believed to have played a role in the murder, but Lewis, who served one year of probation, is still running his home building company, alongside his son, Louis Capano the third. But there is this Reddit thread that we found of

Capano horror stories. It's in the Delaware subreddit, and it has about 60 comments. And it includes stories of the sighting falling off of their house less than eight years old and allegations tying the Capano's to a suspicious 2016 fire at an old textile mill that was set to be redeveloped. So, like, there's still people on- Allegedly, maybe insurance fraud. Yeah, talking about, like, the Capano's just still being bad builders, cutting corners. Yes. Gerard Capano pleaded guilty to weapons charges stemming from a sexual assault allegation in 2007. And after that, there's really not a whole lot in the public record.

Michael Scanlan, who was Anne-Marie's boyfriend at the time of her death, is alive. He's well. He's still devoted to community service. Anne-Marie's body was never found. There were brief searches, including Navy submarines, but, you know, the ocean currents could have carried her just about anywhere. There's not really any way to know where she would be. And one of the few places to mourn and remember her is this memorial bench that was erected in 2006 that sits in Wilmington's Brandywine Park. The inscription reads, quote, in our hearts forever. And Tom's story blaming Deborah is incredible after both of his brothers testified that he laid groundwork for the murder in advance with the fabricated extortion story. So Deborah, from everything that we've read,

was not involved at all. So we like to end every episode with a little bit of activism, and we have covered quite a few cases at this point that talk about intimate partner violence. But again, we want to mention the hotline, which you can call at 1-800-799 Safe. You can also text Start to 8-8-7-88 or go to the hotline.org for live chat. They can help with safety planning, connections to real resources, and more for anyone that's in a violent relationship, whether you're ready to leave or not. You know, in a lot of the research I've seen in a psychologist's analysis of Tom, the most dangerous time for a lot of people in these relationships is when they attempt to leave. And we've, you know, mentioned this in the past that it can take up to

seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship. It is very, very hard. So, you know, make sure you are being safe and make sure you reach out to resources to have a safe exit plan. And sometimes the safest is not saying anything at all. Anne-Marie was also dealing with another serious threat to her life. And we talked about it a lot, which is eating disorders. So we also want to share some resources for anyone who might be struggling with disordered eating. The National Association of Anorexia, nervosa and associated disorders, an ad, operates a free helpline. You can reach them at 1-888-375-7767 or at ANAD.org. If you're worried about your relationship with food, there's also a free online screening tool from the National Eating Disorder Association at national eating disorders.org

slash screening dash tool. It doesn't replace a professional diagnosis, but it can help you decide whether or not you want to talk to a professional. You can also visit the same website to learn more about eating disorders in general. According to Nita, 9% of the U.S. population will have an eating disorder at some point in their lifetime, and eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses behind only opiate use disorder. Now, more and more celebrities are also sharing their struggles with eating disorders publicly, including Demi Levato, Kesha, Zane Malik, Zoe Kravitz, Ed Shearin, Jamila Jamil, and Carrie Washington. So just know, there is zero shame if you are also struggling.

There are resources available and you deserve to get some help. And with that, we're going to highlight a missing person this week. Sarah Burton, age 29 at the time of her disappearance, was last seen on July 16, 2018, in the vicinity of 10th Street in Rex Avenue in Joplin, Missouri. Sarah was reported missing on July 20th, 2018 by her mother. there have been no reported sightings and or contacts from Sarah since her disappearance. The FBI, Kansas City Division is assisting the Joplin Police Department with the department's ongoing investigation into Sarah's disappearance.

Sarah was born on February 22nd, 1990. She has light brown hair, blue eyes, was described as being 5'7 and 170 pounds at the time of her disappearance. She's also a white female. The FBI is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual. or individuals responsible for the disappearance of Sarah Burton. Individuals with information concerning her disappearance can immediately contact the Joplin Police Department at 417-623-3-3131-Extension 440. And that is all we have for this week's episode of Clues.

Now we turn it over to you guys. Your thoughts, your theories, your feedbacks. If you have any other normal hero Sherlock tallies that we missed, please let us know. I love how many normal heroes we had on this one. That was great. I know. A lot of really good people. in this one, definitely.

It takes a village sometimes. At Crimehouse, we really value your support. So again, share all of your thoughts on social media. And remember to rate review, follow, and subscribe to Clues to help others discover the show. And don't forget, for early, add free access. Subscribe to Crimehouse Plus at Crimehouse.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcast, tap, try free at the top of the clues page. And that's all we have.

So until next time, guys. Bye. Bye. The moment a body is found. starts ticking. 48 hours before the trail goes cold. From A&E and Crime House, this is the official podcast

from the famous true crime series, The First 48. I'm Carter Roy. Every Thursday, I revisit a landmark homicide investigation in depth with long-form storytelling built for your ears. Listen to and follow the First 48 on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify, Amazon, music or wherever you listen to podcasts.