Speaker 1: This series includes sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including sexual
Speaker 1: assault and abuse involving children. Listener discretion is advised. By
Speaker 1: the time Anthony's second trial finally started, he gathered reams
Speaker 1: of proof pointing away from his guilt and pointing instead
Speaker 1: to Howard Gombered as Josette's possible killer. A last proof
Speaker 1: compiled in prison is a far far thing from proof
Speaker 1: presented at trial. To simply get a hearing, as a
Speaker 1: herculean climb for someone serving life without parole, you must
Speaker 1: first persuade a judge to grant your motion. If you
Speaker 1: somehow get that hearing, you must then convince the judge
Speaker 1: to let in new relevant facts, not just the ones
Speaker 1: presented at your previous trial. And as Anthony had learned
Speaker 1: in Putnam County, the judges there seemed deeply disinterested in
Speaker 1: new facts. But to convey how strong his new proof was,
Speaker 1: we'll need to return our attention to the devil. When
Speaker 1: last we left Gombert, he pulled up stakes and moved
Speaker 1: across state lines to Connecticut. His father, Howard Senior, owned
Speaker 1: a ramshackle house in the working class hamlet of New Fairfield.
Speaker 1: Gombert did not get along with his father, a burly,
Speaker 1: beer guzzling ex marine. We spoke to three of Gombert's
Speaker 1: victims who spent time in that house. They told us
Speaker 1: that Gombert and his father fought like sailors. They literally
Speaker 1: sucker punch each other in front of guests. At some
Speaker 1: point in his boyhood, Howard either ran away or was
Speaker 1: kicked out by his dad, said those women. By the
Speaker 1: age of fifteen, he was living in the woods, sleeping
Speaker 1: in a tent in the dead of winter. He knew
Speaker 1: every square inch of those woods, the woman told us,
Speaker 1: and fed himself on what he stole. Were killed. So
Speaker 1: when he returned to Connecticut ninety five as a man
Speaker 1: in his early thirties, he went right back to those
Speaker 1: woods in New Fairfield. There he hit out and prowled
Speaker 1: for fresh prey. It didn't take him long to find it.
Speaker 2: My madmss laughter, My fears, sorrows, deaths are endless valley idea.
Speaker 1: This is the devil's quarry. Just months before she met
Speaker 1: the man of her nightmares, Jane Gunderman was on top
Speaker 1: of the world. A nurse on the fast track to
Speaker 1: hospital administration. She ran a visiting nurse service in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: She was slender, and striking and addicted to style, from
Speaker 1: fashion to sex and the city. But then she had
Speaker 1: a catastrophic accident at work and her life and career
Speaker 1: came crashing down. Her upper spine was damaged and the
Speaker 1: surgery made things worse. She went out on long term
Speaker 1: sickly and got hooked on her own pain meds, confined
Speaker 1: to her bed, and she was broken, alone and dealing
Speaker 1: with bowel disease.
Speaker 3: That's where all this starts.
Speaker 1: Because that's when a guy started coming around doing odd
Speaker 1: jobs for the owner of her flat.
Speaker 3: That's how I met Howard.
Speaker 1: What Howard looked like in those things.
Speaker 3: Oh, he was funny. He had a good sense of humor.
Speaker 3: Believe it or not. There was times that he could
Speaker 3: be very entertaining. He was good looking. He was not
Speaker 3: an ugly man. When I first met him. He wore
Speaker 3: all black all the time, and he wore black cowboy boots,
Speaker 3: and he wore black jeans, and he always had a
Speaker 3: wife Beaters T shirt on with a black vest or
Speaker 3: a black jean jacket or a regular jean jacket, and
Speaker 3: he always flipped the collar up, which I thought was hilarious.
Speaker 1: Soon he was over there all the time.
Speaker 3: He used to bring the cigarettes. He used to bring
Speaker 3: the coffee. You know. He checked on me every day,
Speaker 3: and he was fun. He was like my best friend.
Speaker 3: I had no one around when I was recuperating. He
Speaker 3: used to come in every day to see if I
Speaker 3: was okay. No one had done nuts with my surgeries.
Speaker 1: There where health was touch and go. She'd make an
Speaker 1: effort for him. The tomb would pop out for meal sometime,
Speaker 1: or just take a spin on his motorcycle.
Speaker 3: You start out in a relationship. Everything's funky dory, everything's beautiful.
Speaker 3: They love you, everything's great. You're falling in love, you're
Speaker 3: doing things together. All of a sudden, something will change,
Speaker 3: something happens at work, whatever. They take it out on you,
Speaker 3: the honeymoon faces. They're buying new gifts. Then they start
Speaker 3: with the little verbal insults and you're not good enough,
Speaker 3: or if you don't want to give me a blowjob,
Speaker 3: say I'll go get it from a whore, you know,
Speaker 3: little things that would make you feel very icky, you know,
Speaker 3: like just not nice. And then you start to feel,
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going to happen with this guy
Speaker 3: who's little on stable.
Speaker 1: Gomberts started forcing sex on Jane and then started taking
Speaker 1: swings at her.
Speaker 3: When you're with an abusive person, you are thinking about
Speaker 3: staying alive. Every day. You're thinking about how is he
Speaker 3: going to be when I come home? Am I going
Speaker 3: to have to be on my defenses and am I
Speaker 3: going to have to be guarded all day? Or is
Speaker 3: he going to beat me up because of something that
Speaker 3: happened at work and not because of what I've done?
Speaker 3: Or is he going to take something I say, or
Speaker 3: something I cooked wrong or make coffee wrong or whatever.
Speaker 3: They just come home and that's it. They're just in
Speaker 3: a mood and they take it out on you. One
Speaker 3: thing that clued me in when he was starting, his
Speaker 3: eyes would get black as coal. There was no anything
Speaker 3: inside those eyes, nothing, they turned black. It was weird.
Speaker 3: It scared the hell out of me. The one thing
Speaker 3: I would look at was his eyes if trouble was
Speaker 3: a bruin.
Speaker 1: At some point, Jane broke up with Gombert then discovered
Speaker 1: she was pregnant. She broke the news to him in
Speaker 1: the art of her father's house.
Speaker 3: I mean, when I told him I was pregnant, he
Speaker 3: didn't want to hear it. He just got angry and
Speaker 3: he threw me on the ground and that's when he started,
Speaker 3: I don't want another baby, and he tried to kick
Speaker 3: it out of me. I was screaming nine one one.
Speaker 1: The cop showed up and took Gombert away. Jane went
Speaker 1: to a women's shelter and stayed there briefly, but she
Speaker 1: was mortally afraid to be alone, so she bounced around
Speaker 1: a bit, staying with friends. One of those friends was
Speaker 1: a woman named Kathy. While staying with Kathy, Jane grew
Speaker 1: fond of Kathy's kid. Of the three, her darling was Sarah,
Speaker 1: a feisty but adorable seven year old.
Speaker 3: I always thought of Sarah as my firstborn. I really did. Yep,
Speaker 3: that's how much she meant to me.
Speaker 1: Before her own daughter arrived, Jane found a cottage to rent.
Speaker 1: She furnished in the mode of Stevie Nick's so fabrics
Speaker 1: and pressed flowers, scarves tied around lamb shades.
Speaker 3: I loved that house that I poured my heart into
Speaker 3: that place. Also, outside, I did a lot of gardening,
Speaker 3: and I made all kinds of I had a beautiful
Speaker 3: old stump that had the cracks in it, and with
Speaker 3: the wood and the dirt, I even planted flowers in there,
Speaker 3: and they grew like crazy.
Speaker 1: Sarah, Jane's favorite, remembers visiting her there.
Speaker 3: I always smelled like lavender.
Speaker 4: I remember walking in and you smelled lavender everywhere, but
Speaker 4: in a good way, not like an overwhelming smell. It
Speaker 4: was refreshing. It was bright with natural light, and it
Speaker 4: was so insane that there was such light in her
Speaker 4: home and such darkness.
Speaker 2: Came with it.
Speaker 1: Towards the end of Jane's pregnancy, Gumbert slithered back to her.
Speaker 3: It was absolutely the abuse cycle, through and through. I
Speaker 3: never let Howard move into my house in New Milford
Speaker 3: until after Dana was born. He tried to come in
Speaker 3: the wintertime, and I kicked him back to his parents
Speaker 3: and said, I didn't ask you to come here. I
Speaker 3: don't want you here.
Speaker 1: Still, he put his best foot forward. He helped her
Speaker 1: furnish and paint the baby's room, and seemed genuinely thrilled
Speaker 1: about Jane's due date.
Speaker 3: When Dana was born that day, he cried his eyes
Speaker 3: out when he saw her, and he goes, oh, you're beautiful.
Speaker 3: It's just like your mama, and he just was enthralled
Speaker 3: with her. I was so amazed that this man who
Speaker 3: had been such an asshole about everything and beating on
Speaker 3: girls and all this stuff and beating on me, that
Speaker 3: he was so enthralled with his daughter, I mean, like
Speaker 3: in love with her instantly.
Speaker 1: Jane recalls that summer being brutally hot and being knocked
Speaker 1: on her back posteheart him. Her friend Kathy would comby
Speaker 1: to lift her spirits and sometimes brought her daughter Sarah
Speaker 1: to entertain the baby. Once scorching Saturday morning, when Jane
Speaker 1: was stuck in bed, Howard offered to take Sarah swimming first. However,
Speaker 1: she needed a bathing suit.
Speaker 4: I believe we went to a kmart maybe, and he
Speaker 4: bought me a fucking bikini. Excuse my language, but he
Speaker 4: bought me a seven year old It was like a
Speaker 4: leopard or cheetah print bikini to wear.
Speaker 1: Then they drove over to Squadt's Pond, a popular spot
Speaker 1: near his dad's house a new Fairfield.
Speaker 4: We parked on like a side of the street, and
Speaker 4: then we were going down a normal trail, like a
Speaker 4: dirt trail. But then he cut off into the woods
Speaker 4: and it was just like I was like, where are
Speaker 4: we going? And he goes, don't worry, I know the
Speaker 4: way okay, and then all of a sudden, he brought
Speaker 4: me to a perfectly cut out circle of trees. It
Speaker 4: looked like someone made it that way, like it was
Speaker 4: almost like he'd been there before and that's where everything
Speaker 4: took place and he knew where to stop. Now, it
Speaker 4: looks like it reminds me of like a where you
Speaker 4: would do a sacrifice. I hate to say it, but
Speaker 4: it's it's really what I felt like.
Speaker 1: So it was like prepared ground.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, wow, had been mixed. He asked me to
Speaker 4: remove the bottoms of my pants and he proceeded to
Speaker 4: satomize me.
Speaker 1: Then Gombra took his shirt off and shoved it in
Speaker 1: Sarah's mouth.
Speaker 4: Because I had screamed and he threatened me.
Speaker 1: Then Gombra climbed on top of her and produced a
Speaker 1: Polari camera.
Speaker 4: When he first started, he was like touching me and
Speaker 4: taking pictures of down there. That's what the pictures were of,
Speaker 4: and it made it that much worse when he showed
Speaker 4: them to.
Speaker 1: Me, and it was more than one picture.
Speaker 4: It was multiple, it definitely, because he did it like
Speaker 4: a deck of cards. When he showed them to me,
Speaker 4: there was probably like four or five, I would say,
Speaker 4: but I did watch him set them on fire, and
Speaker 4: I was so confus used as to why he showed
Speaker 4: them to me, Like why did you need to do that.
Speaker 1: At some point, two men walked past them in the woods.
Speaker 1: They stopped to ask if something was wrong, but Gombert
Speaker 1: told them no, they were perfectly fine. And when they left,
Speaker 1: you raped seven year old Sarah.
Speaker 4: In the moment, it felt like it was going on forever.
Speaker 4: I didn't think I was going to live. I was terrified.
Speaker 1: Do you remember him saying anything, either during or.
Speaker 4: After this to you that if I screamed, I was
Speaker 4: going to die? That was very much how he was
Speaker 4: going to make you die. No, he just told me
Speaker 4: that my family was never going to see me again.
Speaker 4: And I listened and I did stay quiet, And then
Speaker 4: afterwards we carried on like it was a normal day.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 4: I got down to the rocks and he was like,
Speaker 4: we'll jump off the rocks, and I remember swimming out
Speaker 4: in the water and just looking out at all the
Speaker 4: happy people and thinking I didn't want to be there.
Speaker 1: For months, Sarah's stonewalled what have happened to her? And
Speaker 1: anytime she even thought about telling her mom, Gombert's threat
Speaker 1: rang out in her ears, but nor could she will
Speaker 1: herself to forget, because suddenly Jane and Gombert was sleeping
Speaker 1: over at her house. He'd sit and drink coffee with
Speaker 1: Sarah's mom in the morning and take her two brothers
Speaker 1: fishing on weekends.
Speaker 4: And then when him and Jane came to my house,
Speaker 4: because he had also brought a box of gifts to
Speaker 4: me that I don't know if my mom went through
Speaker 4: them or what, but there was weird stuff in there,
Speaker 4: like woman zingerie and high heel.
Speaker 1: Gombert was so brazen that he attacked Sarah in her
Speaker 1: living room while her mom was making dinner in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: and then he got up and walked away from her
Speaker 1: as if it was just another day around the house. Somehow,
Speaker 1: Jane suspected none of this. She had severe postpartum after
Speaker 1: the baby, as well as bowel flare ups that kept
Speaker 1: her in bed. Worse, Gombert was coming unhinged. He got
Speaker 1: in the hold of her lumsum from workmen's comp that
Speaker 1: was blowing through it buying narcotics, his poison of choice.
Speaker 1: Cracked cocaine unleashed the beast in him. He'd come home
Speaker 1: hell ben for sex or violence, or often enough both
Speaker 1: at once, like Sarah felt cornered. And then one weekend
Speaker 1: in February of two thousand or hell broke loose in
Speaker 1: that cottage. Gombert held Jane and the baby hostage in
Speaker 1: their own home, raped and beat Jane for three days straight,
Speaker 1: and threatened to killer. Finally, he named her in such
Speaker 1: an intimate way that it can't be spelled out here.
Speaker 1: All while their baby was desperately ill, spiking a very
Speaker 1: high fever.
Speaker 3: So please let's take her to the doctor.
Speaker 1: But Gombert wouldn't let them leave the house, and the
Speaker 1: baby's fever worsened. Jane's only hope Gombert had a court
Speaker 1: date that Tuesday. If he missed it, they'd send the
Speaker 1: marshals to arrest him.
Speaker 3: And I remember thinking they'll take him that day. Jane
Speaker 3: just hang in there, just hanging there, just hanging there.
Speaker 3: Finally Tuesday came and Gombert left for court. He wasn't
Speaker 3: out of the driveway two second and I was on
Speaker 3: that phone and I was like, I'm coming, Can you
Speaker 3: please see me this morning? It was the nurse and
Speaker 3: I burst out crying. It was like the damn broke
Speaker 3: And I told her and I said, can you please
Speaker 3: have the police come here, and she said why And
Speaker 3: I said, you'll want to call the police when you
Speaker 3: see me, is what I said to her.
Speaker 1: At the er, they treated her baby immediately. She had
Speaker 1: double pneumonia, said the doctor, and would have died or
Speaker 1: suffered brain damage had Jane not called. When she did,
Speaker 1: the cops were summoned to the hospital. They took Jane stateon,
Speaker 1: photographed her wounds and bruises, and collected the DNA on
Speaker 1: her garments, and then they swarmed the cottage to arrest Gombert.
Speaker 1: The custom as he tried to slither off on his belly.
Speaker 3: He was literally on the ground like a snake, trying
Speaker 3: to get away from them. I said, perfect just I
Speaker 3: couldn't believe it, and I laughed. I said, well, he
Speaker 3: is a snake, and they all just were like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're right there.
Speaker 1: That day, February twenty ninth, two thousand, was momentous for
Speaker 1: many reasons. For one, it took Gombert off of the
Speaker 1: streets and almost surely saved two lives, Jane's and the babies.
Speaker 1: For another, it compelled the Connecticut cops to do with
Speaker 1: the Putnam cops refused to build a criminal case against Gombert.
Speaker 1: When the cops searched the cottage, they found a trove
Speaker 1: of stolen goods hidden in the ceiling of Jane's garage,
Speaker 1: because that was Gombert's other nasty habit. He was a
Speaker 1: lifelong thief and burglar. Among those stolen goods were cameras
Speaker 1: and camquarders. He'd secretly been filming Jane and others for years.
Speaker 1: And then Jane pointed to a suitcase he squirreled away.
Speaker 1: When they opened it, they found his collection of prize trophies,
Speaker 1: nine pairs of worn but on wash panties. Each was
Speaker 1: carefully wrapped and sealed in airtight plastic baggies. The Connecticut
Speaker 1: cops booked him for raping Jane. Months later, while Gumbert
Speaker 1: was in jail awaiting trial, Sarah, who was eight then,
Speaker 1: was on a school bus going home and tortured by
Speaker 1: a memory that wouldn't die.
Speaker 4: I didn't know if I did something wrong. I didn't,
Speaker 4: you know, heck, but I think at that point I
Speaker 4: felt safe enough because he couldn't hurt us anymore.
Speaker 1: On the bus, she was chatting with an older friend
Speaker 1: when suddenly it came pouring out.
Speaker 4: It was like I needed to tell someone, but I
Speaker 4: didn't know how to explain it because the words that
Speaker 4: I used were not adult words at all.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 4: I explained it as his hot dog. So there were
Speaker 4: things that I was still little trying to describe to
Speaker 4: my best friend what happened to me, And she knew
Speaker 4: because she was maybe like four years older than me,
Speaker 4: like she needed to tell someone.
Speaker 1: That friend got off the bus and marched Sarah straight home.
Speaker 1: There she pulled Sarah's mom aside and told her what
Speaker 1: Sarah had just told her. The cops were summoned. Sarah
Speaker 1: told them what Gombert had done to her. They promptly
Speaker 1: arrested Gombert in prison, and she harshed him with the
Speaker 1: rape of a minor, and so the jury got to
Speaker 1: hear her story in full. They gave Howard John Gombert
Speaker 1: Junior the maximum of thirty years in the Connecticut prison. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: Sarah grew up angry and alone, pushing away family and friends.
Speaker 1: When she graduated high school, she ran off and joined
Speaker 1: the army, but there she was assaulted by a fellow
Speaker 1: soldier and forced to take early discharge. For years, she
Speaker 1: struggled to get her bearings, hearing from drugs to detox.
Speaker 4: I didn't understand until I was an adult how much
Speaker 4: it like chemically like in my brain, chemically changed me,
Speaker 4: changed what I thought about love, what I thought love
Speaker 4: was supposed to be.
Speaker 3: It changed a lot for me.
Speaker 4: And it was almost like he killed a version of
Speaker 4: me that I can never get back.
Speaker 1: But then midway through her twenties, Sarah's luck turned. She
Speaker 1: found a trauma specialist at the VA and worked with
Speaker 1: her for years. She emerged from those sessions smarter and stronger,
Speaker 1: and soon found her life's passion working with animals. She
Speaker 1: opened a dog grooming business and eventually bought herself a house,
Speaker 1: and somewhere in the thick of that, in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: she got a visit from a private eye. He was
Speaker 1: working for Anthony. To Pippo, he said, and taking a
Speaker 1: long hard look at Howard Gombert studying his most specific
Speaker 1: criminal mo and his history is a violent rapist of children.
Speaker 4: He told me about Anthony and Andy, and I couldn't
Speaker 4: not help knowing that something that happened so bad to
Speaker 4: me also affected so many other people. Yes, yes, and
Speaker 4: in such a different way, Like Andy and Anthony went
Speaker 4: through something horrible that was awful for them, and I
Speaker 4: could only think like, Okay, well this was really bad
Speaker 4: both things, but helping them is good. So there had
Speaker 4: to be a silver lining for me, and they were
Speaker 4: the silver lining. The reason to rehash it was they
Speaker 4: don't deserve that.
Speaker 1: And so Sarah added her story to the one that
Speaker 1: Rachel told, and then three more women came forward and
Speaker 1: added theirs. Stacked together, those women told him metas story,
Speaker 1: the story of a man who for almost twenty years
Speaker 1: had committed unspeakable crimes, taken together his reign of terror
Speaker 1: race Three very salient questions. First, why did There's Putnam
Speaker 1: cops give a whole past to Gombert, whom they knew
Speaker 1: to be a predator of children? Second, was one of
Speaker 1: as many crimes, the rape and murder of Josette Right?
Speaker 1: And finally, how much more Gombert proof would it take
Speaker 1: to get a Putnam judge to free Anthony? To Pippo,
Speaker 1: one of Anthony's investigators was a man named lou Morgan.
Speaker 1: Lewis tall and dapper, who drives a top end Mercedes
Speaker 1: and can read you from across the room. He was
Speaker 1: an essential player in profiling Howard Gombert.
Speaker 5: Well, Anthony had a lot of information on potential other victims,
Speaker 5: so we went after them.
Speaker 1: Blue started piecing together Gombert's m when he first heard
Speaker 1: Rachel's story, the elaborate rope knots he tied, the ritual degradations,
Speaker 1: the panties he used to.
Speaker 5: Gagger Gombert had raped her and her mother.
Speaker 1: Lou knew there had to be other girls out there,
Speaker 1: girls Gombert attacked before Rachel the last. Where sex crimes
Speaker 1: are concerned, especially against minors, it can be punishingly hard
Speaker 1: to track down victims. Their names are redacted in transcripts
Speaker 1: and newsclips, and the core transcripts are often sealed. But
Speaker 1: Lou Margan ducked deep into Gombert's past and came up
Speaker 1: with the name of his first victim.
Speaker 5: And that's when we found out about a girl named Caruso.
Speaker 1: That'd be Colleen Carusoe. She was eleven or twelve when
Speaker 1: she first met Gombert. He was fifteen or sixteen then
Speaker 1: and living in that tent in the woods. In fact,
Speaker 1: the first time she met him, he stepped out of
Speaker 1: those woods and smiled and said hi to her. She
Speaker 1: was flattered by an older boy's attention.
Speaker 3: It was exciting to me.
Speaker 6: Used to have these things on a string, nunchucks, whatever
Speaker 6: they are.
Speaker 3: He always used to like I remember, always just a
Speaker 3: swing was yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: And I think what it was is he was trying
Speaker 6: to be the top guy, as you will.
Speaker 1: Lou found Colleen in twenty fourteen and told her why
Speaker 1: he was asking about Gombert. He listed off Gombert's victims
Speaker 1: to her and named Jo said is another likely victim.
Speaker 1: Colleen listened in horror, then told him her story about
Speaker 1: being bound and repeatedly raped in the woods beginning at
Speaker 1: age twelve by Gombert. At fourteen, she turned him into
Speaker 1: the cops. She said. He was convicted of assault and
Speaker 1: sent to prison, but wrote her constantly from his cell.
Speaker 1: He Warndeder. He he had people watching her movements and threatened
Speaker 1: to kill her when he got out.
Speaker 6: I think I was his first prey to kind of
Speaker 6: start the realm of what he was trying to do.
Speaker 6: But I thank God all the time, I mean for
Speaker 6: an abundant amount of reasons, not only this, just every
Speaker 6: day that I was spared, and I mean because I
Speaker 6: think what he was doing was practicing.
Speaker 1: So now Anthony and his team had six of Gombert's victims,
Speaker 1: Five of them were willing to testify in court, and
Speaker 1: two Rachel and her mother were prepared to tell a
Speaker 1: jury about Gombert's pursuit of Josette. The sixth woman was
Speaker 1: Gombert's ex girlfriend, Anne Marie. She was a girl of
Speaker 1: sixteen when he wooed her, then had a daughter, Buyer,
Speaker 1: and Marie told Putnam cops that Gombert had raped and
Speaker 1: beat her for years. In early ninety five, she charged
Speaker 1: him with rape three months after Josette went missing. She
Speaker 1: also told those cops about Gombert and Josette is offering
Speaker 1: her the babysitting job and giving her a ride in
Speaker 1: a little red and black car. With all those witnesses
Speaker 1: and proof of Gombert's m o, Anthony had a strong
Speaker 1: case for acquittal. But I'll remind you again this is
Speaker 1: Putnam County, the same place a jury sentenced to Anthony
Speaker 1: to life without a shred of physical evidence or a
Speaker 1: credible witness, And so once more he'd have to go
Speaker 1: wrestle the bear persuade a Putnam judge to let all
Speaker 1: the facts speak, and not just the facts those Putnam
Speaker 1: tops contrived. In the spring of twelve, Anthony and his
Speaker 1: lawyers were in a courtroom in Karmel, New York. The
Speaker 1: occasion was a pre trial hearing the way the evidence
Speaker 1: his team had spent years collecting, but before the judge ruled,
Speaker 1: he wanted to hear from a key witness. That witness
Speaker 1: was Howard Gombert. Gombert was hauled in from Cheshire Correctional
Speaker 1: where he was serving decades for sexually assaulting Sarah.
Speaker 7: They bring Howard Gombert in from Connecticut. He looked very white,
Speaker 7: like he ain't seen the yard, a vampire. His hair
Speaker 7: is like parted very close, so real tight to his head.
Speaker 7: He has this ponytail maybe three feet long, with these
Speaker 7: rubber bands going all the way down. And I don't know,
Speaker 7: it looks like a headache. It looks like he's walking
Speaker 7: around with just a worst headache. But I mean, I
Speaker 7: don't really care how it feels. He's wearing this orange
Speaker 7: jumps and he's got this this big wooden cross.
Speaker 1: The transcripts of the hearings run for more than a
Speaker 1: thousand pages. Gombert's testimony begins on where else, page six
Speaker 1: six six. Gombert pled the fifth on the stand, and
Speaker 1: not once or twice, but over and over and over,
Speaker 1: refusing to answer a single question. Still watching him on
Speaker 1: the stand, bolstered Anthony's sense that his motion would prevail.
Speaker 1: Surely no judge could look at Gomber then ignore the
Speaker 1: mountain of evidence against him. After the hearing, Anthony returned
Speaker 1: to the Putnam jail, as did Gombert before his return
Speaker 1: to Connecticut prison. They were putting separate vehicles, of course,
Speaker 1: but both pulled into the jail house garage at the
Speaker 1: same time.
Speaker 7: I screamed at on that day. I know all the
Speaker 7: guards heard it, because I don't think I've ever yelled
Speaker 7: that loud at anybody. I was in a cop car
Speaker 7: and he was in the sheriff's truck, so he was
Speaker 7: higher up and I was lower. I'm like, you're a
Speaker 7: fucking pedophile, your fucking piece of shit, and I was
Speaker 7: just kind of like just going randomly with the worst
Speaker 7: words I could say. And he was handcuffed, but he
Speaker 7: picked his handcuffs up and he gave me the two
Speaker 7: fingers and went dumb like, you motherfucker, I'm gonna fucking
Speaker 7: get you one day, you fucking cox suck a piece
Speaker 7: of shit, betaphile, And he took his handcuffs and he
Speaker 7: raised two middle fingers at me, and he kind of laughed.
Speaker 1: Those pre trial hearings went on for a month, in
Speaker 1: part because there was so much proof to weigh. But
Speaker 1: in the end, that judge, named Barry war had bart
Speaker 1: Anthony for presenting his Gombert facts a trial. He blocks
Speaker 1: Santoro's notes about Gombert's confession, dismissing them as hearsay, and
Speaker 1: asked for Gombert's victims. He deemed their testimony prejudicial. Why
Speaker 1: because the crimes against them were too close in nature
Speaker 1: to the crimes against Josette. They'd be, his words, a
Speaker 1: distraction for the jury. And so when one fell swoop,
Speaker 1: all those years of work went puff, Anthony's jury would
Speaker 1: not be hearing of the crimes against Rachel and Sarah,
Speaker 1: or against the other victims Anthony's investigators had turned up.
Speaker 1: Those women had relived their suffering for nothing. When the
Speaker 1: trial got under way, Anthony's lawyers did what little they could.
Speaker 1: They put on proof that the Putnam cops were corrupt,
Speaker 1: that coerced and bullied witness after witness to lie. They
Speaker 1: pointed to a lack of any evidence that a rape
Speaker 1: murder happened in that van, and they tore into the
Speaker 1: states one direct eyewitness, the deeply flawed observer Denise.
Speaker 7: Rose, regardless of how much we impeached her, and we
Speaker 7: did a great job. She told the jury I killed
Speaker 7: the girl, and so.
Speaker 1: With the rest of his life hanging in the balance,
Speaker 1: Anthony decided to take the stand.
Speaker 7: At that point, I was just throwing piss and wind.
Speaker 7: I was pissed, and everybody said, I testified horrible at
Speaker 7: that second trial because I was so angry.
Speaker 1: I was so beaten down. Under cross examination, he denied
Speaker 1: any involvement in Joseph's murder, but he was easily provoked
Speaker 1: by the prosecutor and came off sounding bitter, vengeful. I
Speaker 1: did so.
Speaker 7: Bad on a testimony that I even had people in
Speaker 7: my corner like what the hell.
Speaker 1: By the time he left the dais the verdict felt academic.
Speaker 7: I was found guilty. Happiness and a pause on the
Speaker 7: prosecution side, sobs and weeping behind.
Speaker 1: Me, and so off He went to Downstate again, then
Speaker 1: sent North to a pin up top. But several months
Speaker 1: after a second conviction, he got a call from this guy,
Speaker 1: Lou Morrigan. Another girl had reached it with her story,
Speaker 1: and this one was a dead match for what had
Speaker 1: happened to Josette. Did Anthony have it in him to
Speaker 1: hear that story and to try one last time to
Speaker 1: clear his name.
Speaker 7: Lou got this call from this young woman who claims
Speaker 7: that she was a babysitter for Howard Gombert.
Speaker 1: Her name was Amy Farranda, and she too had grown
Speaker 1: up in Carmel.
Speaker 7: Like we weren't super close, but we smoke pot. I
Speaker 7: did a city trip with Amy. I would see her
Speaker 7: at Raves.
Speaker 1: As a teen. Amy was strikingly pretty, a tall, willowy
Speaker 1: blonde with a bit of a wild streak. Now, as
Speaker 1: she spoke to Lew on the phone, she was a
Speaker 1: nurse in her middle thirties. She'd been following the news
Speaker 1: of Anthony's retrial on TV, but paralyzed by shame, she'd
Speaker 1: waited till after the verdict to come forward.
Speaker 5: She wasn't bubblee, you know, she wasn't enthusiastic. It sounded
Speaker 5: like she was embarrassed to tell me.
Speaker 1: But she insisted on telling him anyway.
Speaker 5: I believe I was raped by Howard Gombert. I said, well,
Speaker 5: how did you know that? She said, well, I know him.
Speaker 1: Amy said she was seventeen when she babysat Gombert's daughter
Speaker 1: the toddlery shared with Anne Marie. This was the summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety four, two months before Josette went missing.
Speaker 1: Gombert was always prying into Amy's love life, she said,
Speaker 1: hawking her to talk about boys. Once, she let it
Speaker 1: slip to him that she sometimes snuck out to meet
Speaker 1: her boyfriend by the lake at two am.
Speaker 5: How would live nearby, so it was easy for him
Speaker 5: to stake her out and follow her.
Speaker 1: One night, after telling Gombert her secret, Amy snook out
Speaker 1: of the house to meet her boyfriend, but on route
Speaker 1: there she was set upon by a man with a knife.
Speaker 1: Her attacker wore a mask, but Amy spotted some telltale features.
Speaker 1: He had a cleft chin and dark blonde scruff on
Speaker 1: his face. She told Lou what she didn't tell the police,
Speaker 1: that those features belonged to Howard Gombert.
Speaker 5: We were going to meet like the next week, and
Speaker 5: then I kept on calling her and she never answered.
Speaker 7: She came forward and then she was like talking about suicide.
Speaker 7: And then two weeks later we lost her.
Speaker 5: Oh I felt so bad because I had a chance to.
Speaker 5: I should have dropped everything. The day she called me
Speaker 5: went down. I got a statement from her. It was terrible.
Speaker 1: Anthony was gutted, actually worse than gutted. He felt personally
Speaker 1: cursed by God. But just when he thought he couldn't
Speaker 1: go on, couldn't bear to raise his hopes and see
Speaker 1: them dashed again. The death of Amy Farranda lit a charge.
Speaker 1: It was unbearable to him that Gombert had destroyed these lives,
Speaker 1: had so afflicted these girls that at least two of
Speaker 1: them were dead. Now Anthony had to keep fighting for
Speaker 1: himself and for them, and so on Anthony's instructions, his
Speaker 1: investigators kept digging. They found Amy's grieving sister and took
Speaker 1: a statement from her. She told them what Amy had
Speaker 1: told her in the days before her death, that her
Speaker 1: spirit had been ruined by that brutal rape, and that
Speaker 1: she'd never been able to push past it. In the
Speaker 1: eyes of the law. That effidated mattered. It served as
Speaker 1: Amy's dying declaration. Glowing Anthony and his lawyer is to
Speaker 1: obtain her case file.
Speaker 7: So in that file I got, Oh my god, I
Speaker 7: got the sworn statement from Amy farrand the two pages,
Speaker 7: no lines in the middle, really tiny writing. So that's
Speaker 7: a lot of statement. And it gave us the signature
Speaker 7: m A of the crime scene what I believe to
Speaker 7: be the signature m a of Howard Gombert, of what
Speaker 7: he's done to other people.
Speaker 1: The details in that statement crystallized everything for Anthony. There
Speaker 1: was so much there that sounded familiar.
Speaker 5: All of a sudden, someone came up from behind her
Speaker 5: and put his hand over her mouth, and he had
Speaker 5: a knife, and he said, don't scream or I'll kill you.
Speaker 7: He gets Amy her hands tied behind her back with
Speaker 7: this clothesline type rope. He's using it as a leash.
Speaker 7: He's pushing her into people's backyards. He forces her to
Speaker 7: perform a sex act and then takes her underwear and
Speaker 7: puts it in her mouth. Then bra was tied around
Speaker 7: her face. Amy's bra finishes doing the stuff, and he
Speaker 7: taps the knife against her head. He says, if you
Speaker 7: say anything, remember this is waiting for you.
Speaker 1: Those elements Aymy described in her rape all but match
Speaker 1: the ones in Josette's case.
Speaker 7: It was very similar, very early similar to the mannerism
Speaker 7: in which Joe's atte right was found. Because you have
Speaker 7: the rope, you have the panty gag, you have this knife.
Speaker 7: These are all the same instrumentalities that were found.
Speaker 1: It bears saying that Josette and Amy looked alike, tall,
Speaker 1: blue eyed, young and blonde, and the details of their
Speaker 1: rapes were too distinctive and alike to be coincidence to Anthony.
Speaker 7: Identical rape victims, similar hair, similar eyes, similar height. And
Speaker 7: another big thing is that Amy was Howard Gombert's babysitter
Speaker 7: at that time this happened. She quit and that was
Speaker 7: sort of Amy quit the rape after the rape, but
Speaker 7: it was sort of contemporaneous with when he started to
Speaker 7: entice Josette with the babysitter position, because now he lost
Speaker 7: his babysitter.
Speaker 1: The night Amy was raped and reported it to the
Speaker 1: cops July thirty first, nineteen ninety four, sixty four days
Speaker 1: before Josette went missing.
Speaker 7: Now you have the signature of Howard Gombert.
Speaker 3: I mean, I would.
Speaker 7: Say like fourth graders could get it, maybe third, possibly second.
Speaker 1: After he raped her, Amy's attacker let her go. She
Speaker 1: ran back home, grabbed the keys to her mother's car,
Speaker 1: then drove to the nearest precinct.
Speaker 5: She drove to the Kent police station and informed them,
Speaker 5: and then the police took her to the hospital to
Speaker 5: do her a rape examination.
Speaker 1: The detective who took her statement was the aptly named
Speaker 1: Kevin Doushkoff. He bagged and tagged the seamen stained clothing
Speaker 1: she'd been wearing during the attack. In the file with
Speaker 1: Amy's statement to police, Anthony found paperwork for tests they
Speaker 1: run on her clothing. Multiple samples should positive for seamen.
Speaker 1: Now Anthony needed the samples themselves to have his investigators
Speaker 1: run the DNA and compare it to Howard Gombert's. But
Speaker 1: when his team sought the results from Amy's rape kit
Speaker 1: and clothing, the ken p d flatley refused. Amy's rape
Speaker 1: was an open case, they claimed, though the case file
Speaker 1: showed they never really worked it in the first place.
Speaker 1: So Anthony's guy sued the KENPD and won. But when
Speaker 1: they drove up to collect that evidence from the cops,
Speaker 1: they were told it had been thrown out. The rape
Speaker 1: Kitnamy seaman stained clothing, all of it had been tossed
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety nine. Anthony wasn't gutted, he was furious.
Speaker 1: Everywhere he looked, every rock he turned over seemed to
Speaker 1: yield fresh proof that the cops were shielding Gombert. First
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's detectives, now the KENPD. What on earth did
Speaker 1: Gombert have on all of them? And how many girls
Speaker 1: were raped and or killed after Amy reported her rape
Speaker 1: to Detective douche.
Speaker 7: Cough, that's another evil and then that allowed. If they
Speaker 7: had solved Amy, they would have put handcuffs on the man.
Speaker 7: They would and if they had handcuffs on him in
Speaker 7: September ninety four, when the district attorney learned about the.
Speaker 1: Rape kit, he would have been in jail. Yes, doctor
Speaker 1: would likely have been in jail in October of ninety
Speaker 1: four when Josette Wright went missing. In the weeks and
Speaker 1: months after a second trial ended, Anthony went off a
Speaker 1: cliff emotionally. He'd reached that point where even the strongest
Speaker 1: stopped pushing and begin working at their terms of surrender.
Speaker 1: But someone else, his stepdad, was furious for him, and
Speaker 1: he refused to give up. Larry had a buddy who
Speaker 1: was a criminal lawyer. He asked him for the name
Speaker 1: of the best criminal attorney in New York. That friend
Speaker 1: connected him to a guy named Mark Baker. Baker was
Speaker 1: a post conviction legend in New York, a lawyer who'd
Speaker 1: walked multiple men out of prison after they'd been sentenced
Speaker 1: to life. Baker agreed to take Anthony's case and to
Speaker 1: bring aboard the best trial lawyer he knew a hail
Speaker 1: married magician named Mark ac Niffolo.
Speaker 5: So people says, well, what's your like? Who do you
Speaker 5: market to? I'm like I marked to people who were fucked,
Speaker 5: Like if you're fucked, I'm your man.
Speaker 1: The Devil's Quarry is a production of Lava for Good
Speaker 1: in association with Rolling Stone Films and Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1: I'm your creator and host Paul Soltaroff. Executive producers are
Speaker 1: Jason Flomm, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis and Gilbert King from
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone Films. Our executive producers are Alexander Dale and
Speaker 1: Sean Woods. Our producers are Garakornhaber, Hannah Beale, Jackie Pawley,
Speaker 1: Austin Smith and Kathleen Horn. Our editors Joel Lovell, fact
Speaker 1: checking by Lucy Croning, our sound designers Brit Spangler, and
Speaker 1: our engineer is Austin Smith. Additional reporting by Kathleen Horrant.
Speaker 1: Original music arranged and produced by Alexis Quadrado at the
Speaker 1: Plaza Rojas Studio had a marketing and operations Jeff Kleiber,
Speaker 1: publicist Nathaniel Baruch, art director Andrew Nelson. Social media manager
Speaker 1: Sarah Gibbons. Legal review provided by Claris Law and Gibson Dunn.
Speaker 1: Our theme song, The One Who's Holding the Stars, is
Speaker 1: performed by Alexis Quadrado at the Plaza Rojas Studio, Vocals
Speaker 1: by Rob Reddy of California. Corns written by Leo Schofield
Speaker 1: and Kevin Harrick at the Florida Department of Corrections Hardy
Speaker 1: Correctional Facility,