Speaker 1: This series includes sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including sexual
Speaker 1: assault and abuse involving children. Listener discretion is advised. In
Speaker 1: the fall of twenty sixteen, Anthony Pippa walked out of
Speaker 1: court a free man after decades in prison for the
Speaker 1: murder of Joseph Wright. He'd been found not guilty of
Speaker 1: all charges in that crime, second degree murder acquitted, first
Speaker 1: degree rape acquitted. It was his third and final trial
Speaker 1: on those charges. But this was the first Putnam jury
Speaker 1: to hear the truth. The truth about the criminal misconduct
Speaker 1: of the cops who framed Anthony and his best friend
Speaker 1: Andy from murder, the truth about the teens those Putnam
Speaker 1: cops coerced into falsely accusing the two boys, and the
Speaker 1: truth about the man who should have been there to
Speaker 1: target the devil in the woods, Howard Gombert. On the
Speaker 1: day of his acquittal, Anthony felt well a dozen different things. Yes,
Speaker 1: he'd climb the mountain and was free to go home now,
Speaker 1: but home was a place that had demonized him and
Speaker 1: would never let him know a moment's peace. Andy, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: was still rotting in prison, would have to fight his
Speaker 1: own way home. And then there was Gombert. Gombert you'll recall,
Speaker 1: was in prison himself doing a thirty year bid from
Speaker 1: multiple chargers, including sexual assault on seven year old Sarah.
Speaker 1: But for Gombert, the thirty years will only be twenty seven,
Speaker 1: after which he'll walk out of prison a free ma'am.
Speaker 1: As I taped these words, that moment is close at hand.
Speaker 1: In the past few months, the doc has advanced the
Speaker 1: date of his lease, currently set to leave prison in
Speaker 1: January of twenty seven, and when Connecticut cuts him loose,
Speaker 1: it'll be with no pearl mean ingingumber will be free
Speaker 1: to simply vanish, unseen, to.
Speaker 2: Go back to that tent in the woods if he likes,
Speaker 2: and there he'll wait, brooding and seething till a time
Speaker 2: and place of his choosing.
Speaker 1: You, my madmss.
Speaker 3: Laughter, my fears. Sorrow's depths are endless. Valley of the ars.
Speaker 3: I want to see your revelation now, and no.
Speaker 4: War.
Speaker 5: I'm reading out.
Speaker 3: A desperatetion to the one who's holding the stars, to.
Speaker 1: The one who's holding.
Speaker 3: Holding the stars.
Speaker 1: This is the Devil's quarry. By now, you've surely grappled
Speaker 1: with a question that's haunted me since I first reported
Speaker 1: this story. Why didn't multiple police departments in Putnam County
Speaker 1: give Gombert a whole pass, either by ignoring or destroying
Speaker 1: piles of evidence that pointed in his direction. Mark Agniffolo,
Speaker 1: the lawyer acquitted Anthony, is haunted by those questions too.
Speaker 6: I've never gotten to the bottom of why Castaldo didn't
Speaker 6: investigate Gomber. That's the great unanswered question in the case.
Speaker 6: They really bent over backwards to try to make this
Speaker 6: case against Anthony and Andy and Gombert, who's a live suspect.
Speaker 1: Right under their nose.
Speaker 6: You know, they have no interest in making that case,
Speaker 6: you know, and I don't know why.
Speaker 1: Of the many Putnam cops who were corrupt or incompetent,
Speaker 1: it was Castaldo who ran the Joe Zette case. What
Speaker 1: on earth was he thinking when he'd steered away from Gomber?
Speaker 1: That was the question on Anthony's mind. After his acquittal.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, he filed a federal lawsuit against Castaldo
Speaker 1: and his cronies, seeking millions in reparations for his years
Speaker 1: in prison and a generous heaping of revenge. In post
Speaker 1: conviction lawsuits, the state county often stalls delaying in hopes
Speaker 1: the plaintiff settles cheaply Putnam County seems to have tried that.
Speaker 1: They made Anthony waite for three years for a resolution.
Speaker 1: But as civil lawyer Nick Preston used that time, well,
Speaker 1: he went after those cops again and again in pre
Speaker 1: trial depositions, and when he got them in the chair,
Speaker 1: he'd swept them for hours. First up in the hot
Speaker 1: seat was Built Quick, Nostaldo's partner. Straight from the gate.
Speaker 1: Quick conceded the obvious that he never looked at anyone
Speaker 1: but Anthony and Andy for the murder of Josette.
Speaker 7: Our mandate was to continue with the investigation that we
Speaker 7: were doing, okay, and we were investigating Anthony Depupo and
Speaker 7: Andy Kreebac at that time.
Speaker 1: Besides, he claims there were colleagues on his squad looking
Speaker 1: at other suspects.
Speaker 8: I take it you understood that one of the suspects
Speaker 8: that they were looking at, it presumably was Comport. You
Speaker 8: mentioned suspects. I think you said plural. Was it Jess
Speaker 8: Compert or was the other people?
Speaker 1: I think it was just bombering.
Speaker 8: And who were the other officers that were investigating in
Speaker 8: the other suspects?
Speaker 1: So I have no idea to repeat, Quick says he
Speaker 1: has no idea.
Speaker 8: So all right, So during the course of your to
Speaker 8: your investigation, you never learn who, if anybody, was investigating
Speaker 8: other suspects. No, all right, were you curious as to
Speaker 8: what that other investigation was uncovering and who was doing it.
Speaker 7: We were told to stay on point with this investigation
Speaker 7: and do not get involved with that investigation. That if
Speaker 7: something happened with that investigation that would impact on our investigation,
Speaker 7: we would be noted.
Speaker 8: For okay, But you were never curious enough to say, hey, guys,
Speaker 8: what's going on with the Compert investigation? Are you guys
Speaker 8: doing it?
Speaker 1: That never happened introduction, Not that I can remember.
Speaker 8: You were in the dark about what they were doing.
Speaker 7: Basically, we stayed in the dark with it. We were
Speaker 7: we were told, we were given a direct letter, okay,
Speaker 7: do not get involved with this, it will mess up
Speaker 7: your focus on this investigation.
Speaker 1: Alas, that's not what his colleagues told Bruston under oath
Speaker 1: two of them had gathered stacks of evidence incriminating Howard
Speaker 1: Gombert and given every scrap of that evidence to back Castaldo.
Speaker 1: What else did those other cops admit to Preston that,
Speaker 1: of course Howard Gombert was the suspect in Josette's murder,
Speaker 1: that of course they knew he raped young girls. Everyone
Speaker 1: in the office knew that, they said. Next cop in
Speaker 1: the Lions den Castaldo Breuston went adam for days under oath.
Speaker 1: Here's Costaldo dodging questions about that other investigation, the one
Speaker 1: that Bill Quick described.
Speaker 8: So you certainly you agree with Quick that you did
Speaker 8: not conduct any investigation into Gombert after he became a
Speaker 8: person of interest. Correct, That would be done by other people.
Speaker 8: Do you disagree with that? Yes, sir, you do disagree
Speaker 8: with that. Yes, you think you were free to. You
Speaker 8: were free to investigate Compert if you thought that would
Speaker 8: be appropriate.
Speaker 1: I wasn't told not to. That's their question.
Speaker 8: Okay, So your decision not to investigate Gombert, the decision
Speaker 8: not to conduct any investigation into Gombert, was your decision, correct, objection.
Speaker 1: Wasn't a decision.
Speaker 5: I wasn't in I was looking into other people.
Speaker 1: And why didn't he look into Howard Gombert?
Speaker 9: He wasn't in the line of investigation where we would
Speaker 9: look into that.
Speaker 5: The information we got Gombert was not in the picture.
Speaker 8: You ruled out Gombert as being involved in this case.
Speaker 1: So from the information when received, yes, sir, but again,
Speaker 1: why on? Matty repeatedly gave no answer except to say
Speaker 1: that Gombert was considered cleared. Over months of depositions, Preston
Speaker 1: caught Castaldo and Quick in one contradiction after another, the
Speaker 1: anyone after the DA's office. He found proof of witness
Speaker 1: tampering that stretched back a decade and what I can
Speaker 1: only describe is brazen acts perjury by the current Deputy DA.
Speaker 1: Suddenly the county was desperate to settle. In days, It's
Speaker 1: offered Anthony jump from a quarter million dollars to twelve
Speaker 1: million bucks payable immediately. Though he promised himself he wouldn't
Speaker 1: stop grinding until he'd gotten the truth about Gombered. Anthony
Speaker 1: had gone as far as he could. He badly needed
Speaker 1: the money and the chance to start over, to pull
Speaker 1: up stakes and get far far away from this misbegotten place,
Speaker 1: and so in the summer of twenty twenty he settled
Speaker 1: with Putnham County. But before he left town, he turned
Speaker 1: over every file he had on Putnam County to me.
Speaker 10: For years, I had to be I was the chief investigator,
Speaker 10: telling these guys what we need to do and why
Speaker 10: we need to do it and now to take I
Speaker 10: don't want to take a backseat because I am going
Speaker 10: to be very proactive here. I don't feel like the
Speaker 10: weight of the world is on me in a sense,
Speaker 10: like the heart of what I was doing for so
Speaker 10: many years is Paul's heart now.
Speaker 1: In the course of our investigation, we filed a foil
Speaker 1: request with the Putnam Sheriff's Records Division. We wanted all
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's records on Howard Gombert getting back to the
Speaker 1: early eighties, but the clerk resisted till we got our
Speaker 1: lawyers involved. Then currently informed us that the records on
Speaker 1: this person were destroyed. They didn't say how so. No,
Speaker 1: we still don't know why the cops excluded Gombert as
Speaker 1: a suspect in Josette's murder. But I'm going to take
Speaker 1: a minute here to sketch some of the evidence Castaldo
Speaker 1: had in his possession. Let's start with Josette's family. The
Speaker 1: day the Putnam cops found her bones, they broke the
Speaker 1: awful news to her mom, Susan, and the first words
Speaker 1: out of Susan Wright's mouth, as recorded by the cops
Speaker 1: on the scene, oh my god, Howard Gombre killed my daughter.
Speaker 1: Then those cops interviewed Josette's sister, Chloe. She told the
Speaker 1: cops that Gombert had raped her classmate Rachel r and
Speaker 1: that Gombert was at Rachel's place a lot when Josette
Speaker 1: was over there. We know that those cops passed those
Speaker 1: facts on to Castaldo, along with the fact that Gombert
Speaker 1: had offered Josette a babysitting job just weeks before she
Speaker 1: went missing. We know that Gombert's previous babysitter, Amy Farranda,
Speaker 1: had just been raped by a man matching Gombert's description,
Speaker 1: and that Amy, then seventeen, looked a lot like Josette, tall,
Speaker 1: lawn and beautiful. We also know that Gombert lived close
Speaker 1: to Amy, in fact, right around the corner from her house,
Speaker 1: and that he knew about her sneaking out late at
Speaker 1: night to meet her boyfriend. He knew that because she'd
Speaker 1: naively let it slip to Gombert. We know that on
Speaker 1: the day Josette disappeared, October third, nineteen ninety four, she
Speaker 1: was seen getting into a red car with Connecticut plates.
Speaker 1: We know from Gombert's girlfriend Anne Marie, that she owned
Speaker 1: the red and black car with Connecticut plates. We know
Speaker 1: that Gombert drove that car all the time. We know
Speaker 1: he admitted giving Josette a ride on her about the
Speaker 1: day she vanished in that car. But there's more, much more.
Speaker 1: Costaldo had to have known. He knew about Gombert's criminal
Speaker 1: mo the hunting knife, he always carried, the elaborate rope
Speaker 1: knots he tied the underwear, and his victims mouths. The
Speaker 1: obsession with a particular kind of child, tall, pretty blonde girls,
Speaker 1: preferably prepubescent. In short, the exact presentation found in Joseph
Speaker 1: Wright's remains. Five years ago, I made countless attempts to
Speaker 1: question Pat Costaldo. He retired by then, so I tried
Speaker 1: his home phone in Vain. I asked the Sheriff's office
Speaker 1: and the Putnam DA to forward my questions to him.
Speaker 1: Nothing did on my efforts to reach any Putnam cops
Speaker 1: who'd had dealings with Howard Gombert. I called the Carmel PD,
Speaker 1: who'd been looking at Gombert hard for the disappearance of
Speaker 1: a second young girl. I called the Ken PD who'd
Speaker 1: botched the Amy Farranda rape case, then tossed the forensic
Speaker 1: evidence in the trash. I tried the Putnam Sheriff's office
Speaker 1: hoping someone would pick up there by. Now you can
Speaker 1: guess how that turned out. And so, with no one
Speaker 1: left to ask, I went to the source. In the
Speaker 1: summer of twenty one, I found Gombert in prison. What
Speaker 1: follows after the break are taped excerpts of those calls.
Speaker 1: I like climbing, I got going down. That's the voice
Speaker 1: of Gombert himself saying he's fine talking to me. With
Speaker 1: a guy like Gombert, you don't barge right in. You
Speaker 1: work your way up to what you want. And so
Speaker 1: I started not by asking about Josette, but about his
Speaker 1: surviving female accusers. Grey is on his ex girlfriend Anne Marie,
Speaker 1: the girl he impregnated when she was sixteen and who
Speaker 1: then charged him with years of rapes, her beating her.
Speaker 5: Did I beat her?
Speaker 1: Absolutely no?
Speaker 11: Did you sodomize her against her will?
Speaker 5: No? We never had that kind.
Speaker 11: Did you choke her?
Speaker 5: Did I ever her her?
Speaker 3: Probably?
Speaker 1: That's Gombert saying he probably grabbed her by the neck.
Speaker 1: Did you choke her till she passed down?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 11: Ablutely she says, you did.
Speaker 1: I asked him about Colleen, his first victim so far
Speaker 1: as we know. She said she was twelve when she
Speaker 1: reported him to the cops in.
Speaker 11: The early eighties. How about Colleen Caruso?
Speaker 5: What about her?
Speaker 11: When did you start having sex with her?
Speaker 5: I don't know all years old?
Speaker 1: That's Gombert saying he was fifteen at the.
Speaker 11: Time, right, she was eleven?
Speaker 1: Oh, she wasn't What was she.
Speaker 5: Was the year too younger than me?
Speaker 11: No, she wasn't a kid.
Speaker 5: I'm the fucking kid. I don't remember that. I remember
Speaker 5: all the week we hadn't related were eighteen.
Speaker 1: For the record, Colleen is almost exactly four years younger
Speaker 1: than Gombert, so if he started having sex with her
Speaker 1: at age fifteen, that would make her eleven. Then then
Speaker 1: I turned to Rachel, who was eight when he moved
Speaker 1: in with and began raping both Rachel and her mom.
Speaker 1: I asked him if he'd raped and beat her repeatedly
Speaker 1: between the ages of eight and thirteen.
Speaker 11: Did you choke till she passed out?
Speaker 5: Laid a hand on?
Speaker 11: Did you rape her when she was eighteen and living
Speaker 11: in Paulling.
Speaker 5: No, I did be in her have hit new Fairfield
Speaker 5: hit balling.
Speaker 11: Ye, I'm sorry you say you did have sex with
Speaker 11: her on several occasions.
Speaker 5: Federal dated between the Fairfield and Paulin they would come
Speaker 5: to my father Don.
Speaker 1: He says they had sex on several occasions at his
Speaker 1: father's house. But for the record, Rachel was in middle
Speaker 1: school when she accused him of rape. Howard, why are
Speaker 1: all these women giving chapter in verse, women who, by
Speaker 1: the way, don't know each other. They're all telling the
Speaker 1: same story about you. Your mo never varies.
Speaker 5: People that bet with the DOORI her binding and all that.
Speaker 5: How did they talk to the Tipple of the Guaranian.
Speaker 1: That's Gombert saying that the basis for these accusations was
Speaker 1: Anthony and his lawyers, or, more to the point, Anthony's stepdad,
Speaker 1: Big O'larry, who, according to Gomber, bribe those girls to
Speaker 1: falsely accuse him of rape. The problem with his claim
Speaker 1: is that Colleen came forward when Anthony was four years old,
Speaker 1: and Rachel came forward when Anthony was around twelve, and
Speaker 1: so on down the line. Meanwhile, I went through my
Speaker 1: list of victims till I came to joe'st right.
Speaker 12: I could go there that I've heard Alli's story, He
Speaker 12: pulled the you know, I'm Joe's dead. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 5: How not of this you said? And tell him that
Speaker 5: put his money.
Speaker 1: Started flowing before my cause with Gombert, and there were
Speaker 1: several back to back. I'd had a talk with myself
Speaker 1: in the mirror, don't go in hot, don't rise to
Speaker 1: the bait. Just let the man speak and hang himself.
Speaker 1: But at that point I BELI, Oh, my stack.
Speaker 11: Howard.
Speaker 1: The point of the story is that you obviously killed Josette.
Speaker 1: You have done.
Speaker 11: How did I?
Speaker 5: How did how did I kill Joe?
Speaker 1: I I'm sorry you met her once? What is that
Speaker 1: what you're saying? Is that what you're saying you met
Speaker 1: her once? I've got five witnesses who said you met
Speaker 1: her repeatedly. And then I slammed down the phone. But
Speaker 1: the oddest thing happened after my story ran Gumbert wrote
Speaker 1: me from prison, big fat letters, and there in those
Speaker 1: letters were multiple admissions of crimes he had committed or
Speaker 1: intended to when he got out. He admitted, for instance,
Speaker 1: to having sex with Rachel while she was under age.
Speaker 1: He admitted of filming her and taking snaps of her naked.
Speaker 1: But Gombert didn't stop there. To this day, he goes
Speaker 1: on writing letters to my co producers. He offers a
Speaker 1: self incrimination. We hadn't even asked for he writes about
Speaker 1: Amy Farranda, the former babysitter who said Gombert raped her
Speaker 1: shortly before Josette vanished. Gombert tells us he'd been with
Speaker 1: her on the night of the rape. Till that letter,
Speaker 1: we'd had only Amy's word that she and Gombert knew
Speaker 1: each other. Now he both confirmed it and walked us
Speaker 1: right up to the night of the rape. Here were
Speaker 1: a couple of excerpts from those letters. They're read by
Speaker 1: my colleague Rob.
Speaker 9: I know her very well, in fact, had been with her
Speaker 9: earlier the night she was attacked, and with her afterwards.
Speaker 1: I was with her for a.
Speaker 9: Bit sometime around or after seven pm before the assault.
Speaker 9: To be honest, Semie, guessing it was so long ago,
Speaker 9: she stopped buying her way home. She was going to
Speaker 9: come by later too. She would stop by late at night,
Speaker 9: off and on the way to see a boyfriend.
Speaker 1: She did not show up later that night.
Speaker 9: I believe that it was a day or so later
Speaker 9: when I next saw her and she told me what
Speaker 9: happened to her.
Speaker 1: But the most disturbing thing he sent me were his
Speaker 1: threats to surviving victims. He named them one by one,
Speaker 1: said he was going to confront them when he got
Speaker 1: out of prison.
Speaker 9: I can't wait for the day that I see Rachel.
Speaker 9: My life is totally fucked. Even if the truth comes
Speaker 9: out and I'm released, Me and Rachel have already had
Speaker 9: to talk about her and all our lives and half truths,
Speaker 9: so she already knows what she has coming. But for
Speaker 9: now I'm debating just how I should destroy her life
Speaker 9: as she's tried to do to mine. I think it'll
Speaker 9: just start by proving her to be a lying horse.
Speaker 1: She is. He couldn't be any clear that he's bent
Speaker 1: on vengeance when he gets out of prison. Several months ago,
Speaker 1: we went back to Rachel's we wound down our reporting
Speaker 1: on this series. Rachel's in her forties now, a single
Speaker 1: mom of grown children. She's worked service sector jobs since
Speaker 1: her teens to support them and has never known a
Speaker 1: life without struggle. But she's one of those moms who's
Speaker 1: poured everything she had into raising and loving those kids.
Speaker 1: She's always on FaceTime with one or another. She needs
Speaker 1: to see them as well as hear them, and somehow
Speaker 1: she's managed to carve out space from mindfulness and peace.
Speaker 1: Her house is the sanctuary of books and plush fabrics.
Speaker 1: And spiritual reliquaries. Clear she spent decades healing herself and
Speaker 1: has come a far distance on her own. But this
Speaker 1: is when we learned we weren't the only ones. Gombert
Speaker 1: wrote too. A few years ago, Rachel got a letter
Speaker 1: in the mail. She didn't have to read the return
Speaker 1: address to know who'd written it. She could feel that
Speaker 1: in her glands.
Speaker 4: This son of a bitch is in jail. How did
Speaker 4: he find out where I currently am?
Speaker 1: That letter, needless to say, was from Gombert.
Speaker 4: I don't know what voodoo he had in that letter
Speaker 4: or and I'm saying that because I literally lost my mind.
Speaker 1: Rachel described that to a reporter of Kathleen.
Speaker 13: What does losing your mind look like?
Speaker 2: In that moment?
Speaker 5: What happened?
Speaker 4: It was after the letter, and I was cleaning out
Speaker 4: my house of like trying to you know, that's part
Speaker 4: of pealing, getting rid of things that you don't carry anymore.
Speaker 4: And I did a lot of that, and remember standing
Speaker 4: in my house going is there anything else?
Speaker 13: It didn't take long before I was standing in front
Speaker 13: of this picture that was over my fireplace mantle.
Speaker 1: The painting depicted two gunships on fire in the Shooting War,
Speaker 1: with each.
Speaker 4: Other, this picture belongs to my mom, And all I
Speaker 4: heard was yeah, but it came from him.
Speaker 1: Rachel's mom, who'd been badly abused by Gombert, passed away
Speaker 1: a few years earlier. I, without second and guessing, took
Speaker 1: that picture off my mantle.
Speaker 4: I brought it outside. I laid it on my patio table.
Speaker 4: I took a razor blade and I exed it from
Speaker 4: corner to corner, big eggs. And when I did that,
Speaker 4: something came out of that picture. It was an energy,
Speaker 4: and I felt like I freed my mom and I
Speaker 4: burnt it and that hel was my mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah h h.
Speaker 4: And I went through the biggest most I I don't
Speaker 4: even know how to explain it, Like it like the
Speaker 4: dark Knight of the Soul?
Speaker 1: Is this the is this the letter?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: How do you feel with that letter sitting right there
Speaker 4: on the on the table. I've only held onto it
Speaker 4: because I didn't I needed proof, you know, like just
Speaker 4: he shouldn't have even wrote me anything. One of the
Speaker 4: things that he said in the letter was that he
Speaker 4: would get the people from back then to say that
Speaker 4: I was lying or something, and good luck, good luck,
Speaker 4: good luck. You could say that I'm lying. But does
Speaker 4: the evidence say that I'm lying.
Speaker 13: Anything that comes to mind about him getting out.
Speaker 4: I'll be looking over my shoulder again.
Speaker 13: I should be proud of myself of how far I've come,
Speaker 13: and there.
Speaker 4: Are times where I'm like, yeah, I am, you know
Speaker 4: I am. I'm still here. I made it because I
Speaker 4: didn't think I was ever going to make it this far.
Speaker 4: So I just want to be free.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to see with Gombert's victims and not want
Speaker 1: that for each of them. But instead of looking out
Speaker 1: for Gombert's victims, the authorities and Putnam looked out for
Speaker 1: themselves while leaving Gombert free to roam the county. Here's
Speaker 1: a partial list of the Putnam County lawmen who gave
Speaker 1: Howard Gombert a pass. In twenty fourteen, Pack Costaldo was
Speaker 1: caught on camera stopping and choking a handcuffed defendant. Costaldo
Speaker 1: was arrested and charged with three crimes, including a felony.
Speaker 1: Instead of sending him to jail, though, the county sent
Speaker 1: him out to pasture, gave Murley retirement at full rank
Speaker 1: and pension. Detective Kevin Doushkov, the cop who took Amy
Speaker 1: Farranda's statement about being raped and then failed to investigate
Speaker 1: her attack. He's no longer a cop there because he's
Speaker 1: now a judge in Putnam County. Then there's Bald Leader,
Speaker 1: Anthony's ethically challenged lawyer, the guy who botched his first
Speaker 1: trial in nineteen ninety seven. He's not only still a lawyer,
Speaker 1: he's also a judge in Putnam County. And finally, Dan Stevens,
Speaker 1: the Putnam cop slash polygraph expert who coerced a false
Speaker 1: confession for Mandy Krevak. He was caught red handed framing
Speaker 1: another innocent team for the murder of his schoolgirl classmate.
Speaker 1: That teen Jeffrey Deskovic spent sixteen years in prison before
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project helped secure his release. After he was exonerated,
Speaker 1: Dskovic sued Stevens and was awarded forty one million in
Speaker 1: damages by a jury. That was the end of Stephens
Speaker 1: as a cop, but not as a Putnam official, because
Speaker 1: then he turned around and became the county corner, proving
Speaker 1: once and for all that in Putnam County, no bad
Speaker 1: deed goes punished. Given the cowardice and the cruelty of
Speaker 1: those Putnam officials, it's left to others to seek justice
Speaker 1: for Gombert's victims, and so, with no one else to
Speaker 1: turn to, we've taken the lead. As I tape this,
Speaker 1: our lawyers are in talks with state officials, officials who
Speaker 1: have the power to arrest Gombert at any point, including
Speaker 1: the day of his release, although curiously, the Putnam Sheriff
Speaker 1: has reopened Josette's case just weeks before our series runs
Speaker 1: in full. But given past performance, we have little confidence
Speaker 1: in that department, and so we offer this plea to
Speaker 1: Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York State. Under
Speaker 1: state law, she can detain Gombert indefinitely using something called
Speaker 1: civil commitment. That statute applause to so called SVPs, or
Speaker 1: sexually violent predators, as they're known. In the eyes of
Speaker 1: this reporter and my team of co producers, there's no
Speaker 1: one who fits that description better than Howard John Gombert Junior.
Speaker 1: When I first met Anthony in January of twenty one,
Speaker 1: he was a newly wealthy man. He had his check
Speaker 1: for twelve million from Putnam County minus' lawyer's cut. He
Speaker 1: had an additional five million from New York State for
Speaker 1: those wrongful years behind bars. He bought himself a penthouse
Speaker 1: in Westchester County and filled it with expensive toys. He
Speaker 1: had a girlfriend who loved him, and the freedom to
Speaker 1: travel widely. At forty three, he had the world at
Speaker 1: his feet. But for all that, he hadn't been outside
Speaker 1: in weeks. Downstairs, his black Mercedes was caked in dust.
Speaker 1: It never left the garage unless his girlfriend drove it.
Speaker 1: His meals came up via door dash runners. They might
Speaker 1: as well have shoved them through a slot in the door,
Speaker 1: because that's what injustice does to a man. It turns
Speaker 1: him into his own jailer. That first day, we sat
Speaker 1: and talked for hours, he and I. Every hour or
Speaker 1: so he get up to use the john and come
Speaker 1: back with a tall poor of vodka. He badly needed
Speaker 1: treatment at a trauma clinic, the kind of place your
Speaker 1: cowboy up and confront your terror while treating your sub
Speaker 1: since disorder mercifully. That's what Anthony did a year or
Speaker 1: so after we met, But for nine months he wasn't
Speaker 1: going anywhere until he poured out everything on his heart,
Speaker 1: his red hot hatred for the cops who'd framed him,
Speaker 1: his guilt for getting out and getting paid in full.
Speaker 1: While his best friend Andy was still detained waiting two
Speaker 1: more years for his new trial to start. But above all,
Speaker 1: Anthony burned to win justice for Carmel's vanished girls. And yes,
Speaker 1: you heard me right when I said girls, because six
Speaker 1: months after Josette went missing, a second girl disappeared in Carmel.
Speaker 1: Her name was Robin Murphy, and her body has never
Speaker 1: been found. Her disappearance and presumed death still haunts the
Speaker 1: town of Carmel and still be devil's the Carmel police
Speaker 1: who'd kept your case open for thirty years. Now, that
Speaker 1: was their pretext for not sharing their case file when
Speaker 1: we asked them about Howard gombered. As it happens, though
Speaker 1: I knew someone who had it. In the fall of
Speaker 1: last year, I flew out to the Northwest with my
Speaker 1: co producer Kara Cornhaber.
Speaker 9: You guys wanted something to drink, wants I'm similar like Jessin.
Speaker 1: Anthony and his girlfriend Leah bought a gorgeous spread in
Speaker 1: the Rockies. They literally live where the buffalo roam. We
Speaker 1: have three bald eagles that live over there.
Speaker 14: His horse has come right down here to yeat, and
Speaker 14: we're friendly with the ladies, so she don't mind us.
Speaker 14: We feed them carrots and apples. They come right to
Speaker 14: the fence, four of them. It's fantastic we had to
Speaker 14: olk out here. We saw Oak this year, I mean
Speaker 14: maybe eighty just right down the street.
Speaker 1: I can't begin to tell you how much he's changed
Speaker 1: in the five years since we met. He's still huge,
Speaker 1: of course, but his bulk his card from Rock. Now
Speaker 1: Anthony benches three seventy five in his massive gym downstairs
Speaker 1: and two floors above it is his red and black
Speaker 1: throne room. It's the pantheon of his gods in the WWE.
Speaker 1: They're life sized figures of Rick Flair and the Undertaker,
Speaker 1: their WrestleMania bells framed on every flat surface. And at
Speaker 1: the heart of that room is anthony shrine to Hulk Hogan,
Speaker 1: whom he dreamt on as a boy. It's Anthony's great
Speaker 1: joy that he befriended the Hulkster before he passed away.
Speaker 1: And why not. They're both of them larger than life
Speaker 1: and entirely self created. The day before we left, Karen
Speaker 1: and I sat with Anthony in his study. He's nothing
Speaker 1: if not a curator of his struggle, and there's thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of documents pertaining to Putnam County on that day.
Speaker 1: He started talking about something new he had.
Speaker 4: I haven't So if you don't want to talk about
Speaker 4: how you found it or was it really.
Speaker 2: Well, I.
Speaker 14: Told I mean, let's not put this at all on
Speaker 14: the podcast, and if you want to ask me.
Speaker 1: Take the microphone off. But you didn't do it. When
Speaker 1: you're done, you know, it's don't be that thirsty. Of course,
Speaker 1: Anthony being Anthony, he did eventually show it to us.
Speaker 10: So this is the Robin Murphy file from the police department.
Speaker 1: This is all they have for thirty years, all of it.
Speaker 1: That's a full civils It was a massive carton filled
Speaker 1: with files, many of them stamped Carmel PD.
Speaker 10: Robin Murphy, who has been missing since nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4: How did you get this.
Speaker 1: Dropped in my lap? Tell me dropped in my lap? Oh?
Speaker 1: And the name of the last person Robin was seen with,
Speaker 1: Howard John Gombert Junior. We're going to find out what's
Speaker 1: in that box and what happened to Robin Murphy. In
Speaker 1: season two of The Devil's Quarry.
Speaker 11: You said I have one minute to ask anything. I'm
Speaker 11: going to ask you this. Where is Robin Murphy's body?
Speaker 11: Buried Really Good.
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 Solatarov. Executive producers are
Speaker 1: Jason Flomm, Jeff Kempler, Kevin Mortis and Gilbert King from
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone film Our executive producers are Alexandra Dale and
Speaker 1: Sean Woods. Our producers are Gara Cornhaber, Hannah Beale, Jackie Pawley,
Speaker 1: Austin Smith and Kathleen Horn. Our editor is Joel Lovell.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Lucy Croning. Our sound designer is Brit Spangler,
Speaker 1: and our engineer is Austin Smith. Additional reporting by Kathleen Horn.
Speaker 1: Original music arranged and produced by Alexis Quadrado at the
Speaker 1: Plaza Rojas Studio at A marketing and operations Jeff Cleiburn,
Speaker 1: publicist Nathaniel Barouch, 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 Student Yeah
Speaker 1: Vocals by Rob Ready of California Corns, written by Leo
Speaker 1: Schofield and Kevin Harrick at the Florida Department of Corrections
Speaker 1: Hardy Correctional Facility.
Speaker 4: H H.
Speaker 15: And then he brought up Robin, Robin Murray and then
Speaker 15: he tells me, uh, they'll never find it, They'll never
Speaker 15: find the body.
Speaker 3: I mean, how do you know?
Speaker 1: That's what I mean?
Speaker 15: You know, in jail talk, insinuating those are your man down,
Speaker 15: those are your those are your bodies, you know. And
Speaker 15: it didn't so much with Josette, more with with Robin
Speaker 15: y