WEBVTT - Chapter 8 | Chapter and Verse 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:05.160 This series includes sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including sexual 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:17.840 assault and abuse involving children. Listener discretion is advised. In 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:21.159 the fall of twenty sixteen, Anthony Pippa walked out of 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:25.239 court a free man after decades in prison for the 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:28.840 murder of Joseph Wright. He'd been found not guilty of 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:34.360 all charges in that crime, second degree murder acquitted, first 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:39.240 degree rape acquitted. It was his third and final trial 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.880 on those charges. But this was the first Putnam jury 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.800 to hear the truth. The truth about the criminal misconduct 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.880 of the cops who framed Anthony and his best friend 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:54.040 Andy from murder, the truth about the teens those Putnam 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:58.400 cops coerced into falsely accusing the two boys, and the 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:00.760 truth about the man who should have been there to 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:07.000 target the devil in the woods, Howard Gombert. On the 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:12.480 day of his acquittal, Anthony felt well a dozen different things. Yes, 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.160 he'd climb the mountain and was free to go home now, 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.240 but home was a place that had demonized him and 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:22.440 would never let him know a moment's peace. Andy, meanwhile, 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.760 was still rotting in prison, would have to fight his 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:32.399 own way home. And then there was Gombert. Gombert you'll recall, 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.560 was in prison himself doing a thirty year bid from 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:40.080 multiple chargers, including sexual assault on seven year old Sarah. 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.559 But for Gombert, the thirty years will only be twenty seven, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:52.440 after which he'll walk out of prison a free ma'am. 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.200 As I taped these words, that moment is close at hand. 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.360 In the past few months, the doc has advanced the 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.960 date of his lease, currently set to leave prison in 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.880 January of twenty seven, and when Connecticut cuts him loose, 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.959 it'll be with no pearl mean ingingumber will be free 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.240 to simply vanish, unseen, to. 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.399 Go back to that tent in the woods if he likes, 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.880 and there he'll wait, brooding and seething till a time 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.079 and place of his choosing. 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:38.880 You, my madmss. 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:57.040 Laughter, my fears. Sorrow's depths are endless. Valley of the ars. 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:11.200 I want to see your revelation now, and no. 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:13.560 War. 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:19.160 I'm reading out. 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:28.560 A desperatetion to the one who's holding the stars, to. 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.920 The one who's holding. 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:36.360 Holding the stars. 0:03:48.760 --> 0:04:03.360 This is the Devil's quarry. By now, you've surely grappled 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.760 with a question that's haunted me since I first reported 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:11.400 this story. Why didn't multiple police departments in Putnam County 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:16.120 give Gombert a whole pass, either by ignoring or destroying 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:21.360 piles of evidence that pointed in his direction. Mark Agniffolo, 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.840 the lawyer acquitted Anthony, is haunted by those questions too. 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:33.120 I've never gotten to the bottom of why Castaldo didn't 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:39.960 investigate Gomber. That's the great unanswered question in the case. 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.080 They really bent over backwards to try to make this 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:49.719 case against Anthony and Andy and Gombert, who's a live suspect. 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:50.320 Right under their nose. 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.159 You know, they have no interest in making that case, 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:55.320 you know, and I don't know why. 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.320 Of the many Putnam cops who were corrupt or incompetent, 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.960 it was Castaldo who ran the Joe Zette case. What 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.279 on earth was he thinking when he'd steered away from Gomber? 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.600 That was the question on Anthony's mind. After his acquittal. 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:19.240 In twenty sixteen, he filed a federal lawsuit against Castaldo 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.240 and his cronies, seeking millions in reparations for his years 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:30.239 in prison and a generous heaping of revenge. In post 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:35.159 conviction lawsuits, the state county often stalls delaying in hopes 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:39.240 the plaintiff settles cheaply Putnam County seems to have tried that. 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.800 They made Anthony waite for three years for a resolution. 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.360 But as civil lawyer Nick Preston used that time, well, 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.800 he went after those cops again and again in pre 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.400 trial depositions, and when he got them in the chair, 0:05:56.200 --> 0:06:02.000 he'd swept them for hours. First up in the hot 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:06.640 seat was Built Quick, Nostaldo's partner. Straight from the gate. 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.479 Quick conceded the obvious that he never looked at anyone 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.720 but Anthony and Andy for the murder of Josette. 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.360 Our mandate was to continue with the investigation that we 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:27.040 were doing, okay, and we were investigating Anthony Depupo and 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.400 Andy Kreebac at that time. 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.279 Besides, he claims there were colleagues on his squad looking 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:34.560 at other suspects. 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:37.920 I take it you understood that one of the suspects 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:43.320 that they were looking at, it presumably was Comport. You 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.599 mentioned suspects. I think you said plural. Was it Jess 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:46.680 Compert or was the other people? 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:48.400 I think it was just bombering. 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.440 And who were the other officers that were investigating in 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:54.320 the other suspects? 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:58.200 So I have no idea to repeat, Quick says he 0:06:58.240 --> 0:06:59.640 has no idea. 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.440 So all right, So during the course of your to 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:08.960 your investigation, you never learn who, if anybody, was investigating 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:14.680 other suspects. No, all right, were you curious as to 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:17.720 what that other investigation was uncovering and who was doing it. 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:21.600 We were told to stay on point with this investigation 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:25.000 and do not get involved with that investigation. That if 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:30.440 something happened with that investigation that would impact on our investigation, 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:32.120 we would be noted. 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.160 For okay, But you were never curious enough to say, hey, guys, 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.680 what's going on with the Compert investigation? Are you guys 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:38.040 doing it? 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.840 That never happened introduction, Not that I can remember. 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:43.200 You were in the dark about what they were doing. 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:45.920 Basically, we stayed in the dark with it. We were 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:51.239 we were told, we were given a direct letter, okay, 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:55.760 do not get involved with this, it will mess up 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.040 your focus on this investigation. 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.600 Alas, that's not what his colleagues told Bruston under oath 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.880 two of them had gathered stacks of evidence incriminating Howard 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:11.840 Gombert and given every scrap of that evidence to back Castaldo. 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.520 What else did those other cops admit to Preston that, 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.160 of course Howard Gombert was the suspect in Josette's murder, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.640 that of course they knew he raped young girls. Everyone 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:30.760 in the office knew that, they said. Next cop in 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:36.319 the Lions den Castaldo Breuston went adam for days under oath. 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:42.000 Here's Costaldo dodging questions about that other investigation, the one 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:43.559 that Bill Quick described. 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.400 So you certainly you agree with Quick that you did 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.920 not conduct any investigation into Gombert after he became a 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.480 person of interest. Correct, That would be done by other people. 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.080 Do you disagree with that? Yes, sir, you do disagree 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:58.000 with that. Yes, you think you were free to. You 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.480 were free to investigate Compert if you thought that would 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:00.960 be appropriate. 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.200 I wasn't told not to. That's their question. 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.640 Okay, So your decision not to investigate Gombert, the decision 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:12.520 not to conduct any investigation into Gombert, was your decision, correct, objection. 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:14.120 Wasn't a decision. 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.160 I wasn't in I was looking into other people. 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.600 And why didn't he look into Howard Gombert? 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.120 He wasn't in the line of investigation where we would 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:24.760 look into that. 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.760 The information we got Gombert was not in the picture. 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.160 You ruled out Gombert as being involved in this case. 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.080 So from the information when received, yes, sir, but again, 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:39.240 why on? Matty repeatedly gave no answer except to say 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:45.120 that Gombert was considered cleared. Over months of depositions, Preston 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:50.319 caught Castaldo and Quick in one contradiction after another, the 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.800 anyone after the DA's office. He found proof of witness 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:58.040 tampering that stretched back a decade and what I can 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.840 only describe is brazen acts perjury by the current Deputy DA. 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.720 Suddenly the county was desperate to settle. In days, It's 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:11.400 offered Anthony jump from a quarter million dollars to twelve 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:17.080 million bucks payable immediately. Though he promised himself he wouldn't 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.080 stop grinding until he'd gotten the truth about Gombered. Anthony 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.760 had gone as far as he could. He badly needed 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:29.320 the money and the chance to start over, to pull 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:33.080 up stakes and get far far away from this misbegotten place, 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.480 and so in the summer of twenty twenty he settled 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:42.120 with Putnham County. But before he left town, he turned 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.920 over every file he had on Putnam County to me. 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.359 For years, I had to be I was the chief investigator, 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:55.680 telling these guys what we need to do and why 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:59.480 we need to do it and now to take I 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:01.680 don't want to take a backseat because I am going 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.240 to be very proactive here. I don't feel like the 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.400 weight of the world is on me in a sense, 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:10.920 like the heart of what I was doing for so 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:15.120 many years is Paul's heart now. 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.120 In the course of our investigation, we filed a foil 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.839 request with the Putnam Sheriff's Records Division. We wanted all 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.280 the Sheriff's records on Howard Gombert getting back to the 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.240 early eighties, but the clerk resisted till we got our 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:39.240 lawyers involved. Then currently informed us that the records on 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:48.760 this person were destroyed. They didn't say how so. No, 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.760 we still don't know why the cops excluded Gombert as 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.440 a suspect in Josette's murder. But I'm going to take 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.400 a minute here to sketch some of the evidence Castaldo 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:03.720 had in his possession. Let's start with Josette's family. The 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.400 day the Putnam cops found her bones, they broke the 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:10.240 awful news to her mom, Susan, and the first words 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.600 out of Susan Wright's mouth, as recorded by the cops 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:18.280 on the scene, oh my god, Howard Gombre killed my daughter. 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.520 Then those cops interviewed Josette's sister, Chloe. She told the 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.760 cops that Gombert had raped her classmate Rachel r and 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.040 that Gombert was at Rachel's place a lot when Josette 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.400 was over there. We know that those cops passed those 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:39.240 facts on to Castaldo, along with the fact that Gombert 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:43.760 had offered Josette a babysitting job just weeks before she 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:49.439 went missing. We know that Gombert's previous babysitter, Amy Farranda, 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:53.199 had just been raped by a man matching Gombert's description, 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:59.199 and that Amy, then seventeen, looked a lot like Josette, tall, 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.760 lawn and beautiful. We also know that Gombert lived close 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.600 to Amy, in fact, right around the corner from her house, 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.000 and that he knew about her sneaking out late at 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.440 night to meet her boyfriend. He knew that because she'd 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:18.160 naively let it slip to Gombert. We know that on 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:23.000 the day Josette disappeared, October third, nineteen ninety four, she 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.640 was seen getting into a red car with Connecticut plates. 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.960 We know from Gombert's girlfriend Anne Marie, that she owned 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.480 the red and black car with Connecticut plates. We know 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:39.240 that Gombert drove that car all the time. We know 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:43.160 he admitted giving Josette a ride on her about the 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:48.000 day she vanished in that car. But there's more, much more. 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:52.400 Costaldo had to have known. He knew about Gombert's criminal 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:57.200 mo the hunting knife, he always carried, the elaborate rope 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:01.480 knots he tied the underwear, and his victims mouths. The 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:06.600 obsession with a particular kind of child, tall, pretty blonde girls, 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:14.040 preferably prepubescent. In short, the exact presentation found in Joseph 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:23.040 Wright's remains. Five years ago, I made countless attempts to 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.160 question Pat Costaldo. He retired by then, so I tried 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.520 his home phone in Vain. I asked the Sheriff's office 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.400 and the Putnam DA to forward my questions to him. 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.480 Nothing did on my efforts to reach any Putnam cops 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.400 who'd had dealings with Howard Gombert. I called the Carmel PD, 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.200 who'd been looking at Gombert hard for the disappearance of 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.160 a second young girl. I called the Ken PD who'd 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:55.080 botched the Amy Farranda rape case, then tossed the forensic 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:59.520 evidence in the trash. I tried the Putnam Sheriff's office 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:03.240 hoping someone would pick up there by. Now you can 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.520 guess how that turned out. And so, with no one 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:11.240 left to ask, I went to the source. In the 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.840 summer of twenty one, I found Gombert in prison. What 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.840 follows after the break are taped excerpts of those calls. 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:46.440 I like climbing, I got going down. That's the voice 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:52.040 of Gombert himself saying he's fine talking to me. With 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.360 a guy like Gombert, you don't barge right in. You 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.440 work your way up to what you want. And so 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.720 I started not by asking about Josette, but about his 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:07.680 surviving female accusers. Grey is on his ex girlfriend Anne Marie, 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.920 the girl he impregnated when she was sixteen and who 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:19.040 then charged him with years of rapes, her beating her. 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:21.520 Did I beat her? 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:22.400 Absolutely no? 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:25.360 Did you sodomize her against her will? 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:27.320 No? We never had that kind. 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:28.960 Did you choke her? 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:32.680 Did I ever her her? 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:33.680 Probably? 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.760 That's Gombert saying he probably grabbed her by the neck. 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:40.560 Did you choke her till she passed down? 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:41.840 No? 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:43.960 Ablutely she says, you did. 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.280 I asked him about Colleen, his first victim so far 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.240 as we know. She said she was twelve when she 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:52.760 reported him to the cops in. 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.800 The early eighties. How about Colleen Caruso? 0:16:58.200 --> 0:16:58.880 What about her? 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:00.680 When did you start having sex with her? 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:03.840 I don't know all years old? 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:06.880 That's Gombert saying he was fifteen at the. 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.280 Time, right, she was eleven? 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.160 Oh, she wasn't What was she. 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:15.679 Was the year too younger than me? 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:17.119 No, she wasn't a kid. 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.200 I'm the fucking kid. I don't remember that. I remember 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.120 all the week we hadn't related were eighteen. 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.280 For the record, Colleen is almost exactly four years younger 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:32.439 than Gombert, so if he started having sex with her 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:38.520 at age fifteen, that would make her eleven. Then then 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.040 I turned to Rachel, who was eight when he moved 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.439 in with and began raping both Rachel and her mom. 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.000 I asked him if he'd raped and beat her repeatedly 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:50.320 between the ages of eight and thirteen. 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.240 Did you choke till she passed out? 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:56.639 Laid a hand on? 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.600 Did you rape her when she was eighteen and living 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:01.879 in Paulling. 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:08.080 No, I did be in her have hit new Fairfield 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:09.040 hit balling. 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.439 Ye, I'm sorry you say you did have sex with 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:13.199 her on several occasions. 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:18.879 Federal dated between the Fairfield and Paulin they would come 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:19.640 to my father Don. 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.240 He says they had sex on several occasions at his 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.919 father's house. But for the record, Rachel was in middle 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:31.640 school when she accused him of rape. Howard, why are 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.440 all these women giving chapter in verse, women who, by 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.919 the way, don't know each other. They're all telling the 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.960 same story about you. Your mo never varies. 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:45.720 People that bet with the DOORI her binding and all that. 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:48.120 How did they talk to the Tipple of the Guaranian. 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.240 That's Gombert saying that the basis for these accusations was 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:57.360 Anthony and his lawyers, or, more to the point, Anthony's stepdad, 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:01.960 Big O'larry, who, according to Gomber, bribe those girls to 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:06.600 falsely accuse him of rape. The problem with his claim 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.440 is that Colleen came forward when Anthony was four years old, 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:15.040 and Rachel came forward when Anthony was around twelve, and 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.520 so on down the line. Meanwhile, I went through my 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.160 list of victims till I came to joe'st right. 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:30.760 I could go there that I've heard Alli's story, He 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:38.000 pulled the you know, I'm Joe's dead. Yeah, it's funny. 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.320 How not of this you said? And tell him that 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:41.680 put his money. 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:46.080 Started flowing before my cause with Gombert, and there were 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.440 several back to back. I'd had a talk with myself 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:53.320 in the mirror, don't go in hot, don't rise to 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:57.440 the bait. Just let the man speak and hang himself. 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.200 But at that point I BELI, Oh, my stack. 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:03.120 Howard. 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.440 The point of the story is that you obviously killed Josette. 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:10.040 You have done. 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:11.320 How did I? 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.000 How did how did I kill Joe? 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:21.119 I I'm sorry you met her once? What is that 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.880 what you're saying? Is that what you're saying you met 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:27.440 her once? I've got five witnesses who said you met 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:35.600 her repeatedly. And then I slammed down the phone. But 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.600 the oddest thing happened after my story ran Gumbert wrote 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:44.520 me from prison, big fat letters, and there in those 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:48.879 letters were multiple admissions of crimes he had committed or 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.600 intended to when he got out. He admitted, for instance, 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.360 to having sex with Rachel while she was under age. 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:00.800 He admitted of filming her and taking snaps of her naked. 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.320 But Gombert didn't stop there. To this day, he goes 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:09.159 on writing letters to my co producers. He offers a 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.800 self incrimination. We hadn't even asked for he writes about 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.600 Amy Farranda, the former babysitter who said Gombert raped her 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:21.439 shortly before Josette vanished. Gombert tells us he'd been with 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.399 her on the night of the rape. Till that letter, 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.240 we'd had only Amy's word that she and Gombert knew 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:31.920 each other. Now he both confirmed it and walked us 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.199 right up to the night of the rape. Here were 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.520 a couple of excerpts from those letters. They're read by 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:39.720 my colleague Rob. 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.080 I know her very well, in fact, had been with her 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.119 earlier the night she was attacked, and with her afterwards. 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:48.840 I was with her for a. 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.680 Bit sometime around or after seven pm before the assault. 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.560 To be honest, Semie, guessing it was so long ago, 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:00.840 she stopped buying her way home. She was going to 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.360 come by later too. She would stop by late at night, 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:05.400 off and on the way to see a boyfriend. 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:07.600 She did not show up later that night. 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:10.800 I believe that it was a day or so later 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:13.280 when I next saw her and she told me what 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:14.800 happened to her. 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:17.840 But the most disturbing thing he sent me were his 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.920 threats to surviving victims. He named them one by one, 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:24.080 said he was going to confront them when he got 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:24.880 out of prison. 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:28.399 I can't wait for the day that I see Rachel. 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.440 My life is totally fucked. Even if the truth comes 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:34.360 out and I'm released, Me and Rachel have already had 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:37.480 to talk about her and all our lives and half truths, 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:40.679 so she already knows what she has coming. But for 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:44.120 now I'm debating just how I should destroy her life 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:47.119 as she's tried to do to mine. I think it'll 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:49.919 just start by proving her to be a lying horse. 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:54.080 She is. He couldn't be any clear that he's bent 0:22:54.200 --> 0:23:19.120 on vengeance when he gets out of prison. Several months ago, 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:22.199 we went back to Rachel's we wound down our reporting 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:26.439 on this series. Rachel's in her forties now, a single 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:30.680 mom of grown children. She's worked service sector jobs since 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:33.720 her teens to support them and has never known a 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:37.240 life without struggle. But she's one of those moms who's 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:40.800 poured everything she had into raising and loving those kids. 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:45.000 She's always on FaceTime with one or another. She needs 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:48.800 to see them as well as hear them, and somehow 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:52.399 she's managed to carve out space from mindfulness and peace. 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:57.120 Her house is the sanctuary of books and plush fabrics. 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:03.520 And spiritual reliquaries. Clear she spent decades healing herself and 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:07.480 has come a far distance on her own. But this 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:10.120 is when we learned we weren't the only ones. Gombert 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:13.400 wrote too. A few years ago, Rachel got a letter 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:15.959 in the mail. She didn't have to read the return 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:19.320 address to know who'd written it. She could feel that 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:20.919 in her glands. 0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:26.840 This son of a bitch is in jail. How did 0:24:26.880 --> 0:24:31.640 he find out where I currently am? 0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:35.639 That letter, needless to say, was from Gombert. 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:39.080 I don't know what voodoo he had in that letter 0:24:39.320 --> 0:24:42.159 or and I'm saying that because I literally lost my mind. 0:24:44.720 --> 0:24:47.560 Rachel described that to a reporter of Kathleen. 0:24:50.640 --> 0:24:51.919 What does losing your mind look like? 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:52.600 In that moment? 0:24:52.760 --> 0:24:53.920 What happened? 0:24:55.880 --> 0:24:59.959 It was after the letter, and I was cleaning out 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:03.560 my house of like trying to you know, that's part 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:10.719 of pealing, getting rid of things that you don't carry anymore. 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:14.920 And I did a lot of that, and remember standing 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:18.520 in my house going is there anything else? 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:25.840 It didn't take long before I was standing in front 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:31.959 of this picture that was over my fireplace mantle. 0:25:33.200 --> 0:25:37.160 The painting depicted two gunships on fire in the Shooting War, 0:25:37.240 --> 0:25:37.840 with each. 0:25:37.680 --> 0:25:43.280 Other, this picture belongs to my mom, And all I 0:25:43.320 --> 0:25:48.840 heard was yeah, but it came from him. 0:25:49.080 --> 0:25:53.080 Rachel's mom, who'd been badly abused by Gombert, passed away 0:25:53.119 --> 0:26:03.480 a few years earlier. I, without second and guessing, took 0:26:03.520 --> 0:26:04.760 that picture off my mantle. 0:26:07.920 --> 0:26:14.640 I brought it outside. I laid it on my patio table. 0:26:17.000 --> 0:26:24.359 I took a razor blade and I exed it from 0:26:24.440 --> 0:26:33.719 corner to corner, big eggs. And when I did that, 0:26:36.080 --> 0:26:43.000 something came out of that picture. It was an energy, 0:26:44.400 --> 0:26:52.119 and I felt like I freed my mom and I 0:26:52.200 --> 0:26:59.840 burnt it and that hel was my mind. 0:27:00.440 --> 0:27:04.560 Yeah h h. 0:27:09.840 --> 0:27:18.240 And I went through the biggest most I I don't 0:27:18.280 --> 0:27:20.879 even know how to explain it, Like it like the 0:27:21.040 --> 0:27:22.120 dark Knight of the Soul? 0:27:31.400 --> 0:27:32.800 Is this the is this the letter? 0:27:33.320 --> 0:27:33.560 Yeah? 0:27:34.800 --> 0:27:36.880 How do you feel with that letter sitting right there 0:27:37.160 --> 0:27:43.679 on the on the table. I've only held onto it 0:27:43.800 --> 0:27:50.119 because I didn't I needed proof, you know, like just 0:27:50.840 --> 0:27:57.479 he shouldn't have even wrote me anything. One of the 0:27:57.480 --> 0:27:59.840 things that he said in the letter was that he 0:28:00.040 --> 0:28:06.399 would get the people from back then to say that 0:28:06.440 --> 0:28:13.600 I was lying or something, and good luck, good luck, 0:28:14.400 --> 0:28:21.280 good luck. You could say that I'm lying. But does 0:28:21.320 --> 0:28:22.800 the evidence say that I'm lying. 0:28:26.200 --> 0:28:28.800 Anything that comes to mind about him getting out. 0:28:31.960 --> 0:28:33.680 I'll be looking over my shoulder again. 0:28:39.440 --> 0:28:43.000 I should be proud of myself of how far I've come, 0:28:43.160 --> 0:28:45.280