Speaker 1: This series include sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including sexual
Speaker 1: assault and abuse involving children. Listener discretion is advised. Anthony
Speaker 1: de Pippo and Andy Kreevak were in County lock Up
Speaker 1: for months waiting separate trials. They weren't the most popular
Speaker 1: inmates on the block, given their charges the rape and
Speaker 1: murder of a twelve year old girl.
Speaker 2: One thing that's very hard for me to say is
Speaker 2: during this period of time, the guards and the inmates
Speaker 2: were urinating in orange juice, and at some point I drank.
Speaker 1: That Anthony had acute guest writers from the rancid food
Speaker 1: in jail, and a scout broke out in rashes from
Speaker 1: bathing and filthy water. More intolerable still was no, he
Speaker 1: didn't belong there. It had nothing to do with Joe's murder,
Speaker 1: and knew Andy had no pardon that either. Still, it
Speaker 1: was Andy who'd signed the confession that put him in
Speaker 1: this barrel, and so Anthony burned to get his best
Speaker 1: friend alone and soon to find out why he betrayed him.
Speaker 1: Eventually they met in the jail house library. There were
Speaker 1: guards nosing around, so they spoke and coated whispers. Andy
Speaker 1: said that when the cops brought him in. They browbeat
Speaker 1: him for hours. Pacstaldo and Bill Quick screamed in his
Speaker 1: face while one of them brandished his gun. They refused
Speaker 1: over and over to let him speak to a lawyer,
Speaker 1: what he used the John, or even call his father,
Speaker 1: and then they sent him in with their lie detector guy,
Speaker 1: an older cop named Dance Stevens. Stevens wired him up
Speaker 1: and interrogated him for hours, then told him he failed
Speaker 1: the polygraph. As Andy sat there sobbing, Castaldo put a
Speaker 1: statement in front of him, a nine page statement written
Speaker 1: out by Bill Quick. As Anthony listened to his friend,
Speaker 1: he had a shock of recognition. It was exactly what
Speaker 1: the cops had tried to do to him before his
Speaker 1: lawyer burst in and stopped them. But Andy had no
Speaker 1: lawyer on retainer.
Speaker 2: And he was broken by Costalo and Quick, and he
Speaker 2: was not leaving until he signed that statement.
Speaker 1: So now here they both were equally fucked. Nine months passed.
Speaker 1: Andy's try was up first.
Speaker 2: March nineteen ninety seven. Krevac picks his jury.
Speaker 1: Three weeks later, on April sixteenth, that jury came back
Speaker 1: with a verdict. Anthony paste in the common area, waiting
Speaker 1: on Andy's return for a court the.
Speaker 2: Day he came back, He's like, yo, I bleuw y'all.
Speaker 2: When the guy says, they blew that street talk for
Speaker 2: I lost for the trial. I blew trial. I remember
Speaker 2: he was walking right under the TV. He just walked
Speaker 2: right by and said that shit. Anthony felt those words
Speaker 2: in the pit of his stomach. My fuck doesn't look
Speaker 2: good for me. Now they know Andrew Kreevac guilty of
Speaker 2: the murder, and the media was against me. Everybody was
Speaker 2: angry and they knew how to use that. The newspaper
Speaker 2: was putting my picture with the biggest beard that I
Speaker 2: had against the girl when she was seven. So you
Speaker 2: got this tiny, tiny girl and this big big man.
Speaker 2: Everybody had an interest somehow in it, and everybody wanted
Speaker 2: and believed.
Speaker 3: At was me.
Speaker 1: Next, it was Anthony's turn on the docket. He felt
Speaker 1: doomed in advance, and suddenly, weeks before his trial started.
Speaker 2: One of the biggest things in this case happens. I
Speaker 2: get a call to the visiting room. Dominic Neglia walkstro
Speaker 2: well three hundred and fifty pounds of them.
Speaker 1: Domin Neglia, your recall was the third kid in the
Speaker 1: car when Putnam cops caught them with angel dust. You'll
Speaker 1: also recall those cops pulled them over moments after Dom
Speaker 1: stopped to make a phone call. Only Dom knows if
Speaker 1: he actually dialed his grandma as he claimed, or if
Speaker 1: he made that call to tip off the cops. In
Speaker 1: any case, Dom, it's something you want to get off
Speaker 1: his chest now.
Speaker 2: And he sits down and he's basically on the edge
Speaker 2: of tears. He's like, I feel bad about Andy. I
Speaker 2: think this is my fault. I made up the story.
Speaker 2: And he said, I told the police you said to
Speaker 2: me these things you didn't say to me, and now
Speaker 2: you guys killed this girl, and I want to take
Speaker 2: my story back.
Speaker 1: Tom spilled the story of how the cops coerced him.
Speaker 1: They showed up unannounced at his school, dragged him out
Speaker 1: of his special needs class so often that the principal
Speaker 1: banned them from campus. So then they pulled the same
Speaker 1: stunt at Olive Garden, where he worked after school. But
Speaker 1: the cops rousted him so often there and the manager
Speaker 1: fired him. And that wasn't all, said Don. Then there
Speaker 1: was the physical stuff. He said. Costaldo hit him in
Speaker 1: the back of the head with his handcuffs down on
Speaker 1: all fours. Dom screamed he would sue, but Castaldo looked
Speaker 1: at him and laughed, I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: We just saw you fall off your chair. Oh that's rich.
Speaker 1: Because Costaldo was finally caught on camera years later beating
Speaker 1: and stomping and choking a defendant whose hands and feet
Speaker 1: were padlocked, Castaldo lied through his teeth and said the
Speaker 1: attack never happened, but it was captured in glorious living
Speaker 1: color on the county's own security cameras. In the end,
Speaker 1: Dominic says he'd finally cave to make the torture stop.
Speaker 1: He fed the cops some names he'd heard Anthony say
Speaker 1: and said those guys were involved in Josette's murder. But now,
Speaker 1: said Dommy wanted to take it all back, to stand
Speaker 1: up in court and tell the truth, tell a jury
Speaker 1: that none of what he told the cops was true.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: Sooner did dom leave the jail house than Anthony called
Speaker 1: his lawyer. The lawyer had Dom write and sign a recantation,
Speaker 1: and it was all in writing. I got you. I'm
Speaker 1: going walking on.
Speaker 3: My madness, laughter, my fears, sorrows, deaths are endless, bless.
Speaker 5: The valley, my DearS, this is the devil's quarry.
Speaker 1: By the time the cops were done with Dom, he'd
Speaker 1: lost count of the times they dragged him into talk.
Speaker 1: He'd also lost count of the stories he told them
Speaker 1: about the night of Joseph's murder. The details changed wildly
Speaker 1: every time he opened his mouth, but the kernel of
Speaker 1: those stories Anthony and Andy's involvement became the crux of
Speaker 1: the cases against them.
Speaker 6: The charges against twenty one year old Anthony to Pippo
Speaker 6: are first degree rape and second degree murder. To Pippo's
Speaker 6: trial is being held in the Putnam County Courthouse in Carmel.
Speaker 6: It's alleged to Pippo and another man, nineteen year old
Speaker 6: Andrew Cribbock, killed twelve year old Josette right on October
Speaker 6: fourth of nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 1: Anthony's case was tried in Carmel in the courthouse on
Speaker 1: the town's main road.
Speaker 2: It was the old courthouse, so it looked like the
Speaker 2: courthouse from a time to kill. It was like, you know,
Speaker 2: high ceilings, wood pillars, portraits of white men from the
Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds, and you know, and then also the judge
Speaker 2: looked like he was a white man from the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Judge brats once again, Big Larry came through for Anthony.
Speaker 1: He paid over sixty seven grand up front to a
Speaker 1: primetime lawyer. His name was Bob Leader, and he had
Speaker 1: a certain swagger, having a reputation for being the rare
Speaker 1: attorney in Putnam County who won a murder case.
Speaker 2: Bob Leader looks like Saddam Luscine, Like you remember Sadam
Speaker 2: smoking a cigarette, you know, just calling people. Bob Leader's
Speaker 2: face was the same face. I trusted him. I felt
Speaker 2: like I had a shot.
Speaker 1: At a pre trial hearing, the Leader argued his motion
Speaker 1: to call Big Dom this witness as the original accuser.
Speaker 1: He argued Tom was essential to the case.
Speaker 2: He did try, really try to get dominic neglia understand,
Speaker 2: but the judge was just.
Speaker 1: Wasn't having it.
Speaker 2: He denied the application he used dominic neglia.
Speaker 1: Why did that judge an old sawhorse named Bill Bratz
Speaker 1: bar Dom from testifying. He said Dom's testimony was quote
Speaker 1: too conjectural, too collateral, that it didn't seem his word reasonable,
Speaker 1: and so he decided what the jury would weigh. Rather
Speaker 1: than leave that task up to the jury.
Speaker 2: So that just stuck the knife in the heart of
Speaker 2: my freedom. I was done.
Speaker 1: On day one of Anthony's trial, the Buttnam DA went first.
Speaker 1: He told the jury a version of the story that
Speaker 1: Dom told a group of teens hanging out at the
Speaker 1: gas station in town, a night of partying gone off
Speaker 1: the rails in a van owned by Andy's dad, and
Speaker 1: the rape and murder of a twelve year old girl
Speaker 1: by Andy and Anthony. The DA declared he had a
Speaker 1: direct eyewitness who would testify to that. Her name was
Speaker 1: Denise Rose.
Speaker 4: So well, James Anthles, he is almost fair that the
Speaker 4: test wire about to give will read the truth and
Speaker 4: the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 1: So healthy God. Finally, when have you ready before we
Speaker 1: hear from Denise, the one person who claims to have
Speaker 1: seen Josette's murder. We're going to jump forward twenty years
Speaker 1: to an inquiry launched by Anthony's lawyers. The focus of
Speaker 1: that inquiry the handling of the Joset Right murder by
Speaker 1: the Putnam Sheriff's Office, or, to put a fine point
Speaker 1: on it, the handling of that case by investing Gator
Speaker 1: Castaldo and his partner Quick weeks of depositions were taken
Speaker 1: in that probe. The lead lawyer for Anthony's team was
Speaker 1: Nick Preston.
Speaker 7: Fair to say, this was the biggest case of your career, Yes, sir,
Speaker 7: not even close right, unfortunately, No, that's.
Speaker 1: Pack Castaldo, the eldest loving Bruiser's it was.
Speaker 7: It was a horrific murder and rape of a twelve
Speaker 7: year old girl.
Speaker 8: Have rape a murder of a twelve year old child
Speaker 8: as bat as a guess, I would think so.
Speaker 7: But your job, that's all you were doing.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, every day, all day.
Speaker 8: Yes, once once I've found into a murder case.
Speaker 1: Yes, sorry, I'll remind you that Castaldo had never worked
Speaker 1: a murder before, and right from the start it showed that.
Speaker 7: Was your first murder case.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, I.
Speaker 9: Did not have the experienced hands on.
Speaker 1: I was not a person that invests. He gave a
Speaker 1: lot of homicides. And this is Bill Quick talking. He
Speaker 1: was coly detective in Josette's murder and the one who
Speaker 1: hand wrote all the witness statements from teens allegedly in
Speaker 1: the van when Josette died. Quick was another old school lawman,
Speaker 1: though with his brush mustache and Dustball Complexion. The lawman
Speaker 1: he most resembled was Wyat.
Speaker 9: Herb Well, I have certain rules I moved by. I've
Speaker 9: lived by these rules all my life and I brought
Speaker 9: that into law enforcement.
Speaker 1: What are those rules? He left.
Speaker 9: Those rules are basically that you do the right thing
Speaker 9: all the time. Everything that you can do, could do
Speaker 9: it properly. You can't make assumptions.
Speaker 1: According to Castaldo, the night the boys were busted for PCP,
Speaker 1: Dom volunteered a tip about the murder.
Speaker 8: Dominic Neglie told me about the van and the people
Speaker 8: that were there, and when he gave the name it
Speaker 8: of people. I wanted to speak to these people that
Speaker 8: maybe they had information involving what could have happened, did
Speaker 8: you set.
Speaker 1: The details of Dom's story would vary wildly over time,
Speaker 1: but the gist of it was this, On the night
Speaker 1: of Joseph's murder, She's in the back of the van
Speaker 1: owned by Andy's dad. With her. In that van where
Speaker 1: Anthony and Andy and three other Putnam teens, a.
Speaker 2: Little street kids.
Speaker 1: They were all troubles every single walk. The cops who
Speaker 1: were specially interested in one of those troubled teens, a
Speaker 1: girl named Denise Rose I'm that.
Speaker 8: The testimony are about to do with you the truth,
Speaker 8: the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 5: Yes, thank you.
Speaker 7: Good morning, Miss Rose, good morning. Have you ever had
Speaker 7: your deposition taken before?
Speaker 1: Anthony and Denise had been in grade school together and
Speaker 1: then in high school, their tasts for drugs brought them closer.
Speaker 2: Denise Rose was somebody in my same grade. I just
Speaker 2: knew Denise Rose from being in school, and then I
Speaker 2: kind of became more friendly with her, like they're in
Speaker 2: high school.
Speaker 1: High schools generally when the stoners find each other, and
Speaker 1: like Anthony, Denise had zero fear. She jump into a
Speaker 1: car to prowl the South Bronx alone, a short white
Speaker 1: girl looking for crack cocaine on some of the deadliest
Speaker 1: streets in America.
Speaker 2: I mean, we mutually enjoyed doing drugs, and we mutually
Speaker 2: enjoyed go you can get drugs, And then we would
Speaker 2: go to kind of cool places while we were doing
Speaker 2: drugs and go to the beach and go to the
Speaker 2: cliffs overlooking eighty four and like, you know, you smoke
Speaker 2: and you'd look out and it's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 2: you got like a pretty background to get it, you know,
Speaker 2: and you're tripping, or you're you're smoking something you know
Speaker 2: you want to be in kind of these settings that
Speaker 2: are kind of nice.
Speaker 1: Denise had them over to her folks house for dinner,
Speaker 1: but it never turned romantic, says Anthony, except for one
Speaker 1: druggy night when they hooked up.
Speaker 2: I had moments of weakness and she was right there.
Speaker 2: I had a lot of hormones going on. I needed
Speaker 2: to get rid of them. But then I got on
Speaker 2: high and then I'm like, what am I doing. I'm
Speaker 2: saying I'm sorry, I can't and then I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I got to go to this club tonight, but I
Speaker 2: don't want to be hanging out with you. So I
Speaker 2: put her down, and I think I put her down
Speaker 2: a little too hard.
Speaker 1: A few weeks after he told denniseeedn't want to hang
Speaker 1: with her, Anthony tried to patch things up, not because
Speaker 1: he'd been racked by guilt, but because he needed a
Speaker 1: ride of the city that went about as well as
Speaker 1: you'd expect.
Speaker 2: I tried to call her and she was very dismissive,
Speaker 2: and I thought it was because of the way I
Speaker 2: kind of like broke it off with her, But he
Speaker 2: didn't know.
Speaker 1: Was Denny's was talking to the cops or that Carmel, Hey,
Speaker 1: that really is a bitch. Twenty years later, Denise was
Speaker 1: one of the people deposed by Anthony's lawyers. Here she
Speaker 1: is in twenty nineteen under questioning from Nick Breston.
Speaker 4: And when someone says to you, do you remember how
Speaker 4: many times you smoke crack? I wanted to say to him,
Speaker 4: do you remember how many times you wiped your ass?
Speaker 1: Since there were no recordings made at Anthony's trial, we're
Speaker 1: using the tape from this deposition to give you a
Speaker 1: sense of Denise's testimony, but to properly introduce her. Here's
Speaker 1: some facts about Denise's involvement with Anthony's case. Castaldo in
Speaker 1: Quick called her in the first time on April second,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six for perspective. That was five months after
Speaker 1: Joseid's body was found and five months after Anthony and
Speaker 1: Andy were busted for PCP. Castaldo and Quick talked to
Speaker 1: her for many hours that day statement, as Bill Quick
Speaker 1: wrote it down, made zero mention of a murder. At
Speaker 1: the end of it, Castaldo told her to keep her
Speaker 1: nose clean. Spoiler alert, she didn't. The very next day,
Speaker 1: Denise lost her shit. She was driving with some friends
Speaker 1: when she saw a girl she didn't.
Speaker 4: Like opposite, she had a history with me.
Speaker 1: That girl named Elena was driving the car in front
Speaker 1: of her on the road her a report Elena made
Speaker 1: to police. Denise chased Elena through several towns and then
Speaker 1: battle ran the rear end of her car. Elena told
Speaker 1: the cops that Denise got out of her car and
Speaker 1: bashed in her window. Denise denied this, but well, here's
Speaker 1: Breston asking about her history with ball bats.
Speaker 7: You had gotten into some trouble before that by driving
Speaker 7: around having you or people in your car smashing mailboxes
Speaker 7: with the baseball back correct.
Speaker 2: When he does that?
Speaker 3: So what?
Speaker 1: Denise was promptly arrested for ramming Elena's car and hit
Speaker 1: with four charges for it. One of those charges was
Speaker 1: a felony. She could have gotten seven years for that. Yet, somehow,
Speaker 1: the day after she rammed the girl's car, Denise was
Speaker 1: stopped yet again in her car. This time the cops
Speaker 1: got her for erratic operation of her vehicle. She failed
Speaker 1: to feel sobriety test was arrested on the spot for DUI.
Speaker 1: That night, in the lockup, Denise made a big commotion.
Speaker 4: I was in there in a paper suit and I
Speaker 4: was screaming at whoever is at the desk. I know
Speaker 4: something you don't know, and I said about I guess
Speaker 4: it was around two in the morning. I said, I
Speaker 4: want to speak to officer or investigator gestal though right now.
Speaker 7: So after you got arrested you one of the things
Speaker 7: you said was is get Castaldo here because I have
Speaker 7: more information to give him.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 4: Yes, I was trying to say, let me out of
Speaker 4: here because I know about a murder.
Speaker 1: I knew the So Castaldo got out of bed and
Speaker 1: met with her in lock up. But according to both
Speaker 1: of them, they didn't talk about a murder. Denise says
Speaker 1: he was only there a few minutes.
Speaker 4: Three minutes, are you kidding me? Three minutes is not
Speaker 4: enough time to talk about a murder.
Speaker 1: Castaldo agrees they spoke that night, but not about Josette's murder.
Speaker 1: He says he woke up late at night to serve
Speaker 1: a restraining order from Elena.
Speaker 8: To do that, I went in the back. It was
Speaker 8: seconds I went in the back. She was dead and
Speaker 8: the rescue me remember something from way back. The best
Speaker 8: of my knowledge.
Speaker 1: I went there.
Speaker 8: She was giving the papers, and I was out of there.
Speaker 8: I did not have a conversation.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's no tape of that encounter or scribble notes,
Speaker 1: so no way to know what they did discuss.
Speaker 7: By the way, Denise Rose never asked you for any favors, correct,
Speaker 7: and you never offered her any favors.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 1: But here's what we do now. Several hours after they
Speaker 1: met lock up, Denise's bill was raised. She was allowed
Speaker 1: to go home in a day or two after that.
Speaker 1: Castalda says he was puttering around Carmel when he had
Speaker 1: an epiphany this. I do remember.
Speaker 8: We were driving down on Fair Street and I said
Speaker 8: to myself, we have to call the Niese falls back.
Speaker 1: I remember we were.
Speaker 8: Driving down Fair Street and they just said I need
Speaker 8: to speak to her again. I just felt I needed
Speaker 8: to talk to her again. I thought she may have
Speaker 8: more information.
Speaker 1: The truth is. He and Quick spoke to her many
Speaker 1: times after that, and a couple of weeks later, according
Speaker 1: to Denise, she finally just.
Speaker 4: Sort of cracked myself anymore, okay, and I figured I
Speaker 4: didn't tell him the whole truth, so I better go
Speaker 4: there as soon as possible and tell them before I
Speaker 4: explode inside. I can't live with this, and the family
Speaker 4: needs to know that. Josette's family needs to know it's
Speaker 4: not fair to them.
Speaker 2: Okay, I can't deal.
Speaker 4: Does I have to get this off my chest.
Speaker 1: And so three weeks after she first talked to the cops,
Speaker 1: Denise met with Costaldo and Quick again. Castaldo says he
Speaker 1: got things started.
Speaker 8: I said, Denise, I know what happened. I said, I
Speaker 8: know what happened. To just set right. Denise had Right
Speaker 8: after I said that, she turns around.
Speaker 1: She banged.
Speaker 8: She says, they raped, they tied the gag, and they
Speaker 8: dumped her in the woods.
Speaker 1: Quick wrote out her statement that day. It said that
Speaker 1: Denise witnessed the rape and murder of Joseph Right. But
Speaker 1: what was omitted from that statement was something Costaldo said
Speaker 1: moments before she agreed to sign it.
Speaker 8: They said, you can get twenty five years to light
Speaker 8: a feel if you're a part of this crime.
Speaker 1: And so lickety split, and he signed that statement and
Speaker 1: puff all of her charges went away with Denise and Hand.
Speaker 1: The cops chased the other teens dom named. They hauled
Speaker 1: in Andy Kreevak again, but this time they threatened and
Speaker 1: coerced him for hours. Then tricked him into signing a
Speaker 1: false confession, a confession accusing Anthony of Joseph's murder, and
Speaker 1: finally they arrested Anthony. To Pippo, by then there was
Speaker 1: no need to coerce or trick him. They had statements
Speaker 1: from four of his friends. Now, if all the cops
Speaker 1: had done was coerce these kids, there's a real chance
Speaker 1: that none of this comes to light. Cops in America
Speaker 1: coerced confessions all the time, and I would know. I've
Speaker 1: reported dozens of such cases over the years. But in
Speaker 1: this case, Costaldo and Quick would just get getting started
Speaker 1: because remember, they had no forensics to bring to court,
Speaker 1: so the heat was really on them to make a
Speaker 1: murder charge stick. So they've bent or broke the law
Speaker 1: in a dozen different ways. Here's a major. For instance,
Speaker 1: it's standard procedure for cops to record interviews in cases
Speaker 1: involving serious crimes. Even back in the nineties, Putnam County
Speaker 1: had tape recorders to use without witnesses knowledge. But for
Speaker 1: these cops, we had audio tapes, so we didn't use them.
Speaker 1: It was just the way I did things. Preston, Anthony's
Speaker 1: lawyer pounced on that point.
Speaker 7: The best way to record a witness interview or a
Speaker 7: suspect interview is.
Speaker 1: The tape record. No I disagreeed that. You disagrewed that.
Speaker 7: Okay, you don't recall ever being trained on that and trained, Yes, sir, no.
Speaker 2: I was trained that way.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the best way.
Speaker 7: Okay, so let's stick with training first.
Speaker 1: Which brings us to point two. In cop protocol, were
Speaker 1: no recording devices are available? Standard practices to have witnesses
Speaker 1: write out statements in their own words and handwriting. But again,
Speaker 1: that wasn't the way Castaldo and Quick did things. Castaldo
Speaker 1: was the one asking all the questions and Quick was
Speaker 1: the one writing the statements. You can understand it.
Speaker 2: Quick had an excellent penmanship.
Speaker 1: Except that even that wasn't a hard and fast rule.
Speaker 1: Castaldo and Quick interviewed lots of people over the course
Speaker 1: of this investigation, and far too often nothing was written down.
Speaker 1: For example, they met with Denise many times after she
Speaker 1: first came into the station they show better house to
Speaker 1: chat with her, but only three of their many sit
Speaker 1: downs with Denise were memorialized in writing.
Speaker 8: Sometimes didn't take no, sometimes you just took the statement.
Speaker 7: It sounds like unless a witness gave you a statement,
Speaker 7: agreed to sign a statement. You didn't necessarily document that
Speaker 7: that interview was conducted correct direction.
Speaker 1: I may not under oath. Quick admitted that there were
Speaker 1: things he didn't write down, things that didn't fit his
Speaker 1: narrative of the case. For example, some of Josette's friends
Speaker 1: said they saw Josette after October fourth, nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: the day the cops claimed she was raped and murdered.
Speaker 1: These were people who knew Josette well and who claimed
Speaker 1: to have talked to her at the Danbury Mall after
Speaker 1: that date. He wrote down some of these accounts, but
Speaker 1: Quick admits there were others he dismissed as rumors. You know,
Speaker 1: it was just totally ridiculous.
Speaker 7: You didn't write any of those rummers down.
Speaker 9: No, because we couldn't. We couldn't verify whether they were
Speaker 9: true or not.
Speaker 1: Well, you could have, you could have caused Okay, So
Speaker 1: no rumors allowed from local witnesses, got it, Except there
Speaker 1: was nothing but rumors to implicate Anthony and Andy, and
Speaker 1: all those got written down and placed in the final
Speaker 1: case file. But there's more. Not only did they fail
Speaker 1: to properly document their probe, Castaldo in quick pit total ignorance.
Speaker 1: The most basic laws of evidence, take, for example, the
Speaker 1: Brady rule. Brady requires cops to turn over any evidence
Speaker 1: that comes up in the course of investigation that would
Speaker 1: help the defendant a trial, including information that would discredit
Speaker 1: police officers. It's been the law of the land since
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three. In every cop in America knows about Brady.
Speaker 1: It's taught from week one at the academy. Alas said
Speaker 1: Castaldo under oath in twenty nineteen, that part of his training. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that part didn't stick. Eria is again under questioning by
Speaker 1: Nick Bruston.
Speaker 7: Now, would it be fair to say that you don't
Speaker 7: recall over receiving any train any of what's called exculpatory
Speaker 7: evidence or Brady material.
Speaker 1: You never heard those terms, right, I've heard the charisment.
Speaker 1: I don't remember getting training. What do they mean? I mean,
Speaker 1: I've just heard. I don't know. I couldn't tell you
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 7: Okay, do you know what exculpatory evidence means?
Speaker 1: Exclaim to me. I won't know if you know. No, Okay,
Speaker 1: but wait, there's more. In criminal law, there's something called
Speaker 1: impeachment evidence, evidence that shows that witnesses in the case
Speaker 1: may be untruthful or mistaken or unreliable, that too must
Speaker 1: be turned over to the defense. Only Costaldo didn't do
Speaker 1: that either. You know what impeachment evidence is? Yes, what
Speaker 1: is impeachment evidence?
Speaker 8: Well, basically what you're trying to go to the President
Speaker 8: of the United States stand, teach him, bring up charges
Speaker 8: against them.
Speaker 1: Yes, you heard that right. Pat Costaldo, senior investigator for
Speaker 1: the Putnam Sheriff's Office, thought impeachment pertained to the Crome
Speaker 1: times of the President of the United States and not
Speaker 1: to the witnesses he manipulated to implicate Anthony to Pippoe,
Speaker 1: Costaldo was the lead detective in the rape murder case
Speaker 1: of Joseph Right, But as it turns out, he didn't
Speaker 1: at the least idea how legally do his job having
Speaker 1: established who the cops of their star witness were. Let's
Speaker 1: jump back to Anthony's trial in ninety seven. Denise Rose,
Speaker 1: you'll recall, had just taken the stand to tell the
Speaker 1: jury her version of events. This is what she swore
Speaker 1: to on the stand. On the night of October third,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, the two boys pulled up to her house.
Speaker 1: She claimed Andy was at the wheel of his dad's
Speaker 1: brown van. Anthony was in the passenger seat. She opened
Speaker 1: the slider to hop in.
Speaker 4: She says there were no seats in the back when
Speaker 4: he picked me up from my house.
Speaker 1: Sitting on the floor, she said, was twelve year old
Speaker 1: Josette right.
Speaker 4: She had on blue jeans, a brown jacket, and a
Speaker 4: white T shirt.
Speaker 1: Denise jumped in beside her. She said. Andy then drove
Speaker 1: to the Sitko station in town, where ten or twelve
Speaker 1: teens were loitering outside, smoking dope and pounding beers in
Speaker 1: full view of passing cop cars. A few hours later,
Speaker 1: she said, she got back in the van with Andy,
Speaker 1: Anthony and Josette, only now they were joined by two
Speaker 1: other teens, Bill McGregor and Adam Wilson. At that point,
Speaker 1: said Denise, she thought they were dropping her home. Instead,
Speaker 1: Andy took off in the other direction, northbound towards Field's Lane.
Speaker 4: I wanted to go home, and they didn't take me home.
Speaker 4: It took me to go kill a girl.
Speaker 1: Wasn't expecting that, Denise says. Andy stopped and parked on
Speaker 1: Fields Lame. It's a dirt road shortcut to Connecticut that's
Speaker 1: bounded on both sides by woods that night. It was
Speaker 1: as black ast tar out. There no street lights, no
Speaker 1: porch lights from houses because there were no houses, not
Speaker 1: back then, there weren't. Even the moon was dark that night.
Speaker 1: And as for the van's lights, it's dome lights and
Speaker 1: track lights. She says they weren't on either, but Denny
Speaker 1: exclaimed she saw everything that happened. Next, she said, the
Speaker 1: boys pulled out some PCP and smoked it in the
Speaker 1: back of the van, and then during a game of
Speaker 1: spin the bottle, Andy kissed Josette, said Denise. When Josette resisted,
Speaker 1: Andy threw her to the floor. He aanked her jeans
Speaker 1: and underwear over her sneakers.
Speaker 4: Her hands were swinging, and then he took her hands
Speaker 4: and put them like this in front of her.
Speaker 1: She showed jurors how he tied Josette's hands in front
Speaker 1: of her body.
Speaker 4: There was a rope in the van, just on the
Speaker 4: floor somewhere.
Speaker 1: And she claimed Andy shoved Josette's underwear and her mouth,
Speaker 1: then took her bra and tied it around her head,
Speaker 1: at which point she said he raped her just inches
Speaker 1: from Josette. Denise watched this all go down. At some point,
Speaker 1: she said, she protested.
Speaker 4: Leave her alone. She's just a baby.
Speaker 1: At that point, claimed Denise, Anthony leaned over screaming.
Speaker 4: He stood up and said, shut the fuck up with
Speaker 4: your necks, and then, according to Denise, he told.
Speaker 2: Andy, yo, yo, save some of that for me.
Speaker 4: It's my turn, save some of that for me.
Speaker 1: According to Denise, Anthony raped Josette next, and when he stopped,
Speaker 1: she said Josette wasn't moving.
Speaker 2: She was completely lifeless.
Speaker 4: They wrapped her nylon jacket around her waist, her brown
Speaker 4: niline jacket around her waist, and they carried her out.
Speaker 1: She said she sat in the van in silence while
Speaker 1: the boys carried Josette out the back doors. Denise said
Speaker 1: she sat there for fifteen or twenty minutes till the
Speaker 1: boys came back without Josette, and.
Speaker 4: I asked, where's the girl. Someone said she's sleeping, she
Speaker 4: passed out, and the other one said, no, her mom's
Speaker 4: coming to pick her up.
Speaker 1: She claimed Anthony ordered her to keep her mouth shut
Speaker 1: or she'd be the next one dead. That was her
Speaker 1: explanation for why she kept mum till Costaldo dragged her
Speaker 1: in over a year later, drunk.
Speaker 4: Not no, no, no, no no, I didn't.
Speaker 1: Even tell a damn priest.
Speaker 4: I was petrified, like, my god, I'm going to die.
Speaker 1: Under cross examination, Denise claimed she just sat there after
Speaker 1: the boys left to bury Josette's body. The girl who
Speaker 1: cruised the South Bronx to buy crack, who admitted a
Speaker 1: smashing a cops mailbox with a bat, That girl just
Speaker 1: sat there and did nothing, nor did she attempt to
Speaker 1: flee when the two boys were in the woods. A trial,
Speaker 1: she conceded that the keys were right there in the ignition.
Speaker 1: All she'd had to do was start the van and
Speaker 1: drive it straight to the Sheriff's office. For all the
Speaker 1: holes in Denise's story, the jury found her persuasive, and
Speaker 1: particularly they were struck by the tiny detail she remembered,
Speaker 1: like the costume jewelry Josette was wearing the night she
Speaker 1: was in the van. But here's the thing. Denise also
Speaker 1: told the jury she had help with those details. The
Speaker 1: cops showed her all their evidence at the station before
Speaker 1: she signed a statement saying she witnessed Josette's murder.
Speaker 4: Billy Quick showed me the earring and the pendant, and
Speaker 4: I said, I remember that now, and it was and
Speaker 4: it came in a brown paper bag, and he said,
Speaker 4: I'd like to show you a few pieces of jewelry
Speaker 4: and some other things. And I said, okay. The brown
Speaker 4: jacket was in there, and the shoes, the jeans, and
Speaker 4: the earring, the pendant T shirt.
Speaker 1: If you're counting, that's the fifth rule those two cops broke.
Speaker 1: You don't show evidence to a witness, above all, not
Speaker 1: before they've given their statement. It's called witnessed hampering. And
Speaker 1: then somehow it gets worse.
Speaker 7: Now on April second, one of the things that Nostaldo
Speaker 7: did was he took you to the van and he
Speaker 7: opened the passenger door side so you could look inside it. Correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the cops took her down to their parking lot
Speaker 1: where they hit the brown van and custody. They let
Speaker 1: her look around the van's interior, once again strictly forbidden. Oh.
Speaker 1: In another hole in Denis's story, that fan she claimed
Speaker 1: Josette was killed in it wasn't even drivable when she
Speaker 1: went missing a trial. Anthony's lawyer put on a mechanic
Speaker 1: to testify to this.
Speaker 2: We put on the mechanic that said the van couldn't
Speaker 2: have been operationable because it had a crack drive shaft.
Speaker 2: It was on blocks his flat tires. There was a
Speaker 2: transmission problem, so it was inoperable on the night in question.
Speaker 1: But at Anthony's trial and several decades later, Denise stuck
Speaker 1: to her story.
Speaker 4: People wake up, I'm the one who saw the murder
Speaker 4: take place by Trevet and the Pippo.
Speaker 1: So let's recap. Denise claimed she'd witnessed the murder of
Speaker 1: Josette right in a van that couldn't have been driven
Speaker 1: at a location in the woods with no source of
Speaker 1: light on a completely moonless night. And what about the
Speaker 1: other teens allegedly in the van besides Denise and Andy
Speaker 1: and Anthony and Josette, both were teens that Anthony knew.
Speaker 1: One of them was Adam Wilson, a party hardy kid
Speaker 1: who also sold drugs and carmel. The other was Bill McGregor,
Speaker 1: a kid from nearby Brewster who was fighting his own
Speaker 1: battle with drugs. Before the trial, Putnam cops brought both
Speaker 1: of them in separately. They grilled each of them for
Speaker 1: many hours, then got them to sign statements the detective
Speaker 1: quick wrote out. At Anthony's trial, Adam Wilson took the
Speaker 1: stand and Recanada's statements of those cops he testified, they'd
Speaker 1: sweated him for twelve straight hours, denied him as right
Speaker 1: to make a phone call, warned him he'd either swear
Speaker 1: that he'd seen the murder or be charged as Josette's killer,
Speaker 1: and so he, like Dom and Andy, claimed that he too,
Speaker 1: signed a statement just to get out of that room.
Speaker 1: The second he got home, though, he called his mother
Speaker 1: and a lawyer. Adam Wilson is strong on a recantation.
Speaker 1: He had everything. They're losing nothing again by taking back
Speaker 1: omitting criminal perjury. Then the state put on Bill McGregor,
Speaker 1: the other teen who was allegedly in a van the
Speaker 1: night Josette was murdered. He mumbled, I guess when the
Speaker 1: DA asked if he'd been in the van that night,
Speaker 1: but undercut himself by saying he'd fallen asleep in the
Speaker 1: front seat. A gang rape and murder it happened two
Speaker 1: feet behind him, but for McGregor, he saw none of it.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just the teens who didn't back Denise's story.
Speaker 1: The van itself yielded zero clues that a violent rape
Speaker 1: murder happened. There no DNA whatsoever, no blood, no hair,
Speaker 1: no skin cells, no fibers. That lass fact baffled even
Speaker 1: the cops.
Speaker 9: I couldn't understand how there could be that absence of events.
Speaker 1: When the jurors filed out to begin deliberations, Anthony sat
Speaker 1: there expecting the worst, despite the glaring holes in the
Speaker 1: state's case.
Speaker 2: Going like this with my tie up and down and
Speaker 2: I'm nervous. I'm trying to catch my breath. Guilty five
Speaker 2: point thirty.
Speaker 3: PM had two rating for eaches were guilty.
Speaker 6: That's guilty of first degree rape and second degree murder.
Speaker 6: Anthony to Pippo and another man, Andrew Crivic, were charged
Speaker 6: with the rape and murder of twelve year old Jezette
Speaker 6: Wright on October third, nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 1: Five weeks later, on the day was sentenced, Anthony had
Speaker 1: a Pippo got up to speak. He turned and looked
Speaker 1: directly at Susan Wright, Josette's mom, because.
Speaker 2: She's got a big eyes as it is, this angry woman.
Speaker 2: But her eyes were like three times normal eyes. It's
Speaker 2: just the way that her anger. If she could have
Speaker 2: killed me through her eyes, she would have. I said
Speaker 2: to Susan Wright, and I'm sorry you think I killed
Speaker 2: your daughter? And then I wouldn't stop fighting until you
Speaker 2: see I'm innocent. And I looked her in the eye
Speaker 2: when I said it. Now I got to go to
Speaker 2: state prison as a rapist, child, a pedophile, very deep
Speaker 2: shit saw.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, fuck it. When Anthony walked out of
Speaker 1: the courthouse that day, he flipped the camera's deuces.
Speaker 7: Convicted murderer Anthony de Pippo showed no signs of remorse,
Speaker 7: appearing unfazed after being sentenced to the maximum.
Speaker 6: Susan Wright, Josette's mother, told us the verdict moves her
Speaker 6: closer to closure and her daughter's death.
Speaker 2: If there was something worse than prison, I could we
Speaker 2: could do.
Speaker 1: That would be fine.
Speaker 4: But that's all we can do is put them away
Speaker 4: and they can't hurt anybody else, any other children.
Speaker 1: But Anthony knew something those reporters didn't, that he'd been
Speaker 1: framed by two lawless detectives. And as for the guy
Speaker 1: who'd actually killed Josette, he was still out there in
Speaker 1: the woods, stalking, obsessing, and sharpening his knife for another
Speaker 1: moonless night off Field's Lane. The Devil's Quarry is a
Speaker 1: production of Lava for Good in association with Rolling Stone
Speaker 1: Films and Signal Company Number one, I'm Your Creator and
Speaker 1: host Paul Solatarov. Executive producers are Jason Flomm, Jeff Kempler,
Speaker 1: Kevin Wardis, and Gilbert King from Rolling Stone Films. Our
Speaker 1: executive producers are Alexandra Dale and Sean Woods. Our producers
Speaker 1: are Gara Cornhaber, Hannah Beale, Jackie Pawley, Austin Smith and
Speaker 1: Kathleen Horn. Our editor is Joel Lovell, fact checking by
Speaker 1: Lucy Croning. Our sound designer is Brit Spangler, and our
Speaker 1: engineer is Austin Smith. Additional reporting by Kathleen Horrnt. Original
Speaker 1: music arranged and produced by Alexis Quadrado at the Plaza
Speaker 1: Rojas Studio had a marketing and operations Jeff Cleiburn, publicist
Speaker 1: Nathaniel Baruch, art director Andrew Nelson, Social media manager Sarah Gibbons.
Speaker 1: Legal review provided by Claris Law and Gibson Dunn. Our
Speaker 1: theme song, one Who's Holding the Stars is performed by
Speaker 1: Alexis Quadrado at the Plaza Roja Studio, vocals by Rob
Speaker 1: Reddy of California Corns written by Leo Schofield and Kevin
Speaker 1: Harrick at the Florida Department of Corrections Party correctional Facility