A COUPLE COLD CASES THAT SEEM TO HAVE SLIPPED AWAY
Chapter 2, At Large in Stamford and Darien -Law and Justice in Everyday Life
The following two Cool Justice columns appeared first in The Connecticut Law Tribune.
Time to Find Pellicci’s Killer
November 20, 2000
The Joseph Pellicci murder case will be easier to solve now than it was 27 years ago.
Why? Stamford, Conn., now has a modernized, corruption-free police force and strong leadership. All it's lacking is the force of will to finally close this case.
Pellicci, partner in a popular Stamford restaurant whose clientele has included Joe Dimaggio, Tony Bennett, Howard Cosell, Nancy Sinatra, Danny Glover and Walter Cronkite, was shot twice in the head and once in the body in February 1973. He was found wrapped in a blanket, his hands tied with a cord.
The blanket and the cord have been linked to the prime suspect, who is still alive. A witness gave police a partial identification of the initials on the suspect's license plate. This is a murder that has enough evidence to go forward. But it's still stalled.
There are many reasons, known and unknown, why this case has languished for so many years. On at least two occasions, police believed they had solved the case and were ready to make an arrest. Cops who worked on the case were puzzled about why they could not bring it to the next level.
To understand why the case did not close almost immediately, we must go back to the darkest era in the history of the Stamford Police Department -- the decade of the 1970s.
The lead detective on the Pellicci case, Larry Hogan, was in the process of becoming a consummate shakedown artist and agent of the Gambino organized crime family, as detailed in news stories by Tony Dolan, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his expose of mob influence in Stamford.
One of Hogan's top men, Sgt. Duke Morris, ran narcotics. By this, I mean he sold drugs out of the police station and arrested the competition.
“Duke was a very capable guy,” one Stamford police officer said.
Morris became a suspect in as many as five murders. His specialty was said to be two bullets from a .22 behind the ear. After being arrested, Morris died in a shootout with other drug dealers in New York.
Hogan died of cancer before he could go to trial.
Essentially, Stamford police in the 1970s were too busy running their own rackets, including burglary rings and gun-running to Northern Ireland, to solve many crimes.
The Pellicci case was one lost in that corrupt and inept era. The investigation would be marred by lost evidence and failure to pursue leads. For example, dog hairs were found on the blanket and the victim and in the suspect’s car. They were not retrieved. Witnesses were threatened with impunity.
And on a cold February day in 1973, the suspect drove his car -- the one identified by a witness -- through a car wash with the windows open. The day before, the suspect had washed his car at home. Police have never publicly identified the suspect.
A bust of Joseph Pellicci, sculpted by his brother, Anthony, who runs the restaurant today, is mounted by the entrance to the dining room. The inscription reads, “Those of us who remember Joe remember him with a loving smile for his friends and all children.”
“We want people to know that he was a good person, a nice person, whom we all loved,” Anthony Pellicci said. The unresolved case is like an open sore for the family. Like any family, the Pelliccis want resolution and closure.
Today’s Stamford Police Department is led by a former New York prosecutor, Dean Esserman. In the late 1970s, a reform chief took over, and the bad apples retired or were arrested.
Officers from Stamford and other jurisdictions have shared information over the years in hopes of closing the Joseph Pellicci case with an arrest, but for reasons still unexplained, nothing more has ever come of the case.
It’s time for Esserman to show what his department is truly made of. It's time to re-activate the Pellicci investigation.
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Bateman Killer Still Walks
Jan. 8, 2001
A key figure in the murder of Darien police officer Kenneth Bateman has escaped many close calls over the years, but Chief Hugh McManus remains confident that the case will be solved.
It is the only unsolved killing of a Connecticut police officer in more than 50 years.
Bateman, 34, fired six shots at his assailants after taking a bullet in the throat on Memorial Day, 1981. Two witnesses reported seeing a heavyset man running away.
The lucky man, call him Anthony, is described by associates as short, hefty and a would-be tough guy who hangs out with real tough guys.
Back in the days of wide-open, illegal gambling in Fairfield County, Anthony spent part of his time sticking up card games and rolling bagmen. In one game on East Main Street in Stamford, the take for Anthony was in the neighborhood of $86,000. This was not appreciated by the overseers of the card games, in particular Frank Piccolo of Bridgeport, a captain in the Gambino crime family.
Piccolo dispatched one of his enforcers, Jimmy Mondo, to teach Anthony a lesson. Mondo made the mistake of walking in front of Anthony’s car. A construction worker told patrol officers that a man had been run over and suffered a broken leg. He even gave police the license plate of the offending vehicle.
Stunned, patrol officers asked the man how he got the license number. A cop gave it to him, the man said, and immediately ran away from the crime scene because he knew who was involved.
Anthony's father, who had friends in New York, paid the debt and all was forgotten, if not forgiven. We're not sure how Mondo fared after the broken leg and botched assignment.
Within days of the Bateman killing, Anthony told his girl friend and at least two of her relatives: “The job went sour. I had to kill a cop.” Darien police were made aware of the details.
Others in Anthony's loosely-knit crew included a guy named “Pete the Weasel” and a man considered the weak link who was found dead by a dumpster on Stamford's East Side. A fourth man, feared as a legitimate tough guy, was believed to have been the driver.
When not at a job, Anthony and Co. would spend time at a Stamford bar called Sea Beach where they would openly discuss some of their activities.
Darien and state police found burglar tools and $2,000 that was stolen and dropped as the burglars fled the Duchess, a fast food spot on the Post Road near Interstate-95 on May 30, 1981.
State troopers assisted Darien police again in 1999, but the case still needs a break.
“We need the necessary amount of evidence to obtain an arrest warrant and gain a conviction,” Chief McManus told The Law Tribune during an interview on Christmas weekend. “Kenny was an outstanding officer with a promising future. His great loss is still felt in town, and we remain optimistic that this case will be resolved.”
Bateman’s widow still lives in town and is a teacher. Around the time of his death they had planned to start a family.
Darien police are still looking for help from someone who saw something near the Duchess that night, or perhaps a girlfriend, family member or associate of the shooter. There is a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who killed Kenneth Bateman.