by Jack Davis
“CBP Wardell.”
“Hi, this is Agent Jaime Posada with the Secret Service.”
“Thanks for calling back so soon. I have a situation down here.
“I don’t know how much has been relayed to you, but I have an individual here with his family, his whole family. His name is Alvaro Lopez. When I asked him what he was doing, he gave me your card and asked me to call you. He’s been polite but unresponsive to any further questioning. We’re looking at turning him away or turning him over to the Mexican authorities.
“He’s a gangbanger by the ink, I’m sure they can get something out of him. Before I did anything, I wanted to check with you. Is he working for you folks?”
“It’s a long story. He’s certainly not supposed to be in Texas. Can I talk to him for a minute?”
“Gimme just a sec.”
Posada heard the CBP agent say in Spanish, “Agent Posada wants to talk to you.”
Then he heard Alvaro’s voice. “Gracias…Agent Jaime?”
“Alvaro? What are you doing in Texas?”
“I had to leave Mexico…for good. I told Diamond, I was arrested, and I had cooperated with the federal police.”
There was a long pause as Posada tried to comprehend what he had just been told. “Why would you do that?”
“Agent Jaime, Diamond would find out eventually. The gangs in Mexico know everything. They’re in the government, police, everywhere. It would only be a matter of time. When he did find out, he would kill me and probably Maria and the kids to set an example.
“I couldn’t stay in Mexico, but I thought if I was honest with Diamond, he might not try to track me down. I went to see him, held him at gunpoint and told him I had been arrested. I told him to save Maria I talked to the police, but only about the credit card numbers. I swore on my mother’s grave I had not said a thing about the gangs or drugs and didn’t intend to. I told him all I wanted was to go away and raise my family.
“I said it would take six months or a year for him to believe me, but after none of his Kings got arrested by then, he’d know I told the truth.”
Posada’s mind tried to digest what he’d just heard. “Do you think he bought it?”
“I told him if I were setting him up, I wouldn’t tell him. He seemed to get it then.”
“Hard to argue with that logic.”
“I told him I couldn’t take all my family with me but if anything happened to any of them, I would go to the DEA. I said my family in Mexico was his guarantee I would not go to the police.”
“You gave this a lot of thought.”
“I had to; my family’s life depends on it. I left that night and met Maria and her family just across the border from Texas.”
“You did what?” (10/18/09, 2240 hours)
Morley was listening to an unusually animated description of the New York Giants game from Sean when he was interrupted by a call on his work cell.
“Buddy, I’ve got another call I’ve gotta take. You can fill me in on the rest of the game tomorrow. Get a good night’s sleep.”
It took just a second to transition to the second phone. “Morley.”
“Boss, it’s Jaime. We’ve had some developments in Mexico…sort of.”
It was unusual for Morley to get surprised, excited, or angry. When Posada first told him he’d agreed to place Alvaro and his family in the witness protection program, he was all three. It took his agent’s explanation of the situation and rational before things started to make sense.
“I thought about calling you first, but Alvaro and his family had already been there so long, I wanted to get something going before word started to filter back across the border.”
Morley pondered the dilemma. “What about Alvaro’s lawyer, why not dump this on him?”
“The Kings won’t have any hesitancy in killing a lawyer and his whole family to locate a traitor. Someone in US law enforcement, on this side of the border, as long as Lopez doesn’t rat ’em out, they probably won’t go that far and bring down that kinda heat.”
“You’re right.” Morley thought a moment. “I’m gonna have to call Dunn and give him some information. I’ll explain things. Alvaro can call him whenever he wants, but for Dunn to get in touch with his clients, he needs to work through me. At least until we get things ironed out.
“What’s the next step after they’re picked up by our agent in Brownsville?”
“Here’s where it gets complicated,” said Posada. Ignoring the “Too late for that” from Morley, he explained, “I’m gonna have our guy in Brownsville escort Lopez to Dallas. I’ll fly out there and escort them to Dayton, Ohio.”
“Dayton?” sputtered Morley, “Where’d you come up with Dayton?”
“It’s where I went to school. No gangs in Dayton and my college roommate is a county sheriff there. He can find someplace for them for a while. I know it sounds a little far-fetched, but it was all I could come up with on short notice.”
Morley’s mind had been working as he listened to the plan.
“Okay, first make sure the ICE/CBP guys check the whole group out thoroughly. They don’t have to be too intrusive, but I want to make sure Alvaro isn’t playing us and using this as a pass to bring things into the US.
“I’ll have Pencala make reservations for the two of you for tomorrow morning.
“I’ve only dealt with the WitSec a couple of times. I know it takes a few days minimum to set up and requires more paper than the Sunday New York Times. I also know they’re not going to do it for a computer hacking case. We’ll have to explain our whole case to get them to bite.
“There’s a Deputy US Marshal in Brooklyn who’s in love with Pencala. I’ll have Kay get some information about how we might start that process discreetly. We’ll have more luck if she calls.”
“Thanks, boss. I’ll make sure it works.”
Morley got off the phone with Posada just after midnight. He had at least three more phone calls before he could read the day’s investigative updates.
First, he called Dunn, who was none too happy. After assuaging the attorney’s fears, he called Brown. Morley knew his ASAIC would have one of two reactions: panic or apathy. He got the second which allowed the follow-up meetings to be pushed to the following morning, also delaying Brown’s departure from New York.
The last call was to a sleepy Pencala letting her know she’d be traveling later that morning.
Part Fourteen
65 | All Roads Lead to the Romanian
Johnson City, New York, 10/19/09, 0800–1200 hours
As the agents and officers entered the conference room just before 0800 hours on Monday, Morley passed each a two-page summary of the information developed the previous day. At about the same time, the plane carrying Posada and Pencala was lifting off from Newark Airport. That was the only information Morley didn’t pass. He went through the synopsis verbally to make sure he didn’t miss anything, and everyone was completely up to speed for the day ahead.
He stressed that Antonescu had boxes of the white surgical masks in his apartment, the kind the killer had been wearing in Georgia and Ohio. He explained Antonescu had worked remotely and had not been at his apartment for weeks at a time around the dates of the killings. He pointed out the pattern Swann had identified in the WoW game play during the same time frame. He said they were awaiting results from the airlines about the dates and times of Antonescu’s flights.
As it turned out, over the course of the day the constant arrival of new information made it almost impossible for anyone on the team to keep up, let alone stay ahead. Too much data was pouring in to do the analysis and follow-up. No one other than Peyton was able to think deeply about the more esoteric aspects of the case.
The first significant pieces of information came in to Murray and Kruzerski—the results of the requests for autopsy reports from the various districts. A review of the documents revealed that except for the husband of the first victim, all of them had either GHB or ketamine—common
date-rape drugs—in their systems. The coroner in the Cleveland case stated he believed the fast-acting drugs had been used to incapacitate the victims so the killer could render them helpless for the torture sessions.
The half bottle of GHB in the drop ceiling in Antonescu’s bathroom and found by the agents during the search now made sense. It was sent to the USSS lab for fingerprint analysis.
This information was passed to AUSA Carpenter, and all the results were forwarded to each coroner’s office and the FBI’s crime lab. No one involved in the case needed anything more than their own expertise to see the killings had been committed by the same person. All the victims had been subdued in the same manner, bound hand and foot to chairs with duct tape, and tortured with similar methods: burns, lacerations, amputations, and eyes removed.
One similarity that Peyton expanded on was that all the male victims had been killed by having their throats slit, while all of the female victims had been stabbed to death. He surmised the females were the true targets. Although cutting the throats was cold and calculated, it was not as violent or done with extreme anger. It was just a means to an end. The killer spent most of his time and attention on the women, cutting and burning them repeatedly over a long period of time. When he was ready to end their lives, he did so in a fit of rage. The violence he brought upon them was indicated by the depth, number, and jagged nature of their wounds.
Within an hour of coroner’s reports, Greere received the results of the interviews with the personnel at the hotels where the killer had stayed in Savannah and Cleveland. They’d been re-interviewed earlier and shown a photo lineup with Antonescu’s photograph along with five others. All agreed on the approximate height, weight, and age of the suspect, but none of the witnesses positively identified Antonescu. All reiterated that because of the combination of mask, baseball cap, and sunglasses, it was impossible to tell for certain.
Of more value were the preliminary results from FSD. Analysis showed there were multiple fingerprints on both the hotel form and the rental car agreement from Savannah, but all could be accounted for. They matched either hotel staff or the rental car personnel. There were no unknown prints on either document.
The handwriting on the other hand was a different story. The experts stated, “It matched, and it didn’t.” The handwriting supplied by Antonescu didn’t match the writing found on any of the hotel registration or car rental documents. But, the writing on the Cleveland hotel registration form matched the handwriting on both Savannah documents. The Cleveland rental car signature was close to that of the other documents, but they were awaiting the originals to be one hundred percent sure.
Now, for the first time, they had concrete evidence of the links between the killings. The problem was, it wasn’t a link to the individual they had in custody.
While Morley was talking to FSD, Greere received a call from the security department of United Airlines. He received verbal confirmation that there were two accounts for individuals with the last name of Antonescu in the Triple Cities. The first was for Mihai Antonescu and the second was for Mihia Antonescu. The first came back to the defendant’s Crocker Avenue address. The second, with the slightly different spelling came back to a PO Box on Washington Avenue in Endicott, not five miles from Mihai’s house.
When asked, the representative said there was no indication the accounts were related or associated. He said that besides the last name and the uncommon similarity of the first names, there was nothing in their system linking the two.
The first account had a yearly trip to Bucharest, Romania, nothing else. The second account—Mihai—had flights around the dates Greere had provided. All the flights departed from and returned to upstate New York airports—Syracuse, Rochester, Watertown, etc.—and arrived/departed into/from one of the New York metropolitan airports.
All the tickets to and from New York had been purchased online and Mr. Antonescu had used the self-check-in machines. Greere verified that unless the suspect had to check bags, this method eliminated any interaction with ticketing personnel, and any chance of identification through that means.
The electronic tickets also meant the gate agents scanned them instead of ripping off the top of the boarding-pass, ruling out any ticket stubs with fingerprints. Greere had to admire the plan; the killer had traveled with as little human interaction as possible.
Greere printed the email with the dates and wrote, Frequent Flyer dates, check against remote access/WoW pattern/WU. With the rep still on the phone, he handed the note to Swann.
With a few keystrokes Swann pulled up the spreadsheet he’d put together. While Greere was still listening to the United employee explain the formal process for getting the originals, Swann visually compared the information from the email to his spreadsheet. For the time frames available, the WoW account patterns and the frequent flyer travel information were almost an overlay.
Swann got his friend’s attention and gave him a nod and thumbs up. The Mileage Plus account verified Antonescu had flown on dates matching the killings, and possibly showed dates of other murders.
66 | The Double Box
Route 81 North, 10/19/09, 1230 hours
RAIC Meyer Scott was an anomaly in an agency of anomalies. He enjoyed investigations significantly more than protection. Yet he was in an agency that many Americans didn’t know even conducted investigations. Scott didn’t mind, and after a short stint on the VP Detail, he was able to transfer back to the Syracuse Office and for all intents and purposes, “homestead.” He had been the Resident Agent in Charge in Syracuse for ten years. The fact he always made excellent cases, generated good stats, and no one else wanted to move to upstate New York created an ideal scenario for Scott.
He always volunteered for the campaigns and the agents in his office supported the NYFO with their constant stream of “foreign digs,” so he was seen as a contributor and not someone who had retired in place. With so many agents jockeying for spots on the details and in HQ, a contented RAIC in the field, in a location that no one really wanted, could stay indefinitely, and that was what Scott had banked on doing.
The last aspect of the equation was Scott’s ability with the polygraph. The Service’s program was coordinated through the Department of Defense and was one of the premier programs in the world. Scott was one of the best in the Service; he loved it with a passion. He had been in the program thirteen of his sixteen years in the field. The Service had sent him to the DOD training program in Alabama, where he had learned all about the intricacies of the equipment, but more importantly, the intricacies of the humans connected to the machine.
Individuals in the polygraph program were known as the best of the best when it came to interrogations. They were hand selected from the population made up of men and women excellent at getting people to tell the truth. They were provided additional specialized training—updated regularly—that honed those skills. To top it off, since it was a special skill, they ended up conducting more interviews—in the most difficult cases—than normal agents. Like any skill, the more it was used, the better it became.
This combination of factors led to extraordinarily perceptive interrogators. With Scott, the last and possibly most important factor was his love of the program. He became a believer when he had been administered his polygraph prior to being offered a job with the Secret Service. He applied for a position in polygraph school—one of the mentally toughest in the federal government—as soon as he was eligible. He graduated first in his class and his superior abilities were recognized immediately. What made him unique was his ability to be completely objective, and he was painfully thorough. An example of his attention to detail – that was later adopted by the entire Secret Service polygraph program – was Scott’s use of colored pencils.
Scott started every interview or exam with at least five different-colored pencils. Black was always reserved for the suspect/defendant. Once he had gotten the individual to the point where they were going to provide a confession or statement, i
t would always be done in black. Meyer’s own notes were always done using purple. Blue was reserved for any other individual who might have to mark a document he had generated, and green was for any supervisor’s markings. Red was for the prosecuting attorney. As the process became computerized, Meyer maintained his method with different colored fonts.
While many of his peers made fun of his multicolored approach, its effect on defense attorneys, judges, and juries alike was amazing. If the defense attorney was naive enough to ask what all the colored markings meant in open court, Meyer would educate him while impressing the judge and jury.
To a jury it showed just how meticulous this agent was in conducting even the smallest aspect of the investigation. It magnified his credibility.
With Scott, everything was a repeatable process that had to be done the same way every time. This mindset and his demeanor earned him the distinction of being described as a machine. As the polygraph was referred to as the box, when Scott interviewed suspects, they got the double box. In some cases, Meyer’s methodical manner and demeanor were enough to convince the guilty party to confess. One defendant, after giving a complete confession, was overheard saying, “I figured I’d get less fuckin’ time for the crime than it’d take for this guy to finish the interview.”
Scott’s first order of business Monday morning was to confirm the arraignment with the US Attorneys in both Southern and the Central Districts of New York. Morley asked him to make it the last item on the docket. He wanted as much time as possible to get more information and possibly a confession out of Antonescu before the arraignment and the inevitable defense attorney. Scott was able to get 1500 hours.
