Lethal Guardian (21 page)

Others claimed Chris and Mark would have rituals out in back of Despres’s property in the woods involving fire and orgies with young girls—all in the name of Mark’s master, Satan.

To Chris, skipping school and smoking pot with his father was a dream come true. He was living as an adult, basically doing whatever he wanted, and Mark could have cared less. Mark would even buy Chris alcohol and pot. On some days, while most other kids were in school learning about the Civil War or economics, Chris and his dad were out partying with Chris’s friends, many of whom were young girls.

Unbeknownst to Chris, Mark had ulterior motives for the parties, a former friend claimed. For when Chris was not around, Mark would put the moves on Chris’s girlfriends. Apparently, Mark liked little girls and had begun dating a fifteen-year-old recently.

It was odd that Buzz’s alleged behavior was so appalling to Mark Despres—because, when it came down to it, Mark Despres, at thirty-four, was himself doing the exact same thing the Carpenters and Haiman Clein were accusing Buzz of doing.

If Beth Ann had any doubts about Haiman Clein’s devotion, they disappeared when she began receiving love letters from Clein during the latter part of 1993 and the beginning of 1994.

The first letter, dated December 30, 1993, was gentle and caring, mirroring a note a love-crazed adolescent might slip to his girlfriend during class. In the opening paragraph, Clein wrote of his loyalty to the relationship. He said he was “sincere in [his] desire and belief that somehow [they would] end up together….” He spoke of how awful it would be not to see her again—“And I don’t mean around the office!” Ending the brief letter, he said he felt an “intense” love for Beth Ann every “moment” he was “awake.”

It was clear that Clein, who would turn fifty-three on March 25, had become obsessed with Beth Ann.

On the one hand, the letter was an innocent sign of love. Clein’s heart was aching. But on the other, that terse letter, so seemingly harmless and sincere, would be the last time Clein would hold back his innermost feelings. Perhaps he couldn’t help himself? Or maybe he had become so increasingly fixated with a woman nearly half his age, was so strung out on cocaine, alcohol and Prozac that he’d lost total control of the little bit of sanity he had left.

Either way, Beth Ann was about to get to know the
real
Haiman Clein.

In a letter dated January 3, Clein began to describe how he had become turned on by just about anything Beth Ann did. “I am sitting here thinking about you and, of course, your beautiful body.” Then he said he loved her “skin” and “smells.”

“When I start being turned on by someone’s ‘armpits,’” Clein wrote, “I know I’m in trouble….”

The letter ended with a long admission of how Clein yearned to be with Beth Ann forever. It was a dream come true, he suggested. He was abandoning his better judgment and allowing his lust to make decisions for him. He also admitted that he wasn’t so sure it was a good thing.

A few weeks went by without another letter. Then, on January 24, Clein penned one of his most troubling literary achievements to date. Indeed, the crowning jewel of love-letter writing—a document that would leave absolutely nothing to the imagination.

The letter was rife with sexual fantasies of the most bizarre type. Clein was in the midst, it was easy to tell, of losing the little bit of self-control he had left. By the time Beth Ann was finished reading the letter, she must have known that she could have ordered Clein to kill the pope and he would have agreed.

Clein opened the letter by saying he could not “survive” or “live” without her. “Every second of my day is filled with you.” He then admitted that the minute she showed any type of “affection” for him, or paid attention to him in the slightest way, he became a “basket case.” For whatever reason, Clein felt the need to say next that he “appreciated good-looking women, breasts in all condition, and responded to a heavy pass every now and then—but I have not had a relationship with anyone while living or going with another.”

It was nonsense. He was cheating on his wife, Bonnie, with Beth Ann. He may not have had a “relationship” with anyone else, but, as many of his friends would later claim, he’d slept with just about any woman who’d have him.

He wrote next that, in his mind, the relationship between the two of them “was not an affair.” It was his “heart as it had never been tugged or tested.” Perhaps referring to the recent plot to murder Buzz, Clein said he would do “anything” for Beth Ann and “to protect me.” He admitted that the “thought” of someone’s threatening her “in any way,” or making her feel “bad or hurt,” made him “crazy.”

After saying he had tried to “strangle” someone because he thought this unnamed person was being “offensive” to her, Clein said he hoped that the person did not take “it” any further. He was talking about an incident that happened in court one day, when Beth Ann had had some problems with someone in the courtroom.

Then, ironically, after saying how much he “respected” her, Clein began to show his true colors. “I love your ass,” he wrote, “and want to taste it.”

If he had stopped there, it would have been seen as nothing more than a humorous gesture or personal compliment between two adults.

But he continued.

“I want you to give me everything from inside of you.” Then he said he “realized” he was probably sounding pretty disturbed by admitting to it, but “I want to taste your ass,” he continued, “after you have gone to the bathroom.”

He then asked Beth Ann to burn the letter after reading it, and to forgive him for what he was saying. Still he felt the need to continue.

He wrote next that he wanted Beth Ann to defecate on top of him. Afterward, he suggested, he would “spread it over [his] chest.” When he was done with this so-called human mud bath, he saw Beth Ann, in a dominating role, ordering him to take a shower.

He admitted that their relationship had become “more than it should be.”

Then he asked her not to be “grossed out” by what he was suggesting. It was obvious that they hadn’t done anything like this in the bedroom before, but maybe this was Clein’s way of suggesting they start. Regardless, he then said he “loved the thought of being inside” her, “especially [her] ass.” Hinting at perhaps his own sexual dysfunction, Clein expressed next how worried he was at the thought of not being able to satisfy her fully. Then he said that, to him, she was this “powerful and strong figure who could command the earth.”

Beth Ann had Clein right where she wanted him. Clein had hired a man to kill her brother-in-law, and now he was having anxiety over not being able to perform sexually in bed. It was all about Beth Ann. Whatever she wanted, she would get.

Ending the letter, Clein said that he wished “he could give [her] everything in the world”—which, in Beth Ann’s mind, he was about to do.

During the early part of January, Joe Fremut and Mark Despres had gone to a car auction to purchase a few vehicles for Fremut Texaco. While they were walking around, Mark said, “Joey, guess what?”

“Yeah?”

“I joined this Devil worship cult.”

Despres then stuck out his hand. Fremut looked down. There were three numeral 6s burned into Mark’s hand. This was odd to Fremut, he later said, because Mark had always been a devout Christian.

“Come on, Mark. What’s going on?”

“I denounce God now and worship Satan.”

“What are you going to get out of that?”

“These people in the cult have connections to do hits, to kill people.”

A few days later, they went to another auction.

“Listen,” Despres explained as they walked around, “I have my first contract. It’s a guy on the other side of the river.”

The next day, Despres met Fremut at Despres’s apartment. Fremut later recalled the conversation.

“His name is Buzz,” Despres confessed. “He’s a child molester. His own father-in-law is paying the money to have it done. I want you to help me. The money—about ten thousand dollars—will go to me through my attorney from the victim’s father-in-law.”

Dick Carpenter?

Despres met with Fremut again later and, according to Despres, they began discussing Fremut’s role in the murder for hire.

“We would get paid eight thousand,” Despres told Fremut.

“I also have a murder to do, Mark,” Fremut said, not taking Despres seriously. “Will you help
me
?”

Fremut explained he wanted to go out to California and kill Catherine White’s pimp. Despres knew White well. She would hang around with Despres’s longtime girlfriend, Jocelyn Johnson, when the two men got together.

Investigators later said that the main reason why Fremut wanted White’s pimp dead was because Fremut wanted her exclusively. There were reports that White would take a john up to a hotel room and, once there, Fremut would roll the guy for everything he had. Perhaps White’s pimp was pissed off that Fremut was cutting in on his action.

“So you’ll help me?” Despres asked.

“If you’ll help me,” Fremut said.

A day or so later, Despres went back to Haiman Clein’s office in New London to discuss further the payment plan they had originally set up. Despres wanted to be paid in full, he said. He had already gotten some money from Clein, which he never told Fremut about, and wanted to know when the rest of it was coming.

“Listen, Mark, there’s a little problem. I only have five thousand dollars,” Clein said.

“I could get it done for that,” Despres offered.

When Clein realized that Despres wasn’t going to haggle over the price, he told him to hold on for a moment, then walked out of the room.

Minutes later, Clein returned with Beth Ann.

As she sat and wept quietly, Clein later recalled, he explained to Despres that she was “financially strapped.” He wanted Despres to be well aware of the fact that
he
was the one who was responsible for paying him,
not
Beth Ann.

Despres said he understood.

Paying Mark Despres to murder Buzz Clinton wasn’t apparently at the top of Haiman Clein’s growing list of debts. On February 14, Valentine’s Day, Clein—in near financial ruin, on the verge of losing his Watertown home to the bank, his investment properties crumbling like Lincoln Logs, his law practice nearly out of business—gave Beth Ann a $5,000 necklace.

A few weeks after that, he gave her a $2,530 ring.

Investigators would track down later where Clein bought the jewelry. The $2,530 ring was purchased in Winter Park, Florida. Oddly enough, Clein, at this point in his life, was broke.

So where was he getting all this money to buy Beth Ann nearly $8,000 worth of jewelry in the span of two weeks?

Walter Cox had been a wealthy client of Clein’s for years. Clein had handled fiduciary matters for Cox: estate planning, business matters, etc. Examining Cox’s American Express records, investigators found that Clein had not only paid for a trip to Florida for his entire family (Bonnie and the four kids), but bought the jewelry for Beth Ann with Cox’s American Express card while they were there.

Clein would admit later to embezzling nearly $500,000 from Cox.

With the end of February quickly approaching, Mark Despres began telling people he was going to begin following Buzz around town, looking for a suitable time to, as he explained it to Joe Fremut, “do him.”

But there was only one problem: Despres was having trouble locating him. Despres would sit out in the parking lot of Pettipaug Manor, the convalescent home where Buzz had been working now for the past few weeks, and wait for him to emerge. Or maybe he would drive over to Buzz’s apartment in East Lyme and just sit in the parking lot.

But after a week or so, the opportunity never presented itself, Despres later said. Plus, he still wasn’t sure what Buzz actually looked like.

There was one time when Despres and Fremut had driven to Pettipaug Manor to stake out Buzz’s tow truck. Since the time Despres had told Fremut about the murder-for-hire plot, Fremut had suggested they capture Buzz, torture him, wrap him in a blanket and throw him into the nearby Niantic River. Clein had explained to Despres that Buzz drove a tow truck. So Despres and Fremut drove into the rear parking lot of Pettipaug Manor and began looking for it one day. When they didn’t spot what Clein had described as a “red wrecker,” Despres drove Fremut back to his house and went home.

As the days passed, and Despres began to track Buzz’s movements more thoroughly, he opted not to bring Fremut. Instead, Despres began bringing along Chris, his fifteen-year-old son.

One of the first times Chris had gotten an inkling that there was something going on was at the local IGA supermarket in downtown Essex. Mark and Chris were walking around the store when they happened to come upon Clein as he was shopping.

Mark sent Chris away. He said he had some private business with Clein. A few minutes later, when Mark returned and met Chris in the car, Chris asked him about his conversation with Clein.

“Nothing,” Mark said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Days later, however, when pressed again, Mark explained the entire murder-for-hire plot to Chris.

“I’ve been paid ten thousand dollars to kill a man from Old Lyme,” Mark told his son, as if they were discussing a contract Mark had received to paint a house.

When Chris thought about it, he later said, he considered it to be a joke. He really didn’t think his father and Fremut were serious about going through with it.

When Mark couldn’t locate Buzz, he went over to Fremut Texaco to talk it over with Fremut. He needed some advice. He knew Fremut would set him straight.

Catherine White was there when Despres showed up. She was inside the lobby area of the garage, just hanging around, while Mark and Joe were around the corner in the garage. They couldn’t see White, but she could clearly hear what they were talking about.

“I’m having trouble locating this guy,” Despres said in frustration. “I’ve been watching him for several days, but I can’t get him alone.”

“Well, Mark, don’t worry about it—”

“Don’t worry about it? Everywhere he goes is not a good place to get this done.”

“Listen,” Fremut said, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Convinced there must be another way, days later, Despres went back to Fremut Texaco to discuss other options. Again White was there.

White watched as the two men went out in the back of the garage and began test-firing several different weapons. Several skeletons of junk cars lay around the property. It was a Sunday. Business was slow. With no one around, Despres and Fremut took turns. Fremut sat in a car with the windows rolled up and fired a weapon while Despres stood outside and listened.

Fremut stepped out of the car, and he and Despres talked about how loud the gun sounded from outside the vehicle. They wanted to be sure that if they shot Buzz inside a car, the noise wouldn’t attract any attention.

As the day progressed, White looked on as Despres and Fremut test-fired several different guns under different conditions. Sometimes Fremut would turn the radio on in the car and fire off a few rounds, increasing the volume in increments.

“How was that?” he’d yell afterward.