Lethal Guardian (24 page)

“I said,” Jebran recalled later, “‘I’m not going to give her any more of my time. I’m not going to give her the opportunity to get any more help or anything from me. I’m out the door….’”

Beth Ann called Joseph’s cousin the following night, looking for him, but Jebran’s cousin told her he was gone.

“Don’t call here again, either!”

With her husband dead now for about eight weeks, Kim Clinton, on the morning of May 12, 1994, went into labor. Fifteen hours later, Buzz’s son, Anson Clinton IV, a healthy and vivacious child with a thick shock of black hair like his dad’s, came into a world that, for him, would never include his natural father. What should have been a day of joyous celebration was marred by the sad fact that Buzz would never get a chance to lay eyes on a son he had been so much looking forward to raising. Buzz had made mistakes with his first son, Michael. He was the first to admit that. But the birth of Anson was going to give Buzz the chance to fix those mistakes. He had dreamed of watching his son wrestle, like he had, play baseball and football.

Since Buzz’s murder, Kim had given her immediate family full access to Rebecca, surprising to the Clinton family. The Carpenters, including Beth Ann, were spending more time with Rebecca now than they ever had. In fact, Haiman Clein later said that Beth Ann was a different person after getting to see Rebecca again regularly. The entire Carpenter family was ecstatic, he added, over how they were able to rebuild the relationship Buzz had seemingly severed.

For the Carpenters, in many ways, the situation was back to the way it had been before Buzz had entered the picture.

No matter how much a murderer tries, he will unknowingly leave behind clues to his crime at the scene. It is inevitable. It could be a footprint. A piece of chewing gum. One strand of hair. Or a microscopic fiber torn off a shirt during a struggle. Or some type of DNA not visible to the human eye.

For the investigator, it may not be much, but there is
always
something left behind at the crime scene.

Even the best investigators are stumped at times, however. A fiber (the male), for instance, is no good to a forensic scientist without a mate (the female) to match it against. Years—even decades—can go by without a break in a case that has produced little forensic evidence.

This is when investigators rely on witnesses.

Take the case of two El Segundo, California, cops who were shot to death in the same manner as Buzz Clinton some forty-five years before the crime was solved.

In 1957, El Segundo cops Milton G. Curtis and Richard A. Phillips, both in their twenties, were ambushed after they stopped a suspected rapist and car thief who had been driving a reported stolen vehicle. After killing both cops, the man escaped and a nationwide manhunt began. Thousands of leads poured in. But as the years passed, the case became as cold as a star-filled winter night in Alaska. It wasn’t until the man, well into his sixties (he was in his twenties when he committed the crime), had moved to the East Coast, settled down with a family and had probably forgotten about the notion of ever being caught that he was arrested.

How could a case go unsolved for four decades and suddenly be solved overnight?

An anonymous phone tip.

In the El Segundo case, someone had phoned in a tip that a man had been overheard bragging about getting away with a decades-old murder. A year before the man had ambushed the two cops, he had committed a burglary. His fingerprints had been on file since then. With the technology made available to investigators some forty years later, coupled with the phone tip, the fingerprints in both cases—the robbery and cop murders—were eventually matched up. Subsequently a cop who hadn’t even been born when the murders had taken place was able to make a case against the man.

In Buzz Clinton’s case, that break wouldn’t take forty years—but only three months. And it would come in the form of a phone call from Joe Fremut’s twenty-four-year-old live-in girlfriend, Catherine White.

When White had made what the detectives involved later referred to as her “heroic” phone call to the Connecticut State Police on May 25, implicating Mark Despres and Joe Fremut in Buzz Clinton’s death, investigators had gotten that one lead they had been looking for all along: one solid piece of information that had been missing from the chain of evidence.

“This was a whodunit case from day one,” Detective Marty Graham said. “We were stumped. We had our ideas, of course. But did we have it narrowed down to specifics? No. We thought we knew who did it, but we didn’t have any names.”

“Cathy White, a hero, gave us names,” Detective John Turner added. “Up until that phone call, there was no evidence. We were running out of leads.”

All agreed, without White, Buzz Clinton’s murder would have likely never been solved.

In one way, White had broken the case wide open with her courageous phone call. But in another way, the investigation had broadened, as detectives suspected it would all along. As Turner, who had somewhat taken control of the investigation along with Marty Graham and Reggie Wardell, began to interview White, it became absolutely clear that there was more to Clinton’s death than just a murder-for-hire contract by two thugs who would likely have trouble pulling off a convenience store holdup without getting caught.

For one, White had mentioned to Turner that she had overheard Despres one day telling Fremut that it “was the father-in-law of [Buzz] who set the murder up through an attorney because he was tired of his grandchildren being molested by his son-in-law and of his pregnant daughter being abused.”

This fell more in line with what investigators had already suspected: Dick Carpenter and Buzz Clinton had a common hatred for each other that ran far deeper than most father-and son-in-laws who didn’t get along. They had suspected that Dick Carpenter had had something to do with Buzz’s death from the get-go. They had asked him to take a polygraph test on several occasions, but he always refused. Then there was Old Lyme police officer Joe Dunn’s contention that merely weeks before Buzz’s death, Buzz had said that if he ever turned up dead, Dick Carpenter should be the first person cops go to.

Considering what White was now saying, it was a viable proposition to think that Dick Carpenter had been the one to set this entire murder-for-hire plot in motion, or at least plant the seed in someone else’s mind.

As Turner and Graham began talking to White, she explained why she had chosen to come forward months later.

On or about May 22, White explained, she had asked Fremut about what she had been suspecting for quite some time: he and Despres had planned and carried out the East Lyme murder that had been all over the news. To her chagrin, Fremut told her everything. The next day, May 23, White called Despres and asked him for a ride to JFK Airport. White told Despres she wanted to leave Fremut. She was scared of him. As they talked, White told Despres that Fremut had given her details of Buzz’s murder.

“Joe was not supposed to tell
anyone
about that. That information is supposed to be confidential,” an angry Despres warned White.

With that, White said she was terrified. She took Despres’s words as a threat to back off. After all, he had already killed once.

So she phoned the Montville State Police barracks and reported what she knew.

“I asked Joe,” White continued to explain to John Turner, “and he told me that Mark had picked up a contract for eight thousand dollars ‘to do this guy.’”

“Where did he get the contract?” Turner asked.

“He told me that Mark picked it up through this Devil worship group that he belongs to in Deep River.”

Another reason White said she didn’t come forward sooner was that she didn’t believe Despres would ever “do it.” She thought he would, like Fremut, “back down.”

To back up further what she was saying, White suggested Turner speak with John Filippi, one of Fremut’s friends. White said Filippi knew some things that might help—including who it was who paid Mark Despres for “the job,” as Filippi later called it

Early in the morning of May 26, Detective Chet Harris, a member of the narcotics task force who had already developed a “working relationship” with Mark Despres over the years, made a phone call to Despres. Harris said he could pay him for some information he needed if they met at Eagle Rock, an undeveloped cul-de-sac in Essex.

Despres, who had just turned thirty-five, appeared dirty and unkempt when he arrived at Eagle Rock. Harris had set up the meeting after Catherine White had given Detective John Turner Despres’s name.

Despres showed up at about 10:00
A.M
. Harris, Turner and Detective John Szamocki were waiting for him. As soon as Despres got out of his car and walked over to Harris, Harris said, “The phone call was a ruse, Mark. My real purpose was to have you talk to Turner and Szamocki. They need to ask you some questions.”

“All right,” Despres said.

Despres then got into Turner’s vehicle. As Harris waited outside, Szamocki got in the backseat, while Despres sat down in the passenger side.

“We want to ask you some questions about an incident that happened in East Lyme,” Turner said. “The murder of Buzz Clinton.”

Despres paused and didn’t say anything at first. But through his facial expressions, it was clear to Turner that something was wrong. He looked worried, nervous, pale and sweaty.

After a moment, Despres nodded. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

“Do you understand what I’m saying, Mark?” Turner asked.

“Yeah, but I…I…I think I should contact my attorney.”

“That’s easy enough,” Turner said, handing Despres his cell phone. “Who is your attorney, anyway?”

“Haiman Clein.”

It was the first time Haiman Clein’s name had entered into the investigation.

Chet Harris had already met with Despres at Despres’s apartment in Deep River earlier that same morning and asked him if he was involved in the murder of a “man on the connector in East Lyme” back in March.

To Harris’s amazement, Despres acknowledged that he was “deeply involved in the murder of Anson ‘Buzz’ Clinton,” Harris later noted in his report of that meeting.

“Despres admitted being present when Clinton was killed.”

“There was someone else there, too,” Despres mentioned when Harris pressed him for more details.

“Who was that?”

“I don’t want to say.”

As the interview with Turner and Szamocki continued, Despres began to change his demeanor somewhat and became more innacurate with his statements and secretive, shifting and stirring in his seat. Turner, of course, wanted to know who else had been behind the murder. Not just Fremut—they knew that already—but the actual mastermind of it all. In other words, who had paid Despres for the job?

Despres then got out of Turner’s car and walked over to Chet Harris, someone with whom he felt more comfortable.

“Could you help them out at all, Mark?” Harris asked.

Despres shrugged.

“Do you know anything about that murder?”

“I know the whole deal,” Despres admitted.

“Did you tell them that?”

“No, I’m telling
you.
”

“Why didn’t you tell them?”

“I cannot go to jail! I would rather kill myself than go to jail.”

“Tell
me,
then,” Harris encouraged.

“I’ll tell you everything, Chet…but only after I speak with my attorney.”

Harris and Despres, along with another detective who had been there, then walked over to where Turner and Szamocki were standing.

After a long discussion about Despres’s desire to get a lawyer before he said anything more, Turner said, “We’re going to issue a search warrant for your apartment today, Mark.”

“You won’t find anything.”

Turner ignored it, then he asked, “What’s up with Chris, your son?”

“Ah, Chris has been living with me, but I kicked him out. He was out of control. He wouldn’t do anything he was told.”

Before getting into his car and leaving, Despres said he was going directly to see Haiman Clein.

Hours later, as Chet Harris sat outside Despres’s apartment, waiting for him to return, Despres pulled into the driveway, and walked up to Harris’s car.

“Did you get a chance to speak with your lawyer?” Harris asked.

“Yes. But he referred me to another lawyer.” Despres then took a piece of paper out of his pocket with the lawyer’s name on it and showed it to Harris. “They both advised me not to say anything more.”

“You looked stress out, Mark. You all right?”

“Look, there’s no good way out of this situation. I cannot tolerate jail—even for one day! If I do talk, though, it’ll be to you, Chet.”

Harris shook his head. He understood.

“I’m not going to jail,” Despres said again. “I’d rather be dead than go to jail for twenty or thirty years.”

Harris didn’t know what to say.

“Is Joe in trouble, too?” Despres asked, then explained how he had seen Fremut sitting in a cruiser earlier, talking to a trooper.

“I’m unaware of Joe Fremut’s involvement in this case, Mark.”

“You won’t find anything in my apartment,” Despres said before walking away. “I’m going to drive around for a while and think this through.”

Harris soon left.

About an hour later, Harris ended up at Fremut Texaco, where other detectives were questioning Joe Fremut. Pulling in, Harris spied Despres sitting in his car near the south side of the garage, so he approached him.

“You okay, Mark? How you feeling?”

Despres waved his hand in the air. “So-so,” he said softly. “Joe isn’t involved,” he added.

“By the look on your face, Mark, I can tell you want to talk.”

“I don’t want to go to jail, Chet.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Despres and Harris discussed the guns Despres said they were going to find in his apartment when they searched it. Despres was concerned about the silencer. He was worried he’d “get in trouble” for having it.

“You may be arrested, Mark,” Harris warned.

Chet Harris had been going back and forth between the Fremut interrogation going on inside the garage and where Despres was sitting in his car. At one point, Harris asked, “You want to talk to me about Buzz Clinton, Mark?”

Despres didn’t say anything.

“Are you deeply involved?”

“Yes.”

“Was there someone else present at the murder?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s that?”

“Listen, I can’t say anything more. I have to go.”

“You’re free to go, Mark.”

During the course of the day, Despres had been on an emotional roller coaster, sure that the ED-MCS was going to bust him at any moment. In one sense, he was coming to grips with the fact that he might end up in jail within the next few days—which was something, he had made clear, he could not accept. Chet Harris, an experienced investigator, knew it was only a matter of time before Despres rolled over. So when Despres left Fremut Texaco, Harris waited awhile and drove back over to Despres’s apartment to see if he could talk to him some more. Turner and his crew were preparing to serve a search warrant at Despres’s apartment. Harris figured he could help out on both fronts.

When he got there, Despres was sitting in his car in the driveway. Jackie Powers, his fifteen-year-old live-in girlfriend, sat next to him.

“I want to drive around with Jackie,” Despres told Harris, “while you guys conduct the search.”

“Could you step out of the car, Mark?” Harris said in a nonthreatening tone. “Let’s talk in private.”

Despres turned to Jackie. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’m concerned for the girl, Mark,” Harris said as they walked away.

“Don’t be. I just want to spend some time with her.”