LEFT FOR DEAD - The Woman Who Couldn't Remember Her Own Murder

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for 50 off and three free gifts when you check out after you purchase it will ask you where you heard about them and please support our show and tell them our show sent you best thing that's ever happened to you financially go easy sold my car on carvana amazing offer really i hit 200 on a scratcher did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check no how many scratchers did you hit to get that i hit a button on carvana.com once okay that's fair it's like the lottery except you always win not like the lottery at all actually exactly inexplicably good offers worth bragging about sell your car today on carvana pickup fees may apply every town has a dark side it's a little after 3 30 in the afternoon on february 19th 1982 when doug heath was climbing the back steps of his triple decker apartment building he was thinking about nothing more than getting inside after a long day when he noticed the landlord's three-year-old daughter standing alone on the stairs outside he was thinking about nothing more than getting inside after a long day she'd been locked out and when he asks her where her mother is she tells him she's downstairs lying down and what he discovered inside that basement was something brutal beyond words and in the town where it happened well people kept their mouths shut and so the truth was and still is nearly impossible to come by hey guys it's andrew welcome back to every town thanks for tuning in and today we're headed over to wound socket rhode island which is a tight-knit little city where families go back generations and everybody knows their neighbors a little too well and in a town like that when something terrible happens it's almost never a stranger who did it it's someone from inside that world but at closeness it cuts both ways because when everybody knows everybody well everybody also knows everybody and so it's a little bit of a surprise that everybody knows everybody and so it's a little bit of a surprise that everybody also knows how to protect their own so let's head on over to the ocean state now and dig in this is left for dead the woman who couldn't remember her own murder wound socket in 1982 was still living in the shadows of the mill money that had built the town up a century earlier before it all went away when it left behind were streets full of french canadian catholic families people who had been rooted there for generations the people in this town were tight with one another obviously outsiders moved in from time to time but wound socket was a landlocked little city in the northern part of the state whose prosperous days were a bit behind it so people weren't exactly flocking there with any sense of urgency like i said they go back generations here and so a lot of them though not blood related felt like family to each other at 409 providence street there was a triple decker apartment building that belonged to 27 year old susan lafert and her husband ernie they all lived on the first floor with their two young girls the apartment on the third floor well they rented it out to a 22 year old named doreen picard who lived there with her boyfriend over time doreen had grown close enough with the family downstairs that the whole landlord and tenant thing had mostly worn away and they were pretty friendly the same story with doug heath who lived on the second floor apartment with his wife and 15 year old stepdaughter now doreen herself wasn't a wound socket girl she'd grown up 20 minutes away over the state line in bellingham massachusetts where she lived for a year and a half she'd been crowned her high school's homecoming queen the people they naturally gravitated to her she had that kind of aura about her and by february 1982 she was studying child development training to take care of kids for a living and the cruelly ironic thing about february 19th specifically well the day that changed everything for these people is that doreen wasn't even supposed to be in that apartment much longer she was in the middle of packing that very day and boxing up her whole life to move into a new place across town and so then what actually happened that afternoon and susan spent it having lunch with her sister carol around 1 30 two men showed up at the apartment these were friends of susan's there to look over a litter of puppies she had down in the basement and she put them up for sale in the local paper right alongside a second ad for that very apartment upstairs the one doreen was in the middle of vacating and carol recognized one of the two men the other one she never laid eyes on before in her life the four of them stood there talking on the doorstep for a bit before the two guys headed downstairs to look the puppies over by a quarter to two carol had said her goodbyes and then headed home to the apartment she'd been living in for a year and a half so she had to get back home around 90 minutes later doug the tenant in the middle apartment he came home after work as he stepped through the back door he found susan's three-year-old daughter nicole locked out of the apartment just standing there alone on the stairs when he asked her where her mom was the little girl told him susan was downstairs lying down a heath tribe the laferty's door and found it locked so he headed down to the basement to check for himself and that's where he found them the blood at first splattered across the laundry room and then the two women susan and doreen sergeant doug connell of the wound socket police department was one of the first investigators to step into that basement and even with everything he'd already seen over a career's worth of bad days well this scene was bad because this wasn't a simple assault that had gotten out of hand this was something closer to a frenzy an act of what he'd later describe as pure overkill carried out with a 28 inch metal pipe that was swung at both women again and again long long after either one of them could have possibly posed any kind of threat to the person holding it doreen was pronounced dead right there at the scene beaten and then strangled with her own sweater while susan barely clinging to life was pushed into surgery that would last two and a half hours during which doctors inserted a fiberglass plate into her skull just to hold what remained of it together as she survived the surgery but instead of waking up well she slipped straight into a coma and the police officers stationed outside her hospital room well they weren't posted there just for appearances sergeant connell genuinely feared the man responsible might try to come back and finish what he'd started because if susan woke up well she'd become the one living person capable of identifying him 30 days later susan finally opened her eyes the problem though she remembered absolutely nothing not the attack not the pipe not the face of whoever stood over her what she was left with instead was total amnesia the damage she sustained was severe man she was left with permanent physical damage that never fully healed a broken eardrum ongoing problems with her balance only partial use of her right hand as she had walked into that basement a young mother with a house full of kids and a husband who loved her and she emerged from a month-long coma into a body that no longer fully worked, and a mine with a whole pile punch clean through the middle of it. Everyone expected her to wake up and simply tell them, name the man, and bring the whole thing to a close. Well, obviously that isn't what happened, and to this day, it still hasn't. Susan herself has said that whatever occurred in that basement, her mind sealed the door on it completely and never opened it back up again. In fact, New Year's Eve of 1981 through February 19th of 82 remains, in her own words, a total blackout. Now, there were two ads out in the paper, one for the puppies and one for the room for rent, which meant any number of strangers could have come by the place and had a totally valid reason to not only come into the house, but be welcomed in. Now, both of the ads could have explained Susan bringing someone down to the basement to show them either A, the puppies, or B, the laundry. The working theory that police could piece together was that most likely Susan was attacked and then Doreen heard the commotion and went to help, and she too was hit with that metal pipe. The motive, though, well, that was totally unclear. And neither woman was assaulted, nothing was stolen. It was just a vicious and brutal crime that took place in the middle of the day. In regards to the people we know who were at that time, we don't know. Well, there were the two men Carol had seen who were there for the dog. The one she recognized was Raymond Tempest Jr., a local construction worker from a well-connected family. And everyone just called him Beaver. And the stranger she'd never met was John Allard, as it turns out, a guy who was living with Tempest's former sister-in-law, Sherry Richards. And the whole reason they were there is because Tempest was a very important person to her. Tempest had lent his male dog for the breeding of the litter, so he'd been promised pick of the pups, and he was going to hand that puppy off to Allard, whose kids wanted a dog. And Carol was right there in the apartment with them, and she watched the two men look at the puppies. Allard picked one, and then they left without incident before 1.45, and then Carol herself left around the same time. Young Nicole was also there the entire afternoon, and she had something very interesting to say. Her grandmother, Florence, spent months gently trying to draw the memory out of her, and Nicole's story never wavered on one point. And that is that she opened the door to a man she believed was one of her mother's friends. That's what he told her, and when he asked where her mom was, she told him downstairs. She described him as, bigger than her father Ernie, a mustache, jeans, sneakers, a baseball cap turned backward, and hanging out of his back pocket, a rag, red and white, which little Nicole described as polka dots. She said she heard her mother crying out and started down the stairs, that the man was coming up as she was going down, close enough to pass right by her, before he locked her in the hallway and disappeared out the front door. It is a remarkably specific description for a child that young to give, and that's exactly the problem. Because she was only three years old, and Sergeant Connell would later admit that as valuable as it would have been to have a solid eyewitness account, Nicole's story had shifted just enough across repeated interviews that it never held up well enough on its own to point investigators toward her name. And nobody was suggesting she was lying, she was a traumatized toddler, being questioned again and again about the worst day of her life by strangers in uniforms. And children that age want nothing more than to give the grown-ups around them the answer they seem to be looking for, in order to end all the talking. Did her description point toward either Tempest or Allard? Well, not exactly, but we'll circle back on all that in a bit. All police had at this time was that description from a three-year-old that varied depending on who she was talking to. Susan's lack of a memory, a pipe used as the murder weapon that had been wiped clean of prints. The two men we know went to grab a puppy that afternoon who said they didn't do it. And a whole slew of possible strangers, or even people Susan knew, who could have come in there and done the unthinkable. For years, this case just trudged along, not really moving anywhere, and it was frustrating for all those who were genuinely looking for answers. Doreen's parents, Ron and Simone, they went knocking on doors, talking to anyone they could to try to pick up the pieces. They were doing anything they could to solve their own daughter's murder. And in return, well, they got a slew of anonymous calls telling them to drop it. Every time they pushed, the calls increased and got more threatening. They were telling Ron to watch out for his family, or that his auto repair shop might just burn down if he doesn't let it go. The police never identified who this caller was, but strange something like that would happen and the authorities still unable to really connect the dots. As a side note, in case you were unaware, the state of Rhode Island has a legendary reputation for corruption. There's mob roots, and Providence was the seat of the New England mob for decades under crime boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca, who ran things from Federal Hill. The Wall Street Journal at one point called the state infested with crime and corruption, and so that trickled down to many politicians. And, of course, police officers. For about six years, this case sat flat, until 1988 when the show Unsolved Mysteries picked up the case and Susan agreed to sit down for an interview. She asked for her identity to be concealed on camera, still scared of what might happen if the man responsible somehow recognized her voice. Well, that broadcast brought in new tips, which meant that she would be able to get her name out in the public eye. But that didn't last long, and eventually it reached a guy named Daniel Shaw. In 1990, 36-year-old Shaw, who was a man with a long history of alcoholism and mental health struggles, walked into the police station in Woonsocket and told them that he'd been at the crime scene the day it all happened. And he told them the man who attacked both women was the same name that had been circling this case from the start: Raymond Tempest Jr. And once Shaw started talking, other people started talking, too. A neighbor named John Guarino said that about a year after the murders, he asked Tempest point blank whether he'd actually done it. And Tempest answered, laughing a little, saying, "He'd got down into that basement and hit one woman with a pipe. And that, when the second came down and saw what was happening, well, he'd beaten her, too, acting out the swing with his own hand like he was demonstrating a golf shot." Guarino didn't take it too seriously in the moment, and people say all sorts of things when they're trying to act cool, but weeks later, Tempest showed up at his apartment, visibly rattled, insisting police were watching his house. He said, "You know what, I'm not going to let you in." And he said, "I'm not going to let you in." And he said, "You know what, I'm not going to let you in." And he said, "You know what, I'm not going to let you in." And he said, "You're not going to let you in." And warning him to keep his mouth shut, or him and his girlfriend might end up getting hurt. And so then, you have another veiled threat, similar to what Doreen's parents got. Guarino's girlfriend backed her man up, too, adding that Tempest had been agitated around the time of the attack because Susan was about to tell his wife something right after the two of them had just reconciled. And he told her that when Doreen came down and saw him, hitting Susan, "I could not let her get away, so I had to do her, too." He also said his father had paid to keep his name out of it, and that the pipe had already been wiped clean. And as to what Susan was going to tell his wife, well, it was that they were having an affair. See, Susan and him weren't merely acquainted, they were pretty darn close. Close enough that she'd stood as maid of honor at his wedding. And close enough that their dogs bred with one another. Another man, Ronald Vaz, came forward. And him and Tempest used to do cocaine with one another. And he said that, during their sessions, Tempest confessed to him repeatedly, starting just two days after the attack, laying it out over months in pieces. The way he claims he was told was that the whole thing started as an argument over the puppy and spirals, and all that. And he said, "I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't do it on purpose." into the affair, and soon Susan was wanting him to leave his wife, him refusing, her striking it, and then him beating her back. Now all this is a lot of people coming forward, so if you're wondering how all of it could have stayed hidden for so long, well, it really comes down to the fact that Tempest wasn't just some random guy off the street. No, he had real connections. I got thrown in the picture like that because my father was a cop. There was animosity back then with these guys. They were younger, but then my brother Gordon got on the force, and he was a straight shooter. His father had served as chief inspector for the Wound Socket Police Department before retiring, and at the time of the murder, he was serving as high sheriff of Providence County. Tempest's own brother, Gordon, was a lieutenant on the Wound Socket Police Force, and Gordon was the officer who took his own brother's first statement after he was killed. According to Ronald Vaz, here's what unfolded at the crime scene that day. A Tempest father and a police captain named Francis Lynch arrived and cleared everyone else out of the building, instructing Gordon to locate the murder weapon and wipe it clean. When Gordon couldn't find it, they called Raymond directly and asked where he'd left it. Once he told them, Gordon retrieved the pipe, wiped it down, and hid it elsewhere. Only to have it rediscovered days later during a follow-up search that was by then little more than theater. A neighbor named Terrence Galinas partially corroborated this, saying he'd seen Tempest's father near the scene that day, and two locksmiths at the apartment the next day told investigators they'd seen Gordon and another officer there, one recalling an officer holding what looked like a pipe wrapped in a cloth. They said it was a pipe wrapped in a cloth that was wrapped in a cloth that was held in place by the officer. It was a pipe wrapped in a cloth that was held in place by the officer. They said it was a pipe wrapped in a cloth that was held in place by the officer. Eventually, prosecutors finally felt they had enough to convene a statewide grand jury, which heard testimony from 80 witnesses over 16 months. On June 4, 1991, it indicted Tempest for Doreen's murder, and he was arrested the next day. He was only ever charged in connection with Doreen's murder, and the lead-up to trial got ugly fast. Ronald Vaz was run off a country road in Burrillville and beaten by people never identified. And on a separate occasion, somebody fired a shotgun at him. And then right before trial, old Daniel Shaw, he recanted his 1990 statement, claiming it had been coerced and was dropped as a result. He was a witness entirely, meaning the prosecution's opening domino was gone before the trial had even started. Tempest's defense leaned into all of it, arguing he'd been targeted by investigators so eager for a conviction that they coached witnesses into telling the story police wanted told. Tempest's attorney, Michael Kendall, had argued that new DNA evidence tested in 2004 proves Tempest's innocence. And it is true. There was no physical evidence. There was no evidence directly tying him to that basement. So really, the entire case was built instead on second-hand accounts of things Tempest had allegedly said to people over drinks and drugs years after the fact. In the end, though, on April 22nd of 92, Raymond Tempest was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 85 years in prison. Gordon was arrested shortly afterward and charged with perjury for lying about an interview he gave to the New York Times. And in July of 93, he was sentenced to seven years. And Tempest, through all of it, never once stopped insisting he was innocent. He denied the affair with Susan outright and denied any argument ever taking place in that basement. My name is Raymond Tempest, and I was convicted of a second-degree murder, sentenced to 85 years at the adult correctional institution for a crime I did not commit. I was in a police station the same day the murder happened, later in the day. In 2002, he reached out to the New England Innocence Project, and they took his case, building an argument that two police officers, Sergeant Ronald Pennington and Police Chief Rodney Rembold, had targeted Raymond for reasons that had nothing to do with actual guilt and everything to do with old grudges. Now, that investigation was a success. The investigation surfaced a name that hadn't gotten much attention before. Donald DeGessie, who died in 2011, and who, according to multiple accounts, made his own incriminating comments over the years, with an alibi that never quite held together under scrutiny. I remember I said we'd come back around to three-year-old Nicole and her describing the man she let into her house that day. Well, at a gathering after Doreen's funeral, little Nicole reportedly spotted, to Gessie, across the room, and said she thought he was the man who hurt her mama. And she never showed that type of reaction around Tempest himself. In 2014, Tempest formally petitioned the court to vacate his conviction based on everything that had surfaced. He alleged cover-up, coerced witnesses, and undisclosed evidence, and he was denied. He tried again in 2015, and this time, after digging through the full record, superior court judge, Daniel Procassini, agreed there was a genuine problem. There were constitutional violations of Mr. Tempest's due process rights that require this court to vacate his conviction. And none of this proved Tempest was innocent. It only proved his trial hadn't been fair. As a result, Tempest walked out on bail and into home court. Tempest was put in home confinement while the state decided its next move. In 2016, Rhode Island Supreme Court upheld the decision to vacate his conviction. Tempest lawyer, Michael Kendall, says his client decided within the last week to enter an Alford plea, where he maintains his innocence, but admits that the prosecution could have presented enough evidence to return a guilty verdict. Because of that plea, he was sentenced to time served and walked free after 24 years behind bars. And so after all of that, legally speaking, this case is closed. Tempest pled to Doreen's murder, however you choose to interpret the fine print buried inside an Alford plea, and he remains either way a free man carrying that conviction on his record for the rest of his life. But closed is not the end. This isn't really the right word for a case like this. Because this whole thing isn't really a question of whether Beaver Tempest swung that pipe. It's everything that happened around it. A murder weapon that vanished and then politely reappeared in a closet wiped clean. A brother with a badge taking the first statement. A father who was second in command of the entire department. Witnesses run off the road and shot at. I mean, parents of a victim. A victim got threatening calls in the middle of the night for the crime of asking questions. There's a dead girl and a woman who came very close to losing her life. And nobody is behind bars right now for that crime. And whether the machine, so to speak, was protecting a guilty man or railroading an innocent one, well, it did the exact same damage either way. It made it so that nobody can ever really know. And that's what corruption actually steals from you. Not just affairs. Not just the entire trial. But the entire truth itself. So that's going to do it for today's episode of Everytown. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed it, well, then you should subscribe so you don't miss out on what's coming next. Remember to come right back here next week for another episode of Everytown filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. Because you never know. Maybe your town will be next. I'll see you next time.