The Kickham Comment - Boston Criminal Attorney Blog

The trial of a New Hampshire man accused of murdering two men as part of an alleged love triangle is moving forward in a courtroom in Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn, with a few interesting twists.

Sean Fitzpatrick is accused of murdering Michael Zammitti, the husband of a woman named Michele Zammitti, as part of what prosecutors say was his plan to ‘eliminate’ Mr. Zammitti so that Fitzpatrick and Michele could be together. According to prosecutors, Michele Zammmitti, who was having an affair with Fitzpatrick, had reportedly told Fitzpatrick that she planned to return to her husband, and Fitzpatrick was allegedly desperate to stop that from happening. Not only is Fitzpatrick accused of murdering Michael Zammitti, he is also accused of murdering an alleged witness to that murder, a co-worker of Michael Zammitti’s by the name of Chester Roberts. Both men were shot to death on March 16 2006, outside their workplace.

A couple of interesting developments, so far in the trial: The prosecution contends that Fitzpatrick acted alone, without the knowledge of Michele Zammitti. The prosecution also contends that Michele Zammitti broke off the affair with Fitzpatrick “several weeks” before the murders – and Michele Zammitti has testified on the witness stand to this direct effect. However, Fitzpatrick’s defense attorney, Randy Gioia, successfully brought out, under cross examination of Michele, that in fact she continued to have contact with Fitzgerald right up until the weekend prior to the killings. In fact, according to her testimony under cross examination, Michele had engaged in more than thirty phone calls with Fitzpatrick between the time she claimed to have severed the affair with him, and the time of the killings. That will be an interesting point for the jury to consider when weighing this key witness’ credibility. Is she telling the truth, or is she cooperating with the prosecution to avoid charges against her, in the hope the prosecution can catch the ‘bigger fish’ here? It’s uncertain. Neither I nor any other observers can say at this point.

Summer went and interrupted again my writing again. Like everyone, I need to recharge my batteries, and as I don’t ski in winter or go hiking in spring, summer is my time of year. When it hits, I usually head south to Cape Cod whenever my schedule allows, and (so far, anyway,) my computer doesn’t come with me (though I’m sure that will change in time.) My apologies to any of my readers who’ve missed my writing.

I thought that with all the negative news going on these days, I’d highlight some positive news in the field of criminal law in Massachusetts. Many of my readers are familiar with the story of how a federal judge in Boston ruled in 2007 that the FBI, over forty years ago, framed four men for a notorious 1965 gangland murder, which none of them committed. The case came to be known as the “Teddy Deegan Murder Case”, after the victim of that March 1965 slaying. That 2007 court ruling, by United States District Court judge Nancy Gertner, included a damages award that ordered the U.S. government to pay a total of $101.7 million to the four men wrongfully convicted, two of whom are still alive, and two who have passed away. The two surviving former prisoners are Peter J. Limone and Joseph Salvati. The two men who have passed away are Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco, who died while still in prison. Greco is survived by his wife, Roberta Werner of Boynton Beach, Florida, who is the executrix of his estate.

In 2004, Massachusetts passed a state statute that allows for a maximum payment of $500,000 to a person wrongfully convicted by the Commonwealth. While this law does not prevent such individuals from seeking or collecting state damages even if they have been awarded damages in federal court, the attorney for Mrs. Greco has entered into an agreement with Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley that she will repay the state the full $500,000 if and when the federal government ever pays at least that much of the judgment ordered by judge Gertner. (The federal government has not yet paid the judgments, as the government has appealed judge Gertner’s ruling.)

In my previous post, I discussed the events surrounding the unsolved murder of Dr. Linda Goudey and the successful wrongful death lawsuit brought by her family, against Dr. Timothy Stryker, whom they believe murdered Dr. Goudey in 1993. Earlier this week, Dr. Stryker was arrested by police and charged – but not with murder. Instead, he was charged with multiple counts of perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury, bribing a witness as well as multiple counts of subornation of perjury (“subornation of perjury” means orchestrating a plan of perjury with another person.) Why these charges? Read on.

The charges against Dr. Stryker surround what police say was an elaborate plot by Stryker to escape the $15 million civil judgment that Dr. Linda Goudey’s family previously obtained against him, in their wrongful death suit brought in Middlesex Superior Court. Police investigators say that Stryker hatched a twisted scheme to find and pay someone to come forward and claim that he (the new witness) saw Dr. Goudey with another man the evening of her murder, not with Timothy Stryker as has been reported. Investigators say that Stryker attempted to use this man’s sworn but false affidavit to re-open the civil case that Dr. Goudey’s family won against him, hoping to secure a new trial, and using the “new” witness’ testimony, void the resulting $15 million judgment the court had ordered him to pay to her family. To secure such a witness, Stryker allegedly solicited his handyman and longtime patient to help assemble the plan, allegedly promising him $100,000 in cash and a ready supply of Oxycontin, a powerful painkiller often used to treat cancer patients.

This handyman, Richard Chambers, allegedly reached out to a friend in Derry, New Hampshire, who then contacted a player from his (the friend’s) hockey league, named Craig Pizzano. Prosecutors have alleged that Pizzano was ultimately sought out to play the role of the “new witness” because he had recently lost his job and needed some “easy money”. Via Chambers, Stryker allegedly offered to pay Pizzano another $100,000 if he testified in court (at the new civil trial Stryker hoped for) that he Goudey with another man the night of her murder, and not with Stryker. Carefully coached in advance complete with maps and diagrams of the crime scene, Pizzano appeared in 2006 with a sworn statement that Stryker’s lawyer then used to try and re-open the civil case that Dr. Goudey’s family previously won against him. Soon after Stryker’s lawyer admitted that sworn statement to the court, Pizzano testified before a grand jury that he had seen Dr. Goudey in her car the night of the murder, with a man who resembled Boomer Esiason, a retired NFL quarterback who has blond hair, and not with Stryker, who has brown hair.

It’s not unheard of for murder cases to go unsolved. This only makes the pain even worse for the victim’s loved ones and family. Such was and has been the case for the family of the late Dr. Linda Goudey, who was found strangled to death in the trunk of her car in the parking lot of the New England Memorial Hospital in Stoneham, Massachusetts, in October of 1993. Dr. Goudey had worked as an obstetrician at the hospital. She had also dated another doctor for the previous four years, an endocrinologist by the name of Timothy Stryker. Prior to her death, Goudey had confided to friends and family that she feared Dr. Stryker would “kill her if (she) didn’t accompany him on an upcoming trip to the Caribbean.” Shortly after making those statements, Dr. Goudey was found murdered.

Suspicion immediately focused on her boyfriend, Dr. Timothy Stryker, and while police and prosecutors never obtained enough information to formally charge Stryker with Goudey’s murder, he has always remained a suspect. Frustrated, and perhaps inspired by the family of Ron Goldman, one of the murder victims in the O.J. Simpson trial, Goudey’s family, led by her mother, Marguerite Rafuse of Concord, Massachusetts, filed a “wrongful death” suit against Stryker, seeking to hold him civilly liable for the death of Linda Goudey. If you click on the wrongful death link immediately above, you’ll be taken to that page of my web site, where it will explain more about that type of suit. As you can see, a wrongful death suit seeks to hold a person civilly liable for someone’s death, and seeks damages for the lost companionship, society, and/or support of that person. In murder cases like Ron Goldman’s and Linda Goudey’s, it can afford the families “another way” to hold a suspect who has either been criminally charged and found not guilty, or never criminally charged, civilly responsible for the murder.

Why would a family like Ron Goldman’s or Linda Goudey’s family, file a civil suit, when there is either insufficient evidence to charge a suspect criminally, such as with Dr. Stryker, or when a suspect has been charged, but found not guilty, as with O.J. Simpson? Because of two reasons: 1) Most importantly, the standard of evidence required for a plaintiff to prevail (win) in a civil case is much lower than the standard required to convict in a criminal case. In a criminal case, the state must prove their case – i.e., that the defendant is guilty of all the elements of the crimes charged – “beyond a reasonable doubt”. That is the highest standard of proof that exists in our judicial system, and for good reason: If someone is to be found guilty of a crime, perhaps a serious one where a criminal record and/or imprisonment could result, the standard of proof should be very high.

I wanted to post some final comments on this trial. I’ve been hearing a lot of talk in the past few days, about the “winners” and the “losers” in this case. I think that’s highly misplaced language, and mis-prioritized thinking. Yes, it can be said, in a colloquial sense, that the prosecution “won” their case; and that the defense “lost” theirs. Also true, in a not-so-behind the scenes fashion, careers have been enhanced here. Of necessity, many people became prominent in the public eye during this case, due in part to their hard work on this case. I would not think it unlikely that the increased visibility and stature that such a public profile brings, may advance the careers of more than one person involved in this case, even police investigators and members of the media. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, at all. Such players didn’t ask for this tragedy; they were injected into this for various reasons, and most did an admirable job.

But let’s be clear: There are no “winners” here. Two lives were snuffed out cruelly, with the same frigid touch that enveloped the outside of their house that cold January 2006 day. The survivors’ lives have been torn apart forever, never to be the same again. And once again, we have been shown in garish detail how unknowable the human mind (or heart) is: What it is that enables human beings, who otherwise give off not the slightest hint of mental illness or evil, to commit such acts with seemingly no remorse. It is equally horrific – and shameful – to have witnessed Neil Entwistle’s mother, Yvonne Entwistle – stand before a bank of cameras and microphones, and publicly accuse Rachel Entwistle of “murdering” her granddaughter, despite more evidence convicting her son that any prosecutor could ever dream of. How grossly egotistical, and pathetic. But we witnessed the same in the Eddie O’Brien murder case here a few years back, when that defendant ‘s father, following the guilty verdicts against his son, was literally dragged out of the courtroom by court officers, screaming that his son had been framed. “Framed”, with his own fingerprints left in blood all over the walls of the murder victim, and his DNA on the knife.

But the “next” heinous case will soon be here, too soon for most of us. And when that happens, whoever is accused of that crime should receive the strongest defense possible, as did Neil Entwistle here. That is our judicial system. It is the best we have. And for those who argue otherwise, they should ponder these questions first: Would you want anything less for yourself? Would you rather have a system where you are presumed guilty until proven innocent? If you couldn’t afford a high-priced lawyer, would you rather be told, “tough luck”?

And now it is over. The jury has spoken, and Neil Entwistle will spend the rest of his life behind bars in a Massachusetts state prison. In just over 11 hours of deliberations, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all four counts- most notably the two counts of murder in the first degree, one each for Rachel Entwistle and Lillian Entwistle. I was not surprised by the short period of time taken by this jury to reach its decision. The evidence against Entwistle was, in probably the most descriptive and apt word available here, overwhelming. The theory advanced by the defense, that Rachel killed her baby and herself in a murder-suicide, was a desperate measure by a legal team that did not lack talent, but lacked any valuable exculpatory evidence to work with. That was this legal team’s “luck of the draw”, as it always is with any criminal defense attorney representing a client: As an attorney, you cannot hand-pick your “dream client”: You do the best you can with what is placed before you.

Since the close of the trial, several people have commented to me about the fact that Entwistle didn’t take the witness stand, and what that may have said about him, his guilt or his innocence. In responding to such comments, I hasten to stress that under our system of criminal justice, no defendant who is charged with a crime, of any kind, is required to testify in a prosecution against him – and no negative inferences should be drawn from this. To such people who think he “should have” testified, I will caution: You yourself could be one day charged with a crime, perhaps a serious one. Would you want the right to refuse to potentially be a witness against yourself, denied you? I am speaking here more to the systemic protection afforded defendants in our system. In this particular case, personally and professionally, I feel confident that Neil Entwistle was guilty of the crimes charged here. But if I were a member of this jury, I would have reached this conclusion based upon the summation of all the evidence submitted at trial – -not on the fact that he refused to testify. Further, I trust this jury did the same, and in fact, at least one alternate juror has publicly confirmed this.

Emotions ran high in this case, inside and outside the trial. Throughout the trial, I have served as a legal analyst and commentator for not only Court TV/TruTV, but also for Boston-area newspapers and radio stations (in addition to this blog.) In the process, my opinions and my comments became, of course, public and quite visible. Some of my comments spoke to my opinion of the overwhelming nature of the evidence against Entwistle, and my opinion of how, on many occasions prior to his extradition to and arrest in Massachusetts, Entwistle acted in effect as his own worst enemy. One member of Entwistle’s defense team sought me out to privately complain of my recorded observations, and to protest those observations. While this individual had every right to do so, I stand by my broadcast and published comments. My purpose as an attorney and legal analyst is to provide the most objective commentary I can, regarding the facts and evidence made available. I’m not going to tailor my comments to suit any one person or party in particular.