Love is a Risk True Crime Short Story by E.W. Count
Love is a Risk
by E.W. Count
Page 5 of 5
Paolucci did not give up where the Caddy was, because he did not
know, but the witness did know where Lifrieri had done the murders.
Crime Scene was called to Viola's coffee warehouse, and they recovered
blood evidence in the very closet Paolucci described. He also told the
detectives how Lifrieri had lured the younger woman to Blue Chip with
a promise to pay her back. . . and how, before very long, the mother
had followed her daughter there -- only to meet the same horrible
fate.
The detectives still had no clue to the bodies' location. The
Caddy had remained where the junkie had parked it, until an odor made
it unwelcome. Viola told Lifrieri, "Get rid of the car." Mob guys
often push cars into the water, and Paolucci offered Tomasulo a likely
location on the Brooklyn waterfront. As soon as the detective could,
he called the NYPD scuba team to do a search. No Caddy.
To try a murder, prosecutors really like to have a body -- at the
very least, proof of death under violent circumstances. The Brooklyn
DA needed proof that the blood found in Blue Chip's closet was
Rosemary's. Her father, Gerald Vasquez, gave the detectives a sample
of his blood for DNA comparison with the crime scene blood. The
delicate DNA lab tests were completed over the summer, and came back a
positive match.
"In a rare move for a murder case," reported the Daily News on
Tuesday, September 17, 1991, "Lifrieri was arrested, even though the
bodies have not been recovered." Cadieux had asked The News reporter
to emphasize that point; other media noted it, as well. The PI was
sure that someone would come forward with information.
On the night of the collar, Lifrieri denied the crimes to the
arresting detectives, and lied again about what he had done with his
Caddy Fleetwood. Lifrieri occupied the prisoners' cell adjacent to the
squad room at Brooklyn South Homicide. Det. Tomasulo and the
informant, Paolucci, put their heads together. Paolucci, "under arrest
as an accessory," would be thrown in the cell with Lifrieri, and would
tell Lifrieri to do the right thing. "I don't wanna go for two
murders! Tell them where you put your car." Hours later, when Tomasulo
released Paolucci, the junkie did not say where the car was, but he
told Billy Jack, "Not to worry -- you'll find it. . . "
Before midnight that same Tuesday night, September 17, the
577-TIPS line rang at 1 Police Plaza, in the Crime Stoppers squad
office. Referring to The News article, the anonymous tipster gave an
address only blocks from Lifrieri's home. The bodies, the tipster
said, were in the trunk of a car, parked in an open air lot in the Bay
Ridge section of South Brooklyn. It was too late for the next day's
papers, but on Thursday, shots of the gray Cadillac were featured --
along with the bizarre news that since April, 1990, Lifrieri had been
paying to park the car -- a hundred dollars per month. Why he kept the
bodies is an abiding mystery.
In New York City, the Crime Stoppers squad advertises rewards of
up to a thousand dollars if a caller's tip pans out. Anonymity is key:
the caller gets an ID number, and never need give a name to collect
the money. The identity of the hotline caller will never be known.
Well, not for sure. The junkie has since died of AIDS. But, Det.
Tomasulo contends, "Of course, Paolucci knew the hotline and he knew
their rewards are plenty more than we could pay him. . . ."
In 1988, the year Rose Santoro and her daughter died at Lifrieri's
hands, more than two percent of all New York City murders were
committed by spouses (legally married, or common law) who killed their
partners. Rose Santoro never should have put aside her fear of sharing
her daughter with any man. Indeed, the story and statistics confirm
what the mother had always known, love is a risk.
