The Wall

Summary

Felonious Florida: The Altidor Massacre - Episode 5: "The Wall"

Release Date: May 6, 2025

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Introduction

In the fifth episode of Season 5, titled "The Wall," Felonious Florida delves deeper into the chilling unsolved quadruple homicide that took place in Miramar, Florida, in 1997. The brutal murder of three generations of the Altidor family left investigators grappling with limited evidence and a prime suspect whose alibi has remained unbroken for nearly three decades.

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The Crime Scene and the Mysterious Message

The episode opens with a vivid description of a critical piece of evidence from the crime scene:

David Shutes [00:57]: "Deep in the back of an ordinary, windowless building across the street from an elementary school lies an eerie relic of a horrific crime, a silent witness to the 1997 Altidor massacre."

At the heart of this relic is a section of drywall from the Altidor home, displaying a haunting message: "I want my hundred thousand drug money. They stole my drugs." This message, scrawled in black marker, has remained a focal point of the investigation, suggesting a possible motive rooted in drug-related disputes. However, the absence of typical signs of a drug-fueled attack, such as a ransacked home, has puzzled investigators.

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George Altidore: The Prime Suspect

The narrative centers around George Altidore, identified as the husband, father, and son-in-law of the victims. Under intense scrutiny by Miramar police detectives, George ceased communication and sought refuge at his sister's home, effectively placing himself out of reach.

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Insights from George's Ex-Wife: Jos Yannick Fidi

A crucial breakthrough in understanding George's character comes from his ex-wife, Jos Yannick Fidi, whose testimony sheds light on his controlling and manipulative nature:

Jos Yannick Fidi [07:25]: "A very good person. Okay. Was he demanding when we were dating? No."

However, post-marriage, her perception drastically changed:

Jos Yannick Fidi [08:32]: "He was very demanding. He was very jealous."

Fidi describes a marriage suffocated by George's obsessive need for control, including:

• Control Over Social Interactions:

  Jos Yannick Fidi [09:21]: "He was very jealous. Now, prior to your marriage, did you ever notice that trait in George? Yeah, but not that extreme."

• Sexual Manipulation:

  Jos Yannick Fidi [10:10]: "Everything was totally controlled by sex."

• Surveillance and Intimidation:

  Jos Yannick Fidi [11:32]: "He used to tape all the conversations that come in the house by telephone."

These revelations paint a picture of a man whose desperate need for control extended into every facet of his personal life, potentially providing motives aligned with the crime.

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The Enigmatic Wall: Forensic Challenges

Detectives focused on the wall message sought to link it directly to George through handwriting analysis. Multiple markers from the scene, including one from George's pickup truck, were tested for ink consistency:

Detective Ron Peluzzo [14:12]: "The ink in this is the same as that on the wall."

However, this discovery led to a dead end as the marker’s ink matched millions of others, rendering it ineffective for pinpointing the suspect.

Further forensic attempts involved a forensic tool marking analysis, akin to ballistic tests, to find unique patterns in the marker's tip. Yet, the comparison yielded inconclusive results:

JT Harris [15:45]: "The comparison was inconclusive."

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Handwriting Analysis: A Roadblock

The investigation faced significant hurdles in conclusively linking George to the wall message through handwriting analysis. Initial tests by an expert suggested a possible match but lacked official credentials, leading to skepticism within the investigative team.

J.J. Harris [20:59]: "Then we took pictures of it, and then we folded it up and saved it. And we did it over and over."

Even after multiple analyses and escalating efforts to involve higher authorities, the handwriting comparisons remained inconclusive:

J.J. Harris [25:25]: "It took six months for them to get back to me, okay? It came back inconclusive again."

Expert testimonies highlighted the challenges in matching handwriting from high-stress, hastily written messages:

Elin Bryan [26:19]: "There are characteristics in there that are habitual. Depending on the pen or the marker, the way the letters were formed, there may have been some minor similarities in the writing, but not enough for them to conclude that there was a match."

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George's Alibi: The Mysterious Phone Call

A pivotal element in George's defense is a phone call log indicating a call from the Altidor's landline to Marie Altidore's godfather's residence on the morning of the murders:

J.J. Harris [33:13]: "I pick up the phone and I say, Jesus love you. And then the person gave me like a response. And then I Say hello."

This call, lasting two minutes, placed George away from the crime scene at the time of the murders, supporting his alibi. However, inconsistencies arose:

J.J. Harris [34:55]: "My aunt does not recognize Mami's voice, and they didn't have that kind of relationship for her to be able to distinguish who was on the phone."

Further investigative efforts involved a time-motion study to verify George's claim of being en route to work:

J.J. Harris [37:23]: "I needed to determine, you know, how long does it take them to get from point A to point B?"

The study corroborated George's assertion that he could not have committed the murders post-call and arrived at work by his stated time. However, the absence of surveillance footage and time cards left the alibi unchallenged.

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Investigative Frustrations and Ongoing Challenges

Despite meticulous investigative work, the case remains unresolved. The combination of inconclusive forensic evidence and a solid alibi for the prime suspect has left detectives grappling with limited leads. The episode concludes with a sense of frustration among the investigative team as they reach a stalemate, emphasizing the perplexing nature of the Altidor massacre.

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Conclusion and Tease for Next Episode

As detectives stand on the brink of a cold case, the episode hints at forthcoming revelations that could potentially unearth new evidence or shift perspectives in unexpected ways.

J.J. Harris [38:30]: "That killed that case. The phone call right there. How do you get around that phone call?"

Stay tuned for the next episode, where Felonious Florida promises to unravel more layers of this enduring mystery.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• J.J. Harris [05:14]: "The house wasn't ransacked. So it's almost like a plot of a movie where that's completely fake. That doesn't make any sense."

• J.J. Harris [10:23]: "She goes, 'If I wanted anything, I had to have sex with him.' She goes, 'Everything was totally controlled by sex.'"

• J.J. Harris [18:43]: "He had a .38 snub nose, which is five shots. We had five shots an hour. Homicide. And he told her that I will kill you and no one will ever know and I will get away with this."

• J.J. Harris [25:12]: "We had two people, two different agencies looking at it. A third agency, you know, you couldn't get it done."

• Elin Bryan [26:19]: "No one can write the same way twice. It's physiologically impossible because you have neurons and axons in your brain firing at all different billions of different times a second."

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Final Thoughts

"The Wall" serves as a critical exploration into the complexities of the Altidor massacre investigation, highlighting the interplay between personal testimonies, forensic science, and the elusive nature of conclusive evidence. As the case remains unsolved, it underscores the persistent challenges law enforcement faces in bringing closure to victims' families.

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Felonious Florida continues to unravel the dark mysteries of Florida's most perplexing crimes, offering listeners an in-depth look into cases that have long awaited resolution.

Transcript

[David Shutes]

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[J.J. Harris]

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[David Shutes]

Venues with all kinds of character and hospitality scenery.

[J.J. Harris]

These people in this get a task valley they love when you come to see what they have to offer. I'm J.J. harris, an Ellensburg Rodeo clown and I want to invite you to the rodeo. Come hang out with us in Ellensburg. Great rodeo. Great time. Two performances on Saturday. One is the Extreme Bulls of the Year event. Do not miss the Ellensburg Rodeo August 29th through September 1st.

[David Shutes]

We'll see you there. A listener this episode contains descriptions of graphic violence that some listeners may find disturbing. All subjects are innocent until proven guilty in court. Deep in the back of an ordinary, windowless building across the street from an elementary school lies an eerie relic of a horrific crime, a silent witness to the 1997 Altidor massacre. It's stored away in the Miramar Police Department's property and evidence building and protected by a sheet of plexiglass and a wood frame, a piece of drywall about 6ft wide by 4ft high. Scrawled across the white paint is a chilling message written in black marker I want my hundred thousand drug money. They stole my drugs. This section of the wall was cut from the Altidor home almost three decades ago, soon after the discovery of the slain bodies of Teresa Laverne and Marie Samantha and Sabrina Altidore. It's been here ever since, worn down by time and relentless examination. Fingerprint powder and chemical tests have dulled the white paint. Its protective casing is dented and scratched. Six small chunks have been cut from the wall, and small envelopes containing the cuttings are taped to its corners. This unusual piece of evidence has been hauled across Florida more than once to be examined by investigators and tested by experts from at least a half dozen agencies, all of them trying to coerce the wall to give up its secrets. Because whoever killed the Altidor family may not have left a signed confession at the scene. But this wall may be close enough. From the South Florida Sun Sentinel, this is Felonious Florida, the podcast that leads you into the dark side of the of the Sunshine State. I'm David Shutes. The investigation into the Altidore massacre was focusing on George Altidore, the husband, father and son in law of the victims. Under the glare of Miramar police detectives, George stopped talking. On the advice of his attorney, he refused to answer their questions and secluded himself in his sister's home, two and a half miles from the murder scene. Detectives were struggling to find any hard evidence and were running out of places to look. All their hopes would fall to the one most obvious clue. But it was proving to be a very stubborn witness. This is episode five, the Wall. The wall where the message was written was in the family room of the Altidor home. Whoever wrote it had to lean over a sofa just a few feet from the slain bodies of two year old Samantha and her six week old sister Sabrina. It wasn't really the message itself that interested detectives. It was a demand for drug money. But nothing else at the scene was typical of that kind of crime. Edgar Gallarda was one of the first officers at the Altidor house.

[J.J. Harris]

When I'm sitting there at that crime scene, you start almost like if you were streaming something and you rewind and you play it and rewind and replay it and rewind. I kept doing that and it just didn't make sense. Okay, so you go in there and the house is pretty much in order, but you have handwriting on the wall saying I want my hundred thousand, you stole my drugs. So it almost like it makes you think, all right, so these were drug dealers coming here and they killed everybody and they want their, they're looking for their money or drugs. But the house wasn't ransacked. So it's almost like a plot of a movie where that's completely fake. That doesn't make any sense.

[David Shutes]

Special Agent Tony Panetta came to the same conclusion.

[J.J. Harris]

There was no breaking in signs into the home. The doors, the windows, everything was normal. If they were looking for their drug money, it would have been a surprise. They would have broken into the house in either door. They won't even use the window, of course, they'll use the front door, kick it in. And none of that happened. So whoever the person was, was let in into the house or was already in the house.

[David Shutes]

Still, detectives checked the Eltadore's finances. They hunted for any connection to drugs or drug dealers. They looked into the previous owners of The Crescent Drive Home. They tapped into informants to see if anyone knew of a drug related killing in Broward County. Nothing panned out. Detectives were certain the killer's message was a diversion. But the wall still held secrets that they hoped science could reveal. Maybe it was in the ink or maybe in the handwriting. While investigators worked on leads from the wall, they were also taking a deeper look into George Eltidore's past. Most of the details were unremarkable. He moved to Florida from Haiti in 1983 at age 20. He began studying refrigeration at Miami Dade Community College and took a job at a marine air conditioning plant called Aqua air. Then in September 1987, at age 23, George got married for the first time. Investigators tracked down his ex wife, and she had some stories to tell. They raised new questions about George and might help explain the unusual behavior Marie Altidore displayed in the weeks and months leading up to her murder. Her name was Jos Yannick Fidi. They met at a party shortly after George arrived from Haiti. They started dating. And Joe's told Detective Ron Peluzzo that in those two years before they married, George was kind to her. This is from a recording of her.

[J.J. Harris]

Interview with Paluzzo during that three year period. What kind of person was George? A very good person. Okay. Was he demanding when we were dating? No.

[David Shutes]

Joe has told Paluzzo that marrying George wasn't really her choice. She said George loved her, but the feeling wasn't exactly mutual.

[J.J. Harris]

Were you in love with George at that time? Not enough. Enough to marry him, but I did like him. Did George force you into this marriage? Not really. So what led you to get married? Because he. He was in love with me. And my family wanted to see me married to mostly my mom. And I wanted to please my mother.

[David Shutes]

So she agreed and married George on September 26, 1987. And Joe said that after they got married, she began to see a darker side to her new husband.

[J.J. Harris]

Did you notice a change in George from the days you were dating to the time now that you're married? Yeah, he was very demanding. He was very jealous. Did George allow you to have friends around the house? No. Not even even girlfriend? When they call me, he always tell me that they're gonna. They would find me a man, stuff like that. All right, so he would not allow you then to go out with friends, girlfriends. Okay. Were you allowed to leave the house alone after you got married? No, not at all. He was the one that do everything, take me out the shop and everything. I Never. I didn't. I didn't have a chance to do that. So George pretty much ran the household. Yeah.

[David Shutes]

Joe's described her husband as controlling and manipulative. It didn't get any better after she gave birth to their son George Jr. Nine months after their marriage.

[J.J. Harris]

Would you say George is a jealous type of person? Very jealous. Now, prior to your marriage, did you ever notice that trait in George? Yeah, but not that extreme. Would you consider George to be a very demanding man? Yes, he's very demanding. Okay. In what areas is George demanding? In sex. How often would you have sex with George? Every other day, because that's the way I wanted. Because I told him, I can do it more than that. So every other day we had to have it once or twice.

[David Shutes]

Jo said that after they got married, George would only take her out on dates if she agreed to have sex with him. Detective Peluso told me this gave him revealing insight into George's personality.

[J.J. Harris]

She goes, listen, let me tell you something about George. She goes, if I wanted anything, I had to have sex with him. She goes, if I wanted a dress, I had to have sex. She goes, everything was totally controlled by sex. She goes, and he controlled every one of my movements. He was a total control freak.

[David Shutes]

Was George just as sexually demanding with Marie as he had been with Joe's? Detective Pluzo already knew that doctors had advised Marie not to have sex so soon after giving birth to Sabrina. But in the last episode, Paluzzo uncovered something crucial. George had been sexually active with Marie not long before she was murdered, and he had lied about it. And when investigators searched George's office, they found a huge collection of pornographic magazines and videos. There were condoms scattered throughout the house. It became clear George's obsessive behavior hadn't stopped with Joe's. It had carried straight into his second marriage with Marie. Joe's continued to open up, describing George's need for control. Even at home, he kept a close eye on her.

[J.J. Harris]

You said to me before that George was a very clever and smart man. What do you mean? Can you elaborate? When he can do anything without you knowing he can follow you in the car. You don't know where he's at. He just pop up. You'll never know what he's gonna do.

[David Shutes]

And she told Detective Paluzzo that George snooped on her conversations with her friends.

[J.J. Harris]

He used to tape all the conversations that come in the house by telephone. He had them tape everything. And how do you know he taped conversation? Because one day I discovered that tape ensuring tape I don't know how they call it ensuring tape under the guest's bedroom. Are you referring to a tape recorder? Yeah. And did you have an opportunity to play back those tapes? Yeah, I did. And what was on those tapes? All the conversation that I had with my friend in that day. And did he ever confront you with those conversations? Yeah. Every day when he come, he would tell me exactly what I said, what I did and everything. But I didn't know where he got that from until I discovered the tape.

[David Shutes]

It was on those tapes that George discovered that Jose was unhappy. She had confided in friends over the telephone that she was considering divorcing him. And Joe said that when George confronted her, his behavior turned ominous.

[J.J. Harris]

Did George threaten you in any way? Yeah, he had a gun, and he tried to kill me with the gun.

[David Shutes]

As detectives were learning more about George Altidore's past, the wall where the killer wrote the mysterious message was being scoured for leads. The killer had used a black felt tip marker to write it. And similar markers were found around the Altidor house. Three in the kitchen and a fourth in George's pickup truck. Was any of them the marker that was used to write the message on the wall? Detective Ron Peluzzo took them to a state lab to find out. He wanted a technician to do a chemical analysis of the ink to compare them to the ink on the wall. And you can still see the remnants of those tests on the wall today. 12 circles written in the lower left corner. Using the markers found at the crime scene, the technician came back to Detective Palooza with some good news and some bad.

[J.J. Harris]

And he goes, here's the good news. The ink in this is the same the ink on that wall.

[David Shutes]

In fact, three of the markers, including the one from George's pickup truck, matched the ink on the wall exactly.

[J.J. Harris]

I said, great. What's the bend? He goes, ink in. This is the same as 2 million other ones. That's the problem.

[David Shutes]

One batch of ink made millions of other markers. That was dead end number one. But Detective Peluzzo and Agent Panetta believed the markers might still offer something valuable in a different way. They requested what's called a forensic tool marking analysis. It's like a ballistics test where a microscopic examination of markings on a bullet can be matched to the gun that fired it. In the same way, the machine that made the felt marker tips would have left a specific pattern, and that pattern could be compared to the markings on the wall.

[J.J. Harris]

I was hoping for tool markings because you know how you write on an Angle or you push. And sometimes those are like a sponge. Those magic marks are sponge. And I was hoping that maybe there'd be something unique or indicative of it, like a certain scratch, which I can compare them to.

[David Shutes]

Six pieces were cut from the wall in specific spots where marker strokes were high enough quality. They were sent to a lab and compared microscopically to the tips of the markers found in the Altidor home.

[J.J. Harris]

And the results were, yeah, it's possible that those markers could have been used. One of the markers could be used.

[David Shutes]

But it's also possible they weren't used officially. The comparison was inconclusive. Another dead end. And in 1997, DNA technology wasn't sophisticated enough to produce any evidence from the wall.

[J.J. Harris]

They tried to get DNA from it, but forget it. Back then, there was no way.

[David Shutes]

So that left just one more chance that forensic science could break the case and answer the biggest question detectives had about the message on the wall. Did George Altidore write it? To get that answer, they'd need samples of George's handwriting and the help of a judge to get them. Georgia's ex wife Jo's unique feedy was being questioned by detectives at her home outside of Florida. She recalled experiencing a dark turn in George's behavior after their marriage. He had become controlling and manipulative, and she said she even began to fear her husband. George had a gun, she told detectives, and he made sure she knew it.

[J.J. Harris]

You said he had a gun? Yes. Was that a handgun? Yes, a handgun. Okay. What color was it? Black. Okay. Did he ever mention to you where he got the gun? No, he never mentioned it to me. Where would George normally keep that weapon? Sometimes to scare me, in the bed, under the pillow. But I don't know exactly in the house where that gun is. Well, he put it under his pillow. Yeah.

[David Shutes]

And Joe said George would pull the gun and threaten her with it.

[J.J. Harris]

What exactly did he say to you? Can you recall? He told me he will kill me. And he said if he kill me, nobody will know he killed me because he said he's not gonna go in jail for nobody. And did he explain to you what he meant by that? Oh, no. What did you think he meant by that? That he's gonna kill me and hide all evidence, that he will never find me.

[David Shutes]

Jo has said that a couple of years into her marriage to George, she had a visitor from Haiti. George found out by listening to one of his wife's recorded conversations.

[J.J. Harris]

He find out that I had. He found out that my ex boyfriend was here in Miami, and he Got jealous.

[David Shutes]

Whenever George found out that Joe's and her ex were meeting up, he would confront them.

[J.J. Harris]

Did he ever, in any of those meetings, threaten him? Yes, he did. And how did he threaten him with the gun? Because we were in the car together, and then he saw us, and then he get out of the car, and he told me and him that he would kill us. And you did see a weapon, Is that correct? Was it the same gun you were describing to me before?

[David Shutes]

Detective Paluzzo told me it was clear to him that Joe's was afraid for her life.

[J.J. Harris]

George threatened to kill her. And he had a.38 snub nose, which is five shots. We had five shots an hour. Homicide. And he told her that I will kill you and no one will ever know and I will get away with this. She was. I had to get out of that environment. So eventually she left because she was afraid for her life.

[David Shutes]

In 1991, George and Joe's divorced and sold their house in North Miami. George seethed over the Rocky relationship for two years, until the fall of 1993, when he met Marie Laverne at 8am on September 8, 1997, four months and one week after George's family was murdered, detectives served him with a warrant at his sister's home. The warrant, approved by a judge, commanded George to provide handwriting samples to be compared to the writing found on the wall of his family room. A few hours later, George complied. He and his lawyer arrived that afternoon at the Broward State Attorney's office, where Agent Panetta and Detective Peluzzo had created an elaborate setup. The room was arranged to be similar to the family room of the Altidor house. A couch had been moved up against one wall. Then large pieces of paper had been taped to the wall and above the couch.

[J.J. Harris]

We had this room set up the same way as the crime scene, so he had to lean on the couch to be able to write it the same way that it was written before.

[David Shutes]

An investigator from the prosecutor's office handed George a black Magic Marker. And he began to write on the pieces of paper taped to the wall his name, the date, the Alphabet, and two sentences. The same words that were written on the wall. I want my hundred thousand drug money. They stole my drugs. He wrote it in cursive, in block letters, uppercase, lowercase. Every style of writing. Each sheet of paper was marked as evidence.

[J.J. Harris]

Then we took pictures of it, and then we folded it up and saved it. And we did it over and over.

[David Shutes]

Again, quite a few times, several dozen times, actually. After the Samples were collected. Detective Peluso made a note in the case file. He wrote that the handwriting examination was very promising. Pelluzzo said the examiner felt George Altidore did in fact write the note on the wall at the crime scene. But he added that while the examiner is considered an expert in his field, he lacks the official credentials required in a court of law. The official examination would be done by a forensic handwriting analyst at the Broward County Crime Lab. And those results were anything but promising. In fact, by the time the official handwriting analysis was done, Detective Peluzzo was furious. And Agent Panetta was in Orlando having a shouting match with one of Florida's top law enforcement officials. The forensic analysis of George Altidore's handwriting was over before it even started. Special Agent Tony Panetta said when he and Detective Ron Paluzzo arrived at the county crime lab, the examiner had already made up his mind.

[J.J. Harris]

We took it to the Broward county lab where they had a handwriting analysis person. And we went and talked to this moron, and we're talking to him, and the guy says, I'll take a look at it, but I'm not going to be responsible for somebody going to the electric chair. So it probably is going to be inconclusive. I said, you haven't look at it yet. He goes, well, nobody's going to go to jail based upon me saying it's his handwriting.

[David Shutes]

The analyst did the comparison anyway, as promised. He concluded that it is the opinion of this examiner that George Altidore can neither be identified nor eliminated as writing the message on the wall.

[J.J. Harris]

Of course, it came inconclusive. So I went a little bit crazy on this guy. Actually, I was asked to leave the building. Okay, I get pissed. And I looked at the guy and called him a few names.

[David Shutes]

After the name calling, the detectives decided to get a second opinion. They packed the wall section into a van and took it along with George's handwriting samples to a state crime lab 200 miles north.

[J.J. Harris]

We drove it all the way to Orlando to the FTLE crime lab. And I said, look, this is the problem. This is what happened. This is what the guy told me. I said, I have the wall here. I says, inconclusive. It's not. Now, I could look at the handwriting on the wall and I could match his handwriting. I'm not an expert on handwriting, but I pretty much can tell you that is put a name close, okay?

[David Shutes]

But the state lab wasn't listening. The county lab had already done an analysis, and that was a problem.

[J.J. Harris]

Broward county lab is Partially funded by the state, which means they're part of the network. And he goes, listen, we can't review or redo work from another one of our labs. And they said, we can't look at it. We should have brought it to them first. I became totally unglue again. The FDLE commissioner was in the next room having a meeting. So I look at this guy, and I said, let me tell you what I'm going to do if I don't get the answer from you that I want to hear. I'm going to walk into the room next door where the commissioner is, I'm going to stop that meeting, whoever he's meeting with, and I'm going to tell him that you're refusing to see one of my evidence on a homicide, quadruple homicide. And I can tell you what he's going to do. He's going to walk into this room and he's going to tell you, get your ass in gear and do it.

[David Shutes]

The special agent in charge of the Orlando Regional office took the threat seriously and ordered the lab to examine the handwriting. But Paluzzo and Panetta already knew what the result would be.

[J.J. Harris]

It took six months for them to get back to me, okay? It came back inconclusive again.

[David Shutes]

The detectives considered a third analysis, but it was out of the question at that point.

[J.J. Harris]

We had two people, two different agencies looking at it. A third agency, you know, you couldn't get it done.

[David Shutes]

As disappointed as detectives were, inconclusive findings in a forensic handwriting analysis are common. As one expert told me, determining a match can be complicated by many factors. Her name is Elin Bryan, a former detective and current forensic handwriting examiner based in Boca Raton, Florida. She's been an expert witness in hundreds of civil and criminal cases in Florida and beyond.

[J.J. Harris]

No one can write the same way twice. It's physiologically impossible because you have neurons and axons in your brain firing at all different billions of different times a second. It's impossible to duplicate your handwriting. So we accept and expect what we call natural variation or changes in the handwriting. But the habits in the handwriting, for example, like how you cross your T or dot your I or don't. Your final strokes, like where the pen leaves the paper or where it starts on the paper, where your initial strokes. There are characteristics in there that are habitual. Depending on the pen or the marker, the way the letters were formed, there may have been some minor similarities in the writing, but not enough for them to conclude that there was a match. As you would say, the layperson's term or being identified as the writer. That's something that we would say was inconclusive because you may have seen a little similarity there, but not enough to really form an opinion to be definitive.

[David Shutes]

There were two sets of handwriting examples that the government examiners compared with the writing on the wall. The first was the sheets of paper where George repeatedly wrote the same message written by the killer. That's called request writing. But Aylin told me there are problems with request writing.

[J.J. Harris]

When you request the writing from someone, a criminal who's a potential criminal, they're not going to write the same way that they wrote the suspect note, or in this case, the writing on the wall. They're going to disguise their writing as much as possible.

[David Shutes]

The legal phrase for it is post litem modem.

[J.J. Harris]

It's writing after the fact. That to make it short and sweet, the suspect, if he in fact is the criminal, the murderer who in fact wrote this, he would say, I'm going to try to make this look as different as I can to my own writing.

[David Shutes]

Investigators try to prevent handwriting disguise by exhausting the subject as they did with George Altidore. They'll require the same words to be written over and over.

[J.J. Harris]

So if they're asking him to write 10 times or 20 times, I don't know how many times I asked him to write the suspect to write this. They're looking for him to be worn out and revert back to his old characteristics, his subconscious traits. Eventually their own subconscious little idiosyncrasies will turn up in the writing.

[David Shutes]

But that's not enough for courts to accept request writing on its own. The only way it might be allowed as evidence is if a second set of samples called collected exemplars, is also submitted. Those are documents written by the subject in the course of everyday life before the crime. They could be letters, notes, journals, legal documents, even grocery lists. George had plenty of that type of writing in his office, and they were taken into evidence. I asked A. Lynne to examine George's handwriting and compare them with the writing on the wall. I provided her with copies of both types of samples. The requested examples that George wrote in the presence of detectives after the murders and several dozen cancelled checks that he wrote in the months before the murders. Even with her many years of experience, the comparison was a challenge for Lynn.

[J.J. Harris]

When you look at the suspect writing the question writing and you see that it's got upper and lowercase, it has curlicues on M's, it has very large letters that don't conform to a Normal presentation of like straight across on a signature line, for example. So this is all over the place. And what happened with my examination as well as with the police. You're trying to connect words that have different upper and lower cases in each one that like I want my $100,000. So in other writing it says a lowercase A. So you try to piece together all of these letters to try into one cohesive document. And that's very difficult to do since almost.

[David Shutes]

It was done in the middle of a rage filled killing spree. The writing is wild.

[J.J. Harris]

If it is the suspect's writing, it was a high, highly emotional state. He's writing on a wall really fast. The writing is upper and lowercase. It's written very, very quickly, you could see, but it's very rapidly written because you could see the words are stretched out in a downward motion on the wa. And it's very. It will be extremely difficult to find the exact combinations in any of his writing because this is not normal writing.

[David Shutes]

Helene spent many hours analyzing the writing samples and I asked her for her expert opinion. Does the writing on the wall match any of the examples from George Altidore that she examined?

[J.J. Harris]

I agree with the other examiners that you cannot give a conclusive opinion based on a handful of tight little similarities. But there's a possibility this known writing exemplars have similarities to the question writing. There's no doubt there's some minor similarities, but not enough to say I'm conclusively giving you my opinion that it's the same writer. There are similarities. We need more than just a handful of little similarities.

[David Shutes]

The wall was the most promising piece of physical evidence that detectives had, but it had given up nothing. Although George was still considered the prime suspect, there was no hard evidence to prove his involvement in the murders. And that's not all evidence surfaced that could prove he wasn't involved. It was a possible alibi for George. It first appeared in telephone records from the Altadors landline. They showed a call being placed from inside the home at 7:09am on the day of the murders. It went to the Silver Spring, Maryland home of Marie Altidore's godfather, Max Mundestin. Max's wife Helena picked up. It was an unexpected call, Helena told Detective Ron Peluso, especially given who the caller was. This is a recording of Halyna's statement to Paluzzo after he discovered the phone call.

[J.J. Harris]

I pick up the phone and I say, Jesus love you. And then the person gave me like a response. And then I Say hello. And then the person identified herself as Mommy.

[David Shutes]

Mammy was Marie Altidore's nickname.

[J.J. Harris]

And then I said, mommy, what's wrong? Why are you calling, you know, so early in the morning? So she said there wasn't anything wrong. She had her baby and she wanted her godfather to know. So that's why she called. And did you recognize the voice? Yes. Of the caller? Yes. When she said Mommy, because I was kind of half awake and half asleep. I didn't recognize her right away because we don't usually talk on the phone. So when she said mommy and I said, oh, Mommy.

[David Shutes]

The call lasted two minutes. If it was Marie who called, that meant she was murdered. After the call ended at 7:11am George Altidore claimed he was halfway to work at that time. If true, he couldn't have been the killer. Something about the mysterious phone call troubled investigators, and it also troubled Marie's family. Her cousin Fabiola told me that although Max Mendestin was Marie's godfather, she wasn't close to him. It's unlikely to Fabiola that Marie would have called the Mendestine's that early in the morning. And it's equally unlikely that Helena would have recognized Marie's voice. The Mendestans are Fabiola's aunt and uncle.

[J.J. Harris]

My aunt does not recognize Mami's voice, and they didn't have that kind of relationship for her to be able to distinguish who was on the phone. She would talk to him periodically, but it's not a conversation like she would call my mom more frequently than she would him. And they can search and speak with every niece, cousin, sibling in the family. They will tell you the same thing. None of us have that kind of relationship with him, to call him that.

[David Shutes]

Early in the morning. So later in the summer of 1997, Detective Beluzzo interviewed Halyna Modeston again to ask her more directly.

[J.J. Harris]

I said to her, you sure with her? Well, I think it was her. She wasn't 100% sure. Once we started getting into it, would you be able to recognize Mommy's voice right from the start? No. Okay. But during the course of the conversation, if this person did not identify themselves as Mommy, would you have had any idea who you were speaking to? No. Okay. All right. So it's possible then, that you weren't speaking to Mommy? Have you considered that maybe, I don't know, she's the one that said, is this Mommy? And of course the person is going to say yes. What did they expect the person to say? No, I'm just pretending to be Mommy. Because she's dead and I'm trying to get an alibi. Is that what you expected the answer to be? Anybody could have made that call.

[David Shutes]

But technology in 1997 could only verify when the call was made, the number it went to, and when it ended. Helena Mendestin's recollection was the only source of any other detail, and she gave conflicting statements. So because of that call, once again, the murder investigation would come down to time. Two questions had to be answered. What time did George get to work in the morning? And how long would it have taken him to get there? The second question was easier to answer than the first. George told Detective Paluzzo it took him about half an hour to make the drive from his home in Miramar to his workplace in Hialeah. Peluzzo organized a test of George's claim.

[J.J. Harris]

I lined up cars at his house with my little stopwatch that go. And I had him take different paths to his place of work.

[David Shutes]

They ran the test at different times of the day and even different days of the week.

[J.J. Harris]

I just needed to determine, you know, how long does it take them to get from point A to point B?

[David Shutes]

30 to 35 minutes. Just as George had said, it would not have been possible for him to commit the murders after the phone call ended at 7:11, clean himself up and arrive at work at 7:30, as he claimed he did. To disprove George's alibi, detectives would need evidence that George arrived later than 7:30. They couldn't find any. They interviewed dozens of George's co workers who might have seen him on the morning of the murders.

[J.J. Harris]

And the interesting thing was, nobody, as long as he's the boss, nobody really keeps an eye on him. That day, nobody could remember the time he got the wife.

[David Shutes]

George was a supervisor. He didn't punch a time cart. And there were no cameras at the plant. George's alibi, that phone call to Marie's distant relatives held firm.

[J.J. Harris]

That killed that case. The phone call right there. How do you get around that phone call?

[David Shutes]

They couldn't. The investigation into the Altidor massacre was on the verge of going cold. But this case still held some surprises. And one in particular was going to shock Marie Altidore's family. Next on the conclusion oflonious Florida, the Altidore massacre.

[J.J. Harris]

7News has learned Altidore could be arrested and charged very soon. The man was not crying. He was faking the emotion. He's running, living his life, and we have four dead bodies that never got justice. Unfortunately, we can't just move on feelings. Miramar Police Department has not moved on this case. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Jesus knows what happened and Jesus forgives. In the middle of the prayer, I said, I'm done and I walked out. We're satisfied that he can account for all his time and his activities that day. This is the one case that I never put away.

[David Shutes]

Thank you for listening to this episode of Felonious Florida, the Altidor Massacre. If you have information about this crime or any others we've covered in this series, please call Crime Stopper at 954-493-TIPS. That's 954-493-TIPSIPS. You can read more about the Altidor murders and see photos and videos [e-mail] and be sure to follow us on social media for updates. Felonious Florida is a production of the South Florida Sun Sentinel in association with Wondereed. This season was reported and written by me, David Shoots. Shawn Pitts is our sound designer, editing by Robin Webb, original theme music composed by Brian Sanishin, cover art by John DeLuca and website design by Carbell Multimedia. Gretchen Day Bryant is our Executive editor. Felonious Florida was created by Lisa Arthur and Juan Ortega.

[J.J. Harris]

From the Cascades to PDX to your kitchen. We recycle like we live here. That's why governments, brands and recycling companies are all joining together to bring change, to make recycling better. As in trusting that your recyclables end up in the right places to be made into new things and having brands help fund the cost of recycling. You can find the Latest updates at recycleon.org Oregon From Mount Hood to the bin under your desk, Together we can do this.

[David Shutes]

Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be.

[J.J. Harris]

Let me point something out.

[David Shutes]

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[J.J. Harris]

You seek it out and download it.

[David Shutes]

You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad.

[J.J. Harris]

Did I get your attention?

[David Shutes]

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