Creepy Killer Motives - Wakefield, Massachusetts

Summary

Summary of Podcast Episode: "Creepy Killer Motives - Wakefield, Massachusetts"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Small Town Murder
• Hosts/Authors: James Pietragallo, Jimmie Whisman
• Episode: Creepy Killer Motives - Wakefield, Massachusetts
• Release Date: June 26, 2025

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of Small Town Murder, hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman delve into the unsettling double homicide that shook Wakefield, Massachusetts. Combining thorough investigative research with their signature comedic flair, the duo unpacks the intricate motives and events leading up to the tragic murders.

Background of Wakefield, Massachusetts

[05:04] James Pietragallo: Wakefield, a suburb located approximately 15 minutes outside Boston, has a rich history dating back to its settlement in 1638. Originally known as Lynn Village, it became South Reading before finally adopting the name Wakefield in honor of Cyrus Wakefield, founder of the Wakefield Rattan Company.

Key Points:

• Population: 27,041 residents with a nearly even gender split.
• Demographics: Predominantly White (91.6%) with a significant Catholic population (50.1%).
• Economy: High median household income ($110,372) and expensive real estate (median home price ~$645,500).
• Community Life: Known for events like the Festival Italia and active community involvement.

The Murders

[21:04] Jimmy Whisman: On March 13, 2006, Michael Zamitti Jr., age 39, and his colleague Chester Roberts were brutally murdered at the All State Concrete pumping company.

Details:

• Victims:
  • Michael Zamitti Jr.: Shot twice in the face with a 16-gauge shotgun.
  • Chester Roberts: Shot in the back while attempting to flee, resulting in death.
• Crime Scene: No forced entry, suggesting an inside job or someone with access. Surveillance footage captured suspicious vehicles but lacked clear identification.

Notable Quote: [47:25] James Pietragallo: "They killed seven people." (Referring to a similar massacre in Wakefield)

Investigation and Suspects

The investigation initially pointed towards organized crime due to the nature of the murders. However, detectives soon shifted focus to personal motives within Zamitti's inner circle.

Primary Suspect: Sean Fitzpatrick

• Background: Neighbor and friend of Michael Sr.
• Motive: Involved in an extramarital affair with Michael Jr.'s wife, Michelle.
• Evidence:
  • Surveillance: DNA found on the steering wheel of a suspicious green F150 pickup truck matched Sean.
  • Alibi Inconsistencies: Sean claimed to have been in Florida during the time of the murders, but E-Z Pass records contradicted his alibi.
  • Threatening Letter: Sean admitted to sending a threatening letter post-murders, raising further suspicion.

Key Developments:

• Letters: A threatening ransom-style letter was received by Michael Sr., with a palm print later matched to Sean.
• Truck Evidence: Sean's involvement was further implicated by the presence of his DNA and the suspicious green truck linked to the crime scene.
• Affair Revelation: Michelle admitted to an emotional and physical affair with Sean, complicating the motive.

Notable Quote: [64:16] James Pietragallo: "You have to have something to say about that."

Trial Proceedings

The trial of Sean Fitzpatrick was mired in complexity due to circumstantial evidence and personal relationships.

First Trial:

• Verdict: Deadlocked after seven days, resulting in a mistrial.
• Reasons: Jurors cited reasonable doubt due to lack of direct evidence and reliance on circumstantial links.

Second Trial:

• Changes: The defense attempted to introduce an alternate suspect, Ricky Cali, but the court deemed it irrelevant due to the time lapse since their last interaction.
• Outcome: Convicted of two counts of first-degree murder; sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without parole.

Notable Quotes:

• [166:10] James Pietragallo: "You have the wrong person."
• [168:03] Jimmie Whisman: "She might have great kids."

Aftermath and Public Reaction

Post-conviction, the case garnered attention on media platforms like Nightmare Next Door and Investigation Discovery's "A Concrete Motive." Michael Sr. tragically passed away in custody, leaving behind a grieving family.

Impact:

• Community: Wakefield remains scarred by the events, emphasizing the thin veneer of safety in seemingly tranquil small towns.
• Legal Precedents: The case highlights challenges in prosecuting incestuous or personal motive-related murders without substantial physical evidence.

Notable Quote: [169:48] James Pietragallo: "Nobody talking about, is there an alternate juror sitting upstairs?"

Conclusion

Creepy Killer Motives meticulously explores the intricate web of personal relationships and misguided motives that culminated in the tragic murders in Wakefield. James and Jimmie adeptly balance the gravity of true crime with their comedic insights, offering listeners both enlightenment and entertainment.

Notable Quote: [170:35] James Pietragallo: "It's a crazy fucking story. Very quickly here we'll go through the end. That was bonkers shit."

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Recommended for Listeners: If you haven't tuned into this episode yet, Small Town Murder offers a compelling mix of in-depth investigation and humor, making it an engaging listen for true crime enthusiasts and comedy fans alike.

Connect with the Hosts:

• Website: Shut Up and Give Me Murder
• Patreon: patreon.com/crimeinsports
• Social Media: Follow James and Jimmie for updates, merchandise, and live show information.

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Note: This summary captures the key points, discussions, and notable moments from the episode, ensuring an engaging and comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened to Small Town Murder.

Transcript

[James Petregallo]

This week in Wakefield, Massachusetts, two people are shockingly murdered, leading detectives down a rabbit hole of enemies, business associates and possible mafia connections before settling on a much more personal motive for the killings. Welcome to Small Town Mur. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay. Oh yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm Jimmy Whisman.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely twisty, crazy, turny, bonkers episode of Small Town Murder. As usual. Hope you enjoyed last week's episodes with both West Virginia and Shabusiness in one week. Everybody. Come on. That's perfect. That's a good week. Hope you had a good time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Definitely Patreon paying off Liver King and.

[James Petregallo]

Then, and then he just, he gifts us with more craziness.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The gift that keeps on eating liver.

[James Petregallo]

That is keeps on eating testicles for breakfast. So head over to shut up and give me murder.com to get all of your first of all your merchandise. Then get all your tickets for live shows. You need to get those right now. Starting back up in the fall. I just saw by the way there's a few tickets that just got released for Grand Rapids. So if you've been looking for Grand Rapids tickets, I think there's like 30 tickets left so you can get those. Otherwise Irvine, Seattle, Philly and D.C. are the four that have tickets. So get those right now. The rest are sold out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Irvine's showing sold out too.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, it might be sold out. So there you go. We've been advertising so there you go. Now it's sold out. So cross that one off the list. Sorry Cap California, you're all sold out. Thank you for doing that. Get those right now and come see us in the fall. That is. Shut up and give me murder dot com. Listen to our other two shows as well. Crime in Sports. And if you say I don't like sports that doesn't matter. We are doing a multi part series right now on Randall Woodfield, the i5 killer who we just did all the sports stuff in part one and it was about 12 minutes of the whole episode. The rest of it is just awful, awful crime and murder and horrible.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What a guy.

[James Petregallo]

Check that out. Also youo Stupid Opinions. Our show where we look at reviews from all around the Internet and make fun of the people writing them. So that's a good time. And then also get yourself patreon. Patreon.com crimeinsports just like our other show that you should be Listening to there and you will get everything. Anybody, $5 a month or above. You get access to hundreds and hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before. Immediately upon subscription binge all of those. Then you get new ones every other week. One crime in Sports, one small town murder and you get it all, baby.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You get it all.

[James Petregallo]

So this week, what you're going to get for crime in sports, we're going to talk about a guy named Jeff Alm who is a football player who was like just the end of his career and life and everything was just like a firework. It's crazy. He's got a crazy story and a crazy ending and we'll talk about that then for small town murder because it's almost prisoner dating game time again. We're going to talk about people who marry prisoners. We're talking about people who've married serial killers. We're going to talk about people who just are looking for prisoners in the market for a prisoner and all that sort of thing. What's the psychology behind it? What the hell are these people thinking?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh boy. Is there a psychology?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, hopefully we will find out. Patreon.com crimeinsports and you get a shout out at the end of the show too. Jimmy will try his best to get your name right, but probably won't succeed because that's difficult. So do that, hang out with us. That said, disclaimer time. It's a comedy show everybody. First and foremost, we are comedians and we're gonna make jokes. But also people are gonna die. So that's a weird thing. Now none of the story is made up for comedic effect or embellished or anything like that. That would be ridiculous. Everything is insanely researched. We wanna give you the best put together, most well researched show on earth and then make dick jokes during it. That's how this works. But yeah, it's pretty crazy. So otherwise the way you do this, we don't make fun of the victims or the victims families.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why, James?

[James Petregallo]

Because we're assholes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But.

[James Petregallo]

But we're not scumbags. See how that works? So if you think that that sounds good to you, you're gonna hear a wild story like every other week. If you think true crime and comedy should never ever go together, we might not be for you. But either way, no complaining later. What do you say everybody? That said, I think it's time everyone to sit back. What do you say here? Let's all clear the lungs, arms to the sky. Let's all shout. Shut up. Give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Let's go on a trip, shall we? All right. We are going to Wakefield, Massachusetts this week. And do you know where Wakefield is? Have you been through.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I've heard of it, but I don't know where it is.

[James Petregallo]

It is right outside Boston. Yeah, right outside. It's eastern Massachusetts. 15 minutes outside.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's over there.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's only 15 minutes outside Boston. So it's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, so it's like near the Cape.

[James Petregallo]

Then, Like an inner ring suburb, basically.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, over there?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. No, it's in the water. It's over on. In the. Off the Atlantic. You thought it was north.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's an area of. I think it's like that's. Yeah, yeah, it's in the water.

[James Petregallo]

This is like northwest of Boston, I think, if I'm not mistaken, about 15 minutes to Boston. About an hour and 45 to Chicopee, Massachusetts, which is our last Massachusetts episode. Episode 560, Solving a Murder puzzle, which was a real weird episode. I remember that. Massachusetts again, always twist. Always twisty episodes in Massachusetts. They always have, like, weird mysteries and conspiracies. It's interesting. This is in Middlesex county area code 339. And also this has a weird parallel to the Karen Reed trials that have been going on. That's the other. We'll talk about that later. But it's a strange parallel to this. So nothing to do with cars or anything like that, but a strange parallel. Nonethele. So history of this town, it was first settled in 1638, so been around for a bit, you know, almost 400 years here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, this is where the fucking people landed.

[James Petregallo]

That's that. They started there. So it was known as Lynn Village originally. L, Y, N, N. Then it officially separated from Lynn and incorporated as reading in 1644. Oh, then it was South Reading for a while. And then the Rattan Works, which made rattan wicker furniture. You know that shit your grandmother had?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Fucking creeks. When you sit in it, that stuff. That's that. They made that. It was established. The Rattan Works was established in 1856 by a guy named Cyrus Wakefield, and that became the Wakefield Rattan Company. And it had a thousand employees at one time. Cyrus Wakefield donated land and money for a new town hall. So they changed the name of the town from South Reading to Wakefield. That's pretty nice. He's like, listen, I'll give you the cash, but I'll have to do a little advertising. In 2000, there was a shooting spree where seven workers at Edgewater Technology In Wakefield, Massachusetts, were shot and killed by an employee.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he was a 42 year old and was an application supporter at Edgewater Technology. And during his trial, this guy claimed that he was born without a soul and that God had allowed him to earn a soul by traveling back in time to kill nazis.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

That's what he said in court. And the prosecution said, actually, it's a lot more simple. His employer garnished his wages for the irs and he was pissed off about it, so he shot a bunch of people. I'm a time traveler now because, yeah, he's a soulless Nazi killing time traveler, or he's a little pissed off at the irs. Either way, that's what happens when you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Take people's money and they don't want you to.

[James Petregallo]

He was found guilty of seven counts of first degree murder. So.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Seven fucking people.

[James Petregallo]

He killed seven people.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

That's why it's the massacre. The Wakefield massacre. Reviews of this town quickly. Here. Here's three stars. Wakefield certainly has some things going for it, but it isn't perfect. This person's gonna break it down in pros and cons, so I figured I'd let them have the floor here. Pros. It is generally a safe town with decent schools. Okay. Lake. What is that? Quanapowit? I guess Lake Quannapowit is right in town, so there's great opportunities to get out in the fresh air. There's good public transit right in town with bus service and access to commuter rail, which is good if you work in Boston. Walkable downtown close to Breakheart Reservation. Okay, cons. Very expensive along with many other towns in the area. Yeah, it's in the Boston suburbs. It's expensive because the city's even more expensive.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's Boston.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a beautiful place.

[James Petregallo]

Nightlife isn't great. Well, you're 15 minutes from where nightlife is fine. You're 15 minutes from Boston. What are you doing? Just go there. Go out. There's many mom and pop shops that are usually closed on weekends. Roads are in overall rough shape, as in everywhere on the east coast. Snow and plows and freezing and not freezing people in this town, 27,041. So not a giant town. Pretty small for right outside Boston like that. It is almost exactly 50, 50 men and women, by the way. Women are 50.1. Men are 49.9. Age is a few years older than the usual. It's about 43.8 is the median age here. Family. It's More married people than usual. It's very expensive. So this is a. Families move here when they have enough money, basically, and they want to get a yard. So 56.6% married, lower divorce rate. People that are single with children, that's low as well. Race in this town, 91.6% white, pretty white, 1.1% black, 2% Asian, and 3.9% Hispanic. So a lot of Irish people here. I would assume there's going to be plenty of, you know, o' Connors and things like that going on, but no duels, no o' tools, no. Not an oduls to be bought in town, that's for sure. Almost 63% are religious, which is much higher than the usual. And no surprise here, 50.1% are Catholic. In this doubt, as we know, Catholics are the Baptists of the north, as we know that. 1.9% Jewish. Oh, my goodness. Amazing. We have to sing our song. I don't know the words. Hey, there we go. All right. We did that. That's always fun. Just like the Zamboni is coming out. You know what I mean? Good stuff. Low one.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I want to drive one of those one day.

[James Petregallo]

Everybody does. That's a. That's a common thing. People win.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I know. Yeah, but I never win. I never win anything.

[James Petregallo]

You go to some minor league hockey game.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I got a.

[James Petregallo]

We have a giant podcast. Go to some minor league hockey game and say, I'm Jimmy. I have a giant podcast, and I'd like to drive your fucking Zamboni. And they'll let you. They will.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fast it goes.

[James Petregallo]

They'll totally let you do it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, well, I gotta find one.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know where the minor league hockey is out there. I don't.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know where the. I don't know where any hockey is played anymore.

[James Petregallo]

No. Yeah, I don't know either. They used to have a team. There's a low unemployment rate here. Median household income here is high. Normally it's about 69,000. In the rest of the country. Here it is $110,372. Jesus high. And you need it, too, because cost of living 100 is regular average here it's 145. So buckle in for that. The housing is the one that's going to make you pucker a bit here. Median home cost 645,500 bucks. Ouch.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's how you keep people busy.

[James Petregallo]

That stings. So, yeah, you got to be busy. You got to be working, getting all sorts of paychecks. To pay those mortgages.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Your only fans and your.

[James Petregallo]

Your ubereats and every other goddamn thing your doordash. So if you have been scooping it up and getting ready to move here and in the market, we have for you. The Wakefield Massachusetts Real Estate Report. Average two bedroom rental here goes for 2,230 bucks, which is price.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

It's about a thousand dollars over the national average price. That is a lot. Now here's a house. This is your average house here. Three bedroom, one and a half bath, 1750 square feet. And it looks like a house in New England. It's got the vinyl siding or whatever.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Look at that.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, the little one. One car garage and all that deal. Decent little house. Not terrible small. Lots of 649,000 bucks for that. Oh yeah. That is like your basic average little house. 650. Here is one four bedroom, three bath, 2381 square foot. It's got a detached two car garage. It's kind of like, like from the sidewalk, it's got steps leading right up to the house there. Kind of an old house built in 1920. Nice house. 939,900 bucks for that though. 2300 square feet. It's not a gigantic house. It's good size, but.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And then we have a 4 bedroom, 5 bath T bowl for each and every b hole with one left over for the neighbors there. 4,758 square feet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, for heaven's sake.

[James Petregallo]

It's a big old house. Here it is on a three acre lot. So not a big lot. The lot's like mostly house. I'm showing you the interior, some stuff in it. Kind of looks like it's from the 90s a little bit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, it's. Yeah. Somebody is. Somebody sunk all their money into this house and.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, doing it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Much renovations.

[James Petregallo]

This looks like grandma might have died and she had a couple of bucks. This house, 1,399,900 bucks for that $1.4 million. Which is a bit pricey. Yeah, I'm going to say. I mean it's kind of an unassuming house. It looks nice but. But I would want like property or something if I'm going to, you know, if I. If I was going to pay 1.4 million for any house, I'd want like.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There'S got to be a. Yeah, something. There's got to be a formula that you should, if you buy that house, you should have to have X number of dollars because you're going to have to maintain that Fucking thing. Yeah, back east, that cost is crazy.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah. You need a new roof all the time. You need all sorts of shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And you need to update that. I wonder what that number is. Is it seven?

[James Petregallo]

I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You got to seven to have a million dollar house.

[James Petregallo]

I have no idea.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All the time.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they do. Mortgage yourself to the hilt. You don't. You'd be like, so what if I'm dead before I can pay this thing off? Who gives a shit? Yeah, I love. I love when 60 year olds take out 30 year mortgages and you're like. You're being awfully optimistic, aren't you?

[Jimmy Whisman]

60 year olds bought a brand new $2 million house.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, bank, bad bet. No wonder why your shit is making bad bets. Things to do here. The Festival Italia. Here we go. Yeah, there's my people having a festival. It's. The Festival Italia is a free, fun, family friendly. Jesus. It's a lot of apps. It's a free, fun, family friendly fucking event. Let me tell you right now. Fucking festival over here. What are you talking about? How did they leave. What? They said a free, free, fun, family friendly, and then said event rather than festival. Even though it's called the Festival Italia. Come on, guys.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Too many shots of amaretto chicken.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus Christ. What are we doing over here? Hey, everybody, put the fucking red wine down for a minute. Guys, listen to me. Listen. I want to sit around the table for an event.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

Call it an event. I'm trying to figure out an F word for the festival. Italian? I can't think of one. Can you? I don't know. Event. I say we'll go, I guess. Event. I can't think of it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

E's right before F, isn't it?

[James Petregallo]

Jesus Christ.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Call it an event.

[James Petregallo]

The organizers of this festival are terrible at crosswords. Let's just say that said it features great Italian food, music, entertainment and many children's events. The majority of Wakefield merchants participate by setting up tents and tables along the streets. Why go to the North End when you can experience the flavor of local street fair at home? That's what I'm.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's a lot of reasons to go to the North End. North End is awesome.

[James Petregallo]

It is. This is one weekend. The organizer, Selectman Paul Dinoco, said it's larger, better. It's going to be fabulous. That's what he said. We pulled out all the stops this year at the fuck out of here. This is some stuff from like the middle, like 2015 or something. There's some articles about it. And it says, as always, this family friendly event will feature great Italian food, music, mechanical bull rides which all through my childhood growing up in a very Italian family and household and area and everything like that. The main thing that we, we, I mean there was Christmas Eve, there's a couple things like that. But the when it was bull riding day, that's when everybody, all the kids, all the little Anthony's and all the little Mickey's and Vinnies, we all came running. All the little Jimmies, we all came.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Running grandma's house where she keeps the mechanical bowl.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. Everyone knows your very Italian grandma always has a nice mechanical bowl in the basement that she keeps. Tip top shape entertainment and antique car show Spin the wheel with prizes from local sponsors. There you go. Stuff like that. Also Fiat and Harley Davidson will be showing off some Hot Wheels 2 car antique clubs will be in attendance.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The Fiat dealers sending in what?

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean, what are they sending? What's their fucking hot car that next to a Harley. I hope they're not brought in on the same.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They're about the same cost.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus. But you don't want the Harley guys mingling with the Fiat guys.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's gonna be that Fiat guys about to have a broken jaw.

[James Petregallo]

It's gonna be real ugly. I don't think. Yeah, I don't think they're gonna get along very well. Denoko said the most important thing is that the businesses will be out in the street that day. We're trying to give the businesses a wakefield a way to promoting themselves in this huge event. They do. Everybody's been granted a one day special liquor license so they can sell booze on the sidewalks. Yeah, There you go. 20 local merchants have become one of the 20 regions of Italy this year. Committee is holding two contests, one for adult, one for children. Okay. It doesn't say what the contests are though.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We'll let you know when you get it. We don't want anybody brushing up and owning up on their talents. We want you to be cheating.

[James Petregallo]

They're going to be cheating over here. Let's see what you got. Crime rate in this town, what we're interested in here, property crime is about half of the national average. So very safe. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery and of course assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is also right about the national average maybe slightly or right about half the national average, maybe slightly lower. So it's very safe here. That's why it's expensive, obviously. So that said, let's talk about some murder let's talk about some people who are not so safe here. Okay. We have to go back in time just a little bit to March of 2006. So everything's exactly the same minus social media only. Only social media is MySpace. That's it pretty much. So I mean that's popular. I'm sure there was other shit going on but I didn't know about it. So that was when you had like Friendster and all that garbage too. Remember that happening? You get like a Friendster thing. You're like, I'm not joining that. Get away from.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I wonder, I wonder how many social media sites there are that are not used, that are not like insanely thousands.

[James Petregallo]

I bet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. There's gotta be, right?

[James Petregallo]

With like 1100 users.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Why isn't there more people on here? Can't get any followers. There has to be, has to be. So March of 2006, Michael Anthony Zamitti Jr. Let's talk about Zamiti Z A M M I T T I clearly a Swedish fella obviously.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Michael Antne Jr. Over here. January 18th, 1967, he is born. So he's 39 years old in March of 2006. He's got some parents obviously that he came come from here. Michael Senior, clearly he's a junior and his mom's name is Pat Patricia. He graduated from Wakefield High school, class of 85. Oh yeah, him and Marty McFly together doing it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He is going to work though. He is one of those guys that has got a family business. Michael Sr. Has a family business. So Michael Jr. Knows exactly what he's gonna do. Always. He's working there since he's a kid.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What is it?

[James Petregallo]

It's All State concrete pumping company.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh he's spraying in it.

[James Petregallo]

He's doing concrete pumping in Boston. So. And there was a big 20 year project in Boston of that big deal. So there's a ton of concrete poured and that was a big deal there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Roads and infrastructure, all that stuff. Buildings, basements. Fuck. That's a great big.

[James Petregallo]

It's a very. Oh, it's a lucrative gig. It's a tough gig though. I mean.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Hard work and it's got to be done right and it's gotta be fast when this business was started because you know, it's been around for over 20 years at this point. Think about the people that you're dealing with in the. Not only in the construction industry but the concrete specifically pouring industry, the specific unions you're dealing with and the people who represent them. What I'm saying is you got to really know how to negotiate the mafia to be able to do this business, I mean, and be legit at it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. You got to be willing to take a little price cut to get a job done so that money can funnel to the right places, things like that.

[James Petregallo]

It's tough, so. But Michael Senior is the one running it. And I guess When Mike Jr. Was young, he'd get out of school and everybody else, all the other kids would go to do all their shit, but he would go right to the concrete pumping company. One of the friends said. Yeah, friend of his said, big trucks, big toys. He learned to drive the big rigs well before he was eligible for his learner's permit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. That's all he ever. Right into concrete. I mean, it was, you're gonna take over the family business someday, son, type of thing. So Mike Jr. Never even thought about going to college because what are you gonna do? Go to college to work there? He's gonna work there anyway, so just go there and learn.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You guys got those wild ass mixers too that have the mixer on the front.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's so weird. Driving down the road, seeing a mixer that the barrel's backward. I'm like, what the fuck?

[James Petregallo]

That thing doesn't hit me. Yeah. So he learned everything about the business. He and his dad would pump concrete all the time at the Big Dig there in Boston. He saw everything. He learned how to deal with delays and labor and rising costs. And I mean, he was 18, knew the concrete business cold, which is pretty interesting. Dave Dalton, who's Mike's best friend, said his father just said, okay, here are the keys to the business and pretty much just let him run with it. Yeah, so that's. I mean, that's what every. You always hear people complaining that they're working for, like a family business and this guy won't retire and get out of the way and all that shit. Like this is. This guy was like, can't wait for you to take over.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So Mike Sr. And Jr. Were very, very good at this business too. Mike Jr. Learned business skills, learned to oversee the daily operations, learned to have all the relationships with clients and employees and everything like that. He was a member of the Operating Engineers, local number four. And he also does like sponsor stuff for the Boys Club and Lowell and all that kind of shit. So community centered too. They're all doing shit locally. Yeah, well, yeah, I'm sure they got a little league team with all state concrete on it. You know, that's yeah, Back east, there's all, that's, that's the Little League teams are all those guys. So now Mike Senior and Junior are very different in their approaches to things.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How so?

[James Petregallo]

Very different. Mike Senior is. He's a tough guy. He'll yell at you, he'll call you fuck up, ask you what the hell's wrong with you. He's confident, he's confrontational with, you know, contractors and things like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's, you know, I own the place, there's no hr. I'll tell you what I feel.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. And he'll right away say, well, you're not gonna fuck with me, you know, shit like that. So he's like that with everybody but his son. He never treats Mike Jr like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really.

[James Petregallo]

Mike Junior's not a fuck up. He's. He cultivates Mike Jr. And nurtures him here and brings him up and he's just a tough business guy. I mean, that's kind of how you have to be in that business is difficult. Mike Jr. Though, is known as being real gentle and non confrontational. He is the opposite of his dad, which them working together for years and years because they both work there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So, yeah, it's hard to play a role of confrontational while the guy that's your boss is confrontational.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. So Mike Jr. Becomes president of the company, but Mike Sr. Still owns the company and he's there. And if there's a hammer that needs to come down, Mike Sr. Is the guy to drop the hammer. And Mike Jr. Yeah. And like you said, that's how you do it. Good cop, bad cop too. Oh, I know my dad's hard to deal with, but don't worry about him. We'll get it squared away, blah, blah, blah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

One day I'll be in charge and everything will be fine.

[James Petregallo]

That's right.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But he can walk all over me and I'll make no fucking money.

[James Petregallo]

That's. I'll do nothing or I'll figure out how to be dad one of the two. So his friend said, quote, they got along great. They were soulmates. Everything they did, they did together. Meaning dad and son, Senior and Junior, they said that they, you know, they've been around Mike, Mike's a fun guy. His friend's wife said he enjoyed life, he enjoys having fun. You know, he's a good guy. Mike Senior's nick called Big Mike. They call him Big Mike because that's what you have to do. Like in my family, there's my dad's Big Jim. That's just how it Works. There you go. So they're only. They would go. They like to fix up junior and senior. Their hobby. Well, they have a couple hobbies because they have a. There's a lake house that dad owns and that junior's going to have one too. So they like going there. But they also like fixing up antique fire engines.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Antique fire trucks. So they can drive them in local parades.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where the fuck do you put that?

[James Petregallo]

I don't know. In a giant warehouse in your concrete company. Yeah, you gotta have company. Company, Right, the company. Your cumping pumpany.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's your concrete pumpany.

[James Petregallo]

Your pumpany. I got a cumping pumpany.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How do you. If you. You have to have a business, otherwise where the fuck do you store? And those things are so big. They're big, long. Even the antique ones are twice a car.

[James Petregallo]

It's. Yeah, they got it. You need at least a large garage. So yeah, they would like to drive them in local parades because people get a kick out of seeing that old shit. So they're very community based. People love seeing antique vehicles.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's the reaction to the. To the old fire truck though? Beyond. Oh, look, that one's old.

[James Petregallo]

That's all you're looking for? What else do you want? Show me your tits. I mean, I don't know. It's a fucking old fire truck. People will start just whipping it out and stroking it. Oh my God.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy shit. It's a 30 day.

[James Petregallo]

Holy fuck. It's just a nice thing for the. I don't know, for people. I don't give a shit. Who cares? I wouldn't do it. It seems like a lot of fucking time wasted for nothing. But that's what they enjoyed. They enjoyed fixing shit up and showing it off. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about the best night's sleep you're ever gon. Coop.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Coopsleepgoods.com Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

Coop makes incredible pillows. They're the best pillows. I'm a terrible sleeper. I am awful at it. These pillows are. They take me to another planet of dreamland.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, they're so nice.

[James Petregallo]

They're the best pillows. I'm telling you right now. They're adjustable pillows so you can take stuff out, you can put stuff in. There's a cooling gel in there. It's amazing. They're amazing. They're just the best pillows, I'm telling you right now. You spend a third of your life in bed. You should get a pillow customized to your sleep. We upgraded the pillows with Coop sleep goods and we think you should too. If you'd like to sleep, you really should. I'm telling you. You were telling me that the coolness. And that's my thing too, the coolness of it. And my neck's messed up, so I need to usually pillows. This one's too big, this one's too small. These you can adjust just perfectly. Really love them. Yeah, you can.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Goldilocks these into the most perfect pillow you've ever had.

[James Petregallo]

They're the best. Take the sleep quiz on the coop sleep sleepgoods.com and you can find the perfect pillow for you. There's a free pillow consultation with a sleep expert. You can do that 100 night free trial. It's the best. They have over a hundred thousand five star reviews. You're gonna sleep great. Visit coopsleepgoods.com c o o p sleepgoods.com Smalltown Murder to get 20% off your first order. That's c o o p sleepgoods dot com Smalltown Murder now back to the show. Mike Junior ends up. He's working hard, he's doing everything and then one day he gets a little bit distracted. And that is because he meets somebody that he's smitten with.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's she look like?

[James Petregallo]

It's a truck driver he meets at a job site at the airport.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yeah, that's right. He meets a truck driver.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Tell me more.

[James Petregallo]

Shows up in a yellow hard hat with long brown hair and a tall young lady's body underneath there. A young woman truck driver.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Yep. He meets himself like a. Like a hot little truck driver lady. What's up with that? Yeah, interesting. She's tall too. She's not little. Her name is Michelle Biggin. Biggin. B E G I N Begin.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, you bet.

[James Petregallo]

Someone's gonna be begging for something. So she drove trucks and rides a motorcycle to work to drive the trucks. So she's what? How many brothers does she have? Let's just say right off the bat.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She'S very close with her father for sure.

[James Petregallo]

So yeah, she does all of that. And Dave, who is Mike's friend here, said he was kind of giddy about her. He was head over heels.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who the fuck wouldn't be?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's what I mean. You meet a cool chick like that, that's pretty cool. And Michelle, she is with him too. The only problem is her name is Michael and Michelle, which is tough. That's a tough couple name. Michael and Michelle. That's rough. It's the same name.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, it's a tough one Michelle Jr. Too.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she's Michelle Jr. But she thought he was wonderful, too. She liked that. His big Italian family. She liked that. She liked the fact that he owned his own business and did his own thing. Now, Mike's sister is also named Michelle, by the way. The parents named the kids Michael and Michelle, which is insane. So anyway, there's that. And then he finds a girl named Michelle. So there we are.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That'S wild. So he. She basically goes right into the fold of his family. As far as they, you know, the Michelle's like each other. The sister, they hang out, their best friends. She likes his big Italian family. They go on vacations together and all that kind of shit. And. Yeah, so they're psyched about that and they get married. I mean, it's pretty quick, too. Comes up pretty fast and. Yeah. So one thing though, Mike, the only problem they really have in their marriage is it's tough because Mike has to work extremely long hours. He owns his own business. I mean, that's. When you own your own business like that, you work a lot of hours, period.

[Jimmy Whisman]

When you go home, you're barely home because your mind is somewhere else.

[James Petregallo]

That's why you're making way more than anybody working there, you know what I mean? Because you're the last one to fucking leave. And there it is. That's how it works. So that was kind of tough on Michelle to see that, you know, he's never going to be home that often. They're going to end up having three kids together over the next few years. They have two daughters and a son. I'll give you one guess on what the son's name is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is he the third?

[James Petregallo]

He's the third. He is Michael. Trey, my friend. So, I mean, they have a nice little family. He's got a nice business. He's sponsoring, you know, boys clubs and shit and everything. Things are going well. His friend Dave said he was just a good person. He loved his family, got out of work and he came home always. So I didn't stop at the bar for a couple with the boys or anything like that. Gotta go home, got the kids. There's only one real issue they have with the business. I mean, there's obviously normal ups and downs of business, but they have an issue with a former employee who sued Michael Sr. Over a labor dispute in 1995. Now, Michael Sr. To give you a. He's a bit acerbic. Michael Sr. To give you a. To give you an idea of how kind of a little bit prickly Mr. Mike Sr. Is. He has a beef with this guy, an employee, over whatever the fuck, some kind of labor dispute. Mike Sr. Threatens to, quote, knock the guy's house down with a bull. Knock the guy's mother's house down with a bulldozer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not yours, your mom's.

[James Petregallo]

I'll come to your mother's house and I'll knock it down with a bulldozer. She'll be sitting there fucking homeless on a pile of rubble. What do you think of that, asshole?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Wow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sitting on the fuck chimney intact. I'll take the house.

[James Petregallo]

That's such an Italian threat. I'll go over to your mother's house with a bulldozer. I'll knock it down. See how you like that. It's such an over the top threat. It's wild. So eventually the lawsuit is settled and. But the guy who had a problem with his name is Ricky Cali, K or C A L. I like California. This guy was upset with the settlement.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really.

[James Petregallo]

So he. They kind of have like a simmering beef going for some years here because he's pissed off at the settlement and he's never, never recovers from that. He's always mad about that. Now they have lake houses as well. This family, both Mike Jr. And Senior each have a lake house up at the same lake, which sounds real nice. Lake Ossipee. O S S I P E E. There you go. They have a lake, it's in Freedom, New Hampshire, this lake. And they have a bunch of neighbors up there where they get along too. There's a lake house neighbor named David Spears. And David Spears, one of the neighbors, said he would watch in awe as Mike Sr. Did yard work. You need to get a fucking life, sir.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really.

[James Petregallo]

Wow, look at him. Look at him go. Look at him with that hoe. That's amazing. He's seeding and fertilizing. Honey, get over here. He's seeding, fertilizing. You're gonna want to see this. Get the kids.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Unreal.

[James Petregallo]

Tell the grandkids to come. They need to see this. This is important.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's doing it, guys.

[James Petregallo]

He's doing it. Wow. The neighbor Spears said, I saw this guy in New Hampshire who worked hard every day up at 7 o' clock Sunday morning with his backhoe doing a project up there. Very nice, generous, giving person. So it seems like Mike Sr. In every aspect except for at work when he needs to do business, is a very nice gentleman. But at work he's like, listen, motherfucker, this is how it's gonna go.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Fair enough. No, so Mike Jr. And Michelle buy a house there too, on the same street. So they all, you know, they can hang out all the time. Everybody knows all the neighbors. This neighborhood up here is apparently they all. Everybody kind of. There's a few residents that live there year round. Otherwise people come up on weekends and do that sort of thing. So they all know each other and everybody kind of hangs out, I guess, because everybody does shit outside too. It's a lake, so you're gonna meet people. There's a guy also, David Spears, that we talked about is their friend who's in awe of yard work. David Spears has a best friend who also lives here, right across the street from Michael Senior. His name is Sean Fitzpatrick, which, I mean, I couldn't have made that up if I was trying to be stereotypical for a Boston name. So Sean Fitzpatrick. And he hangs out with everybody too. He's kind of part of the lake crew. David Spears says about Fitzpatrick. Very personable, you know, help anyone out, you know, if they had something going on, a project on the house, you know, he'd be more than willing to help. Very friendly guy, you know. You know, yeah, he's fucking, you know us a lot there. He's beating you to death with, man, that's. That's a guy who doesn't talk to reporters, I think, much. I mean, you know, sits on the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

End of a bar stool for, yeah, six months a year actually.

[James Petregallo]

It might be like a Cliff Clavin where something comes up and he goes, you know, I'll tell you a little known fact about that, you know. So they. Now, Michael Jr. Works a lot, working these long hours. So Michelle and the kids would often go up there without him to just go to the lake house and, you know, his parents will be up there, the neighbors are up there, and, you know, they just hang out. It's nicer than their house, I guess, and it's pretty up there. It's nice. So now back to Sean Fitzpatrick, who lives across the street. Now, this guy had a live in girlfriend and that relationship ended the previous year here, about 2002, 2003, that ended. And so he's kind of part of the crew too. It's the, you know, the David Spears, Michael Senior, other neighbor down the street, Sean Fitzpatrick, everything like that. They're all kind of in one big group doing recreational activities together. He would play with the kids, also with Mike Junior's kids like crazy. And, you know, the kids loved him. They called him Uncle Sean. Yeah, old Uncle Sean there now Uncle Sean is living up by the lake full time on a Verizon pension.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So they do that? Oh, yeah, I guess. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He's only in his 40s, though. This doesn't make any sense.

[Jimmy Whisman]

People not back east don't know that Verizon isn't just a cellular.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, that's true. Yeah, it's. It's the Internet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's everything.

[James Petregallo]

Company, phone company. They have the cable, too. They have the FiOS. They have all that shit. So it's a. Yeah, it's a different thing. So it's a big deal here now, Verizon, I guess. He was a lineman for Verizon, so there you go. Probably worked there from the time he was 20 and retired at 40, and that was that. And he also now kind of works part time around here and there because he's, quote, retired. He drives a septic pump truck that he said was called the Pooper Trooper. Yeah, driving the Pooper Trooper, baby.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Got a sense of humor.

[James Petregallo]

That's right. Yeah. Well, when you drive a shit truck, you better have a sense of smile.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A bit because otherwise your day is going to be real shitty.

[James Petregallo]

Everyone's. Yeah, everyone's looking at you funny. You got to have something to say about that. You know, it's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I know it's. And you know that Pooper Trooper here, smell it and fucking trash.

[James Petregallo]

You know where what is?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Christ.

[James Petregallo]

Pooper Trooper coming in. So, yeah, he just hangs out. He's a bachelor at this point and has some financial problems because it's not as pension dollars aren't stretching as much as he wanted.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And you live on the fucking lake. It's not easy.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's what it is. Now, the Dalton guy, Mike Junior's best friend, his wife Dee said, you know, why is everyone in this town with the nose, you know, on school vacations or summer vacation when most guys still have to work? He wasn't working, so he was around a lot. So when they would go up there, you know, he was around to take them out on the boat or to take them out jet skiing. So he's helping out, kind of filling in when there's nobody else around to play with the kids. We don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's why we're asking.

[James Petregallo]

We're asking. You're. We asked you if you know, and then you're telling us. So we don't know. But other than that, he has no job to go to every day. He's got enough work to keep him, you know, at least comfortable. He's got a Vanity plate. And David Spears, his friend and neighbor, says his vanity plate is 02BME. Oh, to be me. Yeah, that's his license. And that's. He told him that's what it means. Oh, to be me. Like, it's wonderful.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I hate it.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, it's. Can you imagine being that happy about anything? I'm so happy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No, it also looks like it says, like, because people that are car guys are going to zero to what? Zero. How fast is it? Zero to.

[James Petregallo]

Zero to BM me. Zero to shit me. What are we talking about? Is there poop involved in this? He drives the Pooper Trooper. Am I missing something? What's happening?

[Jimmy Whisman]

0 to BM on E. 0 to BM on it.

[James Petregallo]

I don't get it, man. So David said, oh, to live my life kind of a thing. Like, he's so happy with his life here, but he's basically on permanent vacation. Everybody else comes and goes and he stays there all the time. And, you know, he's also hooking up with the ladies. When you're a retired lake house owner, you can.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There it is.

[James Petregallo]

Hook up with the ladies. His best friend, David Spears, said he would tell me about, you know, I'm gonna lose my fucking mind. Hopefully he's not quoted as much. He would tell me about, you know, different girls that he had, you know, short term relationships. He said it twice in the same sentence. Yeah, I think he thought he was kind of hot stuff.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's proud of himself.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he thinks he's hot shit and he's liking his life here. Oh, to be me. He'd organize motorcycle trips with the neighbors and stuff like that. Get people out on the lake boating or jet skiing. He'd take out snowmobiles in the winter. He was known as the social director of the area, basically. So that's how it worked. He was a guest at the Zimiti barbecues and stuff because they lived across the street. So when there's barbecues or lunches or just having beers outside, David Spears says, oh, no. If they were cooking, cooking out. If they were out cooking lunch, they'd say, sean, come on over, have some lunch. It was very friendly, open, went back and forth. The door was always open. He got through with two sentences that's saying, you know, good for you and D. Dalton. I said the first time I. That I. That we met him was at Mr. Z's 50th birthday, meaning Mr. Mr. Z, Big Mike. And I remember saying that he was very personable, very likable. He was that easy to Talk to and very chatty. And also this freedom is a very small place up there. This is a little lake town. It's. Yeah, picture like, you know, great outdoors style joint. That's kind of what it's like. It's about 1500 people live there year round. They have a three person police department and a volunteer fire department.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Three dudes.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, three dudes. You could start a wave in this. Four people could ruin this town. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. They'd just be sheer outnumbers. You can't be in four places at once, boys.

[James Petregallo]

One person's running amok just doing whatever they want. It's gonna be crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So many fires.

[James Petregallo]

Oh man, so many fires in the, in the summer. About 10,000 people is kind of with the tourists and everything what they do. One person said this is a very small rural town. So you know, that's what it's all about. Everybody knows each other. So these Amity family, Mike Sr. At his home for decades, decades. And they always participated in the annual Old Home week parade and were well known in town. So there you go. Oh yeah, I know that one there. Every year.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Maybe they know that parade where. Yeah, my ex girlfriend's dad had one in fucking Tampa in, in Clearwater where it's the historic homes. They, they all take care of them. And then people walk down the streets and just like with old fire trucks, James. Oh look, that one's old.

[James Petregallo]

Oh God. Tampa. Here comes the rooster brigade. Here they are. Half the. Half the parade is just fucking wild roosters. So Saturday, March 11, 2006. Oh, Uncle Sean there. Fitzpatrick and Michael Jr. Are both up there at the lake house and the lake is still frozen so they're riding like off road vehicles and snowmobiles and shit around and they're seen on the frozen lake in their vehicles just hanging out talking for a minute that day. Saturday, March 11, Monday, March 13, 2006 okay, it's a regular workday. No more lake farting around or any of that bullshit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Spring's coming.

[James Petregallo]

That's right. Junior and Senior are both due at the concrete pumping company at 8am that's when they're supposed to show up along with their handyman and driver, Chester Roberts. Chester by the way, is 51 years old, part time handyman and driver and he was born in 1954 and he's from this area and has what, two sisters and a brother and all this sort of thing. He's worked here for several years and he's kind of their kind of right hand guy. He's known for his reliability and the fact that he'll always show up and he'll always get the job done. They lean on him a lot. Now, Mike Sr. This is wild. Was late because a telemarketer called him. So he is, what? Unable to get. Unable to get there in time. He stayed. He's late for work and he's like, well, let me ask you one question now. All right? Okay. You're telling me about that he engaged with a telemarketer for a while rather.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Than going, this is the guy that.

[James Petregallo]

I'm late for work. And then just hanging it up. Fuck off.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is the guy that lets telemarketers ruin his day.

[James Petregallo]

That's what it is. They made him late for work, for Christ's sake. That's crazy. So he arrived in the parking lot at about 8:03am rather than 8. So late too. Really, really a slacker. Obviously. Now he sees Mike Jr. S truck is already there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So he walks into the garage and at the bottom of the stairs up. There's stairs leading up to a second floor where the office is, where Mike Jr. Should be. Sure. But at the bottom of the stairs is a dead body. Oh, my. Which wasn't there when he left on Friday night. So he's really upset of how it got here. Obviously, it's Monday morning. This isn't what you want to see. And the body laying there face down is Chester Roberts.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

They're, you know, longtime employee.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Face down. He didn't even recognize who it was at first. Mike Senior, he said, really? He was freaked out, overwhelmed by shock. And like I said, it's Monday morning. This isn't what you're expecting to see. You don't have all your faculties about you. You were just talking. You were so out of it. You talked to a telemarketer for five minutes when you didn't have time to.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So early. Yeah. Probably thought it was somebody else calling. And that's when he just stayed on the phone. I haven't even had my coffee yet. Fuck.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, Jesus. I gotta talk to you now. So he calls up and this is his 911 call. He says they pick up. 911, which your emergency? He says, yeah, 17 New Salem Street. I just walked in my garage. I don't know if someone is dead on the floor or not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now he sees him. There's blood everywhere, body, and he's on the floor now. I guess he doesn't know if he's breathing or not, if he's dead. Or just laying there or whatever it is. This is. This is the best here. So the operator says, okay, they're not breathing at all. And Mike Senior says, quote, I don't know, hurry up. Bye. You there? Which I. Yes. I don't know. Hurry up. Bye. Are you there?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Are you there?

[James Petregallo]

You just. Why'd you say bye? Usually people say bye.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, this is why. He was on the phone with the telemarketer for 10 minutes.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he's a buy. You there?

[Jimmy Whisman]

He does not hang up.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, I don't want any of your bullshit, okay? No, I don't want it. You don't take me off of your list. You there? Hello? Johnny? Johnny, don't leave me. I know we were talking for a minute here, so hurry up by. You there. Which is. That tells you that he's got to be in some kind of weird headspace. Shock. Yeah. So the operator says, yes, I'm having someone over there. Right over there, right away. And he says, senior says, all State Concrete. Jesus. Like, I don't know if he's saying Jesus at the scene or Jesus, you fucking dummy, because you don't know that it's all State Concrete. I'm not sure, but I think he's probably situation himself.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, he just gave the address. He's like, why don't I give him the name of the company? Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

God, I'm an idiot. Jesus. Yeah. The operator says, ulster All State Concrete. He says, yes. And he hangs up. That's it. So normally they'll keep people on the line, go check if that person is breathing. This guy's like curtness just made her go, well, we'll just hang up and we'll just send someone there. I don't think he's going to listen to me. So Mike Sr. Then looks around and he says, well, that's not Mike Jr. On the floor. Yeah, so where the fuck is Mike Jr? Because his truck's outside. Yeah, so where is he? So he goes up the stairs to the second floor office, and when he opened the door, he finds this. And this is what's described by Massachusetts State Trooper Kevin Baker. He says, quote, Michael Zamitti Jr. Was in a chair, seated, and he had been shot in the face. Shot twice with a 16 gauge shotgun in the face. Twice, as that lady in Colorado said, twice. One non lethal wound to the left side of his face, so must have just grazed him. And then one very lethal wound to the other side of his face that killed him pretty much instantly, they said. But shot twice. Boom, boom. Real close range. In the room.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a double barrel. And they both came at him at the same time because otherwise you get hit once that doesn't die.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Either that or he just fired twice and hit him, you know, bang, bang type of thing. He might have done it and cocked it again. So either way, then they. They. From what they put together and what everybody puts together, Mike Sr. And the police here, they figure that when the person came back down the stairs, they think Chester was probably running upstairs to see what the noise was, because the way he fell in, the way he is, he shot in the back with a shotgun, laying at the bottom of the stairs, laying face down away from the stairs. So looks like he saw what was going on, tried to run away, and just got shot in the back as he was just getting out the bottom of the stairs. So that's. That's brutal. So that's. They're looking at this and they're like, holy shit, somebody meant business. Like, this is like very professional. You know what I mean? Walk in undetected. Boom, boom. Very efficient. Two shots to one guy's head. Next, you know, no witnesses. Take this guy out in the back. Usually if it's something emotional, like, they don't really care if there's witnesses. They don't think about that. It's not the point of it. So they said. The cop that arrived said, unfortunately, our only eyewitness was Chester Roberts, and he was brutally killed. Because he was an eyewitness, probably. They're thinking. They're thinking it's probably not him. He probably wasn't the target.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Likely. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So Mike Sr. Waits for the police until they get there. He calls his wife. His wife calls Michelle, Mike Jr. S wife. So, you know, this is all rippling out into the family at this point. Now. Now, Mike, the auto shop owner nearby, because there's a bunch of shops here, guy who owns an auto shop nearby said about Mike Sr. I saw him holding his heart and pointing inside the building. So he leaves and ends up calling an ambulance because he thought he was having a heart attack.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, you can't see your son like that.

[James Petregallo]

No. And, yeah, he. They said that when he. The person who watched him come out of the shop to meet the cops said that he watched him come out and he just looked overwhelmed. And, you know, the guy said. He said it was just devastating to watch the guy do this. It was crazy. So anyway, he goes to the hospital for a possible heart attack. Turns out it wasn't a heart attack. It's just. Just Overwhelming stress and yeah, you know, just horror, you know, the worst horror you've ever experienced. You know, something like that. Your. Your fucking son dead. So the crime scene, like we said, Michael is Jr. Is found at his desk, shot with the shotgun. Chester is found near the entrance at the bottom of the stairs with a shotgun wounded in his back. They do identify a 16 gauge shotgun as the weapon used in the murders. They don't have the weapon, but they know that's what was used.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow. That means there was a slug.

[James Petregallo]

So they also, you have to be able to even know where, okay, what it was. So the investigators also found no indication of forced entry into the premises. So that would mean probably because when they get there, I don't think they lock the doors behind them. They must have came after, otherwise they would have somebody lying in wait. They would have had to break in, basically. So the chief of police here said, we have been very fortunate and we for the last six years have not had any murders. And now there's two. The last murders before that were the soulless time traveling Nazi killer, Michael McDermott. Yeah. Who killed the seven workers at a software company. Yeah. So that's the last. That was December 26, 2000. So it's been over five years since they've had any murders in this town at all. Now they're finding, looking into this and they're figuring out how Chester died here. They're figuring out that Chester, he probably witnessed, you know, he witnessed whoever did this with, with Michael Jr. And tried to flee and got shot in the back. And the. One of the detectives says it does appear, given the location at the bodies, that he may not have been the intended target of this and that he may have just happened upon the circumstances. Wrong place, wrong time, just poor bastard. Basically this poor Chester Roberts guy. So they're gonna investigate, obviously. Now Mike Sr. Was telling the officers over and over again, quote, they killed my son. They killed my son. They, they, that's the thing. So the cops right away are like, who the fuck is they? He seems to have an idea of something. And they, and the main investigator here said there were a million stories, a million rumors, a million innuendos that were out there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

So as we know what that means. That means that was this a professional? Was this a mob hit? Did they piss off the wrong person and not do it? You know? Yeah. So who the fuck. I mean, because if you've ever watched the Sopranos or know anything about the mafia people with companies like this, they'll have people launder Shit, there's no paid jobs they get sometimes and stuff like that. They, you know, work with mob guys a lot. Not saying that these people did at all. It's not what I'm trying to imply. I'm just saying that that's common in this business.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Forced to. Because that's just what's going on. That's how the business is run out here.

[James Petregallo]

And it's one of those things where you can either do it or then go brat on the mafia. Those are your options. So it's like.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And sometimes backwards, backwards cement trucks explode. So, you know, you never.

[James Petregallo]

I know what happens. That's what I mean. Be careful. None of their tires ever work. You know, things like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Concrete gets real hot when it mixes.

[James Petregallo]

It does, it does. It'll freeze up the way you don't want it. So the trooper also said this case from the beginning was a legitimate best way to describe it. It was a whodunit, which is how detectives always describe when they get a mystery homicide case. It's a whodunit. So. And also at this point they're trying to do the crime scene and it's freezing rain outside. So that's ruining anything that could be outside. Footprints, tire tracks, anything like that's being destroyed by the rain. And they said, also looking at the scene, they said it wasn't a situation where there'd been a robbery or like hand to hand struggle. They said Chester Roberts had been shot in the back. Yeah. And clearly Michael Zamiti had been shot in the face. And it appeared more that the person had targeted him, meaning Michael. Nobody struggled. So the guy probably had a shotgun out, didn't spring it on him, you know what I mean? It probably was out to be seen. That's why they didn't struggle. Now they're looking into this, trying to find anything, canvassing the whole area because they have nothing at this point. It is just a ghost came in and did this. So they received numerous potential leads. People described seeing at least two suspicious vehicles in the area of New Salem street that morning. And Michael Sr. Provided police with several names of people with whom he'd had contentious business dealings as well. This is anybody from somebody unhappy with the cost of a job to the guy he fired in a lawsuit with 10 years ago or whatever the fuck. So there also is evidence from surveillance cameras along New Salem street showing Michael Jr arriving at the Allstate Company here at approximately 7:40am okay, now Chester stopped to speak with two friends along North Salem street between 7:30 and 7:45 so he was early. So he's like, I'll stop. And they think likely arrived, you know, 10 minutes after Michael Jr. And Michael Sr. Telephoned the police at 8:04am so this is a very tight time window here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure it is.

[James Petregallo]

This is between, you know, about a 14 minute time window. Although I guess Junior could have been dead already with the culprit waiting up there and lying in wait for somebody up there. But either way, real tight time window. Yeah, it had to have happened. That's good. That narrows a lot down. Yeah, when there's a bigger time window you can't. Then it's harder to build these timelines. So there's figuring out why the cops are thinking, is it a business score? Is it something related to their concrete pumping jobs at the Big Dig deal in Boston? Did they piss off the wrong people? Is it some other company that wants to move in on them? Because that's the other thing too. If you're not a mobbed up company and there's some mobbed up company, they try to push your ass out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

So you remember the garbage companies and the Sopranos. You're not satisfied, double your garbage back. That's our policy. It's one of those things. So I love that. Dumping it in his fucking parking lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Double your garbage back.

[James Petregallo]

No shit. Now there's an interview with the trooper Baker here and some of it's from newspapers, some of it's from Dateline. So there's a kind of patch together here. And the interviewer says, my first inclination, if I had heard about such a thing would be to think, oh my God, you know, concrete company double murder, weekday morning. This is a mob hit. Yeah, clearly. And the officer said that was something that we had to consider but we had to follow the evidence and where it led us. And we couldn't draw any conclusions based upon just speculation. We couldn't just go, these guinea concrete fucks obviously are involved with the mob and got shot, case closed, nevermind walking away. So. So that he said it was a. If it was business related, the killer or killers may have hit the wrong Z as well. Oh, they might have said, he'll be up in the office, you go shoot him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The boss, they got the wrong guy.

[James Petregallo]

They got the wrong guy and not the guy they're pissed off at either. And they even said that they said Mike Jr. Was soft spoken and easygoing and his father was hard driving and didn't take shit from anybody. So they said, you know, the father is way more likely to have enemies than the son. So now that's. Now they have to go outside both of their circles for this because they don't even know who the intended fucking target was.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Which is at least they know Chester wasn't, because otherwise they'd have to have that whole world opened up, too, to see what. Maybe he's the target. So here's a comment from the friend Dave Dalton, that is Mike Junior's best friend and best man in his wedding, the interviewer asks him, there were some people around who thought, well, you know, the right kind of business they're in. They're in the concrete business. That's, you know, rough. Tough guys in that business. Just say it, dude. Just say it. Are you kidding me? How much are you going to dance around it?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just.

[James Petregallo]

You're saying it anyway, so just say it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, and. And, I mean, there was Whitey Bulger back there. The Boston is chock full of bad dudes.

[James Petregallo]

Chock full. And we've heard a lot of Boston mob stories, too. Remember, we heard from people that owned back there. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a. It was very much a mob town, especially any business involved with construction or booze or food, you know. So Dave Dalton, the friend said, of course, concrete Italian wasn't fair, but that's the stereotype. He at least said it. Yeah, you know, just. He didn't say Italian yet. Because that's what you're trying to say. If this was fucking three German guys, you wouldn't be talking about this, would you?

[Jimmy Whisman]

It is very funny that the fact that there's no money in comedy was the reason that he didn't get shot, shaken down by them.

[James Petregallo]

That's amazing, isn't it? The fact that comedy is so not lucrative that they were like, I guess, leave this fucking guy alone. What are we gonna shake him down for, 12 bucks? Fuck this guy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's so funny.

[James Petregallo]

He's probably losing his ass on this place. As a matter of fact, we're gonna do. Go ahead and pay for our drinks. I know you offered to do them for free, but this place is gonna shut down, for Christ's sake. What are we doing?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sorry, feel bad.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, my God. In this fucking place. This is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

If I pay you protection, I may as well close the doors. I don't make enough money anyway. And they're like, oh, really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So we could just come in for free sometimes he's like, all right, that's a good enough. That's fair.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Come around sometimes. It's fine.

[James Petregallo]

That was great. In Boston, we got to Talk to a guy who's been in the comedy and entertainment and bar business for 50 years, and his stories were phenomenal. We spent two hours talking to this man before the show. Like, we were upset. Our music was playing and we're like, ah, shit, we gotta go do this show now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We gotta go to the show right now.

[James Petregallo]

Wait here, though. We'll be back. He was great. Love that goddamn guy. So, yeah, and Mike Sr. He should have been there, too, also, because he was supposed to be there earlier. Just the telemarketer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Telemarketer saved his life.

[James Petregallo]

Telemarketer saved his life. Isn't that amazing? Wow. That's incredible.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I was talking about term life insurance. Well, I got about 10 minutes.

[James Petregallo]

That blew me away. When I was first, I was like, wow, this guy's life was saved by a telemarketer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

So that's. Yeah. So they're really. They don't know who this was intended for or if both of them were supposed to be the target. And if that's. So, then Mike Senior better watch his ass because he didn't get hit. So, yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

There's going to be somebody looking for him now. Still.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's better than college pussy saving.

[James Petregallo]

That's even better. Yeah. It really.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is so much better that he was inconvenient. Seth was having fun. This guy was inconvenienced.

[James Petregallo]

Seth was. He was hungover too much to get to the airport on time. So he was. Life was saved.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. This fucking guy, he's just sitting there haggling and arguing and then hangs up the phone and then stumbles upon a fresh murder.

[James Petregallo]

I picture him, like, twirling his car keys in his hand when he's on the phone because he's got to go, you know. All right, okay. So the cop said, here we followed, and I mean extensively followed leads that had to do with the business and any conflicts the business had and has had over the past decade. We went back and they said there were some disputes that the company had had, but certainly no disputes that would have arisen to the level that would have resulted in a murder. Nothing. That was, like, crazy. The only thing was that Ricky Kali thing, but that was 10 years ago. So as he held that. That deep of a grudge for 10 years. And he also said, and it was only natural to have employees that might have left over the years that were maybe dissatisfied with the reasons they left. Yeah, I'm sure you fire plenty of people in the concrete business. So he said, we talked to those people. We followed up on every dispute that we became aware of. And we were able to rule out those people having anything to do with the double murders. Okay? So it's not a simple, I got fired last year and I'm pissed off about it. So they decide to look all around. They're pulling surveillance videos and everything like that. Allstate does not have any surveillance cameras outside.

[Jimmy Whisman]

2006.

[James Petregallo]

2006. I don't know if they're like, what are they going to steal? Concrete maybe, I guess. But you could steal equipment, trucks, probably. Plenty to steal there. So they talked to the companies all up and down the street because it's an industrial area. And the officer said, we talked to many, many people, neighbors, friends and people that the family identified to us that they thought should be talked to. So other people they were suspicious of, maybe that guy, you know, we had beef with this, this guy said some shit seems dirty. So the officer said, we simply couldn't find any angle, any lead, anything that would lead us to believe that the Zamittis had a problem with someone that would have committed such a horrific crime. They said there was nothing they could find. They said, if there's any connection in the business part, we're missing it. Basically, we can't figure it out. And they basically, they were looking for some kind of beef. And if that turned into a mafia thing, it would be business related and that would come. But there's no talk of that of anybody. You know, some guy was shaking him down, some guy was putting pressure on him. That never comes up. And Mike Sr. Would have known that and doesn't say anything about that. So they said, what the fuck? So like, maybe a family member did this. Maybe this is a real inside job of somebody that's pissed off. So they said that they think Chester is the key to the whole thing because they know that he's not the target. So they're like, Chester's kind of the key to this shit because he sets up also the time. He gets there, sets up the timeline of events, right? And the time. Basically this guy had to be in and out of there basically between he left sometime between 750 and 803, probably 8:02 because of when Mike would have seen him pull it in. Mike sr. So it had to be before that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It was such a tight window.

[James Petregallo]

Such a tight window. And Mike Sr. Is extremely fucking lucky it's such a tight window he didn't walk in right up to a barrel of a shotgun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sincerely.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, so, yeah, it's very interesting. Okay, so a Letter is going to arrive at the Zamitti house while this is all being investigated. Okay, this is, this is crazy. Okay. They're pursuing all these leads and then Mike Sr. And Pat get a letter in the mail. And it's a threatening letter. Oh, it actually is like an old fashioned ransom letter with letters cut out of newspapers and magazines to spell words.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I was told that's what you're supposed to do. That's what I.

[James Petregallo]

It works.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I saw this in a movie a hundred times, so I guess it works.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You gotta, you gotta cut out a comma sometimes you gotta make sure that.

[James Petregallo]

You gotta cut out everything. You gotta have gloves on with little glue stick doing it. And you're like, it's crazy. That's a lot of work.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Scalpels, tweezers and glue.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And you have to use from different publications so they can't pin it down to one thing. And it's, it's a lot. So if they actually get a. If your son's just been murdered and then you get a note like that, it's gonna make you a little nervous. Especially that it says, wow, quote, close business now or more family will die.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Dang.

[James Petregallo]

That sounds pretty direct into the point, right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Very specific.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, very specific. And imagine seeing that in cut out fucking psychopath ransom letters. That's crazy. That's wild. So they were like, holy shit. They freaked out. They called the cops. They told that. And this was just as the cops were about to tell Mike Sr. Look, we don't think it's anything business related and start looking into the personal stuff. They get this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They get a letter.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, they're like, fuck. So they get forensic experts to go over the letter looking for anything they can. The letters are cut out. So obviously a handwriting sample isn't gonna work, but they're gonna find a palm print on the envelope of the letter.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whoops.

[James Petregallo]

So. But they don't know whose palm print that is. They don't know if it's the mailman's palm print. They don't know if it's a sorter's palm print. If it's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's on the outside.

[James Petregallo]

On the outside of the letter. Yeah. So it's. Who the hell knows what's going on? It's on the flap of the letter though. So I don't know if it's inside or outside.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

That could be either one. So this is like, this is interesting now. So they talk to everybody. They talk to all their personal friends too. And a lot of that is the lake. So they have to go up to the lake and talk to all these people because that's their social circle, essentially.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Lake people are fascinating.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, they're a fascinating bunch. Especially people who. People who go once a year. Yeah, they just, you know. Yeah. They got a couple of towels that they specifically have for up there and maybe a floaty or two and that's about it. Otherwise, that's my little brother. They go to Lake George for like two weeks because my sister in law's family has a house up there. They go for like two weeks. They do all their shit. But like some people go in the family go up there like constantly and they're lake people. They just stay and hang out and they're just lake people. Yes, it's lake people. Lake people. Lake people are. Well, they're a fun bunch. They like to drink.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Boy, do they like to party.

[James Petregallo]

They like to party.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Boy, do they hate clothes. Right around 8:00pm oh, yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

They don't like any of that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A lot of titties out. A lot of dicks out.

[James Petregallo]

A lot of dicks out. Food must be cooked only on an open flame.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Loose definition of relationship.

[James Petregallo]

What lake are you going to?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy. The lake people of Arizona, James.

[James Petregallo]

Old people. That is creepy. Yeah. The east coast, it's not quite like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No, it's. It's a. Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Arizona. The lake people are trash. That's why.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean.

[James Petregallo]

People are trash in Arizona.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The sun just rots them.

[James Petregallo]

East coast, like classy people go to lakes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You know what I mean? Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No such as in Arizona.

[James Petregallo]

It doesn't exist, man. No, it's trash.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Those are bad people.

[James Petregallo]

Not good. So anyway, they're, they're. This is wild. So they get up to the New Hampshire and they're talking to people. And the weekend before, they had been in New Hampshire just two days ago. So they thought, you know, that could help. So they said they looked around and they heard that Mike had talked to Uncle Sean out there on the lake.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So they were like, okay, you know, that's fine. And they look at, look through all this type of shit and try to figure this out. Then they find something out here. They find out that in August 2005, and this is from Pat, Mike Jr. S mom here, that at one point in the lake, at the lake house, she caught Michelle and Uncle Sean in an embrace.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A hug or worse.

[James Petregallo]

Worse, Mouth hug. They. We don't know. All she'd say is an embrace, but not a friendly embrace. He had his hand on her tit, probably. And yeah, it was. Yeah, it wasn't nice to see a quick hug type of deal.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So at that point, she, you know, was fucking told Michelle, look, I told you what I saw what happened, blah, blah, blah. So Michelle says they start going to marriage counseling at that point. And that's going on so that she said her marriage started to improve, but she ends up carrying on an affair with Uncle Sean.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they found out that it began as an emotional connection in 2005, and then it obviously turned into fucking after that because they are at a lake. So, I mean, he set dicks out. I'm telling you, dick's out at the lake.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Loose definition of relationship.

[James Petregallo]

They do start drinking at noon at the lakes too. So that's. By the time it's dark outside in the summer, they've been drinking for eight, nine hours.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And mimosas with breakfast, man, they are.

[James Petregallo]

It's a lot by 11. That is crazy. So that sounds like good for a nice afternoon nap is what that sounds like.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, but these people do not. Because then you have a jet skiing adventure.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, my God, what a nightmare. I'm not a lake person. I am just not a lake person. I can't do that shit. I have no interest in that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, that sounds awful. It's too much. I'm here to relax, but I'm constantly having to do shit, leave me alone.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't like lakes with the sun up. I'd much rather have the sun down, some light going, you know what I mean? Some underwater lights, some drinks and some weed. Let's actually enjoy ourselves.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, I like to sit near water. That's what I like. I like to sit near it, hang out by it, hear it moving near the water.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not on the water, not in the water.

[James Petregallo]

That's it exactly. It's much better. So now, after discussing the incident here, the hugging incident or embracing incident, Michelle started to first distance herself from Sean. Although she said she tried to attempt to maintain on cordial terms with him for the sake of the kids. Because the kids are always up there and they really like him. So, you know, she still wants him to go out on jet ski adventures with their Uncle Sean there. So, you know, all of that. And in order to deflect the suspicions of her in laws and neighbors. So if they just. If she just cuts off cold turkey, won't talk to him, it's gonna look very suspicious.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Like, what the hell does look weird. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

What the hell were those two involved in? Where they. Why would they even have anything that would cause any kind of emotional anger. So the cop said, well, we had discussed at length with the families anybody that they could even fathom that might have animosity with their family. And Michael Zamidi Jr's mother had indicated to us that there was a person in Freedom, New Hampshire named Sean Fitzpatrick that on one occasion she had seen her daughter in law in an embrace with Shawn that she deemed in her opinion to be inappropriate for a married mother to have been in. Oh, so yeah, that's very interesting. So she said that she saw that and she went to her daughter in law and said, listen, you gotta end this shit. I saw what you did, you know, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, this is all going on. Sean is urging Michelle to leave her husband. Oh, she's saying, lee, he's in. Leave Mike, man, leave him. You don't want me live up here. You don't even have to be down there. You and the kids and a lake. We got it all, babe. So, yeah. But then In December of 2005, Michelle had informed him that she wanted to end the relationship. Okay, this is, you know, they're going to marriage counseling. Her and her husband are going to marriage counseling and everything like that. And he, rather than want them to reconcile and go to marriage counseling, he keeps saying, be with me more. Get rid of him, do all this shit. So the affair continues. Despite lip service and counseling and everything else. She's still hooking up with him up there, which is interesting. And he, knowing that people were suspicious, he told everybody that he got back together with his ex girlfriend. So he's got a girlfriend now and he's, you know, oh, when I'm gone, I'm with my girlfriend and all that kind of shit. So to deflect suspicion, like, oh, he's not having an affair with her because he's got a girlfriend, you know, not like she doesn't have a husband. So now she tried, like I said, trying to end things. And the officer said, I think that they discussed it and it was very clear that the family did not approve of the relationship. Well, obviously now, yeah, she says it's over. But he does not taking no for an answer. February of 2006, she actually, he kept saying, come see me, come see me. So she went up there and met him and he had prepared like he was all ready for this to be a big romantic weekend. He had prepared a bunch of shit, I don't know what the fuck about. A bottle of wine and some. Plucked a couple of roses and spread Them around his house or whatever the shit he did to him. Whatever he thinks is romantic. Yeah. And again, tried to persuade Michelle to leave her husband. They said, though Michelle made clear that she would not leave her husband, and she said this to him, that the only way that we're going to ever be together is if either Mike leaves me or if something happens to him, I'm not going to leave him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay?

[James Petregallo]

And that was the quote. If he leaves me or something happens to him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. So Sean became angry and pounded his fist on the table and shoved her into her car and slammed the door.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Get out of here.

[James Petregallo]

I wonder if he covered her head like cops do when they shove you in the back.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Watch her head.

[James Petregallo]

He, like, did that. Turned the key on, put it in gear, and, like, watched her start rolling with the door still open. So that's what he did. Slammed the door shut. Which shows a little bit of a. That's kind of a weird.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's a little crack.

[James Petregallo]

A little violencey there. I usually don't shove people into their cars, generally. So. In the weeks leading up to the murders, Sean continued to press Michelle to leave her husband. And he told his best friend David there that a job offer he recently got was not. I guess that's the pooper trooper. Was not enough to support a family of five. He has no kids, by the way.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why would.

[James Petregallo]

But he needs to be able to support a family of five because he said, he's trying to figure out a way to be with Michelle and have her kids there, too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Sean.

[James Petregallo]

Sean. Dude, this is. This is a lake fuck sesh, bro. Like, you gotta chill out. Chill, bro. This is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Even the guy in the great outdoors didn't get the girl for very long.

[James Petregallo]

For a little while, they kissed in a boat. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You have a. You have a cruel summer, man.

[James Petregallo]

You get a hand job in a boat. That's it. That's life.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wake up some leeches and go home.

[James Petregallo]

Go home. That's how it works, man. So this is. He says he's in love with Michelle and all this type of shit. So when the cops hear about this, they're like, this is the only lead we have. I mean, we got to look into it. So after they learn about this, they suspect that he might have been responsible, but they had no evidence connecting him to the scene, and nothing was really popping up. So they're like, okay, well, this isn't really yielding anything. So I guess. Michelle said that she and Sean began the affair during a time when she was not happy with her marriage. And that Sean listened to her problems and was there for her. I bet he was that old chestnut. Yeah. He was like, oh, really, Zip. As he, you know. Oh, that's horrible. Zip.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm so sorry.

[James Petregallo]

Just put your hand right here. It's okay.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It deserves so much better. Like this.

[James Petregallo]

Just put this in your mouth for a minute. You'll feel much better.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Like, I want to take the jump through the room.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. He also described how the relationship. She described how the relationship turned physical and how he envisioned their life together with her and the three children and everything. A little picturesque little family. So the detectives were like, holy shit. So the officer Baker here, who's investigating, said, in a case like this, our initial activity is to go and lock everybody in on a statement.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And he said, you know, that's obviously. Then we'll figure out if anybody's lying. Now, when police asked Michelle about her mother in law's discovery about the affair, because this all came from Pat.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

She denied it all.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

She said, I didn't have an affair with Shawn to the cops.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she said, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. Then two days later, the investigators came back to the house to talk to her again. And Officer Baker said, she pulled us aside and said, look, there's something I need to tell you. I've been involved in a relationship with this man, Sean Fitzpatrick, and I'd like to come sit down and explain that more fully. In other words, I'd like to come tell you why I lied to you about this and made myself look so guilty just now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Carve out an afternoon. I'm going to tell you some filthy stories.

[James Petregallo]

I got some shit. You ever hear of, you know, what goes on at a Lake past 10 o' clock? Ever hear that whoever's not passed out has a dick in them, let's just put it that way. And even some that are passed out, it's the lake, you know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, whatever.

[James Petregallo]

You know, as the. This goes, you know, you know, he said, she said, because I'm concerned that that might have something to do with what happened here. So now she's concerned. Two days earlier, she didn't know what they were talking about. Now she's concerned.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Interesting. She was very forthcoming at that point. So they said, you know, she was kind of blaming herself a bit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

The officer said, from that point forward, she wanted to be. She wanted to explain everything she knew to us and be cooperative.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Because she looks guilty. As fuck right now. You better start looking cooperative pretty fast. So she tells police that they were just friends at first, her and Uncle Sean. And that all that time together at the lake, they got to be better friends. And then things got heated up from hugs to kisses to something else. She said there was sex involved, but it never got to the point of sleeping together. Yeah, because you're supposed to be back there with your three kids and your in laws. That's why it's not going to sleep together. So that's interesting. And he had the best of all worlds.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. And how does it not get to a.

[James Petregallo]

Wait, what was the quote that things heated up was? Oh, there was sex involved, but it never got to the point of sleeping together like this. Actually spending a night together. We fucking, he leaves, we fucking, I leave. I think is what we fucking house and I leave.

[Jimmy Whisman]

One of us is leaving.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, we don't actually get to the point of sleeping actually together. Yeah, that's fucking amazing. We just have lake sex.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's much more disgusting, you see?

[James Petregallo]

Oh yeah, it's great, you know, because we both have like kind of lake gunk on us. There's like little pieces of like leaf leaves and shit stuck to us and like a burr here and there. Every once in a while, like a crawdad will pop out of her ass. It's, you know, it's tough. So she did promise that she would break it off with Sean and she said that her mother in law discovered them and that she made a partial confession to Mike Jr. But never told him the most intimate details. In other words, she said, I fooled around but we never fucked is what she probably told.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, the answer is he didn't know.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he didn't know the extent of this shit at all because he wouldn't have been hanging out on the lake with this guy probably.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So she did promise to bring and she said, you know, it'll never happen again. She probably said, we kissed one time and your mom happened to see it. And then, you know. So the. They questioned David Spears, the neighbor as well. And he said that yes, his friend, best friend Sean, did have an affair with a married woman. Spears said, and what he had told me and watching them interact, I do believe from my perspective that they had fallen in love.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. He said, I tried to counsel Sean to say, you know, the old cliche, you know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God damn it.

[James Petregallo]

If you're.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fucking annoyed with you people, you know.

[James Petregallo]

You know, if you love something, let it go. If it comes to you, it's Yours? Dmx. Okay. Thing hanging in my grandmother's bathroom.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's old, but DMX said it too.

[James Petregallo]

I'm sure he did. He ran out of shit to say. Did a lot of drugs. He must have ran out of shit to say. So they're wondering here. They're like, is this. Michelle was lying to him? Is she telling us the truth? Like, what the fuck is going on?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did she tell anybody the truth?

[James Petregallo]

Is she involved in this? Who knows? So they said, okay. They looked into where she went and all of her movements and everything. And they found out that she did stop seeing Sean, but they found out that they didn't stop talking on the phone all the time. For hours at a time, for months. For months. Even after the murder, they were still talking constantly on the phone. So the cop here says simply, she was afraid that Sean, if he disclosed the relationship to Michael, it would devastate her marriage. And she felt that they could end their romantic part of their romantic relationship, but still be friends. On top of that, Sean had told her, I'm gonna move out. If you're not gonna be with me, I'm gonna move outside of the freedom area. So she felt, I think, in a lot of ways, she was just marking time until he packed up and moved. That's her story to the cop. She said, okay, we're suspecting this because you had an affair. You said you had into the affair, but you're on the phone for a long time. And she said, well, I just didn't want him to tell Michael, so I figured I'd just keep talking, talking to him. That's your story, ma' am. Is that a good story? Nope, it's a bad story. Right. I feel like she said that. And the detectives believed her. They said, okay, those calls were about saving her marriage, not about a conspiracy. Which, wouldn't you think? The opposite. If she's talking to the guy that she's been having an affair with, who your concern may have killed her husband.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You figure out at the moment that's the only.

[James Petregallo]

What are we talking about?

[Jimmy Whisman]

The only motive we've got anyway.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. How that's so weird. So. But they ruled Michelle out as a suspect. She is a witness, not a suspect, they said, which I would not rule her out nearly so fast. No, not even close to so fast. Now, Sean's friends don't believe this at all. David Spears said, you know the affair. Yeah, I could see that. Sean will cat around with people, but he said, violence from Sean, he's not the type. Not the guy Never do it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Nope, nope. He said that, you know, he said I. Besides, I was getting through to him. Through to him. He was finally seeing that being with a married woman isn't a good idea here and it's not gonna work out. So Spears said. So I just thought. I just thought it was, you know, could. I could ease him out, you know, we know. We all know David.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I know.

[James Petregallo]

Be there and be his counselor, so to speak, and help him back off. And at times I thought that I was making progress with him. Okay. Now, Sean. They got to talk to Sean. And he says, I have an alibi. I have a witness to prove I was in New Hampshire that morning, nowhere near the shooting. So not sure what you're talking about. I don't know what Michelle's been telling you. I don't know what's been going on, but I was plowing her, but I didn't kill her husband. That's a fact. So they were like, okay, interesting. They come knock on his door here at like 8:30 at night one night, and Sean said that he'd been expecting them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Because he's been talking to Michelle. So he knows.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

So he must have. I think he must have known that they would find out about the affair. He must have, because there's local gossip and everything like that. And David Spears, his friend, said. He started to tell me that, you know, he'd been a natural suspect because of the, you know, God damn it. Endless phone calls that they had on their cell phone bills. I said, yeah, you're right. You'd be a natural suspect.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So he realizes what's going on here. So the police come in, and right away they ask him, did you have an affair with Michelle? That's the first thing. So the officer said, quote, he had denied that there was a relationship of any, you know, of any sort beyond her. That's the first time I've heard him say that, actually. So it's okay. Beyond a friendship with Michelle Zamitti. And we had heard from several people, information, one of his best friends, David Spears, and also from Michelle Zametti herself, that no, in fact, they were involved in an affair, which he denied to us. That doesn't look good. And the cop said, though it was understandable, he said it was understandable that perhaps this was something that he didn't want to share or didn't want to come out. They did look him up, and they found he had no violence in his past, no criminal record or anything like that. So they weren't really Thinking this is the guy. The guy. Until he started denying. They were like, well, that's weird. But they were saying maybe he's just trying. He doesn't want his business in the newspaper. Maybe is all it is. That's possible. So they said, we need to talk to this guy. Now they got me doing it. God damn it. See what happens? Fucking it rubs off on you. That's why they're all doing it, because they all live in the same area. So he has an alibi, though. Yeah, the officer said. He said that he had been home all morning and that he had been outside of his house at a certain time of the morning and that his neighbor, Girt Dush Harm. Gertrude is her name. Gertrude, she goes by Had. Yeah, Gert. Sounds like a disease. I got some Gert bubbling up on me.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Gross.

[James Petregallo]

And walked by and seen him at that time and that the time of morning he'd given us would not have been able to drive from Wakefield, Massachusetts to Freedom, New Hampshire, if in fact he'd been seen there at that time. So the officer said. He said that that day he'd been seen, I believe it was at 9am now, the earliest the murders could have occurred is 8am and it's at least a two hour drive from Boston to New Hampshire, right to Freedom. So they said if Sean's alibi is right then, and he was seen in the driveway by a neighbor at 9:00 in the morning, he's not the guy, it's over. So Gertrude here said she does her daily routine. Every morning, not too early, she puts on her sneakers and goes through a neighborhood walk. And Sean insists she saw me in my driveway. 9am when she goes for her walk, she said. Or the detective here said, she said, I saw him after that, much later. I saw him around 10 or between 10 and 10:30, I think is what she said.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

Which is plenty of time to be home.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So, yeah, they said. That's interesting. They said, the officer said, well, she had been his neighbor for many years. And she said if they. That's the first time she'd ever seen him standing outside of his house in March, in the month of March, for no apparent reason, just standing there with a mug of coffee, you know, getting an alibi going, you know, just getting seen places. Normally he's outside, like doing shit. This is. He's just standing out there. Hi, Gert.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Everybody see me? What time is it?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Hey, Gert, how you doing? Wow, it's a nice day to see Shawn, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. Nice to see you, Gurt. The time, Gert, on this wonderful day of March 13, 2006, Monday morning. Isn't it great out here?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I've never been outside before. In March.

[James Petregallo]

No, never. But you know what? I'm gonna change that today. Yeah, today's the day. Talked me into it here. She said she did her daily walk. She said that he was leaning against his truck parked in the driveway and called out to her as she walked past him, make sure you see me, Gert.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Do you see me?

[James Petregallo]

He later on sent her a letter stating, and you, Gert, stay healthy. You're the only one who saw me that morning. Sends her a letter saying, you know, I need you for an alibi, so don't drop dead on me.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. Or that could be taken as a threat, honestly.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Take care of your heart, Gert.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, Gert, keep those morning walks going. They're good for you, Gurt. Get the blood flowing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did you have any heart, healthy cereal, anything?

[James Petregallo]

I hear Cheerios are very good for you. So Sean also tells police that he first learned of the shootings when he spoke to his friend Paul Taylor on the phone at approximately 9am on March 13. But they look at his telephone records, and it showed that that call didn't happen till 10:34am so in all of his story, 10:30 equals 9:00am Everything he did at 10:30, he just said he did at 9:00am in his story. Now, he could have just been mistaken. If you're on lake. If you're, you know, like those stupid coffee mugs say on lake time, you might be on lake time and think, 10:30 is 9:00 clock. You know what I mean? You're so drunken all the time, and you stuck your dick in everybody in the neighborhood. It's always nine somewhere, is the way they put it. That's when they start drinking, by the way, is 9am I think. So that's why. So he tells the cops here, Shawn does, that he immediately went to Gert's house to tell her about the murders, but that she had already learned of the murders during a phone call with Michelle. Now, Gert said she never spoke to Michelle on the telephone on that morning, or any other morning ever, by the way, for that matter. And that he did not come over to her house until way later in the day. Way way later in the day when he walked in and said, mike's been shot. It was a hit. Oh, so he was planting the narrative right away.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He already solved the case.

[James Petregallo]

It's all Solved up? Well, yeah, he has Gideon, his concrete company. It's a fucking hit. Obviously. Duh. All right. Look for somebody else with an Italian last name. Anyway, I'll be going to the Irish bar tonight.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'll be on the lake. See you guys.

[James Petregallo]

We'll be on the lake. His phone records also showed that he spoke to his friend spears at 12:29pm in that conversation, he revealed the details that hadn't been established yet. He told Spears that Michael Jr. Had been killed at 8am Although the police had received the 911 call for Michael Senior at about 8am at that point, they had not established a time of death or announced it to anybody. It just happened that morning. So there'd be no announcement of shit like that. He also, when speaking to other people, he said that he didn't know anything about the shooting at all. So Sean told Spears that in addition to Gert seeing him, he also received a call. So he's got two alibis. And Spears had told him, quote, I said, hey, jeez, that's great. You'll be able to, you know, through cell phone triangulation, be able to show that you were up in the Lakes region, say, 7:30 or 8:30 or whenever it was. And there's no way you could have been in those two places at the same time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petregallo]

Then they checked his cell phone records, by the way. He could not have gotten a call at 9am because his phone was turned off the entire morning up until 9:45am the entire morning it was off.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why would you do that?

[James Petregallo]

Weird. Strange, right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bizarre.

[James Petregallo]

If you're gonna kill somebody and turn your. This is like the Bryan Coburger thing because his location was off just during the time of the murders for like two hours.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Airplane mode or some shit.

[James Petregallo]

If you are going to do that to establish, you need to, like, for a year, you need to turn your phone off and on all the time for a year. Sometimes it's off for four hours, sometimes it's not. It has to. To be completely ran, otherwise that's not gonna work. That shows exactly when you were murdering someone. That's all it does. You might as well, like, point a big arrow at it. See, this is my murder time in here when my phone was off.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is what I do.

[James Petregallo]

You're giving it away. So Keith Morrison on a Dateline interview here with Officer Baker says, I'm assuming that the light bulb goes off, goes on in somebody's head at that, on the. In the investigation, and says, oh, he left his phone at home. So that he wouldn't be entrails off. And the officer says that's a conclusion we came to based on his knowledge. He spoke to one of his friends about his knowledge that cell phones could be tracked and we knew that he was a former employee of Verizon, so he probably knew shit like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, he's got.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, well, but again, yeah, he's a lineman. Yeah, but he's probably still heard, hey, you know these things got GPS on them, you know that, right? Take a track. Is that right? Yeah. Wow. So. So they want to do that. And the officer said as we looked into other things that he had explained or other things that we knew about him at that point we found further inconsistencies. He said we made further attempts to discuss that with Sean and he was unwilling to talk further about it with us. So then he clams up after all this. He's really in the midst of trying to clear it all up and he up and he's super cooperative and they find a couple of fuck ups in the story. And he goes, I'm not talking anymore. Which again, I'm not saying questions this time. You would have looked less guilty just saying. I'm not talking at all. Ever in the beginning. You would have looked less guilty just saying. I always have a lawyer if I talk to cops. That would have been fine. Look at me, I'm a late guy. I don't know what I'm. You guys are going to trick me. I've been drunk for 10 years.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm so dumb.

[James Petregallo]

I just, I'm an idiot at this point, son.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Rotted this brain.

[James Petregallo]

I gotta go between the bush light and the bush light and the lake gash. I'm really out of sorts here. It's wild. So the officer said we had to dig deeper on our own here. And so then there's quite the big clue that pops up. There's a bunch of break ins in the area.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

And they said, and also at this point, every other road they've gone on, professional things, personal things, business things, everything's hit a dead end.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Sean's the only one that there's keeps being more open road in front of him that they can keep investigating here. So they said they kept uncovering more inconsistencies. They said. When we went to see Sean, there seemed to open up another door after another door on his street. Somebody was breaking into homes on the. On by the lake. Freedom, New Hampshire. It started on March 12, the day before the murders.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

But the break ins weren't Discovered till two weeks later when the people who were in those that own those places came to see them, just came to visit for the weekend or whatever. So in one neighbor's memory, there had never been a housebreak in anywhere in the area in the last 15 years he could recall. And then suddenly there was three. Three.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whoa.

[James Petregallo]

And one of them belonged to Mike Zamiti Sr. Who lives right across the street from Sean. Want to know what was taken in those break ins?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Well, the officer says one of the things that was obviously of interest to us was a shotgun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

As well as several other guns were missing from the home. And the caliber of the shotgun. 16 gauge shotgun is missing from Mike Zamitti Senior's house. Taken the day before the murders, directly across the street from Sean's house. Okay. So at this point here, they have a new suspect.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

Because as they're investigating this, they notice something else when they're investigating the break ins because they think maybe it's Sean. But then they're like, oh, wait, maybe it's not. Maybe it's this guy. Okay. A detective of the Wakefield Police Department accompanied by a state trooper went into Freedom to look into the suspicious house breakings to see if they were connected to this murder case. Two of the houses obviously were of interest. One of the Michael senior, where a 16 gauge shotgun was discovered to be missing, same as the murder weapon. And the summer home of a man named Fred Martin, who lives across the street from Michael Senior and next door to Sean. This was next door to Sean's driveway is this guy's house, Fred Martin. And while they are looking at his property, they see a truck in the driveway of Fred Martin. That looks real familiar.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whose truck is it?

[James Petregallo]

Well, it's a green Ford F150 pickup truck with an extended cab matching a suspicious vehicle that was picked up on surveillance footage the morning of the murder in the area of a truck they couldn't place to any of the employees or anything.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So it's a mystery truck.

[James Petregallo]

It's a green F150. Yeah. Parked in this guy Fred Martin's driveway. Now, they said this truck was very consistent with a video that we had of all State Concrete and Wakefield. The surveillance video showed a dark pickup truck driving by Allstate Concrete just before the murders. And a short time later on the camera, Michael Zamitti Jr's white pickup is seen on New Salem street as he drove to work. On another camera, on a building far away from Allstate Concrete, Chester Roberts is seen walking to work. It's just before 8am so that's very important. They said, we saw our v. Our victim's vehicle driving in. And then we saw what appeared to be an unknown motor vehicle that we all thought was consistent with perhaps a Ford pickup truck, which. That is what's sitting in the driveway. It's a grainy video, but they think it's. They all said, is that an F150? Looks like an F150. So the officer said, had the video just been clear, we felt that we would have. That it would have been a tremendous piece of evidence. But at that point, it wasn't useful by itself without more information. But Fred Martin, he owns that truck. He's a suspect right now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And he knows everybody and everything else. So they said, is it Fred? What the fuck? So they said, the next door neighbor, we got in communication with him, Fred Martin, was in Florida where he is for the winter, but he could have came home and went back. We don't know. So they said, do you mind if we take possession of the truck? And he said, no problem. He's also about 75 years old. So they're like, hmm, this isn't fitting. No, this doesn't fit at all. This isn't good. But it's his truck. What's going on? So the cops said he was very cooperative with us. He explained that he'd been in Florida all the time. All the. All the time. Of the timeframe in question. And then he leaves his pickup truck in New Hampshire and it's in the driveway, secured there. So, by the way, Fred was one of the houses that was broken into.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

And they said nothing valuable was taken from his house, but maybe it's the keys. So. And the officer said, they're looking at this truck. And they said when we saw it, we weren't sure what to make of it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It.

[James Petregallo]

The detective said that while he and Baker were examining the truck, Sean next door pops out of his house. He said he comes to the front part of his yard with a rake and just starts to rake the same spot over and over again.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Hi, guys. I'm just here to.

[James Petregallo]

Real inconspicuous. Yeah, I got a real tough spot. And they said, by the way, there was snow on the ground. So what the fuck are you raking?

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is raking.

[James Petregallo]

He came out with a rake in the snow and just raked up a spot for some reason while they were overlooking this truck.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So see what they got.

[James Petregallo]

Could that be more obvious? They said the rear window of the cab of the truck was broken. And plastic tape covered the hole. When the police went back and studied the surveillance video, they said the truck on the video also had what appeared to be a broken rear window.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

So, like, this looks like his truck, they said, but it's a fuzzy picture. Might be a truck, might not. You know, who knows here? So the cops said at that point, we're still going through a number of leads, and this was an important lead, but it wasn't the only lead we're working on here. So they asked, you know, they said they asked if they could take the truck. They asked Fred Martin, can we take the truck and do, you know, lab work on it? And he said, sure, I won't be up there for fucking months. So go ahead. So they took swabbings of the vehicle and the steering wheel and other items for DNA, for everything. Fingerprints. They really process the shit out of it. Following his conversation, Fred Martin uses the Internet on his own, by the way. He just looks in. He decides to investigate a little on his own, and he does. He checks for his activity on his E Z pass account. Now, if you're not unsure if you live somewhere where they don't have tolls, any place with tolls, you get an easy pass on your car. That way you don't have to stop at a toll booth. You just drive through and it dings it and bills it automatically.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Any city in this country that doesn't have it, you're missing out on an opportunity to catch all the murder, all the murder.

[James Petregallo]

Just put those everywhere and you'll have all the murders done.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Don't charge much. Charge a penny?

[James Petregallo]

No, no, no. Even charge free. Yeah, just when they pass by a light, you're gonna know it and you'll have all the murderers everywhere. So he checks that out. And the officer said, Mr. Martin later contacted me and said, you know, after you took my trace, as you know, too, so, you know, after you took my truck, it made me think, I have an E Z pass on my truck. And I just went online to see if my E Z pass had been used that day. And lo and behold, my truck went through the Dover tolls that morning, shortly before 8:30am going northbound back to New Hampshire. The Dover tolls is one of three toll booths on the highway between Boston and New Hampshire. And they said, well, Keith Morrison on dateline said, well, wouldn't the person have had to go through several tolls to get there, not just one?

[Jimmy Whisman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

Yes, really, they said that was our belief too. And we. We were confused by that point. But Then they spoke with state transportation officials and the guy said that vehicle, or Mr. Martin's transponder anyway, had driven through all six tolls on all six occasions. It paid cash. That's why they didn't have it. And what had occurred is on one of those transactions, the toll collector inadvertently accepted both the transponder transaction and collected.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The cash, double charged him.

[James Petregallo]

That's the only reason that it was even on Easy Pass. So if that employee didn't double charge Sean or didn't double charge whoever's driving this truck, they don't have any E Z Pass tolls. And that truck, they can't connect it to the scene at all.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy. So one incompetent tollbooth employee, outside of policy, double charging. Son of a bitch.

[James Petregallo]

Think about who the heroes in the story are. A telemarketer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And a. In an incompetent tollbooth employee. These are so far our heroes in this fucking story. That is mind blowing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Holy shit. So the cops said it was simply a mistake on the toll collector's behalf. He simply screwed up now. So they got a written. He signed a waiver to get all of his Easy Pass records. And they find out that on the morning of the shootings, Fred Martin's E Z Pass had traveled southbound in New Hampshire through toll plazas in Rochester at 6:40am Dover at 6:51am and through the Hampton Toll Plaza at 7:04am at each toll plaza, the driver of the vehicle paid cash and the electronic transaction was canceled. His transponder was also recorded going northbound through the same three toll plazas that morning at 8:29am 8:41am and 8:51am at Rochester. Exactly. Driving in beforehand and leaving afterwards. It couldn't be better. So again, they paid in cash. The guy didn't cancel the transaction. So after receiving this information, a trooper drove from Freedom to Wakefield to determine whether the activity on the E Z Pass was consistent with someone arriving at allstate Just before 8am he testified that later on that he left Freedom at 5:44 and arrived at Allstate just over two hours later at 7:54. So they put the. Everything together and they said that they put the toll receipts and they. He drove southbound at 648, 657, 714. It all tracks.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's all matching up.

[James Petregallo]

So. And the officer said, yes. Why else would you have a transponder and pay cash unless you don't want anybody to know that the transponder is traveling through the toll plaza?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

That's the only reason. So, yeah, the officer said, when you see the troll. The toll transactions. The troll toll, as we. The toll transactions that correspond to the times of all six transactions corresponding exactly with the times that the truck is seen on video. And that the truck is seen on video has the same unique characteristics as the one in the driveway. What appears to be a broken rear window as Mr. Martin's. I think it's a reasonable conclusion to draw here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, I would say so.

[James Petregallo]

They still have to put him in the truck, though. How do you put him in the truck?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What do you do?

[James Petregallo]

So they also review surveillance footage from cameras at businesses located everywhere and they trying to get a better shot of the green pickup truck. Yeah. The first footage of it is at 7:38am when it appears to pass all state without stopping. Then a minute later, you see Michael Juniors come in. And then the green truck appears again as it travels down New Salem Street a second time and enters the all state parking lot. In the footage, you can see Chester as well. At 7:48am the green truck can be seen leaving the parking lot, driving northbound on New Salem Street.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So that is right when Chester would have got there. He literally would have got there, started to walk up the steps, said, oh, shit. Ran away, got shot, done. So then a red pickup truck resembling the one Driven by Michael Sr. Enters the Allstate parking lot at 8:02. Missed it by 14 minutes. Although Fred Martin said, obviously I never authorized anyone to be in my truck and had never seen my truck, so. Never seen him in my truck.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Sean starts to freak out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

At this point, he tells his friend David he feels like a target. David said as we were walking, he said, my phone must be bugged. I'm. I gotta hang up. And he hung up the phone on me. That bothered me.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

March 20, 2006. Michelle sets Shawn up with a secretly recorded phone conversation.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Michelle.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. She sits in the Rockingham Mall in New Hampshire with a cop in the car with her and makes a phone call. And Sean says, she asked, how you feeling? And Sean says, how I'm feeling? And she says, yeah. And he said, sick. Sick for Michael, sick for you. Sick for everyone that's been affected by this. And that's what he's saying. And obviously he doesn't know that she's with a cop there. So she was starting to think that Sean might have done this, so she agreed to this. And also it makes her look less fucking guilty too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, it helps her tremendously if you're.

[James Petregallo]

Her, you better cooperate just to the top of the mountains because you look guilty. So Sean said. Sean said, the nonsense of it, you know, if there's a God, why he said shit like that. They talked for two hours. The trooper was asking Michelle to steer the conversation and, you know, maybe see if Sean will. Because Sean doesn't know that Michelle has told the cops about the affair yet. So he just knows that they know about it, but he doesn't know that they. Why, how they know? So they're like. They're trying to see if Sean would tell her to, like, lie about it. You know, hey, don't tell the cops about us. So Michelle said, you know, the only thing that does make sense probably at this point is the love triangle. And that scares the shit out of me, which sounds like just a straight accusation at Sean at that point, right?

[Jimmy Whisman]

The love triangle.

[James Petregallo]

The love triangle. Sean says, you know, Jesus, they all do it, you know, when they come back to talk to me and I'm just going to tell them, you know, what I guess we said all along. Yep, we're good friends. Yep. We talk a lot. And out of respect for the family, I don't really think that it's, you know, anything more than we really want to talk about. So Michelle says, and what about the hug? Meaning when we got caught on that time by mom, mother in law there. So Sean says, I guess if they ask me, you know, if we're having an affair, I think I'll say it's another. No. My definition of an affair was having sex. So, you know, so, you know. He says it twice. So, you know, so, you know, I think that's just what I'll say to police, you know, people like to talk.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I hate him so much.

[James Petregallo]

I'd like to tell everyone in the Boston area. We know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We. We get in.

[James Petregallo]

We know. We just know. We all know. We all get it. Jesus Christ. They've replaced wicked with, you know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

It'S too much. So that's what she says. She. He tells her not to wear.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Tired of being labeled as a guy that just says wicked all the time.

[James Petregallo]

You know, just, you know, I'm a guy that wants you to know that's what it really is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm just sick and tired, tired, tired.

[James Petregallo]

So Sean tells Michelle not to worry. He has an alibi. His neighbor saw him outside that morning. And Michelle said, if you have a solid, concrete thing, why?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Why did they always.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why'd you do that?

[James Petregallo]

Always, always, always have something to say like that. Don't use the Word. Concrete.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Please, please don't.

[James Petregallo]

Good Lord. If you have a solid, concrete thing, then it would relieve me of feeling. So she's saying, if you have a solid alibi, I won't think that you're a murderer anymore, and I won't feel bad. So Sean said, well, I do have a solid, concrete thing. Gert saw me. Gert saw me. So.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Gert. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Like I said, that was about 9:15 or 9:30. So I was seen. I was here. I spoke with someone. So at one point, he says this. It sounds to me like it was very professional. He's gonna opine on the murder now. It sounds to me like it was very professional. And I said to them, I said, I don't know. You know, is the Mafia involved? And they would go, well, why would you think organized crime is involved? And I said, I don't know. I said, I don't know. Is it because they're Italian? They worked on the big digit. Yeah, you can't even. You can't even die. You can't even have a fucking love triangle and die. You know, what the fuck, man? Enough already. So anyway, then he says, I. Then he says, I feel dirty and unclean.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Two words. Filthy.

[James Petregallo]

Also, do you need a shower? Is that also a feeling? And I do. I feel guilty. I feel guilty. You know, I feel guilty because, you know, I would have liked to have seen Michael be weekend dad. I wanted to be with his wife. So I feel guilty about that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Uh.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, he's like, I was trying to steal his wife, not have him die. Michelle said, but not until he died or got killed. And Sean said, no, I did not want that. And then he says this. To be perfectly honest with you, you know, I had, you know, not shitting you. I always thought of, you know, well, geez, you know, if Michael had an accident, I mean, and that kills me to think about that. The only time I would have had a thought like that, you know, I'd be like, jesus, don't exactly. Yeah, Like, I'd be like, jesus, don't even think like that. And now all of a sudden, something like this happens. So, yeah, I feel guilty. And it's like, you know, be careful what you wish for.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, I will.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. And she said, I'm so upset that I had her let you put your penis inside of me. Because all you say is, you know, how did you convince me of this? Yeah, so that was odd. She told him how she was going to try to cope with the sudden loss of her husband and the police investigation. And he said, you should answer the police questions the way they want you to, you know, because it's a professional job.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So there's that. And he said he was good. But Michelle also said he mentioned that he was at Freedom Market or Marianne's getting coffee and that his neighbor saw him that morning. In the past, he said Michael would be a weekend dad. Sean also said he wasn't okay with me and Michael being together. So they don't really have. He doesn't confess to anything. He doesn't say anything incriminating. He just kind of sets the tone of trying to shape a story in the way he wants it to be seen type of thing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. And it's a. It's a long ride up to freedom from there.

[James Petregallo]

That's two hours. Yeah, right. That's two hours there, two hours back. So they don't know what to do with Sean here. They need a break. They. The truck that went there is next door to him. That house was broken into. He could have very easily had a key. They're very suspicious, so they need something. Then they realize that his truck with the license plate O2B.me yeah. He's driving with an expired driver's license. They figured out they were looking up everything. One guy goes, his fucking driver's license is expired. Next time he's out there, pull his ass over and arrest him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So they do. They arrest him. They take him to headquarters. He made bail right away. But you know what they do when you get arrested? They take your fingerprints. Yeah. And they didn't have his fingerprints before.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petregallo]

But they do have an envelope with a big fat palm print on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So that's what they're thinking about. They want his palm print. Oh, the palm print was on the inside flap of the envelope. So that's whoever fucking sent it. So they said that. The cop said what they found was a very clear palm print on the inside flap of that letter. Everyone involved certainly wanted to find out whose palm print that was. And they said, we found that his palm print was a perfect match to the palm print on the inside of that envelope.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Uh.

[James Petregallo]

Oh. So they said, okay, that's interesting. And the attorney General here said, the only person that's going to send a letter like that is someone who's trying to mislead the police. And if you're not the murderer, why would you want to do that?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why would you do it?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, why would you do that? So now they're like, we loves to get some DNA. And the way they're gonna do this. There's a second letter, but not a mystery letter, one that they know is from Sean because he addressed it and signed it to Michelle. It's a sympathy card he sent to Michelle for Michael being killed.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Stop being so nice.

[James Petregallo]

They said that envelope was sealed.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Think he licked it?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Probably.

[James Petregallo]

They said probably. So they get the car and they get the DNA off of there, and they. It's. If there's human DNA, it's going to be his because no one else could have done it. So it's his DNA on there. Then Fred Martin, the guy with the pickup truck, back to him. You know, they're talking about that. They go, they found there's DNA on the steering wheel and on the car keys that didn't belong to Fred.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nice work, guys.

[James Petregallo]

Not bad. So it was recovered from the vehicle's steering wheel and contained a DNA from mixture of at least two people with the major profile being a match for Sean. Oh, that's not good. Also was included as a potential contributor to the minor profile of a mixture of DNA that was found on a key to the truck that was inside the vehicle when they took it into possession. And in the truck bed, they recovered an uncoiled wire coat hanger that had been bent in a way that you could unlock a door with without keys he made into a slim jim. So he keeps the keys in the car with the door locked.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

So he has the key to. When he comes back from Florida. He opens it, it's in there. But if you want to get into the car and drive it, you need to get into the car. So that is interesting. The DNA testing on the coat hanger yielded inconclusive results.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yes. But everything else belongs to Sean in the car on the keys. Just. It's all Sean. So that's not good. Now, there's no fingerprints otherwise at the murder scene. There's no DNA at the murder scene, no tire tracks in the parking lot, no murder weapon to compare it to. No eyewitnesses, not a lot. All they have on Sean is that he staged a fake alibi, which doesn't look good. Then he told friends and police that he'd been in his driveway that whole morning. He made sure to. Even made sure to park his bright red pickup truck with personalized plates out in the open. By the way, that truck is always in his garage unless he's driving. But this morning, it's out there. So it would look like he'd been home the whole time. So everyone could go, no, I saw his truck in the driveway. Saw it there at 7:50. You know, couldn't have been him leaning on Gertrude, trying to get her to use her morning walk as proof of presence. But then she apparently checks her watch before she does everything.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, really?

[James Petregallo]

She's just an old lady who's obsessed with times. Inconsistencies in his calls telling police that he heard about the shootings around nine from a friend when phone records say that the call didn't come until 1034. Yeah, that's not good. He used the truck that's stolen with Easy Pass records and the steering. And his DNA is on the steering wheel. This does not look not good at all. And also staged the fake burglaries in the neighborhood to get the murder weapon and to make it look like there was some other shit going on. He should have robbed his own house if he was gonna do that too. Get himself out of suspicion. So June 6, 2006, the New Hampshire State Police arrest Fitzpatrick without incident at his job at the Pooper Trooper place in Madison, New Hampshire. Now, they're gonna sit down and talk to him. The threatening letter, he admits he sent it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

He said, I did send it. And they were like, okay, then you're super guilty. And he said, no, I'm not guilty. I didn't do it. He said, I am just. He said, I didn't kill anyone. His lawyer released a statement. He's very upset over the deaths of Michael Zamitti and Chester Roberts. He said he didn't kill anyone. He says to the cops, quote, I was in bed. I wasn't in Massachusetts. I certainly didn't do this. I had nothing to do with these homicides. Nope. No way. No way, no how. So the problem is, yeah, the letters. He said he sent the letter because he knew that because he had an affair with Michelle, that they would look at him even though he didn't do it. He wanted to push suspicion away from him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, okay. Innocent people are going to do that. All right. Sean's family, or. I'm sorry, not Sean's family. Mike's family files a wrongful death suit against Sean. Now, once he's arrested.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

As soon as he's arrested. Wrongful death suit. It included in this a $2.5 million attachment on real estate, cars and bank accounts granted by a judge. In other words, he's not allowed to get rid of anything up to $2.5 million. You have to hold on to that, okay. Because that could be a judgment. So the suit is happening here. They, the family petitions to attach his assets. And the judge warned that Fitzpatrick should not be forewarned about the petition because he may try to convey, dissipate, or conceal or otherwise hide property from the court. You know how that goes. Fucking yeah, that's a thing. So that's all these fucking scumbags do that. February 2007, Sean's Freedom Lake home burns to the fucking ground.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he's in jail too, so he didn't do it. He's sitting in jail awaiting trial here. So it is completely destroyed by flames. Just an article said. This is some writing here. Quote, smoke muddied icicles hung from charred timbers below a coil of steam rising from the heap of rubble still smoldering on Tuesday morning.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Very poetic about somebody's life.

[James Petregallo]

Their whole being being destroyed here. So it burned to the foundation and gone. I mean, fucking done. The trails, they found that, you know, there's trails all over here. They said there's. That it's arson by the way too. Yeah, they said trails led from the street near the arson site to the Zimiti's heating fuel tank across the street. And several tracks ran up to an enormous barn on a large sweeping side yard. The snow crusted steps were littered with charred bits of wood and other scorched materials apparently left by boots fresh from the nearby crime scene where the investigation happened. Yeah, so they said that the police chief up there said emergency responders had walked these Zamiti's yard to make sure heat and power had been turned back on. So that's where the footsteps were. So they have no idea of anything. Then they said that the fire marshals were sifting through the mess, investigating the cause of the blaze, trying to figure it out. They do believe it's arson. Like we said, they posted officers on the scene overnight to keep onlookers away from stepping into the yard and doing all that shit. Local said the home had been empty with the power shut off for an extended period because he's been in jail. Right. So they said that it's clearly arson, but they had. No one will ever be charged for this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. What are we thinking here?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What do you do?

[James Petregallo]

Did. And this is totally alleged or whatever. Did Sean have his buddy do this? Got to right to save him a little.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What.

[James Petregallo]

What else is there for lawyer money? Yeah, it has to be. Now they have. That's part of the. That house is part of the $2.5 million attachment to that lawsuit. Okay, that's on there. The home was at 66 Intervale Avenue. So they're talking about that no suspects have been named. Okay, 2008 trial. Yeah. Now here's where shit gets Karen Reedy. And we'll talk about why after this trial. The first thing is the defense wants to put forward an alternate suspect. Wasn't our guy. It was somebody else they want to cast suspicion on. Ricky Cali, Remember him? The guy that sued from 1995, 11 years before the murders. Well, Sean argues that Callie had motive to commit the crimes. That Michael Sr. Had threatened to knock Callie's mother's house down with a bulldozer. So that's something. And Callie had not been happy with the settlement terms that they made financially and that he had several shotguns. Oh, the judge allows this. They're going to allow the alternate suspect theory here, even though it's 11 years earlier. And they probably had opportunity sometime in the last 11 years to figure this out. The evidence also established that Sean had the opportunity to commit the crimes here. They said that between it's two hours between the residents and the concrete company and everything like that. No one saw him till after 10am Just over two hours after the murders. That's not good. He'd been also, and also he had been to the All State Concrete building in the past. So he knew exactly where it was. He had been there earlier in the prior year to pick up a sander for Michael Sr. So he knew the layout of the place. He knew exactly how long it took to get there and everything like that. So that's interesting. Here they have all the E Z pass records and the tolls and the paying with cash and everything like that. The DNA matched the major profile of the DNA found on the steering wheel. And he's the minor DNA contributor to the truck key. There's also testimony that the position of Martin's truck when police found it was different from how Martin left it. Oh, you know, where you left your car. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Absolutely. And how you left it.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly how you left it. And that also supports the inference that somebody took it here. And also the. So the prosecutor says about this, says Michelle Zamitti says, I'm not going to leave Michael. I'm going to be with Michael unless something happens to him. Three weeks later he gets hit with a 16 gauge shotgun blast in the face, ripping his head apart. It is a jury, so you gotta really be sensationalistic. The prosecutor said that, you know, the problem was it was a complex circumstantial case. But they said so the prosecution's telling the jury there's not gonna be an eyewitness. It's more about do the circumstances fit so that no one else could have committed the crime. Okay, is the noose tightened up enough over the picture? A loose noose around. Are we tightening it up enough for him to choke? Loose noose. They said that they had to get outside of court. They were saying they had to get the jurors to believe that Sean took that pickup truck and drove it. That's the only way it'll work. They said that obviously he couldn't do it in his own truck. It's a red pickup truck with a vanity plate.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Those get attention, man.

[James Petregallo]

Doesn't blend in. Exactly. The prosecutor said that was one of the reasons why he had to take another vehicle. If he had ever driven down that street with, oh, to be me on his front license plate on that big red truck, it would have been so clear. Even on the. Even on the surveillance, they said that a truck like Fred Martin's was seen on the videos, and that was the one that they found his DNA on. They also said the probability of a randomly selected unrelated individual having a DNA profile matching the major profile from the one sample, the one on the steering wheel wheel, was 1 in 931,100 for the Caucasian population, 1 in 2,200 12,700 in the African American population, and 1 in 586,900 of the Hispanic population. Yeah, so 1 in 931,000 is pretty good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not bad.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, not bad because he is certainly very Caucasian.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So saying he's one in almost a.

[James Petregallo]

Million, that's not bad. The probability of a randomly selected person having contributed to the minor profile was about 1 in 377 of the Caucasian population. That's way less. But that's the key. That's the key one. So he would have touched that. Way less than a steering wheel. Yeah, a key you turn once you turn it off, and that's that. He touched it probably four times the whole time, whereas, you know, different. So Robert, Callie, the guy, or I'm sorry, Ricky Cali, the guy that they're accusing here, he testifies, too. And number one testifies to his alibi for that morning, not having anything there testifies that he doesn't even think about this shit with all state concrete anymore. And also that, yes, he certainly does own shotguns. A 12 gauge and a 20 gauge. Not missing in there. Yeah, not a 16 gauge. Exactly. So then they get Fred Martin up there and they say, did Sean Fitzpatrick ever drive your truck? And said, no, he hasn't never. They said, has he ever been inside your truck at all? And he said, no, he hasn't. Oh, okay. Gertrude gets up there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Gert.

[James Petregallo]

And yeah, Sean claims that between 9 and 9:30 is when she. He saw Gert. She. It's great. She tells the jury. And when you get like, an older lady up there telling you, this is my routine, you believe her. She does it every day. And she said she always checks her watch right before going on her walk every time, because he wants to know how long it takes her to walk. Always checks it. And they said, what time was it? And she said it was either 10am or five past at the most. They said, was it unusual to see Mr. Fitzpatrick when you took your walk? And she said, just standing there leaning on his truck. Yes, that was unusual.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That was bizarre.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. They get Michael's parents up here. So Michael Sr's got to testify to the horrific shit that he saw, which sucks. He said, I went upstairs and found my son shot in the head. And the prosecutor says, now, sir, Michael Sr. Says, and. And the prosecutor says, when you went downstairs. And Michael Sr. Says, let me finish. This is your side. And he's like, hey, that's how surly I like Michael Sr. He's surly. Hey, let me finish. You called me up here. You want to hear me talk or not? I'm not done. He said, let me finish. Okay? He said, and I went up to my son, I hugged him, and I kissed him on the face. He needed to get that out in open court. He just needed to get it out because that makes Mike a human now rather than you just saw a corpse and walked downstairs. He wanted to say, that's my son. And I told him I loved him. And then I called my wife and I told her. So they. Yeah, they said that. Did you tell the police that in the 20 years you worked in the Big Dig, you made a lot of people angry? That's. That's the cross examination.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, people died. What are you doing?

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Mike Senior said, I didn't make them angry. I made them my friends. Because if I didn't make them my friends, I would have had no business, which is also true. They also bring Pat in there, his mom, Mike's mom, and she said that for a couple years, she'd been growing worried about the amount of time that Michelle was spending with Sean. And they said, how often did you observe them together? And she said, too often. She said, well, every time she came up with the children. She was there with him more than she was there with her family. And then she said it wasn't until she saw them in a too intimate embrace that she decided to tell. Yeah, she said, I was very, very upset. I was actually speechless. I didn't know what to say. They were both shocked to see me, and I turned around and walked out. The crazy shit is during this trial, she is. Michelle is sitting with the Zamitties, arm in arm.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah. They're all one united front, man. They forgive her, and if they don't think she killed him, then whatever. But still, I'd be like, you're fucking bullshit because you needed to get a little side dick. Now my kid's dead. Fuck you. I'd be so mad. Michelle testifies, and now the prosecution is saying that, you know, Sean acted alone and contends that Michael broke or Michelle broke off the affair with Sean several weeks before the murders. And Michelle Z. Had testified on the witness stand to this. However, the defense brings out under cross examination that, well, if you were so disgusted with him you had to break up with him and all that, why'd you continue to have contact with him right up until the weekend prior to the murders? Why'd you do that? Yeah. And she said, well, they said, as a matter of fact, how come you engaged in more than 30 phone calls between the time you claim to have severed the affair and the time of the killings? How's that work? That's a lot of phone calls. She says. Michelle. Well, after I got married, everything changed. I didn't think Michael respected me as much as he used to, and I didn't feel loved. So they said, as a result of your relationship with Michael and the deterioration that was going on, did you start to become attracted to someone? She said, yes. They said, who was that? She said, sean. So she said he played with my kids. And we spent hours on the phone talking. And during one of those calls, Sean said this. Michelle says, saying to me, if I'm out of line and you never want me to say this again, then let me know, but I've fallen in love with you. That's what Sean said. So they said, did you tell him he was out of line? And Michelle said, no, let him play with my kids. Yeah, let him fuck. And I sucked them off. It was, you know, so I Call my tits. Yeah, exactly. He said, did you ever. Did he ever talk to you about leaving Michael? And she said, all the time. She said that he wrote her poetry and self published a volume dedicated to her, you fucking tool bag.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What a dork.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus. They said. And it says by SD on the phone, on the poem book. Do you know who SD is? Well, she said it was a joke between him and I. It was a nickname. Shawnee Dangerous.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

I hate this man. He is such a. I really hate this guy. Between his license plate and that shit, I'm done. I'm done with him. Shawnee Dangerous. Oh, my God. They said now it says, first edition, January 17, 2005. Below are a group of initials. Do you know what these initials stand for? And she said, the day I said I love you, that's what it was to him. She put the date on there, or he put the date on there. She admitted that even after she was caught in the embrace, she hid from her husband the intimate details. And the full extent. She gave him a half confession along with a warning. It's because our marriage is shitty. Like, well, maybe if you weren't fucking people, our marriage wouldn't be shitty. We can play chicken and egg all fucking day here. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Put your kids away.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's not gonna be better if you fuck people. That's not gonna help the marriage. I know that. So Michelle said, I told Mike that I didn't love him anymore the way that two people should love one another. And he asked, is Sean the new guy or what? And I said, you're letting him. You're letting him be. But Michelle also said that Michael was not about to give up on his marriage. She said he seemed sincere and serious and that he would go to counseling and try to work on problems that we had. So that's when she decided to give it another chance because he seemed so sincere. And she's got three goddamn kids with this guy. Little ones. So she said, I tried to end it without hurting his feelings, meaning Sean. At least until Michael and I could know whether or not we were going to work things out. But after Michael's mother walked in on the hug, the family doubted that Michelle had ended the relationship. And Sean wasn't prepared to accept that it was over. So Michelle said she told Sean some other shit here. Michelle said, I told him that I wasn't going to leave my husband. The only way I would leave him, the only way that he and I would have the opportunity to be ever together in our future, was if something happened to Michael. That sounds. If you say that, then if someone that's almost like an in and like you, like an involuntary conspiracy or something, like you started a ball rolling that you didn't realize was a ball rolling.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The only way I could is if I was no longer married because he didn't exist.

[James Petregallo]

Because he, you know, whether I don't know whether he died possibly or, you know, just ran away. You know what I mean? So that's tough. That's a tough one here. And they said, well, how did he react, Sean? Meaning? And she said, he pounded his fist down on the table. And I said to him, I sense a little Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde here, which I had never seen from Sean before. And then he stuffed her into her car and slammed the door. So that's. Oh, I guess I'd never seen that. So during the cross examination of Michelle, because if you're the defense, this is, this is your field day. Yeah, because, you know, she's got caught in a lot of lies and everything else. They said, so you continued to call him on a regular basis? And Michelle said, yes, I did. They said, right up until the weekend before March 13th. She said, yes, I did. They said, didn't you call him 30 times just because you were afraid he'd tell your husband? Didn't you? And she said, there were lots of reasons why I continued to contact Sean. And they said, and one of the reasons was that you were somewhat. And she cut it off and said, I still cared about Shawn. And the attorney said wishy washy about breaking it off completely with Sean. You didn't want to lose that friendship. What? And Michelle says, because I was in fear of what Sean might say to my husband. Which is exactly what the attorney just asked you when you cut them off and disagreed. God damn it, that's annoying. That's just such a waste of time. Yeah, imagine if you took all of those things out of every courtroom in America. It would save like 10 fucking billion dollars a year probably and save time of court. Shit, we just took out that. So she said, because I was in fear that and completely end my relationship between me and my husband, I didn't think my husband would be able to forgive me. So they said when police asked her to make the tape that recorded the phone call, did you try and fail to get him and engage in a cover up? You know, they said that, they said he never tells you at any point in that two hour conversation to make up a story to the police, does he? And she says no. And they said, and he never tells you at any point during the two hour conversation that he did anything to your husband or Chester Roberts, does he? And she said, he never told Me, he didn't. Which is not an answer to the question.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You are a pain in the ass, lady.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. You are a real jerk. And she says, victim's wife or not, you're an asshole. You know what I mean? You're a bit of a jerk. Sorry, that's not even alleged. That's just my opinion. You're a bit of a jerk. We say we don't make fun of the victims, of the victim's family. But Jesus Christ, she is, like, knocking on our door, kicking it down, for fuck's sake, Begging for it. The parents, wonderful people. You, Michelle, not so fond. The kids, great people. Who knows?

[Jimmy Whisman]

She might have great kids.

[James Petregallo]

I'm sure that she does. Yeah. So Michelle finally said. They said, he never tells you. He did, did he? And she says no. She said the last meeting. The last time she supposedly talked to him or met with him was when she told him the only way they could be together is if something happened to Sean. So the attorney says, is it true that the first time you ever said that is when you were preparing to testify here, Meaning you didn't actually say that to him. You just said that now because it sounds bad. And she said, I believe I said that a long time ago. And the attorney said it was a recent contrivance on her part. And in fact, the government admitted that the first time she revealed to anyone she had made that statement was four weeks before the trial. Oh, See what I mean? The defense is doing the same similar Karen Reed stuff you said. Did she say, I hit him? I thought so. But now you're saying that now. Did you say that then? It's a lot of that. So the defense attorney here also said the idea that Sean would kill Mike expecting to get possession of Michelle. So the defense attorney got Michelle to admit that Sean had already accepted that he couldn't be with her and he was actively planning to move away from the area. Even he was doing so. She said. So there's no motive here, the attorney said, but he had been planning to move away for quite a while. By. Quite a while. I'm talking about months prior to March of 2006. And she said, yeah, he had been talking about it. Yes. So then they get the E Z. Pass expert to come in, and they talk about just exactly how the E Z. Pass works and. And all that kind of thing. And they talk about the. How long it would have taken for the drive. And we already went over that. We don't need to go over that. They do get an image analyst with the FBI to testify between the similarities or to these similarities between Fred Martin's green F150 and the truck in the surveillance footage. She opined that the vehicle shared several class characteristics, features common to all Ford F150s, as well as several individual similarities, such as broken rear window that had been covered in plastic because the low quality. However, she declined to conclude that the green truck in the footage definitely was the car to the exclusion of all other vehicles. Sure, but it's very similar. Essentially then. So his whole thing was trying to establish that other timeline and everything like that. But like we said, Gertrude shot that down. Then Sean testifies. Oh, he testifies, really? Yeah. He gets up there, he must think it's a lost cause. So he gets up there, admits he lied before the killings when he told Michelle and several friends he was planning to move and get back together with an old girlfriend. He said that he hoped the story would allay suspicions that about the affair with Michelle because the rumors were going around. And he said he just got caught up in the lie. He repeatedly tells the jury that he and Michelle loved each other, which is interesting. He said, I explained to him, meaning the people around really just the way it was. It was a hug, you know, had happened from last year. Meaning they. When they got caught and they heard his attorney says, did you tell police about the affair that you'd been having with Michelle? And he said, no, no, I would tell him that. He said, then he convinced that the. He said he panicked and he was convinced the police were targeting him as the prime suspect. So he said, well. And he laughs, which is always good to do when you're on trial for murder. When they left that night, I just, like, first thing I did was I grabbed the Yellow Pages and started looking up lawyers. Meaning as soon as the cops talked to him, they said, why did you do that? He said, well, I felt I had cooperated. So flags were going off. When they came back again, he said, did you steal Fred Martin's truck? And he said, no, no, I didn't.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

No, I did. I didn't steal Fred Martin's truck. They said, did you drive Fred Martin's truck to Wakefield, Massachusetts on March 13? And he said, no, no, I wasn't. I wasn't in Massachusetts.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

So they said, and tell the jury where you were at 8 in the morning on March 13th? He said, 8 o' clock. And he said, in the morning I was. I was still in bed. Pick your time. Doesn't matter. I wasn't in Massachusetts. I was home. I Wasn't down there. I certainly didn't do this. They said, well, do you remember ever being inside Fred Martin's truck? And he said, yeah, there was an occasion I was in his truck. Sure. And they said, and when was that? And he said, in the fall of 2005, when I was removing. When he was removing his boat for the season. And they said, and what happened when you went down to help him? Sean said, I had gotten inside of his truck to help move it. So he was like, that's where my DNA came from. Obviously. They go, what about this letter? What about that? The note says, close now or else lose more family. And he says, yeah, I know. I know what it says. Yeah, I know it. They said, do you know who wrote that note? And he said, yeah, I did.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

And they said, he said, I didn't want the Zamidi family thinking anything like that. And they said, thinking anything like what? And he said, people were saying that I did it. I felt desperate, distraught. Wish I hadn't. Wish I hadn't as soon as I did it, but I did it. I apologize for it. It's not something I would ask forgiveness for, because, Jesus, I wouldn't forgive anyone for doing something like that, but I did it. And they said, what was your state of mind when you wrote it? And he said, well, I wanted the police to leave me alone. They were following me. I was really, really freaked out. And so they said, did Michelle tell you that the only way that you and Michelle would ever get together is if something happened to Michael? And he said, no, no, no, no, that never happened. Absolutely not. He said the conversation during the last rendezvous was really about something else. That would be when and if Michelle would leave her husband and get a divorce. He said she made some comments, perhaps that he would initiate a divorce, splitting up. They said, what was your reaction? And Sean said, yeah, it's like, here we go again. When she was talking, I was just going yada, yada, yada, yada, you know, not really paying attention. I had heard it, so I'd heard it all before, you know. They said, what about when you met Mike on the lake the day before the murder? Remember that? Or two days before the murder? Sean said, you know, after this hug incident, things were kind of awkward, I guess is the way to put it. We never really spoken about it. So when I saw him, I just. I said something like, you know, hey, sorry about all the. All the stink, you know, Stink. What did you leave in his wife? What did you leave in that man?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why did you do that?

[James Petregallo]

Sorry about the stink I left on your wife.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sorry about all that stink in there.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. He said, I probably used a different word, but sorry about all the stuff last summer. Shit is what he's getting at. They said. And what was his reply to that? And Sean said. He was like, you know, I told people. I told you people would talk. You know. You know, it's no big deal. We're all friends up here. Up here. You know, no big deal.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What the fuck?

[James Petregallo]

And she said, did you shoot? And he said, I did not. And they said, michael's a midi. And he said, I did not. He jumped the gun on that one. And they said, and Chester Roberts. And he said, shoot? And he said, no. He was finishing his last sentence. I had nothing to do with these homicides. Nope. No way.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nope.

[James Petregallo]

Nope. I'd never buy from a murder suspect. Did you do this? Nope.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

All right. Put your hands behind your back. That's all I need to do. Get in the fucking car. The prosecution, in their close, prosecution, in their closing, said this is not a case about coincidence. It's about evidence. The evidence dictates that he is the person that took these two people's lives. In the defense closing, they said, yeah, he had an affair with Michelle. Yeah, he had feelings for her, but she had feelings for him, too. They both understood on some level this was an affair that wasn't going to lead anywhere. But the question is, is there someone out there who harbored such a grudge? And our defense was someone else, and our defense is someone else did it. Why? Because Sean didn't. They said that was one of the first reasons how that there's reasonable doubt, is that the troopers failed to check alibis and failed to check up on suspects and other potential leads. They said there was a nephew that they had hired and fired, and the nephew was mad at them. So, you know, says they owe him $170,000. Isn't that motive for murder?

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's certainly something they said.

[James Petregallo]

We're not talking about. He probably did it. Maybe he did it. We're talking about proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And if you have a reasonable doubt, you must find him, not guilt. Okay, the jury is four men, eight women. It deliberates for five days. Really, five days. And the jury sent a note at one point here, because on the third day of deliberations, the jury foreman said, their deadline, really. Then they said, get the fuck back in there. They gave him. It's what's called the dynamite charge.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Figure it the fuck out.

[James Petregallo]

Get the fuck back in there and figure it out. Charge they call. It's called the Chip Smith charge in Connecticut, which I had no idea about that. So they said they sent a note saying some members have expressed conviction that they could never vote guilty in the absence of physical evidence. Which is stupid, because when the judge reads you the jury instructions.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Literally that's. It doesn't have to be physical evidence. Like, they tell you all that. So, like, you're literally going against the law at that point. So.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And you've got DNA. I mean, there's. There's physical evidence.

[James Petregallo]

That's what's interesting. So in the end, they come back after that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And they decide that they're deadlocked this trial.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. They said 10 jurors had voted to convict him. Two of the women jurors were the holdouts for acquittal.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy shit.

[James Petregallo]

The prosecutor said, we believe that we presented the best possible case against Sean Fitzpatrick and that he alone is solely responsible for these murders. That fight will now continue zealously as we prepare for a second trial.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Dang it.

[James Petregallo]

Now here is a blogger, some blogger's opinion on the day that watched every moment of the trial. So just a random person's opinion that watched the trial, basically, and they wrote it down, said, I, for one, was not convinced that Mr. Fitzpatrick had committed these crimes. I watched this trial for three weeks on Court tv. And the prosecutor's evidence was based on assumptions, not facts. You had to assume that the truck on the video was Sean's neighbor's truck. You had to assume that Sean Fitzpatrick had stolen it and was driving it. And you had to assume the shotgun stolen from the committee's house was the one used in the murders. All of those things only make sense for one person. You had to assume the defendant had burglarized his Amity's house to get that shotgun. And you had to assume that he had never been in his neighbor's truck at least one time in all of the years his neighbor owned it. It was all assumptions. And in a murder trial where a defendant's innocent until proven guilty, you cannot assume anything. You must reach a verdict on what can be proven, not assumed. In this country, if an assumption or evidence, every defendant would be convicted. Okay, true. But the jurors talked to Dateline.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay?

[James Petregallo]

They asked him about what about the truck, Did Sean steal it? What about his DNA in it? One juror said, there has to be a direct connection between the trip of the truck and the murder, so there has to be something. It didn't go down there for nothing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petregallo]

And they said, so that's. One juror said that. So Keith Morrison said to the other two, because they talked to three jurors, do you all agree with that point that that truck must be connected with the murder? They said, no and no. Okay, okay. They said, okay. But the state proved that Fred Martin's easy pass did go through all the tolls between Boston and New Hampshire on the morning of the murders. But was the E Z pass in Fred's truck? That could have been a thing. The one juror said, they only know that the E Z pass went through, which can be taken out of a truck and put into another truck. Okay, that's okay. Why would you do that? And yeah, what about the surveillance photos of the truck that looks like Fred's truck? It's out of focus. Well, one juror said the pictures were very, very difficult to point out in any identifying features in this truck. And they said. And that created doubt for you? And both of the jurors said, absolutely, absolutely.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

They said, but they found his DNA on the steering wheel of the truck. And the juror said, that's. There's strong DNA evidence. It was Sean Fitzpatrick who had DNA on the wheel. But one juror said there was an explanation. The one said, everybody was over at everybody's house. Everybody was in everybody's vehicle. Everybody was helping each other move this, do that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Everybody's touching everything.

[James Petregallo]

But no, the one guy, the guy who's trucking is specifically said, he's never been in my fucking truck. Yeah, we don't know that. Fred's been asking for help from shit just because other people are.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's over here saying, I'm in that truck all the time.

[James Petregallo]

Fucking insane. So they said, okay, we also have the neighbor, we have Gert Keith Morrison said, here we have Sean Fitzpatrick actually doing something which is unusual for a defendant in a murder case. Seems to me he was a bit cocky, wasn't he? And the one juror said, no, I didn't find him to be cocky.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not cocky at all.

[James Petregallo]

And another juror said, I think he was nervous.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They really like him.

[James Petregallo]

They both have fucking paisan last names too. Fuck is wrong with you people? To have a talk with you. Kathy and Linda. Jesus Christ. That's their name. Kathy and Linda. Kathy said, Juror Kathy said, I thought he got. He had a lot of courage getting up there and testifying for himself. And for me to think that someone would do that, it kind of shows me that they're trying to Prove their innocence. Keith Morrison said, everybody else said he was lying. So you're just the only two dummies on earth, huh?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

The other juror said, during his testimony, I started leaning guilty. So, yes, in my view, his testimony did not help him. And when he admitted on the stand that he lied about the threatening letter after his palm print was found, that wasn't good either. Even juror Linda said, if he lied about that, then, yeah, it's possible he lied about other things. But you were one of the not guilty. What are you talking about?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What are you doing?

[James Petregallo]

Then she says, just because you sent a note, it doesn't mean you're a murderer. Why would you send that note? But if you add it all together, it's a. What are we talking about?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Doesn't look good, Linda.

[James Petregallo]

Holy shit. Wow. So they asked the prosecutor, is there going to be a second trial? And the prosecutor said, I try this case a thousand times. I try this case every day for the rest of my life. Because he's guilty. He's pretty sure of it, I think so. The defense attorney, Keith Morrison, said, was that hung jury a victory for you? And the defense attorney said, I don't know if you'd call it a victory, but I think a lot of defense attorneys would say anything that's not a conviction is a victory. Juror Kathy said, if you have reasonable doubt, it's not up to us to say he's guilty. It's up to the man upstairs. Nobody talking about, is there an alternate juror sitting upstairs? Because the one fucking place on this fucking earth that has nothing to do with that is court. I know you gotta put your hand on a Bible, but you don't even have to do that. You can just swear. You don't have to.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Dammit.

[James Petregallo]

It's just habit. So February 2009, as soon as they could possibly put it together, second trial coming in. This time, the judge does not allow the alternate Ricky Cali accusations. They decide that it was 11 years earlier and well outside the scope of anything that would have fucking mattered otherwise. You could start saying, didn't Michael Sr. Get in a fight with somebody in high school? And what are we talking about here? So they said that the only thing that would link him would be that labor dispute. That doesn't matter. And they said Michael Sr. Testified in the first trial that he and Callie had resolved their differences and in the intervening years and there was no evidence to suggest he had the means or opportunity to do it either. So will the secretly recorded phone call be allowed in Will it? That's a question. Sean's legal team tries to introduce the phone call at trial to show his consciousness of innocence.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, that's what they call it, Consciousness of innocence.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Essentially saying, look, why would I tell her to be honest if I was guilty? Oh, wow. The court excluded the call also. So that's a win for both, one for each side, saying it was not relevant to Sean's mental state at the time of the crime and that it occurred after the murders. So the court also further held that the so called consciousness of innocence is too speculative to be meaningful legal evidence as well. So the defense here, they argue there's no direct evidence, no murder weapon, no eyewitness. They maintain his innocence, present his alibi that he claimed he was home sleeping. They challenged the reliability of witness testimonies and question the accuracy of the surveillance footage identification. Um, wow. Um, they said that the. Michelle testifies, same as last time. Detailed their affair and persistent pressure from Sean to leave her husband. Blah, blah, blah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

Physical evidence, DNA traces, shell casings here, tire track impressions that they believe match this vehicle. Digital evidence from phone recordings and text messages. The easy pass. The prosecution presents a timeline. That's what you're supposed to do if you're a prosecutor. You want to put together a timeline that chokes the life out of any other explanation.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Like, well, he would have had two minutes to go from there to there. So it's got to be him. There's no other person. So it's one of those. They highlighted his knowledge of the victim's routines through his relationship with Michelle. He knew when, when he went to work because that's when he would call.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

So he knew exactly when he was there. Now, Sean, they're wondering if he's going to testify again. His attorney says he didn't have to because the prosecutor put him on the stand in the second trial. Now you go, how the fuck does that happen? Played his. His recorded testimony from the first trial.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Can you do that?

[James Petregallo]

Judge? Let it in.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. Prosecutors made sure they'd hear it anyway. They played audio excerpts of his testimony from the first trial. I guess if all the evidence is going to be allowed in the same way, then you'd have to.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And during that, they said he is the, you know, all of this shit on sending the letter, they hear, I wish that I had, and as soon as I did it, it's not something I would ask forgiveness for all that. They hear that this wasn't something that was sexual. It was both of ways. We Were there were emotions between us. Okay, this goes to the jury. There is one week of deliberations.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A week.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. A female juror said he sounded a little bit like, aloof, joking around a little bit too much from what we hear, you know, a lot of la di das and just. And not what I would have expected for someone who was testifying for themselves. One juror said the oh, to be me license plate was big. It was a big talk in the jury room. She said, because we didn't see anything that magnificent or wonderful. They were like, why the fuck does he want everyone.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He doesn't seem like he's having that great of a time. She thought. She said, we thought he might want to change it to woe to be me instead of oh, to be me. Woe to be me. Yeah. Jurors went around and around with the evidence. One juror said, because Keith Morrison later said, is there anyone who didn't think that he was driving that truck? Because that's, you know, you're crazy if you don't think that. One juror said, well, I thought about it a little bit. You know, one thing. The defense attorney, when he cross examined the toll engineer at the. But the defense attorney asked, but can you identify that this was the truck and that he was in the truck? The defendant? And he said, no, I can't. And one, that same juror said about the letter to the Zimittis, if you were totally innocent, that would be a very unusual way of going about. Yeah, I would say. Four days into the jury's deliberation, the four person sends a note to the judge saying, we're deadlocked. Wow.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What the fuck, man.

[James Petregallo]

A female juror said, there were some jurors who felt he'd done it, but the prosecution didn't solidify it enough for him. They needed more evidence. So that's when we went to the judge and said, we're at an impasse. Tell us where to go. The judge told them where to go. And the female juror said, your job. The judge said, your job's not done. Go back and continue to work. Then it got worse. That same day, one of the jurors was dismissed for medical reasons. So they picked an alternate juror. And the judge told them, now you have to start from scratch with deliberations. You have a new person. So one of the jurors said, I went in and I could see a bunch of frustrated faces like, are you kidding me? We have to start all over.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God damn it.

[James Petregallo]

They walked in and discovered that two jurors were holding out for acquittal. Again, just like the first trial. One juror here, juror Rob, some guy said, I thought the defense argument that you really have to place a defendant in that trust. The prosecution hasn't proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. And so they deliberated for the fifth day and a sixth day. Then on the seventh day, they have a verdict.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Here we go.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus Christ. It took six days to make the earth, apparently, but seven to find a verdict for this idiot. They find him guilty.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There it is.

[James Petregallo]

Of two counts of first degree murder, one count of illegal possession of a shotgun. While the clerk is reading the counts, he is mouthing to the jury, you have the wrong person. Wrong person. Over and over, wrong person. She's like making, oh, it's the wrong person. You fucked up. At this point, all the attention in the room shifts to Michael Zametti Sr. Because it looks like he's having a heart attack as people swarm around him. Really, he's not having a heart attack. He's trying to jump over the court thing to get at Sean, and everyone's holding him back. He's trying to murder Sean with his bare hands, as an Italian father would do. So, yeah, not a heart attack, just trying to attack Sean. And so sentencing comes around. Their eldest child, Michael's eldest child, says that reads a letter saying how the death of my father affected me because I wasn't able to see him anymore except in my dreams. Horrifying shit, Michelle said. Had this unspeakable event not happened, could my husband Michael, had forgiven me for the mistakes I made? I miss Michael for uncountable reasons, but to me, he will always be the love of my life. Judd says, you, sir, may fuck off. Two life sentences. Oh, consecutive.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, for both.

[James Petregallo]

No parole.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, wow.

[James Petregallo]

Two consecutive without. Fuck yourself is what they said to this guy. Yep. So that's tough, man. And there's a whole lot of juror discussion about this. And one juror said, I don't think anyone could ever imagine that a person would take someone's life that they were supposed to be friends with. I don't think she ever imagined anything horrific like that would happen. Because there's a lot of talk about Michelle. How, you know, do you feel she's responsible? They said she probably felt terrible.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So sure.

[James Petregallo]

Now he appeals on several grounds. I'll go through these in about a minute. One is that one of his high profile attorneys got caught in a DEA sting and convicted of helping an undercover government informant launder drug Money after the trial. So he's like, well, my lawyer was a scumbag. Also DNA stuff. They're saying that the DNA. Because during the trial they said the DNA on the coat hanger was inconclusive. And they said they shouldn't have brought it up at all if it was inconclusive, because inconclus conclusive will make people think that it's part him or whatever the fuck is his horseshit. Also the recorded phone calls, not the one with Michelle, but a jailhouse telephone call that was. That was intercepted and all that kind of shit. So they say, get the fuck out of here. Keep going. Enjoy prison for the rest of your life, asshole. So 2016 Nightmare Next Door a TV series season 10 episode 5 does this story called Death Takes a Toll.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oh boy. And then 2024, Investigation Discovery did this as well, doing a show called A Concrete Motive. Sean is currently in mci. Shirley. Don't call me Shirley. Which is a medium security facility. Michael, on the other hand, is in a place worse than prison. He is at the Forest Glade Cemetery in Wakefield, Massachusetts.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It probably is worse.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's where he was 39. That's fucked up. So that's young. So by the way, I found on his find a grave page there, his daughter Maria left a very heartfelt thing on there. And I thought I'd read that because it's nice and you know, if your dad died, maybe you'd want to be heard. So certainly.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Dear dad, I wish there was a phone I could use to call you. Life down here is okay, but with you around, I know a lot of things would be easier. 17 years is too long. Too many missed firsts, missed parties, missed holidays, graduations, milestones, and so many more things. I hope I make you proud every day and I hope you're with me in spirit every step of the way. I love you, dad. I miss you so much every day. I wish I could say it has gotten easier, but sometimes I think it's actually gotten harder. That's fucking sad. So Sean continues to say he's innocent and appeal every time he can and everything like that, so. So there you go. There is Wakefield, Massachusetts, everybody. Wow, that is a crazy fucking story. Very quickly here we'll go through the end. That was bonkers shit. Let's talk about it on social media and everything. But we got a boogie on out of here, so definitely shut up and give me murder dot com. Get your merch. Get your tickets for live shows. Right now it's looking like Seattle and D.C. and Philly are the only ones left with tickets. So thank you for doing that. Shut up and give me murder.com also patreon.com crimeinsports all your bonus material. Anybody, $5 a month or above. Hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before. Immediately upon subscription. New ones every other week. One crime in sports. One small town murder. This week, Crime and sports. Crazy NFL player with a crazy fucking ending. Small town murder. People who marry prisoners and serial killers and people who are looking for people in prison. What's the psychology? We'll talk all about that. Patreon.com CrimeanSports and you get a shout out at the end of the show, which is right fucking now. Jimmy, hit me with the name of the people who would never, ever borrow a neighbor's truck to come murder us. Hit me with him right now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This week's executive producers are. Stringer Bell.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, Stringer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Peter Musichik Muzicek. Wow. Gary Howard. Kyle Norweg. Emily West. Brother Patrick is fighting his ass off. Thank you, Patrick, for not. Thank you. Just keep going. Jesus Christ.

[James Petregallo]

Keep hanging in here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Poor man is. He's. He's in a fight for his life. Keep it up, Patrick. Jamie Kadra Kadrovich. Kadrovich. I think it's Kadravich. I don't remember. Happy birthday, Jamie.

[James Petregallo]

Whatever your fucking name is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Other producers this week. Petra, Peyton Meadows, Bill McClellan. Happy birthday. Scarlet Whore. Beast the Third. James. I don't. Oh, I forget the name. But this is how they would like to be honored. So there. The pepperoni Animal. Janice Hill. David with no last name. Elliot Hansen. Len Willits. Kelsey Brooks. Peter Carlson. Jay Raulston. Yeah. Tyler Veal. Tara McAfee. Matt Hugh. Max. Max Hewitt. Austin Miller. Christina Kerrigan. Rebecca Lufenberger. Mavy. Maeve. How do you say that? M, A, E, V, E. Is that mavy? Did we settle on that yet, as Americans?

[James Petregallo]

Because I think we're gonna. Maeve. Go. Maeve.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All right.

[James Petregallo]

It's like mauve, but with different.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It might be mauve, I don't know, but it's McGinnis. I know that part. Nicholas Saul. Patch. Soul Patch. Pulse. So Paw. Sal. Salpoff.

[James Petregallo]

Whoa.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Devin. Devin Willis. Don Barella. C. And the other letter C. Matthew Rectonwald. Libby Perry. Charlie Trigg. Ace Sellner.

[James Petregallo]

Barely knew her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Barely know her. Sue. Boy. Boy, are these bad. This week by Michelle Buy Me. She don't know.

[James Petregallo]

Donate.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

I.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's impossible. Carrie Kirkwald. Kirkland. That's it. Jacob with Tech Y Tech D A the da Donate Megan. Megan Des Rochees. Roche. Megan. You're the best, Joanna.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wilson. Jason with no last name. Michelle Ricard. Tiffany March Banks. Yep. Johnny with no last name. Rachel Cohen. Mike Pew. Puh. Puff. Jordan Femaro. Jeremy with a G. Bowman. That's terrible. Angelina Collie.

[James Petregallo]

Germany.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Tori with no last name. Anna Berntson. Brendan. Brendan Lord. Nico Williamson. David Center. Heather Hubbard. Nick McCormick. Aw. Book Girl. Janet Salinas. Dawn with no last name. Cade Kalisa. Hunter Frampton. Peter's kid. Rose Fire. That's a good name. Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

Nice. That sounds great.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Kelly Starcher. My. What is this? Michael Ann. Michael Ann Finkel. Fink Michelle. And that's Michael Ann. What?

[James Petregallo]

How's that? Maybe there it's a couple that we shouldn't be allowed.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Michael and Michael and Anne. It better be that. It can't be Michael and you're not allowed to be Michael and John Taylor. Great catch. Sarah Delaney. Whitney with no last name.

[James Petregallo]

88 Super bowl, baby.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Terry. I'm sure nobody's ever told you that. John Terry. Arwen. Arwin Storm. Scott Paquette. Tim Drofton. Is that right? Nikki Klinger. Ariel Howler. Howler. Ralph Carte. Carti Carter Blanche. Denise Gibson. Onyx. Lovely. Rachel Dennison. Adam Torrissey. Tmj. Tj. This show brought to you by tj. Shelley Ramsey. Don Pushy. Jasmine with no last name. Pushy. You hear that? Push. Jesus. Josh Johnson. Samantha Lister. Laura Sar. Holly Cock. What? Tony Curry. That's two names.

[James Petregallo]

Took me a second to process that one.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Zach Nussbaum. Michelle with no last name. Brandy with no last name. Kind topic. Maureen with no last name. Chris with no last name. Mixins. Scott Phillips. Courtney Moore. Joseph Coleman Bonner. Grant Ziegler. Zeigler. Ziegler. Probably Ava with no last name name's not Andy. So it's definitely not Andy.

[James Petregallo]

James.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a different name.

[James Petregallo]

Not Andy. Did not give a shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Amanda Weinbrenner. Samantha Jenkins. Travis Granberg. Kendra Wright. Haley with no last name. Anais Rom. I hope. Michelle Sifri. Sifri Siffer. Chiamata Bread. That's a thing, right? Melissa Grasso. Christine Higgins. Kelsey Lamartina. Donovan Finley. Austin Stewart. AJ Cross. Quincy Young. Kilo Kylo. Ik. Derek with no last name. Morgan Lowe. Hadley Oberg. PB Nina with no last name. Andrea Galindo. Ashley Durbin. Josh Lewis. Melissa Dunmire. Amy Paul Pierce. I'm a suck your dick. I'll bet you won't. Lindsay Wiles. David Ellis. Lily Jean Gurney Cordale. Cordell Clawson. Sam Lee. Freddie Santiago. Jessica Baker. Elizabeth. No last name. Sarah Lulo. Skip Newman. Caitlyn. Caitlyn Piffer. Stephen Wick. Yep. Hcc. Sabrina Connor. Allie with no last name. Or maybe Ali. Krista. Krista Kemp.

[James Petregallo]

The great one.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sean Kemp's daughter here. Yeah. The great.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Hope he pays for anything out of the woodwork there. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sweaty turtle. Fucking bajunk bajunk ba junk. And all of our patrons. You guys are the best. We can't thank you enough. Thank you.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you so much, everybody. Fucking fantastic. Wonderful bastards. We love you so much. Continue to listen to the show, tell your friends, follow us on social media. Go to shut upandgivemer.com drop down men will take you all those places you want to go. Get yourself a t shirt. Come hang out with us. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye.