...And Never Let HerGo

defendant) with completely different personalities and, of course, different goals. He wanted everything on the record and he demanded order, but he understood that this marathon trial must never be allowed to veer out of control. Lee understood too well that the defendant had within him the capacity to turn the proceedings into a circus.
    Ferris Wharton, even with a laid-back style and his easy connection to the jury, had an awesome task in front of him. For twenty-eight months now, federal and state investigators had beenuncovering evidence and witnesses to knit hundreds of details into a net that was about to drop over Tom Capano. The jury must be made to understand the evidence and, so very essential, the sequence of events. Information that had become second nature to the investigators had to be explained to twelve jurors who had come to this courtroom with open minds.
    To help him track Tom through his alleged preparations for murder and the cover-up, Wharton had a huge chart prepared. The Middle Atlantic Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement Network, a government-funded organization that provided support and an information-sharing nexus to police and prosecutors and often built demonstration aids for trials, had constructed this chart. There were photographs of the houses and the buildings involved, of the vehicles and boats, and all of the receipts of credit-card transactions. As Wharton spoke, the jurors could follow the deadly time line themselves.
    “We went to them with a vertical arrangement,” he recalled, “and they showed us it would be easier to follow if it was spread out horizontally—starting in Gerry Capano’s driveway at 5:45 A.M. on Friday morning, June twenty-eighth.”
    Rising to present his opening statement to the jury and using the huge chart to illustrate his remarks, Wharton began to explain what had happened the morning after Anne Marie died. Gerry Capano’s neighbor had seen Tom parked outside Gerry’s house, and then watched as Gerry walked up to the passenger window.
    “His brother asks him if he can take a boat ride,” Wharton said. “And that must have sent chills through Gerry Capano’s body because he knew what that meant, because months before that date, his brother had talked to him about the need to use that boat to dispose of a body or bodies.”
    Tom had borrowed money and a gun from Gerry back in February 1996—Wharton continued—to set up the story that he might have to kill blackmailers and extortionists who were threatening his children. “Tom Capano played the brother card hard,” Wharton said. When Tom came to his house and asked to use the boat, Gerry knew why. “So they agreed to meet later at Tom Capano’s house, but Gerry had to do some things first. He had to pick up somebody and take him to work before he could leave. Now, they had a routine; Gerry would call as he’s approaching Thomas Pitts’s apartment to make sure he’s out of bed and ready to be picked up. This is a bill from Gerry’s phone which shows the call, 6:35 A.M. , to Thomas Pitts. He picks him up and takes him to work.
    “Ultimately, he rendezvoused with the defendant, but—before that happens—Tom Capano has some things to do, too. Seven o’clock or so, he goes to his wife’s house. . . . Kay has a Chevy Suburban. It’s a bigger car, more space. He switches cars. . . . And then he goes up to Tower Hill at 7:45 . . . and walks around the track for a while. He’s got some time before Gerry will get back to his house. And he sees Debby MacIntyre—a chance encounter—as she’s going to work at Tatnall School, and they say hello.”
    Most mornings, Tom exercised at the track. There was a body waiting for him back at his house that morning but he had still taken pains to maintain his usual schedule.
    “Then he goes home,” Wharton said, pointing to a picture, on the chart, of the Grant Avenue house, “and Gerry arrives. . . . Tom has got a cooler in the garage, a large cooler. He’s got chains. He’s got a lock. And Gerry helps him with the cooler to get that in the car.”
    But Gerry didn’t want to leave his truck at Tom’s house—so the two brothers drove to the Acme supermarket’s parking lot at Trolley Square. “There’s also a MAC [ATM machine] at Trolley Square. And at 8:41 A.M. , the defendant withdraws $200 from the MAC machine.”
    What was Tom thinking as he heard all of the details, verifiable details, of what he had been confident was a