...And Never Let HerGo

she announced that her son was innocent, and was scathing about the woman—surely Debby MacIntyre—who was ruining his life. Colm Connolly and Bob Donovan were the last to jog briskly up the steps and disappear beyond the double doors.
    And then the crowd pushed in toward the metal detectors just inside those doors. A hundred and fifty people squeezed into the courtroom, more packed the winding stairwell, and more than three hundred reporters and photographers stood poised on the street below.
    Tom, wearing his dark blue suit, walked in surrounded by guards, but he still managed his usual smile and greeting for his mother, his daughters, his sister. On this morning, even Kay was there, all of them waiting for the words that would change
their
lives, too.
    At 10:01 A.M. on January 17, as Judge Lee asked the jury foremanto read the verdict, Kathi Carlozzi stood at the doors of the courtroom, one hand protruding into the rotunda area. If the verdict was to acquit, she would put her thumb down; to convict, her thumb would be up. With that signal, word would pass down the winding stairway and out to the packed street.
    Until this moment, the jurors had avoided Tom’s eyes—not a good sign for any defendant. But now the jury foreman, a pipe fitter for General Motors, looked directly at Tom as he read the verdict. “Guilty as charged.” The six armed guards behind Tom braced for his reaction, but he showed no emotion at all. He neither flinched nor turned to look at the jurors.
    Kathi’s thumb went up. Thomas J. Capano had just been found guilty of first-degree murder and a muffled roar of approval sounded from the crowds outside. The man who had been a leader among leaders in Wilmington was a pariah now. But there were those who still loved him, and they were the very people he had accused the investigators of hurting: his mother, his daughters, his sister. Marian Ramunno put her arms around her sobbing mother, and then Marguerite struggled from her wheelchair to go to Tom’s daughters, who wept in shock. They had believed their father when he told them he would soon be free to come home to them. Nothing any outside force could have done came close to the despair Tom had brought to them.
    And across the aisle, Anne Marie’s family cried, too. They had found justice, but their sister was never coming back.
    Outside, in the streets of Wilmington, there was a celebration, with cheers and whoops and clapping whenever one of the “heroes” emerged from the courthouse and walked through the honor guard of Wilmington policemen. The courthouse steps became the perfect site for press conferences, and the Faheys, David Weiss, Colm Connolly, Ferris Wharton, Joe Oteri, Jack O’Donnell, Charlie Oberly, and Gene Maurer all agreed to be interviewed by the clamoring press. The atmosphere was more like a festival than the aftermath of a murder trial.
    But Colm Connolly told the crowd that this should not be a celebration. “Tom Capano put a lot of people through a lot of distress, suffering, and pain,” he said. “My heart goes out to the Fahey family. . . . We don’t have Anne Marie Fahey here. That’s a loss that the Fahey family and all of Anne Marie’s friends will never be compensated for.”
    Notified at home, Debby MacIntyre came down to the courthouse, walking through the crowd that parted in surprise to see her.Tom had always told her she couldn’t appear in public without his direction, but she wasn’t afraid anymore. The jury had obviously believed her, and that made up for a lot of anguish and embarrassment. She told reporters that she was happy for the Faheys, and intended to go on with her life, a life in which Tom Capano would have no part.
    The whole of downtown Wilmington, usually as quiet on a Sunday as a cemetery, was filled with people. Down at O’Friel’s Irish Pub, Kevin Freel opened the doors early and his patrons, many of whom had known and loved Annie, lifted a beer in her memory and in triumph.
    T HE penalty phase of Tom’s trial began on January 20, 1999, and it was fraught with pitfalls for him. The prosecutors had not been allowed to present evidence of “prior bad acts” that he might have participated in. But now, in the penalty phase, they were able to call Linda Marandola, the woman Tom had stalked and threatened over the years. His obsession with her was eerily like his fixation on Anne Marie. As they pondered what their recommendation would be—a life sentence or death—the