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Cover-Up
In New London
Hit-And-Run Continues To Mock Justice
Sept. 4, 2000
If Connecticut
Chief State’s Attorney John Bailey wants to bring closure to cold
cases, here’s one from New London that should top the list: The
Showalter hit-and-run cover-up is a dark chapter in Connecticut history,
a tale more appropriate for a Third World country.
And yet, only
one thing bothers former New London County State’s Attorney C. Robert
Satti about the Showalter case: that it was investigated at all.
Satti, now
retired, made the point again and again, most recently this year. Satti’s
complaint, made during the wake of the late state police Detective
George Ryalls, was that Ryalls’ obituary mentioned the suspect the
prosecutor refused to pursue in the Showalter probe.
Kevin B. Showalter, a 20-year-old Mitchell College
student, was killed at 11:12 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1973. He was changing
a tire on a well-lit section of Pequot Avenue on the New London
shoreline when he was struck and killed. His girlfriend, sitting only 6
feet away on a stone wall, claims she saw nothing.
Auto body putty from the death car disappeared after a
tow truck driver gave it to New London police. The evidence file that
was supposed to contain the putty was stuffed with bathroom tiles. The
file that was supposed to contain headlight glass from the death car
instead contained glass from three different headlights. State police
and others suspected that, in order to throw legitimate investigators
off the trail, the late young man's clothing was pounded on a
different-colored car than the one that killed him.
The victim's mother, Lucille M. Showalter, tried to get
a grand jury investigation of the cover-up. She was rebuffed repeatedly
by the presiding judge, Angelo Santaniello who, it later became clear,
was best friends with the leading suspect. Santaniello then referred
Showalter to prosecutor Satti, who happened to be his former law
partner. Satti refused to acknowledge registered letters from Mrs.
Showalter pleading for a grand jury probe.
Satti did finally meet with Mrs. Showalter in 1978,
after Judge Joseph Dannehy of Willimantic, acting as a one-man grand
jury, named former New London Mayor Harvey N. Mallove as the probable
driver of the hit-run vehicle. Satti called the three-hour meeting, in
which he repeatedly told Mrs. Showalter that there never should have
been a grand jury investigation under Dannehy.
Mallove held a
good hand; he had the best legal muscle in New London County on his
side. New London police would not question him for more than seven
months, and then only in a perfunctory manner. They would say they
inspected his cars, but they did not. Significantly, Mallove’s Lincoln
had been repaired, but it wasn’t until state police took over the case
four years after the accident that the fender was finally seized.
Santaniello
would arrange for a coroner’s inquest and put his niece in charge of
typing the transcript. Only after two years of intense public pressure
would the transcript be typed. But the inquest never issued a finding.
Santaniello tipped off Mallove that he was a suspect.
The judge was also aware of what local police knew about the case. Mrs.
Showalter memorialized the admissions in tape-recorded telephone
conversations.
“I did talk
to Harvey,” Santaniello told Mrs. Showalter on Oct. 17, 1975, “and I
said, `You’re suspected.’ As a matter of fact, at that time a police
officer came to him on the same day or the next day, and told him you
were making accusations about him and that he was a prime suspect.”
The day before, Mallove told Mrs. Showalter, “Judge Santaniello is of
the opinion that you fingered me.”
It was not
until 1977 that state police, who took over the case at the behest of
former Gov. Ella Grasso, formally named Mallove a suspect. Next week,
I'll propose a means to solve the Showalter cover-up.
Showalter Cover-Up Is New London's Shame
Sept. 11, 2000
New
London, where I grew up and began working in the 1960s and ‘70s, was a
dirty little city with character.
It had a restaurant called the Hygienic that was
everything but. There were at least a couple bars where the cops
couldn't do anything, except maybe a little business.
The top pimp in town
never went to jail until he was about 60 and a certain court official
retired.
New London will always be the city that tried to cover
up the Christmas Eve 1973 hit-and-run death of Kevin B. Showalter. It's
been doing a pretty good job for nearly 27 years, but the onion is
beginning to peel.
The
local daily newspaper admitted
— in its official history published this year that it
did a shoddy job on the Showalter case. Specifically, The Day admitted
its failure to explore the relationship between a former mayor and a top
judge, and their— influence on the course of the criminal
investigation. That’s a beginning.
Political and police corruption goes back a couple
generations in New London. By the 1970s, New London police were widely
known to be involved in the selling of women, dope and refrigerators,
among other things. A federal grand jury took note. But as with the
Showalter case, there were these little problems with the evidence.
A
jewelry store owner and former city mayor multi-millionaire Harvey
Mallove was the prime suspect in the hit-and-run death of Showalter, a
student at Mitchell College. Showalter’s date that night, Christmas
Eve 1973, said she saw nothing from her vantage point six feet away,
sitting on a stone wall under a streetlight on a residential street as a
young man changed the tire of her car.
Harvey
was everybody’s pal. He would take kids to the Super Bowl, then, down
the road, get them jobs as cops. He was friends with bums in the street
and bums in high political office. He was wired. The standing joke among
reporters became: Harvey's a great guy to have a beer with, just don't
change your tire if he's driving by.
“I
didn't kill the kid in any way, shape or form,” Harvey told me many
times. As mayor, Harvey helped hire a few police chiefs. His best friend
was the administrative judge for the county; that was the judge who
controlled the early stages of the investigation, specifically a coroner’s
inquest that never issued a finding.
State
police followed up a report that Mallove’s best friend, County
Administrative Judge Angelo G. Santaniello, was with Mallove on
Christmas Eve 1973. Santaniello reportedly was No. 11 on a guest list
for a party at the home of his political mentor, the late state Sen.
Peter Mariani. The Mariani party was one of two Mallove attended that
night.
Santaniello told reporters he never went out on
Christmas Eve.
Another state judge, Joseph F.
Dannehy, conducted two
grand jury investigations. In 1978, Dannehy named Mallove as the
probable driver of the hit-run vehicle, but said evidence that might
have ensured conviction was either mishandled or destroyed.
Mallove died a few years ago with this legacy. Others
still have time to come clean and tell the truth about the cover-up.
Mrs. Showalter tried unsuccessfully to have Satti, Santaniello and
others prosecuted for hindrance of prosecution (CGS Section 53a-166)
warning of impending discovery, providing means of avoiding discovery,
preventing discovery by deception. Because a conspiracy to hinder
prosecution is an ongoing crime, those with information could tell Chief
State's Attorney John Bailey, who has begun an initiative to solve some
of the state's cold homicide cases.
Isn’t
it time? No one kept the system honest when it counted, though some
tried. Most stood by as the system that was supposed to protect the
victim and his family betrayed them all.
Where is the conscience of the community?
Cold Case On Ice Forever
Nov. 6, 2000
One way to deflect attention from a suspect is to get
investigators involved in meaningless, time-consuming tasks. Another way
is to create a bogus suspect who is then exposed as such, causing a
belief that the case is just too hazy to pursue.
Both of these devices were used repeatedly in the
cover-up of the Showalter hit-run case in New London. Whether this was
happenstance, indifference, incompetence or malfeasance, the result was
the same. The system failed.
And now, it seems, the truth will remain buried
forever.
Judge Joseph F. Dannehy, the grand juror who
investigated the case, wrote in his finding of fact: “After December
25, 1973, the New London Police Department did virtually nothing to
solve the hit-run death of Kevin B. Showalter.” The accident occurred
the night before.
Local police and court officials, however, were
pro-active in another sense. Their actions served to protect the
assailant.
For example, New London police claimed it would cost as
much as $1,200 to trace vehicles using data from the state Motor Vehicle
Department. The motor vehicle department declared there was no such
charge.
Nevertheless, New London police spent their time
hand-sorting local motor vehicle cards. They looked for a green
Chrysler. That was likely a false lead; state police said paint
particles found on the victim's clothing did not come from the car that
killed him.
Former Mayor Harvey Mallove began meeting informally
with police and court officials as early as Dec. 25, 1973. Mallove
wanted to know what the police knew.
The only lead after two and a half years was quashed by
then New London Common Pleas Court Prosecutor Harold Dean in May 1976.
The lead was a letter of confession written by a Somers prison inmate to
the victim’s mother, Lucille Showalter.
“I told Harold how important that was to me,”
Mallove, the prime suspect, confided to an associate. He also
acknowledged discussing the purported confession with his best friend,
the presiding judge for the county, Angelo Santaniello.
The author of the letter was known to be connected with
“fences,” or purveyors of stolen goods in the New London area. State
police arrested him for harassment of Mrs. Showalter. Two state troopers
met with Dean for an hour. They told him the letter contained possibly
significant information. State police also believed they could connect
the dots in New London between the letter writer and the powers-that-be.
Did he owe some favors? Was he paid? Police knew the author had no
liability for the accident; he was actually in Florida at the time of
the hit-run.
Dean nolled and dismissed the case without telling the
troopers or Mallove. Soon thereafter, state police listed the killing of
Showalter as “closed pending further development.” Upon learning of
Dean's action, Chief State's Attorney Joseph Gormley remarked he had “no
idea” why the lead, “which very well could have led to something,”
resulted in a dead end. The case would remain closed for six months,
until Gov. Ella Grasso brought the matter to Justice John Cotter.
Was there criminal activity connected with the
Showalter cover-up? It appears we will never know for certain. Dannehy
named Mallove as the probable driver, noting that evidence which might
have ensured conviction was destroyed. The Chief State’s Attorney’s
Office reviewed aspects of the case this fall after a series of columns
appeared in The Law Tribune. However, the statute of limitations for the
most likely potential charge, conspiracy to hinder prosecution of motor
vehicle misconduct, has expired. This shameful case, it appears, is
destined to stay on ice forever.
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