WEBVTT 00:06.005 --> 00:08.007 [ambient street noise] 00:37.579 --> 00:39.372 [man 1] Joey was going out that Saturday night, 00:39.456 --> 00:42.417 but I never got into details with him about where he was going. 00:43.835 --> 00:45.336 He was 26 years old. 00:46.421 --> 00:47.672 He's an adult. 00:49.257 --> 00:52.385 [man 2] I met Joey Comunale my first year at Hofstra. 00:53.053 --> 00:55.889 He was more than a friend to me. We became like brothers. 00:55.972 --> 00:59.017 Joey at first was very quiet, but once you got to know him, 00:59.100 --> 01:02.562 he was very outgoing, and everybody loved him. 01:03.396 --> 01:06.149 That Saturday night, we had plans to go to a party. 01:06.232 --> 01:09.027 And then last minute, he invited me to go to the city, 01:09.611 --> 01:12.363 to go to the Gilded Lily with a small group of friends. 01:12.447 --> 01:16.367 We got in a little argument about it. So we went our separate ways that night. 01:19.287 --> 01:23.625 [woman] So on Sunday, I ended up texting Joey early that morning. 01:23.708 --> 01:24.959 I knew he'd be sleeping, 01:25.043 --> 01:29.005 so I knew it was gonna be a little while before he got back to me. 01:29.714 --> 01:31.257 [man 1] Then twelve o'clock came. 01:31.341 --> 01:33.593 Lisa came to me, said, "Have you heard from Joey?" 01:33.676 --> 01:37.305 I said, "No, I haven't." I tried to call him and got no response. 01:37.388 --> 01:40.517 I probably called him a half dozen times between 12:00 and 1:00. 01:41.101 --> 01:43.603 I had to get my fantasy football team in by one o'clock, 01:43.686 --> 01:46.064 and he always helped me with my fantasy football team. 01:46.564 --> 01:47.816 I still didn't hear from him. 01:48.650 --> 01:52.529 I'm thinking, "Maybe he went to go and stay with his friend Max." 01:53.696 --> 01:57.408 I remember speaking to Pat on the phone, and he was definitely nervous, 01:57.492 --> 01:58.952 as who wouldn't be? 01:59.911 --> 02:02.997 But I was like, "Guys go out. They meet girls." 02:03.081 --> 02:05.625 "They don't know each other. They all go back to a place." 02:05.708 --> 02:08.253 "They party. It's nothing unusual." 02:08.336 --> 02:10.630 I really didn't think anything of it at all. 02:12.048 --> 02:14.384 As the day progressed into the early afternoon, 02:14.467 --> 02:16.761 and there was still no sign of Joey, 02:16.845 --> 02:20.974 is when I started to get a little nervous and worried. 02:22.475 --> 02:23.935 [woman] As the day was going by, 02:24.018 --> 02:26.229 we were hoping we were gonna hear from him. 02:26.312 --> 02:28.648 We were just waiting, just waiting, but… 02:29.649 --> 02:31.192 never happened. 02:34.988 --> 02:36.573 [suspenseful music playing] 02:36.656 --> 02:40.076 [Mooney] Our job is to make sure you can go home and sleep at night. 02:41.494 --> 02:44.706 [Rivera] It's so important for a family to know who murdered their relative. 02:45.623 --> 02:49.752 [chief] Compassion for the victims, that's the most important thing. 02:50.461 --> 02:53.423 [Parrino] I've always liked the peek behind the curtain. 02:53.506 --> 02:54.757 What really happened? 02:56.593 --> 02:58.511 [McNeely] You want to find out the truth. 02:58.595 --> 03:00.179 That's what detectives do. 03:00.722 --> 03:03.933 [officer] Your instinct is to help people. 03:04.559 --> 03:07.937 [Titus] In New York City, the NYPD… 03:10.231 --> 03:11.065 this is it. 03:12.108 --> 03:13.610 [music trailing off] 03:17.071 --> 03:18.573 [tense music building] 03:27.707 --> 03:31.127 [detective 1] I was a precinct detective in the 17th Precinct Detective Squad. 03:31.628 --> 03:33.713 On November 14th in 2016, 03:33.796 --> 03:36.925 we receive a phone call from the desk downstairs… 03:37.008 --> 03:38.092 [phone ringing] 03:38.176 --> 03:40.678 …in regards to a father who was there, 03:40.762 --> 03:44.599 whose son had come to the city to party, and he hasn't heard from him yet. 03:45.725 --> 03:48.519 [detective 2] Detective Castro and I are in the office, 03:48.603 --> 03:51.648 and a uniformed officer is accompanying two gentlemen, 03:51.731 --> 03:54.901 Pat Comunale and his brother, Joe Comunale. 03:55.401 --> 03:57.278 They had a sense of urgency. 03:57.362 --> 04:00.448 You know, you could tell by the look on both of their faces 04:00.531 --> 04:03.159 that they were very concerned, very worried. 04:04.911 --> 04:09.582 Pat tells us, "My son Joey has been missing for approximately 16 hours," 04:09.666 --> 04:14.045 and he's attempted to reach out to him multiple times 04:14.128 --> 04:15.880 and was unable to. 04:15.964 --> 04:21.052 And I asked his father, "Is this unusual of him to not speak to him?" 04:21.135 --> 04:24.847 And, uh, Pat tells me, "I speak to my son regularly." 04:28.226 --> 04:30.395 [Castro] To me, I was like, "All right, it's Manhattan." 04:30.478 --> 04:32.480 "The kids come to party here." 04:32.563 --> 04:35.483 "They're known to stay at people's homes, hotels." 04:35.566 --> 04:38.069 "Some get drunk. They pass out on the streets." 04:38.653 --> 04:39.862 "We'll find him." 04:40.405 --> 04:42.907 [Chen] At that point, Yeoman and I kind of fork. 04:42.991 --> 04:48.121 So, uh, Yeoman has Pat at his desk. I'm running everything in the computer. 04:48.204 --> 04:52.041 I'm checking every single system for Joey's name, date of birth. 04:52.125 --> 04:54.419 Different variations, John Does. 04:55.420 --> 04:58.715 He wasn't in any hospital. He wasn't in any jail cell. 04:59.465 --> 05:00.883 He was just off the radar. 05:01.843 --> 05:03.303 [man] I told Detective Castro 05:03.386 --> 05:07.849 that the night before, I got a call from Joey's friend 05:07.932 --> 05:10.393 who said, "I know you're trying to get a hold of Joey." 05:10.476 --> 05:11.477 "I have his phone." 05:12.603 --> 05:14.814 I was like, "What are you doing with his phone?" 05:14.897 --> 05:18.192 And he told me the story about what happened the night prior. 05:18.943 --> 05:23.781 That they had gone into the city to, uh, go to the Gilded Lily, 05:23.865 --> 05:25.325 which I had never heard of. 05:25.825 --> 05:27.076 It was a nightclub. 05:27.702 --> 05:30.496 And as they were leaving the Gilded Lily, 05:31.080 --> 05:33.458 Joey was talking to three girls. 05:34.667 --> 05:38.254 At the same time, his friend took Joey's phone 05:38.337 --> 05:40.548 to call his girlfriend to see where she was. 05:41.674 --> 05:46.971 I guess as that was going on, these two other guys came up and said, 05:47.055 --> 05:49.223 "Do you guys want to go to an after-party?" 05:49.724 --> 05:50.933 Two cabs pull up, 05:51.017 --> 05:55.646 and Joey's friend says, "I have your phone." 05:55.730 --> 05:58.191 Joey says, "Just give it to me tomorrow." 05:58.775 --> 06:02.195 And so they all jump into the cab, and they went to this after-party. 06:03.654 --> 06:05.406 That was the last time he saw him. 06:06.824 --> 06:08.701 [man] After I had spoken to Pat, 06:09.202 --> 06:12.455 I went to Instagram, and I clicked on the Gilded Lily. 06:14.082 --> 06:17.668 I just started looking at tagged photos, which there are hundreds of them, 06:17.752 --> 06:21.464 just to see if I could find Joey in the background of somebody's picture, 06:21.547 --> 06:24.509 or get a clue, because we had nothing to go off of. 06:26.052 --> 06:30.181 I saw this one, and there was three girls and a guy that I know. 06:30.264 --> 06:31.349 So I called him. 06:32.016 --> 06:35.061 He was like, "Those are the girls Joey was with last night." 06:35.603 --> 06:37.230 Gave me this girl's number, Jenna. 06:38.815 --> 06:42.443 I texted her, and I asked her, "What happened with Joey last night?" 06:42.527 --> 06:44.612 "Any idea where he is? Is he with you?" 06:44.695 --> 06:45.780 She said, "No." 06:45.863 --> 06:47.240 "We were at this party." 06:47.323 --> 06:51.536 And then a few hours after, Joey and this guy, whose name was Larry, 06:51.619 --> 06:54.956 walked the girls to an Uber and waved them goodbye. 06:57.458 --> 06:59.919 Pat was actually able to give me 07:00.002 --> 07:04.924 the name and phone number of the last person Jenna saw with Joey. 07:05.007 --> 07:07.051 And his name was Larry Dilione. 07:08.219 --> 07:13.057 So I called Larry, and I explained that we're looking for Joey Comunale, 07:13.141 --> 07:15.309 who he was partying with at the after-party. 07:15.393 --> 07:18.521 He says, "Yeah, I met him outside of Gilded Lily, 07:18.604 --> 07:20.690 invited them to this after-party 07:20.773 --> 07:23.276 for this rich kid that lives on the Upper East Side 07:23.901 --> 07:26.279 at the Grand Sutton apartment building." 07:26.362 --> 07:28.614 [foreboding music playing] 07:28.698 --> 07:31.576 Larry told me the last time he had seen Joey 07:31.659 --> 07:36.581 was when he left the building to walk Jenna and her friends to an Uber 07:36.664 --> 07:38.291 to send them back to New Jersey. 07:38.374 --> 07:40.334 It was 6:30 in the morning, 07:40.418 --> 07:43.713 and all he remembers is he walked back into the building alone. 07:45.840 --> 07:47.300 So then I gave Jenna a call, 07:48.426 --> 07:52.263 and Jenna described the after-party in apartment 4C, 07:52.346 --> 07:54.474 and the host was James Rackover. 07:56.434 --> 07:59.353 [McNeely] According to Jenna, when the group arrives, 07:59.437 --> 08:03.316 she gets into the apartment, and there was a male in there. 08:03.399 --> 08:08.946 His name was James Rackover, and James was shirtless. 08:10.114 --> 08:12.241 And according to Jenna, 08:12.325 --> 08:15.077 he never bothered to put a shirt on the entire night. 08:16.245 --> 08:20.833 At one point, she said James claimed to have been a, uh, male stripper, 08:20.917 --> 08:25.046 and he wanted to give Jenna a lap dance. 08:25.630 --> 08:29.467 And, fortunately, you know, one of the girls videotaped it. 08:29.550 --> 08:31.844 [moody dance music pulsing] 08:31.928 --> 08:36.349 [Castro] You know, James has no shirt. He's giving one of the girls a lap dance. 08:37.099 --> 08:38.809 He's competing with Larry Dilione. 08:38.893 --> 08:40.520 Who gives the best lap dance? 08:40.603 --> 08:42.647 [woman laughing] 08:42.730 --> 08:47.860 She said that Larry Dilione was in possession of a folding knife 08:47.944 --> 08:50.571 that he was snorting cocaine off of. 08:53.032 --> 08:56.244 And she kept noticing that Joey's calm, 08:56.327 --> 08:59.455 but he appeared to be extremely inebriated. 08:59.539 --> 09:04.085 That he was consuming a lot of whiskey and beer, 09:04.168 --> 09:08.339 but he wasn't having any issues with any of the people in the apartment. 09:10.591 --> 09:13.761 [Castro] Jenna does recall that after the party, 09:13.844 --> 09:16.097 once she got to the Uber, they get inside, 09:16.180 --> 09:17.765 I guess she's looking back to say bye, 09:17.848 --> 09:22.353 and she sees that Larry and Joey fist bump each other. 09:22.436 --> 09:26.190 And then she assumed he either walked off or went back inside to the party. 09:27.942 --> 09:32.363 So Jenna painted a great picture of what was going on in the after-party, 09:32.446 --> 09:35.157 but she never answered the crucial question, which is, 09:35.241 --> 09:36.701 "Where is Joey?" 09:36.784 --> 09:38.953 [tense music playing] 09:39.036 --> 09:40.997 So I could tell Pat was concerned. 09:41.080 --> 09:43.874 I have sons of my own, so I'm like, "You know what?" 09:43.958 --> 09:46.002 "Let's go take a ride to the building." 09:47.295 --> 09:51.132 [Pat] Detective Castro really was conscientious. 09:51.215 --> 09:55.970 He took an interest and, no bullshit, he wanted to know what was going on. 09:57.471 --> 09:59.015 He knew there was a problem. 09:59.098 --> 10:02.560 We jumped in his patrol car and went over to Grand Sutton. 10:04.061 --> 10:09.358 So the Grand Sutton apartments is located on East 59th Street. 10:09.442 --> 10:12.236 For those people that aren't aware of that area, 10:12.320 --> 10:14.572 that is known as Sutton Place. 10:14.655 --> 10:16.991 And it's not for the rich. 10:17.074 --> 10:19.160 It's for the filthy rich. 10:21.412 --> 10:25.041 [Castro] So at 11:00 a.m., we arrived in front of the Grand Sutton. 10:25.124 --> 10:27.752 You walk in, it's almost as if you're walking into a hotel. 10:28.419 --> 10:31.547 They've got a doorman, a concierge. 10:31.631 --> 10:35.718 We decided, "Let's go to 4C, James Rackover's apartment." 10:36.594 --> 10:39.180 We knock on the door. The cleaning lady opened the door. 10:39.805 --> 10:41.390 James wasn't there. 10:41.474 --> 10:44.352 So I said, "Listen, there was a party here last night." 10:44.435 --> 10:45.978 "There was a kid that's missing." 10:46.062 --> 10:47.688 "Do you mind if I take a look?" 10:47.772 --> 10:49.357 She goes, "No problem." Opens the door. 10:51.567 --> 10:53.194 It's a small apartment, not very big. 10:54.278 --> 10:56.739 We went in. It was very clean. 10:57.323 --> 11:02.119 We didn't see anything that would have raised any flags. 11:02.203 --> 11:04.872 We didn't find Joey in there, and we exited the apartment. 11:07.249 --> 11:09.460 So I call James Rackover. 11:10.169 --> 11:12.880 He says he doesn't know Joey Comunale. 11:12.963 --> 11:14.298 He's a stranger. 11:14.382 --> 11:17.134 He came for the after-party with Larry 11:17.218 --> 11:22.431 and one of Larry Dilione and James Rackover's friends, Max Gemma, 11:22.515 --> 11:26.560 and the three girls that he had met at Gilded Lily. 11:26.644 --> 11:29.355 All he knows is Joey walked out of the building 11:29.438 --> 11:32.108 with Larry and never came back. 11:33.317 --> 11:35.945 [detective] And when we spoke to Max Gemma, he says, 11:36.028 --> 11:39.115 yes, he's at this after-hour party, but he gets tired, 11:39.699 --> 11:42.535 and he basically falls asleep on the couch. 11:42.618 --> 11:46.247 He wakes up. He doesn't see Joey. He doesn't see anybody else. 11:46.330 --> 11:48.207 He just goes home. 11:49.959 --> 11:54.338 [Castro] So I go back to the lobby to start looking at video surveillance 11:54.422 --> 11:55.923 from the Grand Sutton. 11:56.006 --> 12:00.094 Just looking for any evidence, clues to let us know where Joey may be. 12:00.177 --> 12:02.179 [mysterious music playing] 12:03.639 --> 12:06.892 [Pat] And from time to time, he would call me over and say, 12:06.976 --> 12:07.977 "Is that Joey?" 12:08.561 --> 12:11.981 We're watching the video. He goes, "That's Joey right there." 12:12.064 --> 12:14.066 [mysterious music playing] 12:14.150 --> 12:18.946 [Hahn] You see the group arrive at about 4:30 in the morning, 12:19.029 --> 12:22.616 and go into the Grand Sutton, and go up to the fourth floor. 12:22.700 --> 12:24.910 And then at 6:30, 12:24.994 --> 12:30.040 you see Joey Comunale, Larry Dilione, and the three girls. 12:31.250 --> 12:33.502 [Castro] And they come down the elevator. 12:33.586 --> 12:35.087 We switch the camera angle. 12:35.671 --> 12:37.006 We go to the exterior. 12:37.089 --> 12:41.677 We see them walking out, and they walk to the curb line. Perfect. 12:42.595 --> 12:44.764 If he makes a left, if he makes a right, 12:44.847 --> 12:48.350 then we'll get more video from next door and start tracking him. 12:49.351 --> 12:54.023 And as we're watching the video play, we see Larry Dilione walking back in, 12:54.106 --> 12:56.358 and Joey is with him. 12:57.735 --> 13:01.197 And I was like, "Wait, you told me he didn't come back." 13:01.280 --> 13:02.781 [music trailing off] 13:04.408 --> 13:07.953 At that point, I knew there was a problem. 13:08.496 --> 13:10.164 And I said to my brother, 13:10.664 --> 13:12.500 "He didn't walk out of here alive." 13:17.796 --> 13:18.798 [stifled sob] 13:20.591 --> 13:21.884 I don't know why. 13:25.679 --> 13:26.847 Excuse me. 13:28.140 --> 13:29.975 It was just a hunch I had. 13:33.562 --> 13:38.192 Joseph was my first son, and he was always a great kid. 13:38.275 --> 13:40.653 [somber music playing] 13:40.736 --> 13:43.739 Joey and I always got along because of our love for sports. 13:43.823 --> 13:47.660 I was a big hockey fan, and I took him to his first hockey game, 13:47.743 --> 13:48.953 and he caught the bug. 13:51.038 --> 13:53.999 And he, uh, started skating at five years old. 13:54.083 --> 13:56.418 He started playing competitive hockey at eight. 13:57.086 --> 13:58.546 Every year, we took a trip, 13:58.629 --> 14:00.714 whether it was a New York Giants football game, 14:00.798 --> 14:03.759 or a Ranger game, a Yankee game. 14:04.260 --> 14:06.720 We always connected through sports. 14:07.721 --> 14:10.182 [woman] Joey loved his food, Italian food. 14:10.266 --> 14:11.809 Even after he moved out, 14:11.892 --> 14:14.186 most nights, he was here for dinner. 14:14.270 --> 14:15.479 And he was a bit… 14:15.563 --> 14:18.816 Even though he loved his sports, he would always put on the Food Network 14:18.899 --> 14:22.361 to see what was good to make, and what was… 14:22.444 --> 14:23.863 what I could make for him. 14:23.946 --> 14:25.239 [chuckling] 14:25.865 --> 14:28.701 [Pat] Joey graduated Hofstra with a business degree. 14:28.784 --> 14:31.912 Fortunately for Joey and his friends, 14:31.996 --> 14:34.623 I owned a security business on Long Island. 14:34.707 --> 14:38.586 And if you talk to his friends, they'll tell you he was the HR director. 14:39.253 --> 14:41.755 He placed all of his friends in my company, 14:41.839 --> 14:44.049 knowing that they would get a start there. 14:47.177 --> 14:51.724 He used to bring a lot of girls over to see if I'd give 'em the thumbs up. 14:51.807 --> 14:54.685 Every one I gave the thumbs up, I was hoping he'd get married. 14:54.768 --> 14:57.855 But he goes, "Dad, not till I'm 35," is what he'd always tell me. 15:01.358 --> 15:04.361 One of the qualities about Joey is when I talk to his friends, 15:04.445 --> 15:06.780 they always told me that Joey was their best friend. 15:06.864 --> 15:11.744 And I was like, "How is it possible that one kid could have 40 best friends?" 15:11.827 --> 15:13.579 You know, I think they always say, 15:14.204 --> 15:18.083 "You never judge a man by how much money he has… 15:22.421 --> 15:24.381 but by how many friends he has." 15:27.426 --> 15:28.469 He had a lot. 15:30.179 --> 15:31.388 He had a lot. 15:34.141 --> 15:36.143 [somber music playing] 15:38.854 --> 15:40.522 [Castro] Pat was visibly upset. 15:41.565 --> 15:43.651 At this point, I just paused the video, 15:43.734 --> 15:49.073 and I asked his brother Joseph to take Pat and go back to my precinct 15:49.156 --> 15:50.532 and just wait for me there. 15:50.616 --> 15:52.451 [tense music playing] 15:52.534 --> 15:55.913 [Hahn] Once the detective's suspicion level starts getting raised, 15:55.996 --> 15:57.873 that's when they call the Homicide Squad. 15:57.957 --> 16:00.334 Detective Castro was the assigned detective 16:00.417 --> 16:01.794 from the 17th Detective Squad, 16:01.877 --> 16:05.214 and I was the detective from the Homicide Squad that caught this case. 16:05.756 --> 16:07.216 But it's not just us. 16:07.800 --> 16:09.301 All the detectives in that squad 16:09.385 --> 16:11.887 and all the detectives in Homicide Squad work together 16:11.971 --> 16:13.722 to investigate the case. 16:16.225 --> 16:17.685 [Chen] Yeoman calls me. 16:17.768 --> 16:20.771 He goes, "Marty, come over here. Help me with this." 16:22.064 --> 16:23.774 So I go over to the building. 16:24.274 --> 16:25.651 [Castro] There's only two options. 16:26.235 --> 16:30.072 Either Joey's still in the building, or he left the building. 16:30.781 --> 16:33.784 We need to search the building from top to bottom. 16:35.452 --> 16:37.162 [Chen] I grab the super, and I'm like, 16:37.246 --> 16:39.707 "Let's go to the roof. We'll start at the roof and come down." 16:41.000 --> 16:43.085 We go upstairs, exit the elevator. 16:44.294 --> 16:46.755 But, uh, I'm afraid of heights. 16:48.882 --> 16:53.262 I could see in the corner of my eye the 59th Street Bridge, Ed Koch Bridge. 16:53.345 --> 16:55.305 And I'm trying to not look over 16:56.473 --> 16:59.601 to realize exactly how high I am off the floor. 17:02.062 --> 17:05.357 And then once I was satisfied that Joey was not on the roof, 17:06.525 --> 17:09.319 we started doing searches floor by floor. 17:09.403 --> 17:10.821 Down 36 flights of stairs, 17:11.739 --> 17:15.033 down into the basement, into the cellar, into the courtyards. 17:16.034 --> 17:20.664 And I'm hoping to run into Joey and be like, "Hey, wake up. Go home." 17:21.248 --> 17:22.249 And, uh… 17:23.751 --> 17:24.626 it never happened. 17:27.546 --> 17:30.883 I go to the parking garage, and I ask the parking attendant, 17:30.966 --> 17:36.555 I go, "Hey, James Rackover, apartment 4C, does he park his car here?" 17:36.638 --> 17:39.683 He goes, "Oh yeah, he drives a big, black Mercedes." 17:39.767 --> 17:43.145 I go, "Is that the car parked over there?" He goes, "Yeah, that's the car." 17:44.772 --> 17:46.315 It looked pristine, clean, 17:46.398 --> 17:50.652 except that it was covered in dust, brown dust, maybe a little like dirt. 17:51.278 --> 17:55.532 I took a look around, and I noticed that there was brown smudges, 17:55.616 --> 17:58.368 like fingerprint smudges on the rear trunk lid. 17:58.869 --> 18:00.412 And I'm like… [scoffs] 18:01.663 --> 18:03.540 Something didn't sit right with me. 18:03.624 --> 18:06.960 I said, "We're securing this car until we can figure out what went on." 18:07.503 --> 18:12.091 But the parking attendant says, "James Rackover, he doesn't own this car." 18:12.174 --> 18:13.967 "It's owned by a gentleman 18:14.051 --> 18:17.304 who lives in apartment 32B, Jeffrey Rackover." 18:19.848 --> 18:22.559 So the name Jeffrey Rackover kind of rang a bell 18:22.643 --> 18:24.186 because he has a billboard 18:24.269 --> 18:27.189 when you come outside of the Midtown Tunnel going into Queens. 18:27.773 --> 18:30.526 He would sell jewelry to Oprah. 18:30.609 --> 18:34.446 He helped Trump get his engagement ring for Melania. 18:34.530 --> 18:36.990 So he was known to be the jeweler to the stars. 18:37.866 --> 18:39.159 [Chen] I'll be honest with you. 18:39.243 --> 18:40.619 Everyone was like, "Oh yeah, 18:40.702 --> 18:43.455 Jeffrey Rackover, he's the jeweler to the stars." 18:43.539 --> 18:45.499 I don't know who he is. [laughs] 18:45.582 --> 18:49.044 Yeah, I don't buy jewelry in that, uh, income bracket. 18:53.048 --> 18:55.134 [Castro] The concierge, Eduardo Souza, 18:55.217 --> 19:01.056 told us James Rackover was the long-lost son of Jeffrey Rackover, 19:01.139 --> 19:03.517 who recently, over the past few years, 19:03.600 --> 19:05.269 had come back into his life. 19:06.687 --> 19:11.567 Around 2014, James started to come around the building with Jeffrey. 19:12.192 --> 19:14.278 Then he started spending more time there. 19:15.279 --> 19:20.075 After about two years, Jeffrey was looking to get James his own place. 19:20.158 --> 19:23.996 So he came down and inquired if there was any apartments available. 19:24.580 --> 19:26.707 And then he officially moved in. 19:26.790 --> 19:30.460 And then that's when we learned that he was the long-lost son. 19:31.670 --> 19:36.884 He had had a relationship with a woman in the late '80s or early '90s 19:36.967 --> 19:39.469 that had resulted in a mystery son 19:39.553 --> 19:42.181 who had mysteriously appeared at his doorstep. 19:43.765 --> 19:45.392 I found it strange. 19:46.101 --> 19:47.186 But as the concierge, 19:47.269 --> 19:50.147 we don't delve too much into people's personal lives. 19:51.106 --> 19:53.775 Once James moved into his own apartment in 4C, 19:53.859 --> 19:56.904 the parties ramped up considerably. 19:58.697 --> 20:00.908 [Chen] We watched hours and hours of video 20:00.991 --> 20:03.994 just hoping to see Joey appear on one of those screens. 20:05.746 --> 20:08.582 [Castro] While we're still reviewing video surveillance, 20:08.665 --> 20:12.920 the concierge, Eduardo Souza, taps me on the shoulder and says, 20:13.003 --> 20:14.546 "That's James Rackover coming in." 20:15.839 --> 20:17.925 So I peek up. I see him. 20:18.008 --> 20:22.221 As he's walking by, he makes a statement, "Good luck getting the video," 20:22.930 --> 20:24.306 and keeps walking. 20:24.890 --> 20:28.435 So now I was caught by surprise. I'm like, "Wait, what?" 20:29.478 --> 20:32.397 I looked over at Detective Castro. I go, "What the fuck is that?" 20:32.481 --> 20:35.442 He gives me the same look. "I don't know what the fuck is…" 20:36.318 --> 20:40.072 [Souza] I was shocked he was that cocky. I was like, "Why is he so fucking cocky?" 20:40.155 --> 20:43.617 Walking through with his shoulders back, cockier than I had ever seen him. 20:44.743 --> 20:49.081 That's when the concierge says to me, "James had called me yesterday." 20:49.164 --> 20:50.332 [phone ringing] 20:51.333 --> 20:53.168 [Souza] The night before, James had called me 20:53.252 --> 20:58.090 and asked me about the length of time that the cameras record for. 20:58.173 --> 21:02.261 And I said, "That's a strange question. Why… Why would you ask that?" 21:03.053 --> 21:07.057 And he told me that he had had an argument with his girlfriend, 21:07.140 --> 21:10.727 and suspected her of stealing something, and he wanted to check the tapes. 21:10.811 --> 21:14.022 And I had told him that they record for 24 hours, 21:14.106 --> 21:15.774 and then we change the tape. 21:16.733 --> 21:21.571 I think maybe James understood that after 24 hours that tape was taped over. 21:22.155 --> 21:24.199 But we wouldn't erase them. 21:24.283 --> 21:28.161 We would just change the tape, and that would be the record for that day. 21:28.787 --> 21:34.042 I think his assumption was that the video for the past 24 hours had disappeared, 21:34.626 --> 21:37.421 when in fact we had access to that video. 21:37.504 --> 21:40.132 So that just was throwing off alarms. 21:43.969 --> 21:46.930 So my phone rang, and it was Detective Castro. 21:47.597 --> 21:52.436 And he said, "Look, I need you to bring me some of Joey's clothes." 21:52.519 --> 21:55.564 "We're gonna get some dogs to see if we can pick up Joey's scent 21:55.647 --> 21:57.107 to see where he may have gone." 21:58.317 --> 21:59.860 I went to Joey's place. 21:59.943 --> 22:02.571 I grabbed a towel and some of his other clothes. 22:03.071 --> 22:06.867 And I remember I held out a sliver of hope. 22:08.076 --> 22:11.371 Maybe it's not what I think it is. 22:11.872 --> 22:14.583 [dark, mysterious music playing] 22:15.667 --> 22:19.379 [officer] I was requested to search inside of a garage area of the Grand Sutton. 22:19.463 --> 22:21.673 I put the collar on my dog. I'm like, "You wanna work?" 22:21.757 --> 22:23.675 He looked at me. His ears went up. I deployed him. 22:26.345 --> 22:29.473 So the dog took himself to the back, and he started working. 22:29.556 --> 22:33.351 I know my dog when he works. His tail, it just keeps going. 22:33.435 --> 22:36.229 Then all of a sudden, I see his tail going faster. 22:36.313 --> 22:38.148 So to me, he's on an odor. 22:40.484 --> 22:43.153 He went to the four-door, black Mercedes-Benz. 22:43.236 --> 22:46.615 He threw his nose right into the trunk area, and he went… 22:46.698 --> 22:48.867 He barked. Like, real… 22:48.950 --> 22:51.370 [growls] You know? It came out. 22:52.412 --> 22:55.374 He's telling me that he has an odor 22:55.457 --> 22:57.959 of some sort of human decomposition, blood, 22:58.043 --> 23:00.796 um, anything that indicated human decomposition. 23:02.547 --> 23:06.051 But you have to get a search warrant to go into that vehicle 23:06.134 --> 23:09.346 and check out to see if there actually is 23:09.429 --> 23:11.598 evidence or a body inside that trunk. 23:13.308 --> 23:16.311 [Colecchia] After the garage, the detectives asked me, 23:16.395 --> 23:18.939 "Can we do the apartments to see if he indicates an apartment?" 23:19.523 --> 23:22.067 I grabbed the dog. We went up to the fourth floor. 23:22.150 --> 23:23.652 I gave him the word "search." 23:24.820 --> 23:29.199 He went to the left, down the hallway, and then the dog indicated. 23:29.282 --> 23:32.035 He scratched really hard on the doorjamb, 4C. 23:33.078 --> 23:36.331 And then James opens the door, James Rackover. 23:37.332 --> 23:40.127 He was like, "Fuck you, you scumbags, you cops." 23:40.210 --> 23:42.337 "You come in and… You need a warrant." 23:42.421 --> 23:44.297 "You… Fuck you. Fuck you." 23:44.381 --> 23:47.968 And, uh, to me, I'm like, "Is this guy a jerk-off?" 23:49.136 --> 23:51.596 [Castro] Once I learned that the dog had given an active alert, 23:51.680 --> 23:55.392 I knew that he was giving an active alert on blood, 23:55.475 --> 23:57.269 and something had occurred there. 24:00.355 --> 24:03.733 Meanwhile, other members of the 17th Precinct Detective Squad 24:03.817 --> 24:04.818 from my office 24:04.901 --> 24:08.321 began sifting through the garbage from every apartment. 24:09.489 --> 24:13.952 So we put the dog on the bags so that we can identify bags 24:14.035 --> 24:17.122 that he gives an alert, and we'll search those first. 24:21.334 --> 24:24.421 [Hahn] The dog hits upon a bag that had not been opened yet. 24:24.504 --> 24:27.883 Inside the bag is like a comforter cover. 24:27.966 --> 24:31.678 And it also has the name "James Rackover" on it. 24:33.263 --> 24:37.684 Crime scene starts finding, like, paper towels and towels 24:37.767 --> 24:39.728 that appear to be soaked in blood. 24:40.312 --> 24:42.022 They open up a second bag. 24:42.105 --> 24:46.318 Then we find, covered in blood, articles of clothing that belonged to Joey 24:46.401 --> 24:48.320 that matched the video surveillance. 24:49.487 --> 24:53.158 [Castro] His gold chain is in there, his bank card. 24:53.241 --> 24:56.161 And they found Joey's ID in that bag as well. 24:58.455 --> 25:02.042 [Hahn] Once you find those things, you need to get that search warrant, 25:02.125 --> 25:04.252 and you need to go back with a crime scene unit, 25:04.336 --> 25:06.296 and you need to go into that apartment. 25:10.175 --> 25:12.594 [Chen] While Yeoman goes to get a search warrant, 25:12.677 --> 25:16.681 I'm back at the office doing computer checks on James Rackover, 25:16.765 --> 25:19.434 Lawrence Dilione, and Max Gemma. 25:20.977 --> 25:24.648 What we learn about Max Gemma is he comes from, basically, privilege. 25:24.731 --> 25:28.735 His father was the mayor of Oceanport, New Jersey at one point. 25:29.945 --> 25:33.156 He lives in an apartment with Larry Dilione. 25:34.074 --> 25:35.575 Larry Dilione, 25:35.659 --> 25:37.744 he basically is very much like Max Gemma. 25:37.827 --> 25:40.997 He comes from a good family in New Jersey. 25:41.581 --> 25:43.542 They had owned thoroughbred horses. 25:44.918 --> 25:48.380 There were stories that he had gotten in some fights at certain times, 25:48.463 --> 25:50.632 but other than that, he didn't have 25:50.715 --> 25:53.510 what you would consider substantial criminal background. 25:54.177 --> 25:56.888 [mysterious music playing] 25:56.972 --> 26:01.226 When we looked into James Rackover, it turns out he's not James Rackover. 26:01.309 --> 26:03.311 His name is James Beaudouin. 26:03.395 --> 26:05.814 And he doesn't come from New York. 26:05.897 --> 26:07.232 He comes from Florida, 26:07.315 --> 26:10.485 where he had numerous arrests, and had done time. 26:10.569 --> 26:13.572 About a year and a half in jail for burglary down in Florida. 26:14.948 --> 26:19.494 We found that he was given bail, left Florida, 26:19.578 --> 26:21.496 and ended up in New York. 26:22.372 --> 26:26.418 After digging a little bit more into James Rackover's background 26:26.501 --> 26:28.253 and his name change, 26:28.336 --> 26:30.130 we were able to learn that 26:30.213 --> 26:34.509 Jeffrey Rackover is not the biological father of James Rackover. 26:35.593 --> 26:38.930 And Jeffrey Rackover had petitioned 26:39.014 --> 26:42.517 to have James Rackover, uh, take his name. 26:46.521 --> 26:50.859 I believe Jeffrey met James at a gym close to our building. 26:50.942 --> 26:52.944 [curious, intriguing music playing] 26:54.446 --> 26:59.034 They became friends, and was introduced over the weeks 26:59.117 --> 27:05.415 as first "my friend," and then "my nephew," and then "my son." 27:08.126 --> 27:09.461 [Hahn] We didn't know what to make 27:09.544 --> 27:13.089 of the relationship between Jeffrey and James, quite frankly. 27:13.173 --> 27:17.052 The story that James is the long-lost son of Jeffrey, 27:17.135 --> 27:20.972 and somehow they found each other after all those years, and… 27:21.056 --> 27:23.058 It's not the truth. 27:23.141 --> 27:25.769 And you start to look at it, and you're like, 27:25.852 --> 27:29.397 "What is the truth about this relationship that they have?" 27:31.816 --> 27:36.738 [Souza] They did not in any way resemble, um, father and son. 27:36.821 --> 27:39.157 The way they would act with each other… 27:39.240 --> 27:41.826 You know, I love my father, but there were ways that 27:41.910 --> 27:45.246 they were affectionate with each other that I wouldn't be with my father. 27:48.875 --> 27:51.336 When you look at everything involved with James, 27:51.419 --> 27:55.882 it definitely raises the level of red flags. 27:57.592 --> 27:59.636 James comes from almost nothing, 27:59.719 --> 28:02.389 is working a menial job in Florida, 28:02.472 --> 28:08.603 and in a relatively short time is transformed into James Rackover. 28:09.771 --> 28:12.649 And he's living in this building, and he's driving this car, 28:12.732 --> 28:14.901 and he's at these clubs and these restaurants, 28:14.984 --> 28:18.655 and you don't want to lose that if you're James. 28:21.324 --> 28:23.493 Everyone else is still gonna have their family. 28:23.576 --> 28:25.662 They're still gonna have the money their family's in, 28:25.745 --> 28:28.123 but James could lose everything. 28:28.206 --> 28:32.168 He's, I think, willing to do anything to maintain his life 28:32.252 --> 28:34.921 and the style he has going on. 28:39.968 --> 28:42.011 While we're waiting for the search warrants, 28:42.095 --> 28:44.055 we looked at video from the garage, 28:44.139 --> 28:47.767 and we know that James leaves at about 9:45 on Sunday night, 28:47.851 --> 28:49.602 the night after the party, 28:49.686 --> 28:52.522 and takes Jeffrey Rackover's car. 28:55.483 --> 28:58.486 When we did the background check on James, 28:58.570 --> 29:02.949 we were able to determine that he had a suspended license. 29:03.032 --> 29:07.120 So that gave us an avenue to be able to place him under arrest 29:07.203 --> 29:08.872 for driving without a license. 29:11.207 --> 29:13.001 [reporter 1] James, why did you kill him? 29:13.084 --> 29:14.544 [reporter 2] What happened, James? 29:15.420 --> 29:17.714 [Castro] But unfortunately, once we place him under arrest, 29:17.797 --> 29:19.841 he immediately invoked his right to counsel, 29:19.924 --> 29:21.760 so we weren't allowed to speak with him. 29:21.843 --> 29:26.097 That little glimmer of hope that we had that he might tell us where Joey is, 29:26.681 --> 29:28.600 it was… We weren't getting it. 29:37.817 --> 29:42.113 So on Tuesday the 15th, we had the search warrants for apartment 4C. 29:43.823 --> 29:45.116 [Hahn] Crime scene comes in. 29:45.700 --> 29:50.288 As they start conducting their search, they're processing the scene with luminol. 29:50.371 --> 29:54.292 So under certain light, you can see blood. 29:55.251 --> 29:57.795 When the crime scene unit processes the bathroom, 29:57.879 --> 29:59.839 the entire bathroom lights up. 30:01.257 --> 30:04.719 All over. On the walls, in the bathtub, and on the floor. 30:05.553 --> 30:09.599 Indications that there's been a lot of blood cleaned up. 30:10.433 --> 30:15.438 [Castro] Same thing in the living room. They spray luminol by the sofa, the floor, 30:15.522 --> 30:18.107 and they find drops of blood. 30:18.191 --> 30:19.984 They test it, 30:20.068 --> 30:22.987 so they see if they can determine who that blood belongs to. 30:23.905 --> 30:27.575 [Hahn] So the crime scene team had collected steak knives 30:27.659 --> 30:31.371 that were inside the dishwasher that had been run and cleaned. 30:31.454 --> 30:35.124 Those kitchen knives were then taken to the lab 30:35.208 --> 30:37.085 to see if there was any blood 30:37.168 --> 30:40.588 that would have seeped into the handle itself. 30:42.841 --> 30:45.635 When you have what you found in the garbage, 30:46.135 --> 30:48.429 and then what you have at the scene, 30:48.513 --> 30:52.725 you know something bad has happened to Joey, 30:52.809 --> 30:55.061 and we know that he's probably dead. 30:56.271 --> 30:58.565 You can't be alive at that point. 30:59.399 --> 31:01.860 With all of the things that we had found so far, 31:01.943 --> 31:04.112 James not telling us anything, 31:04.195 --> 31:08.157 and Max Gemma has no information to give us about where Joey may be, 31:08.241 --> 31:10.952 because he's claiming he was asleep on the couch, 31:11.035 --> 31:14.330 we focus our attention on Larry Dilione. 31:14.956 --> 31:17.250 Being that we already have James in custody, 31:17.333 --> 31:20.712 maybe Larry now wants to get his opportunity 31:20.795 --> 31:23.506 to maybe speak first and tell us what happened, 31:23.590 --> 31:26.050 not knowing what James may be saying. 31:27.093 --> 31:29.137 And he came in. 31:32.682 --> 31:36.978 So once Larry came in, we asked him if he could shed some light 31:37.061 --> 31:39.230 on to why we found so much blood. 31:40.440 --> 31:43.651 He's keeping the same story that he had said earlier, 31:43.735 --> 31:45.028 not knowing where Joey is. 31:47.572 --> 31:50.742 [Hahn] You can accuse someone all you want, or, you know, 31:50.825 --> 31:53.244 "You might be guilty, but he's more guilty," 31:53.328 --> 31:56.789 and try and get a statement out of him that way. 31:56.873 --> 32:00.918 But Larry didn't want to answer those kind of questions. 32:01.002 --> 32:03.713 So we tried to appeal more to his human side, 32:03.796 --> 32:06.883 saying Joey Comunale's family is concerned about him, 32:06.966 --> 32:08.551 and they want to bring him home, 32:08.635 --> 32:11.262 and how would you feel if this was somebody in your family? 32:13.514 --> 32:15.308 [Castro] Once Larry heard that, 32:15.391 --> 32:21.522 he decided to tell us that he could lead us to where Joey is. 32:22.732 --> 32:26.527 Well, he wouldn't tell us how the incident occurred. 32:27.195 --> 32:30.740 He gave us an address behind a florist shop 32:30.823 --> 32:34.035 in the town where he used to live in Oceanport, New Jersey, 32:34.118 --> 32:35.703 and that's where we should look. 32:35.787 --> 32:36.788 [sirens wailing] 32:36.871 --> 32:39.624 We caravaned with lights and sirens. 32:39.707 --> 32:44.003 And we're doing 80, 90 miles an hour out to this location. 32:47.590 --> 32:49.967 We arrived at this florist shop. 32:50.968 --> 32:54.931 And we headed to the open area at the back 32:55.014 --> 32:57.308 where Larry had given a description 32:57.392 --> 32:59.894 of where we would be able to locate Joey. 32:59.977 --> 33:00.853 [tense music playing] 33:00.937 --> 33:02.480 We approach over, 33:02.563 --> 33:08.486 and the crime scene detectives begin to move dirt slowly. 33:13.032 --> 33:16.077 And the first thing that I see is a… 33:16.160 --> 33:20.998 a hand, uh, kind of like a half-fist. 33:21.624 --> 33:24.419 The way you see in the movies where it's coming out of the ground. 33:27.630 --> 33:33.094 And as they continue to move dirt, you start to see Joey's face, 33:33.177 --> 33:34.804 you start to see his chest, 33:34.887 --> 33:38.015 and you can tell that he was charred. 33:38.558 --> 33:41.477 So he was lit on fire. 33:43.771 --> 33:48.025 [Chen] At this point, we haven't really slept in days. 33:48.985 --> 33:52.989 We were exhausted. We were exhausted, but this was something we needed to do. 33:53.865 --> 33:56.826 We needed to tell the parents before anyone else did. 33:58.870 --> 34:02.457 [Castro] Myself and Detective Chen get in the car 34:02.540 --> 34:06.836 to go from Oceanport, New Jersey, to Stamford, Connecticut, 34:06.919 --> 34:10.757 to go and speak to Pat Comunale and let him know 34:11.424 --> 34:14.218 that we located Joey. 34:14.302 --> 34:16.304 [somber music playing] 34:17.972 --> 34:20.516 No one said a word on that car ride. 34:24.771 --> 34:27.815 You feel the emotion, but you have a job to do. 34:27.899 --> 34:29.609 So you just push it aside… 34:30.860 --> 34:32.695 and you keep going. 34:37.074 --> 34:38.868 We were sitting right here. I… 34:38.951 --> 34:40.536 I heard the car doors. 34:48.795 --> 34:50.421 I heard the car doors. 34:51.881 --> 34:53.216 And I knew why they were coming. 34:58.096 --> 35:01.307 [Castro] We walk into the house, and Lisa comes down. 35:01.390 --> 35:03.684 They're hanging onto every word, looking at you. 35:06.479 --> 35:09.690 The two detectives told us they… 35:11.359 --> 35:12.485 found him. 35:16.280 --> 35:20.660 And it's our worst… our worst nightmare. 35:22.286 --> 35:26.624 I've never seen so much hurt in someone's eyes, mother and father. 35:27.333 --> 35:28.543 Wave at Daddy. 35:31.295 --> 35:34.090 That type of pain, you never want to wish upon anybody. 35:34.590 --> 35:36.175 [Lisa] Joe! 35:36.759 --> 35:38.052 Joe! 35:38.594 --> 35:41.180 -Did you have fun? -All right! 35:43.516 --> 35:44.809 It was, uh… 35:46.144 --> 35:47.812 We already… I already knew, 35:47.895 --> 35:51.190 but this was the start of the next chapter, 35:52.441 --> 35:55.111 which was getting justice for Joey. 36:02.201 --> 36:04.203 That's all I could think about now, was… 36:04.787 --> 36:08.916 making sure these three sons of bitches get everything that's coming to them. 36:15.089 --> 36:17.925 The medical examiner in New Jersey conducted the autopsy, 36:18.009 --> 36:22.638 and what he found was that Joey Comunale had 14 stab wounds, 36:22.722 --> 36:24.223 some of them postmortem. 36:24.307 --> 36:26.017 He had broken bones. 36:26.100 --> 36:31.272 He had bruising on his hands, a large cut on his shoulder, 36:31.355 --> 36:35.526 which we believe they might have been trying to, uh, dismember him. 36:36.527 --> 36:40.239 And his body had been burned. 36:40.323 --> 36:43.409 I can't make rhyme or reason why this would have happened. 36:43.910 --> 36:45.244 It was inhumane. 36:45.328 --> 36:47.121 It was vile. 36:47.205 --> 36:49.832 It's disgusting to think that 36:49.916 --> 36:55.963 they would treat another human being like garbage. 36:56.047 --> 36:58.049 [tense music playing] 36:59.759 --> 37:04.388 After testing those kitchen knives that were found in the dishwasher, 37:04.889 --> 37:09.477 they were determined to have Joey's blood inside of the handles. 37:11.312 --> 37:16.400 Also it was determined that the blood in the apartment was Joey's blood. 37:17.443 --> 37:18.819 Finding the murder weapon, 37:18.903 --> 37:23.199 coupled with the autopsy report matching to the evidence in the apartment, 37:23.282 --> 37:28.329 gave us answers to how he would have been murdered. 37:29.038 --> 37:33.125 But now the key question was, how did they get him out of the building? 37:33.209 --> 37:34.877 [tense, mysterious music playing] 37:36.504 --> 37:40.091 We pulled so much video that we had to sift through, 37:40.174 --> 37:41.634 and we still couldn't see it. 37:44.428 --> 37:48.891 [Chen] The one video that we couldn't get was a video camera 37:48.975 --> 37:51.394 that belonged to the building next door 37:51.477 --> 37:53.980 that coincidentally was corrupted. 37:55.982 --> 37:57.984 Finally, this video gets recovered. 37:58.776 --> 38:02.738 And it answered a huge part of our question. 38:05.574 --> 38:08.286 [Castro] As we begin to review that video surveillance, 38:08.369 --> 38:10.413 you can see James Rackover 38:10.496 --> 38:15.084 park the black Mercedes in front of the Grand Sutton. 38:15.167 --> 38:16.669 [chilling music playing] 38:21.507 --> 38:23.551 Rackover takes the luggage cart. 38:24.635 --> 38:27.221 Then he leaves the camera frame. 38:28.639 --> 38:30.016 And when he reappears, 38:30.099 --> 38:33.352 there's a large duffel bag on the luggage cart, 38:33.436 --> 38:37.356 which then he places inside of the trunk of the black Mercedes. 38:38.107 --> 38:41.235 [Chen] And if you look out the window of apartment 4C, 38:41.319 --> 38:46.073 you look towards 59th Street and the front of the Grand Sutton. 38:47.616 --> 38:51.037 When I saw that, and I spoke with Yeoman, 38:51.120 --> 38:53.622 I went, "Holy fuck!" 38:55.041 --> 38:56.334 "These guys… 38:57.710 --> 38:59.253 pushed him out of the window." 38:59.754 --> 39:03.466 So it wouldn't be suspicious coming out of the front lobby, 39:03.549 --> 39:05.593 which was the only exit out of the building. 39:06.635 --> 39:09.597 [Hahn] When you see the video, they're in it together. 39:09.680 --> 39:12.224 They're both acting together 39:12.308 --> 39:14.894 to take that body and to… to hide it. 39:24.695 --> 39:26.072 [reporter 1] Did you do it? 39:27.323 --> 39:31.035 What happened in the apartment? What happened that night? 39:31.118 --> 39:33.329 -Did you do it? -[reporter 2] Did you kill him? 39:33.412 --> 39:34.872 [reporter 1] Did you stab him? 39:34.955 --> 39:38.667 [Hahn] On May 10th, both Larry and James were arrested 39:38.751 --> 39:40.294 for murder in the second degree, 39:40.377 --> 39:42.922 hindering prosecution, and concealment of a corpse. 39:43.547 --> 39:46.675 James was already in custody for driving on a suspended license, 39:46.759 --> 39:50.304 and Jeffrey didn't put any money up for him to get out. 39:50.388 --> 39:53.933 I do think that at some point he realized he'd made a mistake 39:54.016 --> 39:58.229 having a "son" that was a… a murderer. 39:59.146 --> 40:01.816 We didn't have any cause to believe at that time 40:01.899 --> 40:04.360 that Max Gemma had anything to do with the homicide. 40:05.027 --> 40:08.030 We actually had statements from Larry 40:08.114 --> 40:10.616 saying that Max had nothing to do with it. 40:10.699 --> 40:14.078 He was arrested for hindering prosecution. 40:16.330 --> 40:20.084 [attorney] Ultimately, it was clear to us that he had been involved 40:20.167 --> 40:21.794 in trying to obstruct, essentially, 40:21.877 --> 40:25.297 the ability for the police to get evidence, 40:25.381 --> 40:30.386 but I don't think that the senior lawyers or myself were convinced we could prove 40:30.469 --> 40:33.264 Max, beyond a reasonable doubt, was involved in the homicide. 40:34.974 --> 40:38.352 [Castro] Once the murder charges came, it became a finger-pointing 40:38.435 --> 40:41.230 "he did it, he did it" back and forth at each other. 40:43.732 --> 40:46.944 [Hahn] We still had to try and determine who did the stabbing. 40:47.486 --> 40:50.573 And we don't know what the role of James was 40:50.656 --> 40:52.741 or what the role of Larry was. 40:53.284 --> 40:57.830 You just need the doubt of one person on a jury to not have a conviction. 41:01.125 --> 41:03.544 So while James is waiting for the trial, 41:03.627 --> 41:08.466 we got jail calls from James speaking to a friend of his. 41:08.549 --> 41:12.678 And in these calls, he's very confident he's getting off. 41:13.262 --> 41:14.680 [James] I start trial in September, 41:14.763 --> 41:16.932 so I'm looking at being home around October-ish. 41:17.016 --> 41:18.767 My rep's gonna be up there, bro. 41:18.851 --> 41:20.603 Like, my… when I hit the street. 41:20.686 --> 41:22.480 They're gonna be like, "Yo, this kid just… 41:22.563 --> 41:23.939 beat this **** like Rocky?" 41:24.023 --> 41:25.649 "And he's home? Oh my God!" 41:25.733 --> 41:26.734 [man] Yeah, see? 41:26.817 --> 41:29.403 He seems fine. "Yeah, I'm gonna get off." 41:29.487 --> 41:32.990 "I'm gonna be out soon, and everything's gonna be great." 41:35.743 --> 41:41.165 Towards the end of the investigation and getting ready for trial, 41:42.208 --> 41:46.670 we were able to locate a witness, and his name was Louie Ruggiero. 41:47.922 --> 41:50.174 He was a friend of James Rackover. 41:52.009 --> 41:54.261 Louie Ruggiero states that, 41:54.345 --> 41:57.973 on the day we're searching the building, he was at the gym, 41:58.057 --> 42:01.769 and James Rackover came up to him and told him he needs to speak to him. 42:01.852 --> 42:03.395 He's gotta tell him something. 42:04.480 --> 42:07.149 Louis tells us the story that James had told him, 42:07.233 --> 42:10.069 which was that, on the day of the murder, 42:10.152 --> 42:12.988 while they're sitting there in the apartment, 42:13.072 --> 42:17.326 Larry had a dispute with this guy. 42:17.826 --> 42:19.245 Turns out to be Joey. 42:19.328 --> 42:24.166 And Larry gets so upset he punches Joey and knocks him to the ground. 42:24.750 --> 42:26.085 Knocks him out. 42:26.168 --> 42:29.004 James then says, "I'm not going back to jail." 42:30.381 --> 42:32.883 And gets a knife from the kitchen, 42:33.384 --> 42:35.052 and stabs Joey to death. 42:37.054 --> 42:39.682 So in this statement that he tells Louie, 42:39.765 --> 42:42.851 he's admitting he's the one that actually kills him. 42:44.311 --> 42:48.315 Another amazing statement that he makes is Joey's still in the apartment, 42:48.399 --> 42:52.403 and after that, he ordered pancakes and ate them without any problems. 42:52.486 --> 42:55.364 Then they took the body to New Jersey, and they dumped it. 42:56.615 --> 42:59.660 The evidence showed that their actions were intentional. 42:59.743 --> 43:04.248 That attack resulted in Joey's death, even if they played different roles. 43:04.331 --> 43:08.335 Two people can be responsible for the death of one person. 43:08.919 --> 43:11.922 And ultimately, James went to trial first. 43:13.674 --> 43:15.676 [suspenseful music playing] 43:23.976 --> 43:27.104 The trial for James Rackover started in the Manhattan courts. 43:27.187 --> 43:29.398 [somber music playing] 43:29.481 --> 43:30.899 [Castro] Pat was there every day, 43:30.983 --> 43:36.196 and he would fill the whole courtroom with family and friends. 43:37.906 --> 43:39.867 It was all of us, fraternity brothers, 43:39.950 --> 43:42.870 his friends from home, colleagues, work people, 43:42.953 --> 43:44.997 would come and support Joey. 43:47.124 --> 43:51.045 The support we got from a lot of individuals was just incredible. 43:52.129 --> 43:57.926 Nobody on James Rackover's side, which spoke volumes. 44:01.930 --> 44:04.808 [Vance Jr.] Ultimately, after a lengthy trial involving James, 44:04.892 --> 44:07.144 the jury found him guilty of second-degree murder, 44:07.227 --> 44:08.354 or intentional murder. 44:09.855 --> 44:13.150 I remember to this day, Pat, I had to hold him down. 44:13.233 --> 44:20.032 Me and my lieutenant are holding each arm because he sprung up with, like, this… 44:21.325 --> 44:24.620 joy that it's finally over 44:24.703 --> 44:28.040 and they're gonna pay for what they did to his son. 44:29.249 --> 44:33.128 And I was very, very happy for them. Very happy for them. 44:34.171 --> 44:35.673 [Pat] When I saw James, 44:35.756 --> 44:40.469 all I could think about was, "I hope your nightmare's just starting." 44:41.845 --> 44:43.305 'Cause I gotta take mine… 44:44.723 --> 44:46.225 for a lot longer than him. 44:50.813 --> 44:54.525 [Vance Jr.] James Rackover was sentenced to 28 years, 44:54.608 --> 44:56.235 which he's still serving. 44:56.318 --> 44:58.696 -Step away, please. Mr. Comunale. -Okay. 45:00.197 --> 45:01.657 [Lisa] We were glad with the outcome. 45:01.740 --> 45:04.660 And we just wanted it, you know, to be over. 45:05.411 --> 45:09.748 I want to thank the Manhattan DA's office for doing an incredible job, uh, 45:10.749 --> 45:13.711 the NYPD, who worked around the clock, 45:13.794 --> 45:16.714 and, um, I appreciate everybody's support. 45:16.797 --> 45:19.591 [voice breaking] My family, friends… 45:23.554 --> 45:28.434 I think Larry could see that his odds of conviction 45:28.517 --> 45:30.060 were gonna be very high. 45:30.602 --> 45:34.481 Larry chose to plead guilty as opposed to going to trial. 45:35.774 --> 45:40.112 He ended up taking a plea deal to murder two for 23 years. 45:41.238 --> 45:46.827 [Hahn] February 2019, Max Gemma pleads guilty to hindering prosecution, 45:47.411 --> 45:49.955 and he receives a sentence of six months in jail. 45:51.081 --> 45:54.626 [Pat] I think all the papers all said he got a sweetheart deal. 45:56.420 --> 45:58.255 And I actually agree with them. 45:58.338 --> 45:59.715 I don't know why. 46:01.049 --> 46:02.468 I don't know why, but… 46:03.886 --> 46:05.179 he's gotta live with himself. 46:06.763 --> 46:08.390 [Hahn] I think Max Gemma 46:08.474 --> 46:12.186 definitely has more information about what happened in that apartment. 46:16.774 --> 46:18.776 [somber music playing] 46:22.529 --> 46:25.699 [Castro] Every detective has a case in their lifetime. 46:27.451 --> 46:30.370 In the 19 years that I've been in the police department, 46:30.454 --> 46:33.749 this case has been the case for me. 46:34.750 --> 46:36.752 Just learning about Joey 46:36.835 --> 46:40.172 and how much he was loved by all his friends and family. 46:40.798 --> 46:42.841 Pat misses Joey every single day 46:42.925 --> 46:45.260 like if it was the first day that it happened. 46:46.345 --> 46:48.514 And he has 46:49.014 --> 46:53.644 this love for Joey that I can relate to, 46:53.727 --> 46:56.146 because when he speaks about Joey, 46:57.105 --> 46:59.149 and his daughter, 46:59.858 --> 47:04.279 and it's like they're his world, and that's who my kids are to me. 47:05.697 --> 47:07.991 [voice breaking] We think about him every day. 47:08.826 --> 47:12.746 And, um, we just try to, you know, 47:12.830 --> 47:15.958 keep his memory alive, 47:16.458 --> 47:19.503 and tell my grandson all the time, 47:19.586 --> 47:20.963 "This is Uncle Joey." 47:22.673 --> 47:27.719 His friend started getting a tattoo with the number nine. 47:29.596 --> 47:30.973 And that was his number. 47:31.557 --> 47:34.935 And the irony is I always said to him, 47:35.018 --> 47:38.522 "I'll pay for your college under two conditions." 47:38.605 --> 47:43.110 "You graduate, number one, in four years, and you never get any ink." 47:43.610 --> 47:45.946 And he didn't get his tattoo, but I got his tattoo. 47:47.990 --> 47:51.994 I thought it'd be a great way to just be with him every day… 47:54.413 --> 47:55.414 which I am. 47:59.001 --> 48:00.502 [music trailing off] 48:08.093 --> 48:11.013 The phone rang. Jeff says, "Is Irene with you?" 48:11.096 --> 48:13.891 He said, "She has been missing since twelve o'clock." 48:13.974 --> 48:17.102 Suddenly, everybody was at a loss 48:17.185 --> 48:20.355 that the lady of the home is gone. 48:21.023 --> 48:24.735 Irene Silverman was an 82-year-old woman that was as sharp as a tack. 48:24.818 --> 48:28.906 She was a socialite, and if she liked you, you were part of her family. 48:29.406 --> 48:32.451 We had information that a mother and son 48:32.534 --> 48:34.953 had Irene Silverman's identification. 48:35.037 --> 48:36.538 [detective 1] We do a background check. 48:36.622 --> 48:39.374 You couldn't believe the horrific things that they did. 48:39.458 --> 48:41.376 We don't know where she is. We're innocent. 48:41.460 --> 48:44.504 And if just given our rights, we will prove it. 48:44.588 --> 48:47.215 It certainly didn't appear to be a mother-son relationship. 48:47.299 --> 48:49.009 [detective 2] They're holding hands. 48:49.092 --> 48:51.511 [detective 1] Staring into each other's eyes. 48:51.595 --> 48:52.721 Are you fucking kidding me? 48:53.722 --> 48:55.724 [woman] I interviewed the son. 48:55.807 --> 48:58.727 And before I know it, he's across my neck. 48:59.311 --> 49:01.980 I could feel his heart pounding. 49:02.064 --> 49:04.858 He said to me, "This is a hostage situation." 49:05.776 --> 49:07.778 You may think you know me, but you do not. 49:09.780 --> 49:11.782 [dramatic outro music pulsing] you do not.