Thomas Joseph Capano (October 11, 1949 – September 19, 2011) was a disbarred American lawyer and former Delaware deputy attorney general, convicted of the 1996 murder of his former lover, Anne Marie Fahey.
Capano was one of four brothers from a prominent Delaware family of real estate developers and building contractors. A graduate of Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware, he became a well-known lawyer, state prosecutor, Wilmington city attorney, legal counsel to Governor Mike Castle, and political consultant.
In 1994, Capano, then a partner at the Wilmington office of Saul Ewing LLP, began an affair with 28-year-old Anne Marie Fahey, the appointments secretary to Governor Tom Carper. Married with four daughters, Capano separated from his wife Kay the following year. While still involved with Capano, Fahey started a relationship with Michael Scanlan in September 1995.
Fahey's Disappearance and Investigation
Fahey was last seen alive on June 27, 1996, after having dinner with Capano in Philadelphia. Her family reported her missing on June 30. Despite an extensive search and FBI involvement in July, Fahey's body was never found. Capano, the last person seen with Fahey, was arrested for her murder in November 1997, over sixteen months after her disappearance.
Prosecutors claimed Capano killed Fahey at his rented house and, with his brother Gerry's help, disposed of her body in the Atlantic Ocean. Gerry owned a boat, and when it was sold, its two anchors were missing. Gerry told detectives that Capano borrowed the boat, admitted to murdering someone attempting to extort him, and they sailed out to sea to dispose of Fahey's body. They placed her body in a large cooler, shot it to sink it, but it stayed afloat. Capano then retrieved the cooler, removed the body, and wrapped anchor chains around it before disposing of it again. Gerry also helped dispose of a blood-stained sofa and carpet into a dumpster managed by another brother, Louis. The empty cooler was found by a local fisherman on July 4, 1996.
Though lacking a body, murder weapon, or evidence of Capano purchasing a gun, investigators learned that Capano's other mistress, Debby MacIntyre, had bought a gun and admitted supplying it to him.
Trial and Appeals
The high-profile trial began on October 26, 1998, lasting twelve weeks. The defense argued that MacIntyre, in a jealous rage, threatened to shoot herself upon seeing Capano and Fahey together, and during a struggle, the gun discharged, killing Fahey. On January 17, 1999, Capano was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection, marking the first time in Delaware's history that a murder conviction was achieved without a body or murder weapon.
In January 2006, the Delaware Supreme Court upheld Capano's conviction but remanded the case for sentencing due to the non-unanimous jury verdict for the death penalty. The state later abandoned its pursuit of capital punishment, leaving Capano imprisoned for life without parole. His habeas corpus petition was rejected by the U.S. District Court in April 2008, and the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed this decision on September 2, 2008. Capano did not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, ending his appeals.
Death
On September 19, 2011, Capano, aged 61, was found dead in his jail cell at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna, Delaware. The medical examiner determined that he died of sudden cardiac arrest, with obesity and cardiovascular disease as contributing factors. Following his death, his brothers Louis and Joseph engaged in a bitter court battle over their family's multimillion-dollar real estate empire.
Portrayals
The case inspired several books, including "Above the Law" by Brian J. Karem, "And Never Let Her Go: Thomas Capano: The Deadly Seducer" by Ann Rule, "The Summer Wind: Thomas Capano and the Murder of Anne Marie Fahey" by George Anastasia, and "Fatal Embrace: The Inside Story of the Thomas Capano/Anne Marie Fahey Murder Case" by Cris Barrish and Peter Meyer. A 2001 television movie, "And Never Let Her Go," based on Rule's book, starred Mark Harmon as Capano and Kathryn Morris as Fahey.
The case was featured in various television shows, including "The FBI Files" episode "Deadly Obsession," CBS News' "48 Hours," "Behind Mansion Walls," "Law and Order" (season 11, episode "Ego"), and the NBC series "Boomtown" (season 1, episode "The Scent of the Roses"). It was also highlighted in a 2018 episode of "Vanity Fair Confidential" titled "The Secret of the Summer Wind."
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