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00:00who set it up
00:06telling you the truth about this
00:10everybody else is pointing the finger at you
00:16what people think when they watch a murder for hire show on tv
00:28is that it's glamorous it's a professional hit person it's a lot of money and so on and so forth
00:33many times that's not the case we had three people killed in one location at one time
00:41what the heck i just left there the more victims the bigger the case becomes
00:48if there was an intended target why take two more they were looking at the wives
00:55there was some embezzling going on and then it came out oh he was having an affair
01:04he was a romeo he was a player a flashy person like fabio on the horse with the long hair
01:13but it wasn't like she was like going out with brad pitt
01:18just cold-blooded to execute three people
01:21coincidences i don't believe in coincidences
01:27we all knew who it was but the only question in my mind was
01:33my shift for that day started at three o'clock when i went to work i found out that my car was
01:51over at b&b automotive being repaired
01:54they repaired our police cars they had the account b&b automotive it was almost like a little bit of
02:03a center hub for motor vehicle mechanical work it was in windsor locks when we mentioned windsor
02:12locks we always say oh we're bradley is bradley international airport a lot of farmland beautiful
02:19homes you know nice little community so after roll call was over i drove over to b&b i arrived
02:27there probably around 320 they said about 25 more minutes so i hung out there talking with those guys
02:32after if my car was ready i left i think it was 4 20
02:37and 10 to 20 minutes had passed since i had left there when dispatch reported that there was a call
02:46at b&b automotive there was a report of three bodies on the ground with blood around them
02:50what the heck i'm like i just left there the scene was a garage with multiple bays
03:01when we first went to the scene there was a long driveway and we saw a red pickup truck was parked in
03:11the driveway door open you know keys are still there at that point it kind of led us to believe that
03:17that vehicle was stopped approached and then somebody was taken out hastily they just took back to that
03:25building we walked down the rest of the driveway we go to our right and it's three gentlemen pools of blood
03:36blood it was more like they were gathered in one place told keep your head down don't look at me
03:45and then they were shot and killed it was a nine millimeter it was execution style type of murder
03:55that's a real cruel manner of death this was a major crime the victims are determined to be
04:02uh employees of this automotive repair shop
04:09robert steers barry rossi and lorne stevens now barry and bobby were owners for the b&b automotive garage
04:23lorne was an employee of theirs they were outgoing guys they were you know great businessmen great
04:30mechanics in fact bobby was the owner of the red pickup truck so when i got there the ambulance was
04:38already on sync and bob was making some kind of moaning noise like he was in pain he was hurt and he
04:46was transported to the hospital by ambulance personnel he succumbed to his injuries later on he died at the
04:54hospital at the time 50 million things were running through my head as to what happened to these guys
05:00you know i just literally talked to these these guys and um it was sad
05:10talking to other witnesses who worked in the area they gave us the timeline i think it was somewhere in
05:16the five area you know that the murder took place so that was my first murder scene in my career
05:26after that you know i didn't know if i wanted to be a police officer anymore it was difficult to deal
05:31with for a little while and some of the things that ran through my mind too was were they waiting for
05:38me to leave do they see me go in there do they see me leave what if i had stayed there just a little
05:47longer could i have helped these guys you know when i look at a case like this think of a puzzle
05:55where you're trying to develop a picture of what happened number one you got to find out who the
06:00relatives and relationships that that victim had who their friends are who their enemies are there are
06:06just so many questions that you need to answer for each individual person there were three victims
06:15and you realize all the ancillary things that you're gonna have to do not just once not just twice but
06:21actually do three times and then some i'm karen ranny previously steers older sister to robert and i'm
06:32younger sister to robert we were a family of six my name is debbie haught and i'm bobby steers older
06:42sister i don't think we had a problem growing up we had our differences but you know it wasn't anything
06:49major where we were pulling our hair out except for except for the bathroom
06:53when i think of my brother bobby he had lots of friends he had things that i had in common with
07:03him cars in particular we found a picture of him when he was 17 and my parents had given him a gift
07:12to work on cars he did really well in school with automotive it was his passion and he found the right
07:18people to work with barry and bobby were in a class for mechanics together bonded and went to work for
07:30their teacher until they decided you know they're gonna branch out on their own they were going to
07:36start their own business together that's where they ended up with b and b barry and bobby
07:42and uh yeah like a married couple they were the perfect pair how often in life do you come across
07:53people that not only become business partners together and be friends outside of work as well
08:00a good 20 years in business together and i don't think they ever had a fight i don't think they ever
08:06argued barry to me was a more jovial guy bob to me he seemed more business you know like more direct
08:19and their business was so lucrative that they took on more employees because of the business growth
08:27lauren stevens was the goofball lauren always had a grin on his face always making some kind of joke
08:35stories where lauren would hide like playboy magazines in some of the cars that would come
08:41in to get repaired of customers that he knew really well so i think lauren was the biggest prankster
08:51out of the three of them
08:56these were pins um created at the wedding of barry and they were all the three best men the three guys
09:03are we always the three stooges because they were always together you know they were always enjoying
09:09life together and having fun having fun and enjoying life together so you know god brought them into this
09:15world together god took them out together because it was meant to be at that point in their lives to be
09:22together so it happened together because they loved each other
09:34shelley was robert's wife they had three children that day when i answered the phone and this girl's
09:40on the other end and she's hysterical and it was shelley and that's when she told me my brother
09:46had been shot what breaks my heart what kills me to this day is just visualizing the way it happened
09:56execution style
10:00oh god my brother did not deserve that
10:05neither one of these guys deserved that
10:07july 30th the phone rang at 5 30 and it's my youngest sister saying there's been a murder and
10:18what it's just surreal it it was a very horrible horrible night why this happened why did this have
10:27to happen it was needless it was it was wrong
10:30when i found out it was at the garage i just figured it had to be a robbery what else could it
10:40possibly have been and you know at that point we walked through the rest of the garage just to look
10:45at the offices the safes the desk where if money was kept looking for different motives it didn't look
10:54like they would have known the person there was no other signs of struggle there was no
10:59ransacking of the offices or anything there was money all over the place the cash register was full
11:12nothing touched we kind of like looked around their pockets weren't turned inside out
11:19everything seemed in order it definitely was not a robbery and it definitely
11:24had the markings of a hit if you will i think that if they were shot in the face it was somebody angry
11:31but it wasn't somebody angry it was somebody who knew what they came to do and did it and was out of
11:36there within minutes when i was in the garage that day i usually spoke to barry they were joking around
11:48basically just chit chat guy stuff i remember we heard the phone ring i remember bob coming out of his
11:56office and he looked a little upset and he said to barry he goes can you believe it that guy called me so
12:02barry just kind of shook his head and you know in disbelief and then bob went back to his office and
12:06i said to barry i go what's that all about and he goes oh you don't want to know so i said okay you
12:12know i'm not going to get into their personal business but to me it seemed like it was an ongoing
12:16issue that they had with somebody i don't know at the time if it was a pissed off customer or what was
12:22going on and that's all i recall he was saying this could be some angry person with a car
12:29then it was like they had a you know they would hold cars for non-payment so was it a disgruntled
12:37customer who wanted their car back and couldn't get their car back was it a disgruntled customer
12:42who didn't like the way they fixed their car at first we didn't know who were they after all of them
12:50one of them but if there was an intended target why take two more you were scared out of your mind of
13:02who's next we just didn't sleep there was 24-hour watch at the house we took shifts so it's very frightening
13:11the only question in my mind was like who there was a mechanic who was not there that day
13:22so b&b automotive they had approximately four people working in there bob barry lauren and
13:31less at the time but he wasn't there when this happened
13:42les was a conservative guy serious about what he did he worked with these guys five days a week
13:50maybe more and he probably loved them like they're his brother his family's when i know about les's
13:56he raced cars b&b sponsored him but then things changed
14:10they did stop supporting him at one time because money was getting tight so could be a motive
14:18so detectives wondered if les was involved he could have been
14:23a suspect or he could have been part of the planning that's why he wasn't there he could
14:30have been the shooter we didn't look into him quickly and uh he had a dentist appointment so he cut
14:38out early but we've seen before where people will set up the alibi they'll make sure they're seen
14:45somewhere or they go to a restaurant there is a receipt they go through a toll booth
14:51so that's something that one as an investigator would look very very seriously at but it wasn't
14:58just your normal type investigation a lot of questions a lot of interviews a lot of different
15:03angles and then also we went to the family side and we started looking in family members
15:10the more victims the bigger the case becomes because you certainly have a great deal of work
15:15that needs to be done for each individual victim they would take barry and find nothing that would
15:23raise a red flag so to speak in in his life same with lauren bobby they dissected his life and there
15:32were some things that caused some very concerning information that needed to really be looked into
15:40bobby was married to shelley steers she just looked like the normal you know winsor locks married woman
15:55after they started b&b automotive she was working at the shop she would go in and take care of all
16:00their business the side of the scheduling and the bill collecting and the deposit she did all that
16:07shelly was extremely friendly i would just say she's average i wouldn't say that she was not like
16:14not like a model person she was just average she didn't wear a lot of makeup she didn't wear a lot of
16:19fancy clothes not a lot of jewelry i mean she just wasn't ostentatious about anything my assumption is that
16:26they met in school and they got married when she was pregnant and i don't think that was uh that was
16:33something that was planned i think it's something that just that happened and they took the course to
16:37be responsible and get married i think they were married by the time they were 19 20 years old
16:43i didn't really know her real well but when she was around at family events she was always cordial she
16:49was never ugly mean or disrespectful bobby and uh shelley seemed to me get along really well
16:58now once did she ever say like you can't come over or we're not having you over for a birthday party or a
17:04picnic you never felt like you weren't welcome i went with her to a crazy like heavy metal concert
17:11she wasn't just like my sister-in-law she was like my sister we were friends
17:15i thought everything was fine until about two weeks before the incident at the shop
17:28i had gone down to my brother's boat and that was the only time i ever saw my brother really distraught
17:37and he said i'm almost bankrupt
17:39and he shared that he found all these charge cards and loans and he was she had gotten him into
17:48a lot of debt that he was not aware of where all that money was going i don't know
18:00i think shelley had a little bit of a problem at the office
18:03i'm not sure exactly what but there was something that you know she was no longer working there
18:16then the you know information started to come out that shelley his wife was stealing money from the
18:22business because she did control the office side it's a speculation it's nothing that we can actually
18:31say definitively but this was something out of the norm
18:38there was something that just wasn't right when it came to shelley
18:45what i can tell you about barry is barry wanted the business saved and protected
18:52and so the day after the murders
18:55barry and bobby were scheduled to go to the lawyer to put everything in barry's name
19:06but they never got to go to that appointment
19:13because they were murdered the night before
19:15what would that make anybody think
19:25coincidences
19:28i don't believe in coincidences
19:30we interviewed shelley his wife she was very evasive she said she wasn't happy in the marriage
19:44that things weren't working out that she felt lonely she had confided in me that she had seen
19:51someone i didn't really know anything about the man other than shelley met him online
19:59trying to get on the internet in the early 2000s and that was a mess there wasn't wi-fi
20:06it was dial up and it would make all these weird sounds before it got you connected once you turn the
20:13computer on it would be a strange buzzing type sound shelley said she reached out to someone and it
20:27started to develop into stronger feelings his name was benedetto cipriani cipriani or chipriani in italy it's
20:36i believe people here called him cipriani
20:44we didn't know who he was you know it's cipriani is a big name is he tied to the big cipriani family
20:51in italy they own hotel chains and restaurant chains he uh worked in the area he was married before but
20:59did not have uh children you know we figured some italian good-looking guy like fabio on the
21:06horse with the long hair and then when we saw him we were kind of set back like wow
21:14he looks old he's frumpy he was out of shape he was short and chubby it wasn't like she was
21:23like going out with brad pitt and it didn't make sense to us why shelley would uh do this and it's like
21:29like she wasn't abused she wasn't uh neglected but it's just that he had a way about him
21:38they knew each other for two weeks and then met in a hotel that's where they you know had sex
21:46should have never got to that point should have never got that no if she wasn't happy
21:52with their relationship she should have just done the right thing the moral thing and leave
21:58wasn't something i would have expected out of it she said roughly around a year that she was seeing
22:09him to listen to this story from the outside you would just say you know were you stepping up like
22:17is it somebody above like what you have it was none of that what was it speculative could be
22:24that she was drawn to his money he comes off as a flashy person he's in business he knows people
22:33he had money you know everything that she doesn't have right now it's something that appeals to her
22:41we were working class families none of us had that taste of what money can get you
22:48we learned shelley and cipriani built a house together the plan was supposed to have been that
22:57once the house was built and ready she was gonna leave but it takes a long time to build a house
23:05i can only surmise he probably figured my brother would leave at that point
23:09and then he would get her and that's not how it happened
23:13it was 2002 she called the whole affair off citing that she had children she had a husband
23:26she had realized what she had done and she wanted to go back to her normal life
23:34and he just wasn't having it he wouldn't accept it
23:38he kept pursuing her he kept trying to contact her called her she was telling me ben there was
23:44calling her and calling her and calling her on the phone apparently like he sent her flowers he
23:48bought her clothes he bought her jewelry for ben cipriani he hadn't invested a lot into this
23:56relationship he was not gonna go out unless he was kicking and screaming
24:00it was almost a year before my brother lost his life ben cipriani called my brother to notify him that
24:11him and shelley had a relationship and that she had taken money from b&b automotive to help contribute
24:19to building this house together he was at work when he got the call so i'm sure that he needed the
24:28time to process but he was concerned about his family just to reach out to the husband was just
24:33you know set us back like wow this guy definitely wants to break up the marriage now we weren't sure
24:40we were just surmising that shelley steers had half a business and shelley steers had a nice home
24:46and a nice area in windsor locks and his wheels must have been turning like a divorce how much could she
24:54get out of the whole thing benedetto looked at her as being that brass ring that he grabbed onto
25:03somebody you know is this what he was looking for it was at that time that i got a call from shelley
25:12to tell me that my brother had gotten this call at work and i call robert and robert's response to me was
25:19please go to my house and make sure my family's okay i said are you okay he says i'm fine he says but
25:25just go there after the call to my brother at work my brother didn't leave her and she obviously didn't
25:35leave my brother i assumed she was working on her marriage that she made the decision to not be with
25:42him anymore and as soon as this day hit it changed the whole family dynamic that bond with shelley and
25:49robert and us ended
25:54so on the day of the murder when bob got that phone call and you know he seemed a little distressed
26:01about it and i don't know if benedetto was calling to see if he was still there at work i have no idea
26:06what's what's going on so investigators went through a lot of facts and circumstances and they
26:16focused in on benedetto cipriani finding out every single bit of information he could find out who he's
26:23friends with who has relationships with where he works what he does where he travels to from what we
26:30learned he worked at some lapel bottling cap company and i think he was just a customer service associate
26:40in long island so somebody that has money is not going to drive that every day he said he was in
26:46business i'm sure he probably said that three or four different women you know this is what a guy does
26:54if you're a real player and you're a real con man that's how you're going to draw somebody in
27:00we interviewed his work companions the people in the office especially females they said that
27:07every time he would come in it was close quarters arm around the shoulders a lot of cologne flashy
27:16jewelry he thought he was a romeo then we did talk to him and that's where he started just one denying
27:27it telling us we're wrong you don't have anything on me he gave an alibi he was at work i didn't know
27:36what to think something had to be wrong it had to be skewed what shocks me is that police didn't do
27:45anything at that point because i guess they didn't have enough information or to take him in he asked
27:50benedetto can we see your phone can we see your phone records and you know he says i have my own
27:56privacy we're like okay we'll get you another way
28:04and we started just getting warrants for phone records but it would take months
28:10the lead detectives i bug them probably five times a day what are you going to do about solving this case
28:17you're going to get this guy back here you're not going to let him get away
28:21it was quite a bit of boots on the ground in the area of the garage talking to all
28:30ancillary businesses to what they saw what they heard what they may have heard
28:36there was one gentleman that did happen to see something it was just before the murder took place he
28:44thinks he saw someone approach the vehicle and then talked to bobby steers
28:53more of aggressive type talk and then all of a sudden bobby getting out
28:59and then they walked down towards the garage he gave a description you know as good as he could
29:07we were just shocked
29:16from the witness we were told that it was a dark hair hispanic type male
29:25when you hear probably was a hispanic that came in and shot them it's like okay that makes
29:31no sense it just confused things more we looked at cipriani but we knew he didn't fit the description
29:40of the witness who saw the young man so he got ruled out as being the shooter
29:46but not as far as being a suspect for the homicide
29:50there was an individual who was arrested by another local police department in connecticut
30:03it was for unrelated charges he had information to what had occurred at the automotive shop at linger
30:10locks he said he was the uncle of eric martinez he just a young kid in hartford
30:20benedetto cipriani was seeing his mother
30:26and was living with eric martinez in his house which kind of really solidifies that this is how
30:35much of a player he is he's with another woman trying to pursue a woman who's married
30:43we find out only later on that eric is the product of a rape
30:51and this is where benedetto knows how to get into people's heads
31:00and then he starts explaining to martinez that he has a guy robert steers that raped a hispanic girl
31:12in martinez being hispanic
31:14unfortunately he believed it i don't understand how people can take people's word for that without
31:22having proof i think he was a sick individual can't imagine what shelley had seen in that man
31:28i think cipriani knew what he was looking for he was looking for somebody to do a job for him
31:34so he used the dating site to say oh who's got teenage kids who can i meet up with because he was
31:42approaching those kids with the plan to to kill somebody
31:46benedetto tells martinez that he wants bobby's killed and then eric knew a friend jose guzman
32:04was the shooter he is the guy that had the gun and then the person that drove was michael castillo
32:12when these two get there guzman approached bobby steers coming out in the red pickup truck
32:19bobby steers was the motive unfortunately instead of just killing him when he brought bobby to the garage
32:27then he discovered barry and lauren and that's when he just shot all three
32:39benedetto gives money martinez's uncle said it was seven thousand dollars they then everybody
32:46you know got some of the proceeds to murder three people it wasn't a heck of a lot of money to take
32:54three lives that just breaks my heart that people don't value people's lives as they should you know
33:00they could have gone to the police about him they could have done a hundred things they could have
33:04called the shop to say hey somebody's trying to hire me to kill you but they didn't do anything they
33:10just went along with it it was exciting it was like wow you know it's like a home run it was nice that
33:18somebody came forward this picture of the murder for hire it all comes together we've harassed jose
33:26guzman eric martinez michael castillo but we didn't have you know enough probable cause to take
33:33cipriani into custody to approach him and would just hear say that it's not going to get us anywhere
33:39when we looked into cipriani more we found that he had purchased phone cards
33:44and martinez was on the other side with that phone card it was that transaction there
33:51then we knew that benedetto was connected to other people
33:56once there was an arrest warrant the detective started to look for cipriani
34:04he was gone
34:05after the murder took place he told the people his you know employment that he was
34:15going back to italy to take care of his mom and he flies to italy
34:23how'd you let him out of the country he's a suspect he's a suspect i was livid i was absolutely
34:29livid that they couldn't at least take his passport away because he was a person of interest but
34:35legally there was nothing they could do to stop him and he's got dual citizenship
34:41italy did arrest him but italy did not want to release benedetto to us italy was a country that
34:48would not return someone to the united states if the death penalty was on the table
34:54so it was working with the federal government working with the italian government and then
35:00proving to the italian government that he was not going to be executed for committing these heinous
35:06crimes and it took time it's not something that happens instantaneously it took a great deal of time
35:16the phone rang and it was the state investigator who said he's on the plane
35:24i was like this and then i'm like i gotta i gotta call my sister and we were just jumping and screaming
35:32and like oh my god oh my god that's just incredible so this tragedy pulled our three families
35:43kind of together
35:44we felt a bit of relief that the justice system is doing its job and i was just thankful that it was
35:59coming closer to closure it was just excitement of oh my god he's on american ground we got him
36:09he's gonna be held accountable when we brought cipriani back he lawyers up immediately so you know it
36:20left a wide open scope at that point i always thought that there may be one more arrest i didn't know if
36:27benedetto was going to say that shelley was aware of his plan all along i don't know if she knew all
36:34along or not you know and he kept quiet about it i always had a lingering thought who else was involved
36:43in this we never really felt shelley was up front and truthful from the start we interviewed her she
36:53said that she broke it off like months and months before the homicide occurred but also she said that
36:59a week before the murder took place benedetto and shelley go to his house and benedetto shows three
37:07bank statements saying he depletes the stock puts it into her account
37:14apparently gave her eighteen thousand dollars and he just wanted shelley to go with him and they had sex
37:22again i'm angry and you know once we found the phone records we saw he did reach out to her
37:34benedetto called her at least 30 minutes after the murder took place you know it's unusual
37:42was she still part of the plan we don't know they say money is the root of all evil and it is this
37:51really wasn't about love and jealousy it was about money plain and simple
38:05so priano stood trial for the crimes in which he was accused he was convicted by a jury of 12 of his
38:24peers in superior court and the judge sentenced him to 200 plus years in prison we knew he was going to
38:32die here now he has to remember and live this every day of his life i'm sure every morning when he gets up
38:40he realizes that you know this is not worth it it's a sad life in court i stared right at him
38:49and i made sure i let him know i'm gonna live to see him die in an american prison
38:55and i looked him right in the eye and he couldn't look back
39:03he couldn't look back
39:09shelley steers was someone that was looked at very heavily it was never determined that she
39:18had any first-hand knowledge or involvement
39:28through the trial she said she had no knowledge that this was going to occur
39:33and the only people that know that for sure it's been cipriani and shelley
39:37nobody else knows that for sure
39:49all the families they were angry as to why
39:55why was there not more blame put
39:57we were told um you don't arrest somebody on circumstantial evidence
40:09because you can't go back again
40:13and that's where it ended
40:19for us
40:20we just have to let we have to have let it go
40:32if he's able to manipulate people to murder
40:36do you think he was manipulating her
40:38very possible very possible but i don't know
40:43we may not have gotten all the the true answers and
40:49yeah well we'll wait one day it'll come out
40:56two things you learn through a process such as this that are very hard lessons are patience
41:06and then forgiveness
41:07there's only one person i have not been able to forgive and they're not the people in prison
41:17and i leave it to my faith and to god to handle that in the appropriate time
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