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Homicide New York Season 3 Episode 1
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00:38Joey was going out that Saturday night,
00:39but I never got into the details with him
00:41about where he was going.
00:43He was 26 years old.
00:46He's an adult.
00:49I met Joey Caminale my first year at Hofstra.
00:52He was more than a friend to me.
00:54We really became like brothers.
00:56Joey at first was very quiet,
00:57but once you got to know him he was
00:59very outgoing and everybody
01:01loved him.
01:03That Saturday night we had plans to go to a party
01:06and then last minute
01:07he invited me to go to the city
01:09to go to Gilded Lily with a small group of friends.
01:12We kind of got in a little argument about it
01:14so we just went our separate ways
01:15that night.
01:19So on Sunday I ended up texting Joey
01:22early that morning.
01:23I knew he'd be sleeping, you know,
01:25so I knew it was going to be a little while
01:27before he got back to me.
01:29And then 12 o'clock came.
01:31Lisa came to me and said,
01:32have you heard from Joey?
01:33I said, no, I haven't heard from him.
01:34So I tried to call him
01:36and I got no response.
01:37I probably called him a half a dozen times
01:39between 12 and 1,
01:41because I had to get my fantasy football team
01:42in by 1 o'clock.
01:43And he always helped me with my fantasy football team.
01:46And I still didn't hear from him.
01:48I'm thinking, well, maybe he went to go
01:51and stay with his friend Max.
01:53I remember speaking to Pat on the phone
01:55and he was definitely nervous,
01:57as who wouldn't be.
02:00But I was like, guys, go out.
02:02They meet girls.
02:03They don't know each other.
02:04They all go back to a place.
02:05They party.
02:06It's nothing unusual.
02:08I really didn't think anything of it at all.
02:12As the day progressed into the early afternoon
02:14and there was still no sign of Joey
02:16is when I started to get a little nervous and worried.
02:22As the day was going by,
02:24we were hoping we were going to hear from him.
02:26We were just waiting, just waiting,
02:28but it never happened.
02:36Our job is to make sure
02:38you can go home and sleep at night.
02:41It's so important for a family
02:42to know who murdered their relative.
02:46Compassion for the victims,
02:47that's the most important thing.
02:50I've always liked the peek behind the curtain.
02:53What really happened.
02:55You want to find out the truth.
02:58That's what detectives do.
03:00Your instinct is to help people.
03:04In New York City, the NYPD.
03:10This is it.
03:27I was a prison detective in the 17th Prison Detective Squad.
03:31On November 14th in 2016,
03:34we received a phone call from the desk downstairs
03:38in regards to a father who was there,
03:40whose son had come to the city to party,
03:43and he hasn't heard from him yet.
03:45Detective Yeoman Castro and I are in the office,
03:48and the uniformed officer is accompanying two gentlemen,
03:52Pat Caminale and his brother, Joe Caminale.
03:55They had a sense of urgency.
03:57You know, you could tell by the look on both of their faces
04:00that they were very concerned, they were very worried.
04:04Pat tells us,
04:06my son Joey's been missing for approximately 16 hours,
04:10and he's attempted to reach out to him multiple times
04:14and was unable to.
04:15And I asked his father,
04:17is this unusual of him to not speak to him?
04:20And Pat tells me, I speak to my son regularly.
04:28To me, I was like, alright, it's Manhattan.
04:30The kids come to party here.
04:32They're known to stay at people's homes, hotels.
04:35Some get drunk.
04:36They pass out on the streets.
04:38We'll find him.
04:40At that point, Yeoman and I kind of fork.
04:43So Yeoman has Pat at his desk,
04:46and I'm running everything in the computer.
04:47I'm checking every single system for Joey's name.
04:51Date of birth, different variations, John Doe's.
04:55He wasn't in any hospital.
04:57He wasn't in any jail cell.
04:59He was just off the radar.
05:01I told Detective Castro that the night before,
05:04I got a call from Joey's friend,
05:07who said, hey, I know you're trying to get a hold of Joey.
05:10I have his phone.
05:12I said, well, what are you doing with his phone?
05:14And he told me the story about what happened the night prior.
05:18That they had gone into the city to go to the Gilded Lily,
05:23which I had never heard of.
05:25It was a nightclub.
05:27And as they were leaving the Gilded Lily,
05:31Joey was talking to three girls.
05:34At the same time, his friend took Joey's phone
05:38to call his girlfriend to see where she was.
05:41I guess as that was going on,
05:43these two other guys came up and said,
05:47hey, do you guys want to go to an after party?
05:49Two cabs pull up and Joey's friend says,
05:54I have your phone.
05:56Joey says, well, just give it to me tomorrow.
05:58And so they all jump into the cab,
06:00and they went to this after party.
06:03And that was the last time we saw him.
06:06After I had spoken to Pat,
06:09I went to Instagram,
06:10and I clicked on the Gilded Lily.
06:14I just started looking at tagged photos,
06:16which there are hundreds of them,
06:17just to see if I could find Joey in the background
06:20of somebody's picture or, you know, get a clue,
06:22because we had nothing to go off of.
06:26So I saw this one, and there was three girls
06:28and a guy that I know.
06:30So I called him.
06:32He was like, those are the girls
06:33that Joey was with last night.
06:35He gave me this girl's number.
06:36Her name was Jenna.
06:38I texted her, and I asked her,
06:40what happened with Joey last night?
06:42Do you have any idea where he is?
06:43Is he with you?
06:45She said, no.
06:46We were at this party,
06:47and then a few hours after,
06:49Joey and this guy, whose name was Larry,
06:51walked the girls to an Uber and waved them goodbye.
06:57Pat was actually able to give me the name and phone number
07:01of the last person Jenna saw with Joey,
07:04and his name was Larry DeLeon.
07:08So I called Larry,
07:09and I explained that we're looking for Joey Caminale,
07:13who he was partying with at the after party.
07:15She says, yeah, I met him outside of Gilded Lily,
07:18invited them to this after party for this rich kid
07:21that lives on the Upper East Side
07:23at the Grant Sutton apartment building.
07:28Larry told me the last time he had seen Joey
07:31was when he left the building
07:33to walk Jenna and her friends to an Uber
07:36to send them back to New Jersey.
07:38It was 6.30 in the morning,
07:40and all he remembers is he walked back into the building alone.
07:45So then I gave Jenna a call,
07:48and Jenna described the after party in apartment 4C,
07:52and the host was James Rackover.
07:56According to Jenna, when the group arrives,
07:59she gets into the apartment,
08:00and there was a male in there,
08:03his name was James Rackover,
08:05and James was shirtless.
08:10And according to Jenna,
08:12he never bothered to put a shirt on the entire night.
08:16At one point, she said,
08:17James claimed to have been a male stripper,
08:20and he wanted to give Jenna a lap dance.
08:25And fortunately, you know,
08:27one of the girls videotaped it.
08:31You know, James has no shirt.
08:33He's giving one of the girls a lap dance.
08:36He's competing with Larry DeLeon.
08:38Who gives the best lap dance?
08:42She said that Larry DeLeon
08:45was in possession of a folding knife
08:47that he was snorting cocaine off of.
08:52And she kept noticing that Joey's calm,
08:56but he appeared to be extremely inebriated,
08:59that he was consuming a lot of whiskey and beer,
09:04but he wasn't having any issues
09:06with any of the people inside the apartment that evening.
09:10Jenna does recall that after the party,
09:13once she got to the Uber, they get inside,
09:16I guess she's looking back to say bye,
09:17and she sees that Larry and Joey fist bump each other.
09:22And then she assumed he either walked off
09:24or went back inside to the party again.
09:27So Jenna painted a great picture
09:30of what was going on in the after party,
09:32but she never answered the crucial question,
09:34which is, where is Joey?
09:39So I could tell Pat was concerned.
09:41And I have sons of my own, so I'm like,
09:43you know what, let's go take a ride to the building.
09:47Detective Castro really was conscientious.
09:50He took an interest, and no bullshit.
09:54He wanted to know what was going on.
09:57And he knew there was a problem here.
09:59We jumped in his patrol car
10:00and went over to Grant Sutton.
10:03So the Grant Sutton Apartments
10:06is located on East 59th Street.
10:09For those people that aren't aware of that area,
10:12that is known as Sutton Place.
10:14And it's not for the rich,
10:17it's for the filthy rich.
10:21So at 11 a.m., we arrived in front of the Grant Sutton.
10:25When you walk in, it's almost as if you're walking into a hotel.
10:28They've got a doorman, a concierge.
10:31We decided, let's go to 4C, James Rackover's apartment.
10:36We knock on the door.
10:37The cleaning lady opens the door.
10:39James wasn't there.
10:41So I said, listen, there was a party here last night.
10:44There was a kid that's missing.
10:46Do you mind if I come and just take a quick look?
10:47She goes, no problem.
10:48She opens the door.
10:51It's a small apartment, it's not very big.
10:54We went in.
10:55It was very clean.
10:57We didn't see anything that would have raised any flags.
11:02We didn't find Joey in there, and we exited the apartment.
11:07So I called James Rackover.
11:09He says he doesn't know Joey Caminale.
11:12He's a stranger.
11:14He came for the after party with Larry and one of Larry DeLeon
11:19and James Rackover's friends, Max Gemma,
11:22and the three girls that he had met at Gilded Lily.
11:26All he knows is Joey walked out of the building with Larry
11:30and never came back.
11:33And when we spoke to Max Gemma, he says,
11:36yes, he's at this after-hour party,
11:38but he gets tired and he basically falls asleep on the couch.
11:42He wakes up.
11:43He doesn't see Joey.
11:45He doesn't see anybody else.
11:46He just goes home.
11:49So I decided to go back to the lobby
11:51to start looking at video surveillance from the Grant Sutton.
11:56Just looking for any evidence,
11:57any clues to let us know where Joey may be.
12:03And from time to time, he would call me over and say,
12:06is that Joey?
12:08So we're watching the video.
12:10Niggles, that's Joey right there.
12:14You see the group arrive at about 4.30 in the morning
12:18and go in to the Grant Sutton and go up to the fourth floor.
12:22And then at 6.30, you see Joey Cominale,
12:28Larry DeLeon, and the three girls.
12:31And they come down the elevator.
12:33We switch the camera angle.
12:35We go to the exterior.
12:37We see them walking out.
12:38And they walk to the curb line.
12:40Perfect.
12:42If he makes the left, if he makes the right,
12:44then we'll know we have to get more video from next door
12:47and we can start tracking him.
12:49And as we're watching the video play,
12:51we see Larry DeLeon walking back in
12:53and Joey is with him.
12:57And I was like, wait, you told me he didn't come back.
13:04At that point, I knew there was a problem.
13:08And I said to my brother,
13:10he didn't walk out of here alive.
13:19I don't know why.
13:25Excuse me.
13:27It was just the hunch I had.
13:33Joseph was my first son.
13:36And he was always a great kid.
13:40Joey and I always got along because of our love for sports.
13:43I was a big hockey fan.
13:45And I took him to his first hockey game and he caught the bug.
13:50And he started skating at five years old.
13:53And he started playing competitive hockey at eight.
13:57Every year we took a trip, whether it was a New York Giant football game
14:00or a Ranger game, a Yankee game.
14:04We always connected through sports.
14:07Joey loved his food, Italian food.
14:10Even after he moved out, most nights he was here for dinner.
14:14And he was a bit, even though he loved his sports,
14:17he would always put on the Food Network to see what was good to make
14:21and what was, what I could make for him.
14:25Joey graduated Hofstra with a business degree.
14:29Fortunately for Joey and his friends, I owned a security business on Long Island.
14:35And if you talk to his friends, they'll tell you he was the HR director.
14:39He placed all of his friends in my company knowing that they would get a start there.
14:47He used to bring a lot of girls over to see if I'd give him the thumbs up.
14:51Everyone, I gave the thumbs up. I was hoping he'd get married.
14:54But if Dad didn't tell him 35 is what he'd always tell me.
15:01You know, one of the qualities about Joey is when I talk to his friends,
15:04they always told me that Joey was their best friend.
15:06And I was like, well, how is it possible that one kid could have 40 best friends?
15:12You know, I think they always say, you know, you never judge a man by how much money he has.
15:22But by how many friends he has.
15:27He had a lot.
15:30He had a lot.
15:38Pat was visibly upset.
15:41So at this point, I just paused the video and I asked his brother, Joseph, to take Pat and go
15:48back to my precinct and just wait for me there.
15:52Once the detective suspicion levels starts getting raised, that's when they call the homicide squad.
15:58Detective Castro was the assigned detective from the 17th detective squad.
16:02And I was the detective from the homicide squad that caught this case.
16:05But it's not just us.
16:07All the detectives in that squad and all the detectives in the homicide squad, they work together to investigate the
16:13case.
16:16Yeoman calls me and he goes, Marty, come over here.
16:20Help me with this.
16:21So I go over to the building.
16:24There's really only two options.
16:26Either Joey's still in the building or he left the building.
16:30You need to search the building from top to bottom.
16:35I grabbed the building super and I'm like, let's go to the roof.
16:38We'll start at the roof and come down.
16:40We go upstairs, exit the elevator.
16:44But, uh, I'm afraid of heights.
16:48I could see in the corner of my eye the 59th Street Bridge, Ed Koch Bridge.
16:53And I'm trying to not to look over to realize exactly how high I am off the floor.
17:01And then once I was satisfied that Joey was not on the roof,
17:06we started doing the searches floor by floor,
17:09down 36 flights of stairs, down into the basement, into the cellar, into the courtyards.
17:16And I'm hoping to run into Joey and be like, hey, wake up, go home.
17:21And, uh, it never happened.
17:27I go to the parking garage and I ask the parking attendant,
17:31I go, hey, James Rackover, apartment 4C, does he park his, uh, car here?
17:36He goes, oh yeah, he drives a big black Mercedes.
17:39I go, is that the car that's parked over here?
17:42He goes, yeah, that's the car.
17:44It looked pristine, clean, except that it was covered in dust, brown dust.
17:49Maybe a little, like, dirt.
17:51I took a look around and, uh, I noticed that there was, like, brown smudges,
17:55like, fingerprint smudges on the rear trunk lid.
17:59And I'm like, something didn't sit right with me at that point.
18:03And I said, we're securing this car until we can figure out what went on.
18:07But the parking attendant says, James Rackover, he doesn't own this car.
18:12It's owned by a gentleman who lives in apartment 32B, Jeffrey Rackover.
18:19So the name Jeffrey Rackover kind of rang a bell because he has a billboard when you come outside of
18:25the Midtown Tunnel going into Queens.
18:27He would sell jewelry to Oprah.
18:30He helped Trump get his engagement ring for Melania.
18:33So he was known to be the jeweler to the stars.
18:37I'll be honest with you.
18:39Everyone was like, oh, yeah, Jeffrey Rackover is the jeweler to the stars.
18:43I don't know who he is.
18:45Yeah, I don't buy jewelry in that, uh, income bracket.
18:53The concierge, Edward Souza, told us James Rackover was the long-lost son of Jeffrey Rackover,
19:00who recently, over the past few years, had come back into his life.
19:06Around 2014, James started to come around the building with Jeffrey.
19:11And then he started spending more time there.
19:15After about two years, Jeffrey was looking to get James his own place.
19:20So he came down and inquired if there was any apartments available.
19:24And then he officially moved in.
19:26And then that's when we learned that he was the long-lost son.
19:31He had had a relationship with a woman in the late 80s or early 90s
19:36that had resulted in a mystery son who had mysteriously appeared at his doorstep.
19:43I found it strange.
19:45But as a concierge, we don't want to delve too much into people's personal lives.
19:51Once James moved into his own apartment in 4C, the party's ramped up considerably.
19:58We watched hours and hours of video just hoping to see Joey appear on one of the screens.
20:05While we're still reviewing the video surveillance, the concierge, Edward Souza, taps me on the shoulder and says,
20:13that's James Rackover coming in.
20:15So I peek up, I see him.
20:18As he's walking by, he makes a statement, good luck getting the video, and keeps walking.
20:24So now I was called by surprise. I'm like, wait, what?
20:29I looked over at Detective Cash, what the fuck is that?
20:32He looks at me, he gives me a single look, what the fuck is that?
20:36I was so shocked, like, he was that cocky, and I was like, why is he so fucking cocky?
20:39Like, walking through there with his shoulders back, cockier than I had ever seen him.
20:44That's when the concierge says to me, you know, James had called me yesterday.
20:51The night before, James had called me and asked me about the length of time that the cameras record for.
20:58And I said, that's a strange question, you know, why would you ask that?
21:03And he told me that he had had an argument with his girlfriend and suspected her of stealing something,
21:08and he wanted to check the tapes.
21:11And I had told him that they record for 24 hours, and then we changed the tape.
21:16I think maybe James understood that after 24 hours that that tape was, like, taped over,
21:21but we wouldn't erase them.
21:24We would just change the tape, and that would be the record for that day.
21:28So I think his assumption was that the video for the past 24 hours had disappeared,
21:34when in fact, we had access to that video.
21:37So that just was throwing off alarms.
21:43So my phone rang into Detective Castro, and he said, look, I need you to bring me some of Joey's
21:50clothes.
21:52We're going to get some dogs to see if we can pick up Joey's scent to see where he may
21:56have gone.
21:58I went to Joey's place.
21:59I grabbed a towel and some of his other clothes.
22:02And I remember, I held out a sliver of hope.
22:08Maybe.
22:09It's not what I think it is.
22:15I was requested to search inside of a garage area of the grandson.
22:19I put the collar on my dog, and I'm like, you want to work?
22:21He looked at me, and his ears went up.
22:23I deployed him.
22:26So the dog took himself to the back, and all of a sudden, he started working.
22:29Like, I know my dog when he works.
22:31Like, his tail just keeps going.
22:33And then all of a sudden, I see his tail going faster and faster and faster.
22:36So me, he's on odor.
22:40He went through the four-door black Mercedes Benz.
22:43He threw his nose right into the trunk area, and he went, like, he barked.
22:48Like, real, like, you know, like, it came out.
22:52He's telling me that he has an odor of some sort of human decomposition, blood,
22:58anything that indicated human decomposition.
23:02But you'll have to get a search warrant to go into that vehicle
23:05and check out to see if there actually is evidence or a body inside that trunk.
23:13After the garage, the detectives asked me,
23:16can we do the apartments to see if he indicates that on an apartment?
23:19I grabbed the dog.
23:20We went up to the fourth floor.
23:21I gave him the word search.
23:24He went to the left, down the hallway,
23:27and then the dog indicated he scratched really hard.
23:30on the door jamb.
23:31We'll see.
23:33And then James opens the door.
23:35James Rackhover.
23:37He's like, fuck you, you scumbags, you cops.
23:40You come in and you need a warrant.
23:42You fuck you, fuck you.
23:45And to me, I'm like, this guy, you jerk off.
23:49Once I learned that the dog had given an active alert,
23:51I knew that he was given an active alert on blood,
23:55and something had occurred in there.
24:00Meanwhile, other members of the 17th Priest and Detective Squad from my office
24:04began sifting through the garbage from every apartment.
24:09So we put the dog on the bags so that we can identify bags that he gives an alert,
24:15and we'll search those first.
24:21And the dog hits upon a bag that had not been opened yet.
24:24Inside the bag is, like, a comforter cover.
24:28And it also has the name James Rackhover on it.
24:33Crime scene starts finding, like, paper towels and towels that appear to be soaked in blood.
24:40They open up a second bag.
24:42Then we find, covered in blood, articles of clothing that belonged to Joey
24:46that matched the video surveillance.
24:49His gold chain is in there.
24:51His bank card.
24:53And they found Joey's ID in that bag as well.
24:58Once you find all of those things, you need to get that search warrant,
25:02and you need to go back with the crime scene unit,
25:04and you need to go into that apartment.
25:10While Yeoman goes down to get a search warrant,
25:12I'm back at the office doing computer checks on James Rackhover,
25:16Lawrence de Leon, and Max Gemma.
25:20What we learned about Max Gemma is he comes from basically privilege.
25:24You know, his father was the mayor of Oceanport, New Jersey at one point.
25:29He lives in an apartment with Larry de Leon.
25:34Larry de Leon, he basically is very much like Max Gemma.
25:38He comes from a good family in New Jersey.
25:41They had owned thoroughbred horses.
25:44There were some stories that he had gotten into some fights at certain times,
25:48but other than that, he didn't have what you would consider
25:51any kind of substantial criminal background.
25:56When we looked into James Rackhover,
25:58it turns out he's not James Rackhover.
26:01His name is James Bodine,
26:03and he doesn't come from New York, he comes from Florida,
26:07where he had numerous arrests
26:09and had done time about a year and a half in jail for burglary down in Florida.
26:14We found that he was given bail, left Florida, and ended up in New York.
26:22After digging a little bit more into James Rackhover's background and his name change,
26:28we were able to learn that Jeffrey Rackhover is not the biological father of James Rackhover.
26:35And Jeffrey Rackhover had petitioned to have James Rackhover take his name.
26:46I believe Jeffrey had met James at the neighborhood gym close to our building.
26:54They became friends and was introduced over the weeks as first my friend and then my nephew and then my
27:04son.
27:08We didn't know what to make of the relationship between Jeffrey and James, quite frankly.
27:13The story that James is the long lost son of Jeffrey and somehow they found each other after all those
27:20years
27:20and it's not the truth, you know.
27:23And you start to look at it and you're like,
27:26well, what is the truth about this relationship that they have?
27:31They did not in any way resemble father and son.
27:36The way they would act with each other, you know, I love my father,
27:40but there were ways that they were affectionate with each other that I wouldn't be with my father.
27:48When you look at everything involved with James, it definitely raises the level of red flags.
27:57James comes from almost nothing, is working a menial job in Florida,
28:02and in a relatively short time is transformed into James Rackhover.
28:09And he's living in this building and he's driving this car and he's at these clubs and these restaurants.
28:14And, you know, you don't want to lose that if you're James.
28:21I think everyone else is still going to have their family, they're still going to have the money that their
28:25family's in,
28:25but James could lose everything.
28:28He's, I think, willing to do anything to maintain his life and the style he has going on.
28:40While we're waiting for the search warrants, we looked at video from the garage and we know that James leaves
28:46at about 9.45 on Sunday night,
28:47the night after the party, and takes Jeffrey Rackhover's car.
28:55When we did the background check on James, we were able to determine that he had a suspended license.
29:03So that gave us an avenue to be able to place him under arrest for driving without a license.
29:11James, why did you kill him?
29:13What happened in there, James?
29:15But unfortunately, once we placed him under arrest, he immediately invoked his right to counsel.
29:19So we weren't allowed to speak with him.
29:21That little glimmer of hope that we had that he might tell us where Joey is, we weren't getting it.
29:37So on Tuesday the 15th, we had a search warrants for apartment 4C.
29:43Crime scene comes in.
29:45As they start conducting their search, they're processing the scene with luminol.
29:50So under certain light, you can see blood.
29:55When a crime scene unit processes the bathroom, the entire bathroom lights up.
30:01All over on the walls, in the bathtub, and on the floor.
30:05Indications that there's been a lot of blood cleaned up.
30:09The same thing in the living room.
30:12They spray luminol by the sofa, by the floor, and they find drops of blood.
30:18They test it, so to see if they can determine who that blood belongs to.
30:23So the crime scene team had collected steak knives that were inside the dishwasher that had been run and cleaned.
30:30Those kitchen knives were then taken to the lab to see if there was any blood that would have seeped
30:38in to the handle itself.
30:42When you have what you found in the garbage, and then what you have at the scene, you know something
30:51bad has happened to Joey, and we know that he's probably dead.
30:56You can't be alive at that point.
30:59With all of the things that we've found so far, James not telling us anything, and Max Jim has no
31:05information to give us about where Joey may be because he's claiming he was asleep on the couch.
31:10We focus our attention on Larry DeLeon.
31:14Being that we already have James in custody, maybe Larry now wants to get his opportunity to maybe speak first
31:22and tell us what happened, not knowing what James may be saying.
31:27And he came in.
31:32So once Larry came in, we asked him if he could shed some light onto why we found so much
31:39blood.
31:40You know, he's keeping the same story that he had said earlier, not knowing where Joey is.
31:47You can accuse someone all you want, or you know, you might be guilty of this, but he's more guilty,
31:53and try and get a statement out of him that way.
31:56But Larry didn't want to answer those kinds of questions.
32:01So we tried to appeal more to his human side, saying, Joey Cominale's family is concerned about him, and they
32:07want to bring him home.
32:08And how would you feel if this was somebody in your family?
32:13Once Larry heard that, he decided to tell us that he could lead us to where Joey is.
32:22Well, he wouldn't tell us how the incident occurred.
32:27He gave us an address behind the florist shop and the town where he used to live in Ocean Port,
32:33New Jersey.
32:34And that's where we used to look.
32:36We caravanned with lights and sirens, and we're doing 80, 90 miles an hour out to this location.
32:47We arrived at this florist shop, and we headed to the open area at the back where Larry had given
32:57a description of where we would be able to locate Joey.
32:59We approach over, and the crime scene detectives begin to move dirt slowly.
33:12And the first thing that I see is a hand, kind of like a half fist.
33:21The way you kind of see in the movies, where it's coming out of the ground.
33:27And as they continue to move dirt, you start to see Joey's face, you start to see his chest, and
33:35you can tell that he was charred.
33:39So, he was lit on fire.
33:43At this point, we haven't really slept in days.
33:48You know, we were exhausted.
33:50We were exhausted, but this is something that we needed to do.
33:53We needed to tell the parents before anyone else did.
33:59Myself and Detective Chen get in the car to go from Ocean Port, New Jersey, to Stanford, Connecticut,
34:06to go and speak to Pat Cominale and let him know that we located Joey.
34:17No one said a word on that car ride.
34:24You feel the emotion, but you have a job to do.
34:27So, you just push it aside, and you keep going.
34:37We were sitting right here. I heard the car doors.
34:48I heard the car doors, and I knew why they were coming.
34:58We walk into the house, and Lisa comes down.
35:01They're hanging on to every word. They're just looking at you.
35:06The two detectives told us they found him, and it's our worst nightmare.
35:22I've never seen so much hurt in someone's eyes, mother and father.
35:31That type of pain, you never want to wish upon anybody.
35:35Joe!
35:36Joe!
35:38Did you have fun?
35:43It was, uh...
35:45I already knew, but this was the start of the next chapter.
35:52Which was getting justice for Joey.
36:02And that's all I could think about now, was making sure these three sons of bitches get everything that's coming
36:08to them.
36:14The medical examiner in New Jersey conducted the autopsy, and what he found was that Joey Cominale had 14 stab
36:22wounds, some of them post-mortem.
36:24He had broken bones, he had bruising on his hands, a large cut on his shoulder, which we believe they
36:32might have been trying to dismember him.
36:35And the body had burned.
36:40I can't make rhyme or reason why this would have happened.
36:43It was inhumane.
36:45It was vile.
36:47It's disgusting to think that they would treat another human being like garbage.
36:59After testing those kitchen knives that were found in the dishwasher, they were determined to have Joey's blood inside of
37:08the handles.
37:11Also, it was determined that the blood in the apartment was Joey's blood.
37:17Fighting the murder weapon, coupled with the autopsy report, matching to the evidence in the apartment, gave us answers to
37:25how he would have been murdered.
37:28But now, the key question was, how did they get him out of the building?
37:36We pulled so much video that we had to sift through, and we still couldn't see it.
37:44The one video that we couldn't get was a video camera that belonged to the building next door that, coincidentally,
37:53was corrupted.
37:55Finally, this video gets recovered, and it answered a huge part of our question.
38:05As we begin to review that video surveillance, you can see James Rackover park the black Mercedes in front of
38:14the grand site.
38:21Rackover takes the luggage cart, then he leaves the camera frame, and when he reappears, there's a large buffer bag.
38:32On the luggage cart, which then he places inside of the trunk of the black Mercedes.
38:38And if you look out the window of apartment 4C, you look towards 59th Street, and the front of the
38:45grandson.
38:47When I saw that, and I spoke with Yeoman, I went, holy fuck, these guys pushed him out of the
38:58window.
38:59So we wouldn't be suspicious coming out of the front lobby, which was the only exit out of the building.
39:06When you see the video, they're in it together.
39:09They're both acting together to take that body and to hide it.
39:24Did you do it?
39:27Did you do it?
39:27What happened in the apartment?
39:29What happened that night?
39:29What happened that night?
39:31Did you do it?
39:33Did you stab him?
39:35On May 10th, both Larry and James were arrested for murder in second degree, hindering prosecution and concealment of the
39:42corpse.
39:43James was already in custody for driving on a suspended license, and Jeffrey didn't put any money up for him
39:49to get out.
39:49I do think that at some point he realized he'd made a mistake having this son that was a murderer.
39:59We didn't have any cause to believe at that time that Max Jammer had anything to do with the homicide.
40:04We actually had statements from Larry saying that Max had nothing to do with it.
40:10He was arrested for hindering prosecution.
40:16Ultimately, it was clear to us that he had been involved, nearly trying to obstruct, essentially, the ability for the
40:23police to get evidence.
40:25But I don't think that the senior lawyers or myself were convinced that we could prove Max, beyond a reasonable
40:32doubt, was involved in the homicide.
40:34Once the murder charges came, it became a finger pointing, he did it, he did it, he did it, back
40:40and forth at each other.
40:43We still have to try and determine who did the stabbing.
40:48And we don't know what the role of James was or what the role of Larry was.
40:53You just need the doubt of one person on a jury to not have a conviction.
41:01So while James is waiting for the trial, we got jail calls from James, speaking to a friend of his.
41:08And in these calls, he's very confident he's getting off.
41:13I start trial in September, so I'm looking at being home around October-ish.
41:17My vet's going to be up there, bro.
41:19Oh, yes.
41:19If I hit the streets, they're going to be like, yo, this kid just beat this Rocky and he's home?
41:25Oh, my God.
41:25Yes, dude.
41:27He seems fine, but yeah, I'm going to get off, I'm going to be out soon, and you know, everything's
41:32going to be great.
41:35Towards the end of the investigation and getting ready for trial, we were able to locate a witness, and his
41:45name was Louie Ruggiero.
41:47He was a friend of James Rackover.
41:52Louie Ruggiero states that on the day that we're searching the building, he was at the gym.
41:57And that James Rackover came up to him and told him that he really needs to speak to him.
42:02He's got to tell him something that happened.
42:04Lewis tells us the story that James had told him, which was that on the day of the murder, while
42:10they're sitting there in the apartment, Larry has a dispute with this guy.
42:17Turns out to be Joey.
42:19And Larry gets so upset, he punches Joey and knocks him to the ground, knocks him out.
42:26James then says, I'm not going back to jail.
42:30And gets a knife from the kitchen and stabs Joey to death.
42:36So in this statement that he tells Louie, he's admitting he's the one that actually kills him.
42:44And another amazing statement that he makes is Joey's still in the apartment.
42:48And after that, he ordered pancakes and ate them without any problems.
42:52And then they took the body down to New Jersey and they dumped it.
42:56The evidence showed that their actions were intentional.
43:00That attack resulted in Joey's death.
43:02Even if they played different roles, two people can be responsible for the death of one person.
43:09And ultimately, James went to trial first.
43:23The trial for James Rack over started in Manhattan courts.
43:29Pat was there every day and he would fill the whole courtroom with family and friends.
43:37It was all of us, you know, all the fraternity brothers, his friends from home, colleagues, work, people would come
43:43and support Joey.
43:46The support we got from a lot of individuals was just incredible.
43:52Nobody on James Rack oversight, which spoke volumes.
44:01Ultimately, after a lengthy trial involving James, the jury found him guilty of second-degree murder or intentional murder.
44:09I remember to this day, Pat, I had to hold him down.
44:13Me and my lieutenant are holding each arm because he sprung up with, like, this joy that it's finally over
44:24and they're gonna pay for what they did to his son.
44:29And I was very, very happy for them, very happy for them.
44:34When I saw James, all I could think about was, I hope your nightmare's just starting.
44:41Because I gotta take mine for a lot longer than that.
44:50James Rack over was sentenced to 28 years, which he's still serving.
44:59We were glad with the outcome, and we just wanted it, you know, to be over.
45:05I want to thank the Manhattan DA's office for doing an incredible job.
45:10The NYPD, who worked around the clock, and I appreciate everybody's support.
45:16My family, friends.
45:23I think Larry could see that his odds of conviction were gonna be very, very high.
45:30Larry chose to plead guilty as opposed to going to trial.
45:35He ended up taking a plea deal to murder two for 23 years.
45:41February 2019, Max Gemma pleads guilty to hindering prosecution, and he received a sentence of six months in jail.
45:50I think all the papers all said he got a sweetheart deal.
45:56And I actually agree with him.
45:58I don't know why.
46:00I don't know why, but he's gotta live with himself.
46:06I think Max Gemma definitely has more information about what happened in that apartment.
46:22Every detective has a case in a lifetime.
46:27In the 19 years that I've been in the police department, this case has been the case for me.
46:34Just learning about Joey and how much he was loved by all his friends and family.
46:40Pat misses Joey every single day like if it was the first day that it happened.
46:45And he has this love for Joey that I can relate to because when he speaks about Joey and his
46:57daughter,
46:59and it's like they're his world.
47:02And that's what my kids are to me.
47:05We think about him every day.
47:10And we just try to, you know, keep his memory alive and tell my grandson all the time, this is
47:19Uncle Joey.
47:22His friends started getting a tattoo with number nine.
47:29And that was his number.
47:31And the irony is, I always said to him, I'll pay for your college under two conditions.
47:38You graduate number one in four years, and you never get any ink.
47:43And he didn't get his tattoo, but I got his tattoo.
47:47I thought it'd be a great way to just be with him every day.
47:54Which I have.
48:07The phone rang. Jeff says, is Irene with you?
48:11He said, she has been missing since 12 o'clock.
48:14Suddenly, everybody was at a loss that the lady of the home is gone.
48:21Irene Silverman was an 82-year-old woman that was as sharp as a tack.
48:24She was a socialite. And if she liked you, you were part of her family.
48:29We had information that our mother and son had Irene Silverman's identification.
48:35So we do a background check.
48:36You couldn't believe the horrific things that they did.
48:39We don't know where she is.
48:41We're innocent.
48:41And if just given our rights, we will prove it.
48:44It certainly didn't appear to be a mother-son relationship.
48:47They're holding hands.
48:49Staring into each other's eyes.
48:51Are you fucking kidding me?
48:53I interviewed the son.
48:55And before I know it, he's across my neck.
48:59I could feel his heart pounding.
49:01He said to me, this is a hostage situation.
49:05You may think you know me, but you do not.
49:34You must've loved her.
50:04Gracias por ver el video.
50:34Gracias por ver el video.
50:37Gracias por ver el video.
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