Thomas J. Capano

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Thomas J. Capano (born October 11, 1949) is an American lawyer from Wilmington, Delaware, who was convicted of the 1996 murder of Anne Marie Fahey. The case is noteworthy because of Capano's close association with Delaware's political establishment and because Fahey's body was never recovered.

Capano is a member of a prominent family of Delaware land developers and building contractors. He became a wealthy, well-connected lawyer, state prosecutor, and political consultant, known to nearly everyone in Delaware's political community. Capano was a partner at the Wilmington office of the law firm Saul Ewing when he became involved with Fahey, the 30-year-old appointments secretary to Governor Thomas R. Carper. At the time of her death, Fahey had been attempting to end her relationship with the married Capano and had begun seeing another man. As a result, he murdered her and dumped her body in the Atlantic Ocean, with the assistance of his brother. U.S. Attorney Colm Connolly was the state's prosecutor, and William Swain Lee was the presiding judge in the highly-publicized Superior Court case. It resulted in Capano's conviction and his sentencing to death in 1999.

In January 2006, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed Capano's conviction but remanded the case for sentencing because the death penalty was imposed by a non-unanimous jury verdict. In February of that year, the state abandoned its efforts to seek capital punishment for Capano, opting to leave him imprisoned for life without parole. Capano's attorneys stated that they would continue to appeal his conviction in federal courts.

In April 2008, the U.S. District Court reaffirmed Capano's conviction, rejecting an appeal made by Capano's lawyers.[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Wilmington News-Journal newspaper. Last accessed April 15, 2008.
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