If Looks Could Kill (26 page)

When John Zaffino’s name became part of the investigation, along with the possibility that the CAPU was going to get its hands on the motorcycle he might have used to murder Jeff Zack, a year certainly had made all the difference in the search for Zack’s killer. It seemed that whomever detectives spoke to regarding John Zaffino, each person further placed the former truck driver into a position that at least made him look guilty. Because of this, the CAPU calibrated its investigation and focused exclusively on Zaffino.

“By the time we learned about Zaffino in the spring of 2002,” Dave Whiddon recalled later, looking back on the investigation, “we had cleared all of our other leads and really had nowhere to go…. When Ed Moriarty retired in April of 2002, the case was pretty much at a standstill…. When everything started pointing toward Zaffino, he quickly evolved into our main suspect. The more we found out about him, the more he started to emerge as the shooter.”

The turning point, added Whiddon, came when he received a telephone call from a narcotics detective near the same time Captain Daugherty located the bike. It was something, Whiddon added, “I will never forget.”

“Hey, Lieutenant,” that detective said, “you know that motorcycle I was telling you about?”

“Yeah?”

“Forget about that. I’ve got something much better.”

A few days later, Tim Gardner was sitting in a conference room inside the CAPU talking about Fred Abers, who was dating Christine Todaro at the time. From there, Zaffino’s name became part of the investigation.

“It changed everything,” Whiddon said. Then Christine decided she wanted to help—and the investigation was reignited.

Even more compelling, as the end of June neared, one of Zaffino’s neighbors told detectives that Zaffino had gotten rid of his “neon yellow and black or blue Honda CBX or CBR” right before he moved out of his apartment, which was thought to be the last week of June or first week of July 2001.

The timing fit.

The CAPU soon got a court order to dig deeper into Zaffino’s personal records at the management office of his former upscale residence. Those records could be helpful, especially when looking for more people to talk to about Zaffino. The thought was, he must have put down references on the application; personal information he couldn’t lie about.

While detectives pored through Zaffino’s electric bills, rental agreement and other paperwork connected to his onetime dwelling, the apartment manager, standing by watching, said she needed to say something she had thought about since the last time the CAPU interviewed her. It was about Zaffino’s bills. She had no idea how he paid for his living expenses. He was always on time with the rent, but she never really knew him to work all that much.

At this point, detectives asked to speak to anyone that would have had access to Zaffino’s apartment: maintenance men, cleaning people, utility workers.

One of the detectives pulled out a photograph of Cynthia. In the photo, she was standing next to Jeff Zack and his son, Ashton. One of the maintenance men, an old guy in his late sixties, pointed to Cynthia and said, “That’s Zaffino’s girlfriend, all right. And that boy”—Ashton—“has also been in his apartment hanging around with [Zaffino’s] boy and a girl [who had to be one of Cynthia’s kids] that was younger than the two kids.”

According to one detective, the maintenance man was wrong about Ashton. There was no reason Ashton would have been at Zaffino’s apartment. The guy was mistaken; he was more likely talking about Zaffino’s son, who was around the same age as Ashton.

“Did John have a motorcycle?”

“Sure did,” said the maintenance man, the keys hanging off his belt clanking like chimes every time he moved to look down at the photos.

“How do you know?”

“He parked it underneath the upstairs porch. I had to go tell him not to park it there because it was a fire hazard. He had no trouble moving it and never parked it there again.”

Here was one of those seemingly insignificant pieces of information that spoke to the heart of the case: the motorcycle.
Find the motorcycle, find the killer
.

Detectives were getting close.

A fairly convincing sketch of Zaffino materialized from the scores of interviews the CAPU had conducted ever since Zaffino’s name became part of the investigation. Alone, none of the information proved much of anything substantial; together, a plot of murder emerged.

During a CAPU morning meeting the day after Captain Daugherty found the bike on the Internet, another interesting development—quite a bit more significant—emerged. Daugherty explained to the unit that a woman by the name of Nancy Bonadio, who lived in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh, had received a Honda CBR 1000, a “black crotch rocket type of motorcycle,” as payment for back child support from her ex-husband.

“Who is the ex-husband?” one of the detectives at the meeting asked.

“John Zaffino,” said Captain Daugherty. “We’re going out there today to take a look at that bike and interview Bonadio and her fiancé, Russell Forrest.”

Daugherty then explained that she had been in contact with PSP trooper David Bova, who had recently faxed her a copy of the bike’s registration. On the back of the bike’s original title (generated from Ohio), John Zaffino had signed ownership of the bike over to Bonadio, who then transferred the bike into her fiancé’s name so he could sell it.

Finally the motorcycle every CAPU detective working the case had been looking for seemed to be within arm’s reach.

With that information, which pretty much solidified the CAPU’s theory that Zaffino had owned a Ninja-style bike at the time of Jeff Zack’s murder, Paul Callahan and Beth Daugherty pulled two detectives—Russ McFarland and Mike Shaeffer—aside and told them to pack a bag and drive immediately to Pennsylvania to speak with Bonadio and Forrest. “With any luck, we can locate and seize the motorcycle,” Daugherty said.

Shaeffer and McFarland put some things together and got ready for the trip. McFarland had to first set it up with a towing company the department used so that a truck could meet them in Pennsylvania. They had to have everything in order. One of the first rules of productive police work is, any investigator will agree, assume nothing, be ready for anything. “We wanted to go out there before,” McFarland later wrote in his report, “[the motorcycle] ended up missing as a result of any renewed efforts on the part of the suspect.”

The CAPU, Daugherty explained later, still didn’t know then if Russell Forrest and Nancy Bonadio were in cahoots with Zaffino. In a way, they had to assume they were. The worry was that if Zaffino had gotten a sniff of what was going on, there was no doubt he was going to head out there himself, call ahead or do something to obstruct the investigation, whether he had anything to do with Jeff Zack’s murder. That bike seemed to be the key right now; it was as good as the CAPU was going to get to a fingerprint left at the murder scene. If Zaffino found out what was going on behind the scenes, the CAPU was never going to see the bike. And without the bike, they knew they didn’t have much of a case.

Then there was Christine Todaro: if Zaffino knew what was happening, there was a chance he was going to blame it on Christine, which would, in her view, put her, her son and her father in even greater danger.

“It was that important,” recalled one detective.

“Go to that car lot,” Captain Daugherty told McFarland and Shaeffer, “and get the bike. If you run into trouble, attempt to get it through a search warrant. The PSP will initiate a warrant while you guys are en route.”

McFarland and Shaeffer were excited—the big break everyone had been waiting for. “Still, you never know,” McFarland said later, “what can happen. The way the case was going, this could have been just another lead gone astray.”

“I was thinking,” Mike Shaeffer later told me, “it’s going to be a long day. With the possibility of doing a search warrant and the process it takes to get one, and the interviews [with Bonadio and Forrest], plus the two-hour drive both ways, we were going to be gone for a while. I was excited to [possibly] get the motorcycle and to hear what Bonadio and Forrest had to say. I figured this would be a big break in the case and I was more than willing to put the time and effort in to assist.”

McFarland added, “We were optimistic. The bike was a key piece of evidence.”

Time would certainly tell.

Russ McFarland and Mike Shaeffer arrived at the PSP barracks Troop B Headquarters at about 3:00
P.M
. They had talked during the drive, but not about the case. Instead, they caught up on family, friends, football. “You know,” Shaeffer said later, “we aren’t like TV cops, racing to a scene, talking about the case the whole way. We live it. So when we have some driving time, we catch up on family, knowing that once we get to the location, it’s going to be
all
business.”

Trooper Bova was waiting to greet them, along with two other troopers designated to help any way McFarland and Shaeffer needed. After briefing the PSP about Zaffino and his possible relation to the Zack homicide, filling them in on what had brought them to Pennsylvania, McFarland said, “We want this to be low-key.”

It was something Captain Daugherty had encouraged from the moment she found the bike on the Internet.
Patience…we can’t jump the gun on this.

The PSP understood. It was agreed one trooper would hang back from the pack of unmarked vehicles heading out there. They would all dress plainclothes, so as not to cause too much of a commotion when they arrived. If word got back to Zaffino even at this late juncture, things might start happening: witnesses disappearing, evidence tampered with. Christine Todaro would be in big trouble. They couldn’t chance any of it. They were too close.

By 3:30
P.M
., they pulled into the driveway of a ranch-style home. There was a car lot carved out of the side yard, where a large portion of land had been cut like a divot from a steep embankment. Small, triangular-shaped red, blue and white flags hung like Christmas lights, flapping in the slight wind, around an assemblage of cars on display for sale. The sign out front read “Forrest Motors.” It was a mom-and-pop place started, apparently, by someone who had lived in the house at one time. The living room and bedroom, McFarland and Shaeffer could see after pulling into the driveway, had been converted into office space. There were about twenty cars out front—no bike that either detective could see—and a spacious two-car garage in the back.

McFarland looked toward the garage as he turned off the car, saying, “That’s where it is.”

“I bet you’re right.”

When they got out of the car and walked up to the front door, a woman approached. She said her name was Nancy Bonadio. “Can I help you?”

It was odd that four men were walking up to the office door.

Bonadio seemed genuinely surprised—which was exactly what they wanted.

“I’m Trooper Bova, ma’am. Is Russell Forrest here?”

With a look of grave concern on her face, Bonadio yelled into the back of the house for Russell, who quickly came out of his office, saying, “Yeah…what’s up?”

“Mr. Forrest,” Trooper Bova said, pointing to McFarland and Shaeffer, “these are two Akron, Ohio, detectives. They want to talk to you.”

Forrest seemed fine with it. “Sure, sure…what can I do for you?” He invited them into his office.

Closing the door behind them, McFarland began the conversation. “We’re investigating a homicide and have good reason to believe that a motorcycle you have”—McFarland pointed to the VIN of the bike on a “waiver” he had in his hand, showing it to Forrest—“was involved. We would like to seize the motorcycle for processing and possibly confirm its involvement [in the homicide].”

“You can have the bike,” Forrest said right away, anxiously. “Where do I sign?”

While Forrest signed, McFarland said, “Sometimes a person in possession of a vehicle uses it in a crime and gets rid of it and the bike passes from hand to hand.” McFarland offered the comment as comfort. He didn’t want it to seem like they were focusing on one particular person, or suggesting anyone was a suspect. It was a tactical move. He and Shaeffer weren’t prepared to offer up Zaffino’s name.

After Forrest signed the waiver, he shook his head in agreement with McFarland’s statement, as if to say,
You bet I’m not involved, but I have a feeling who is
.

Bonadio was standing nearby, not saying much of anything. But there was no doubt she knew by then that the target of the investigation was her ex-husband.

Forrest then spoke up. “I know it’s John Zaffino you’re looking at.” He pointed at Bonadio. “She’s my fiancée. She used to be married to him.” Forrest had a look of utter contempt on his face; it was clear there was some history between Forrest and Zaffino.

Shaeffer changed the subject and asked Forrest where the motorcycle was being stored.

“In the garage out back,” Forrest said, getting up and walking toward his office door. “Come on, I’ll take you there.”

When Christine Todaro decided to come clean with CAPU, in effect she made a decision to put her life on the line. She was fearful of John Zaffino and what he was going to do once he found out—and sooner or later, she knew, he would. Although Zaffino had been playing Christine for the past year, using her as a mark, she still believed he viewed her as an ally. Definitely not someone who was going to turn on him and begin a relationship with the police. “He thinks,” Christine later said, “even right up to the day I walked into the Akron Police Department, that I am working for him. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

After the CAPU spent hours interviewing Christine and believed she was telling the truth, they hooked up a recording device to her telephone. Wearing a wire and meeting with Zaffino in person was the next step, but first they wanted to hear what Zaffino was telling Christine over the telephone.

As it were, John Zaffino was becoming increasingly paranoid. As each week passed, he had acted more strangely and out of character than the previous. No one had to tell Christine that a paranoid person was capable of anything if he or she felt threatened. And if there was one thing Zaffino had made clear to Christine throughout their relationship, it was that he didn’t want to ever end up in prison. Faced with that option, Christine assumed, he was capable of anything. Even, she said, “another murder to cover up the first one.”

As the day neared when Christine was going to have to engage her ex-husband in dialogue about Jeff Zack’s murder, she grew unsure of herself and what she had agreed to do. But after a long discussion regarding how to handle Zaffino, the CAPU assured Christine that her safety would always come first. There was going to be plenty of “backup” there to support her anytime she went out to meet Zaffino.

It was then decided that the best way to draw Zaffino out was to put him on the defensive. “We go to the
Akron Beacon Journal,
” Dave Whiddon explained to Christine, “and we ask them to do a one-year anniversary article about the case.”

The article would serve two purposes: one, it would push the Zack case back into Zaffino’s face and tell him the CAPU was not giving up; and two, show him that they were no closer to catching their killer than they were on day one.

The article was going to provoke Zaffino, yet also give him a sense of relief. Maybe even throw him off, which would allow Christine to wiggle her way into his embrace and, with any luck, get him to admit he had, in fact, killed Jeff Zack.

Near the end of June, the
Akron Beacon Journal
ran a fifteen-hundred-word article—a lot of space for a daily newspaper—under the headline
WHODUNIT PERPLEXES DETECTIVES
:
ONE YEAR AFTER HIT MAN GUNNED HIM DOWN
,
POLICE WONDER WHO WANTED JEFF ZACK DEAD
. In the piece, written by
Journal
staff writer Stephanie War-smith, the idea that the CAPU was at a standstill in its investigation was made clear: “A year ago Sunday…a motorcyclist pulled up behind [Jeff Zack], got off the bike and shot him in the head…. The identity of the shadowy figure remains a mystery. Police have not yet made an arrest, though they now believe a hit man was responsible…. Over the last year, detectives have focused on who might have hired a professional killer—and why.”

Ed George was never mentioned in the article as a possible suspect in what the CAPU was saying could be a murder-for-hire plot. Road rage was publicly ruled out for the first time. The CAPU said its focus was now on several new suspects, but urged the public to come forward with any information. Elayne Zack had been interviewed. It was obvious that time had not lessened the pain of losing her son, regardless of what people were saying about him. “He did a lot of nutty things. But he didn’t deserve what he got,” Elayne told the
Journal
. She said she had spent the past year in counseling, dealing with the loss.

Although the article seemed to imply that Jeff Zack’s murder was the result of an affair he was having with Cynthia George, Cynthia’s name, like her husband’s, was never mentioned.

As the article hit newsstands, Christine went about her daily routine of work and raising her children, waiting for the moment when she felt Zaffino had seen the article and, undoubtedly, wanted to speak to her about it. “The article was designed,” Christine said later, “specifically so I could call him after it was published.”

A few hours after the article ran, Christine called Zaffino. He wasn’t answering his telephone, so she left him a voice mail: “Hey, it’s me. You need to call me right away.”

A short while later, Zaffino returned the call.

“What are you doing?” Christine asked.

“Oh, just getting ready to go. I got to get a part for [my son’s] four-wheeler.”

“Did you see the paper today?”

“No.”

“You need to read the paper, John.”

“What’d it say?”

“It’s in there about that guy—that guy you took out.”