Boston Strong Page 14

  Governor Patrick returned to the microphone.

  “You know, the marathon is a pretty special day around here,” Patrick said softly. “I started this morning visiting Mayor Menino in the hospital, who was devastated that he couldn’t be at the marathon today. He’s on his way here now … from the hospital so obviously he is as concerned as the rest of us are about the safety of the people who come for this iconic experience here in the city.”

  He then described his phone call from President Barack Obama, a close and personal friend, who had assured him and the people of Massachusetts that they would have the full cooperation of the FBI and ATF, along with a fully deployed National Guard. He also urged anyone who had information to call law enforcement.

  Patrick’s plea for help from the public and Davis’ vague descriptions of what exactly law enforcement knew about the attack left an uncomfortable silence in the large ballroom. The armed SWAT teams in the room and robot-like K-9 cops patrolling the hallway outside reminded reporters that they were in a war zone and underscored both the gravity and fragility of the developing situation.

  Incredibly, the first question fired at Patrick came from a right-wing conspiracy theorist working for a fringe website who asked if it was possible the attack was a “false flag” operation. Beginning immediately in the aftermath of the bombings, conspiracy theorists, 9/11 “inside job” kooks, and crazed web trolls began posting images of the injured, claiming they were actors and that the whole marathon bombing had been plotted and staged by the government.

  Historically, false flag attacks have been used by military organizations as a tactic in battle. The name originated from the practice of naval ships that would fly a banner belonging to a country other than their own in order to deceive an enemy. The term has come to be used by conspiracy theorists who claim the US government carries out covert operations — and in this case, a fake one — in order to drum up opposition to terrorist groups and legitimize military action against them.

  Patrick was furious and snapped at the conspiracy theorist, “No.”

  Other reporters were stunned. It was an awkward, completely inappropriate moment that played out on live TV. It had the feel of one of those Howard Stern-listener sneak attacks on an unsuspecting CNN anchor reporting live on-air — except in this case, the questioner was a credentialed member of the media attending a press briefing on the first successful terror attack on American soil since 9/11.

  The man was shouted down, and another veteran reporter steered the press conference back to reality, asking Davis if authorities were looking for a specific type of truck.

  “No. There is no specific type of truck that we’re looking for at this point in time,” the commissioner said. “We are looking for any information that people have as to what they saw or might have heard at the site of the explosion or coming and going. We’re investigating all leads right now.”

  “What about the death and injury toll?” another reporter asked.

  “We don’t have the number of casualties at this point in time. This is very early in the investigation, and I want to get out here to give you as much information as we have. But we cannot tell you exactly how many people have been injured.”

  Although Davis told reporters that the fire at the JFK Library was from a third explosion that authorities believed was “related” to the bombings, he later reversed course and ruled out the library blaze as being part of the attack. It was ultimately ruled an accidental fire caused by discarded smoking materials. There was an accelerant found at the scene, but authorities have said it may have been oil or some other flammable liquid from machinery in the room where the fire started. Some firefighters and other officials still wonder whether the fire may have been a diversionary tactic tied to the bombings.

  There were also multiple reports of more bombs that did not detonate. Most famously, there were reports that explosives were found at the Mandarin Oriental hotel and under the VIP grandstands. These reports were never confirmed. At the press conference, Davis said of additional devices: “They may be blowing things up over the course of the next few hours. But at this point in time, we have not found another device on Boylston Street.”

  “Was there any warning of an attack?” a reporter asked.

  “None,” Davis said. “We talk about the threat picture all the time as we lead up to this particular event but we have no information that this was going to happen.”

  “Is this a terrorist attack?” another journalist asked.

  “We’re not being definitive on this right now but you can reach your own conclusions based upon what happened,” the commissioner said.

  Mayor Menino watched the first press conference from his room at the Brigham. He was as shocked as the rest of the city and country. But this was his city. This was not supposed to happen on his watch.

  He knew he was the city’s public face and unquestioned leader. He had no choice but to get out of the hospital and get over to the Westin hotel. Menino is notorious for his stubbornness, so when he made up his mind that he was checking himself out of the hospital to go address the city — and the world — the doctors, nurses, and all his aides knew there was no stopping him. So they helped him.

  He got himself dressed and into his wheelchair and was brought over to the hotel. Steve MacDonald, the Boston Fire Department’s veteran spokesman, gave the news to reporters that the mayor was indeed on his way. Reporters scrambled, calling their desks to put them on alert that Menino had checked himself out of the hospital and would be addressing the media soon.

  The mayor arrived at the Westin and met privately in a function room with Patrick, Davis, DesLauriers, and others. In the ballroom, MacDonald gathered the media.

  “Everyone got sound?” MacDonald said from the podium. “All set? OK. Mr. Mayor?”

  Menino was wheeled out by a Boston police officer.

  “Good afternoon,” he started. “Very typically, this is a great day in the city of Boston. But we had a tragedy. Several explosions happened on Boylston Street in the past few hours. Boston police, state police, all the public safety officials are working together on this issue. The governor and I have spoken to the president of the United States just a half hour ago and he’s offered all the assistance he can to us during this investigation. Myself as mayor, I offer my condolences and prayers to the families that were involved in these explosions.”

  He gave out the city’s hotline phone number and urged folks to call with any tips or issues related to the bombings.

  “This is a tragedy. We’re going to work together on this,” he finished.

  Commissioner Davis returned to the podium and gave some further details about the JFK Library incident.

  “The device at the JFK Library was actually an incendiary device or a fire,” he said. “We haven’t linked that directly to this incident. Right now, the information is two explosions occurred on Boylston Street. The information we got about 15 minutes prior to the last press conference may have been premature.”

  He was asked again if there were any warnings or indications that an attack on Boston was imminent.

  “There was no specific intelligence. We certainly increase our posture around an event like this. There was no specific intelligence that anything was going to happen,” he said.

  It was one of the most emotional press conferences Mayor Menino had ever been a part of. Certainly, it marked the darkest moment in the city’s history in his twenty years as its chief executive. The fact that it was taking place as his career was winding down and as he was physically ailing only added to the melancholy feeling the seventy-year-old politician felt inside.

  His heart broke for Boston. He loved this city and he was not going to take this sitting down.

  [13]

  KEELER’S GHOSTS

  In death, she was smiling. Krystle Campbell looked serene as she lay on a stretcher in the back room of the medical tent on Boylston Street. Danny Keeler didn’t know who she was as the young wom
an had no identification, driver’s license, or ATM card on her body. She did have black gunpowder marks covering the freckles on her face. An attendant turned Campbell onto her stomach briefly while Keeler inspected her injuries further. Her skin was charred, and her back had been blown apart by scalding shrapnel. Keeler thought about the anguish and anxiety felt by families across New England — across the country — who had yet to hear from their loved ones at the marathon. He thought about his own kids. Keeler looked down at the lifeless body on the stretcher and silently grieved for her parents, whoever they were.

  Keeler rounded up a group of detectives and brought them over to the California Pizza Kitchen restaurant, located inside the Prudential Center mall, to decompress for a moment after what they’d seen and done during the past hour. Keeler would never admit it, but at that point, he needed a break, too. He could not shake the image of Denise Richard leaning down over her son Martin. Keeler’s eyes welled up again at the thought. Stay focused, dude, he whispered to himself.

  His mind then shifted again to his own family. His cell phone had been lighting up. Keeler’s kids and his girlfriend, Carol, had been watching the live coverage on television and he had yet to speak to them. Keeler fished for his cell phone and called home.

  “How bad is it?” Carol asked.

  “It’s a mess,” Keeler responded. “We’re gonna be down here for awhile.”

  “How’re you doing?”

  He paused before answering. Sadness quickly turned to rage.

  “We’re gonna get these motherfuckers!”

  Danny Keeler had investigated over two hundred murders in the city of Boston, and now he had at least three more to solve: those of two women who just a few hours earlier had been brimming with life, and that of a little boy who would never have the chance to grow up. For years, Keeler had been the shoulder to cry on and the man to call on those torturous nights when grieving family members felt as if they couldn’t go on any longer. The crimes that haunted him the most were those against children — children like the boy who now lay under a white sheet in front of Forum.

  His career up to this point had been one of both triumph and frustrating disappointment. When Keeler joined the department in 1979, he stood out from his peers almost immediately. In August 1980, Keeler — still just a rookie — ripped off his uniform and jumped sixty feet off the Boston University Bridge into the Charles River to save a man who was attempting suicide. Through Keeler’s quick actions, the man lived, and Danny was awarded the department’s Medal of Honor. He joined the Boston Police homicide unit in 1992. At the time, the unit was overwhelmed by a record-setting number of murders — most of them unsolved. Keeler got to work right away. In November 1992, he walked into Carney Hall at Boston College and arrested a night school student named Michael Finkley for the deadly shooting, two years earlier, of Frederick “Peanut” Brinson on a busy Dorchester street in broad daylight. Finkley was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Keeler later captured the killer of eighty-six-year-old Nordella Newson. The elderly woman had been stabbed and strangled by her drug-addicted nephew in an attempt to steal five hundred dollars. Keeler was working and closing the books on murder cases at breakneck speed. His success earned him the nickname Mr. Homicide on the streets and inside the courtrooms of Boston.

  The Brinson and Newson murders were slam dunk cases, but others proved more difficult. First was the murder of nine-year-old Jermaine Goffigan on Halloween in 1994. Goffigan was shot on his front porch while counting candy. The murder rocked the city, and Keeler and his partner, acting on a tip, made a swift arrest. The suspect, a teenager named Donnell Johnson, was later convicted and would serve five years in prison. The conviction was overturned, however, when it was learned that the alibi Johnson had given Keeler and his partner, William Mahoney, was never turned over to prosecutors. Two other men later pleaded guilty to Goffigan’s murder. Johnson sued both Keeler and Mahoney, claiming they withheld evidence that could have exonerated him. Despite calling the actions of the homicide detectives “deeply troubling,” the judge threw out Johnson’s lawsuit. Mahoney was suspended for thirty days, but no discipline was taken against Keeler.

  In 2004, Keeler got an audiotaped confession from a twenty-two-year-old man who said that he had helped bury alive his fourteen-year-old pregnant girlfriend on the grounds of the abandoned Boston State Hospital. Kyle Bryant told Keeler that he hid in the bushes while his friend Lord Hampton stabbed, choked, and bashed the girl’s head in with a rock. The victim, Chauntae Jones, was eight months pregnant with Bryant’s child at the time. Hampton admitted to investigators that Bryant wanted Jones killed out of fear that her family would accuse him of statutory rape. “As I’m throwing dirt on her, he’s [Bryant] jumping up and down on her and yelling, ‘Hurry up and die, bitch,’” Hampton told police. “She gasped all the way through until she was completely buried.”31

  Yet the jury refused to convict Bryant because it felt that prosecutors had not presented enough evidence. There was no blood, no fingerprints to connect Bryant to the grisly murder.

  When the verdict was announced, both Keeler and the family of Chauntae Jones were stunned and outraged. The victim’s mother had to be retrained by five court officers while her cousin vowed to kill Kyle Bryant one day. Danny Keeler understood their explosive reaction.

  “You tell the disenfranchised people of this world like the Jones family the system works,” Keeler told the Boston Herald. “We told them, ‘Don’t react to the situation with violence. Wait, we’ve got him, he’s confessed.’ And now this? They believed in us and we let them down. There wasn’t one person on that jury who couldn’t say, ‘I’m holding out. I know he did it?’ It was a total lack of civic responsibility.”32

  Justice would finally catch up to Bryant, but not before he killed again. He was convicted six years later of fatally shooting a man outside a Brockton, Massachusetts bar.

  Keeler faced scrutiny himself when he arrested a man accused of decapitating his own brother. The detective made the bold arrest while being videotaped by an ABC News crew for the documentary Boston 24/7. William Leyden had discovered his brother John’s headless body rolled up in a blanket and hidden under a bed inside his East Boston apartment. Keeler pointed the guilty finger at Leyden and provided ABC News with unprecedented access to the man’s arrest. Leyden was booked and released on one hundred thousand dollars bail, but he lost his job at a print shop as the cloud of guilt loomed over his head. Three years after the arrest, a serial killer named Eugene McCollom admitted to killing John Leyden, whom he had befriended at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and burying his head at a park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Leyden’s sister, Mary Ellen Dakin, had strong words for Detective Keeler, whom she blamed for inflicting further damage on her grieving family. She blasted the Boston Police and the “misguided influence” of Danny Keeler, and William Leyden called the detective an “incompetent and self serving cop.”33

  In 2006, Keeler would suffer more embarrassment after he was caught on surveillance video taking a pair of sunglasses from a store on Newbury Street while he was investigating a theft there. He was suspended for thirty days but was saved by a clerk-magistrate who found there was not enough evidence to charge him with a crime.

  Mr. Homicide was now Mr. Controversy. One of the reasons Keeler remained on the job was the fact that he was one of the most instinctive detectives the department had ever seen. He also knew how to work a crime scene as good as, if not better than, anyone.

  Boylston Street was now the biggest crime scene Keeler had ever encountered. He walked behind the bar at the California Pizza Kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Jameson’s. He poured himself a shot, downed it, and thought about what to do next. The FBI was now on the scene with members of its cyber crimes unit, which Keeler found odd. Where are the FBI’s bomb techs? he asked himself. He could feel the FBI beginning to close ranks and take control of the crime scene, so Keeler grabbed one of his detectives and an ATF agent and told them to head ba
ck to Boylston Street to develop what evidence they could.

  Governor Patrick would later tell the Boston Globe that the hand off between Boston police and the FBI was “seamless.” “There wasn’t any fussing about it,” he claimed.34

  In truth, it was a tug-of-war from the outset. First, the FBI agent in charge had to be convinced it was an act of terrorism.

  Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley, who was also running for mayor, witnessed the bombings while he was campaigning at the finish line. “Agent Rick DesLauriers seemed panicked when we first spoke,” Conley recalls. “He kept asking me in an agitated way, ‘Is this terrorism? Do you think this is terrorism?’”

  Conley told DesLauiers that “of course” they were dealing with terrorism — either foreign or domestic.

  The FBI also refused to allow Keeler’s men to begin their work.

  “Let’s develop it [the crime scene] now,” the ATF agent told his FBI counterpart.

  “We’re going to wait.”

  “No, no. Let’s get the fucking lights down here now and let’s start working on this now.”

  The FBI agent refused to budge.

  Word got back to Keeler. He returned to Boylston Street and could not believe the bodies of Lingzi Lu and Martin Richard had not been moved yet.

  “Our guys were absolutely beside themselves that Martin Richard was still left on that street,” Keeler says with a trace of anger still present in his voice. “It was positively no reasonable explanation other than the inexperience of the FBI to leave that kid there.”

  Martin did not look like the photograph his family would later release to the media. His face and body were covered in soot. Some officers fresh to the scene thought he was African American at first. Keeler and his men were furious. They stood nose-to-nose with the FBI agents as the Feds tried to order them away from the scene. The Boston cops wouldn’t budge, especially Boston Police Captain Frank Armstrong, a father of five, who stood his ground and stood vigil over the boy’s body, while another officer stayed with Lingzi Lu.