Authors: Susan Kelly

The Boston Stranglers (31 page)

BOOK: The Boston Stranglers

4.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

Rothman's story, already weak, would be contradicted by other, more credible witnesses.

The Murder of Patricia Bissette, II

The “Jim” that Rothman had mentioned as one of Patricia's dates was a very recent employee of Engineering Systems named James Michael Toomey. A twenty-nine-year-old machinist, he was married to a schoolteacher and had one daughter. He was unable to hold a job for more than a brief period. He was also a heavy drinker and a chronic philanderer. At least three women at Engineering Systems told police that they had been propositioned by him in the most crude and aggressive terms. One of them said that Toomey had asked her to spend a weekend with him in a hotel, “where in forty-five minutes he would prove what a man he was.” (She declined the invitation.) Another woman said that he had approached her and requested that she fellate him. (Toomey later claimed that she had offered to do so.) He also admitted to police that he had been after Patricia to go out with himâwhich she did, once, for drinks at the Buckminster Hotelâand that he had badgered her to lend him her apartment so he could bring his other women there. This she apparently refused to do, but she did allow him to visit her at home.

After the date at Buckminster (Patricia probably had to pay the tab, since Toomey claimed he had only a dollar-fifty on him), the two had returned to her place around 9:00 and talked about sex, which in fact had been the topic of their discussion over drinks. Toomey said that Patricia had told him that Sheldon Kurtzer, Rothman's business partner, had commented to her that she could not be gotten. “I was therefore interested to prove him wrong and lay the ground work to get into her pants.”

Toomey failed to achieve his goal that evening. Two young women friends appeared at Patricia's to collect the pet canary they had left in her care, which effectively curtailed the chat about sex. Toomey left about 10:00 that night.

With more than sufficient justification, the police considered Toomey to be a braggart and a degenerate, with a personality about as stable as nitroglycerine. But he appeared to be telling the truth about the extent and nature of his relationship with Patricia.

Toomey's behavior on December 31 was extremely peculiar. That morning, after the discovery of the body, Rothman had called one of his employees, Ann (Billy) MacKenzie, and asked her to meet him at 515 Park Drive. She took a cab over there. Toomey, for reasons that were never explained, accompanied her. (He had earlier suggested to Rothman that the reason Patricia had never shown up for work was that she “might be killed.”) Billy and Toomey knocked on the apartment door. It was answered by a Boston police officer from the Back Bay's Division Sixteen. MacKenzie told a state police detective that

Jimmy [Toomey] asked him if Pat was dead and the policeman didn't answer and Jimmy said, “She was strangled, wasn't she,” and the policeman just looked at him and [Toomey] said, “She was strangled with a stocking wrapped around the throat, wasn't she, is this a homicide?” and the policeman said to him, “Who are you?” And he said, “Well, I work for Jules Rothman,” and [Toomey] says, “I was just wondering about Pat.”

Toomey also wanted to know if Patricia's body had been nude.

Shortly after the murder, when Toomey learned that everyone at Engineering Systems was to be questioned by the police, he fled the premises. (He later claimed he left because no work had been assigned him.) It was reported that he had announced: “I will not take a lie detector test,” although no one had proposed administering one to him. He visited several bars, including the Buckminster's. Drunk, he returned to Engineering Systems early in the afternoon. At around six o'clock he telephoned Sheldon Kurtzer and then went to the latter's house.

Toomey did end up taking a polygraph. The results appeared to clear him of any involvement in Patricia's death.

Patricia had told Billy MacKenzie that she planned to be married (Hazel Bissette later claimed to know nothing of this intent) and asked Billy if she would come to the wedding. She hadn't yet set a date. She did have a groomâthe man named John whose presence at Patricia's Christmas-tree-trimming party Jules Rothman had noted to police. Patricia had talked a lot about John, Billy recalled.

Billy was unaware that Patricia had been pregnant until the police informed her of the fact after the murder.

John was John Melin, a twenty-three-year-old native of Barre, Vermont, who had moved to the Boston area in 1961. Patricia had met one of his brothers, Daniel, sometime in 1962, while taking a bus back to Boston from a visit to Vermont. She had gone out a few times with Daniel, and he may have visited her at her apartment. John would later tell the police that Daniel had given him Patricia's phone number and her Newbury Street address. When John called there, Patricia's former roommate, Ruth Darling, told him that Patricia had moved, and offered to take a message. Pat returned John's call two days later.
⁷¹

John told authorities that he didn't think Pat wanted to marry him; she knew he already had a wife and had no plans for a divorce. Nevertheless, he visited her at her apartment and they went out for drinks once or twice. When Detective Phillip DiNatale interviewed John, the young man emphasized that from his standpoint, the relationship had been casual.

D
INATAEL
: When was the first time you saw her?

J
OHN
: When I went to her apartment.

D
INATALE
: Did you go out with her that night?

J
OHN
: I don't think so. We stayed in the apartment.

I saw her a few times. It wasn't very often, somewhere between six and nine times.

On Thursday night, December 18, 1962, John took Patricia to the Boots and Saddles Club in Groton, Massachusetts, where they had drinks (stingers and Singapore Slings) and dinner.

D
I
N
ATALE
: Did you know that Pat was becoming very fond of you, feeling affection for you? Did you ever kiss Pat?

J
OHN
: Yes.

D
I
N
ATALE
: Did it ever go beyond kissing?

J
OHN
: No.

D
I
N
ATALE
: Did you know that Pat had been making wedding plans?

J
OHN
: No.

D
I
N
ATALE
: Did you know that she was going around the office telling everyone that she was getting married to a man named John?

J
OHN
: No. I told her I was married. She knew this from the first time we met. Danny told her that “John was married.” [Then why, one wonders, did he suggest that his brother date Patricia?] There was no doubt. I originally thought the police were just kidding. I never gave her any idea that I was getting a divorce.

D
I
N
ATALE
: Did you ever stay overnight at Pat's apartment?

J
OHN
: I never stayed overnight with Pat.

John claimed that the last time he saw or spoke to Patricia was that Thursday evening of the date at the Boots and Saddles. He drove her back home. “She went inside, she was falling apart,” John stated. DiNatale asked him what he meant by that.

“I was supposed to be studying,” John answered, not quite to the point. “My wife was working, and I just decided to pull out. That was all there was.”

DiNatale still wanted to know how Patricia could have gotten the notion that John would marry her. “I really don't know,” John said. “The first time she was going around the office she told a group of her friends I would be a good catch.”

John intended to practice law in Vermont after he finished night school, which was where he was supposed to be on the evenings he was wining and dining Patricia or sitting in her living room discussing, no doubt, torts and civil procedure. His wife worked as a nurse on the late shift at a local hospital and didn't get home until 10:00
P.M
.

John said that although he attended Patricia's tree-trimming party, he'd stayed for only a half-hour or forty-five minutes. The hostess had been a “social butterfly,” paying him no particular attention. A great many photographs had been taken at the party. John, feeling bored and isolated, had left.

John's wife had told police that her husband had only been out for a half hour that evening. Yet the drive to Patricia's from his home in Brighton would have taken fifteen minutes, the return trip an equivalent amount of time. So someone was lying. It might have been the wife: She was reported to have instructed John to tell the police he had been home on the evenings he was with Patricia. He was obviously shrewd enough to disregard this advice.

DiNatale was still curious about the origin of Patricia's fantasyâif that is what it wasâof marriage with John. “Maybe she wanted to get somebody at the office jealous,” the young man offered by way of explanation.

He denied that he had ever argued with Patricia and grabbed her around the throat, which police had been informed he had done.

The good catch spent the weekend of Patricia's murder at home with his wife. On Sunday evening, December 30, he went out for a drink. DiNatale asked him if he'd passed Patricia's apartment en route to or from the bar. He repeatedly denied that he had. Then, at the end of the interrogation, he admitted that he had indeed taken a ride over there after leaving the bar. There were lights on in the apartment. He went home.

The results of polygraph examinations given on two different occasions appeared to clear John of any complicity in Patricia's death. A number of witnesses confirmed that she had had “a real crush” on him.

Engineering Systems had become a subsidiary of the Automatic Radio Company, at which Billy MacKenzie had been a forewoman for nineteen years. A tough-minded and straightforward person with excellent powers of recall, she was an invaluable source of credible information for the police. What she had to tell them about Jules Rothman sharpened their already highly developed suspicions about his involvement in Patricia's murder. She was interviewed by Detective Lieutenant Leo Martin of the state police.

One of Martin's first questions was about the relationship between Patricia and Rothman.

M
ARTIN
: Did you know that Jules Rothman was intimate with Pat?

B
ILLY
: Yes.

M
ARTIN
: How do you know that?

B
ILLY
: Well, I had to go get a blueprint from his office one day and I knocked on the door and no one answered, so I opened the door to go in and they were on the couch.

M
ARTIN
: They were on the studio couch?

B
ILLY
: Yes.

M
ARTIN
: I see, and what were they doing? Were they involved in the sex act?

B
ILLY
: Yes.

M
ARTIN
: They were, you're sure of that?

B
ILLY
: I'm positive.

MARTIN: And then you turned around and walked out?

B
ILLY
: I just backed out and went out and closed the door.

M
ARTIN
: Oh, I see, you closed the door. Did Jules Rothman or Patricia Bissette ever mention this to you?

B
ILLY
: No, I don't think they even knew I was there.

Martin asked Billy to describe Mrs. Rothman.

“She was a very dowdy-type person and a sloppy dresser,” Billy said. “And you didn't expect her to be married to Jules Rothman.”

Rothman, described by one witness as “a Continental type,” was indeed that in a literal sense. Born in Vienna, he was educated there at the Real Schule before coming to the United States. A graduate of Columbia University, he was an electronics and communications expert with training and experience also in mechanical engineering. He had worked on such projects as the development of rocket engines and of the Norden bombsight.

Martin asked Billy to describe the events that took place on December 31.

B
ILLY
: When I went into work Monday, just Jules was there and Pat hadn't come into work yet. And when I went in he asked me what I [meaning Rothman] should do about Pat because she hadn't shown up for work yet.

M
ARTIN
: Did he appear nervous and concerned?

B
ILLY
: Very.

M
ARTIN
: What did he do?

B
ILLY
: He kept asking me what I thought he should do. And I said, “Why don't you just wait and see,” because it was snowing pretty bad that day. And he came in and sat at my desk and read the paper and he kept saying, “Gee, I'm worried about Pat. She hasn't shown up for work and she never does this, she's always on time.” And he told me he had stopped at her house to pick her up.

M
ARTIN
: What time, Billy, did he stop at her house?

B
ILLY
: It must have been around 7:30
A.M.

M
ARTIN
: 7:30, this is on Monday?

B
ILLY
: Yes, this was on Monday.

M
ARTIN
: This was on the second?

B
ILLY
: No, this wasn't the second because January 1 was on a Tuesday.

M
ARTIN
: Very good.

B
ILLY
: So this was the last day of December. So anyway, he kept asking me, oh, for an hour, what I thought he should do and that she never did anything like this and I said to him, “Well, if I was that worried about her, I would go down to her house and find out.” You know, knock on the door and if nobody answers, go down and get the janitor and see what was the matter. So finally he did go. And he was gone about 10 or 15 minutes and a call came for me and I didn't even recognize him. So he said, “Hello, Billy,” and I said, “Yes, and he said, ”Something terrible has happened.” And I said, “What?” And he said, “Pat is dead.“ And I said, “What do you mean, she's dead?” And he said, ”Well, I came over here and we had to come through the window and Pat is in her bed and she's got stockings wrapped around her throat and her eyes are bulging out of her head and her tongue is all swollen.” And he said, ”She's dead. She's been strangled.” So I said, “Are you sure?” and he said, “Yes, I saw the stockings wrapped around her throat.” And I said, “Well, did you call the police?” And he said, “Yes, and I have to go now because the police are at the door.” And that was all.

M
ARTIN
: Now, Billy, getting back to Monday again, what further conversation did you have with Jules Rothman?

B
ILLY
: Well, when he was talking to me about Pat not coming into work I said, “Maybe she went home to Vermont, maybe she went home to visit her mother over New Year's.” And he said, “Oh, no, because she already knows I planned for the New Year's party” ... and I said, “Did you see her Saturday? Did you pick up your car?” And he said that he did.

M
ARTIN
: He didn't say the time, did he?

B
ILLY
: Yes, he said that he was there about 1:30 and that he picked up his car and that he went in and had a cup of coffee with her and that he picked up his car and went home.

M
ARTIN
: Did he say that he had a cup of coffee in her apartment, is that it?

B
ILLY
: He said that he went into her apartment and had a cup of coffee with her and then he left.

BOOK: The Boston Stranglers

4.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads