TUSooner
9/8/2006, 08:22 AM
More bizarro bizarreness from the banks of Bayou Bizarre.
A well-known local New Orleans TV & Radio sports guy (for 24 years) is booked with committing the old "Hot Lead Divorce" in the 2nd Degree by fatally shooting his wife in the face. Seems he thought of a disguise and an alibi, but was otherwise as stupid as he was evil. Imagine Eschbach or BB Sr. doing this. :rolleyes: Extra twist - Vinnie was still married to his old wife when he married the wife he (allegedly) whacked.
Kinda long but interesting crime read, if you like that stuff.
MARINELLO BOOKED IN WIFE'S MURDER
Crime checklist, crumbling alibi did him in, police say
Friday, September 08, 2006
By Michelle Hunter
and Paul Purpura
New Orleans Times-Picayune Staff writers
For six days, investigators wondered exactly how someone as familiar as longtime New Orleans broadcaster Vincent Marinello could execute his estranged wife in broad daylight and get away undetected.
But he took great pains to disguise himself with a false beard and mustache, rode away from a brazen crime on a bicycle and fashioned an out-of-state alibi.
They know because he wrote it all down on paper. And police found what they said is his checklist when they searched his home Wednesday night.
On a piece of paper inside the FEMA trailer where he lived near his ruined Lakeview home, Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office detectives investigating the death of Mary Elizabeth Marinello said they found a to-do list of sorts, with checks beside each entry: mustache and beard, bicycle, gun -- even a reminder to throw away the weapon.
"Everything we'd developed to date was condensed in those notes," Sheriff Harry Lee said.
Informed of his arrest warrant, Marinello, 69, walked into the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna on Thursday at 3 p.m. with his attorneys and was booked with second-degree murder.
Lee did not speculate on a motive for the killing. But relatives of Liz Marinello said they think he wanted to silence her before she spread word that he was a bigamist, an allegation sure to surface during the pair's divorce proceedings.
Authorities initially said Liz Marinello, 45, had been the victim of a robbery gone awry when she was shot twice in the face last week in the parking lot of an Old Metairie office building. But suspicion soon turned to her husband as detectives gathered information about the couple's messy divorce. Police pointed to Marinello's recent purchase of a disguise, a gun dealer who could tie him to the unusual ammunition used in the killing, and a dismantled out-of-state alibi.
No confession
Now Marinello, a renowned local television sportscaster for more than 24 years and more recently a talk-show host on WWL radio, is under suicide watch at the Gretna jail in a cell next to the guard post.
He has not confessed to the crime. And investigators have not found the weapon or the disguise. Still, Lee said he thinks the rest of the evidence is enough to prosecute Marinello.
"If you look at the facts of the case, it's almost as good as a confession," he said.
Marinello's attorney, Donald "Chick" Foret, would not comment on the case Thursday night.
Deputies booked Marinello with second-degree murder, punishable by life in prison. More serious is first-degree murder, which carries a possible death penalty, but the evidence as described by Lee and his aides does not seem to fit that.
A first-degree murder conviction generally requires showing that the defendant was also engaged in a second felony, such as robbery or an illegal drug transaction; killed a law enforcement officer; tried to kill more than one person; paid someone or was paid to kill; killed someone younger than 12 or older than 65; killed someone during a ritualistic ceremony; killed someone while under court order forbidding contact with the victim; or killed a witness to a crime.
Bertha Norman, Liz Marinello's mother, got word of her son-in-law's arrest via the Internet from Purvis, Miss. She and other relatives believed early on that Marinello had a hand in her daughter's killing.
Relatives not surprised
"We all knew that he was guilty. I just did not know that he had the guts to pull the trigger himself," Norman said.
Liz Marinello was mortally wounded Aug. 31 in the parking lot behind Metairie Office Tower, 433 Metairie Road. Witnesses told investigators they saw a scruffy man with a bushy beard pedal away from the lot on a bicycle. Although deputies flooded the area, Lee said they now think it was Marinello himself, in disguise.
Investigators surmise that Marinello parked his white Ford Taurus alongside Metairie Academy for Advanced Studies at 201 Metairie Road. Other witnesses reported seeing a plain white vehicle there around the time of the shooting. According to the Sheriff's Office theory of the case, he then unloaded a bicycle and pedaled two blocks to the rear parking lot of Metairie Office Tower.
Relatives of Liz Marinello's said her husband was well aware that she had a standing appointment with a counselor inside the building every Thursday.
A man matching the scruffy description entered the view of video surveillance cameras mounted on the building at about 3:30 p.m., said Detective Dax Russo, the Sheriff's Office investigator who handled the tapes.
The man is seen pacing back and forth for about 15 minutes underneath the cameras, then heading toward Liz Marinello's sport utility vehicle near the center of the parking lot at about 3:53 p.m. Liz Marinello exited that building about three minutes later, and within 45 seconds, is seen on the ground.
Purchase of mustache
The scruffy man is then seen walking toward the back of the parking lot.
Another witness told detectives he saw a man load a bicycle into the back seat of the white vehicle near the school. Investigators think Marinello then simply drove away, headed to Jackson, Miss.
Liz Marinello died the next morning. Within hours, Marinello had contacted a friend at the Sheriff's Office, Col. John Fortunato. He told investigators that he had been in Jackson watching the Saints football game with friends.
The friends, a Lakeview couple who had lived across the street from Marinello but moved to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, backed his story, Lee said. Marinello voluntarily returned to be questioned by detectives that evening. No arrest was made, but neither was he cleared as a suspect.
But then a New Orleans costume shop dealer came forward to tell authorities that Marinello had been by recently to purchase a mustache. When the shopkeeper asked if he needed a beard, Marinello said he already had one, according to Lee.
Another tip came from a Jefferson Parish gun dealer who said Marinello had recently stopped by to have him check out a .38-caliber pistol, the same type of weapon used shoot Liz Marinello, Lee said. Under questioning, Marinello told detectives he didn't own a gun of that caliber.
But the dealer said he test-fired a .38-caliber pistol for Marinello and sold him a special type of ammunition, Nyclad bullets, Lee said. It's the same kind of bullet found in Liz Marinello and, according to the sheriff, is rarely used.
"That round is so special that it tightens the noose," he said.
Changing story
When investigators returned to question the Jackson couple, their story changed. They had first told authorities Marinello arrived in town at 6:30 p.m., not enough time to gun down his wife at 4 p.m., bicycle two blocks and drive 185 miles to Jackson. But under scrutiny, the couple admitted Marinello actually arrived after the 7:30 p.m. kickoff of the Saints game, Lee said.
Detectives quizzed Marinello again Wednesday evening. But Foret, his attorney, halted the questioning before they were done, said Deputy Chief Freddy Williams, commander of the investigations bureau.
The Sheriff's Office obtained a search warrant from a New Orleans judge and combed Marinello's home at 711 Germain St. and the FEMA trailer where he had been living nearby.
And that's where investigators found the to-do list.
Although the "who" has been answered to their satisfaction, Sheriff's Office investigators still don't have a "why." But Norman's relatives said they think it's linked to the Marinellos' contentious divorce proceedings.
The couple married Oct. 23, 2004. But Liz Marinello learned only this past July that her husband had not been divorced from his first wife. His divorce from Andrea Marinello didn't go through until Oct. 26, 2004.
She filed for an annulment, and the couple began a struggle for the house they once shared in Harahan. Liz Marinello also was arrested Aug. 7 for domestic-abuse battery in connection with a May 29 incident in which he said she attacked him.
In addition to money sought in the annulment, another relative of Liz Marinello's, Claudia LaBue, said her sister was planning to pursue criminal charges of bigamy against Marinello. Relatives said they think Marinello wanted to stop her before she could ruin his name.
But that is only a guess, Bertha Norman said. She wants to know from Marinello himself.
"I am happy they found who did it," she said. "But I want to know why, why did he do this. Why did he feel he had to take such a precious life?
A well-known local New Orleans TV & Radio sports guy (for 24 years) is booked with committing the old "Hot Lead Divorce" in the 2nd Degree by fatally shooting his wife in the face. Seems he thought of a disguise and an alibi, but was otherwise as stupid as he was evil. Imagine Eschbach or BB Sr. doing this. :rolleyes: Extra twist - Vinnie was still married to his old wife when he married the wife he (allegedly) whacked.
Kinda long but interesting crime read, if you like that stuff.
MARINELLO BOOKED IN WIFE'S MURDER
Crime checklist, crumbling alibi did him in, police say
Friday, September 08, 2006
By Michelle Hunter
and Paul Purpura
New Orleans Times-Picayune Staff writers
For six days, investigators wondered exactly how someone as familiar as longtime New Orleans broadcaster Vincent Marinello could execute his estranged wife in broad daylight and get away undetected.
But he took great pains to disguise himself with a false beard and mustache, rode away from a brazen crime on a bicycle and fashioned an out-of-state alibi.
They know because he wrote it all down on paper. And police found what they said is his checklist when they searched his home Wednesday night.
On a piece of paper inside the FEMA trailer where he lived near his ruined Lakeview home, Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office detectives investigating the death of Mary Elizabeth Marinello said they found a to-do list of sorts, with checks beside each entry: mustache and beard, bicycle, gun -- even a reminder to throw away the weapon.
"Everything we'd developed to date was condensed in those notes," Sheriff Harry Lee said.
Informed of his arrest warrant, Marinello, 69, walked into the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna on Thursday at 3 p.m. with his attorneys and was booked with second-degree murder.
Lee did not speculate on a motive for the killing. But relatives of Liz Marinello said they think he wanted to silence her before she spread word that he was a bigamist, an allegation sure to surface during the pair's divorce proceedings.
Authorities initially said Liz Marinello, 45, had been the victim of a robbery gone awry when she was shot twice in the face last week in the parking lot of an Old Metairie office building. But suspicion soon turned to her husband as detectives gathered information about the couple's messy divorce. Police pointed to Marinello's recent purchase of a disguise, a gun dealer who could tie him to the unusual ammunition used in the killing, and a dismantled out-of-state alibi.
No confession
Now Marinello, a renowned local television sportscaster for more than 24 years and more recently a talk-show host on WWL radio, is under suicide watch at the Gretna jail in a cell next to the guard post.
He has not confessed to the crime. And investigators have not found the weapon or the disguise. Still, Lee said he thinks the rest of the evidence is enough to prosecute Marinello.
"If you look at the facts of the case, it's almost as good as a confession," he said.
Marinello's attorney, Donald "Chick" Foret, would not comment on the case Thursday night.
Deputies booked Marinello with second-degree murder, punishable by life in prison. More serious is first-degree murder, which carries a possible death penalty, but the evidence as described by Lee and his aides does not seem to fit that.
A first-degree murder conviction generally requires showing that the defendant was also engaged in a second felony, such as robbery or an illegal drug transaction; killed a law enforcement officer; tried to kill more than one person; paid someone or was paid to kill; killed someone younger than 12 or older than 65; killed someone during a ritualistic ceremony; killed someone while under court order forbidding contact with the victim; or killed a witness to a crime.
Bertha Norman, Liz Marinello's mother, got word of her son-in-law's arrest via the Internet from Purvis, Miss. She and other relatives believed early on that Marinello had a hand in her daughter's killing.
Relatives not surprised
"We all knew that he was guilty. I just did not know that he had the guts to pull the trigger himself," Norman said.
Liz Marinello was mortally wounded Aug. 31 in the parking lot behind Metairie Office Tower, 433 Metairie Road. Witnesses told investigators they saw a scruffy man with a bushy beard pedal away from the lot on a bicycle. Although deputies flooded the area, Lee said they now think it was Marinello himself, in disguise.
Investigators surmise that Marinello parked his white Ford Taurus alongside Metairie Academy for Advanced Studies at 201 Metairie Road. Other witnesses reported seeing a plain white vehicle there around the time of the shooting. According to the Sheriff's Office theory of the case, he then unloaded a bicycle and pedaled two blocks to the rear parking lot of Metairie Office Tower.
Relatives of Liz Marinello's said her husband was well aware that she had a standing appointment with a counselor inside the building every Thursday.
A man matching the scruffy description entered the view of video surveillance cameras mounted on the building at about 3:30 p.m., said Detective Dax Russo, the Sheriff's Office investigator who handled the tapes.
The man is seen pacing back and forth for about 15 minutes underneath the cameras, then heading toward Liz Marinello's sport utility vehicle near the center of the parking lot at about 3:53 p.m. Liz Marinello exited that building about three minutes later, and within 45 seconds, is seen on the ground.
Purchase of mustache
The scruffy man is then seen walking toward the back of the parking lot.
Another witness told detectives he saw a man load a bicycle into the back seat of the white vehicle near the school. Investigators think Marinello then simply drove away, headed to Jackson, Miss.
Liz Marinello died the next morning. Within hours, Marinello had contacted a friend at the Sheriff's Office, Col. John Fortunato. He told investigators that he had been in Jackson watching the Saints football game with friends.
The friends, a Lakeview couple who had lived across the street from Marinello but moved to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, backed his story, Lee said. Marinello voluntarily returned to be questioned by detectives that evening. No arrest was made, but neither was he cleared as a suspect.
But then a New Orleans costume shop dealer came forward to tell authorities that Marinello had been by recently to purchase a mustache. When the shopkeeper asked if he needed a beard, Marinello said he already had one, according to Lee.
Another tip came from a Jefferson Parish gun dealer who said Marinello had recently stopped by to have him check out a .38-caliber pistol, the same type of weapon used shoot Liz Marinello, Lee said. Under questioning, Marinello told detectives he didn't own a gun of that caliber.
But the dealer said he test-fired a .38-caliber pistol for Marinello and sold him a special type of ammunition, Nyclad bullets, Lee said. It's the same kind of bullet found in Liz Marinello and, according to the sheriff, is rarely used.
"That round is so special that it tightens the noose," he said.
Changing story
When investigators returned to question the Jackson couple, their story changed. They had first told authorities Marinello arrived in town at 6:30 p.m., not enough time to gun down his wife at 4 p.m., bicycle two blocks and drive 185 miles to Jackson. But under scrutiny, the couple admitted Marinello actually arrived after the 7:30 p.m. kickoff of the Saints game, Lee said.
Detectives quizzed Marinello again Wednesday evening. But Foret, his attorney, halted the questioning before they were done, said Deputy Chief Freddy Williams, commander of the investigations bureau.
The Sheriff's Office obtained a search warrant from a New Orleans judge and combed Marinello's home at 711 Germain St. and the FEMA trailer where he had been living nearby.
And that's where investigators found the to-do list.
Although the "who" has been answered to their satisfaction, Sheriff's Office investigators still don't have a "why." But Norman's relatives said they think it's linked to the Marinellos' contentious divorce proceedings.
The couple married Oct. 23, 2004. But Liz Marinello learned only this past July that her husband had not been divorced from his first wife. His divorce from Andrea Marinello didn't go through until Oct. 26, 2004.
She filed for an annulment, and the couple began a struggle for the house they once shared in Harahan. Liz Marinello also was arrested Aug. 7 for domestic-abuse battery in connection with a May 29 incident in which he said she attacked him.
In addition to money sought in the annulment, another relative of Liz Marinello's, Claudia LaBue, said her sister was planning to pursue criminal charges of bigamy against Marinello. Relatives said they think Marinello wanted to stop her before she could ruin his name.
But that is only a guess, Bertha Norman said. She wants to know from Marinello himself.
"I am happy they found who did it," she said. "But I want to know why, why did he do this. Why did he feel he had to take such a precious life?