03x01 - Party Monster

[bunniefuu]

[ambient street noise]

[man ] Joey was going out
that Saturday night,

but I never got into details with him
about where he was going.

He was years old.

He's an adult.

[man ] I met Joey Comunale
my first year at Hofstra.

He was more than a friend to me.
We became like brothers.

Joey at first was very quiet,
but once you got to know him,

he was very outgoing,
and everybody loved him.

That Saturday night,
we had plans to go to a party.

And then last minute,
he invited me to go to the city,

to go to the Gilded Lily
with a small group of friends.

We got in a little argument about it.
So we went our separate ways that night.

[woman] So on Sunday, I ended up
texting Joey early that morning.

I knew he'd be sleeping,

so I knew it was gonna be
a little while before he got back to me.

[man ] Then twelve o'clock came.

Lisa came to me, said,
"Have you heard from Joey?"

I said, "No, I haven't."
I tried to call him and got no response.

I probably called him a half dozen times
between : and :.

I had to get my fantasy football team
in by one o'clock,

and he always helped me
with my fantasy football team.

I still didn't hear from him.

I'm thinking, "Maybe he went to go
and stay with his friend Max."

I remember speaking to Pat on the phone,
and he was definitely nervous,

as who wouldn't be?

But I was like,
"Guys go out. They meet girls."

"They don't know each other.
They all go back to a place."

"They party. It's nothing unusual."

I really didn't think
anything of it at all.

As the day progressed
into the early afternoon,

and there was still no sign of Joey,

is when I started to get
a little nervous and worried.

[woman] As the day was going by,

we were hoping
we were gonna hear from him.

We were just waiting, just waiting, but…

never happened.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Mooney] Our job is to make sure
you can go home and sleep at night.

[Rivera] It's so important for a family
to know who m*rder*d their relative.

[chief] Compassion for the victims,
that's the most important thing.

[Parrino] I've always liked
the peek behind the curtain.

What really happened?

[McNeely] You want to find out the truth.

That's what detectives do.

[officer] Your instinct is to help people.

[Titus] In New York City, the NYPD…

this is it.

[music trailing off]

[tense music building]

[detective ] I was a precinct detective
in the th Precinct Detective Squad.

On November th in ,

we receive a phone call
from the desk downstairs…

[phone ringing]

…in regards to a father who was there,

whose son had come to the city to party,
and he hasn't heard from him yet.

[detective ] Detective Castro and I
are in the office,

and a uniformed officer
is accompanying two gentlemen,

Pat Comunale and his brother,
Joe Comunale.

They had a sense of urgency.

You know, you could tell
by the look on both of their faces

that they were very concerned,
very worried.

Pat tells us, "My son Joey has
been missing for approximately hours,"

and he's attempted
to reach out to him multiple times

and was unable to.

And I asked his father, "Is this unusual
of him to not speak to him?"

And, uh, Pat tells me,
"I speak to my son regularly."

[Castro] To me, I was like,
"All right, it's Manhattan."

"The kids come to party here."

"They're known
to stay at people's homes, hotels."

"Some get drunk.
They pass out on the streets."

"We'll find him."

[Chen] At that point,
Yeoman and I kind of fork.

So, uh, Yeoman has Pat at his desk.
I'm running everything in the computer.

I'm checking every single system
for Joey's name, date of birth.

Different variations, John Does.

He wasn't in any hospital.
He wasn't in any jail cell.

He was just off the radar.

[man] I told Detective Castro

that the night before,
I got a call from Joey's friend

who said, "I know you're trying
to get a hold of Joey."

"I have his phone."

I was like,
"What are you doing with his phone?"

And he told me the story
about what happened the night prior.

That they had gone into the city
to, uh, go to the Gilded Lily,

which I had never heard of.

It was a nightclub.

And as they were leaving the Gilded Lily,

Joey was talking to three girls.

At the same time,
his friend took Joey's phone

to call his girlfriend
to see where she was.

I guess as that was going on,
these two other guys came up and said,

"Do you guys want to go
to an after-party?"

Two cabs pull up,

and Joey's friend says,
"I have your phone."

Joey says, "Just give it to me tomorrow."

And so they all jump into the cab,
and they went to this after-party.

That was the last time he saw him.

[man] After I had spoken to Pat,

I went to Instagram,
and I clicked on the Gilded Lily.

I just started looking at tagged photos,
which there are hundreds of them,

just to see if I could find Joey
in the background of somebody's picture,

or get a clue,
because we had nothing to go off of.

I saw this one, and there was
three girls and a guy that I know.

So I called him.

He was like, "Those are the girls
Joey was with last night."

Gave me this girl's number, Jenna.

I texted her, and I asked her,
"What happened with Joey last night?"

"Any idea where he is? Is he with you?"

She said, "No."

"We were at this party."

And then a few hours after,
Joey and this guy, whose name was Larry,

walked the girls to an Uber
and waved them goodbye.

Pat was actually able to give me

the name and phone number
of the last person Jenna saw with Joey.

And his name was Larry Dilione.

So I called Larry, and I explained
that we're looking for Joey Comunale,

who he was partying with
at the after-party.

He says, "Yeah,
I met him outside of Gilded Lily,

invited them to this after-party

for this rich kid
that lives on the Upper East Side

at the Grand Sutton apartment building."

[foreboding music playing]

Larry told me
the last time he had seen Joey

was when he left the building
to walk Jenna and her friends to an Uber

to send them back to New Jersey.

It was : in the morning,

and all he remembers
is he walked back into the building alone.

So then I gave Jenna a call,

and Jenna described the after-party
in apartment C,

and the host was James Rackover.

[McNeely] According to Jenna,
when the group arrives,

she gets into the apartment,
and there was a male in there.

His name was James Rackover,
and James was shirtless.

And according to Jenna,

he never bothered to put a shirt on
the entire night.

At one point, she said James
claimed to have been a, uh, male stripper,

and he wanted to give Jenna a lap dance.

And, fortunately, you know,
one of the girls videotaped it.

[moody dance music pulsing]

[Castro] You know, James has no shirt.
He's giving one of the girls a lap dance.

He's competing with Larry Dilione.

Who gives the best lap dance?

[woman laughing]

She said that Larry Dilione
was in possession of a folding knife

that he was snorting cocaine off of.

And she kept noticing that Joey's calm,

but he appeared to be
extremely inebriated.

That he was consuming
a lot of whiskey and beer,

but he wasn't having any issues
with any of the people in the apartment.

[Castro] Jenna does recall
that after the party,

once she got to the Uber, they get inside,

I guess she's looking back to say bye,

and she sees that Larry and Joey
fist bump each other.

And then she assumed he either walked off
or went back inside to the party.

So Jenna painted a great picture
of what was going on in the after-party,

but she never answered
the crucial question, which is,

"Where is Joey?"

[tense music playing]

So I could tell Pat was concerned.

I have sons of my own,
so I'm like, "You know what?"

"Let's go take a ride to the building."

[Pat] Detective Castro
really was conscientious.

He took an interest and, no bullshit,
he wanted to know what was going on.

He knew there was a problem.

We jumped in his patrol car
and went over to Grand Sutton.

So the Grand Sutton apartments
is located on East th Street.

For those people
that aren't aware of that area,

that is known as Sutton Place.

And it's not for the rich.

It's for the filthy rich.

[Castro] So at : a.m.,
we arrived in front of the Grand Sutton.

You walk in, it's almost as if
you're walking into a hotel.

They've got a doorman, a concierge.

We decided, "Let's go to C,
James Rackover's apartment."

We knock on the door.
The cleaning lady opened the door.

James wasn't there.

So I said, "Listen,
there was a party here last night."

"There was a kid that's missing."

"Do you mind if I take a look?"

She goes, "No problem." Opens the door.

It's a small apartment, not very big.

We went in. It was very clean.

We didn't see anything
that would have raised any flags.

We didn't find Joey in there,
and we exited the apartment.

So I call James Rackover.

He says he doesn't know Joey Comunale.

He's a stranger.

He came for the after-party with Larry

and one of Larry Dilione
and James Rackover's friends, Max Gemma,

and the three girls
that he had met at Gilded Lily.

All he knows is Joey
walked out of the building

with Larry and never came back.

[detective] And when we spoke
to Max Gemma, he says,

yes, he's at this after-hour party,
but he gets tired,

and he basically
falls asleep on the couch.

He wakes up. He doesn't see Joey.
He doesn't see anybody else.

He just goes home.

[Castro] So I go back to the lobby
to start looking at video surveillance

from the Grand Sutton.

Just looking for any evidence,
clues to let us know where Joey may be.

[mysterious music playing]

[Pat] And from time to time,
he would call me over and say,

"Is that Joey?"

We're watching the video.
He goes, "That's Joey right there."

[mysterious music playing]

[Hahn] You see the group arrive
at about : in the morning,

and go into the Grand Sutton,
and go up to the fourth floor.

And then at :,

you see Joey Comunale,
Larry Dilione, and the three girls.

[Castro] And they come down the elevator.

We switch the camera angle.

We go to the exterior.

We see them walking out,
and they walk to the curb line. Perfect.

If he makes a left, if he makes a right,

then we'll get more video
from next door and start tracking him.

And as we're watching the video play,
we see Larry Dilione walking back in,

and Joey is with him.

And I was like, "Wait,
you told me he didn't come back."

[music trailing off]

At that point, I knew there was a problem.

And I said to my brother,

"He didn't walk out of here alive."

[stifled sob]

I don't know why.

Excuse me.

It was just a hunch I had.

Joseph was my first son,
and he was always a great kid.

[somber music playing]

Joey and I always got along
because of our love for sports.

I was a big hockey fan,
and I took him to his first hockey game,

and he caught the bug.

And he, uh, started skating
at five years old.

He started playing
competitive hockey at eight.

Every year, we took a trip,

whether it was
a New York Giants football game,

or a Ranger game, a Yankee game.

We always connected through sports.

[woman] Joey loved his food, Italian food.

Even after he moved out,

most nights, he was here for dinner.

And he was a bit…

Even though he loved his sports,
he would always put on the Food Network

to see what was good to make,
and what was…

what I could make for him.

[chuckling]

[Pat] Joey graduated Hofstra
with a business degree.

Fortunately for Joey and his friends,

I owned a security business
on Long Island.

And if you talk to his friends,
they'll tell you he was the HR director.

He placed all of his friends
in my company,

knowing that they would get a start there.

He used to bring a lot of girls over
to see if I'd give 'em the thumbs up.

Every one I gave the thumbs up,
I was hoping he'd get married.

But he goes, "Dad, not till I'm ,"
is what he'd always tell me.

One of the qualities about Joey is
when I talk to his friends,

they always told me
that Joey was their best friend.

And I was like, "How is it possible
that one kid could have best friends?"

You know, I think they always say,

"You never judge a man
by how much money he has…

but by how many friends he has."

He had a lot.

He had a lot.

[somber music playing]

[Castro] Pat was visibly upset.

At this point, I just paused the video,

and I asked his brother Joseph
to take Pat and go back to my precinct

and just wait for me there.

[tense music playing]

[Hahn] Once the detective's
suspicion level starts getting raised,

that's when they call the Homicide Squad.

Detective Castro was
the assigned detective

from the th Detective Squad,

and I was the detective from
the Homicide Squad that caught this case.

But it's not just us.

All the detectives in that squad

and all the detectives
in Homicide Squad work together

to investigate the case.

[Chen] Yeoman calls me.

He goes, "Marty, come over here.
Help me with this."

So I go over to the building.

[Castro] There's only two options.

Either Joey's still in the building,
or he left the building.

We need to search the building
from top to bottom.

[Chen] I grab the super, and I'm like,

"Let's go to the roof.
We'll start at the roof and come down."

We go upstairs, exit the elevator.

But, uh, I'm afraid of heights.

I could see in the corner of my eye
the th Street Bridge, Ed Koch Bridge.

And I'm trying to not look over

to realize exactly
how high I am off the floor.

And then once I was satisfied
that Joey was not on the roof,

we started doing searches floor by floor.

Down flights of stairs,

down into the basement,
into the cellar, into the courtyards.

And I'm hoping to run into Joey
and be like, "Hey, wake up. Go home."

And, uh…

it never happened.

I go to the parking garage,
and I ask the parking attendant,

I go, "Hey, James Rackover, apartment C,
does he park his car here?"

He goes, "Oh yeah,
he drives a big, black Mercedes."

I go, "Is that the car parked over there?"
He goes, "Yeah, that's the car."

It looked pristine, clean,

except that it was covered in dust,
brown dust, maybe a little like dirt.

I took a look around, and I noticed
that there was brown smudges,

like fingerprint smudges
on the rear trunk lid.

And I'm like… [scoffs]

Something didn't sit right with me.

I said, "We're securing this car
until we can figure out what went on."

But the parking attendant says,
"James Rackover, he doesn't own this car."

"It's owned by a gentleman

who lives in apartment B,
Jeffrey Rackover."

So the name Jeffrey Rackover
kind of rang a bell

because he has a billboard

when you come outside
of the Midtown Tunnel going into Queens.

He would sell jewelry to Oprah.

He helped Trump
get his engagement ring for Melania.

So he was known
to be the jeweler to the stars.

[Chen] I'll be honest with you.

Everyone was like, "Oh yeah,

Jeffrey Rackover,
he's the jeweler to the stars."

I don't know who he is. [laughs]

Yeah, I don't buy jewelry
in that, uh, income bracket.

[Castro] The concierge, Eduardo Souza,

told us James Rackover
was the long-lost son of Jeffrey Rackover,

who recently, over the past few years,

had come back into his life.

Around , James started
to come around the building with Jeffrey.

Then he started spending more time there.

After about two years, Jeffrey was looking
to get James his own place.

So he came down and inquired
if there was any apartments available.

And then he officially moved in.

And then that's when we learned
that he was the long-lost son.

He had had a relationship with a woman
in the late 's or early 's

that had resulted in a mystery son

who had mysteriously
appeared at his doorstep.

I found it strange.

But as the concierge,

we don't delve too much
into people's personal lives.

Once James moved into
his own apartment in C,

the parties ramped up considerably.

[Chen] We watched hours and hours of video

just hoping to see Joey appear
on one of those screens.

[Castro] While we're still reviewing
video surveillance,

the concierge, Eduardo Souza,
taps me on the shoulder and says,

"That's James Rackover coming in."

So I peek up. I see him.

As he's walking by, he makes a statement,
"Good luck getting the video,"

and keeps walking.

So now I was caught by surprise.
I'm like, "Wait, what?"

I looked over at Detective Castro.
I go, "What the f*ck is that?"

He gives me the same look.
"I don't know what the f*ck is…"

[Souza] I was shocked he was that c*ck.
I was like, "Why is he so f*cking c*ck?"

Walking through with his shoulders back,
c*ck than I had ever seen him.

That's when the concierge says to me,
"James had called me yesterday."

[phone ringing]

[Souza] The night before,
James had called me

and asked me about the length of time
that the cameras record for.

And I said, "That's a strange question.
Why… Why would you ask that?"

And he told me that he had
had an argument with his girlfriend,

and suspected her of stealing something,
and he wanted to check the tapes.

And I had told him
that they record for hours,

and then we change the tape.

I think maybe James understood that
after hours that tape was taped over.

But we wouldn't erase them.

We would just change the tape,
and that would be the record for that day.

I think his assumption was that the video
for the past hours had disappeared,

when in fact we had access to that video.

So that just was throwing off alarms.

So my phone rang,
and it was Detective Castro.

And he said, "Look, I need you
to bring me some of Joey's clothes."

"We're gonna get some dogs
to see if we can pick up Joey's scent

to see where he may have gone."

I went to Joey's place.

I grabbed a towel
and some of his other clothes.

And I remember
I held out a sliver of hope.

Maybe it's not what I think it is.

[dark, mysterious music playing]

[officer] I was requested to search inside
of a garage area of the Grand Sutton.

I put the collar on my dog.
I'm like, "You wanna work?"

He looked at me.
His ears went up. I deployed him.

So the dog took himself to the back,
and he started working.

I know my dog when he works.
His tail, it just keeps going.

Then all of a sudden,
I see his tail going faster.

So to me, he's on an odor.

He went to the four-door,
black Mercedes-Benz.

He threw his nose
right into the trunk area, and he went…

He barked. Like, real…

[growls] You know? It came out.

He's telling me that he has an odor

of some sort of
human decomposition, blood,

um, anything that indicated
human decomposition.

But you have to get a search warrant
to go into that vehicle

and check out to see if there actually is

evidence or a body inside that trunk.

[Colecchia] After the garage,
the detectives asked me,

"Can we do the apartments
to see if he indicates an apartment?"

I grabbed the dog.
We went up to the fourth floor.

I gave him the word "search."

He went to the left, down the hallway,
and then the dog indicated.

He scratched really hard
on the doorjamb, C.

And then James opens the door,
James Rackover.

He was like, "f*ck you,
you scumbags, you cops."

"You come in and… You need a warrant."

"You… f*ck you. f*ck you."

And, uh, to me, I'm like,
"Is this guy a jerk-off?"

[Castro] Once I learned
that the dog had given an active alert,

I knew that he was giving
an active alert on blood,

and something had occurred there.

Meanwhile, other members
of the th Precinct Detective Squad

from my office

began sifting through the garbage
from every apartment.

So we put the dog on the bags
so that we can identify bags

that he gives an alert,
and we'll search those first.

[Hahn] The dog hits upon a bag
that had not been opened yet.

Inside the bag is like a comforter cover.

And it also has the name
"James Rackover" on it.

Crime scene starts finding, like,
paper towels and towels

that appear to be soaked in blood.

They open up a second bag.

Then we find, covered in blood,
articles of clothing that belonged to Joey

that matched the video surveillance.

[Castro] His gold chain is in there,
his bank card.

And they found Joey's ID
in that bag as well.

[Hahn] Once you find those things,
you need to get that search warrant,

and you need to go back
with a crime scene unit,

and you need to go into that apartment.

[Chen] While Yeoman goes
to get a search warrant,

I'm back at the office
doing computer checks on James Rackover,

Lawrence Dilione, and Max Gemma.

What we learn about Max Gemma
is he comes from, basically, privilege.

His father was the mayor
of Oceanport, New Jersey at one point.

He lives in an apartment
with Larry Dilione.

Larry Dilione,

he basically is very much like Max Gemma.

He comes from a good family in New Jersey.

They had owned thoroughbred horses.

There were stories that he had
gotten in some fights at certain times,

but other than that, he didn't have

what you would consider
substantial criminal background.

[mysterious music playing]

When we looked into James Rackover,
it turns out he's not James Rackover.

His name is James Beaudouin.

And he doesn't come from New York.

He comes from Florida,

where he had numerous arrests,
and had done time.

About a year and a half in jail
for burglary down in Florida.

We found that he was given bail,
left Florida,

and ended up in New York.

After digging a little bit more
into James Rackover's background

and his name change,

we were able to learn that

Jeffrey Rackover is not
the biological father of James Rackover.

And Jeffrey Rackover had petitioned

to have James Rackover, uh, take his name.

I believe Jeffrey met James
at a gym close to our building.

[curious, intriguing music playing]

They became friends,
and was introduced over the weeks

as first "my friend,"
and then "my nephew," and then "my son."

[Hahn] We didn't know what to make

of the relationship between
Jeffrey and James, quite frankly.

The story that James
is the long-lost son of Jeffrey,

and somehow they found each other
after all those years, and…

It's not the truth.

And you start to look at it,
and you're like,

"What is the truth
about this relationship that they have?"

[Souza] They did not in any way
resemble, um, father and son.

The way they would act with each other…

You know, I love my father,
but there were ways that

they were affectionate with each other
that I wouldn't be with my father.

When you look at
everything involved with James,

it definitely raises
the level of red flags.

James comes from almost nothing,

is working a menial job in Florida,

and in a relatively short time
is transformed into James Rackover.

And he's living in this building,
and he's driving this car,

and he's at these clubs
and these restaurants,

and you don't want to lose that
if you're James.

Everyone else
is still gonna have their family.

They're still gonna have
the money their family's in,

but James could lose everything.

He's, I think, willing to do anything
to maintain his life

and the style he has going on.

While we're waiting
for the search warrants,

we looked at video from the garage,

and we know that James leaves
at about : on Sunday night,

the night after the party,

and takes Jeffrey Rackover's car.

When we did the background check on James,

we were able to determine
that he had a suspended license.

So that gave us an avenue
to be able to place him under arrest

for driving without a license.

[reporter ] James, why did you k*ll him?

[reporter ] What happened, James?

[Castro] But unfortunately,
once we place him under arrest,

he immediately invoked
his right to counsel,

so we weren't allowed to speak with him.

That little glimmer of hope that we had
that he might tell us where Joey is,

it was… We weren't getting it.

So on Tuesday the th, we had
the search warrants for apartment C.

[Hahn] Crime scene comes in.

As they start conducting their search,
they're processing the scene with luminol.

So under certain light, you can see blood.

When the crime scene unit
processes the bathroom,

the entire bathroom lights up.

All over. On the walls,
in the bathtub, and on the floor.

Indications that there's been
a lot of blood cleaned up.

[Castro] Same thing in the living room.
They spray luminol by the sofa, the floor,

and they find drops of blood.

They test it,

so they see if they can determine
who that blood belongs to.

[Hahn] So the crime scene team
had collected steak knives

that were inside the dishwasher
that had been run and cleaned.

Those kitchen knives
were then taken to the lab

to see if there was any blood

that would have seeped into
the handle itself.

When you have
what you found in the garbage,

and then what you have at the scene,

you know something bad
has happened to Joey,

and we know that he's probably dead.

You can't be alive at that point.

With all of the things
that we had found so far,

James not telling us anything,

and Max Gemma has no information
to give us about where Joey may be,

because he's claiming
he was asleep on the couch,

we focus our attention on Larry Dilione.

Being that we already have
James in custody,

maybe Larry now wants
to get his opportunity

to maybe speak first
and tell us what happened,

not knowing what James may be saying.

And he came in.

So once Larry came in,
we asked him if he could shed some light

on to why we found so much blood.

He's keeping the same story
that he had said earlier,

not knowing where Joey is.

[Hahn] You can accuse someone
all you want, or, you know,

"You might be guilty,
but he's more guilty,"

and try and get a statement
out of him that way.

But Larry didn't want to answer
those kind of questions.

So we tried to appeal more
to his human side,

saying Joey Comunale's family
is concerned about him,

and they want to bring him home,

and how would you feel
if this was somebody in your family?

[Castro] Once Larry heard that,

he decided to tell us
that he could lead us to where Joey is.

Well, he wouldn't tell us
how the incident occurred.

He gave us an address
behind a florist shop

in the town where he used to live
in Oceanport, New Jersey,

and that's where we should look.

[sirens wailing]

We caravaned with lights and sirens.

And we're doing , miles an hour
out to this location.

We arrived at this florist shop.

And we headed to the open area at the back

where Larry had given a description

of where we would be able to locate Joey.

[tense music playing]

We approach over,

and the crime scene detectives
begin to move dirt slowly.

And the first thing that I see is a…

a hand, uh, kind of like a half-fist.

The way you see in the movies
where it's coming out of the ground.

And as they continue to move dirt,
you start to see Joey's face,

you start to see his chest,

and you can tell that he was charred.

So he was lit on fire.

[Chen] At this point,
we haven't really slept in days.

We were exhausted. We were exhausted,
but this was something we needed to do.

We needed to tell the parents
before anyone else did.

[Castro] Myself and Detective Chen
get in the car

to go from Oceanport, New Jersey,
to Stamford, Connecticut,

to go and speak to Pat Comunale
and let him know

that we located Joey.

[somber music playing]

No one said a word on that car ride.

You feel the emotion,
but you have a job to do.

So you just push it aside…

and you keep going.

We were sitting right here. I…

I heard the car doors.

I heard the car doors.

And I knew why they were coming.

[Castro] We walk into the house,
and Lisa comes down.

They're hanging onto every word,
looking at you.

The two detectives told us they…

found him.

And it's our worst… our worst nightmare.

I've never seen so much hurt
in someone's eyes, mother and father.

Wave at Daddy.

That type of pain,
you never want to wish upon anybody.

[Lisa] Joe!

Joe!

-Did you have fun?
-All right!

It was, uh…

We already… I already knew,

but this was the start
of the next chapter,

which was getting justice for Joey.

That's all I could think about now, was…

making sure these three sons of b*tches
get everything that's coming to them.

The medical examiner in New Jersey
conducted the autopsy,

and what he found was that
Joey Comunale had stab wounds,

some of them postmortem.

He had broken bones.

He had bruising on his hands,
a large cut on his shoulder,

which we believe they might have
been trying to, uh, dismember him.

And his body had been burned.

I can't make rhyme or reason
why this would have happened.

It was inhumane.

It was vile.

It's disgusting to think that

they would treat
another human being like garbage.

[tense music playing]

After testing those kitchen knives
that were found in the dishwasher,

they were determined to have
Joey's blood inside of the handles.

Also it was determined that the blood
in the apartment was Joey's blood.

Finding the m*rder weapon,

coupled with the autopsy report
matching to the evidence in the apartment,

gave us answers
to how he would have been m*rder*d.

But now the key question was,
how did they get him out of the building?

[tense, mysterious music playing]

We pulled so much video
that we had to sift through,

and we still couldn't see it.

[Chen] The one video that we couldn't get
was a video camera

that belonged to the building next door

that coincidentally was corrupted.

Finally, this video gets recovered.

And it answered
a huge part of our question.

[Castro] As we begin to review
that video surveillance,

you can see James Rackover

park the black Mercedes
in front of the Grand Sutton.

[chilling music playing]

Rackover takes the luggage cart.

Then he leaves the camera frame.

And when he reappears,

there's a large duffel bag
on the luggage cart,

which then he places
inside of the trunk of the black Mercedes.

[Chen] And if you look
out the window of apartment C,

you look towards th Street
and the front of the Grand Sutton.

When I saw that, and I spoke with Yeoman,

I went, "Holy f*ck!"

"These guys…

pushed him out of the window."

So it wouldn't be suspicious
coming out of the front lobby,

which was the only exit
out of the building.

[Hahn] When you see the video,
they're in it together.

They're both acting together

to take that body and to… to hide it.

[reporter ] Did you do it?

What happened in the apartment?
What happened that night?

-Did you do it?
-[reporter ] Did you k*ll him?

[reporter ] Did you stab him?

[Hahn] On May th,
both Larry and James were arrested

for m*rder in the second degree,

hindering prosecution,
and concealment of a corpse.

James was already in custody
for driving on a suspended license,

and Jeffrey didn't put any money up
for him to get out.

I do think that at some point
he realized he'd made a mistake

having a "son" that was a… a m*rder*r.

We didn't have any cause
to believe at that time

that Max Gemma
had anything to do with the homicide.

We actually had statements from Larry

saying that Max had nothing to do with it.

He was arrested for hindering prosecution.

[attorney] Ultimately, it was clear to us
that he had been involved

in trying to obstruct, essentially,

the ability for the police
to get evidence,

but I don't think that the senior lawyers
or myself were convinced we could prove

Max, beyond a reasonable doubt,
was involved in the homicide.

[Castro] Once the m*rder charges came,
it became a finger-pointing

"he did it, he did it"
back and forth at each other.

[Hahn] We still had to try and determine
who did the stabbing.

And we don't know
what the role of James was

or what the role of Larry was.

You just need the doubt of one person
on a jury to not have a conviction.

So while James is waiting for the trial,

we got jail calls from James
speaking to a friend of his.

And in these calls,
he's very confident he's getting off.

[James]
I start trial in September,

so I'm looking at being home
around October-ish.

My rep's gonna be up there, bro.

Like, my… when I hit the street.

They're gonna be like, "Yo, this kid just
…

beat this **** like Rocky?"

"And he's home? Oh my God!"

[man]
Yeah, see?

He seems fine. "Yeah, I'm gonna get off."

"I'm gonna be out soon,
and everything's gonna be great."

Towards the end of the investigation
and getting ready for trial,

we were able to locate a witness,
and his name was Louie Ruggiero.

He was a friend of James Rackover.

Louie Ruggiero states that,

on the day we're searching the building,
he was at the gym,

and James Rackover came up to him
and told him he needs to speak to him.

He's gotta tell him something.

Louis tells us the story
that James had told him,

which was that, on the day of the m*rder,

while they're sitting there
in the apartment,

Larry had a dispute with this guy.

Turns out to be Joey.

And Larry gets so upset he punches Joey
and knocks him to the ground.

Knocks him out.

James then says,
"I'm not going back to jail."

And gets a knife from the kitchen,

and stabs Joey to death.

So in this statement that he tells Louie,

he's admitting
he's the one that actually kills him.

Another amazing statement that he makes
is Joey's still in the apartment,

and after that, he ordered pancakes
and ate them without any problems.

Then they took the body to New Jersey,
and they dumped it.

The evidence showed
that their actions were intentional.

That attack resulted in Joey's death,
even if they played different roles.

Two people can be responsible
for the death of one person.

And ultimately, James went to trial first.

[suspenseful music playing]

The trial for James Rackover
started in the Manhattan courts.

[somber music playing]

[Castro] Pat was there every day,

and he would fill the whole courtroom
with family and friends.

It was all of us, fraternity brothers,

his friends from home,
colleagues, work people,

would come and support Joey.

The support we got from a lot
of individuals was just incredible.

Nobody on James Rackover's side,
which spoke volumes.

[Vance Jr.] Ultimately,
after a lengthy trial involving James,

the jury found him guilty
of second-degree m*rder,

or intentional m*rder.

I remember to this day,
Pat, I had to hold him down.

Me and my lieutenant are holding each arm
because he sprung up with, like, this…

joy that it's finally over

and they're gonna pay
for what they did to his son.

And I was very, very happy for them.
Very happy for them.

[Pat] When I saw James,

all I could think about was,
"I hope your nightmare's just starting."

'Cause I gotta take mine…

for a lot longer than him.

[Vance Jr.] James Rackover
was sentenced to years,

which he's still serving.

-Step away, please. Mr. Comunale.
-Okay.

[Lisa] We were glad with the outcome.

And we just wanted it,
you know, to be over.

I want to thank the Manhattan DA's office
for doing an incredible job, uh,

the NYPD, who worked around the clock,

and, um, I appreciate everybody's support.

[voice breaking] My family, friends…

I think Larry could see
that his odds of conviction

were gonna be very high.

Larry chose to plead guilty
as opposed to going to trial.

He ended up taking a plea deal
to m*rder two for years.

[Hahn] February , Max Gemma
pleads guilty to hindering prosecution,

and he receives
a sentence of six months in jail.

[Pat] I think all the papers
all said he got a sweetheart deal.

And I actually agree with them.

I don't know why.

I don't know why, but…

he's gotta live with himself.

[Hahn] I think Max Gemma

definitely has more information
about what happened in that apartment.

[somber music playing]

[Castro] Every detective
has a case in their lifetime.

In the years that I've been
in the police department,

this case has been the case for me.

Just learning about Joey

and how much he was loved
by all his friends and family.

Pat misses Joey every single day

like if it was
the first day that it happened.

And he has

this love for Joey that I can relate to,

because when he speaks about Joey,

and his daughter,

and it's like they're his world,
and that's who my kids are to me.

[voice breaking]
We think about him every day.

And, um, we just try to, you know,

keep his memory alive,

and tell my grandson all the time,

"This is Uncle Joey."

His friend started
getting a tattoo with the number nine.

And that was his number.

And the irony is I always said to him,

"I'll pay for your college
under two conditions."

"You graduate, number one, in four years,
and you never get any ink."

And he didn't get his tattoo,
but I got his tattoo.

I thought it'd be a great way
to just be with him every day…

which I am.

[music trailing off]

The phone rang.
Jeff says, "Is Irene with you?"

He said, "She has been missing
since twelve o'clock."

Suddenly, everybody was at a loss

that the lady of the home is gone.

Irene Silverman was an -year-old woman
that was as sharp as a tack.

She was a socialite, and if she liked you,
you were part of her family.

We had information that a mother and son

had Irene Silverman's identification.

[detective ] We do a background check.

You couldn't believe
the horrific things that they did.

We don't know where she is.
We're innocent.

And if just given our rights,
we will prove it.

It certainly didn't appear to be
a mother-son relationship.

[detective ] They're holding hands.

[detective ]
Staring into each other's eyes.

Are you f*cking kidding me?

[woman] I interviewed the son.

And before I know it, he's across my neck.

I could feel his heart pounding.

He said to me,
"This is a hostage situation."

You may think you know me, but you do not.

[dramatic outro music pulsing]