(2 of 3)
The case has riveted the Philadelphia-Wilmington area for a year and a half, mostly because of the small-town renown of its central characters. Thomas Capano, the father of four daughters who separated from his wife Kay in 1995, is an unlikely murder suspect. A former deputy attorney general and legal counsel to ex-Governor Michael Castle, he was most recently employed at a prominent law firm as head of its bond department. "Tom was very much the consummate inside guy," says Charlie Butler, also a former deputy attorney general. "He was always fixing things. He spent a long time making Castle look good."
But the Capano family, credited with the rapid commercial development of Wilmington, has its share of dirty laundry. In the late 1980s, Louis admitted making illegal campaign contributions. He also participated in an FBI sting that led to the conviction of a county councilman. Another brother, Joseph, 43, was arrested and charged with kidnapping and raping a 27-year-old woman in 1991. He later pleaded guilty to assault, imprisonment and unlawful sexual contact.
Fahey came from a different world. The youngest of six children in a close-knit middle-class Irish family, Fahey lost her mother to lung cancer when she was nine. In 1986, when Fahey was 20, her father died of leukemia. About the same time, the psychotherapist she trusted and confided in was killed in an automobile accident.
Though her family was not as prominent as the Capanos, it was just as well known around Wilmington. Their worlds melded at O'Friel's Irish Pub, where yellow ribbons and a "Friends of Anne Marie" banner now hang. Nicknamed "The Attorney General's Annex Office," O'Friel's is also a place where all five of Fahey's siblings have been employed. It is there that they congregated after Capano's arrest, eating a quiet dinner upstairs. Says O'Friel's owner Kevin Freel: "We sat and talked, and we cried." Fahey, Freel says, left an indelible impression on everyone. "Annie had a quick line and a great laugh, which explains why we miss her so much."
Fahey's absence was felt just as strongly at Carper's office, where she playfully called the Governor "T.C." and meticulously arranged his appointments. Says Joan Donoho, a state accountant who lives across the street from the large brick home Thomas Capano rented on Grant Avenue: "When she disappeared, it seemed like the entire state office building was in shock."
It was at the Governor's office that Fahey came to know the other T.C. in her life. Capano's bond work brought him there often, and during the summer of 1993 he and Fahey started having lunch together. But it was not until a search of Fahey's apartment uncovered letters from Capano, as well as a diary chronicling their ups and downs, that their affair was out in the open. In one of her last diary entries, on April 7, 1996, Fahey wrote, "I have finally brought closure to Tom Capano. What a controlling, manipulative, insecure, jealous maniac."