Sunday, April 16, 2000

10 months to track a hit-and-run killer

By Ted Flanagan
Eagle-Tribune Writer

A hit-and-run driver killed J.D. Daniels on Oct. 3, 1997, his 13th birthday.

The boy was struck and killed around 9 p.m. as he walked with a group of friends along Washington Street in Methuen. He was on his way home to cut his birthday cake.

His killer nearly got away with it.

Two Lawrence Police detectives and a state trooper knew within weeks of the accident that Orlando Fuentes, a petty car thief and gangbanger from Methuen, had killed J.D. Daniels.

For 10 months they built a case against Mr. Fuentes, but waited to give Methuen police a chance to arrest him.

If Mr. Fuentes hadn't had begun making plans in August 1998 to travel to Puerto Rico, the wait would have been longer.

Methuen detectives early in the investigation said they talked to and discounted Mr. Fuentes as a suspect, and instead focused on two other Methuen men.

Only when they had no choice -- when it looked like Mr. Fuentes was going to leave the country -- did Lawrence Police Detectives Mary R. Bartlett and Art W. Waller Jr., and State Trooper Paul T. Zipper, finally arrest Mr. Fuentes themselves.

For J.D.'s family and the community at large, the time from the accident to Mr. Fuentes' arrest was a trying 10 months of wondering, who could have done such a thing?

J.D.'s mom, Jody Daniels, even wrote a column for The Eagle-Tribune headlined "Who is the person who killed my child?"

Over the six weeks since Mr. Fuentes pleaded guilty in Salem Superior Court, The Eagle-Tribune, using court testimony and records, interviews, newspaper articles, and other sources, has pieced together the story of how Orlando Fuentes was brought to justice.

None of the principal players in the story -- particularly the three detectives who eventually caught Mr. Fuentes -- are willing to talk extensively about the case.

The quotes attributed to Mr. Fuentes, Detectives Bartlett and Waller, their informant, or Trooper Zipper, are all drawn from court records, testimony, or other reports.

For 10 months, one of the most burning questions for anyone touched by J.D. Daniels' death was, "who could have done such a thing, and why did it take so long to catch him?"

Here's how we all found out. It's a story of dogged police work, some false trails and a few lucky breaks.

Lawrence police focus on Fuentes

Mid-October to early-November, 1997

Lawrence Police Detectives Bartlett and Waller were about to meet with a prized source, a guy they'd talked with often over the four or five years they'd known him.

He was a local guy who'd been in scrapes with the law in the past.

The informant, known only as "Peter," had nearly died in an assault several years ago.

On this day, the area was still reeling from the tragic death of 13-year-old J.D. Daniels a few weeks earlier.

Investigators believed someone in a dark, 1989 to 1992 Toyota Corolla had hit the boy on Washington Street in Methuen, then fled, leaving the teen to die by the side of the road.

The tragedy was very much on the public conscience, especially since the killer was still out there.

Peter climbed into the back of the unmarked police cruiser, parked on a Lawrence side street, and the three began an easy conversation, just chit-chat.

During their talk, Detective Bartlett mentioned the accident.

"Oh (expletive), that's what he was talking about," Peter said.

And for the first time, Detectives Bartlett and Waller heard the name "Orlando."

Peter said he'd overheard a man named Orlando talking to someone a couple days after the accident.

Orlando was upset and said he'd hit and killed a kid in Methuen.

Peter didn't know Orlando's last name, but the two occasionally partied at the same spots, he said.

He knew only that Orlando had been a member of the Wrecking Crew, a loose-knit street gang of little consequence, and was now in the Latin Gangsta Disciples, one of Lawrence's fiercest street gangs.

Peter agreed to help the detectives find out more about Orlando.

He quickly learned Orlando's last name, and the fact that the car used in the accident was a stolen Honda Accord and not a Toyota Corolla.

About a week later, Peter showed the detectives Mr. Fuentes' Larchwood Road home and said Mr. Fuentes often laid low in Amesbury.

He also said word about Mr. Fuentes' involvement in the J.D. Daniels accident was spreading like wildfire among teen-agers in Methuen's Arlington District.

Peter picked Mr. Fuentes from a photo lineup as the one who'd admitted to killing J.D. Daniels.

Peter's part in the investigation ended one afternoon when Mr. Fuentes and some friends spotted him exiting the police cruiser after a talk with the detectives.

Two days later, Peter claims, Mr. Fuentes stuck a pistol in his face and told him he'd kill him if Peter didn't stop talking to the police.

By then, though, it was too late.

Police had their man, and plenty of time.

Although they believed the information they had about Mr. Fuentes, they began several months of legwork to back it up.

They checked mounds of records.

Whenever one of the people Mr. Fuentes ran with ended up under arrest or being questioned for something, questions about J.D. Daniels' death always popped up.

In late November or early December of 1997, about two weeks after Peter first told them the name "Orlando," Detectives Bartlett and Waller met Mr. Fuentes face-to-face.

Detective Bartlett and Mr. Fuentes were driving in opposite directions when they met at a Methuen intersection and locked eyes.

Mr. Fuentes fled.

The detectives, in an unmarked Lawrence cruiser, didn't chase, but caught up with Mr. Fuentes later in a Tenney Street parking lot.

They exchanged small talk, the detectives sizing up their suspect. Detective Bartlett would later remark that Mr. Fuentes was "sweating and appeared nervous."

The three parted ways without talking directly about the J.D. Daniels accident.

A street source would later tell investigators that Mr. Fuentes didn't sleep for two days after the meeting.

The informant said Mr. Fuentes stared out the window, shaking, as if he expected police to show up any minute and take him away.

Methuen Police discount Fuentes

Methuen police also heard the name "Orlando Fuentes" early in the investigation, but they quickly discounted him as a suspect.

Reports indicate that the Lawrence detectives told Methuen police what they knew about Mr. Fuentes by at least January 1998.

Methuen Police Detective Walter A. "Gus" Flanagan, one of several Methuen detectives who spent time on the Daniels case, declined comment on when his department was told about Mr. Fuentes, and referred all questions to Milton E. "Ted" Cranney, the assistant district attorney who eventually put Mr. Fuentes behind bars.

No matter when they became aware of Mr. Fuentes, Methuen police definitely focused on two other suspects, each of whom seemed a good candidate for the crime.

Both were well-known local car thieves, and both had frequent run-ins with police, especially Methuen police.

Their modus operandi was to steal a car, take it for a joyride and then torch it.

One of the men had been arrested several years ago as part of a notorious car theft ring that had gone on an 18-month spree.

Both were known drug users, and each had a shaky alibi for the night of J.D.'s accident.

One of the men was arrested three times in 1996 alone.

He was charged that spring with driving to endanger and received six months probation on Oct. 2, 1996 -- almost a year to the day before J.D. was killed.

The suspect was later sent to jail for six months for stealing cars.

The second suspect also had numerous run-ins with the law, including over a half-dozen arrests in the year before the J.D. Daniels accident.

Most reports said each of the men drove a dark-colored Toyota. At the accident scene Methuen police found pieces of a headlight they believed came from a Toyota Corolla.

Methuen police eventually checked out over 800 Toyotas in their search for the killer car.

But there were also problems with these two suspects.

At least one source helping Methuen police focus on one of the men offered to give up the name in exchange for a deal of his own on unrelated charges. No deal was ever made, though.

Often, a suspect's name was given by several people as having been the driver of the car that hit J.D., but in each instance carrying a different passenger.

Many reported talking to one or both of the suspects just "minutes" after hitting something. One of the suspects admitted to driving on Washington Street, but said it was several hours after the accident.

Other times, the route from witness to suspect was convoluted.

For example, one suspect was named by a local man who had it third hand.

He had heard about the accident from another guy, who'd actually heard about it from his sister.

And then there was the car.

Based on a belief that headlight glass found at the scene could only have come from a Toyota, Methuen police doggedly sought out nearly every Toyota in the Merrimack Valley.

But three days after the accident, Lawrence Police towed a blue, 1987 Honda Accord, abandoned in front of 83 Holly St., in Lawrence, to M&W; Towing Services. It's front end was heavily damaged.

Mr. Fuentes would later admit he stole the car from the Whirl-A-Way in Methuen for a guy from Lowell looking to make an insurance score.

The car sat in Lawrence and junkyards in Salem, N.H., and Billerica.

It was eventually crushed in a Boston scrap yard.

The suspects didn't help themselves. Their alibis relied mostly on where and what kind of drugs they'd been out buying the night of J.D.'s death.

Police knew one of the suspects had been pulled over at 8:42 p.m. in Georgetown for speeding, about 45 minutes before the accident.

"Fuentes was convicted, that's the only story," said Detective Flanagan. "Those other two names surfaced in connection with the investigation, but there's really no story there."

Fuentes may flee country

By August, 1998, Detectives Bartlett, Waller and Trooper Zipper knew time was running short.

They knew Mr. Fuentes, already on probation, was asking the court for permission to travel to Puerto Rico, and they feared he might not come back.

The detectives were close to nailing Mr. Fuentes for the accident, but they couldn't wait any longer for Methuen cops to make the arrest.

Methuen, after all, didn't consider him a suspect.

The Lawrence detectives met with Mr. Cranney and prosecutors from Essex County District Attorney Kevin M. Burke's office and laid out their case.

They got permission to bring Mr. Fuentes in for questioning after he met with Lee Privitera, his probation officer, on Aug. 27, 1998.

At 10:30 a.m., while Detective Waller stayed outside in an unmarked cruiser, Detective Bartlett waited in a Lawrence District Court hallway for Mr. Fuentes to emerge from the meeting.

When he walked out, Detective Bartlett approached.

"Do you remember me?" she asked.

Mr. Fuentes, looking nervous, replied that he did.

When asked if he'd be willing to go talk about "something," Mr. Fuentes agreed.

The interview took place in the arson task force offices in the basement of the Lawrence Fire Department headquarters on Lowell Street.

Confessions are eased out of suspects, not browbeaten.

The key often is empathy, investigators say.

To get a child molester to talk, for example, tell them you've heard that the victim is sexually aggressive and that you understand their plight.

Before long they're admitting everything, their desire to be understood overriding the logical reasoning that tells them they're digging a very deep hole.

Investigators say the surest route to a confession is to give the accused a face-saving explanation for whatever they did.

But you've got to know what buttons to push.

That only comes after learning your subject's background, and then spending much of the interrogation simply observing the suspect, watching his body language for the tell-tale signs of truth or deception.

With Mr. Fuentes, police said they knew he didn't mean to kill J.D. Daniels.

"No one is saying you're a bad person," Detective Bartlett said. "All we're saying is you made a mistake."

During the questioning, Mr. Fuentes wouldn't look the detectives in the eye, couldn't swallow, was sweating.

By 2:18 p.m. Mr. Fuentes signed his first confession, telling Trooper Zipper that he'd been driving an Enterprise rental car when he struck J.D. Daniels.

At 5:45 p.m. he signed a second confession, admitting that he'd been driving a stolen Honda Accord and not a rental car.

Both times he apologized for hitting the boy, and said he "felt bad for the family."

He said he didn't mean to hit the boy, that he just hadn't seen him in time.

In between statements, Mr. Fuentes agreed to take the detectives to the accident scene.

When they arrived just before 3 p.m., the detectives headed for the spot where people believed J.D. was hit.

Flowers and photographs adorned the base of the tree used in a makeshift memorial.

Mr. Fuentes, though, walked across the road and 20 feet west of the memorial.

This is where it happened, he said, and then recounted the accident.

Mr. Fuentes had been driving east on Washington Street, listening to a Jerry Rivera salsa music tape, when the boy came out of nowhere, he said.

He hit J.D., his car cutting across the road, the force of the impact hurling the boy into some nearby woods.

Mr. Fuentes quickly backed the car up onto Washington Street and continued heading east.

After turning around a short distance away on Tara Jean Drive, he returned to where he'd hit J.D.

A passenger in his car got out and checked the scene, then Mr. Fuentes sped off.

He spent the night with his girlfriend after ditching the car across from her Holly Street, Lawrence, home.

After visiting the accident scene, the group returned to the Lawrence Police Department's "Stress Unit," a comfortably-furnished three-bedroom unit in an elderly apartment complex.

The 5:45 p.m. confession was signed in the apartment's kitchen.

Trooper Zipper called Methuen Police Lt. Joseph Solomon shortly after 6 p.m., and told him of the confession.

Lt. Solomon arrived at 7 p.m. and went into another room to talk with Trooper Zipper.

Meanwhile, Detective Bartlett asked Mr. Fuentes about their meeting in November 1997 on Tenney Street, shortly after the accident.

"You knew I knew, didn't you?" she asked.

She was sitting at the kitchen table.

Across from her at sat Mr. Fuentes.

Detective Waller sat in a nearby chair.

"Yes, Mary. I knew you knew," Mr. Fuentes said.

After talking with Trooper Zipper, Lt. Solomon walked into the kitchen.

He asked Mr. Fuentes if he'd had his Miranda rights read to him.

Miranda warnings, among other things, let suspects know that they don't have to say anything.

"Yes," Mr. Fuentes replied.

"Are you sure you did this?" Lt. Solomon asked.

"Yes."

Lt. Solomon asked a second time.

"Are you sure you did this?"

"Yes! It's on the paper," Mr. Fuentes said, tapping the confession. "It's on the paper."

Fuentes admits his guilt

The only hope defense lawyer Thomas J. Torrisi had of keeping his client out of jail was to get his confession thrown out by Judge Isaac Borenstein.

The hearing on Mr. Torrisi's suppression motion was the trial's first event. Detective Bartlett was the first of seven witnesses scheduled by Mr. Cranney to testify.

But he never got beyond her.

Detective Bartlett's testimony was devastating.

Plea negotiations began by the end of the first day of trial.

This past Feb. 28, Mr. Fuentes stood in Salem Superior Court and uttered the words the Daniels family, police and the hundreds of people affected by J.D.'s death had waited almost 21/2 years to hear.

"Yes, I'm declaring myself guilty," Mr. Fuentes told Judge Borenstein.

At Mr. Fuentes' sentencing hearing two days later, J.D.'s parents, Joseph A. and Jody Daniels, spoke for 20 minutes about the "chronic, never-ending sorrow" they've felt since their son died.

Mr. Fuentes, himself the father of three children, said he was "very sorry about what happened."

After Mr. Fuentes was sent off to begin his 2 1/2-year prison term, the Daniels family exchanged hugs with the two-dozen friends and family who'd attended the hearing.

Among them were the detectives and police officers who'd helped find the killer.

Mrs. Daniels said recently that she had personally thanked the police, including the Methuen detectives.

"They know how we feel about the work they put into this," she said.

There's been little other public comment since the conviction, other than a general criticism of what many said was a light sentence from Judge Borenstein's.

An $8,600 reward for information leading to J.D.'s killer still sits in an account controlled by the Methuen Treasurer's Office.

The reward fund was started when then-Methuen Mayor Dennis A. DiZoglio pledged $500 in town money for information leading to the killer.

Local businesses and private donations quickly boosted the amount.

To date, no one has claimed the money, not even Peter, the person with perhaps the greatest claim to the money.

"I'm no angel, you two know me, but man, how could anyone leave someone's kid on the street? That's bad," Peter said when asked why he was helping the detectives. "What if it was my kid, or someone in my family? How could he leave him there?"