Joe Meet Joe: Joseph Barboza - Part 3 - The Final Act

Lara:

Hi everyone! Last week we left you with Joe Barboza being extradited from Massachusetts to California to face charges for the July 1970 murder of 26 year old, Clayton Rickey Wilson. We didn’t discuss Wilson, how he and Barboza met, or the events leading up to his murder in that episode, so let’s start off there.

Nina:

But before we do, I want to let everyone know that we will be covering Joseph JR Russo next week rather than in the latter half of this episode. Because, as usual, we were a little long winded.

Lara:

How many episodes did we say season one was going to be?

Nina:

Well maybe closer to 50!

Lara:

As long as it’s not 60!

Ok, let’s get started.

Barboza was relocated to Santa Rosa as part of his deal with the Feds, and became acquainted with Wilson not long after his arrival there. The Feds had decided that the wine country of northern California would be the perfect location for Barboza’s rebirth as Joseph Bentley. 

Nina:

Which makes no sense to me. Santa Rosa is a small community, even now, and in 1970 the population was just 50,000. And as we said in the previous episode, Barboza would stick out anywhere, let alone in a community like Santa Rosa.

In the Spring of 1970, Wilson made the fatal error of befriending and running his mouth to Barboza about a theft he committed at a home in Petaluma, California the previous autumn. He bragged that his haul was worth over $250,000 and included stocks, bonds, antiques and jewelry. Hearing that, Barboza befriended Wilson and the rest is history.

Lara:

That summer, the bromance between Wilson and Barboza may have blossomed, but like many a summer fling, things didn’t end well. After murdering Wilson, Barboza fled back east, returned to his old tricks and landed in prison where he sought solace in both William Geraway and Lawrence Wood. 

Nina:

Thanks to both of them informing the authorities about Barboza’s tale, Wilson’s body was discovered in a shallow grave in Jack London State Park on October 12, 1970 just a little over three months after he was killed. Slugs were found near the murder scene about a week later and a .38 was taken from Joe’s home in Santa Rosa for a ballistics check. 

Lara:

Word got back to Barboza quickly and he called Kiernan Hyland, the District Attorney of Sonoma County to ask if he was being considered as a suspect in Wilson’s murder. The DA told Barboza that a murder complaint had indeed been issued, and an extradition order would be forthcoming if Barboza didn’t agree to being transferred back to California to be arraigned.

I want to note that Geraway and Wood were not held in the same unit at Walpole and had no contact with each other while locked up with Barboza. 

Nina:

But between the two of them they were able to provide enough information to give the authorities who had come out from California a starting point in their investigation. Now when I said Clay was buried in the State Park, Lara thought it was something like Boston Public Garden and how hard could it be to find a body there. But the Jack London State Park is 1400 acres of wilderness and Geraway and Wood were locked up in Walpole. There was no map with an x marks the spot on it. Geraway later told the court that Barboza had instructed him to contact Paulette and that she would lead him to the grave.

Lara:

And that was the information that Geraway passed on to the authorities in California. A woman named Paulette who was living with Dee knew where the body was because she had helped Barboza bury it. No last names were given and nobody was sure who the victim was, just that it was an associate of Joe’s. 

When the authorities returned to Santa Rosa, they went to Clay’s wife Dee who shut them down. However, 18 year old Paulette Ramos finally cracked on the fourth day of questioning, and led the cops to Clay’s badly decomposed body. It took at least two men to move the stump that covered the shallow grave. They were finally able to identify him based on dental records and a ring on his hand that the authorities discovered seven days later when they returned with a metal detector to look for shell casings.

Nina:

Let’s give a little background on Clayton Rickey Wilson. He was born in 1944 in Wyoming to James Wilson and Norma Thorpe. The family moved around a lot when he was a kid but his parents eventually landed in Santa Rosa, where Clay graduated from high school. He got a job in construction operating heavy machinery, got married, and had a kid. But the first marriage didn’t work out.

Now the story begins when Joe was still at sea in the autumn of 1969. Local banker and businessman Victor DeCarli’s home was supposedly robbed on the last day of September. There’s no mention of the robbery in the newspapers until December when a local antique dealer named Curly Parker was arrested and charged with receiving stolen goods. The authorities found several of the items that had been stolen from DeCarli in Parker’s shop in El Verano, including a bond worth $25.

Lara:

El Verano was only about 30 minutes from where the burglary took place, so it appears that Clay and his accomplices were all locals and they were targeting unoccupied vacation homes in the area. 

Curly Parker was arrested again in March the following year on the same charge, while he was out on bail from his December arrest. This time the cops found items from other burglaries in the area in a camper that he had on his property. 

In late April, the antique dealer pleaded guilty and was sentenced to state prison. But he apparently had not given up his accomplices because the police were still looking for the burglars.

Nina:

In the meantime, Clay Wilson had a problem, disposing of the $200,000 worth of stocks and bonds from the DeCarli robbery six months earlier.

Clay had first tried using a man named Ray Pinole to cash out the bonds, but Ray was not coming through for him. Barboza later testified at the trial that the very first day he met Clay, Clay cried on his shoulder about the bonds he couldn’t unload.  “He said he didn’t get the money as quickly as he thought he would and he thought Ray Pinole was cheating him.” 

Clay asked Barboza to speak to Ray on his behalf. Barboza did so and Ray allegedly told him that he’d passed the bonds to a member of the Mafia in Reno. The favor Barboza was willing to do for Clay must have impressed him because, according to both Barboza and Clay’s wife, Dee, the men talked every day after that. 

Although I have to say here that it sounds to me like Ray and Joe were tag teaming Clay to make him give up the location of the rest of the bonds. 

Lara:

Well, it worked. Toward the end of April, Barboza claimed that Clay took him to his house in Glen Ellen and showed him where he’d buried over $125,000 worth of the loot. 

A few days later, Barboza flew back to Boston with another man named Ralph Keaton. What Keaton’s role was supposed to be and where Joe picked him up was never made clear. Joe went home to New Bedford, and arranged a meeting with his brother, Donald, his cousin Herbie, another local hoodlum named Leonard Hughes, Jim Southwood, and a Providence guy named Frank Davis. Davis was supposedly the contact who could cash the bonds for Joe and Clay. He was also the man who was later believed to have offered to payoff Barboza to recant his testimony in the Deegan and Willie Marfeo murder trials.

Nina:

Barboza later testified that the men were all armed and some of them were wearing gas masks to obscure their identities. But that makes no sense! How did he know who was there if that was the case? 

Lara:

I’m sorry but that’s fucking insane! 

Nina:

I’m just telling you what he said. I know it’s some acid trip fantasy or something, but how could I leave that story out?

Lara:

I couldn’t resist either, and evidently there was definitely a meeting in the woods. Leonard’s brother Lawrence later told Barboza’s wannabe biographer, Jim Southwood, that the mafia was upset because Joe had dragged Southwood along to the secret meeting in the woods.

But that’s another story that really makes no sense. Of all the things the Mafia should have been concerned about regarding Barboza, I doubt the clandestine gathering in the woods made the list.

Nina:

Back to sanity for a bit. Clay’s father testified at the trial that his son had stopped working a regular job in 1970. Presumably because he’d started the burglary gig. In April, Clay had run off to Reno to marry twice divorced Dee Mancini. Not long after the couple returned, he introduced his new wife to Barboza. 

Dee Wilson told the court that Joe and his family had been living just four blocks away from them in Santa Rosa. Clay was obsessed with Joe, seeing him daily. “He wanted me to meet Joe. He was fascinated by him… He seemed to want to become involved with him… He thought he could learn a lot from him.” She also testified that she noticed that Joe wore a bulky jacket, and was carrying a .45 and a .38 “all the time, except when he was at home.”

Lara:

Barboza was also pressuring Wilson to participate in other schemes he had, including breaking into a local military supply depot, killing Dee’s ex-husband and insurance fraud.

But Clay wasn’t interested, Dee claimed. “Joe said Clay was very undependable, not trustworthy, sneaky and didn’t follow through with anything.”

Thank goodness for that considering what Barboza was trying to coerce Wilson into doing.

Nina:

Barboza came looking for Clay the night he murdered him, Dee stated. He was angry, and said, “Clay didn’t come through with what I wanted him to come through with.” He called Clay “a sneak” and “no good”.

Now for how the Sonoma County investigators believe Clay’s murder went down. They believed that Barboza had tied up Wilson before shooting him. A piece of rope was tied around Clay’s legs and his head was swathed in burlap material. He’d been shot twice in the face, with the bullet holes only inches apart, indicating that Clay had been lying face up when he’d been shot. Two slugs from a .38 were found about 500 yards from where the body was buried. Remember that because we’ll come back to it when we get to the trial testimony.

There was also a large hole in the back of the victim’s head that did not appear to be from a bullet. Forensics weren’t sure exactly what had caused it, though on the stand, the prosecution’s expert witness said it could have been from a blow to the back of the head. Lara and I think Barboza hit Clay in the head with a hammer or the handle of a shovel to knock him unconscious before binding him and shooting him. 

Lara:

Or maybe even a tire iron.

Nina:

The shovel makes more sense because the story was that Clay was taking Joe to some secret location where he’d stashed some weapons. Of course, Barboza would buy that story because Clay had buried the bonds in the park and then taken Joe to the location just a few months earlier. They’re going to the secret spot, Joe realizes Clay isn’t going to deliver and knocks him out with the shovel, ties him up, shoots him, and carries the body to the grave. That’s my theory anyway.

Lara:

The prosecution and the investigators felt they had Barboza cold, but Barboza knew otherwise. The Public Defender Marteen Miller later recalled: "Here he was, with all kinds of evidence against him in a death penalty case, and he acted like he was in small claims court. He wasn't concerned at all. I've been in that business for 34 years and I've never seen anything close to it. It was uncanny."

Nina:

The Sonoma County DA's office, assigned to prosecute the case, became just as confused. Barboza was locked securely in the local jail when the jailer called one day to report that Barboza had a visitor. It was Ted Harrington, then head of the Justice Department's organized crime strike force in Boston.

"Harrington doesn't come to our office, the district attorney's office," Sonoma County Investigator Cameron recounted later. "He goes to the jail and interviews Barboza. Then he came up to our office and we were, to say the least, not very happy with it."

The Public Defender flew to Boston to look for anything that would help him put together a defense. He didn't unearth any blockbuster evidence, but got something almost as good: Harrington, Rico and Condon -- all highly regarded federal lawmen -- who would testify on Barboza’s behalf.

Lara:

That carried a lot of weight in the 1970s. The testimony of an FBI agent at a trial could sway jurors one way or the other. "It was unusual to have the FBI in your corner during a death penalty trial," Miller said.

And as we mentioned in last week’s episode, the situation was even more puzzling for the Sonoma County lead investigator, Cameron, who went to Boston looking for answers and instead got stonewalled at every turn he took.

"I must have made 10 requests by the telephone: 'Can you tell us something about Barboza? Can you tell us anything?' And we always got pretty much shut out of the thing," Cameron said.

Nina:

Back in Santa Rosa, Cameron said the district attorney began getting odd phone calls from people offering to help send Barboza to death row. Prosecutors concluded that the callers were mobsters in New England trying to get even with Barboza.

Lara:

I have visions of the guys in the North End and Federal Hill with pockets full of slugs and coins standing inside of phone booths calling the Santa Rosa PD offering up whatever they could.

Nina:

I would have been there with my piggybank calling until I was broke! 

Lara:

Me too!

In March of 1971 Ted Harrington wrote to the Public Defender of Sonoma County. Harrington stated that he had been representing Barboza. “We came within an eyelash of establishing that he was in Massachusetts at about the time of the alleged murder.” Harrington made sure to slander Geraway and Wood, “it is my opinion that Geraway and Wood are playing a game with the California Authorities for the sole purpose of going to California on a vacation.”

Nina:

I’m sorry, but you can’t tell me Harrington didn’t know by this point that every word out of Barboza’s mouth was a lie. 

Lara:

You're far more gracious than I am!

Nina:

Well, Harrington wasn’t exactly wrong about Geraway, who was in for a rude awakening when he got to Santa Rosa.

Lara: 

Once transferred to California in order to testify at the trial, Geraway was held in the infirmary in the county jail. That may have been an awful place to be held except for the fact that it was directly above Barboza’s cell. Geraway later said, “I would sit up there in my cell at nights writing things about Barboza that had no bearing on the case, knowing he would get a copy and would know that the DA and his lawyers had got copies too. Things like how he thought nothin’ of his wife and children. How he was scum. How he killed all his friends. How he was a prison homosexual. The whole thing – just to bait him. And I’d hear him screamin’ at the top of his voice down below about me as I kept turning those memos out.”

“I’ll kill that SOB,” he’d hear Joe screaming. 

“Then his lawyers would apparently be telling him, “No Joe, that’s what he wants. He wants you to make a move on him in court for the jury to see.”

“If that’s what he wants, I’ll give it to him. I’ll kill him right in court!” Joe yelled.

Nina:

Another great scene for Netflix.

Geraway wasn’t the only one working on his writing skills, Barboza was busy too. In yet another letter to Ted Harrington, he wrote: “You promised me you’d come down two weeks after I left…. Please come down like you promised me, this can throw my case wide open.”

And Harrington came to the rescue, writing to his superior in DC: “...many law enforcement officials in the Boston area consider that the pending murder charge has been concocted by the underworld as a means of retaliating against Baron.”

But the final part of the letter was the kicker. Harrington concluded by noting that if the government did not support Joe, “it is my judgment that he will then retaliate against the government by submitting false affidavits to the effect that his testimony in the Patriarca and Deegan cases was in fact false, and thus tarnish those most significant prosecutions.”

Lara:

Talk about CYA, cover your ass! They already knew by then that Barboza attempted more than once to recant his testimony, but had so far been able to stop him. If things went sideways, Harrington could say “I told you so.”

Nina:

Barboza was holding them hostage, if you think about it. They had to cater to him and his whims or he’d recant. He continued to hold that over them until he died.

Lara:

Less than two weeks later Harrington was visiting Barboza followed by his attorney and then the DA. He told the press that he was not there to discuss the Wilson murder. “I just made a courtesy call. I just happened to be in town.”

Nina:

Decades later SA Dennis Condon testified that Harrington had visited Barboza in California on March 25, 1971 and Barboza told Harrington that he had indeed killed Wilson and was not being framed by the Mafia. Which is what Harrington had written to his superiors in DC. More lies.

But Barboza’s admission still did not prevent the Justice Department and the FBI from continuing to assist him.

Lara:

At last on March 26th,  Barboza was formally charged with the murder of Clay Wilson.

In the meantime back on the east coast Dominic Ciambelli aka Red Hogan, one time FBI informant was arrested on charges of possession of stolen stocks of his own. He would be convicted later that summer and sent off to Federal prison in California. He too would become the recipient of Barboza’s love letters and he was none too happy about that!

Nina:

We’ll get to that a little later. By September the trial still hadn’t commenced. Barboza’s attorney requested that Lawrence Wood also be transferred to California to testify. The following month Harrington made another appearance. This time under the guise of “oh i was in the area about some recent arrests, so I thought I’d drop in.” 

“The Public Defender wanted Condon and me to testify for the defense with specific reference to the reason for Baron’s relocation to the Santa Rosa, California area and to the fact that Baron sought, without success, to receive permission to carry a gun while he was in California from federal authorities.” 

In reference to his meeting with Barboza, Harrington stated: “I made it clear to Baron that both the FBI and the DOJ were doing all within their power to ensure that Baron received a fair and impartial trial.”

Lara:

And at last on October 19th the trial began. 

In his opening statement, Barboza’s attorney said, “Government officials, among other things, will explain why Mr. Baron carried a gun in spite of the fact that he was on parole from Massachusetts and it was illegal for him to carry guns.”

Nina:

On November 8th, Wilson’s widow Dee Mancini took the stand. Of course, she’d been given immunity from prosecution in exchange for her statements.

Dee testified that Clay had given Barboza some portion of the bonds to cash out. He told Clay that he already had some potential buyers lined up in NY and was leaving the next day. While Barboza was allegedly in NY he called Clay and asked him for $300 for the flight back to California. He claimed he “didn’t get immediate money from the bonds.”

Lara:

What a joke!

Clay agreed to wire the money but didn’t, but Barboza scraped up the money and made it  back to Santa Rosa. 

Nina:

He probably conned Southwood or Fitzgerald again.

Lara:

Or he sold the bonds and cried poor mouth to con Clay into believing he was stranded there. 

Nina:

After Barboza returned to Santa Rosa, he told Clay that they’d have the money shortly. 

But as the weeks passed, Clay became worried that Joe wasn’t going to come through, just like his previous experience with Ray Pinole, who had also let him down.

Clay confronted Barboza about it, and demanded that Joe return the bonds to him. The first time, Barboza promised to get the bonds back, saying “he didn’t care about them anyway.” He claimed that he made a phone call to have them mailed back to them. But, of course, Joe didn’t deliver. Clay pressed Joe about the bonds again, and that was when Joe murdered Clay.

Lara:

That last night Wilson was alive, Dee claimed, Joe had shown up at the house in Santa Rosa looking for him. But when Clay wasn’t there, Joe decided to wait. “He seemed to be very upset.” 

Dee’s testimony ended with her explaining that the last time she had seen Joe was just before he left to go back to Boston. At that meeting, Joe had threatened to kill her and her 9 year old daughter. She said that Joe informed her that “he was leaving and wasn’t coming back unless he had to.”

Nina:

Talk about accusing others of what you’re guilty of yourself!

The next person to testify was William Geraway. He spent two consecutive days on the stand.

Neither side was happy that Geraway had inserted himself into Barboza's trial. The defense was worried that he planned to cause a mistrial. The prosecution couldn’t understand that fear, but had their own concerns. The main one being that Geraway's testimony could force a retrial of the Deegan and Marfeo cases in their jurisdiction.

Lara:

They had no idea those verdicts were in the bag!

On the stand, Getaway testified: “He told me that he had blown his head off with one shot. And when one of the girls said, “Oh my god,” he leaned over and shot the victim in the head two more times.” 

Geraway said he asked Barboza why he’d shot Clay again and Barboza said, “To get everything, to make sure.”

Barboza had wanted Geraway to go to California, recover Clay’s body, and bury it somewhere else. When Joe got out, he planned to bury the body a third time, so only he would know where it was. 

Nina:

But things went wrong when Joe and Billy had an argument over a chess game, each man accusing the other of cheating. And that was all it took. Joe began threatening Geraway, subtly at first. Then finally, Joe gave Billy a piece of paper with a phone number on it, and claimed it was Billy’s sister’s number. And that was when Billy went to Ronnie Cassesso and then to the DA.

Lara:

Think about that!

Nina:

I have, many times.

Geraway later recounted: “I did everything humanly possible, within the framework of what could be done in the trial, knowing the rules of evidence, and what constitutes a mistrial, to provoke him and put him in the gas chamber. Because I never want to see this guy out on the street. Never. He’s gonna kill again, and again, until he’s destroyed. I’m afraid some of my family’s gonna get killed.”

Back in the Santa Rosa courtroom, Geraway continued his campaign to get a reaction out of Barboza. Geraway interrupted himself once, noting to his audience that Barboza was making hand motions at him. 

“He says a lot more with his gestures…. I understand you very well, Mr. Baron.” 

Barboza’s lawyer intervened and asked the judge to make his client stop. 

Lara:

The final main witness for the prosecution was Paulette Ramos. She had been given immunity from prosecution for her testimony, and her story was similar to Dee Wilson’s. The four had been walking to some place where Clay had supposedly stashed a weapons cache. The two men were leading, with the women about 15 feet behind. Out of nowhere, Joe pulled out a gun and shot Clay in the head. Clay fell to the ground, and Joe shot him again. Paulette repeated Dee’s story that they had turned and fled. She claimed that she heard another shot when they got back to the house. After some unspecified period of time, Joe returned. He held a gun to her and forced her to drive Clay’s car back to the scene of the murder. Joe had wrapped Clay in a blanket, and he loaded it into the trunk. They drove to the top of a hill, and Joe pushed the body from the top into a grave that he’d previously dug. 

Nina:

But the DA wasn’t ready to rest his case!

A final surprise witness took the stand on December 1st, Lawrence Hughes. He testified that Joe came to Boston in late April or early May 1970 to discuss the bonds with him and his brother. Hughes produced photocopies of some of the bonds that had been stolen from DeCarli’s home over two years earlier. At the time of the gas mask meeting in the woods, Barboza had allegedly turned over some of the papers to Jim Southwood. But when he returned to Boston in June, Southwood wouldn’t return them. Eventually Jim gave some of the documents to Hughes and his brother, but according to his testimony, they had just “held onto them.” Lawrence had eventually had photocopies made of the documents in his possession at the request of John Doyle of the Suffolk County DA’s Office. He said he’d met with Doyle about a dozen times starting in September 1970 and ending in March of 1971. 

Lara:

He went to the FBI in Boston with the copies, but they said they weren’t interested. And when the trial rolled around, Hughes read in the newspapers that the bonds were still missing. Confused, he contacted the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office himself in the middle of the trial. Hughes was told that the DA would call him back, but instead, the FBI called him and asked why he didn’t come forward about the bonds, and Hughes told them because Harrington’s office said they wanted to pass the bonds on to California.

In the meantime, Hughes had stupidly turned over a large portion of his photocopies to SA Robert Sheehan. 

Nina: 

You can bet those copies never saw the light of day again. Straight to the shredder. 

Lara:

But Hughes was able to produce a copy of DeCarli’s birth certificate and his mother’s baptism certificate, in addition to the photocopies of the bonds that clearly belonged to DeCarli.

Nina:

That just makes me think that Clay and his accomplices stumbled across the papers after they’d stolen the furniture. Probably locked in a desk drawer or cabinet. They must have thought they hit the jackpot. Pure stupid luck. Only Clay wasn’t so lucky in the end.

Hughes also testified that the only time he remembered Barboza mentioning Clay was when he called him “a punk” and said “he had to be straightened out”. 

Lara:

Hughes’ final bombshell was that he had told ADA Jack Zalkind that Barboza had bragged to him that he’d had sex with Dee Wilson an hour after he’d buried Clay. Zalkind advised him to “keep his mouth shut and not get involved.”

Nina:

Now it’s time for Barboza’s version of events. Spoiler alert, he left out the part about shtuping Dee!

On the stand, Barboza claimed that he had killed Clay in self-defense on June 30th, several days earlier than previously believed. Clay had told him that he had some guns stashed in Glen Ellen. The two women, Clay and Barboza walked to the spot where they were going to retrieve the guns. Out of nowhere, Clay announced that he had heard about Barboza’s links to the mafia back east and about the men he’d put behind bars. 

Lara:

Wait a minute! What utter BS! Barboza made no secret about who he was and it was all over the newspapers about his testimony for several years at that point.

Nina:

Hey, I’m just telling you what he said. 

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Barboza had lost his little black book with all his Federal contacts in it. Condon, Rico, Harrington, US Marshalls, DOJ guys… Who knows who else was in there. Probably Connolly too at that point. Joe and Ray Pinole got into a fight over it when the address book was eventually recovered and Ray accused him of being an informant. At that point, Clay still trusted Joe and returned the item to him.

But now Joe testified that Clay stated he was worried that Barboza would set him up too, like he had Patriarca and the others. After making that allegation, Clay dropped the shovel he was carrying and reached for his gun. Joe grabbed him, but Clay still got off a shot with a .38 that only went through Joe’s coat. 

“I saw a flash. I didn’t feel anything but I thought I was shot.” Barboza said he grabbed the .38 from Clay and knocked him down. 

Lara:

Now for the melodrama! Barboza got up from the stand and demonstrated to the court how he had incapacitated Clay using his attorney, Marteen Miller as his prop. Then he took on the role of Clay and laid down on the floor on his right side with his left leg bent up. He said Clay was still alive then, and Barboza noticed that he was reaching for a .25 he kept in his boot. That was when Joe shot him. 

“I pointed the gun at his face, and fired two shots.”

“How fast did you fire the shots?”

“Bang bang,” he replied.

“Were you afraid for your life when you fired?”

“Yes,” Barboza answered.

Nina:

Oh please!

After taking the stand again, Barboza stated that both women were present when he killed Clay. He told them to leave the scene and they obeyed him. Barboza hid Clay’s body in the bushes, took apart the .38 and dumped the pieces as he walked back to the Wilsons’ home. 

When he returned to the house, Dee was waiting for him, and he accused her and Paulette Ramos of knowing Clay intended to kill him, but they denied it. Barboza said he gave Dee Clay's .25 and she threw it aside. 

In typical Barboza fashion, he’d given no thought to what should be done with the body. He claimed he’d just intended to leave it in the bushes. But he alleged that Dee Wilson insisted that Clay needed to be buried because she was still in the middle of the custody case with her ex-husband. 

Lara:

The first attempt was a failure, Joe broke the shovel, and the spot had to be abandoned. They put Clay’s body back in the car and found another spot. Dee drove off with the body at Joe’s instructions and returned an hour later. According to him, it was Paulette’s idea to wrap Clay’s head in burlap and tie his ankles together. Dee was not present when they buried the body, Joe said. When they returned to the house, Dee was asleep, so he had Paulette drive him back to Santa Rosa. 

He saw the two women three or four more times before he returned to Boston. Dee claimed that she had been the one to rob DeCarli with another man she called “Roger”. 

Just before Barboza left for Massachusetts, he said that he went by the house in Glen Ellen to find it had burnt down. When he confronted Dee about it, she confessed that she and Paulette had set the place on fire. 

“You should have been there. It was a lot of fun.”

 Nina:

Really these people were insane! 

As we stated earlier, Barboza’s version of events did not match the ballistics, which showed that Clay had been shot just one-third of a mile from where he had been buried. And what about the tree stump? It took at least two cops to remove it, so how could Joe and an 18 year old girl move it on top of the shallow grave in the first place? There had to have been at least one other man involved, and everyone was protecting him. 

And Joe wasn’t the last liar to take the stand.

Lara:

Forget about one more liar, they hit the trifecta!

Nina:

Exactly!

On December 8th, Harrington, Condon, and Rico all testified. Not one of them made reference to the issue before the court: Clay Wilson’s murder. Instead they all did what the Public Defender Marteen Miller wanted them to, sing Barboza’s praises and portray him as a victim. 

As Miller later stated: “the FBI was held in such high esteem that if I could call them as a witness and have them say substantially anything, relevant or not, that would be a point in my favor.” 

Rico claimed that just before Wilson was slain one of Barboza’s friends had been killed back in Boston and that he needed to take precautions to defend himself. And of course Rico used the car bombing of Fitgerald to justify their fears.

Lara:

Who got killed? The only person murdered back in Massachusetts prior to Wilson was Tommy Ballou in February of 1970 and we aren’t the only ones who think Barboza was the one who killed him!

Nina:

You and your pesky details. 

Lara:

Get back to the liars.

Nina:

Ted Harrington was on the stand for less than ten minutes. He did concede that the Feds had not informed local law enforcement that they had released a serial killer into their community. Although he did not say it in exactly that way. That’s my spin on it.

Denny Condon’s testimony was similar to that of Rico’s. Just that he had warned Barboza that his life was in danger in January 1970, as we recounted in the previous episode. Like I said last week, Rico and Condon were at least as responsible for Joe killing again by playing on his paranoia the way they did. They should have been indicted too. 

On December 10th, Barboza’s defense attorney put John Fitzgerald on the stand as another character witness. Not on Joe’s behalf, but to discredit Geraway. Miller asked Fitzgerald what he thought of Geraway’s “truth and veracity”, Fitzgerald replied: “Mr. William Geraway in considered to be a pathological liar.”

Lara:

Takes one to know one!

The second character assassination came from ADA Jack Zalkind, who was called from the judge’s chambers long-distance. The Judge administered the oath over the phone. When asked if Hughes had talked to him about Barboza’s claim that he’d had sex with Dee Wilson after he’d murdered her husband, Zalkind said flatly, “No.”

But the jury never got a chance to hear Zalkind’s answer because over the weekend, Marteen Miller started to worry that the trial would not end in an acquittal.

Miller may have been worried about a guilty verdict, but the Prosecution was equally worried that they had failed to establish enough evidence to prove that Clay’s murder had been premeditated. 

After the verdict Miller told the press “It was my opinion that it was in the best interest of Mr. Baron to plead guilty to second-degree murder.” 

Nina:

Joe had been reluctant to take the plea deal since he still believed that he’d be acquitted. But he was eventually convinced and was sentenced to five years to life.

In an open letter to the local newspaper, Barboza wrote: “I am innocent of any willful intent to harm, hurt or kill Clay Wilson. But my past affiliations with the Mafia, my status of… an ex-convict which caused me to hide the body of Clay Wilson prompted by two other people… were too much to overcome in the hands of a jury deciding my fate.”

Lara:

Decades later the Investigator for the Sonoma County DA’s office recalled, "We were all amazed because it took our capital case and just turned it into shit in a hurry. Because if you look back at the 1970s, everyone looked up to the FBI. They show up and all of a sudden, they're saying, 'This guy has always been truthful. He's a bad guy, but he's put away some bad people.' And we're going, 'what the hell do we do now?"'

"We thought, 'Well we're screwed now. We better take what we've got… Truthfully, the only reason we took [the plea] was because the FBI testified on his behalf."

Nina:

Less than a month after Barboza’s sentencing, Harrington wrote to Barboza reassuring him that he would soon be eligible for parole. But it wouldn’t be as quick as Harrington promised. 

And in the meantime Barboza’s former walking companion, John Morris was assigned to the Boston FBI Field Office.

But the fun had only just begun. In May of 1972 just 5 months after being sentenced on murder charges, Barboza was subpoenaed to testify to Congress. The DOJ had no involvement in the affair, and were very unhappy about it when they found out.

Lara:

Really it was a toss up who delivered more tall tales, Vinnie Teresa or Joe! After the hearing Barboza said he testified before Congress as a favor to “Colonel Stone who promised emphatically to write a letter to the Board for me.”

Nina:

That’s when he said that Frank Sinatra was in the Mob! 

Lara:

And don’t forget that whole bullshit story about Bo Bigelow and the bombs!

Nina:

Oh you know he picked the Bigelow name up from Jack Kelley’s testimony in an effort to troll Raymond Patriarca and probably Jack too!

In June after his testimony was finished, Barboza returned to Folsom under protective custody since he had once again told everyone his identity (just like Teresa!).

Lara:

With nothing but time on his hands, Barboza wrote letters to Ted Harrington and Dennis Condon almost daily.  

That same month Ted Chalmers was given permission to visit Barboza at Folsom. Chalmers was the contact person for Joe’s new biographer, and was supposed to get some kind of a cut from the book deal. In classic accusatory Barboza style he wrote a letter to a female friend declaring that Chalmers was an informant. “Ted is my friend with love but it's mixed with ulterior motives. I know what I am talking about!”

Nina:

Well he certainly had experience in that field. That fall Barboza was transferred to State Prison in Montana. He requested Ted Harrington, Ted Chalmers and his wife, Greg Evans, and Dennis Condon be given permission to visit him. I guess his suspicions about Chalmers didn’t concern him that much.

Lara:

One of the more disgusting correspondences between Harrington and Baborza took place in January of 1973. Harrington mailed him a letter containing a list of 57 individuals who were either dead or missing. “It might be valuable to you in preparation for your book.”

Nina:

And how many of those did he commit himself?

That summer Barboza was eligible for his first parole hearing. It was more complicated than normal because although Barboza was sentenced to state prison in California, he was serving his sentence in Montana. The uncertainty of whose jurisdiction the decision fell under was a problem.

Of course Harrington wrote a long letter to the Montana Parole Board laying out Barboza’s so-called contribution to the government’s fight against organized crime. “Bentley’s significant contribution to law enforcement as the pivotal figure in the government’s effort to combat organized crime should be weighed when his eligibility for parole is considered.”

Lara:

Even with Harrington flying out to testify on Barboza’s behalf, he was denied parole. Montana had recommended parole because of his good behavior at Deer Lodge, but California said no.

The first person Barboza reached out to was Harrington, but he had moved and left no forwarding address leaving Barboza more than upset. 

That led to Barboza writing a scathing letter to Greg Evans, “I do realize I must open my own case but how I will proceed in my case I have not decided yet, I do realize in regards to my case, I must make sure that I be my own man. When the case is in court and I am on the stand, I will cause a scandal that will be nationwide.” Obviously referring to reversing his Deegan murder trial testimony.

Nina:

That same month Barboza added Dominic Ciambelli aka Red Hogan to his list of pen pals. Hogan was locked up in Soledad State Prison in California at the time. What exactly Barboza was saying in his correspondence has never been released, but Red Hogan apparently found the missives upsetting, according to later testimony by a former cellmate of his.

Just a week before Christmas that year Barboza broke the jaw of a prison guard.

Lara:

In January of 1974 Barboza made another cry for attention. He requested to see Condon, Harrington, RI State Police Col. Walter Stone, and the Rhode Island AG Richard Israel. He threatened to write an open letter to the Record American and Providence Journal if they didn’t do what he wanted.

Nina:

It appears that the authorities finally acknowledged that Barboza was of no further use to them. A memo was sent from the Boston SAC to the FBI Director:

“It is felt that this is another effort on part of Barboza to obtain government support in bid for parole. Strike Force will not consider any future prosecutions based on Barboza’s testimony.”

And the following month Barboza was returned to California, but this time to San Quentin. But that didn’t stop him from writing. The letter he sent to Evans threatened, “a small Watergate will develop, and Walpole prison doors will open.”

Lara:

That summer Barboza again was denied parole, but in September of 1975 he was approved.

On October 30, 1975 Barboza was back on the streets of California. A newspaper article the following week reported that JR Russo and Vinnie Desciscio had been in the area a few months prior looking for Barboza. Vinnie was arrested in San Francisco in August trying to pawn $1500 worth of jewelry and JR had to bail him out.

Nina:

The newspaper also reported the Desciscio had committed suicide in early October. Whether or not that is true is uncertain. I did find an obit on him, though no mention of suicide.

But JR wasn’t the only one gunning for Joe. The rumor was there was a bounty of $300,000 on his head. 

Barboza relocated to San Francisco and moved in with Chalmers for a few weeks so he could get back on his feet. Rebranded as Joseph Donati, and yes he deliberately took the surname of Bobby and Richie Donati, Barboza got a job as a cook and moved into his own digs with a girlfriend.

Lara:

But Barboza’s days were numbered. On February 11, 1976 Barboza was gunned down as he was getting into his 1969 Ford Thunderbird just after leaving Chalmer’s place. He was hit at close range in his right side by two men in a white van. There was a loaded .38 in his pocket that he never had the chance to draw. 

The news spread like wildfire back in Boston. I can still remember all of the chatter about it. I’m sure his family mourned him, but because he killed Teddy Deegan there were no tears shed in my world. I was too little to fully understand all of it, but I thought it would bring some kind of peace to Teddy’s brother Larry's life. Sadly, I don’t think anything could have healed him.

Nina:

As we said at the beginning we were planning on devoting half of this episode to JR Russo, but as usual we were a little long winded. Next week, we will profile JR and revisit Jerry Anguilo as we dive into the bookmaking and loan shark arrests of the early and mid 1970s.

Lara:

Thank you all for listening!

Nina & Lara:

BYE!!!!