August 12, 2024 • 36 mins
The suspicious death of the rumored hitman leaves the Petrone’s wondering...especially when it’s revealed that he left behind a note. And he wasn’t the only person from the investigation who died under mysterious circumstances.
Reach out to the There and Gone Team by email at thereandgonepod@gmail.com.
If you have any tips on the disappearance of Richard Petrone and Danielle Imbo, please contact the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS (8477).
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
In our investigation of Danielle Richard's disappearance, a lot of
names came up. One of them was Robert carry You know,
people are a little reluctant to bring his name up
because he instilled fear in a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
His reputation was scary.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I've been doing the violent crime and gang thing pretty
much for the twenty years I was on the street. Yeah,
I'd come across all kinds of folks with all kinds
of reputations, and I'd have him up in the top
five as far as a scary reputation.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm Andre Gunning and this is there and Gone South Street,
Episode seven, Head of the Snakes, I say in my
dream reached out on the talk.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
For you filast to me, I'll never give up, no
matter how.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
I open my eyes.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
Defineca.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Just a note, the views and opinions expressed in this
podcast are solely those of the individual's participating. This podcast
also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone.
Discretion is advised. On the evening of April fourteenth, twenty ten,
(01:41):
Robert Carey was found on the floor of his jail
cell with a shoelace wrapped around his neck. He had
been incarcerated on charges for an illegal prescription drug operation.
But there's so much more to the story. According to
a twenty ten article in the Philadelphia Daily News, Robert
Carey was also linked to the the disappearance of Danielle
Imbo and Richard Petrone. In fact, there are three sentences
(02:05):
buried toward the bottom of that article that I want
you to hear. When Danielle Imbo and Richard Petrone vanished
from South Street in February two thousand and five, rumors
circulated that Carrie was the hitman who made them disappear.
A source familiar with the area in which Carrie ran
part of the drug operation, so that the Street Talk
(02:25):
had implicated Carrie in the couple's disappearance. A law enforcement
source said authorities eyed Carrie but never declared him a suspect.
I asked FBI agent Fido Rosselli if he was aware
of that article.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, you know, I will comment any further, but the
article is very interesting.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
That article pretty much said Robert Carey did it, but
law enforcement never charged him and never publicly named him
a suspect. Of course, there's also the fact that he's dead,
So I'm interested to hear how the FBI first identified
him as a person of interest.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
If you have a case that's a clean murder, one
of the first things you start looking at is who
has the motive, and then you try and find some
connections to individuals that were built for that kind of activity,
and then you would build the murder of a higher
case that way. Through the investigation, a lot of names
came up. One of them was Robert Carrey. He was
(03:29):
subject of a pill distribution ring and was the head
of the snake of that investigation.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
According to a twenty ten Courier Post article, Robert Carey
headed a scheme to obtain and sell opioids like oxycon
and percocet. Between two thousand and eight and twenty ten alone,
Carrie obtained over one hundred and forty thousand pills using
counterfeit prescription pads. The FEDS learned these pads contained the
names of real doctors, but had a phone number manned
(03:59):
by Carrie's people. They posed as employees of those doctors,
so whenever the pharmacy's called to verify those prescriptions, they
wound up talking with Robert Carey's associates. So how did
a guy who was arrested for selling oxycon and percocet,
get tied up in the investigation of Danielle and.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Richard starting in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
His name comes up as being associated somehow in this
couple's disappearance.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Vito said, the Drug task Force within the Pennsylvania Attorney
General's Office passed along that tip.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
They brought forward to me details that involved my investigation,
and that's where Robert Carry's name really came up, and
that's where I really started focusing on him. So I
started digging into him, and he was a bad dude
on paper.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I clearly never.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Met the guy, but I certainly talked to a whole
bunch of folks that knew him.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
His reputation was scary.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
He was a tough kid, smart, street smart individual, had
a lot of people scared.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
We found that out pretty quickly. My team learned that
Robert Carey attended North Catholic, a private all boys high
school in Philadelphia. At its peak, it was the largest
Catholic high school in the world. It's closed now, but
you would never know it because to this day people
wear it's moniker proudly. It's like a brotherhood, a fraternity.
(05:25):
We reached out to a dozen of his classmates, but
no one wanted to talk to us on the record,
and then we found this court record. Said Robert Carey
once bragged to his girlfriend that he had quote tight
friends strictly from fear alone.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
There are a lot of individuals I spoke to that
were personally on the receiving end of some of his violence.
At least one of his arrests dealt with being so
physically violent, where you know, he took masage into his
own hands and put somebody's eye out.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
He put somebody's eye out. According to a twenty ten
pill Aadelphia Daily News article, that man owed Robert Carrey
money twenty four hundred for drugs, and when he didn't
pay up, Carrie began stalking the victim. He eventually found
the man and in January of twenty ten, beat him
up so badly he broke the victim's nose, fractured three
(06:18):
bones in his face, and knocked out his left eye,
Like literally knocked the guy's eye out. In March of
twenty ten, police arrested Robert Carey and charged him with
attempted murder. We didn't just hear these rumors from the FBI.
We've spoken to sources that also confirmed these rumors about
Carrie's reputation, but they were all too afraid to come
(06:40):
on the record except for one, and he asked us
to keep his name anonymous.
Speaker 6 (06:45):
He was a fighter. His main thing was, you know,
to scare anyone else that may owe him money. And
if he had to beat you up, he's going to
do bad damage.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And that's exactly what Robert Carey did.
Speaker 6 (07:01):
This guy oeda money, He waited for him, schnuck into
his work behind him and literally should a guy's eye
fall out of his head when he was beating them
and figured he killed them. Like he literally said, when
his eye fell out of his head, he thought.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
He was dead.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
But here's the thing. That victim survived the beating. And then,
according to the Courier Post, Robert Carey tried to intimidate
a witness to that beating but it all backfired.
Speaker 6 (07:28):
He talked about beating this dude and he bragged how
he went and did it because he wanted people to know,
if you borrow money from me, I want my money,
or you're going to have fear of this type just
stopt happening.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
In April twenty ten, an article ran in the Philadelphia
Daily News that detailed everything from Robert Carey's past, his
alleged prescription pill empire, the beatdown of that victim who
lost his left eye, and how he was rumored to
be the hit man who killed Danielle and Richard. My
team talked with one of the authors of that article.
He told us that after that article came out, several
(08:04):
people from Robert Carey's neighborhood called or wrote him, questioning
his sanity. They warned him that Carrie was a big
man about the block who routinely took care of matters
with his own hands, and they warned the author that
Carrie might come after him once he got out of jail.
FBI agent Vito ROSSELLI.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I'd come across all kinds of folks with all kinds
of reputations, and I'd have him up in the top
five as far as a scary reputation.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
He was, of course of interest.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
But unfortunately they found him dead in his jail Celle
Love in Bucks County Correctional Facility.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Jail officials told the Philadelphia Daily News Robert Kerrey hung
himself with the shoelace, but the investigation into Robert Kerrey's
connection to Danielle and Richard lived on. I asked Philly
TV reporter Dave Schratweiser what he heard.
Speaker 7 (08:54):
There were rumors that before he died, he penned some
type of note in which he talked about Ian Boh
and Petrunk case. There were reports before the note part
of its surface, that he told an inmate in prison
that he was involved in that, or he knew people
who were involved in that. We chased it, and to
(09:16):
my knowledge, neither one of those two things ended up
being true.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I asked FBI agent Vito Rosselli about the note Carrie
was said to leave behind.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
A suicide note was left. That's public knowledge.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Of course, I viewed that suicide note. There was a
lot of interesting statements, as you could imagine, but there
was no direct confession to Danielle Rich's disappearance that I found.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
No direct confession. That answer almost made me wonder if
there was more to the story. But all Vito would
say about the note was that it was five pages long.
Of course, that's left everyone connected to the story wondering
just what exactly did Robert Carey write in those five pages.
(10:06):
Here's Richard Petron's cousin Stacy.
Speaker 8 (10:09):
I do wish I could see that suicide note, and
I think the fact that we don't know what's in
that suicide note says more than.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Anything outside the handful of people who have read the note,
its contents remain a mystery, But Stacy said she knows
enough to have formed her own theory about what happened
to Danielle and Richard.
Speaker 9 (10:33):
When they actually said the words murder for hire, we
were shocked. Once you get into murder for hire, it's personal,
it's someone with a reason. The fact that it was
so professional, that it was so clean, I believe that
Robert Carey was the hit man. This person expected to
(10:57):
only encounter Danielle.
Speaker 8 (10:59):
Danielle was tiny.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
According to the missing Person's fire Danielle was five to
five and weighed one hundred and seventeen pounds.
Speaker 8 (11:07):
That's what he expected to encounter. I mean, he certainly
didn't expect Richard plocking it around two hundred pounds.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
To Stacy's point, Richard was five nine. He played hockey,
and his family said he wasn't someone who could just
easily be taken down.
Speaker 8 (11:25):
This was so professionally done, that it was able to
handle that hicc hop without skipping a beat, and lo
and behold, Robert carry goes and hangs himself.
Speaker 9 (11:36):
That's when it begs the question, what did you do based.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
Upon your life of crime that bothered you so much
that you had to take your own life.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
I thought about what Richard Petron's cousin Stacy said about
how tight lipped the FBI was about their investigation, how
they didn't reveal much to the public except in two
thousand and eight. That's when they held a press conference
and said Danielle and Richard might have been victims of
a murder for higher plot. Two years later, the Philadelphia
Daily News reported that the rumored hitman was Robert Carey.
(12:22):
All of this, of course, is speculation. The FBI has
never said it was definitely murder for hire, but that
didn't stop more speculation about who the intended target was.
My colleague Ben and I talked about this at length.
Speaker 10 (12:38):
I think Stacey said there's like a two percent chance
that Richard was the target and a ninety eight percent
chance that Danielle was the target.
Speaker 11 (12:46):
But a zero percent chance that it was both of
them at the same time is what I heard her
say right where John, I'm not sure he necessarily feels
that way.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Danielle's brother John said something in the last episode about
who he believed the intended target was.
Speaker 12 (13:02):
These two people are creatures of habit, and if either
one of them were a target, they could have very
easily gotten either one of them by themselves. They had
to have been targeted together.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
What John believes runs counter to the FBI's theory.
Speaker 10 (13:19):
If the hit or the target was one person, they're
going to wait until that person is alone because they
don't want witnesses or involve someone else that has nothing
to do with what this is about, right, and expose
themselves to more hassle.
Speaker 11 (13:35):
That to me makes more sense than a planned hit
being carried out against two people when it was supposed
to be one. If there's the outside shot that it
was the two of them, the only way that's a
possibility is that if someone on South Street saw them
together and then put in a phone call right and
(13:58):
called someone or worked a network saying hey, you're never
going to believe this, but they're actually together tonight.
Speaker 10 (14:06):
Alternatively, if it had to be on that specific weekend.
Speaker 11 (14:12):
If February nineteenth was the planned night.
Speaker 10 (14:15):
Then they had no other choice to handle both of them.
Or there's also another scenario where this was kind of
an escalation where the intended outcome was not necessarily to
kill one or the other. It was to send a
message or threaten one of them, and it went.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Out of control.
Speaker 11 (14:38):
I think motive is going to be tied with identifying
who was the target.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Ben is right. I know this is a question we've
asked from the beginning, but as we've learned more, it
has led to more questions than answers. Is it to
kill one of them? Both of them? And now I
keep thinking of this scenario about it being one of intimidation.
Could an attempt to threaten escalate to something so much worse?
(15:12):
These questions we are asking will ultimately lead us to
why why they are gone. Here's FBI agent beat O Vercelli.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Motive for me was always a big challenge in this
and still is a big challenge because there's a couple
of competing motives, but both kind of fit this investigative
theory with how they got rid of the truck. Who
may have done the actual deed. But here we are
twenty years later, Noah wrest Are made.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
A twenty ten article in the Philadelphia Daily News reported
that sources in law enforcement and on the streets named
Robert Kerry as the alleged hit man.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
A lot of names came up. One of them was
Robert Carey. I'm not talking inside baseball. That's kind of
almost common knowledge at this point that his name comes
up as being associated somehow in this couple's disappearance.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
If Robert Carey was the alleged hitman, did he have
a motive or was he simply the hired gun? And
why did he end up dead in his jail cell?
And how jail officials said that he hung himself with
a shoelace. But why It again made me wonder what
was in that note he left. But Vito said that
after Robert Carey's death, something strange started happening.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
After he dies in April of twenty ten, more people
started coming out of the woodwork. I started getting all
kinds of folks, informants, tips coming in about Robert Carey
and associates of Robert Carey repeating rumors or talking about
specific interactions they had with Robert Carey, both on the
(16:52):
good side and a whole hell of a lot on
the bad violence side.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I asked my anonymous source, who claimed to know Robert
Carey if if he had heard any other rumors anything
about his violent side.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
He definitely killed Shannon Fox.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
She was a bartender, Shannon Fox. I had to look
it up. So according to a two thousand and two
Philadelphia Daily News article, Shannon was also known as Shana Simsak.
Early one December morning in two thousand and two, the
thirty one year old bartender was found unconscious at the
bottom of a stairwell in her apartment building. She suffered
(17:28):
significant head injuries. After four days on life support, Shannon died.
Speaker 6 (17:38):
We were actually standing on a corner. I did personally
hear Bobby Carrey say that he did the light bulb
in Shannon's apartment and had a hood on. He talked
about how they would never find DNA because he were
a tight hood and gloves.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I asked my source why Robert Carrey, who was also
known around the neighborhood as Bobby, would do something like
this to Shannon Fox.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
So her boyfriend got arrested for pills, and supposedly the
pills were Bobby cares His goal was to not kill anybody, probably,
but I know he was going to smack the guy
with a stick or whatever he had in his hand.
I don't remember directly, but he said that he waded
(18:32):
up there in the dark. He was telling his story
to a couple other people that was there, like bragging
about it.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Drinking again, here's agent Theodore Rosselli.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
There was other stories about getting retribution, stalking people and
getting retribution for perceived wrong, whether somebody ripped him off
in the drug business or did him dirty in some
way or the other where he perceived he did him dirty.
People that talked to me would tell me stories about
how he would, you know, exact revenge on those specific individuals,
(19:04):
and it was pretty personal. And then kind of understood
that why maybe you know, people are a little reluctant
to bring his name up because he instilled fear in
a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
At the time of his death, Robert Carey was forty
years old and pursuing a law degree in college. Although
he wasn't married, he had a fiance. We reached out
to her but never heard back. We also got in
touch with Robert's mother, although she did not want to
talk to us on the record, she told us he
was my son. I loved him. Why is anyone going
(19:41):
to believe what I have to say. I'm supposed to
say nice things like most people in Philly. Robert Carey's
mother said she was aware of this story about Danielle
and Richard's disappearance, but she said her son had absolutely
nothing to do with it. And we can't ignore the
fact the police have never charged Robert Carey or even
(20:01):
named him a suspect. When Robert Carey was found dead
in jail, he was facing attempted murder and felony identity
theft charges, and according to Vito, those were just the
charges that actually stuck.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
He had a pretty extensive rap sheet and yet no convictions.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
They all basically got dismissed.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
According to court records, between nineteen ninety and twenty ten,
Robert Carey pled guilty to three separate simple assault charges.
He's twice pled guilty to criminal conspiracy. He also pled
guilty to theft, attempted theft, and criminal mischief each time
he received probation. Along with aspiring to be a lawyer,
(20:44):
Robert Kerrey also had other business ventures. Become through public
records and learned he also owned a Philadelphia bar and
grill called Krabbe's.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
What I understood by a number of sources, he had
an illegal gambling wholesome gambling tables up on the second story.
Never really took off from what I gathered.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Crabbe's was open for about five years and closed sometime
around two thousand and six. Now this may be a stretch,
but we learned from one of Danielle's friends that Danielle
had a side hustle. She used to work for a
company as a dealer that hosted private gambling events such
as birthday parties and charity functions, and sporadically picked up
shifts in the months before she disappeared. And then we
(21:27):
found this out back in two thousand and five, Robert
Carey owned a townhouse in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. And
if Mount Laurel sounds familiar to you, that's because it's
the same township where Danielle Embo and her son lived.
Danielle's condo sat roughly five miles away from Robert Carey's townhouse,
so there definitely were opportunities for Danielle to cross path
(21:47):
with Robert Carey.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
But did they I never came across a specific insign or,
time or place, or a witness that was able to
put Danielle to Robert Carrey together.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
There were plenty of possibilities, but no direct connections between
Robert Carey and Danielle or Robert Kerrey and Richard. I
asked TV reporter Dave Schratweiser what he knew about Robert Carey.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
I never even heard of the guy before.
Speaker 7 (22:14):
To be honest with you, he got on my radar
screen because the Attorney General's office held the press conference
at a time when the opioid epidemic was kind of
just starting and the fake prescription scam was everywhere, and
they announced that Robert Carrey was kind of at the
top of the chain in that operation.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And it was a big operation.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
According to a twenty ten article in the Philadelphia Daily News,
that operation was a multimillion dollar scheme, So Robert Carey
had plenty of money, he had power, he was feared.
It begs a number of different questions, like why would
someone who bragged about nearly killing someone with his fists
and traded on his reputation of intimidation and fear decides
(23:00):
to finally get a conscience and kill himself. And to
that end, if he was the rumored hitman, why get
involved in the murder of two strangers, especially if he
had people to handle matters for him. From everything I've
learned about the guy, this was either a personal vendetta
or he did it as a favor for someone else.
Speaker 7 (23:20):
There's all these possibilities here, but there's no connection. There's
no link. There's no thread that leads you to say, yeah,
that's what happened. There's nothing to connect these possibilities thread wise,
evidence wise, link wise that would lead to a conclusion
beyond the reasonable doubt.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
In the last episode, we talked extensively about a guy
named Rob Lefloor, the one who owned a couple strip
clubs and a junkyard called Gianna's. Gianna's has since closed,
but according to FBI agent Fiodo Rosselli, it was the
only Philly junk yard back in two thousand and five
had an industrial crusher.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Common sense, you want to look at how a truck
could have disappeared, and Gianna's was a logical conclusion. Rob Laflor,
being the owner, was obviously somebody that.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
We took a very hard look at.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
So I know it gets a little confusing.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Here.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
There's Rob laflor who owned the Philly Junkyard with an
industrial crusher, and then there's Robert Carey, who was rumored
to be the hitman. And guess what we learned that
the two of them actually knew one another.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I don't want to call them best buddies, but they
were associates, close associates.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Just like Robert Carey, Rob Lafloor was embroiled in some
serious investigations. A twenty eleven Philly Daily News article said
Lafloor's two strip clubs and Junkyard were being investigated by
the FBI in an alleged kickback scheme, and there was more.
Lafloor was also facing third degree murder charges after a
two thousand and nine alter ca in the parking lot
(25:01):
of Laflora's strip club Oasis Gentlemen's Club. One patron was
injured while the other was struck and hit the pavement.
He later died, but just like his associate Robert Carrey,
Rob laflor never made it into the courtroom.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Unfortunately, when I started refocusing on Rob Lafloor and Gianna's
and people associated there, Robert Floor was dead.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
He had died of an overdose.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Rob Laflor died in twenty twelve. He was forty six
years old.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We spent a lot of time going up this path
of Rob Lafloor, and we dug up a bunch of good,
solid leads from that investigation. But I never closed the
door and Robbed Lafloor. Unfortunately he's dead.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
He talked about Robert Carrey and Rob Laflor and how
they were rumored to be connected to Danielle and Richard's disappearance.
Neither of them have been charged in this case or
named a suspect, but they both died Carrie in twenty
ten and Lafloor in twenty twelve. There's also Danielle's estranged husband,
Joe Imbo. Just like the others, Joe has never been
(26:21):
charged or named a suspect. There's also another name attached
to this case who not only is alive, but he's
currently sitting in prison, a man named Anthony Rideski. Here's
Vido Rosselli.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Anthony Rideski. He was somebody that law enforcement was looking
at shortly after the disappearance because he killed two people
around the same time that the couple disappeared. In pretty
gruesome fashion.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Radeski killed two people in the community right next to
where Danielle Embo lived in a township called Maple Shade,
New Jersey. In March of two thousand and five, about
a month after Danielle and Richard vanished, Anthony Rodeski carried
out the first of his two murders. According to a
two thousand and five Courier Post article, Anthony Rodeski was
out on parole at the time and was living in
(27:09):
a halfway house. That's when someone caught his eye. In
a nearby motel parking lot.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
He observed the owner of one of the motels walking
with what he thought was a money bag from his
car to his office, so he decided to go back
and rob that guy, but.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
That robbery went sideways. In court, Rodeski told the judge
that when the owner screamed, he shot him, and instead
of taking off with the money, Radeski only got away
with the motel owner's car. About a week later, Radeski
struck again. This time it happened inside his home. According
to a two thousand and five Courier Post article, Anthony
(27:48):
Radeski had done work for flooring company and invited the
owner of that company to his house under the guise
of a business transaction, but Rodeski really wanted to collect
a debt he felt the victim own him. Radeski wound
up firing seven shots at that man, hitting his head
and chest. And believe it or not, the story gets
even worse. After Radeski's step son heard the gunfire, he
(28:12):
ran into the room. That's when Radeski held a gun
to his steps on and ordered him to stab the victim.
And that's what his stepsn did multiple times. The victim
died a short time later. For the next week, Rideski
used the victim's credit card and checkbook to steal forty
thousand dollars from the victim. Meanwhile, he stashed the victim's
(28:34):
dead body in the basement of their home and left
it there for a week before disposing of it.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
He takes that body and dumps it in the woods
because it started getting a little too ripe, and no
body's found and then that's when things started unraveling for
mister Radeski.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Police later arrested Rideski and his step son. His step
son pled guilty to reckless man slaughter and was sentenced
to six years, while Anthony Radeski pled guilty to two
counts of felony murder. He was sentenced to sixty years
in prison without the chance of parole.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
The Anthony Rideski wasn't is a bad dude, did some
bad things at that time.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Keep in mind, these two murders happened five to six
weeks after Danielle and.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Richard vanished, so of course his name came up, and
of course he was somebody who had to spend a
lot of time investigating.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
The thought was, if Radeski was capable of these two murders,
could he also be responsible for killing Danielle and Richard
Viudis and law enforcement took a good hard look at
Rideski to find that answer.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
You know, I sent dive teams in Central Jersey dug
up farms based on information that was coming from people
close to Anthony Rideski.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
A forensics team spent a good chunk of time going
through Radeski's house.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
We spent a lot of time in the basement, had
him siphon out a septic tank, had to go through
all the sludge looking for o evidence.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
That won me a lot of friends, but all that.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Dirty work didn't uncover any conclusive evidence that Redsky was
involved in the murder of Tanielle and Richard.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
The amount of promising directions and leads that this case
has taken it had a lot of ups and downs
where you thought you're on the right track and then
you've run up against a wall, or you think you're
on the right track and you just can't take it
any further because all your leads are dead, are gone.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Today. Anthony Rideski is in a maximum security present in Illinois.
In the winter of twenty twenty four, our team reached
out to one of his attorneys in hopes of talking
with him, but that conversation went nowhere. In the last episode,
we talked about that meeting with law enforcement that Danielle's
brother John sat in on, the one where they wrote
(30:48):
names on a whiteboard and then talked about motive. We've
spent much of this episode doing the same thing. And
when I look at the names on our whiteboard, two
of them are dead, one is in on an unrelated conviction,
but none of them were ever charged or named suspects
in this case. To me, the most intriguing name is
(31:09):
Robert Carey. The alleged hitman. Here's a guy who had
been running a lucrative prescription pill ring. He had money,
he had a fiance, he was studying to become a lawyer.
Why get involved in killing Danielle and Richard? And conversely,
why did he take his own life in jail. In
the nearly fifteen years since Robert Carrey died, no one
(31:30):
in his circle has talked. And while we spent the
last twenty minutes running through our whiteboard of who could
have been responsible, the victims families and friends have been
living through this for the last twenty years. Here's Philly
TV reporter Dave Schratweiser.
Speaker 7 (31:47):
They were frustrated both sides. They're looking for answers, and
that was, in my mind, always the key for them.
Just tell us something, Just tell us something about what
happened to here.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
As any journalist or member of law enforcement would tell
you, you try to keep emotion out of it, but it
isn't easy.
Speaker 7 (32:06):
I have to tell you, I've never met a Warmer
family who kind of embraced the people who covered the story.
And it wasn't just me, it was reporters from other stations,
and they were affable, kind and cooperative.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Dave said he spent the most time with the Patrons
and formed a bond with Richard's father, Richard Senior.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
He was always very welcoming to me. Lovable guy.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
If you spent five minutes with him in a room,
you like the guy. And Marge kind of the power
behind the throne, you know, the quiet power behind the throne.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
And you know, listen.
Speaker 7 (32:45):
The thing that kind of hurts my heart the most
is I have seen the pain in both of their faces,
in Richard's daughter's face, reliving it, trying to figure it out.
And it's the mystery of it. It's the no answers
part of it that you kind of grabs you and
kind of throttles you. You're like, who would want the
car and this couple to disappear without a trace. Those
(33:09):
are nightmares kind of thoughts to live with every day.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
When we talked with Marge, she said her husband became
a different person after their son disappeared.
Speaker 13 (33:19):
With no words scene. He's not all there some days.
You know, my welf killed him too.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Marge said her husband has been riddled with guilt that
he should have done more to protect Richard.
Speaker 13 (33:33):
He said, I didn't protect my son. I'm his father.
I should have protected him. Hell, we didn't know that
he was going on a date and never coming back.
I had no idea, I said, how would we know
that he was thirty five years old? We're going to
follow him like no.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Up until now, you haven't heard from Richard Senior. He's
been in and out of the hospital and not well
enough for us to interview him. But recently he was
back home and Ben was fortunate to meet with him.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
Richard's disappearance that put a period in my life. There's
everything that happened before and everything that happened since.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
They spent a couple hours talking about everything from Danielle.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
She was the closest.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Thing my son would ever get to, the perfect match.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
To what he thinks happened to his son.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
I think the evidence speaks for itself.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
We also learned about how difficult it was when the
investigators turned the tables.
Speaker 13 (34:41):
He had to take a live detector test. You know
what that did to him one day when they brought
him in to take a hive detector test to say,
you know what happened to your son?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
That's next time on there and gone. If you have
any information about the disappearance of Danielle Imbo and Richard Patrone.
Please call the Citizens Crime Commission tip line at two
one five five four six eight four seven seven, or
contact the Thereon Gone team at thearngonepod at gmail dot com.
(35:18):
That's Therein Gone Pod at gmail dot com. We're grateful
for your support. One way to show support is by
subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget
to rate and review Therein Gone. Five star reviews go
a long way. A big thank you to all of
our listeners. Thearon Gon is a production of Glass Podcasts,
a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
(35:42):
The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Ben Fetnerman.
It's hosted and written by me Andrea Gunning, with additional
reporting and writing by Ben Fetterman. The series is also
written and produced by Todd Gans. Our associate producer is
Kristin Melcurie. Research by Mason Klinder, Anna Hamilton, and Bella Ricky.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio
(36:05):
editing and mixing by Matt Alvecchio. Additional editing support from
Nico Aruka and Tanner Robbins. There Gunn's theme and original
compositions were composed by Oliver Bains and Darry mcaulay of
Neiser Music Library, provided by Mybe Music and a special
thanks to both the Patron and a Tobray families. Your
(36:25):
strength and willingness to share your stories have been invaluable
through the making of this podcast. Thank you for allowing
us to honor the memories of your loved ones and
to help keep their stories alive. For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
In our investigation of Danielle Richard's disappearance, a lot of
names came up. One of them was Robert carry You know,
people are a little reluctant to bring his name up
because he instilled fear in a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
His reputation was scary.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I've been doing the violent crime and gang thing pretty
much for the twenty years I was on the street. Yeah,
I'd come across all kinds of folks with all kinds
of reputations, and I'd have him up in the top
five as far as a scary reputation.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm Andre Gunning and this is there and Gone South Street,
Episode seven, Head of the Snakes, I say in my
dream reached out on the talk.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
For you filast to me, I'll never give up, no
matter how.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
I open my eyes.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
Defineca.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Just a note, the views and opinions expressed in this
podcast are solely those of the individual's participating. This podcast
also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone.
Discretion is advised. On the evening of April fourteenth, twenty ten,
(01:41):
Robert Carey was found on the floor of his jail
cell with a shoelace wrapped around his neck. He had
been incarcerated on charges for an illegal prescription drug operation.
But there's so much more to the story. According to
a twenty ten article in the Philadelphia Daily News, Robert
Carey was also linked to the the disappearance of Danielle
Imbo and Richard Petrone. In fact, there are three sentences
(02:05):
buried toward the bottom of that article that I want
you to hear. When Danielle Imbo and Richard Petrone vanished
from South Street in February two thousand and five, rumors
circulated that Carrie was the hitman who made them disappear.
A source familiar with the area in which Carrie ran
part of the drug operation, so that the Street Talk
(02:25):
had implicated Carrie in the couple's disappearance. A law enforcement
source said authorities eyed Carrie but never declared him a suspect.
I asked FBI agent Fido Rosselli if he was aware
of that article.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, you know, I will comment any further, but the
article is very interesting.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
That article pretty much said Robert Carey did it, but
law enforcement never charged him and never publicly named him
a suspect. Of course, there's also the fact that he's dead,
So I'm interested to hear how the FBI first identified
him as a person of interest.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
If you have a case that's a clean murder, one
of the first things you start looking at is who
has the motive, and then you try and find some
connections to individuals that were built for that kind of activity,
and then you would build the murder of a higher
case that way. Through the investigation, a lot of names
came up. One of them was Robert Carrey. He was
(03:29):
subject of a pill distribution ring and was the head
of the snake of that investigation.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
According to a twenty ten Courier Post article, Robert Carey
headed a scheme to obtain and sell opioids like oxycon
and percocet. Between two thousand and eight and twenty ten alone,
Carrie obtained over one hundred and forty thousand pills using
counterfeit prescription pads. The FEDS learned these pads contained the
names of real doctors, but had a phone number manned
(03:59):
by Carrie's people. They posed as employees of those doctors,
so whenever the pharmacy's called to verify those prescriptions, they
wound up talking with Robert Carey's associates. So how did
a guy who was arrested for selling oxycon and percocet,
get tied up in the investigation of Danielle and.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Richard starting in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
His name comes up as being associated somehow in this
couple's disappearance.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Vito said, the Drug task Force within the Pennsylvania Attorney
General's Office passed along that tip.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
They brought forward to me details that involved my investigation,
and that's where Robert Carry's name really came up, and
that's where I really started focusing on him. So I
started digging into him, and he was a bad dude
on paper.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I clearly never.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Met the guy, but I certainly talked to a whole
bunch of folks that knew him.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
His reputation was scary.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
He was a tough kid, smart, street smart individual, had
a lot of people scared.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
We found that out pretty quickly. My team learned that
Robert Carey attended North Catholic, a private all boys high
school in Philadelphia. At its peak, it was the largest
Catholic high school in the world. It's closed now, but
you would never know it because to this day people
wear it's moniker proudly. It's like a brotherhood, a fraternity.
(05:25):
We reached out to a dozen of his classmates, but
no one wanted to talk to us on the record,
and then we found this court record. Said Robert Carey
once bragged to his girlfriend that he had quote tight
friends strictly from fear alone.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
There are a lot of individuals I spoke to that
were personally on the receiving end of some of his violence.
At least one of his arrests dealt with being so
physically violent, where you know, he took masage into his
own hands and put somebody's eye out.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
He put somebody's eye out. According to a twenty ten
pill Aadelphia Daily News article, that man owed Robert Carrey
money twenty four hundred for drugs, and when he didn't
pay up, Carrie began stalking the victim. He eventually found
the man and in January of twenty ten, beat him
up so badly he broke the victim's nose, fractured three
(06:18):
bones in his face, and knocked out his left eye,
Like literally knocked the guy's eye out. In March of
twenty ten, police arrested Robert Carey and charged him with
attempted murder. We didn't just hear these rumors from the FBI.
We've spoken to sources that also confirmed these rumors about
Carrie's reputation, but they were all too afraid to come
(06:40):
on the record except for one, and he asked us
to keep his name anonymous.
Speaker 6 (06:45):
He was a fighter. His main thing was, you know,
to scare anyone else that may owe him money. And
if he had to beat you up, he's going to
do bad damage.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
And that's exactly what Robert Carey did.
Speaker 6 (07:01):
This guy oeda money, He waited for him, schnuck into
his work behind him and literally should a guy's eye
fall out of his head when he was beating them
and figured he killed them. Like he literally said, when
his eye fell out of his head, he thought.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
He was dead.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
But here's the thing. That victim survived the beating. And then,
according to the Courier Post, Robert Carey tried to intimidate
a witness to that beating but it all backfired.
Speaker 6 (07:28):
He talked about beating this dude and he bragged how
he went and did it because he wanted people to know,
if you borrow money from me, I want my money,
or you're going to have fear of this type just
stopt happening.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
In April twenty ten, an article ran in the Philadelphia
Daily News that detailed everything from Robert Carey's past, his
alleged prescription pill empire, the beatdown of that victim who
lost his left eye, and how he was rumored to
be the hit man who killed Danielle and Richard. My
team talked with one of the authors of that article.
He told us that after that article came out, several
(08:04):
people from Robert Carey's neighborhood called or wrote him, questioning
his sanity. They warned him that Carrie was a big
man about the block who routinely took care of matters
with his own hands, and they warned the author that
Carrie might come after him once he got out of jail.
FBI agent Vito ROSSELLI.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
I'd come across all kinds of folks with all kinds
of reputations, and I'd have him up in the top
five as far as a scary reputation.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
He was, of course of interest.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
But unfortunately they found him dead in his jail Celle
Love in Bucks County Correctional Facility.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Jail officials told the Philadelphia Daily News Robert Kerrey hung
himself with the shoelace, but the investigation into Robert Kerrey's
connection to Danielle and Richard lived on. I asked Philly
TV reporter Dave Schratweiser what he heard.
Speaker 7 (08:54):
There were rumors that before he died, he penned some
type of note in which he talked about Ian Boh
and Petrunk case. There were reports before the note part
of its surface, that he told an inmate in prison
that he was involved in that, or he knew people
who were involved in that. We chased it, and to
(09:16):
my knowledge, neither one of those two things ended up
being true.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I asked FBI agent Vito Rosselli about the note Carrie
was said to leave behind.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
A suicide note was left. That's public knowledge.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Of course, I viewed that suicide note. There was a
lot of interesting statements, as you could imagine, but there
was no direct confession to Danielle Rich's disappearance that I found.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
No direct confession. That answer almost made me wonder if
there was more to the story. But all Vito would
say about the note was that it was five pages long.
Of course, that's left everyone connected to the story wondering
just what exactly did Robert Carey write in those five pages.
(10:06):
Here's Richard Petron's cousin Stacy.
Speaker 8 (10:09):
I do wish I could see that suicide note, and
I think the fact that we don't know what's in
that suicide note says more than.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Anything outside the handful of people who have read the note,
its contents remain a mystery, But Stacy said she knows
enough to have formed her own theory about what happened
to Danielle and Richard.
Speaker 9 (10:33):
When they actually said the words murder for hire, we
were shocked. Once you get into murder for hire, it's personal,
it's someone with a reason. The fact that it was
so professional, that it was so clean, I believe that
Robert Carey was the hit man. This person expected to
(10:57):
only encounter Danielle.
Speaker 8 (10:59):
Danielle was tiny.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
According to the missing Person's fire Danielle was five to
five and weighed one hundred and seventeen pounds.
Speaker 8 (11:07):
That's what he expected to encounter. I mean, he certainly
didn't expect Richard plocking it around two hundred pounds.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
To Stacy's point, Richard was five nine. He played hockey,
and his family said he wasn't someone who could just
easily be taken down.
Speaker 8 (11:25):
This was so professionally done, that it was able to
handle that hicc hop without skipping a beat, and lo
and behold, Robert carry goes and hangs himself.
Speaker 9 (11:36):
That's when it begs the question, what did you do based.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
Upon your life of crime that bothered you so much
that you had to take your own life.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
I thought about what Richard Petron's cousin Stacy said about
how tight lipped the FBI was about their investigation, how
they didn't reveal much to the public except in two
thousand and eight. That's when they held a press conference
and said Danielle and Richard might have been victims of
a murder for higher plot. Two years later, the Philadelphia
Daily News reported that the rumored hitman was Robert Carey.
(12:22):
All of this, of course, is speculation. The FBI has
never said it was definitely murder for hire, but that
didn't stop more speculation about who the intended target was.
My colleague Ben and I talked about this at length.
Speaker 10 (12:38):
I think Stacey said there's like a two percent chance
that Richard was the target and a ninety eight percent
chance that Danielle was the target.
Speaker 11 (12:46):
But a zero percent chance that it was both of
them at the same time is what I heard her
say right where John, I'm not sure he necessarily feels
that way.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Danielle's brother John said something in the last episode about
who he believed the intended target was.
Speaker 12 (13:02):
These two people are creatures of habit, and if either
one of them were a target, they could have very
easily gotten either one of them by themselves. They had
to have been targeted together.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
What John believes runs counter to the FBI's theory.
Speaker 10 (13:19):
If the hit or the target was one person, they're
going to wait until that person is alone because they
don't want witnesses or involve someone else that has nothing
to do with what this is about, right, and expose
themselves to more hassle.
Speaker 11 (13:35):
That to me makes more sense than a planned hit
being carried out against two people when it was supposed
to be one. If there's the outside shot that it
was the two of them, the only way that's a
possibility is that if someone on South Street saw them
together and then put in a phone call right and
(13:58):
called someone or worked a network saying hey, you're never
going to believe this, but they're actually together tonight.
Speaker 10 (14:06):
Alternatively, if it had to be on that specific weekend.
Speaker 11 (14:12):
If February nineteenth was the planned night.
Speaker 10 (14:15):
Then they had no other choice to handle both of them.
Or there's also another scenario where this was kind of
an escalation where the intended outcome was not necessarily to
kill one or the other. It was to send a
message or threaten one of them, and it went.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Out of control.
Speaker 11 (14:38):
I think motive is going to be tied with identifying
who was the target.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Ben is right. I know this is a question we've
asked from the beginning, but as we've learned more, it
has led to more questions than answers. Is it to
kill one of them? Both of them? And now I
keep thinking of this scenario about it being one of intimidation.
Could an attempt to threaten escalate to something so much worse?
(15:12):
These questions we are asking will ultimately lead us to
why why they are gone. Here's FBI agent beat O Vercelli.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Motive for me was always a big challenge in this
and still is a big challenge because there's a couple
of competing motives, but both kind of fit this investigative
theory with how they got rid of the truck. Who
may have done the actual deed. But here we are
twenty years later, Noah wrest Are made.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
A twenty ten article in the Philadelphia Daily News reported
that sources in law enforcement and on the streets named
Robert Kerry as the alleged hit man.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
A lot of names came up. One of them was
Robert Carey. I'm not talking inside baseball. That's kind of
almost common knowledge at this point that his name comes
up as being associated somehow in this couple's disappearance.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
If Robert Carey was the alleged hitman, did he have
a motive or was he simply the hired gun? And
why did he end up dead in his jail cell?
And how jail officials said that he hung himself with
a shoelace. But why It again made me wonder what
was in that note he left. But Vito said that
after Robert Carey's death, something strange started happening.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
After he dies in April of twenty ten, more people
started coming out of the woodwork. I started getting all
kinds of folks, informants, tips coming in about Robert Carey
and associates of Robert Carey repeating rumors or talking about
specific interactions they had with Robert Carey, both on the
(16:52):
good side and a whole hell of a lot on
the bad violence side.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I asked my anonymous source, who claimed to know Robert
Carey if if he had heard any other rumors anything
about his violent side.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
He definitely killed Shannon Fox.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
She was a bartender, Shannon Fox. I had to look
it up. So according to a two thousand and two
Philadelphia Daily News article, Shannon was also known as Shana Simsak.
Early one December morning in two thousand and two, the
thirty one year old bartender was found unconscious at the
bottom of a stairwell in her apartment building. She suffered
(17:28):
significant head injuries. After four days on life support, Shannon died.
Speaker 6 (17:38):
We were actually standing on a corner. I did personally
hear Bobby Carrey say that he did the light bulb
in Shannon's apartment and had a hood on. He talked
about how they would never find DNA because he were
a tight hood and gloves.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I asked my source why Robert Carrey, who was also
known around the neighborhood as Bobby, would do something like
this to Shannon Fox.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
So her boyfriend got arrested for pills, and supposedly the
pills were Bobby cares His goal was to not kill anybody, probably,
but I know he was going to smack the guy
with a stick or whatever he had in his hand.
I don't remember directly, but he said that he waded
(18:32):
up there in the dark. He was telling his story
to a couple other people that was there, like bragging
about it.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Drinking again, here's agent Theodore Rosselli.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
There was other stories about getting retribution, stalking people and
getting retribution for perceived wrong, whether somebody ripped him off
in the drug business or did him dirty in some
way or the other where he perceived he did him dirty.
People that talked to me would tell me stories about
how he would, you know, exact revenge on those specific individuals,
(19:04):
and it was pretty personal. And then kind of understood
that why maybe you know, people are a little reluctant
to bring his name up because he instilled fear in
a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
At the time of his death, Robert Carey was forty
years old and pursuing a law degree in college. Although
he wasn't married, he had a fiance. We reached out
to her but never heard back. We also got in
touch with Robert's mother, although she did not want to
talk to us on the record, she told us he
was my son. I loved him. Why is anyone going
(19:41):
to believe what I have to say. I'm supposed to
say nice things like most people in Philly. Robert Carey's
mother said she was aware of this story about Danielle
and Richard's disappearance, but she said her son had absolutely
nothing to do with it. And we can't ignore the
fact the police have never charged Robert Carey or even
(20:01):
named him a suspect. When Robert Carey was found dead
in jail, he was facing attempted murder and felony identity
theft charges, and according to Vito, those were just the
charges that actually stuck.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
He had a pretty extensive rap sheet and yet no convictions.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
They all basically got dismissed.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
According to court records, between nineteen ninety and twenty ten,
Robert Carey pled guilty to three separate simple assault charges.
He's twice pled guilty to criminal conspiracy. He also pled
guilty to theft, attempted theft, and criminal mischief each time
he received probation. Along with aspiring to be a lawyer,
(20:44):
Robert Kerrey also had other business ventures. Become through public
records and learned he also owned a Philadelphia bar and
grill called Krabbe's.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
What I understood by a number of sources, he had
an illegal gambling wholesome gambling tables up on the second story.
Never really took off from what I gathered.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Crabbe's was open for about five years and closed sometime
around two thousand and six. Now this may be a stretch,
but we learned from one of Danielle's friends that Danielle
had a side hustle. She used to work for a
company as a dealer that hosted private gambling events such
as birthday parties and charity functions, and sporadically picked up
shifts in the months before she disappeared. And then we
(21:27):
found this out back in two thousand and five, Robert
Carey owned a townhouse in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. And
if Mount Laurel sounds familiar to you, that's because it's
the same township where Danielle Embo and her son lived.
Danielle's condo sat roughly five miles away from Robert Carey's townhouse,
so there definitely were opportunities for Danielle to cross path
(21:47):
with Robert Carey.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
But did they I never came across a specific insign or,
time or place, or a witness that was able to
put Danielle to Robert Carrey together.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
There were plenty of possibilities, but no direct connections between
Robert Carey and Danielle or Robert Kerrey and Richard. I
asked TV reporter Dave Schratweiser what he knew about Robert Carey.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
I never even heard of the guy before.
Speaker 7 (22:14):
To be honest with you, he got on my radar
screen because the Attorney General's office held the press conference
at a time when the opioid epidemic was kind of
just starting and the fake prescription scam was everywhere, and
they announced that Robert Carrey was kind of at the
top of the chain in that operation.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And it was a big operation.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
According to a twenty ten article in the Philadelphia Daily News,
that operation was a multimillion dollar scheme, So Robert Carey
had plenty of money, he had power, he was feared.
It begs a number of different questions, like why would
someone who bragged about nearly killing someone with his fists
and traded on his reputation of intimidation and fear decides
(23:00):
to finally get a conscience and kill himself. And to
that end, if he was the rumored hitman, why get
involved in the murder of two strangers, especially if he
had people to handle matters for him. From everything I've
learned about the guy, this was either a personal vendetta
or he did it as a favor for someone else.
Speaker 7 (23:20):
There's all these possibilities here, but there's no connection. There's
no link. There's no thread that leads you to say, yeah,
that's what happened. There's nothing to connect these possibilities thread wise,
evidence wise, link wise that would lead to a conclusion
beyond the reasonable doubt.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
In the last episode, we talked extensively about a guy
named Rob Lefloor, the one who owned a couple strip
clubs and a junkyard called Gianna's. Gianna's has since closed,
but according to FBI agent Fiodo Rosselli, it was the
only Philly junk yard back in two thousand and five
had an industrial crusher.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Common sense, you want to look at how a truck
could have disappeared, and Gianna's was a logical conclusion. Rob Laflor,
being the owner, was obviously somebody that.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
We took a very hard look at.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
So I know it gets a little confusing.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Here.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
There's Rob laflor who owned the Philly Junkyard with an
industrial crusher, and then there's Robert Carey, who was rumored
to be the hitman. And guess what we learned that
the two of them actually knew one another.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I don't want to call them best buddies, but they
were associates, close associates.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Just like Robert Carey, Rob Lafloor was embroiled in some
serious investigations. A twenty eleven Philly Daily News article said
Lafloor's two strip clubs and Junkyard were being investigated by
the FBI in an alleged kickback scheme, and there was more.
Lafloor was also facing third degree murder charges after a
two thousand and nine alter ca in the parking lot
(25:01):
of Laflora's strip club Oasis Gentlemen's Club. One patron was
injured while the other was struck and hit the pavement.
He later died, but just like his associate Robert Carrey,
Rob laflor never made it into the courtroom.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Unfortunately, when I started refocusing on Rob Lafloor and Gianna's
and people associated there, Robert Floor was dead.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
He had died of an overdose.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Rob Laflor died in twenty twelve. He was forty six
years old.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
We spent a lot of time going up this path
of Rob Lafloor, and we dug up a bunch of good,
solid leads from that investigation. But I never closed the
door and Robbed Lafloor. Unfortunately he's dead.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
He talked about Robert Carrey and Rob Laflor and how
they were rumored to be connected to Danielle and Richard's disappearance.
Neither of them have been charged in this case or
named a suspect, but they both died Carrie in twenty
ten and Lafloor in twenty twelve. There's also Danielle's estranged husband,
Joe Imbo. Just like the others, Joe has never been
(26:21):
charged or named a suspect. There's also another name attached
to this case who not only is alive, but he's
currently sitting in prison, a man named Anthony Rideski. Here's
Vido Rosselli.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Anthony Rideski. He was somebody that law enforcement was looking
at shortly after the disappearance because he killed two people
around the same time that the couple disappeared. In pretty
gruesome fashion.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Radeski killed two people in the community right next to
where Danielle Embo lived in a township called Maple Shade,
New Jersey. In March of two thousand and five, about
a month after Danielle and Richard vanished, Anthony Rodeski carried
out the first of his two murders. According to a
two thousand and five Courier Post article, Anthony Rodeski was
out on parole at the time and was living in
(27:09):
a halfway house. That's when someone caught his eye. In
a nearby motel parking lot.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
He observed the owner of one of the motels walking
with what he thought was a money bag from his
car to his office, so he decided to go back
and rob that guy, but.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
That robbery went sideways. In court, Rodeski told the judge
that when the owner screamed, he shot him, and instead
of taking off with the money, Radeski only got away
with the motel owner's car. About a week later, Radeski
struck again. This time it happened inside his home. According
to a two thousand and five Courier Post article, Anthony
(27:48):
Radeski had done work for flooring company and invited the
owner of that company to his house under the guise
of a business transaction, but Rodeski really wanted to collect
a debt he felt the victim own him. Radeski wound
up firing seven shots at that man, hitting his head
and chest. And believe it or not, the story gets
even worse. After Radeski's step son heard the gunfire, he
(28:12):
ran into the room. That's when Radeski held a gun
to his steps on and ordered him to stab the victim.
And that's what his stepsn did multiple times. The victim
died a short time later. For the next week, Rideski
used the victim's credit card and checkbook to steal forty
thousand dollars from the victim. Meanwhile, he stashed the victim's
(28:34):
dead body in the basement of their home and left
it there for a week before disposing of it.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
He takes that body and dumps it in the woods
because it started getting a little too ripe, and no
body's found and then that's when things started unraveling for
mister Radeski.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Police later arrested Rideski and his step son. His step
son pled guilty to reckless man slaughter and was sentenced
to six years, while Anthony Radeski pled guilty to two
counts of felony murder. He was sentenced to sixty years
in prison without the chance of parole.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
The Anthony Rideski wasn't is a bad dude, did some
bad things at that time.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Keep in mind, these two murders happened five to six
weeks after Danielle and.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Richard vanished, so of course his name came up, and
of course he was somebody who had to spend a
lot of time investigating.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
The thought was, if Radeski was capable of these two murders,
could he also be responsible for killing Danielle and Richard
Viudis and law enforcement took a good hard look at
Rideski to find that answer.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
You know, I sent dive teams in Central Jersey dug
up farms based on information that was coming from people
close to Anthony Rideski.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
A forensics team spent a good chunk of time going
through Radeski's house.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
We spent a lot of time in the basement, had
him siphon out a septic tank, had to go through
all the sludge looking for o evidence.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
That won me a lot of friends, but all that.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Dirty work didn't uncover any conclusive evidence that Redsky was
involved in the murder of Tanielle and Richard.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
The amount of promising directions and leads that this case
has taken it had a lot of ups and downs
where you thought you're on the right track and then
you've run up against a wall, or you think you're
on the right track and you just can't take it
any further because all your leads are dead, are gone.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Today. Anthony Rideski is in a maximum security present in Illinois.
In the winter of twenty twenty four, our team reached
out to one of his attorneys in hopes of talking
with him, but that conversation went nowhere. In the last episode,
we talked about that meeting with law enforcement that Danielle's
brother John sat in on, the one where they wrote
(30:48):
names on a whiteboard and then talked about motive. We've
spent much of this episode doing the same thing. And
when I look at the names on our whiteboard, two
of them are dead, one is in on an unrelated conviction,
but none of them were ever charged or named suspects
in this case. To me, the most intriguing name is
(31:09):
Robert Carey. The alleged hitman. Here's a guy who had
been running a lucrative prescription pill ring. He had money,
he had a fiance, he was studying to become a lawyer.
Why get involved in killing Danielle and Richard? And conversely,
why did he take his own life in jail. In
the nearly fifteen years since Robert Carrey died, no one
(31:30):
in his circle has talked. And while we spent the
last twenty minutes running through our whiteboard of who could
have been responsible, the victims families and friends have been
living through this for the last twenty years. Here's Philly
TV reporter Dave Schratweiser.
Speaker 7 (31:47):
They were frustrated both sides. They're looking for answers, and
that was, in my mind, always the key for them.
Just tell us something, Just tell us something about what
happened to here.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
As any journalist or member of law enforcement would tell
you, you try to keep emotion out of it, but it
isn't easy.
Speaker 7 (32:06):
I have to tell you, I've never met a Warmer
family who kind of embraced the people who covered the story.
And it wasn't just me, it was reporters from other stations,
and they were affable, kind and cooperative.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Dave said he spent the most time with the Patrons
and formed a bond with Richard's father, Richard Senior.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
He was always very welcoming to me. Lovable guy.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
If you spent five minutes with him in a room,
you like the guy. And Marge kind of the power
behind the throne, you know, the quiet power behind the throne.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
And you know, listen.
Speaker 7 (32:45):
The thing that kind of hurts my heart the most
is I have seen the pain in both of their faces,
in Richard's daughter's face, reliving it, trying to figure it out.
And it's the mystery of it. It's the no answers
part of it that you kind of grabs you and
kind of throttles you. You're like, who would want the
car and this couple to disappear without a trace. Those
(33:09):
are nightmares kind of thoughts to live with every day.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
When we talked with Marge, she said her husband became
a different person after their son disappeared.
Speaker 13 (33:19):
With no words scene. He's not all there some days.
You know, my welf killed him too.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Marge said her husband has been riddled with guilt that
he should have done more to protect Richard.
Speaker 13 (33:33):
He said, I didn't protect my son. I'm his father.
I should have protected him. Hell, we didn't know that
he was going on a date and never coming back.
I had no idea, I said, how would we know
that he was thirty five years old? We're going to
follow him like no.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Up until now, you haven't heard from Richard Senior. He's
been in and out of the hospital and not well
enough for us to interview him. But recently he was
back home and Ben was fortunate to meet with him.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
Richard's disappearance that put a period in my life. There's
everything that happened before and everything that happened since.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
They spent a couple hours talking about everything from Danielle.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
She was the closest.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Thing my son would ever get to, the perfect match.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
To what he thinks happened to his son.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
I think the evidence speaks for itself.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
We also learned about how difficult it was when the
investigators turned the tables.
Speaker 13 (34:41):
He had to take a live detector test. You know
what that did to him one day when they brought
him in to take a hive detector test to say,
you know what happened to your son?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
That's next time on there and gone. If you have
any information about the disappearance of Danielle Imbo and Richard Patrone.
Please call the Citizens Crime Commission tip line at two
one five five four six eight four seven seven, or
contact the Thereon Gone team at thearngonepod at gmail dot com.
(35:18):
That's Therein Gone Pod at gmail dot com. We're grateful
for your support. One way to show support is by
subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget
to rate and review Therein Gone. Five star reviews go
a long way. A big thank you to all of
our listeners. Thearon Gon is a production of Glass Podcasts,
a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
(35:42):
The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Ben Fetnerman.
It's hosted and written by me Andrea Gunning, with additional
reporting and writing by Ben Fetterman. The series is also
written and produced by Todd Gans. Our associate producer is
Kristin Melcurie. Research by Mason Klinder, Anna Hamilton, and Bella Ricky.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio
(36:05):
editing and mixing by Matt Alvecchio. Additional editing support from
Nico Aruka and Tanner Robbins. There Gunn's theme and original
compositions were composed by Oliver Bains and Darry mcaulay of
Neiser Music Library, provided by Mybe Music and a special
thanks to both the Patron and a Tobray families. Your
(36:25):
strength and willingness to share your stories have been invaluable
through the making of this podcast. Thank you for allowing
us to honor the memories of your loved ones and
to help keep their stories alive. For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Andrea Gunning
Ben Fetterman
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