← All cases

Thomas Capano

Also known as: Murder of Anne Marie Fahey

Active

1996–1996

Region

Wilmington, Delaware, USA

States

DE, NJ, PA

Kind

Single

Status

Convicted

Victims

1

Anne Marie Fahey, 30, scheduling secretary to Delaware Governor Tom Carper, disappeared after dinner in Philadelphia on June 27, 1996, with Thomas Capano, a prominent Wilmington lawyer and former city attorney with whom she had had an affair. Capano killed her at his home, and the next day he and his brother took her body in a cooler out to sea off the New Jersey coast and dumped it; she has never been found. Arrested in November 1997, Capano claimed at trial that another woman had shot her by accident. A Wilmington jury convicted him of first-degree murder in January 1999, Delaware's first murder conviction without a body or weapon. His death sentence was replaced with life without parole in 2006, and he died in prison in 2011.

Ask the Atlas about this case →

Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

• Anne Marie Fahey, 30 · June 27, 1996

  Scheduling secretary to Delaware Governor Tom Carper.

Timeline of locations

1. June 27, 1996
   Ristorante Panorama, Philadelphia (Other, approximate area)

   Fahey had dinner with Capano at the Philadelphia restaurant; she was not seen alive afterward.

2. June 27, 1996
   Capano's home, Wilmington (Crime scene, approximate area)

   Capano, who was from Wilmington, admitted at trial that Fahey died at his house. Police searched the house extensively but did not arrest him for more than a year.

3. June 28, 1996
   Stone Harbor, New Jersey (Other, approximate area)

   Capano and his brother took a large cooler holding her body to Stone Harbor and sailed about 60 miles out to sea, where they dumped it. A fisherman later found the empty cooler.

4. October 26, 1998
   Delaware Superior Court, Wilmington (Court / trial, approximate area)

   Capano was tried before Judge William Swain Lee. After three days of deliberation, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder; he was sentenced to death, later reduced to life without parole.

5. September 19, 2011
   James T. Vaughn Correctional Center, Smyrna (Prison)

   Capano was serving his life sentence here when he was found dead in his cell at 61.

Watch, listen, read

Sources

• Thomas Capano (Wikipedia)
• Thomas Capano Trial, 1998-99 (Great American Trials, via Encyclopedia.com)
• Notorious convicted killer Thomas Capano found dead in Delaware prison cell (WHYY)
• Prominent Lawyer Faces Death For Killing Mistress (Seattle Times / AP, 1999)

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.