Afterparty in 4C: The Murder of Joey Comunale

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering, how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement, corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil, many feel they are unspeakable. Warning, Unspeakable is intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey y'all, KJ here back with another episode of Unspeakable. How's your week going?

1:02 I'm having a great one. I'm on top of the world. I'm recording this after I actually completed every task I set out to do today, and that makes me one happy mama. Before I jump into this episode, though, I've got a couple shout outs that I want to do. And I'm going to start in Foxworth, Mississippi. And this is where Mr. Trey Stovall is living. What is going on, Trey? I know we did a little chatting online. I don't even think he believed that that was really me, but it was. I know you're in IT. I know that you're going to the Angola Rodeo with some of your people. So that was me. I was talking to you. And I just had a good time getting to know you. Thank you so much for joining the show and supporting me. Obviously, I'm a woman of my word. And if you get on there and you chat with me, I will chat right back with you. So thrilled to have you. And thank you so much. And then I'm going to go to Bonifay, Florida. And this is where Miss Macy Cross is going. What is going on, Macy? How are things over there in Florida? I'm sure hot. hot as hell, right?

1:59 And y'all hopefully are just still enjoying your weather though and having a good time over there. But again, I so appreciate your support of me and of the show. Thank you so much for joining. I'm pretty dang excited to have y'all here. Now, this episode, we are going to have to head over to New York City, the Big Apple, the place. to be if you are into the big life and you like the lights and fashion and spending hella money, am I right? Because it's expensive over there. And New York, I'll have to say, it's a whole world away from what I'm used to down here in the South. But man, what an experience when you first step on the scene. It's always busy and people are everywhere, not a damn tree in sight everywhere.

2:46 unless you're over there in Central Park, I guess, but just so different from what I'm used to in my neck of the woods. The last time I was there, I can tell you, I did see six Broadway shows in six days, which was pretty outstanding and incredible. And I ate my way across the city, had a great time. And that's what we tourists do, right? We just go and we enjoy ourselves. I got even picked out of a crowd to do an interview on a big book that was being promoted. And I thought it was a gimmick until she said, look up. And it was right there in the lights on a big screen there. right there in Times Square. So that was pretty neat. I'll see if I can find the video of it. And I'll post it on Patreon, if you're curious, if I can find it. But I felt famous in a place where I am painfully aware that I'm a nobody. But man, that experience was just And it's no wonder that young folks flock to the city to live it up and to flex on everyone there, especially whenever they're young and they've got it going on and there's the nightlife that's there.

3:49 People look good and they dress, which again, that is not the norm where I'm from. People are not dressed like you see during the day in New York, dressed in the nines and the fashion and all of that. But one young stud who was living his best life, and he had the looks to back it up, especially that charm, was 26-year-old Joey Comunale. Now, some people, I'ma just say this, they get pissy with me when I describe the subjects of each case. But in the words of Gone With the Wind, quite frankly, I just don't give a damn. It's my show, and I wanna tell you about old Joey. He was the proverbial hot guy.

4:29 He was fit and handsome and tan and just straight-up good-looking. Think about the guy on the beach who is casually cool, no effort. but just cool as a fan. The girls like him. He's just got that flair about him. Think about the button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, that high and tight haircut with the gel that keeps every hair in place. Strong jawline. And did I mention handsome? I'm sure you're picking up on what I'm putting down here, but... Looking at this guy, you just knew that he smelled good, too. Cologne, a nice watch. You know, it's just Joey had it going on. And he also surrounded himself with friends who seemed to be of the of the similar lifestyle, the similar taste. caliber, a good looking crowd, both male and female.

5:21 So it kind of gave off that Jersey Shore era fun if you watch that television on TV. And while Joey, if you got to know him, was different. If you first met him, you might say that Joey was kind of quiet at first, but once you got to know him, it was on with personality. And he was also a guy's guy. Beer and sports, yes please. So I've been told this is kind of funny because I think Joey and I might what I got along here because I've been told that I'm a guy's guy by some of my friends. So I guess I'm a I'm a manly woman because I'm a I'm a guy's best friend. And actually, my best friend in the world, when he was getting married, asked me if I would be his best man. I said, dude, I'm not wearing a suit. up on the stage. So I switched over to his wife's side and I was in one of her maid of honors. But that's kind of who Joey was. Let's drink some beer, watch some sports and just have a good time. He had been on the West Hill High School State Championship baseball team, but hockey, that was one of his real passions. He had been playing competitively since he was eight years old.

6:28 His daddy had really turned him on to the sport of hockey. And that was also something that they really bonded over because his dad made a point every single year to take Joey on a big trip to a big sporting event. It was their time, which they both looked forward to. And it was just so much fun, father and son together, just, you know, hooping it up at the games, throwing back some cold ones and just enjoying the battle on the field. So he was also a frat guy. And so wherever he went in that respect, he would fit in just fine. As far as smarts, he also had that going on too. The dude graduated with a degree in business legal studies. He had a goal or lots of goals really for his life. And at 26 years old, I got to tell you, if what I have told you doesn't resonate with you, he had it going on and he was in the prime of And he was lucky, too, because his dad owned a security business, which, of course, he was proud to be a part of. And while it wasn't technically true, everyone jokingly would refer to Joey as the HR director of his dad's business because he would go out and he would recruit his friends and get them jobs with his dad's business and have his buddies hired along with him.

7:46 And so Joey had graduated college. He was now working and he was also eating his way through life because Italian food, great recipes, that was just something that was his jam. He also liked to watch Food Network, which is kind of funny, but nothing would beat his mama's cooking. So he would like to go home pretty much every night and have dinner with his mom and with his dad. That was their family. That was what they did. Close-knit, very loving family. very good people that I'm describing to you. But on November the 12th, 2016, That's when this story is really going to start to unfold. It was a Saturday night. And what do we young people do? Or they young people at this point. I'm in my 40s.

8:30 What do the young people do whenever it's a Saturday night? They go out on the town. They go try to find some love and maybe find some luckiness on the weekend. So Joey was headed out. He was going to a venue that was known as the Gilded Lily. And he had some friends that he was going to meet up with, have some drinks, get wild, and enjoy that night. So Joey... was originally when they got there with one of his good padnas, but they had a little bit of a disagreement throughout the night. And so they decided they were going to split ways the later that it got on in the evenings. So back home that same night in Connecticut, his parents were enjoying an easy evening. They just did their thing. And then the night progressed. They knew that Joey was going out. Whatever. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

9:17 And so the night turned into the morning. So the morning went as usual. Knowing that Joey had been out the night before, his mom didn't call him because she knew that he would be sleeping. She didn't want to wake him up. And so she was texting him. She knew whenever he woke up and he got moving that... He would return the call or answer her messages. So we all know this. If you're drinking and you're staying up late, you're going to be sleeping that off probably the next morning. And Mama wasn't a fool, but she wanted to talk to her baby boy. So she texted and just waited for him to get back with her. But by noon, she was checking her phone because Joey had not called her back. So she goes and she asks his daddy, hey, man, you know, have you heard from Joey? And he was like, no. He said, I called him a few times. He hadn't called me back yet, but he wasn't stressed about it. It just kind of was what it was. But he did start to kind of contemplate. You're right. I hadn't spoken to him. And it was odd, not because anything was wrong, but because he was getting his fantasy football league together or team rather together. And the deadline was closing in and he needed to get his draft complete. Joey always was the one to help him get his team together. And so he's like, man, I really did need to talk to him. But, um, Let me let me call again. That was kind of his thoughts. It was just a gut feeling that maybe he should follow up with Joey again. So Joey's dad's name was Pat. And so he started calling Joey over

10:49 and over and over again for the next 30 to 45 minutes. But even with the chronic call, Joey wasn't picking up the phones. So he's like, okay, well, maybe he stayed the night with his best friend or something. His best friend's name was Max. So Mr. Pat called up Max and was like, hey, is Joey there? I need to talk to him. He's not answering his phone. And to his surprise, Max said, no, Joey's not here. And he didn't stay the night with me either. Why do you think that he's with me? He's like, oh, well, he hasn't been answering the phone. And I thought maybe he was there. But we're all adults here, right? I mean... When you're 26 years old, you go out to a bar, you meet people, and his dad's kind of like, I don't know, maybe he met somebody and he had a sleepover with a woman or something. He might have found some lucky lady and he's enjoying the evening. And now he's still with her. But by late afternoon, there was still no word from Joey. And his parents knew that this was extremely irregular. It was out of character. No matter what the situation was, he would have called his mama and his daddy back. So... It was November the 14th, about 9 a.m., when Mr. Pat made his way into the NYPD at the 17th precinct. He didn't call. He went in to the precinct. Now, fun fact, if you're curious, there are 78 active precincts in New York because you've got a big population. There's going to be a lot of area to cover, so it's going to take a

12:21 lot of cops. Well, Mr. Pat and his brother Joe, they showed up together because they wanted to go in to make the report that Joey was missing. And his concern that he displayed when he was giving this report was palpable. They could tell that this was off and that Joey had now been unaccounted for for 16 months. total hours. Since they usually spoke regularly, this was obviously off and it exceeded that 12 hour mark where you usually hear, oh, come back after they've been missing 12 hours. Well, they were at the 16 hour mark at this point. So the detectives from the jump took the concern seriously.

13:03 One of the detectives that was there was questioning Mr. Pat, while another one jumped on the computer and was searching the databases that they had access to for any possible information that he might could find on Joey. So things like using his date of birth and did he go by any other aliases? He combined Joey's name the way that it should have been put in or maybe accidentally put in backwards or something. He's checking all of these databases. This includes everything from the hospitals to the local jails. But Joey was not on any of these rosters. He also there were no like John Doe's or anything like that, that maybe it was an unnamed person that they didn't have an identity for sitting in a hospital bed. So.

13:50 This meant that Joey wasn't under lock and key or medical advice, but it didn't necessarily mean that something was wrong, but it was very, very odd. So the detectives had Mr. Pat back up and they said, take us through the previous night's events step by step And I don't want you to leave anything out. Back up and tell us everything that you can think of. So as his dad is going through everything that he could remember of the night previous, he got to the point where he was like, oh, oh, that's right. One of Joey's friends called me and he said, hey, I know you're probably going to be looking for Joey, but I have his cell phone. And his dad was like, why would you have his cell phone? He always has it.

14:33 And that friend explained it. We all went to the Gilded Lily nightclub. And whenever we were leaving, he said that Joey was in the company of these three girls. Well, while Joey's talking to these girls, that friend needed to borrow a phone because he needed to call his girlfriend. Joey hands him his phone. And then they're still kind of mingling and the friend is on the phone. Well, whenever they go outside, they got invited to go to an after party with these two other guys. They didn't know them really well, but they were having a good time hanging out or whatever. And so they said, hey, do you want to come to this after party? It sounded like a ton of fun. So they all agreed they wanted to extend the night and head to that party.

15:15 So they hailed a cab. which pulled up to the curb. Well, just as the cab pulled up, that's when Joey's buddy said, hey, man, I still have your phone. I'm on your phone. And Joey said, don't worry about it. I'll get it tomorrow. And he shut the door and he drove off to go to the party. But that was going to be the very last time that anyone had seen or spoken to Joey that had gone out with him or that knew him. So Joey's best friend, Max, at this same time that Mr. Pat is like kind of talking to the cops and saying, oh my God, he's missing. Max is really weirded out that he also could not get in touch with Joey. I mean, it was his best friend.

15:57 Even after this disagreement, they were still boys and it wasn't like they were going to ignore each other like that. They would have just picked right back up and started talking the next day. So curious to see if maybe he could find something online, Max jumped on Facebook, and he went and searched the Gilded Lily page to see if there were any photos that he might could see Joey in that would kind of give some insight to who he was with. Now, the photos would have been there, too. It wasn't just like a maybe, because... They did this as part of their marketing. So they would take pictures of these parties out at night at the club. They would post them and then people would tag themselves. It was a great way to spread the word about the Hoppin' Joint that everybody could go to. And so people could also or would also then go the next day to their site to go see if they could find themselves in any of the pictures. Awesome promoting tool of the venue. Well, as he's scrolling through and he's looking through all of these pictures... he realized that in one photo, he recognized that there was a guy he knew in a photo and there were three other girls that were with him. And so he's like, oh, okay, he's there.

17:06 Maybe he saw Joey that night. And so Max gave that guy a call to say, hey, had you seen Joey that night? Well, the guy was like, yeah, absolutely. I saw Joey. He was with these three girls. Well, he was able to give the names of those girls three girls that were in the photo that were with Joey the night before. One of those girls was named Jenna, and the guy in the photo was able to give Jenna's number to Joey's best friend, Max. So that's when Max decided to shoot her a text and say, hey, look, you were with my friend Joey. Do you have any idea where he is? We can't find him. So Jenna answers right back and says, oh, yeah, I was with Joey.

17:47 We were together. And there was another guy that was with us named Larry. And Joey and Larry walked us out to get an Uber at the end of this after party that we went to. And then we all headed back to New Jersey. But Joey did not come with us. It was just Joey and Larry that walked us out, I guess, for safety reasons to the car, to that Uber when we were leaving. So he's like, all right, well, what is this Larry guy's last name? Maybe I can get in touch with him. And she says his name is Larry Dillion. So when Max got that information, it kind of hit a dead end. That was all he could figure out. And so Max contacted the detectives and he says, look, maybe you want to follow up with this guy, Larry. He was with Joey last from what I can find out. The detectives agree. Absolutely.

18:38 We want to go have a word with this guy, Larry, and see what he knows about Joey's whereabouts. So They call up Larry. Larry answers the phone, and he explains that the after-party invite that they had gotten when they left the Gilded Lily was to some rich kid's place, as he put it, and that was located in the Upper East Side. So the exact location, once they hammered it out, was the Grand Sutton apartment building. So I was curious about this building. I looked it up because I wanted to kind of see what I was working with here. And this place... So this is a lot of money. The average price for an apartment as of two days ago when I was looking this up was around two to two and a half million. If you're in the market and you're looking to scoop one up, you just need about two and a half million to pick it up. So it was a rich kid, as Larry had said. This thing has the amenities of... That are kind of out of the box. So the building has a full-time doorman, concierge, there's this courtyard garden, a gym, they have a live-in super, and then they have this private storage as well. So clearly, this party would have been an invite-only situation. because lots of money, very exclusive.

19:54 That said, Larry then recalled the evening that they did go to this party and he told the police we walked the girls down to get an Uber. But once the girls got into the Uber, he said, I just went back in the building by myself and Joey went about his business because the party was over. So they're like, OK, so we do know that that Jenna and Larry's story is lining up, but we don't know exactly where he went from there. So detectives wanted to talk to Jenna themselves, too. So Jenna was the next person on their list. And so they made contact with her. Now, she was very upfront with everything that she knew. Everything was repeated back to the detectives. And she was able to add a little more information, though, because she said, yes, there was the after party. And she was able to direct them to that same building. And she said that it was apartment 4C. So now they had an even more direct location to go to. But she also said that the host of the party, his name was James. James Rackover, to be specific. So she says the party was fun.

21:02 It was just a normal kind of after party. She said that James was shirtless the whole night when they got there. He never had a shirt on from start to finish. And he told them when they got there, because the girls didn't really know him, that he was a male stripper. And so it became a thing. And he tried to give Jenna a lap dance while they were at the party. And this became kind of a funny type of, you know, hype thing. So everyone at the party was really egging it on and hyping him up. And so there was one person who actually filmed that interaction with their phone because it was just, you know, it was funny. And so there this guy was. He was shirtless. He was tatted up. He had tattoo sleeves down his arms. gold watch. He was fit. And he had on he had on jeans. So Larry pretty much kind of had the same image going on as Joey did these these Jersey Shore looking kind of kind of people.

22:02 So while he's doing that dance, Larry Dillion, the other guy that was there, they kind of start you know, playfully saying who can do better at this at this lap dance. And so they got into this contest of who could give the better lap dance. Both guys are over there giving it their best shot, doing their sexy dances. I don't know, it just wasn't for me. And so it was kind of cringy to watch parts of it. But it was all in good fun, good times. And everybody it was just just, you know, hooping and hollering and having a great time. So Joey was there. But Joey was super chill. According to Jenna, she said that he seemed to be intoxicated, yet he was continuing to drink.

22:43 He was drinking both whiskey and beer. Obviously, he was well enough to walk and talk because he had walked them down to that Uber. whenever they left. And Jenna even added a little bit to the story saying that whenever they drove off in that Uber, she happened to just kind of look back as the car was driving off. And when she did, she watched Larry and Joey give each other a fist bump as the car drove away. So everybody's story was lining up and kind of there was no discrepancy there that gave anybody this red flag. So detectives decided to jump in the car and they went over to the building to check it out. And they actually brought Joey's dad with them. When I tell you, I was very impressed with how quickly they jumped on this.

23:29 They did not put it off, say, okay, we'll take a report and we'll see what we can do. No, like in the moment, they took this very, very seriously. And so they brought Mr. Pat down with them. When they got to that building, it was about 11 a.m., so late morning. And they go up to apartment 4C that Jenna said it would have been, and they knock on the door. Very quickly, the door opens, but it's a cleaning lady that they had a maid. And so they're like, you know, is the homeowner here, Mr. Rackover? She's like, no, it's just me. So they said, do you mind if we take a look around the apartment real quick? And she says, no, come on in. You can look. I'm just cleaning up. And so they go inside. Now, The apartment was not a huge one or anything like that. Now, I do need to probably sidestep here. I would say it's not a huge apartment insofar as what I'm used to as far as property goes where I'm from. In New York terms, it's big. That's why it's $ 2. 5 million and the location is really nice. But it wasn't this massive monstrosity of an apartment. It was tidy. It was well-decorated, blues and tans. Those were kind of the main color scheme of the building. And when they go into James Rackover's room, it was neat. It was orderly. The bed was made. His shoes, you could see, are nice and neatly stacked in their own bins in the closet. But

25:00 most importantly, out of everything that I'm telling you, Joey wasn't there. If he had... you know, been staying there overslept or, I mean, overslept is a bit much, but if he'd just been staying there and continued to party or something, that was thrown out because he just wasn't there. So they thanked the cleaning lady and they decided to go on about their search. So they went ahead and dug in to find the contact information for James Rackover. And so they get in touch with him and he says, I don't actually know this Joey guy. He said, I had an after party. Joey came. He was a guest of another friend of mine, my friend Larry and another friend named Max Gemma and these three girls. He's like, so I did have the after party. He came, but I don't know him well enough to give you any further information about him. Again, he was friends of a friend.

25:56 So the last thing he knew as far as he could give information was that Joey had walked out of the apartment with Larry and the girls, I guess to go walk them down to catch their Uber. But after that, he said, I never saw him again. I just figured he left the party for the evening or whatever because it was wrapping up. All right. Thank you so much for the information. And then the detectives continue trying to find people and talk to them. This included that guy named Max Gemma. So they get in touch with him. Well, Max says that he absolutely was at the party, but he said after, you know, they'd been drinking and all that. So he said, I got extremely tired and I ended up passing out on the couch that night. When I woke up, it was the next day. He said no one was there at the apartment still and the party was over. So he just got up, got his shoes on, and then he left and he went back to his house.

26:52 So with no new information that was adding anything of extreme value to the search for Joey, detectives decided, you know what, we should view any security footage in the building at the Sutton, you know, at the building, and see what do we last see about Joey. And they had Mr. Pat with them, Joey's dad, whenever they go to look for look through this surveillance footage. So as detectives are watching the tapes, they don't have Mr. Pat sitting there with them necessarily. He's kind of sitting off to the side. They're looking at the tapes, but periodically they would call him over and say, look, do you recognize him? Is this your son? Do you know any of these people? And so he would go back and forth, back and forth. And, you know, he's like, no, no, that's not him. That's not him. And then they bring him over for another look. And he goes, oh, yes. Oh, my God. Yes, that's him. That's Joey. That's my son.

27:42 He's right there. And so, yay, right? They're seeing him on camera. So just as everyone had said so far, Joey arrived with that group of friends. He's with those girls. And it was around 4.30 in the morning where they could actually secure a timestamp of Joey coming into the building, looking at body language, because that is something I like to look at. Everybody is chill. They're smiling. They're chatting. They're walking up. And then it's about, I don't know, an hour and a half, maybe two hours later, whenever that group comes back out of the building. So they're looking, detectives are looking, they see Joey, they see Larry, they see the three girls, they're coming, they see them come into the elevator, they go down, and then they see them walk out of the front doors in those early morning hours. Everyone is still dressed too, they're still in their attire from the night before because they've just been partying straight through. The girls catch the cab, Everything is exactly as everybody said. And so the detectives are really focusing in on this video to see what way does Joey go, because that will be the direction that we want to go. Because cameras are everywhere in New York.

28:52 All they would have to do really was go to the next building and the next building, and they could follow Joey from building to building to see where he went. But when Larry turned to head back inside of the building, Joey also turned. turned and came back inside the building with Larry. So this is a red flag. This contradicted what Larry had said happened. So whenever the detectives are talking this through out loud, Mr. Pat is standing there. He becomes extremely emotional. Okay. Now I'm going to tell you, these are like some Italian men, Mr. Pat, Joey, all these guys. And so this is a strong man, but that's his son That's his baby. He didn't care that he's almost 30 years old. And to know that someone had said something contradictory had him almost fallen apart on the ground, because why would someone lie about that? But detectives are like, hold on now, hold on. You know, they were drinking, they were partying. Maybe this isn't a contradiction in so much as a mistake. But call it a dad's tuition or call it just plain old common sense.

30:03 Joey's dad felt in his gut that something had happened to his son right then. Seeing this and recognizing that Mr. Pat was probably right, even though they didn't want to jump to that conclusion, the police made the decision then to say, look, we want you to go ahead and go back to the precinct. You don't need to stay here with us right now. We have things we need to do without you, but we are going to get right back with you as soon as we are done here. And so Mr. Pat did as they asked. He left and he goes back to the precinct. They were going to continue this investigation from this point forward without him because the reality was that this was a huge red flag and the detectives wanted to dig in more, but without alarming Mr. Pat more than they needed to. Now, there's only two options right now of where Joey was at this point. He was either in that building, or he was out of it. Now, I know you're like, well, duh.

30:59 But I mean, it's that simple, guys. But considering he was never seen leaving the building, it was believed that he still had to be inside of it. That's the only option that there was. So this meant that they were going to have to search the entire building. And this is a big building, vertical. It's New York, right? There's lots of floors, lots of areas that somebody could be. So floor by floor, stairwell by stairwell, the detectives descended down through the building until they didn't find a Joey. The next floor, there is no Joey. They make it all the way to the basement. No Joey. The courtyard, it was empty. The parking garage, that was the only place that was left that they hadn't checked. So they go out there and this may blow your mind, but the parking garage was full of cars, right? You didn't expect that, did you? Of course you did. but they see all these cars in the parking garage, but there is no Joey. He's not passed out in the corner or asleep in a car or anything like that. He's just simply not there, guys, but he never left the building.

32:06 He's gotta be somewhere in this building. So on a hunch, just on a hunch, one of the detectives asked the parking attendant if the person who lived in 4C was parked in the parking garage. And sure enough, Without missing a beat, the attendant said, oh yeah, Mr. Rackover, he's in 4C. He's that big black Mercedes SUV parked right over there. And there it was, Mr. Rackover's car parked in that garage. So the detective walks over to it and he's just looking at it. The car was clean in terms of being orderly and all that kind of stuff. But there was something about the car that stood out and it bothered the detective. And it was the fact that there was dust that was settled on the vehicle.

32:55 We're talking about a car that's driven through New York, which there's not a lot of open land there to go through a bunch of dust. And not only that, it was brownish, what was that film that was on the car. So the detective is circling the vehicle and he's looking it over more closely. And that's whenever he noticed some smudging around the trunk and he just didn't like it. Now, I cannot articulate to you, I don't have the words to explain to you why the detective didn't like it. I'm not saying that it was blood dripping down the trunk or anything of that nature. I'm just saying he didn't like it. It didn't sit right with him and he couldn't explain it, but he just didn't like the smudging. It bothered him. So in that moment, based on this gut decision, he told the attendant right then, I'm taking this vehicle into custody. He said, do not let anyone take or move Mr. Rackover's vehicle. And the attendant, of course, said, yes, sir. But then he hesitantly said, but I think I need to tell you something. That car is not owned by James Rackover. That vehicle is driven by him, but it's actually owned by a Jeffrey Rackover, and Mr. Jeffrey Rackover lives in 32B. So when he says this, one of the detectives is kind of like, oh, really?

34:23 So his head kind of looks up. It raised some eyebrows because Jeffrey Rackover was a very readily recognizable name when it was said, okay? You couldn't help But see the name if you were in the Queens area because he had a massive teal billboard with his name splashed across it. There's this beautiful blonde bombshell draped in priceless jewels staring back at you seductively, you know, when you're looking up at this massive billboard. And that's because Jeffrey Rackover was a very rich, very well-known jeweler. and he was a jeweler to the stars. And I'm not just saying that to like beef this up. No, he had clients like Jennifer Lopez. He had sold jewelry to Oprah, even Melania Trump, all of these big, very wealthy people.

35:13 But here's the thing, okay? Detectives, they don't make that kind of money. So while they may know the name of the guy, and that's interesting, That didn't mean shit to them, okay? These detectives aren't rubbing elbows with Jeffrey Rackover or Jennifer Lopez or any of these rich people. So they knew the name, but it didn't mean shit to them. They still had an investigation to do and they didn't care who this person was or their social status when it comes to finding Joey. James Rackover would then be identified as the son of Jeffrey Rackover. James had moved in and started living in that building somewhere around the 2014 time. So after about two years or so, that's whenever Jeff got James his own apartment in the building.

36:05 So they were in the same one, and then he was moved and he got his own. So where did this son come from? Because he hadn't been there this whole time, just since 2014. Well, Jeffrey would explain that he had a relationship with a woman back in the 80s. That relationship didn't last or anything like that, but it had resulted in the birth of his son, James. So while this building was full of these rich, highfalutin people, there was this level of decorum expected in the building. The people that worked there understood this decorum and that these are rich people and were here to serve them and all of that. So whenever James started having his own apartment, it kind of was unbecoming that he started to have all of these parties. These parties were ramping up and it was really getting people's attention because that's just not how things were done. Well, the employees of the building knew about it, but it wasn't their job to question anything. Their job was just to keep their tenants happy and to be at their beck and call.

37:10 So he they knew what I'm getting at is they knew all the deets. OK, but they didn't really say much about it. But they wanted the detectives to know that this was kind of the deal, that this was his long lost son that was living in the building in another apartment. So while they're figuring this out, detectives ask the concierge, look, we'd like to go look at your security tapes. from the night that this guy has gone missing and we need to kind of review him. He says, no problem. And he takes them over there and they start looking through the tapes. Now this is meticulous. There's a lot to it. And I'm not even going to claim that the tapes were that good. They're there.

37:52 You can see what's going on, but it's not like in your face color and all that kind of stuff. So while they're reviewing the tapes, the concierge kind of taps on the, On the detective's shoulder and he looked, the detective looks up and he kind of points over at the entrance and he says, that's James Rackover. He's actually walking in the building right now. And so the detectives kind of look up and they watch him as he walks in the building and he starts to kind of pass by the desk. Now, James saw the detectives. He made eye contact with them whenever he passed by. But he didn't slow down. He didn't inquire or anything like that. He just made a statement out to the universe as he passed by. And that statement was, and this is a direct quote, good luck finding the tape. Now, this was a definite what the hell kind of moment to say the least. Like, who does this guy... think he is, and why would he do that, and what does he even talk about? Like, what is he even talking about? So they look over at him like, excuse me, and this fucker was right there walking past them, you know, chest up, chin out, straight up cocky dude. And so detectives turn and look at each other in shock, really, and quite frankly, irritated at this dude's comment, good luck finding the tapes, almost like taunting them in what is a very serious situation in this moment. But James was

39:26 completely nonchalant. He said it. He walked by. He got in the elevator. He turned around and looked at them smiling as the elevator door shut and the elevator made its way up towards the fourth floor. What an asshole. Am I right? Like, I just have to say that. What a freaking asshole. But that's when the concierge piped up again. And he says, look, he called me last night, like late last night. And the detectives now look over at him and they're like, what? Do tell. What do you mean he called you last night? And he says, well, he asked me, how long do the cameras record for?

40:08 And concierge was curious about this. He asked him, why do you want to know that? Like, what could it, it just was an odd question. Why do you need to know, James? And he told concierge, I had a fight with my girlfriend and he thought that the girlfriend may have stolen something from him in the aftermath. And it was this like whole thing. And there was this big fight. So he was told by concierge that they go for 24 hours. They record for 24 hours. Now, what James must have understood in that moment when he was told that they record for 24 hours was that they then record over themselves every 24 hours. But that was not what concierge meant. He meant that they change the tapes every 24 hours, not record over. So what the hell was Joey talking about when he walked in?

40:59 Was this about that fight with his girlfriend? Or what? Because this prick basically was barking up the wrong tree about the wrong issue, but was too damn cocky to realize what he was saying. That's what seem to be the case here. Oh, so maybe he hit his girlfriend or something. And so he thought they were coming for that. Who knows? But what a dumb move to say that when he doesn't even realize that the investigation is about Joey. But moving on, detectives decide that they want to use canines and try to see if they can pick up a scent, if possible, of Joey from the building. So they call up Mr. Pat, and they say, hey, would you mind getting us any clothing from Joey, something that you know that he would wear, and bring it up to the station. And Mr. Pat did just what he was asked. So a dog's nose, by the way, it has three million receptors. So it gives them this incredible ability to isolate a single person's scent, even if there is a room full of people. They can separate out the smell. The skin cells and the sweat combined make for a great target item. And that is what the dog is going to work off of. So clinging to hope that this would lead detectives to his son, Mr.

42:11 Pat ran to Joey's apartment, grabbed some of the clothing that he was known to wear, and he was very prompt in getting that to the detectives. So they go bring this canine to the building and they wanted to start in that parking garage. So the cool thing about dog handlers, if you don't have any experience with this, I think it's really neat. But the cool thing is that these handlers of these police canines know their dogs. The dogs are all going to work in their own way with their own body language. But basically... The concept is around this J and D, which is known as just noticeable difference. And so it may be the way that the dog moves its tail. It may be the dog's body language in rigidity. But it's things that this handler knows this dog so well and is so trained and practiced with this specific dog that they can pick up and notice when the dog's behavior changes when they pick up a scent, or they're on some type of trail.

43:06 It's kind of like how you know your own pet. You know your own pet's nuances and how they normally behave in a typical setting or when they're under stress. You know those things about your pet. So the handler deployed his dog. And working from the back of the garage towards the front, the dog got to work, sniffing, moving, sniffing and moving. And this dog was having a good day. He was working with intention. And so that's a really, really good sign. So the dog kept moving from vehicle to vehicle. He would smell, move, smell, move. He went from the front of the vehicles, then to the back of the vehicles, the next car front to back. And he is just chugging along until he came upon a black SUV. And when his nose hit the trunk area of that car, his handler knew immediately they were onto something.

43:56 And he's like, come on, man, what you got? What you got? And the dog focused in really, really hard on that trunk before making it clear Joey had been in that trunk. This dog alerted And the thing about the alert is that the dog is not alerting to Joey like just the fact of Joey being there. This dog was trained on decomp. And that is what the dog was saying. Joey has been here, but Joey was dead. And guess what? That black SUV was that exact same one that was owned by Jeffrey Rackover. But in this instance, it would bring about somewhat of an issue because the vehicle was locked and it was parked. So since it's not part of an active vehicle, like an active situation where they were granted access to the vehicle, that meant that they would have to go get a warrant to get inside of the vehicle. And I know right now people who don't work in law enforcement are probably going, what do you mean if they can smell and the dogs hit and there's a dead body in there, open the damn trunk, right? But that's not how this works.

45:05 And if you're ever able to get a warrant, you want to get a warrant so you have all your bases covered. And in this instance, it was better to get the warrant. So if there was any evidence inside, including Joey, then it couldn't be thrown out at a later date. But that would not stop them from investigating in the moment while they were waiting to get that warrant signed. So if the dog hit on the vehicle, then what would the dog do if he was brought to the same floor as the apartment 4C where Joey was last known to be? So investigators brought the dog. They go up the elevator to the fourth floor and they put him to work right whenever the doors open. And again, he went into high gear, sniffing and moving, sniffing and moving. And he was searching for the scent of Joey. Now, the dog makes its own decisions whenever it's doing this. The handler may move him to the floor he wants him on. But from that point, the dog is really going to make his own decisions on the direction that he goes and where he wants to start moving. smelling and the dog immediately took a left down the hallway just like clockwork when the pup made it down the hall he started to scratch on a door jam of one of the apartments when the detectives look up they're looking at the silver plaque mounted on the door and 4c was the door that the dog was alerting on coincidence i think not Paw Patrol, if we want to call him that, the Paw Patrol was on a roll that day. Not only that, but James

46:38 may have actually been watching through his peephole as this was happening because no sooner did the pup start scratching, the door flew open and there was James standing in the doorway madder than a damn hornet. that the police were right there with this dog. Now, how do I know as a podcaster that he was big mad since I wasn't actually there? Well, his statements to the police in that exact moment would indicate that he was big mad because he had greeted the officers with a big old, fuck you, you pigs. Get the hell away from my door. You ain't entering in here. This is my house. Come back with a warrant. So he's continuing, though, to berate the officers, to insult them and call them names. And they're like just standing there with the dog looking at him like, no problem, my guy. We can do that just fine. You need to calm down. Right. So. The dog isn't hitting for no reason. Something has happened in that apartment. The police knew this. And so the canine would prove just an invaluable tool. But he would become just super important again right then whenever they decide to go another route, which would be rather nasty, if I have to have to describe it, because they then decided that they wanted to go dig through the trash from the apartment building. Lots of tenants. Lots of trash, bags and bags of just smelly garbage. And you know that this was just messy. But the canine, when he's brought

48:10 down there, he wasn't a bit worried about this job. He was still ready to go to work and he was on the premises. I mean, hell, the dog loved smelly shit. He's a dog. He licked his own ass for crying out loud. This was great. His tail was wagging. He was built for this. So the detectives are down there. They're digging through these bags, opening them up, and they're sifting through used tampons and old food and plastic takeout containers. And the dog is just happy as punch to be there working right alongside them. And much to the delight of the detectives, the dog then went nuts on one of the bags. He hit on this bag. He had caught a scent of something. And it just might have saved these detectives a whole lot of time and a whole lot of gagging if it held actual evidence. So detectives are trusting this dog. They go over and they rip open the trash bag that he hid on. And the first thing that they pull out is a comforter. Now, when I'm saying a comforter, I'm actually thinking this is more of like a duvet cover for the ladies who may inquire like this was a huge comforter. I don't know, it seemed more like a duvet cover, but even cuter than that was that the name James Rackover was labeled on it. And that is what we in the biz call a clue. Also inside of that bag, there were used paper towels that to the naked eye looked to be soaked in blood. Another bag right next to that bag was also opened and And it contained a pair of pants and clothing that was covered in blood. So

49:44 right now you're like, well, dadgum, Kelly, we're only, you know, an hour into this and you've already solved it. Or they've already solved it. But no, not even close. So when the detectives are looking at this, they're believing that this is Joey's because when they compared with the clothing that they found that's covered in blood with the video surveillance tapes and they looked at what Joey was wearing when he was last seen going into the building, it matched. It's not rocket science, but it's not forensic science either at this point. It's just, you know, a visual. But sealing the question... or of whether or not this was Joey whenever they were visually looking at it, was when they reached down in the bottom and they pulled out a chain. And I mean a chain as in a necklace.

50:30 This chain was something that Joey was known to wear. He was often sporting it in the photos alongside of his dad at those sporting events that they loved to attend together. There was also a red Bank of America credit card in the bag with the name Joseph Communali stamped right there on the front of it, as well as his license. So all of us at this point, as the detectives knew, that this was not going to be a happy ending in this case. So it's really, really late or early, however you want to look at this. The detectives have been working this case straight through. They're tired. It's been a very long investigation, but they were not going to stop at this point. They wanted to know more about these guys that were last seen with Joey, and this included the Max Gemma fella that was asleep on the couch or whatever. So Looking into him, they found that he was also someone that came from a privileged life. His dad, his name was Gordon, and his dad Gordon had been the mayor of Ocean Point, New Jersey in the past. And Max was actually a roommate of Larry Dillion. So that made sense of why they would have all been together. Now, Larry... Looking into him, he too was from an affluent family. This family was known to breed horses. They had this thoroughbred breeding background.

52:00 He was someone who, none of them were actual criminals. If you looked up their criminal records, there was nothing like armed robbery or something like that. But he did have a bar fight or two or three in his criminal history, but nothing that would scream, you know, murderer or anything like that. Now, James Rackover, when they're looking into him, obviously affluent because he's living in this multi-million dollar apartment with his rich dad. But the more research that they were doing, detectives didn't think that he was actually related to Jeff. So James Rackover wasn't even using his real last name. His last name was actually, I would have pronounced it Beaudoin, but different strokes, different folks.

52:52 Some people say Bowdoin. And he was from Florida, not from New York. So they're like, what in the world is going on here? Looking into him, his history was way less than affluent up until the more current years of 2014. And he was definitely not from privileged background when they really started looking into him. He had an extensive criminal record, too. you could look and see mugshots from 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011. And so they're like, who is this guy? And they found that he had just recently done a year and a half in jail on burglary charges back from in Florida. If you looked even further, though, he had additional charges. You But when he made bail on those charges, that's whenever he left Florida and that's whenever he rolled out and he went to New York.

53:51 Whenever he went to New York, that is whenever his name changed. But Jeff was not his biological dad. Jeff had gone once James got there and he petitioned to have James's name legally changed to Rackover. So it just kind of begs the question, Why? Why would a grown man work so hard to have another grown man have the same last name as him? So the connection was made that they had met at a gym in New York. Like I told you, James was fit. He's also got this Jersey Shore look going on. They became friends and started spending a lot of time together. And so from then, that's whenever Jeffrey would start introducing him to people. But the thing about where you live is that that old concierge, remember them? The ones I told you that know all the tea, but they don't spill it. Well, concierge is kind of like, I remember I had a janitor at the old school that I worked at. And that man, the janitors at the schools, they know the dirt. They know the details. Shout out to my old buddy Fish.

55:01 That was the custodian I'm talking about. He always had the up-to-date gossip, but he also had the lowdown on who was doing what and who was doing it with who. He was always listening, always observing, and he had access everywhere. Well, the old concierge, Eduardo, in the building, he was along the same lines. He paid attention. He knew a lot about these people's coming and goings, but he also knew his role and he knew to keep his mouth shut. Okay, but now that this investigation is going on, he had some knowledge that was kind of interesting enough to police because he knew originally that when Jeff brought James into that building, he was introducing James as his friend. He introduced him to the concierge. This is my friend. This is my friend. Well, over time, it morphed into, this is my nephew. And then more time went on and then he started saying, oh, this is my son. So he's noticing that that's weird. Why would you say my friend, my nephew, my son? But he's not going to call him out or anything. I mean, that's not the concierge's circus.

56:09 That's not his monkeys. So the question, though, was what was the truth going on here? Was it his long lost son or was this something totally in another realm? If you looked at them, they didn't resemble one another in looks. Jeff was short. James was tall. So like they didn't even kind of look physically like each other, nor just in height or anything like that. So the concierge decided to remain respectful, but he was upfront that he's like, look, talking to the detectives, he says, look, I'm just telling you how he introduced him, but I'm going to just tell you this. I, you know, I have a father, I'm a son. I know how we interact. And the way that these two men behaved affectionately towards one another, it just didn't come across as a father-son relationship.

56:58 And if it was a father-son relationship, there was something weird about it. Okay? Now, James was so opposite in Jeff in so many ways. And he had... Somewhat now at this point, they were realizing, done this rags to riches transition in just months after leaving Florida and showing up in New York. So if you saw the video of him, there's lots of the security video, you'll watch James and like when he's in the elevator of the building, he's shirtless and he's like flexing and he's checking out his own muscles and looking at his biceps. And he really just gave off this self-absorbed, douchebag vibe, if I'm being completely for real. And really, what it seems like is that he was a kept man being housed and clothed and loved by another man. Okay, that is what the situation looks like to me. And that's what it looked like to the concierge. And that's kind of how the police felt it was also, but it couldn't necessarily be confirmed at that rate. But James, what they found out while this was going on, James had a suspended license at the time that he is seen in security camera driving this vehicle on and off of the property. Now, considering that's illegal, could he be arrested on that charge? Yeah, he can. Now, is it also like the most petty-betty

58:31 thing you've ever heard of, of picking somebody up on a driving with a suspended license charge? Of course, yes, it's petty-betty. But is it legal and necessary in this case to possibly get someone off the street for possibly killing someone? Absolutely. And so they are going to use this to their advantage. The police went and they arrested him. Now, what's really funny about this too is that when he's arrested, it's very interesting that the cameras were there and the media was there during his perp walk. So it was kind of interesting to me. I wonder if maybe they had been tipped off. Who knows? But it was all caught on camera. So as James is being escorted out, out, he's dressed to the nines as he's walked out in these cuffs. He's got his hands behind his back. He's in like a two-piece blue suit. He's got the white crisp shirt underneath, these tan leather shoes. His hair is nicely combed. And he's got this air about him of I'm untouchable. And so when the police start to talk to him, Instantly, he doesn't say a word. Instantly, he lawyers up and he says, I will not say a word to you. And he brick walls the investigators. So if Joey was alive and James had done something to him, he wasn't talking and he wasn't going to give any information that may lead to his whereabouts. So by Tuesday, November the 15th, the search warrants had been signed by a judge and the search of apartment 4C was now well underway. Joey, at this point, was now missing for

1:00:02 a total of about 24 hours. He could still be alive, guys. Everyone could still be alive within the 24-hour mark. It wasn't looking good, but it was a possibility. So CSI comes in and they get meticulous and they get down with the dirty and in the search of the apartment. The home, like I told you, had a maid. And so the apartment was already tidy. But tidy, in terms of what a maid does, is forensically different than clean whenever they're doing the testing. So we all know about luminol. I'm not gonna belabor the point here. Luminol is what you spray and it can make blood fluoresce if blood has been there. So they start spraying it. And whenever they get to the bathroom, it was clean, very nice.

1:00:47 It was small. It's got a glass shower door, this light tan granite countertops, white toilet, gold hardware. Very, very nice. OK, very tidy. But when the lights were turned off and they started spraying that luminol, this small room lit up and the horror of prior violence increased. This room lit up like the 4th of July. This was a lot. There was blood all over the floor. It was all in the shower. It was on the walls. A massive cleanup had taken place in this apartment. But it didn't just stop there because CSI continued into the living room. There was blood on the floor near the sofa. There was like a trail of drops and blood as they moved.

1:01:35 There was also steak knives that were in the kitchen. Now, the steak knives were clean. They were actually in the dishwasher, already had been washed. But that doesn't matter. They still collected those knives, and they wanted to test them and see if maybe forensically they could pick something up. The exterior of the knife was clean, but where the blade went into the wooden shaft of the knife, there was a microscopic slit there, and so blood could have very well seeped down into it. Now, since they found positive reactions for blood in the home, that was... That was a big jump there. But whose blood was it still was up in the air, even though they had an idea of whose it was going to be. So James continued to be tight-lipped from the second that he went into custody. But when Larry was brought in, Larry was brought in to talk some more to the police. His story, it never changed either. It was just his original statements of everything that he had said, had seen, had done, whatever.

1:02:35 But He also wasn't overly talkative with the police. You know, it started becoming very obvious to investigators that, you know, he's talking to us and he's coming across as helpful, but he's also being super, he's holding back. And they knew that he wasn't being overly helpful. And so using that thought process in their mind, They decided to shift gears and rather than just kind of direct question and answer him, they decided that they wanted to really try to appeal to his humanity. And they were like, look, dude, if you know anything, we really need your help. Joey's family is devastated right now. They cannot find their son.

1:03:18 They want their son back. Even if you don't know what happened, maybe you have a heart. Maybe you at least have enough of a heart to tell us where we might could go look for Joey. Give us a direction. Give this family something. the chance at some peace. Give us something, man. And so when they took this different angle of the discussion, it did something in Larry's mind. I don't know exactly what, because he wouldn't say much else after that, except he did give them a location that they may want to go and check out. So the address he gave, detectives like jumped in their cars. It was in the Jersey area where Larry had grown up. And so without hesitation, they get a team, they jump in and they're flying lights and sirens trying to get to this place before anyone can possibly interfere or anything like that if there's a crime scene there. When they arrive, much to kind of their surprise, it wasn't an address of like a back alley or some dingy, sketchy part of town. It was surprisingly a nice area. And the location was of a florist business. They were with the flowers, okay?

1:04:26 So that was odd, but it was the place or the area behind the flower shop that became of interest because it was a large open field, but it also was surrounded by trees and it looked like they parked a lot of like unused vehicles and kind of junk back there in that area. So The team decided they suited up. They put on those white disposable coverall suits, you know, the plastic ones that you sweat when you're wearing them because they didn't want to contaminate the area in any way. They did have tools and they were capable of digging and moving the dirt. So when they're digging, they're being very careful to kind of lift the dirt in this area that they were pointed to. And it all it took eventually was just one scoop of dirt to be lifted up. And that's when a detective saw something that he said to this day reminded him of what you see in Halloween movies. It was just unreal because when that scoop of dirt was lifted, he saw the hand almost in a fist, but he saw a hand of someone sticking straight up out of the dirt.

1:05:37 Just straight up right there, a human hand. And it's like, damn, man. A part of you is really hoping that the information being given was bogus or that it was wrong. Maybe Joey was tied up somewhere. He was still alive being held hostage. But that decomposing hand sticking straight up out of the ground brought any chance of that hope just to a screeching halt. With one more scoop just coming down a little bit further, he then saw Joey's face become visible in the dirt. Then his chest was And then his hips and his legs. And there he was.

1:06:17 They had been led to the body of Joey. Now, as if this discovery wasn't horrible enough, there was another element of abuse that Joey had suffered that was easily visible. And that was the fact that he had been burned. Someone had lit Joey on fire before they buried him. Joey Communale was officially dead, and now the detectives had to carry a sickening feeling in their gut as they loaded up in the car, and they began that drive from where they were to Joey's parents' house. Now, as Joey's parents were at home clinging to hope, thinking maybe they'll bring Joey home, the detectives knew that they were about to completely destroy these people with the news that they were about to to break. That entire car ride was nearly silent between these detectives. Eyes on the road, neither one of them speaking to one another. All of them, or both of them, in their thoughts, thinking through the best way to cushion the worst thing possible to say to someone who can't find their child. The clicking of the car's blinker was the only real noise aside from the periodic whoosh of a car passing by as they traveled from New Jersey to Connecticut with just something they

1:07:48 didn't want to have to say. But the detectives arrived at the home and Mr. Pat heard the car door shut out front of his house. So he jumped up and he looked out the window and seeing the detectives pull up just gave him that feeling of just wanting to vomit. He had hoped, he kept staring, hoping to see Joey get out of the back seat, but no one else exited this vehicle. And the officers began stepping closer to his front door. But they had been talking on the phone this whole time. His entire investigation, the investigators, they would pick up the phone and they would call Mr. Pat.

1:08:29 They were giving updates. So why not just call him now? Why did they drive up his driveway? And while he's thinking all of this, the detectives reached the front door and that knock, boom, boom, boom. It was the beginning of the end for the Communales. Mom Lisa and Dad Pat opened the door and they offered for the officers to step inside, which they did. And the detective said, I need you to go ahead and take a seat so that we can talk to you. And Joey's parents did this. They did what they were told, and it was like they knew. They knew what was about to come out of the detective's mouths, but they were not going to own it until it was said. And so they're sitting on the edge of their seats. They're hanging on every word that is coming out of these detectives' mouths.

1:09:24 And then the news was broken to them. There was just a slight delay to hear it, but then just utter devastation. took over that living room. And the wailing of a mother that is screaming out to God, no, no, please God, no. That is a sound that you can never unhear. And then to see a father hit his knees in physical agony over the fact that his son is dead, that is a hurt that anyone in law enforcement who has to break that news to a family knows. They will tell you you cannot help but feel it.

1:10:08 You have to push your emotions aside, but you're feeling it, especially the fact that these detectives were fathers themselves. The autopsy report, guys. It would be issued shortly thereafter. And when I tell you it would bring no peace, it would bring no solace whatsoever to Joey's family. Because don't we often, all of us, I think, do this. You know, when we think of a loved one or a friend or someone we know that died tragically, we just hope in our guts, we pray to God, I hope it was quick. And I just hope to God they just didn't suffer. We all think that. That's what we want, right? If something horrible has to happen and they have to die, please make it just be painless and quick. But that would in no way be the case that his family would hear. The autopsy report would show that Joey's body was in absolute horrendous condition and when it was received.

1:11:08 I mean, to start, he had been buried and was decomposing for the few days that he was unaccounted for. And that aside, the medical examiner would identify 14 different stab wounds. And there were notations there that some of these were clearly done after death. the medical examiner noting that there was no active bleeding that ever came out of some of these wounds, and so that meant his heart was not beating, and his killer or killers were continuing to stab him even after he took his last breath. He had broken bones. Multiple fractures on the left arm were noted, and the medical examiner had listed that these were consistent with blunt force trauma and signs of a violent struggle. There were additional wounds on the arms and on the legs, all around all of these 14 stab wounds.

1:12:04 And the words bone trauma was written in on this. That's how serious these injuries were to him. There was damage to his chin, kind of like being busted up in the face. His knuckles were busted. And he was burned. He was lit on fire. The report boiled down this. to just straight up inhumane condition for a human being's body to be in at the hands of another person. Inhumane. So police were now certain they knew who killed Joey, but there was one big question that they would have to answer, and they were struggling with this one. How did Did the killer or killers get Joey's body out of the building? How did he ever get out of the building and end up in this grave? Because they go back to the surveillance video and they go through it hours and hours of video scrutinizing. Trying to see at any point in time on any of the video was Joey's body removal ever caught on camera. They're looking at elevator video, lobby video, street video. It was so meticulous, very time consuming. But a huge blow to the investigation would come whenever they couldn't find him on video being carried out of the building. They also went next door

1:13:35 to the next door, the building next door. They had cameras. But in a very unfortunate chain of events, those cameras had been rolling during the days in question, but the video was corrupted. So it's like, you got to be kidding me. But detectives weren't going to give up. They still took the corrupted video. And they sent it off to see if recovery was even possible, if that was an option. Could this possibly be, I don't know if the word's uncorrupted, decorrupted, whatever word you want to look for. And guess what? They hit pay dirt because it was. Thank you right now to the computer and tech gurus of the world out there. Y'all are the real MVPs in this regard, okay? It takes a village to solve a crime. And the recovered video would show a chain of events that made the whole mystery of Joey's disappearance all the way to his burial come together. James Rackover, in this new video that they were able to access, could be seen parking the black Mercedes in front of his apartment building. After this, you can see James Rackover and Larry Dillion enter the building. At one point later on, so some time passes, you see James then exit the building again. So when he comes back out, though, he's pushing the building's empty luggage cart that they have, but he doesn't go to the car. He goes around the side of the building and out of frame walks of

1:15:06 the camera. So the detectives are kind of leaning back like, where the hell is he going? But after some more time passes, he then reappears with the cart. At this point, though, there was a very large duffel bag on the cart and James pushes it to the back of the Mercedes. And then he starts loading this duffel bag into the trunk. It was night, y'all. People and cars are passing by. No one realizing that a dead man was right there, likely inside of this massive duffel bag on the street side being put into the back of a car. But here's the thing. Seeing this happen, it still didn't answer what happened to Joey, but how did they get him outside of the building? They still could not figure this out.

1:15:51 So for the time being, they focused right now on how could Joey have been brought out of this building? What did we miss? So they go through the building again. They're looking. Was there any entrance or exit or something that they possibly had missed? Because from what they understood, there was only one entrance. into the building, one entrance and one main exit. I mean, you watch him walk out with the empty cart. So how did he, how did the body get outside of the building? So detectives go back outside. They're standing there. They're looking around. They're looking at the building. They're scratching their heads at this. But that was until one of the detectives looked up and that brought him to the aha moment. There was a window easily visible from apartment C, 4C, straight above them.

1:16:46 So as wildly unbelievable as it may sound, detectives now realized that the killer had thrown Joey's body out of a fourth floor window. There was tons of blood in the bathroom, indicative of the stabbing and all of that happening inside of the apartment. You know, Joey possibly had been fighting, whatever. But after he died, they had drug him over to the window. Whoever was responsible for this opened it and tossed out his dead body when the coast was clear. And Joey plummeted four floors to the ground in seconds, slamming into the shrubbery below. When he landed, they rushed downstairs, got the cart, and then he casually pushed it outside of the building, but then around the side.

1:17:38 It's my guess that they probably also threw the bag out of the window as well, because James does not come out of the building holding the bag either. Once he turned the corner... James then had access to Joey's body laying on the ground. He stuffed him inside of that bag and then he rolled him onto the cart, pushed the cart to the car, loaded him into the trunk, and then he drove off down the road. The brazenness of what I'm telling you right now is mind-blowing. That is That is beyond what my mind could even comprehend, that you would have the audacity and just the brazenness to throw a dead body out of a fourth floor in the middle of New York. But they did. So when the car takes off, it then goes on its travels and Joey's taken to his primitive burial location. The hole is dug and Joey is dumped inside. That's whenever he was lit on fire, burned before he was buried underground in the dirt. So when police put all of this together, they now knew that they could effect an arrest on Larry DeLeon because he was there. And so he was arrested on May the 10th. Remember, James was already in custody on that suspended license arrest. And now Larry was, too. What spoke volumes to me at this point was that Jeffrey Rackover, the very wealthy and loving quote unquote father or friend or whatever he was supposed to be of his long lost supposed son, he never

1:19:10 bailed James out. Never made contact, never did anything. He left him in jail. So I don't know, guys. That also says, hmm, I guess it really wasn't his son after all, because I feel like you would have bailed your son out. But what about Max Gemma, that third guy that had been there? He had been at the house. He was at the party. But he claimed that he was asleep the whole time on the couch and just awoke and left. Well, that's now not making any sense because Joey was killed in that apartment. Even Larry's statements, though, to police once he was in custody, he said Max had nothing to do with it. Prosecutors were not convinced by this. No way. They felt like he probably had something to do with it. Maybe he wasn't directly the one that did the killing. But he had purposefully not helped to the point that he had hindered their investigation.

1:20:08 And so for that reason, he too was arrested, but on lesser charges. Proving... that he had anything to do with the murder, like physically would have been an uphill battle and a whole lot of effort. And they really wanted to focus on holding the actual murderers accountable that they could get a conviction on. So the case was now made against Larry DeLeon and James Rackover. Well, once the charges... became official, they were filed, and this became real, no longer a driving on a suspended license charge. These wannabe mobsters then all of a sudden started finger pointing at each other like little girls on a playground. And so, Now they're each saying the other one did it. I didn't do it. He did it. I didn't do it.

1:20:51 He did it, right? Real thugs we have here in the building. So overall, if you're curious about how this story was determined to have happened, this is it in one succinct message. Neither guy knew Joey before he had been invited to the party. The party, however, happened. They brought him back with those girls. But this party was being fueled by alcohol and cocaine. They know that the drugs were there. At the end of the party, Joey and Larry walked the girls out of the car and the girls saw, you know, Larry and Joey fist bump as the car drove away. That's when Larry and Joey both went back into the into the building, got in the elevator together and went back up to the apartment. Now.

1:21:39 I'm not sure 100% what went down, but this is what is believed to have happened. A fight broke out at some point, and it's been said that Larry and Joey got into a fight over cigarettes, all right? I'm more inclined to believe this probably was over drugs, but that is my assumption, and I don't know what I'm talking about, and I have nothing to back that up. But a fight broke out, and that is when Larry jumped up and smoked Joey in the face and punching him. All right. So he got the jump on Joey. James then decided that he was going to jump in with Larry and they both together started viciously kicking and beating Joey until he was nearly unconscious. The very guy that they were just fist bumping and riding up in the elevator just, what, in half an hour prior, they are now kicking and beating the shit out of him. James then got spooked, ran into the kitchen and grabbed those knives out of the knife block and goes back. He's like, I'm not going back to jail. Fuck this dude. And that's when both of the guys take knives and start stabbing Joey to death. James is believed to have jumped on and choked Joey. So he's not dead yet. He's choking him, choking him. And then that's whenever they had started in on all the stabbing. So Larry was stabbing from one side and Joey was stabbing from the other.

1:23:06 We know that James is believed to have stabbed Joey in the head as well. And they just kept stabbing until Joey was dead. And this was why he had wounds on both the front and the back of his body in autopsy, why there were so many knives. Once Joey was dead, they drug him to the bathtub. And this was where James tried to dismember Joey. And we know this because he started sawing on Joey's left arm right at the shoulder area. But that proved more difficult than he was ready to do. So since he couldn't cut him up, that's whenever they needed a plan B and they needed it quick. They decided the best way to get him out of the building was to open the window, throw Joey's body out, and then go down there, get him, take him to the secondary location. That's where they brought him. They burned him and then they buried him.

1:23:57 The kicker, I got to tell you this. When the police called Larry originally about the missing Joey, I don't know if you remember that, they called him. And he very casually denied knowing anything about this. He was actually in the car driving from the east side to Jersey when they called him. How do you know that, Kelly? Well, it's because James's easy pass on the car, it tracks you, right? It's got records. And they also have license plate readers in the area. And so they could tell following both of these records that they were traveling to the burial site when the police called and asked him about it.

1:24:38 The two men then returned to the apartment. And they cleaned the scene before the housekeeper came in. Now, further investigation would also uncover that a 911 call had come into the 911 center the very night of Joey's murder. And this caller had stated that he was watching a man dragging something that he looked to be a very suspicious looking bag out of James's apartment building. So in the moment, it probably sounded like a really stupid call of somebody saying, oh, someone's dragging a weird bag out. But now, knowing what we know now, that was very important because that person was watching them drag the evidence out. Now, at this point, DNA has come back from the lab and sure as you're guessing, it's The blood in the apartment that CSI had tested did come back positive for Joey, as did those knives. They did locate DNA inside of that wooden handle like detectives thought they would. And they were able to seal the deal here that both of those guys had murdered him and he was tied now to them. So this case was brutal. really coming together against both of these assholes and it was time to take it to court. But I'm not gonna stop there because to really understand this James Rackover fella, I want you to hear some of his jail calls that he was making from behind bars to his friends, okay? Remember, he is now facing murder charges. Someone's son has been

1:26:10 brutally murdered, set on fire, and buried. And this is the business that he is deciding to handle from behind bars while he is awaiting trial. What's up, you two puppies? Hi. I got good news. It doesn't look like Larry's being a run in his mouth at court or trying to flip on me. You miss your boy? Of course, baby. Of course. I don't know if you've been following this shit, but I start trial September, so I'm looking at being home around October-ish. Sounds good to me. Coming home in time for Halloween. Daddy's ready. Bro, you know my rep's going to be up there, bro. Like, my weight's going to be up when I hit the streets. They're going to be like, yo, this kid just beat this shit. Like, Rocky, and he's home? Oh, my God. Yeah, see? I'm going to get, like, a lot of respect. Like, a lot of people are going to be like, damn, like, he did his thing. He, like, kept his mouth shut and went home. Like, this was a total joke? And he thought that he was just some playboy boss? Can you believe how he is speaking behind bars? To be Joey's parents and to eventually have to hear these calls, it was nothing more than a joke to him. Just a bump in the road. I'll be out in no time.

1:27:21 No remorse. No worry. No care. No nothing. But the joke was about to be on James because all of those friends that he thought so much of, the ones he's calling, hey, you miss your boy? Hey, I'm gonna be out real soon. We'll be back doing the things that we're doing. Well, one of those friends wasn't so impressed with all of this. And his name was Louie. So he was a friend of James. He had met him also at the gym. And he went forward and gave police some information that he had been told by James. He said he was at the gym. It was right after Joey would have been killed. And this was when the building search was happening, okay, by the police. James comes up to him and he says, hey, come here.

1:28:13 I want to tell you something. I've got to tell you something that just happened. And that's whenever he goes and he confides. He then just word vomits it to this guy, Louie, that Larry and Joey had had a fight in his apartment and that Larry punched Joey and knocked him out. And that he then went, he being like himself, he says, me, James, I went and then stabbed him to death. And now they're searching the building. The body is still in my apartment. That's that's just that's just. unbelievable. I mean, I keep saying that, but it's just crazy. And that there, whenever he goes and he gives that information to police, again, now they had it in his own words. He said something, a friend said something that he would not know unless the killer had told him this, that he was the one who had done the stabbing. of Joey. So they both are gonna go on trial. All of the information that they have, they feel like they have a really solid case. James Rackover would go on trial first. He went on trial, it would be two years after Joey's death, a very long waiting time for the family. But it was October 18th, 2018.

1:29:19 When he went on trial, Joey's dad, Mr. Pat, was there every single day of that trial. And he didn't go by himself and he didn't just bring Joey's mama. He brought everybody that he could and they packed that courtroom. They wanted everybody to know. that Joey was loved, that he was missed, and that somebody cared. He was not a joke. He wasn't someone to be thrown out of a fourth-story window, stabbed, choked, and then buried before, you know, set on fire and then buried. That is not who Joey was. It was his son, and he was loved. It didn't take long for that jury to come back, and James Rackover was found guilty of second-degree murder. The sentence handed down was 28 years to life in prison.

1:30:01 Larry's trial was next, but he pled guilty before it could even take place, which was probably a smart move on his part because James Rackover, who thought he was just going to walk out of there, got sunk real fast. He decided to take a plea deal on this one. He did a plea deal for second degree murder, and he too was given over 20 years in prison. He was given 23 years in prison. So in February of 2019, Max Gemma, the prosecutors didn't forget about that guy that didn't want to tell the truth and the whole truth or help out. And so they decided to hold his feet to the fire. In February of 2019, he was brought in on the hindering of the investigation and the prosecution in Joey's murder. And so he was given six months in jail. Now, I know you're like, what? That's it?

1:30:49 That's not a lot. Hey, at least he was held accountable to some extent for being... involved in this case. So in the days and the months and the years that would pass, Joey's friends would pay tribute to their friend that they loved so much by all going and getting tattoos. And they would get the tattoo of the number nine because that was his sports number in college. And this is kind of a funny turn of events. But Mr. Pat had told Joey, when you go to college, I have no problem paying for it. I'll shell out the money, but I have two rules. The first rule is that you better graduate in four years. And the second rule is you cannot go get any tattoos. Don't go tatting up your body. You know, I want you to have a good opportunity, good jobs, and all that kind of stuff. But after the conviction of both of these guys that murdered his son, Mr. Pat decided to go against his own rules when he made the decision that he, too, was going to go get a tattoo.

1:31:46 But I want to tell you, it was not the number nine that he decided to get. It was a full portrait of his precious Joey, his face he got, and he proudly displays that on his upper arm, a pure testament of his son's importance. Because in Mr. Pat's eyes, Joey was just much too valuable to go, you know, marking up his body with this permanent ink. But in this case, Joey was also way too valuable to forget. And so this was a permanent tribute in his body, on his body. And he still to this day says that it was the best decision he ever made. Mr. Pat, I got to go back for a second and tell you this, that he was so happy, so thrilled when he heard that guilty verdict read that he jumped up in celebration in the middle of the courtroom, just unable to hold back the emotion that he felt that this guy was going to be held accountable and for what he did to his son. And in a way, it felt like he had just won a championship. but one where the stakes were much, much higher than just a trophy.

1:32:56 Because this wasn't a game. This was real life, and justice is what hung in the balance. No doubt that what had started slowly two years ago with head down, feet digging in on the turf, and fighting for every inch in this investigation, well, that had shifted over time. Trust in the police and having the patience it takes to stay the course paid off. Inches turned into yards and yards eventually turned into touchdowns. And this, my friends, was Team Communale all the way. This was Team Communale for the win. That annual sports trip that Mr. Pat and Joey looked forward to every single year, well, that's not an option anymore for them to do thanks to James Rackover and to Larry Dillion. But the fact now is that this win, This win that Mr. Pat felt, well, this is one that will remain. And it's not only going to remain, it's going to repeat for the next 28 years to life. And to that I say, call up ESPN. Somebody better get me Kirk Herbstreit because this, my friends, definitely qualifies as the win of a lifetime.