All language subtitles for Who Hired the Hitman S01E02 The Murder of Big Joe

Who set it up?

Telling you the truth about this.

Everybody else is pointing to figure it in.

The idea of a hitman is a long-time trope of the movies.

You've got John Cusack and gross point blank.

You've got the guys from Pulp Fiction, Dressed in Black, The Narrow Ties.

Even more recently, Michael Fassbender is the killer.

This case was more like Fargo.

This was amateur hour.

I felt that this was a story that should be told.

And 25 years later, it's just being told again.

The case had a number of twists and turns.

There was a business card attached to his head.

They create a homemade silencer with an empty soda bottle.

Who does that?

And when you hear what they did it for, what the price was, you scratch your head.

Did she set this up?

Ben Franklin said three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

In this case, three people couldn't keep a secret.

One of those bullets had the victim's name on it.

We were all asking the same questions.

Joe Lewinsky was a close friend of mine.

He was a big brother to me.

Anybody who knew Joe would call him loose.

It would be a deep loose.

He was a fun guy to be around and always cracking jokes, having a good time.

Joe didn't have any children.

He liked partying.

His dad did have a landscape business.

Joe did landscaping also.

But he had other ways to make money.

Buying and selling cars.

Repairing other people's cars.

And in the wintertime, Joe was a snow plower.

The night of December 14th, I came home from work.

I received a phone call at 6.36 or 6.37 p.m.

Joe's dad, Mr. Lewinsky, was on the other side of that line.

He said, Joe didn't show up to do any of his snow plowing.

We don't know where he is.

And we can't get into the shop because it's locked and you only have the key.

Joe's place was mainly a structure of many garages.

That's where he ran the business.

But above, the two that were in the front were a studio apartment.

So I arrived.

I opened the door because I had the key.

And when I entered, I went up the stairs.

Now, these stairs were rather steep, wooden, crickety.

Couldn't walk up them without making noise.

I went upstairs and I saw that he was on the bed.

That was dark.

So I called his name.

Joe, Joe.

Joe, get up.

You awake?

You all right?

Joe.

There was no response.

So I went over and I put my two fingers, my index finger and my middle finger on his back.

And at that point is when I realized something was terribly wrong here.

And he was cold to the touch.

So...

Our people got a call.

The officers took a look at the scene, found Joe Nowinski face down in his bed,

bleeding from the area of his ear and apparently deceased.

When we entered the crime scene, it was in disarray.

They didn't find any sign of force entry.

Clothes strewn about, etc.

The wallet was left open.

It's hard to tell if something is missing because we don't know what's normally at the scene.

So initially, the thought is, well, was there a struggle?

Was there a dispute that went on?

However, the body tells a different story.

Joe was laying in bed, partially undressed and covered by a blanket, suggesting that at the time he was probably asleep.

About midnight was the approximate time of death.

And he was a big guy.

So if, in fact, he had been awakened while the assailants were present,

there would have been a struggle and there would have been a fight.

And the scene would have been much different.

So what we took away was that he was basically executed while he was sleeping.

We could see there was some copper bullet fragments present on and near the body.

And there were little bits of paper surrounding his head.

One curiosity reported to the scene was the presence of a business card on the side of Joe's head.

The card was kind of a mystery.

The name of their company was Payne Realty.

Now, spelled differently than Payne, P-A-I-N, but the significance of the word Payne may be connected in some way.

Maybe the suspect left it as an indication that, yeah, I'm going to deliver some Payne.

The murder of Joe Nowinski was a rarity and not something we see often, especially in West Hartford.

West Hartford is a suburb of the city of Hartford.

It's a pretty safe town.

We'd get a murder maybe every other year.

It was a whodunit to start with.

So the officers walked into the victim's friends, relatives, and associates because they didn't shed any light on the incident.

I met Joe like 56 years ago.

He was 14, I was 10.

You know, we're riding bikes, playing basketball.

We're always at one another's house.

As we got a little older, probably around 12, 13 years old, we dated for pretty much six years, on and off, and then we got married a year after high school.

I was 19.

Joey was, what, 22, 23 when we got married?

That's our wedding photo.

So he was just really caring and made me feel, you know, that he was just the one that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life.

And we talked about having a family and having kids and things like that.

It just got to the point later on, I guess we kind of just, like, grew apart.

We were divorced.

We were married pretty much probably about almost three years, three and a half years.

I, to this day, believed that he loved me and he still, but we were just better friends than we were as husband and wife.

Joe never remarried or had children, but he loved his family.

Uncle Joey was a big kid.

He just liked to have fun.

He had to be the center of attention, like the biggest personality in the room.

And he just, he didn't grow up.

And even, like, I was looking at some pictures, and it's the five siblings, and it's a picture of them all as little kids.

And he's standing behind them, like, making a pose.

And that's so him, even as a kid.

Joe is my uncle.

He was definitely the fun uncle.

He was the guy with the loud car, boats, motorcycles.

One of the things I think about the most when I think about him is my grandmother yelling at him for driving too fast,

because you can usually hear him coming up the street.

When we were crazy kids growing up, his true passion was cars had to have a high-performance motor,

had to have the loud exhaust.

My brother Steve owned a car that he used to drag race.

And we did a lot of things.

A lot of boating, a lot of amusement parks, a lot of racing, a lot of demolition derbies.

He's, that's one.

And he used to go blue fishing.

Oh, my God.

You know how you know Joe was on the boat?

Big blue, yeah, big blue.

He'd be yelling, oh, my God, he'd clear the boat out, right?

Just so you could get his side of the boat.

Yeah.

Big mouth.

Big, big, big, large mouth.

He had to be noticed.

And he was.

I think Uncle Joey lived his life to the fullest.

Every time I think Uncle Joey, if I just remember back to when I was little, it's always fun things that I remember.

I just remember happiness and love.

And that's all I want him to be remembered.

It breaks my heart that he's, most people only know him as a murder victim.

When they said they found Joe, that he was dead, they said he was shot.

I didn't want to know.

Because I didn't want to remember him that last time I saw him.

I wanted to remember how I knew him before.

Not seeing him with a bullet in his head and laying in his bed.

I didn't want that.

I want to remember him like you see him in there with that smile, this gold chain.

He's loved.

He's still loved.

After his murder, there was lots of questions, you know, why.

I didn't know if there was somebody trying to get revenge on him.

Were they going to try to hurt someone else in the family?

A lot of us all went into hiding at that point.

We kind of stayed home and my mother said, Raymond, watch your back because you have no idea who or what or when it might be coming for you or anybody else.

The investigators really were at a loss for what this might have been.

They obviously go speak to various people to try to find out if there was any ongoing beefs or anything like that.

They also now look into the business card from Payne Real Estate and, you know, whether that had any role.

We did connect with the owner of the company and he had stated that Joe and Penn wanted to buy some property.

And it didn't work out, but he took his business card and he had nothing to do with it.

You know, everything's a building block in an investigation.

You start from the body, work your way out, and try to figure out what has meaning in a crime scene and what doesn't.

There was not any forced entry in this situation.

And, you know, it appears Mr. Nowinski knew his attacker.

Investigators learned that Joe, the deceased, had a girlfriend.

And Rosemary Cusano.

She was 30s, tall, long, flowing hair, sexy looking.

You see, wear a lot of lipstick, real deep red lipstick all the time.

Hey, kiss that broad, you're going to be red all over.

I know Joe was very much in love with her.

How could he not?

She was a very good looking woman.

From what I know, from what I've seen of Rose with Joe, being how long they were together,

for me it wasn't long.

Because Joe just brought her on.

I'd say, if anything, a couple of months, maybe a couple of months,

we would meet her at parties.

My wife would talk to her, play sports, we'd eat, we'd drink, we'd have fun.

I know she was very, like, flirtatious with his friends and stuff.

One day, my aunt was standing behind Rosemary and one of my uncle's friends.

And I guess she made a very sexual comment to his friend.

So I think that thought process with some of my family was that she was like that.

Um, to two men.

We all understood how she was.

She liked to flirt with the guys and stuff like that.

Hitting on guys, like, um, hugging them, putting her arm around, you know, talking with them.

Not meaning anything, just to tease Joe.

He was a little bit jealous like that, you know?

When an investigator hears that someone is talking about maybe a loved one,

but not in a very positive way,

that's a person that I want to talk with.

We actually contacted his girlfriend, Rosemary.

She was very forthcoming with information, but she didn't seem upset.

Rosemary gave us a background on their relationship.

It was complicated.

Their relationship was pretty hot and cold.

I think they were both very emotional people.

And she, you know, shared that he could be verbally abusive at times

and sometimes physically abusive.

Yeah, I think I do recall hearing that.

Joe would sometimes get loud with her for various reasons.

There was a time where I was at the shop working

and they were clearly in a shouting match.

It clearly elevated.

She was hands-on all over him.

You know, of course, he, you know, puts his hands up

and tries to get away and, you know, hold her back a little bit.

And I stepped in between them and I said,

no, this has got to stop her.

Joe, this has got to stop her. I'm leaving.

I don't know what it was pertaining to,

but it was a time that I was very uncomfortable

and they knew it.

It slowed down at that point.

They did stop the bickering

and we'll leave it at that.

This piques our interest.

We want to try to confirm.

And there was another friend of the victim

telling us that Joe treated Rosemary very bad.

This was Mark Pascual.

He had a small engine repair shop.

He worked on boats, boat motors,

and jet skis and snowmobiles.

I don't think particularly prosperous.

He lived in his parents' house in the basement.

Mark Pascual was someone Joe met up at the lake.

Joe was having trouble with his boat.

Went over to the marina to see if they could see

what was wrong with it, and that's where he met Mark.

Joe had a boat, and Mark had a marine repair shop.

So the friendship was probably more convenient

for Joe to get some free work done on his boat.

He was, he's a weird-looking guy.

He's a pretty short man.

His hair's really, really curly,

kind of all over the place.

He's not the most attractive being.

Mark, I call him crazy eyes, huh?

He did have one wandering eye.

Joe, I said, Joe, man, this guy ain't for you, man.

What are you hanging with him for?

Well, you got the marina.

Get my boat fixed for nothing, Steve.

Take care of me.

I said, I don't know, Joe.

I don't know, Joe.

This guy ain't too slick.

We were talking to him,

and Mark admitted that he knew Rosemary and Joe.

Mark said he said he treated her violently,

and perhaps there was some fear of that.

We delved a little further with Rosemary about Joe.

It turns out Rosemary was the last person

to actually have eyes on, see him alive.

This case, Rosemary told us earlier that day.

She had stopped to see him.

She went upstairs, and his door was open.

Our apartment was in disarray.

He was lying in the bed, and she surprised him,

and he's like, what the hell are you doing here?

And she goes, the door was open.

I was calling you.

The door is open.

And he said something like, well, that's not like me.

And I think she saw a joint in the ashtray or something.

And he became very irate.

He yelled and screamed at her, told her to get the hell out,

pushed her against the wall.

She left.

And then they spoke a little bit later,

and they went to dinner together,

like nothing ever happened.

Rosemary, she had kids, and she told us

he had all kinds of presents wrapped up

for all the kids that night.

Joe gave them early Christmas presents.

And as they leave, the last thing Joe says to her

is something to the effect of, have a nice life.

I think he realized that he and Rosemary

had come to the end.

He gave those presents to the boys

two weeks before Christmas.

Maybe Joe had decided that he was done with Rosemary,

Was there some motive here?

It wouldn't be abnormal for her

to have access to his apartment.

When they had this information,

their first thoughts were,

did Rosemary kill Joe?

When the investigator hears that someone

has placed themselves at the scene,

it piques our interest.

Oftentimes, people that are closer to the victim

are often looked at.

But you don't want to go necessarily with one theory

and try to make your evidence fit that theory.

You want to be open to any possibility.

I believe it was in the area of 8 or 9 p.m.

that Rosemary had last time that Rosemary had last seen Joe.

And she goes home with her boys.

In this case, we conduct our interviews,

and we check with alibis,

and we verified that she was telling the truth.

And the problem was one of Joe Nowenski's employees was supposed to work that night,

and so Joe had left some keys for him in the mailbox.

But the keys were not in the usual place.

One can assume it could have been used by the killers to get in,

especially to get in quietly.

It was well known that Joe kept a spare key in his mailbox.

If anyone knew that, could access the apartment.

And at this point, we had nothing to indicate that Rosemary was directly involved.

But during our interview with Rosemary, we learned...

Joe had some dicey relationships with other people.

He sold a little weed, sold a little coke.

Bone trucking, turning back odometers.

Who's the hell saying that? The cops are saying that? No!

I was a mechanic for Joe,

and at no time did Joe ever ask me to roll back an odometer.

Stolen merchandise, gambling, sale of false ID.

One of the early concerns of the investigators was there might be too many suspects

just based on him being a jerk to people around.

And his lifestyle, it was somewhat of a mystery.

He had told some friends over a period of a couple weeks

that a couple of his cars in his driveway, the tires had been slashed.

The window in the garage was broken.

The incidents occurred probably a week prior to the murder.

He thought somebody had targeted him.

He was concerned that if somebody is causing property damage,

will that lead to violent actions.

So he inquired with somebody about some sort of surveillance or security system,

but that never came to fruition.

It piques my interest,

but we were unable to determine who slashed those tires.

However, we interviewed Rosemary again,

and Rosemary shared with us that several weeks leading up to the homicide,

there was a small family outing that Rosemary,

I think her mother and her sister and her kids,

they took a day trip to Yankee Candle up in Massachusetts.

And Joe didn't go, but his friend Mark did,

which was just kind of odd.

And then we said, well, tell us more about Mark.

Rosemary was complaining to Mark about this relationship she had,

that Joseph Nowinski did not treat her so well.

At one point, Mark says to her,

I know Joe treats her horribly.

And then Mark told Rosemary that he had hired a private investigator to follow Nowinski.

And it turns out he's going into Hartford and he's picking up prostitutes

and taking them home and having sex with them.

Prostitutes, I have no knowledge of that.

I have no knowledge.

Why would you go hire some prostitute when you can have any picket of litter you want?

Come on.

I know Joe very well.

He was not running around with no hookers.

I hope I'm not wrong, but I don't think so.

I've never seen it.

So when Rosemary recounts that conversation with Mark about, you know,

a private eye observing and confirming that Joe is looking for prostitutes,

she presented to us that, that really angered her.

And she makes the statement that I should have somebody beat him up.

And Mark's reply is, better yet, why don't you have someone put a bullet in his head?

That's an aha moment.

And that's pretty close to what happened.

So it was a statement of some significance to us.

And all the conversation that Joe thought somebody was out to get him,

not in the slightest did he ever inform anyone that he thought Mark was that person.

Two days after the murder, he was interviewed in our police station again.

Once my partner and I started speaking with Mark Pascal,

Mark was forthcoming with information regarding his relationship with Joe.

He admitted that he knew Rosemary.

He hung out with Joe, knew him for about two years.

But he denied any involvement in the murder.

And his alibi, which, if you could call it that, was that he was working.

And he went home and watched TV.

And it's not a rock solid alibi.

But a lot of people do have that.

People that live alone, for instance.

Then he denied a statement about a bullet in the head.

But then he admitted that he did tell Rosemary about the private investigator

and then revealed to us that there was no private investigator.

That was a story he told Rosemary.

And then Mark was characterizing his and Rosemary's relationship

as a romantic, sexual relationship.

This dude's so full of shit, man.

Really.

He had no sticky relationship with her.

Come on, man.

In addition to that trip in Massachusetts,

in November, he and Rosemary went away for a weekend up in Maine.

And they had sex.

And I went to Mars recently, and I got some popcorn,

and I watched a good movie.

You won't believe that one, will you?

We got no indication that that was the relationship from Rosemary.

And that's an indication of us that Mark may be in a little bit of a fantasy land.

So we want to be able to gauge whether he is telling the truth,

whether he's being deceptive or not.

We briefly spoke with him, and we offered him the polygraph.

Now, the results of the polygraph are not admissible in court.

However, it is a tool to detect deception.

And he showed many signs of deception.

We confronted him with the discrepancies.

Listen, you're deceptive here, you're deceptive there.

Either you thought you were doing something good,

you thought you were saving this woman from domestic violence,

or you're a cold-blooded murderer when you shot the guy in the head.

What happened?

He said, you know what?

I'm going to tell you everything.

I'm going to tell you everything.

I don't want a lawyer.

I just want to get it over with.

The investigator called me at home,

and his exact words were,

we got a break in the case.

All the original theories about who this might have been

went out the window, and it became a murder for hire.

During our interview with Mark,

he said, I know who did it.

Two young, I think, 18, 19-year-old youth

who he knew from being around town,

someone named Eduardo,

and someone named Matt.

I am Matthew Terrell's cousin.

We were pretty close as a family growing up.

We would all come gather together

for holiday dinners, family picnics.

I was the only girl of all of the kids.

Matt would always make sure that I was okay,

and he would always make sure that I was included,

and he was just, he was just a kind soul.

I'm sorry.

When Matt transitioned into, like, middle school and high school,

there were a little bit more unsavory things

that he might have been exposed to.

He did spend some time in and out of Juvenile Hall,

and I don't think back then I really knew

how much he was struggling in his personal life.

Maybe things would have turned out differently.

If you're not in the criminal life,

you probably don't know anybody who will kill for hire.

You can't go on Angie's list and look for a four-star review.

You have to ask around.

Initially, Mark said he knew Eduardo Santiago

from his small engine repair or boat shop,

and Matthew seemed to be more a friend of Eduardo Santiago.

Mark tells them, this girl, Rosemary,

she's got a really, you know, bad boyfriend.

He beats her up.

He's horrible.

He's awful.

He asked them if they would be interested

or they knew somebody who would kill someone for money.

And the response was, well, what do you got and how much?

So the plan was to use the rifle,

but it's going to be loud,

and they would have to, you know,

develop some kind of silencer or suppressor.

This is a book called .

It's got a lot of how-tos for various dirty tricks.

On how to manufacture drugs, weapons,

and one of the areas is how to make homemade silencers.

And the book was readily available at libraries, bookstores.

Apparently, Eduardo may have read that

to create a homemade silencer

with an empty soda bottle,

taped to the end of the barrel,

and filled with paper towels.

And that also explains the little pieces of paper

that they found on Joe Nowinski that night.

The night of the murder, Mark drove the two of them

about a half a block away from the victim's house.

The three of them walked to Joe's residence.

They took the key that was in the mailbox,

and that's where Joe kept it.

Who's going to look in your mailbox for a key?

The only thing I can think is that Mark knew.

Joe had put his keys in the mailbox.

Both Eduardo and Matthew went upstairs.

Mark claimed he waited outside,

and he heard a muffled noise,

and the two men returned to him

and said, he's done.

In some ways, it's a relief

that you finally got the story,

you finally are on the right track,

but it doesn't end here.

Mr. Tyrell was arrested by the detectives.

Also, our department sent a team out

to Mr. Santiago's house.

And found him asleep in bed.

And in one of the bedrooms,

they found a .223 rifle,

which matched the type of firearm

that was used in the killing of Joe.

They also found additional rounds

in Eduardo's house.

Eduardo admitted to being at the scene.

The business card turned out as more

when they went through his wallet,

the card fell out and fell onto him.

And then he claimed that it was Matthew

who shot Joe.

Matt pointed the finger at him.

He pointed the finger at Matt.

However, Eduardo's palm prints

were lifted off of the murder weapon.

But there's also a lot more evidence

related to the crime.

We got the call from the lab.

My investigator told me

they had found markings

on some of the projectiles and casings,

and it was something I had never seen before.

He goes,

somebody etched a name in one of the bullets.

What's the name?

J-O-E.

So one of those bullets

had the victim's name on it.

Our belief is that Eduardo Santiago

had carved Joe's name on these rounds.

He not only carved it on the cartridge,

which is fairly large,

but he had actually carved Joe

on a round that was about that big.

It's a Hollywood idea

of having a bullet with someone's name on it,

but in this case,

Eduardo Santiago made it very literal.

It just shows how twisted these people are.

Like, no nice kid

is going to go do something like this.

And when you hear what they did it for,

what the price was,

you scratch your head.

Mark, we asked him,

well, how much?

What was the payment?

What was, you know, how much?

And he said, well,

they didn't want cash

because they were interested

in a snowmobile I had in my garage.

And they pointed to

the one he had

and he told them.

It needs to transmit

and it goes, well, we'll take it.

That's what it comes down to,

a broken snowmobile.

We were all taken back

that somebody could kill

for a broken-down snowmobile.

And that's all they kept saying

was a snowmobile,

a broken-down snowmobile.

I'm like, what?

There's a lot of questions

I don't understand.

Doesn't add up, Mark and Joe,

if they were friends,

friends help friends.

Friends don't kill friends.

Or was there something else

that was causing this?

So you would think

the link is Rosemary.

Many murder-for-hire plots

start with a spouse,

a girlfriend, a boyfriend.

Did Rosemary set this up?

What are your feelings

about Rosemary?

In my heart,

in my heart only,

I think that she fueled the fire.

She fueled the fire on this.

And there's a lot of us

still wondering about this.

If Joe and Rosemary

were really going through hard times,

wouldn't it have been just easier

to wait it out for Mark?

If Roe and Joe were going to separate,

then Mark would eventually

have Roe anyhow?

It just doesn't make sense.

I just feel that

if this guy was because of Rosemary,

is this why Joe died

because of Rosemary?

So some reason,

I just feel,

well,

if he never hooked up with her,

that he would be alive today.

Hi, Rosemary.

This is the producer

with the documentary.

I've been outside your apartment

for two hours.

I'm waiting to take you

to your interview.

So we had dealings

with Rosemary Cassano

when she spoke to us

at the state's attorney's office,

very much in love with Joe.

Who could be gruff

and verbally abusive,

but a nice guy.

She said he's a nice guy.

I don't know

that there was any

outward signs

of domestic violence,

but the way Mark

perceived their relationship

was a lot different

than what Rosemary

described their relationship as.

He felt he was

Rosemary's savior.

Mark thought that

he and Rosemary

were going to have

a life together.

that if Joe

was out of the picture,

he and Rosemary

could go off

into the sunset.

Mark almost became

proud of what he had done

because at the end

of that interview,

he said,

can I call Rosemary

to tell her

that he had set

this whole thing up

because he wanted to

be the hero himself

to Rosemary?

They thought that

very strange.

It was almost like

an honorable thing

for him to have done

or would be seen

as such

in Rosemary's eyes.

Rosemary

subsequently

cleared of any

suspicion.

I don't feel sorry

for Mark, no.

No.

Mark was the

orchestrator of all this.

If there wasn't Mark,

Joe would still be here today.

That's how I feel.

Mr. Santiago elected

to go to trial.

He was nothing

but arrogant

every time

we ever saw him.

He just had

this smirk

on his face.

Oh, my God.

It was,

I'll just never forget,

like, you know,

I'm a big shot.

I shot him type thing.

The only one I'd say

I did feel sorry for

was the other one,

a Matthew.

He looked so young.

He looked like

a little kid.

I will say this,

Matthew Tyrell,

we approached

Matthew Tyrell,

there was nothing

we could offer him

in terms of his

cooperation in this case.

And I just assumed

when we brought him in

he was going to look at me

and say,

thanks, but no thanks.

I'm just going to go

serve my sentence.

He looked at me,

thought for a moment,

and then said,

you know what?

I'll testify,

it's the right thing

to do for the family.

When Matt came to court

to testify during

Santiago's trial,

he read a statement.

He was sorry

for what he did,

that he should have

stopped it.

He apologized

to our entire family,

to his family,

and he was sobbing

almost uncontrollably.

The fact that Matt

cooperated with the police,

it tells me that

he is the kid

that I grew up with.

And deep down in his heart,

he's not this person.

I know most of us

in my family

think he got a bad deal.

There's days I wonder

if he really deserves

to spend the rest

of his life in prison.

Past 25 years,

it's still hard

for our family.

My oldest brother,

every year,

never lets me forget.

He just says,

he just called,

just says,

remember?

Well, today this day,

it's the day

our brother got

taken from us.

My brother,

Rick,

he loved Joe.

He did a lot.

My brother loved him.

I feel bad.

He never forgets,

he never forgets.

He never forgets.

He never forgets 25 years.

I've been hearing it

every year.

What's that tell you?

Joe was loved.

I wish this was different.

He was here,

and you were interviewing him,

and

he loved him.

Joe was the nucleus.

Joe held people together.

And if he were here today,

he would have held

the group together.

It's taken 25 years.

But Joe Nowinski has

pulled us all together again

by this documentary.

And

he's working from the heavens.

And I'm sure we all will

cherish and honor that memory.

He never forgets.

He never forgets.

He never forgets.