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Olivia
RINER
By Alex Prud'Homme - People.com
July 20, 1992
WHEN THE LONG, BUNGLED TRIAL OF 20-YEAR-OLD
Olivia Riner had finally run its course, there was one last
surprise. It wasn't that Riner—the so-called Killer Nanny—was
acquitted; it was that it took the jury a full 12 hours to do so.
Even the judge, Donald N. Silverman, went on record before the
verdict saying that if the jury handed down a conviction, he would
seriously consider reversing it. Thai proved unnecessary.
"Not guilty," said the jury foreman to the
charges that Riner had murdered 3-month-old Kristie Fischer by
dousing her with paint thinner and setting her on fire. The
accused closed her eyes but remained immobile. The packed
Westchester County courtroom gasped in relief. One spectator
pumped his fist in the air. Moments later several jumped to their
feel and applauded. When Olivia finally rose, tears streamed down
her pale cheeks, and a huge grin spread across her face. It was
one of the few times since being charged with the hideous crime
that the stoic Swiss au pair had shown visible emotion of any
kind. Hardly able to believe it was over, Riner and her attorney,
Laura Brevetti, 40, wrapped each other in a cathartic, embrace.
Seven months ago the case seemed open and shut.
The police in Mount Pleasant, a leafy suburb of New York City,
claimed they had proof that would send Riner to prison for 25
years to life. At the trial's start, Assistant District Attorney
George Bolen, 46, promised he would "establish a reason" for the
seemingly wanton murder of a defenseless infant.
Last December, when Riner was first accused of
killing Kristie, the case turned into an international cause
célèbre. Not only did the crime itself seem unspeakably evil, it
also became entwined in the public imagination with the Hollywood
thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle—a film starring Rebecca De
Mornay as an outwardly charming nanny who methodically sets about
destroying the family that employs her. In an eerie coincidence,
the film was released just days after Riner was indicted on lour
counts of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree
arson, both the crime and the movie spoke to every parent's worst
nightmare about nannies, baby-sitters and child care.
The first call came in to the local police at
about 5:10 P.M. last Dec. 2. "Hi, fire," Olivia Riner, clearly
agitated, told the police operator. About five minutes later, in a
second phone call, she was edging toward hysteria. "The baby's in
the room!" she's heard to scream on the police tape. Riner had
been home alone with Kristie at the two-story house of William
Fischer, 48, owner of an auto-repair shop, and his wife, Denise,
39, an accountant. Riner had left Kristie asleep in her nursery in
a plastic car seat, where the baby often napped. The nanny,
meanwhile, fed the Fischers' four cats. Suddenly one of the cats
became spooked; Riner quickly discovered the house was ablaze
(three separate fires had been set).
John P. Gallagher III, a 26-year-old auto
mechanic and the boyfriend of Leah Fischer, little Kristie's
22-year-old half sister, was the first to reach the scene. At the
trial he testified that he had been on the way to the Fischer
house to meet Leah. Gallagher said that he grabbed a fire
extinguisher from a panicky Riner and kicked open the nursery
door, which had inexplicably been locked. "The baby was on the
floor in front of me...the flames were coming right off the
child," he said. Gallagher claimed he extinguished the fire and
saw that the child, burned over 80 percent of her body, was dead.
Police and fire units arrived within minutes,
quickly followed by Kristie's distraught family. The Fischers had
hired Riner—from Wettingen, Switzerland—through the E.F. Au Pair
agency of Cambridge, Mass., to work for a year. She had previously
been a pediatrician's assistant in Switzerland and, over three
incident-free years, the baby-sitter for a Swiss family. William
Fischer testified that before the fire he felt Riner was an
intelligent girl who enjoyed a good rapport with Kristie and,
though a reserved bookworm, was comfortable with the family.
Gallagher was briefly questioned by police.
Riner, who speaks Swiss-German and only halting English, was
questioned for 10 hours straight, first at a neighbor's house and
then at police headquarters. Never was an interpreter or lawyer
present. Though bewildered, she steadfastly maintained her
innocence. "I don't set no fire," she said over and over again to
detectives. Meanwhile, Gallagher and the Fischers were
automatically given immunity for their grand jury testimony.
When the trial started June 2, the
open-and-shut case began to collapse under defense attorney
Brevetti's caustic cross-examinations, formerly a federal
organized-crime prosecutor for 10 years, she deemed prosecutor
Bolen's case "a tale of the Emperor's new clothes." Despite the
promise in December of Police Chief Paul J. Oliva (now retired)
that "we are prepared to show that she did it," the authorities
provided no physical evidence linking the au pair to the murder.
The prosecution produced no incriminating fingerprints on
paint-thinner containers found in the house, and no traces of any
fire accelerant were found on Riner's clothes. Equally important,
Bolen failed to come up with a plausible motive.
In fact, Brevetti argued, the police had
botched the investigation: Among other things, they took no notes
when they spoke to Gallagher at the scene, had discarded a blood
sample found on the doorjamb near Kristie's room and didn't
examine the baby's incinerated car seat until two days after the
murder. Perhaps, Brevetti implied, even favoritism was at work:
Gallagher's family had close ties with the police. Indeed.
Gallagher calls current Police Chief Anthony Provenzano "Uncle
Tony." One of the first officers on the scene was Gallagher's
former swimming coach. And, Brevetti suggested, Gallagher had a
motive for starting the three separate fires in the Fischer home:
After the Fischers hired Olivia Riner, they had demanded that he
stop sleeping over at their house, so as not to upset the nanny.
Outside the courthouse Brevetti called Gallagher "walking
reasonable doubt." On the stand Gallagher denied any involvement
in the fires.
Throughout the four weeks of testimony, Riner
seemed the very picture of wronged innocence. Dressed in demure
whites or navy blues, she looked like an awkward schoolgirl.
Deeply concerned about their only child, Riner's mother, Marlies,
38, a part-time secretary, remained with Olivia through the
seven-month ordeal, and her father, Kurt, a regional chief of
civil defense, flew over regularly to be with her. Earlier, when
her parents were unable to raise Olivia's $350,000 bail, Swiss
friends and strangers convinced of her innocence quickly pitched
in. Says Willy Reinert, a former teacher of Olivia's from
Wettingen, as well as the father of two children for whom she
baby-sat: "I cannot imagine that she would do anything like this.
She liked children. I would have employed her as an au pair
anytime."
In the aftermath of the verdict, the Fischers,
the Riners and Gallagher were all left in varying states of pain.
Olivia Riner, surrounded by cameras and speaking through a
translator, told reporters, "I can't be angry. I am relieved at
this point. I am sorry this happened, and I am very sad [the
Fischers] lost their daughter." An elated Kurt chimed in, "At last
we can be a family again."
The Fischers, however, remained inconsolable,
convinced of Olivia's guilt and Gallagher's innocence. "She wasn't
as sweet as you would think," said Denise, who later added that
the verdict was "horrible." John Gallagher, who sat with his
mother, Carol, and the Fischers at the end of the trial, reacted
to Brevetti's attacks by saying, "I'd like to get up and punch her
in the mouth.... She made me look like an idiot." His mother, her
voice cracking, added, "It's been rough on him; it's been rough on
the whole family. There is tension in the house."
Later, as the triumphant Brevetti whisked the
Riner family through a cheering crowd and out to a luxury sedan
waiting at the curb, District Attorney Carl Vergari announced that
the case would not be reopened. The Fischers made their way down
to a deserted basement parking garage to retrieve their car. From
their stricken expressions, one could see that their wounds will
not soon heal. "It was extremely rude of the people in the
courtroom to give a standing ovation and forget about the fact
that we lost our baby," said a tearful Denise Fischer. "The real
thing here is, we lost our baby. How do we go on?"
ALEX PRUD'HOMME
SAMUEL MEAD, BRYAN ALEXANDER and MARIA SPEIDEL in White Plains,
HELGA CHUDACOFFE-LONNE in Wettingen
By William Glaberson - The New York Times
July 08, 1992
After a single day of deliberations, a jury
here tonight acquitted a Swiss au pair of all charges against her
in the arson death of a baby in her care.
The case drew international attention because
it crystallized the concerns and worries parents have about
leaving their children in other people's care and the rapid
verdict appeared an endorsement of an aggressive defense strategy.
At 11:16 P.M., the jury forewoman, Shanett
Yancy, read in a clear voice that the Westchester County Court
jury had found the au pair, Olivia Riner, not guilty of all of
four counts against her. Jurors had deliberated for 13 hours on
three charges of second-degree murder and one count of arson.
Miss Riner, 20 years old, and her lawyer, Laura
A. Brevetti, embraced after the verdict was read. Judge Donald N.
Silverman dismissed the jury, saying, "I happen to agree with your
verdict. I think we've had a good verdict, and I think it's the
right result."
He said the prosecution had not proved the case
against the native of Wettingen, Switzerland.
In a rear row of the 14th-floor courtroom here, Denise Fischer,
the mother of the 3-month-old infant who was killed on Dec. 2,
listened to the verdict with downcast eyes.
After he dismissed the jurors, Judge Silverman
turned to Miss Riner and said: "You are now free."
Ms. Brevetti asked if marshals could remove the
electronic ankle bracelet Miss Riner had been wearing as a
condition of her bail, and the half of the courtroom filled with
Miss Riner's supporters erupted in applause. Miss Riner, who has
shown little emotion in six months of legal proceedings, wept at
the defense table.
In an unusually combative defense, Ms. Brevetti
had cast other people as suspects in the arson murder case and
raised questions about the local police department's handling of
the case.
Judge Silverman suggested that many of the
questions Ms. Brevetti had raised in the month-long trial remain
to be answered. "The case," he said, "has not been solved."
'Walking Reasonable Doubt'
Throughout the trial, Ms. Brevetti repeatedly
attacked the boyfriend of the infant's half-sister, 26-year-old
John P. Gallagher III, as having taken part in setting the fire.
In her closing statement Monday, Ms. Brevetti had referred to Mr.
Gallagher as "walking reasonable doubt."
The jury appeared to have been persuaded by Ms.
Brevetti. The last testimony the jurors asked to hear reread to
them late tonight was the testimony of Mr. Gallagher as he
described his actions as the first person to arrive at the fire
other than Miss Riner and the infant.
In interviews after they reached the verdict,
four jurors on the panel of five women and seven men said the
prosecutor had not demonstrated Miss Riner's guilt "beyond a
reasonable doubt" -- a condition the judge had told them was
needed for a guilty verdict. They also said they were troubled by
the fact that the prosecutor never suggested any motive that might
have driven Miss Riner to commit the crime.
"It was a heinous crime, a horrible crime. But
it was not difficult to come to a decision," said Irving Wilmot, a
retired hospital administrator from Rye.
The jurors spent much of their only day of
deliberations reviewing a series of exhibits and testimony that
they had asked be reread to them. Several jurors said they had
asked to re-evaluate the evidence because at least one member of
the panel began the day of deliberations saying he wanted to
refresh his recollections from the month-long trial.
'Doesn't Bother Me'
In a triumphant news conference minutes after
the verdict, Miss Riner (pronounced REE-ner) said she was not
concerned that some people might continue to have doubts about her
innocence. "It doesn't bother me," she said, "because I know I
didn't do it."
With her lawyer next to her and her mother and
father behind her, Miss Riner said: "I'm sorry that a terrible
thing happened and I'm very sad they lost their daughter."
Ms. Brevetti called for a renewed investigation
because, she said, an arsonist remains at large in the Mount
Pleasant area where the Fischers had lived. She said the police
had "put blinders on" and charged Miss Riner rather than try to
solve the crime.
But in a separate news conference, the
Westchester District Attorney, Carl A. Vergari, said the police
investigation was thorough. He said he accepted jury verdict but
that, "The case is closed."
"There is no other person in this world besides
this defendant," Mr. Vergari said, "who had the means and the
opportunity to start this fire."
George L. Bolen, the courtroom prosecutor,
repeated previous statements that Mr. Gallagher "had nothing to do
with this and the way he had been treated has been totally
unfair."
Asked if he still believed that Miss Riner
committed the crime, Mr. Bolen asnwered: "In my heart of hearts,
despite the fact that the jury has spoken, I believe Olivia Riner
has done this particular crime."
The fire at the home of Denise and William
Fischer in the Mount Pleasant hamlet of Thornwood was set,
investigators said, with flammable liquids, some of which had been
poured on the diaper of the 3-month-old baby, Kristie. Much of the
prosecution's case hinged on Miss Riner's insistence to the police
that she was alone in the house and would have heard anyone else
enter.
Focus on Caretakers
Almost from the first news reports in the days
after the fire, the story of the au pair charged with what her
lawyer would later call "this unthinkable crime" drew
international attention. With what the prosecutor, George L.
Bolen, called her "apparent angelic face," Miss Riner, for a time,
became the incarnation of parents' fears about the people they
hire to care for their children.
According to scores of articles written after
the fire, the caretakers, whether they are called au pairs,
nannies, or baby sitters, are frequently hired based on little
more than a few telephone calls of research and a parent's gut
feeling.
Like many two-career couples in the New York
area, the Fischers went to an international agency, because, Mr.
Fischer testified, they believed a person from abroad and screened
by the agency would likely be "more conscientious." The Fischers
were linked up with Miss Rinerby an agency based in Cambridge,
Mass., E. F. Au Pair. Miss Riner had worked for the Fischers for
about a month before the fire.
The police indicated at first that they had
direct evidence linking Miss Riner to the fire. In court, while
Miss Riner remained in jail because she was unable to meet bail of
$500,000, Mr. Bolen said that at trial he would be able to
"establish a reason" for "these seemingly inexplicable acts."
Defense Strategy
But Ms. Brevetti tried to change the focus of
the case: the defense lawyer portrayed the local police as inept
and eager to blame a foreigner while closing their eyes to
evidence that might have pointed in another direction.
In court, a string of prosecution witnesses
appeared to bolster the defense case with contradictory or
unverifiable statements about observations at the fire scene and
about Miss Riner's appearance that night.
A detective and a police matron testified, for
example, that Miss Riner's eyelashes were singed when she was
arrested after the fire. But a police photograph taken that night
appeared inconculsive.
Mr. Bolen did not establish any motive for the
crime in court and there was never any direct evidence such as
fingerprints linking Miss Riner to the crime. Miss Riner's own
statements to the police and Mr. Fischer at the scene of the fire
included some inconsistencies but in hours of questioning the au
pair stuck by a denial she repeated time and again.
"I don't start no fire," Miss Riner was
reported to have said again and again.
By Andrew Maykuth - Philly.com
June 21, 1992
THORNWOOD, N.Y. — To some she was the Nanny
from Hell, the outwardly sweet Swiss au pair accused of using
paint thinner to soak a diaper and torch the 3-month-old baby in
her care.
When police charged 20-year-old Olivia Riner
with murder in December, a fearful chill rushed through this
placid, wooded, middle-class hamlet 30 miles north of New York
City.
Neighbors swapped stories about bad experiences
with nannies. The news media quoted worried mothers saying they
would never hire a stranger to come into their home.
Even Hollywood seemed to add its voice to the
chorus with a timely movie about a homicidal nanny, The Hand That
Rocks the Cradle.
"Only two people seemed to be in that house -
the child and the nanny," said Christine Cazes, who lives a few
doors down from the scene of the crime. ''Everyone thought she
must have done it.
"Now, when you see the evidence and the facts
come together, who knows?"
Doubt has replaced certainty as the trial of
Riner unfolds in a stark, modern courtroom of the Westchester
County District Court in White Plains.
In recent weeks, government witnesses
repeatedly have given credence to the defense contention that it
was not the nanny who ignited three separate fires in the house of
William and Denise Fischer on Dec. 2, but that she was merely a
convenient target for investigators.
"Prosecution Seems to be Making a Case for the
Defense in Nanny Trial," said a headline the other day in the
Reporter Dispatch, the local paper.
At first, the case seemed so simple. The
prosecution contended that Riner, who had been in the country for
only a month, set the fire that killed the Fischers' child,
Kristie, as the baby lay in a plastic car seat.
The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney
George L. Bolen, acknowledged from the start that the testimony
would not spell out a motive and that there was no physical
evidence linking Riner to the arson - no fingerprints, no fibers,
no fuel on her clothing.
"You will hear from no eyewitness. You will
hear no confession. You will see no videotape of the crime being
committed," said Bolen, who prosecuted Jean Harris in 1981 for the
murder of Scarsdale Diet doctor Herman Tarnower.
The government's case is largely built on
Riner's statement to the police that nobody else was in the house
with her and the baby, and that police could find no evidence of
forced entry by an intruder.
Part of the prosecution's difficulty is that
Riner looks like a schoolgirl, not a psychopath. Dressed in a
conservative navy blazer and skirt with her straight chestnut hair
hanging to the middle of her back, she listens attentively to the
testimony whispered into her ear by a German translator beside
her.
"This defendant committed the crimes," Bolen
warned the jury in a resonant broadcaster's voice. "Appearances
can be deceptive."
But defense attorney Laura A. Brevetti, a
tenacious former federal Mafia prosecutor, has made much of the
spontaneous arrival at the fire of the boyfriend of William
Fischer's 22-year-old daughter by a previous marriage.
Brevetti has portrayed John Gallagher, 26, the
boyfriend of Leah Fischer, as a possible arsonist.
Gallagher, an automobile mechanic, testified
that he went to the Fischer house after work on that rainy Monday
evening and found the house ablaze.
He said he shouted at Riner, grabbed a fire
extinguisher from her and forced his way into the nursery and
found the baby engulfed in flames. He said he sprayed the baby
with the fire extinguisher.
An arson expert said there was no evidence of
the fire extinguisher material around the baby.
Other parts of Gallagher's testimony did not
hold up under cross- examination.
Gallagher stated he had graduated from high
school, but he was later forced to admit he was expelled for
cutting classes.
The defense brought out that he had lied on an
insurance application by failing to acknowledge several traffic
violations.
The defense also implied that Gallagher had, in
essence, a home-field advantage. Gallagher testified that he knew
the police officers who questioned him, and he knows the town's
acting police chief, Anthony Provenzano, as ''Uncle Tony."
He also acknowledged that he knew his way
around the Fischer home - he used to sleep several nights a week
on a sofa before the nanny arrived, when the Fischers asked him to
stop staying over.
Brevetti suggested that Gallagher's frayed
relationship with Denise Fischer, his girlfriend's stepmother,
could be a motive for setting the fire.
"Is it fair to say you don't have a good
relationship with Denise Fischer?" Brevetti asked.
"It's not a great relationship, but I get along
with her," said Gallagher, who was granted immunity because he
testified previously to the grand jury.
Other testimony has tended to portray Riner
sympathetically. She was heard on tapes frantically reporting the
fire to an emergency operator.
And in a transcript of the interview she gave
to police - without a lawyer present - she said in stilted English
that she was busy and did not know how the fires started.
"I go out for feed the cats" when the fires
started, she said.
William Fischer, the baby's father, described
Riner as "basically shy" and "obedient." Under questioning from
Judge Donald N. Silverman, he also testified that the day of the
fire, he came home for lunch and was able to enter the house
without being seen or heard by the nanny.
"The house was not a fortress, and that family
was not without arguments," Brevetti said outside the court.
Even the prosecutor seems to acknowledge that
he no longer has control of his case.
During the testimony of Westchester County's
arson investigator, Bolen was unable to reign in the long-winded
descriptions of his witness. The prosecutor rolled his eyes
theatrically and shook his head for the audience to see.
And after Brevetti objected to one of his
questions, Bolen withdrew it and said for everyone to hear: "The
bumbling prosecutor, at it again."
That got a laugh from the jury.
By Lisa W. Foderaro - The New York Times
December 31, 1991
The Swiss nanny charged with arson and murder
in the death of a 3-month-old girl in her care was released today
from the county jail here into the arms of her parents after they
posted her $350,000 bail.
The nanny, 20-year-old Olivia Riner, smiled
excitedly as she embraced first her father and then her mother,
kissing them each twice.
She then climbed into a white sedan with them
and, evading reporters, left for an undisclosed residence where
she will stay with her mother.
To insure that she will not flee, Miss Riner
(pronounced REEN-er) has agreed to wear an electronic ankle
bracelet, or monitoring device.
Miss Riner has been in custody since her arrest
on Dec. 3. The police say that about 5 P.M. the day before, Miss
Riner set three separate fires in the split-level house of William
and Denise Fischer in Thornwood, killing their only child, Kristie.
The Fischers found Miss Riner through a
cultural exchange organization in Cambridge, Mass., E. F. Au Pair,
which provides working couples with young European women who care
for their children for a year in exchange for room and board. The
parents have told the police that they were pleased with Miss
Riner's performance since she arrived Nov. 1.
Money from Strangers
Judge John Carey of Westchester County Court
agreed to the bail package presented by the defense, which
included a number of provisions aimed at preventing Miss Riner
from fleeing to Switzerland. Because there is no extradition
treaty between the United States and Switzerland, the court had
expressed concern that Miss Riner would seek asylum in her
homeland.
The case has generated a storm of media
attention in Switzerland, prompting strangers to contribute most
of the $350,000 bail.
Miss Riner's parents, Kurt and Marlies Riner,
were able to raise only $75,000 from family and friends.
Mrs. Riner is a secretary in an auto-repair
garage and Mr. Riner is a civil defense administrator.
The bail was originally set at $500,000 by
another judge, but he lowered it, making Miss Riner's release
possible.
The case will be presented to a grand jury in
late January. Laura A. Brevetti, Miss Riner's lawyer, said today
that the defense's strategy would be to try to poke holes in the
prosecution's circumstantial case.
A Promise to Stay
Miss Riner has surrendered her passport, and
today, her mother, who is to stay with her for the duration of the
legal proceedings, did the same.
In addition, Miss Riner affixed two thumb
prints in court to a sworn statement that she will not "seek
repatriation" nor sanctuary in the Swiss consulate or embassy. It
also said that she waived the right to contest extradition were
she to make her way to Switzerland.
That statement was presented to Judge Carey
along with one by the Swiss Government, saying, in effect, that
Swiss authorities would not issue Miss Riner a new passport and
would make no effort to help her return to Switzerland.
For a moment, it appeared that Miss Riner's
release would be delayed as Judge Carey objected to an omission in
the Swiss declaration regarding possible sanctuary for Miss Riner
in a Swiss consulate or embassy.
But Ms. Brevetti, as well as the prosecutor
from the Westchester County District Attorney's office, George L.
Bolen, assured the judge that Swiss authorities had said Miss
Riner would be escorted off the premises immediately if she sought
sanctuary.
Nanny, 20, Held In Death Of 3-month-old N.y.
Girl
OrlandoSentinel.com
December 5, 1991
MOUNT PLEASANT, N.Y. — A young Swiss nanny
killed a baby in her care by setting fire to her employers' home
while they were at work, police said. Olivia Riner, 20, of
Wettingen, Switzerland, was arraigned Tuesday on murder and arson
charges in the death of 3-month-old Kristi Fischer and was jailed
without bail. Riner had worked for William and Denise Fischer
since Nov. 1.
Police Chief Paul Oliva said it appeared Riner
set fire to the three bedrooms in the Fischers' home. He said
burns were found on the child's body, indicating Riner may have
doused her with accelerant and ignited it.