By Buffy Spencer - The Republican

October 18, 2010

SPRINGFIELD - Serial killer Alfred J. Gaynor now admits that his first murder was the killing of Vera E. Hallums in April 1995.

By the time he was arrested three years later, he had killed eight other women, and the toddler daughter of one of his victims had been left with her mother’s body to die of starvation and dehydration in the family’s South End apartment.

Gaynor’s admissions were made public on Monday by Hampden District Attorney William M. Bennett, confirming long-held suspicions by law enforcement that Gaynor was the man responsible for a lengthy string of murders that terrorized the city in the mid-1990s. Though he was convicted in 2000 for four of the slayings, Gaynor went off to prison proclaiming, “I’m innocent.”

Bennett announced Gaynor’s admissions during a hearing in Hampden Superior Court at which the killer’s nephew, Paul L. Fickling, pleaded guilty to reduced charges of manslaughter for the 1996 deaths of Amy Smith and her daughter, Destiny Smith.

“We hope that solving these cases will bring some dignity to the deaths and that that will be comfort to the families,” Bennett said.

Fickling admitted he was with his uncle when Amy Smith, his one-time girlfriend, was killed; his pleas came as he was on the verge of facing a new trial because of Gaynor’s 2008 jailhouse confession to killing Smith. Gaynor claimed in that confession that he had been alone and Fickling was not involved, and it served as the basis for setting aside Fickling’s 1998 jury conviction on murder charges.

Gaynor’s admissions to the additional homicides were part of the plea-bargaining agreement which resulted in Fickling receiving a 19- to 20-year state prison term, the district attorney told Judge C. Brian McDonald. Fickling has served 14 years of the sentence.

Fickling had been convicted at trial in 1997 in part on the basis of a statement he gave police at the time of his arrest, and Bennett told The Republican, “If Fickling had been completely truthful with police I am quite confident Gaynor would have been arrested and locked up at that time.” Seven of the victims were killed after Amy Smith’s death.

Bennett said he now plans to present evidence to a grand jury to seek indictments for Gaynor on murder charges for the deaths of Smith and her child as well as four other women, including Vera E. Hallums, Jill Ann Ermellini, Robin M. Atkins and Yvette Torres, all of whom were killed between April 1995 and November 1997.

Gaynor is serving consecutive life sentences in state prison for the murders of JoAnn C. Thomas, Loretta Daniels, Rosemary A. Downs and Joyce L. Dickerson-Peay.

In a September 2009 hearing in the Fickling case, Gaynor told a judge he now sees himself as a “monster” and has said that everything evil that he did was fueled by his addiction to cocaine and crack.

Bennett said that aside from the deaths of Amy and Destiny Smith, since Amy Smith was not a drug user, the connection the other eight women may have had to Gaynor was crack cocaine.

“There are those who say that drug crimes are non-violent,” Bennett said. “This is a good illustration that drugs are very violent. Many lives, neighborhoods and communities have been destroyed because of drugs. People commit crimes while using drugs.”

Fickling’s lawyer, Joseph A. Franco, appointed recently for the plea negotiations, said Fickling grew up in the same house as Gaynor and was always frightened of his uncle, who was abusive to him. Even during Fickling’s first trial, Gaynor was in the halls or courtroom, and Fickling feared him, Franco said.

Fickling initially told police he was at the apartment and choked Smith, but he said another man was with him and that man stayed in the apartment after he left. Fickling gave police a name, but that man was never charged and found not to be there that night.

Bennett said the prosecution moved forward with the plea agreement because his office could not be sure of the result from a jury if they proceeded with a new trial.

Fickling’s long-time defense lawyer Greg T. Schubert in December 2008 sought the new trial based on Gaynor’s confession. During recent DNA testing in preparation for the new trial, it was found that Fickling was not the child’s father, although he thought he was the father of Destiny Smith.

Bennett provided McDonald with details of the Smith deaths, telling him that police, dispatched to the woman’s apartment at 280 Dwight St. Extension on July 11, 1996, found the body of the child on a mattress on the living room when they first arrived. Destiny Smith was believed to have been dead for several days, the district attorney said. The body of the child’s mother, believed dead for about a week, was found in a closet.

Fickling, who was then 19, admitted he went to the apartment with Gaynor, then 29. “While they were there, (Fickling) argued with Smith, got angry, struck her, placed her in a headlock, squeezed her neck for approximately two to three minutes,” Bennett said.

Bennett said Fickling stated it was Gaynor who tied Smith’s hands, placed her in a closet and put a sock in her mouth. Bennett said Smith died as a result of asphyxiation either by the chokehold, the sock or a combination of both.

“Knowing that Amy Smith was dead the defendant ran out of the apartment, and, after a while Gaynor followed. Destiny Smith was left in the apartment alone with her mother, and incapable of caring for herself,” Bennett said.

Gaynor, in his confession, said Smith was alive when he raped her and he then choked her to death so she would not identify him.

Bennett, who has said over the past few years he doubted the veracity of Gaynor’s confession to killing Amy Smith, said Monday that a number of detectives have spoken with Gaynor over the last two years and they were convinced that Gaynor was involved in Amy Smith’s death.

“It’s reasonable to assume Mr. Gaynor played a significant role in what happened,” the district attorney said. Bennett said DNA on a hair on the sock put in Amy Smith’s mouth was consistent with Gaynor’s DNA.

“Based on all that, your honor, the commonwealth has a different perception of Mr. Fickling’s role in the events today than it did back in 1996, and we’ve taken that into consideration in making our recommendation today,” Bennett said.

Members of Smith’s family were present for the plea hearing, and Bennett said they still believe the jury’s verdicts from the trial were the correct outcome for the case and are upset “that that has not been maintained.”

“The family did not know Mr. Gaynor so that when his name came up in this they were completely surprised,” Bennett said. “They did know Mr. Fickling, and they knew about his relationship with Amy Smith, and so for 14 years the focus on the family had been on Mr. Fickling, and now to have Mr. Gaynor part of the situation is a very difficult proposition for them to come to grips with,” he said.

Bennett said he knows of no connection between Gaynor and a number of other unsolved homicides of Springfield women found dead between 1990 and Alfred J. Gaynor’s arrest on April 8, 1998. The women are Shana R. Price, 17, of 73 Dartmouth St., found strangled, beaten and sexually assaulted at Blunt Park on Dec. 26, 1990; Myrtle Marrett, 90, found beaten Jan. 20, 1991, in her Union Street apartment; Lisa DiSilva, 21, found strangled in her apartment at 26 Tracy St. on April 1, 1991; Corine L. Lee, 32, found strangled in a downtown location on May 25, 1992; and Celestina Perez, 24, found strangled and beaten June 2, 1995, in Gurdon Bill Park.

Details of Gaynor’s murders

Here are the women who Alfred J. Gaynor was convicted by a jury of killing and those who he has confessed to killing:

Vera E. Hallums: 45, found tied, beaten and strangled in her apartment at 31 Leland Drive on April 20, 1995.

Amy Smith: 20, thought to have been dead for a week when she was found her in apartment at 280 Dwight St. Extension on July 11, 1996; her 22-month-old daughter, left with her mother’s body, died of starvation and dehydration.

Jill Ann Ermellini: 34, found June 16, 1997, in the cab of a truck in an Indian Orchard auto body yard.

Robin M. Atkins: 29, found strangled, bound and gagged in a downtown alley on Oct. 25, 1997.

JoAnn C. Thomas: 38, found in her 866 Worthington St. home on Nov. 1, 1997.

Yvette Torres: 33, her partially clothed body was found propped against the bathroom door of her Healy Street apartment on Nov. 15, 1997.

Loretta Daniels: 38, found in an alley beside the Mason Square post office on Feb. 2, 1998.

Rosemary Downs: 42, found in her 5 Lionel Benoit Road home on Feb. 11, 1998.

Joyce Dickerson-Peay: 37, found March 11, 1998, outside an empty restaurant on East Columbus Avenue.

Source: Office of Hampden District Attorney William M. Benne

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