The Art of the Heist

Eight

You’ve already heard me confess that I’m not a particularly pious man. At the best of times I’m a skeptic; at the worst I’ve renounced God-at least any conventional notion of God-entirely, even cursed him. But despite my lack of faith there are a handful of events in my life I can only describe as miracles. The first of these was my survival on the Back Bay rooftop; the second was the arrival of a man named John Harding at Walpole prison in the summer of 1970.

Harding came to Walpole, as I did, from the Charles Street Jail. Small and delicate of frame, with an air of profound defeat, he was the kind of man who best survives prison by flying well below the radar. “Head down and mouth shut” would have been my counsel had I met him on the way in, and “Do whatever is asked of you without flinching.” Though, looking back, I’m grateful I was not there at intake to give him this advice.

There are inmates who thrive on harassing the new arrivals. But that was never my thing. If anything, I felt sorry for the guys coming in, especially those, like Harding, who obviously lacked the skills required for prison life. In fact, if it hadn’t been for his big mouth and my good friend Billy Irish, I probably wouldn’t have noticed Harding at all.

Billy and I were friends from way back. We’d grown up just around the corner from each other in Milton, where our fathers were both on the police force. Our lives took strikingly divergent paths, however, when Billy’s father, a decorated marine who had fought in numerous battles in the Pacific during World War II and who suffered severe posttraumatic stress, was fired from the force and later sent to prison for bookmaking, leaving Billy’s mother to care for seven small children. Not long after his father went away the family suffered an even worse tragedy when Billy’s mother was hit by a bus. Billy, along with his brothers and sisters, was sent first to an orphanage and then to a string of bleak and abusive foster homes.

After his mother’s accident I lost touch with Billy entirely. I might never have seen him again if he hadn’t walked into a concert I was playing several years later. The way Billy tells it, he spent his last thirty-five cents to get in to see me, no small sacrifice considering the fact that his shoes were so worn that he’d taken to patching them with pieces of cereal boxes. As far as I’m concerned, it was money well spent. To this day he is one of my closest friends.

In the winter of 1970, while I was standing trial for the rape of the young girl in Revere, Billy was doing federal time on the top tier of the Charles Street Jail. Federal prisoners, who were housed together on the building’s fifth floor, had it worse than anyone at Charles Street. The windows on the uppermost tier had no glass in them but were covered instead with thin sheets of plywood, loosely attached, which let in not only the bitter New England cold but stray pigeons as well. The entire tier was covered with bird shit. To make matters worse, federal prisoners were confined to their cells at all times, except for meals.

Billy was sitting in his cell playing solitaire one day when one of the tier sweepers, a state inmate, passed by. The man stopped and peered through the bars of Billy’s cell. “You’re Myles Connor, aren’t you?”

The assumption wasn’t completely unreasonable. Billy and I are both redheads, the same age, and about the same size and build.

Billy shook his head. “You’ve got me confused with someone else.”

But the guy wasn’t buying it. “Don’t worry, Myles,” he said, lowering his voice just a notch. “I know you’re here under an alias. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Look, pal,” Billy told him, “I’m not Myles Connor.”

“It’s okay, really,” the man persisted. “I’m a big fan of yours. I saw you play up in Revere. You’re real good.”

Billy shrugged. Clearly there was no convincing the guy.

“In any case,” he went on. “I wanted to apologize to you.”

“Oh yeah? What for?”

“I feel like I might have made a mistake. I heard you got blamed for something I did a long time ago.”

“What’s that?” Billy asked.

The man hesitated. “That sex charge,” he admitted at last. “The one up in Revere. I did that.”

Billy turned and took his first good look at the sweeper, who was obviously not playing with a full deck. To admit to being a child rapist on the inside was incomprehensibly stupid. To do so to the person who’d been wrongly convicted of the crime was an act of suicide. Billy’s first instinct was to reach through the bars of his cell and strangle the guy. But for my sake he stopped himself. “I appreciate you telling me this,” he said, struggling to sound sincere. “By the way, you never told me your name.”

The sweeper smiled, like a kid who’d done wrong and received a pardon and a pat on the head from his dad. “Harding,” he replied. “John Harding.”

There is no direct method of communication between prisoners in the federal lockup at Charles Street and those at Walpole. The best Billy could hope for after his conversation with Harding was that a relative or mutual friend might visit and then be persuaded to pass the news to me, a process that could have taken months. Fortunately, fate intervened in my favor.

Not long after Harding’s visit to Billy’s fifth-tier cell, the federal inmates at Charles Street rioted in protest of the horrific conditions there. In response to the riots, a judge ordered all federal prisoners transferred from Charles Street to Walpole.

Upon his arrival at the prison, Billy sought me out immediately. I was overjoyed to see my friend, and even more so when he told me about Harding. There was only one problem: Harding was still at Charles Street.

“Not for long,” Billy said. “He’s just there while his plea arrangement gets straightened out. Then he’ll be coming to Walpole.”

As much as I wanted to believe Harding’s confession, I knew better than to be anything but cautiously optimistic. Cons will say all sorts of crazy things, either to impress their fellow inmates or because for some sick reason they crave the notoriety. Having been falsely accused of a crime myself, I had no wish to do the same to someone else. But if Harding was telling the truth, getting him to admit to what he’d done was the only hope I had of clearing my name.

My biggest concern was that Harding would come to his senses, realize the gravity of what he’d told Billy, and ask to be put into protective custody. If this happened, I’d never find out the truth.

When Harding first got to Walpole I made sure everyone treated him like royalty. I had a solid crew by then, and they all pitched in to make nice with the new kid, buying him fudge pops from Al DeSalvo’s ice cream stand. In the mean time, I set to work trying to get Harding’s record pulled. He was telling everyone he was in for burglary. But after what he’d told Billy, I wasn’t buying this version of events.

Now that everything is computerized, pulling a fellow inmate’s file isn’t so easy. But back then it was routine. There was a friendly case worker with access to the records room who, with the help of an inmate trustee and the persuasion of a monetary gift, was willing to do this kind of thing for us.

“Your boy’s got a thing for little girls,” the trustee informed me one afternoon on the yard. “He’s got a bunch of morals charges on his record. All minor children.”

I had the confirmation I needed. Now it was time to act.

Considering the fact that the life I’ve lived has never been short on violence, I myself am not a violent man. There are people out there-and believe me, I’ve known plenty of them-who take pleasure in inflicting pain. Hurting another being is not something I enjoy at all. Whenever possible I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid bloodshed. But a lifetime spent in the company of criminals has taught me that there are people in the world who respond only to violence, and that force is sometimes a necessary evil.

As I said before, convicted sex offenders are reviled by their fellow prisoners. There were plenty of men in Walpole prison who would have loved nothing more than to get their hands on John Harding and torture him mercilessly. Even knowing what Harding had done, I had no wish to see him suffer merely for suffering’s sake. But in light of Harding’s record it seemed highly likely that he had in fact committed the crime of which I had been convicted.

To my mind there was only one way to know for sure.

After my conversation with the trustee I gathered my closest friends and explained to them the situation and what I planned to do about it. All agreed to help me. Several days later we gathered in the back room of the prison auditorium. Ralph Petrozziello was there, along with two other members of my crew, Ozzy DePriest and Paul Minot. Billy Irish arrived last, with John Harding in tow.

Up to that point I had purposely kept away from Harding. Billy had invited him to the auditorium to meet “the real Myles Connor,” knowing he would jump at the chance. When the two men entered the room, I was immediately taken aback by how much Harding looked like me. He was short, close to my height, with the same stripped-down build I’d had after my long hospital stay. His flame-red hair was a near-perfect match to mine.

Harding hesitated when he saw the four of us. “Hey, Myles,” he said at last, trying to sound as if he wasn’t afraid, and failing miserably.

“Any idea why you’re here?” I asked.

Another shrug. “Not really. No.”

“Think about it,” I said. “When the reason comes to mind, be sure and let me know. In the meantime, I’m going to ask you some questions. Thing is, I already know the answers to most of them.”

I nodded to my crew and the four men moved toward Harding, surrounding him on all sides. Ralph, who had fashioned a shank for the occasion, pressed the instrument’s sharpened tip against the small hollow at the base of Harding’s neck. Of the five of us, Ralph definitely had the worst reputation. Don’t get me wrong-Ralph was a stand-up guy and a friend of the highest caliber, but when provoked he had a violent temper. Every man in Walpole knew better than to fool with him.

Harding swallowed hard. His face was gray, his upper lip flecked with sweat. Suddenly, the tang of urine filled the room. I looked down at Harding’s crotch and saw a dark stain spreading across his denim pants.

“He fucking pissed himself,” Ralph said.

“It’s simple,” I told Harding. “Lie to me and I’ll have you killed. The first question’s an easy one: What are you in for?”

“Burglary.” His voice was barely a whisper.

“You want to rethink that?” I asked.

Harding hung his head, as if resigned to his fate. “No.”

Ralph hit him hard in the stomach then and he doubled over, struggling to get his breath back. But we didn’t give him the chance.

I’m not proud of what happened after that. I still cringe remembering what we did to that man. Despite everything, he lied right up until the end. In fact he would have died lying if I hadn’t stepped in.

“Could he be telling the truth?” I wondered out loud.

“No way,” Billy said without hesitation.

“We pulled his fucking file,” Ozzy reminded me.

“Let’s kill him,” Ralph suggested.

I shook my head. Harding’s confession was my only shot at clearing my name. He would be no use to me dead. More important, killing him would be a pointless and hateful act. I wanted no part of it.

“John, please,” I pleaded with the man. “I’m the only guy in here who wants you alive. Please, just tell me the truth.”

He blinked up at me through swollen eyelids. “I hurt little girls.”

“And the girl in Revere?”

Harding coughed, wincing at the pain in his ribs. “What do you want to know?”

“Did you do it or not?” I asked.

“Sure I did it. Little blond girl on a hill. I took some money from her, didn’t I?”

I didn’t answer. One of the charges against me was that I’d stolen four dollars from the girl. “Pull yourself together,” I told him. “We’re going to get you cleaned up and take you to the warden right now. We’ll get this written up and you can sign an affidavit in front of him.” I paused, staring down at him. “You say we laid a hand on you and we’ll kill you right in front of the warden, understand?”

Harding nodded, then wiped his mouth, smearing blood across his cheek. “Do you think the police knew you were innocent?” he asked as Billy hauled him to his feet. “’Cause I’ve got a real good friend in the MDC.”

At the mention of the Metropolitan District Commission, I snapped to attention.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Who’s your friend?”

“Detective Deschamps,” Harding answered. “He’s like an uncle to me. He protects me, even gives me money sometimes.”

“You think he knew you did this?” I asked, trying to contain my rage.

Harding paused. It was almost as if he understood the importance of what he was about to tell me. “Sure,” he said. “He knew.”

A prison confession is one thing, but an acquittal on account of such an admission is something else entirely. In light of what happened with my original jury trial, I was wary of going through the same thing again. Fortunately, I wouldn’t have to. Because such a short amount of time had passed since my conviction, my attorney was able to skip the lengthy appeals process and go directly to the judge who had originally heard the case to ask for a dismissal.

Despite this positive turn of events, a reversal of the charges against me was by no means a sure thing. The judge in the case, a man named Eugene Hudson, was known for being extremely tough on defendants. But he also had a reputation for fairness.

At our first meeting with Judge Hudson, in late November 1970, Harding, who had been transferred to the prison in Bridgewater, confessed once again to having raped the girl. But at our second hearing, a week later, he patently denied having committed the crime. His change of heart didn’t come as a surprise to me. I had a strong suspicion that Hurley and Caselli had been down to Bridgewater to see him, along with Jack Zalkind, the Suffolk County assistant district attorney who had prosecuted the original case against me. If there’s one thing cops and prosecutors hate more than losing the first time around, it’s having their convictions overturned. Reversals generate huge amounts of bad publicity, something any district attorney needs to avoid at all cost if he or she is to win reelection.

Jack Zalkind had a reputation for being an extremely zealous prosecutor. Just a few years earlier he had been the lead prosecutor in a series of trials involving high-ranking members of the New England mob. Working closely with the FBI and a turncoat hit man named Joseph “the Animal” Barboza, the first person ever to take advantage of the newly created Federal Witness Protection Program, Zalkind was able to put four men on death row, two in prison for life, and send mob boss Raymond Patriarca to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

It was quite a list of accomplishments, though even then the veracity of Barboza’s testimony was questionable. In the years since, proof of widespread corruption in the Boston FBI office along with the contradictory testimony of additional witnesses further weakened Zalkind’s mob convictions. It was eventually proven that Barboza fabricated his claims out of a desire to get revenge for perceived slights and to cut a deal for himself, and that the men he testified against were actually innocent of the crimes of which they were convicted.

Clearly, Zalkind was not the kind of man to step aside and allow a rape conviction to be overturned because of a prison confession. “I want Mr. Connor prosecuted to the full extent of the law for what he and his associates did to Mr. Harding,” he told Judge Hudson when we returned for the third and final hearing.

“Mr. Zalkind,” the Judge replied, glowering down at the prosecutor, “because of the unusual nature of Mr. Harding’s confession, I took him into my chambers last week and asked him a series of questions only the guilty party would have known the answers to. He replied correctly to each and every one.”

Zalkind tried to protest, but he was cut off.

“I have no doubt about Mr. Connor’s conduct,” Hudson said. “But had I been in his position, I would have done the same thing. You will not use my courtroom to railroad an innocent man.”

After my attorney filed a motion for a new trial, Hudson went on to dismiss the case. Because of the circumstances surrounding his confession and the prosecutor’s reluctance to drag the young victim back into court, Harding was never charged with the crime.

It’s hard enough to serve a prison sentence when you know you’re guilty. Doing time for a crime you know you didn’t commit is excruciatingly painful. When I returned to Walpole after the dismissal I felt like a free man. And to the extent that I had reclaimed the larger portion of my dignity, I was.

But there is a price to be paid for everything.

To this day I still believe that what we did to John Harding was justified: he was guilty of the crime, and without his confession I would not have been able to clear my name. But I also believe that nothing good can come of that kind of violence. Ralph, Ozzy, Billy, and I would be forever linked by what we had done in that cramped room behind the auditorium. It was a bond that would extend far beyond Walpole’s towering perimeter, a debt of friendship that I was bound to repay.