Found Across Continent : Suspect in Knife Slaying Captured--21 Years Later

A man who authorities allege knifed his estranged wife and stabbed her lover to death in Los Angeles was arrested Wednesday night across the country in South Philadelphia--21 years after the fact.

Armando Joseph Liberati, 65, who had lived since 1964 under the assumed name of Albert Abbonizio, told arresting officers: “I’ve been waiting for you. I knew you’d be coming sooner or later.”

“We’d been waiting all day, staking out his house, and we met up with him on the steps,” Philadelphia Police Detective Philip Checchia said Wednesday night. “Detective Sgt. Daniel Rosenstein said, ‘We’d like to talk to you,’ and he (Liberati) nodded. The sergeant told him we’d get a warrant to search his place and come back, but he said that wasn’t necessary.

“The LAPD received information that he was living here and gave us the address,” the detective said. “But we found no one of that name living there. The only man with an Italian name living in the building was Albert Abbonizio. We checked around. We had a photograph of him taken all those years ago, but when you see him today, there’s no mistaking him. It’s the same guy. He’s short, 5 foot, 6 inches, slim and has a very prominent nose.”

Liberati told Philadelphia police his family immigrated from Italy and he lived on the East Coast until the 1950s, when he moved to Southern California to work in the aircraft industry. His marriage to Mary Ann Carter lasted only a short time before they separated and Carter moved with her sister to an apartment in the Los Feliz District.

The morning of Sept. 12, 1964, Carter was leaving the apartment with her lover, Frederick Shaheen, when they were attacked. The assailant stabbed her twice in the right arm and once in the right chest.

Neighbors told police Shaheen struggled with the man and then staggered up the driveway wounded in the abdomen. The 52-year-old postal worker died within seconds.

The wounded woman ran to her apartment and shortly afterwards, there was a telephone call.

Answered Phone

Carter’s sister, Ruth Johnson, answered. Later, she told police a man’s voice said: “How does it feel to get stabbed in the back?”

Carter told police the assailant was her estranged husband. She said they had lived together only “a couple of months” before separating more than two years before the attack and she had intended to marry Shaheen.

Carter told police that her husband had harassed her ever since the separation.

Los Angeles police traced Liberati to his apartment in the Westlake area immediately after the attack, but he had already been home, changed clothes and fled.

After apparently lying low for a few years, Philadelphia police said, he took a job 17 years ago in a men’s clothing firm and was so highly thought of that he stayed with them until he retired recently on a pension. For the last 15 years, they said, he had lived alone, but for 13 of those years, he had the same girlfriend who lived just around the corner from his apartment.