Lawyer Admits Dumping Mistress’ Body

In a startling courtroom turnaround, a politically connected lawyer on trial on charges of murdering his mistress admitted through his attorney Monday that he disposed of the body but insisted the death was an accident.

The admission came on the opening day of Thomas Capano’s trial in the slaying of Anne Marie Fahey, who was Gov. Thomas R. Carper’s secretary.

It was the first time Capano had even acknowledged that Fahey is dead.

Fahey was last seen at dinner with Capano at a restaurant in Philadelphia in 1996. Her body has not been found, and Capano had long maintained that he knew nothing about her disappearance.

Prosecutors believe that Capano, a 49-year-old former prosecutor and gubernatorial aide from a wealthy family of developers, killed Fahey because she was trying to end their secret three-year affair. Prosecutors have found no weapon but have suggested that Capano shot her.

In his opening statement Monday, defense attorney Joseph Oteri said Capano and his brother Gerard dumped Fahey’s body off the New Jersey coast. Oteri did not specify what caused her death--only that Capano did not murder her.

“Anne Marie Fahey died as the result of an outrageous, horrible, tragic accident,” he said.

Oteri said another person who was in Capano’s house on the night Fahey died knows what happened. He refused to name the person, saying it would be revealed at trial.

“Tom Capano lied to everyone who ever asked about Anne Marie Fahey except for one person who knows the whole truth,” Oteri said.

The prosecution, in its opening statement, told the jury that Capano planned for months to kill Fahey and dump her body at sea.

Prosecutor Ferris Wharton said Capano bought a gun through another lover and purchased a cooler two months before Fahey disappeared.

Wharton said Capano, a married father of four daughters, had become obsessed with Fahey during their relationship.

The strongest testimony against Capano was expected to come from Gerard Capano, who told police he helped his brother shove the chain-wrapped cooler off his boat the day after Fahey disappeared.

Gerard Capano had said he looked away when the cooler did not sink, heard his brother wrestling with the contents and then turned in time to see a human leg slip below the ocean surface.

Prosecutors promised Gerard Capano leniency on unrelated drug and weapon charges.

Oteri called Gerard Capano “a typical, screwed-up rich kid” whose habitual drug and alcohol abuse made his memory unreliable.