Police turn to inmate to solve 1995 case (Rochester Democrat/Chronicle) -- Irish Media Watch Message Board

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Date Posted: 14:12:29 08/18/09 Tue GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: Police turn to inmate to solve 1995 case (Rochester Democrat/Chronicle)

August 16, 2009

Police turn to inmate to help solve 1995 case of disappearing man

Gary Craig
Staff writer

Earlier this summer, two police investigators traveled to the Mohawk Correctional Facility near Rome to see whether a 71-year-old inmate and two-time killer — a prisoner almost certain to die behind bars — could shed light on unsolved crimes connected to the 1993 heist of $7.4 million from a Rochester Brinks depot.

In particular, Rochester police Investigator William Lawler and State Police Investigator Thomas Crowley hoped the inmate, Gerald O'Connor, could reveal what happened to a man who vanished in Greece in 1995, and whose disappearance is suspected to be linked to the robbery of the Brinks depot.

Police say they believe the man, Joseph "Ronnie" Gibbons, is dead. O'Connor has claimed he helped bury Gibbons after another individual killed him. In a series of about a half-dozen interviews with police over the past two years, O'Connor has occasionally related what he claims happened to Gibbons, but police say he has never been willing, if his story is true, to lead them to where the corpse was buried.

"He certainly, given his history, has the potential to know this information," Crowley said of O'Connor, who is imprisoned for an Orleans County murder, kidnapping and sexual assault. O'Connor had previously been incarcerated for manslaughter in a separate slaying.

About two years ago, police renewed the investigation into Gibbons' disappearance. With the 14-year anniversary of his disappearance last week, police revealed in interviews some of the successes and hurdles they've faced with the ongoing probe.

Police have linked Gibbons to the Brinks heist; most of the money from the robbery remains missing. Two men, Samuel Millar and the Rev. Patrick Moloney, were convicted of possessing money from the robbery, while two — former Rochester Police Officer Thomas O'Connor and Charles McCormick — were acquitted at trial of involvement in the crime.

Thomas O'Connor and Gerald O'Connor are not related.

Both Moloney, who lives in New York City, and Millar, who lives in Belfast in Northern Ireland, are now free.

Despite Gerald O'Connor's recalcitrance, police say they're continuing to amass evidence about Gibbons' disappearance. They have a suspect — the individual O'Connor said killed Gibbons — and last year furtively secured a DNA sample from the man, Lawler said.

Police say the individual was questioned in the late 1980s about an unsolved slaying — the 1987 shooting death of Damien McClinton at a Genesee Brewery warehouse in Rochester — and they are now re-examining information and physical evidence from that killing.

Police were able to obtain DNA samples from the suspect at a social event he attended locally last year, Lawler said. At the event, undercover State Police posed as waiters and waitresses and secured a soup spoon used by the individual and beer bottles he drank from, Lawler said.

Now they have the DNA, Lawler said, should there be physical evidence available from the McClinton slaying or from Gibbons' disappearance, or should a crime scene or body be discovered.

Police also say they have conducted numerous interviews in the past two years that may help answer what happened to Gibbons, who was a retired welterweight boxer.

Fourteen years ago last week, Gibbons drove to the Rochester region from New York City after borrowing a friend's car. Gibbons told the friend that he helped plan the Brinks heist, though was not involved in its execution, and was going to travel to Rochester to get what he believed to be his fair share of the stolen loot.

He was last seen in the Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar parking lot in Greece before the restaurant opened one morning. The borrowed car was left in the lot.

Police admit that building a criminal case around Gibbons' disappearance is difficult without his body. And that's where they had hoped for help from Gerald O'Connor, who is serving 46 years to life.

The Democrat and Chronicle also has communicated with O'Connor occasionally since 2004, when he was convicted of the Orleans County murder. In letters, O'Connor has not revealed who he claims killed Gibbons but said he first met the man in the 1960s when O'Connor was hospitalized after being shot during a thwarted local bank robbery. The individual was also at the hospital, O'Connor said.

Court records do show that O'Connor was hospitalized as an inmate in 1967.

Once this year, O'Connor claimed in a letter to the Democrat and Chronicle that he would provide "a map about things we talked about" but he then backed out of an interview at the prison at the last minute.

Police say they are accustomed to similar unreliable behavior from O'Connor, making them unsure whether he has been pulling a ruse the whole time.

"We've approached him from multiple avenues," Crowley said. "He's inconsistent with what he does tell us. There's always some stalling technique. He's a con man."

In the past four years, the Democrat and Chronicle has spoken with about a dozen relatives and acquaintances of Gerald O'Connor. None would speak for attribution, many of them citing a fear they have of him and most describing him as a chronic liar.

One of O'Connor's relatives failed a polygraph in which he was asked whether O'Connor may have once buried a murder victim, police say.

Some family members do still keep touch with O'Connor, police say. They say they helped arrange for O'Connor to remain jailed at Mohawk for the past year so he could be near family in the Rochester region and more convenient for investigators to interview.

Now, they say, they plan to work with corrections officials to move him back to the prison where he was previously housed because he is providing little help with the investigation.

That prison, in Dannemora, is about 15 miles from Plattsburgh.

Before moving to New York City, Gibbons lived in Liverpool, England. His mother, Rita, still lives there and in 2006 she wrote O'Connor, noting that she had been diagnosed with cancer.

"I want more than anything else in the world to find my son's body and lay him to rest during my own lifetime," she wrote in the letter, which she provided to the Democrat and Chronicle. "If there is any information you have that can help ease my pain and heartache, I would be eternally grateful."

In a telephone interview last week, Rita Gibbons, 78, said she too now doubts O'Connor knows anything. Sometimes, she said, she thinks her son's body may be "at the bottom of a river or buried in the woods."

Other times, she said, she remains hopeful that he could be alive.

"I sometimes think he could be out there somewhere," she said.

GCRAIG@DemocratandChronicle.com
Additional Facts
Seeking tips

Police ask that anyone with information about either the 1995 disappearance of Joseph Gibbons or the 1987 slaying of Damien McClinton, contact city police Investigator William Lawler at (585) 428-7536, State Police Investigator Thomas Crowley at (585) 398-4126, or Crime Stoppers at (585) 423-9300. Reporter Gary Craig can be reached at (585) 258-2479.

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