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Abandoned Car in Adirondacks

42:42 recording · EN · 1 speaker

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Brief overview

Robert Garrow Sr. killed four young people in 1973, and his lawyers kept the bodies secret.

  1. Early reports were dismissed as not urgentA trooper told Pat Cadell to wait before calling back, and troopers who found the locked BMW assumed the owner would return for it.
  2. Attorney-client privilege hid two victims' bodiesArmani and his co-counsel located Sue Petz and Alicia Hauck's remains but could not report them without Robert's consent, and stayed silent into 1974.
  3. Local knowledge kept the manhunt running for daysGarrow grew up in Mineville, moved at night and broke into vacant properties, stretching the largest and most costly manhunt in New York State history to 11 days.
Executive Summary AI
  • In July 1973 Pat Cadell reported that his Harvard classmate and business partner Danny Porter, 23, and Danny's girlfriend Susan Petz, 21, never returned from a camping weekend in the Adirondacks, and Danny's leased 1972 BMW was found abandoned off State Route 8 in Weavertown, New York.2:01
  • On Friday morning Danny's own friends, not the police, found his body about 25 feet from the road; he had died of fatal hemorrhaging and shock from four stab wounds to the chest on Saturday, July 14th, while Sue had vanished.7:10
  • On Sunday, July 29th, near Speculator, a middle-aged man in a fedora with a rifle tied four campers to trees and stabbed 18-year-old Phil Domblewski to death, and Dave Freeman, Carol Malinowski and Nick Fiorello escaped to raise the alarm.14:02
  • An abandoned car at a roadblock identified the gunman as 37-year-old Robert Garrow Sr. of Syracuse, a man with convictions for attempted robbery, burglary, grand larceny and sex crimes, who was caught on August 9th after being shot by a Department of Environmental Conservation officer.21:04
  • Garrow confessed to his attorneys Frank Armani and his co-counsel that he had killed Danny Porter, Phil Domblewski, Sue Petz and 16-year-old Alicia Hauck, and the lawyers found and photographed Sue's body in a Mineville mine shaft but said nothing, a silence that surfaced at his 1974 trial, where jurors convicted him of Phil's murder and he was sentenced to 25 years to life.31:12
Key Quote
“That term, Forever Wild, could also be an appropriate name for the aspects of the human predator in today's episode.”
— Delia D'Ambra0:47
Key Quote
“In other words, where Danny's car had been found was conveniently out of sight of others.”
— Delia D'Ambra6:31
Key Quote
“don't try anything or I'll blow a hole in you. I've killed before and I'll kill again”
— Delia D'Ambra16:01