All Rise Boston with Diane Godfrey

The Honorable Thomas A. Connors was appointed to the Massachusetts District Court by Governor William Weld in 1995. In 2004 he was appointed to the Superior Court Bench of Massachusetts by Governor Mitt Romney. As an attorney, he had built an impressive career in a solo practice that handled everything from real estate closings to murder cases. Judge Connors shares what prompted him to attend Boston College Law School and why he ultimately gravitated to the criminal side of law. His intellect, humor, and candor shine as he discusses the judiciary and some of the “hottest” topics in the courthouse, for example, why there is no WiFi and why (per feedback from many disgruntled jurors) the vending machines offer only “junk”. Judge Connors retired in 2020 after serving for many years as the Regional Administrative Justice in Norfolk County. He has kept busy by continuing to serve the community: in 2021 he was named to the Board of Directors for The English High School Alumni Association in Jamaica Plain, his alma mater, and to the Advisory Panel of the Technical Pathways Program, one of the Boston Public Schools’ most exciting programs to prepare students to be leaders. Judge Connors also serves on the Medfield Historical Society.

With all the grimness that occurs in a courthouse, it’s no wonder that sometimes comic relief is on the docket. Diane reveals to Jordan the lighter side of working in the halls of justice, including antics by court officers, a rogue lawyer’s “gymnastics”, odd encounters, and how a bit of levity can help employees cope with the gravity of their work.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN is the USA Today bestselling author of 13 psychological thrillers, winning the most prestigious awards in the genre: five Agathas, four Anthonys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. She is also the on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, with 37 EMMYs and dozens more journalism honors. Book critics call her “a master of suspense,” “a superb and gifted storyteller”; she’s the only author to have won the Agatha in four categories: Best First, Best Novel, Best Short Story and Best Non-Fiction. Her newest is HER PERFECT LIFE, a chilling psychological standalone about fame, family, and revenge. It received starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, calling it “a superlative thriller.” B.A. Paris says, “Shocking, suspenseful… kept me guessing until the end.” and Julie Clark says, “You will read this in one sitting!” It is now nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel. Her next is THE HOUSE GUEST, coming January 2023. Hank is a founder of MWA University, host of CRIME TIME on A Mighty Blaze, and co-host of First Chapter Fun and The Back Room. She is a past president of National Sisters in Crime. Visit Hank at HankPhillippiRyan.com, Twitter @HankPRyan, Instagram @hankpryan and Facebook at HankPhillippiRyanAuthor.

When Mark Putnam graduated from the FBI Academy in 1986, he seemed to have it all: the new career he’d dreamed about his entire life, darkly handsome good looks, an attractive wife from a rich family, a new baby daughter and another child on the way. His first big assignment took them to the podunk town of Pikeville KY, Hatfield and McCoy country, where Mark’s productive record of arrests seemed to make him a model agent. But his secret sexual entanglement with FBI paid informant Susan Smith (an attractive, loose-lipped, high-school dropout, drug user and sometimes prostitute) began a dark spiral downward. When Susan went missing in June 1989, not one bit of evidence led to her whereabouts. Then Mark did something that startled his colleagues and led to his becoming the first FBI agent in history to be charged with and convicted of murder. Was Susan murdered to cover up the affair after she threatened to tell his wife and the FBI she was carrying Mark’s unborn child?

J.W. “Jay” Carney, a prominent Boston-based criminal defense lawyer, rose to national fame when he defended James “Whitey” Bulger, the infamous South Boston crime boss. Jay is known for taking on the gruesome or difficult cases, such as that of Tarek Mehanna, the pharmacist from Sudbury, MA who was convicted in 2012 for providing support to Al Qaeda, and of John Salvi, who in 1994 killed two people and wounded five others at two Brookline, MA abortion clinics. He has been spotlighted in media outlets such as CNN, The Boston Globe, and The Wall Street Journal for his work. Boston Magazine named Jay one of The Five Best Private Criminal Defense Attorneys in Massachusetts. Join us as Jay recounts his first encounter with Mr. Bulger and what it was like to represent one of the most notorious criminals in Boston – and US – history.

“She still stays in St. Joseph’s Cemetery. Nobody overturns that verdict.” Joanne Arruda knew something was terribly wrong. It was late afternoon on Friday, September 8th, 1978: two days after her daughter’s 15th birthday. But Mary Lou still wasn’t home. She had been out riding her bike in her Raynham, MA neighborhood, about 32 miles south of Boston. The orange ten-speed bike turned up on a dirt road near her home, but Mary Lou would not be found for two months. On November 11th, kids riding dirt-bikes came across her standing body tied to a tree 18 miles away from the Arruda home, in Freetown State Forest. Her possessions had been arranged in a semi-circle in front of her, and most gruesomely: her head was near them. She had been strangled and abandoned. James Kater, a 31-year-old who worked in a Brockton MA doughnut shop, soon emerged as a suspect. He had been released from prison in January 1976 for a shockingly similar crime. In that case, the 13-year-old girl had survived the strangulation, and after Kater left her was able to untie herself. His lime green car had been seen in Mary Lou’s neighborhood, physical evidence was found, and his alibi soon fell apart. Kater’s sentence for kidnapping and murder sent him to prison for the rest of his life, but he continued to fight the verdict. Her bitter comment about her daughter buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery came after she heard of the third retrial having been ordered. I worked on the fourth and final Kater trial and will discuss the case, conviction, appeals, and retrials.

On the night of September 6th, 1987, Dora Jean Brimage, 19, accepted a ride from a birthday party in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. She was seen getting into a car with three men. The next day, construction workers renovating a vacant building a mile and a half away from the party location found her semi-clad, mutilated body; she had been severely beaten, raped, and strangled. There were no suspects, but investigators preserved the evidence, hoping that one day advances in DNA science would help them solve the vicious crime. Her family would wait nearly 30 years to find out who had killed Dora, who was active in her church and in high school athletics, and who had planned to pursue a career in nursing. Her sister said she never wore pink again. Dora was wearing a pink outfit when she was murdered. In 2014, a federal grant enabled the Boston Police Department Cold Case Squad to re-examine “cold cases.” The DNA evidence from Dora Brimage at last yielded its secrets: a suspect was identified. It would take the Squad two years to build their case against him. When justice was finally served, Dora’s mother Doris made a dramatic declaration at the killer’s sentencing hearing which stunned the courtroom.

That’s what Diane Farley said to her boyfriend, David Blatz, when he picked her up at 8 am from the house of her friend of just six weeks, Sarah Ann Marsceill, known as Sally. Diane and Sally had spent the night before drinking and doing cocaine. But David noticed what appeared to be blood stains on Diane’s clothes. When David Stewart left his sister’s house in Dedham MA on the night of April 23, 1993, he didn’t know it would be the last time he’d ever see Sally alive. He found Sally’s body the following afternoon. She was lying face up on her bedroom floor wearing only a tee shirt. She had been stabbed eleven times and had defensive wounds on her hands and arms. The murder weapon was never found, and no motive ever established. Diane Farley was arrested and convicted of Sally’s murder. Today’s guest is Judge Robert Cosgrove, who in 2002 was the prosecutor with the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office in Diane Farley’s retrial. Judge Cosgrove explains how the original conviction was overturned and retrial ordered because an appellate court found the original defense attorney’s work deficient (ineffective assistance of counsel). Judge Cosgrove will also discuss the nuts and bolts of a prosecutor’s preparation for a murder trial and the inherent problems with retrying a case.