July 1, 2026
Chapter 5 | Hour of Need
Anthony’s case file leads him to Rachel. She reveals her harrowing past.
Award-winning investigative journalist and longtime Rolling Stone Magazine contributor Paul Solotaroff hosts the next entry in the acclaimed Bone Valley anthology: Bone Valley Season 5 | The Devil's Quarry.
Click HERE to read more about this story from Paul Solotaroff in Rolling Stone Magazine.
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Bone Valley Season 5: The Devil’s Quarry is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Rolling Stone Films and Signal Co. No1.
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00:00:00
Speaker 1: This series includes sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including sexual assault and abuse involving children. Listener discretion is advised. Since middle school, Rachel Laura has been telling the authorities better moms than boyfriend Howard Gombert. She told her guidance counselor. She told Putnam Sheriff's detectives and Carmel cops. She told three different judges in Putnam County and at least that many das and their assistance. And each time she told her story, she'd go into a steep tailspin, reliving the violations and the helplessness afresh. And then I called Rachel five years ago and asked her the unaskable. I was reporting the wrongful convictions of Anthony and Andy. Did her help clearing their names? But she told me about the screaming nightmare she had each time that she came forward, the feeling of going crazy for weeks on end, and the sickness that settled in her bones. In the end, no, Rachel agreed to talk, but only as it pertained to Josette. I love that kid, she said, so I'm going to do this for her. But she insisted there'd be no talk of Howard she was done pouring gas on that grease fire. So last fall she talked to me from her living room. I asked my questions over the phone while she sat with our reporter, Kathleen. Would you like a pseudonym for this conversation?
00:01:51
Speaker 2: Give me, give me something else? Yeah, Kimmy, Kimmy. I'm like all over the place, ew feeling about doing all this again.
00:02:02
Speaker 1: I mean, over the course of the next hour, Rachel talked about Josette, about the sweet but love starved girl who felt unseen and who'd been grateful to hook on with Rachel's family, dropping by there after school and sticking around for dinner, spending hours learning to crochet with Rachel's mom. But each time she went in deep about Josette, Rachel ran into a problem, a problem named Howard Combert.
00:02:32
Speaker 2: So, you know, to try to get around the whole not talking about Howard. Thing about Josette is kind of hard because he met her at my mom's house, you know, of course.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: So in the end she decided to sit for us again, to meet another day with Kathleen.
00:02:56
Speaker 2: Can I get you to introduce yourself and tell me what you have for breakfast or lunch? Then get a level. I didn't need anything today, not one thing. No, now I want to give you some almonds or something.
00:03:13
Speaker 1: Kathleen sat with Rachel as she delved into her past, rummaging old photos and dusty scrap books, reading up bits of letters.
00:03:24
Speaker 2: So I did you find some feelings that you as you're going up into the.
00:03:30
Speaker 1: Attic It was clear she hadn't done this in a very long time. Exhuming her girlhood year by year.
00:03:40
Speaker 2: Grade three, it is around the time when it started.
00:03:47
Speaker 1: By it, she means the mumcumbered entered her life and her home from which you take advantage of young girls in and around Putnam County.
00:04:01
Speaker 2: And you want to know what goes through my head is how many of them could have been saved if they would have just listened to me.
00:04:21
Speaker 3: My madness, laughter, my fears, sorrows, depths are endless valley.
00:04:41
Speaker 4: My ears, this is the Devil's quarry.
00:05:07
Speaker 1: Rachel was around eight when she first met Gombert. She was living with her mom and brother in an apartment three miles east of Carmel. One day, she stopped at a gas station with her uncle. The uncle started chatting with a stranger there. That stranger was Howard Gombert.
00:05:26
Speaker 2: And whether it was about getting some weed or getting you know, whatever drug was involved, he ended up coming back to the house.
00:05:37
Speaker 1: Gombert would have been in his early twenties then. He was handsome in his seventies, windblown way with a center part mullet, a thin mustache, and a dimple in his chin, dressed in black boots and driving a motorcycle. He was something of a seducer in those days. Just weeks after meeting Rachel's mom, for example, he'd moved himself into the flat. The physical and sexual abuse began soon after. Rachel had already seen her mom man handled by guys that she brought home.
00:06:11
Speaker 2: She was a very loving lady. She wore a heart on her sleeve, but like many of us, she was traumatized.
00:06:19
Speaker 1: But Gombert was a different beast entirely. A few months after Gombert moved in, Rachel was alone with him in the apartment. Her mom was off at work and Rachel was folding laundry. Gomber came up behind her, saying he knew boys were going to like her. Then he lureded the back bedroom, where he raped her for the first time.
00:06:44
Speaker 2: I was eight and nine years old when it started.
00:06:50
Speaker 1: Soon Gomber crept into her bed at night. She'd awakened to his hand clasped over her mouth, is growing pressed up against her. It went on like this for years, she says, the rapes, the whispered death threats. She was made to feel like her body wasn't hers, like it was his to do with as he chose, Nor was that his only form of abuse.
00:07:16
Speaker 2: Let me just give you an example. Cigarettes were found under my bed. I started smoking early. Howard whopped my ass. He whopped my ass just to show my mom that I was being disciplined.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: Five years of this went by. Gombert moved in and out of her house, but kept coming back.
00:07:49
Speaker 2: For little visits for many years. Like it felt wrong and knew it was wrong, but he didn't actually find out until I was sitting in health class.
00:08:05
Speaker 1: An instructor was teaching a module on sex ad that day and the difference between right touch and the.
00:08:12
Speaker 2: Wrong touch, you know, no touching in the bathing suit areas, And I was sitting in class learning that it was all wrong. It was all wrong, and it just kind of verified what I was feeling, you know, And that's why you're not supposed to say anything that's why nobody's gonna believe you, you know, like keep this between.
00:08:47
Speaker 1: It was all wrong, Rachel confided in a friend soon after that it was the first time she told anyone about Combert. Her friends told him adult at the school.
00:09:02
Speaker 2: The next period, I was called up to the guidance counselor's office and they never went back home. I ended up at the Sheriff's department. I spent the rest of my day in that sheriff's department.
00:09:22
Speaker 1: But in detectives arrested Gombert and charged him with raping a minor. But it was Rachel who's removed from her own house.
00:09:31
Speaker 2: I just wanted to go home, you know, like in my head, being that young and not they took him out of the house, so why couldn't I go back home?
00:09:44
Speaker 1: A worker from Child Services was assigned to her case. Rachel moved into the Cabrini Girls' Home in Carmel. A month or two later, she was summoned to court to testify against Gombert. She'd been prepped for the hearing by her Child's Services worker to tell her story remotely via video feed from the separate courtroom. That was and remains the procedure in child rape cases.
00:10:12
Speaker 2: I remember the day of court and they had me in the side room. We're setting up, getting ready to do the testimony or getting ready to do, you know, start the court. I was scared. I mean like I was nervous. I was I'm like shaking inside.
00:10:26
Speaker 1: Now.
00:10:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was something that you know, like I didn't want to do, but I had to do.
00:10:34
Speaker 1: And suddenly a commotion. Someone came in and pulled her advocate aside.
00:10:40
Speaker 2: And it was said, no, you're not allowed to do a video testimony. You actually have to go on the stand.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: She asked her worker what that meant. The worker couldn't tell her. This is the answer Rachel got from the judge.
00:10:56
Speaker 2: You know, like he has the right to hear you accuse accusing him.
00:11:01
Speaker 1: Frantic, she asked her advocate what to do. Don't worry, said the advocate. I'm with you every step. Just look at me when you tell it, not at him.
00:11:12
Speaker 2: She would sit and be my focal point. But that all suddenly changed.
00:11:20
Speaker 1: The room the hearing was held in was claustrophobically small, some folding chairs, a couple of tables, a judge behind one of them. Rachel took her seat beside the judge, and three feet away at his lawyer's table, sat convert.
00:11:36
Speaker 2: He was put basically right in front of me feet do I and Howard's got this look and scared shut at me.
00:11:53
Speaker 1: And then there was his lawyer. The name of that lawyer Bob A. Leader before he represented Anthony for the murder of Josette. Right. Bobby Leader was Howard Gombert's lawyer.
00:12:10
Speaker 2: I don't remember what the questions was, but it was, you know, like pertraining to what I am accusing him of, or what happened or the incident or you know, I'm sure it had to do with what I said in the first place, you know, like what brought me to that guidance counselor.
00:12:30
Speaker 1: Rachel started his story, tripping over the words, trying just to breathe and not pass out.
00:12:38
Speaker 2: And I started, like I did. I testified one hundred percent with my head down for reason. And the judge, I can't even remember who he was, he said, I can't hear you. Pick up your head.
00:13:02
Speaker 1: She did, and there were Gombert's eyes staring back at her.
00:13:09
Speaker 2: They just become dark, and it's like they pierced through you and brose me, and it just became overwhelming for me, and I walked off, said I couldn't do it.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: Rachel bolted from her chair and fled the room. There was no hope of getting her back into the chair. The rape charge was dropped, Gombert was released. The prosecutor told the papers that Rachel recanted whipsawed. Rachel returned to the group home. Several months later, her mom moved to Carmel. She took an apartment down the road from the group home. Rachel moved back home when her at the age of fifteen, and guess who was waiting for her there.
00:14:08
Speaker 2: Howard was still around. My mom thought that if she was there, nothing would happen. There was people around, I was protected. She was wrong.
00:14:30
Speaker 1: One of Howard's spots was the woods off Fields Lane. He put Rachel on the back of his bike and take her to his secret place there where he'd do whatever he wanted with her. After he split with Rachel's mom, Gomber, now in his late twenties, moved in with his teen girlfriend, but he'd still drop by Rachel's mom's apartment. Sometimes he drag his girlfriend along, other times he'd show up solo. He just seemed to somehow know when Rachel was alone there and to steal up from behind her wherever she happened to be. Still, Rachel tried to live in normal adolescence. She hung with her friends in Carmel after school. She had her first boyfriends who looked after Josette, who kept showing up at her house. The girl was there so often she was practically on the lease, and that's where she got to know Gombert. After Josette was killed, Rachel's mom told the cops that Gombert took an interest in Josette, and that Josette returned his interest and would ask about him when he wasn't around. In the fall of ninety three, Rachel felt pregnant. She'd know if the baby was her boyfriends or Gomberts. As it happened, She was with Gombert the day she got the news from the doctor. When she got off the phone and told him, Gombert lost his mind.
00:16:01
Speaker 2: He told me that I was moving in with him.
00:16:04
Speaker 1: That wasn't an invitation, it was an order. She was going to be the living sitter for Gombert's toddler, the baby had with his girlfriend or else.
00:16:15
Speaker 2: He told me that if I didn't tell my mom that I was going to move in with him to watch his daughter. That he was going to get Joe set too, and he said, no, I'm going to leave her alone.
00:16:32
Speaker 1: And that's when she told Gombert that she was moving at a carmel. They fought about her leaving and his designs on Josette until Rachel couldn't take it anymore.
00:16:43
Speaker 2: And I just wanted to go home. It was a rough day, you know. He went through a lot of that day with Howard, but.
00:16:52
Speaker 1: It was late by then she was miles from home. She had no choice but to accept a ride from Gombert.
00:17:00
Speaker 2: Somehow I ended up on that bike and he was bringing me home.
00:17:05
Speaker 1: Sitting behind him, Rachel watched the road.
00:17:09
Speaker 2: He goes to make a right. Shouldn't have like, why are you going up this road? But he went to turn. I never held onto him. I didn't like, you know, but I'm on the back of a motorcycle. So I kind of had his jacket and I felt the knife. He always had a knife on him. He always had some kind of weapon, and I just got this feeling he's going to kill me. I didn't know why he was turning. I didn't know where he was going. Then I jumped off the bike.
00:18:00
Speaker 1: While it was moving. She hit the asphalt hard.
00:18:05
Speaker 2: I jumped off and tried to protect my stomach, like I know I was pregnant and screwed myself up, like I messed up my name, elbow, like I'm jumped out into traffic. Uh, and I just started running. I just started running like I just wanted somebody to come down that road and stop. And nobody did. Nobody came down the road.
00:18:37
Speaker 1: She heard the roar of the bike turning back and gunning for her. Bruised and bloody, she watched herself get back on the bike.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: So he got me. And now he's nervous, you know, trying to come up with the story on how I off the bike.
00:19:02
Speaker 1: It was an accident. Gomber told her, you fell off the bike. Anyone asks you, that's what you say. But Rachel defied him. She confided in her boyfriend, told him she'd jumped because she'd feared for her life.
00:19:20
Speaker 2: I immediately told him what happened, and uh, he was pissed. But nobody ever did anything, you know, like nobody ever did anything. That's a really chilling squirt story. My heart's coming guessed. My whole insides are.
00:19:41
Speaker 1: Shaking in spite of Gombert's threats, Rachel went ahead with her plans. She packed up her life into moving boxes and brought them out to the curb. That was when Josette walked up and burst into tears on the sidewalk. The two girls hug well, both of them stood there sobbing.
00:20:23
Speaker 2: Quite honestly, I remember, chrisaye, just take me. They won't even notice I'm gone. I was like, we can't, we can't take you. You know, it crushed me. I worried about her. I worried about her, but I did tell her to stay away from Howard though had to stay away, you know, like it kind of threatened me with her, you know, like so I worried about her.
00:20:57
Speaker 1: For good reason. Joseph vanished a couple months after Rachel moved. Rachel had no house phone, so her mom stopped by to tell her.
00:21:07
Speaker 2: I was angry at myself. I feel like I could have protected her by.
00:21:12
Speaker 1: Staying a long Sidely ear went by. No word about Josette. Then, two days after cops found her body, they stopped by Rachel's house. She talked to them about Gombert.
00:21:29
Speaker 2: My first thought was, son of a bitch. Did he get her? You know, like Honestly, that hit me hard.
00:21:42
Speaker 1: At last, she didn't trust the cops or anyone else in this system, not after that system it so callously failed her when she reported Gombert five years prior. Her police statement made no mention of Gombert's spot off Fields Lane or the vile things he'd done to her in the woods. But as I reread her statement to Putnam Detective Bill Quick, I'm struck by what she did. Tell them that she was freaked by the idea of Josette babysitting for Gombert, that Gombert often drove his girlfriend's car, a car just like the one Josette was last seen getting into. All of that tallied with what other girls told them the Gombra was a creep who liked young girls. But those cops didn't drag Gombert out of his house and tossed them in the box with Castaldo. Instead, Costaldo picked Anthony and Andy out of a hat and chose them as Josette's killers. In doing so, he and Quick gave Gombert a pass, a get out of town free card, if you will. Gombert high tailed out of Carmel in ninety five, lived in Connecticut for several years, but Gombert couldn't help himself. He kept crawling back to New York. That hurt Rachel. She'd moved to the safest place she could find, a remote cottage high up in the hills. One night, she and her infant were fast asleep when she awoke to a hand over her mouth. He told her he'd take a baby and sell her to strangers if she didn't submit to him. When Gomber left without her infant, Rachel says she reported him once again, this time to the state trooper, who drove her to the hospital where a rape kit was performed. I've read the hospital report, but it's not clear whether the trooper documented the attack. In any case, they never brought Gombert in. Six years later, in two thousand and two, Anthony sat in prison reading his case file. He was halfway through it when he came to the statement that Rachel gave to police, the one about Howard knowing Josette.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: He opened up, this is Howard box, not knowing what he was going to find, but didn't know that I was in that box.
00:24:10
Speaker 1: Anthony told his investigators to go out and find Rachel, a girl he knew from hanging around the group home. They found her all right, and when they brought her story back to him, Anthony was staggered.
00:24:24
Speaker 5: The last time I seen her, I think she was working at a gas station. I had no idea she was suffered anything, but sitting with her story tripped memory for Anthony. I rob somebody I'd believe to be Howard Gombert.
00:24:42
Speaker 1: It was an evening in the fall of nineteen ninety four, right around the time Josette went missing. Anthony was selling drugs back then, was out with two of his stone or pals and Caramel. So I'm out there.
00:24:55
Speaker 5: There's the courthouse, there's this little area where there's these three benches. I'm standing out there and this guy comes up to me, right and he says, I want some cracker or some blow.
00:25:08
Speaker 1: Tom, one of his friends, you gambled on site. So the other kid, Rick, They whisper to Anthony. This guy's a fucking dick. He's no good.
00:25:19
Speaker 5: And Rick and Tom, I'm like, this guy, so you abuse, abuse mycrofriend, abuse my girlfriend. So I'm like, all right, well you want to want to do something about this, I'm like yeah.
00:25:30
Speaker 1: Anthony walked over to the guy and told him, yeah, I'll help you out.
00:25:34
Speaker 5: I said, all right, we got to go take a ride.
00:25:37
Speaker 1: The guy gave Anthony a hundred bucks in cash. They all got into Big Larry's Bronco. Three teens and the guy seeking drugs, and I'm like, where are we going to take them? So we're driving around and we pull up in this little area and I'm like, I don't know.
00:25:54
Speaker 5: I'm not trying to be violent to him. I just I got his money in my pocket. I just They're like, let's buck him up.
00:26:00
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, just leave him. Anthony pulled the car over, told the guy to get out, and I left him there.
00:26:09
Speaker 5: It wasn't until I had paperwork and I kind of pieced it together because how many people did time go out with?
00:26:16
Speaker 1: We're playing that memory now, the truth that it hit him. Tom's girlfriend at the time was Rachel and the guy you ripped off of the hundred bucks that had to be Howard Combert.
00:26:29
Speaker 5: I didn't know that he was a killer. I didn't know that he was a rapist. I just knew these people didn't like him, and I like to take things from people that are bad, and so I left them there.
00:26:40
Speaker 1: For years. One question that plagued him in prison, Why did the cops home in on me. He still had no definitive answer, but now he had a theory. And you know what, I think. I have never been able to prove this, but I've said it to a few people. I think he said that I killed that girl. And I think the reason why I was first ever suspected was because that guy was mad that I robbed him. It took him years of motions, of failure upon failure, of judges turning blind eyes to the facts, but Anthony finally submitted an appeal that broke through. What sparked it was another flashback from the nineties, the memory of a meeting with his lawyer, Bottle Leader before his trial in ninety seven.
00:27:44
Speaker 5: We have these legal visits in these small rooms, and it was in the visiting room.
00:27:50
Speaker 1: There Anthony remembers Leader telling him he had evidence evidence on a man named Howard Gombered that pointed him as Josette's killer. He told Anthony was going to go after Gombert as the killer during the trial, except that, yeah, he never saw much as raised Gombert's named of the jury.
00:28:10
Speaker 5: Leader was like, yeah, I think we're going to go after this guy. Leader is like, yeah, I had him on a rape case.
00:28:18
Speaker 1: That case, Anthony learned, now dated to nineteen ninety one. Gombert's accuser was none other than Rachel. That's right. The lawyer had repped Anthony for the rape murder of a twelve year old had also repped Gombert for the rape of a minor girl.
00:28:36
Speaker 5: So wait a minute, it's just like this guy had conflict adventures.
00:28:40
Speaker 1: What is this? Having studied law for years now, Anthony put the pieces together. His lawyer, Bobble Leader, had committed a disborrible breach of ethics. You can't rep a client on a murder charge when you've repped another viable suspect for that crime. No matter that he wasn't Gombert's attorney in ninety seven, Leaders still had a duty to protect Gombert at Anthony's trial, and his having done so had denied Anthony's right to a fair trial. It was the perfect grounds for an appeal. Anthony's new lawyer wasted no time filing emotion with the courts. After he'd served fifteen years, Anthony's conviction was set aside. He was granted a new trial in twenty eleven, thanks in large part to Rachel and to the investigator's who founder. Anthony's conviction was overturned. Still it wasn't free very far from it, because the DA filed to try and again. In the run up to his new trial, Anthony's lawyer approached Rachel about testifying on Anthony's behalf. It was an enormous ask.
00:29:57
Speaker 2: And I didn't understand my purpose or you know, and and having to heal and realize, like wow, like I have a fuck. My life has just been horror movie kind of like you know, like I'm very spiritual. I wouldn't say I'm religious. I was mad at God. There was a part in my life where I was just so mad at him and like why why? But I learned that sometimes you have to go through things they might not read particularly for you. But I had to go through something to help others. And you know, if that's what my purpose is, then I feel like I've tried to uphold that.
00:31:10
Speaker 1: When he learned that Rachel would testify for him, Anthony poured out his thanks to Hear in a letter.
00:31:18
Speaker 2: It says, first and foremost, I can't thank you enough for helping me and my family prosecute Howard Gombert. You are very courageous and it is because of this, me and Andy will be able to once again have a life. I know this to be true, and it's not important that you write me back. I just want you to know that we are forever grateful. You are the most important person in this case. Had you testified, my jury would not have believed a Nis wrote, the judge was protecting the dea by keeping you out hull with Howard Copper. Sincerely, Anthony, thank you.
00:32:14
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, Anthony moved back to the Putnam jailhouse and carmeled await trial. One morning, he heard his name called out in lock up. Another inmate heard it and his ears pricked up. His name was Jeff Santora. A short muscular guy covered him prisoning who just transferred into Putnam lockup.
00:32:38
Speaker 5: He here's my name of comments Sary.
00:32:41
Speaker 6: So I called him over and he said, hey, what's up?
00:32:44
Speaker 3: Man?
00:32:45
Speaker 6: I heard a lot about you. Yeah, I heard a lot about you too. Man.
00:32:48
Speaker 7: He's like, yeah, ain't none of his true though? I say, I know, I said, for where his work? I'm sorry you're in here, man. I know you ain't do that shit. How you know I can do it?
00:32:58
Speaker 1: Santoro said he'd been imprisoning Connecticut where he was doing a bit for possession. Then he shared a story about an inmate he'd met there.
00:33:10
Speaker 7: So I mean, this sounds funny. It because we like, we crossed paths in the shower, and uh, I heard him talking to somebody else.
00:33:18
Speaker 1: Specifically, you heard him talking about Putnam.
00:33:21
Speaker 6: County, and I'm like, Buttnam County.
00:33:25
Speaker 1: Centaura had grown up in Putnam. He looked the other end night over.
00:33:30
Speaker 6: He looks like a beady eyed weasel rat.
00:33:35
Speaker 7: You know. Once I seen him, and I seen him, and then I knew you could just tell it right off the jump. When I looked at him, I knew he was a sex offent.
00:33:41
Speaker 1: There.
00:33:42
Speaker 6: You see that he's a predator, but he's a predator for everybody.
00:33:47
Speaker 7: And then you have the weasel predator, a little lad with that beady eyes, and they just they prey on the small, the weak and easy, you know, like a vulture, you know, playing the dead. So somebody like that. Not too many people want to hear what he has to say.
00:34:06
Speaker 1: But again, the man mentioned Putnam County.
00:34:10
Speaker 6: So I'm giving him airtime. He just wants to talk.
00:34:14
Speaker 7: He was telling me stuff that I couldn't believe I was hearing.
00:34:19
Speaker 1: Then the beadyod Weasel mentioned a body.
00:34:22
Speaker 6: He explained it was the girl Josette.
00:34:27
Speaker 1: As a team. Growing up in Putnam, he'd learned a legend of Joseph backwards and forwards.
00:34:33
Speaker 7: Susan's a little girl that was raped and killed by uh he did the pit bow and angel Prevac and that there was a piece of shit, you know that they did some dirty shit to this little twelve year old girl.
00:34:48
Speaker 6: And I was at.
00:34:51
Speaker 7: A place in my of hatred for them, like for that. I hated those kids for that. A piece of shit. You raped this little girl and kill her like that. It's fucked up.
00:35:05
Speaker 1: So now hearing this guy in a Connecticut prison talking about a body named Josette.
00:35:12
Speaker 7: And I'm like, I'm like what And in my head I'm like, oh my god, like this what is this guy talking about? So yeah, they got these two other suckers for it, though, so they'll never get me. I'm like two other suckers. I'm like, why are these suckers? He's like, you know, you know, I'm like you know what he's like, you know what? It is, like, Like, oh my god, I'm like, whoa this guy's saying it right now. In my mind, I'm like, this is you know, it's explode. It's an explosion in my mind. He flat out it was like, you know they got two other suckers. Fact, so that to me right there, that man you did that if they had why they suckers, they wouldn't be suckers if they did it. You don't know how big of a deal this was. Like when I was like, I'm gonna look tell all my friends about this. This is crazy, and I was like I was just writing it down, like, woman, we did they hit this shit?
00:36:07
Speaker 1: Santaorro Rand, who was selling scribbled everything he'd heard, four pages of notes, single spaced, and then a couple of months later he was sent to the Putnam Jail, where he heard Anthony's name being called over the PA while he had those notes on his person.
00:36:25
Speaker 7: When I got to fucking Putnham, it was almost like it was like feet, I guess I don't really believe in that shit, but it was like the world writing and wrong.
00:36:33
Speaker 6: I guess you know what the Bible was there.
00:36:38
Speaker 5: He starts telling me what is a credible account of being with Howard Gombert, and he started talking about what he said about the red Card, Josette, the two suckers. So he literally went from Howard Gombert's Connecticut prison to Putnam County jail and he had a set of notes where he says Howard Gombert said that he had sex with Josette around the time she disappeared.
00:37:10
Speaker 1: Santoro let Anthony read the notes.
00:37:13
Speaker 6: Read that Amy reading, he start crying and.
00:37:18
Speaker 1: I'm reading this shit. I'm like, holy shit. I'm like, i.
00:37:22
Speaker 5: Gotta get this out of the fucking jail. So I'm like, I call my lawyers. I'm like, you guys got to come. And I'm like, this has got to get into the court.
00:37:31
Speaker 7: He said, Yo, We've been looking. I've been trying to fucking like we've been looking at this guy. I'm like, yeah, he's a sick Oh.
00:37:38
Speaker 5: I'm like, this is an act of God. I am delivered the confession of Howard Gombert in this jail at the time I needed the most.
00:38:11
Speaker 1: The Devil's Quarry is a production of Lava for Good in association with Rolling Stone Films and Signal Company Number One. I'm your creator and host Paul Soltaov. Executive producers are Jason Flomm Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis and Gilbert King from Rolling Stone Films. Our executive producers are Alexandra Dale and Sean Woods. Our producers are Garakornhaber, Hannah Beale, Jackie Pauley, Austin Smith, and Kathleen Horne. Our editor is Joel Lovell, fact checking by Lucy Croning, Our sound designer is Brit Spangler, and our engineer is Austin Smith. Additional reporting by Kathleen Hornan original music arranged and produced by Alexis Quadrado at the Plaza Rojas Studio had a marketing and operations Jeff Clyburn, publicist Nathaniel Baruch, art director Andrew Nelson, social media manager Sarah Gibbons. Legal review provided by Claris Law and Gibson Dunn. Our theme song, The One Who's Holding the Stars, is performed by Alexis Quadrado at the Plaza Rojas Studio, vocals by Rob Reddy of California Corns written by Leo Schofield and Kevin Harrick at the Florida Department of Corrections Party Correctional Facility, Monad
Speaker 1: This series includes sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including sexual assault and abuse involving children. Listener discretion is advised. Since middle school, Rachel Laura has been telling the authorities better moms than boyfriend Howard Gombert. She told her guidance counselor. She told Putnam Sheriff's detectives and Carmel cops. She told three different judges in Putnam County and at least that many das and their assistance. And each time she told her story, she'd go into a steep tailspin, reliving the violations and the helplessness afresh. And then I called Rachel five years ago and asked her the unaskable. I was reporting the wrongful convictions of Anthony and Andy. Did her help clearing their names? But she told me about the screaming nightmare she had each time that she came forward, the feeling of going crazy for weeks on end, and the sickness that settled in her bones. In the end, no, Rachel agreed to talk, but only as it pertained to Josette. I love that kid, she said, so I'm going to do this for her. But she insisted there'd be no talk of Howard she was done pouring gas on that grease fire. So last fall she talked to me from her living room. I asked my questions over the phone while she sat with our reporter, Kathleen. Would you like a pseudonym for this conversation?
00:01:51
Speaker 2: Give me, give me something else? Yeah, Kimmy, Kimmy. I'm like all over the place, ew feeling about doing all this again.
00:02:02
Speaker 1: I mean, over the course of the next hour, Rachel talked about Josette, about the sweet but love starved girl who felt unseen and who'd been grateful to hook on with Rachel's family, dropping by there after school and sticking around for dinner, spending hours learning to crochet with Rachel's mom. But each time she went in deep about Josette, Rachel ran into a problem, a problem named Howard Combert.
00:02:32
Speaker 2: So, you know, to try to get around the whole not talking about Howard. Thing about Josette is kind of hard because he met her at my mom's house, you know, of course.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: So in the end she decided to sit for us again, to meet another day with Kathleen.
00:02:56
Speaker 2: Can I get you to introduce yourself and tell me what you have for breakfast or lunch? Then get a level. I didn't need anything today, not one thing. No, now I want to give you some almonds or something.
00:03:13
Speaker 1: Kathleen sat with Rachel as she delved into her past, rummaging old photos and dusty scrap books, reading up bits of letters.
00:03:24
Speaker 2: So I did you find some feelings that you as you're going up into the.
00:03:30
Speaker 1: Attic It was clear she hadn't done this in a very long time. Exhuming her girlhood year by year.
00:03:40
Speaker 2: Grade three, it is around the time when it started.
00:03:47
Speaker 1: By it, she means the mumcumbered entered her life and her home from which you take advantage of young girls in and around Putnam County.
00:04:01
Speaker 2: And you want to know what goes through my head is how many of them could have been saved if they would have just listened to me.
00:04:21
Speaker 3: My madness, laughter, my fears, sorrows, depths are endless valley.
00:04:41
Speaker 4: My ears, this is the Devil's quarry.
00:05:07
Speaker 1: Rachel was around eight when she first met Gombert. She was living with her mom and brother in an apartment three miles east of Carmel. One day, she stopped at a gas station with her uncle. The uncle started chatting with a stranger there. That stranger was Howard Gombert.
00:05:26
Speaker 2: And whether it was about getting some weed or getting you know, whatever drug was involved, he ended up coming back to the house.
00:05:37
Speaker 1: Gombert would have been in his early twenties then. He was handsome in his seventies, windblown way with a center part mullet, a thin mustache, and a dimple in his chin, dressed in black boots and driving a motorcycle. He was something of a seducer in those days. Just weeks after meeting Rachel's mom, for example, he'd moved himself into the flat. The physical and sexual abuse began soon after. Rachel had already seen her mom man handled by guys that she brought home.
00:06:11
Speaker 2: She was a very loving lady. She wore a heart on her sleeve, but like many of us, she was traumatized.
00:06:19
Speaker 1: But Gombert was a different beast entirely. A few months after Gombert moved in, Rachel was alone with him in the apartment. Her mom was off at work and Rachel was folding laundry. Gomber came up behind her, saying he knew boys were going to like her. Then he lureded the back bedroom, where he raped her for the first time.
00:06:44
Speaker 2: I was eight and nine years old when it started.
00:06:50
Speaker 1: Soon Gomber crept into her bed at night. She'd awakened to his hand clasped over her mouth, is growing pressed up against her. It went on like this for years, she says, the rapes, the whispered death threats. She was made to feel like her body wasn't hers, like it was his to do with as he chose, Nor was that his only form of abuse.
00:07:16
Speaker 2: Let me just give you an example. Cigarettes were found under my bed. I started smoking early. Howard whopped my ass. He whopped my ass just to show my mom that I was being disciplined.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: Five years of this went by. Gombert moved in and out of her house, but kept coming back.
00:07:49
Speaker 2: For little visits for many years. Like it felt wrong and knew it was wrong, but he didn't actually find out until I was sitting in health class.
00:08:05
Speaker 1: An instructor was teaching a module on sex ad that day and the difference between right touch and the.
00:08:12
Speaker 2: Wrong touch, you know, no touching in the bathing suit areas, And I was sitting in class learning that it was all wrong. It was all wrong, and it just kind of verified what I was feeling, you know, And that's why you're not supposed to say anything that's why nobody's gonna believe you, you know, like keep this between.
00:08:47
Speaker 1: It was all wrong, Rachel confided in a friend soon after that it was the first time she told anyone about Combert. Her friends told him adult at the school.
00:09:02
Speaker 2: The next period, I was called up to the guidance counselor's office and they never went back home. I ended up at the Sheriff's department. I spent the rest of my day in that sheriff's department.
00:09:22
Speaker 1: But in detectives arrested Gombert and charged him with raping a minor. But it was Rachel who's removed from her own house.
00:09:31
Speaker 2: I just wanted to go home, you know, like in my head, being that young and not they took him out of the house, so why couldn't I go back home?
00:09:44
Speaker 1: A worker from Child Services was assigned to her case. Rachel moved into the Cabrini Girls' Home in Carmel. A month or two later, she was summoned to court to testify against Gombert. She'd been prepped for the hearing by her Child's Services worker to tell her story remotely via video feed from the separate courtroom. That was and remains the procedure in child rape cases.
00:10:12
Speaker 2: I remember the day of court and they had me in the side room. We're setting up, getting ready to do the testimony or getting ready to do, you know, start the court. I was scared. I mean like I was nervous. I was I'm like shaking inside.
00:10:26
Speaker 1: Now.
00:10:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was something that you know, like I didn't want to do, but I had to do.
00:10:34
Speaker 1: And suddenly a commotion. Someone came in and pulled her advocate aside.
00:10:40
Speaker 2: And it was said, no, you're not allowed to do a video testimony. You actually have to go on the stand.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: She asked her worker what that meant. The worker couldn't tell her. This is the answer Rachel got from the judge.
00:10:56
Speaker 2: You know, like he has the right to hear you accuse accusing him.
00:11:01
Speaker 1: Frantic, she asked her advocate what to do. Don't worry, said the advocate. I'm with you every step. Just look at me when you tell it, not at him.
00:11:12
Speaker 2: She would sit and be my focal point. But that all suddenly changed.
00:11:20
Speaker 1: The room the hearing was held in was claustrophobically small, some folding chairs, a couple of tables, a judge behind one of them. Rachel took her seat beside the judge, and three feet away at his lawyer's table, sat convert.
00:11:36
Speaker 2: He was put basically right in front of me feet do I and Howard's got this look and scared shut at me.
00:11:53
Speaker 1: And then there was his lawyer. The name of that lawyer Bob A. Leader before he represented Anthony for the murder of Josette. Right. Bobby Leader was Howard Gombert's lawyer.
00:12:10
Speaker 2: I don't remember what the questions was, but it was, you know, like pertraining to what I am accusing him of, or what happened or the incident or you know, I'm sure it had to do with what I said in the first place, you know, like what brought me to that guidance counselor.
00:12:30
Speaker 1: Rachel started his story, tripping over the words, trying just to breathe and not pass out.
00:12:38
Speaker 2: And I started, like I did. I testified one hundred percent with my head down for reason. And the judge, I can't even remember who he was, he said, I can't hear you. Pick up your head.
00:13:02
Speaker 1: She did, and there were Gombert's eyes staring back at her.
00:13:09
Speaker 2: They just become dark, and it's like they pierced through you and brose me, and it just became overwhelming for me, and I walked off, said I couldn't do it.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: Rachel bolted from her chair and fled the room. There was no hope of getting her back into the chair. The rape charge was dropped, Gombert was released. The prosecutor told the papers that Rachel recanted whipsawed. Rachel returned to the group home. Several months later, her mom moved to Carmel. She took an apartment down the road from the group home. Rachel moved back home when her at the age of fifteen, and guess who was waiting for her there.
00:14:08
Speaker 2: Howard was still around. My mom thought that if she was there, nothing would happen. There was people around, I was protected. She was wrong.
00:14:30
Speaker 1: One of Howard's spots was the woods off Fields Lane. He put Rachel on the back of his bike and take her to his secret place there where he'd do whatever he wanted with her. After he split with Rachel's mom, Gomber, now in his late twenties, moved in with his teen girlfriend, but he'd still drop by Rachel's mom's apartment. Sometimes he drag his girlfriend along, other times he'd show up solo. He just seemed to somehow know when Rachel was alone there and to steal up from behind her wherever she happened to be. Still, Rachel tried to live in normal adolescence. She hung with her friends in Carmel after school. She had her first boyfriends who looked after Josette, who kept showing up at her house. The girl was there so often she was practically on the lease, and that's where she got to know Gombert. After Josette was killed, Rachel's mom told the cops that Gombert took an interest in Josette, and that Josette returned his interest and would ask about him when he wasn't around. In the fall of ninety three, Rachel felt pregnant. She'd know if the baby was her boyfriends or Gomberts. As it happened, She was with Gombert the day she got the news from the doctor. When she got off the phone and told him, Gombert lost his mind.
00:16:01
Speaker 2: He told me that I was moving in with him.
00:16:04
Speaker 1: That wasn't an invitation, it was an order. She was going to be the living sitter for Gombert's toddler, the baby had with his girlfriend or else.
00:16:15
Speaker 2: He told me that if I didn't tell my mom that I was going to move in with him to watch his daughter. That he was going to get Joe set too, and he said, no, I'm going to leave her alone.
00:16:32
Speaker 1: And that's when she told Gombert that she was moving at a carmel. They fought about her leaving and his designs on Josette until Rachel couldn't take it anymore.
00:16:43
Speaker 2: And I just wanted to go home. It was a rough day, you know. He went through a lot of that day with Howard, but.
00:16:52
Speaker 1: It was late by then she was miles from home. She had no choice but to accept a ride from Gombert.
00:17:00
Speaker 2: Somehow I ended up on that bike and he was bringing me home.
00:17:05
Speaker 1: Sitting behind him, Rachel watched the road.
00:17:09
Speaker 2: He goes to make a right. Shouldn't have like, why are you going up this road? But he went to turn. I never held onto him. I didn't like, you know, but I'm on the back of a motorcycle. So I kind of had his jacket and I felt the knife. He always had a knife on him. He always had some kind of weapon, and I just got this feeling he's going to kill me. I didn't know why he was turning. I didn't know where he was going. Then I jumped off the bike.
00:18:00
Speaker 1: While it was moving. She hit the asphalt hard.
00:18:05
Speaker 2: I jumped off and tried to protect my stomach, like I know I was pregnant and screwed myself up, like I messed up my name, elbow, like I'm jumped out into traffic. Uh, and I just started running. I just started running like I just wanted somebody to come down that road and stop. And nobody did. Nobody came down the road.
00:18:37
Speaker 1: She heard the roar of the bike turning back and gunning for her. Bruised and bloody, she watched herself get back on the bike.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: So he got me. And now he's nervous, you know, trying to come up with the story on how I off the bike.
00:19:02
Speaker 1: It was an accident. Gomber told her, you fell off the bike. Anyone asks you, that's what you say. But Rachel defied him. She confided in her boyfriend, told him she'd jumped because she'd feared for her life.
00:19:20
Speaker 2: I immediately told him what happened, and uh, he was pissed. But nobody ever did anything, you know, like nobody ever did anything. That's a really chilling squirt story. My heart's coming guessed. My whole insides are.
00:19:41
Speaker 1: Shaking in spite of Gombert's threats, Rachel went ahead with her plans. She packed up her life into moving boxes and brought them out to the curb. That was when Josette walked up and burst into tears on the sidewalk. The two girls hug well, both of them stood there sobbing.
00:20:23
Speaker 2: Quite honestly, I remember, chrisaye, just take me. They won't even notice I'm gone. I was like, we can't, we can't take you. You know, it crushed me. I worried about her. I worried about her, but I did tell her to stay away from Howard though had to stay away, you know, like it kind of threatened me with her, you know, like so I worried about her.
00:20:57
Speaker 1: For good reason. Joseph vanished a couple months after Rachel moved. Rachel had no house phone, so her mom stopped by to tell her.
00:21:07
Speaker 2: I was angry at myself. I feel like I could have protected her by.
00:21:12
Speaker 1: Staying a long Sidely ear went by. No word about Josette. Then, two days after cops found her body, they stopped by Rachel's house. She talked to them about Gombert.
00:21:29
Speaker 2: My first thought was, son of a bitch. Did he get her? You know, like Honestly, that hit me hard.
00:21:42
Speaker 1: At last, she didn't trust the cops or anyone else in this system, not after that system it so callously failed her when she reported Gombert five years prior. Her police statement made no mention of Gombert's spot off Fields Lane or the vile things he'd done to her in the woods. But as I reread her statement to Putnam Detective Bill Quick, I'm struck by what she did. Tell them that she was freaked by the idea of Josette babysitting for Gombert, that Gombert often drove his girlfriend's car, a car just like the one Josette was last seen getting into. All of that tallied with what other girls told them the Gombra was a creep who liked young girls. But those cops didn't drag Gombert out of his house and tossed them in the box with Castaldo. Instead, Costaldo picked Anthony and Andy out of a hat and chose them as Josette's killers. In doing so, he and Quick gave Gombert a pass, a get out of town free card, if you will. Gombert high tailed out of Carmel in ninety five, lived in Connecticut for several years, but Gombert couldn't help himself. He kept crawling back to New York. That hurt Rachel. She'd moved to the safest place she could find, a remote cottage high up in the hills. One night, she and her infant were fast asleep when she awoke to a hand over her mouth. He told her he'd take a baby and sell her to strangers if she didn't submit to him. When Gomber left without her infant, Rachel says she reported him once again, this time to the state trooper, who drove her to the hospital where a rape kit was performed. I've read the hospital report, but it's not clear whether the trooper documented the attack. In any case, they never brought Gombert in. Six years later, in two thousand and two, Anthony sat in prison reading his case file. He was halfway through it when he came to the statement that Rachel gave to police, the one about Howard knowing Josette.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: He opened up, this is Howard box, not knowing what he was going to find, but didn't know that I was in that box.
00:24:10
Speaker 1: Anthony told his investigators to go out and find Rachel, a girl he knew from hanging around the group home. They found her all right, and when they brought her story back to him, Anthony was staggered.
00:24:24
Speaker 5: The last time I seen her, I think she was working at a gas station. I had no idea she was suffered anything, but sitting with her story tripped memory for Anthony. I rob somebody I'd believe to be Howard Gombert.
00:24:42
Speaker 1: It was an evening in the fall of nineteen ninety four, right around the time Josette went missing. Anthony was selling drugs back then, was out with two of his stone or pals and Caramel. So I'm out there.
00:24:55
Speaker 5: There's the courthouse, there's this little area where there's these three benches. I'm standing out there and this guy comes up to me, right and he says, I want some cracker or some blow.
00:25:08
Speaker 1: Tom, one of his friends, you gambled on site. So the other kid, Rick, They whisper to Anthony. This guy's a fucking dick. He's no good.
00:25:19
Speaker 5: And Rick and Tom, I'm like, this guy, so you abuse, abuse mycrofriend, abuse my girlfriend. So I'm like, all right, well you want to want to do something about this, I'm like yeah.
00:25:30
Speaker 1: Anthony walked over to the guy and told him, yeah, I'll help you out.
00:25:34
Speaker 5: I said, all right, we got to go take a ride.
00:25:37
Speaker 1: The guy gave Anthony a hundred bucks in cash. They all got into Big Larry's Bronco. Three teens and the guy seeking drugs, and I'm like, where are we going to take them? So we're driving around and we pull up in this little area and I'm like, I don't know.
00:25:54
Speaker 5: I'm not trying to be violent to him. I just I got his money in my pocket. I just They're like, let's buck him up.
00:26:00
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, just leave him. Anthony pulled the car over, told the guy to get out, and I left him there.
00:26:09
Speaker 5: It wasn't until I had paperwork and I kind of pieced it together because how many people did time go out with?
00:26:16
Speaker 1: We're playing that memory now, the truth that it hit him. Tom's girlfriend at the time was Rachel and the guy you ripped off of the hundred bucks that had to be Howard Combert.
00:26:29
Speaker 5: I didn't know that he was a killer. I didn't know that he was a rapist. I just knew these people didn't like him, and I like to take things from people that are bad, and so I left them there.
00:26:40
Speaker 1: For years. One question that plagued him in prison, Why did the cops home in on me. He still had no definitive answer, but now he had a theory. And you know what, I think. I have never been able to prove this, but I've said it to a few people. I think he said that I killed that girl. And I think the reason why I was first ever suspected was because that guy was mad that I robbed him. It took him years of motions, of failure upon failure, of judges turning blind eyes to the facts, but Anthony finally submitted an appeal that broke through. What sparked it was another flashback from the nineties, the memory of a meeting with his lawyer, Bottle Leader before his trial in ninety seven.
00:27:44
Speaker 5: We have these legal visits in these small rooms, and it was in the visiting room.
00:27:50
Speaker 1: There Anthony remembers Leader telling him he had evidence evidence on a man named Howard Gombered that pointed him as Josette's killer. He told Anthony was going to go after Gombert as the killer during the trial, except that, yeah, he never saw much as raised Gombert's named of the jury.
00:28:10
Speaker 5: Leader was like, yeah, I think we're going to go after this guy. Leader is like, yeah, I had him on a rape case.
00:28:18
Speaker 1: That case, Anthony learned, now dated to nineteen ninety one. Gombert's accuser was none other than Rachel. That's right. The lawyer had repped Anthony for the rape murder of a twelve year old had also repped Gombert for the rape of a minor girl.
00:28:36
Speaker 5: So wait a minute, it's just like this guy had conflict adventures.
00:28:40
Speaker 1: What is this? Having studied law for years now, Anthony put the pieces together. His lawyer, Bobble Leader, had committed a disborrible breach of ethics. You can't rep a client on a murder charge when you've repped another viable suspect for that crime. No matter that he wasn't Gombert's attorney in ninety seven, Leaders still had a duty to protect Gombert at Anthony's trial, and his having done so had denied Anthony's right to a fair trial. It was the perfect grounds for an appeal. Anthony's new lawyer wasted no time filing emotion with the courts. After he'd served fifteen years, Anthony's conviction was set aside. He was granted a new trial in twenty eleven, thanks in large part to Rachel and to the investigator's who founder. Anthony's conviction was overturned. Still it wasn't free very far from it, because the DA filed to try and again. In the run up to his new trial, Anthony's lawyer approached Rachel about testifying on Anthony's behalf. It was an enormous ask.
00:29:57
Speaker 2: And I didn't understand my purpose or you know, and and having to heal and realize, like wow, like I have a fuck. My life has just been horror movie kind of like you know, like I'm very spiritual. I wouldn't say I'm religious. I was mad at God. There was a part in my life where I was just so mad at him and like why why? But I learned that sometimes you have to go through things they might not read particularly for you. But I had to go through something to help others. And you know, if that's what my purpose is, then I feel like I've tried to uphold that.
00:31:10
Speaker 1: When he learned that Rachel would testify for him, Anthony poured out his thanks to Hear in a letter.
00:31:18
Speaker 2: It says, first and foremost, I can't thank you enough for helping me and my family prosecute Howard Gombert. You are very courageous and it is because of this, me and Andy will be able to once again have a life. I know this to be true, and it's not important that you write me back. I just want you to know that we are forever grateful. You are the most important person in this case. Had you testified, my jury would not have believed a Nis wrote, the judge was protecting the dea by keeping you out hull with Howard Copper. Sincerely, Anthony, thank you.
00:32:14
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, Anthony moved back to the Putnam jailhouse and carmeled await trial. One morning, he heard his name called out in lock up. Another inmate heard it and his ears pricked up. His name was Jeff Santora. A short muscular guy covered him prisoning who just transferred into Putnam lockup.
00:32:38
Speaker 5: He here's my name of comments Sary.
00:32:41
Speaker 6: So I called him over and he said, hey, what's up?
00:32:44
Speaker 3: Man?
00:32:45
Speaker 6: I heard a lot about you. Yeah, I heard a lot about you too. Man.
00:32:48
Speaker 7: He's like, yeah, ain't none of his true though? I say, I know, I said, for where his work? I'm sorry you're in here, man. I know you ain't do that shit. How you know I can do it?
00:32:58
Speaker 1: Santoro said he'd been imprisoning Connecticut where he was doing a bit for possession. Then he shared a story about an inmate he'd met there.
00:33:10
Speaker 7: So I mean, this sounds funny. It because we like, we crossed paths in the shower, and uh, I heard him talking to somebody else.
00:33:18
Speaker 1: Specifically, you heard him talking about Putnam.
00:33:21
Speaker 6: County, and I'm like, Buttnam County.
00:33:25
Speaker 1: Centaura had grown up in Putnam. He looked the other end night over.
00:33:30
Speaker 6: He looks like a beady eyed weasel rat.
00:33:35
Speaker 7: You know. Once I seen him, and I seen him, and then I knew you could just tell it right off the jump. When I looked at him, I knew he was a sex offent.
00:33:41
Speaker 1: There.
00:33:42
Speaker 6: You see that he's a predator, but he's a predator for everybody.
00:33:47
Speaker 7: And then you have the weasel predator, a little lad with that beady eyes, and they just they prey on the small, the weak and easy, you know, like a vulture, you know, playing the dead. So somebody like that. Not too many people want to hear what he has to say.
00:34:06
Speaker 1: But again, the man mentioned Putnam County.
00:34:10
Speaker 6: So I'm giving him airtime. He just wants to talk.
00:34:14
Speaker 7: He was telling me stuff that I couldn't believe I was hearing.
00:34:19
Speaker 1: Then the beadyod Weasel mentioned a body.
00:34:22
Speaker 6: He explained it was the girl Josette.
00:34:27
Speaker 1: As a team. Growing up in Putnam, he'd learned a legend of Joseph backwards and forwards.
00:34:33
Speaker 7: Susan's a little girl that was raped and killed by uh he did the pit bow and angel Prevac and that there was a piece of shit, you know that they did some dirty shit to this little twelve year old girl.
00:34:48
Speaker 6: And I was at.
00:34:51
Speaker 7: A place in my of hatred for them, like for that. I hated those kids for that. A piece of shit. You raped this little girl and kill her like that. It's fucked up.
00:35:05
Speaker 1: So now hearing this guy in a Connecticut prison talking about a body named Josette.
00:35:12
Speaker 7: And I'm like, I'm like what And in my head I'm like, oh my god, like this what is this guy talking about? So yeah, they got these two other suckers for it, though, so they'll never get me. I'm like two other suckers. I'm like, why are these suckers? He's like, you know, you know, I'm like you know what he's like, you know what? It is, like, Like, oh my god, I'm like, whoa this guy's saying it right now. In my mind, I'm like, this is you know, it's explode. It's an explosion in my mind. He flat out it was like, you know they got two other suckers. Fact, so that to me right there, that man you did that if they had why they suckers, they wouldn't be suckers if they did it. You don't know how big of a deal this was. Like when I was like, I'm gonna look tell all my friends about this. This is crazy, and I was like I was just writing it down, like, woman, we did they hit this shit?
00:36:07
Speaker 1: Santaorro Rand, who was selling scribbled everything he'd heard, four pages of notes, single spaced, and then a couple of months later he was sent to the Putnam Jail, where he heard Anthony's name being called over the PA while he had those notes on his person.
00:36:25
Speaker 7: When I got to fucking Putnham, it was almost like it was like feet, I guess I don't really believe in that shit, but it was like the world writing and wrong.
00:36:33
Speaker 6: I guess you know what the Bible was there.
00:36:38
Speaker 5: He starts telling me what is a credible account of being with Howard Gombert, and he started talking about what he said about the red Card, Josette, the two suckers. So he literally went from Howard Gombert's Connecticut prison to Putnam County jail and he had a set of notes where he says Howard Gombert said that he had sex with Josette around the time she disappeared.
00:37:10
Speaker 1: Santoro let Anthony read the notes.
00:37:13
Speaker 6: Read that Amy reading, he start crying and.
00:37:18
Speaker 1: I'm reading this shit. I'm like, holy shit. I'm like, i.
00:37:22
Speaker 5: Gotta get this out of the fucking jail. So I'm like, I call my lawyers. I'm like, you guys got to come. And I'm like, this has got to get into the court.
00:37:31
Speaker 7: He said, Yo, We've been looking. I've been trying to fucking like we've been looking at this guy. I'm like, yeah, he's a sick Oh.
00:37:38
Speaker 5: I'm like, this is an act of God. I am delivered the confession of Howard Gombert in this jail at the time I needed the most.
00:38:11
Speaker 1: The Devil's Quarry is a production of Lava for Good in association with Rolling Stone Films and Signal Company Number One. I'm your creator and host Paul Soltaov. Executive producers are Jason Flomm Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wardis and Gilbert King from Rolling Stone Films. Our executive producers are Alexandra Dale and Sean Woods. Our producers are Garakornhaber, Hannah Beale, Jackie Pauley, Austin Smith, and Kathleen Horne. Our editor is Joel Lovell, fact checking by Lucy Croning, Our sound designer is Brit Spangler, and our engineer is Austin Smith. Additional reporting by Kathleen Hornan original music arranged and produced by Alexis Quadrado at the Plaza Rojas Studio had a marketing and operations Jeff Clyburn, publicist Nathaniel Baruch, art director Andrew Nelson, social media manager Sarah Gibbons. Legal review provided by Claris Law and Gibson Dunn. Our theme song, The One Who's Holding the Stars, is performed by Alexis Quadrado at the Plaza Rojas Studio, vocals by Rob Reddy of California Corns written by Leo Schofield and Kevin Harrick at the Florida Department of Corrections Party Correctional Facility, Monad
