“And all of a sudden, it’s a homicide.”
January 25, 2015 9:48 AM Subscribe
A Twist in the Murder of a 97-Year-Old Man: He Was Knifed 5 Decades Ago: [New York Times]
The New York medical examiner determined that an operation after a stabbing in the 1950s led to Antonio Ciccarello’s death in September at 97. The police have opened a murder investigation.
This seems like a complete waste of police resources.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 9:58 AM on January 25, 2015 [30 favorites]
posted by sevenyearlurk at 9:58 AM on January 25, 2015 [30 favorites]
If this does make it to trial
Almost certainly not. It's a total cold case; there wasn't even a lead when the stabbing happened, and that was sixty years ago. This won't even make it past the initial investigation stage.
posted by Oxydude at 9:58 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Almost certainly not. It's a total cold case; there wasn't even a lead when the stabbing happened, and that was sixty years ago. This won't even make it past the initial investigation stage.
posted by Oxydude at 9:58 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Even apart from the question of homicide, it's fascinating and a little unnerving to realize that medical treatment you have today could kill you fifty years down the road.
posted by immlass at 9:58 AM on January 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by immlass at 9:58 AM on January 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
I got to wondering if there was a statute of limitations on murder. Apparently there is not. But then there are cases like this.
posted by falsedmitri at 9:59 AM on January 25, 2015
posted by falsedmitri at 9:59 AM on January 25, 2015
The New York medical examiner determined that an operation after a stabbing in the 1950s led to Antonio Ciccarello’s death in September at 97. The police have opened a murder investigation.
Seems like more of a malpractice thing, no?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:00 AM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
Seems like more of a malpractice thing, no?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:00 AM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think it'd be malpractice if the surgeon was negligent. If the best the surgeon could do was extend his patient's life by fifty years, then it's murder.
posted by YAMWAK at 10:04 AM on January 25, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by YAMWAK at 10:04 AM on January 25, 2015 [11 favorites]
This seems like a complete waste of police resources.
Although still a better use of the NYPD than stop and frisk.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:23 AM on January 25, 2015 [27 favorites]
Although still a better use of the NYPD than stop and frisk.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:23 AM on January 25, 2015 [27 favorites]
Until recently, this case couldn't have been reopened in the UK due to an ancient "year and a day" rule that said that if someone died of their wounds more than a year and a day after being attacked, it couldn't be murder.
However, this limitation was removed in 1996. Seems that some clever whodunnit could be built around all this...
posted by Devonian at 10:27 AM on January 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
However, this limitation was removed in 1996. Seems that some clever whodunnit could be built around all this...
posted by Devonian at 10:27 AM on January 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
With today's cutting-edge forensic technology, all it would take is a couple of sharp detectives willing to take a stab at solving this mystery.
posted by Behemoth at 11:19 AM on January 25, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Behemoth at 11:19 AM on January 25, 2015 [5 favorites]
What idiot thought "NYPD Investigates Murder of 97 Year Old Man Who Died Of Relatively Natural Causes Fifty Years After An Assault" would be a good press release?
posted by Sphinx at 11:46 AM on January 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Sphinx at 11:46 AM on January 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
In a rest home somewhere a 100 year old man turns off the TV news with an air of quiet satisfaction and thinks, "got 'im!"
posted by yoink at 11:52 AM on January 25, 2015 [23 favorites]
posted by yoink at 11:52 AM on January 25, 2015 [23 favorites]
When I die at the age of 101 of a brain hemorrhage, I'm blaming it on the bully that dropped me on my head when I was 10.
posted by HuronBob at 12:16 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by HuronBob at 12:16 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
I bet the writers for Law & Order are already working on their treatment!
posted by TedW at 12:43 PM on January 25, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by TedW at 12:43 PM on January 25, 2015 [6 favorites]
This seems like a complete waste of police resources.
On the other hand, anything that keeps them busy so they can't stop-and-frisk or shoot people with their hands up can't be all bad.
posted by Twang at 12:55 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, anything that keeps them busy so they can't stop-and-frisk or shoot people with their hands up can't be all bad.
posted by Twang at 12:55 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
This seems like a complete waste of police resources.
It is good bureaucracy to identify murders. Whether or not an individual case is inconvenient is separate from whether the tracking should or should not be done.
posted by tychotesla at 1:08 PM on January 25, 2015 [5 favorites]
It is good bureaucracy to identify murders. Whether or not an individual case is inconvenient is separate from whether the tracking should or should not be done.
posted by tychotesla at 1:08 PM on January 25, 2015 [5 favorites]
No police report was filed at the time of the stabbing. The victim never gave a sworn statement to police about the facts and circumstances of the night. There is no physical evidence. I doubt the police will be able to conduct much if any investigation here.
posted by humanfont at 1:59 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by humanfont at 1:59 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't want to sound like one of those crazy anti-police people, but I'm wondering if it benefits the NYPD to artificially inflate the number of murders. Maybe they're concerned that people will realize that they decided to stop doing their jobs and, other than revenues taking a hit, nothing bad happened? Better to pad the stats with some semi-fictitious crimes so people don't stop believing that the cops are the only thing standing in between the average New Yorker and total mayhem?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:09 PM on January 25, 2015
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:09 PM on January 25, 2015
I don't want to sound like one of those crazy anti-police people
If that's so you might not want to go around suggesting that the NYPD have somehow paid off the medical examiner's office to dig relentlessly into the pasts of deceased nonagenarians on the off chance of being able to add sub-rounding-error numbers to their total numbers of unsolved homicides (a figure that cops, typically, prefer to reduce, not inflate).
posted by yoink at 4:45 PM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
If that's so you might not want to go around suggesting that the NYPD have somehow paid off the medical examiner's office to dig relentlessly into the pasts of deceased nonagenarians on the off chance of being able to add sub-rounding-error numbers to their total numbers of unsolved homicides (a figure that cops, typically, prefer to reduce, not inflate).
posted by yoink at 4:45 PM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, if you'd told me that the New York police would literally stop doing their jobs because they didn't approve of the city's democratically-elected mayor, I wouldn't have believed that either. They've shown themselves to be lawless in an organized, systematic way, and there's not a lot I don't think them capable of. And for what it's worth, I don't think I'm one of metafilter's habitual cop bashers.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:59 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
(a figure that cops, typically, prefer to reduce, not inflate).I would like to think that there is nothing about what's going on with the NYPD that is a typical cop situation. They stopped doing their jobs in an attempt to intimidate and terrify New Yorkers, and it isn't working. It may be doing the opposite. Their entire argument is that they're making the city safer by targeting small crimes. If they stopped going after small-time criminals and it didn't have an appreciable effect on serious crime, then New Yorkers might question why the cops are allowed to harass ordinary citizens with impunity. And I actually do believe that they'd be willing to call in some favors to try to ensure that didn't happen.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:59 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Wait a second ... i think I know who did i
posted by maxsparber at 5:22 PM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 5:22 PM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
“He was healthy till the end,” said Ms. Paloglou, who would visit each weekend and cook food to last her father through the week. “He recognized people he hadn’t seen in years.”
That made it all the more painful to see a box marked “homicide” on his death certificate, Ms. Paloglou said. The word suggested the opposite of closure — a mystery that may never be solved.
“But I’m not fighting it,” she said. “I want my father to rest in peace.”
Well hey at least we corrupted this woman's memory of her fathers death good job everybody
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:57 PM on January 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
That made it all the more painful to see a box marked “homicide” on his death certificate, Ms. Paloglou said. The word suggested the opposite of closure — a mystery that may never be solved.
“But I’m not fighting it,” she said. “I want my father to rest in peace.”
Well hey at least we corrupted this woman's memory of her fathers death good job everybody
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:57 PM on January 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
Doesn't this come up, not often, but significantly more often than most people seem to think? When James Brady died a little bit ago, the medical examiner listed the cause of death as complications due to Hinckley shooting him. Lots of media noise was made about how that was totally crazy, and then legal experts came back and said 'no, when the death is due to complications of injuries sustained in an attack, even years later, it's often investigated as a homicide, here's like a dozen other examples'.
Interestingly enough, just a couple weeks ago it was ruled that Hinckley would not be tried for this new homicide charge for two reasons - first, his insanity defense that helped decide the first verdict would likely also guide the verdict for the new charge; and second, there was also a 'year and a day' law in affect at the time and location of the shooting (but struck down years later) so this case would be grandfathered into that legal ruling.
posted by FatherDagon at 7:43 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Interestingly enough, just a couple weeks ago it was ruled that Hinckley would not be tried for this new homicide charge for two reasons - first, his insanity defense that helped decide the first verdict would likely also guide the verdict for the new charge; and second, there was also a 'year and a day' law in affect at the time and location of the shooting (but struck down years later) so this case would be grandfathered into that legal ruling.
posted by FatherDagon at 7:43 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
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Unfortunately, this is going to look bad for the Homicide stats because the police now have to investigate a crime with little to no chance of an arrest or conviction.
If this does make it to trial, even the greenest defense attorney can bring up the immense span of time since the assault and the presence of concomitant natural disease in the deceased near-centenarian and no doubt find an expert forensic pathologist to argue in that direction.
posted by Renoroc at 9:55 AM on January 25, 2015