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has the area of the fire been searched for her remains? if i was to kill someone and needed to get rid of the body i would take advantage of that fire.The "Break" in the Joan Webster case - 1983
On January 28, 1983, headlines announced a “break” in Joan’s case. When these articles landed on my kitchen table, it was the first time I learned of Leonard Paradiso. The news reported a confidential source told police Paradiso allegedly confessed to the murder of Marie Iannuzzi and Joan Webster. The source was not named.
News reports arrived in the mail with great regularity from Eleanor Webster. The press really took off with the story. According to the source, Paradiso confessed he took Joan on his boat at Pier 7 in Boston. When she rejected a pass, he hit her in the head with a whiskey bottle, raped her, then took his boat out and dumped her in Boston Harbor.
I learned Paradiso was in jail for another murder, Marie Iannuzzi. The two cases were entangled in media reports. There were few facts around the Iannuzzi case at this point. I knew Paradiso was a parolee for an earlier assault conviction. So the perception was this is a bad guy who does bad things and Joan may have been another victim. The explanation was a random act and Joan was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I learned Paradiso was a shellfish fisherman. He attended the same wedding with the 1979 murder victim Marie Iannuzzi. He knew the family because he sold shellfish to their restaurants. He was named as a suspect in the case.
Reporters quoted ADA Tim Burke, Tr Andrew Palombo, and Sgt Carmen Tammaro in the news accounts. The Websters also made them selves available to the press and were frequently quoted. The intensity of the two cases increased in the media for the next year. Needless to say, it was reasonable for me to trust what I learned from authorities and the family.
The investigation became sensational. As in any baffling mystery like this, there was a lot of speculation and theories that swirled around. As I dug into this case, the way to unravel it was to follow the documented events, in other words, look at the investigation. Records gave me names, dates, and events to construct a timeline. It helps to look at a case that way and be able to put other information in context.
This is what I knew in 1983. I did not know the additional facts from year 1. I will be posting what I learned next.
A slight correction to the last post. The purse and wallet were found along the Lynn Marsh Road in Saugus right at the border with Lynn. There was a 12-alarm fire in Lynn that began burning at 2:30 am the morning of 11-28-1981. Roadblocks on the Lynn Marsh Road detoured traffic so they could not drive into Lynn. The fire burned for 2 weeks. The fire was raging by time Joan landed.
you know her boyfriend, do you think he could possibly have done something like this to her? Could he have been the one to pick her up? i see he planed to visit but is it possible he showed up to get her? did she give any hints to her perspective of the relationship? could the boyfriend have grown a beard while she was gone? (almost every clean cut business man alive did during covid) i think anything you can remember from that thanksgiving visit could be helpful. the waving to the gentleman that picks her up indicates it's someone she knows. usually only someone with such intense emotions would be the one to snap or be so emotional to let go of grooming. did she mention any of her travel plans? who of your family dropped her off? any phone calls made or information given from her at that time could be clues. also is there any description of the man behind the counter at the airport?Elementarywatsonsir,
Take your logic even further. It is the end of November. Who in their right mind is going to get on a boat at that time of year. It's cold in Boston and most people had their boats stored for the winter. In addition, her flight landed after 10 pm. It is very clear she would not be on this boat of her own free will. Those questions came up. The authorities came up with explanations. We are conditioned to trust authority.
Doing a forensic examination of the investigation was the key to cutting through the chaos to see what really needed attention for a just resolve in the case.
You missed a subtle point. Joan had already presented her project before the Thanksgiving break. The reports that came out said she went back early to work on a project. That made no sense. She was a very dedicated student, but she also enjoyed time with friends, going to the theater, and other activities. She presented the project the previous Monday. I spoke to her Thanksgiving Day. There was no mention of going back early, not that she would tell me, but she was very elated over high marks she just got on her project. I have not found anything to corroborate she went back to meet with classmates on Sunday to work on a project.
Joan was not the type of person to go off with some unknown person or someone she just met. The boyfriend who planned to visit said he was ready to put a ring on her finger. Did they have an argument? I will never know, but other things that came to light suggest another possibility for the change in plans. The boyfriend met her when he was finishing his MBA at Harvard. At the time, he lived in Detroit. I knew him from undergrad days before he ever met Joan.
I have not even come to the boat yet. There were events regarding the boat that took place in 1983, but I am trying to step through this a piece at a time.
Your questions and comments are right on track. Too many things just did not add up with this explanation.
RSBMThe fire in Lynn, MA started at about 2:30 am on November 28, 1981. By time Joan landed, this had been burning all day. This was a 12-alarm fire that burned for almost two weeks. The whole area was blocked. It would have been difficult at best to get in there. That is important many years later when Joan's remains surfaced. Anyone traveling from the airport to the gravesite would have been diverted from the most direct route to Hamilton, MA where Joan was buried. That indicates someone not only knew the Boston area well but had to be familiar with the remote Hamilton area.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lynn suffered several large fires. On November 28, 1981, a devastating inferno engulfed several former shoe factories, located at Broad and Washington Streets. Seventeen downtown buildings were destroyed in less than twelve hours, with property losses estimated to be totaling at least $35,000,000 (equivalent to about $117,300,000 in 2023). At least 18 businesses were affected, resulting in the estimated loss of 1,500 jobs. The Lynn campus of the North Shore Community College, planning for which was already underway at the time of the fire, now occupies much of the burned area.![]()
Lynn, Massachusetts - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
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The Second Great Lynn Fire: 15 Years Later
David Liscio describes the conflagration that ravaged a shoe factory and required mutual aid from 94 communities in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.www.firehouse.com
eve my apologies i am brand new on here. i'm not sure why but every time i get back on i see previous posts that weren't there before. my first comment i made after i had read every post that was on my screen till there were no more. but past couple times i've come back on here i see posts above mine that weren't there before..? i will continue to like the ones i have seen to see if maybe there are even more i haven't seen. i apologize if i asked questions you have addressed in other posts i haven't seen. forgive me for my delay in my next response. i have not forgotten you or given up i just have a lot more to read.Hi Kielo,
Let me see if I can get you up to speed. Joan traveled alone back to Boston. She spoke to a couple and a priest on the flight. At the luggage carousel, she waived to a couple of friends. She then spoke to a man behind a counter. There was no description of him. She engaged a Town Taxi to take her back to her dorm in Cambridge. Her suitcase was loaded in the trunk. There was no camera footage to my knowledge. That is when the bearded man caught up with Joan. Joan told the cabbie the man was with her. That indicates to me she knew him. The bearded man got into a verbal exchange with the cabbie over how he was loading the man's heavy suitcase. The exchange was verified. The bearded man turned to Joan and said we don't want to take this cab. This tells me not only did Joan know him, but she also trusted him. Joan's luggage was removed from the Town Taxi and Joan and the bearded man got into a blue car in the cab line. That indicates the involvement of another person, the driver of the blue car. This eyewitness lead and the composite made from the cabbie's description were suppressed.
The fire in Lynn, MA started at about 2:30 am on November 28, 1981. By time Joan landed, this had been burning all day. This was a 12-alarm fire that burned for almost two weeks. The whole area was blocked. It would have been difficult at best to get in there. That is important many years later when Joan's remains surfaced. Anyone traveling from the airport to the gravesite would have been diverted from the most direct route to Hamilton, MA where Joan was buried. That indicates someone not only knew the Boston area well but had to be familiar with the remote Hamilton area.
The undercover cop, Andrew Palombo, was 6''4", about 240 lbs. He had various looks, but most often had long hair and a beard to fit in with the motorcycle gangs he hung out with. At one point, I considered he was the bearded man, but he was much larger than the man described with Joan. Key points in Joan's case match up pretty well with Palombo. He worked at the airport. He was familiar with Route 107 where Joan's purse and wallet were found. He would know how to bypass the Lynn fire. His home was very close to on ramp to Route 128. Then it was only a couple exits away from the turnoff that went back to the gravesite. It was affirmed that Palombo was familiar with the area. Palombo was not the man that moved Joan to the blue car, but I cannot rule him out as the driver of the blue car. He could get into the cab line without causing any suspicion with his police credentials. He also knew the correct cause of death with correct details more than 7 years before Joan surfaced.
I know the individual who planned to visit Joan in NJ. They met at Harvard, but he had already graduated and lived in the Midwest. He was a contemporary, not the middle-aged man described with Joan.
One very critical question that has to be answered is who would George and Eleanor protect instead of their daughter? George and Eleanor had the eyewitness lead on December 21, 1981. They suppressed and so did the authorities. A small group influenced this story: ADA Tim Burke, Andrew Palombo and his superior Carmen Tammaro, and George and Eleanor Webster.
Joan was dropped off at Logan by George, Eleanor, and her sister Anne. That was highly unusual for everyone to make the airport run, usually it was just George. George did travel at some point over that weekend. My memory is corroborated by a statement Eleanor made to the media, but I don't know what George's exact itinerary was. What makes sense for the whole family to tag along was Eleanor did not like to drive at night. If George left from Newark on that Saturday night, Anne probably drove back. Anne then drove back to Boston on Sunday. There were two flights within a short time from Newark to Boston. George also had access to the corporate jet for ITT.
yes those sites you have provided are making it a lot easier! you are absolutely right. they are using the tactic of overload information and misinformation. infamous move when cornered and have to give over something. i have also moved to my lap top to see if that will help with maneuvering on this site. do you know if the family worked with or had any dealings with people in Boston? i still can't get over the fact footage wasn't even attempted to be obtained from the airport. i know there is discrepancy's in where the suitcase was found it seems the evidence points to the Boston bus station, again opportunity for recovering footage i assume that was never made. are you aware of a previous relationship with the websters and burk or did they meet due to this case?Hi Kielo,
No worries. This case was a baffling, tangled mess. It's taken years of digging into it to make sense of it, and I lived it. I believe it was complicated by design. Based on source documents I recovered and the obstacles I encountered, this case was not as complicated as it first seemed. Authorities made up a story. They have no crime scene and went after a scapegoat rather than the man seen with Joan at Logan. This was a cover up.
Knowing what happened to Joan after the man maneuvered her to the blue car, this appears to have been a ruse to get her into a different vehicle. The story that the public heard, including myself was that no one noticed Joan, she just vanished. That was simply not true.
The former prosecutor Tim Burke wrote a book published in 2008 promoting the same Paradiso boat theory. The family supported it publicly. My copy of the book is so flagged for the errors and discrepancies. Burke's book is really evidence in an open homicide case.
I have a website Joan Webster Murder. I have laid things out with a timeline, documents, photos, narrative, etc. If you are just starting to follow this thread, the website will probably help. But don't hesitate to ask questions or offer your thoughts.