By: centraljersey.com
Staff photo by Phil McAuliffe
Rosario DiGirolamo, pictured here outside the Mercer County Courthouse in 2008, admitted Monday he killed Amy Giordano with a hammer.
Staff photo by Phil McAuliffe
The inside of Amy Giordano’s Mercer Street apartment during the time of her 2007 disappearance.
Staff photo by Phil McAuliffe
Amy Giordano’s Mercer Street Apartment was the scene of the grisly crime over three years ago.
Murder
8MURDER
Doug Carman
Staff Writer
TRENTON – After over three years of mystery surrounding the savage killing of Amy Giordano, it was a Google search that pushed her killer to confess to the crime.
On Monday, Rosario DiGirolamo admitted to killing Ms. Giordano with a hammer strike to the head in 2007 after prosecutors discovered a powerful piece of evidence on his computer last month.
Mr. DiGirolamo, 35, accepted a last-minute plea deal that softened what would have been a first-degree murder charge against him to aggravated manslaughter. He admitted to killing the 27-year-old Hightstown mother, his former mistress, just one day before jury selection was to begin for a trial that could have put him behind bars for the rest of his life.
Mercer County Superior Court Judge Edward Neafsey denied defense attorney Jerome Ballarotto’s motion at Monday’s pretrial conference to suppress evidence that Mr. DiGirolamo made a Google search of the term "martial arts lethal blows to the back of the head" a week before Ms. Giordano’s June 2007 murder. The evidence was discovered last month.
Once that motion was denied, Mr. DiGirolamo accepted a plea for aggravated manslaughter, thus avoiding a first-degree murder charge that could have resulted in a 30-year minimum sentence.
Mr. DiGirolamo will instead be sentenced to 25 years in state prison on Feb. 3. As part of the deal, he is required to serve 85 percent of the sentence — about 21 years – before he is eligible for parole.
Jury selection was scheduled to begin Tuesday before he accepted the deal with prosecutors.
Judge Neafsey revoked Mr. DiGirolamo’s $1 million bail at the conclusion of Monday’s hearing and sent him out of the courtroom in handcuffs. He was transported to the Mercer County Correction Center, where he’ll stay until sentencing.
As he was being handcuffed, Mr. DiGirolamo, dressed in a gray suit, grimaced. He was silent as he walked out of the courtroom escorted by a pair of sheriffs.
Both Mr. Ballarotto and Assistant Prosecutor Al Garcia said the new Google evidence was a key factor in the defense’s decision.
"It was catastrophic because it was evidence that was going to be admitted that, in my opinion, would convince the jury that he committed this act out of premeditation," Mr. Ballarotto said. "I truly believe without this new evidence they would not have been able to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt," he said.
Prosecutor Joe Bocchini deferred to his assistants, Mr. Garcia and Thomas Meidt, for comment. Mr. Meidt said they had numerous witnesses providing contradicting statements, which would have made it more difficult for them to pursue a murder conviction, even after the Google search was discovered.
"It takes one juror to hang the jury," Mr. Meidt said.
In a brief press conference after the hearing, Mr. Garcia said he and other detectives searched the hard drive of Mr. DiGirolamo’s work computer for the term "head" and came across the Google search just before Christmas. Mr. Garcia didn’t specify whether the laptop’s Web browsers had an intact browsing history, or if other forensic methods were used to uncover the Google search. He said they told the defense of their finding on Dec. 23.
Mr. Ballarotto called Judge Neafsey soon after to file a motion to suppress their finding for evidence, just as he unsuccessfully attempted to throw out a hand saw seized from Mr. DiGirolamo’s garage that prosecutors were prepared to argue was similar to the tool used to dismember Ms. Giordano.
"I realized what this was, realized the time frame," Mr. Ballarotto told the court Monday. "This was a major problem and I feel we didn’t have a sufficient discovery."
Judge Neafsey, however, disagreed, saying the new discovery was not done in bad faith – even though he thought it was "mind-boggling" he evidence was not discovered sooner. The judge planned to have a two-week adjournment of the trial to account for the new evidence, before Mr. DiGirolamo confessed.
" I know the material was promptly provided," Judge Neafsey told the court. "It would not be in the interest of justice … to suppress this evidence. It is valuable ‘state of mind’ evidence."
Mr. Ballarotto and Mr. DiGirolamo agreed to the plea deal following his motion’s defeat.
After pleading guilty to the lesser charge, Mr. DiGirolamo, speaking softly and showing little expression, told the court he had an argument with Ms. Giordano in her apartment the afternoon she was killed. He said the argument became physical and Ms. Giordano grabbed a pry bar, lunging at his groin. He said he countered with a single hammer blow to her head.
"There was a lot of blood," Mr. DiGirolamo said. "I panicked." He said he checked her pulse and realized she was dead.
None of Ms. Giordano’s family members attended Monday’s hearing. Mr. Meidt told reporters afterwards they did not wish to attend the trial.
No mention was made of the disposal of Ms. Giordano’s body during the hearing. According to earlier testimony, Mr. DiGirolamo and his friend John Russo, 45, cleaned up the murder scene at Ms. Giordano’s Mercer Street apartment. Mr. DiGirolamo butchered her and stuffed her torso and part of her pelvis into a suitcase that was later found in Clay Pit Pond in Staten Island, N.Y.
Mr. DiGirolamo last year rejected a plea deal requiring him to lead authorities to the remainder of Ms. Giordano’s body parts.
The current plea deal did not address any agreement for him to disclose the locations of the missing body parts, which include her head and hands.
Following Ms. Giordano’s killing, Mr. DiGirolamo abandoned their 11-month-old son, Michael DiGirolamo, at a hospital in Delaware, then fled to Italy. Mr. DiGirolamo flew back to Delaware in August 2007 to confess to child abandonment charges.
Mr. Ballarotto declined to comment on the child’s current whereabouts. Mr. Garcia and Mr. Meidt said the locations of the missing body parts were not being considered in the plea, even though Mr. Ballarotto said "there were conversations to that effect" during previous plea agreement negotiations.
"I think those discussions will continue," he said.
