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Hey weirdos. I'm Elina. I'm Ash. And this is [Music] Morbid. It's morbid in the morning. Um,
00:00:28
so hey, it's more of it in the morning. Oh, did you just hear my jaw crack? Yeah, your jaw is needs to be taken care
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of. No, I have a reckless jaw. I think it's honestly jaw. Somebody should probably like wire it shut for a little
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bit. My whole jaw is talking and it just wouldn't work out. It's rough. It It's like snaps a lot. Yeah, I was just like
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just doing a little stretch and it was like You should hear it when I eat a bagel. It's even crazier. Oh, damn. It's
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nuts. Well, you have heard it, but I have. That's true. You listener out there. You may not have, I don't know
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your life. I don't know your life. I don't know your life, but I do know a candy store that you should go to in
00:01:06
Salem. Yeah. This is And it's not an ad. No. Um it's just uh we like to pass on stuff to you. Uh we went to Salem the
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other day. We got to hang out with our with our our twin flame Ryan Lil Washington. Go download Ryan's music. Go
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buy Ryan's books. Go give him a high five. He's a lovely, lovely, magical, enchanting human being. It's the best.
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And so is his husband. Yes. Um we love them both. We had a wonderful time in Salem with And they're friends. Yeah.
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And their friends are great. Like it was a great It was a great day. We had a whole day and we met a lot of listeners.
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So if we met you, what's up? Yeah. While we were in We hope you had a great day in Salem. We met somebody who's it was
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their first time in Salem. I hope you had the best time. Yeah. Hell yeah. Hell [ __ ] yeah. And we also met Marne. We
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met Marne. And Marne um is the owner of the Curly Girl Candy Shop in Salem, which we always pass by there. It's
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right near like House Witch, right near like Essex Street. It's like right off of Essex Street. And I always I'm like,
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"Oo, we should pop in there. Like, I want to get some candy." And we were going to this last time cuz we ran into
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Marne. She introduced herself and we were planning 100% on going into the candy store, but then we had kids stuff
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pop up. Yeah. I had I had to get to after school activities and the we had timed it so that I could get home for
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that so I could drive them to after school stuff and uh the traffic shifted and suddenly it was going to be like a
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2hour drive home and we were like holy [ __ ] we got to leave. That's one thing about Salem. I love going to Salem so
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much but like traffic man from 2 to 3 the traffic shift is nuts. Yeah. You either have to leave there very early or
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very or later. Yeah. There's this one stretch of time where you're going to be in trouble. Yeah, but Marne, we will be
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back and we will come. Yeah, we love the [ __ ] out of some of your candy. Love,
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Marne. Go to the Curly Girl candy shop because it looks so [ __ ] cool. And we're definitely going when we come
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back. Yes. Um and bop into House Witch and get your Aura Red because we did that with Ryan and his husband and the
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two of us and it was very fun. Very insightful. Very like Yeah, it was very insightful is is
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definitely the best way to describe it. Uh, we also stopped into Nocturn, which is one of my favorite stores. Oh. Um,
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and we met Cody Cody Cwley, who has, she's, you might know her on like Tik Tok. Um, I think her Tik Tok and like
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Instagram is under spirit bored. Um, bored, but b o r e d. Her name's Cody. She's also an author. She wrote her
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debut novel was um, uh, here lies a vengeful [ __ ] Amazing. I just got it. I'm so excited to start. Amazing. So,
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she's a great follow. She's awesome. So definitely if you're looking for some fun follows, she gives you a lot of
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information about Salem, too. Uh on her Tik Tok, she gives you like historical information, touristy information, the
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best kind of like little hidden gems. That's the best. She gives you like spooky little stories. She's very
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entertaining. She's got the vibes of Tai from Clueless. Yes, very much like a spooky tie. Literally a spooky tie. I
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think she's so fun. So yeah, it was really cool. We met a lot of cool people. Yeah, good vibes all around. We
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needed it. We needed a little like um hookie day. Yeah, a little hookie day. It was our day off anyway. We didn't
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actually really play hookie from anything. But no, we can't. We're actually not allowed.
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But with all that being said, that's all that's all the business we had, right? Yeah, it was just good business. It was
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good business. But we have um kind of a pressing case today. And this case um is, you know, it hits close to home. I
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had this [ __ ] phenomenal mentor when I was in like my very early hair days when I had just started at like this
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main salon. Yeah. Um I had this mentor Timmy and he took such good care of me and unfortunately his uncle was killed
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years and years and years ago and now his uncle's killer is possibly going to be up for probation which is pretty
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scary when that's always not great. Yeah, it's pretty scary too when you hear the details of this case. Ooh. So,
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let's get into it. Um, this is a pressing matter. When we get to the end, there's like some petitions going on and
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stuff that just trying to get some ears. Yeah, we want to get some ears, some attention on this. Timmy's family is
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really trying to do whatever they can to keep their loved ones killer behind bars. And I don't blame them. Yeah. So,
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let's get into it. In the spring of 1988, 19-year-old Robert Morganti was living in Brockton, which is a suburb
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about an hour outside of Boston. And at the time, he was supporting himself as kind of a low-level cocaine dealer. Mhm.
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At the time, a lot of the product that he was selling came from Jeffrey Tessier, who was one of his runners,
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quote unquote, who basically helped him break up large amounts of cocaine into smaller packages and then they would go
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distribute it. Okay. On May 10th, 1988, Robert Morganti had actually run out of cocaine. So, he called Jeffrey in order
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to get some more, but Jeffree told him he too was dry, didn't have any, but Jeffree said he did have a source that
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he was willing to connect Morandi with in order to resupply. Uh Jeffrey's connection would have completely solved
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their problems, but a few hours later, Morganti called to say that this connection was also out of cocaine. So
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sensing an opportunity to make some quick cash and uh thinking very interestingly interesting thought
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pattern here, Jeffrey Tessier devised a scheme where he would quote trick Morganti into paying him for what
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Morganti would mistakenly believe was one quarter kg of cocaine. Oh no, that's a terrible [ __ ] idea. Yeah, that's
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not a good idea. He's obviously not the first person to ever rip off a drug dealer, but it does remain unclear how
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or why he thought Morganti would readily accept a lookalike powder and would then
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distribute that lookalike powder without verifying its legitimacy at all. Confusing. Like that's never going to
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happen. No. But for whatever reason, he returned Morganti's call that evening and told him he found another hookup and
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that they could go to the new supplier's house that night, pick up the drugs for
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what would uh end up being about $10,500 at that time and what would be almost $29,000 today. Okay. Based on
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court records and just like human logic, it's pretty reasonable to assume Jeffrey
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had not fully thought out this plan. No, this was very This was very impulsive. Yeah. Um, and he was very much operating
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on the fly. So, because of that, it is very plausible to believe that Anthony Lond was just roped into all of this at
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the very last very dire minute. But either way, that night, Jeffrey Tessier, uh, Robert Moranti, and one of their
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associates, Brian Madden, drove to Locant's house. And when they arrived, Tessier told the two men to wait in the
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car while he went inside to pick up the drugs, which were not drugs. So because Anthony Lukant was ultimately killed
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that night, we only have Jeffrey Tessier's testimony to rely on to fill in the gaps of what happened next.
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According to him, he went into Anony's house and explained that he was what what he was attempting to do. And again,
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according to him, Lant didn't object to playing a part in this ruse. Jeffree then quickly scanned the house for
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anything that he could pass off as fake cocaine and ultimately gathered a random
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collection of just household items, including an old spice container. And he placed the hastily assembled package in
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a brown paper bag and went back out to the car. Okay. Once he was out there, he handed that that package and uh over to
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Moranti. Morganti gave him the $10,500 fully believing that he was purchasing a kilo of cocaine rather than
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a bag of garbage. And with the deal done, Morganti and Madden pulled away from the house, leaving Jeffrey there
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behind with Antthony Anthony Lacant, who Jeffrey said received $2,000 for his participation in the scam. Again,
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Jeffrey's words. Yeah. Not surprisingly, uh, a seasoned drug dealer, Robert Marganti, wasn't fooled by getting a bag
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of deodorant. Yeah, that's not shocking. And was pretty pissed that he had just paid over $10,000 for a bag of garbage.
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So within five minutes, Morganti and Matted were back at Lukant's house pounding on the back door, which by the
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way, he lived with his mother. This is horrifying. And he, this was a very last minute thing. He got roped into. We
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don't know what he knew and anything like that. We only have Jeffrey to rely on.
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So now Morganti and Madden are banging on the door and like very [ __ ] angry drug dealers. I can like feel the
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anxiety right now. Yeah. So absolutely terrified by these men at the door, Anthony goes running out the front door
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because they're pounding on the back door. And he attempted to get away from the situation that he got roped into
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last minute. But according to his mother, Rachel, the two men chased him down in the driveway and managed to
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force him into Madden's car after beating him. What happened next is not exactly clear,
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but the evidence collected during the investigation does provide some insight. According to the medical exam examiner,
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excuse me, Anthony Lant was sitting in the passenger seat of the Monte Carlo with Madden driving and Morganti sitting
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in the back right behind Anthony. At one point during their drive after having severely beaten him, investigators
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believe that Morganti shot 24 year old Locant in the back of his head with a 380 caliber handgun, sending a bullet
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through the back of his skull behind his left ear, and that then exited through his right eye. Oh yeah, that's awesome.
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They executed him. That is brutal. Based on the technician's analysis of the evidence in the car, the gun was fired
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less than 6 in from the victim's head. Holy [ __ ] It was so close that it caused burns around the edge of the
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wound. And finally, it was determined based on Anony's injuries and the trajectory of the bullet that the
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gunshot could have only been fired from the back seat. Okay. Where Morganti was believed to have been sitting. A little
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past 11 p.m. that night, Brockton resident Michael Geler looked out the window of uh his Howard Street residence
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and saw a blue Mont Bonte Car Carlos slowed to a stop across from his home where it sat briefly before pulling
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away. After the car left, he saw what he described as what looked like a trash bag sitting on the side of the road. And
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assuming that the driver had just dumped trash, he went back to what he was doing. Didn't really think anything
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about it until a short time later, he heard screams coming from outside. By that time, a passing driver had also
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seen what they thought was an object on the side of the road, but they stopped to investigate. And that's when they
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found Anthony Locant unconscious and badly bleeding. Oh [ __ ] They just dumped him on the side of the road and
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he was only unconscious. He had not died yet. Oh my god. So Geler called for an ambulance and emergency responders
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arrived a few minutes later. At first they couldn't tell because he was so badly beaten and you know you're
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unrecognizable after that kind of gunshot wound. Emergency responders believed that he actually Anthony had
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been the victim of a hit and run accident. Holy [ __ ] Since he was covered in blood and the exit wound
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above his eye wasn't recognizable. I think probably because due to swelling, he was still actually breathing and did
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have a weak pulse, but a short time later he did pass away at the hospital. And later that day when the autopsy was
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conducted, that's when they discovered the bullet wound over his eye and in the back of his head. And his death at that
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point was obviously deemed a homicide. This was devastating to his family. Anthony Lacant was born in
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December of 1963 to Coast Guardsman Albi. Albby and line worker and former model Rachel Locant. They are a
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beautiful couple. They're obsessed with them. My friend Timmy's grandparents and
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he sent all these old pictures of them on like their wedding day and everything. They had all these children
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together. They're a beautiful family. Anthony was the fourth of their fifth children and he was absolutely adored by
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all of his siblings and even his extended family. Growing up, he loved to watch Batman and Robin with his brother
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Alan. He loved to dress up and they would pretend to fly around the house like superheroes. Him and his sister
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Marie would do that. And he also loved the cartoon Go Speed Racer Go. He loved race cars, motorcycles, anything like
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that. He and his brother Allan would go to concerts all the time. Allan said they went to AC/DC, Fog Hat, Blue Oyster
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Cult. Oh my god. And they would sneak up to the front rows together whenever they
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could. I love that. They had a great time together. And music definitely played a big part in the whole family's
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lives. All of Anony's siblings remember dancing around with him. They remember just spending days hanging out in their
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rooms listening to new records. He gave one of his sisters um a cassette or like
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a 45 of um uh uh Prince's Purple Rain. Oh my gosh. And she still has it to this day. She won't part with it, of course.
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But one thing that every family member recalls, and I just think this is such a sweet memory, the family went on a
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cruise to the Bahamas together, and Tony was only about seven or eight at the time, but he got up on stage on the
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cruise, and they all said that he performed Frank Sinatra's You Make Me Feel So Young with the ship's band. Shut
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up. Just like got up there and sang for everybody. And the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Of course they will.
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And everybody has that memory of him. Oh, I love that. It's really sweet. Anony's sister Susan told us, "What I
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want people to know about Anthony was that he was a kind and loving brother who didn't have much but shared what he
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did have. He would always put others before himself. He was an advocate or big brother to many kids in the
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neighborhood. He always loved the holidays. He would go to the neighbors houses and celebrate their traditions
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and eat with them. He loved playing with the children and would stick up for others that were being bullied. Just the
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other day, while getting an oil change, a man came up to me and asked me if I was a loant. He told me the story of him
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being bullied and how Anthony stepped in and told the other kids to leave him alone and they never bullied him again.
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So few people are like that. Yeah. So to like lose somebody that's like that in such a horrific way is like
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heartbreaking, devastating, tragic. Like you you don't find people like that. No.
00:15:08
To to just go out of their way and probably for somebody he like knew Yeah. just likeanded or just whatever. Like a
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lot of people won't stick up for people. They won't put their own nose, you know,
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like it's a lot of people will just kind of walk away and let somebody else deal
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with it. But look at how significant it is when you actually do go out of your way and stick up for
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somebody. Went up to his sister however many years later, like 40 years later, and still remembered that. That's the
00:15:34
thing. People will remember just like the smallest acts of kindness that you will do or just going out of your way to
00:15:40
like make them happy or make something better for them. And people remember the other way. Oh, absolutely. And which way
00:15:48
would you rather be known for? Being the bully and being the person that made someone's life awful or being the person
00:15:55
that stepped in and like made things better. And it's easy. It's not easy. It doesn't take too much. Yeah. You know,
00:16:03
just do it. But everybody has fond memories of Anthony. Sounds like it. His niece Amy also has the fond memories,
00:16:10
especially about going to visit him while he lived with her grandmother when she was young. She said, "My uncle Tony,
00:16:15
he had old Hollywood movie star looks. He I was just about to say he is incredibly handsome." He does. He
00:16:21
actually Have Did you meet Timmy when I was working at the salon? I think I briefly met him. I'm pretty sure. Timmy
00:16:26
looks like his uncles. Actually, I was going to say they are very similar. Like Timmy is very Yeah, Timmy's very
00:16:32
Hollywood star looking. Very like striking. Very striking. Yeah. And he looks like he could be in like one of
00:16:37
those cool old movies. Like you could see him in like a full suit. Yes. Absolutely. All like dappered out. Like
00:16:42
driving a fast car, you know? She said he was absolutely stunning. Agreed. Yeah. He was over 6 feet tall with dark
00:16:49
hair and dark eyes. The ladies loved him, but he only had eyes for a couple ladies. And the number one lady was his
00:16:54
mom. Oh my god. He was a mama's boy, a fearless brother, and the coolest uncle any little girl could ever dream up. Oh,
00:17:01
she also remembered, of course, how devastating the loss of her uncle was for not only herself, but especially for
00:17:07
his mom, Amy's grandmother. She said, "They had the most beautiful relationship. She broke when he was
00:17:12
assassinated. I lost them both when he was murdered. She just got so quiet and so sad. I remember when I was going to
00:17:18
give birth to my firstborn son. I came to Nanny and I asked her if I could name him Anthony. And she said she didn't
00:17:24
think that was a good idea because it wasn't a good name for her son. So, did I think it would be a good idea for
00:17:29
him?" Oh, like she was so not that she didn't love the name or anything, but she was like, "Look what his fate was,
00:17:36
right?" Yeah. Oh, that breaks my heart. It does. She's beautiful as well. Yes. Nanny. Nanny. Oh, Nanny's wedding
00:17:42
pictures. Nanny was a star. Yeah. And Al Nanny and Albi. Yes. Damn. Gorge. What a
00:17:48
couple. Gorge. Like, wow. Yeah. Timmy your family. Timmy your family. Holy [ __ ] But on a more serious note, going
00:17:56
back to the night of the murder, according to court documents, sometime around midnight, Robert Morganti called
00:18:01
his friend Travis Merritt and told him that he had quote gotten ripped off, something went wrong, and he had shot
00:18:07
somebody. So Travis agreed to help his friend, and a short time later, Robert Morganti showed up to his apartment with
00:18:13
blood still all over his face and all over his clothing. My god. During their conversation, Morganti repeated the
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story of what happened earlier that night, saying he didn't know the identity of the man that he'd shot, only
00:18:24
that he thought he was involved for in ripping him off for $10,500. And Morganti told Travis he had
00:18:31
thrown the gun out of the car somewhere along Harrison Boulevard on his way back
00:18:35
to the apartment. And he said his only priority in that moment was finding Jeffrey Tessier and getting his money
00:18:40
back. Which is like, your priorities are [ __ ] up. You just killed a man. Took a
00:18:45
man's life. A short time later, the two men went to the home of another acquaintance, Gary
00:18:50
Gaml, where they believed they'd find Jeffrey. At the house, Morganti apparently told Gaml, "I just want my
00:18:56
money. I killed the wrong person." Holy [ __ ] So, Anthony Lukant was just wrapped up in all of this. I just killed
00:19:02
the wrong person. In a case of mistaken identity, it very much seems like Morganti thought he was going after
00:19:09
Jeffrey or thought he was going after this like big deal cocaine dealer and that that was not Anthony. Holy [ __ ]
00:19:17
That's horrifying. And he knew it. He knew how badly he had [ __ ] up that he just killed somebody who wasn't involved
00:19:24
in all of this. Wow. So, as the men were talking, Jeffree pulled up outside, and Morganti actually
00:19:29
moved toward the door to confront him, but was stopped by Gaml, who insisted that he would go out and get the money
00:19:34
back. I'm sure he was like, "You've gotten yourself in enough [ __ ] tonight." A few minutes later, Gaml returned and
00:19:39
handed Morganti $7,500, which obviously he noted was a few thousand short, but he accepted it
00:19:45
at that point. Probably just ready to be done with the whole ordeal. Yeah. and they left Gaml's house in a cab and the
00:19:52
cab then dropped Moranti at the home of another associate, Joseph Valente. Morganti then explained to Valente that
00:19:59
he had been ripped off and had shot and killed one of the men he thought was responsible, but that he had killed the
00:20:04
wrong man. And now he needed help in getting in contact with an associate in California because he was planning to
00:20:10
flee the state. Wow. Which means he fully knew that he was in a whole bunch of 100%. He had the full wherewithal to
00:20:18
know that he needed to get the [ __ ] out of dodge because what he did was wrong
00:20:22
and he was going to face some kind of trouble for it. Yeah. So while he was tracking down Jeffrey Tessier to get his
00:20:27
missing money, Brian Madden was having a crisis of his own. Madden, remember, was
00:20:33
driving the car that night. He hadn't been necessarily responsible for Anthony Lukan's murder and obviously didn't know
00:20:39
it was going to happen. And it happened very quickly, but like I said, he had been driving the car when Anthony was
00:20:44
shot and he also helped with dumping Anony's body on the side of the road. He's an accomplice to murder. Yeah. So,
00:20:51
he's freaking out. And he calls his brother Mark Madden a little after midnight that night and briefly
00:20:58
explained what happened and asked Mark if he could come over. After hearing the story, Mark did the right thing and
00:21:03
encouraged his brother to report the shooting to the police, which uh Brian did end up doing shortly after hanging
00:21:10
out hanging up with Mark. When Mark arrived to his brother's apartment, he saw the Monte Carlo parked out front and
00:21:16
could still see a large amount of blood in the front seat of the car. Inside, Brian was already speaking with
00:21:21
detectives who had come to the apartment. A short time after placing that call, state and local investigators
00:21:27
arrived at Brian Madden's apartment and they started processing the car for evidence, noting that there was a quote
00:21:32
great deal of blood on the front passenger seat. They also collected several bloodcovered CDs from the front
00:21:39
seat and an old spice container, which remember was used to rip off Morgante. Yeah. Inside the apartment,
00:21:46
investigators also collected several more blood spattered CDs from Brian Madden's kitchen, and subsequent testing
00:21:53
of the blood found in the car, on the floor mats, and the blood on the CDs in the kitchen. All a match for Anthony
00:21:58
Lant. No surprise there. Wow. During their investigation with Brian Madden and processing the evidence collected
00:22:04
from the car, investigators with Brockton and Massachusetts State Police established that Brian Madden had been
00:22:10
driving the car at the time of the shooting. And forensic testing recreations of the shooting confirmed,
00:22:15
quote, "It would have been difficult to have fired a shot from the driver's seat
00:22:19
at the angle indicated by the entrance and exit wounds." So, they were able to rule him out as the shooter. Okay. And
00:22:25
like I said, the evidence did indicate that the shot had been fired from the back seat where we know Robert Morganti
00:22:31
was sitting, making him the primary suspect for the murder. Based on the statements taken from Brian Madden,
00:22:37
Jeffrey Tessier, Tessier, excuse me, and Joseph Valente, a warrant was issued for
00:22:42
Robert Moranti's arrest on the afternoon of May 11th, 1988 for the murder of Anthony Locant. But the problem was at
00:22:50
that point, by the time investigators managed to put all the pieces together, Morganti had already fled the state. He
00:22:57
was gone. In the years that followed, investigators followed leads and tips from the public that brought them to
00:23:02
Florida, Michigan, and New York in search of Robert Morganti. But it would be more than a decade before he was
00:23:10
ultimately captured and put on trial for Anthony Locant's murder. Damn. Yes. More
00:23:15
than a decade. In the early morning hours of March 16th, 2000, now the year 2000, this all
00:23:21
started, remember, in 1988. Now, March 16th, 2000, a California Highway Patrol officer
00:23:28
stopped a car uh stopped a driver for speeding along Highway 132 in Modesto. The driver identified himself as Rodri
00:23:36
Gren, a resident of Stannislaus County, and he acknowledged to the officer that he had been drinking. Oh. The officer
00:23:44
obviously asked the man to step out of the vehicle and immediately placed him under arrest for DUI. And during a
00:23:49
routine search of the vehicle, the CHP officer also discovered about a half pound of marijuana and Gan's vehicle as
00:23:56
well as a box that quote unquote contained uh marijuana residue. Jeez. So, he contacted the county Drug
00:24:02
Enforcement Agency and obviously the vehicle was impounded. The drug evidence found in this man's vehicle was
00:24:08
obviously enough for law enforcement agents to get a warrant for his home. now where they found 70 lbs of
00:24:14
marijuana. Jesus. That's a whole [ __ ] ton of marijuana. Um, all of which had been divided into smaller packages
00:24:20
clearly for sale. Wow. So, we're not we're not evolving here. No. $21,000 in cash which was wrapped in bed sheets as
00:24:30
well was found in the apartment. And the evidence strongly indicated that this man was probably a drug dealer. Yeah.
00:24:36
Yeah. Lieutenant Raul DeLeon told reporters, "It was obvious this guy was supporting himself by selling
00:24:42
marijuana." But what was even more unusual and more unexpected was that along with the drugs and the money,
00:24:48
investigators also found multiple forms of identification, all with different names, indicating that this Brick Ganj
00:24:57
probably wasn't who he claimed to be. That's spooky. Among the various forms of identification found in the home was
00:25:03
one for John Sam Brown, another name entirely. Okay. And John Sam Brown was from Almeida County. So investigators in
00:25:11
Modesto called their counterparts in Almeida and learned that John Sam Brown had been arrested and convicted on a
00:25:17
previous charge and was currently on probation. Oh. In the meantime, another detective ran through Rodri's uh
00:25:24
fingerprints and they ran them through the nationwide database and got a hit not for Rodri, but for Robert Morganti.
00:25:31
Oh. Who, as we know, had a warrant out in Brockton, Massachusetts for the murder of Anthony Lant in 1988. Yep. On
00:25:38
March 17th, authorities in California called the state police in Massachusetts and let them know that they had arrested
00:25:45
their suspect that many years later. And the following day, a detective from the
00:25:49
state police boarded the first plane for Modesto. After a dozen years of waiting
00:25:54
and hoping, the news of Moranti's arrest obviously came as a surprise, but a relief to Anony's family. Lukant's
00:26:02
brother, Allan, told reporters, "I never gave up hope. I was always hoping he would be found." That must have been
00:26:07
unreal. The relief they must have felt. And then like in hand with the relief also just now we're going to have to go
00:26:14
through a whole trial and this is all going to get brought back up again. All the emotions that you've been dealing
00:26:20
with for years and years and years are like right at the root again. Yeah. Absolutely. So while the family waited
00:26:27
on word from local authorities regarding Moranti's extradition to Massachusetts,
00:26:31
the suspect was held on $1 million bail on the drug charges. When Massachusetts State Police Sergeant Leonard Coppenrath
00:26:38
finally sat down with Mganti the following day, he continued to refer to himself as Roger Ganjage and insisted
00:26:45
that he was not from Brockton, but that he had come to California from New York.
00:26:49
WTF? He's like, "What's Brockton even? What even is that?" But when the detective filled out the Miranda form
00:26:56
using the suspect's real name, Morganti realized he had been found out and just looked at him and said, "Now what?"
00:27:03
Damn. So, that is so casual. So casual. Holy [ __ ] Now what? Uh, now you're going to face trial for murder. So,
00:27:11
how's that? Throughout their interview, Robert Marganti was evasive and really never
00:27:16
offered a confession. But that said, at one point, he was allowed to make a phone call to his son. It was the boy's
00:27:22
birthday. And when his son's mother asked what she should tell their son, Morganti said she should explain to
00:27:28
their son that daddy did a bad thing. Wow. Oh. So, while he didn't confess, he he did kind of did. Yeah. At various
00:27:35
points, he also wondered out loud whether it was wise for him to speak to the to detectives on the record, but he
00:27:40
had already agreed to speak with them without an attorney, and he never directly recanted that approval or
00:27:45
directly asked for an attorney. Yeah. So, if you don't ask directly, they're not going to give you one. No, you got
00:27:51
to ask. You got to ask. Banti told the detectives that he hadn't seen or spoken to anybody from Brockton since he left
00:27:57
in 1988, including his family. And although he knew many of the people involved in the lowc murder case, he
00:28:03
denied being responsible for Anony's death. It wasn't him. No, he said. He said I'm like, let's make that clear.
00:28:11
Rather than press for a confession though, Copenrath began offering various scenarios in which Morganti might have
00:28:16
found himself in that ultimately led to Anony's death, but that tactic failed to
00:28:22
elicit a confession. Still, a few days later, Robert Morganti was extradited back to Massachusetts to finally stand
00:28:28
trial for the murder. Ultimately, he and Anony's family would have to wait more than 3 years before the case was finally
00:28:36
heard. But finally, in the summer of 2003, his trial did begin in Brockton Superior Court. At that time, he was
00:28:43
charged with one count of first-degree murder with special circumstances attached for what the prosecutor
00:28:48
described as deliberate premeditation and the uh extreme atrocity or cruelty, which Yeah, I would say. So, you shoot
00:28:56
somebody in the back of the head after beating them. Yeah, that is that is extreme cruelty. Yeah. And banging down
00:29:02
their mother's door. Yeah, I'd say so. Over the course of the trial, the jury was shown a large number of photographs
00:29:08
of Anony's body, which his sister Marie described as unrecognizable after Moranti had beaten him, shot him, and
00:29:14
left him for dead on the side of the road. That's so sad. They also, the jury, also viewed Madden's Monte Carlo
00:29:20
and were shown a recreation of the shooting to see where the parties were sitting when it occurred. Other evidence
00:29:26
presented in court included the fingerprint evidence taken from the car on the night of the murder as well as
00:29:31
the fingerprint evidence that was collected when Moranti was arrested in Modesto and um when they were able to
00:29:37
confirm his identity. Okay. And you know all that. Yeah. So by far the most compelling aspect of the trial was the
00:29:44
testimony from various individuals who had contact with Robert Marganti and Anthony Lant on the night of the
00:29:51
shooting. That included testimony from Travis Merritt, who told the jury that he had seen Robert Morganti with the
00:29:57
same caliber gun that was used in the shooting and Jeffrey Tessier, who claimed that he also had seen Morganti
00:30:04
with the same caliber of weapon in fact on the day of the shooting. Oh, so that's something. Yeah. Similarly,
00:30:10
Joseph Valente testified that Morgante had come to him in needing his help to flee to California. There was also a
00:30:17
large number of witnesses who testified they heard Moranti say he had killed somebody. Oh. Most damning, however, was
00:30:23
Brian Madden who testified that he had been driving the car on the night of the shooting and in the courtroom identified
00:30:30
Robert Moranti as the shooter. Oh [ __ ] Yeah. So he this piles and piles of evidence against a lot of evidence. On
00:30:37
June 13th, 2003, after a brief deliberation, the jury returned a verdict finding Robert Marganti guilty
00:30:43
for the murder of Anthony Locant. Following his conviction, he was sentenced to life imprisonment
00:30:48
imprisonment without the possibility of parole. And when the sentence was passed, Anony's father, Elby, openly
00:30:54
wept in the courtroom, relieved that his son had finally received justice over after more than a decade, over a decade.
00:31:01
But unfortunately, that relief would not last. In 2009, Robert Moranti's lawyer, Donald
00:31:08
Harwood, filed an appeal on Moranti's behalf, alleging, among other things, that investigators had violated his
00:31:14
rights. One, by admitting into evidence statements that were given more than 6 hours after his arrest, and two, not
00:31:21
stopping the interview after Morandi suggested he should contact a lawyer. It doesn't work like that. Yeah, you got to
00:31:29
Yeah. And I'll explain that. With regard to the first point, the statements made
00:31:33
more than six hours after his arrest that were entered into evidence, Harwood is referring to what's known as the safe
00:31:38
harbor rule, which provides, quote, that in the absence of exceptional circumstances, a statement made by a
00:31:44
defendant more than 6 hours after his arrest shall not be admitted into evidence unless the defendant waves his
00:31:50
right to a prompt arraignment. This provision was established to prevent law enforcement officials from delaying
00:31:55
interviews for long periods of time to try to get a confession. Oh, yeah. But in this case, the delay was a result of
00:32:01
Sergeant Copenrath having to travel across the country. Yeah. And even under those circumstances, the court found
00:32:08
that the safe harbor rule had not been violated in this case. So that's good. As for the second claim that his request
00:32:14
for a lawyer had been denied, the court also ruled against Morante. In their summary opinion, the justices noted that
00:32:20
to invoke the right to counsel, the suspect must unambiguously request counsel and must articulate his desire
00:32:26
to have counsel present sufficiently clearly that a reasonable police officer in the circumstances would understand
00:32:33
the statement to be a request for an attorney. You can't say like maybe I should have a lawyer or should I talk to
00:32:38
you guys? Should I talk to you guys? Maybe I shouldn't talk to you guys. It has to be like I want a lawyer and I'm
00:32:43
not speaking until I have one. Yeah. Black and white. Boom. You can't just be like you you can't speak in
00:32:48
hypotheticals. Yeah, you got to be clear. So, in Moranti's case, the justices concluded that it was perfectly
00:32:54
reasonable for the interviewing officers to assumed that assume that he wasn't requesting an attorney. Quote, thinking
00:32:59
out loud that he might need a lawyer and might want to stop questioning until he
00:33:03
spoke to a lawyer, which is not a sufficient invocation of his rights. No. No. So, those attempts failed. Several
00:33:12
years later, in late 2013, he appealed a second time. this time arguing that his
00:33:16
rights had been violated during the jury selection process when the courtroom was
00:33:20
briefly cleared of public spectators. The sixth amendment of the US Constitution guarantees, as we know, a
00:33:26
right to a speedy and public trial, which Borganti was now arguing had been denied when the courtroom was briefly
00:33:32
cleared. In their finding, the court determined that quote during jury impanelment, the court officers closed
00:33:38
the courtroom to all members of the public as was custom practice at that time in court and the defendant did not
00:33:43
object to the courtroom closure. So they also concluded that quote all three attorneys were aware of their client's
00:33:49
sixth amendment right to a public trial. Yet none of them objected until 2007 when the issue began to emerge in cases
00:33:56
tried outside of Plymouth County. So they saw it starting to come up and they're like other places. Yeah. So the
00:34:02
justices upheld the conviction on the grounds that the defendant had not sustained his burden of establishing his
00:34:08
claim. With those two appeals or three appeals denied at that point, it appeared that Robert Moranti would
00:34:14
indeed be spending the rest of his life in jail. However, just about a month or so ago, in April of 2025, the Locant
00:34:22
family's world was completely upended when Anony's now 92year-old father received a letter from the Massachusetts
00:34:29
Parole Board indicating that due to a recent state Supreme Court ruling, Robert Moranti could become eligible for
00:34:36
parole in the very near future. And we've come across this before. The ruling in question was the outcome of
00:34:43
Commonwealth versus Mattis, a January 2024 state Supreme Court ruling concluding that life sentences without
00:34:50
the possibility of parole for offenders between 18 and 20 years old accounted to
00:34:54
cruel and unusual punishment. We've talked about that before. Yeah. So now, and we've talked about it in other
00:34:59
states. Now it's happening in Massachusetts. And now the state of Massachusetts has started evaluating
00:35:05
cases where the offenders were between those ages at the time that the crimes were committed and considering certain
00:35:10
inmates for parole. In her press release following the ruling, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said
00:35:17
the justice system should give young people the opportunity to turn their lives around and fulfill their
00:35:22
potential. Which, yeah, sure, in certain cases that's absolutely valid. Robert Moranti was 19 years old when he killed
00:35:29
Anthony Lacant and then he was able to live for another 12 more years on the run and didn't turn his life around. I
00:35:36
think that's that's the difference here cuz like I'm all for taking a look at cases and seeing if some some changes
00:35:44
have happened all that stuff for sure. That's the whole point of imprisonment. It's supposed to be that like you know
00:35:51
you the rehabilitation to become a productive member of society, right? But you got to look at each one. It's a case
00:35:57
by case scenario. It's a case by case because some of them are just not going to fit that mold. No. And I don't think
00:36:02
I don't think he does really because during the time that he was on the run, he had warrants, multiple war warrants
00:36:08
in other states. He was still selling large amounts of drugs when he got arrested for a DUI. I was going to say
00:36:13
which can kill someone. I literally go I wrote in my notes he's arrested for DUI,
00:36:18
still endangering the lives of others. Endangering people. He had the opportunity to turn his life around and
00:36:23
he hadn't. Mhm. And on top of that, Marie Lant said he showed no remorse when he was arrested and he was he was
00:36:30
an adult. He was in his 30s when he was arrested. He never reached out to us. It
00:36:34
would have given given us some healing if he had. Mhm. So that all matters. Yeah. Absolutely. And while the state
00:36:41
may see the ruling as extending young offenders the opportunity to turn their lives around, the Locant family, just in
00:36:46
this case, does not agree when it comes to Robert Moranti. Yeah. Anony's younger
00:36:50
sister, Marie, told a reporter for the Enterprise, "My heart breaks for my father. It breaks for us all. I'm so
00:36:55
angry. We We don't want to go through this again. I don't blame them. And she told us, "Loing Anthony shattered our
00:37:01
hearts. His death didn't just affect us. It changed us. It's something we carry every day. A pain that does not fade. We
00:37:08
miss his voice, his laughter, his energy, and the way he made us all feel safe and loved. Anthony Lacant was more
00:37:14
than just a brother or a son. He was a light in our lives. And though that light was taken from us far too soon,
00:37:20
its warmth remains. We love you forever, Anthony. You are missed beyond words. That just gave me so many chills and I
00:37:28
got a giant bump of cry in my throat. I know. I can't imagine losing someone that mean that way and someone like
00:37:38
Anthony. No, I can't. Like I really can't like I feel for this family so much. He just seemed like such a like I
00:37:46
there were so there were countless stories that Timmy was able to share from all his family members and I could
00:37:50
never share them all. We would it would take like years and years because there were so many great stories of who he was
00:37:57
and he and a great thing to point out is he got to live 24 years. He Robert Moranti hasn't even been in
00:38:04
jail as long as as Anthony Lant got to live. Yeah. Like come on. Yeah. And again, he had the opportunity to turn
00:38:13
his life around and he didn't. Well, that's Yeah. He was I think he was 34 by the time he got arrested. for them to
00:38:19
have to go through all this again and to open up all the wounds to have that relief and then have it kind of ripped
00:38:26
off before it was able to even scab over, you know, like that kind of pain. I can't even imagine. I can't. And for
00:38:32
his father to be 92 having to deal with this 92 in poor health, just finally got
00:38:38
to see justice and then it could possibly be reversed. Yeah. It's like that's I can't It's tough. I feel for
00:38:46
what they're going through. Very complex and very upsetting. Yeah. So, as of now,
00:38:50
Morganti is one of 209 inmates in Massachusetts who do possibly have a chance at parole. Oh, wow. Though,
00:38:57
members of the Locant family are committed to doing whatever they can to make this not happen to prevent this
00:39:02
from happening. The family has picketed at the state house and they are doing whatever they can to bring an awareness
00:39:07
to what's going on with Anony's case. Uh they also currently have a petition on change.org. There's almost 150
00:39:14
signatures. If you feel so inclined, more. We could definitely get them some more. You guys go [ __ ] crazy over
00:39:22
petitions. Yeah, you guys really bang it out with petitions. Sign this petition if you feel so inclined. We're going to
00:39:28
include it in the show notes and post on social. Yeah. And just do what you can,
00:39:32
you know. I always think like if the if the victim's family is this committed to
00:39:37
it, that's who I take my cues from. That's who I stand with. Yeah. That's who I take my cues from. Absolutely. Uh,
00:39:44
as of now, the Massachusetts Parole Board has yet to schedule a hearing for Robert Moranti, but one is expected to
00:39:50
be announced in the coming months. So, let's get those signatures going before that happens because those signatures
00:39:56
make a difference. This family going and picketing outside the state house makes
00:39:59
a difference. And the fact that they are still working this hard for Anthony tells you who Anthony was and how much
00:40:09
they care, you know, like it should like for them to be still I mean again his father's 92 years old, right? Like come
00:40:16
on. Yeah. And his siblings, his siblings all have their own children. Their children are having their own children.
00:40:22
They are still fighting for their brother. Still fighting for this. Yeah. Damn. It's just it's a heartbreaking
00:40:28
case. I just want to hug the Lacant family. I want to hug all of them. I know. And just the fact that Morganti
00:40:34
himself at one point allegedly said like, "I killed the wrong guy." Yeah. This was all a mistake. This all should
00:40:41
have never happened. Yeah. It never should have happened. And it's gut-wrenching that this family is still
00:40:45
dealing with something that just never should have happened in the first place. Absolutely. So, we'll share that in the
00:40:50
show notes. And, uh, with that being said, thank you for listening. We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep
00:40:56
it weird. weird, but not so weird that you don't go rock that petition's world. Rock it. Sign it. Put your Herby Hancock
00:41:07
on the petition. On the petition. On the petition. [Music] [Music] [Music]