00:00:06
[Applause] [Music] [Music] hey yeah welcome back i had the privilege of talking to an individual close to a case
00:00:26
that we just covered if you listen to the show last week the main show we covered a case called a trail of
00:00:34
blood where janet downing was murdered and a lot of people believe they got the right guy
00:00:45
which happened to be a kid edward o'brien jr and his family and several other neighbors
00:00:53
have tried to point the finger at different people or point the finger away from edward one
00:00:59
of the people that they point the finger at is artie which artie was the brother-in-law of
00:01:08
janet lived at her house for two years and then moved out a little bit before the murder took place
00:01:17
already reached out to us saying hey some of the stuff that you were talking about in the case
00:01:22
is just not true if you'd like to hear a more in-depth view into some of those things that can
00:01:28
help you out so we got on the phone and did so listen in and jenna downey's ex-brother-in-law
00:01:36
i was her brother-in-law when she was murdered um i still remain friends with the
00:01:42
families both the salamini family which is her brother janna's brother and still remain
00:01:50
friends with my ex-wife janet's sister other than that being connected to the case i arrived there
00:01:57
like anybody else would how are you called to the scene my wife had called my work
00:02:05
the dispatcher informed me to call home right away which i did from a pay phone because
00:02:12
cell phones weren't in then she said to me you need to get to janet something happened
00:02:18
i immediately hung up and i drove from downtown boston to 71 boston street where she was what
00:02:25
time do you think you arrived at janet's house i'd say about 9 45-ish 10 o'clock
00:02:32
in that time frame and you're driving from work you're a taxi cab driver you're driving
00:02:37
from the boston area yeah i was driving no my my area is somerville mass because it's
00:02:43
a separate uh entity we can't do jobs in boston but we can drop off here i was dropped off at south station in
00:02:52
boston i'm sure as a text cab driver you guys had some kind of a log of the customers you drove around that
00:02:58
day did the police ever ask you for a log of those customers i i believe that's a
00:03:04
question for the police because i i can't get into what i truly believe i just don't know if they did their due
00:03:13
diligence in this case as far as clearing other suspects no i believe they did their due
00:03:19
diligence very very fine it just came together quick for them juan you also were telling me earlier
00:03:26
that we reported that your car was parked on a different road than it actually was
00:03:31
on yeah it was actually parked on what we call hamlet street janet's actual address is 71 boston
00:03:40
street but her house is right at the corner of those two streets and i was parked on
00:03:47
hamlet street facing up towards boston street approximately i know i was before the stop sign i'll
00:03:56
put it that way well some of the speculation by the neighbors was that your car was blocked in by
00:04:01
police officers ambulance or emt absolutely not i was the only one parked on hamlet
00:04:08
street and if they needed to get around they could very well have made that turn
00:04:14
onto hamlet street the claim by gina mahoney is that my car was facing down towards
00:04:23
highland avenue other side of the street which would have been parked correctly if in fact i was
00:04:30
parked there so what happens when you arrive at the scene when i first drove up i saw yellow tape
00:04:37
and like i told you before growing up in boston knowing what yellow take means there's
00:04:43
been a crime committed this is in my head before i even get out of the cab so i immediately jump out of
00:04:49
the cab i made an attempt to run into the house the police stopped me and said no you
00:04:55
can't go in there okay so i backed off and i said well where's my family members
00:05:02
what's going on and the officer i don't remember his name black or white i don't know
00:05:09
he told me that ryan is over there in the police cruiser i went over there and i tried to speak
00:05:16
to him my grind what happened what's going on buddy he couldn't talk he just had that look
00:05:24
of terrorism when as you're pulling up you don't know if something happened to your sister-in-law or if something
00:05:32
happened to one of her kids correct so after he's not able to tell you what's going on what did you do next
00:05:39
i walked over to gina mahoney's porch because that's who i knew how did you know or just from living
00:05:44
there for a couple years no i kind of knew of her because i knew her daughters outside of the neighborhood before i
00:05:51
even moved here so i went over to them and i looked i said what happened these are words from gina mahoney's mouth
00:06:03
they just took the janet out because what do you mean they took her out in an ambulance
00:06:13
i later learned the reason for that was that she had a faint pulse and sadly she
00:06:20
didn't make it how long do you think you spoke with her off and on through the night
00:06:26
um she even let me use her phone to wipe at the hospital i called my wife at the hospital i said honey
00:06:34
what's going on and she told me janet's gone how long do you think the police and emts were there that night
00:06:42
i don't know how long they were there before i got there but for the time i was there the police
00:06:49
were there throughout the night because they have to secure it for a warrant to search the house that's just
00:06:58
common knowledge i can't give you a time frame on when the fight apartment left i do remember them still being there but
00:07:06
there was no ambulance there when i got there and at some point in this evening one of the reasons people point the
00:07:13
finger towards you is that you lost your car keys at some point from the moment i got
00:07:18
there i lost my car keys let me specify i lost a car key not keys with a little dog tag and
00:07:28
ring on it so what you're saying is you had your keys but you had a single key that you
00:07:33
would use to drive your your car your taxi car uh did you drive the same car every
00:07:39
day no they gave us different ones every night unless they thought you were a good driver they
00:07:46
would give you a newer cab every night but no i remember specifically that night i
00:07:51
was driving car number 42. so when do you think you lost this taxi car key correct and i don't know when
00:07:58
that was did you ever find the key i did not and the neighbor also reported that your taxi
00:08:05
car was towed that night correct yes it was so did your work end up having to make a
00:08:11
replacement or did they have a replacement key for that for that cab yeah they they they have a
00:08:17
replacement key on hand and they also have a key making machine there from when they get other caps
00:08:23
since we're on the top of the key it's reported in the book and by gina mahoney that the police found the key and gave
00:08:34
it back to me that is a complete false statement i wish the police would have just went to your work because one they
00:08:42
could have saw the record log your work log which would have established some kind of alibi
00:08:49
which then when a book came out or when people were digging for information police could have said well
00:08:54
we talked with artie's employers and he had an alibi for that time during the murder
00:09:02
why do you think the parents and the neighbor and some other people have come forward
00:09:08
and try to point the finger towards you my belief is to get people to believe that it
00:09:13
wasn't eddie to get you know statements in that it could have been me for 25 years of these false accusations
00:09:25
oh man i'm just tired i'm tired about it you know it's taken a lot out of me do you remember what you were wearing
00:09:34
that night i can tell you with a pair of shorts and a shirt that's about it and i know that uh please question you
00:09:41
but you didn't really believe you were a suspect or under suspicion but let the listeners know what happened
00:09:47
to you when you showed up at the actual trial of edward o'brien we left home me and my wife brought that
00:09:55
child up with the daycare they had in the courthouse downstairs proceeded to go up to the beginning of
00:10:02
the trial judge comes in and jury comes in with probably three minutes later mr riley
00:10:13
you know asked me to talk to him and he says i apologize but you're not allowed in
00:10:19
the courtroom and i asked him why and he says because the defense has me on their witness list
00:10:28
so i had to leave and you were telling me that your sister-in-law didn't really date
00:10:33
much after the divorce she did not date after her divorce that i am aware of some people would
00:10:40
want to know how that divorce went down was there any animosity there that's a question for jen and her ex-husband and
00:10:46
unfortunately there's only one person that can answer that yeah but you can answer how you feel
00:10:51
about her ex-husband her ex-husband yeah i think he's a great guy great father great grandfather do you
00:11:00
believe he stepped up after her death uh because she was primarily the caregiver to the children
00:11:06
he absolutely did took his children in now i heard that there was a trail of blood
00:11:12
that was found once they towed your car yes there was a blood trail it was like 30 feet behind my cab
00:11:23
i remember that the next day so there was a blood trail just was not connected to your actual vehicle
00:11:30
and edward was known as this gentle giant you lived across the street from him for two years
00:11:36
can you give me what your thoughts on edward was you know to this day i have no bad words for his parents or him
00:11:47
other than the fact that he killed my sister i occasionally drank on the o'brien's
00:11:53
front porch with the dad i played street hockey in the street with the kids including eddie
00:11:59
and the other named boys in the book marco abreu john fitzpatrick and a couple of other kids it was a
00:12:10
common thing right i loved i enjoyed playing with kids because i've had kids on my own
00:12:17
and i still do obviously you know we used to have snowball fights i'd be at my house that he'd be standing
00:12:24
on his porch and i tossed one over and he stuck out of the way did you think he was a good kid
00:12:30
from what i knew of him at the time i thought he was you said something pretty interesting to me and i think a lot of
00:12:36
listeners and a lot of people that dove into this case deeper have not picked up on
00:12:41
is not only has edward's story changed on what happened but go through the events of what he
00:12:50
claims happen inside the house well there's a a bit of a long pathway up to the four-year door there's a four-year
00:13:00
when you enter approximately i'd say four by four if i run them correctly and immediately to was the house door
00:13:09
to go into the house he he claims he the door wasn't open he went in this is in the book he went in leaned
00:13:20
over and said janet janet and then out of nowhere comes this so-called killer nylon mask
00:13:30
as said in book this this is at the entrance of the door if this man threatened him
00:13:39
like they said in the book i'll kill you i'll kill your family i know you and he said leave why aren't you going
00:13:47
to go out the front door 52 feet to your house but yet you decide to leave through the
00:13:54
basement out the back of the door through the bushes and run down the street how he got back
00:14:03
to his house i don't know he got was housed from the midnight variety when he claims he was mugged
00:14:11
that's when he goes back to his house and it's in record that his family later on convinces
00:14:18
to take him to the hospital to get his hand checked yeah and the big question is we find
00:14:25
some blood on edward but we would think that he would be soaked in blood do you do you think he
00:14:30
went to his work or or somewhere to clean up he did not go to his work to clean up he
00:14:37
went to burger king as stated by margo nash and went into the bathroom to refresh himself
00:14:45
and then he's walking to his work and where he was mugged is perfectly in the middle of burger king
00:14:53
and where he worked right police later on went took him to the scene where he was claimed to be
00:15:01
jumped and if he has a severe cut on his hand there's gonna be blood somewhere on the ground
00:15:11
and there was no and this is a vicious murder violent murder 66 stab 32 slash wounds and
00:15:22
i want to clarify something in the book that margot says she says the slash wounds were
00:15:28
post-mortem which means you're dead why would the ambulance take her out if she had a
00:15:34
pulse is there other claims that we made or have been made about you in the past
00:15:41
that you would like to clear up yeah you might discuss about gina mahoney i mean
00:15:50
she makes up all these accusations and and one of them is that we were kicked out of the house for
00:15:56
selling drugs that i was kicked out on drugs to the neighborhood kids which is false we
00:16:08
moved out in march of 1995 march 2nd because we got the call on march for us that the apartment was
00:16:15
available for us and i remember leaving janet was crying when we left and it was later learned over his son
00:16:25
paul that he also said mom was crying because we left right i actually have it in a statement written by
00:16:33
paul that she was crying when we left yeah there's a couple statements that were made because as this book comes out
00:16:41
there's all these claims that are really not backed up by anything factual other than somebody
00:16:46
else's speculation can you read you have two statements i believe can you read both of them for us
00:16:52
these are signed letters from aaron and paul downing ryan is really long and it's basically
00:16:59
the same stuff i'll start with aaron my name is aaron downing i am writing this letter on behalf of my uncle adi ortiz
00:17:09
as the daughter of janet downing i have known adi since i was six years old from the spring of 1993
00:17:17
to the spring of 1995 adi my aunt carol and their son aj lived with my family at 71 boston street summerville mass
00:17:27
prior to living with us body and my mom had a good relationship and while living with us their
00:17:33
relationship continued to be on good terms i never witnessed an argument a hatred
00:17:39
discussion or any tension between the two of them in the two years i delivered those us
00:17:45
our bond as a family grew stronger as my mother did not kick audi my aunt and their son out
00:17:53
of our home adi and my aunt had applied for housing they chose to move out when an apartment
00:18:00
became available for them in melbourne mass i even remember my mother saying that
00:18:05
she wanted them to continue living with us so they could save more money any story
00:18:10
that contradicts this is false signed and ring down and can you read the one from paul
00:18:17
downing so whom it may concern my uncle adi has always been a loving and caring uncle to both me
00:18:24
and my siblings i remember quite fondly how he would chase me my brother and sister around the house
00:18:31
when he and my aunt could carol sorry would babysit us during our childhood years
00:18:38
when my uncle and aunt came to live with us they bought they both brought with them
00:18:44
a sense of joy and joyfulness to the house that was lacking following the divorce of our
00:18:52
long and the divorce of my parents sorry i took i i could tell my mother loved artie
00:18:59
and carol and baby aj too around because we her kids trusted and loved him as well i remember my mother crying in
00:19:10
the den when my aunt and i broke the news to my mother that they were able to clear the
00:19:15
extensive waiting list for state housing that they would be moving out soon it was a day
00:19:23
we all dreaded but knew the moment they would eventually clear the list that they were able to spend together
00:19:33
with my aunt and uncle is among the few loving memories i have of that house i grew up in saint paul down
00:19:43
now there's a conviction a young man is convicted which maybe makes it harder to have
00:19:53
closure but i don't know if there's ever really any closure no and for me the answers are different
00:20:03
compared to the kids the kids are doing very well they i believe they have the answers
00:20:10
they wanted me i just have the answers because there was so much speculation that it
00:20:18
was me and that hurts that hurts so bad it's just i mean 25 years man i really never spoke to
00:20:31
anybody in the news media or anything about it i did have that documentary film with
00:20:40
street land productions but i don't know where that's going when i heard your podcast i thought
00:20:48
there'd be an opportunity if i left my phone number you'd call me yeah it's just i think
00:20:54
hard when you see pictures of edward and you hear about his gentle makeup that and we just don't
00:21:00
know much about him from the outside so it just it goes well how could he do this crime uh unless he
00:21:09
just snapped that's what i believe he smith but i don't know if you know it's also mentioned it was mentioned in
00:21:18
court documents that he had excuse me he had on his bedroom walls newspaper headlines of natural born
00:21:28
killers he had a telescope pointing to janet's bedroom i'll leave that part up to you
00:21:36
to think what you want of it i really can't say what i really think about that but maybe they found the guy
00:21:43
maybe they found the right guy quickly but when they had a couple leads or a couple
00:21:49
questions for other people if they would have taken one or two steps they would have been able to clear those people
00:21:55
in the in the public's eyes as well because they did question you we again i'm gonna say me and my wife
00:22:02
were interviewed the following day by police after that i was never questioned in my eyes and i believe in the police
00:22:14
eyes i was never a suspect because all my samples excluded me i understand his unknown dna
00:22:25
and then all these lies come out afterwards time after it didn't happen that night
00:22:33
they didn't happen the following day the gina mahoney you know she hugged me that night
00:22:40
she even stated to the cops that i had no scratches or blood on me when i arrived well people will always
00:22:46
make up speculation but certain evidence and dna evidence doesn't lie it's not course it doesn't lie no
00:22:56
i mean it was like i was you know talking to my wife at the time you know there's a possibility they may
00:23:02
find my fingerprints in the house possibly on the glass when i was washing the windows
00:23:07
or because i later learned that latent fingerprints can stay on something for a long time
00:23:16
but you know never any of that never anything in blood or you know it's just just a bunch of lies after the
00:23:27
after eddie was cornered i'm going to say and in my heart i believe 110 it with him
00:23:35
no question about it and and the other thing too is it to mention quite a bit about where he
00:23:42
worked that he put newspapers together on sunday mornings and etc etc because the big everybody went
00:23:51
to including her children went to they never mention the fact that it's also a pot porn store
00:24:03
born magazines sexual toys and other sexual paraphernalia behind a closed door why would a fifth
00:24:13
hero be working now yeah i don't know it doesn't seem like a place that i'd want my 15 year old
00:24:21
working artie i want to thank you for taking the time to contact us uh to be willing to be so open i know
00:24:28
that on our facebook page and some other social media pages artie has been answering questions he's
00:24:34
very open he's been very respectful to us and to any listener that i've seen him engage
00:24:40
with please be respectful to him as well as his sister-in-law was viciously murdered
00:24:47
and um again when these cases are covered when there's defensive made for individuals they have to point
00:24:56
the finger at different people that's just common and sometimes you're caught in
00:25:03
the crossfire and people will speculate maybe to the end of time on whether these individuals should be pointed at
00:25:14
or not but it does happen so i i want to thank you so much artie for coming on and
00:25:21
clearing up some of that stuff and talking with us and being so respectful i want to thank you
00:25:27
for the time and let me speak because my wife is sitting there with me and she's like
00:25:38
i can't believe you're this happy to talk about something like that i'm like i need to
00:25:45
i feel good about doing this well it's been great talking to you and i'm glad we're able to
00:25:51
let you have the time in the forum to clear some things up you stay safe my friend
00:25:56
and talk to you soon alright stay safe wear your mask yes sir you