Keith Scavo

Case identification

Keith Scavo was a convicted triple killer.

Background

Scavo represented himself during the trial. He had a relationship with Kimberly, and Kimberly was once married to Scavo. Together, they had a daughter, Giavanna, who was wounded by Scavo in the shoulder during the early-evening attack on March 23. Giavanna was 3 at the time. At the time of the murders, Kim and Giavanna were living with Robert Carsello in the Brill Street home. The Palm Sunday murders happened after Scavo showed up at his former mother-in-law’s Brill Street home to return his 3-year-old daughter after a custody visit. Robert Carsello believed the pressure of the divorce and an ongoing custody fight drove Keith Scavo to do what he did. By no means did it excuse what he did. Even after his conviction, Scavo continued to fight Robert Carsello for custody of the girl from his death-row prison cell. Robert Carsello had temporary custody of the girl. Scavo’s heart gave out three days before a Family Court judge was to award permanent custody to Robert Carsello. The hearing went on anyway on Feb. 13. Scavo was a death-row inmate at the State Correctional Institution in Greene County, Pa., located in the extreme southwestern corner of the state.

The offence

Scavo shot and killed his ex-wife, Kimberly, 29; her mother, Tamar Carsello, 50; and Kimberly’s boyfriend, Bill Sauer, 46. Scavo wounded his 3-year-old daughter during the early-evening attack on March 23, 1997. The shootings occurred at Carsello's home on the 600 block of Brill St. in Lawndale. According to eyewitness accounts, Kim walked to the curb to greet the girl as she left Scavo's van. Words were exchanged between the adults. Sauer interceded while the mother and daughter went inside the house. Then the shooting began. After the gunfire had settled, Scavo took the bleeding girl and drove back to New Jersey, dumping the murder weapon (his .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic pistol) in the Schuylkill River along the way. Scavo was arrested by New Jersey authorities after taking the girl to a hospital there for treatment of her wound.

Investigation

Robert Carsello thought he was coming home for a movie date with his fiancé, Beth Lamond. Carsello had driven up to northern Bucks County, along the Delaware River, on another one of his nature-seeking tours. Lamond paged him from their Abington Township home. It was Valentine's Day. When he walked through the door, Lamond greeted him with a hug, a kiss and a rose. "She said, 'Happy Valentine's Day,'" Carsello recalled during an interview last week. "Then she said, 'I have another Valentine's Day present for you.'" Lamond instructed Carsello to have a seat. "She told me, 'Keith Scavo is dead.' I said, 'Yeah, right,'" Carsello continued. Carsello asked if Lamond's son, John, a known prankster, had put his mother up to this jest. No, he hadn't. And then a great weight floated from the shoulders of Carsello and a countless list of family members and friends. Carsello believed no one in the courtroom was informed of Scavo’s death: "The bottom line here is, I'm in court on the thirteenth, wasting time and money, and he's dead on the tenth," Carsello said. "Why was I never informed of this? Why wasn't everybody notified, including the judge?" Carsello was the star witness in the Scavo trial. He was the only adult in the Brill Street home to make it out alive. He escaped through a rear door to seek help for his fallen loved ones. When authorities arrived on the scene, they found Sauer lying in the front yard. He had been shot point-blank between the eyes. Tamar Carsello was found inside the house, riddled with four bullet wounds. Kimberly Scavo also was in the house. She had been shot three times, including once in the back.

Arrest

Trial

Scavo brushed aside his court-appointed lawyer at the start of his trial and indulged in a rant to the jury against the many forces he said were arrayed against him, including the National Organization for Women. When Assistant District Attorney Arlene Fisk outlined how Scavo, 42, of South Philadelphia, shot and killed his former mother-in-law, his ex-wife and her new boyfriend and wounded his 3-year-old daughter on Palm Sunday, March 23, 1997, Scavo told jurors he is the victim of a conspiracy among police, the district attorney's office and NOW, which he described as "a subversive organization." When Fisk objected, Common Pleas Judge David N. Savitt told jurors "the National Organization of Women is not on trial here." "I have a right to uncover any conspiracy against me," Scavo then said. Savitt told Scavo he could present anything "relevant to your defense." "The charges against me are false," said Scavo, who accused the prosecution of planning to present perjured testimony by his former father-in-law, who witnessed the slayings. Scavo accused the witness of trying to "kidnap my daughter."

Sentencing

Scavo was sentenced to life in prison for Sauer's slaying. The jury imposed death sentences for the other killings because he murdered his ex-wife and mother-in-law after breaking into Carsello's home, and after already having killed Sauer. Scavo was sentenced to death in 1999.

Outcome

Scavo died Feb. 10 after a massive heart attack, according to a prison spokeswoman. Scavo was convicted almost two years earlier of the Palm Sunday, 1997, murders of Robert Carsello's wife, Tamar; her daughter, Kimberly; and Kimberly's boyfriend, Bill Sauer.

Aftermath

Carsello and Lamond were able to move away from Brill Street about nine months before the interview; Gia had her own room after the move. Gia’s teacher for CCD classes was her “mom-mom” (Lamond). Gia was also a Brownie. Lamond hoped to enroll her in dance classes and said: "I think kids need some music in their lives, some dancing." Robert Carsello still got nightmares from time to time, and a therapist helped him control them. Robert Carsello said: "(The therapist's) primary concern is not getting nightmares (and) not getting bad thoughts in the daytime," Carsello said. "I was pretty good until the custody (case) came along." Robert Carsello said: "(She said) you have to have a purpose, (to know) what you want to go on with in life," Carsello said. "For me, that was Giavanna. "I've got her to look forward to. I've got this little girl. I can't fail. Then Beth came along. Now I have her, too." Carsello and Lamond encouraged Gia to talk about her harrowing experience and her feelings as often as she wanted. Lamond said: "Gia is very good about being real honest about how she feels," Lamond said. "She doesn't bottle things up. It's not healthy to walk around with things bothering you." Gia did not struggle to produce a smile when a stranger stopped by the house asking questions about her past. Gia remembered parts of the murders in terms of what happened afterward and referred to her mother and Sauer, the man whom she came to refer to as "daddy." Gia said: "She would serve me whatever kind of dinner I wanted," the girl said of her mother. "She would let me be a maniac whenever I wanted." Lamond had spent more than 20 years as a visiting psychiatric nurse, helping folks in some of the city's worst neighborhoods. Lamond’s husband, Jack, passed away when he was 34, leaving her with four children, ages 7 to 12. The children were grown now and had given her eight grandchildren. Robert Carsello said: "I don't like to be alone," Carsello said. "I'm a family-type guy." He continued to work at Dorothy's Hair Salon on Rising Sun Avenue a couple of days a week. Carsello met Lamond in Dorothy's Hair Salon. Lamond was a client and Carsello was a stylist. Lamond said: "We grew up as a team," Lamond said, referring to her own kids. "We're a real tight-knit family. We're a handful when we're together. We have celebrations whenever we can." Lamond said: "It's tough to relate to this whole thing," Lamond said. "I said (to myself), 'How am I going to get a handle on this.' What I decided to do is try to get (us) to not bury things. Just because it's over doesn't mean it never happened. "Men have a tendency to go into 'shutdown' mode. For something like this, it's a lifetime of healing." Carsello described how he reacted to news of Scavo’s death: "Naturally, I broke down and started crying," Carsello said, "not with grief, but with happiness. I knew deep down, there was a cloud that was going to be over our heads for a long, long time. It would be plaguing us." Lamond said: "I was afraid to tell him (on the telephone) in a moving car," she said, "because he'd be hit by all kinds of emotions."